Roe v Wade is on deck

[Bomb#20]

We do; but that rarely seems to stop the pro-pregnancy-choice from hassling the pro-fetal-life over calling themselves "pro-life" even though they favor gun rights and the death penalty and whatnot. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander...

I think that the dispute over labels has some legitimacy, however. The more extreme elements of the anti-abortion movement are not pro-life at all. They are more pro-birth. They want to give a civil right to unborn and underdeveloped fetuses.

And? The more extreme elements of the pro-abortion-rights movement are not pro-choice at all either. They are more pro-pregnant-woman's-choice. Everyone else involved -- the doctors, the nurses, the employers, the insurers, the taxpayers -- they expect to take part in helping a pregnant woman carry out her choice, whether those people want to choose to opt out or not.

The term "pro-abortion" is a bit more problematic,

The term "problematic" is problematic.

because it is not about persuading women to prefer or choose an abortion. It is about providing that option for a woman who has already decided to have an abortion. So it is more about providing women with a choice rather than trying to convince them to make a choice one way or the other.

The movement to legalize gay marriage is not about persuading people to prefer or choose to marry others of the same sex. It is about providing that option for a woman or man who has already decided to have a same-sex partner. So it is more about providing gay people with a choice rather than trying to convince them to make a choice one way or the other. And yet somehow in spite of this we manage to live with calling ourselves "pro-gay-marriage". We don't need to constantly insist that we're pro-choice-about-gay-marriage but not actually pro-gay-marriage.

Some of the propaganda coming out of the anti-abortion side conveys the opposite view--that "pro-abortionists" actually advocate for the option of choosing abortion. That is what motivated the change of preferred label from "pro-abortion" to "pro-choice".

If this is just about defusing anti-abortion rhetoric, good luck with that. No matter what we call ourselves they're going to go right on claiming the real agenda is to make money for abortion factories and reduce the number of black people.

 

[Copernicus]

We do; but that rarely seems to stop the pro-pregnancy-choice from hassling the pro-fetal-life over calling themselves "pro-life" even though they favor gun rights and the death penalty and whatnot. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander...

I think that the dispute over labels has some legitimacy, however. The more extreme elements of the anti-abortion movement are not pro-life at all. They are more pro-birth. They want to give a civil right to unborn and underdeveloped fetuses.

And? The more extreme elements of the pro-abortion-rights movement are not pro-choice at all either. They are more pro-pregnant-woman's-choice. Everyone else involved -- the doctors, the nurses, the employers, the insurers, the taxpayers -- they expect to take part in helping a pregnant woman carry out her choice, whether those people want to choose to opt out or not.

If you want to put it in those terms, then maybe anti-abortionists should call themselves "pro-government-choice". I have no problem with "pro-pregnant-woman's-choice", but I prefer the shorter label in order to save breath. Along with that choice goes the right to reject or accept all that helpful advice from people who don't have to face the consequences of carrying the pregnancy to term.

because it is not about persuading women to prefer or choose an abortion. It is about providing that option for a woman who has already decided to have an abortion. So it is more about providing women with a choice rather than trying to convince them to make a choice one way or the other.

The movement to legalize gay marriage is not about persuading people to prefer or choose to marry others of the same sex. It is about providing that option for a woman or man who has already decided to have a same-sex partner. So it is more about providing gay people with a choice rather than trying to convince them to make a choice one way or the other. And yet somehow in spite of this we manage to live with calling ourselves "pro-gay-marriage". We don't need to constantly insist that we're pro-choice-about-gay-marriage but not actually pro-gay-marriage.

The discussion is not about gay marriage, and there you go galloping off again with another needless analogy. Yes, I am "pro choice" when it comes to gay marriage. No, I would prefer not to call myself "pro-gay-marriage" as I believe that heterosexuals should also be able to make a choice.

Some of the propaganda coming out of the anti-abortion side conveys the opposite view--that "pro-abortionists" actually advocate for the option of choosing abortion. That is what motivated the change of preferred label from "pro-abortion" to "pro-choice".

If this is just about defusing anti-abortion rhetoric, good luck with that. No matter what we call ourselves they're going to go right on claiming the real agenda is to make money for abortion factories and reduce the number of black people.

Let's not drag racism into the discussion, if we can help it. I was hoping that my last post would totally defuse anti-abortion rhetoric and crush the opposition, but I can see that my work is cut out for me.

