Doctor, there’s a lawyer in my womb
Perhaps the biggest problem with the words “partial-birth abortion” is that they have neither a precise legal definition nor an exact medical one. In 2000, the Supreme Court, in Stenberg v. Carhart, struck down a Nebraska ban on “partial-birth abortions” in part because of that problem. But in response to that decision, in 2003 the U.S. Congress opted to enact that same unconstitutional law, nearly unchanged, now criminalizing any abortion “in which a physician delivers an unborn child’s body until only the head remains inside the womb, punctures the back of the child’s skull with a Sharp instrument, and sucks the child’s brains out before completing delivery of the dead infant.”
The [Supreme] court today engages in close scrutiny of the textbook medical questions that plague this case: Is the banned procedure defined sufficiently narrowly? Is the congressional evidence that these procedures are never medically necessary credible, and how much deference is it owed? Is the abortion procedure in question significantly different from the one struck down in Stenberg? Is the procedure best differentiated from the common D&E by the degree of dilation required; the intent of the physician; the moment of fetal demise; or the “anatomical landmarks” or “spatial line” between a fetus that dies in the womb and out of the womb? Painstaking distinctions are drawn between “substantial medical authority” supporting the health exception and the “marginal safety” of permitting the procedure for some women.
Vacuuming out a fetus that’s not fully formed or viable yet is one thing, but delivering a child that’s viable outside the mother and sucking it’s brains out is barbaric.
Uncle Dave, you had me for a moment, but gave yourself away with the exaggerated outrage over criminalizing the sucking out of live human brains.
#2: ??? Where exactly did I make a comment on anything on this article?
We will all answer to God for our actions. Just imagine the consequences.
I always saw abortion as a ‘least worst’ issue to be decided by the mother. If the procedure described is least worst the alternative had better be extremely grim.
Sounds outrageous, but how big a problem is it, really?
10000% more children are killed by abusive parents, but I don’t see anywhere near the same level of outrage from “concerned” outsiders.
I don’t believe in abortions, and never plan to have one. If one of my priorities was saving children, though, I’d probably start with the ones who are already born. Lots more of them to save. I have more than enough work just saving my own kids, though, so that’s my priority at this point in my life.
When I see proponents or opponents of ANY particular point of view relying on emotional arguments rather than logical arguments, I tend to lose all respect. So even though I don’t really approve of abortion, it’s a subject I stay away from, in large part because the vocal participants on both sides of the argument are so obnoxious.
Sorry, Uncle Dave. (#3) Even after all this time, I sometimes need to see both purple and white blocks to remember the difference.
Can’t these barbarians at least deliver morphine to the baby before they tear him or her apart?
Who can argue with that?
The neocons want to have control of your womb ladies.
They will a child after it is born, but they want to control your right to not have a child.
Thank me for not reproducing.
I meant to say they will kill it after it is born, but no way should you have control of whether or not you should have a child.
What a load of shit, “not medically necessary.” If it’s not medically necessary, then the only reason a doctor would perform this procedure is because he or she wants to. They just do ’em for fun, right? These guys with MD behind their names are inhuman, psychopathic monsters who enjoy deliberately killing a fetus.
And if you can believe that any doctor actually enjoys this, or wants to do this, then somebody must have already sucked your brains out.
And just exactly how often is this procedure (which is far from being the only medical procedure that is repulsive to the lay public) actually performed?
In 2000, a year for which complete stats are available, 1,300,000 abortions were performed. 2200 of those were D&X procedures.
00.2%. One in five hundred. Now I can’t speak for you, but I don’t know anyone who’s had one. My closest friend is an RN who has nearly 10 years in working the neonatal ICU. She has never encountered anyone who has had one. She doesn’t know any doctor who has had to perform one.
Do you know anyone who’s had one? Didn’t think so.
But still, just like with ID v. evolution, the religionists have no problem believing that professionals, experts, people trained extensively in the field, people who live and breathe it, whose life’s work it is, whether doctors or research scientists, that these professionals are utterly clueless (and don’t even realize it!) and the uneducated, untrained layman is right. Because God or Ted Haggard or some other renowned medical authority said so…
“Let’s just trust Doctors to always know what is right and to always do the right thing.”
Spoken by someone who has never been in the hospital or known anyone in a hospital or known any Doctors, for that matter.
Spoken from someone who has known doctors AND people in hospitals: if you have good doctors, you CAN trust them to do the right thing.
Not all doctors are good.
But can you find me a politician who you trust to make medical decisions for you?
This isn’t one of “my” issues, but think about this:
Is there any other case in which the government can force you to have, or not to have a medical procedure that could save your life?
For example:
1. Cancer patient accidentally becomes pregnant (say, birth control failure). Why not force her to stop her cancer treatment to spare the life of the fetus (or zygote, morula or whatever stage it’s at)?
2. You can save another human by giving a kidney, why not force you to do so? If you don’t, it’s murder.
Federal government? Get the f*k out of of my doctor’s office and out of my bedroom.
This procedure is done in the last trimester of pregnancy, you may comfort yourselves by calling it a “fetus” but this is a fully formed human baby. It might even be a female baby, but the women’s rights activists don’t speak on her behalf. Where’s her right to choose what to do with her body? I guess those with the right to choose should be thankful their mother chose life.
