Letters to the Editor
ondelette
Published Letters: 1973 Editor's Choice: 19
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Anonymous...
[Read the article: Abortion and the court, or the silver lining that isn't]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Do you know what the words "current invocation" mean? Samuel J. Alito, Jr. is the author of a paper outlining the use of signing statements to give the executive branch "equality" with the "intent of the Congress" which is evaluated by the Supreme Court in determining the use of laws. The idea is to have an "intent of the Executive" in signing the law.
This is a new use of signing statements, and does not date back to James Monroe. Previous presidents used them to indicate areas where they thought a law might be unconstitutional or unclear.
It is both why Alito and Roberts are needed on the Court, and why even the most innocuous bills get signing statements -- in case they are brought to the high court. One acknowledgement of their validity and the whole face of government changes.
Yes, I'm probably a bit paranoid about it. I don't want the whole face of government to change. But an idiot...I wasn't the one who opened his mouth before he knew the relationship between Alito and the statements.
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So that's why we went to Iraq!
[Read the article: Repeal the Second Amendment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Not to mention that hunting thins herds and reduces over population of species.
Stupid me! it wasn't blood for oil, it was just blood. Current population -- 6 billion. Population when the 2nd amendment was written -- less than 1 billion. Just wait till it goes to 9, there are already 1 billion without enough water. Then the herd will really need to be thinned.
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Responding to the righteous indignation...
[Read the article: Repeal the Second Amendment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't ignore anything, and wasn't criticizing you. I just had a lightbulb go off when you mentioned thinning the herds. Guns thin the human herd too, and it is way overpopulated, has way too little vegetation per animal, and lacks control by a predatory species.
I totally agree that guns have too much corporate behind them to just go away. Sorry to offend.
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RE: RE: MATH
[Read the article: From Blacksburg to Baghdad]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's funny, but until this administration, no one questioned this kind of study, or the accuracy of exit polls. These studies are standard for counting the civilian casualties in a war, the only thing that detracted at all from this one initially (the first time) was the difficulty of getting the sample random and evenly distributed throughout Iraq, which the authors seemed to have done well. On the exit polls, they have been used since international monitors first started to test the fairness of elections -- unlike public opinion polls, they have accuracies to +/- less than a percent.
All of a sudden, when fact needs to be fiction, or fiction fact, suddenly people conducting standard surveys and polls from reputable institutions mysteriously get them wrong?
Believe that and I have a meeting in Prague you ought to attend.
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Who knows?
[Read the article: Supreme Court upholds ban on "partial-birth" abortion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It has NEVER been the law that a woman's life or health will be allowed to be put in danger, even in the third trimester..when abortion is otherwise illegal. What is banned is a procedure that takes place when the fetus is viable, and is not medically necessary.
Anu Singh
And because the AMA ruled that the procedure is never medically justified, discussions of "health of the mother" are also irrelevant.
Anonymous
The problem with this proceedure is that it is "Late Term" (3rd Trimester) when most baby's survival rate is at its highest. Not to mention most babies survive when given a chance throughout the 3rd trimester.
ATSJer
Are these statements really true? I just got done reading about the ruling in the NYT, and they describe it as a 2nd trimester procedure (it would have had to have been to be protected under Roe v. Wade), that the ruling is the first that does not respect the health of the mother, and that the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology says the procedure is "sometimes medically necessary" to protect the health of the mother.
So are these statements unclear or untrue, or is the NYT wrong, or what?
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Thanks, Kim
[Read the article: Supreme Court upholds ban on "partial-birth" abortion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I read the article you pointed to. It confirms what I had thought: intact D&X is usually performed during the 2nd trimester, not the third, and is a choice made to reduce the risk of complications. The phrase "late term" means late in the 2nd trimester, late in the abortion window, not late in the pregnancy.
The AMA's recommendation is in H 5.982(2):
According to the scientific literature, there does not appear to be any identified situation in which intact D&X is the only appropriate procedure to induce abortion, and ethical concerns have been raised about intact D&X. The AMA recommends that the procedure not be used unless alternative procedures pose materially greater risk to the woman. The physician must, however, retain the discretion to make that judgment, acting within standards of good medical practice and in the best interest of the patient.
(my emphasis)
The article Kim references does provide insight on why a physician might make that judgement.
On the issue of whether the Court ruled that a woman's health must ALWAYS be considered, the Court ruled:
Held: Respondents have not demonstrated that the Act, as a facial matter, is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception.
(again, my emphasis).
So it would appear, at least to this non-lawyer non-doctor, that the NYT article was correct, and the posters I cited previously, wrong. It is a 2nd trimester procedure, the AMA does not unqualifiedly recommend against it (they never "rule" on anything), and the provision upheld by the court does not contain a woman's health exception.