door opens on dissing roe v wade

J.L. Nobody really is somebody smart!

abortion
Thanks, Piffka. That's true, sometimes.

Exactly, JLN -- I'm reticent to take a final postion on this because the facts are so skewed and often masked. I don't like the idea of the hospitals and/or doctors not being mandated to report an abortion and how it was performed. That is being revealed in this very forum as a formula for all sorts of misunderstandings. It's only because I don't believe in getting frustrated and constantly saddened by things that are out of my control. I can't imagine going back to all kinds of abortions being against the law but that is really the agenda of the pro-lifers and they do use the partial birth abortion issue as a hot button. On the other side, it appears there's been some misrepresenting, by admission of one official for certain. The current administration has had two years to get a ban on partial birth abortions prepared and past -- something is not right. Either they are skeptical of the facts or they are holding fast for a bill to overturn Roe Vs. Wade and wait to see if the USSC will once again declaire it unconstitutional. Some of this boils down to the abstract belief that an unborn fetus has rights. It's too abstract to make any difference because the mother's rights are being considered first with Roe Vs. Wade. What emotional reaction one gets from this conflict makes little or no difference. In the end, which course is this adminstration going forth with? A ban on partial birth abortion or overturning Roe Vs. Wade and hoping the public will find PBA's pervasive and will bend their opinion?

abortion
Lightwizard, you say you are "reticent to take a final position...." This contradicts my thesis that in this issue it is a matter of values. You either value the woman's right to her body or you value the life of unborn infants no matter what. At least that's the implication of my perhaps simplistic notion of the primacy of values in this issue. You are, understandably, also concerned about the facts. But does this mean that some disclosure of facts could change your mind? I doubt it. I least I would not let the facts interfere with my value stance here. I can't imagine what facts would compel me or you to conclude that women do not have absolute right to regulate their reproductive lives.

We-e-ell I agree up to a point. Women don't have absolute rights to give birth to a full-term baby and then suffocate it, for example, and I don't think they should. IF it should develop that there are some situations in which D&x is IMPROPERLY used -- misinformed but well-intentioned doctors, actually lazy/ cheap doctors, who knows what else -- I would want that addressed, just as I would want child abuse in foster homes addressed, for example. These are facts I would like to have. If 100% of D&x procedures are performed in situations where a) the mother's life is in danger, b) the fetus is already dead or doomed to die soon after birth or c) both, I have no problem with it. I would have a problem with, what, a D&x being performed by a couple who wanted a boy and just found out via amnio that the fetus was female.

My value system doesn't make it okay to use very questionable methods in the late stages of abortion which is seemingly clouded in secrecy. I do believe in the woman's right to choose but I can't take a position on judging late abortion practices when the facts are so obscure. If it is true that a majority of these abortions are because the mother decided at a late date she doesn't want the child, I can't morally endorse that. The trouble is, there are no current disclosures and facts to prove this conclusively and I suspect the proceedure is being used in an inflammatory way to make all abortions unlawful. Dissing Roe Vs. Wade is one thing -- destroying it is simply the next step for these people. At any rate, what's occurred many years in the past doesn't give me confidence that anyone can know where they stand.

abortion
Sosobe and Lightwizard, you've been instructive for me. I must back up from my absolutist position to acknowledge the possibility that a woman may not have the right at the very late stage of a fetus' development to end its life, any more than she has a right to kill her born children. Nevertheless, there remains a LOT of room for acknowledging the right of a woman to manage her body. What I now concede is that she must also be responsible in such management (that means that her rights are not absolute--thank you). But her body should never be treated as the property of men or society in general; she is not a reproductive machine--as I'm sure you'll agree.

I'm certainly not confident with the data available that those who are saying the practice of late pregnancy abortion (by any means) is at the whim of the mother and the doctors involved are just a bunch of unethical opportunists (lovingly referred to as "baby murderers"). Characterizing the whole of pro-abortionists using this characterization is just simply reprehensible. What does "pro-life" mean anyway? Sound like it could also be a call for all of us males to just go out and begins surreptitiously spreading our seed!
Does that makes sense? Of course not.

Right, Light!

I think I've changed my view, too. I said that I thought an abortion on demand would be OK until the end of the third month. That would still be my preference, but I'll give another two weeks, until the 16th week.

I don't want to have federal law-makers legislating on surgical procedures though. They don't do it in most other things, why do it here?

View the Flash film "No Choice Blues" here:

The No Choice Blues

Just saw your Jan 6th post, JLN. Yes, I definitely agree with your last sentence.

PDiddie, the movie wasn't captioned. Looked interesting, though.

Oh, actually, some of it is. The little song and dance ("You've got no choice, no voice, there ain't a darn thing you can do...") was captioned, and the part immediately after.