Pulling a baby partway out of the womb, killing it, then extracting it is perfectly diabolical. Anyone who considers this a component of “a woman’s right to choose” should have that done to him. Anyone who advocates this is evil in my book should suck on a shotgun- the world would be better off without him. Outlawing this procedure is working to refine mankind, making us a better species. Only idiots, bloodletters and primitives defend this.
The right to an legal abortion requires legal definitions? When does a fetus become a viable baby? When does a birth occur? When is a person with rights born? It is not acceptable to say a woman and her doctor can sit in a room and decide. Some extremists want that choice and they make my stomach turn. Like it or not some mothers would approve a “doctor” killing the child because it has one foot in the birth canal and its “their right too decide”. No matter it is one baby in a million, no matter you have never seen or heard of anyone having one, these moral and legal boundaries need to be defined.
16
I would not stop someone I do not know and in all probability someone that I will never know existed from having this procedure. If that mean’s I’m one of those “woman’s right to choose” people, then fine. If you want to can pull me out of the womb and suck my brains out. But, i’ve already been born, so how do you proposed to accomplish this? You almost Libertarians in your little list. And every other logical person who defends the individual’s right to choose. And I don’t mean just choose abortion or not. I mean choose everything.
14
You got it. You just left out “and out of my life” on your list.
}} Pulling a baby partway out of the womb, killing it, then extracting it is perfectly diabolical. Anyone who considers this a component of “a woman’s right to choose” should have that done to him.
I do not believe partial-birth should be legal for a person just wanting remove an unwanted pregnancy, but if the mother’s life is in immediate and real danger then the she should be able to choose to survive.
To make sure it is medically necessary, just require that 3 doctors must sign off on it being absolutely necessary.
On this subject I think I’ll side with the bible thumpers, one of my sisters was born when she was 7 months old and apart from her bad taste in men (what women who was a middle class teenager in the 80s has anyway?) she is perfectly normal.
#9 #10
just like “your right to extend your fist ends at my face”, “your right to *not* have a baby ends when you get pregnant”
#14 most people are not as concerned with life for life questions of abortion, but only convenience abortions, which are acts of mere selfishness.
people will always face a consequence of their actions, the consequence of sex is often a baby, face it. to know the natural consequence of an abortion, talk to a few (not just one) women who have been there.
I gotta say even as a pretty hard-core pro-choice kinda guy, I can’t see any justification for this procedure, absent saving the life or health of the mother. I would support a – well defined – ban with those two exceptions.
This law allows this procedure only in the event of danger to the life of the Mother. The authors of the Bill purposely left off **health of the mother** because that has always been the Camel’s nose under the tent, in the abortion issue. It’s a phony reason, everyone knows it.
This prodedure has always been rare and no medical reason for it’s being has ever been produced(that didn’t have other options) for doing it.
It was put forth by lawyers as a way to get by the 2nd. trimester/late term abortion ban, but it was discovered to quickly to really get heavy use.
We assume that the new Justices are pro-life. If they are, then it’s a 4…4 tie with Justice Kennedy as the swing vote this time. He was the Justice who wrote the dissent against the Cathcart case 6 years ago. He said then he felt this was a descpicable form of Abortion. But, at the same time he believes abortion should mainly be a states rights issue, not dumping Roe v Wade, but allowing the states to fine tune it, to reduce the numbers of abortions.
So, he could go either way. This procedure should be banned.
#22 in simple terms, in this procedure, since the baby is being delivered anyway (just killed in mid pop), it saves no health risk for the mother. not like an early term abortion.
#21 just like “your right to extend your fist ends at my face”, “your right to *not* have a baby ends when you get pregnant”
You worry about your own womb.
Abortion demands to be safe and legal because it isn’t going away just because it isn’t, and also because as long as it is a parasitic glob of cells, it isn’t a person….
When the theo-cons and “values-voters” start worrying about the human lives of those already living, then we’ll start listening to their drudgerous sermons about life not yet born…
You cannot be “pro-life” without being anti-death penalty and anti-war and anti-genocide and plenty of other antis… You cannot be pro-life without being openly critical of terrorist groups like Operation Rescue, an organization who borrowed “lone-wolf” techniques from the KKK and loonbat militia groups to inspire the murder of abortion doctors. The pro-life minority is hypocritical at best and conspicuously immoral at worst. They have no valid voice in this debate. They forfieted that a long time ago.
God has nothing to do with this debate. Only the woman and the doctor have any business being in this debate. All the rest of us should back away, because it isn’t our fight.
If your imaginary friend is real, he or she or it will take care of it anyway if he or she or it is actually concerned at all… which isn’t too likely.
#25 I must have missed something, because while you reacted to my post, you didn’t seem to respond to it; or was the whole of it not directed specifically at me?
My remarks were not in the context of theology, Values, or the definition or value of Life. Instead, a response to the question of rights and responsibilities.
Also, I don’t have much of an imagination.
Well… Actually only the first sentence was for you… the rest was about abortion in general… I’m also against late term abortion under the conditions as it is currently defined…
Forgive me… I try to pay attention to this site, but as you know, I’m expected to meet a minimum standard of performance at work… If only I could get fired and suck off the public tit for a while… But so far, no one seems to care that I post here all day or that I am not wearing pants.