This is good news for women’s health, as well as for their rights:
A federal judge Tuesday declared the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional, saying the measure infringes on a woman’s right to choose.The ruling applies to Planned Parenthood (news – web sites) clinics and their doctors, who perform roughly half the nation’s abortions.
U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton’s ruling came in one of three lawsuits challenging the legislation President Bush (news – web sites) signed last year.
“The act poses an undue burden on a woman’s right to choose an abortion,” she wrote.
Federal judges in New York and Nebraska also heard challenges to the law earlier this year but have yet to rule.
I expect the New York and Nebraska cases to end the same way.
Mind you, I am not entirely opposed to a late-term abortion ban, but that’s not what’s at issue here. What’s at issue here is the method in which the abortion is given, not when it’s given:
In the banned procedure known as intact dilation and extraction to doctors, but called partial-birth abortion by opponents the living fetus is partially removed from the womb, and its skull is punctured or crushed.Justice Department attorneys argued that the procedure is inhumane, causes pain to the fetus and is never medically necessary.
Whether or not it’s medically necessary is for doctors to decide, not the Justice Department.
Anti-abortion advocates use the description of the method, and the term “partial birth,” to graphically depict what’s going on, and try to rally people against it. But it’s just another example of the anti-abortion movement trying to outlaw abortion one method at a time, rather than all in one swoop. The fact of the matter is that in any abortion, a fetus or embryo is destroyed, and usually in ways that aren’t pleasant to think about. But what’s more important is that the health, well-being, and rights of the woman outweigh those of the fetus or embryo; and that’s what this ruling reaffirms.
As I said above, I’m not completely opposed to a late-term abortion ban, but the right conditions would have to be met. There would need to be ample provisions to protect those cases (and yes, they do happen) where it is medically necessary to perform a late-term abortion to protect the health of the woman, or those cases in which the fetus is already dead. But since late-term abortions (21+ weeks) account for fewer than 1% of all abortions in the US, and many of those (I’d guess the vast majority, but I don’t have the numbers to back them up) are doubtless for the reasons I’ve just described, it would be do-nothing, feel-good legislation anyway. In addition, it would be at best difficult and at worst virtually impossible to enforce.
leanleft
Kevin
tgirsch
Kevin T. Keith
Judd
It absolutely astounds me, to a certain degree, that anyone human could possibly agree with “partial birth abortion.” What on this earth can be less animalistic and barbaric than what is done to an utterly innocent child, murdered just before he/she breathes that first precious bit of air.
You may lean left honey, but most of America rocks to the right! The country was conceived (imagine that) on Judeo-Christian values and most of us still believe in those same values and will work with whatever tools we have to see them through.
Please do me a favor and watch a video of a partial birth abortion……then tell me how you feel.
“The fact of the matter is that in any abortion, a fetus or embryo is destroyed, and usually in ways that aren’t pleasant to think about. But what’s more important is that the health, well-being, and rights of the woman outweigh those of the fetus or embryo; and that’s what this ruling reaffirms.”
The fact of the matter is that in any war, a prisoner is going to be interrogated, and usually in ways that aren’t pleasant to think about. But whats more important is that the health, well-being, and rights of our soldiers outweigh those of the enemy, and thats what Abu Gharib reaffirmed.
Susanne:
What on this earth can be less animalistic and barbaric than what is done to an utterly innocent child, murdered just before he/she breathes that first precious bit of air.
You assume a great deal. The vast majority of “partial-birth” abortions are performed in the second trimester, when there wouldn’t be any breathing of air even if delivery completed.
The country was conceived (imagine that) on Judeo-Christian values
Bzzt! Sorry, Hans, wrong guess! The country was conceived on Enlightenment values, and guess what people had been enlightened about.
Please do me a favor and watch a video of a partial birth abortion……then tell me how you feel.
I can’t stomach video of open-heart surgery, and that’s a life-saving procedure. Shall we ban that, too, because it’s disgusting to look at?
flounder:
Nice try, but not even close. Torturing a fully-formed, self-aware human being is not even remotely close to the same thing as terminating a pregnancy part way through. Not the same ball park, not even the same friggin sport.
tgirsch:
I just think its strange that the same people who are disgusted by the Abu Gharib prison abuse photos, cry foul when people show photos of partial-birth abortions.
Flounder:
Put thy straw away. It’s not the abuse photos that disgust me, it’s the abuse that disgusts me. Abuse and torture are never medically necessary. Dilation and extraction abortion is sometimes medically necessary, something that the partial birth legislation doesn’t account for.
Apples are not oranges.
