Tomorrow Ohio votes on Issue 1, an initiative that protects the right to abortion. Over at National Review, Jack Butler has this to say about it:
The vague language is designed as a battering ram to be used against all of the state’s existing regulations of abortion, including the currently tied-up-in-the-courts heartbeat bill and the 24-hour waiting period, as well as parental-notification and -consent laws
....But it would not stop there. Rachel Citak, president of Cincinnati Right to Life, said that virtually anything that regulates abortion “can be regarded as something that discriminates, that penalizes, burdens, or prohibits” the procedure and therefore would be threatened by Issue 1’s passage.
....Issue 1 passage would also pave the way for taxpayer-funded abortion. The language of the amendment is, again, vague enough, in this case about the meaning of “burden,” that one’s inability to pay for an abortion could qualify.
In an unusual turnaround, I agree almost completely with an NR take on something. The only difference is that all of this sounds great to me. To paraphrase Grover Norquist, I don't want to abolish the regulation of abortion. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub. I'll be happy when abortion is treated about the same as having your tonsils removed.
The big tell are always parental notification and consent laws.
There are few situations in which a minor who doesn't want their parents to know the need an abortion are improved by ignoring their wishes and narcing on them. There are ZERO situations in which parents forcing their minor children to give birth against their wishes are an improvement. Indeed, I would go so far as to say the latter should be a crime in and of itself, a serious one; forcing a child in your care to bear their own child against their will should get you prison time.
Ten thumbs up. Plus two.
+1000
Whoo, that's harsh. While threats to the mother's life or actual fetal death must be considered a valid reason for a late-term termination, I don't think that abortion of a healthy fetus by a healthy mother post-viability is all that far from murder. It's not quite there, because there is always the possibility that fetal death might have occurred anyway right up to the moment of delivery.
And, yes, I know that such "choice" abortions after viability are quite rare. Still, murders are pretty rare, too, and we outlaw them.
If the baby is at a stage where it statistically "could" survive outside the womb and it's not endangering the mother, it really should be carried to term and adopted. It's not that much of a burden to go another fourteen weeks, although society should pay for the mother's peri-natal care fully, giver her compensation for being a sort of surrogate and pay the full cost of the delivery.
I don't know how that last bit comes about with all the "anti-welfare" nonsense in the Greedy Old Party.
So you'd have forced that 10 year old rape victim to carry the baby to term. Just a lovely person you are.
A ten year old girl would suffer physical and emotional harm from giving birth. Anybody who has an ounce of knowledge agrees to that. So clearly an abortion was appropriate for her.
"Absolutism" leads to totalitarianism. Everytime and everywhere. So you'd better check what your REAL motivations are.
Except that your standard was whether the abortion would "endanger the mother." In the face of HokieAnnie's objection, you moved your goalposts to whether the mother would "suffer physical and emotional harm".
Those may seem identical to you, or to anyone who has not given the matter careful thought and study. They are not identical. "Endanger the mother" is a high bar to clear, especially in the face of a local DA who wants to look good in their ruby red district by going after "abortionists."
On the other hand, anti-choicers strongly object to using "emotional harm" as an exception, complaining (perhaps with some validity) it's awfully hard to disprove claims of emotional harm.
But are you willing to throw out "emotional harm" as an exception? And force a rape victim to bear her rapist's baby?
It's a tough call. Y'know what's easy? Minding your own f-ing business. Don't try to legislate an answer to a complicate, emotional, and difficult question. Instead of inviting a bunch of politicians into a medical decision, let the pregnant person and their doctor figure it out.
Let a potential murderer figure out the moral issues then, too, right?
Yes, that is the perfect analogy. No irrational lashing out for you.
An abortion just after six weeks is not a late-term abortion. It is inexcusable that that ten-year-old had to out of state. Doctors need to be consulted before the legislature puts limits on abortion. The bills are badly written.
I support a heartbeat law, but if the doctor thinks an abortion is necessary to save the mother's life they may have to make the decision quickly. They are poorly written and, in rare cases, harm the mother. After six months save the life of the mother and the child by doing a C-Section believe Anandakos was referring to late-term abortions.
"abortion of a healthy fetus by a healthy mother post-viability"
You do acknowledge this is "quite rare" but I'd be curious to know if it ever happens and details where available. How about post-viability prospective mothers should get a ceasarian (how else can a pregancy be safely terminated at that stage??) and then the baby is no longer her business and the hospital can do it's thing and save a life.
Why caesarean? Maximum punishment?
