<strong>You have no say into whether a woman has an abortion or not. None. Unless you are the partner.</strong><hr></blockquote>Even though I'm on your side on this issue, the argument that "it's a choice" is not really a justification, it's a conclusion.
At some point you have to deal with why it should be a choice.
Whisper, your reply actually made me laugh out loud.
What does a thief stealing property, that doesn't belong to him/her, have anything to do with having control over your body?
What is wrong is completely subjective, and a sign of the times. It is not a universal law. Abortion is only wrong in your opinion. That's fine.
Plenty disagree with you. I am one of them.
It's called freedom to choose. You choose against it. That's fine. You don't want to have an abortion? Don't have one. You don't want to look at naked people? Don't. However, you may not make that call for another person.
Actually, you cannot tell a thief not to steal. You can point out that it is illegal, and will probably annoy the person he/she is stealing from, but you cannot stop them. Again, it's their call.
BRussell, I'm not sure I understand whay you are saying.
A choice is just that. If a woman wants an abortion, for what ever reason, that's her choice.
It should be a choice because of something called freedom.
<strong>Actually, you cannot tell a thief not to steal. You can point out that it is illegal, and will probably annoy the person he/she is stealing from, but you cannot stop them. Again, it's their call.</strong><hr></blockquote>
So you're saying that if I come across someone who's about to rape and/or kill your sister (pretend you have a sister if you don't), I shouldn't try to stop him? I don't know either of you personally, so what happens doesn't really affect me. And besides, what right do I have have to make him to leave her alone?
OK, but I think most people are talking about what you might call personhood, and when people say life they often really mean personhood.<hr></blockquote>
Which is why there was more to my post: "... The only reason why we are debating the matter is because we are talking about human life here and we are trying to determine whether or not there are circumstances in which we can choose to not protect individual human lives. The guesswork people are engaging in is where to draw the line. But that line isn't about when life begins. It's about when we all will agree human life should be legally protected."
[quote]And even if we determine personhood, we still don't know the answer to the abortion question. It's not simply a question of determining the legal rights of one individual, but of balancing two that are intertwined...<hr></blockquote>
Right, if all we were talking about was the right of a woman to control her own body then there would be no argument from me. But we are also talking about another human life. Current law doesn't "balance" the two. It simply decides in favor of the strong against the weak.
<strong>Current law doesn't "balance" the two. It simply decides in favor of the strong against the weak.</strong><hr></blockquote>No, it does balance the two. The ability of states to regulate abortions increases as the pregnancy progresses. And there are lots of other state regulations that have been upheld like waiting periods, parental notification, "gag rules," and the like.
Only if you're against virtually all abortions does the current law look unbalanced.
While I think abortions should be legal (it's going to happen anyhow) It's the feel good tactics that upset me. The trying to put a rosy picture on the whole situation that "Oh it's not a real person!" To justify the actions. It's putting a end to a life. Plain and simple.
<strong>Give me a beak. Partial birth abortions aren't even illegal.</strong><hr></blockquote>You'll get no breaks from me - partial birth abortion is illegal in the majority of states. It would have been illegal in the entire country if the Congress had allowed an exception for the "death or very serious, long-term, potentially disabling injury" to the mother, as Clinton wanted when he vetoed the bill.
Almost all of these procedures, which are less then a tenth of 1% of all abortions, are used in cases where the child has hydrocephalus and could not be delivered without killing or maiming the mother without first reducing the size of the fetus' skull. So who doesn't want to balance rights of individuals?
<strong>You'll get no breaks from me... </strong><hr></blockquote>
H.R. 1122 allowed partial birth abortion to save a mother's life. Even so, according to the AMA and the Senate testimony (U.S. Senate Hearing Report 104-260 (Testimony of Nov. 17, 1995) p. 82.) of Pamela Smith, MD "There are absolutely no obsetrical situations...which require a partially delivered human fetus to be destroyed to preserve the life or health of the mother."