 

[Bomb#20]

I think that the dispute over labels has some legitimacy, however. The more extreme elements of the anti-abortion movement are not pro-life at all. They are more pro-birth. They want to give a civil right to unborn and underdeveloped fetuses.

And? The more extreme elements of the pro-abortion-rights movement are not pro-choice at all either. They are more pro-pregnant-woman's-choice. Everyone else involved -- the doctors, the nurses, the employers, the insurers, the taxpayers -- they expect to take part in helping a pregnant woman carry out her choice, whether those people want to choose to opt out or not.

If you want to put it in those terms, then maybe anti-abortionists should call themselves "pro-government-choice". I have no problem with "pro-pregnant-woman's-choice", but I prefer the shorter label in order to save breath. Along with that choice goes the right to reject or accept all that helpful advice from people who don't have to face the consequences of carrying the pregnancy to term.

"Helpful advice"? Is that what you're calling it when a person wants to get out of helping somebody else abort, but the government makes a choice that he or she has to help? Maybe people who favor that sort of coercion should also call themselves "pro-government-choice".

The discussion is not about gay marriage, and there you go galloping off again with another needless analogy.

It's a needed analogy. And it will continue to be needed until either you recognize that you're special-pleading, or else you eventually choose to try to come to grips with it, and offer some explanation for why "trying to convince them to make a choice one way or the other" is a distinction that matters to abortion but does not matter to gay marriage -- some explanation more substantive than a Reagan "There you go again".

Yes, I am "pro choice" when it comes to gay marriage. No, I would prefer not to call myself "pro-gay-marriage" as I believe that heterosexuals should also be able to make a choice.

Bully for you. There is no pressure among the pro-choice-on-gay-marriage community to reject the term "pro-gay-marriage". The rest of us prefer the shorter label, in order to save breath.

 

[Jarhyn]

The fact is that there is a closed width to the niche of people who we can afford to allow to help.

The ones who refuse to do their job because it involves siding on the trolley problem with the fully fledged adult don't deserve to be standing in that place, and also standing in the way of the wellbeing of the adult human.

Early term abortions are done in offices where all the employees are there to do that job with no excuse.

Late term abortions are done to save the life of the mother.

People in a hospital who refuse to save a woman's life because she is going to, but has not yet lost the child, do not have any right to work there. Period.

 

[Copernicus]

Bomb, I have nothing further to add to what I've already said on the subject of "pro-choice" vs "pro-life". Thanks for the discussion.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I was not aware that a D&C would be performed on someone actively miscarrying. When I had spontaeous abortions, once as late as 12 weeks, I was not offered any care during the miscarriage. I sat in the waiting room to get my HCG, doing the cramping, the bleeding and all, then went home when they said, “yup, that there is a spontaneous abortion. Call us to schedule another HCG in a day or two.” This was in a blue state.

So I don’t understand this post.
Maybe things have changed in the last 20 years?

If the uterus empties completely they don't do a D&C. If the uterus doesn't completely empty they need to scrape it out--the remains will otherwise risk infection.

Unfortunately, we are seeing what we saw back when there was strong enforcement of abortion being illegal--doctors afraid to intervene in an incomplete miscarriage for fear of being accused of performing an abortion.8

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I wasn't tested--very early miscarriage. I was just told to report any prolonged bleeding, any fever, etc.

In other words, any signs of the uterus not fully emptying.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Ben Franklin published a formula for abortion.

Men have ripped off women's ideas and knowledge for millennia.

Ben Franklin--one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. I was presenting it as evidence of how the people who made our Constitution viewed abortion.

 

[Toni]

Ben Franklin published a formula for abortion.

Men have ripped off women's ideas and knowledge for millennia.

Ben Franklin--one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. I was presenting it as evidence of how the people who made our Constitution viewed abortion.

 

[Copernicus]

Ben Franklin published a formula for abortion.

Men have ripped off women's ideas and knowledge for millennia.

Ben Franklin--one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. I was presenting it as evidence of how the people who made our Constitution viewed abortion.

But the Declaration had nothing to do with the Constitution. Franklin was a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention--the oldest member, as a matter of fact. Nevertheless, it isn't clear whether Franklin really approved of abortion or not. See the following article, which is fairly inconclusive about Franklin's actual feelings about abortion:

Snopes: Did Ben Franklin Publish a Recipe on How to Induce Abortion in a Math Textbook?

 

[Ford]

So apparently, our nation's capitol is powered by incinerated fetuses.


No...seriously

“Bodies [are] thrown in medical waste bins, and in places like Washington, D.C., burned to power the lights of the cities’ homes and streets,” Americans United for Life President Catherine Glenn Foster proclaimed.

