Abortion


pro-life-cartoonIs there a single prolifer that can opine on their position?

We cannot seem to find one that can make any argument without using profanity, or fallacious logic.

Please, there must be one amongst you.

The Pro Choice individuals have extended themselves intellectually, with culture and grace, please meet that challenge.

Are all pro Lifers from Kentucky and Alabama? Are they terrorists? They have killed in the name of not killing.

They denigrate the women’s body to a subordinate of man and blastulas.

obama_time_coverIt is a hallmark moment in the history of our country. I will not opine exetensively now. Only absorb, the moment, and hope that the polarizations of the past can now be united. As we are all Americans. We must unite, despite differences in our opinions.

This, laid out by Hamilton, and Madison, is the foundation of our society. Those efforts hold true today.

The reproductive rights of women may be safeguarded for a few more years.

As the bigotry and racism of the past seems to die off in their receptacles, a new, bolder, visionary leader of our country emerges.

Let’s hope that our new president will have have united support of the nation to facebush-george the difficult challenges inherited that have been laid in his lap by 8 years of some of the worst management of our country in it’s history.

It would be impossible to describe the litany of mismanagement, ENRON style that this country has suffered so terribly under the Bush nepotism. An apology is in order.

Nepotism. This is a country of merit. A meritocracy. How did the son of a past president with mediocre credentials get so far. A drunk, not very intelligent, one o f the poorest leaders our country has ever had.  Sad.

Nepotism. How could out of hundreds of millions of Americans could the son of a president so soon become president himself.  This is not the example of a meritocracy.

Please, opine. There must be someone intelligent enough to describe this unbelievable mess this past administration has reaked upon our formerly prosperous nation, a nation that no longer has the moral leadership, and respect.  This will all have to be won back.

I can only hope our new president is up to the daunting task of fixing 8 years of utter failed policy.

An utter discgrace to the history of our proud nation, only renewed by the wisdom of the people and their choice to change the course of pathetic ways.

Ms. Sanger.

If you are unfamiliar with her please review her story.

This is not the place to regurgitate what is readily available throughout the web.

Choice. Persecution. The decision of others to legislate what a free minded, with all the liberties granted her by our founders.

If you are ProLife.

Please opine on all the cases where you would allow a women to make her own choice.

Rape by a father at 14?

Cervical Cancer?

A tubal pregnancy.

Instead of all the pro life rhetoric. Please address the difficult questions so we can find a common ground.

Remember the horrors of our historical mistakes on these issues.

How soon we forget.

Get educated.

Throughout the history of our nation every election has seemed monumentily important. Think back on all the slogans of every past election are they really all so different.

This author is not a historian so the question is rhetorical.

I urge an objective look at the records of the two very decent individuals running for office. I believe them both to have integrity in their convictions and a desire to do what is right. I grant them that.

My friends and fellow Americans it is now time to have the courage to follow your convictions and make a choice. A choice which may determine your choice and opportunity to govern your own body.

That is as serious as it gets.

Look back on 8 years and reflect.

Please make your voice heard. Vote.

Who would you vote for today?
( polls)

There have been a large number of commentaries by individuals who dogmatically state that a women has no right ever to choose and abortion under any circumstance.

Yet when replied to by other individuals, they never respond with any objective reasoning?

To note, every professional, professional organization, and many clergy on the planet, from all the major religions, as far as we could tell from our diligence and vetting, including every right to life group that would respond, agreed with the position that women could end their pregnancy under this circumstance.

So Why do the commenters believe otherwise?  I believe we will know by their continued absence of response.  But we would be delighted to hear an intelligently formed argument against a women’s choice in this circumstance.  No soliloquies or pulpits please, just he facts.

We want to give them the benefit of the doubt, so we ask one of these simple questions again.

Some respond with the same rhetorical gibberish, never answering the hard real world questions posed by so many intelligent and concerned individuals.

It is difficult to understand.  It infers that people who harbor these dogmatic beliefs, will not allow their minds to accept the reality of women in need and the difficult choices they may sometimes must make. Instead of educating themselves they withdraw into the catacombs of ancient cliches, and reveal no education into biology, formal logic, ethics, or medicine.  The issues are not that complicated.  Would one person, one, please respond appropriately.  It would be appreciated, as there has yet to be a good response to the very many important issues brought up regarding the women’s right to choose to control her own body.

