In Which I Open Myself Up To Abuse As A Heretic
Warning: This post contains a flammable political topic.
I've been hearing a lot of people talking about the Supreme Court's decision to uphold Congress's ban on partial birth abortions. Most of my friends are, like myself, pro-choice, and so I am hearing a lot of things said about this decision. Some of the things being said are not true. This is not the fault of the people saying them; reputable media sources as well as political action groups are spreading misinformation. Sometimes people exaggerate things to get people to do what they want, and that bothers me, even when I think the exaggeration would lead people to do what I think is the right thing. I'm a big fan of the truth, so I want to make an attempt to point out what the truth appears to me to be. If I am wrong, please let me know.
First of all, there seems to be a widespread belief that this act makes partial-birth aboritons illegal even if the mother's life is involved. However, if you read the text of the act, you'll see that this is not true:
§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. [Emphasis added]
The place where people seem to be getting caught up is that the part of the text that says there is a "moral, medical, and ethical consensus" that the procedure "is a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary and should be prohibited." However, the fact that they placed the exception in the law itself means that, should Congress's medical opinion be (gasp) mistaken and this particular procedure actually be medically necessary, a doctor can, in fact, perform it. The text of the Act that explains why Congress wants to pass this law carries weight in interpeting the law, true, but it isn't the law itself. (The flip side of this is that Congress knows that the law would likely be overturned by the Judiciary if it did not include the medical exception, which may be the true reason it is there.)
Also, I believe some people have said that the defense of a mother's life is not the same as of her health; that is, if it won't kill her, but it will leave her crippled in some way, this exception does not apply. I'd need a more lawyery person to interpret "life is endangered by" as to whether that includes thigns that are not immediately life-threatening but lowers the quality or extent of the mother's life.
Second of all, there seems to be feeling that the Supreme Court has unconditionally validated this law, when in fact they said that there wasn't really grounds for a challenge because nobody had been hurt by the law. The real test will come when the first person actually needs this procedure, cannot get it because of this act, and brings it to court. It sucks that somebody will actually have to be hurt for this to be fixed, but I suspect that this will never happen, because there will be other procedures available.
And lastly, I've heard some people complain about the phrase, "partial-birth abortion," because it is an inflammatory name. And it is. The medical name is "Intact dilation and extraction," abbreviated IDX or Intact D&E. Like most medical terms, it sounds inpersonal and uninteresting. Both names tilt the argument how you want it to go, but I don't think anybody who knows how it is performed will disagree that it is a brutal one. It involes pulling the foetus out up to its head, then puncturing the skull and sucking out the brain so the head comes out easy. At the same stage of pregnancy, D&E (where the foetus is destroyed in utero and then removed) is much, much more common, and doesn't carry nearly the risk of accidentally perforating the woman.
If anybody knows a doctor, I would like to know what set of circumstances would make a D&E impossible but an IDX possible; if those circumstances do exist, it would allow me to be much more upset by this law. Otherwise, my only real concern with this decision is that this is not simply a response to a single procedure, but rather a testing of the waters for more laws and restrictions to come, picking off circumstance after circumstance until we find our reproductive freedoms lost for good. In short, in my view, it is the precident of this law, not the content of it, that should give people the willies.
I've been hearing a lot of people talking about the Supreme Court's decision to uphold Congress's ban on partial birth abortions. Most of my friends are, like myself, pro-choice, and so I am hearing a lot of things said about this decision. Some of the things being said are not true. This is not the fault of the people saying them; reputable media sources as well as political action groups are spreading misinformation. Sometimes people exaggerate things to get people to do what they want, and that bothers me, even when I think the exaggeration would lead people to do what I think is the right thing. I'm a big fan of the truth, so I want to make an attempt to point out what the truth appears to me to be. If I am wrong, please let me know.
First of all, there seems to be a widespread belief that this act makes partial-birth aboritons illegal even if the mother's life is involved. However, if you read the text of the act, you'll see that this is not true:
§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. [Emphasis added]
The place where people seem to be getting caught up is that the part of the text that says there is a "moral, medical, and ethical consensus" that the procedure "is a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary and should be prohibited." However, the fact that they placed the exception in the law itself means that, should Congress's medical opinion be (gasp) mistaken and this particular procedure actually be medically necessary, a doctor can, in fact, perform it. The text of the Act that explains why Congress wants to pass this law carries weight in interpeting the law, true, but it isn't the law itself. (The flip side of this is that Congress knows that the law would likely be overturned by the Judiciary if it did not include the medical exception, which may be the true reason it is there.)
Also, I believe some people have said that the defense of a mother's life is not the same as of her health; that is, if it won't kill her, but it will leave her crippled in some way, this exception does not apply. I'd need a more lawyery person to interpret "life is endangered by" as to whether that includes thigns that are not immediately life-threatening but lowers the quality or extent of the mother's life.
Second of all, there seems to be feeling that the Supreme Court has unconditionally validated this law, when in fact they said that there wasn't really grounds for a challenge because nobody had been hurt by the law. The real test will come when the first person actually needs this procedure, cannot get it because of this act, and brings it to court. It sucks that somebody will actually have to be hurt for this to be fixed, but I suspect that this will never happen, because there will be other procedures available.
And lastly, I've heard some people complain about the phrase, "partial-birth abortion," because it is an inflammatory name. And it is. The medical name is "Intact dilation and extraction," abbreviated IDX or Intact D&E. Like most medical terms, it sounds inpersonal and uninteresting. Both names tilt the argument how you want it to go, but I don't think anybody who knows how it is performed will disagree that it is a brutal one. It involes pulling the foetus out up to its head, then puncturing the skull and sucking out the brain so the head comes out easy. At the same stage of pregnancy, D&E (where the foetus is destroyed in utero and then removed) is much, much more common, and doesn't carry nearly the risk of accidentally perforating the woman.
If anybody knows a doctor, I would like to know what set of circumstances would make a D&E impossible but an IDX possible; if those circumstances do exist, it would allow me to be much more upset by this law. Otherwise, my only real concern with this decision is that this is not simply a response to a single procedure, but rather a testing of the waters for more laws and restrictions to come, picking off circumstance after circumstance until we find our reproductive freedoms lost for good. In short, in my view, it is the precident of this law, not the content of it, that should give people the willies.