“Let that image sink in with you for a moment,” she continued. “The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators, think of what we’re doing to ourselves so callously and so numbly.”

This is a person who makes a shit-ton of money and is called as an "expert" witness in front of Congress.

I am at a loss...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why would we burn the fetuses when could hook them up into a matrix and using all the power they generate.

Ben Franklin published a formula for abortion.

Men have ripped off women's ideas and knowledge for millennia.

Ben Franklin--one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. I was presenting it as evidence of how the people who made our Constitution viewed abortion.

*sigh*

 

[Bomb#20]

The fact is that there is a closed width to the niche of people who we can afford to allow to help.

The theory that "we can afford to allow" claims are matters of "fact" rather than matters of preference is dubious.

The theory that it's a worthwhile tradeoff for the nation's leading employer of Pakistani physicians to be Uber and for tens of thousands of Americans to die every year on account of "drug lag" (i.e., medicines already approved in Europe waiting for the FDA to get around to approving them) because we can't afford to widen the niche of people we allow to help is dubious.

What isn't dubious is that the people who favor keeping the width of the niche of people who we allow to help closed are not pro-choice.

The ones who refuse to do their job because it involves siding on the trolley problem with the fully fledged adult don't deserve to be standing in that place, and also standing in the way of the wellbeing of the adult human.

Early term abortions are done in offices where all the employees are there to do that job with no excuse.

Late term abortions are done to save the life of the mother.

People in a hospital who refuse to save a woman's life because she is going to, but has not yet lost the child, do not have any right to work there. Period.

That's a perfectly legitimate policy position to take. Likewise, when a person who joined the military because he was willing to kill and to risk his life to defend his country from invaders, and who took the pay and benefits that came with that job, decides he's opting out when the chain of command orders him overseas to take out a government that attacked his country, because he didn't sign up for a foreign war, that too is a perfectly legitimate policy position to take. But he probably should not call himself a pacifist.

 

[Jarhyn]

The fact is that there is a closed width to the niche of people who we can afford to allow to help.

The theory that "we can afford to allow" claims are matters of "fact" rather than matters of preference is dubious.

The theory that it's a worthwhile tradeoff for the nation's leading employer of Pakistani physicians to be Uber and for tens of thousands of Americans to die every year on account of "drug lag" (i.e., medicines already approved in Europe waiting for the FDA to get around to approving them) because we can't afford to widen the niche of people we allow to help is dubious.

What isn't dubious is that the people who favor keeping the width of the niche of people who we allow to help closed are not pro-choice.

The ones who refuse to do their job because it involves siding on the trolley problem with the fully fledged adult don't deserve to be standing in that place, and also standing in the way of the wellbeing of the adult human.

Early term abortions are done in offices where all the employees are there to do that job with no excuse.

Late term abortions are done to save the life of the mother.

People in a hospital who refuse to save a woman's life because she is going to, but has not yet lost the child, do not have any right to work there. Period.

That's a perfectly legitimate policy position to take. Likewise, when a person who joined the military because he was willing to kill and to risk his life to defend his country from invaders, and who took the pay and benefits that came with that job, decides he's opting out when the chain of command orders him overseas to take out a government that attacked his country, because he didn't sign up for a foreign war, that too is a perfectly legitimate policy position to take. But he probably should not call himself a pacifist.

See, I never supported deserters so I don't get why you would try to draw that analogy. Even so, the deserter is still a pacifist, even if he is a traitorous asshole who wasted everyone's time and money.

In fact, I joined the army, deployed like everyone else, and the only orders I refused to follow were the illegal kind, and the only one I ever had to refuse was a direct order to inflict medically significant self-harm: to cut myself with a dirty sharpened rock.

It is not a "choice" as in "something someone has a right to choose upon" to be hired and be a nurse.

It is a privilege, as is the mercy that any child in the womb receives.

It may be your preference, but ultimately it is someone else's choice, sometimes the distillation of many people's choices.

But for the applicant or employee or the fetus, it is someone else's choice whether they continue doing that thing.

 

[steve_bank]

A related issue.

