Ken Kusmer has an article for the Associated Press suggesting that opponents of women’s abortion rights are shifting their strategy to impose obstacles at the county level. They want counties to pass legislation requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.
I have some initial questions as to the legality of such ordinances. I haven’t done in any research, but it seems like there is a decent chance that counties are preempted by state law from regulating physicians in this way.
But, beyond that, it’s just a bad idea. Proponents will disingenuously say that these regulations are necessary for women’s safety. But, as the article points out, there hasn’t been a death from a legal abortion in close to 30 years. (I suspect the same can’t be said for carrying a child to term.) The American Psychological Association also debunked the claim that abortion of an unwanted pregnancy causes the woman any more psychological problems than carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term.
“The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion or deliver that pregnancy,” said Brenda Major, a psychologist specializing in stress at the University of California Santa Barbara, who chaired the task force.
The reason to make abortions harder has nothing to do with the woman who wants one and everything to do with the potential child. But, even the failure to be able to agree on basic terminology highlights the binary nature of this debate. If, at the time of conception, a fully human creature has been created that is entitled to the full spectrum of human rights, then abortion is a monstrous, unconscionable act. It’s right there with Nazis gassing the Jews. Half-measures purportedly for the purpose of making the Nazi gassers safer are ridiculous.
I, of course, don’t think that blastocysts are fully human, and I think that, from the moment of creation, the embryo progresses toward humanity. As such, I can’t get more worked up about embryo rights than I do about the causes championed by PETA. I understand where PETA and abortion opponents are coming from; but I’m coming from a different place.
In my mind, the job of abortion foes is to win the public debate as to whether embyros are morally entitled to the rights of fully developed humans; not to impose stumbling blocks at the county level for specious, disingenuous concerns over women’s safety.
See, I can understand where you’re coming from, even if I disagree with your view:
It is the pro-PETA yet pro-abortion people that really get under my skin. Putting so much effort into making sure my future Chicken McNuggets are kept comfortable while thinking it is fine to kill future people is just insane.
However, to your point, I agree that rules at the county level like this are also insane.
Yeah, pro-PETA/pro-choice has the potential to lack consistency. Though, I’m sure the individual members of each constituency have a variety of views. For example, I can easily see not having a problem with the morning after pill and having a huge problem with crate-raised veal.
I keep hoping that better contraception will someday make this point moot.
We could also make it moot if our sexual behavior as a culture was much more responsible, but you’re working against some pretty strong drives, there…
I don’t comment much on abortion anymore except for a couple general points..The issue has long become more of a political strategy for the core base of conservatism than a matter of health..Mostly what I know about the abortion issue that makes sense to me I have heard from women.I just have a sense that it’s a women’s issue,and women have had the least input into legislation they have to live with.
My wife is a midwife, who keeps a close eye on the age of viability as a matter of professional concern. These days, premies born at 26 weeks are making it. It wasn’t too long ago that 30 weeks was a milestone. How long before 24 weeks? Or even earlier?
I was once ardently pro-choice. As I have considered this progress in viability, I have come to question my position greatly. 26 weeks? We’re two weeks into the second trimester. We aren’t talking blastocysts at this point.
So, what is the distinction really between abortion and patricide? As the premies are born and surviving earlier and earlier, I do believe we are going to have to stop ducking that question and consider it.
Taking it the other direction, it is clear to me that children are no more self-sustaining at 3 months of age after a live birth than they are 3 months prior. No infant could survive but for the sustenance and protection provided by its’ parents. Hell, some teenagers would surely die if not provided for. Come to think of it, some adults also.
I think it’s high time for a debate. A good place for it would be the Senate floor.
Taken to a logical extreme, my notions on human life probably require me to allow execution of babies until sometime around when they become self-aware. But, I’m willing to let emotion temper logic a bit.
What might be best is some kind of default birth control applied universally somehow (like fluoride in the drinking water) that would be de-activated when both parents actively decide to take freely available counter-birth control — in other words, allowing fertility only when both parents want to have a kid. But that’s sci-fi stuff right now.
In any case, enough anti-abortion advocates also actively oppose birth control measures that even if it were feasible, it would never happen.
Just one quote from my sister(one of my expert women commentators): ‘Everyone is telling women what is best for them,but nobody ever asks.’She was referring to abortion legislation and ”health of mother’ etc,and this quote is as of today.
Women have been having abortions for as long as we’ve been having sex. legislate all you want, the practice won’t end. I’d prefer a universe in which women have abortions in reasonably hygenic situations.
What worries me is that so many of the people who are activists in this area are also anti-sex ed, anti-birth control sessions, etc.
Doug,
I’m on board with your sci-fi solution. If vas-reverals become easy enough, let’s just do those shortly after birth and get it over with. Seems like an easy enough solution to me.
Do the vas, not the reverse, shortly after birth, I mean. Reverse later when kids are desired.
I was thinking something more along the lines of nuclear launch keys for each of the potential parents!
Doug, that’s *brilliant* – like a bluetooth handshake! Ensures that both people agree to the potential baby-making. I LOVE IT!
I can see it now…
“What is taking you so long?!?”
“I’m at a screen that says ‘enter password to begin babymaking’. Didn’t you say your password was ‘loveman21’?”
“Yes, but it is a 1 instead of an L, and zero instead of an O”
“Ok, I’ll try that…Great, now it says ‘Password locked out…please wait 30 minutes’!”