Roe v Wade is on deck

[Elixir]

I’ll bet some of you feel the same.

Lots of government guns around here, but they cause almost zero shootings. We get lots of out of State hunters with rifles, and often they also carry sidearms - they make me nervous. If you’re going into a grocery store, leave it in the fucking car!

Unless they can lock it up out of sight and give no indication there's likely to be a gun in the car, better to carry it. Reality is the cars of gun people are targets because of the chance of finding a gun--valuable and easy to sell on the street.

They typically have a stack of rifles in the rack easily visible from a hundred yards behind the truck. Leaving the sidearm in the glove box isn’t going to attract any more attention.

 

[Tigers!]

I’ll bet some of you feel the same.

Lots of government guns around here, but they cause almost zero shootings. We get lots of out of State hunters with rifles, and often they also carry sidearms - they make me nervous.

If you’re going into a grocery store, leave it in the fucking car!

I am astounded that you even need to make such a statement out loud for others to read.

 

[Tigers!]

I’ll bet some of you feel the same.

Lots of government guns around here, but they cause almost zero shootings. We get lots of out of State hunters with rifles, and often they also carry sidearms - they make me nervous. If you’re going into a grocery store, leave it in the fucking car!

Unless they can lock it up out of sight and give no indication there's likely to be a gun in the car, better to carry it. Reality is the cars of gun people are targets because of the chance of finding a gun--valuable and easy to sell on the street.

So why have guns in the cars then?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I’ll bet some of you feel the same.

Lots of government guns around here, but they cause almost zero shootings. We get lots of out of State hunters with rifles, and often they also carry sidearms - they make me nervous. If you’re going into a grocery store, leave it in the fucking car!

Unless they can lock it up out of sight and give no indication there's likely to be a gun in the car, better to carry it. Reality is the cars of gun people are targets because of the chance of finding a gun--valuable and easy to sell on the street.

So why have guns in the cars then?

They'd slide off if they were on the car.

 

[TomC]

Perhaps posters would like to brainstorm about how decent folks could make women's reproductive rights and freedoms into a winning campaign plank issue?
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

Thank you for the comprehensive reply. I'm trimming for length.

I would consider it murder if someone decided, against the wishes of the woman, to terminate the pregnancy without some very extreme and extremely unlikely circumstances.

Just so I'm clear, if someone else kills the fetus without the mother's permission it's murder; but if the mother kills the fetus it isn't.

I learned a long time ago, not to judge why people make the decisions that they make.

I understand the sentiment completely. I'm also completely certain that it's not as true as you might think it is. I'm betting there are all kinds of situations in which you would just a person for the decisions they've made. I could be wrong... but I'd bet that you would feel within your rights to judge someone who left their small dog outside in inclement weather without sufficient shelter or who neglected the welfare of their child because they decided to spend money on a new TV instead of groceries.

You haven't been particularly shy about judging posters here for their beliefs or views when they disagree with your own. Everyone judges others. We should all aspire to have some grace about it, but I don't think that judging others is necessarily a bad thing.

No one should have to bare her soul to anyone in order or to put on some kind of performance to justify her decision to end a pregnancy she feels she cannot continue to carry.

I don't think anyone should have to bare their soul. I simply think that when the pregnancy is far enough along that the infant can reasonably survive outside the womb, it should only be allowed when there's a solid medical reason for it.

LD has stated that he supports a women deciding to abort three days prior to delivery for any reason. I respect that he has that opinion, but I very strongly disagree with it. At that point, I can't see an rational way in which it's not murder. There's a very broad range of gestation where it's gray, and I'm very happy to discuss where the optimal place to draw that line might be. I can be somewhat flexible on what specific stage of gestation should be chosen as the limit, and I'd prefer to err on the somewhat later end. But I'm not willing to pretend it's okay to kill a baby two weeks before delivery without a very solid medical reason to do so.

"Don't kill babies" seems like something that shouldn't have to be said.

 

[Emily Lake]

You keep saying you support the framework set out in Roe v. Wade in which abortions rights were unfettered before the point of fetal viability but could be restricted after it. Okay. But then you present a thought experiment so extreme the situation it did not, and could not, exist when Roe v. Wade was in effect, one in which women in the last week before their due date can say, "I don't want to be a mother so kill my baby" and doctors immediately perform the most destructive form of abortion that exists and don't even try to deliver the fetus alive. That argument is based entirely on the notion that women can't be trusted to make good choices so choice must be preemptively taken from them.

Is that what you believe?

I believe that if given the opportunity, at least some humans will do absolutely abhorrent things. Lots of humans don't make good decisions, this isn't something unique to women, and trying to disingenuously spin this as be not trusting women specifically is bad faith.

