As Senator Obama points out, the supreme court’s decision against allowing “partial birth” abortion, even when the woman’s health is in the balance, shows once again how crooked the courts have become after the Republicans have packed them with conservative ideologues. Democrats too often cede the issue of judges to the right, and only discuss them when the abortion issue comes up, but this is an ongoing assault on the American way of life and we need common sense judges to stop the perversion of democracy.
PREVIOUSLY: Running On Judges
ALSO: One Woman’s Late Term Abortion Story
The courts are “crooked” because they won’t allow a woman to choose to crush her baby’s skull?
The courts are crooked because they won’t allow doctors to perform a rare medical procedure to preserve a woman’s life because it gets some conservative man’s knickers in a twist.
Imagine that. Getting one’s “knickers in a twist” over the killing of a baby.
Gynecologist: I’m sorry ma’am but your fetus is irretrievable and will be stillborn, the complications will cause you hemorrage to death. Unfortunately I am not permitted to extract the not-yet-dead fetus via Dilation and Extraction because focus groups figured out the made-up term “Partial Birth Abortion” would scare enough people into outlawing the operation you need to save your life.
Christian wingnuts: Hahahahahhaha! Die, bitch!
As Rheinhard points out, you guys don’t give a crap about babies and everything about power over women’s lives.
So let’s see now. “Small-government” conservatives today are cheering government interference between a doctor and patient.
The same “small-government” crowd wants the government to decide who can get hired as a college professor.
The same “small-government” crowd wants the government to decide who can and can’t get married or adopt children.
They want “small government” to mandate what is taught is science classes.
They want “small government” to make some research OK and other research off limits.
They want “small government” to decide what medicines can and cannot be sold despite the recommendations of the FDA.
Good thing they’re holding the line against those “big-government” liberals!
Oliver, that is total bullshit. For anyone who has had a child the thought of pulling a viable fetus out of the birth canal and crushing its skull is obscene, particularly when there is no evidence that such a gruesome act is ever medically necessary.
Besides which, late-term partial birth abortion, is incongruous with Roe v. Wade. Can’t have it both ways. it might help to actually read the Act.
Quaker, you can just as easily make a list of things the “pro-choice” crowd doesn’t want you to have the right to choose.
Let’s stay focused on the topic at hand: how refusing to allow someone to suck out a baby’s brain is “an assault on the American way of life”.
Quaker, you can just as easily make a list of things the “pro-choice” crowd doesn’t want you to have the right to choose.
Maybe you can, but I can’t. The five justices in the majority were appointed by “small government” conservatives with the expectation that they would rein in “government interference” in our lives.
Worked out pretty well, didn’t it?
Because it prevents a doctor from saving a woman’s life.
It’s also passing ironic that most of the same people jumping for joy today at the Supreme Court’s decision that letting women die needlessly is A-OK were the same people bawling their eyes out over the terrible tragic fate of Terry Schiavo.
(Not to mention also being the same ones unalterably opposed to effective sex education, contraception, or anything else that would help reduce the need to have abortions in the first place.)
your fetus is irretrievable and will be stillborn, the complications will cause you to hemorrhage to death.
If and / or when that situation arises, I’ll support abortion in that instance and that instance only.
Wouldn’t want to come off like a hard – liner…
no evidence that such a gruesome act is ever medically necessary
Evidence yes, proof no. But there’s also no proof that it isn’t ever medically necessary. It is the judgment of many medical professionals that it is sometimes the best procedure. I’d rather not have religious authoritarians and opportunistic politicians second-guessing that judgment.
And how IDX is more “gruesome” than the alternative – ripping the fetus to shreds within the womb and extracting it piece-by-piece, is something I don’t quite understand.
If I had as much compassion as your average conservative, Hedley, I might wish that some loved one of yours gets a hole torn out of her uterus by a birer forceps because IDX was not available when she needed it. But I just can’t manage to wish that.
That’s the trouble with being a liberal: having a conscience is a distinct disadvantage when dealing with you people.
Oh really, Frank? Well then you must be some radical feminazi, because the law contains absolutely no provisions or exceptions for the health of the mother. When the first doctor is prosecuted under this monstrosity for exercising his best medical judgement, I trust you’ll be donating to the defense fund.
Quaker, you can just as easily make a list of things the “pro-choice” crowd doesn’t want you to have the right to choose.
Maybe you can, but I can’t
I can help you out there Quaker…
Pro-choice people don’t want you to have the right to choose to:
-fire people for being gay
-burn crosses in front of synagogues
-sell assault weapons to troubled college students
-send pictures of dead fetuses to women who’ve had abortions
-enforce your sectarian views on everyone else
God, what hypocrites we are!
(13) (14) Pursuant to the testimony received duringextensive legislative hearings during the 104th, 105th, and 107th Congresses, Congress finds and declares that:
(A) Partial-birth abortion poses seriousrisks to the health of a woman undergoing the procedure. Those risks include, among other things: an increase in a woman’s risk of suffering from cervical incompetence, a result of cervical dilation making it difficult or impossible for a woman to successfully carry a subsequent pregnancy to term; an increased risk of uterine rupture, abruption, amniotic fluid embolus, and trauma to the uterus as a result of converting the child to a footling breech position, a procedure which, according to a leading obstetrics textbook, “there are very few, if any, indications for . . . other than for delivery of a second twin”; and a risk of lacerations and secondary hemorrhaging due to the doctor blindly forcing a sharp instrument into the base of the unborn child’s skull while he or she is lodged in the birth canal, an act which could result in severe bleeding, brings with it the threat of shock, and could ultimately result in maternal death.
