quote:Even among strong opponents to abortion there is a disagreement on when an abortion is justified. Note that Belle and Dag. disagreed on whether a woman with cancer should be allowed to have an abortion and both of them are strongly opposed to abortion.
As I said, If the abortion is necessary for the treatment of cancer, then it should be allowed. I agree with Theaca that there are seriously different moral issues at stake in a surgery that results in almost or even (to us) certain death for the baby and an actual abortion. But I'm comfortable with the idea of allowing the abortion as long as the doctor will attest to the necessity of it to protect the mother's life.
If the abortion is only "necessary" because the chemo will harm the baby, then I think it should be illegal, for much the same reason I oppose legal abortion to weed out disabled children.
There are serious disagreements about where the line should be for self-defense - disagreements which force people to make choices that could endanger their own life or risk jail. There are serious disagreements about how much and what kind of emotional distress should be needed to mitigate murder to manslaughter. There are serious disagreements about justification - it used to be the law that you couldn't use deadly force to defend others, or to use deadly force to save your life from a non-aggressor.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Megan I still have a problem with what you're saying. Many pro-choice people tell me that they want abortions to be "safe, legal, and rare" and believe that abortion is never a "good" thing to have happen; just that's it's necessary at times.
If that's your belief as well, then heck, shouldn't it be a good thing if the materials do lean in one direction - the direction that leads away from abortion - if we all do truly agree that it's never good, we should support the giving of information that might persuade a woman otherwise. I've heard pro-choicers say on this thread they think abortion should always be a last resort, so in order to get to that point, shouldn't a woman have to face the reality of her decision, by seeing the ultrasounds, and hear about all other options, including those that attempt to persuade her from that course? Only after going through all that and saying "I still want an abortion" can we say yes, it's truly a last resort, all other options have been considered and rejected, and this woman still wants an abortion.
She has to know about the other options in order to consider them and reject them though.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, I'm prolife, as I said. But as long as abortion is legal: I truly believe that for the future mental wellbeing of the mother, she should have informed choice. And since we are talking about a group of ladies who are often young, poor, scared, or being pressured, who are usually being seen in a clinic whose sole purpose is to promote and carry out abortions, that there need to be firm rules in place to make sure these young girls aren't just breezing by the informed consent part. That's why I think literature along with ultrasounds or videos about the fetus and the procedure should be required. That's not rubbing her nose in it. It's making sure she THINKS. It's making sure she can't suddenly realize that abortion wasn't what she imagined it would be when it is too late.
Posts: 1014 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
And let's not forget, (as Theca has reminded us) that the people who are giving these materials to this young woman are people who profit from her choosing to have an abortion.
Personally, I'd rather the person doing the counselling be a volunteer unconnected with the clinic, not an employee of the abortion clinic. Remember that abortion is a for-profit enterprise, and how hard is a person employed by that clinic going to try and persuade an uncertain young girl to go talk to an adoption agency, if her salary depends on that clinic performing enough abortions to be profitable?
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:pH, do we not expect doctors to inform their patients about alternatives to, say, surgery? Are patients not encouraged to get a second opinion at any time? Isn't it the job of a good doctor, not just to tell the patient, "This is what I'm going to do," but make sure the patient has a solid understanding of precisely what will be done? Maybe you treat doctor's visits differently from me, I don't know. I treat visits to the doctor rather like buying a car.
It's not that I distrust a doctor as much as I distrust a car dealer, it's that in such an important decision, I make it my business to be very well informed.
And if having extra information really is a "sidelong attempt to influence the woman's decision", then perhaps the other decision-to abort-is not as justifiable, sustainable, defensible, correct, insert the appropriate word here, as you thought?
It's not that I think that extra information will necessarily influence the woman's decision. It's how the information is presented. I don't think that a woman should HAVE to see the ultrasound if she doesn't want to. I do think that women should be informed about options such as adoption. However, being forced to see the ultrasound seems to me to be a cheap attempt at a guilt trip. I think that the decision to abort can be the correct choice. I don't think that it is ALWAYS the correct choice, but I think that the choice belongs to the woman. Period. If she WANTS to see the ultrasound or if she WANTS to persue other options, good for her. Otherwise, let her decide.
