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(Cartoon from Mikhaela B. Reid, the rightfully angry cartoonist of Boiling Over. )
To all those who think that the Roberts-Alito court's decision effectively outlawing all the safest forms of late-term abortion isn't that big a deal, I give you this:
...“I don’t think many of us know what partial birth is — it’s not a medical term at all,” said Kiran Chawal, a third-year resident there. “We’ve all looked it up to figure out what they’re talking about. It’s difficult to understand or interpret.”
... “It’s not a pro-choice issue as much as it is a medical issue,” says Chawal. “You’re telling doctors how to perform a procedure. Are they going to tell me next week that I can’t use a speculum to do a Pap smear?” Jessica Salas, one of the chief OB residents at Bellevue, doesn't perform abortions because of her own moral concerns, but she is nevertheless opposed to the ban. “I don’t feel like a lawyer has the right to tell me how to practice medicine,” she said. “It’s a sad day for practitioners in general. They’re telling us how to do our jobs and to do something that’s not safe for the patient.”
Even worse, the legislation is, by medical standards, imprecise. The term “partial-birth abortion” is an evocative phrase used by pro-life advocates, and by the Supreme Court last week, but it isn’t used by doctors, who prefer “intact dilation and evacuation” to describe the procedure. And the ban doesn’t outlaw abortion itself, just this one particular method, so it makes for complicated decisions should emergencies arise. “You want to be thinking about what’s the safest thing for the patient, not taking your gloves off and calling the ACLU to figure out if you’re going to be breaking the law,” said one attending OB/GYN at a large city hospital. “It takes away tools from doctors. Now we have to worry about criminal prosecution while we watch a woman bleed.”
Silly doctors. That's exactly what John Roberts and Samuel Alito want you to do: Watch a woman bleed to death rather than save her life by terminating that of the fetus that's killing her. For Roberts and Alito, women's deaths during their pregnancies aren't bugs, they're features.
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That’s also why it is important that what happens in 2008.
Even if it’s a DLCer we have to hold our nose to vote for.
What, am I first again?
You all realize that if I’m first, you have to actually go read the post and all the links embedded in it!
IGreat post. Just as “partial birth abortion” is a term that is misleading, so is “pro-life. Let’s call them what they are. Anti-choice.
ifthethunderdontgetya @ 0
Yeah. Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have appointed either Roberts or Alito. (Neither would John Kerry, for that matter.)
Phoenix Woman @ 1
I read the post, but I’ll have to home before clicking all the linkies.
(P.S. Don’t tell anyone where I’m posting from, it’s hard work, I tell you.)
Why does Roberts hate elderly fetuses?
ifthethunderdontgetya @ 5
Hmmm…the White House?
ccmask @ 6
707 on the floor.
khouz65 @ 3
Too vague. Anti-woman and anti-sex. at least for women.
pw -
may i suggestion a language change?
maybe should be:
there’s probably a better way to phrase it, but you get the idea?
thanks.
Khouz65 @3, not just anti-choice.
Forced pregnancy.
PW - great post. Love the title. I would say wonderfully snarky, but it’s so painfully true, I’m not sure it qualifies as snark.
Can’t believe that 34 years ago I believed this was all settled.
It never fails to amaze me how this administration has dragged us back to the thirteenth century in six short years.
It will take decades to recover a national sense of perceiving science as a good thing.
If the Dems take the whitehouse in 08, we need to go through every level of every department of our government and root out every low life bastid that has any connection to the current administration and start bringing in intelligent people.
Eureka Springs @ 8
But it’s true. I know I was once a very attractive fetus and age does funny thing to you (men-o-pause) but I am actually still a fetus. Just an elderly one. When does one stop being a fetus?
OT and EPU’d from the previous thread.
BlueAmerica’s Charlie Brown has won Democracy For America’s “Grassroots All-Star Challenge”!
Go Charlie!
There is a logical explanation for this.
These are horrible people.
selise @ 9
Thanks — you’re right; this covers the whole period, not just the very end. My problem was that I was writing this with that infamous scene from the infamous novel The Cardinal, wherein the “hero” priest Father Fermoyle lets his beloved baby sister die in childbirth rather than countenance an abortion.