And I didn’t “cry foul” at people showing pictures of partial birth abortions (or any abortions, for that matter), although I do find that tactic particularly abhorrent. What I’m complaining about, instead, is using prejudicial and graphic depictions to push a political agenda. People who use the photos at Abu Ghraib (rather than the acts themselves) to do this are every bit as guilty.
No straw at all, these are 2 very comparable issues. But liberals refuse to accept that a fetus, even one that requires you to puncture its skull to kill it, constitutes life…..so why bother.
You are the rare exception when it comes to not taking advantage of the photos. I just saw Bill Maher on Larry King last night not only using the photos to push his agenda, but also trying to blame Bush for what happened.
How about this from George Soros:
The picture of torture in Saddam’s prison was a moment of truth for us,” Soros said Thursday morning in Washington at a meeting of the liberal activist group Campaign for America’s Future.
“I think that those pictures hit us the same way as the terrorist attack itself,” Soros continued, “not quite with the same force, because in the terrorist attack, we were the victims. In the pictures, we were the perpetrators and others were the victims.”
“But there is, I’m afraid, a direct connection between those two events, because the way President Bush conducted the war on terror converted us from victims into perpetrators.”
The audience, made up of left-wing activists from around the country, broke into enthusiastic applause.
Flounder:
But liberals refuse to accept that a fetus, even one that requires you to puncture its skull to kill it, constitutes life…..so why bother.
Wow, look at all the assumptions that you make in that one sentence. First you assume that if the skull were not punctured, the fetus would live. It’s entirely possible that the choice is not between life and death, but between a quick, relatively painless death and a slow, painful one. In that case, I’ll take the punctured skull every time.
Also note the assumption about what liberals define as “life.” I don’t know anybody who thinks that a fetus magically becomes a “life” at birth. At the same time, most of the people I know don’t define the beginning of life as being at the moment of conception, either. There’s a lot of gray in between, with a lot of debate. Since there’s no scientifically hard-and-fast way to draw that line, it has to be a personal choice.
And in any case, most of the people I know who support abortion rights don’t support them because “the fetus isn’t a life.” They support them because they value the life, health, and well being of a fully developed, self-aware woman far more than they do that of a partially developed, not-yet-self-aware fetus. And they value quality of life over quantity of life: personally, I would rather have every child born be a wanted child, even if that means abortion is part of the equation, than to have unwanted, mistreated babies living lives of poverty because their mothers weren’t responsible aobut their sexual activities, and were legally unable to abort.
Regarding Soros, did he show the images? Or did he just talk about them? It makes a big difference. Showing the images, or even describing them in graphic detail, is prejudicial, and I have a problem with this. Once pandora’s box has been opened, however, discussion about the events is to be expected.
Were you self-aware and fully developed at age 6 months? This is why I brought up the prison abuse analogy. Although it would have saved lives, it was wrong to value the life, health and well-being of our soldiers more than the prisoners because some people believed them to be nothing more than murderous, violent, less than human thugs.
I agree though that the Ban would have had a better chance if it had allowed the procedure in clear cut cases of saving the woman’s life.
RE. Soros, I don’t know if he actually showed the photos. My beef is that the military publically acknowledged the prison abuse scandal back in January and actions had been taken to correct the situation and punish those responsibe. It wasn’t until CBS published the photos that the press made a big stink over it, and the Left began using them to push their anti-war agenda.
I think CBS should have gone to the Pentagon first and asked them if the situation was being corrected. Since it was, the photos should never have been released until after the war was over. Why? Because they not only placed our soldiers in greater danger, but American citizens as well.
Flounder:
Were you self-aware and fully developed at age 6 months?
Nice try, but at six months I was now undeniably a separate life. I was breathing on my own, with no assistance from my mother, etc. Look at it in terms of a miscarriage. Losing a child is more traumatic than a miscarriage, and a miscarriage at eight months is more traumatic than a miscarriage at four months. Why would that be, if we assigned equal value to all those lives?
(For the record, I remember nothing of when I was 6 months old, so I would have to answer “no.”)
Although it would have saved lives, it was wrong to value the life, health and well-being of our soldiers more than the prisoners because some people believed them to be nothing more than murderous, violent, less than human thugs.
I’m not sure what you mean. The abuse did nothing to save lives, it did nothing to provide better intelligence; it was bad all the way around. There’s simply no way to defend it.
As for the “military community acknowledging the abuse in January,” baloney. A brief, vague memo does not constitute much “acknowledgment.” Hell, if a memo that says “Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside US” is ignored by higher-ups, what makes you think that a memo like that is going to get any appreciable attention or action?
And there was no evidence that the abuse problem was “being corrected” prior to the pictures hitting.