One simple example I have seed posted, is the women with an anencephalic (a fetus that has had the misfortune of the developmental path that did not create the neurological substrate for brain formation) – In fact many do not even have cranium.  They fetuses all die at, around, or before or shortly after birth and never cognate, unless one believes that cognition takes place in the liver (some do, strangely enough).  It is extremely sad. These women will not have a successful pregnancy, as a severe anencephalic, has never grown a brain.

So, out of the hundreds of thousands of individuals who have been trained in Obstetrics and women care, NOT one has agreed with the lack of choice for that women to end her pregnancy.

That is intelligent to end these pregnancies early (please see the literature on this point as it is overwhelming without any deviance).  As many of these women, if they choose to let the pregnancy continue, end up with hysterotomy, ruptured uterus, hysterectomies and lose child bearing, hemorrhage, infection from bloood transfusion, and even death.

At a minimum, they have gone full term to have a dead baby.

If there is a single person out there which can make an argument to why these women should not have the choice of ending their pregnancy we welcome that point and discussion.  

In the absence of that we will conclude that this issue of anencephally is presently a settled discussion.

Brownback’s Backdoor Abortion Bill?

Senator Sam Brownback is not well-known outside the state of Kansas. You’re likely scratching your head trying to figure out why you recognize his name. Think back to very early in the Republican race, when the debates were populated by 11 different candidates. The guy on the outer wings, the one who said that he didn’t believe in evolution and that he’d like to see Roe v. Wade overturned, the one with the curly hair and the Kansas drawl, that’s him.

Sen. Brownback is known for his extreme conservatism. It’s not just fiscal restraint and state’s rights with this guy. He has members of the far-right going, “wow, this guy is hard-core.” Not surprisingly, Sen. Brownback is thoroughly anti-choice. He does not believe that there are any circumstances under which a termination of pregnancy is acceptable, not even in cases of rape or incest. So it’s not a shock that he’s introduced another bill regarding abortion. The knee-jerk reaction is to assume that any bill coming from Sen. Brownback regarding this issue is inherently flawed and a thinly veiled effort to undermine women’s rights, which is why everyone who has read the bill or anything about it is finding themselves a little confused, because that’s not what this bill is.

Here’s what the bill does:

For women and families whose prenatal testing has indicated that the fetus has a genetic disorder, physicians will be required to provide “access to timely, scientific, and nondirective counseling about conditions being tested for and accuracy of such tests.”

Additionally, the bill would create a nation-wide list of families who are willing to adopt children with special needs and referral to support services, including a national clearinghouse of coping resources.

While he may be getting cheers from some, Sen. Brownback’s efforts smack of an inability to grasp the difficulty of the heartbreaking choices some families must make. A diagnoses of Down Syndrome does not always mean that a family will give birth to a living child with Down’s. What it can mean is that the disorder is such that their baby will die from Down’s. The same is true for many genetic and chromosomal disorders. There are degrees of severity and some of them simply are not compatible with life.

The spirit of this bill is laudable, anything that allows women and families to make the decision that is best for them is a step in the right direction. But one step doesn’t get you to a destination. If Sen. Brownback is serious about reducing abortion, then it’s time to focus on the causes and impact of unplanned pregnancy. In fact, knowing Brownback’s typical M.O., one has to wonder if this is an attempt to lull everyone into a false sense of security before tacking on a bunch of amendments that undermine a woman’s right to choose.

Sen. Brownback says that this bill is an effort to promote the “culture of life.” But the so-called “culture of life” has to be about more than preventing abortions, it must be about making it easier to access information, birth control and the resources parents need to raise children in today’s world.

The fact is that the “culture of life” is not being promoted in this country, period. Families are not guaranteed paid medical leave, not all women can access the preventative health care necessary to decrease and detect birth defects, students are not given honest and thorough sex education, and when given the chance to cover low-income children for healthcare, the Congress (Sen. Brownback included) said “no.”