Yeah, I know, tejanarusa and leinie. Just speaking in terms of jargon…they really should be corrected when they call themselves “pro-life” and not allowed to get away with it. They’re pro-death to the woman, clearly.
This was the chiller in that piece for me:
These young residents haven’t known a time when women had to risk a “back-alley abortionist” or try to do it themselves. Coathanger, anyone?
I guess what I’m trying to say is I wish I was a fetus again so my government would protect me and fight for me.
Bustednuckles @
13
De-Bushification?
ccmask @
20
Exactly. They’re pro-life right up until you leave the womb. After that they don’t give a shit.
ccmask @ 20
But unfortunatly, the protection and fighting for you ends after you are born.
I like it.
It is generational amnesia…. Who in the medical profession under the age of 55 remembers what life before legal and safe abortions?
At the ripe age of 20 in my third year of nursing school, I held the hand of a 14yr old child who bled to death following her illegal abortion. An event that I remember 35 years later, that has imprinted itself on my psyche and forever made me a PRIVACY advocate.
The idea that someone without any medical education are telling practicing physician’s how to practice is beyond any sane rational thought. But then we do know that wingnuts really do not think.
thanks Phoenix Woman @ 17 - haven’t read The Cardinal… was just thinking of how a fertilized ovum, embryo and a fetus are so frequently (and wrongly) described as children by the forced pregnancy crowd.
Robert Mueller on C-Span 2.
Just because the Supreme Court make a law does not mean that they are immune to it’s consequences. If a single woman dies because these jokers made a law against the advice of doctors to prevent Doctors from ussing a lifesaving procedure to save a patient then I think the Supreme Court judges who voted for this decision should be brought up on murder charges.
tejanarusa @ 19
A few weeks ago at another blog, there was discussion about the forced pregnancy types placing crosses on the grounds of a university to symbolize the abortions. Someone suggested going along after and placing coat-hangers on each of the crosses.
OMG, PW!
My next comment was going to be about that very scene from the movie of The Cardinal. It’s burned into my memory - Carol Lynley, as the sister, on her gurney being wheeled away– and we just know the baby, but not she, will survive, while Tom Tryon, as Father F agonizes. The take is clearly that his decision NOT to choose her life over the baby’s life is absolutely the righteous moral choice.
I was 10 or 12, and horrified.
(That’s why my take on the issue has always been pro-theexistingalready-person over the one-whohasn’tevenbeenbornyet.)
That was the early ’60’s, IIRC.
ccmask @ 20
I think it was Barney Frank (someone else was quoting this the other day) who said, “They’re pro-life up until the moment of birth.”
things come undone @ 28
Morally, I agree 100%. Practically, how could it be done? I mean, capital punishment is legal, and this would be only indirect. Never mind who would prosecute.
To all who helped me yesterday, THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART, ESPECIALLY RAVEN WHEREEVER YOU ARE!!!
O.K….Since when does “conservatism” have anything to do with bigger gov’t.? Isn’t that their mantra? Smaller , less intrusive gov’t these f*cking hypocrits are so despicable they make me wanna puke! They have taken “spinning” to a whole other level. It’s the truth when they go and issue 1052 subpoenas to Clintons’ admin., but it’s harrasment when we serve 5. F*cking liars.
Bustednuckles @ 13
It amazes me, too.
Thinking back to my parents’ and grandparents’ generations, science was sought after hungrily because it helped people live longer, it made work easier, made life more pleasant, brought so many advances. People seemed hungrier for knowledge.
Now, there’s a sharp step backward due, in part I think, to fundamentalist teachings.
No one remembers having an earache that was never treated, I guess.
They care about the fetus, they just don’t care about the baby. Jesus is rolling in his…well he’s probably pissed!
Yeah, nothing like having some old man who’s never met me decide my health care for me. Cuz the doctor who has been through years of med school and I aren’t capable of making that decision. I need to be dictated to. Poor, week, feeble minded female that I be. It might make someone who has never even MET me feel “icky” if I don’t decide their way.
It’s been what, a week? and this thing is still making me incoherent with rage.
The utter contempt for women, it’s breathtaking. The idea that the potential inside me has more value than I do - that what should be a private, personal, decision isn’t mine to make.
