Men must speak up on abortion debate

[MrsSpringsteen]

NPR asked just this question in a recent article.
Murder Case Puts Spotlight On Abortion Clinic Rules : NPR

Increasing safety regulations, particularly when dealing with a surgical procedure like abortion, would address this, but such regulations would bump up against the real or perceived increase in costs of running such facilities, as well as the real or perceived infringement on reproductive rights.

I wasn't talking about abortion at all. I was talking about health care they provide for women- such as birth control, STD related care, cancer screenings, pap tests, pelvic exams, mammograms, etc.

 

[mama cass]

If you believe that a fetus is a living being, like I do, then performing an abortion violates the Hippocratic Oath, no matter how you look at it.

remember, we were talking about the morning-after pill here...

 

[nathan1977]

I was talking about health care they provide for women- such as birth control, STD related care, cancer screenings, pap tests, pelvic exams, mammograms, etc.

...Health care offered by tens of thousands of OB/GYNs and hospitals around the country, many of them at free or reduced rates for women in need.

 

[corianderstem]

Murder Case Puts Spotlight On Abortion Clinic Rules : NPR

Jezebel.com spoke with retired provider Dr. Suzanne Poppema about the future of abortion, the potential consequences of defunding Planned Parenthood and how the climate of shame around abortion actually leads to more unsafe clinics.

Jezebel: Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women. Without Airbrushing.

The whole thing is a good read, but I wanted to specifically call out this.

On how to fight against unsafe clinics like Kermit Gosnell's:

The way to prevent that is to make abortion and good reproductive healthcare more available to more people. People go to a clinic like that because they think it's cheaper, and so I think that all insurance and all Medicaid [...] should cover both birth control and abortion. [...] And abortion is so regulated that we've had patients who came and said, "I know this is illegal but I still need to have this done." [...] So if you think it's illegal anyway, then you might as well go to a cheap one, so then we're back to the cost issue. [...] And then because women think it's a bad thing, and it's shameful, etc., they go to a clinic that looks awful, that doesn't seem professional at all, and they're not scared away. [...] Women don't expect to be treated with compassion, intelligence, professionalism, and good care when they're seeking abortion care. That's not okay.

 

[corianderstem]

Jesus Christ.

GOP Bill Would Force IRS to Conduct Abortion Audits | Mother Jones

"In some cases, the law would forbid using tax benefits—like credits or deductions—to pay for abortions or health insurance that covers abortion. "

Or what about HSAs or FSAs? Could I not use my own damned money I'd set aside for health care costs?

Maybe I should just incorporate my uterus. Apparently then it would be worth protection.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Could I not use my own damned money I'd set aside for health care costs?

No kidding. First they complain about other people's money possibly being used, but then they freak if we use our very own instead, so...what, then?

Yeah. That is about one of the STUPIDEST ideas ever. Fuck you, GOP.

Angela

 

[yolland]

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 7

[T]he Idaho House of Representatives passed legislation that bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The law, which now heads to Gov. Butch Otter for signing, makes no exceptions for rape, incest, fetal abnormality, or the emotional health of the mother. The law allows post-20 week abortions only when a mother’s life or physical health is threatened.

...State Rep. Brent Crane, chief House sponsor, said the “hand of the Almighty” was guiding passage, adding: “His ways are higher than our ways. He has the ability to take difficult, tragic, horrific circumstances and then turn them into wonderful examples.”

The Idaho attorney general’s office has opined that the legislation is unconstitutional, violating the US Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on states’ limits on abortions before the fetus becomes viable.

Idaho has been down this route before...In 1990, the Idaho Legislature passed legislation that would have banned all abortions except in cases of rape reported to police within seven days, incest (if the victim was under 18), severe fetal deformity or threat to the physical health of the mother. Idaho’s last Democratic governor, Cecil Andrus, vetoed the bill even though a critic of abortion. “The bill before me clearly asserted that the life of the unborn child carried precedence over the life of the mother,” Andrus later wrote. “An element of equity and fairness—and, above all, compassion, was lacking.”

Personally, I support term limits on abortion as a political compromise, but Crane's "hand of the Almighty" dismissal of the case for exceptions here is vile. The Lord shall make an example of you for everyone else's edification and that is glorious, therefore your own experience is irrelevant.



(Also, can you imagine having a governor named Butch Otter? Think of the possibilities for disparagement...)

 

[corianderstem]

Isn't this the legislation that is based on a fetus being able to feel pain at 20 weeks? From what I understand, that's debatable, that there's no actual scientific consensus on when a fetus can feel pain. But it wouldn't be the first bit of questionable data the anti-choicers chose to rally around to try and force their wills on women, so hey.

Oh, and you know what else causes the fetus to experience pain? BIRTH.

