The Massachusetts House Class of 2010
The abortion debate in Massachusetts has been relatively quiet for the past decade or so. With the exception of the law expanding the clinic buffer zone in 2007, the issue has rarely arisen in State House politics, a state of affairs owing in part to the preoccupation of the Catholic Church with gay marriage and with its own internal tribulations.
But as David Bernstein has pointed out, following the 2010 elections, the Massachusetts House of Representatives is now barely pro-choice.
And the House freshman class of 2010, including seven of the seventeen newly-elected Republican House members, is now helping to ramp up the activity of the anti-abortion advocacy group Massachusetts Citizens for Life.
The legislative agenda includes a bill to impose a 24-hour waiting period on any woman seeking an abortion during which time she is to be offered the chance to see an ultrasound and is to be informed of the risks of and alternatives to abortion. This bill has been filed before and hasn’t gotten anywhere, but this session it has eight new sponsors: newly elected House members Collins, Diehl, Ferguson, Harrington, Kuros, Lombardo, Lyons and Ross.
New anti-abortion bills this session would ban most abortions after twenty weeks’ gestation and would criminalize partial birth abortion. The lead sponsors, respectively, are newly-elected Republicans Kimberly Ferguson and George Ross.
I have some sympathy with the pro-life position, especially when it’s paired with opposition to the death penalty and a humane social services policy.
But I thought I read somewhere that in 2010 the Massachusetts GOP supports
a limited role for government in our society, and we believe that our state legislature has strayed from this mandate
If you think there’s an inconsistency here, Mass. Citizens for Life is making an effort to overcome it through its vehement opposition to “Obamacare.”
All of these proposals seem reasonable to me, the question is whether this is part of a chip away strategy to eventually get a full ban (which I oppose) or simply a way to moderate and humanize our abortion policy. One of the main problems with the debate is that any attempt to regulate, restrict, or impose reasonable limits on the abortion period is viewed with innate suspicion by the pro-choice lobby who presume the pro-lifers will not stop there, and viewed by many pro-lifers as not far enough. I agree with David Brooks when he pushed for unfettered access to abortion in the first trimester, restrictions in the second, and a complete ban in the third (with health exceptions), parental notification, no federal funding, and bills like the Informed Consent law, not to mention better FDA supervision and regulation of abortion clinics, which women health advocates on all sides of the debate should support in the wake of the tragedy in Philadelphia. I also happen to think that states are the better laboratory to conduct public policy changes to abortion, not the federal government, and would agree that many of the more compelling arguments against Roe v Wade and limited government/states rights in general, are contradicted by the far rights insistence on a very strong and activist government on this issue. If it doesn’t have the power to regulate health insurance it certainly doesn’t have the power to regulate this kind of decision under their own logic.
With all due respect, saying that these might be ways to “moderate and humanize our abortion policy” is flipping ridiculous. These bills (as well as a handful of others filed this session) are about further criminalizing abortion and, at the very least, heightening the view that abortion is an immoral act.
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p>The real problem with the debate is that it is full of religious sentiment rather than reliance on medical, public health, and social science. (It’s also full of straight-up terrorists on the antichoice side.)
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p>If you agree with David Brooks position, then you should not be in support of these proposed bills.
Mr. Brooks and I agree that, like most developed countries, the 20 week period is a sensible one. That is more than enough time for someone to make a decision regarding that choice for whatever reason, though again there have to be robust health exemptions for rape, incest, and health in order for restrictions to be humane and moderate. I am not sure if such exemptions are present in these proposals and will admit I would be hesitant to support them without those exemptions. A cousin of mine had to have a late term abortion when the child she wanted to have had such advanced pre-natal spinal bifida that giving birth would have jeopardized her health and ability to have future children while only prolonging the suffering of the unborn child that was already dying before it was born, so there are extenuating circumstances where a mother will not know within 20 weeks if keeping the child is the best decision for her, which is why exemptions are essential. But for an elective procedure, I see no reason why 20 weeks is not enough time, and at that first stage there is universal scientific consensus that the unborn child cannot feel pain, cannot react to stimuli, and would not survive outside the womb. Obviously my own religious beliefs would dictate that the potential child is still important and thus abortion is immoral at any stage, but I recognize that this belief is not backed up by scientific evidence and cannot, by itself, influence public policy. After 20 weeks that consensus goes out the window and there have been numerous scientific studies that demonstrate fetal viability, fetal pain, and fetal cognition at stages where the current law allows elective abortion though it should not. One of the most well reasoned ethical discussions on abortion I have ever encountered was written by two scientists, Dr. Carl Sagan and his wife, who are both secular humanists, who concluded that after 24 weeks abortion should not be legal except in cases of a woman’s health. Mandatory sonograms, informing women of the risks and dangers to their health and psyche due to abortion, and robust inspections and certifications of abortion clinics, along with stripping abortion providers of any taxpayer funding, also seem like sensible regulations that this law is taking.
