This Nevada LIFE's op-ed on Partial Birth Abortion that was recently published in the Reno Gazette Journal. It may be available at the RGJ or you can access it at our site.
Opinion-There's No Defending Banned Procedure
May 18, 2007
In the weeks since the partial birth abortion decision, it's clear that abortion proponents are sticking to their game plan: don't say anything about the unborn child. The reason is clear: partial birth abortions are so revolting that even a clinical description causes us to shudder.
In a partial birth abortion, the unborn child is pulled feet first from the womb until only his head is left inside. The abortionist punctures the skull with scissors, inserts a tube and sucks the brains out.
Nurse Brenda Shafer's testimony of the partial birth abortion she witnessed was cited by the court. "The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening and sucked the baby's brains out."
How can anyone defend a procedure where a doctor kills a child dangling from the womb inches from birth?
That question led Congress to act. Congress argued that "implicitly approving such a brutal and inhumane procedure by choosing not to prohibit it will further coarsen society to the humanity of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and innocent human life, making it increasingly difficult to protect such life." And "partial-birth abortion " confuses the medical, legal and ethical duties of physicians to preserve and promote life, as the physician acts directly against the physical life of a child, whom he or she had just delivered, all but the head, out of the womb, in order to end that life."
The court agreed that a description of the procedure "demonstrates the rationale" for the ban and that Congress can use its powers "to promote respect for life, including life of the unborn." Substantial majorities, pro-life and pro-choice, agree.
Abortion advocates usually respond that partial birth abortions happen as a result of "wanted pregnancies" going horribly wrong. But partial birth abortionists say that almost all partial birth abortions are performed for women whose unborn child poses no risk to her physical well-being.
Justice Ginsburg's dissent argued, among other things, that women's "ability to realize their full potential, the Court recognized, is intimately connected to 'their ability to control their reproductive lives.' ... Thus, legal challenges ... center on a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature." The "Casey Court described the centrality of 'the decision whether to bear ... a child,' to a woman's 'dignity and autonomy,' her 'personhood' and 'destiny,' her 'conception of ... her place in society.'"
Here Ginsburg makes the leading abortion feminist argument that partial birth abortion and abortion are necessary to fulfill a woman's potential and to achieve or protect her equal standing in society. That has to be news to most women. Ginsburg's argument is dangerous because it says that equality is not a property inherent to women. It also says that children are obstacles and expendable in the pursuit of these ends.
The gruesomeness of partial birth abortion and the arguments for it are the reasons large majorities of Americans oppose it. It's about time the court got something right on abortion.
Yes, and no.
ReplyDeleteI'm not defending PBA. In fact, I think it should be illegal for the reasons articulated here.
However, my objection goes to Constitutional integrity. I think the states should illegalize it, not Congress.
That and there should be an exception for the life of the mother.
Royale, thanks for coming by again. I'm glad we agree on why it should be illegal.
ReplyDeleteI tend toward states rights too. On right to life issues, I'm more for federal laws-they may require constitutional amendments-because I don't want one's right to life (here the unborn child) to be dependent on geography, that is, why state he or she resides in. But I would advance them in the states for protection until we can get a federal law. That may be anathema to people expert in law.
Just a note about the life of the mother exception. Here's the text of the bill. It includes a life of the mother exception, not a helath of the mother exception-which would render the ban meaningless.
The Congress put in a life of the mother exception, but not a health exception.
Most people are not aware of how the health exception is argued. In Stenberg, the court decided that the most common procedure D & E (dilation and evacuation) could be more risky to the mother than partial birth abortion. Ginsburg refers to this in her dissent in Carhart. She mentions how the D & E takes more passes, the bony fragments (that says a lot) can tear her tissues on the way out and among other things, there's the danger of infection from leaving parts behind. Ginsburg argued that by taking partial birth abortion off the table, the court was endangering the health of women not so much from the risk the pregnancy presented to the mother, but the type of abortion she would have. This is a shocking argument to pro-lifers considering all of the assurances we've had that abortion is safe. We are usually the ones saying abortion is not safe. I think the government attorneys may have argued that D & E was sufficiently safe. O well.
