Brownback’s Backdoor Abortion Bill?

Brownback’s Backdoor Abortion Bill?

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

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

Here’s what the bill does:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Florida House votes to require ultrasound before all abortions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Lt. Gov and soon to be Gov David Paterson: “I Just Have To Try And Do My Best”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

“Sex Makes Us Stupid”

by

Peg Johnston 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

What about a Father’s right to choose?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I appreciate your comments.
V

 

Why I am Voting for Hillary

Why I am Voting for Hillary
by Mary Quinlan

I didn’t start out as a Hillary supporter and in fact, I was hoping that she would not run. I thought, “It is really enough to be a good senator, a la Ted Kennedy” and the prospect of having her “out there” and vulnerable to the vicious attacks was more than I wanted to think about. Also, my stand on issues is far closer to Dennis Kucinich than middle of the road Clinton.

But I decided to open myself up to Hillary Clinton on a different level. First, I tried to look at the big picture of what’s going on in the world today: the disastrous lack of diplomacy that has left us the most hated country this moment; the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan; the downward spiral of our economy and the huge national debt; the danger our personal liberties and the Constitution are in; the rapid deteriorization of the environment; the widening inequities in this country and in the world.

We all play the game of “If I were President I would….” but what would it take to really be President? It’s tempting to say “Not much if George W can do it,” but I think we can all agree that he is not doing it. And, as much as I respect Dennis Kucinich, for instance, (or any one of the large pack of Democrats who were running for President), I cannot really see him as being up for the job. I think the job of President really takes some intestinal fortitude, some deep and nuanced understanding of the big picture as well as the particulars, an ability to assess a situation quickly with all the best advice available. It takes real courage to take action in an uncertain and dangerous world. I never thought I would say it, but I think it takes maturity.

When I considered Hillary from this point of view, I came away more favorably impressed than I ever imagined. She is smart, smart, smart, even more intelligent than Bill Clinton; his intellect was a great part of his appeal, and the lack thereof is part of Bush’s disastrous presidency. She is tough which is reassuring both in a national security kind of way and in the inside-the-beltway-Shark-tank kind of way. Even her political calculation seems to me an asset (although not warm and fuzzy) in this climate. And, we are kidding ourselves if we think every politician is not calculating and cunning. It’s more a part of her public persona, partly because she thinks strategically, and partly because the media loves to paint her as a bitch.

I am voting for Hillary because I think we are in a really big mess, and I think she has the intellectual depth, the political acumen, and the personal strength to navigate that mess and actually change some things. Obviously I disagree with her approach on some things, but this decision is really about who can get the job done.
When I think about all the problems in the world and the high level of anti-Americanism, I am reassured that she already knows many world leaders and they respect her. In terms of reproductive justice issues, as well as broader personal liberties like habeas corpus, Clinton is solid. Although she is careful on the abortion issue, she gets that it is about real people’s lives, something most politicians do not. One thing that really impressed me is that when she was first elected Senator from NY she very quietly set out to understand the ins and outs of the Senate and connect with others on both sides of the aisle. When she was ready she very effectively got things done—help for NY farmers, help for 9-11 first responders, and help for uninsured children with the SCHIP program, the largest expansion of public health care since Medicare and Medicaid.

It strikes me that she has already studied the job of President, first hand, for 8 years. It’s not the same as being President but you certainly know the scope of the work, the possibilities, the need for restraint, and how to get things done. That persistence, willingness to compromise, and strategic leverage of power is something that takes years to understand, much less master.

It’s odd for me to think that 10 or certainly 20 years ago I would have been all about Obama and his hope message, but from my older, more experienced viewpoint now I think we need a whole lot more than hope. We need her experience, her intelligence, her maturity. The change we need is from the catastrophe of the Bush Presidency and Hillary Clinton can start slogging through his mess from day one.

And in 2012 or 2016, Barack Obama will get my vote when he has a lot more to back up his inspiring message of hope.

 

Obama 100% Pro-Choice!! (we already knew that)

Politics is a dirty game. It is unacceptable, however, when those with a thorough knowledge of how the game is played, knowingly misrepresent a rival’s position on an important issue to misinform the public. That is what has been going on in the Democratic primaries, and unfortunately, Hillary Clinton is the guilty party.I’m referring of course to the Clinton’s characterization of Barack Obama as falling short of being pro-choice. If you aren’t up on the facts of the matter, I’ll lay them out briefly for you. As an Illinois state senator, Obama voted “present” seven times as part of a broad strategy devised by abortion rights advocates to counter anti-abortion bills. The Clinton camp says that his voting “present” instead of “no” means that he isn’t fully committed to the pro-choice movement. In Illinois, a “present” vote has the same effect as a “no” vote in determining if the bill passes. Should Obama have acted differently? Real leaders of the pro-choice movement don’t think so:

“The poor guy is getting all this heat for a strategy we, the pro-choice community, did,” said Pam Sutherland, president and CEO of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council.