I think the buying a gun analogy was a good one.
Edit: Also, alternatives to surgery usually attempt to accomplish the same result as the surgery. Alternatives to abortion will inevitably still lead to the woman having to carry the pregnancy to term, with the limits of today's technology.
quote:However, being forced to see the ultrasound seems to me to be a cheap attempt at a guilt trip.
If the woman remains secure in her conviction that she has nothing to feel guilty about and is not delayed more than a few hours, where is the harm?
By the way, the gun-buying analogy was originally mine (in this thread, at least), and I was talking about a slight waiting period without attempting to deceive the woman past some arbitrary date beyond which she could not legally get an abortion.
quote:I don't think that it is ALWAYS the correct choice, but I think that the choice belongs to the woman. Period. If she WANTS to see the ultrasound or if she WANTS to persue other options, good for her. Otherwise, let her decide.
Well obviously it's your opinion. But if we insist on a little education for things like driving, gun-ownership, flying, boating, and sky-diving, I see no reason why not to insist the woman see an ultrasound without being unduly delayed.
It's certainly not virgin territory for the government. In every case, the government insists on a little education for the protection of the individual, and others. The same can be said for ultrasound: a little extra knowledge for the woman, and a little bit of further hope for protection in the case of the possible-person.
I remain baffled by this insistence of the absolute supremacy of a woman's right to chose. Or, if not absolute, supreme to almost all other considerations-such as possibly destroying a child's life. And I'm one of the more hawkish Hatrackers!
Why does the choice belong to the woman, PERIOD? Why, if that choice is possibly made over the corpse of a dead child? Yes, I realize that's inflammatory language, and it's deliberate. If pro-lifers are right-if as many of them believe, human life begins at conception (and we'll probably never know until, if then, after dying), then the choice to abort is being made over the corpse of a dead child.
Why is that choice so sacrosanct? Is it because denying that sanctity threatens women's rights? I'll admit I can understand that argument, but I have to say it smacks of zealotry and no-tolerance policies to me. Is it because it's only possible that it's a true human life being destroyed? If that is the reason, then why is it reasonable to err on the side of caution for women's rights and not for the life of a child?
I just don't understand it. When pro-choicers say to pro-lifers, "If you care so much for life, why then do you support execution of criminals?" I can understand that argument, and frankly if you're speaking to Christian reasoning, I agree.
But that argument can be turned around. It goes both ways. A pro-lifer can say with just as much fairness, "If you care so much for the life of a multiple-murderer/rapist/child molestor, why do you care so little for the chance that children are being destroyed for convenience, to avoid consequences of stupid mistakes?"
I do not understand how someone can say, "I believe that the clump of cells becomes a 'true human life' at some point during gestation and prior to birth, but we cannot say when exactly, and it changes for everyone," and still say, "It should be the woman's choice, PERIOD."
pH, those are your words, but I am not trying to single you out, not trying to pick on you. Your words are words I've heard from many pro-choicers, and I ask people who share your reasoning-and you, too, of course-to help me understand, because I've been arguing and discussing and listening and reading about this for years, and still do not understand.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
Buying a gun is not causing a life changing event. It opens up new avenues, but in itself does nothing. BTW, you have to be 18, and in some states 21, to get a gun. I don't know any details
Having an abortion is an entirely different matter. It IS a life changing, irrevocable event, even if the girl doesn't see it that way at the time, and she may later.
quote:Also, alternatives to surgery usually attempt to accomplish the same result as the surgery. Alternatives to abortion will inevitably still lead to the woman having to carry the pregnancy to term, with the limits of today's technology.
That is not a helpful sentence. But I can't think of any words to respond to it right now.
Posts: 1014 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's not a child. It has the potential to become a child.
Also. Just because someone feels guilty about something doesn't necessarily mean that he or she has made the wrong choice. Abortion is never an easy choice. But the fact that some women feel guilty about it does not automatically mean that they have done something wrong.
You think it is not a child. But what of a premature birth? Or a woman who is killed but her unborn child is saved and lives a long, healthy life? Was it not a child but a "potential to become a child" until the very instant it breathes the open air and seen with the naked eye?
