Senate Approves Bill to Prohibit Type of Abortion

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Fishin
Quote:



I was under the impression that this legislation made all abortions after the 12 weeks illegal. If not, and there are other safe ways to abort why has this become such an issue? And why is this the method or procedure being used? I expect the answer is not as simple as switching to a different procedure.

Well, again.. Read the bill. There isn't a single mention of any time factor in the bill and the bill is very specific in that it outlaws a specific surgical procedure.

It's become an issue because there are people who, in defending a woman's right to choose, see any and everything that in any way touches a medical practioners office as somehow eliminating the possibility of getting an abortion. These are the people on the far end opposite those that would outlaw abortion altogether. They are just as wrong and just as misleading as the most strident anti-abortionists and should probably be called the "abortion-absolutists".

As for why it would be a preferred procedure. Well, I found this on the WWW:



http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/abortion_partial_birth.html

The only medical advantage listed there are the reducing risk of cervical puncture and the emotional issues. Being able to prefom an autopsy on the fetus and saving costs don't have any impact on the woman's health.

On that same page it lists the risks of the procedure:



Now, I purposely highlighted that one line because it brings in another very scary question. What does the doctor do when this occurs? At that point the fetus is now a child - having been born.

Fishin
That answers the question it is the safest procedure both medically and emotionaly for the mother. Considering that it is being done for medical reasons and to protect the womens health it is understandable that the safest procedure be used.

??? I'm not sure how you came to that au. Maybe is it but the paragraphs and link I listed doesn't say that. It uses words like "perceived" and "may" but doesn't say it "is" or "isn't". (largely because everyone has fought any sort of actual study on the question because no one want sto know the answer.)

The two medical benefits listed are also listed as risks to the same procedure (both medical and emotional..).

But, The "may" point is why I think the USSC will too this law. Without a exception for a circumstance that "may" come up where it IS the best choice of the possibilities IMO, the court will shoot the whole thing down.

Fishin
Do you have a link to the legislation?
I should note that:


"

How will it save lives? Dead is dead no matter how it comes about? I should note that the right to life people are figuratively dancing in the street with the passage of the legislation. Do they know something that we don't? Or is there more than meets the eye?

The Thomas Locator doesn't repeat it's links so the easiest way to find the bill is to go to http://www.senate.gov and then select "Current Legislation" and enter "Partial Birth" in the keyword search. Select the result that references "S.3.ENR" which is the final version that was voted on.

Nancy Northup is one of those "abortion-absolutists" I mentioned earlier. I'd like to know what her proof is for her statement since the medical group that represents the people that actually perfom the procedure refuse to make the same statement that it is the safest procedure.

Her comments also came after the House passed their bill on Oct 3rd. The Senate tightened up the wording in the final version after the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists complained that the House version could outlaw the D&E procedure too and the procedure outlawed was specifically described so that the law wouldn't prohibit the D&E procedure or any other procedure except the intended D&X.

I'm sure there are anti-abortion people out there dancing in the street. Most of them probably don't know what the law that was passed even says. I'm not impressed by their continued stupidity.

Fishin
True, however look to Bill Frist's statement.

The legislation we just passed will save lives," Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader and a surgeon, said after the vote.

That is a statement I have seen repeated elsewhere. I just don't trust anything issuing from the mouth of congress people or the administration either. Once burned twice shy.

Fishin
Thanks for the info. For some reason the legislation link is not available now. Will have to try at some later time.

The basis for legal objection, from what I understand, lies in the matter of risk to the mother. The bill will obviously get scrutinized. It's been my impression that the Republican Congress has a habit of creating half-assed, half-thought-out bills and/or fails to think through the bills which we're now saddled with. As for example particularly vicious provisions in Nafta and our latest and great, The Patriot Act (ta da). Perhaps the PBA bill will suffer the same ignominy before it even reaches the USSC (which I trust as much as I trust the administration).

They are now busily engaged in screwing up Medicare. May there tongues fall out and their fingers shrivel up before they have a chance to complete and sign the legislation.