 

[kramwest1]

All of the "in the womb" arguments just escape me.
I always will default to the fetus being a body part of the mother until it is born. Period.
This is one area where I don't care for nuance. My safe default to to the woman. It's between her, her body and whatever value system she lives by.

Should we do autopsies on fetuses to determine if the nervous system was advanced enough for it to feel pain?

Sorry lady, your fetus felt pain, let me read you your Miranda Rights.

 

[corianderstem]

Not too far off from the proposed bill in Alabama (was it Alabama? it might have been another state, although I believe it was in the south) that miscarriages be investigated to make sure the woman didn't make it happen.

So ridiculous and heinous.

 

[Liesje]

I don't think many people (men?) realize how common miscarriages still are. It seems lately like 1 in 5 people I know or hear of getting pregnant miscarry. Some are very early on. What would there be to investigate? Some are like a heavy period. This is why most women still do not announce a pregnancy until they've reached a certain stage. For all of our advances in science and medicine, it is still so common. One family I used to babysit for had more miscarriages than they had children, and the mother was very healthy, a very careful person with no bad habits, wanted to be pregnant and have a large family, and was a nurse.

 

[corianderstem]

YES.

This.

 

[Canadiens1131]

At the end of the day, I look at the fetus as being part of the mother as well, until the little baby is slapped and the cord is cut.

Now, late-term abortions are not really something I support in most cases, but younger than that, let's get that f'in shrimp out of there and harvest its delicious stem cells to heal some folks in real need.

Should I dare bring up the contradiction that many conservatives don't want large, poverty-stricken families living off the system, yet equally want to deny the right of young women to prevent themselves from carrying a fetus to term that will put those women at a big disadvantage?

 

[corianderstem]

Yes, I believe it's worth discussing (or at least expressing our outrage over) why so many conservatives only care about babies when they're still a fetus, often see women as little more than baby makers, and feel the need to put sarcastic quotation marks around the words "women's health."

 

[anitram]

As somebody put it the other day - when are we going to be discussing men's health as a matter of social policy and fiscal responsibility?

Oh, never, right.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

As somebody put it the other day - when are we going to be discussing men's health as a matter of social policy and fiscal responsibility?

Oh, never, right.

Remember-uterus is a dirty word, erection lasting longer than four hours is not.

 

[yolland]

CNN, April 11

Washington, DC Mayor Vincent Gray was among those arrested Monday while protesting outside the Capitol, according to Gray spokeswoman Linda Wharton-Boyd. The US Capitol Police arrested 41 people outside the Hart Senate Office Building, charging them with unlawful assembly, according to Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. They are currently being processed near Capitol Hill.

Gray and other city council members joined protesters asking for freedom to spend District money. The budget deal Congress passed over the weekend bans the District from spending its money to provide abortions for low-income women.

In a tweet Monday, Gray said, "I am calling on all residents of DC to join us NOW at the Hart Senate Office Building to stand for our freedom!" Later Monday he tweeted, "Getting arrested on the Hill for DC autonomy @DCVote."

Awesome. And I mean that sincerely and sarcastically at the same time.

 

[anitram]

America is deeply, deeply screwed.

The economic situation is dire and will get worse. If America was a business NOBODY would invest in it. It's not just that bad, it's worse.

There was a point in my life where I had to make a decision of whether I wanted to stay there (at least for a few years) or live back in Canada and I thank my lucky stars every day for the decision I've made. We look like paradise in comparison - socially, politically, economically, pretty much in every single way except for the weather. Which will eventually also be on our side once global warming turns southern Ontario into Florida.

 

[yolland]

Daily Beast, April 13

Bei Bei Shuai was so depressed last Christmas, she chose a punishing way to die: rat poison. When her friends swooped in and saved her life, the Chinese restaurant owner’s story might have ended happily, except for one detail about Shuai's condition: she was 33 weeks pregnant. While Shuai survived the suicide attempt, her fetus ultimately did not. The state of Indiana responded not with continuing mental health services, but by incarcerating the 34 year-old on charges of murder and attempted feticide.

Shaui’s downward spiral began in late December, when her boyfriend blindsided her. It turned out the man who had fathered her baby and promised to marry her, and with whom she’d recently opened a restaurant, wasn’t going to follow through on any of his promises. He was married to someone else—not divorced, as he’d told Shuai—with two children. And perhaps lacking vision or a spine, he decided he didn’t want to give up his estranged family to start a new one. He left Shuai, sobbing on her knees, alone in a parking lot.

When Shuai looked up, she saw a hardware store, walked in and bought rat poison. She went back to her apartment in Indianapolis and ate the pellets. But she was surprised when they didn't immediately kill her. Frustrated, she got back in her car and drove northeast to Anderson, where several close friends live, though she didn't go to any of them. Instead, she went to a gas station, where by chance, Sui Mak's husband, Bing, spotted her. She was puffy-eyed, pale, out of sorts. He convinced her to drive straight to their home and have a meal. Finally, she confided about the rat poison. They coaxed her into the car and drove her to the hospital.