Parents kill their infants. They beat their toddlers to death. They shake them until they get brain damage and sometimes die. They sexually abuse their children. Humans lie and cheat and steal and murder pretty regularly.

Why on earth do you think that this specific situation will be magically immune from bad people doing bad things?

I believe that having reasonable safeguards against rare or unlikely events is an appropriate approach, and is the cornerstone of most government regulations.

 

[Emily Lake]

Because I do not know the specifics of why someone needs to terminate a pregnancy. Elective abortions after 'viability' were NEVER legal under RvW. Any decision to terminate a pregnancy must be made between the patient and doctor, not the government. Any later term abortions performed are for specific medical reasons and are WANTED pregnancies. It's CRUEL to allow government intervention when it's already a devastating time for the parents. And the laws saying the fetus must be WISKED away to perform "life saving measure" on a non-viable fetus is beyond cruel. The parents are unable to say hold their child and say goodbye. This is NOT something the government should have ANY SAY IN.

If elective abortions after viability were never legal under RvW... why are so many of you opposed to me supporting the exact same limitation?

Why are you ADDING things I haven't asked for and don't support, as if that's somehow an argument against my very sensible position of completely unfettered access to abortions prior to viability, but limited to medical necessity after viability?

I think it's because you keep presenting an argument against trusting women and their doctors to make good choices about when an abortion is medically necessary

In what way is "only when medically necessary" arguing against doctors determining when it's medically necessary?

and excluding situations where an abortion is advisable for other reasons, such as the futility of carrying a fetus that can't survive outside the uterus.

At what point have I suggested that a fetus that cannot survive should be prohibited from termination?

 

[Toni]

You keep saying you support the framework set out in Roe v. Wade in which abortions rights were unfettered before the point of fetal viability but could be restricted after it. Okay. But then you present a thought experiment so extreme the situation it did not, and could not, exist when Roe v. Wade was in effect, one in which women in the last week before their due date can say, "I don't want to be a mother so kill my baby" and doctors immediately perform the most destructive form of abortion that exists and don't even try to deliver the fetus alive. That argument is based entirely on the notion that women can't be trusted to make good choices so choice must be preemptively taken from them.

Is that what you believe?

I believe that if given the opportunity, at least some humans will do absolutely abhorrent things. Lots of humans don't make good decisions, this isn't something unique to women, and trying to disingenuously spin this as be not trusting women specifically is bad faith.

Parents kill their infants. They beat their toddlers to death. They shake them until they get brain damage and sometimes die. They sexually abuse their children. Humans lie and cheat and steal and murder pretty regularly.

Why on earth do you think that this specific situation will be magically immune from bad people doing bad things?

I believe that having reasonable safeguards against rare or unlikely events is an appropriate approach, and is the cornerstone of most government regulations.

Who do you believe should establish those reasonable safeguards?

I believe that those reasonable safeguards are best left to relevant associations that oversee best practices for obstetrics, gynecology, neonatology and genetics.

In other words: not any legislature or court.

 

[Emily Lake]

Emily’s scenario of a woman who wanted to abort a few days before the due date.

I would consider that, should that happen. It would be murder unless there were some extenuating circumstance that I cannot come up with atm.

OTOH, no licensed medical provider would agree to such a scenario. No medical facility would allow such a thing.

You have more faith in the medical establishment than I do.

And bear in mind that there are doctors out there with the exact same view that LD has quite openly shared - that a woman should be able to abort without any medical necessity at any point in the pregnancy with no limitations whatsoever. Given that some doctors absolutely believe that a woman should have a right to abort 3 days prior to delivery... what makes you think they wouldn't do so were it legal?

Doctors do all kinds of illegal things. Not all doctors by any means, and really only a very small number of doctors. But they still absolutely do it.

Doctors do things like take Navajos off of the reservation with the promise of free alcoholism treatment, bus them to a different state, get them IDs as "residents" of that state, dump them in a repurposed empty motel, and then continue giving them alcohol and no treatment whatsoever in order to bill that state's Medicaid agency. Doctors upcode and overbill and straight up fraudulently bill on a regular basis. They bill for services never rendered, for patients never seen.

What on earth leads you to believe that in this one special unique situation, no doctor or facility would ever do something you think they ought not do?

 

[Emily Lake]

Why are you ADDING things I haven't asked for and don't support, as if that's somehow an argument against my very sensible position of completely unfettered access to abortions prior to viability, but limited to medical necessity after viability?