There is NO medical necessity for such a procedure. Even the leading authority on late-term abortion in the United States says that the procedure is never necessary to preserve a woman's health. (Dr. Warren Hern, in American Medical News, Nov. 20, 1995 p.3.)
Furthermore, "health", as defined by law in the abortion context includes all factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial and social. This is a loophole large enough to justify any abortion. So, adding any health exception would effectivly negate the ban. Addition to the modifiers "serious" and "adverse" will not change the way the law defines health.
As for how frequently partial birth abortions are performed, you don't know.
It was testified before Congress that 1500 of these were done in New Jersey alone! And 80% of them were done on healthy mothers and babies. We do not know the total number of these abortions... but even if it were only 500 per state (500x50) it would be at least 25,000 babies per year.
Practitioners report that the vast majority of these abortions are elective and the some are done to prevent the live birth of a child with handicaps. (U.S. Senate Hearing Report 104-260 p.23.)
In the 1999 bill, Dems proposed an amendment which would have distinguished the "health" clause from the broad one used in Roe, and limited it to very serious disabling injury to the woman. Santorum and the Republicans defeated that amendment.
Even the pro-life groups <a href="http://www.missionariestopreborn.com/mtpupdate2_98.htm"; target="_blank"> say that this procedure is used in less than 1% of all abortions.</a> That infamous 1000 in NJ was not from a randomly selected state. One doctor was found who was using this procedure when it shouldn't have been used, and he was doing it in NJ. The scumbag should be sanctioned, disbarred or whatever it's called (maybe he was?). Again, the bill that Clinton would have signed would have stopped that doctor, but Santorum et al. didn't want that bill signed. And of course NJ could make it illegal at any time without the US Congress.
<strong>... One doctor was found who was using this procedure when it shouldn't have been used, and he was doing it in NJ. The scumbag should be sanctioned, disbarred or whatever it's called... Again, the bill that Clinton would have signed would have stopped that doctor, but Santorum et al. didn't want that bill signed... </strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, I keep forgetting what a pro-life warrior Clinton was.
[quote]"I also understand that many who support this bill [to ban partial-birth abortions] believe that any health exception is, as you suggest, a 'loophole... to include any reason the mother so desires,' such as youth, emotional stress, financial hardship or inconvenience. That is not the kind of exception I support. I support an exception... making crystal clear that the procedure may be used only in cases where a woman risks death or serious damage to her health, and in no other case." - President Bill Clinton, letter to the president and ten past presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention, June 7, 1996
"We're not talking about a hangnail, we're not talking about a headache. Does it include - and this is one of the things that the opponents of this particular legislation, the proponents of the pro-life position, would contend - does it include mental health? Yes, it does." - Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), author of the "killer substitute" amendment to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, explaining his measure's provision to allow even third-trimester abortions for "serious... health" reasons, at a tape-recorded March 12 Capitol Hill press conference. [see page 10 below for context]
[The Hoyer amendment] reflects Clinton's position and, according to Democrats, is necessary to make the bill acceptable to the courts. - "House Judiciary Advances Ban on Partial-Birth Abortion," Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, March 15, 1997, p. 643 ...<hr></blockquote>
[quote]<strong>... And of course NJ could make it illegal at any time without the US Congress. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Why are so many people concerned with the moral and ethical load of total strangers? If a woman decides to have her fetus aborted, then what business is that of anyone except the woman, her doctor and the father? Why should the nation's hard-pressed police force and court system get involved with turning someone's personal tragedies, dysfunctions and moral dilemmas into another class of manufactured crime?
Making abortion illegal will not stop abortion. Making drink illegal did not stop drinking. Same with drugs, or gambling, or prostitution or any other artificial "sin". Prohibition (of drugs, alcohol, abortion etc) generates more problems than the "sin" that the law was intended to stamp out. If Roe vs Wade is overturned, and abortion providers are outlawed, then those who can afford to travel to a clinic outside the country will do just that, within the law, out of US jurisdiction. Those who cannot afford it will use whatever other methods are available, going outside of the law. Abortions will continue, legal or otherwise.