The Clinton’s have jumped on this non-issue, trying to portray Obama as not fully committed to a woman’s right to choose. It saddens me that one of our most viable candidates feels they have to resort to misleading and divisive tactics in order to win the party’s nomination. When it comes right down to it, the Clinton campaign is appealing to our least noble instinct by trying to suggest to women that they can’t be adequately represented by a male candidate. She is trying to fuel this fear fire in the heart of the female electorate, hoping that it will trump the voice of reason.If you’ve listened to Barack Obama, then perhaps you share the feeling that I have, that he is a candidate that will rise above race and gender, and inject the voice of reason into a system that dearly lacks it. I feel that I won’t always agree with his decisions, but I know that they will have integrity. I don’t feel that way about Hillary anymore.I truly believe that as it pertains to the choice issue that Obama will always protect our rights and not compromise them for political expedience. That’s not to suggest that Hillary’s likely to waver on choice issues. But there are many other issues that are of serious concern for us. As a woman, I’d rather have a politician that is going to address each issue fairly on its face, than one that might be doing what is expedient for their career . . .

 

Twenty years after a landmark ruling that gave women more rights to have abortions, the issue remains contentious

In an office in Canada the nurse calls from outside the abortion procedure room. Standing by a counter. the products of conception are in a glass dish. The dish reveals a small pinkish liquid swirl. The nurse pulls down her surgical mask, using a latex gloved finger points at a miniscule, feathery item. “That is what we look for, that little bit of fluff.”

 

An abortion may be done utilizing local anesthetic in less than 10 minutes. It is safe, requires very little recovery time and almost no medication. In fact it is many times safer than being pregnant, and is the safest procedure done by doctors. Less than 3 per 100,000 have an difficulty. To place in perspective, the chance of dying from anesthesia in a hospital is 30x that. Most abortions are not done in hospitals, simply in doctor’s offices.

 

Statistics Canada Abortion reports 100,039 Canadian women had an abortion in 2004, the last year for which statistics are available. Another 337,072 did not have an abortion.

 

According to the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization, about 40% of pregnancies in development countries — including Canada — are unintended. Both organizations say 28% of all unintended pregnancies in developed countries end in abortion.

 

What follows here is not a debate about whether it is right or wrong. Not a discourse on whether the nurse at Toronto’s Morgentaler clinic was pointing at the byproduct of social evil or choice.

 

Twenty years ago next month, on Jan. 28, 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of a case brought years earlier by Dr. Henry Morgentaler.

 

COMMITTEE DECISION

 

His lawyers argued a situation in place since 1969, where a woman seeking an abortion had to find and convince a three-member therapeutic abortion committee it was medically necessary to protect her health, violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

 

From then on, it would be a woman’s choice to terminate or continue her pregnancy. There are no limits on when. Abortion is treated like any other medical service. Except it is most definitely not. We don’t talk about abortion in Canada because for the most part, we don’t want to.

 

One 27-year-old Ottawa woman, who has had two abortions, tries to explain why. She’s comfortable with her decisions but knows others, including a close friend, would not be.

 

“People are judgmental and they look at you differently. For sure. Even if they agree with it,” she said, “she (her friend) looks at me as a lesser person because I did that. And so would other people.”

 

The country’s right-to-life movement has worked tirelessly to keep its cause alive since 1988.

 

“People are coming up who have lived with the Morgentaler decision a long time,” says Mary Ellen Douglas, national organizer of Campaign Life Coalition. “They don’t come to the issue with the same feeling we did. I think our attitude was ‘let’s stop the horrible killing.’ I think the feeling was we’d be able to do this in five years and go back to our families.”

 

Past serious challenges to the Supreme Court ruling failed and there aren’t any on the horizon in Canada, certainly nothing like what is happening in the United States, next month also marking an anniversary, the 35th, of 1973’s abortion-legalizing decision, Roe v. Wade. But there is a movement afoot here to implement certain gestational limits.

 

“I personally don’t think we should have a prohibition on early abortion, because I think if you can’t enforce it, then overall it does more harm than good,” said Margaret Somerville, founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University.