Very sensible, as long as you have, in hand,
a ready mechanism for instantly determining both the viability of a fetus that threatens a pregnant woman’s life and the level of threat to the woman’s life posed by that fetus, so an informed judgment of medical necessity can be handed down and the doc(s) can get a signoff or denial of permission to perform an abortion, maybe before it becomes a moot issue due to mom and/or fetus already being dead of complications.

Why do you persist in dishonestly inserting things I've not asked for?

Sounds good Emily, as long as the docs doing the abortions are unconditionally indemnified regardless of outcome, e.g. they decide it’s taking too long for all facts to be confirmed and the woman is crashing so they proceed and both the woman and the fetus die.

Why do you make up additional hoops and barriers that I don't support as if that counters my opinion?

 

[Emily Lake]

Sometimes, abortion is necessary or extremely desirable after the first two trimesters. A fatal fetal abnormality may not be discovered until late into the pregnancy. Death for the fetus is inevitable and likely painful. Continuing the pregnancy is dangerous for the mother’s health.

Thus the ever present and common allowance for risk to the mother and severe abnormality. Which I've covered repeatedly. And which was part of the standard under RvW.

Yes, this is rare but not so rare as we might wish it to be. Third trimester abortions are also rare, but not so rare as we might wish.

It is absolutely not the job of you or me or any legislator or judge to decide the amount of danger or deleterious health effects are sufficient t to allow a girl or woman to choose abortion.

But it's reasonable to expect that some danger our deleterious health effect should be present, don't you agree? Do you think it's unreasonable to think that there should be some actual medical reason that late in the game?

I think that neither you nor I nor any legislator is qualified in any way to decide what level of risk or harm a woman or girl must suffer in order to be thought capable of making a decision about her own body?

I'm just curious about if we (men) are allowed to intervene in just this single medical case, why aren't men allowed to intervene in other things, like breast augmentation. Why are we only allowed to intervene and prevent access to health care for one woman's procedure? Seems kind of strict if you ask me. If we can intervene in one, then let us intervene in more! We have ideas you see.

Doctor: Emily, now that we've discussed this fully.... before we go anything further, I wanted to bring this random guy to provide us his opinion on your treatment options.
Random Guy: *whateva*
Emily Lake: Wow! I'm so glad we brought in some random person with his agenda to better inform my doctor and myself about what I should be allowed to do.
Doctor: So leeches it is!

We, as a society, make laws against killing people. Is there ANY situation in which you - personally - think that abortion is tantamount to murder?

Set aside all of your "oh that never happens" and "nobody would ever do that" hypotheticals, and give my your principles.

Do you - personally - think that a woman three days away from delivery of a health infant, and with no known or identifiable risk to her life, should be legally allowed to kill the baby inside her womb?

Are you answering a question with a question? I can do that too.

What question?

What is the difference between 3 days and 6 weeks? 6 weeks or 8 weeks? 8 weeks or 10 weeks? What is the time threshold you think you have the right to tell a pregnant woman to "fuck off and have the child"?

Seriously, your "support of abortion rights" is betrayed by your insistence on calling abortion murder.

I only call it murder in the last trimester, and even then only if there's no medical reason for it.

Why do you think it's acceptable to kill a baby 3 days prior to delivery when there's no identifiable risk to the mother, and no indication of severe health issues in the baby?

 

[Emily Lake]

That argument is based entirely on the notion that women can't be trusted to make good choices so choice must be preemptively taken from them.

Authoritarians use arguments like Emily’s to justify imposing their own preferences on others. Not by ensuring that the person or people most qualified and/or most invested in the decisions to be made, are empowered to make decisions about maternal or fetal healthcare, but by ensuring that individuals are NOT vested with the power to control their own bodies. They prefer to appoint third parties to wield decision making powers, ensuring that the decisions made are consistent with the “values” of that authority rather than those of the individual who is effected.
That’s what makes them authoritarians. Inferring and conferring “personhood” upon fetuses is not an empathic urge, it’s the indulgence of a dominance impulse.

Oh FFS, your disinformation is tiresome. I LITERALLY want it to be a medical decision, based on maternal and fetal health care. The "third party" I want involved is LITERALLY the doctor.

So somehow, the thing I actually want is transformed into the thing I'm trying to get rid of? How wrapped up in your own fantasy do you have to be to type this out and think you're making sense?

 

[Toni]

Emily’s scenario of a woman who wanted to abort a few days before the due date.

I would consider that, should that happen. It would be murder unless there were some extenuating circumstance that I cannot come up with atm.

OTOH, no licensed medical provider would agree to such a scenario. No medical facility would allow such a thing.

You have more faith in the medical establishment than I do.