A warning bell on Roe v. Wade
By Ellen Goodman, 1/19/2003

Here was a moment last month when the Bush administration overturned Roe v. Wade. You may not have noticed because it happened in Bangkok - out of sight, out of media mind.

Our government went there to try to deep-six a UN agreement on family planning. After one of our delegates promoted abstinence-only education, after another warned of the risks of condoms, after a third shared her success story using the rhythm method, Assistant Secretary of State Gene Dewey took the podium. He said to the assembled: ''The United States supports the sanctity of life from conception to natural death.''

The ''United States''? Had he confused the USA with a right-to-life organization? Had he forgotten that abortion is legal in this country, protected by the Constitution?

From the outset, this administration gave the right wing domain over international family planning policy, as if the women of the world were their colony. And it paid no political price.

But after this moment, I wonder if the Bangkok drama was just a road show. Or was it an out-of-town preview for a play opening soon in our nation's capital?

more...

Boston Globe

Ack.

PDiddle

Off radar is right. thanks!

When will the bill requiring women to wear Burkas be submitted to congress by Omar Bush and his minions.

From today's NY Times... http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/20/national/20ABOR.html

I believe the "pro-choice" label is meaningless, because I have found very few "pro-choice" people who support a woman's right to smoke crack, to sell herself for sex, or to commit suicide. Each of these activities involves a woman's right to decide what she does with her body, yet those who claim to be champions of a woman's sovereignty over her own body do not support these obvious extensions of that sovereignty.

"Pro-choice" is not "pro-woman", it is "pro-abortion". That is not a criticism, it is just a reality.

Likewise, the label "pro-life" is equally worthless. The terms for the sides of the debate should be "pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion". Period. (And by "pro-abortion" I do not mean to imply that you or anyone wants abortion to occur. I mean merely to indicate your position relative to access to abortion in our society.)

I happen to believe Roe V. Wade was a profoundly flawed decision and should be overturned. BUT, that does not mean that I believe the federal government should ban abortion. (Most pro-abortion advocates seem to assume that the one equates to the other.) In fact, I believe that the federal government cannot constitutionally ban abortion for the same reason I believe it has erred in fabricating a constitutional right to abortion. I believe that bad law is bad law, even if it achieves a desired result. In my opinion abortion is an issue for the states; as I do not believe the Constitution empowers the federal government to act in this issue.

My personal goal as pertains to abortion would be to work through educational and social programs to re-assert the sanctity of life and the ethic of personal responsibility to (hopefully) reduce the demand for abortion over time, but I do not advocate nor do I support the banning of abortion. My ideal would be to one day live in a country where abortion was legal and available and extremely rare.

trespassers will
Pro choice, pro life are just labels put on to describe a position. They are not meant to be literal translations. As for your position that the state not federal government should have jurisdiction I will go one step further. The government neither federal nor state should be involved. As a Libertarian I would imagine you would have taken that position.

They are labels designed to market a point of view rather than to accurately describe it, and they get in the way of meaningful discussions on the issue by painting the opposition position as being "anti-choice" and "anti-life" respectively.


I was writing in terms of the laws of our country as they stand, not how I would have it be under some other, fictional system. Yes, I would leave it to the individual to decide, but since our federal Constitution explicitly cedes powers not enumerated to the states, each state does have the right to legislate abortion, up to and including banning abortion, unless that state's constitution prohibits same.

(this is from Bartcop.com. It's strongly worded so if its language offends, apologies.)

It's almost impossible to read/hear a discussion about abortion that's not full of lies.

I'll attempt to change that.

Recently, some people died in Canada from an avalanche. Isn't that the price we pay to have the freedom to climb mountains and play in the snow?

I'll guess 5,000 people, mostly women, die every year from non-driving alcohol abuse. Husbands get drunk and beat their wives, but isn't that the price we pay to have alcohol? We know some people will screw up and commit murder, yet we allow it. I'll bet half the people in prison were drunk when they committed their crimes.

How many people die from gun violence each year?
Whatever the total, isn't that the price we pay to own guns?

I'll guess 30,000 people die in car crashes every year. We could save those 30,000 lives by doing away with personal automobiles, but we allow those deaths because we want our freedom, dammit.

They say 400,000 people die from the GOP's good friends BIG tobacco, yet tobacco is still legal because we've chosen to accept the 400,000 deaths rather than outlaw that dangerous substance.

I don't know the number of abortions done each year, and it's a shame if Sally has an abortion so she can go on some cocaine/skiing trip to Telluride with her drunken friends, but isn't that the price we pay to keep Antonin Scalia and Karl Rove out of women's uteruses?

Nobody likes abortion.

Like guns, cars, alcohol and cigarettes, it's part of being free.