When Abortion Suddenly Stopped Making Sense
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
January 22, 2016 9:00 AM
A t the time of the Roe v. Wade decision, I was a college student — an anti-war, mother-earth, feminist, hippie college student. That particular January I was taking a semester off, living in the D.C. area and volunteering at the feminist “underground newspaper” Off Our Backs . As you’d guess, I was strongly in favor of legalizing abortion. The bumper sticker on my car read, “Don’t labor under a misconception; legalize abortion.”
The first issue of Off Our Backs after the Roe decision included one of my movie reviews, and also an essay by another member of the collective criticizing the decision. It didn’t go far enough, she said, because it allowed states to restrict abortion in the third trimester. The Supreme Court should not meddle in what should be decided between the woman and her doctor. She should be able to choose abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.
But, at the time, we didn’t have much understanding of what abortion was . We knew nothing of fetal development. We consistently termed the fetus “a blob of tissue,” and that’s just how we pictured it — an undifferentiated mucous-like blob, not recognizable as human or even as alive. It would be another 15 years of so before pregnant couples could show off sonograms of their unborn babies, shocking us with the obvious humanity of the unborn.
We also thought, back then, that few abortions would ever be done. It’s a grim experience, going through an abortion, and we assumed a woman would choose one only as a last resort. We were fighting for that “last resort.” We had no idea how common the procedure would become; today, one in every five pregnancies ends in abortion.
Nor could we have imagined how high abortion numbers would climb. In the 43 years since Roe v. Wade , there have been 59 million abortions. It’s hard even to grasp a number that big. Twenty years ago, someone told me that, if the names of all those lost babies were inscribed on a wall, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the wall would have to stretch for 50 miles. It’s 20 years later now, and that wall would have to stretch twice as far. But no names could be written on it; those babies had no names.
We expected that abortion would be rare. What we didn’t realize was that, once abortion becomes available, it becomes the most attractive option for everyone around the pregnant woman. If she has an abortion, it’s like the pregnancy never existed. No one is inconvenienced. It doesn’t cause trouble for the father of the baby, or her boss, or the person in charge of her college scholarship. It won’t embarrass her mom and dad.
Abortion is like a funnel; it promises to solve all the problems at once. So there is significant pressure on a woman to choose abortion, rather than adoption or parenting.
A woman who had had an abortion told me, “Everyone around me was saying they would ‘be there for me’ if I had the abortion, but no one said they’d ‘be there for me’ if I had the baby.” For everyone around the pregnant woman, abortion looks like the sensible choice. A woman who determines instead to continue an unplanned pregnancy looks like she’s being foolishly stubborn. It’s like she’s taken up some unreasonable hobby. People think, If she would only go off and do this one thing, everything would be fine.
But that’s an illusion. Abortion can’t really “turn back the clock.” It can’t push the rewind button on life and make it so she was never pregnant. It can make it easy for everyone around the woman to forget the pregnancy, but the woman herself may struggle. When she first sees the positive pregnancy test she may feel, in a panicky way, that she has to get rid of it as fast as possible. But life stretches on after abortion, for months and years — for many long nights — and all her life long she may ponder the irreversible choice she made.
This issue gets presented as if it’s a tug of war between the woman and the baby. We see them as mortal enemies, locked in a fight to the death. But that’s a strange idea, isn’t it? It must be the first time in history when mothers and their own children have been assumed to be at war. We’re supposed to picture the child attacking her, trying to destroy her hopes and plans, and picture the woman grateful for the abortion, since it rescued her from the clutches of her child.
If you were in charge of a nature preserve and you noticed that the pregnant female mammals were trying to miscarry their pregnancies, eating poisonous plants or injuring themselves, what would you do? Would you think of it as a battle between the pregnant female and her unborn and find ways to help those pregnant animals miscarry? No, of course not. You would immediately think, “Something must be really wrong in this environment.” Something is creating intolerable stress, so much so that animals would rather destroy their own offspring than bring them into the world. You would strive to identify and correct whatever factors were causing this stress in the animals.
The same thing goes for the human animal. Abortion gets presented to us as if it’s something women want; both pro-choice and pro-life rhetoric can reinforce that idea. But women do this only if all their other options look worse. It’s supposed to be “her choice,” yet so many women say, “I really didn’t have a choice.”
