I’m tired of talking to idiots. I’m tired of listening to idiots, too. Wolf Blitzer is an idiot.

While I am tempted towards ugly rhetoric directed at Randall Terry and his ugly partners in terror after seeing this, I will instead respectfully say thank you, Jane.
This is something that should be widely shown.

And Wolf Blitzer is whack.

Thanks Jane. This is a living nightmare for the women involved.

Thanks for spotting the clip, newtonusr. It’s a very compelling one.

I’m pretty amazed CNN had this guy on. Yesterday, Anderson Cooper had a long agonizing rooftop (?) interview with a woman who chose to carry a doomed baby to term. CNN did highlight that she “chose” this path, but it was quite maudlin and exploitive, I thought — talking about passing around this poor baby who only lived 12 hours, while the mom stated that her baby never suffered. I’m not sure how she knew this.

But congrats to Wolf for letting this “emotionally disturbing” story into his program today.

Immediately after the Philip Wood piece, they replayed a segment of the interview you mention. I don’t know if it was intended as a counter, but it had both touching and ghoulish elements.

we guys should just shut the f*ck up on this topic.

Thank you Jane. Hiya firepups! I am now a HS senior. Last exam was this morning.

Point taken.
The ovary-challenged have no intrinsic business as parties to this.

I’m not sure I agree, punaise.

We’re not as involved in this as the XX crew is, but we are involved. Should our voices dominate the conversation (on either side)? No way.

I meant stfu on imposing morality and taking away choice.

SnarKassandra – Good for You! Congrats!!!!

Oh yeah. We’re on the same page there.

Thanks for this video.

You said it!–Wolfe Blitzer is indeed an idiot and has been ever since he started out on Pat Robertson’s “Christian” news network.

Murder is murder. Period.

But let’s examine abortion.

The cells are created by man and woman.

They reside and grow in the woman’s womb.

I don’t know how to deal with this.

The woman owns the cells within her body? I can buy that.

But I also can accept that a new human being is created.

Let’s strip religion.

And talk about the species.

bless you, punaise

And congratulations snark!

I am peeved by these Christianists’ heretical and blasphemous conceit that they can determine what is ‘innocent’ life and less worthy life. Their bizarre and twisted logic follows from their spiritual pride. The idea that a woman should endanger her health and perhaps her life to carry a child that has approximately zero chance of living is monstrous by any reasonable morality.

It is dangerous. I think it goes beyond the issue of abortion (though that is important enough on its own). In a recent poll, these pitiable, deluded, and I think by any reasonable standard, heretical, Christianists are the only ones, I believe, with a majority that favored torture.

Think about that.

Sure, it is awkward for a guy like me to speak up. But sooner or later these people will be coming for everyone who is born (that is not ‘innocent’ life and therefore less worthy) -women of childbearing age, then all women, then men and kids. Everyone.

I hope FDL keeps us posted on this issue.

Men have no voice in this issue….. yes the babies father does but men in general just STFU

The year the law was passed there were around 11 late term abortions….all for anomalies….

The late term abortion procedure is THE safest procedure and these wackos took that option away…… risking womens lives….

After emotionally supporting a co-worker through this process…. I know how painful the decisions and also WHY a decision comes late in the pregnancy…

I’m tired of the idiots who spout crap without facts but that is the wingnut way…

This whole thing is demoralizing to me. I consider Dr. Tiller’s murder to be the front and center issue of the month, year..whatever. It WAS an opportunity for the media to really explore what the wacko right wing is and has been doing in this country and that we have our own, personal terrorists…but no; today, it’s all about Obama going to the Mid-East or something…the airbus debris.

The murder of the heroic Dr. Tiller who helped so many wimmin by that wack job man is pushed under the rug, his ties to an organized conspiracy not noted and “on with the show”.

I even heard someone quote someone who said that a womon should carry a DEAD baby “to term”. I guess so she could be poisoned by the decaying fetus.