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p>Dental clinics are far more regulated than abortion clinics, and that should change, the tragedy in Philadelphia, which many pro-choicers are refusing to comment on, is proof that the government should be involved, not in regulating the individuals choice, but ensuring that doctors are maintaining sanitary conditions, that they cannot lie to patients, and that all workers have valid health credentials and are not just ‘activists’ of one stripe or another. Lastly while there has been terrorism in the name of the pro-life cause, every major pro-life group has condemned it. The whole point of a consistent ethic of life, as my church at least formulates it, is that war, the death penalty, abortion, and the taking of life in anyway, is never justified on moral grounds. Thus an abortionist has just as much a right to life as the unborn child the terrorist in his delusion believes he is protecting. So equate one entire side of the debate, particularly state legislators, as terrorists is neither accurate nor civil and I would ask that you retract it. Just as most people who are philosophically pro-choice are not baby killers, pro-lifers are not terrorists.
I think life is too full of extenuating circumstances. I think the best policy is to leave the decision in the hands of the woman in consultation with a doctor. Arbitrary timelines don’t make sense for personal medical decisions.
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p>I’m heartbroken and disgusted by the Philly clinic situation. When there are many legal restrictions on the practice, when access is so limited, and when few doctors want to enter the field for fear of their life, it is no surprise that bad actors step into the field. It happened in the days when abortion was illegal. Prohibitions and effective prohibitions (like what we have with abortion in most states) often lead to bad, unintended consequences. Women have said, however, that they went to this clinic because of the intimidation by protestors at the Philly PP clinic.
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p>Because it is a very common and VERY SAFE medical procedure, abortion should be more widely available. It should not only be available at a handful of abortion clinics that are literally under siege. All medical schools should teach the procedure and there should be research into how to make procedures safer and more effective. That’s not happening now.
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p>I think you’re wrong about this. Anti-choice leaders may say that “this is wrong and not what this movement is about,” but when their rhetoric is constantly about calling abortionists murderers and saying they need to be stopped, they are implicitly supporting violence. These organizations, like Operation Rescue, would specifically target the clinics of particular doctors. Some of the less high-profile abortion groups would also post “hit lists” of doctors and post the home addresses of doctors and staff.
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p>Even people who claim the independent label would incite action. Bill O’Reilly, for example, would regularly bring up George Tiller and call him the “George Tiller the baby killer.”
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p>It may be enough for you, but when Randall Terry (who John Boehner met with on Capitol Hill) says the following, I have a hard time calling it a “condemnation” of Tiller’s assassination.
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p>Thousands of anti-choice people stand outside abortion clinics and physically intimidate women every day across this country (even in places like Boston and Brookline and sometimes by Catholic priests and nuns). That’s terrorism. There have been dozens of assassinations, attempted assassinations, and bombings at abortion clinics in just the past few decades. That’s terrorism. Abortion providers and clinic staff are constantly followed, harassed, and threatened by anti-choice advocates. That’s terrorism. These are not isolated actions. These are the planned strategies and tactics of extreme anti-choice advocates (of which there are thousands and thousands in this country).
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p>I will not retract what I said because it is true and is something that needs to be said more often. I did not say that all pro-lifers are terrorists. I said that the anti-choice side is full of terrorists (the tens of thousands [at least] who do the activity described above qualify to make the side “full of” them, I think). As much as you would like to believe that is not true, it is the truth.
…as long as they aren’t disseminating some nonsense about abortion being linked to breast cancer or something like that.
… a waiting period?
… higher costs?
… additional invasive procedures?
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p>I don’t think anybody is opposed to ensuring that anyone who seeks a medical procedure is informed of the risks of that procedure (as well as the risks of other related procedures and not doing anything). However, when that “informed consent” comes with added costs in time, price, or trauma, that’s when it becomes a problem.