Women feeling guilt isn't the whole basis for a pro-life argument by any stretch of the imagination. I don't understand why you even brought it up. Furthermore, for some women abortion is an easy choice. Both in America and abroad.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I do not know of any instance in which a woman has had a healthy, successful birth after less than three months of pregnancy.
No, I don't think it's a child. Yes, it's my opinion. Just as you have no evidence to prove that it IS a child.
The guilt thing was a random thought on my part because it seems that some others in this thread have the attitude that if the woman feels guilty, what she has done is OBVIOUSLY wrong.
quote:No, I don't think it's a child. Yes, it's my opinion. Just as you have no evidence to prove that it IS a child.
No, I do not have evidence that it IS a child, you are correct in that. But one of the questions I asked was why isn't it better to err on the side of caution? Tie goes to the runner, no executions without "beyond a reasonable doubt", on and on. Why isn't it desirable to err on the side of caution when admittedly there is a whole lot of uncertainty of just when "it" is a child?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:I do not know of any instance in which a woman has had a healthy, successful birth after less than three months of pregnancy.
Here's the question, pH: if that's really the determining factor for you, what happens when modern medicine makes it possible to keep that kid alive?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
How about this, then: suppose next year medical technology advances to the point where such a transplant is possible only after, say, nine weeks of gestation? Would you be in favor of it then?
This does not strike me as an elaborate, unlikely hypothetical, either.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Problem #2, then: who takes care of the child? Someone's going to have to pay for that kid's schooling, food, etc. We spared the mother the pain of childbirth; do we now spare her the work of motherhood? If so, how is this better than current adoption procedures?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Great. So what we've essentially done, through the wonders of hypothetical technology, is spared someone's biological mother the pain of childbirth.
If every second-trimester child currently being aborted were "transplanted" into an artificial womb or otherwise kept alive for adoption, what do you think would be the result?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
You're entirely right! So do you agree that, if medical technology is really the barrier, we should ban abortion once it becomes possible to transplant second-trimester children? That all abortions become transplants instead, paid for by the mother or her insurance?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'll never understand why people talk about childbirth like it was some sort of punishment. Like pregnancy is merely something to be endured.
Am I the only woman looking forward to being pregnant? Is it not why God or nature divided a good chunk of organisms into male and female? The entire biological point of having a female in the species is to carry and bear young.
If we're female for this entire reason, how terrible can it be to fulfill that purpose?
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Is it not why God or nature divided a good chunk of organisms into male and female? The entire biological point of having a female in the species is to carry and bear young.
Or maybe female is the default and the whole biological point of making some of the organisms male is to sire young.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
In any organism that uses sexual reproduction, I suppose female would have to be the default. How else would we get parthenogenic females?
I think my point still holds. Life doesn't exist without a way to create young. In a large number of organisms, ours included, sex is the default. Females carry babies and give birth to them.
If that's just the way it's intended to be, why do so many people feel the need to discuss it as some kind of evil inflicted on femalekind? It's what we were designed for, be it by natural selection of a creator. It's not the end of the world.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: . . . The entire biological point of having a female in the species is to carry and bear young.
If we're female for this entire reason, how terrible can it be to fulfill that purpose?
Frankly, I don't think God or the Supreme Being, or whatever Higher Power/Spiritual Force you choose to believe in created a male and a female for the sole purpose of procreation.
I am not here on this Earth to just bear and nurture babies.
My son's father is not here on this Earth to just plant a seed.
There is ever so much more to life than just the act of procreation and nurture of new little life forms.
There is the task of caring for each other, for our planet, for the creatures that creepeth on the land, swimmeth in the sea, flieth in the air . . . the plants that grow . . . the creations that our intelligence brings about -
There really is plenty to do on this Earth without focusing solely on our individual sex and procreative options.
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'll never understand why people talk about childbirth like it was some sort of punishment. Like pregnancy is merely something to be endured.
Have you spent any real time around pregnant women? I could tell you STORIES....