I’m not just pro choice. I’m pro abortion. Because sometimes, abortion saves lives. And if it isn’t legal, it’s gonna mean women dead who don’t need to be. Where’s the morality in that?
So there is a brief window for government love. Conception thru birth to the Easter Egg Roll at the White House. After that, you’re on your own.
Who was it who said “For conservatives, the sanctity of life begins at conception and ends at birth.”
And it’s so clearly just for control. I mean, it doesn’t make sense even if they just see us as breeders. You don’t kill your cow to save the calf, the cow can make another calf sooner than the calf can.
Tap Duncan @
36
That’s cuz for the fundies, actions have no meaning. It is only important to express “I BELIEVE!” and all is forgiven, actions be damned
Speaking as a male, I’m pro-it’s none of my business.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 42
Kiddo, you are a gentleman and a scholar.
Morris Sheppard, , I think I love you. Knowing there are men out there like you (assuming you are one) gives me some small comfort, and even a little hope. These are such discouraging times.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 42
Hear! Hear!
I call it the “nunya factor”
In my most despairing moments, I think about the fact that in the early ’70’s, we “women’s libbers” called ourselves the third wave (1st was Seneca Convention for suffrage, 2nd was the 19-teens and 20’s that finally got suffrage), and figured this was pretty much the final wave where we would achieve our goals of equal opportunity, equal treatment without discrimination.
Now I keep thinking about my informal ongoing study of history - noticing how women have had many periods of “liberation,” (looked at over centuries and across societies) to some degree, after which, as women become more successful, men begin feeling threatened, and soon enough, women lose the rights they fought for (or that societal conditions brought about).
Afghanistan is that historical circle in a very short time. You still hear people saying the Afghan war is working, now girls can go to school, don’t have to wear burqas, etc. But it isn’t true except in smaller and smaller parts of the country. If we don’t keep our eyes open and keep fighting, we too will lose more than the right to safe and legal abortion.
As they say be careful what you wish for. If abortion becomes banned, then all those men who impregnate a women will then become financially responsible for those children. And all those parents whose daughters get pregnant will have to face the neighbors over her promiscuity.
By all rights it should be an ABC conversation.
A= Doctor.
B= Pregnant lady.
C= anyone else, see your way out of the conversation.
HotFlash @ 40.
Control is the key, isn’t it?
Cuz even if they get to the Holy Grail, and Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortions don’t stop. They just get to punish the sluts that dare to have the sex by either forced pregnancy or what, a murder conviction if the terminate? Control.
I just don’t understand what is so freaking THREATENING about letting women have bodily autonomy?
You know what I want? Constitutional amendment, guaranteeing the right to privacy. Yeah, I know. They’ll respect it about as much as they do the 4th, 5th, and 8th, but I can dream that they treat it with the reverence they give the 2nd.
cathy @ 46
Hey, there’s always the Florence Crittenden Homes - they’ll be revived and there will be lots of babies (esp. white ones) available for adoption again. Just like the good ol’ days!
tejanarusa @ 46
Back in the late 70s-early 80s, when the ERA was still alive, I was given a t-shirt from NOW that had the message “A Man Of Quality Is Not Threatened By A Woman For Equality”
I think I still have it somewhere. Had to quit wearing it as it was too small but always loved the sentiment since I was raised in a “liberated” household back before that was a know term.
dakine01-
Back in the late 70s-early 80s, when the ERA was still alive, I was given a t-shirt from NOW that had the message “A Man Of Quality Is Not Threatened By A Woman For Equality”
I think I still have it somewhere. Had to quit wearing it as it was too small but always loved the sentiment since I was raised in a “liberated” household back before that was a know term.
Good on ya, as they say around here!
(My ERA t-shirt got too small, too. Sigh.)
We need to divide our enemies I’m pretty sure the Catholic Church is still ok with Abortion when the mothers life is in danger, or if its a choice between the mother and the child. We just need a gutsy Bishop or Pope’s opinion on this subject on record to throw back at the Supreme Court Justices who blame being Catholic for their decision. We need to point out that Scalia’s postion on this issue is harsher on women than the Catholic Church’s postion was preVatican2.
cathy @ 47
At least with DNA today, we won’t have the guy getting a bunch of his friends to stand up with him in court and swear they all had slept with her so no telling who was the father.