Passing laws against abortion is just one more instance of big, intrusive government invading the private life of Americans. Since illegitimizing abortion will never prevent abortions from happening, then perhaps the purpose of such a law is not to stop abortions! Similarly, the laws against drugs do not stop drug abuse, and generate huge profits for traffickers, and generate a $50 billion annual windfall for "correction" corporations.
Myself, I would never, in a bazillion years, have an abortion. But that is *my* business, and absolutely *not* the US Government's. Or anyone's on this board. Many folk think it is wrong to have an abortion. That is very fair: morally and philosophically there are some very snaggly issues. But it *must* in the final outcome, be down to the personal decision of the woman. When officialdom and bureaucracy gets involved with making such personal and intimate decisions regarding people's very own bodies, then this sets an extremely dangerous precedent which in my view is fundamentally anti or un-American in character.
Finally, if any such laws are passed, then it would be primarily *men* who would be involved with the drafting and passage of the act; a bunch of mainly *old men*, many of whom are supremely out of touch with women's issues and think that females should be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.
In the war on terror, I hope that President Bush is true to his word, and those terrorists who bomb and set fire to women's clinics, or who shoot doctors are "brought to the swiftest justice.
Against abortion services? Then get a vasectomy. Period.
[quote]Originally posted by Samantha Joanne Ollendale:
<strong>If a woman decides to have her fetus aborted, then what business is that of anyone except the woman, her doctor and the father?</strong><hr></blockquote>
In the antebellum south if a slaveholder decided to kill one of his slaves what business was that of anyone but the slaveholder?
[quote]Originally posted by Samantha Joanne Ollendale:
<strong>In the war on terror, I hope that President Bush is true to his word, and those terrorists who bomb and set fire to women's clinics, or who shoot doctors are "brought to the swiftest justice.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If there isn't a standing ovation smiley it should be invented for this comment alone.
<strong> Yeah, I keep forgetting what a pro-life warrior Clinton was.</strong><hr></blockquote>No, he's not a pro-life warrior. He proposed a compromise that would have virtually eliminated the procedure. So I wonder why the Republicans didn't allow him to sign it? I thought they were supposed to be pro-life warriors? It couldn't be that they just wanted the issue, could it? 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. This is what the pro-life side did. They were elated that they had the issue, IMO, because they know it's only a tiny percentage of all abortions, and they just want to use it to drive public opinion to their side.
<strong>In the 1999 bill, Dems proposed an amendment...</strong><hr></blockquote>
[quote]Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
<strong>STENBERG v. CARHART</strong><hr></blockquote>
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?
And BTW, Whitman did veto a bill in NJ for these very reasons, IIRC.
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?
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 late?term 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 late?term 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 partial?birth abortion should have been constitutional under Casey's approach to interpreting and reviewing abortion regulations.
Justice Kennedy argued that partial?birth 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 partial?birth 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>
[quote]Originally posted by Samantha Joanne Ollendale:
<strong>Why are so many people concerned with the moral and ethical load of total strangers? If a woman decides to have her fetus aborted, then what business is that of anyone except the woman, her doctor and the father? Why should the nation's hard-pressed police force and court system get involved with turning someone's personal tragedies, dysfunctions and moral dilemmas into another class of manufactured crime?
Making abortion illegal will not stop abortion. Making drink illegal did not stop drinking. Same with drugs, or gambling, or prostitution or any other artificial "sin". Prohibition (of drugs, alcohol, abortion etc) generates more problems than the "sin" that the law was intended to stamp out. If Roe vs Wade is overturned, and abortion providers are outlawed, then those who can afford to travel to a clinic outside the country will do just that, within the law, out of US jurisdiction. Those who cannot afford it will use whatever other methods are available, going outside of the law. Abortions will continue, legal or otherwise.