I changed my opinion on abortion after I read an article in Esquire magazine, way back in 1976. I was home from grad school, flipping through my dad’s copy, and came across an article titled “What I Saw at the Abortion.” The author, Richard Selzer, was a surgeon, and he was in favor of abortion, but he’d never seen one. So he asked a colleague whether, next time, he could go along.
Selzer described seeing the patient, 19 weeks pregnant, lying on her back on the table. (That is unusually late; most abortions are done by the tenth or twelfth week.) The doctor performing the procedure inserted a syringe into the woman’s abdomen and injected her womb with a prostaglandin solution, which would bring on contractions and cause a miscarriage. (This method isn’t used anymore, because too often the baby survived the procedure — chemically burned and disfigured, but clinging to life. Newer methods, including those called “partial birth abortion” and “dismemberment abortion,” more reliably ensure death.)
After injecting the hormone into the patient’s womb, the doctor left the syringe standing upright on her belly. Then, Selzer wrote, “I see something other than what I expected here. . . . It is the hub of the needle that is in the woman’s belly that has jerked. First to one side. Then to the other side. Once more it wobbles, is tugged, like a fishing line nibbled by a sunfish.”
He realized he was seeing the fetus’s desperate fight for life. And as he watched, he saw the movement of the syringe slow down and then stop. The child was dead. Whatever else an unborn child does not have, he has one thing: a will to live. He will fight to defend his life.
The last words in Selzer’s essay are, “Whatever else is said in abortion’s defense, the vision of that other defense [i.e., of the child defending its life] will not vanish from my eyes. And it has happened that you cannot reason with me now. For what can language do against the truth of what I saw?”
The truth of what he saw disturbed me deeply. There I was, anti-war, anti–capital punishment, even vegetarian, and a firm believer that social justice cannot be won at the cost of violence. Well, this sure looked like violence. How had I agreed to make this hideous act the centerpiece of my feminism? How could I think it was wrong to execute homicidal criminals, wrong to shoot enemies in wartime, but all right to kill our own sons and daughters?
For that was another disturbing thought: Abortion means killing not strangers but our own children, our own flesh and blood. No matter who the father, every child aborted is that woman’s own son or daughter, just as much as any child she will ever bear.
We had somehow bought the idea that abortion was necessary if women were going to rise in their professions and compete in the marketplace with men. But how had we come to agree that we will sacrifice our children, as the price of getting ahead? When does a man ever have to choose between his career and the life of his child?
Once I recognized the inherent violence of abortion, none of the feminist arguments made sense. Like the claim that a fetus is not really a person because it is so small . Well, I’m only 5 foot 1. Women, in general, are smaller than men. Do we really want to advance a principle that big people have more value than small people? That if you catch them before they’ve reached a certain size, it’s all right to kill them?
What about the child who is “unwanted”? It was a basic premise of early feminism that women should not base their sense of worth on whether or not a man “wants” them. We are valuable simply because we are members of the human race, regardless of any other person’s approval. Do we really want to say that “unwanted” people might as well be dead? What about a woman who is “wanted” when she’s young and sexy but less so as she gets older? At what point is it all right to terminate her?
The usual justification for abortion is that the unborn is not a “person.” It’s said that “Nobody knows when life begins.” But that’s not true; everybody knows when life — a new individual human life — gets started. It’s when the sperm dissolves in the egg. That new single cell has a brand-new DNA, never before seen in the world. If you examined through a microscope three cells lined up — the newly fertilized ovum, a cell from the father, and a cell from the mother — you would say that, judging from the DNA, the cells came from three different people.
When people say the unborn is “not a person” or “not a life” they mean that it has not yet grown or gained abilities that arrive later in life. But there’s no agreement about which abilities should be determinative. Pro-choice people don’t even agree with each other. Obviously, law cannot be based on such subjective criteria. If it’s a case where the question is “Can I kill this?” the answer must be based on objective medical and scientific data. And the fact is, an unborn child, from the very first moment, is a new human individual. It has the three essential characteristics that make it “a human life”: It’s alive and growing, it is composed entirely of human cells, and it has unique DNA. It’s a person, just like the rest of us.
Abortion indisputably ends a human life. But this loss is usually set against the woman’s need to have an abortion in order to freely direct her own life. It is a particular cruelty to present abortion as something women want, something they demand, they find liberating. Because nobody wants this. The procedure itself is painful, humiliating, expensive — no woman “wants” to go through it. But once it’s available, it appears to be the logical, reasonable choice. All the complexities can be shoved down that funnel. Yes, abortion solves all the problems; but it solves them inside the woman’s body. And she is expected to keep that pain inside for a lifetime, and be grateful for the gift of abortion.