Shuai spent Christmas on the maternity ward at Methodist hospital in Indianapolis. On New Year's Eve, doctors decided a cesarean was necessary. The Maks' 14-year-old daughter named the baby girl: Angel. Everyone expected mother and child to make a full recovery, but after the delivery, Angel started to decline. The hospital asked Shuai to sign forms allowing blood transfusions and procedures. On January 2nd, doctors asked her permission to take the newborn off life support. At that point, law enforcement was notified. The prospect of her baby’s death led to a second breakdown, according to Mak's testimony, which was relayed by Shuai's attorney, Linda Pence. “She was fainting and crying, fainting and crying, drifting in and out of sleep. She was completely unstable.” But that evening, with the help of her friends, she decided to take Angel off life support. Shuai “held the baby for five hours straight until she died in her arms,” said Pence. ‘The whole time Bei Bei was crying and screaming, ‘Why couldn't I die? Why did they have to take my baby?’”

Shuai spent the next month on the hospital’s psych ward, recovering and grieving. By March, she had resumed running her restaurant. That’s when the state locked her up.

Marion Country Chief Trial Deputy David Rimstidt defended his office's actions. “She attempted suicide and that resulted in the death of a fetus that was born and lived for a few days and then died,” he said. “So she's being charged with the crime against the viable fetus, and the child that was born, and not against herself.” The last statement explains why she was charged with both attempted feticide and murder.

Holding a woman criminally liable for the outcome of her pregnancy is a radical interpretation of the law, legal experts told The Daily Beast. “Indiana does not prosecute people for attempted suicide,” said Indiana University law professor, medical doctor, and former state representative David Orentlicher. “So now this prosecutor is saying, ‘If you're suicidal, you better not get pregnant, because you might get thrown in jail.’ That to me is a very important constitutional problem.”

...“States pass feticide or similar laws in the wake of some horrible violence against a pregnant woman,” explained Lynn Paltrow, who founded and directs the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. “They claim to protect pregnant women, but prosecutors turn around and use these laws against women themselves”—often for taking illegal drugs, but sometimes for falling down stairs (as happened last year in Iowa). The laws also end up undermining the patient-doctor relationship. In Texas, following passage of the 2003 “Prenatal Protection Act,” Amarillo's district attorney wrote a letter to area physicians requiring them “to report a pregnant woman who is using or has used illegal narcotics during her pregnancy.” Doctors turned in some 40 women, who were then charged with giving drugs to “minors.” “This is the predictable and increasingly common result of a growing movement in this country to treat fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses as separate from the women who carry them,” said Paltrow. She calls it a “fetal separatist movement,” advocated by right-to-life ideologues and implemented by activist prosecutors.

What doesn't make sense is that if the goal is to protect fetuses, such prosecutions only cause them more harm. Women with addiction problems or mental health issues will avoid medical treatment for fear of criminal penalty—they may even seek an abortion—or they'll be exposed to the notorious prison health system, Paltrow points out.

It seems obvious that the endgame of this fetus movement is to recriminalize abortion, and these are the grounds on which pro-choice groups oppose such laws. But Paltrow argues that it’s a mistake to think in such narrow terms—that doing so “has ignored how these laws would be used to hurt pregnant women themselves.” Feticide laws are used “as a legal basis to deprive women of their personhood,” she said. “It's not just reproductive rights. It's not just the right to privacy. It gives the state authority to say that, while other human beings will have health problems that will be treated through a compassionate health-care response, pregnant women alone will be imprisoned without bail for not being able to guarantee the outcome of their pregnancy.”

 

[nathan1977]

Holding a woman criminally liable for the outcome of her pregnancy is a radical interpretation of the law, legal experts told The Daily Beast.

I don't pretend to know anything about this case beyond what was posted, but going solely on what yolland posted, is this strictly speaking what's going on here? She's not being held criminally liable for the outcome of her pregnancy; she's being held liable for the outcome of a suicide attempt that resulted in the death of her child. Crimes of passion happen all the time, but I'm not sure that such crimes aren't prosecutable just because they are committed under the influence of intense emotion.

At the same time, prosecuting this case seems particularly heartless, since the horror of knowing that you caused the death of your own baby is enough hell for anyone to ensure.

This case probably illustrates the difficult double legal standard when it comes to babies in the womb -- if a pregnant woman is shot and her baby is killed, for example, in many states that is ruled a homicide. This is most likely the standard under which the Powers That Be are looking at the situation.

Regardless, this woman was (and is) obviously has serious emotional needs, and I don't think anyone wins in this situation (except, perhaps, the guy who screwed her over). I hope she gets the care she needs. And that his balls are removed by a vice.

 

[anitram]

Great use of state funds.

