Letters to the Editor
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Pass the muster please!
The Supreme Court decision related to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act will give us a good indication of the integrity of the current court. Simply based on law this act is unconstitutional. It is completely vague and can not be enforced in a uniform manner. I compare it to a law that states, “A citizen must not be bad and cause harm to another.” The issue in this appeal should not enter the realm of the abortion discussion since it does not pass muster to get there. This act is simply a political statement, not a well written piece of legislation intended to become law. It is a disgrace to the legislative process of the United States.
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share some love!
pro-life women are such hypocrits....
380 million "unborn babies" or at least 380 million 1/2's of unborn babies (also known as "sperm" by prolifers who also use terms like "fetus" and "blastula") so call it 190 million unborn babies are going to die in a kleenex in my trash tonight. if one of those prolife women wanted to save one I'd put 'em in a turkey baster for them. But no they'd rather spend time picketing about stem cells or something.
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Partial B.S Abortion
You're right there, pointing out that the "are you still beating your wife" type label was invented to demonize the late term abortion procodures -- BUT -- it's an uphill battle to change the use of the term "CONSERVATIVE" to what it really is -- "Right Wing Theocrats" --
Barry Goldwater was conservative and he thought it was contrary to everything America stands for to object to any woman's right to choose her own reproductive status ... "conservative" meaning "We do not ineterfere with people's lives unless they interfere with interstate commerce."
So please -- "CONSERVATIVE" means you can smoke, drink, read, watch, and control your own body (and those of others who say it's ok) any way you want to, whether I like that or would want to do that for my own life. Anti-Choice, Anti-drug, anti-porn, etc are all RELIGIOUS DICTATORSHIP -- the product of the Descendants of the Cromwellians the English were smart enough to throw the hell out of their country, and who ended up on our Mid-Atlantic shores.
Of course, John Wilmot, the Odious Earl of Rochester put the issue this way: "Any person who would call things by their rightful name will surely be hanged."
Or Voltaire: "It is dangerous t obe right when the government is wrong."
But my favorite was fromCharles Bukowski who said: "Wars, politics, causes -- for thousands of years we've ended up with a sack of shit -- it's time we learned to think."
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Partial-Brain Decision
Based on the court's own precedent this case should be a no-brainer. They gave a clear indication of the kind of law they would find constitutional and Congress said f-you and wrote a bill that excluded the health/life provision and didn't really clarify the medical issues. I wonder if the election puts the court in difficult situation, however. If they decide to defer to the legislature and accept their "medical" decision, establishing that they are not "activist" (as defined by the right), they now face the possibility of deference to a Democratic Congress.
What I don't understand is why, if this procedure is never necessary to save the life or health of a woman, Congress wouldn't put the provision in anyway. If it's never necessary then it would never happen anyway AND you would satisfy one of the requirements set forward in Stenberg. I think the Court is looking at a bill that is part pandering to the GOP base and is part thumbing their nose at the Courts (and inviting them to make another unpopular ruling the GOP can run against and provoke more death threats against the justice).
What I want to know is why Scalia fell uncharacteristically silent. Why so glum, Nino?
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Abortion Rights and the Power of Language
If our society decided this fetus was endowed with personhood, yes, intact D&X would be something you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. But it's a fetus -- unable to live without the mother's consent. It's not a baby.
I'm pro-choice, and statements like that make our side look incredibly callous. Ending the life of a fetus when you've already chosen a name and decorated their room is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
Every late-term abortion story I've heard involved a wanted pregnancy that went horribly wrong. The decision to abort was always agonizing. In my mind, a late-term abortion is like deciding whether or not to euthanize your dog. Nobody enjoys that, yet nobody has the right to tell someone else not to. Somehow, I think emphasizing that would gain more support than arguing that a fully-formed, probably kicking fetus isn't a baby.
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Isn't D&X Already Illegal for Non-Emergent Reasons?
The argument I've heard against it usually rests on anecdotal evidence that this procedure is performed on perfectly healthy mothers and perfectly healthy fetuses just because the mother "changed her mind" on a whim.
If this is true, didn't the doctor and the mother already break the law? Aren't all non-emergent third-trimester abortions illegal anyway? And if so, how is adding yet another law on top of the one that's already being broken going to prevent the original law from being broken in the first place?
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It's CONSCIOUSNESS that counts, not viability!
"But it's a fetus -- unable to live without the mother's consent. It's not a baby."
It's not a baby, but viability is not what counts.
What counts is that THE FETUS IS NOT CONSCIOUS. It's not a BEING because it's not conscious. It's flesh, not spirit.
Hammer on fetal consciousness and flesh vs spirit and forget about "viability", "choice" or any other distraction.
CONSCIOUSNESS is the only thing that counts in abortion and a fetus is not conscious. It's purely flesh.