Many years ago I wrote something in an essay about abortion, and I was surprised that the line got picked up and frequently quoted. I’ve seen it in both pro-life and pro-choice contexts, so it appears to be something both sides agree on.
I wrote, “No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg.”
Strange, isn’t it, that both pro-choice and pro-life people agree that is true? Abortion is a horrible and harrowing experience. That women choose it so frequently shows how much worse continuing a pregnancy can be. Essentially, we’ve agreed to surgically alter women so that they can get along in a man’s world. And then expect them to be grateful for it.
Nobody wants to have an abortion. And if nobody wants to have an abortion, why are women doing it, 2800 times a day? If women doing something 2,800 times daily that they don’t want to do, this is not liberation we’ve won. We are colluding in a strange new form of oppression.
And so we come around to one more March for Life, like the one last year, like the one next year. Protesters understandably focus on the unborn child, because the danger it faces is the most galvanizing aspect of this struggle. If there are different degrees of injustice, surely violence is the worst manifestation, and killing worst of all. If there are different categories of innocent victim, surely the small and helpless have a higher claim to protection, and tiny babies the highest of all. The minimum purpose of government is to shield the weak from abuse by the strong, and there is no one weaker or more voiceless than unborn children. And so we keep saying that they should be protected, for all the same reasons that newborn babies are protected. Pro-lifers have been doing this for 43 years now, and will continue holding a candle in the darkness for as many more years as it takes.
I understand all the reasons why the movement’s prime attention is focused on the unborn. But we can also say that abortion is no bargain for women, either. It’s destructive and tragic. We shouldn’t listen unthinkingly to the other side of the time-worn script, the one that tells us that women want abortions, that abortion liberates them. Many a post-abortion woman could tell you a different story.
The pro-life cause is perennially unpopular, and pro-lifers get used to being misrepresented and wrongly accused. There are only a limited number of people who are going to be brave enough to stand up on the side of an unpopular cause. But sometimes a cause is so urgent, is so dramatically clear, that it’s worth it. What cause could be more outrageous than violence — fatal violence — against the most helpless members of our human community? If that doesn’t move us, how hard are our hearts? If that doesn’t move us, what will ever move us?
In time, it’s going to be impossible to deny that abortion is violence against children. Future generations, as they look back, are not necessarily going to go easy on ours. Our bland acceptance of abortion is not going to look like an understandable goof. In fact, the kind of hatred that people now level at Nazis and slave-owners may well fall upon our era. Future generations can accurately say, “It’s not like they didn’t know.” They can say, “After all, they had sonograms.” They may consider this bloodshed to be a form of genocide. They might judge our generation to be monsters.
One day, the tide is going to turn. With that Supreme Court decision 43 years ago, one of the sides in the abortion debate won the day. But sooner or later, that day will end. No generation can rule from the grave. The time is coming when a younger generation will sit in judgment of ours. And they are not obligated to be kind.
FREDERICA MATHEWES-GREEN — Frederica Mathewes-Green has written for National Review, the Washington Post, Smithsonian, the Los Angeles Times, First Things, Books & Culture, Sojourners, Touchstone, and the Wall Street Journal.
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"One day, the tide is going to turn. With that Supreme Court decision 43 years ago, one of the sides in the abortion debate won the day. But sooner or later, that day will end. No generation can rule from the grave. The time is coming when a younger generation will sit in judgment of ours. And they are not obligated to be kind."
I truly believe that.
Rules of civility will strictly be enforced
The ruling will never be changed and like everything else succeeding generations will only become more accepting of social change and civil rights. The past and growing acceptance of asian people, black people, native people, homosexual people and many others are all examples of this.
An act of congress can't change it?
and like everything else succeeding generations will only become more accepting of social change and civil rights.
Civil rights yes. Infanticide No. Things don't Inextricably move to the left. It dosen't appear that the pro-Life movement is going to fade away
If you need to use hysterics and emotions such as claiming that abortion is infanticide then you have already lost any rational support for your argument. Younger people are more supportive of abortion, except for the evangelicals who are slowly diminishing in power and number.
Why do you think that your personal beliefs are able to make medical decisions for others? Why do you care when you will never get pregnant? Do you think that woman are inferior to men and need to seek the approval of men?