To me it’s a no-brainer that when a patient comes to a doctor requesting any procedure, medication, etc. it is the doctor’s responsibility to make sure the patient has all information about risks, process, alternatives where applicable.
It’s the centerpiece of the bill.
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p>Higher costs, both financial and psychological, can easily follow from the multiple visits and compliance requirements.
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p>This is informed consent with the express purpose of deterrence, and therefore not necessarily in the patient’s best interest.
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What I meant was that a waiting period is not a sine qua non for informed consent as a general matter.
The problem is there has been a consistent expose that many abortion providers are irresponsible, from extreme examples such as the Philadelphia case, to examples all across the country where Planned Parenthood doctors and health workers have told blatant lies to encourage women to have abortion. I think we can all agree that these women are some of the most vulnerable in society and deserve the full protection and security provided by the federal government, which should give them every positive incentive to have a child. When 70% of women who have abortions say they do so for economic reasons that is a bipartisan, social justice issue, and one where the progressive side ought to be to encourage those women to have the children they want to have, by ensuring they have access to free health care, free day care, etc. For Mike Pence on the right and Barbara Boxer on the left, and others to divorce the social and economic causes of abortion from the choice itself is doing a disservice to our nations most poor and vulnerable populations. The left must end its cold, libertarian stance on abortion and adopt a more compassionate one, while the right should back up its pro-life language with a downright socialistic economic position towards these women, because if they truly cared about life they would want the state to give these women every alternative to abortion.
There has been no “consistent expose.” That is just garbage. There have only been very, very isolated examples, such as the Philly clinic. If you think the James O’Keefe-style stings of PP are proof that they have told blatant lies to encourage abortion, then I think you need to be more critical of the news reported. If you want to see something about blatant lies told to women, watch HBO’s “12th and Delaware,” a documentary about a crisis pregnancy center across the street from a clinic. The crisis pregnancy center staff lies to the women who come in and will do whatever they can and say whatever lies needed to get the women to not have an abortion (of course, they don’t care what happens to the women in general). There is no narration and no intentional, misleading editing like you will definitely find with these PP “stings” that have come out recently.
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p>I don’t understand your point about Barbara Boxer. She sees choice as a fundamental right of women but she is also fully in support of providing health care, child care, public assistance, etc. Mike Pence thinks women who have abortions (and the doctors who perform them) are murderers that no one should receive government health care or assistance. I don’t see any equivalence between the two. Calling the left’s position a “cold, libertarian stance” is an incredibly narrow view and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the position held by many on the left. The concern is about women, including their emotional, physical, and financial health and their right to make determinations about their own bodies.
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Why are the Democrats for Life still shunned? Why has Bob Casey’s 90-in-10 initiative gotten a cold shoulder from this White House, which pledged to support it, and the Democratic Congress? Instead they spent the first few months enacting radical policies, reversing Mexico City, trying to pass FOCA, and trying to kill the broadly supported bipartisan Hyde Amendment with a hidden rider in healthcare reform. Nobody even bothered to move on 90 in 10, which by the way is a massive investment in women’s health, prenatal daycare, etc. that would reduce abortions by 90% in ten years without altering existing abortion law. The Democratic party is afraid of its own shadow on most issues, especially this one where even talk of reducing abortion is labeled as treasonous to women’s right by the abortion lobby (planned parenthood, NARAL, etc.). The original Roe, the original NARAL President, Governor Hugh Carey of New York who signed the first statewide bill to legalize elective abortions, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and several former pro-choice advocates have realized that abortion on demand has been the unintended consequence of Roe v Wade and its time we reduce it, and we can do so without threatening the original right ensured by Roe. Its hard to take the pro-choice party seriously when it doesn’t even want to give women the choice and option to keep their children with government support, an issue that should be a slam dunk with anyone considering themselves a progressive.
It took years for southern segregationist Democrats to realize that the Democratic Party rejects racism. They tried to dress it up as “states rights”, as “representing their constituents” — many colors of lipstick, same racist pig.
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p>The Democratic Party rightly rejects the patriarchal nonsense of the anti-abortion lobby. The Democratic Party celebrates the right of each woman to choose, for herself, what she will do with her body. Of all the priorities America and the Democratic Party face, reducing the abortion rate doesn’t even make the list for a large number of us. For those few who DO care, the most effective way to reduce the abortion rate is to provide free or very low-cost contraception for all Americans.
