Looks like the Supreme Court took advantage of the Virginia shootings and upheld a federal law that bans partial birth abortions. For those of you who might not understand how misleading that term is, the term “partial birth abortion” was made up in order to spin the image of all vaginal abortion that uses “dilation and extraction” (aka D&E), which can be used to describe any vaginal abortion. Late term abortions (where the term “partial birth” might actually mean something) are done so rarely and so infrequently, one must wonder what law they are really trying to pass while using a term such as “partial birth abortion”. The majority of the abortions given today are vaginal abortions. If this law passes, vaginal abortions could be all but outlawed based on the definition of said (made up) term.
What took place in Virginia is a terrible, terrible monstrosity. Don’t even get me started on our all too lenient gun laws. But having this news break in the wake of what took place in Virginia seems all too convenient. Perhaps tomorrow we’ll attack Iran.
The problematic wording is in section §1531 b.1.
The preamble makes definitions describing specific and rather ghastly details in order to elicit an emotional response and to create an environment in which opposition would be deplorable, but then loosens the definition once the prohibition (the law) is described.
The definition used in the prohibition can be applied to ANY vaginal abortion.
Any discussion that is to be taken seriously must address the prohibition as it is written. Anything else is fodder for headline surfers.
BTW – the link is:
here
Thanks, Tobyjoe. I wonder how many folks, including the guys making and/or passing the laws, will actually read said act in its entirety.
I know a LOT of folks hate Michael Moore, but didn’t he address this in a movie? Didn’t he read one from an ice cream truck? Granted, his tactic may have been goofy to his opponents, but the point was well taken. I thought.
So, since you brought it up … I was wondering, now that you know what it’s like to be pregnant, what do you think about the rights of the life that you carry? This is the hard part about this question (for me). Does that life really have no rights? Limited rights? When Scott Peterson was convicted of killing Laci and her unborn son, should he only have been convicted of the murder of Laci?
I believe that the question about abortion is about preserving a woman’s right to safely obtain a medical procedure. I believe that legal abortions save lives. But damn, are we saying that one person’s convenience is worth more than the life she may carry? Is that life only as valuable as the carrier makes it?
I don’t want to start a firestorm here, but I have to say that since Kerry and I became parents, the abortion issue has not been the political litmus test for a candidate that it once had been for us. I’d sooner take a pro-environment political moderate who supports education but opposes abortion than a pro-choice libertarian who thinks that women should be free to make such choices, that we should have unfettered access to guns and recreational drugs, and we should let a free market handle our environmental issues.
Well, still, I have to say that if something were wrong with the baby I am currently carrying, it’d be downright horrible if the government were to step in and tell me what I should or shouldn’t do with my baby. I look to my doctors for that type of information, not the government. And it’s up to me ultimately NOT the government.
I do not think that abortions should be performed in the 3rd trimester (unless for some reason the baby is very sick and is killing the mother.) The thing is, there are circumstances that are specific to each and every individual so it frightens me to think that they might pass a law saying there is no longer a choice whatsoever no matter what the circumstances.
People forget that not all abortions are done because some woman went out, got drunk one night, had unprotective sex and clumsily got knocked up. (Not that I’m passing judgment on that woman, either). Many abortions are deemed necessary both physically and mentally for the mother. People don’t think about that. I know one woman was pregnant with a baby boy and found out after 22 weeks that his heart hadn’t formed and that he had zero chances of living outside the womb. They terminated the pregnancy. Can you imagine having to go through an entire pregnancy when you know that the baby isn’t going to live? Physically, that’s trying, but mentally? I would never, ever recover.
Anyway, bottom line, me, personally, I would probably never have an abortion unless there were something wrong with my baby. I am a big advocate of safe sex. Period. But I do not think the government has any right to say that a woman can not make her own choice. It scares me knowing that they might do this. It scares me we might live in a world where women aren’t given options.