Yes.
Let’s turn the hysteria down a notch. That is not how abortion laws were enforced before Roe v. Wade. **
A simple request: Ask adults who were born from an unwanted pregnancy, if they wish they were dead. I’ll bet you that 99% of them say, NO. Could that be any more clear? They obviously don’t subscribe to the “they’re better off never born” theory of compassion.
Giving up so easily? I’m disappointed.
Though I disagree with Yeticus Rex, at least he provided links to some actual statistics on why women have abortions, and they’re not capricious or casual reasons, either. In most of the cases, the woman feels she doesn’t have the economic resources to care for a child and in about half the cases, the father of the child is abusive and/or undependable.
Implied in much of the pro-life literature is the image of a woman who has an abortion with as much thought as getting her teeth cleaned. I don’t doubt such women exist, but I’m willing to give all women the benefit of the doubt and assume that their reasons for seeking an abortion are valid ones.
The Prohibition angle is interesting, though. Even if you could close all the clinics where surgical abortions are performed (what effect this would have on women’s health services generally are open to speculation), medications such as Mifepristone (aka RU-486) can cause an abortion chemically. I assume these drugs will also be banned. The U.S., though, doesn’t have a particularly good record when it comes to controlled substances. It’s relatively easy to spot crackhouses, because of the number of addicts wandering around, never letting themselves get too far from their next fix. How are you going to regulate a drug that only requires a few doses?
Well, forgive the Socratic irony but… why allow the rape exception? Surely the fetus is innocent of any illegality in its conception.
If such an exception was allowed, then would you allow some surgical abortion clinics to stay open? We already know that many (if not most) rapes go unreported, so how does your rape exception even work? If the woman checks a “I was raped” box on her clinic form, can she get an abortion? Is the clinic required to report the woman’s name to police as a crime victim (thus undermining medical confidentiality)? Is she required to then file a police report? What if the abortion takes place two months or more after the assault (presumably giving the woman enough time to determine for certain that she is pregnant)? The woman will have no tell-tale bruises, making a rape conviction nearly impossible. When if she was raped while under the influence of alcohol or other drugs so she can’t even be sure of the exact circumstances of her impregnation?
So, how much evidence does a woman have to give that she was raped and that she now wished to abort the rapist’s fetus? Is her word sufficient? If so, why wouldn’t she just lie? If she wants an abortion badly enough, she just has to say she was raped, and that it was two months ago, and she can’t remember the details, and she doesn’t want to relive it. How are you going to prove that she is lying? How do you prevent false accusations against women who really were raped?
These are not minor quibbles. If you want a ban, how you intend to enforce it becomes critical, as well as how much unintentional misery you’re willing to tolerate.
The thing is, moral posturing and hitting pro-choicers over the head with a fetus is the easy part, the difficult part for anti-choicers is explaining how the mechanics of repression and taking away women’s rights over our bodies is going to be enforced.
Jesus, will you people stop hitting candida over the head with a fetus? Enough is enough.
I’m sure this sounded hilarious in your head. She speaks with unnecessary rhetoric, but her (and my) question remains unanswered: how does a hypothetical ban on abortion get enforced? Punishing doctors just puts abortions in the hands of untrained non doctors, with the attendant risks. And even if you could eliminate (or greatly reduce) surgical abortions, what about pharmaceutical abortions?
How much power does law enforcement need to be given?
Again, as we’ve cited many times before, that is not borne out by history.
Do you want us to cite what Planned Parenthood director Mary Calderone said, prior to Roe v. Wade? About how safe these abortions were, even when they were illegal and underground? (Mind you, I’m not claiming they were absolutely safe, as any invasive surgical procedure has its attendant risks. The point, however, is that history does not bear out the alarmist claim of women dying en masse due to underground abortions.
Besides, it’s a bizarre sort of logic which claims that we should make it safer for people who choose to take an innocent life.
Candida, any medical practitioner (physician or nurse) found practicing abortion would have his or her license suspended on first offense. On second offense, the license would be revoked. Likewise, any medical practicioner or pharmacist who distributed an abortifice would risk having his or her license suspended or revoked.
No, it would not be possible to stop every abortion. But enforcement of homicide laws has not managed to stop every homicide either, enforcement of sexual assault laws has not managed to stop every sexual assault, etc.
BTW, according to the ABC News/Washington Post poll (Jan. 22, 2001), 52% of women say abortion should be illegal to end an unwanted pregnancy.
Walloon
Congratulations, I’m sure you’d have a wonderful time thoroughly enjoying the misery you bring to poor women and the persecution of those who try to help them. Meanwhile, everybody else would just resort to abortion tourism.
Yes, I did miss off my ‘moral posturing’ and ‘hitting over the head with a fetus’ list the ‘quoting nebulous statistics’, thanks for reminding me.
One of the rules of the SDMB is that you do not make personal attacks on other members, as you have done above, unless you want to go to the Pit.
