A new fault line has opened in the abortion debate. The fight is no longer between pro-lifers and pro-choicers. It’s between militants and pragmatists.
While some extremists have been raising hell and shooting doctors, pragmatists have been hashing out common-ground legislation. Their latest bill, introduced Thursday, is the Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion, and Supporting Parents Act. If that sounds like a jumble of ideas from both sides, it’s because lots of bargaining went into it. Among other things, pro-choicers got money for contraception and sex education. Pro-lifers got abstinence-friendly curriculum, a bigger adoption tax credit, and financial support for women who continue their pregnancies.
The two sides talked, listened, and compromised. Pro-lifers couldn’t stand postcoital birth-control pills, fearing they might kill early embryos. The fear was unwarranted, but pro-choicers agreed to leave the pills out. Pro-choicers couldn’t stand even the vaguest legislative description of what doctors should tell patients. That anxiety, too, was unnecessary, but pro-lifers agreed to drop the language. Pro-choicers hated abstinence-only education but agreed to fund “evidence-based programs that encourage teens to delay sexual activity.” Pro-lifers wanted women to see prenatal ultrasound images but settled for money to make the machines more widely available.
Each side faced the other’s truths. Joel Hunter, an evangelical minister and former president-elect of the Christian Coalition, endorsed the bill’s provision of “better access to contraception.” So did two other pro-life theologians. Frances Kissling, who served for 25 years as president of Catholics for Choice, embraced pregnancy-prevention efforts that “meet women’s own goal of avoiding abortion where possible.” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-CT, the bill’s principal pro-choice sponsor, said at a Thursday press conference that “we all want to see fewer unintended pregnancies and abortions” and that “we must also foster an environment that encourages pregnancies to be carried to term.” Such statements are forbidden among pro-choice groups: You’re supposed to endorse reducing the “need” for abortion, not abortion itself, and you’re never supposed to concede that financial support for childbearing should influence abortion decisions. But DeLauro blurted it out. That’s what happens when you open your mind.
Good God! We can’t have common sense legislation like this. This could set a terrible precedent.
The right to lifers are on the correct track when they want to kill people who are pro choice. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Right to life, until it comes out of the womb!
Wow, Christians that aren’t hypocrites. The times they are a changing. I predict more bloodshed from the wingnuts.
If this keeps up, the crazy wingnuts may be relegated to the irrelevant fringes….as they were pre-Newt.
Technology is stepping in.
The most effective techniques used by the pro-life are ultra-sound photos.
The scientific community is working on the next generation imaging technique which results in 3-D ultra-sound movies.
From the Pro-life side of things, I’m glad to see some legislation that will accomplish something in the real world.
and #5 is right…
I’ve been saying this for a while. The majority view of abortion is that it should be “safe, legal, and rare”, glad some politicians are finally recognizing that.
I have no idea what the objections to the day after pill are about though.
It’s a turning point in the war on ignorance and distrust? The abortion “debate” is ugly, mired in violence and unassailable pretense. Like faith.
Heh,
IF only they were competent enough to write laws that was ball park close to what the title says.
The title does make a nice sound byte though.
#2 They just don’t like baby killers and some forget to leave the final judgment to God.
The bill sounds to good to be true. Maybe something good can come out of Washington.
Yet no support for the only scientific and human permanent resolution: ability to take unwanted embryos from the mother without killing them and either re-implant them in women who want them or put the best of the technology forward to fully develop them (already feasible and in practice for 5 month and older premature born).
Result, no abortion or need for it, no stigma for reluctant mothers, no “murder” even in theory while fully preserving choice of whether to carry baby to the term or not… End of the debate.
12, Well the problem is how can you justify a stillbirth abortion? Stillbirth children can be put into incubators rather than “aborted” after being removed from the mother.
As for the pro-choicers, I’d love to have them support giving fathers of unwanted babies the right to abort the relationship with mothers who intend to keep the babies (i.e. gold diggers). That would level the playing field and allow fathers of unwanted babies the same freedoms women who want to abort a baby already enjoy. That’s if there’s a desire to level the playing field.
This is an interesting and encouraging turn of events. It will also flush out the wingnuts for whom abortion was just an excuse to keep women under the control of men. Let’s see what happens…
The “safe, legal, and rare” idea came from Bill Clinton(I think).
What this means on the pro-life side is this: Abortion will never be illegal in the US. If somehow it came to pass that the Supremes made it so there would be such a political outcry that nearly every pro-life pol would be summarily tossed out of office.
The solution is to use regulatory law to ensure that it is effectively impossible for abortion clinics to operate in red states.
