It is against the law for anyone, regardless of their relationship to you, to force or coerce you to have an abortion. By law, we cannot perform an abortion on you unless we have your freely given voluntary consent. It is against the law to perform an abortion on you against your will.CHAD called this bill a redundant waste of time and an obnoxious interference of politics with medical practice. I'm a little more alarmed.... because I think this sign in 44-point type is not for the patients. The directive subtly promotes the myth that women who have abortions are by-and-large coerced or tricked by immoral men or the so-called "abortion industry." That's bad enough, but there is a yet darker side to this bill: the 44-point-type sign is nothing less than a big identifying sticker on the wall, to make it easier for anti-choice terrorists to target medical facilities that, uh, have the audacity to attempt provide comprehensive women's medical care. For political demonstrations, harassment, and, of course, violence. Hey Operation Rescue, we're right over here!
Well, if this bill passes and doctors have to post politically-motivated directives, I've got an idea: let's have a liberty-motivated directive that the following be posted in every office in the State Capitol, in 44-point type of course:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
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Congratulations on reading the Constitution, but I must say that amendment also relates to the person whose "life, liberty, or property" is deprived by the state—the child. As much as Pro-Abortion supporters want to make this a woman's rights issue, it is nothing of the sort; rather, it is a human's rights issue.
ReplyDeleteSo women's rights don't count as human rights?
ReplyDeleteYou seem to miss the key phrase: equal protection. That means until you manage to grant full citizenship to a first-trimester fetus, AND convince us that a women that seeks the abortion shouldn't go to jail as long as the doctor that performs one, the whole premise of early-term abortion bans is unconstitutional.
That, and the fact that the majority does not agree--and those numbers have not changed significantly since Roe. We proved that a few weeks ago, you may remember.
Why can't we agree that abortion is bad and find some other way to reduce abortions than interfering with women's medical care?
The Constitution does in fact protect the first-trimester child (not fetus). If you look at the preamble, it says that the overall aim of the whole frame of government in America is "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." What does posterity mean? It refers to those who come after us who are not yet born.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that we should find a way to reduce abortions because abortions are bad. However, why does your logic stop there? The pro-life side of the issue does an amazing amount of work trying to reduce the number of abortions (other than trying to ban abortion) while it seems abortion supporters are exactly the opposite (blanket statement, not all abortion supports sit on their hands). One of the first things we need to do to reduce the number of abortions is to make it illegal to have one! Finally, this does not infringe on women’s medical care because the abortion ban is taking into account the life of the mother—the child is not another body part that she has the rights over.
The Supreme Court of the United States and the majority of Americans and South Dakotans do not buy your loaded language or your groupthink. "Pro-life side of the argument" is loaded language. My wife and I are both pro-life, but we refuse to fight for life by sticking our head in the sand and hiding behind loaded language.
ReplyDeleteIf more self-identified "pro-life" activists were against the death penalty and were for better health care access for children and young moms, maybe I'd be more patient. But no more. If this new law gets referred, I will be on the street again like I was against 1215. You can bank on that.
I really resent your characterization that pro-choicers aren't doing anything to reduce abortions. We who live in the real world have been stopped at every turn, and expected to apologize for caring about real situations instead of "sticking to our ideals" no matter who gets hurt.
We've had it. The truth is that many anti-abortion activist community has been contributing to the problem by stigmatizing birth control, preventing kids (and adults) from getting accurate information about sex, and leading young people (mostly women) in "chastity pledges" that have been proven to not prevent, but actually cause, earlier and high risk adolescent sex.
I've got bad news for you.
The majority is not taking it silently any more. The stakes are now too high.
Loaded language and groupthink? Hardly. Majority of Americans agree with you? Nothing comes close to supporting that and it has never been the case since Roe vs. Wade.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I believe that the pro-choice side of the issue is not doing as much (or come even close) to prevent abortions has a lot to do with the leaders of movement. They are so hateful to those who oppose abortion and they resent the use of reason or opposition. One example of this is stem cell research; an adult stem cell shows enormous promise and has actually led to medical advances while embryonic stem cells only show promise and has not led to any medical advances—yet still aborted fetuses are regarded as gold.