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p>The Democratic Party rightly rejects the creeping theocracy of the anti-abortion movement. Such religiously motivated social policies are anathema to American government, to most Democrats, and to most Americans.
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p>I, frankly, find it hard to take YOU seriously when you offer commentary like this. Government support of unwanted babies sounds like abysmal public policy — bad politics, bad tax policy, terribly bad and intrusive government, and most of all horrible for the innocent victims who would grow up knowing they were unwanted and unloved by their biological parents.
What’s so bad about giving an unwanted baby up for adoption? There are definitely people out there who can’t have children who are interested in adopting. I don’t understand how you can argue that it’s worse to grow up “knowing that you’re unwanted” than to not grow up at all, that is, to be snuffed out in the womb and thrown in the garbage. I think that adoptive parents are quite capable of loving their non-biological children, and I think that most such children would probably say that they were happy they were born rather than aborted. The Left has a history of looking out for the rights of the most vulnerable, and the disenfranchised, and in general supporting humane policies toward people and animals- but with this issue all that compassion seems to go out the window. When it comes to abortion, it seems that many people care more about greyhound dogs and foxes than unborn human beings, which I can’t comprehend at all.
Have you ever seen a sonogram of a fetus at four months gestation? I have one of my daughter that we kept- the picture is from mid-February and my daughter was born at the tail end of July. Dude, she looks completely human in the picture. It’s crazy that so many smart people have concluded that a human being in their mother’s womb doesn’t deserve any legal protection at all. Personally I think we have less to fear from “creeping theocracy” (which I just don’t see happening outside of some pockets of the deep south and Midwest, and even in those places I would wager that religious sentiment is less prevalent than it was a generation ago) than from creeping moral apathy, indifference to the suffering of others, and a culture of selfishness and cruelty.
An enormous amount happens to a woman between conception and birth, and that woman (in consultation with her care providers) is best able to decide what is best for her. It is certainly not your or my place to decide “what’s so bad” about her full-term pregnancy.
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p>I have five children, I coached the mothers of each through childbirth, I cut the umbilical cord of each, I’ve seen sonograms of each (done during prenatal testing for Downs), and I’m fully aware of the issues involved. I’ve also supported my spouses through both abortion and mis-carriage. You are not the only person to go through these life-changing experiences, you are not the only “smart” person, and a great many “smart” men and women come to very different conclusions from you about these issues. Back off your moral high-horse and deal with it.
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p>The fetus you see in the sonogram was not a “human being”, any more than the bud inside an acorn is an oak tree. You are free to believe whatever you like about abortion, contraception, sexual activity, gender preference, and the rest. You are not free to impose those beliefs on me, my family, or anyone else.
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p>In particular, please spare me the thinly-veiled accusations of “creeping moral apathy”, “indifference to the suffering of others” and “a culture of selfishness and cruelty.” A quick look at the still-unfolding history of the Vatican towards clergy sex abuse, gay and lesbian sexuality, and women’s rights quickly confirms that fervently-professed religious belief offers no sanctuary from the supposed moral failings you cite.
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p>When embryonic stem cell research is fully-supported by the government, I’ll feel better. When our government’s policy towards climate change is driven by science, rather than religious belief, then come talk to me. When our public school students are taught evolution in biology as openly, as enthusiastically, and as early as they are taught relativity in physics, then come talk to me. When right wing religious extremists right here in Massachusetts stop attempting to interfere with my daughter’s ability to do what she chooses with her body, then my concerns about creeping theocracy will perhaps subside.
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p>You don’t have to go to the deep south or midwest to see what I’m talking about — take a ride on the Green Line to Coolidge Corner, walk down Harvard towards Brookline Village, and have a chat with the director of the Women’s Clinic that just opened there. I think you’ll find that “creeping theocracy” is all around us right here in Massachusetts.
I think Democrats for Life hold extreme anti-choice views and their policies should be shunned. As far as the anti-choice voice having a home in the Democratic party, I think it does. There are many anti-choice Dems in positions of power. Harry Reid, for example. And all those jerks who signed on to Stupak’s disgusting display. How many pro-choice Republicans are there in Congress? 4? 5?
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p>No, they tried to reverse radical and bad policy in favor of better, more compassionate policy.
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p>The Hyde Amendment is just bad policy, it doesn’t matter if it has overwhelming bi-partisan support. A vote to legalize same-sex marriage would fail miserably in Congress, that doesn’t make opposing marriage equality good policy or not a hateful position.