To ensure “safety” abortion clinics are required to maintain world class surgical facilities in house to deal with complications. Of course other types of out patient medical complications would be transferred to a local hospital, but this is a special case.
To ensure “rare” women are required to have the humanity of the fetus explained at great length. Sometimes there is a “cooling off” period required to allow the woman to consider her sinfulness. In some areas of the south and midwest this means that an abortion requires multiple trips of several hundred miles. If you are poor or young this is onerous.
Something doesn’t need to illegal to have so many restrictions it is effectively unavailable.
It makes me ill to see Democrats kissing religious butt every election cycle. If the religious right wasn’t so homophobic, xenophobic, pro death penalty and war happy I would be more inclined to take their talk of “life” seriously.
Just how do opposing views “compromise?”
They don’t. The fight merely continues with a feint here and a dodge there until one side or the other “wins.”
When a woman wants an abortion, she either gets it or she does not.
Compromise that.
Why is it when a concern involves killing a unborn baby it’s unwarranted?
Over 12 million American babies murdered. Over 12 million illegal Mexican Trash imported to sit on welfare. Exactly why are we controlling our population? This is as bad as Kyoto Treaty, binding on us but not the trash in China or India. I don’t understand why the general population of the US is suicidal. Has anybody noticed that as we’ve got more and more immigrants in the US the more our morals have gone down. The same decline can be tied to Free Trade, but then they are both tied together in the same agenda aren’t they.
We no longer have a melting pot, but a policy of apartheid, where the native Americans are being quota’d out of our own country. Makes one wonder what kind of X-Fill agreement has been made?
Whatever………………..
Traaxx
traaxx, you flaming idiot:
Why is it when a concern involves killing a unborn baby it’s unwarranted? /// Because its no one else’s business/concern/impact except the mother and her family.
Over 12 million American babies murdered. /// Killed, not murdered.
Over 12 million illegal Mexican Trash imported to sit on welfare. /// Most work at minimum wage but I agree, illegals should be controlled to what end effect I’m not completely sure of.
Exactly why are we controlling our population? /// We aren’t.
This is as bad as Kyoto Treaty, binding on us but not the trash in China or India. /// USA hasn’t signed onto the Kyoto Protocols.
I don’t understand why the general population of the US is suicidal. /// You don’t understand much of anything including the rank order of USA in suicides.
Has anybody noticed that as we’ve got more and more immigrants in the US the more our morals have gone down. /// Yes, I have. Just as religion pushes science out of elementary classrooms. And the casual connection is what exactly?
The same decline can be tied to Free Trade, but then they are both tied together in the same agenda aren’t they. /// If they are tied, what is the rope?
We no longer have a melting pot, but a policy of apartheid, where the native Americans are being quota’d out of our own country. /// Native Americans are making a comeback. Course, they were immigrants too 12,000 years ago but first in, last out.
Makes one wonder what kind of X-Fill agreement has been made? /// X-Fill.
xxxxxxxx
Traaxx==you are an idiot three times over. Proud of it, or barely cognizant?
Most of this seems OK on the surface. I’ll have to check again later for a statement by the ACLU. They would likely have read the bill in its entirety and really analyzed it for reduction of human rights.
The one thing I will say based on the Slate article though is that the government should neither encourage nor discourage abortion in any way. That choice should be made by a woman and her doctor.
That said, I strongly encourage evidence based attempts to make people more reproductively responsible in the sex act itself rather than waiting until conception (or disease transmission) has already taken place.
Traaxx (showing us all how to type with no brain in the head),
I’ll ask the same question I asked on the last thread about abortion. Funny, no one on that thread answered. Let’s see if you do better.
Are you prepared to take responsibility for killing some of the women you force to carry to term?
The death rate for live childbirth was between 9.1 and 12.4 per 100,000 births in 1978, best I could do. Pregnancy related deaths reached a low of 7.5 per 100,000 in 1982 and have been on the rise since. This later number does include the number for abortion, so is important more for the fact that our medical care is getting worse or childbirth is getting riskier for some other reason and to show that the 1978 number is probably still fairly valid.
The death rates for abortion were 4.1 deaths per 100,000 abortions in 1972 to 0.4 in 1987. These numbers are interesting for two reasons. First, even unsafe illegal abortions are at least twice as safe as childbirth. Second, safe legal abortions make the procedure around 20 times as safe as childbirth.
BTW, I can’t post more than two links on this site. So, instead, I’ll post a link to a reply on my own blog that has the links to medical journal data backing up my numbers.
http://tinyurl.com/mfzp27
Scott–there are two invalid responses to your question. One better than the other, so I’ll give you the worse one:
The anti-choice/pro Fascist position will eventually figure out that their argument is that every sperm is precious. As such, every abortion involves the killing of at least one human being. Your statistics subtract this 1.0 occurence rate==add it back in and you will see that the “murder rate” from legalized abortions is from 20000 to 600 per cent higher than live births–using the figures you provide.