Because it would save the life of both the mother and the baby.
A C-section is an abdominal surgery! It has all the risks of surgery and is more dangerous than normal vaginal delivery for both the woman and the baby. That wouldn’t be at all ethical.
"Quite rare" means roughly "It almost never happens." But somewhere and at some times it almost certainly does, given the erratic behavior that human beings, both male and female, indulge in.
So far as the surgical delivery option, if that's what the woman wants, I'm fine with doing my taxpayer part to provide a Caesarian delivery for her if she wants to avoid a live birth and however many weeks are left to her pregnancy. It can't be more than three months and a week.
What’s the fascination with surgical delivery? It’s certainly not necessary, so presumably it’s just to further punish women?
It sounds like you think pregnancy is a punishment. I am sorry for you.
What other motivation is there for forcing a woman to carry an unwanted or failing pregnancy to term?
Yes, it post viability, non-medical abortions have happened. Kermit Gosnell performed abortions without ultrasound dating or other appropriate medical care. He was eventually arrested and pled guilty to a variety of charges in exchange for a life sentence rather than the death penalty. Perhaps additionally laws punishable by a double death penalty would have stopped him?
The Guttmacher Institute did a study of later (pre-viability), non-medical abortions. The study took years because it is such a rare event. The main cause for delayed abortion care was lack of access to earlier abortion for financial or location reasons. Domestic violence, lack of childcare and uncertainty were other causes.
The idea that a woman would wait until the end of her pregnancy for an abortion is mostly just a sick, conservative fantasy.
I think you mis-typed. You said "later (pre-viability)". Didn't you mean "post-viability'? Otherwise, who are you arguing with. I said, post-viability prohibitions, nothing about "15 weeks" or "6 weeks" or any such flim-flam.
So how "delayed" is "delayed"?
In any case why oppose letting people who have convinced themselves that it's a moral problem have their way with plenty of protections for the woman's health? If it "it is such a rare event" then who, really is harmed by a prohibition beyond viability?
You may scorn the moral qualms that many people have, but, as I said above, "absolutism leads to totalitarianism". Is what you want a Dictatorship of Harridans?
Late second trimester (pre-viability) were what was studied. Non-medical third term abortions don’t happen.
But what is the cutoff?
Well, as a human with agency, you can think that. And we can disagree with you.
Give some thought to which of your hard decisions you want to hand over to politicians to make. Since you're open to making this one for others, others may start to take an interest in yours, and what grounds would you have to complain?
Politicians make decisions that affect my life most days of the "work week". Sorry, the "hole in the dike" analogy doesn't work here. We proscribe murder; post-viability abortion isn't WAY different. It's somewhat grey for the reasons I stated, but it certainly shouldn't be considered a "Civil Right" to be protected from all governmental regulation.
Obviously, this must have happened before or you wouldn't have made your initial objection. Could you please cite the exact circumstances under which you described happening occurred?
What do you mean "this must have happened before"? You can't mean "have you [i.e. "me"] been affected by an abortion law?" Just to be clear, I haven't and neither has any woman whom I personally know. But of course millions have been at some time during my life.
Are there laws which have been passed which seriously affected me? Sure there are. I went to prison for a year for possession of pot -- a matchbox full -- back in the early 1970's, so that was certainly an "effect".
The law has since changed. I can now buy it at five places within walking distance -- not just a stroll mind you, but not a five-day hike either.
The point of my objection is simply to say that an "absolutist" position that there should never be any restrictions on abortions is extreme. There are competing moral and ethical values here, of which "women should have automony over their bodies" is only one. The fetus has moral claims also, whether you like it or not.
So you don't have any incidents where what you cited as a legitmate concern actually occurred.
Got it.
Here is a link to some stats: https://lozierinstitute.org/late-term-abortion-stats/
Do you have a vagina? I strongly feel only people with a vagina should have any say on the legality of abortion.
Do you also say that only people with guns should have a say in the legality of murder?
Do you also say that only people who own businesses should have a say in employment law?
Do you also say that only people who pay income taxes should vote?
These are all "absurd", but that's because we have made a collective decision that "No, everybody should get to vote", and "People who might be murdered should have a say in gun regulations".
It's not that different to say that the broader society deserves a say in post-viability abortion.
Hey everybody: try not to feed this troll.
Not a troll, just somebody with a different point of view than yours. Abuse and murder of babies after they are born are matters on which our whole society legitimately has views; that's not limited to people with vaginas, or even to parents. If you happen to believe that a fetus qualifies as a baby with the same rights as a post-natal infant (just to be clear, I don't believe that) then you believe that abortion is the killing of a baby and men have just as much of a right to a say as they do in the case of babies that have been born.