The abstinence issue is not only morally relevant, but medically it is statistically 100% effective. It is unfortunate that we even have to teach children about sex in school as that is an issue parents should be responsible for. I do not oppose all sex education, but handing out condoms by third grade and talking about sex as casually as a dirty sitcom while never addressing abstinence is ludicrous (yes, you can talk about safe sex AND abstinence, it does not have to be the ever dangerous one or the other).
Finally, the issue of healthcare for women and young children sounds like a plea for socialized medicine. God save us if Hillary gets into the White House and attempts to bring us Canada’s joke of a healthcare system. We as a people need to look out for the community and stop relying on the government to exceed the bounds of their role while taking responsibility for our actions that brought us into dyer situations.
If you don’t want to post this long blurb I will not object, I just wanted to say my peace. I really do enjoy coming to your blog, as well as Mr. Epps in Sioux Falls. It’s great to live in a country where disagreements lead to dialogue and not censorship or worse. I also realize fighting with words on a blog is hardly the way to solve the problems of this world so I guess we can start by agreeing that abortion is bad and we must all work together to reduce the need for it.
Oh dear. I don't even know what to say regarding anonymous' remarks. Where to start?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I'll start where I usually do with anonymous postings. (I rarely respond to them, anyway.) If you're too chicken to sign a name and you have to call yourself "anonymous," then you're hardly worth the time it takes to write a response. You're a coward AND an idiot. But you pissed me off enough that I must respond. Beyond this, sign a name, or keep your chicken-s*#!t remarks to yourself.
You say child, rr says fetus. Whatever. The FACT remains that the SUPREME COURT (not YOU, Mr. Anonymous - and I only assume you are a man because such insensitive remarks are more likely to come from a man than a woman.) decided whatever IT is in there during the first trimester, its rights do NOT supercede nor do they even EQUAL those of the woman who carries IT. PERIOD. End of discussion. Beyond the first trimester, things get more complicated. We can debate until the cows come when life begins, what to call IT, whether a zygote, a baby, a fetus, whatever, and as our scientific and medical knowledge and capabilities advance, it is more than likely that we'll need to re-examine Roe. But for now, it's what we have, and it is the only way we can fairly protect the rights of women.
Is it perfect? Of course not. But it's what we have. Is abortion an ugly and painful reality in today's society? Absolutely? Do I want to find ways to reduce/eliminate the need for abortion procedures? You BET! Am I actively working toward that end? YES I AM! Am I ready to make abortions illegal RIGHT NOW or even restrict them? Hell no. South Dakota has the strictest abortion laws in the country. It's harder to obtain an abortion here than pretty much anywhere else in the country. I have daughters. I am doing everything in my power to give them the tools and information they need so they will never have to make such a choice, including encouraging them to remain abstinent until marriage. But I would hope and pray that if they ever did face such an awful choice, they would be able to do so safely and legally.
I resent that because I choose to see things the way I do, that I am called (and people like me) a "pro-abortion supporter." How DARE YOU!!! You know NOTHING about me! And how DARE you assume that I do nothing more to reduce abortions than simply state the need! Again, you know nothing about me and the many who work to educate kids, teens, and ADULTS on how to prevent unintended pregnancies. Just as an example, there is SO much more to Planned Parenthood than abortion procedures, yet people like YOU demonize them as if that's ALL they do, that they "make GAZILLIONS off of killing children." HOW DARE YOU! You won't even educate yourSELF!
If you really believe that the first thing we need to do to reduce abortions is make them illegal, oh dear, well, again, I don't know what to say. Well, this would certainly reduce the number of LEGAL, SAFE abortions. I wonder what would happen if YOUR daughter or YOUR WIFE got pregnant under circumstances that would simply NOT allow her to carry that child (for whatever reason - it's always easier for people to talk the talk until you're actually IN THAT POSITION, so don't say you'd NEVER make that choice. NEVER say NEVER.) but abortions were no longer legal. I just wonder.
So, that's it. That's my rant.
I'm SO with you, RR. You KNOW I am. You know I won't be silent anymore either.