 

[kramwest1]

Great use of state funds.

And, potentially a wonderful employment program for the excess of police and nurses we have in the U.S.

 

[Liesje]

This case probably illustrates the difficult double legal standard when it comes to babies in the womb -- if a pregnant woman is shot and her baby is killed, for example, in many states that is ruled a homicide.

This has puzzled me as well, but I guess I don't know enough about this type of law and how this precedent has been or will continued to be set. I do see it as a double standard, but I'm not sure it's really that black and white. I hate to use silly anecdotes but...say a child is really misbehaving and in most places a parent can spank a child, but a stranger cannot march over and spank the child. Is this a black/white matter of the age or viability of the fetus determining when it has "rights" as an individual, or does the who, how and why the fetus was either aborted or killed because of harm to the mother still matter? I think the latter.

 

[yolland]

I don't pretend to know anything about this case beyond what was posted, but going solely on what yolland posted, is this strictly speaking what's going on here? She's not being held criminally liable for the outcome of her pregnancy; she's being held liable for the outcome of a suicide attempt that resulted in the death of her child.

It's more the legal precedent that convicting her of murder would establish. Any intentional act by a pregnant woman which could be successfully argued to have contributed to her newborn's subsequent death might become grounds for a murder charge.

This case probably illustrates the difficult double legal standard when it comes to babies in the womb -- if a pregnant woman is shot and her baby is killed, for example, in many states that is ruled a homicide. This is most likely the standard under which the Powers That Be are looking at the situation.

Regardless, this woman was (and is) obviously has serious emotional needs, and I don't think anyone wins in this situation (except, perhaps, the guy who screwed her over). I hope she gets the care she needs. And that his balls are removed by a vice.

While the father hardly sounds like an admirable man, he did nothing potentially classifiable as criminal, so no point wishing punishment on him.

I don't support 'fetal homicide' laws, period, and this case is one example why. Why should this woman be treated differently than anyone else who attempts suicide? When you attempt suicide, you're attempting to murder yourself, yet not one of the fifty states treats attempted suicide as a crime. But here the authorities are suggesting that pregnant suicidal people should uniquely be held to a higher standard of accountability for the consequences of their actions. She ingested rat poison, she clearly intended to kill herself. Which if successful would also have killed her baby (duh), but treating that inevitability as evidence of homicidal intent towards it, as if she were somehow in a position to separate those outcomes, is really fucked up.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Look, you have to break a few eggs to bring babies into dire living circumstances without any social safety nets.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Way to go-what a man that Glenn Beck is


Glenn Beck and his radio co-hosts mocked Lawrence O'Donnell's emotional defense of Planned Parenthood--and the woman whose email drove him to tears.

On his Monday show, Beck played the tape of O'Donnell--a host whose feud with Beck is long-running--reading the email from a friend of his who described her need for Planned Parenthood's services. He said he couldn't believe that O'Donnell had teared up about such an issue.

"I believe that my country is under attack, and that man's freedom as we understand it is over," he said. "He gets on the air on Friday and [cries] about, 'we're not going to kill babies anymore.'"

He started playing the tape, but asked his producer to stop after O'Donnell read a part of the email where his friend said that she depended on Planned Parenthood.

"Stop just a second!" Beck said. "Hookers? Who depends on Planned Parenthood?" He then impersonated the woman, who said she had had an abortion.

"I've got 400 abortions that I have to have!" Beck said. "I have to have these children aborted!" He and his co-hosts then continued making fun of O'Donnell and the woman for several minutes more.

 

[corianderstem]

Fuck you, asshole. You are a terrible excuse for a human being.

 

[Irvine511]

I don't support 'fetal homicide' laws, period, and this case is one example why. Why should this woman be treated differently than anyone else who attempts suicide? When you attempt suicide, you're attempting to murder yourself, yet not one of the fifty states treats attempted suicide as a crime. But here the authorities are suggesting that pregnant suicidal people should uniquely be held to a higher standard of accountability for the consequences of their actions. She ingested rat poison, she clearly intended to kill herself. Which if successful would also have killed her baby (duh), but treating that inevitability as evidence of homicidal intent towards it, as if she were somehow in a position to separate those outcomes, is really fucked up.

this happened to a friend of mine who made a suicide attempt. prosecuting her for murder would accomplish exactly nothing, and it's wildly different than a mother driving a minivan carrying herself and her children into a river. there are distinctions between children and fetuses, and cases like the one above and the one that made headlines yesterday in NY prove the point.

 

[nathan1977]

there are distinctions between children and fetuses

If so, the question that is naturally begged is, what?

And down the slippery slope we go.

 

[Irvine511]

If so, the question that is naturally begged is, what?

And down the slippery slope we go.

one is inside a woman's body and the other isn't?

if you'd like to prosecute my friend for murder as if she's Susan Smith, go right ahead and make that case.