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SD starts up the abortion debate

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
I'm pretty proud of my state for doing this and I agree with what Tony Snow has to say about it:

South Dakota starts up the debate
Mar 10, 2006
by Tony Snow


WASHINGTON, D.C. -- South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds recently signed into law a measure that would prohibit abortion except when necessary to save the life of the mother. The measure, clearly designed to test the limits of Roe v. Wade, aroused enough controversy that Rounds quickly went underground, informing the press that he would grant no further interviews on the measure.

No wonder: Republicans around the country treated Rounds to an old-fashioned shunning. President Bush brushed off South Dakota, repeating his oft-stated belief in exceptions for pregnancies initiated through rape and incest. Not a single Republican of stature uttered so much as an "attaboy."

Even philosophical kinsmen, such as the staff of National Review magazine, groused about the political inconvenience of it all. The magazine's editors complained the law would complicate the business of chipping away at Roe through incremental restrictions on abortion: Start with the wildly unpopular partial-birth abortion, and creep back toward conception. The magazine also cautioned that the new law could force the Supreme Court to affirm Roe, and would stiffen Democratic opposition to the president's next Supreme Court nominee, as if that weren't going to be maniacal under any circumstances.

In this fashion, pragmatic poll-watchers cast off their principles. Their alarums won't make much of a difference, though. For good or ill, the debate is on. Abortion has shifted from the Great Unmentionable in American politics to the Issue That Must Be Addressed.

Abortion has evolved as civil-rights issues often do. What began as a question of conscience for a few has become a concern for many.
Legal scholars, including many abortion supporters, now openly acknowledge that Roe v. Wade is hooey -- grounded in hocus-pocus rather than facts and law.

A generation of younger Americans, having been exposed to three-dimensional color sonograms, no longer regard unborn children as lumpy, undifferentiated thing-a-ma-jigs. They think of them as babies.
Most importantly, Americans understand that the Supreme Court denied this country the benefit of democratic resolution of the issue. This explains why South Dakota is not alone. A similar measure has cropped up in the Mississippi Legislature, and a host of other states are contemplating doing the same.

If South Dakota has led the way toward a democratic eruption, it also has shaken up the political marketplace by rejecting the popular rape-and-incest exception.

The loophole doesn't make moral sense. If life begins at conception, children conceived through rape and incest are human beings. They are innocent of crimes, even if they are the byproduct of horrendous violence against women. So on what basis should we permit their destruction?
If one argues that a woman would suffer trauma by bringing such babies to term, what would prevent other women from citing trauma as an equally cogent reason for their abortions? Trauma introduces an obligation to pay special heed to the victims of rape or incest.

Offer counseling. Provide lavish pre- and post-natal care. Take time to grant them as much support as the state can provide. And prosecute ruthlessly the creeps who violated them. That alone could do as much as anything else to help such mothers get a decent night's sleep. It also would remove a popular bit of cover for sexual predators, who try to "undo" their crimes by urging their victims to abort.

South Dakota forces us to think in broader terms about our most fundamental rights and responsibilities. Most people now understand abortion's creepy slippery slope. The invented right to privacy begat abortion, which begat euthanasia -- which in time will beget the state-sponsored "mercy killing" of defective infants and disabled seniors. (This has happened already in the Netherlands.)

With each step, the fundamental right to life has slipped further from the grasp of the living and into the hands of outsiders, such as doctors and "ethicists." Thanks to the courts, the "right to choose" has spun off a brand-new right to snuff grandma.

The end of abortion-as-we-now-know-it isn't likely to come slowly, as neo-pragmatists hope. Civil-rights revolutions simmer for a long time, and end with a burst of change. A bloody war choked off slavery, after decades of attempted incrementalism. Segregation went down in a heap, with a bang and not a whimper. The pressure is building to rein in abortion and forge a comfortable consensus about how to protect life while treating with compassion the victims of sexual assault.

Abortion inflames passions because Roe v. Wade ruled the issue off-limits to the balm of democracy. South Dakota, by staking its own ground, has finally lanced the boil.

Tony Snow is the host of the 'Tony Snow Show' on Fox News Radio.
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/tonysnow/2006/03/10/189319.html
 

CattleRMe

Well-known member
I think the people who are up for making it so rape and incest victims don't have the right to decide what then happens with their bodies should sit in a hospital room with them, sit with them through police investigations as they relive the crime, and sit there as a rape kit is performed on them. Then look them in the eye and say No.
 