What happened to your previous claim of supporting small government and pro-freedom?
Did you read the article?
Most of the article is emotional arguments.
What is the point that you are trying to make?
She was after all a liberal, but her points are well taken.
What is the point that you are trying to make?
Simply, that "times are a changin" (Sorry, fuckin Bob Dylan)
These abortion laws are being set aside as they take effect.
What is it about abortion that you think that you have a say in another person's body? Why should women give a damn about what a man thinks when he will never get pregnant? Is there something in the XY chromosome that we should give a damn about?
Don't make it personal!
It's what the people, as a matter of fact, most women want:
Over 80 percent of women say they would ban late-term abortion and restrict abortion to the first three months of pregnancy, a new survey finds.
According to a new Marist poll commissioned by the Knights of Columbus, 81 percent of Americans — including 82 percent of women and 66 percent of abortion supporters — say abortion should be banned after the first trimester of a pregnancy.
There is no elective late term abortion now, so there is nothing to ban!
The KofC is a catholic fraternal group so any statement from them is already very biased. My father was a 4th degree KofC so I am extremely aware of their conservative beliefs. It was the KofC that was instrumental in putting "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance in the 1950s.
Oh wow! What a catastrophe!/sar
Religion and the state are to be kept separate, so that should be removed.
Bullshit.
She's been spewing the same bullshit for decades.
When you get right down to it, all that BS are just appeals to emotion. But then, that seems to be the basis for every pro-life argument too.
What's becoming clear is that they're not 'pro-life' they are pro birth.
And anti choice
It's not clear what emotion you are referring to in the author, nor is it clear why your emotions are any more valid.
If by that, you mean "human life has value" is an emotional argument, that's fine, but why is that a bad argument? What's the opposing argument? A woman right to choose to end a pregnancy has value? If so, that sounds emotional, too. Why is one better than another? And if the pro-choice argument isn't emotional, then what is it?
A fetus isn't a human life, but the mother obviously is. You cannot take rights away from a person and give it to something that isn't yet alive and cannot make choices for itself. The mother cannot be made to be a prisoner to a parasite in her own body because of your conservative religious beliefs.
The idea that a fetus is a person deserving of equal rights is an emotional argument.
I think that's factually not true. It may not be fully developed or born, but any analysis of the DNA of the fetus will reveal it to be both life and human. In fact, it will be a completely unique strand of DNA, identifying it as a specific individual.
But we're talking about different rights that we typically give different weight. One is a right to choose. The other is a right to live. We give up rights to choice all day long (e.g. choosing to pollute the environment or driving while intoxicated) to preserve the lives of people around us who could be impacted by choices we might make.
My religious beliefs didn't get her pregnant. She did that without my help.
I hope I only have to say this once: My religious beliefs - conservative or otherwise - do not enter into the discussion beyond my tendency to place a value on a human life. Unless it is your position that only a religious person could value human life. Is that what you are claiming?
My perception that a developing fetus is a valuable human life has nothing to do with religious teaching. It's something I learned watching science shows on TV and in public school classrooms. I don't think I have ever even seen abortion mentioned in a church.
OK, but that doesn't explain why it's wrong.
Emotional arguments are not based on facts but instead of beliefs and in this case a religious belief.
Why do you feel that your conservative beliefs get to intrude on my autonomy and my medical decisions? Is there something in the XY chromosome or are you just protecting proper social order by tramping the inherent rights of women?
It would seem that conservative men think that we surrender our autonomous rights to the man and his religion when we have sex, but you could not be more wrong.
I don't know what religious belief you are referring to. I certainly haven't mentioned one.
You really are being emotional. You keep referencing arguments I haven't made. I have not said one word about your autonomy.
Again, you are being very emotional and assuming all sorts of things I haven't mentioned.
These things that "seem" to you certainly aren't coming from me. So far, everything you are saying is very emotional, so I think it's strange that you fault others for making emotional arguments.
You can believe whatever you want. That doesn't make it true.
Not without resulting legal challenges and probable SCOTUS intervention.
Abortion is considered a
Infanticide isn't the issue nor is it accepted.
Neither is the pro-choice side.
I'm so glad to hear you say that.
Not without resulting legal challenges and probable SCOTUS intervention.
No Gordy! If congress enacts a 28th Amendment outlawing abortion the SCOTUS will have to support it!
Abortion is considered a
I know the argument and as I always say -it was wrongly decided
Infanticide isn't the issue nor is it accepted.
