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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We should be able to learn more about why women want abortions? Then we can help these women! So many women abort silently, not even knowing their options! Let’s help these women now.
Louis,
Are you a woman? Do you plan on becoming one?
How about you waking up and realizing it’s not your call.
Period.
No matter what your retrograde religion tells you. As a matter of law, women aren’t compelled in this country to follow the dictates of your religion even as it applies to health care. We have Freedom of Religion here, sport. If you want to live in a society where women ARE compelled to live a religious dictate (even if it’s not their religion) and possibly sacrifice their health and lives to keep you happy about your faith?
Saudi Arabia is calling for you. Enjoy living under Sharia. Because if you want to try to force a lunatic right wing Christian version of Sharia on the people of the U.S., you are going to be in for a rude surprise. So if that’s the kind of world you like to live in, where half (the better half I might add) of the population are treated like slaves? I hope you like sand and camels.
Now please. Come back and tell me I’m a heathen and going to your imaginary Hell as a baby killer. I need a good laugh.
If she has nothing to hide then she shouldn’t be getting an abortion in the first place!! There are too many options to pregnant woman in the state of Oklahoma. It’s obvious that these people are ultimate trying to protect these women – not exploit them. In the interim, they are also gathering extensive and important information that will help future women in such a predicament. Why choose between mother and child? Why kill an unborn child? Look at this poisonous website: http://tictacdo.com/ttd/Get-an-Abortion-%28USA%29 – WAKE UP PEOPLE!!
I wonder if any of you think about the women who abuse the option to abort, getting pregnant time after time due to pure carelessness; and not carlessness in the sense of making a mistake, but not caring about the consequences of their actions because they know there is a way out! This teaches no responsibility and no morality and those of you who agree with it and participate in it are GUILTY! Now regarding instances where a woman is raped or molested and becomes pregnant, children are a gift from God, or whoever you believe in and no matter how they came about it is never the childs fault and they should not be punished for it by death….does this not seem cruel and unusual to you? I know at this time some of you are saying “well, it’s not actually “life” before 3 weeks, it’s only a “fetus”, well in order for something to die, it first has to be alive and although before 3 weeks it may not have a brain, neither do plant life, but we consider them living organism, correct? Claiming it is not life is a cop out to the reality of the horrible act taking place, but whatever get’s you through it, right? Wrong! No matter what anybody wants to believe, when you have an abortion at ANY stage of a pregnancy you are consciously ceasing the life of that baby, in other words you are killing that baby…..Why?
sasto, I believe that Mike S.’s points are well-taken. First, the Oklahoma legislation is not about informed decision making. The rights of patients to be fully informed of the risks and benefits of any procedures, particularly invasive procedures, are extremely important. However, when was the last time the Oklahoma legislature (or any other legislature for that matter) engaged in a thorough debate regarding a comprehensive informed consent statute? I can assure you that when I had triple bypass surgery several years ago, I was not asked to view a video of someone’s heart lying on a table while the risks of the surgery were explained to me. The statute is disingenuous precisely because informed consent is not its purpose. The abortion debate is intractible for many reasons, and discussion would require a whole new thread, but it will never be resolved in this country until we first reach a common understanding, and adopt a public policy, regarding the definition of human life.
The statements of Mike S. regarding the treatment of human life in this country after birth are also well founded. Whenever it becomes necessary for a state to reduce expenditures or increase taxes, and this year is a perfect example, the preferred methodology is to balance the budget on the backs of children, the poor, the infirm and the elderly. In your heart, I believe that you know that to be true. Despite all of our pious protestations to the contrary, we will cut education, child care and health benefits first. We will reduce staffing requirements for nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities. We will end transportation subsidies for those without transportation. We will, in short, punish those who cannot speak for themselves, those unable to retain lobbyists, those incapable of articulating their pain.
sasto87:
“Two side notes – I hate the “its their body” argument because its illogical. As is the “privacy” argument. Since when has murder ever been okay because its a private issue?”
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I’d hate it too from your side of the aisle since it encompasses the argument succinctly for the mother. It is not illogical to conclude that a person has mastery over the integrity of their own body. It always appears to me the height of arrogance for another person to impose their belief system on another at the barrel of a gun or under threat of imprisonment. It is the mother’s body and the fact that she may be carrying around a 100 cell blastocyst makes this cell accumulation neither human nor an entity separate from her body. Everyone agrees at some point the fetus becomes viable and capable of living outside of the womb of the mother, and is thus worthy of some protections. However, it is sheer folly to conclude that at the moment of conception a human being is created. A human must first be born alive and actually be a life in existence before it may be murdered under the common law definition of the crime. Otherwise, a person who died three days before of natural cause, but whose cells continue to survive as the body undergoes entropy could be the subject of murder if run through the heart with a stick. So under no legal definition could the mother be guilty of the crime of murder for undergoing an abortion.
Apparently you adopt another definition which I suspect is more in line with some Christian notion of when life begins. These religious definitions don’t help your argument much because we know that if we adopt this approach, we must necessarily conclude that the greatest abortionist of all-time (and hence murderer, in your value system) is the Almighty himself since between 25%-50% of all conceptions end in miscarriage.
So as you can readily see this issue is neither simple nor easily decided no matter what state you hail from. We do agree however that “children should have the chance to be born, but also the chance to live a happy life, and we all have the civic responsibility to do the best we can to ensure that.”
While I do understand the cases some of you are making, I do feel compelled to write and defend myself and my state. I’m proud of Oklahoma for this measure. I won’t lie, I’m proud of any measure that will cut back on abortions and I don’t think there is any shame in that. There is no need to take innocent lives.
However, I do have to defend the arguments that I often hear, and that I read by some of you, that those who are for abortion quit caring about those children’s lives once they are born. I realize you are educated enough to know that the broad generalizations you make don’t apply to everyone. However, I do find it personally offensive to hear that. I think children should have the chance to be born, but also the chance to live a happy life, and we all have the civic responsibility to do the best we can to ensure that. Anything else would be incredibly hypocritical and those comments seem to show a lack of understanding of “close-minded Christians”.
Two side notes – I hate the “its their body” argument because its illogical. As is the “privacy” argument. Since when has murder ever been okay because its a private issue? Secondly, it has nothing to do with being uncomfortable with sexuality. I didn’t have sex until marriage but that was my choice. People have sex, I realize. But they should grow up and accept their consequences. Its not a punishment, its responsibility; I am daily amazed by the lack of that in my generation, but I don’t think we’re the ones completely to blame.
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.
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.
binx101:
Oops, make that “do” not “due.” Sorry for the doltishness.
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?
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.
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.
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.
What’s wrong with ensuring the woman is making an informed decision before consenting to the procedure?
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.