Asking a bible thumper for analysis beyond the bumper sticker is like an ant contemplating god don’t ya thing?
Good luck making the women adopt children, each and every middle-aged woman who wants kids that I know ever time time I’ve suggested them the choice of adoption they curl their lip in disgust as if I have told them the most offensive thing in the world.
Angel, they aren’t offended by adoption, but rather the suggestion they are too old to have one themselves.
#21, bobbo, sorry you missed it,
. . . every abortion involves the killing of at least one human being.
The basis of your error. And every anti-abortionist.
Can you show me even ONE human being killed during an abortion? As Misanthropic Scott pointed out, even with dated numbers, it is more rare for the mother to die during an abortion that it is to die during childbirth.
The collection of cells that form the fetus does not make the transition to human being until they draw that first breath. Until then, they are just a collection of cells, drawing sustenance from the host. Exactly the same as a cancerous tumor. And were you aware that both cancerous cells and fetuses have their own distinctive DNA?
Ralphie, you got me totally. Let me change my definition of human being, then I can change my statement that the response is invalid to valid, and voila==our agreement should be obvious even to you.
24. Ralph, the Bus Driver: And were you aware that both cancerous cells and fetuses have their own distinctive DNA?
Yes, that’s how you know there’s not just a single individual involved.
“the fetus does not make the transition to human being until they draw that first breath.”
I love reading these kinds of poorly thought out missives. These Rube Goldberg definitions just pop out from thin air for the purpose of clumsily justifying a position. People are artificially stopped from breathing all the time for various medical procedures. If the same was done to a foetus during and after birth, I guess this wouldn’t be a human being you say? Keep going.
There’s no difference between a baby born at term and a child born 2 1/2 months premature and that same child moments before birth – except in your convenient political imagination. They are all human beings.
RBG
Here’s a news item from yesterday where earnest politically correct writers have no clue as to when their party line supposes a foetus to be a person.
“A female fetus that was pronounced dead Sunday and found to be living while being prepared for burial later that night…”
“the father noticed signs of life in the female fetus and an uncle rushed it to the home of Dr. Aziz Daraushe…”
“The fetus, however, died a few hours later…”
http://tinyurl.com/n3obnh
RBG
RBG==aren’t you being unnecessarily strict in your requirement for accurate definitions of words to be used when discussing a subject?
We both know what Ralphie is aiming at even if he can’t put two words together.
Give him a break.
28 bobbo. My comment goes beyond Ralphie and is directed at a powerful and understandably desperate segment of society that has come up with weird definitions of life to conveniently justify their brand of sexual power politics and assuage what otherwise would be the behavioral equivalent of a horrific monstrosity. Nothing new here though if the ancient art of exterminating people is any guide.
In Canada, for example, they still believe you are suddenly transformed into a human only after the Great Pumpkin spreads pixie dust or some other magical process that can only happen during a delivery. One moment, uh, boogly cells… the next moment -kazaam!- human.
The same to-term infant could have easily been born one, two or more months earlier. The foetus is clearly more than a collection of inconsequential cells however much wishful thinking and group-think is involved.
RBG
I’m a very discrete surgeon
with instruments long and thin
I only do one operation
My god, how the money rolls in…
#29–RGB==your anguish overflows so much, its kinda hard to tell exactly what has you upset. But, I’ll give you a few Rube Goldberg definitions:
1. a powerful and understandably desperate segment of society /// Can’t tell if that is the Supreme Court of the USA, or pregnant women wanting an abortion.
2. sexual power politics /// a careful/thoughtful balancing of conflicting moral majority vs individual freedom/autonomy
3. behavioral equivalent of a horrific monstrosity /// nope, can’t equate a verb with a noun.
4. could have easily been born one, two or more months earlier /// easy for whom? Ever been to a premie ICU? The cost? The life time disability? The joy and relief of parents turning to pain and heartbreak?
5. foetus is clearly more than a collection of inconsequential cell /// Everybody knows that and says that except anti-choice advocates who want to mischaracterize their opponents. Has to do with weak arguments/losing in the Supreme Court/being a minority opinion I think.
#6–group-think //// Who is engaged in group think? The dozens of activists screaming “baby killer” 100 years from a clinic, or the single mother and her doctor making individually considered opinions?
RGB–use your intelligence for something more life affirming==I hear air conditioning and heating is still a good field.