What are we to make of a culture that focuses more on the pre-born than they do the pre-schooler? There must be a broad and sweeping overhaul in how this country deals with issues like poverty, health care and education before anything can be done to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions.

It is obvious that the Florida legislature mounted a multi threaded attack on reproductive rights this week. 

It started by the passing of legislation requiring an ultrasound prior to an abortion and coupled to more egregious terms.  

Terms that are simply rejected by the vast majority of Americans, and over 99% of Nobel prize winners.

That is defining human sentient life equivalent to a full experienced adult at the moment of the meeting of the one cell sperm and the one cell egg whence they fuse and form one slight larger one cell.  Thus a women who was desirous of an abortion must then pay for an ultrasound procedure and  mandated to view the ultrasound image. This would be done before having the abortion, again mandated by the bill passed by the House chiefly divided in a partisan fashion.

The puritanicals and misogynists are truly still lurking among us in droves. Must they die of old age until the generation of rational thinking adults are able to work their way through the political quagmire?  

Oddly also the vast majority of conservatives supprting the measure were older men greyed from age, apparently not from wisdom or a connection to the community.   

The Republican-led chamber also endorsed a “fetal homicide” bill that would create a separate murder charge for anyone who caused a pregnancy to be terminated through an act of violence against a pregnant woman.

This absurdity missed the slew of reasons women may opt for an abortion for very reasonablke reasons, that well over 95% of Americans support. A very limited example include, women with cancer, women with pregnancies in their tubes, women with life threatening heart anomalies (and all other threats to their life) that carry with them a near certain death sentance if they are to remain pregnant through their term of 40 weeks.  

This is well documented in the peir reviewed medical literatue, and is not disouted among proffesionals of either side of the issue to any measurable degree.  The list goes on and on.  

Many of these situations the Abortion Pill could easily solve the end of the pregnancy and save the mother’s life. There are numerous places a women in need of abortion may find an office that perform Abortions safely, securely, privately with respect and confidentiality.

Democrats argued the abortion bill and it’s terms were simply a government invasion into an obvious private health matter.The House’s ultrasound mandate (HB257) requires women who desire abortion to pay for the scans without any assistance, this is a major burden the government would be placing among lower socioeconomic women.

Costs for an ultrasound have great variance and are often a few hundred dollars, stated by an expert testimonial.The measures once again, are micromanaging the method by which a doctor takes care of their patient without regard to the doctor’s experience or training.  

Doctors practice differently because of a number of reasons.  The legislature rarely attempts to micromangae doctor methods of practice except when dealing with abortion care.  The well known safest procedure done in the world, when it is legal.  When it is illegal, women still get abortion, but because of the illegality have to have them performed in areas that are often dangerous and simply just a few decades hospital wards were willed to the brim with women suffering, dying,  and losing wombs to complication because abortion was illegal.  Once again this another fact that is not disputed.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” said House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber, of Miami Beach. “Just to constantly second-guess and challenge a woman who makes what I imagine is one of the hardest and most difficult decisions a person has to make. In that sense, it’s an offensive bill.”  

If the “fetal homicide” bill passed the Senate and became law, anyone who caused a pregnancy to be terminated by assaulting or killing a woman could be prosecuted for murdering the “unborn child” — even if they didn’t know the woman was pregnant.The bill also would apply to drunken drivers, who could be charged with vehicular homicide for causing a pregnancy to be terminated in a car accident.

“It elevates a fetus and an egg, frankly, to the status of an adult person,” said Adrienne Kimmell, executive director of Florida’s Planned Parenthood affiliates. “The purpose of this bill is to create tension with Roe vs. Wade. It’s a chipping-away strategy we’ve seen for years now.”

In this opinion, the imbicilic articulation from the Bill’s sponsor Rep. Ralph Poppell, stated that a fetal homicide bill is an attempt to “curb crime and save lives.”

Clearly it is just another attempt to harm women and march the limitations of reproductive, and private personal matters into the hands of those elite that show no regard or connection to the intelligent women who are quite capable of making decisions and managing their own bodies without a strange antagonistic man’s interference and intrusion.

Addressing reporters on March 13, 2008, Lt. Gov. and soon-to-be Gov. David Paterson said that this mechanism is not the one by which he would have wanted the top job. It was his first public address since Gov. Eliot Spitzers official resignation.