And I don't believe that pre-natal fetuses have the same rights as do post-natal infants. They haven't "made it" to independent life. So, No, I don't think that a fetus which dies as a result of its mother's death in an auto accident should be another "count" of vehicular homicide or whatever the particular state in which the crash occurred calls it.
But neither should they be denied the possibility of a life that they could reasonably be expected to live even if they were otherwise challenged by a pre-mature birth.
That is the same as saying, "if they are viable".
Look, we spend millions to save very pre-mature infants and often find them to be "non-viable". That is, regardless of the efforts of modern medicine, they fail to survive to fully independent life.
It seems pretty stupid to say that "society has a responsibility to the most vulnerable among us" -- among whom are certainly those perilously pre-mature infants -- and then fail to apply the same standard of ethical responsibility when a pregnancy is hunky-dory. Remember, the ONLY thing I said was properly regulated was termination of a pregnancy that had reached the time when the fetus might reasonably be expected to survive a mis-carriage AND both the fetus and mother are doing great. Why spend millions rescuing severely at risk babies and at the same time throw away successful pregnancies?
It has taken humanity several millennia to rise from tribal xenophobia to "the rule of law", inconsistent though it certainly sometimes is. Let's not throw that progress away by obstinacy and resentment of men.
American citizens value human life less than an eagle's life. Don't try cooking breakfast with freshly laid eagles'
eggs. Eagles are an endangered species as well as being magnificent animals. But don't damage or steal the eggs, because guess what? If all goes well, they w will become a newly created eagle. A unique blend of the DNA of both the mother's and fathers DNA,
You seem to have a very strange definition of "troll".
Anandakosis is asking reasonable questions. You all are just so emotional about the issue that you are losing your minds.
Why? That's silly.
Bullshit. It is your kid. You and a woman create new life together. Be a man.
And we all know that there are more than enough people ready & qualified to adopt any & all children that the biological parent cannot or does not want to keep?
Not to mention that some females are not only victims of rape or incest, sometimes by either a stepfather or biological father, which adds further moral issues to the problem of parental consent for a minor's abortion.
Almost all decisions & procedures occur before viability, therefore no later than the Roe stipulation - "late-term" abortions are usually necessitated by unanticipated emergency situations that have developed & threaten the womsn's life. You don't actually believe that third-trimester interventions are due to casual choices, as some "Republicans" claim that Democrats want "abortion-on-demand" up to the moment of birth?!
This really should be a matter of a woman's choice, made with her physician, & no other people should be allowed to use their freedom to deny her right to control if her own body. Why should that natural right be denied when we are supposedly supposedly assured of safety in our own homes ?
This not a decision for others to make, especially not men, unless the pregnant woman so chooses. It's past time to block all those who claim that they have a religious or moral right to make this decision for others. Period, punto final.
Again, an abolutist position. Should only future murder victims and their murderers be allowed to discuss prohibitions against murder? I understand that's absurd, but would you have urged Congress "to block all those who claim that they have a religious or moral right to make [a] decision" on slavery in the 1850's? Society is more than feminist women.
And your first paragraph is in total contradiction to the "majority" opinion that post-viability abortions are very rare, which I stipulated as true. If "they [post-viability abortions] are rare" then there ISN'T GOING TO BE A FLOOD OF UNWANTED CHILDREN now, is there? While the R's don't generally want to adopt Black or Hispanic unwanted children, if post-viability abortions that didn't occur because of an immediate threat to the health of the mother are banned, then it's pretty likely that most of those poor babies will be adopted.
Late term pregnancy terminations are quite common but they are not called abortions; surgical terminations are called Caesarean sections and medication terminations are called induced labor.
Canada has had no abortion regulation whatsoever for more than forty years, but the totally imaginary issues people like you try to use to justify "some regulation" simply do not arise in Canada.
Those sorts of "late term pregnancy terminations" do not normally result in a dead fetus. Obviously, sometimes that happens, but if it happened often, the procedures would not be used for "scheduling" births.
It is saddening to find that the readership of Kevin are such a selfish lot of calloused narcissists. If a perilously early delivery is worth spending millions on, an otherwise successful pregnancy that the one woman in a million decides to terminate after the "pre-viability" time should not result in a killed fetus.