I’m sorry you feel so persecuted by my stating the obvious consequences of your actions.
Rather restrained, I would have thought, given the obvious implications of things people like you say to pro-choice posters.
Great points on the rape issue. I group together the pregnancies by rape with the pregnancies endangering the lives of the women because in both instances, the woman had no control over her body in either event. Although a women who keeps a child that was conceived by rape is heroic in my book, I do not want to force her to be a hero. You’re right, innocent lives are lost in this regard, but I feel the women is justified that she is given the one choice that the rapist did not offer her. The right to preserve her own life and/or deciding what to do after a rape, is the fair amount of control a women should definitely have over her body. When it comes to consensual sex, then the woman already has control over her body (right, candida?) and makes decisions based on whether she wants to be pregnant or not (by taking appropriate precautions). There will be the small failure rates, but the failure rates will decrease towards zero when redirected funding improves research in conception control. Lead-in time and education should be done first before the law comes into effect.
Family planning centers should remain open which furthers the education and advice to women and couples on preventing a pregnancy, but the abortion and/or sterilization surgery should be done at hospitals with counseling offered before and after the surgery. To empower women, rape should always be reported as soon as possible. Women owe it to themselves that rapists should be reported and arrested before they attack more women and subject the next women to possible pregnancy – another “control” factor. How to make it work?
If you have been raped or suspect being raped, go to the hospital and report the rape to the police right away. If the documentation is in place and you find out later that you are pregnant, then you would become eligible for an abortion, adoption or keeping the pregnancy. DO NOT WAIT! Waiting only gives the rapist more time and victims. Do not give him the chance to do it again. Female police officers should make up a division in their station to handle the reporting, and be the laision between the hospital and the police.
Women who have consensual sex, get pregnant and then check “I was raped” box weeks later, will still have to report the alleged “rape” to the police before the abortion, she will be subjected to an investigation on why it took so many weeks to report a “rape”. If her intent is to get an abortion, she unwittingly sends her husband/boyfriend/aquaintence in jail on false rape charges. Therefore, falsifying a claim of rape to obtain an abortion is subject to monetary damages for wasted time and effort of the police and the inconvienence of the accused. If she does this on a regular basis, increases of the fine and possible jail time (or into slavery as candida would want you to believe) is in her future, just like falsifying any other crime report. Husbands/boyfriends/acquaintences are on the hook for support unless they can prove why they shouldn’t be. DNA is already used in this regard.
Make the work place more tolerant of expectant mothers, extended leave of absence without losing her job. Medical coverage that I had stated in an earlier post would also be offered. Parents of teenagers need to be instrumental in the education process, at school and with pregnancy education.
Adoption will always be an option should support be non-existent.
It’s not perfect way to address the issue as a whole, but it is refineable. What’s happening now is even further from perfect.
As for chemical induced abortions, stiff jail time for the makers and distributors. I already addressed the abortion doctor issue in a previous post. Women will be given counseling at first, fines later, and ultimately jail time only if they are abusing offenders. Yeah, I acknowledge that we have a rough time in dealing with illegal drugs, but I want to see the number of abortions decrease, ideally to zero, but I realize that that’s not going to happen anytime soon, just like crime, wars, etc.
And dammit, stop taking my money to fund for abortion on demand!
Candida, love the rhetoric, but I am as “anti-choice” just as much as you are “anti-life”. Drop the negative connotations, because they do not accurately describe either party in this issue. As for abortion tourism, my response is, “think globally, act locally”. I want to see things improve here first and I cannot as a US citizen affect things in other countries in regards to abortion. We have the worst abortion rate in industrialized world, so something is morally wrong here and this is where the action needs to start.
Choice starts before conception, not after.
Yeticus Rex
Love the slogans (‘love the rhetoric’, ‘think globally’, ‘choice starts . . .’), I really do, so original.
As to ‘negative connotations’, you choose to be a part of a movement driven by people with proclaimed agendas, I just happen to take what they say seriously. I’m not faintly interested in what you proclaim your motivation to be, just what the consequences would be.
Yeticus Rex
I did enjoy your outlining of your projected persecutory regime. Honest at least.
Candida, glad you like them…
Everyone has an agenda, even you.
Consequences? Greatly reduce the number of abortions in this country, and get the government out of my wallet.
So sorry about boring you with my solutions…for a moment, I thought this message board is where great debates take place, not one-line insults. But if that’s what you want…
There are hundreds of organizations, found in every state, that offer help to women facing crisis pregnancies. Counseling, free health care, rides to doctors, and adoption referrals are some of the many services offered; and should the women decide to keep her child, much material help in everything from clothing to diapers, bassinets, cribs, playpens, bottles, you name it. I know because I volunteered for such an organization for several years.
And these organizations are a lot more widespread than abortion doctors, not to mention free.
Just one question here Yeticus Rex. Are you actually aware of the burden you’re wanting to place on rape victims so that they don’t have to endure pregnancy and birth due to rape?
