It begins...
This morning, the Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act signed into law in 2003. The bill states that any procedure in which the fetus is mostly removed from the vaginal cavity before being euthanized is illegal. Sounds good on the surface, right? After all, why would we allow the doctor to mostly remove a fetus before killing it?
Here lies the difference between an emotional argument and a logical one. When applied to fetuses at the, for example, the eighth month of gestation, this makes perfect sense. If a woman's right to abortion springs from her right to privacy, once a viable fetus is out of her body, what happens to it no longer infringes on that privacy. The problem is that the law makes no reference to viability...in fact it makes no reference to a time line of any type - only to the procedure. So if a woman decides at four months gestation, when the fetus is nowhere close to being viable, that she wants an abortion - this procedure is no longer available to the doctor even when the doctor decides it is the safest procedure. If abortion is murder (as held by pro-life groups), why does it matter where this "murder" takes place?
By passing this law, what pro-life groups have done is not restrict when abortion can take place but rather by what methods an abortion can take place. So now doctors will have to say to a woman who wants an abortion "well, the safest thing to do would be a dilation and extraction - but that's now illegal, so I'm going to have to perform this less safe procedure - are you sure you want to do this?"
I don't doubt that some women will chose to forgo abortion because of the added risk - I also don't doubt that some women who are having an abortion for health related reasons will have more complications because of this law. So to the pro-life groups who are celebrating this "victory" - you have succeeded in two things:
1) Scaring women into continuing their pregnancies by tying the hands of the doctor
2) Taking away an option that is sometimes the safest for a woman who is having an abortion to save her life.
Is this really the way you want to forward your cause? If you think abortion is murder, fight to make abortion illegal - don't use scare tactics and medical restrictions to chip away at the law. Honestly, do you consider these to be noble acts?
Think that congress should stick to making legal and not medical decisions? Take action - sign the Planned Parenthood Pledge to make sure the Supreme Court's reckless decision doesn't result in federal or state laws that take away women's rights or threaten women's health and safety!
Here lies the difference between an emotional argument and a logical one. When applied to fetuses at the, for example, the eighth month of gestation, this makes perfect sense. If a woman's right to abortion springs from her right to privacy, once a viable fetus is out of her body, what happens to it no longer infringes on that privacy. The problem is that the law makes no reference to viability...in fact it makes no reference to a time line of any type - only to the procedure. So if a woman decides at four months gestation, when the fetus is nowhere close to being viable, that she wants an abortion - this procedure is no longer available to the doctor even when the doctor decides it is the safest procedure. If abortion is murder (as held by pro-life groups), why does it matter where this "murder" takes place?
By passing this law, what pro-life groups have done is not restrict when abortion can take place but rather by what methods an abortion can take place. So now doctors will have to say to a woman who wants an abortion "well, the safest thing to do would be a dilation and extraction - but that's now illegal, so I'm going to have to perform this less safe procedure - are you sure you want to do this?"
I don't doubt that some women will chose to forgo abortion because of the added risk - I also don't doubt that some women who are having an abortion for health related reasons will have more complications because of this law. So to the pro-life groups who are celebrating this "victory" - you have succeeded in two things:
1) Scaring women into continuing their pregnancies by tying the hands of the doctor
2) Taking away an option that is sometimes the safest for a woman who is having an abortion to save her life.
Is this really the way you want to forward your cause? If you think abortion is murder, fight to make abortion illegal - don't use scare tactics and medical restrictions to chip away at the law. Honestly, do you consider these to be noble acts?
Think that congress should stick to making legal and not medical decisions? Take action - sign the Planned Parenthood Pledge to make sure the Supreme Court's reckless decision doesn't result in federal or state laws that take away women's rights or threaten women's health and safety!
posted by Nicholas at 9:51 AM
13 Comments:
Re. item 1) - If abortion is murder then it wouldn’t be immoral to make it more difficult or more dangerous to commit the murder.
Re. item 2) - My understanding is that there is a “life” exception, so unless I’m mistaken then this point wouldn’t apply.
“If you think abortion is murder, fight to make abortion illegal”
We do think it is murder, and we are fighting to make it illegal – this was just part of an incremental approach. (BTW, We also think abortion is bad for women). Even if Roe v. Wade were overturned it wouldn't make abortion illegal. It was just put the laws back in the hands of the states.
“Honestly, do you consider these to be noble acts?”
Yes. I’ve seen pictures of Partial Birth Abortions. And this draws a line, for once, that puts infanticide squarely to the right of it (“ethicists” like Peter Singer argue for the ability to kill infants, so hopefully this stops them in their tracks).
I read an article written by a women (mother of 4) who had a wanted pregnancy, but the fetus died. She elected to have a D&X rather than inducing a full delivery because it would be less traumatic for her (imagine the trauma of spending hours in labor to delivery a baby that you already know is dead). 1. She couldn't find a doctor trained in it for weeks because of how controversial the procedure is. 2. if this same instance were to happen now, doing the procedure would be illegal, so she'd have to do the full delivery.