*shudder* Let me put it this way: you couldn't pay me enough money to carry a child to term, even if it were biologically possible. Frankly, I can't imagine a better way to reduce the number of teenage mothers out there than simply requiring every twelve-year-old girl in the country to spend two whole days with a woman starting her ninth month of pregnancy.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
To take that more seriously than you intended: it wouldn't work. Because men still have the "option" of being poor fathers, so that kind of deterrent wouldn't phase them.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
Women have the option of being "poor mothers" --whether or not they adore or hate pregnancy, Tom -- just as men have the option of being "poor fathers" no matter their level of responsibility, no?
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Not really, no. Certainly not in the same way. Because a man who doesn't want his child can leave; a mother who doesn't want her child has to abandon. I think there's a very real distinction here, and it's why "deadbeat moms" -- as opposed to "deadbeat dads" -- are a statistical rarity, especially compared to abortion rates.
A shiftless boy who sees how horrible caring for a colicky baby is won't think "Gee, I shouldn't have sex." He'll think "Gee, I should dump her before the kid's born."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
Perhaps is we legitimized "abandonment" and provided a way for babies to be given into the care of an intermediary (who can then place said baby/child with family wanting baby/child), maybe we'd see less of those awful stories of mom's that starve, drown, burn, beat, humiliate, or otherwise destroy innocent young lives - because of some social stigma that says it's better to keep and hate a child, then to "abandon" a child . . .
Just thinking out loud . . .
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Heck, according to social stigma, it's better to abort a fetus than abandon a child. I actually suspect that this is a major cause of abortions: people who don't want to go through pregnancy and/or don't want to keep a baby, but can't bear the thought of abandoning their child.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
The woman from Row v. Wade wanted the abortion because she didn't want the baby, but if she maintained the pregnancy she knew she'd fall in love with him and be unable to give him up. So she figured she would abort it instead. Easier to kill it than to love him. I don't think I'll ever be able to understand that line of reasoning.
Posts: 1014 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I linked (I think on page 2) to an NPR essay that looked at the social stigma surrounding a single teen parent - that, against all odds, completed her education through a graduate degree, yet still got flack from colleagues, friends, family. She's not an oddity.
As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter what decision the woman makes - all of the general public seems to feel entitled to tell her what to do and how to do it, with a generous leavening of judgementalism attached.
Of course, if we're truly just baby factories . . . *rolling eyes and snorting*
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Shan, I wasn't saying any given individual is supposed to have kids. Plenty of people shouldn't. But there's no point to sexual reproduction if that's not what females as a whole are supposed to do.
Plenty of fish lay eggs which are then fertilized by the male. The area is protected from predators, but after that the kids are on their own. Single celled organisms use budding or mitosis where gender is completely nonexistent.
Sex is not the only option, but it is humanity's only option. I just find it irritating when people carry on about it like it's a horrible thing to do to women. It's kind of what we're built for.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
AR did not say "[Women are] here on this Earth to just bear and nurture babies. [Men are] here on this Earth to just plant a seed."
She said the reason there is a difference is reproductive. I don't entirely agree with that (although I believe it is one of the reasons). But it's very different to say, "people were divided into male and female for reproductive purposes" than to say "the only purpose males and females have is reproduction."
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, AvidReader - I certainly understand your irritation. I experienced similar feelings when people around me persisted in being so grossed out by breastfeeding, when my son was an infant.
But your statement that " . . .there's no point to sexual reproduction if that's not what females as a whole are supposed to do," is what I disagree with.
By that logic, men's bodies, chemical make-up, internal/external processes, etc., leave them as the sex that do all the "heavy work", the "protecting", the "waging war", etc.
I don't want men or women featly lumped into those categories -- and when we argue from the biological standpoint only, then we miss a whole realm of other possibilities in the human spectrum.
posted
Shan, I agree with you that there is more to humans than biology. After all, the biological purpose is incredably specific: passing on genes to the next generation. I just don't agree with ignoring biology because we have arbitrarily decided everything else is more important. And I don't like seeing a natural biological process referred to in a demeaning way. Pregnancy is not a punishment.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Belle: Megan I still have a problem with what you're saying. Many pro-choice people tell me that they want abortions to be "safe, legal, and rare" and believe that abortion is never a "good" thing to have happen; just that's it's necessary at times.