“This is not the way I would want to aspire in my career. It’s a very ironic feeling, and I just have to try and do my best,” he said on AM radio from Albany.
He stated he wanted to five-day transition period before taking the oath on Monday. This would enable him to get up to speed on state business.

“We needed to get the state back to work. And we needed to have our government functioning,” he said. “We needed to show that to people Monday.”

With Spitzer’s resignation, the fight over Abortion Rights continue, including the Abortion Pill and The Morning After Pill.

The New Yorkers For Parental Rights is already urging soon-to-be Gov. David Paterson to reject Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s attempt to adopt the Reproductive Health & Privacy Protection Act (RHAPP).

Most suspect Gov Paterson to be as reasonable in regard to the protection of the right of women to have access to abortion and other women’s health related issues.

One can only hope that Gov. Paterson will continue the struggle for abortion rights and protect the access for women to abortion providers of their choosing.

by

Peg Johnston 

At my abortion clinic we often tell patients, “Sex is designed to get you pregnant,” the corollary of which is that “Sex makes us stupid.” In our conversations with patients we are trying to acknowledge that there are universal biological imperatives going on. It’s also a way of humorously admitting that it is a human condition that those sexual urges sometimes make us take risks that we never would in a rational moment.

The bombshell that exploded in NYS Governor Eliot Spitzer’s face today that he was a client of a high priced prostitution ring, carries the same message. It’s hard to believe that this squeaky clean politician who is tough on crime, has a lovely wife and family, and had a promising politicalcareer, would blow it all over something so stupid. But, we listen to similar stories everyday.

This controversy will undoubtably bring out the worst in Puritanical America. And it won’t be just political opponents of Spitzer—or Democrats—that will be capitalizing on his sexual indiscretion. All of the “soccer moms” that were so bitter toward Bill Clinton for exposing their kids to public discussion of “blow jobs” will be outraged again.

There are other countries—in Europe, for instance, that would greet this news as not worthy of news. They think it odd that Americans are so intolerant of sex and the sexual eccentricities of our leaders. (Of course, there are other, fundamentalist countries where the woman involved would be stoned to death.)

I would love to see this latest unfortunate controversy spark a discussion about our need for sex, about sex and power, for risk taking around sex, for what that might mean about someone’s character or ability to do a job. I would like to think that such a discussion would get more people to understand that humans are sexual, sometimes against their more rational interests. And that this discussion would increase our compassion for everyone, including women who have sex, with or without their spouse, with or without birth control, and get pregnant.

But I doubt it. People are too busy pretending that other people are stupid and they have never taken risks around sex. BS! They’re just lucky.

The author has been an abortion provider for over 20years and has written on abortion politics extensively.

I thought it would be interesting to pose this question because it doesn’t presuppose the supremacy of either side of the abortion issue. Instead it is a question that might show contrast between different viewpoints on the same side of the issue.

In order to explore this issue, I am going to pose a hypothetical.

Lets take a situation where a woman purposely pokes holes in her lovers condom with the hopes of getting pregnant. In this case lets say she does get pregnant and has effectively made a decision that is completely contrary to her lover’s wishes. He might have strong reservations about population control, he might not be ready for the temporal and financial responsibility of raising a child, or many of the other reasons that a person might have not to carry a pregnancy to term.

Shouldn’t he have a right to decide not to have a child?

For many of us, this issue is about autonomy. The right of a person to not have their body violated by state or citizen is fundamental. But with rights go responsibility and visa versa. A man is held to a level of responsibility for providing for his offspring, and he should have rights that are at least commensurate with that.

If you believe abortion isn’t murder, and that there is no crime in the removal of a healthy fetus from it’s mother’s womb, then I think you should be open to the possibility that in the hypothetical laid out above, a forced abortion would be nothing more than the retrieval of stolen property. The traumatic invasion of the woman for the 10 minute procedure would be balanced against a lifelong traumatic impact that the father didn’t want.

Hopefully you’re getting the point, which is that the stronger our case against abortion=crime/murder, the stronger the case for the rights of the father.

I appreciate your comments.
V

« Previous PageNext Page »