Comments on: About Those Personal Freedoms You Enjoy, Mr. Douthat…

By: Julia

Julia — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:40:04 +0000

If abortion were returned to the democratic process, this landscape would change dramatically. Arguments about whether and how to restrict abortions in the second trimester — as many advanced democracies already do – would replace protests over the scope of third-trimester medical exemptions.

And yet when we elected a president using the democratic process, the arguments about socialist islamofascist terrorist forged birth certificates just kept right on going.

Why, some of the disputants even want to use guns.

By: TheKenoshaKid

TheKenoshaKid — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:53:14 +0000

Doesn’t Steve Simels hold the copyright on calling people “whey-faced?”

By: moistenedbink

moistenedbink — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:48:15 +0000

Ross is free to say all these things because he will never be in the position of impregnating a woman. Reality causes a lot of minds to change.

By: DrDick

DrDick — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:03 +0000

Fucking DoucheHat and the rest of the forced-birthers are nothing more than terrorist sympathizers. It iss time to label them as such (this column certainly qualifies as giving aid and comfort to terrorists). Operation Rescue and related organization, especially those with operational ties to actual terrorists, need to be officially declared terrorist organizations, have their assets seized, and their leadership imprisoned.

By: wesgpc

wesgpc — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:49:57 +0000

I will check back to see if I totally made a strawman on my opinion on the potential for a police state for women, if you go by the anti-abortion extremists’ logic. As I said, sounds like some here know more law than I do, and if the relevant parts of the law will not be assaulted by anti-abortionists, then I may have “strawmanned’ due to my lack of legal knowledge.

By: wesgpc

wesgpc — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:45:13 +0000

Well, we may have to agree to disagree. I think by their logic there should be an investigation, with potential criminal liability for every known miscarriage, and all pregnant women should be monitored.

But, sounds like some of you have legal knowledge that I do not, in which case, I plead guilty to not being a lawyer!

By: wesgpc

wesgpc — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:43:26 +0000

Sorry my little example caused so much fuss.
My point was that I think that if you take the extreme anti-abortion advocates’ idea that life begins at conception and combine it with their absolutist stance that any abortion at any time is tantamount to murder (even if their is a significant competing interest on the part of the mother), I said that their logic leads to monitoring and investigation of every women who shows signs of pregnancy.

The conclusion is absurd, but I think their logic is absurd and leads to absurd conclusions.

So, OK, I got carried away. Maybe not every miscarriage in a women would lead to a homicide investigation, but by their logic their should be an investigation, with potential criminal liability.

If abortion is absolutley illegal, you do not know how many women will try to induce an abortion early. You do not know until you investigate. And by their logic, such an attempt, is come kind of attempted manslaughter or homocide.

So, I still stand by my claim, even if my language was too colorful.

By: ichbineinberliner

ichbineinberliner — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:39:39 +0000

The notion that spontaneous abortions or fetus death would be investigated as murder is ridiculus.

Yes, of cause. There is by definition no actus reus in a spontaneous abortion, so there’s no probable cause for a homicide investigation (which impies law enforcement, not medical review boards).

Even if one would hold the strange notion that a fetus is a person.

That’s my whole point: that argument is a straw man. The rights of the woman over her body should be argument enough.
There is no need for “every woman will face homocide investigations for medical conditions” scenarios.

By: MrsTarquinBiscuitbarrel

MrsTarquinBiscuitbarrel — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:24:45 +0000

“Mentally handicapped” hires with a male organ, I’d say.

Yeah. I can imagine how almost articulate Ross I-Doubt-That would get if he were pregnant with a third-trimester fetus that had died, and had been told by the doctors just to wait it out until his body “naturally” went into labor. THAT is what third-trimester abortion involves. Not convenience, not economics, but a mother in risk of her life, or a fetus that has no chance of viability. That is the law.

By: foothillsmike

foothillsmike — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:43:45 +0000

The notion that spontaneous abortions or fetus death would be investigated as murder is ridiculus. The medical diagnosis would be determinate. My DIL had the first two attempts die in the womb. After the second loss it was determined that she had a heart condition that was causing this.