Unborn Victims of Violence Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-212) is a United States law that recognizes an embryo or fetus in utero as a legal victim, if they are injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."[1]

The law is codified in two sections of the United States Code: Title 18, Chapter 1 (Crimes), §1841 (18 USC 1841) and Title 10, Chapter 22 (Uniform Code of Military Justice) §919a (Article 119a). The law applies only to certain offenses over which the United States government has jurisdiction, including certain crimes committed on federal properties, against certain federal officials and employees, and by members of the military. In addition, it covers certain crimes that are defined by statute as federal offenses wherever they occur, no matter who commits them, such as certain crimes of terrorism. Because of principles of federalism embodied in the United States Constitution, federal criminal law does not apply to crimes prosecuted by the individual U.S. states, although 38 states also recognize the fetus or "unborn child" as a crime victim, at least for purposes of homicide or feticide.[2]

The legislation was both hailed and vilified by various legal observers who interpreted the measure as a step toward granting legal personhood to human fetuses, even though the bill explicitly contained a provision excepting abortion, stating that the bill would not "be construed to permit the prosecution" "of any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf", "of any person for any medical treatment of the pregnant woman or her unborn child" or "of any woman with respect to her unborn child". The reticence of a federal law to authorize federal prosecution of a particular act committed under federal jurisdiction does not prevent states from passing their own laws against the act committed under their jurisdiction. Meanwhile, the definition of all unborn babies as "members of the species homo sapiens" in section (d) says what proposed "personhood" laws say.[3] Sponsors of such proposals say such legal language will trigger the collapse clause in Roe v. Wade, by establishing what they suggest Roe said must be established for legal abortion to end.[4] Several state supreme courts have ruled that sections (a) through (c) are not threatened by Roe,[5] but no court has addressed whether Roe can survive the suggested triggering of its collapse clause by section (d).

The bill contained the alternate title of Laci and Conner's Law after the California mother (Laci Peterson) and fetus (Conner Peterson) whose deaths were widely publicized during the later stages of the congressional debate on the bill in 2003 and 2004. Husband Scott Peterson was convicted of double homicide under California's fetal homicide law.

I think this is a constitutional stretch.

What was the Roe v Wade clause?


In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in McCorvey's favor ruling that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion.

Roe v. Wade - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Rhea]

I was not aware that a D&C would be performed on someone actively miscarrying. When I had spontaeous abortions, once as late as 12 weeks, I was not offered any care during the miscarriage. I sat in the waiting room to get my HCG, doing the cramping, the bleeding and all, then went home when they said, “yup, that there is a spontaneous abortion. Call us to schedule another HCG in a day or two.” This was in a blue state.

So I don’t understand this post.
Maybe things have changed in the last 20 years?

If the uterus empties completely they don't do a D&C. If the uterus doesn't completely empty they need to scrape it out--the remains will otherwise risk infection.

Dear Loren,

I know this already.

Sorry for the snark, but as you can see I was discussing “actively miscarrying,” as the article quoted someone in the waiting room doing the cramping and bleeding steps. And as you can see, I was one of those people (more than once.). And as you can see, they sent me home to return for a later, second, HGC test to make sure it was complete. I totally don’t need a childfree man ‘splaining it to me.

(Did you even process what I wrote? Or just reflexively answer?)

Unfortunately, we are seeing what we saw back when there was strong enforcement of abortion being illegal--doctors afraid to intervene in an incomplete miscarriage for fear of being accused of performing an abortion.8

And I agree that is is a real issue about danger - but it is not accurate in the article to claim that this is relevant while a woman is actively cramping and bleeding.


As I said.

And this is why men, even well-meaning ones, should not be making any rules about this.

 

[steve_bank]

There was a statistic in te 90s that could be interpreted to say that following legal widely available birth control crime took a dip. Less numbers of unwanted and uncred for kids.

 

[lpetrich]

There was a statistic in te 90s that could be interpreted to say that following legal widely available birth control crime took a dip. Less numbers of unwanted and uncred for kids.

That's at least possible, but there is an additional factor: banning tetraethyl lead from gasoline, where it was used as an antiknock additive. Lead has deleterious mental effects like lower IQ and less impulse control, thus leading to more criminality, and lead from car exhaust was enough to induce significant amounts of these effects.

 

[Rhea]

Well, I guess we’ll get t do the crime experiment a second time, this time whith the lead pollution controlled for.

 

[steve_bank]

It was not just from gas. A bigger issue was kids eating lead paint. And lead water pipes.

Looking back if I had gotten a girl pregnant in the 70s it would have been bad for me, the girl, and the kid. I was unprepared to raise kids. I was pretty irresponsible.

Coincident with birth control there was also a spike in STDs. I read somewhere before pemcillin STDs were a strong limiter on sex outside of marriage. Al Coone famously suffered from syphilis and went mad.