(B) There is no credible medical evidencethat partial-birth abortions are safe or are safer than other abortion procedures. No controlled studies of partial-birth abortions have been conducted nor have any comparative studies been conducted to demonstrate its safety and efficacy compared to other abortion methods. Furthermore, there have been no articles published in peer-reviewed journals that establish that partial-birth abortions are superior in any way to established abortion procedures. Indeed, unlike other more commonly used abortion procedures, there are currently no medical schools that provide instruction on abortions that include the instruction in partial-birth abortions in their curriculum.
(C) A prominent medical association hasconcluded that partial-birth abortion is “not an accepted medical practice,” that it has “never been subject to even a minimal amount of the normal medical practice development,” that “the relative advantages and disadvantages of the procedure in specific circumstances remain unknown,” and that “there is no consensusamong obstetricians about its use”. The association has further noted that partial-birth abortion is broadly disfavored by both medical experts and the public, is “ethically wrong,” and “is never the only appropriate procedure”.
(D) Neither the plaintiff in Stenberg v.Carhart, nor the experts who testified on his behalf, have identified a single circumstance during which a partial-birth abortion was necessary to preserve the health of a woman.
(E) The physician credited with developingthe partial-birth abortion procedure has testified that he has never encountered a situation where a partial-birth abortion was medically necessary to achieve the desired outcome and, thus, is never medically necessary to preserve the health of a woman.
It’s also passing ironic that most of the same people jumping for joy today at the Supreme Court’s decision …were the same people bawling their eyes out over the terrible tragic fate of Terry Schiavo.
It’s not really irony, Rheinhard, it’s the whole point. They fetishize the fetus and the braindead precisely because it allows them to be cavalier about the lives of everyone else.
They’re for war, assault weapons, capital punishment, poverty, raping the environment and healthcare only for the wealthy, but you can tell they value human life because they’re anti-abortion and anti-euthanasia.
Hedley, thanks for posting a good example of what I meant when I was talking about “religious authoritarians and opportunistic politicians second-guessing the judgment of medical professionals.”
And in case anyone wants to know what medical professionals (as opposed to religious totalitarians and opportunistic politicians) on the issue, here’s the American Medical Association…
(1) The term ‘partial birth abortion’ is not a medical term. The AMA will use the term “intact dilatation and extraction”(or intact D&X) to refer to a specific procedure comprised of the following elements…. This procedure is distinct from dilatation and evacuation (D&E) procedures more commonly used to induce abortion after the first trimester. Because ‘partial birth abortion’ is not a medical term it will not be used by the AMA.
(2) According to the scientific literature, there does not appear to be any identified situation in which intact D&X is the only appropriate procedure to induce abortion, and ethical concerns have been raised about intact D&X. The AMA recommends that the procedure not be used unless alternative procedures pose materially greater risk to the woman. The physician must, however, retain the discretion to make that judgment, acting within standards of good medical practice and in the best interest of the patient.
(emphasis added)
So basically the sensitive liberals are against all forms of torture against terrorists, and refuse to allow provisions in the law for the 1/100 of 1% probability that it may ever be necessary (i.e., the Jack Bauer scenario) but want partial birth abortion to remain fully legal in the 1/100 of 1% probability that there is no better way to kill a fetus.
Hedley, what I want is for you, Jerry Falwell and Antonin Scalia to get your god damn noses out of what goes on between my wife, my daughter and my sister and their doctors.
Thanks for your offer to change the subject, but we can talk about torture later.
BTW, Hedley, I’ll put you down for “the best way to kill a fetus is the rip it to shreds with forceps while it’s still inside the womb.”
No need to thank me.
Wilbur, while you are watching babies be killed, don’t forget to overturn Roe v. Wade and those pesky Third Trimester State’s rights. What a nuisance when you are trying to crush a baby’s skull.
You people who rail on Clarence Thomas do realize that he was the swing vote here. Had someone, anyone, raised a Commerce Clause Issue, he wrote in his decision that he would have voted to strike down the ban.
So much for being an idealogue…
Oh, and just to update Wilber’s fine list…
–the choice of where to send your children to school.
–the choice of what to listen to on the radio.
–the choice of whether or not to own a gun.
–the choice of how to refer to women’s basketball players.
–the choice of how much to donate to a political candidate (and what you can say about them 60 days before an election.)
–the choice of whether or not to purchase health insurance.
–the choice what car you drive.
–the choice of whether or not one is allowed to speak about a higher power.
–the choice of what to pay your employees.
You fucking guys on the right are nuts. Just nuts.
What I find curious is that liberals can’t seem to find anyone willing to be paraded around as a “victim” of a denied partial birth abortion.
You’d think that if the procedure was so necessary to the saving of women’s lives, there ought to be someone (a crippled survivor or a relative of a deceased) with a long and painful sob story to tell about how partial birth abortion could have saved a mother’s life or prevented some kind of horrible complication that ruined a woman’s life forever.
I mean really, if Al Gore can parade around some poor old lady who collects aluminum cans, or if the media can feature the sob stories of Yellowstone National Park workers for a week when the government “shut down,” then finding these victims should be easy, shouldn’t it?
There’s no such thing as “partial birth” abortion. That’s a purposefully misleading term invented by the wingnuts. “Late term” abortions are a myth as well.
Hey, skeeter, how about “The baby ends up dead”?
“the American way of life”?
Life?
That’s fucking creepy…