I just don't think that Congress should be in the business of regulating what medical procedure to use for a given need. Terminating a pregnancy is legal and the doctor and patient should be able to decide how to do it from all the available options. Apparently the Supreme Court doesn't agree with me.
I stress that I am not a lawyer, so I welcome corrections on this front, but from what I see, the bill offers protection from punishment if the procedure was performed to save the life of the mother, not from conviction. So unless a doctor is selfless enough to be prosecuted and convicted to (hopefully) avoid jail time, this doens't help much.
You seem to be arguing that the ends justify the means - I suppose that if I felt the way you do I might take the same approach. However, I fail to see any large accomplishment here. Rather than performing an Intact Dilation and Extraction, doctors will be forced to perform a Dilation and Evacuation - I can't imagine you find this to be much better.
Certainly this represents a legal victory (the first time that an abortion procedure has been made explicitely illegal)...barring the circumstances, I can't imagine you think the Supreme Court is better equipped to make medical decisions than doctors - though I understand your motivation in this case.
The larger issue at play is what happens next - will this help or hurt your cause? Will the pro-life movement use this as motivation to surge forward in their bid to overturn Roe vs. Wade, or will this shock awaken the pro-choice forces which have been made idle by the status quo. Regardless of your position, from a legal perspective the fallout will be interesting.
I think we agree that the SC shouldn't be in this business, but Roe v. Wade put them there.
Yes, the fallout will be intesting. I always thought the pro-choice movement shot themselves in the foot by pushing so hard for PBA. I found it akin to the NRA pushing for unlimited assault weapons so hunters could nail those elusive high-tech-super-deer. You may win your point, but at what cost to the movement?
Everything I've read said that the law had a "life" exception and that the doctor was not at risk. If I'm wrong on this I'm more than willing to be corrected.
Does the law really forbid the procedure if the baby is stillborn? It seems like it wouldn't apply in that case (i.e. there is no life to take).
Yes, the law actually forbids the procedure, so it would effect the still born too. Plus with it being illegal, it is likely that new doctors will not be trained on it, so they won't be able to preform the procedure.
The law actually does have a life exception as I understand it, but it does not have health exception. There's a big difference. Also it sets a disturbing precedent that not only can Congress regulate a medical procedure like this, but they can actually ban a procedure that a doctor may determine would be advantageous for the living women's health in order to protect an unborn fetus from one type of abortion.
Actually, I take that back, the law actually does say the procedure has to include the extraction of a "living fetus", however, that said, with the procedure now being illegal in most cases, what's the likelihood of a women being able to find a doctor able to perform it in the case of a still born?
Becca, thanks for the clarifications.
Re. who would perform the procedure for the tragedies of stillbirths - Just thinking out loud here, but wouldn't some normal Ob/Gyn's do that? They happen often enough that it seems that they wouldn't be referred to abortionists.
Neil,
I must say as someone preparing for medical training, I take a great deal of offense at the idea that there is a difference between an abortionist and a doctor - would you care to clarify?
Hi Nicholas,
No offense intended. If you re-read the comments I think you'll see that I was merely distinguishing between two specialties - normal Ob/Gyn's and abortionists. Of course they both have extensive medical training, but I assume that abortionists spend most of their time doing abortions.
That is completely untrue. I know several OB/GYN's that perform abortions and they spend the vast majority of their time doing what most OB/GYN's do - well women exams, delivering babies, prenatal check ups. Most who perform abortions may do them one day or two days a week. There is not a specialty of medicine called "abortionist" - its just one service OB/GYN's provide when caring for a women's overall reproductive health.
If it is completely untrue that most abortionists primarily do abortions, then there should be no issue with finding doctors to perform the D&X procedure for stillbirths (your concern in a previous comment).
Since D&X is a procedure performed in incredibly small numbers (I think something like <0.5% of all abortions), there were already very few doctors trained in it (kind of like a specialty of a specialty, OB/GYNs that do abortions that can do D&X - and OB/GYNs that do abortions are harder to find too - many states in the south only have one clinic). Now since the vast majority of the cases of D&X will now be illegal, it will be even more difficult to find a doctor trained and equipped to do them in the case of the still born.
Nicholas,
I understand your concerns with the law, but most of them arise not out of pro-life doings, but because of pro-choice doings.
You ask why not ban abortion, instead of banning the procedure?
Simple: WE CAN'T, not until Roe v. Wade and its progeny are all oveturned or we amend the constitution. We can't regulate abortion at all in the first trimester and only marginally in the second trimester. So we're stuck just taking the most barbaric practices and trying to outlaw those.
Thing is, the whole judicial nominations debacle is all about trying to outlaw abortion.
Secondly, you made a claim that this would force women who need life-saving abortions to use a less-safe procedure. The ban explicitly does not apply to life-saving abortions.
Likewise, Becca is entirely mistaken when she claims that women who miscarry cannot have an intact D&E now. The PBA ban again explicitly only applies to a live fetus.
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