Ginsburg also notes that ACOG (American College of OBGYNs) submitted a brief listing situations where partial birth abortion was safer than D & E. I think it mentioned something like between 40-60 situations. Kennedy dismissed it. He said the lower court in NY read it and the witnesses for it were either contradicted or it was speculative and hence it wasn't credible.
Anyway, the ban does have a life of the mother exception. A health exception would make the ban meaningless. I have a quote from a late term abortionist-either Haskell who was an inventor of PBA, or George Tiller in Kansas, on record as saying that they abortion movement is not being genuine by saying that women are coming in for late abortions or partial birth abortions because their life or health is in danger.
I forgot to include the text of the Partial Birth Abortion law that includes the health exception.
ReplyDelete"`Sec. 1531. Partial-birth abortions prohibited
`(a) Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both. This subsection does not apply to a partial-birth abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself. This subsection takes effect 1 day after the date of enactment of this chapter."
I haven't decided when federal criminal laws that trump states rights should be allowed. Presumably, if we state that the right to life should not depend on geography, then we've decided that the fed gov't should protect everything, and now we've opened the door to everything being argued as trumping geography.
ReplyDeleteGiven that I think that Roe v. Wade was an improper assualt on states rights, I think the converse would equally be true, that abortion should not be decided at the federal level.
You mention geography, and that easily be a very strong argument in favor of abortion rights, that the right of choice should not depend on geography.
You said you had a quote from a PBA provider. If you could, could you please post it? I'd like to read it. thx
I don't think I phrased it right.
ReplyDeleteIf we protected the rights of any destitute group at the federal level simply because we felt their rights should not depend on geography, then in a democracy, then the democratic majority would pass laws protecting every destitute group that it felt sympathy for simply because their rights should not depend on geography.
And that is the antithesis of states rights.
Also - one of the more compelling reasons (for me) for allowing abortion at the federal level is to prevent the undeground trafficking of abortion.
Now, I think Roe discusses it, but you won't find that in that constition. That's a policy argument, but I think it's the better geography argument than yours.
So, it should be capped at the bud. States handle medicine, period.
Royale,
ReplyDeleteSorry this took so long. I've been looking for the quote I said I have. I think I have to say that I had it. It was on the Fire and Ice CD by Life Dynamics, www.ldi.com. I'm guessing I loaned it to someone and can't remember who. I'll probably reorder one for $7.95.
the was a CD of tapes of an abortion convention that had Martin Haskell and George Tiller on it.
On that CD either Martin Haskell MD-who is one of the inventors for partial birth abortion, or the notorious late term abortionist George Tiller in Kansas, www.drtiller.com says that abortion advocates and the industry justify late abortion by saying it's a medical necessity. Tiller of Haskell say it's not.
That's the CD where I had my quote. That's the CD where you here the visual demonstration of the part of the PBA where the brains are sucked out and the audience applauds.
For now, here is a quote from Haskell on why PBAs are done. He says 80 percent are purely elective. Of course, the remaining 20 percent do not mean that there is any necessity for the abortion or that the fetus acannot survive birth.
"Dr. Martin Haskell of Dayton, Ohio, has performed over 1,000 partial-birth abortions. In a tape-recorded interview, Dr. Haskell told American Medical News, "I'll be quite frank: most of my abortions are elective in that 20-24 week range. . . . In my particular case, probably 20% are for genetic reasons. And the other 80% are purely elective." http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/whypbaperformed.html.
In an op-ed for the Reno Gazetter Journal, I made the following comment after listening to his lecture on the Fire and Ice CD.
"But famous late term abortionist George Tiller told an abortion conference that 8 percent of his 10,000 abortions performed between 24 and 36 weeks were for some fetal anomaly." http://www.nevadalife.org/pressroom/oped040122.html
I'll ask others to whom I might have given the CD if they have it and I will look in my files to see if I have made any notes about it. I probably quoted one of these or both verbatim when talking about it on the air.
Let me know if this works.
Sorry it took so long.
That's good enough, thanks.
ReplyDelete