If abortions are banned, how will they win elections?
OK Kid, thank you.
As a female who isn’t a doctor, it’s none of my business either, unless it’s my body.
Alito and Roberts are just dogma. Since this country decided that how well you take the LSAT and how well you do on law school exams is the basis for judging your career, we will have political operatives like Roberts and Alito and Scalia. These guys could not get near a hard nosed pressurized law practice. They are so far over institutionalized that they actually idolize themselves. You have never met a more boring guy than Alito, a more insecure and mean spirited guy than Scalia. Never met Roberts. But these three think that their ideas are what count, not the reality the world’s population has to live in.
gotta run….L8tr
khouz65 @ 44
You’re female, I assume? Not that there would be anything wrong with it if you weren’t.
And here is an addendum to control of women. You can bet your bottom dollare that *rich* girls and women will still be able to get safe abortions. It is control of the poor. Slowly I am gettin gthe hang of this.
Another Epiphany I had last week is that they are working hard to break the cities. They want to break any institution that could challenge their hold on power.
leftdcin72 @ 57
Federalist Society patriarchy in operation.
Well, Ms. Hamsher has written several articles in critique of the communication failure by progressive democrats on this issue. And I’ve made several comments professing my own confusion on all this. I’m afraid that “bad PR” has, in part, contributed to the debacle. Finally, from this article by Ms. Phoenix, I learn something more:
“And the ban doesn’t outlaw abortion itself, just this one particular method, so it makes for complicated decisions should emergencies arise.”
I compliment Ms. Phoenix on continuing, for me, the education. So….it’s a surgical procedure that’s at issue??? You know, there seems to be so many misunderstandings being brought to light, I’m beginning to wonder if the Congress even knew the basics of this issue when it passed the law. Did Congress engage in any type of intelligent floor debate on this statute? What a mess.
Ghostman
things come undone @ 52
Huh? How old are you? You need to watch/read The Cardinal. That statement could not be more wrong. In this century (not in medieval times, or when “quickening” was still believed to be the time when the fetus became quick, or alive), the Church has NEVER favored an exception for the life of the mother.
For the Church, in the case of Mother v. Unborn Fetus, it’s foreordained, Mother ALWAYS loses, Fetus ALWAYS wins.
women have either:
(a)choice
(b)forced pregnancies
that is all
a friend of a friend had an anencephalic baby and chose to terminate the sad sad pregnancy … and told friends and family that she miscarried because she feared their wrath
sad sad sad …
Oklahoma kiddo @ 42
Don’t neccessarily agree, OK.
I have two delicious granddaughters, their health and freedom are important to me, so I feel it is some of my business.
Morris Sheppard,
Yes, I’m female, forgot to mention. All this really weighs me down. Thank you for making a sad girl smile .
HotFlash @ 32
Just because something has never been done before does not mean we can’t do it. I admit the how requires some thought but first we must create a climate that wants it to be done. Maybe a few TV specials on the lifetime channel and we could get Oprah involved we need public support to turn this issue around.
On this particular aspect, I’m with the OK kiddo.
But, when the fundies had their annual DC protest - a cold wet day, iirc - the online CBS article photo showed a protester’s sign. It wasn’t ‘STOP THE MURDER’ or something along those lines. I was one word: ‘ABSTINENCE’.
Roberts says he wants narrowly based decisions. Eventually he’s going to narrowly overturn Griswold, as some here have already commented prior.
So, as a male, even though I am not in a position of ‘choice’ - I have a stake in these outcomes. Not to mention any female friends/loved ones etc.
Women should band together and insist on no more sex until women’s rights are restored. That’ll reverse it.
leftdcin72 @ 56
Well said. Lawyers at that level live in an ivory-tower more isolated than any academic. That was part of why having Marshall on the court was so wonderful…he often injected a reality-check from actual courtroom, real people-client experience.
selise @ 26
Oh, it’s gruesome. The guy who wrote the book was a longtime editor at everyone’s favorite right-wing propaganda distributor, Reader’s Digest, which of course meant that the book was featured as one of the Condensed Books in their longtime series of such. And he describes, in loving detail, a common problem faced by Irish Catholic women in America early in the last century.