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p>What a joke. You will not find more outspoken advocates for public aid of women and families than you will among the ranks of those who vigorously support choice.
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p>My problem with these policies is that they are all about abortion, which make them narrow and misguided approaches. What about trying to decrease unwanted pregnancies? Where is the support for free contraception? My understanding is that the Democrats for Life aren’t exactly very supportive of contraception. That’s terrible policy. Comprehensive sex education? Dems for Life prefer more abstinence training. Again, terrible policy. If Dems for Life want to sign on to less narrow, and more reasonable policies, then I am all for bringing them along. They aren’t even close to there yet.
It is making sure that women know all the risks involved and making sure they see what they are aborting. Sonograms are an essential medical procedure to any pregnant woman’s health care, and the fact that many abortion clinics do not even have them should be cause for alarm to anyone who supports women’s healthcare. A waiting period and consulting with ones own personal physician also seems sensible considering how invasive and dangerous this procedure, under the safest of circumstance, can be. At the end of the day, in the first trimester, after consultations with their own physician, after thinking over the decision, and the woman still chooses to have an abortion, than there is nothing in this current law stopping her from doing so. Considering the health risks, the studies showing post-abortion psychological trauma, and the fact that the basis of Roe v Wade was so a woman could consult with her own physician about the issue, I do not see these regulations as overly invasive. My biggest concern about them is the lack of robust exemptions, which means that if they pass I doubt they will be deemed constitutional, and robust exemptions are essential to a more robust and compassionate abortion policy. But believe me this is the most difficult issue to be a sensible centrist on, because my church and the moral community I consider myself a part of would view my own beliefs as far too lenient, while the pro-choice side has morphed in the past generation into an extremist, abortion on demand at any time, no regulations position inconsistent with my own beliefs as well. There are few issues where partisan bickering and political polarization have so destroyed any sensible discussion on an important social and ethical issue. The irony is few on either side have actually read the Roe v Wade decision which only applies to the first trimester, and encourages states to ban it in the second and third. Harry Blackmun would be rolling over in his grave if he knew his advocacy for patient-physician privacy would have led to abortion on demand to such a degree.
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p>Then we should make both men and women view x-rays, sonograms, and photographs of everything they have surgically excised from their bodies. That’s sound medical advice right? Take a picture of it before you remove it and make sure the patient gets a good look? Otherwise, how can a patient make an informed decision? After all, this couldn’t POSSIBLY have anything to do with the romancing the fetus, right? This couldn’t POSSIBLY have anything to do with guilt and the purty little baby, right? Forcing women or men to view pics of the tissue they have removed from their bodies is preposterous. Except, of course, for women, who are stupid and need to make sure they understand they are killing babies.
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p>Second, ultrasounds have a specific clinical purpose. Your bizarre declaration that we should be concerned about the dearth of sonograms in voluntary terminations of pregnancy reveals your abject ignorance about women’s reproduction, the nature of abortion, and the clinical applications of sonography in diagnostic medicine.
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p>Your disrespect for women continues to amaze. As a matter of reproductive social justice, women are perfectly capable of deciding what to do about their pregnancies without your paternalistic and exploitative pictures. After all, we see more bloody messes in our lifetimes than you would in ten thousand. We can handle it, your romance aside.
I started to write a similar response, and gave up.
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p>Thank you for saying what needs to be said.
I think that is already standard practice. Every time I have had surgery I’ve seen either xrays or MRI’s of the injury and what they are going to do. It’s pretty standard I think.
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p>And yes it does have everything, in this case, to show that you are murdering a child by having an abortion.
to force a patient to view any clinically diagnostic information, whether text or graphic.
doctors are just more open with the information.
The proposal would FORCE clinicians to FORCE women to view ultrasound images.
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p>When have you ever been FORCED to view your MRIs at the risk of your not being able to receive your surgery? Never, because that is patently unethical behavior by any clinician. We don’t force patients to do anything; we provide information in order that a patient may 1) provide informed consent and 2) be better educated. Pictures have NOTHING to do with either.
A woman seeking an abortion walks into a clinic. The abortionist now offers to show her an ultrasound so she can make an informed decision and consent. That routinely happens now? It is offered?
I became aware that the Planned Parenthood did indeed offer ultrasounds. It may have even been for free.