And bear in mind that there are doctors out there with the exact same view that LD has quite openly shared - that a woman should be able to abort without any medical necessity at any point in the pregnancy with no limitations whatsoever. Given that some doctors absolutely believe that a woman should have a right to abort 3 days prior to delivery... what makes you think they wouldn't do so were it legal?

Doctors do all kinds of illegal things. Not all doctors by any means, and really only a very small number of doctors. But they still absolutely do it.

Doctors do things like take Navajos off of the reservation with the promise of free alcoholism treatment, bus them to a different state, get them IDs as "residents" of that state, dump them in a repurposed empty motel, and then continue giving them alcohol and no treatment whatsoever in order to bill that state's Medicaid agency. Doctors upcode and overbill and straight up fraudulently bill on a regular basis. They bill for services never rendered, for patients never seen.

What on earth leads you to believe that in this one special unique situation, no doctor or facility would ever do something you think they ought not do?

I have much, much more faith in American Board of Obstetrics and American board of Obstetrics and Gynecologists than I do in any legislature or court.

There will never be a perfect agreement on who should make those decisions and what criteria they should use.

I have thought a great deal about this and yes, my beliefs have changed somewhat over the years.

My belief is that if we are truly interested in reducing the number of abortions, we would have universal healthcare, with comprehensive care for all, and a concept traction of effort on prenatal and at least a year of postnatal care and comprehensive care for all from birth through death, including hospice care when appropriate.

We would have accessible and affordable housing for all, accessible and affordable ( free if necessary) mental health coverage further all, affordable universal daycare, comprehensive age appropriate sex education for all ( it’s shocking to me how little adults actually know about sex and also about how their own bodies work and how to keep them healthy). Accessible education from preschool through university/trade schools//professional schools/graduate programs. A better work/life balance that would probably be 32-36 hrs/week as the norm.

 

[Playball40]

Great. So what's your objection to... restricting abortion to the first two trimesters?

Because I do not know the specifics of why someone needs to terminate a pregnancy. Elective abortions after 'viability' were NEVER legal under RvW. Any decision to terminate a pregnancy must be made between the patient and doctor, not the government. Any later term abortions performed are for specific medical reasons and are WANTED pregnancies. It's CRUEL to allow government intervention when it's already a devastating time for the parents. And the laws saying the fetus must be WISKED away to perform "life saving measure" on a non-viable fetus is beyond cruel. The parents are unable to say hold their child and say goodbye. This is NOT something the government should have ANY SAY IN.

Objection: "elective". Doesn't mean what you think it means.

Medically, anything you schedule is elective. Doesn't matter if you have no chance of survival without it. This means that fetal defect abortions get listed as "elective". And those who would cram religion down our throats exploit this to pretend things are happening that aren't.

Fair. I mean an abortion for no medically necessary reason.

 

[Emily Lake]

Objection: "elective". Doesn't mean what you think it means.

Medically, anything you schedule is elective. Doesn't matter if you have no chance of survival without it. This means that fetal defect abortions get listed as "elective". And those who would cram religion down our throats exploit this to pretend things are happening that aren't.

That's not true, Loren. There's a pretty commonplace distinction between medical necessity and elective, and it's a cornerstone for medical billing, prior authorization, and stuff like whether Medicare will cover it at all.

If the procedure alleviates an injury, reduces the impact of the injury, or mitigates a risk that would create a future injury, it's usually deemed medically necessary. That doesn't mean it's urgent, however. Thus an ACL surgery can be deemed medically necessary, but not urgent. It has full support for the procedure to be performed, but it doesn't need to be done right away - there's usually a relatively wide range of timing involved that produces a degree of discretion for timing.

Terminations for fetal defect don't generally get listed as "elective" outside of those few states that have gone for complete bans. Those states are stupid.

 

[Emily Lake]

Just as a person with enlarged breasts will be perceived as female.

Not always though. Sometimes, yes... but there are a lot of physical markers of maleness that boobs can't overcome.

The ginormous latex fetish gear strapped to this guy's chest doesn't really get perceived as him being female. And just to be clear - these are not moobs grown via exogenous estrogen. This is literally sexual fetish gear that this guy puts on and wears to his teaching gig. He makes a habit of nonconsentually involving his students in his sexual role play. But he says he's a woman, so it's bigoted of them to object to being made to participate in someone else's live action fantasy play.

 

[Emily Lake]

Lots of government guns around here, but they cause almost zero shootings. We get lots of out of State hunters with rifles, and often they also carry sidearms - they make me nervous. If you’re going into a grocery store, leave it in the fucking car!

I get where you're coming from... but there's significant risk of a firearm being stolen from a vehicle and used in the commission of a crime. Leaving guns of any sort unattended in a car is not a good idea. It's really only appropriate if you've got an actual travel safe for them.