Science will determine if it is or not
Neither is the pro-choice side.
Thus, that last well stated paragraph:
"With that Supreme Court decision 43 years ago, one of the sides in the abortion debate won the day."
"But sooner or later, that day will end. No generation can rule from the grave. The time is coming when a younger generation will sit in judgment of ours. And they are not obligated to be kind."
It's already happening. Six states only have 1 abortion clinic
And the judges are coming to their defense. Abortion isn't going away because nobody is being forced to have an abortion.
You mean Obama judges. The SCOTUS has yet to take one of those cases, when they do it will be one that recognizes another right.
Roe has been revisited more than 3 times. Its settled law, so get over it.
What supposed possible new right are you referring to?
Why are so obsessed with abortion?
Banning abortion will never be the 28th amendment. People would not support it.
Why are you so obsessed with abortion?
That is correct. Your'e getting it!
Not everyone thinks like you
I was about to ask you the same question?
But let me answer yours. I long for the day when I can sit here like a liberal and say "It's the law of the land"
Abortion is settled law in the eyes of the majority. If you don't like one then don't do it, but you have nothing to say about the medical choices of women.
I don't know about that. Had the decision been based on the Constitution, liberals wouldn't be facing all this now.
If you don't like one then don't do it, but you have nothing to say about the medical choices of women.
Pro-Life people would differ, They would say the unborn has rights!
It was based on the Constitution. We have the inherent right to act unless there is a compelling reason by the state that we cannot. That is the basic concept of freedom. If we didn't have the right to privacy there would be no need for the 4th amendment to define when the state can violate that privacy and the need for a search warrant.
The courts differ from their emotional claims because they fetus cannot survive on its own so it cannot have rights when it is a biological parasite depends on another for survival.
The Bible says that it is not a person until it breathes air. Genesis 2.7
Happy to be of service.
Not likely to happen. Passing a Constitutional Amendment is no easy task.
And that is just your opinion.
Science already has: an embryo/fetus is not scientifically (or legally) considered an infant. Neither does medical science (or the law) deem abortion to be murder or infanticide itself.
No, women's rights and autonomy won the day.
Emotional rhetoric.
Only the rational ones do.
It was based on the Constitution. The SCOTUS interpreted the Constitution (as is their job) and determined laws banning abortion were unconstitutional.
There is no legal basis for the unborn to have rights. Nor is there a way to grant any such rights without infringing on the established rights of the woman in question. Pro-life people seem to think a woman should not have certain rights.
Well, they managed to do it 27 times. It's not impossible
Science already has: an embryo/fetus is not scientifically (or legally) considered an infant.
An infant? That would be a young child. Science has yet to tell us when life begins. We haven't been interested either. It was never considered in the horrendous Roe decision.
No, women's rights and autonomy won the day.
As Justice Brennan used to say "just give me 5 judges"
Emotional rhetoric.
Social change, coming from a different direction.
It was based on the Constitution.
False. They legislated via Judicial fiat.
The SCOTUS interpreted the Constitution (as is their job) and determined laws banning abortion were unconstitutional.
They misinterpreted it and couldn't explain it
There is no legal basis for the unborn to have rights.
I just hope I live to see it!
Nor is there a way to grant any such rights without infringing on the established rights of the woman in question.
Life & death are not hers to decide
Pro-life people seem to think a woman should not have certain rights.
Pro-Life people are for extending rights, just like the left.
If a 28th Amendment is passed, it may not be the one you are counting on.
Which is different than an embryo/fetus.
Life is technically a continuation. But when it begins is irrelevant.
Good. Because it is not the crux of the argument.
We already have 9.
Social change has only been more progressive over the decades, despite resistance from those afraid of change.
What did they legislate? Cite the law!
What makes you more qualified to interpret the Constitution than a SCOTUS Justice?
I wouldn't get your hopes up.
It's her body, it's her decision.
No, they're interested in taking rights away from people who already exist and are living in favor of something that's not even born.
For the last time, believe what you want and let the rest of us believe what we want. You are NOT the moral arbiter of this topic! WTF makes you think your beliefs should be forced on WOMEN? You aren't for extending rights, you want to subvert women's rights to a clump of cells. The same clump of cells conservatives don't care about as soon as they are out of the uterus. Again, why should christian sharia be forced on women?
Vic, what are you going to do with the population increase you are going to cause?