If that's your belief as well, then heck, shouldn't it be a good thing if the materials do lean in one direction - the direction that leads away from abortion - if we all do truly agree that it's never good, we should support the giving of information that might persuade a woman otherwise. I've heard pro-choicers say on this thread they think abortion should always be a last resort, so in order to get to that point, shouldn't a woman have to face the reality of her decision, by seeing the ultrasounds, and hear about all other options, including those that attempt to persuade her from that course? Only after going through all that and saying "I still want an abortion" can we say yes, it's truly a last resort, all other options have been considered and rejected, and this woman still wants an abortion.
She has to know about the other options in order to consider them and reject them though.
(I quoted the whole post, since the discussion has moved on somewhat since then.)
I see your point. I've never used the "safe, legal, and rare" argument, although I do think abortion shouldn't be allowed past the first trimester. I guess my real trouble is this: prior to implantation, and during the weeks in which the embryo (not a fetus yet) is 1/25 of an inch or 1/17 of an inch, and has a tail, I have a hard time as seeing abortion as "the killing of an unborn child." Part of this may be because of this thread, as I went and did some reading on fetal development.
Honestly? I'm to the point now where I personally wouldn't be able to have an abortion past the 7th week of pregnancy (though I fervently hope that's a decision I never have to make). Prior to that point, though...Well, I know this will make some of you sick and others angry and still others both, but the decision seems to me to be morally neutral. I do not see the embryo as a child. I know (as I've said now several times) that arbitrary cut-off dates are troubling, but I honestly think that's the compromise we should be looking for.
That, I guess, is why I am troubled by the heavy potential bias of the information provided--because I don't see very early term abortion as problematic morally. Would it be better if it didn't happen? Sure, because there are easier, less controversial, cheaper ways of preventing pregnancy up to that point (see "improving sex education"). Do I think this is a good reason to put a woman who's already going through the hell of having to deal with an unwanted pregnancy (and anyone who's had a pregnancy scare knows what I'm talking about) through further hell? No. This is why I think information like the size of the embryo/fetus, the ultrasound pictures, and the offers of post-natal aid are all great and wonderful. They offer facts that speak for themselves, and could definitely be persuasive on their own. To add manipulative language on top of that seems to me taking something that's meant to be informative and making it manipulative--like saying, "There's NO POSSIBLE WAY that a good person would make the decision you're about to make. Don't you want to be a good person?" This seems to me to be a horrible thing to do to someone in that situation.
******
quote:I do not understand how someone can say, "I believe that the clump of cells becomes a 'true human life' at some point during gestation and prior to birth, but we cannot say when exactly, and it changes for everyone," and still say, "It should be the woman's choice, PERIOD."
Rakeesh, I don't think anyone has said that here. Are your two hypothetical positions contradictory? Yes. Has anyone here said that? I don't think so; if you think pH has, please quote the exact passages.
I believe it should be the woman's choice up to a point (yes, I know, it's the "up to the point" with which you have a problem) because, as I said earlier, I do not see the embryo as a child--thus making your "choice over the corpse of a dead child" seem ridiculously overdramatic to me. Because I do not see the embryo in early terms as a child, at that stage, my reaction to you is, "Why are you trying to destroy a woman's control over her reproductive decisions for the sake of a cluster of cells smaller than my pinky toenail?" (You're not the only one who can do deliberately inflammatory language, you know.) I am a firm believer in a woman's need to control her own reproductive system up to the point where it infringes on the rights of another human being. * The trouble, of course, is at what point that happens.
*(Women's control over their reproductive systems is widely recognized as a major factor in allowing them to move from a subservient place in society into a more equal role. The right and ability to choose when to produce children is something I value immeasurably because it allows me to be a married woman and still pursue a career. For many, many people, this is why choice is that important.)
Considering how many failed implantations occur naturally, I find it almost impossible to believe that a human life, equal to the hosting mother in rights, exists from the moment of conception. This is why I have no trouble with the morning after pill. I've mentioned my other reasons for my lack of problem with early term abortion up post. I think it honestly comes down to a difference of "I do not see the embryo as a child. A potential child, yes. Having equal rights with the mother? At that early stage, no."
