My father, who is a lawyer (and used to be a full time minister) did help me sort out this ethical trap years ago when I used to be very pro-choice.
i didn't know you were pregnant!!! that's awesome!! my wife is as well...congratulations!!! that's awesome...i just like to rag on lawyers...no reason.
When is she due? We are expecting somewhere between Christmas and New Years (hopefully - for the taxbreak) Everyone likes to rag on lawyers. When I went to culinary school my father was rather happy about it and pointed out that chefs are welcome everywhere but lawyers and ministers (and lawyer-ministers) are always assumed to be a downer at parties.
you know i'm a lawyer, right? self-inflicted humor is a good thing. she's due in mid-Nov...Nov. 14th...but i have some suspicion it will be earlier than that. she's small.
So this came up in my public policy class yesterday. The prof said that late term abortions aren't even a women's choice, only doctors can make that call. Max, can you show me some literature that proves mother's were doing this under the guise of mental health (specifically stressing over how they will afford and take care of a child and that the majority of these late term abortions were performed for this reason). It's not that I don't trust you, it's that I know you aren't the one out there collecting the data so either you read something official or you are just passing on somebody else's propoganda. Also, the type of abortion where you dismember the unborn baby in the mother's body then remove it piece by piece is still allowed. It's a more dangerous process to the mother.
This is simply wrong. I have personal experience to the contrary...not me personally, but people I've become acquainted with. Not to mention Congressional testimony, under oath, from abortion providers...and the reports they provide to the state regulatory agencies.
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/Koop on partial-birth abortion 1996.pdf The National Right to Life Council had this article from C. Everett Koop, the former Surgeon General, which was featured in the AMA Newsletter. Koop said: "In no way can I twist my mind to see that the late-term abortions as described -- you know, partial birth and then destruction of the unborn child before the head is born -- is a medical necessity for the mother. It certainly can't be a necessity for the baby. So I am opposed to partial birth abortions."
As Washington Post medical writer David Brown, M.D., concluded in a September 17, 1996 article: Contrary to a widely held public impression, third-trimester abortion is not outlawed in the United States. The landmark Supreme Court decisions Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, decided together in 1973, permit abortion on demand up until the time of fetal "viability." . . . In Doe v. Bolton the court ruled that abortion could be performed after fetal viability if the operating physician judged the procedure necessary to protect the life or health of the woman. "Health" was broadly defined. "Medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors -- physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman's age -- relevant to the well-being of the patient," the court wrote. "All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment." Because of this definition, life-threatening conditions need not exist in order for a woman to get a third-trimester abortion.
I think all this will do is increase "under-the-table" abortions. I think abortion is very cowardly unless either the mother or the baby might die. If you can't support it, give him/her up for adoption. It's better than death. If you want to get rid of it after the third month, you might as well wait 9 months and stab it in the back yourself. I may be a bit screwed in the head after what MadMax wrote about that nurse seeing half the baby and the scissors and stuff... WTF? How can anyone support such a thing? That is a sad sad story. Congrats to MadMax, his wife and the JV's btw.
This article may be most telling. This is why I say that, on the other side of further medical technology, we will look back on this period of history and regard abortion on demand in the same way we regard slavery and genocide that haunt our history: http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/PBA NYT lied.pdf This is an article from the NY Times in 1996...where the freaking Executive Director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers readily admits that he lied through his teeth when he said partial birth abortion was rarely used...and that when it was used, usually the mother's life/health was in jeopardy. "In the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along. Mr. Fitzsimmons said, 'The abortion rights folks know it. The anti-abortion folks know it, and so probably does everyone else.' One of the facts of abortion, he said, is that women enter abortion clinics to kill their fetuses. 'It is a form of killing. You're ending a life.' And while he said that troubled him, Mr. Fitzsimmons continued to support this procedure and abortion rights in general."
You know Max, you don't have to just gather your stuff from pro life websites, I found similar things, including the David Brown article on PBS's website in transcript about how the media handled this back in 1995, letting pro choice bias get in the way and what not. It seems pro choice people did lie, but can somebody tell me 100% that the situation where a mother's health is in danger or a baby is gonna be born with it's brain outside of it's head and probably not live long can't and doesn't happen? The way I see it now is that people are abusing a medical procedure. Correct me if I'm wrong, but since these abuses don't fit under the wording of Roe v Wade, aren't they illegal anyway? I know it's not the same, but isn't banning this procedure similar to banning prescription painkillers because so many people abuse them and there are doctors who right false prescriptions? So until the AMA comes out and says there is absolutely no reason for this procedure, I'm still gonna be skeptical.
Hasn't the AMA already taken that position? By the way...these links were to a pro-life website...but they cited New York Times articles and an AMA Newsletter. Those are not exactly pro-life journals, Oski. Explain to me why you disagree with Koop's position...that if the baby is already in the process of being born, how in the world is it of medical necessity for the woman to birth all of the baby but the head.
Oski: The AMA's official position is to support the BAN on partial birth abortions. So how does this affect your position? http://www.ama-assn.org/apps/pf_new...=AMA/BnGnC&catg=AMA/DIR&&nth=1&&st_p=0&nth=1& H-5.981 Policy Concerning HR 1122. The AMA maintains its support for HR 1122 (Partial Birth Abortion Act of 1997) as amended while continuing to work with sponsors, and with state legislators on state bills, to improve the language further, particularly to delete the provision dealing with criminal penalties. (Res. 234, A-97)
Further on the AMA's position: http://www.ama-assn.org/apps/pf_new...=AMA/BnGnC&catg=AMA/DIR&&nth=1&&st_p=0&nth=2& Although third-trimester abortions can be performed to preserve the life or health of the mother, they are, in fact, generally not necessary for those purposes. Except in extraordinary circumstances, maternal health factors which demand termination of the pregnancy can be accommodated without sacrifice of the fetus, and the near certainty of the independent viability of the fetus argues for ending the pregnancy by appropriate delivery.
Getting back to the verdict at hand... Here's another article reporting the decision then lays out the reasons. Essentially, the judge concluded the law was deficient in three ways: a) It placed an undue burdon on the woman (previously defined as a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus) b) the language was dangerously vague (with potential criminal consequences to the doctors) c) it lacked an exemption for medical action to preserve the woman's health. I don't think those are unreasonable concerns. Prenatal testing is often done in the 20th or so week -- and if there are genetic problems abortion is offered then. (I was quite suprised at how late this happens -- which is why we refused the tests -- but that's food for a different thread). It's important to recognize that legislation in this area affects many women (and their families) and that it's not simply a matter of women selfishly changing their minds about whether they want a baby. And it's not necessarily a matter of otherwise healthy babies being aborted on a whim. If they want to ban abortion, or ban abortion past the first trimester -- they should do so. And face their constituants on that issue. If they want to better define preservation of health, or viable fetus -- again, they should do that. But vague, ill thought out laws purporting to address one thing, while attempting to do something quite different should be overturned. Looks to me that this was a very poorly worded ban. I hope the supreme court agrees.