 

“But Canada is unique in the Western world for having no prohibition on abortion at all. You can have an abortion the day before you give birth in Canada and that is perfectly legal.”

 

Morgentaler, now 84, says the fight is far from over.

 

“I think the way people think, it’s other people’s problem, and as long as it doesn’t affect them personally, there’s not much action on that,” he said. “Also, Canadians mostly believe the issue has been solved.”

 

Morgentaler warns while abortion may be legal in Canada, a variety of factors are at work to limit access. Those problems were reflected in a major survey of abortion access released this year by Canadians For Choice (CFC), an Ottawa-based group created after the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL) dissolved in 2004.

 

Building on a 2003 CARAL study, CFC research co-ordinator Jessica Shaw contacted 791 hospitals, posing as an out-of-province 22-year-old, 10 weeks pregnant, without a family doctor or any nearby family and friends, seeking an abortion.

 

AMONG HER FINDINGS:

 

- Abortion services are available in one of every six Canadian hospitals; a percentage that has dropped to 15.9% from 17.8% in 2003.

 

- In three out of four calls, hospital staff did not know if their facility offered abortions.

 

- The average waiting time for an abortion is two weeks, but can be four and as much as six. Until new funding came through, that was the length of the wait in Ottawa, proving access problems are not limited to small towns.

 

- Limits on when abortions can be performed vary widely among hospital and facilities — from 10 weeks to 22 weeks.

 

- Travel time and expenses are an issue. Shaw also encountered hospital staffers who tried to mislead or ridicule her.

 

“One nurse, in Central Canada, said ‘well, if you are thinking about having an abortion, you might want to first consider checking yourself into the inpatient psychiatric ward at the mental hospital,’” recalls Shaw, “‘because obviously you are not in a good frame of mind.’”

 

CFC executive director Patricia LaRue says after 20 years, the study shows women are still having to fight to have an abortion.

 

“We think if we ever need it, it’s going to be there,” she said, “but we don’t need to take a position on it until we ever need it.”

 

The way Canada’s health care system is structured can explain some of the obstacles to access. Health care is a provincial responsibility and subject to political will. In the months after the Supreme Court decision, many provinces moved to restrict abortion funding.

 

In New Brunswick, Morgentaler is suing the province over its policies, which funds hospital abortions only under restrictions he says violate the Canada Health Act. And not all provinces include abortion in their reciprocal billing agreements.

 

“There’s very clearly a two-tier system at work,” said Christabelle Sethna, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa Institute of Women’s Studies.

 

“Women are sort of ping-pong balls between provinces and different health care levels and facilities.”

 

Sethna is studying the explosion of privately operated abortion clinics in Canada since the Morgentaler decision: 45% of abortions are now done in clinics, compared to 7% in 1988. And while it is considered both “appalling” and “urgent” whenever news surfaces of Canadians who have to travel or pay for CAT scans or MRIs, said Sethna, “none of the discussion that is taking place about wait times and access to medical procedures like cancer treatments or hip replacements is going on about abortion.”

 

In the August edition of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of Canada, Sethna reported on how access issues affect low-income women. In a survey done at the Toronto Morgentaler Clinic, she found women with incomes of less than $30,000 were more likely than wealthier women to have travelled between 200 to 1,000 km to have their abortion.

 

Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation, agreed the access issue may not be a problem for women with money and means to travel.

 

“But it is a problem for many low-income women or immigrants or students who may not have access to the services they need,” she says.

 

Joyce Arthur, co-ordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), says because abortion is an unpopular topic, federal governments tend to have a “hands-off approach.”

 

“And if no one is doing anything to improve access,” she says, “it’s probably going to decrease.”

 

OTHER FACTORS

 

There are other factors at work. Medical schools in Canada provide little instruction on abortion. More than half of Canada’s abortion providers are near retirement age. The doctor shortage, size of the country and anti-abortion doctors who may conscientiously object to providing the service or information about it are also factors.

 

Pro-abortion and anti-abortion groups agree it still needs to be an issue.

 

On one side, LifeCanada president Joanne Byfield says the goal is to get people outraged.

 

“You don’t decide who is a human being by listening to a judge or a government,” she said. “These are inalienable human rights.”

 

On the other hand, the Morgentaler decision may have protected the right to choose an abortion, but it didn’t ensure abortion services will be available, says Joanna Erdman, adjunct professor at the University of Toronto’s International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Programme.