As I said, this could have been a landmark turnaround for awareness, but the press and the president dropped the ball …again. I wonder just how scared they are of these killers? Or is it just another ploy to keep from discussing the misogyny in this country and the world?

That’s the “ICK” for me.

Bravo! Well stated. I haven’t watched CNN since the last elections. I cannot take Blitzer or any of that drivel for one more hour. (I kinda miss Cafferty, tho, but still, not enough to watch that channel). they are sounding more and more all the time like Faux Nooooze.
I get my news from the net, usually faster and always without spin which means going to foreign press sources much of the time.
I can’t take idiots anymore either BargainCountertenor.
And I feel a whole lot better for having made that decision.

As long as these terrorists keep the imagery (visual and imaginary) in front of the public – you know what we are talking about – they will continue to frighten people away from an honest discussion. They are ghastly people and that is their best lever against cogent, clear-headed, earnest policy-making.

That policy-making, IMO, should be about NOT interfering in any woman’s reproductive prerogative for any reason.

60% of conceived fetuses spontaneously abort even before the women knows she is pregnant. The vast majority of these is because of a problem creating the kid’s chromosomes -which is due to the fact that them thar mommy and daddy DNA just aint as efficient at making a kid as we would like to believe. No one has found any risk factors for most of those fetal losses, it just seems to be the way life is. Another 10% spontaneously abort after pregnancy is recognized. The idea that live begins at birth is nonsense, and trying to behave in accordance with such nonsense is a road to madness.

The “species” is destroying the earth with overpopulation and a resurgence of medieval attitudes.
Not only abortion but contraception and sex education have been blown out of the water. You KNOW this.

I do not find a brief spasm of pleasure to be the equivalent of 9 months of carrying a developing life and then, having the musculature to push it out into the world for the corporatocracy to use as soldiers and the wing nuts to scream about “entitlement” programs.

When the boys who helped with the process of the girl becoming pregnant stand up with them and do THEIR duty, we may be able to have a conversation.
As it is now, only HER life is ruined, and that’s how the “Christain Wrong” wants it.

As a man I would like to lend my voice to this issue.
I wanted for my wife to have a choice I wanted for my daughter to have the choice, I want for my DIL to have a choice, I want my granddaughter to have a choice. As a man I do not want the amerikan taliban telling me, my mate, my daughter or my daughter in law what is important, laying some sort of f*cking guilt trip on them or posting their picture on some GD buletin board if they make a decision they don’t like.

Now that you mention it…

http://firedoglake.com/2005/02…..blastulae/

Props to Snarkie!

This is beyond kafkaesque that they murder as they say they believe in the sanctity of life. This is the epitome of hypocrisy. YUCK

DING!

Kassie – wise beyond your years!

Let’s not try to draw bright lines where there are none to draw. Sperm and ova are alive, too, but unless they merge their lifespan is brief.

Life is a continuous process, there are precious few bright lines that can be drawn. One of them is gamete formation. Gametes are clearly not human beings.

A zygote is also not a human being, but it’s much further down the road to being a human being than sperm and ova are. Somewhere between 20% and 30% (some estimates are higher than these) of the zygotes don’t make it any farther along the development stage. They fail to implant, and end up as miscarriages that the woman is usually unaware of. Another sizable fraction of the zygotes that implant in the uterus also end up being miscarried.

By far, the vast majority of late-term abortions are due to lethal birth defects and threats to the mother’s life. A woman carrying an anencephalic monster (that’s a fetus that failed to form brain, a particularly nasty neural tube defect) isn’t carrying a baby. That collection of tissue has zero chance of developing into any level of functioning human being. It’s likely to die in utero, but a few do make it through labor and delivery. They die not long afterwards. If the fetus dies in utero, it poses a health risk to the mother. If she wants to terminate the pregnancy at the point that the lethal defect is identified, who am I (and who are you) to say no?

