[quote]Originally posted by BRussell:
You wanted to start questioning motives, but what Clinton did was unpopular according to the polls, and the Dems didn't use mass-mailings saying they were in favor of killing babies with their big toes in their mother's vagina.<hr></blockquote>
Hmmm. You think that maybe, just maybe, Clinton
couldn't afford to bail on NARAL? As to the charge of bad faith here's a newsflash: the partial birth abortion ban itself represented a dramatic retreat from the pro-life position throughout the '80's. Just who is doing the compromising here and who is digging in their heels? (BTW, by your description you don't seem to even know what this procedure entails.)
Leaving aside the politics of the issue, as I've already pointed out,
the AMA says this procedure is bad medicine. You can amend all you want but you still can't this into an appropriate procedure. <a href="
http://www.ama-assn.org/special/womh/library/readroom/vol_280a/cv80000x.htm" target="_blank">This</a> is from the JAMA Women's Health Information Center.
[quote]There exist no credible studies on intact D&X that evaluate or attest to its safety. The procedure is not recognized in medical textbooks nor is it taught in medical schools or in obstetrics and gynecology residencies. Intact D&X poses serious medical risks to the mother. Patients who undergo an intact D&X are at risk for the potential complications associated with any surgical midtrimester termination, including hemorrhage, infection, and uterine perforation. However, intact D&X places these patients at increased risk of 2 additional complications. First, the risk of uterine rupture may be increased. An integral part of the D&X procedure is an internal podalic version, during which the physician instrumentally reaches into the uterus, grasps the fetus' feet, and pulls the feet down into the cervix, thus converting the lie to a footling breech. The internal version carries risk of uterine rupture, abruption, amniotic fluid embolus, and trauma to the uterus...
None of these risks are medically necessary because other procedures are available to physicians who deem it necessary to perform an abortion late in pregnancy. As ACOG policy states clearly, intact D&X is never the only procedure available. Some clinicians have considered intact D&X necessary when hydrocephalus is present. However, a hydrocephalic fetus could be aborted by first draining the excess fluid from the fetal skull through ultrasound-guided cephalocentesis. Some physicians who perform abortions have been concerned that a ban on late abortions would affect their ability to provide other abortion services. Because of the proposed changes in federal legislation, it is clear that only intact D&X would be banned...<hr></blockquote>
[quote]
Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
STENBERG v. CARHART
BRussell's reply:
And why was that law overturned? It was worded too vaguely and could have included any abortions (i.e., D&E vs. D&X), and because it had no provision at all for the health of the mother. The court left it crystal clear what type of bill would be acceptable. Why didn't Nebraska immediately turn around and pass such a law?<hr></blockquote>
Nebraska is one of the most Republican states in the nation. You think that maybe they weren't thinking too much about wedge issues when most of them have safe seats anyway?
<a href="
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0010/articles/symposium-smolin.html" target="_blank">
The Supreme Court 2000</a>:
A Symposium
Copyright (c) 2000 First Things 106 (October 2000).
[quote]
David M. Smolin
(David M. Smolin is Professor of Law at Cumberland Law School of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and Fellow of the Southern Center for Law and Ethics. He was primary author of a medical facts brief in
Stenberg that was cited in both majority and dissenting opinions.)
Stenberg is historic because it constitutionally validates and protects an extreme and horrific form of abortion bordering on infanticide, while placing this validation in the context of explicitly gruesome descriptions of the various forms of lateterm abortion. The legal issues and factual background of
Stenberg forced each Justice to confront the raw facts of precisely how abortion brings about the destruction of the human fetus...
Stenberg represented a significant hardening of the abortion rights position of Justice O'Connor. The
Stenberg dissenters repeatedly cited and quoted Justice O'Connor's abortion opinions from the 1980s, in which she had criticized the Court for operating as "the nation's ex officio medical board with powers to approve or disapprove medical and operative practices and standards throughout the United States." She had then emphasized the superior position of legislatures over courts to make such factual medical judgments, argued for the right of states to regulate abortion despite the views of medical organizations on "the physical safety of a particular procedure," and complained of "an unprecedented canon of construction under which in cases involving abortion a permissible [constitutional] reading of a statute is to be avoided at all costs." But Justice O'Connor's prior abortion opinions did not prevent her from adhering in
Stenberg to all that she had previously criticized, and now in a context far more explicit as to the underlying horror of lateterm abortion.
In 1992, Justices Kennedy, O'Connor, and David Souter had banded together to issue a joint opinion reaffirming the essentials of Roe on the grounds of adhering to precedent, while claiming to create a more moderate standard of judicial review for abortion regulations that would allow room for significant legislative activity on behalf of the unborn. Any one of the three could have provided the fifth vote at that time to overrule Roe, but they chose instead to band together and reaffirm it. Justice Kennedy strove mightily to show that
Stenberg was a betrayal, rather than a logical consequence, of their infamous Casey joint opinion, and he has good cause to believe that Nebraska's prohibition of partialbirth abortion should have been constitutional under Casey's approach to interpreting and reviewing abortion regulations.
Justice Kennedy argued that partialbirth abortion could rationally be viewed as worse than D&E abortion because it was closer to infanticide and subverted obstetrical childbirth techniques to kill the fetus delivered partially outside of the mother, thereby particularly endangering the reputation and ethical integrity of the medical profession. Yet, despite his prior vote to protect D&E abortion, Justice Kennedy conceded that "those who oppose abortion" would subject both partialbirth abortion and D&E abortion "to the most severe moral condemnation, condemnation reserved for the most repulsive human conduct." It is difficult to know whether Justice Kennedy is having pangs of conscience for his role in preserving elective abortion. It is clear enough, however, that now that Justice Kennedy is no longer needed as the fifth vote to uphold Roe, Justices O'Connor and Souter no longer feel bound to accord even minimalistic abortion regulations the more moderate level of review promised in their Casey opinion... <hr></blockquote>
[ 11-20-2001: Message edited by: roger_ramjet ]</p>
To justify the actions. It's putting a end to a life. Plain and simple.