Seems that Irish-immigrant girls or their second-generation descendants in early-20th-century Boston had tiny frames (partly genetic, partly longstanding malnutrition over several generations) — so tiny that when they got pregnant by American men, the fetus’ heads would be too big to pass through the space left by the women’s slim hips. This, in the pre-survivable-Caesarian days, was a death sentence for the mother and usually for the fetus, who if it did survive was often brain-damaged from the prolonged labor — the Church wouldn’t allow killing the fetus to save the mom, but neither would it put the mom out of her misery to save the fetus from death or brain damage; they waited until the mother died on her own before authorizing a posthumous Caesarian on the mother to deliver what was left of the fetus, assuming it didn’t die first. (In the novel (later made into a film), the author does a huge cop-out by having the fetus — a baby girl — be perfectly healthy and none the worse for a week of having her brains squished against her mother’s hipbones. She’s without a mom now, but hey! God’s will was preserved, and that’s the important thing.)
As a physician, I’ve been disgusted and dismayed by this line of illogic for years. It’s political, cynical, emotional hype to name procedures like this. But that’s our congress, calling what they do by something opposite of its purpose more often than not. And what business is it of theirs to call the medical shots? Shame, shame on them! The procedure in question is NOT done to do an elective abortion, it’s only done in later pregnancy when continuing the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. Not that it’s any of a politician’s business.
The doctor named the ACLU as if it was the perpetrator of this nonesense. The ACLU defends everybody’s rights to free speech. It’s the three branches of government that are abridging free speech these days.
And if doctors in general are outraged as they should be, what’s stopping them from just doing the right thing? It’s kind of a no-brainer. I’d like to see some doctor jailed for saving someone’s life in a situation where life can continue and really mean something. I think that would go a long way in reversing this rank stupidity.
Remember, some people will DO ANYTHING to get elected. Don’t fall for it. Think for yourselves.
cathy @ 69
That’s what the fundies want. And then you wind up only punishing yourself and fellow travelors (like me!) :}) Unfortunately, you’re not in ancient Greece any more, where it appeared to work.
Morris Sheppard @ 64
I could not agree more with Morris. It about more than just ourselves. Its about Liberty for all. Oh, and I am pro vasectomy..)
HotFlash @ 60
As my grandmother used to say, “The law is fair. It is illegal for both rich men and beggars to sleep under the bridge.”
hot flash @59:
it’s **all** about control of poor women and working class women … rich women don’t, haven’t and won’t bear children they don’t want; it’s the way of the world
in earlier generations, the nice ladies went to the dr for a “d c” and everyone knew what it was but nobody said
there has been some conspiracy theory talk about a mysterious “abdominal” ailment suffered by either jenna or not jenna some time ago … roughly xmas 2000 … my money is on the theory that it wasn’t an appendix that came out
I’m gonna jump in and defend OKiddo here. From things he’s said previously I believe that he is saying that the *decision* is none of his business, not the *right* to decide, which, I think, he strongly supports. Although he is perfectly capable of saying so himself, I just don’t see him around right now. And if I am wrong he can (and will!) certainly correct me.
Ray Broggini @ 72
These are the same people who “diagnosed” Terri Schiavo from thirty minute spliced together tapes when they were a thousand miles away from her, physically and mentally.
PW at 70–
Wow, I didn’t know that about the physiological problem, let alone that it was common. Have you read the book recently? I just have a general memory–as I said, that scene was burned into my pre-teen brain.
leinie @
11
Forced Childbirth.
Mutant Poodle, correct. Forced pregnancy AND childbirth.
My mother used to say that if the woman had the first baby, the man had the second and so forth, no family would have more than three children.
tejanarusa @ 69
Where Eisenhower misjudged Earl Warren was that Mr. Warren was a former prosecutor. He understood what the deal is and when he got on the Court he took what he had seen and decided it could not be tolerated. I believe that with the exception of Breyer there is not a single sitting Justice who has tried a case. And Breyer has very limited experience. It would not be bad sometime, if Harvard Law Review is the prerequisite these days, to take a real Federal trial judge and elevate him or her or her and him to the Court. Not the faux like Scalia or Alito. Alito is supposed to have had prosecutorial experience but I think he was an administrator and he never had to worry about a pay check or a real client.