We can't take care of our citizens as it is
I thought Americans weren't reproducing fast enough, thus the need for Illegals? I'm confused.
We can't take care of our citizens as it is
Assume that you are right on that. There are still two arguments - a legal one and a moral one. First that the Court had no legal basis for the Roe decision. Second, nobody can tell us where life begins. What about those complaints?
US population is too high and past what can be supported. Overpopulation makes every problem worse. We need to lower our birth rate and my position on foreigners is they need to stay in their country, but let's worry about them in an other discussion.
Assume that you are right on that. There are still two arguments - a legal one and a moral one. First that the Court had no legal basis for the Roe decision. Second, nobody can tell us where life begins. What about those complaints?
Starting with your second point, there is something in the bible about first breath and something about a month
"The birthrate fell for nearly every group of women of reproductive age in the U.S. in 2017, reflecting a sharp drop that saw the fewest newborns since 1987, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There were 3,853,472 births in the U.S. in 2017 — "down 2 percent from 2016 and the lowest number in 30 years," the CDC said.
The general fertility rate sank to a record low of 60.2 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44 — a 3 percent drop from 2016, the CDC said in its tally of provisional data for the year.
The results put the U.S. further away from a viable replacement rate – the standard for a generation being able to replicate its numbers."
These feminists will tell you the Bible is not science!
Now about the legal point, As a male, I have right to get a haircut, trim my toe nails, have medical procedures, ect ,ect. Why the is one thing my that sister can do that I can't restricted? That ain't fair
I will tell you that too. But many that are opposed to abortion believe in the bible
Yes, and a majority of US Christians support women's right to choose...
You said it, we didn't.
Morality is subjective and cannot be legislated.
Actually, it did and has explained that in its opinions.
They're irrelevant. When life begins is not the basis of the abortion argument. But George Carlin addressed the issue best, especially on the point about where "life begins."
They would be correct too.
It's been trying to explain it to this very day and as I recall even you couldn't show me this privacy right in the Constitution
Do you seriously think something must be explicitly stated in the Constitution to be legally valid or applicable?
Yes I do. We support 9 Judges for that purpose
They never answer this or how they are going to care for these babies that they force a women to carry and give birth to. That reality is not part of their emotional arguments because their concern ends when the baby is born. This argument is all about controlling women.
Was that the reason for the Roe decision?
This argument is all abort controlling women.
I think it's about radical feminism defying decent women!
The freedom to do with our bodies as we wish as per privacy rights.
Nobody is being defied because nobody is forced to have an abortion. Your emotional views do not make my medical decisions.
That's what they claimed. They still can't show us the right of privacy
Your emotional views do not make my medical decisions.
Don't make it personal!!!
Stop trying to legislate your opinions as my medical decisions. You can decide not to have an abortion any time you want and I won't object.
"decent women!"
could you give some description of what you think "decent women" are?
Stop trying to end a life.
You know, women with feminine qualities like loving & caring. The opposite of "feminist"
I want an apology.
I am supporting the freedom of autonomy.
show us the right of privacy
It is up inside her, you can't get much more private than that
I'd also like to know this answer because I am a feminist.
Stop with the emotional hyperbole. Do you say the same thing when people take antibiotics to "end a life?"
Both a sweeping generalization and an ad hom attack.
Then you do not understand their decision or how they reached it.
Not at all. But that "reason" is also a legitimate concern.
More opinion and nothing more.
The right to privacy is understood because you cannot have freedom without it. Do we also have the right to breathe and have sex without government consent because those aren't mentioned either. Griswold v. Connecticut came before Roe v. Wade and it was also decided on the right to privacy.
It's difficult to find an appropriate circumstance where the phrase 'offensive nit-wit' is applicable. I must say, however, that you wear it well.
Very apropos...
I find that offensive Vic. I think I am a decent woman, and I don't think of myself as a feminist. But I do believe I have the right over my body within common sense limits. To imply that makes anyone less than decent is very unfair.
Not only unfair, but, totally chauvinist and misogynistic. And it is not only offensive, but, highly insulting.
Denigrating and demeaning women one does not agree with for their own self aggrandizement seems to be a habit with some here.
I do believe I have the right over my body within common sense limits.
You have autonomy over your life AND your body, there's no limits to that !
Does it ever occur to the far rightwing radical fringe forced birthers that outlawing abortions will do absolutely nothing at all to decrease women's demand for termination services? Only averting unwanted pregnancies wiil accomplish that...
