Letters to the Editor
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The other view
National Organization of Women: The law was narrowly tailored to criminalized only a KNOWING violation of the law, to execute an abortion procedure which the AMA has said is never medically necessary. The joint ruling is the first step in applying O'Connor's 'undue burden' test, which explicitly allows states to discourage abortion.
Susan Estrich, Fox News: Congress decided not to cherry-pick medical experts, and reached beyond the College of Obstetrics. The AMA, and the vast majority of doctors and nurses, oppose this procedure.
Feminist Majority: All abortion procedures are extremely safe. Many doctors refuse to perform it, regardless of this law. Please quantify the elevated 'risk' older women and preteens will face from no longer being able to crush their baby's skull in the birth canal. We know the risk to the fetus is still 100%.
Bitch Ph.D.: Your legislators (aka white males) have decided that fetuses are still non-citizens (and can be killed for any reason) but that it is inhumane to deliver the head out of the womb before crushing it.
Planned Parenthood: The Supreme Court is not a common law court; it interprets a constitution, not precedent, and it is not required to follow bad precedent (see Brown)
Echinde: Seven middle-aged men found the 'right' to abortion in the penumbras of the constitution back in the seventies. The vague 'undue burden' standard, properly applied here, was drafted by a woman, Justice O'Connor. I agree, elections have consequences. Feel free to vote out any member of Congress who voted for this law.
NARAL: The court listened to other 'leading doctors,' those whose opinions you don't like.
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Medical decisions
Three years ago I had an abortion halfway through my pregnancy. I wanted this child badly and not a day goes by that I don't think of her. But my body failed me and the doctors told me that there was no way my baby could be saved. And without an abortion, I would probably not survive either. I had the abortion, and I survived. This decision seems to me that Justices Thomas, Scalia, Kennedy, Roberts and Alito wished for me to die along with my child.
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No one wants you to die, Anonymous
This law has an exemption in order to save the life of the mother.
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no but they do want you damaged and unhealthy and to risk dying
because there is no exception to protect the mothers health or to reduce the RISK of dying, it's a small price which you should be happy to pay to rein in our hedonistic culture and replace it with a culture of life. You'd be guaranteed heaven too, so no problem.
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You're wrong, Pedestrian
You are wrong about the "life and health of the mother" being protected. As Ms. Ginsburg noted in her lengthy response about this ruling, the life and health of the mother may preclude such an abortion if she can prove her health is at risk in a court of law, on a case-by-case basis. That means every woman who is carrying a baby with hydroencephalitis, a babt with spina bifida, a baby who lacks a brain, a baby who lacks a spinal cord, a baby with too little amniotic fluid, a baby that lacks a pulse, etc. must wait for her day in court to plead her case. Which could take years. Which, I think, is the whole point of the bill.
Of the small percentage of last year's abortions that were performed in the later trimesters, I have no doubt that each one was a heart-wrenching, anguishing ordeal. Most of them were performed because something had gone horribly wrong with the fetus. I think it is a horrific slap to the face to every woman alive, that should she be so unlucky as to carry one of these doomed babies a bunch of old white men with gavels will make it all that much more difficult for her (and her doctor) to do what needs to be done.
This is your "culture of life?" Humiliation on top of pain? Blatant disregard for the health and future of women? Hysterectomies all around?
Your "culture of life" is sick and twisted, and I wish people like you would go live it somewhere else. Leave the suffering women alone.
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Making distinctions isn't her strong point, is it?
"...it's constitutional for lawmakers (aka white men) to decide what kind of medical care we need..."
If I recall correctly, a bunch of those rotten "white men" decided in favor of Roe V. Wade back in '73... supported by amicus briefs filed by other terrible "white men"... to provide a legal basis for a medical procedure invented by awful, nasty, evil white men. (What a bunch of oppressors!)
If Bitch Phd is considered part of the cream of the feminist blogosphere, we are indeed fucked.
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What are lawmakers doing banning medical procedures, anyway?
What's next - appendectomies? "By law, the appendix can only be taken out if it is severed from right to left, but not from left to right, and sprinkled with holy water prior to removal"?
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Why worry? Only effects poor women
Let's face it. No woman of any means who is pregnant and needs to terminate her pregnancy to save her own life is going to be prevented from doing so by this ban. She will go to Canada, France or wherever she needs to go to save her own life.
The same will be true if the law is chipped entirely away and all abortions are made illegal.
If you have the means, you will still be able to get one. This only effects poor women!
Of course I am confused why it's so important for poor women, who also often lack access to birth control and prenatal care, to give birth more often.
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I predict a lot of Republicans will try and keep a fairly low profile on this until after the 2008 elections
Remember during the 2000 elections when Bush claimed to be a moderate and avoided appearing with any of the right wing blow job jihad congress, and they accomodated him. Of course every informed person on both sides knew the facts but they manipulated appearances enough to fool enough "moderates" to get in power and do as they liked, and it worked, as we can see. They will certainly try the same previously successful strategy again.
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It only effects poor women just as it should
Those who have the means to travel to Canada or France have demonstrated, by virtue of having acquired those means, that they are entitled to make decisions for themsleves. Those who lack those resources and the evidence of superiority that possesing them demonstrates need to be guided by their betters in the right way to live, if a few members of the "underclass" have to be sacrifed as an example to inspire others to behave think of it as a kind of tough love for the population as a whole.