Senate Approves Bill to Prohibit Type of Abortion

Civil liberties/Dworkin/New York Review of Books
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16738

In regard to Thomas' remarks, i would point out that the constitution is not ambiguous on the subject of abortion--it is mute.

I believe it is in in the spirit of not passing laws regarding religion. Anti-abortion is a religious view. It's even difficult to approach it from the privacy standpoint but as individual freedom should trump any laws based on religious viewpoints, I believe a fair and balance (!) USSC will not let this stand without a provision for a medical emergency where the mother's life is threatened.

I once had a cat who experienced difficulty with her litter. The vet said she either had to sacrifice the kittens or the mother's life. Should a human mother be afforded the same consideration as a cat?

Yes, particularly if the kittens will tend to be right-wingers...

Lightwizard

You would think so but consider this. When an animal is terminal and suffering. We take the humane approach and put it to sleep. Do we afford the same consideration to humans?

If you were in Florida when the question arose, Jeb Bush et al would assure that the decision were not in your hands.

Unfortunately not, though many of us have tried (and continue to try) to have civilized euthanasia laws for suffering humans. The difference (obviously) is in choice and -- again and again and again we need to emphasize this -- choice is the key. With a pet, the human owner has to make the choice and do it responsibly (in TX, one has to sign a paper) because we can't know the animal's suffering. But we know our own suffering and should never be denied the choice between accepting suffering and ending it.

I believe that there should be a law, but this isn't the one. It is more intrusive government getting into the lives of people. And what Jeb Bush did is abominable. More examples of the deterioration of democracy and the will of the people.

The rule of law should protect the right of the individual under consultation with anyone they choose - not someone who is declared after the fact by the State!

Thanks for the clarification, Setanta! (Of course, this is an even better reason to write that amendment.)

Good point, Bill. That alternative should be explored here.

Thomas


Amendment? What would it state? Do not make laws regarding the practice of medicine? No amendment necessary IMO the congress is overstepping it's mandate with the passage of this legislation.
Question is abortion legal in Germany? If so is it so stated in your constitution?

My feelings au, if you have to have an amendment for this it belittles the Constitution. USA is a country of the people for the people and it is being stolen!!!!! Too many laws are being passed that the majority of the people do not want; but , they are too lazy to check issues and vote the jerks out........

BillW
In addition would an amendment be needed for every question that came up,the constitution would have to be in about 200 volumes.Very thick ones.

Thomas, i greatly fear that any amendment to guarantee a woman's right to make her own choice with regard to abortion would go the same way as the equal rights amendment. For all the progress made in women's rights, i fear that issue is not likely to resolved any time soon in any rational manner.

Partial-birth abortion isn't like a regular abortion, and they aren't just performed for "normal" abortion services.

Tthese are mostly performed when there is danger to the life of the mother, or there is a severe anomaly with the baby.

"According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit group that conducts sexual and reproductive health research, 2,200 late-term abortions were performed in 2000. That was less than 0.2 percent of the 1.3 million abortions performed that year."(Source CNN)

The abortion opponents and the arguments in this Bill make it seem as if this is a common practice used like traditional abortion. It isn't.

It doesn't bother me so much that they have passed a law against it, but that they remove the decision and choice from the doctors and family to decide which life to save. When this Bill is signed, the mother's life must always be the one sacrificed, no matter what the circumstances.

I hope all the single parent fathers out there will be willing and able to step up to the plate and become Mr. Mom to the infant if they are ever faced with the issue.

Another thing wrong with this law is there is no built in indemnity to hold harmless from malpractice suits the physician forced to sacrifice the life of the mother. That's one operating room I would not wish to be in while the doctors, husbands and families all wrestle with choices to obey or break the law while the mother is dying. Will families be able to sue physicians for malpractice because they let the mother die?

What happens in those cases when both the baby and mother die regardless of the efforts to save the life of the baby? Can the physician still be accused of breaking this law because the baby did not live? If not, who decides how much of a lifesaving effort is enough to satisfy the law?

