Oklahoma has again tinkered with the decision process leading to an abortion. Under a new law, a woman would be required to go through an ultrasound procedure and given the chance to see the fetus that she is aborting.
The Senate Bill 1878 extends prior laws under which a woman must be told where to find information about fetal development. Previously, she was told where she could go for an ultrasound.
Thirteen states have laws that require that doctors make ultrasounds available, but now Oklahoma would make it mandatory. This one is ripe for challenge due to the criticism that it is trying to make the process more difficult for the woman.
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Then they’ll butt together all the fetus video into a montage with I miss you by blink 182 playing and put it on youtube.
What’s wrong with ensuring the woman is making an informed decision before consenting to the procedure?
Bill B.,
“What’s wrong with ensuring the woman is making an informed decision before consenting to the procedure?”
Do you really believe this, or are you just being disingenuous?
This issue of abortion has never been about informed choice, nor is it really about the lives of the unborn. We know that it’s really not about the life of the child since the overwhelming majority of those supposed “pro-lifers” don’t give a damn about these children once they are born. They don’t support health insurance for children, financial assistance for these children and the availability of decent education for them.
The issue is now and always has been about sex and the view that female sexuality is evil. “Pro-Life” in most cases means punishment for the girl/woman who allows herself to get pregnant. Rather than being a caring and humanitarian protection of the innocent, it is a mean-spirited punishment. It is instructive how many so-called “pro-lifers” are also in favor of capital punishment
I must add the caveat that at least the Catholic Church tempers its anti-abortion stance with a belief in providing support for the babies after their birth and they also have taken a principled stand against capital punishment. Thus there is at least a consistent logic in their position. That said I still believe that at root in their position is also an anti-female sexuality.
Michael:
As always, your point is well made and reasonable. I do though consider that the public, the less informed and those that may not have the benefit of understanding ideological battle, end up being the victims.
I often remember my father, after reading a news items or civics discussion at a family gathering, beginning his opinion with the words “You know what they ought to do …” I still chuckle at the “they” as if it were a singular universal body - but I do remember the rest of it always ended in plea to get people to see what the consequences of their actions might be. In this case not the action of having sex - but the ramifications of having an abortion.
I’ve always been pro-choice, meaning I never felt qualified to impose my rationale (that of someone raised Roman Catholic yet is conversational in Yiddish, a Democrat, Republican then Democrat again, that has made more mistakes than a dozen citizens) on others that I mostly don’t understand. In short, I look to role models but have never aspired to be one. My Dad was role model. He was always honest, very principled and eventually yielding to reason. I’m honest, but I wasn’t always and I’ve yielded to much that wasn’t reason.
I’m hopeful, that a future time - we might be able to approach real issues that effect real people without the fear that we’ve been trapped in a ideological snare. What I mean by that is, knowledge could be a good thing in cases like this. Sex education might bring this information into the forefront before the fact - instead of the very curious timing of aforementioned legislation that we agree, is tantamount to punishment, and for the very reasons you described.
Dr. Jocelyn Elders tried to make this happen when she was Surgeon General under Clinton, but alas, she got caught up in battles and lost the war, as it were. Sex education has become a tool of a mostly dishonest and a criminally negligent White House and Congress. For all the talk about he children - they do throw use them to chum the fish that will fetch a higher price.
I understood and agree with what you wrote, but I’m not sure many of the people who these laws directly affect, actually grasp it, and groups that run to their aid, don’t actually run to their aid but rather run to the opportunity to do battle with the ideologues. So it always seems that the people that need this attention, this education and lessons to help them make informed choices are always the road but never the destination.
Anyway, you got me thinking after reading your fine missive.
I like both Michael Spindell’s and Binx’s essays.
The 1940’s alums rule!
As far as Oklahoma’s attempt to put more roadblocks in the way of the abortion-seeker, I agree with JT, this will be stricken down using abundant precedents.
Sometimes I actually miss Sandra O.
binx101:
You cannot due indirectly what the law prohibits directly! Does anyone really believe that this law is about informing the patient versus discouraging the patient? And is there any doubt that this law is just codification of Christian teaching masquerading as public policy?
binx101:
Oops, make that “do” not “due.” Sorry for the doltishness.
Hello DW - always nice to see you, as it were.
Mespo: Clearly in no position to speak for everyone, I can only respond that I have no such misgivings. However, during this election season, so to speak, I’m filled with Hope for the future.
Binx,
Loved your post, not just for your kind words, but for the anecdote about your father. We live in a time of unintended consequences, when the pronouncements of pseudo-experts (of all political and moral persuasions) trumps human beings making up their own mind through thought and reason.
I have always been for a woman’s right to choose for simple reasons that I think trump any propaganda to the contrary:
1. It’s their body and their life.
2. Banning abortion is unenforceable and leads to more tragedy and death than it purports to outlaw.
3. The need to even need an abortion arises from a lack of information on birth control that in most instances is due to government action, religious expediency and misguided male egotism.
You caught the underlying point of what I wrote in that I believe that many decent, moral people have been misled on this issue, by religious zealots whose main aim is the control and degradation of women, and those politicians that pander to them. In my opinion the need of the zealot to fight this issue has much to do with their own unresolved and/or uncontrolled sexuality.
You scored a bullseye with your comment on Dr. Elders, who was run out of her position for advocating masturbation as a viable alternative for people(teens) dealing with their sexuality. It is one of the hypercritical things for which I can never forgive Bill Clinton, none of which have to do with his sexuality, which was none of our business. Dr. Elders was one of the first high public officials to try to provide the education of the public to which you allude.