 

Potential Ballot Measure in Missouri Seeks to Undermine Reproductive Rights

The Elliot Institute, a group from Springfield, Ill., filed the “Prevention of Coerced and Unsafe Abortion Act” on Nov. 6, with the intention of getting it on the ballot in November ‘08 in Missouri.

The proposal would require the doctor to certify that an abortion was necessary to avert the woman’s imminent death or irreversible disability. Otherwise, the doctor would have to document that carrying the fetus to term would be more dangerous than the combination of all risks associated with abortion. Those risks could include every “psychological, emotional, demographic or situational” risk that has been found associated with abortion in any study ever published in a peer-reviewed journal. Doctors would have to determine how every such risk applied to the patient and present the patient with an evaluation of every positive and negative determination. Doctors would be vulnerable to lawsuits from women who later regretted their decision to have an abortion. The proposal states that a regretful woman could receive up to $10,000 for each risk the doctor fails to include in his determination. There would be no exception in the cases of rape or incest.

Peter Brownlie, a Planned Parenthood representative said that the proposal appears to interfere with the practice of medicine.

“It looks very clearly to be a ban on abortion, with the only exception being a threat to the life of the mother,” Brownlie said. “It’s a pretty extreme measure.”

The Missouri affiliate of NARAL issued a statement saying the proposal would place a near-total ban on abortion, and warned that if the proposal was passed, it would require a dying woman who needed an abortion to save her life to wait 48 hours before undergoing the procedure.

Although many people consider the Elliot Institue a pseudoscientific organization operating behind a thin veneer of respectability, they still see the proposal as a serious threat. Unfortunately, the will of the majority and the authority of the Constitution is not always enough to save us from a constant threat on our most basic rights. Even unconstitutional proposals must be defended against vigoursly, or someday soon we’ll be sadly surprised . . .

 

Abortion Pill

The Abortion Pill has been used in over a million cases world wide with safety and the vast majority of women have had a positive experience.

Ask your provider for more inormation if you desire this method to terminate your pregnancy. Many women prefer surgical abortion which is a very short procedure and again, tolerated very well by most women. This is a personal decision and your provider should give you information so you can make an informed decision.

Additionally there are numerous sources for abortion information on line.

 

Catholic Bishops Offer Voting Guide, Allowing Some Flexibility on Issue of Abortion

One would assume this to be a positive turn in events for all those of the Catholic faith who have wondered about their belief system in regards to abortion.

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops approved principles this week to guide Catholics in choosing whom to vote for, and parting from some past perspectives, leaving the door open for them to back candidates who support abortion rights.

Nearly all the bishops approved this document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” This broad consensus may help the Catholic church avoid the schism that occurred in 2004, church experts said, when some conservative Catholic groups declared voting guidelines identifying abortion as “non-negotiable.” A group of bishops touched off a debate about whether Catholic candidates who support abortion rights should be denied holy Communion.

Past documents did allow Catholics to vote for candidates who support abortion rights.

The issue has received renewed interest this year with the Republican candidacy of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and a Catholic. He has supported abortion rights.

The set of principles discusses “intrinsic evils” and defends them as actions that “must always be rejected and opposed.”

Abortion is among a few evils greater than others, the document asserts. But it also concedes that Catholics face difficult decisions when voting and in some cases might be able to vote for those who support abortion rights or stem cell research. “There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons,” the document says.

It is difficult for this author to understand how one could vote for a candidate with a belief system which in their minds contains an act that is as horrific as any abhorrent act can be.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has been issuing reflections on how the church’s moral teachings could shape Catholics’ political decisions since the 1970’s. This was the first time that an open discussion was held. The approximately 300 bishops had a chance to vote for it.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, chairman of the bishops’ domestic policy committee, that pulled together this document, said it was not aimed at the candidates.

Rather, it is “a summary of Catholic teaching,” Bishop DiMarzio said. “It offers a basic moral framework on what it means to be a Catholic and American, a believer and a voter in this coming election year.”

The set of principles will be issued as an insert that priests can put into a Sunday bulletin, but its dissemination is not mandatory, Bishop DiMarzio said.

The document seemed to offer flexability for a variety of belief systems which is unusual since the Pope’s position is fairly precise on the point. The Rev. Frank Pavone of the anti-abortion group Priests for Life said he was pleased with it. Catholics, whom abortion is not the sole issue when voting, have also been given freedom to maneuver around the issue.

“Can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a candidate who is pro-choice?” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. “What they are saying is, ‘Yes.’”