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
Perhaps is we legitimized "abandonment" and provided a way for babies to be given into the care of an intermediary (who can then place said baby/child with family wanting baby/child), maybe we'd see less of those awful stories of mom's that starve, drown, burn, beat, humiliate, or otherwise destroy innocent young lives - because of some social stigma that says it's better to keep and hate a child, then to "abandon" a child . . .
quote:The "Safe Haven" law makes it possible for a mother to leave her unharmed baby, up to three days old, at any hospital in Wisconsin anonymously and without fear of prosecution.
I think these provisions are a critical step forward in improving society. I really do.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, Alabama has a safe haven law as well. ON one hand, I do support it, becuase it will assure that the baby can be left somewhere where it will survive, and as a pro-life person, who is pro-life for all life, be it unborn child, infant, or disabled adult I have to support a measure that protects the life of those infants.
Part of me though, does not approve of someone being able to dump off their child without consequences. We make fathers pay for child support even if they didn't want the child in the first place - if we can prove paternity, he has to pay for the support of that child and be responsible to a degree. But these laws say the mother doesn't have to be responsible for the life she brought into the world. That bothers me, to a degree. Not enough to say the laws should be abolished, but it still bothers me.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Belle: Part of me though, does not approve of someone being able to dump off their child without consequences. We make fathers pay for child support even if they didn't want the child in the first place - if we can prove paternity, he has to pay for the support of that child and be responsible to a degree. But these laws say the mother doesn't have to be responsible for the life she brought into the world. That bothers me, to a degree. Not enough to say the laws should be abolished, but it still bothers me.
Unfortunately, the alternative to a safe haven isn't necessarily the mother taking care of the child; it's the child being left in a dumpster. That's why such laws exist.
As far as the ultrasound picture question: If "informed consent" were the issue, you could show a picture of *any* fetus at the same phase of development, not that particular woman's fetus. Showing the woman her own fetus isn't attempting informed consent; it's deliberately trying to ensure that the abortion IS a traumatic event.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:If "informed consent" were the issue, you could show a picture of *any* fetus at the same phase of development
Not really. At least, not at the exact same phase of development.
quote:Showing the woman her own fetus isn't attempting informed consent; it's deliberately trying to ensure that the abortion IS a traumatic event.
No, it's deliberately trying to make sure the mother has the most accurate information as part of her informed consent and, likely, attempting to discourage an abortion.
On a side note, SCOTUS has held that "protecting the life of the unborn" is a "legitimate goal" and that the state may require pass legislation to "ensur[e] a decision that is mature and informed" even if it the information given "expresses a preference for childbirth over abortion." Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Dag, I never meant to imply that I thought such biased information was illegal, only that I didn't approve of it. As you are pro-life, I'm sure you understand that just because it's a SCOTUS ruling doesn't mean you have to like it or approve of it.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
I have encountered people who thought it was illegal in the past, and pointed to the language in case anyone was wondering.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:No, it's deliberately trying to make sure the mother has the most accurate information as part of her informed consent and, likely, attempting to discourage an abortion.
Baloney. If accurate information were the goal, we'd be insisting the same woman get to see footage of a twelve-hour delivery and all the attendant pain, involuntary vomiting and defecation.
Heaven forefend a woman have an abortion and go on with her life thinking she was still a decent human being.
The Supreme Court has, as they usually do, acceded that some matters fall to the states. They also agreed that abortion should be legal. What the states "may" do isn't an endorsement.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Baloney. If accurate information were the goal, we'd be insisting the same woman get to see footage of a twelve-hour delivery and all the attendant pain, involuntary vomiting and defecation.
I see, you're a mind reader now. You know that the intent is to make someone feel a particular thing.
And, of course, information which is undeniably more accurate than what you propose can't possibly be relevant unless we're willing to make a 12 hour movie?
quote:Heaven forefend a woman have an abortion and go on with her life thinking she was still a decent human being.
What, are you saying if someone were to receive more accurate information than you are willing to provide them that they would automatically conclude they were doing something wrong?
quote:The Supreme Court has, as they usually do, acceded that some matters fall to the states. They also agreed that abortion should be legal. What the states "may" do isn't an endorsement.
ONCE AGAIN, I didn't say it was.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