Jinglebob

Well-known member
CattleRMe said:
I think the people who are up for making it so rape and incest victims don't have the right to decide what then happens with their bodies should sit in a hospital room with them, sit with them through police investigations as they relive the crime, and sit there as a rape kit is performed on them. Then look them in the eye and say No.

As I understand it, part of the rape kit is a D&C, so that there will be no pregnancy.

Maybe this law will change that. If so, I guess I would be against it.

For me, pregnancy starts and a human being starts and becomes human, when the fertalized egg, attaches to the wall of the uterus. Anything to prevent that is ok with me. After it happens, you are killing a human being. And that's not ok with me.

With every child that is born, our world has another person who may solve one of the problems of this world. Give the kid a chance. It's the least that we can do.
 

Disagreeable

Well-known member
Jinglebob said:
I'm going by what my wife tells me happens in part of the country. She works at the local jail.

Dilation and curettage - D&C

I'm sure your wife is confused. It's not a risk free procedure and there's nothing to be scraped out from a recent rape victim.

http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/health_advice/facts/curettage.htm
 

Mrs.Greg

Well-known member
It all comes down to women looking after themselves,if your sorry the NEXT morning about somthing you did the night before{rape not included}maybe its time to look at your own morals and choices! I also do not support the morning after pill,like abortion its an easy way out of a poor choice! Just my opinion!
 

Disagreeable

Well-known member
From Salon:

"The baby and the petri dish
We reported Tuesday on the on-air confrontation between talk-show host Andrew Wilkow and Mike Stark, a fellow who writes a blog that encourages liberals to give the what-for to right-wing radio personalities. Stark called into Wilkow's show the other day and tried to pin him down on a hypothetical that touches on abortion rights and the moment that life begins: Imagine that you're in a burning fertility clinic with a 2-year-old baby and a petri dish containing five blastulas. You can't save both, so which do you save?

Wilkow refused to answer what he called a "trick question," and he turned the tables on Stark with a hypothetical of his own. We quoted from the audio, and the item sparked a spirited debate among readers who posted comments in War Room.

Wilkow e-mailed us today to tell his side of the story. We thought you'd be interested in this slightly abbreviated version of the exchange that followed.

Wilkow: Allow me to back the story up a bit. Mike used to call my program every day. I nick-named him "Commie Mike," a name he too thought was funny. We used to have heated, spirited-but-civil debates ... When my call screener told him he couldn't come on every day he got angry. Since then he seems to be on some mission to get to me. Anyone can rattle anyone else if they put their mind to it. Liberal, conservative, professor or talk-show host, it doesn't matter ...

The situation he put me in was intended to make me look like either a blind conservative nut or a phony in my beliefs who is just taking that position to sell myself to conservative listeners. That's what bothers me. Plus, that clip is a moment of his choosing. What I mean is, there is more to me and this program that I do on WGY and Sundays on WABC in New York. It would take forever in an e-mail for me to explain what I mean. In the end, I don't take anything personally. This all comes with the job.

War Room: The back story is interesting, but I'm not sure it changes the nub of the thing: He asked you whether you'd save the baby or the petri dish, and you wouldn't say ... As for his putting you in an awkward position or seizing on a moment of his choosing, isn't that what a lot of talk radio folks do all day, every day?

Wilkow: Like I said, I don't take it personally. But he's got people e-mailing me who have no idea what they are talking about. I didn't answer his "Catch 22" because there was no right answer that would satisfy him. He would paint me wrong no matter what I said. In the end, all I would ever ask is to be viewed through a lens of fairness.

War Room: Well, why should we care what answer satisfies him? What answer satisfies you? Is a petri dish with five blastulas in it as important to you as a 2-year-old child?

Wilkow: Are you asking me what I would do in a real life burning building situation -- or a hypothetical situation designed to open a second debate on when life begins? See, I won't let someone put me in a box where they pre-determine how I will be viewed in the outcome. That again is not fair.

War Room: I'm asking you what you'd do in the hypothetical situation that was presented to you: You're in a burning fertility clinic, you see a 2-year-old baby and a petri dish with five blastulas in it, and you can't save both. Which would you save?