Cardinal George has close ties to the Vatican and will be host to Pope Benedict XVI on his trip to the United States in April. But the cardinal has recently come under fire because of two cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests that occurred during his tenure. Yet another blemish for the beleaguered church and it’s rank of pedophilic patriarchs. An ironic twist. Victims’ rights groups have asserted that Cardinal George failed to act quickly enough to remove the priests once accusations surfaced. This was mentioned as a side note to the issue of conscience and morality, which lay at the core of the proposition.

 

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson speaks at The Citadel college in Charleston, S.C., Nov. 13, 2007.

 

 

 

 

Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson speaks at The Citadel military college in Charleston, S.C., Nov. 13, 2007.

Before we begin this installment of the Rights Advocate blog, I wanted to thank all the commentors on both sides of the issue. To date we have been fortunate and have had for the most part literate and respectful posts. We have not edited or had to censure any comments for crude or disrespectful language, and I am appreciative of that. I believe a productive conversation may persist if this forum persists in an articulate manner.

We want to hear all sides of the issue and are open to our opinion being changed by good sound discussion. What more could we ask for? That enlightenment is welcomed. We hope that none of us are so dug into our dogmatic opinions as to not appreciate the well articulated position of another with an even diametrically opposed perspective.

I thank you all for your thought full commentary.

With that preface in mind let’s consider 11/13/07. The implications may be profound and we should all be aware of these important issues.

November 13, 2007 · Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson picked up a devisive endorsement from the National Right to Life committee. This committee is well known as the nation’s most outspoken anti-choice group.

This endorsement may have surprised some advocates of choice because Thompson does not support the Human Life Amendment. This amendment has been the movement’s primary goal for many decades. The endorsement is another symbol of division among social groups as the 2008 presidential campaign comes to us quickly.

David O’Steen is the executive director of the National Right to Life Committee. He said that he knows conservatives have given support to other GOP candidates for the primary. Mr. O’Steen declared that the organization’s backing will undoubtedly be a lift for Thompson in the primaries that are approaching rapidly.

“It’s been done after much consideration, much study, we have been watching this race since January,” said O’ Steen. “This is the first endorsement in the Republican race from a major grass-roots pro-life organization, representing 50 state organizations and about 3,000 chapters.”

O’Steen said his group pored over voting records and positions on abortion, but also electability. O’Steen made it profoundly obvious that one litmus was dissallowing the nomination of the primary GOP front-runner, the former Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani.

“I would assume he’s expressing his views, and he’s been consistent with that. Rudy Giuliani has not changed his position — he’s running as a pro-abortion candidate,” said O’Steen confidently.

Thompson trumped up his own integrity in a television ad, declaring that he is “proud to have a 100 percent pro-life voting record.”

However, on NBC’s Meet the Press 9 days ago, Mr. Thompson struggled with the question of when exactly does life begin. He had been on the record in 1994 that he wasn’t sure. He told NBC as well, in a recent interview, “my head has always been the same place.” Later in the interview, Thompson said he believes life begins at conception.

Thompson stated without hesitation that he remains opposed to a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, and he thought that it would be more pragmatic to leave this vital question to the states.

“I think people ought to be free at state and local levels to make decisions that even Fred Thompson disagrees with,” he said ironically. “That’s what freedom is all about. And I think the diversity we have among the states, the system of federalism we have where power is divided between the state and the federal government … serves us very, very well. I think that’s true of abortion.” One wonders if Abortion were indeed murder in the was that it is portrayed by the social conservatives would it surely be an issue simply left to the states? It would be strong enough to be an issue of federal importance as would murder in any sense be.

O’Steen said his group found Republican Mitt Romney too inconsistent on the abortion issue. He disliked the Arizona Sen. John McCain position on embryonic stem-cell research, and he regarded the other hopefuls as, simply, long shots — they are too under-prepared and not funded well enough to catch up to Giuliani.

In the last several days, social conservatives have been as vociferous as ever — just not as harmonious.

Televangelist Pat Robertson declared that he is backing Giuliani.

Ironically, juxtaposed to that position, Paul Weyrich, a founder of the Moral Majority, with voting integrity said Romney is the proper choice on this issue.

“George Bush combined a perspective that was very familiar to social conservatives, and an ability to win and raise millions and millions of dollars,” he said. When asked which Republican could accomplish that now, Ayres replied: “Nobody, which is why social conservatives are fractured at the moment.”

Still, Ayres insisted the party is not too worried about where social conservatives will be by the fall. Hillary Clinton, he said, remains social conservatives’ best hope for a rallying cry.

