Supreme Court Backs Ban on Partial Birth Abortion

And in other news, the United States are still in the Dark Ages.

Isn't this a practice that even pro-abortion people have an issue with?

I think that's the one where, quite literally, the baby is "partially born", nearly removed from the mother and then aborted. Which, if you're doing that, you might as well have the kid and throw it up for adoption.

Don't quote me on the technicalities, though. I could be way off.

This procedure accounted for 0.17% of all abortions in 2000. 0.17%. But now the Supreme Court has opened the door to banning all abortion. Way to go.

Exactly. It's just that it create a precedent, and now those pro-life morons (I weigh my words here) have a beachhead.

Aww, come on. Can't we just agree that, right to abortion or no, this particular procedure was f00kin' horrific and deserving of prohibition?

Is it a beach head for the pro-life movement? Time will tell. Personally, I think partial birth abortion HURT the pro-choice movement more than it helped. It was a demoralizing, barbaric procedure which undermined an otherwise oftentimes compelling argument for personal choice.

No, we cannot agree on that. It's another victory for the Christian Taliban.

Yeah, what if this procedure is in place because of the possible threat to the mother? So now, you can either die trying to abort the fetus or die giving birth!

Also, anti-science Xtians should not be legislating medicine.

Honestly? You mean to tell me that, in your mode of thinking, "victory" is the preservation of the partial birth abortion?

Hell, you're starting to make that "Christian Taliban" look positively humane.

I know plenty of people who think very little of America's industry of abortion but will express disgust and outrage at the partial birth procedure. Even if some folks support the right to choose, they will see the partial birth abortion as an abuse of that freedom. Something about it is offensive to even secularized precepts regarding the sanctity of human life.

Partial Birth Abortion was bad for the pro-choice movement. Period. In terms of what that ultimately means for the practice of abortion in the larger sense, I cannot say.

In my opinion it ain't a real abortion unless it's slowly sliding off the wall.

You're just stupid, Maus. A procedure that makes up 0.17% of all abortions is not an issue. It's obviously not happening very often. It's only an issue because misogynistic Christians want a way to legally control the bodies of women.

That's not the point. There's a way of making sure that Ms. Aborts-A-Lot and her obgyn, Dr. Mengele aren't sitting there torturing babies without telling doctors what medical procedures they can and cannot perform.

IMAGE REMOVED BY NICK. POST A LINK, NOT THE IMAGE.
Yeah, this about misogyny, Devin. Welcome to the world.

In this case, 0.17% is too much.

Isn't Jesus Camp next month?

And thus, a new avatar is born.

It's about the need to control people and subjugate the nation to the whims of your fucked up religion.

Way to go, removing all medical exceptions. How many women will die because of this? Only time will tell.

I love these pro-life people shitting their pants about a tiny fraction of a percent of babies and not saying jack shit about the thousands murdered in Iraq. You people are fucking swine.

Here ya go, Devin: http://www.sojourners.com/index.cfm?...&item=cpw_main

There are plenty of anti-death penalty, anti-war, pro-life Christians, just as there are many Christian, pro-choice Democrats. Lots of folks develop their own particular, nuanced perspectives without walking lock step with the broader, oftentimes contradictory agendas communicated in the mainstream cultural consciousness.

You're just not one of them.

Honestly, I do believe that partial birth abortion was a tremendous obstacle for the pro-choice movement. If abortion was post-9/11 Afghanistan, partial birth abortion was Iraq. It confronted the very idea, central to the pro-choice argument, that abortion was simply the destruction of a disindividuated mass of tissue.

The ruling, as stated above, does not restrict the right to have an abortion at any stage of pregnancy. It effects one procedure among many. Basically, the Supreme court has decided that abortion must take place in the womb, within that space over which the pro-choice movement proclaims the sanctity of choice.

If the pro-choice movement was clever, this could be, ultimately, a philosophical victory.