PP is a comprehensive women’s reproductive health care provider, which means that women with all sorts of OB/GYN issues receive diagnostic services there. Ultrasounds have a specific role in the women’s reproductive care. Abortion isn’t one of them.
I was under the impression that it was available if requested, though not required or even necessarily recommended for people there to end a pregnancy, specifically because the facility was a women’s health clinic, and the equipment was right there.
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p>Perhaps the nature of this quibble is in the double-barreled inquiry raised in the comment. The physician “offers to show.. an ultrasound…” No, and why would she?
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p>Is it offered? Yes, I think it is, upon request. Which is sufficient.
First of all, why would a physician do an ultrasound on a pregnant woman seeking an abortion. Um, do you happen to know what the point of a sonogram is in pregnancy? I’m sure you dont.
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p>Second, because the sonogram is of no clinical significance in a routine VTP, why on earth would a) the clinician waste the patient’s or insurer’s money on one and b) what is to be gained by going over an unnecessary medical test? IOW, in what way is the woman’s informed consent affected by the sonogram? She doesn’t need an ultrasound; it’s completely unnecessary. Moreover, she doesn’t know how to read it–and you know that. What she sees is something vaguely human, which is exactly the point of this exercise. To make her feel guilty.
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p>And the law is not about “offering.” It’s about force–or no abortion. A unnecessary medical procedure is forced upon a woman and then the doctor is forced to force her to look at it. What planet are you on? Are you really this misinformed?
because you want to provide the illusion that the fetus is not in fact another human being.
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p>I find it very interesting that the same people that get all up in arms over waterboarding are fine with the violent destruction of innocent life.
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p>Pouring water down the throats of terrorists to save lives – bad.
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p>Breeching a child up to the neck, inserting a metal tube into the base of the brain. Then sucking out the brains with a vacuum. – well that’s a woman’s choice and is AOK.
I’m reasonably certain that the proposal, or any statute in any state, does not FORCE or even force a woman to view an ultrasound. I think the statute requires an abortion provider to offer the pregnant woman the opportunity to view the ultrasound. Sorry, OFFER.
Nickp is correct that the bill expressly requires that the woman only be offered the opportunity to view the ultrasound (and also the opportunity to hear a heartbeat if one can be detected).
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p>However, the bill does require the physician to inform the woman of the probable gestational age and the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics of the embryo or fetus. The bill also requires the woman to be provided with a pamphlet with the same information covering 2-week increments from fertilization to birth with color photographs or drawings.
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p>So regardless of the distinction between “forcing” and “offering,” the bill’s waiting period and attendant intrusiveness have put me on the other side.
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In my opinion.
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p>jconway is sincerely disagreeing here, it seems to me. His comment is more respectful than yours. You seem to be projecting a paternal attitude on to him that he probably doesn’t have.
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What a beautifully emblematic comment. Sometimes the problems with this site simply reveal themselves in the most uncanny manner.
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p>Mr. Conway and I have a long and acrimonious history on this topic, so while I appreciate your taking the time to make your opinions on my tone known, your disapproval of my “projecting a paternal attitude” doesn’t concern me.
If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. :-!
In my view, the waiting period to be something designed to purely to increase inconvenience and cost; I believe that we can rely on ethical medical practitioners to make sure the patient knows of the various risks, etc.
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p>I don’t think that the so-called “partial birth” bills accomplish anything except to inflame people. Merits of the parties aside, such bills must have an exception for the person’s health, which is either so broad as to be meaningless or so narrow as to be unconstitutional under the applicable precedent. From the pro-life perspective, these bills don’t make much of a gain even if adopted. From the pro-choice perspective, they’re a dead loss. And any common ground they offer for compromise is superficial, disappearing once you hit the details. Simply not worth considering at this point, unless you are a politician looking for some fundraising.
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p>I’m sure I am far more comfortable than most here are with an outside time limit. Will Saletan at Slate has had a series of interesting articles about this in recent months.
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p>My own theory on this is that one cannot pinpoint a moment during a pregnancy when the embryo/fetus becomes a person. The prolife movement, including my own church, say that one must simply conclude or believe that the embryo is a person at conception; this is as patently silly as saying that morning on a cloudy day comes the night before, because it is hard to pinpoint the dawn. But it is likewise silly to contend, as at least some prochoice people do, that the embryo/fetus isn’t a person until it is born.