Passing laws against abortion is just one more instance of big, intrusive government invading the private life of Americans. Since illegitimizing abortion will never prevent abortions from happening, then perhaps the purpose of such a law is not to stop abortions! Similarly, the laws against drugs do not stop drug abuse, and generate huge profits for traffickers, and generate a $50 billion annual windfall for "correction" corporations.
Myself, I would never, in a bazillion years, have an abortion. But that is *my* business, and absolutely *not* the US Government's. Or anyone's on this board. Many folk think it is wrong to have an abortion. That is very fair: morally and philosophically there are some very snaggly issues. But it *must* in the final outcome, be down to the personal decision of the woman. When officialdom and bureaucracy gets involved with making such personal and intimate decisions regarding people's very own bodies, then this sets an extremely dangerous precedent which in my view is fundamentally anti or un-American in character.
Finally, if any such laws are passed, then it would be primarily *men* who would be involved with the drafting and passage of the act; a bunch of mainly *old men*, many of whom are supremely out of touch with women's issues and think that females should be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.
In the war on terror, I hope that President Bush is true to his word, and those terrorists who bomb and set fire to women's clinics, or who shoot doctors are "brought to the swiftest justice.
Against abortion services? Then get a vasectomy. Period.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Samantha then I guess we should just make murder legal too then. I mean people are going to do it anyway! After all the reason why murder is illegal is cause of moral reasons is it not? While I think abortions should be legal I don't think that is a very good explanation as to why they should be.. I don't however think abortions should be used as a form of birth control. It's all about taking responsibilities for your own actions. Most of the abortions performed today are ones used as birth control. BTW calling a life a "fetus" doesn't make it less of a life. It's just more "feel good" tactics to sooth one's conscious. 'I'm ok your ok" And yes I think a man should have some say in it. After all the "fetus" is just not a part of her.. it also is a part of him too.
[quote]You think that maybe, just maybe, Clinton couldn't afford to bail on NARAL?<hr></blockquote>You just can't imagine that people on the other side ever act according to principles, can you? Clinton and the pro-choice side took a political hit because of that issue. The veto and the issue itself were huge for the pro-life groups. Getting Clinton to veto the bill was a political win for the pro-life side, and a loss for the pro-choice side. The pro-life side could have had a bill that Clinton would have signed, that narrowly described "health," but they didn't want it.
[quote](BTW, by your description you don't seem to even know what this procedure entails.)<hr></blockquote>What is it that I don't understand? If you're referring to the big toe comment, that was Santorum's statement that I got from your link. I understand that it's a feet-first procedure. Does Rick? If you're referring to the D&X vs. D&E comment, it's my understanding that intact D&X is what the pro-lifers have called partial birth abortion, but D&E is another common 2nd trimester abortion procedure, and the lack of clarity in the Nebraska bill between D&X and D&E is one of the reasons it was overturned. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
[quote]Intact dilation and extraction (intact D&E), a variant of D&E, involves wide cervical dilation by osmotic dilators, internal podalic version, then total breech extraction. The skull is collapsed (cephalocentesis) to allow a smaller diameter to pass through the cervix, thus reducing risk of cervical injury. Although no data exist on the frequency of this operation,[3] only a small number of physicians nationwide perform this procedure. It may be especially useful in the presence of fetal anomalies, such as hydrocephalus.
...
Nevertheless, some federal and state legislators have attempted to ban intact D&E. These efforts are misguided. When a licensed physician is practicing within relevant state and institutional regulations, the choice of an abortion method should be unencumbered by politics. The same holds true for other medical treatments. <hr></blockquote>
I know that the AMA officially supported the ban; but there are other opinions in the AMA as well, and the leadership doesn't necessarily speak for its members.
You just can't imagine that people on the other side ever act according to principles, can you? <hr></blockquote>
Sure I can, just not Clinton on this issue. Besides, you are in no position to complain about a charge of bad faith.
[quote]If you're referring to the D&X vs. D&E comment, it's my understanding that intact D&X is what the pro-lifers have called partial birth abortion, but D&E is another common 2nd trimester abortion procedure, and the lack of clarity in the Nebraska bill between D&X and D&E is one of the reasons it was overturned. Please correct me if I'm wrong.<hr></blockquote>
The Attorney General of Nebraska specifically interpreted the statute to rule out a ban on D&E.