The "Partial-Birth" Myth
No, it's not a birth.
By William Saletan
Updated Wednesday, October 22, 2003, at 4:11 PM PT

Listen to William Saletan discuss this topic on NPR's Day to Day.
I'm no fan of second-trimester abortions. They're horrible, and if you can avoid having one, you should. They can be particularly disturbing when they're done by extracting the fetus intact, in a manner that looks like birth. But they aren't births.
It's easy for journalists who have covered the abortion debate (and in my case, written a book about it) to gloss over this fact when we talk about the ban the Senate just passed. We know the procedure in question is an abortion that sort of looks like a birth, not a birth interrupted by an abortion. But it's far from clear that we've adequately conveyed this distinction to the public.
I watched the whole Senate debate yesterday. I lost count of how many times pro-life senators used language implying that the procedure they were banning was a birth interrupted by an abortion. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Rick Santorum, opened the debate by saying, "The term 'partial birth' comes from the fact that the baby is partially born, is in the process of being delivered. … Here is this child who is literally inches away from being born, who would otherwise be born alive." Majority Leader Bill Frist, the Senate's only doctor, concluded the debate by describing the procedure as "destroying the body of a mature unborn child."
President Bush exploits the same illusion. In his State of the Union address this year, he said the bill would "protect infants at the very hour of their birth."
That's just false. This procedure doesn't take place anywhere near the appointed hour of birth. If you paid close attention to the Senate debate, you might have noticed the part where Santorum said the procedure was performed "at least 20 weeks, and in many cases, 21, 22, 23, 24 weeks [into pregnancy], and in rarer cases, beyond that." He didn't clarify how many of these abortions took place past the 20th week. A full-term pregnancy is 40 weeks. In 1992, the Supreme Court mentioned that viability could "sometimes" occur at 23 or 24 weeks. Santorum described a 1-pound fetus as "a fully formed baby," noting that while it was only at 20 weeks gestation, it had a complete set of features and extremities. But according to the National Center for Health Statistics, the survival rate for babies born weighing 500 grams or less—that's 1 pound, 1 ounce or less—is 14 percent.
Initial reports on the bill passed yesterday don't convey these distinctions. The New York Times says, "The bill defines the procedure as one in which the person performing the abortion 'deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus … [ellipses mine] for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus.' " The Washington Post says, "As described in the bill, the procedure, generally performed during a pregnancy's second or third trimester, involves a physician puncturing the skull of a fetus and removing its brain after it is partially delivered."
If you haven't been following the debate closely, it's easy to walk away with the impression that the "delivery" is a nearly full-term birth, as the bill's name implies. It's easy to say yes when a pollster asks you whether you favor a "law to make it illegal to perform a specific abortion procedure conducted in the last six months of pregnancy known as 'partial-birth abortion,' except in cases necessary to save the life of the mother." That's the question the Gallup organization asked in January. Based on responses to that question, USA Today reports this morning that the poll "showed that 70% of Americans back the ban."
I'd like to know how many of the people who answered that question understood exactly what they were being asked about.

Very true. And to win at the USSC to have the law thrown out it's going to have to be proven that once the fetus is partially outside the woman's body there is less risk to the mother in completing the abortion procedure than there would be in completing the delivery. For someone to demonstrate that to be true without tripping over their own feet will take some very keen legal minds.

It's curious that all this can be dramatized by the Right as a horrendous procedure while it condones, even encourages, other horrors committed against fully grown, fully sentient people.

Tartarin, another favorite with this Congress is to take their lame, half-assed bills in to Conference Committee with only Republicans on hand to make the bill more lame, half-assed and repugnant.


Edited for confusions sake!!!!!!!

Bill -- I had lunch today with some friends who are close to the inner workings of the Dem Party, friends of Ivins, etc., and they say a much more concerted effort to stop Bush is developing than we're seeing reported. There is more cohesion, many more people actually pitching in, money, etc. But what's most interesting is that it entails a reform of the Party, not just a takeover by whoever, as long as he's a Democrat. I'm still uncertain I'd vote for "any old Dem" or "anyone who's against Bush" -- so the process described seems very hopeful to me.

If it were about medical safety or preferable medical procedure, it would be up to the doctor and patient. The governments involvement is clearly on moral grounds only, and half-assed attempts to provide medical assertions are futile - that's why we have doctors keeping us healty and not politicians.

Amen.

Even worst Portal, most of the politicians have "proper morals" than wouldn't allow this in their own lives - it is solely based on political grounds That makes it sad -

Bill, Your post jogged my brain (to the extent it still exists after sleepless nights with new puppy!!) and I wonder whether this is yet another Republican gesture, doomed to legal failure (which they're perhaps even counting on), whose purpose is to appease their right wing?

As long as the USCC stays the way it is the legislation will be rejected by a 5 to 4 decision. If Bush is able to stack the court it will be accepted. Abortion along with separation of church and state and probably civil liberties will also be a thing of the past.