 

Massachusetts Extends Abortion Buffer

The State of Massachusetts legislature has given the approval Thursday, November 8, to a bill that mandates that Abortion protesters to stand at least 35 feet from Doctor’s offices and clinics that offer abortion services and private abortion care.

The present Govenor, Gov. Deval L. Patrick is expected to sign the legislation into law.

The bill, expected to be signed next week, will be the among the nation’s strictest state law requiring stable, fixed zones that protesters cannot enter around those reproductive health offices and clinics that offer abortions and reproductive care services.

The current law was enacted in 2000, declares that protesters cannot go within 6 feet of a person in an 18-foot zone outside the doors of an office that offers . The agencies responsible for protecting the zones have said it was difficult to enforce.

The bill passed the Senate unanimously on Thursday and the House in a 122-to-28 vote. There are 10 reproductive health offices in the state offer abortion care.

“The basic goal of the bill is to make sure patients and staff can enter reproductive health facilities without being obstructed, intimidated and harassed,” said Representative Carl M. Sciortino. Sciortino is a Democrat and is one of the bill’s sponsors. He also noted that “Current law is completely unenforceable and did not protect patients and staff the way it intended.”

Opponents of the new bill, in a typical response to laws protecting individuals from their ceaseless harassments, say the law will violate their freedom of speech.

The call for buffer zones started in 1994 after John C. Salvi III killed two women and wounded five other people at two offices offering abortion care in Brookline, Mass.

Colorado, Florida, and Montana have buffer zone laws similar to the current Massachusetts law. Interstingly, the country’s largest fixed buffer zone, 36 feet, is mandated in Melbourne, Fla.

 

The Alaska Supreme Court issued a decision . . .

On this past Friday the Alaska Supreme Court issued a decision overturning a state law allowing parents the right to agree to or deny abortions their minor teenager daughters may be considering. The state’s parental consent law has been tied up in court ever since the state legislature approved in in 1997. It is refreshing to hear that Alaska’s Supreme Court had the good intelligence to protect teenagers and allowing a path to their emancipation. In other words they would not be forced to carry a pregnancy and go through labor if they did not want to endure this process which may place their bodies in harm’s way.

The most important point here is that the rights of the individual outweigh the rights of other’s trying to impose their view on what that individual should or should not do with their body.

The court issued a 3-2 decision on the law stating that it denies a teenager her right to an abortion.

Both the majority and the two dissenting judges agree that parents should play a vital role in their children’s lives and health care decisions but the majority said parents should not have a veto power to override a teen’s decision to get an abortion.

Justices Walter Carpeneti and Warren Matthews issued dissents in the case and said the state legislature carefully balanced the right of parents and teenagers and said the measure “is the least restrictive alternative which will effectively advance the state’s compelling interests while protecting the child’s constitutional right.”

Information on providers who offer abortion care or the abortion pill can be found at a number of sites including Abortion.com and RU486.com. According to statistics from the state health department, there were 1,923 abortions in Alaska in 2006 and 126 were done on girls 17 or younger who would have been subject to the parental consent law.

The ruling is the second time the Alaska Supreme Court has weighed in on the parental consent law. In 2001, the justices ruled the measure invalid and cited the state’s privacy clause as the reason, despite any wording saying the clause was meant to uphold an unlimited right to abortion.

Hopefully, this can be seen as a positive step toward maintaining the right of an individual to choose privately the choices they make in their reproductive lives.

 

Abortion.com - A Resource

It is difficult in the unbounded infinite internet to find a definitive source of anything, let alone, Doctor’s to provide Abortion services. One visiting Abortion.com (http://www.Abortion.com) will discover several hundred providers of abortion and reproductive services.

The Doctor’s offices listed in this very special directory are either (or both) members of A) The National Abortion Federation (NAF) and/or B) The National Coalition of Abortion Providers (NCAP). The former performs inspections of and validates the providers by a wide variety of processes. Providers, Medical & Surgical doctors, on Abortion.com have been licensed by their respective State licensing boards. The majority are board certified Obstetricians & Gynecologists. In a world where one has great difficulty validating who their doctor is, it is a relief to know that there is validation by 1) The state licensing boards, 2) Independent organizations, often nonprofit, NAF, NCAP, and The Abortion Conversation Project. These organizations often have as their sole mission the advocacy of reproductive rights and routinely defend the rights of women for their self determination on a daily basis.

One should be thankful that such organizations exist as so few individuals are actively seeking the protection of our civil liberties in this fashion.