I really wonder how far the pro-lifers really want all of this to go? On the one hand they say that OB-GYN's should be arrested if they perform abortions, but then on the other hand pro-lifers look confused if you ask why aren't the pregnant mothers arrested as well for trying to get the abortion? How far should this go?

Let's say that abortion is made illegal nationwide. Well, what's the next step? Should the government then start passing laws punishing knowingly and unknowingly pregnant women who eat too much fried food because it might harm the fetus? I'm really trying to understand? Do pro-lifers suggest that when a woman becomes pregnant she loses all rights and becomes simply an incubator until the fetus is born (ala A Handmaiden's Tale, if I remember correctly)? Part of me really would like to see this court overturn RvW just so the general public then may realize what the fuck is going on. I sincerely doubt it would play out that way.

In response to Dr.N: I'm sorry, but if my wife's life was in the balance and a "partial-birth abortion" (God I hate that pro-choicers let that phrase be the standard for the procedure) was the only way for her to survive, then I'm going with the procedure every time. It's so illogical to me that pro-lifers can say that saving the unborn child is the most important thing when if you save the life of the pregnant mother, you can more often than not try and have another child. You keep the child and lose the mother then you've saved one life. You save the mother and lose the child, then you can have multiple lives (presumably) in the future.

I always imagine that they would turn their sights towards people who are married, but don't want to have kids (although that's more of an argument for gay marriage.)

But that's the thing, Donde. we're not talking about taking the life of an "unborn child" (and that's a dangerous phrase for a pro-choice perspective, at any rate). We're discussing the destruction of a partially born infant. We're getting into that gray area between pregnancy and delivery.

Most of us would agree that killing a born child is murder. Many of us can agree that terminating the life of a fetus is NOT murder. Partial birth abortion pushed into the realm between those two distinctions.

The Supreme Court, in my understanding, just drew a clear distinction and defined that gray area as out of bounds. Conceptually, this clarity of definition could, if managed carefully, strengthen the argument for the preservation of biological choice in regards to children (or "tissue") in the womb. At the level of argument, this ban could work AGAINST the pro-life contingency.

If abortion is made illegal, infant mortality and pregnancy-related deaths will skyrocket, as will the crime rate in 20 years. Nothing worse for society than an unwanted, neglegcted baby.

I think Necessiter's real job is a wire hanger manufacturer.

Just to be clear, there is not one pro-choice person who likes abortions, or the idea of killing children. Most simply a) don't consider a zygote to be human, and b) believe that controlling what happens to your own body is one of the most important aspects of personal freedom.

The fact that you are clear is meaningless in the eyes of the faithfuls.

These are the valid questions that need to be asked in public. I for one am extremely troubled by the concept of second trimester abortions, and feel that late-term abortions should be illegal except in the case of medical emergencies.

Most pro-choice people agree that the rights of a five-month old fetus deserve strong consideration, why can't pro-live people agree that a sperm sticking out of an ovum is not yet human?

I didn't see it specified that it's an outright ban -- is that the case or is it still allowable when the life of the mother is at risk? Because if not, and the pro-lifers see this as a victory, I want those fuckers present every time a mother AND fetus die because a doctor couldn't perform the procedure and have them explain to the father why.

My understanding is that the only time late term abortions are performed is when they will complicate pregnancy to the point where the health of the mother is threatened.

Some can. Some can't. This is true on either side of that particular fence.

Fortunately, this isn't really a discussion of whether or not a five-month old fetus, or a "fetus" of any kind, is a human being and deserving of protection under the law.

In my opinion, this ruling simply moves to more clearly define the jurisdiction of the court in legislating the preservation of individual constitutional rights. Most of us would agree that the determining factor in personhood is not viability. If that were the case, the right to reproductive choice would come into question increasingly early on in the term of pregnancy.

So, abortion is permissible if the child is inside of another human body. Personhood, a concept which cannot be effectively defined, is of no consequence. As of right now, you can abort a child at any stage of development up to the moment of birth according to constitutional law. Once the child is delivered, even partially, there is a forfeiture of the right to terminate.