I do not know if it is literally "one woman in a million" or one in a hundred thousand. But basically it is widely agreed these days that it's rare, and ipso facto, not all that many women will be affected by it and not for very long. It's not like society is demanding that they then rear the children, just complete the job if they've dilly-dallied too long to have a termination pre-viability. And yes, that will only be a fraction of the tiny fraction who are impacted. But it will not be "never". People are too sloppy and self-centered.
Either the pregnancy should be carried to term with society paying the woman for the "inconvenience" and risk or labor should be induced with the aim of SAVING the child which would become a ward of the state and, we can hope, adopted.
Anything else is skirting dangerously close to a sort of criminal disregard for human life. The bottom line here is whether a living human should be mildly inconvenienced for a bit more than three months -- and, yes, subjected to some danger at the time of birth -- while someone who is not yet living outside the womb but COULD reasonably be expected to survive doing so loses all of life.
It's not even close on a scale of moral equivalency.
Pre-viability abortion should certainly be protected; the fetus can't live without its mother, and her needs come first. Period. But after viability their are genuine moral questions that arise and should be considered. It's why ethics is a hard discipline; there are always trade-offs between competing benefits and costs which are spread unequally and often without any cause-and-effect linkages.
It's not one in a million; it simply doesn't happen. No ethical doctor will kill a healthy viable fetus. There are cases in which the fetus, even though past the 24 week mark, is not actually viable and never will be. Those very rare cases are the only ones in which third-trimester abortions are performed. The hazard to making laws about it is that doctors are then put in the position of risking criminal charges if some policeman is of the opinion that the doctor's opinion that the fetus is not and never will be viable is wrong.
That's certainly a valid concern. But "policemen" (and women) put people in jail incorrectly regularly, and the courts work it out, usually though not always in favor of the incorrectly incarcerated individual.
It's a very good argument for clarity in a law that includes an assumption of good faith on the medical personnel who take part in the procedure, as Ohio Issue 1 clearly does.
Are you urging Ohioans to vote "No" on Issue 1 because it allows such regulations?
No, that would be a paradigm example of making the perfect the enemy of the good.
C-sections are not surgical abortions. They are completely different procedures.
Yeah, I got that. My point was that C-Section has a chance of saving both Mother and child. A surgical abortion will kill the child.
And you know what? If Ohio Issue 1 passes, the state can still regulate or prohibit post-viability abortions! It's in the amendment, and those advocating against Issue 1 lie about it.
Roe v. Wade allowed regulation or prohibition of post-viability abortions.
I can't imagine a woman going through 5 1/2 months of pregnancy and then deciding "nah, I'm done with this." We've seen too many cases of legislators without a clue about human anatomy writing laws that have terrible effects on half the population.
Ohio issue 1 doesn't create a right to an "abortion of a healthy fetus by a healthy mother post-viability."
Here's the ballot text for Ohio issue 1 :
"""
The proposed amendment would:
• Establish in the Constitution of the State of Ohio
an individual right to one’s own reproductive
medical treatment, including but not limited
to abortion;
• Create legal protections for any person or entity
that assists a person with receiving reproductive
medical treatment, including but not limited
to abortion;
• Prohibit the State from directly or indirectly
burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion
before an unborn child is determined to be
viable, unless the State demonstrates that it is
using the least restrictive means;
• Grant a pregnant woman’s treating physician the
authority to determine, on a case-by-case basis,
whether an unborn child is viable;
• Only allow the State to prohibit an abortion after
an unborn child is determined by a pregnant
woman’s treating physician to be viable and only
if the physician does not consider the abortion
necessary to protect the pregnant woman’s life or
health; and
• Always allow an unborn child to be aborted at
any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability
if, in the treating physician’s determination, the
abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant
woman’s life or health.
"""
A few days ago someone in our local Nextdoor group advertised some free "No On 1" yard signs. I was tempted to offer to take them, without mentioning that I would be doing so to ensure that they would never again see the light of day.
Maybe some people should read it first before commenting on its ramifications:
IOW, abortion can be regulated but its limits are defined along the lines that had been widely accepted pre-Dobbs. Don't buy into the bullshit conservatives are spewing from their mouths.
Sounds pretty well thought-out to me. It's not carte blanche, nor is it intrusive. May it become a national model law.
I think it's rather solid, frankly.
"I'll be happy when abortion is treated about the same as having your tonsils removed."
Way too flippant to me considering that a human fetus carries far more moral considerations than tonsils. Is this really the mindset that Democrats want to present to the public?