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p>My own view is that “personhood” or humanity in this context is something that emerges over time, in much the same way that humanity itself emerged over time as primates slowly evolved into homo sapiens. As the embryo develops into something that might be more accurately described as a “baby” then it seems like there has to be progressive shifting of the balance of the respective interests in the fetus/baby’s interests over time. In other words, at some point it is too late. Moreover, there will never be any scientific “proof” of when that moment might be; we will not know. Drawing the line will necessarily be, in some respects, arbitrary, but that does not necessarily mean unreasonable. The point at which preemies can survive seems like as reasonable as possible a place to draw the line.
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p>So the twenty-week bill might be bit too short, but the concept is not something I object to, except to the extent that I do not believe that this would be much of a change from existing law or practice in Massachusetts, so why the need to waste legislative time with it?
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p>His attempts at compromise show how incredibly radicalized and polarized both sides of this debate are. The amount of invective leveled against him from otherwise scientific, levelheaded, and ‘reality based’ people has been amazing. And thats just the pro-choice side. And we thought fundamentalism and being blind to science was a trait only inherent to the religious inspired pro-life side.
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p>To CMD I would agree and disagree about our Church. Part of me feels they have a moral obligation to put the line where they do simply to make sure they are not allowing for anything that could possibly be unethical. Part of me thinks this focus has become part of the problem with the debate. To me, Humane Vitae is a guideline for good Catholics to live by, not the end all be all of Catholic social policy, as the more conservative archbishops have made it out to be, like Chaput in Denver and Burke in St. Louis. I also hate the idea of excommunication being selectively applied to pro-choice politicians alone, and not any politician who supports violations of the consistent life ethic. This was not always the church’s position, as Carl Sagan pointed out in that article I linked to, he is an atheist I might add, Thomas Aquinas and Augustine both shared his belief that abortion is permissible before quickening or the 24th week as most nations draw the line, alongside an increasing number of scientists (in terms of fetal pain, cognition, etc.).
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p>To Jim C I appreciate the love, but in all honesty lightiris and I are beyond a rational dialogue, and I must confess a large part of that is due to my own histrionics on this subject in past threads, but I hope even my philosophical opponents can see in my posts here, that I have tried to be more sensitive and nuanced to the other side on this issue on this thread since I do believe there is good will on both sides.
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p>To lightiris I will only say that I apologize for any of the name calling and histrionics I have engaged with you in the past, as it has done both of our sides disservice. I will ask you a few questions though, but understand this are probative and not inflammatory (at least that is my intention). You say object to the sonogram mainly because you claim that women who are going to clinics are there to get an abortion, not to learn about their pregnancy. I will contest this by pointing out that many women walk into these clinics without such determination, but are confused about what they want to do and are seeking medical guidance. In many cases these are the only places that even offer free OBY-GYN services as well. Not all women who go into abortion clinics want abortion and many of them are scared, vulnerable, and do not know what to do. Forcing doctors to recognize this and provide their patients with full diagnostic services and screenings, including sonograms, would likely result in many women choosing not to have abortions, but I am sure it would also result in many women, even seeing the sonogram, still choosing to take agency over their decision and terminate. If you are convinced that women can responsibly make this choice why do you wish to deny them access to diagnostic information that even you have conceded has no bearing on their decision? If a woman seeing the unborn child move around chooses not to have the abortion that’s her choice no? Wouldn’t this ensure that, regardless of whether it reduces abortion rates or not, that it will certainly reduce the rates of women who have abortions and later regret it? Don’t you feel that the choice to keep a child or the need to ensure the choice is not regretted, regardless if its keep or abort, are choices that are also equally valid and deserve legal protection? Your arguments seem to presume that ‘choice’ is a euphemism for ‘pro-abort’ or ‘determined to abort’, and I would warn you thatyour side of the debate does not feel that way and dislikes it when my side bandies those terms about. This is a point of clarification and hopefully illumination, notice I have not disparaged your side and I am interested in your views.
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p>Actually, didn’t say that. What I said was that your application of sonography in any abortion discussion is silly and worthless. Women who are there for OB or other GYN care MAY have be appropriately screened with an ultrasound for SPECIFIC medical reasons. Ultrasounds have become an expensive vanity puff activity in MANY pregnant women, used only to determine sex, when possible or a multiple. The actual clinical applications are narrow. Your comments don’t acknowledge this reality at all.