Think of it this way: A child that is not born can be terminated. A child that is born cannot be terminated. The process of birth is the buffer zone between these two conditions and is now off limits. It is the biological equivalent of a demilitarized zone.

In essence, this decision is a workable compromise. At least, it could be, if not for the unreasoning zealots on either side of the buffer.

I don't think the supreme court considers a fetus still in the womb as a child under the law, regardless of their development. That would imply they are a human person deserving of the constitution's protection, and I don't think they have stated that.

Anything that came from human parents and has a fully developed brain and spinal chord deserves the protection of the law, of that there is no doubt.

Well, sure. Anytime I used the word "child" to describe a prenatal organism, replace it with "fetus", "mass", "tumor" or whatever. The argument remains the same.

I guess that anytime I use the word 'fetus', you can replace it with 'sentient soul'.

I don't consider a fetus a tumour, and you insult the discourse by insinuating I do.

I have a friend who had a partial birth abortion.

In her case, the baby had several catastrophic defects. It was anacephalic (lacking a brain), hydrocephalic (water on what was left of the brain, which caused it to be about 3 times the size of a normal babies), omphalocelic (all major organs growing outside of the foetus' body), as well as spina biffida and clubed feet.

She found all this out at about 3 months in. Because of where she lived she had to get approval from a hospital board for an abortion. It was denied, saying that there was a chance of a 'miracle' and if not, then the organs could be harvested.

During this time her name and phone number became a matter of public record and she started to get phone calls from the pro-life crazies, but I digress.

By the time she exhausted her appeals, she was 6 months along. So, she had to go out of state for a D&X also known as a partial birth abortion. Had she not had it, she would have died. As it was, her fertility was compromised from waiting so long. And even though by the time she had the procedure, the baby had died, it was still considered a partial birth abortion.

Wasn't insinuating anything about ya, Graynadian. I only used the word "tumor" as it was on a recent episode of House and fresh in my mind. Still, if it's not a child, then it wouldn't it just be a growing mass of tissue akin to a benign tumor? I mean to ask, what's the ethical difference between aborting a fetus and removing a tumor?

There is none. Doctors have to get permission to remove either one.

I can see I was a little too touchy with your choice of words. It's a reflex I have against people simplifying or exaggerating opposing arguments in order to dismiss them.

As for your question, the tumor has no chance of developing into something with inalienable rights.

Aliens do NOT get inalienable rights. It does NOT MAKE SENSE.

What kind of miracle? That it would magically grow a brain and get its organs inside its body in 6 months? That's just ludicrous.

Richard,

Yup, that's basically the gist of it. But that's what happens when you live in Oklahoma apparently.

Edited to add that this is why religious whack jobs need to stay the fuck out of any issue that involves science or rational thought.

Shit, we can't get fully-grown people to grow a brain in the South.

Precisely, your problem isn't with the legality or illegality of partial birth abortion. Your problem is living in Oklahoma, a state which has criminalized abortion (partial birth or otherwise) except in the case of medical emergency. Of course, Oklahoma's stance is unconstitutional. Eventually, one can hope, it will face its own decisive challenge in the Supreme Court.

As much as your friend's situation sucks, it has nothing to do with the Supreme Court's decision on partial birth abortion.

No, my problem is with people with no knowledge and less understanding making decisions for people who should be able to make them for themselves.

And my friend's situation has everything to do with the Supreme Court's decision. She was able to have the procedure because she had money and a car to get out of state to get the issue dealt with. Not every woman can do that. And now that the ban has been supported, more and more states are going to jump on the bandwagon, making it more expensive and harder to access, putting women's lives at risk.

How many other women will have to go through what my friend did and search for a surgeon who will perform a potentially life saving procedure? How many other women will have to go through dangerous abdominal surgery and lengthy recovery times instead of the safer D&X (partial birth abortion) because they don't have resources necessary to do so?

This has everything to do with a government and interfering in a private decision between a woman and her doctor about what is best for her.