Comments
<strong>You have no say into whether a woman has an abortion or not. None. Unless you are the partner.</strong><hr></blockquote>Even though I'm on your side on this issue, the argument that "it's a choice" is not really a justification, it's a conclusion.
At some point you have to deal with why it should be a choice.
What does a thief stealing property, that doesn't belong to him/her, have anything to do with having control over your body?
What is wrong is completely subjective, and a sign of the times. It is not a universal law. Abortion is only wrong in your opinion. That's fine.
Plenty disagree with you. I am one of them.
It's called freedom to choose. You choose against it. That's fine. You don't want to have an abortion? Don't have one. You don't want to look at naked people? Don't. However, you may not make that call for another person.
Actually, you cannot tell a thief not to steal. You can point out that it is illegal, and will probably annoy the person he/she is stealing from, but you cannot stop them. Again, it's their call.
BRussell, I'm not sure I understand whay you are saying.
A choice is just that. If a woman wants an abortion, for what ever reason, that's her choice.
It should be a choice because of something called freedom.
<strong>Actually, you cannot tell a thief not to steal. You can point out that it is illegal, and will probably annoy the person he/she is stealing from, but you cannot stop them. Again, it's their call.</strong><hr></blockquote>
So you're saying that if I come across someone who's about to rape and/or kill your sister (pretend you have a sister if you don't), I shouldn't try to stop him? I don't know either of you personally, so what happens doesn't really affect me. And besides, what right do I have have to make him to leave her alone?
Of course we know when life begins - conception.
OK, but I think most people are talking about what you might call personhood, and when people say life they often really mean personhood.<hr></blockquote>
Which is why there was more to my post: "... The only reason why we are debating the matter is because we are talking about human life here and we are trying to determine whether or not there are circumstances in which we can choose to not protect individual human lives. The guesswork people are engaging in is where to draw the line. But that line isn't about when life begins. It's about when we all will agree human life should be legally protected."
[quote]And even if we determine personhood, we still don't know the answer to the abortion question. It's not simply a question of determining the legal rights of one individual, but of balancing two that are intertwined...<hr></blockquote>
Right, if all we were talking about was the right of a woman to control her own body then there would be no argument from me. But we are also talking about another human life. Current law doesn't "balance" the two. It simply decides in favor of the strong against the weak.
<strong>Current law doesn't "balance" the two. It simply decides in favor of the strong against the weak.</strong><hr></blockquote>No, it does balance the two. The ability of states to regulate abortions increases as the pregnancy progresses. And there are lots of other state regulations that have been upheld like waiting periods, parental notification, "gag rules," and the like.
Only if you're against virtually all abortions does the current law look unbalanced.
<strong>
Only if you're against virtually all abortions does the current law look unbalanced.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Give me a beak. Partial birth abortions aren't even illegal. Only if you are are in favor of abortion does the current law look balanced.
<strong>Give me a beak. Partial birth abortions aren't even illegal.</strong><hr></blockquote>You'll get no breaks from me - partial birth abortion is illegal in the majority of states. It would have been illegal in the entire country if the Congress had allowed an exception for the "death or very serious, long-term, potentially disabling injury" to the mother, as Clinton wanted when he vetoed the bill.
Almost all of these procedures, which are less then a tenth of 1% of all abortions, are used in cases where the child has hydrocephalus and could not be delivered without killing or maiming the mother without first reducing the size of the fetus' skull. So who doesn't want to balance rights of individuals?
<strong>You'll get no breaks from me... </strong><hr></blockquote>
H.R. 1122 allowed partial birth abortion to save a mother's life. Even so, according to the AMA and the Senate testimony (U.S. Senate Hearing Report 104-260 (Testimony of Nov. 17, 1995) p. 82.) of Pamela Smith, MD "There are absolutely no obsetrical situations...which require a partially delivered human fetus to be destroyed to preserve the life or health of the mother."