You’re asking for something that, quite frankly, is cruel to the healing process and treats a rape victim as if she is a guilty party. Interrogate her and investigate her as to why she didn’t report a rape in your time frame? Force her to go to the hospital and the police immediately? You probably have no idea the burden that you’re placing upon a rape victim.
The biggest reason I never reported being raped was that I did not want to have my life investigated by the police or anyone else. I wanted to heal, not be interrogated and questioned by some cop or DA who really wanted to know if that event actually happened.
This places weight of the crime on the victim in a way that isn’t necessary, and is bound to do damage to many rape victims. I’m sure you’ve got great intentions, but putting myself back in the shoes I was in the day after I was raped, if that’s what I had to do to be sure I wouldn’t be pregnant, I wouldn’t have gone to a doctor.
Taking extended time off in a lot of careers is a CLM (Career Limiting Move). I know first hand that the computer field moves rapidly and that it’s entirely likely that one who is away for a month or two can miss important projects, deadlines and promotions. Being able to take ‘time off’ or having ‘extended leave of absence without losing the job’ isn’t good enough for someone who, like me, is in a career they are very focused on. Do you understand how someone who doesn’t want to be forced to take time off for a pregnancy they never wanted in the first place, thus losing promotions, bonuses, stock options on projects they complete, and various other incentives and perks that can only be gotten by being there to work on that brand-new exciting whatever-it-is does not at all see ‘well at least you can take time off to have this kid’ as a benefit?
Great, set myself a rung or two back on the ladder in a career I really like and want to be very successful in because I can take plenty of time off to sit around nurturing the pregnancy I never wanted in the first place. Sounds like more of a punishment than a bonus.
There’s a difference though. Candida and other pro-choice people like myself do not want to make the decision of whether or not to abort for someone else. To be ‘anti-life’ as you state would mean that candida, myself, and the other pro-choice people on this board advocated and lobbied for abortion of every pregnancy. That would be anti-life. Instead we believe every woman should choose for herself whether or not she wants to carry her pregnancy to term, and have support for any decision she makes.
Your position, however, is ‘anti-choice’ in that you don’t want women to be able to make a choice. Your stated position is that you have chosen for them, that they will carry the pregnancy to term, and that individual women will have no choice in the matter. Thus, ‘anti-choice’ is accurate.
Your right to choose pregnancy does not extend into my uterus.
BTW, ‘empowerment’ isn’t something that is given to me or anyone else by reporting a rape. People empower themselves, as power comes from within, and mine came from healing. Healing that could not have happened if someone was ‘investigating’ me to find out if I was telling the truth.
Then you healed incorrectly. Your ego believing your privacy was important enough to put other women at risk (as very few rapists limit themsleves to one victim…), is not the same as empowerment. True empowerment means that something you did made a difference to yourself or someone else. In your case, you may feel better now, but a rapist basically got away with what he did to you, and has the added benefit of potentially being able to call you a liar (Which to me would be worse than dealing with the police, who after all are trying to help you.)
This may be hard to understand, but as a professional who has investigated his share of rape cases, there are good reasons for the tack we take on potential victims.
I’m sorry you felt it empowering to let him get away with that, I just hope he was not “empowered” by you to perpetrate this upon you or someone else again one day.
Wouldn’t the investigation focus more on the rapist if the report was done immediately, instead of weeks and months after the fact? The evidence is there, and easily obtained, a doctor’s exam would legitimate your claim, and then the rapist would be pursued sooner rather than later, reducing the number of other women who would potentially suffer if this guy was still roaming about. Would you want these women to suffer also? What if you were one of those women who could have been spared the suffering that you went through if the police already took this guy off the streets from a previously reported rape by this guy? Is not the arrest and conviction of a rapist part of the healing process? I can see a woman being subjected to more interrogation if she waited weeks or months to report the crime, because time is of the essence when it comes investigating a rape and the evidence is either washed away or healed, hence the police would investigate the woman further (which you attest to and rightfully so), but it just seems that waiting makes things worse, in general.
I’ll grant you that. That is a tough one to solve, but not impossible to solve. I don’t have the answer to that at this time.
So therefore I am not “anti-choice” because I did not chose for the women who have their life in jeopardy or have been raped. Had I “taken” those choices away from those two classes of women, then I would be “anti-choice” in your book, but then again you are ignoring the choices made before conception. It can never be said enough: Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility.
**
Tell that to the voiceless children who are sacrificed every day in the name of choice.
Putting the rapist’s butt in jail with Bubba is empowerment, not to mention justice, too.
Yeticus Rex
I’m glad for you that you consider what takes place in abortion threads as some kind of ‘debate’, as you’d expect I see them somewhat differently. I see them as rituals and, I fear, I have little time for ritual.
I was not at all bored with your ‘solutions’. I found them very revealing, they speak of somebody wedded to the authoritarian and the simplistic - both in terms of analysis and understanding of the intended/unintended consequences of actions.