Similarly with conjoined twins. Once they are identified, what are you going to do if the separation process condemns one of them to die, and survival of the other is not a certainty? I’m not qualified to make that call, and neither is anyone else except the parents, with the advice of her physicians and counselors.

Similarly with mothers who have a life-threatening illness develop during (or in some cases as a result of) pregnancy.

There aren’t bright lines to draw. Even birth isn’t all that bright a line: neonates are generally pretty boring as people. To the extent that they are interesting, the interest lies in the development of their potential.

When there aren’t obvious bright lines, doesn’t it make sense to let the people afflicted figure out how bright or dark their situation is, and make their decision accordingly?

But it does lead to this other question that nags at me. When John M. Opitz of the University of Utah testified before the President’s council on Bioethics in 2003, he noted that between 60 and 80 percent of all naturally conceived embryos are simply flushed out in a woman’s normal menstrual cycle in the first 7 days after fertilization, and that women never even know that conception has taken place.

(As a side note, at the same meeting, Harvard government professor Michael Sandel, also a member of the Bioethics council, noted that “If the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions: Alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research combined.” Although I enjoy Dr. Sandel’s sense of humor and appreciate the presence of a smartass on the Bioethics council, I really do, let’s just chalk this one up to “God’s will” for the moment and proceed with the question at hand.)

Now, I’m certain by most fundamentalist assessments that when I die, barring some sort of deathbed recant of the Lee Atwater variety, I am going to hell. (That last vote for John Kerry probably put me over the top.) But say by some fluke God has a soft spot for unrepentant preacher’s kids who are good to their dogs, and I wind up in heaven. Is 60 to 80 percent of the population going to be filled out with people who never made it past dome stage blastula? I mean — conversation is liable to be a bit thin, don’t you think? What can you really say beyond “congratulations on winning the big swim?”

The sensible answer is, of course, that God works in mysterious ways that man cannot always comprehend. But if medieval theologians spent endless hours contemplating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, I’m sure some sad bastard has put a great deal of thought into cogitating an answer. And one day, thanks the to the internets, I sincerely hope to hear it.

Score!
You should resurrect this piece. What a take…

I am still trying to decide what was so disturbing to Wolfie. For me the most disturbing was the image of the protestors. They made my blood boil.

A big congratulations….I recall some of the notes about your goals, dreams, and what you are wanting to do. Enjoy.

On a different note (Cb, maybe?) one thing that’s being ignored is that as we get more effective birth control measures in place (Plan B, stop teaching girls that the only right thing to say is no, etc) these late term procedures are going to make up a larger fraction of the total abortions.

Basically, the goal of birth control is to ensure that there are no unintentional pregnancies. Brava, that’s how it ought to be. But that isn’t going to stop fatal developmental defects, and maternal illnesses that require termination to treat.

Those developmental defects aren’t usually detectable until 23 to 26 weeks. If the system is working properly, most therapeutic abortions will be late.

What Newt said Jane… bring it back!

Bowie – Young Americans:

It took him minutes.
It took her nowhere.

My hope is that Dr. Tiller’s death at least opens the eyes of legislators and judges as to the absolute necessity of late term abortions. Billo and his ilk be damned.

As I said, this could have been a landmark turnaround for awareness,

As vile and stupid as I think Wolf Blitzer is, I can only hope that his piece will be the beginning of awareness and education.

We need MORE stories from women [and their partners] who’ve had to make this agonizing choice, more facts about the “babies,” “fetuses” or whatever, to combat the general and widely disseminated belief that a woman waltzes into a doctor’s office @ 25 weeks with a perfectly-formed Gerber baby that she decides to “kill.”

The facts are otherwise, and they need to be more widely told.

OT: You reminded me….I heard the word earlier that Rush is going to be on with Sean….Sean was panting over the great show….Fair warning.

I personally know someone who had an 8th month abortion. An examination revealed the baby had no brain and would die within hours of being born. Not mentally retarded…zero brain.