Re today’s supplemental vote:
ABC has their correspondent report that Republicans want to look tough and Democrats want to do what the people want (like there is something vaguely unserious about that). As for Harry’s Reid’s statement that Iraq is lost, the reporter says it is “just what the Republicans want him to say” and then go on to a Republican strategist to explain it to us. You might think if they wanted us to know what Reid was thinking they might ask him or a Democrat but that is so not Washington.
NBC had on some babbling airhead Capitol correspondent saying, Bbbbbbut Bush is going to veto this so I don’t know why the Democrats did this. Wow what insight! Then their Defense correspondent Miklaszewski covers the Petraeus presser today. He notes that Petraeus confesses that the Iraqis are not going to meet any of the political benchmarks and then goes on to say that the surge can not be maintained because the Army is stretched too thin but what he doesn’t do is draw the obvious conclusion that Bush’s surge is and was a non-starter, a failure from the get go.
Someone wrote in a thread here a few days ago, that there are 2 choices; forgive me for not getting the quote exactly right:
1) Women have the right to choose.
2) Women have forced pregnancies.
Anyone who denies the first also upholds the second and that is unconscionable and barbaric … even if it is a Supreme Court justice.
tejanarusa @ 63
Didn’t the “quickening ” idea die only recently when they discovered the baby has a heartbeat seperate from the Mothers? Also my grandfather was told by Doctors that it was my grandmother’s life and or my father’s life and while the nuns did put presure it still was my grandfathers choice. I admit that I could be wrong I’ll ask my sister who went to Catholic School but I’m pretty sure the Catholic Church is not that heartless.
Morris Sheppard @ 64
Playing devil’s advocate: Abortions should be; Safe, Legal, and RARE!!!
OT - MSNBC reporting that Jack Valenti is dead at 85
The question is do you believe a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy, for whatever reasons? I happen to strongly subscribe to answering, ‘yes’.
Helen @
87
I was gonna say CNN. If anyone don’t know, Valenti was LBJ aide who moved on to head the movie industry lobbying group that devised ratings system.
If Johnny and the Supremes ever do decide to force pregnant women to carry to term, and if there is still such a thing as equal protection, mustn’t they compel the man who got her pregnant to share the burden equally? Snd since there is no way to do that - nothing a man can do can ever come close to equating with being forced to give birth against one’s will - how could it EVER be allowed, or even contemplated? Is there no common sense left in our government?
Debate up with intro on MSNBC right now.
Oklahoma kiddo @
88
Seconded !!!
I can’t wait for this Supreme Court ruling to be challenged. Any ideas how this can be done?
Hugh @ 83
Have you noticed the recent trend of CNN and MSNBC and others (not KeithO) to take great pains in smirking and mocking the Dems in a very overt fashion. ..as if they have been encouraged to do this. It seems totally inappropriate and artificial. It seems that this might be the way the media has decided to cover what the Democratic Congress is doing. Don’t give any weight to the process. Mock them, smirk when talking about what they are doing, roll your eyes as if they are too funny for words. It is weird and they need to be called on this behavior.
There is no skepticism with anything the GOP says, but the Dems need to be mocked and laughed at.
dakine01 @ 89
That’s him in the infamous picture of LBJ taking the oath of office on AF1 with Jackie Kennedy.
tejanarusa @ 78
It was also common among Native American women who conceived (willingly or otherwise) by European and/or American frontiersmen.
Petrocelli @ 92
Thirded!
It all falls back on the privacy and the fact that it is a personal decision between doctor and patient. Period. Exclamation Point!
I hope there are some good questions and answers to what now passes for debates.
Someone promise me that the msnbc debate will not depress me.
Shorter Kennedy with Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts concurring:
Women should not worry their pretty little heads about things they constitutionally (small c) can’t understand. And what do doctors know anyway?
smapdi @ 98
sorry, no.
Alice B @ 93
I’ve noticed this. So has Bill Moyers. He’s calling them on it, and it’s driving them berserk.
Petrocelli, a SCOTUS decision cannot be be challenged within the Judiciary, they are the final Arbiter, however, Legislative branch can amend the Constitution!