To allow the killing of a developing human being is not something to be taken lightly. Sorting out the morality regarding when to allow abortion on demand is very challenging, since there is no clear line marking when it is moral, vs. not moral, to kill a developing human. None the less, 72% of Americans support allowing abortion on demand up to 15 weeks. But just 10% support the position that there should be no limits on abortion. I agree with the 72% of Americans, and not the 10%. On the abortion issue, the general public is wiser than the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.
+1
You mean when somebody else's abortion, like having their tonsils taken out, is taken to be none your damn business as a matter of course?
Do you really have that much trouble parsing simple English or are you simply beiing willfully obtuse, i.e., trolling. Well, given your pas history ...
What an extremist you are. You're as bad the the Trumpists in your refusal to acknowledge that others might have honest disagreements about an ethical issue. There are more than one person involved in an abortion.
Chuckle. Quote the text where I demonstrate a
As for your continuing insistence that there is more than one person involved in an abortion, well, that's just like, your opinion, man.
It's also you being a grade A hyporcritical asshole where you refuse to acknowledge that others might have "honest disagreements about an ethical issue". Did I get that quote right 😉
While the notion of viability being a dividing line between permitting and not permitting (with exceptions….) abortion has an understandable appeal (for all sorts of reasons), that line is going to continue to move over time. What happens when we get to the point that a 1 day old embryo is “viable” in the sense that with appropriate medical support, there is no reason not to expect that it will grow to full term? Will we then be back to banning all abortions because every conception results in viability?
So? We make laws based on the technology we have available today. The laws can be changed later if necessary.
We'd be in a situation where pregnancies no longer happen inside women. Carrying a fetus to term and delivering a baby are risky, and if technology takes away that risk, great!
Oh, and I have to point out that a 1 day old pregnancy is over a week before having sex. Yes, the pregnancy clock starts that far before.
I'm a man and here's how many abortion restrictions I'd support - zero. if a woman wants to have an abortion the day before she's due, it's no skin off my back. Women should have agency and full autonomy.
You aren't all Americans. There are people who sincerely believe that it's wrong to kill the fetus in a post-viability termination. Just like there were people who sincerely believed that slavery was wrong.
Yes, there are people who "believe it's wrong" because they believe that women should be denied an equal voice in government and society. But they are not all the people who believe it's wrong no matter what political cartoons show.
I don't care whether they "sincerely believe". If they don't want one, don't have one. Some people sincerely believe only Christians should serve in government (cough Mike Johnson cough), but I don't care about their beliefs.
You're also not a child, so I guess committing child abuse is "no skin of your back" either. Presumably you're ok with no restrictions on abusing children?
"if a woman wants to have an abortion the day before she's due, it's no skin off my back."
That would be killing a fully developed baby that could be delivered. So that's infanticide, which is murder. And you justify allowing these murders by saying it's "no skin off my back". I think you need to revisit your moral code.
Oh look, it's the concern troll that lives under the bridge, lol.
1) The largest group of late-term abortions are people who really want a child but have had that dream shattered by getting terrible news at a pre-natal checkup.
2) The second-largest group are underage rape victims who are in denial because they are traumatized.
3) The last group are poor women who wanted to abort as soon as they found they were pregnant, but waited seven months because it took them that long to save the money for it. Many poor women never do save up enough money for abortion and thus end up giving birth. Google "intergenerational welfare dependency" to learn more about this group.
That's where attention should be paid to Canada's example. No abortion laws, taxpayer funded abortions.
I am fine with restrictions after fetus viability (20 - 22 weeks?), but I don't trust the MAGA GOP and especially the Christian nationalist nutjobs to write those provisions. How will "protect the patients life and health" be defined when it is actually writing into legislation? Is it the high probability or likelihood that continuing with the pregnancy will jeopardize the woman, or would they need to be on deaths door to quality? What is the definition of an unviable fetus? Will the definition require an absolute certainty that he fetus will not survive to birth, or wait until there is no heartbeat, or that the fetus will not likely survive after its birth (minutes, hours, days?) and will die in its mother's arms?
Prior to the Republic of Gilead members of SCOTUS dismembering Roe, the MAGA GOP in many states managed, through bull shit legislation, to practically eliminate most clinics that perform abortions. I certainly wouldn't trust those fuckers with writing these type of legal provisions.
"I am fine with restrictions after fetus viability (20 - 22 weeks?)"
I used to agree with you on that, thinking late-term abortions raised the most obvious moral objections, but my opinion on that has changed. I now believe late-term abortions are the *least* morally objectionable. See my comment directly above.
It is a thin line between banning abortion and banning birth control.