More like "An embryo after the n-th week of pregnancy is to be considered a human. Don't abort it." The value of n would be chosen so that it maximizes the majority of congressmen who vote for the amendment.


I agree if the issue is Congress legislating what good medical practice is. I disagree if the issue is Congress legislating whether embryos are "close enough to being humans" to grant them a right to live, and how that depends on the embryo's stage of development. Whatever side you are on, I think you can't deny that this is a political issue that justifies a political decision.


Our laws are phony about that. Our constitution states that "Everyone has a right to live and to not be physically harmed". Our Supreme Court has ruled twice, both times with fairly clear majorities, that "Everyone" in the sense of the German Constitution includes embryos, from the day of conception. So our constitution establishes an embryo's right to live, and abortion is illegal.

On the other hand, Germans think about abortion more or less like Americans do. Most of us believe it's okay for early term abortions to be legal, but most of us also have serious problems with late term abortions. So our parliament has tried twice to pass laws stating that abortion is legal during the first three months, but illegal afterwards unless delivering would be a serious danger to the mother's life or health. After our Supreme Court has ruled both laws unconstitutional, parliament has invented a construction under which abortion is technically illegal, but isn't punished anyway, as long as the woman aborts during the first three months of pregnancy and has received counselling as to what her alternatives are. I have a friend who does that kind of counseling for a living, and she tells me that it isn't much of a hurdle for the mother in practice.

In other words, our system is a mess too, but it isn't so much because the constitutional side is unclear -- it's rather because a majority of Germans doesn't agree with the constitution on this point, but the majority isn't large enough for us to get the constitution changed. (Changing our constitution requires a 2/3 majority in both houses of parliament)

I have to admit I'm not very well informed about the consequences of the equal rights amendment, but I'd like to be. Would you mind giving me a short primer? I'd appreciate it!

-- Thomas

This is a lot of nonsense. "all the single father parents"??? Please.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists as well as the doctor that developed the D&X procedure (and tranined many others that have used it) testified before the Congress and both stated very clearly that there are NO known cases where there weren't other procedures available.

The D&X procedure has not been the only procedure available and the others will remain available. There will not be a sudden mass of women dying.

There may be plenty of good arguments against this legislation but your hysteria feeding frenzy isn't one of them.

Thomas:

The equal rights amendment had the following text:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

Such an amendment was first proposed at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1923. It was presented in petition to every Congress from 1923 to 1972, when it was finally passed by the Congress in the form you see above.

(This is referred to among feminists as the "Alice Paul Amendment," as Alice Paul proposed this language in, i believe, 1943.)

All amendments proposed to the constitution prior to the adoption of the 19th amendment were "open-ended," which is to say that they became effective as soon as three/fourths of state legislatures ratified them. (The most extreme example of this is the 27th amendment, proposed in September, 1789, and ratified in May, 1992.) However, since the 19th amendment, Congress has put a seven year term on the ratification of all proposed amendments. The Equal Rights Amendment had reached the point in the mid-1970's that only two or three states were needed for ratification (i don't recall the precise details). Many conservatives who were willing to vote for the amendment refrained from doing so on the basis of the second section, which they believed would create an all-powerful bureaucratic monster. I believe they were sincere in this objection--most constitutional provision, whether in the original text or in amendment, are enforced through the courts, and not through Congressional legislation. When legislation is passed arising from constitutional provisions or amendments, it is usually a product of a state legislature's reaction, or the reaction of Congress, to a body of judicial opinion.

Whether or not i am correct that this is the case, it is certain that conservatives in many state legislatures became alarmed because of the second section, and some states then passed a repeal of their ratification. This has never happened before. Even had these cases gone to federal courts to determine whether or not a state could repeal the ratification of an amendment, the seven year time limit would have expired. The equal rights amendment died a loud and messy death. It's history has simply served to further the hardening of opinions and resentments between the political extremes in this country.

Current Federal appellate nominee Janice Rogers Brown thinks that the 1st amendment can be superceded by the state. This is troubling - and we would want to open the Constitution to a government that wants this ilk of judges I think not