Wilkow: ... I'm not going to answer hypotheticals. Mike didn't answer mine. Look, obviously, in a real burning building I wouldn't have time to debate in my head the fundamentals of the pro-life/pro-choice dynamic. Again, you're not picking up on what I said: The whole question was designed by Mr. Stark to present me either as a fake conservative or as a right-wing nut.

War Room: But Stark's motivations don't change the fact that you wouldn't answer the question. I don't know what your views on abortion are. But if you take the view that life begins at conception, then aren't five "lives" in a petri dish worth more than one life in diapers? They are, unless you believe that a "life" in a petri dish is something less than an actual child. And if that's the case ... absolutist positions on abortion become pretty impossible to defend. If it's "a child not a choice," then those are five children in that petri dish, and I'm not sure how anyone could say that you wouldn't save the five before you'd save the one. Or would you? You still haven't answered.

Wilkow: This situation is triage. You save who can be saved. Let's say I leave the 2-year-old and save the five petri dishes. How would I sustain them? Why can't I grab the kid and the petri dishes? This is nonsense. Why does this one situation sum me up?

My response "Catch 22" to Mike was this: You're on a bus with your two children, your son and daughter. The bus crashes on a bridge and splits in half. Your half is hanging off the edge. You're injured. The kids have slid to the gaping hole in the bus, almost sliding to the drop-off. You grab one kid in each hand. You are sliding, they are hanging off the edge, you can only hold onto one. Which one do you drop?

War Room: Your hypothetical is flawed. You've framed the question with equal weights on each side of the scale: one undeniably living human being versus another undeniably living human being ... I don't know how I could choose to save one and let another go. I'd like to think that I'd die trying to save both. But Stark didn't ask you such an equally weighted question. On the one side of the scale, he put a 2-year-old child. On the other, he put five blastulas -- or "unborn children," in the vernacular of the antiabortion movement. If you believe that those five blastulas are, in fact, living human beings, then you've got to say that you'd save the five rather than the one, don't you? To put it in the frame of your hypothetical, let me imagine that I've got six kids, we're in a bus accident, and circumstances require that I make a choice between saving five kids and letting another die or saving one and letting five die. I hate to think about the possibility, but the answer is pretty obvious: You save five rather than one.

So let's do apples and apples now. You're in the bus with six children. Do you save five or do you save one? Now imagine that you're in the bus with one child and a petri dish with five blastulas. Do you save five or one?

If the answers to the two questions aren't the same, it seems to me that you've got to explain why. And to do that, it seems to me, you've got to acknowledge that a blastula in a petri dish isn't really a child. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'd like to hear your answers first.

Wilkow: This could go on for hours. My hypothetical was designed to have no real answer. His was designed to make an ass out of me. My answer, no matter what, will/would be used either against me or to open up a whole other argument. It seems to me that you are more apt to support Mr. Stark's attempted take-down of a conservative-leaning talk host. I'll bet there would be no celebration if a conservative activist did this on Air America ... We both have better things to do. So this is where this ends
."

Mr. Wilkow is wrong. It doesn't end there.
 

katrina

Well-known member
Tenn. Senate Moves to Limit Abortions

The state Senate on Thursday passed a proposal to amend the Tennessee Constitution so that it doesn't guarantee a woman's right to an abortion.

The 24-9 vote was the first step of many toward officially amending the state constitution. The measure would go before voters if the General Assembly approves it twice over the next two years.

The state Supreme Court has ruled that the Tennessee Constitution grants women a greater right to abortion than the U.S. Constitution.

Abortion rights supporters are attacking the measure as a stepping stone to prohibiting all abortions in Tennessee if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the landmark abortion decision in Roe v.Wade.

"The resolution is an all-out attack on the women of Tennessee and seeks to rob women of their right to make choices about their own health, safety and personal welfare," said Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.
Sen. David Fowler, a Republican sponsor of the bill, proposed a similar resolution last year that cleared the Senate but stalled in a House committee.

"I regret this will cast me as being hardhearted, unsympathetic and unkind but that's not who I am," Fowler said.

Tennessee has a long process for amending its constitution, requiring approval by both chambers in session of the General Assembly, two-thirds approval by both chambers in the next session, and then approval by voters.