There is NO medical necessity for such a procedure. Even the leading authority on late-term abortion in the United States says that the procedure is never necessary to preserve a woman's health. (Dr. Warren Hern, in American Medical News, Nov. 20, 1995 p.3.)
Furthermore, "health", as defined by law in the abortion context includes all factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial and social. This is a loophole large enough to justify any abortion. So, adding any health exception would effectivly negate the ban. Addition to the modifiers "serious" and "adverse" will not change the way the law defines health.
As for how frequently partial birth abortions are performed, you don't know.
It was testified before Congress that 1500 of these were done in New Jersey alone! And 80% of them were done on healthy mothers and babies. We do not know the total number of these abortions... but even if it were only 500 per state (500x50) it would be at least 25,000 babies per year.
Practitioners report that the vast majority of these abortions are elective and the some are done to prevent the live birth of a child with handicaps. (U.S. Senate Hearing Report 104-260 p.23.)
For further reading go <a href="http://www.partialbirthabortion.org/commentary/pba_official_1.html"; target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://jewsforlife.org/partial-birth-abortion.htm"; target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/notansweringboxersantorum.html"; target="_blank">here</a>.
[ 11-19-2001: Message edited by: roger_ramjet ]</p>
Even the pro-life groups <a href="http://www.missionariestopreborn.com/mtpupdate2_98.htm"; target="_blank"> say that this procedure is used in less than 1% of all abortions.</a> That infamous 1000 in NJ was not from a randomly selected state. One doctor was found who was using this procedure when it shouldn't have been used, and he was doing it in NJ. The scumbag should be sanctioned, disbarred or whatever it's called (maybe he was?). Again, the bill that Clinton would have signed would have stopped that doctor, but Santorum et al. didn't want that bill signed. And of course NJ could make it illegal at any time without the US Congress.
<strong>... One doctor was found who was using this procedure when it shouldn't have been used, and he was doing it in NJ. The scumbag should be sanctioned, disbarred or whatever it's called... Again, the bill that Clinton would have signed would have stopped that doctor, but Santorum et al. didn't want that bill signed... </strong><hr></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/clintonlie.html"; target="_blank">Watch What He's Doing, Not What He Says</a>: How President Clinton Is "Having It Both Ways" on Partial-Birth Abortion
[quote]"I also understand that many who support this bill [to ban partial-birth abortions] believe that any health exception is, as you suggest, a 'loophole... to include any reason the mother so desires,' such as youth, emotional stress, financial hardship or inconvenience. That is not the kind of exception I support. I support an exception... making crystal clear that the procedure may be used only in cases where a woman risks death or serious damage to her health, and in no other case." - President Bill Clinton, letter to the president and ten past presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention, June 7, 1996
"We're not talking about a hangnail, we're not talking about a headache. Does it include - and this is one of the things that the opponents of this particular legislation, the proponents of the pro-life position, would contend - does it include mental health? Yes, it does." - Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), author of the "killer substitute" amendment to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, explaining his measure's provision to allow even third-trimester abortions for "serious... health" reasons, at a tape-recorded March 12 Capitol Hill press conference. [see page 10 below for context]
[The Hoyer amendment] reflects Clinton's position and, according to Democrats, is necessary to make the bill acceptable to the courts. - "House Judiciary Advances Ban on Partial-Birth Abortion," Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, March 15, 1997, p. 643 ...<hr></blockquote>
[quote]<strong>... And of course NJ could make it illegal at any time without the US Congress. </strong><hr></blockquote>
<a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&linkurl=http%3a//smultron.com/&vol=000&invol=99-830" target="_blank">STENBERG v. CARHART</a>
[ 11-20-2001: Message edited by: roger_ramjet ]</p>
Making abortion illegal will not stop abortion. Making drink illegal did not stop drinking. Same with drugs, or gambling, or prostitution or any other artificial "sin". Prohibition (of drugs, alcohol, abortion etc) generates more problems than the "sin" that the law was intended to stamp out. If Roe vs Wade is overturned, and abortion providers are outlawed, then those who can afford to travel to a clinic outside the country will do just that, within the law, out of US jurisdiction. Those who cannot afford it will use whatever other methods are available, going outside of the law. Abortions will continue, legal or otherwise.