I am both pro-life and pro-choice but I think people of good will on both sides of the equation could understand the mother’s decision to end it there. The alternative was to carry another month and face certain death then, as opposed to certain death at the time.

Does anyone want the government to be making this decision?

On a different note (Cb, maybe?)

That would “b” fine with me

umm…bill a cool chord?

I live with a very intelligent man who was raised Jesuit Catholic and is quite conservative. His position is that O’Reilly was right and all this man, Tiller, was was a babykiller.

This man cannot understand that the procedure was not used to terminate just any old pregnancy and that it was typically used by women who figured out too late in the pregnancy that they didn’t want the baby and would prefer to have a dog or a BMW instead.

He said he had done his research; I, on the other hand, suggested he do his research somewhere other than the Heritage Fund website.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I cannot have a battle of wits with someone that is unarmed.

And for the record we successfully treated premies in Russia who were born short of six months with heart defects. The heart was about the size of a grape. I honor this life.

I also have been through multiple pregnancies and feel it would be cruel to ask a woman to carry a child to term that had no chance of survival. That some women do go ahead and have the full term child is their decision which I also honor. But it must be their informed choice and not imposed by law.

Watertiger is upstairs!
Bush Duplicitous, Deceitful, Dangerous to Global Stability

There’s an odd cognitive dissonance whereby abortion–one of the most common medical procedures–is treated as something icky and rare. Open heart surgery is far more icky, and far more rare.

We need to counter the “rare” meme, which has infected our side too, as in “safe, legal, and rare.” I want it safe and legal, and the main reason is that it never has been and never will be rare. I want fewer abortions because all procedures have risks. But abortion never will be rare.

I’d like to see a feminist website asking women to “come out” and say they’ve had abortions and tell their stories.

My response to the demonization of late-term abortions as something a wicked woman just decides to do sometime in the 7th or 8th month? I talk about my mother who had a late-term abortion when I was 7, and how glad I am that she did, because I needed my mommy, as did my 9-year-old brother, and my stepfather needed his spouse, and my mother needed her life. And she needed to get the safest procedure possible.

Jane, thank you for keeping this story alive. I share the lament that it seems the news media would rather drop this story and move on. But I find Dr. Tiller’s murder connected not just with the anti-abortion extremist movement, but also connected with the killing of the two people at the Tennessee Unitarian church last summer. In both cases, the shooters had their heads and hearts filled with this hate-inspiring bile that pours out of radios and televisions across the country on a daily basis. That to me is the underlying story that will keep these tragic stories coming if nothing is done. Hopefully, we are beginning to chart a course to hold people like O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, Goldberg and the rest accountable for their dangerous rhetoric. I’m no fan of Blitzer, but at least he and CNN aired this piece. It’s a start.

I’d like to see a feminist website asking women to “come out” and say they’ve had abortions and tell their stories.

here’s a start.

As many Americans have the right to own a gun to defend themselves againt percieved life thretening situations.

Wouldn’t a woman have the right to defend her life with a doctor to thwart any percieved life threatening situations?

There are too many extremists willing to use the terrorist threat of murder to accomplish what they may feel is their God’s calling. Ashamed they will never be called upon by their God. Many religious tenents create the atmosphere of women as a secondary entity to man. maybe its from the fable of Adam giving up a rib to make Eve? Fact is men will never realize to birth or abort. Possibly through empathy he may get a glimpse.

Just a thought for the tormented of the faith. You know your old testamnet when your brittleness breaks in the wind for God then was a jealous God and very unforgiving. Where New Testament, Jesus forgave all.

How many embryos must die to firtilize a sterile woman with a baby?

When will they care as much for the born? And if they new that a woman was carrying the next Adolf Hitler, an atheist or a gay person. Would they approve of abortion or just what till it is born to water board Jesus into them?

These are terrorists. When they were demanding Americans to stand in courts of law with the 10 commandments of their religion on the wall in front of me. Killing the judge was nowhere to be found and never will be.