 

[ZiprHead]

Trans issues moved.

 

[Arctish]

You keep saying you support the framework set out in Roe v. Wade in which abortions rights were unfettered before the point of fetal viability but could be restricted after it. Okay. But then you present a thought experiment so extreme the situation it did not, and could not, exist when Roe v. Wade was in effect, one in which women in the last week before their due date can say, "I don't want to be a mother so kill my baby" and doctors immediately perform the most destructive form of abortion that exists and don't even try to deliver the fetus alive. That argument is based entirely on the notion that women can't be trusted to make good choices so choice must be preemptively taken from them.

Is that what you believe?

I believe that if given the opportunity, at least some humans will do absolutely abhorrent things. Lots of humans don't make good decisions, this isn't something unique to women, and trying to disingenuously spin this as be not trusting women specifically is bad faith.

Parents kill their infants. They beat their toddlers to death. They shake them until they get brain damage and sometimes die. They sexually abuse their children. Humans lie and cheat and steal and murder pretty regularly.

Why on earth do you think that this specific situation will be magically immune from bad people doing bad things?

I agree that sometimes people beat, abuse, and kill other people. I don't think any situation is "magically immune" from those occurrences.

Yes, there are murderers and sociopaths among us as well as people who make bad decisions based on fear, ignorance, and faulty thinking. We don't have laws and regulations because we think having a law will somehow keep a murderous sociopath from murdering, we have them to provide limits for people who respect limits and to establish consequences for those who do not.

I believe that having reasonable safeguards against rare or unlikely events is an appropriate approach, and is the cornerstone of most government regulations.

And that's how things were under Roe v. Wade until the Supreme Court threw it out and the Religious Right got their chance to rewrite State laws to make abortions illegal or so severely restrict them that a woman has to be literally and unmistakably dying from complications before doctors are legally allowed to intervene.

I reject the extremist stance on abortions that would rule out early delivery of a fetus in order to prevent a likely bad outcome for a pregnant woman. A woman who needs powerful medications in order to treat a dangerous disease, or one who is experiencing pain and suffering so great she's unable to either sleep or stay nourished, should not have to wait weeks to receive appropriate medical care. Yes, she and the doctors treating her should give the fetus as much in-utero time as they reasonably can before delivery, but not at the cost of the woman's life or health.

I reject the notion that politicians should make medical decisions about health care for pregnant women, especially politicians who have no knowledge of, or experience in, gynecology, obstetrics, neonatal care, or related fields. They don't know what they're talking about. And there is no way their kind of broad brush approach can address the various needs of individual patients. That is something the physician in charge can and should do, not a Senator or Representative in a legislature somewhere.

I don't know if you ever heard about the death of Savita Halappanavar but it illustrates what I see as the biggest problem with the Religious Right's approach (which TBH they might think is a feature). She was admitted to a hospital in Ireland, a place where the Catholic Church has had its way with women's rights and choices for centuries. She was in her 17th week of pregnancy and therefore well before her fetus would have been viable outside her uterus. She was diagnosed as having a miscarriage, one the doctors could not stop. Her fetus was going to die, no question. But because the law was written in a way that prevented doctors from interfering with a pregnancy when there was a fetal heartbeat, the doctors did nothing to hurry along the process and preserve Dr. Halappanavar's health. Instead they just monitored the miscarriage for days. By the time her fetus was known to be dead she had developed sepsis. She died after seven days of suffering and trauma because, as the staff told her husband, Ireland was "a Catholic country".

^This is what happens when extremists write absolute laws about when an abortion can be performed and when it cannot, using something as arbitrary as 'fetal heartbeat' and not considering the full range of complications and risks pregnancy entails. Dr. Halappanavar's fetus could not have survived her death but she could have survived the death of her fetus. You might think that would make the decision to hurry along the ongoing miscarriage a no-brainer, but women aren't important to the Catholic Church, only their unborn fetuses are. So the doctors did nothing, she's dead for no good reason, and people who think all late term abortions are the result of evil women wanting to do evil things learned nothing from her case. In fact, right wingers in the US are trying to get their states to enforce similarly restrictive laws and seeing similarly horrible treatment of pregnant women experiencing complications showing up at hospital emergency rooms and being told to go wait outside because they're not dying yet.

Currently in Alaska our laws say that when a pregnant woman is having a medical emergency, the doctors should do everything they can to save both her life and that of her fetus, but if they can't save both they must do everything they can to save the one who has the best chance of surviving. Dr. Halappanavar would have survived that miscarriage if it had happened here. I don't want that to change.