Passing laws against abortion is just one more instance of big, intrusive government invading the private life of Americans. Since illegitimizing abortion will never prevent abortions from happening, then perhaps the purpose of such a law is not to stop abortions! Similarly, the laws against drugs do not stop drug abuse, and generate huge profits for traffickers, and generate a $50 billion annual windfall for "correction" corporations.
Myself, I would never, in a bazillion years, have an abortion. But that is *my* business, and absolutely *not* the US Government's. Or anyone's on this board. Many folk think it is wrong to have an abortion. That is very fair: morally and philosophically there are some very snaggly issues. But it *must* in the final outcome, be down to the personal decision of the woman. When officialdom and bureaucracy gets involved with making such personal and intimate decisions regarding people's very own bodies, then this sets an extremely dangerous precedent which in my view is fundamentally anti or un-American in character.
Finally, if any such laws are passed, then it would be primarily *men* who would be involved with the drafting and passage of the act; a bunch of mainly *old men*, many of whom are supremely out of touch with women's issues and think that females should be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.
In the war on terror, I hope that President Bush is true to his word, and those terrorists who bomb and set fire to women's clinics, or who shoot doctors are "brought to the swiftest justice.
Against abortion services? Then get a vasectomy. Period.
<strong>If a woman decides to have her fetus aborted, then what business is that of anyone except the woman, her doctor and the father?</strong><hr></blockquote>
In the antebellum south if a slaveholder decided to kill one of his slaves what business was that of anyone but the slaveholder?
<strong>In the war on terror, I hope that President Bush is true to his word, and those terrorists who bomb and set fire to women's clinics, or who shoot doctors are "brought to the swiftest justice.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If there isn't a standing ovation smiley it should be invented for this comment alone.
<strong>
[quote]Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
<strong>March 15, 1997,...</strong><hr></blockquote>
[quote]Originally posted by BRussell:
<strong>In the 1999 bill, Dems proposed an amendment...</strong><hr></blockquote>
[quote]Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
<strong>STENBERG v. CARHART</strong><hr></blockquote>
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?
And BTW, Whitman did veto a bill in NJ for these very reasons, IIRC.
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 late?term 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 late?term 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 partial?birth abortion should have been constitutional under Casey's approach to interpreting and reviewing abortion regulations.
Justice Kennedy argued that partial?birth 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 partial?birth 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>
<strong>Why are so many people concerned with the moral and ethical load of total strangers? If a woman decides to have her fetus aborted, then what business is that of anyone except the woman, her doctor and the father? Why should the nation's hard-pressed police force and court system get involved with turning someone's personal tragedies, dysfunctions and moral dilemmas into another class of manufactured crime?
Making abortion illegal will not stop abortion. Making drink illegal did not stop drinking. Same with drugs, or gambling, or prostitution or any other artificial "sin". Prohibition (of drugs, alcohol, abortion etc) generates more problems than the "sin" that the law was intended to stamp out. If Roe vs Wade is overturned, and abortion providers are outlawed, then those who can afford to travel to a clinic outside the country will do just that, within the law, out of US jurisdiction. Those who cannot afford it will use whatever other methods are available, going outside of the law. Abortions will continue, legal or otherwise.
Passing laws against abortion is just one more instance of big, intrusive government invading the private life of Americans. Since illegitimizing abortion will never prevent abortions from happening, then perhaps the purpose of such a law is not to stop abortions! Similarly, the laws against drugs do not stop drug abuse, and generate huge profits for traffickers, and generate a $50 billion annual windfall for "correction" corporations.