Several states are considering restrictions on abortion that eventually could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. South Dakota's governor signed a law Monday that would prohibit all abortions except those necessary to save a mother's life.
 

CattleRMe

Well-known member
katrina said:
Ditto MsGreg...... I agree.... It's time we are responsible for our actions.

How do you make unresponsible people be responsible? How do you guarantee these unwanted children are going to be taken care of?
 

Mrs.Greg

Well-known member
I'm sorry but if a person is reponsible enough to take a morning after pill or go to a clinic and get an abortion,then they are reponsible enough to practice birth control or better yet abstinence!
 

CattleRMe

Well-known member
Mrs.Greg said:
I'm sorry but if a person is reponsible enough to take a morning after pill or go to a clinic and get an abortion,then they are reponsible enough to practice birth control or better yet abstinence!

Sometimes situations like being pregnant and not wanting to be make people take measures such as abortion or the morning after pill in order to avoid having to be responsible.

If someone is expecting and they don't want to be I'd say we've already ruled out their responsiblity and abstinence.
 

katrina

Well-known member
Excuses, excuses, excuses......You know what CattleRMe....Do you blame others for your problems?????????? Man grow up and take the bull by the horns and be responsible for your actions... Think before act.........Think at what the consiquences would be....Think. Think... Think....... As my Mother would say: Use your Head!!!!!!!!!!!
 

CattleRMe

Well-known member
katrina said:
Excuses, excuses, excuses......You know what CattleRMe....Do you blame others for your problems?????????? Man grow up and take the bull by the horns and be responsible for your actions... Think before act.........Think at what the consiquences would be....Think. Think... Think....... As my Mother would say: Use your Head!!!!!!!!!!!


No I do not blame others for my problems I feel life is about choices we make. I am a responsible member of society. I also can look at situations from others viewpoints. You don't seem to be capable of doing that.

May I suggest a trip out of rural Nebraska or South Dakota for you..........take a step into the real world not the protected rural one.

While using your head you might try adding some compassion and understanding for others. :wink:
 

katrina

Well-known member
You havn't a clue :gag: ....... Been there done that...... My point exactly........
Bleeding heart liberals..... :dunce:
 

CattleRMe

Well-known member
Insults are for people who can't come up with any good points. :wink:

Now back to the topic at hand this is childish. Plus a waste of board space.
 

theHiredMansWife

Well-known member
This law seems to be nothing more than political posturing in hopes of testing out the new Supreme Court.



Violation of the abortion ban is a Class 5 felony. Maximum of 5 years/$5000. Not exactly a murder charge.
And it only applies to the doc. Mom can't be charged.
Again, that's not really a murder charge. In other words, it's fine if she goes to another state. Which, in light of the fact that SD only has one clinic, the last I knew, a lot of women probably do anyway.

A Class 5 in SD also applies to perjury, prostitution, forgery, distributing over an ounce of marijuana, and threatening a juror.
Theft of a firearm and theft of over $1000, rioting and vandalizing property worth over $1000 and tampering with a witness are all Class IV felonies.

Even with this law, it seems that people still don't think the fetus is deserving of the same rights as an infant that has been born. Right? :???:
 

Disagreeable

Well-known member
theHiredMansWife said:
This law seems to be nothing more than political posturing in hopes of testing out the new Supreme Court.



Violation of the abortion ban is a Class 5 felony. Maximum of 5 years/$5000. Not exactly a murder charge.
And it only applies to the doc. Mom can't be charged.
Again, that's not really a murder charge. In other words, it's fine if she goes to another state. Which, in light of the fact that SD only has one clinic, the last I knew, a lot of women probably do anyway.

A Class 5 in SD also applies to perjury, prostitution, forgery, distributing over an ounce of marijuana, and threatening a juror.
Theft of a firearm and theft of over $1000, rioting and vandalizing property worth over $1000 and tampering with a witness are all Class IV felonies.

Even with this law, it seems that people still don't think the fetus is deserving of the same rights as an infant that has been born. Right? :???:

You're right. It's hypocritical for people to say a few cells is a baby and then make the penalties so light. And not even charge the mother!

The national Republican Party is not happy with the law. They know that Americans by a large margin support a woman's right to chose. If they support this sort of restriction, they'll be viewed as the extremists on abortion and out of step with the entire country.
 
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