I understand that argument.
Does it ever occur to that the radical lunatics on the far left that abortion law should have been legislated via the Congress?
States already tried to legislate abortion and the Court found it unconstitutional.
I don't care how it happened, I support the results and I don't care how it happens I support things that protect Second Amendment rights and there are some other things I don't care how it happens but the results will make me happy and it will be somehow legal
Why shouldn't the SCOTUS make this decision? Constitutional interpretation is their role in the federal government. How could Congress have decided the Roe case where there was a very mixed situation of abortion laws in the 50 states? The Roe decision made one law nationwide.
And other states are going to the other extreme like New York. You don't think the SCOTUS isn't going to take one of these cases?
You are at least honest! The Court wasn't. If you like the result, wouldn't you at least want it done right? If the Congress passed a law legalizing abortion, there wouldn't be this controversy now!
What extreme? NY has not allowed elective abortions past viability. That coincides with SCOTUS ruling.
Possible. But not necessary. There is already plenty of past precedent to look upon.
Oh sure there would be. Pro-lifers/anti-choicers would be up in arms about it, much like they are now.
Interpretation and legislation are two different things.
How could Congress have decided the Roe case where there was a very mixed situation of abortion laws in the 50 states?
Then they can't, but that's the way it's supposed to work. We elect representatives to make the laws and if they are afraid, or stalemated or bought out by lobbyists, it STILL DOSEN"T GIVE THE COURT THE RIGHT TO STEP IN AND MAKE THE CALL!
The SCOTUS interprets.
No. They would have no argument. Their elected representatives passed a law.
The NY law is not extreme, despite your claims. How many times do I need to post the fact checker statement before you stop making wild claims?
The states cannot pass laws that violate previous settled law. This is the basis of the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution. A state cannot ban what the federal government/US Constitution allows.
Typing in capital letters doesn't help your claim.
The federal appeals courts up to the SCOTUS interpretations become federal law. The judicial branch would have no power to act as a check and balance to the other branches and the 50 states if they were not law. Those decisions are not suggestions.
This is a basic concept of US political law. You should have learned this by 8th grade history class.
Any law passed can be challenged and go before judicial review, up to and including the SCOTUS.
States legislated bans against abortion. The Courts interpreted those laws to be unconstitutional. The system works.
See first statement. I'm bbeginning to wonder if you ever took high school civics.
And that's what it did when it deemed laws banning abortion unconstitutional.
Hell NO, why would women want a bunch of ignorant men making laws restricting what they can to with their person? None of these laws are even based on medicine or science, its a bunch of misogynists making sure they keep women slut shamed and incubating. The fact you think your opinion and belief system should be forced on all women is infuriating. Fuckers making these laws aren't medical people and don't care about women or children, so stay out of our business.
I'm sorry I didn't have Angela Davis
I hate articles like this. It distorts the truth. We have understood fetal development for over 100 years. This is not new with the advent of the 3D ultrasound, people can see a fetus and equate what they see with being fully human. Granted, there is a point, where the fetus becomes a feeling being. But there is about a 15 week period (give or take a week), and though it looks like a baby, it is not alive, in the sense that it has a full neurological system. Without that, there is no person. It would be the equal of saying that someone who is brain dead is still a person because their heart beats. They are not.
To read this as a fight between mother and child is an emotional falsehood. To have that fight, there has to be a baby, and there is none until that neurological system is there. In fact, even at that point, the fetus can't survive without the mother, but I weigh in on "Do no harm", and so unless the mother's life is in danger, the decision for an abortion should be done with after that point.
But even to those who feel it's wrong.
There are few issues that upset me like this one. I am honestly tired of other people trying to making such a personal decision for women.
btw, this is an embryo at 6 weeks, which is when there is heartbeat:
Not a person indeed. Looks more like a piece of uncooked shrimp. plus there's no true heart to "beat." There are cardiac cells which generate an electrical impulse, the so called "heartbeat."
And this is a core part of the problem that needs an effort from everyone else or we aren't going to resolve this. Contraception needs to be as easy and reliable as taking a vitamin or wearing a hat. It's getting better, but we aren't quite there yet.
And if pregnancy does occur, carrying that baby to term and either raising it or giving it up for adoption need to be choices that result in the kind of support and encouragement that make every woman glad she made that choice.
Until the alternatives to abortion are so preferable as to be irresistible, we aren't going to be able to say we won't allow anymore abortions.