Myself, I would never, in a bazillion years, have an abortion. But that is *my* business, and absolutely *not* the US Government's. Or anyone's on this board. Many folk think it is wrong to have an abortion. That is very fair: morally and philosophically there are some very snaggly issues. But it *must* in the final outcome, be down to the personal decision of the woman. When officialdom and bureaucracy gets involved with making such personal and intimate decisions regarding people's very own bodies, then this sets an extremely dangerous precedent which in my view is fundamentally anti or un-American in character.
Finally, if any such laws are passed, then it would be primarily *men* who would be involved with the drafting and passage of the act; a bunch of mainly *old men*, many of whom are supremely out of touch with women's issues and think that females should be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.
In the war on terror, I hope that President Bush is true to his word, and those terrorists who bomb and set fire to women's clinics, or who shoot doctors are "brought to the swiftest justice.
Against abortion services? Then get a vasectomy. Period.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Samantha then I guess we should just make murder legal too then. I mean people are going to do it anyway! After all the reason why murder is illegal is cause of moral reasons is it not? While I think abortions should be legal I don't think that is a very good explanation as to why they should be.. I don't however think abortions should be used as a form of birth control. It's all about taking responsibilities for your own actions. Most of the abortions performed today are ones used as birth control. BTW calling a life a "fetus" doesn't make it less of a life. It's just more "feel good" tactics to sooth one's conscious. 'I'm ok your ok" And yes I think a man should have some say in it. After all the "fetus" is just not a part of her.. it also is a part of him too.
[ 11-20-2001: Message edited by: Sinewave ]</p>
That doesn't mean you can.
It's their call.
With freedom comes responsibilities.
With actions come consequences.
BTW, we are talking abortion, not the murder of adults or slaves.
Let's keep the argument within context, shall we?
[quote](BTW, by your description you don't seem to even know what this procedure entails.)<hr></blockquote>What is it that I don't understand? If you're referring to the big toe comment, that was Santorum's statement that I got from your link. I understand that it's a feet-first procedure. Does Rick? If you're referring to the D&X vs. D&E comment, it's my understanding that intact D&X is what the pro-lifers have called partial birth abortion, but D&E is another common 2nd trimester abortion procedure, and the lack of clarity in the Nebraska bill between D&X and D&E is one of the reasons it was overturned. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
As for the AMA, <a href="http://www.ama-assn.org/special/womh/library/readroom/vol_280a/cv71005x.htm"; target="_blank">there's another editorial</a> linked at the bottom of that one that takes the opposite position:
[quote]Intact dilation and extraction (intact D&E), a variant of D&E, involves wide cervical dilation by osmotic dilators, internal podalic version, then total breech extraction. The skull is collapsed (cephalocentesis) to allow a smaller diameter to pass through the cervix, thus reducing risk of cervical injury. Although no data exist on the frequency of this operation,[3] only a small number of physicians nationwide perform this procedure. It may be especially useful in the presence of fetal anomalies, such as hydrocephalus.
...
Nevertheless, some federal and state legislators have attempted to ban intact D&E. These efforts are misguided. When a licensed physician is practicing within relevant state and institutional regulations, the choice of an abortion method should be unencumbered by politics. The same holds true for other medical treatments. <hr></blockquote>
I know that the AMA officially supported the ban; but there are other opinions in the AMA as well, and the leadership doesn't necessarily speak for its members.
You just can't imagine that people on the other side ever act according to principles, can you? <hr></blockquote>
Sure I can, just not Clinton on this issue. Besides, you are in no position to complain about a charge of bad faith.
[quote]If you're referring to the D&X vs. D&E comment, it's my understanding that intact D&X is what the pro-lifers have called partial birth abortion, but D&E is another common 2nd trimester abortion procedure, and the lack of clarity in the Nebraska bill between D&X and D&E is one of the reasons it was overturned. Please correct me if I'm wrong.<hr></blockquote>
The Attorney General of Nebraska specifically interpreted the statute to rule out a ban on D&E.
[ 11-20-2001: Message edited by: roger_ramjet ]</p>