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p>Well, this is romantic gibberish again. Contrary to the popular stereotype that women are emotionally fragile, most are not. Those who are ambivalent are provided counseling to help them make a decision that is in their best interests.
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p>At least you are honest enough to admit that you are willing to exploit a woman’s ambivalence to your ideological advantage, even if that decision is not in her best interests.
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p>How many times does someone need to tell you that the use sonography is unethical, wasteful, and politically exploitive? FORCING doctors to perform unnecessary medical tests is simply ridiculous–and you know that. You’re not honest enough to admit that, I guess. And this nonsense of “full diagnostic services and screenings” is deeply silly. Clinicials are trained to provide APPROPRIATE services–something you are not trained to do–and will provide those services as part of their professional and ethical responsibilities. They should not be forced into a position of pushing a political agenda.
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p>You reveal your agenda here. Stop trying to make your desire for forced medical testing anything other than what it is. Women get ultraounds of breast tumors all the time, too. Should they be forced to view them before having the tissue removed?
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p>You are insulting without even realizing it. Women are not a subspecies of humanity. We are not mentally retarded. We are not inferior. We are not intellectually incapacitated by our ovaries.
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p>Your straw man argument has been dealt with. There is no “diagnostic information” to provide. There is your romanticized fetish regarding a clump of cells as “baby.”
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p>The remainder of your post if filled with similarly disrespectful and paternalistic comments. Your desire to infantilize women or render them somehow incapable of controlling their own reproductive futures is, bar none, some of the worst I’ve encountered.
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p>One in three American women will have an abortion in her lifetime. Worldwide that number jumps to one in one. Abortion is a form of reproductive health care for women that is not emotionally scarring, that is healthy, that is as hopeful for the future as having a baby. Women must make those decisions on their own.
Especially for THIS:
Well at least we can be agreeable in our disagreement.
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p>Most scientists would disagree with calling a fetus ‘a clump of cells’ after the 20 week period, including atheists like Sagan and Dawkins who have severe reservations about late term abortions on humanist/ethical grounds. There are brain wave patterns indicative of cognition, in some cases their lungs are developed enough to enable them to live outside the womb, they can feel pain, and they are living beings-not a clump of cells. Whether they have the same rights as humans is another subject entirely, but it is inaccurate to call it, after 8 weeks, a clump of cells, it is far beyond the embryonic stage. Any bio major could tell you that.
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p>Furthermore I think your assumption that 100% of all women who go into abortion clinics want to have an abortion is patently false and a fetishized/romanticized view on its own accord. And lastly, and hopefully you will remember this, I am not ignorant or cold to the hopes and aspirations of women facing this decision. In fact, contrary to your assumptions, I have talked to and counseled women considering making this decision and they were quite scared and frightened, another friend was determined to get it, got it, and didn’t regret getting it, and many women, perhaps the majority, feel the way she and you do about this decision. But to speak in generalized terms that ALL women want to have an abortion when they walked into Planned Parenthood is wrong. Many are seeking free and confidential advice from medical professionals, many of whom are professional and honest, some of whom have a clear profit or ideological incentive to encourage them to abort. I am for increased government regulation, not to interfere with womens choices but to give them as many choices as possible.
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p>There is a basic logical contradiction in your argument, if ALL women wanted to have an abortion than ALL women would, regardless of whether or not they saw a sonogram. My point there are tangible benefits to having one, even if a woman chooses to abort, and all women should have access to those benefits. My second point is, that, from my perspective, its another out for women who want to reconsider, and if they choose to reconsider, thats their choice. If they choose to continue, all the better since its a choice they wont regret. So seems to be a moderate, win win that doesn’t affect choice one way or the other.
Stem cell debates and FINALLY getting contraception covered as a medication, along with RU-486 and why it’s different from the ‘morning after’ pill, and who should have access to it…really, it hasn’t been quiet at all.
You mean PRO LIFE, don’t you? I’m pro abortion myself. As President Obama spews: ” Just words” But i’m not going to sit aside quietly while you mismanage the English language to suit your own personal agenda.
billxi buried two dead infants. I’m pretty well versed on the issue.
I pray you never have to experience bill’s heartache.
Millbury, I am philosophically pro-life myself, and likely agree with you on this issue. But you do your side, my side, and your opponents a disservice with this heated rhetoric. My delete comment rating was because your comment was insulting, inflammatory, and did not address the substance of any of the issues discussed. I implore you to make another post that does.