Letters to the Editor
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caesarians
Women requiring late term abortions will now have to have Caesarian sections. And their future children will then have to be born this way. This is an anti-woman Supreme Court. Doing a heckaofa job there...
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A Modest Proposal
Someday, and because of unforeseen circumstances, a woman will die because of this decision. Healthcare professionals will refuse to perform the procedure, will announce to the family that the woman will have to die perhaps an agonizing death. She will leave behind a grieving husband, perhaps children, and one dead fetus.
The christianists will not be present with their bibles nor their graphic abortion photos nor their plastic, bloodied fetuses. They will cluck and tut, offering up prayers for the departed. The new right-wing supreme court justices, including that lover of life, Mr. Scalia, will never know that their decisions had repercussions, nor will they care. Mr. Bush will have retired to his ranchita where he can cook-up an apologia for the disasters he has brought on our nation.
However, I hope that that yet-to-be-named woman will allow her death to be filmed, each agonizing second of it. I hope that a post-mortem will allow us to see the dead fetus. Then I hope that no effort is spared in broadcasting the results of the legal stupidity that arises when lawyers don white coats and play doctor.
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Ovum donors
Having a baby just became a game of Russian roulette.
'Well, ma'am, you can get an abortion now, but if you wait a few weeks, and if it comes down to you or the baby, you're a goner. Praise Jesus!'
The President who takes his orders from a higher father just reduced women to ovum donors.
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you can't get the test for Down's until
18 weeks.
My husband and I already decided that if I am carrying a down's baby, I will abort. I don't think my state is one of the ass-backwards states supporting this heinous legislation, but it sickens me that unwilling parents are going to have to raise a child that they don't want.
Where are all the small government conservatives when you need them? They don't want to pay for "illegals" but are more than happy to have to help me pay (via medical and supervised care for the rest of its life) for a child that I don't want?
This ruling isn't just a "stunning assault on women's health" it is a stunning assault on my family's ability to decide our future.
And I disagree that this will be the losing battle that loses the war. I don't think I am looking through rose-colored glasses when I say that this 'battle' (although I loathe the war metaphors) will be won by cultural norms. Despite what sex-hating conservatives would like, the next generations will be more liberal sexually, not less. This legislation is the result of a small but vocal and powerful minority that lies and cheats and steals its way into political office.
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Lawyers?
"One thing that could complicate clinics' "compliance strategy" is the ruling's convoluted language about exactly what is outlawed. "
Could Planned Parenthood (and other human rights groups) sue to get a better definition?
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re: watch_this_space
I am disturbed by watch_this_space and her obvious narcissistic personality disorder: she already hates her unborn child because it may not be "perfect" and life with an imperfect child could be messy and inconvenient.
Shame on you.
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Blow Hard
I would like to know haw many 'imperfect children' the sanctimonious rtf100 has adopted. Not a one, I suspect.
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rtf100, Nebris said this first, but this will be a little gentler
watch_this_space is obviously older and worried. don't add to her worries with guilt. if you've never known a severely retarded down's syndrome person, you would know they are *far* from perfect. me, in my *own* narcissistic way, find them barely human. more like a very long lived puppy. people don't become parents for that.
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Hey Sugarman
Who appointed you the arbiter of who is and isn't human, who does and doesn't deserve to live?
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Open letter to Lynn Harris
Dear Lynn:
I thought that Salon was the home of ‘original commentary and reporting’? You don't seem to have only done able stenography for certain pro-choice groups.
The decision was a “gift card made out to President Bush’s base”: I’m an atheist democrat who thinks that, in our rush to recognize autonomy and abortion rights, we have crossed an ethical line by pulling babies half out of a womb only to then kill them. I’m flabbergasted by your inability to see how a secular humanist like myself would be troubled by intact D&E. Why do you think a majority of the country supports this ban, but at the same time broadly supports retaining Roe? Any ideas?
Nancy Northrup’s opinion: Stenberg was not “three decades” of “established constitutional law.” That case was decided in 2000. Also, the controlling ‘undue burden’ standard from Casey was followed to the letter. ‘Undue burden’ was left vague, and deliberately so. Why doesn’t Northrup explain how Kennedy misapplied this standard? Why didn’t you ask her how he misapplied it?
Eve Gartner: Why didn’t you ask her why elected representatives, in state legislatures, are poised to pass legislation restricting choice? You also let her, like Northrup, criticize the Court for failing to “adhere to past precedent.” Do you think the Court should always adhere to past precedent? Do you think there might be reason it reverses course (such as, when past precedent was not constitutionally correct?)
“[T]he guys in robes, not lab coats, are stepping in to take charge”: Our Senators and Congressmen now wear robes?
The rulings “convoluted language”: Did you read the law, or the opinion which upheld the law? The language is very clear; particularly clear is the scienter requirement which forecloses prosecution of doctors who do not intend to perform an intact D&E, but out of circumstance (the cervix dialates more than expected, for instance) end up with a fetus partially exposed.
Janet Crepps: “The options for all women …have been dramatically reduced.” Why didn’t Ms Crepps mention that many abortionists don’t perform intact D&Es and never have, even before Congress passed this law? Why did you just assume that a procedure is now being denied, when, for many women, it has never been offered (yet mass death and paralysis has not result because other equally safe procedures are available.)
Lynn, why does it seem like you just pieced together press releases from a few abortion-rights groups? ‘Original commentary’ indeed.