Apparently this shooter was a nutcase (well duh) who was going to go “taxi Driver” on someone sooner or later (my theory). I want to see what gyrations the different groups go through, trying to distance themselves from him.
The argument seems to be that “thou shalt not kill” is being used against the doctor he killed, but yet that applies to his murderer too. Going on the little bit I have gathered, this doctor was performing medical abortions. However, the shooter committed premeditated murder. Don’t anyone try to soft peddle it. Hmmm. If you use violence or the threat of violence (including murder) to intimidate or control people, or to get rid of those who don’t do things your way, or to further some social/political end, you are a terrorist in my book.
Also in this thread, there were comments about how we supposedly have to respect other people’s beliefs and opinions. I say NO. If their beliefs are totally wrong, stupid, or just fucked up, they don’t deserve respect. You can believe anything you want. I don’t have to respect it. I don’t have to pretend I respect it.
I also have a long standing problem when these same people think that the respect they “deserve” is that everyone else be compelled by law (or at gunpoint I guess?) to obey them. I say bullshit. Believe what you want and leave the rest of us alone.
This shooter is a vile piece of filth. He should be locked away for the rest of his life, with no time off and no possibility of parole. If he goes for an insanity plea, fine. Keep him in the loony bin until he dies of old age. He is a murderer. No fancy words about this or that will change it. Don’t justify a murderer. Not unless you are willing to take it all the way, and suggest that we are ALL entitled to “go Punisher” when we feel the need.
Learn, then. Abortions don’t only happen at a doctor’s office. They’re just safer there. Criminalize it, and you better start investigating every last miscarriage. Because they could all be murders.
Baby killer, huh? How many times are you and others like you going to continue tossing that term around? Dr. Tiller was performing late term abortions in accordance with the law which also happens to agree with the reasons for performing the procedure that so many of the pro-life groups state they agree with.
Would “mental anguish” be covered under “irreparable harm”?
I acknowledge there are instances where a woman would suffer irreparable harm or death by carrying it to term. But I am skeptical that a majority of the women who seek his services would *genuinely *suffer physical, irreparable harm or death. I don’t have proof of this, obviously; I’m just very skeptical. The fact that a couple doctors must agree does not impress me in the slightest.
I guess according to that logic, you’d have no objections if one of us decided to simply start killing all the “bad people”. Let’s do that. The catch is, everyone has a different idea of what a bad person is, so everyone would be killing everyone.
Listen, I agree with you, but I think that a reasonable person can in good faith (especially in light of advances of prenatal care) come to the conclusion that abortions are immoral. When I refer to compromise, I refer to our current situation where abortions are legal up until the point that fetuses reach a certain stage of development.
I agree with you that the anti-abortion side is largely responsible for the radicalizing of this debate and behaving irrationally, by the way.
Yes, it’s much more believable that a woman with no physical complications and a perfectly healthy fetus would want to get an abortion in the 3rd trimester. Basically, you just believe what you want to believe and you have no genuine clue, but at least you’re honest. You’re saying out loud what a lot of your “pro-life” bretheren really want to say, but are afraid to.
Doesn’t that he himself presumably considered there to be nothing wrong with what he was doing give him at least some sympathy worth?
I mean, i’ve tried to think of what would be an equivalent situation to get the right emotional reaction from me, and the result is some kind of well-meaning serial killer who doesn’t understand that he’s killing people. And really, I think I would have some sympathy for such a person - intention plays quite a big part in it, for me at least. I don’t think i’d be appalled at his death as much as I would a regular person, but I don’t think i’d not care at all.
As I asked (another poster) on the previous page – why do you think some women require third trimester abortions? Too lazy to get one before then? Feel like cashing in some baby shower gifts?
The fetus/rape analogy may not work perfectly, but there are definitely parallels between reproductive rights and sexual assault. Namely this idea that a woman’s got to ‘prove’ her purity to earn the right to control her body.
Exactly, you have no proof. What do you base this on, then? Because you don’t believe in ectopic pregnancies? Fetal death in the womb? Why on earth WOULD a woman deliberately wait so long for an abortion? Give me one good reason.
:dubious: You’re a real piece of work, you know that?
I believe there are laws as to when late-term abortions can be performed and how. Perhaps someone could correct me on this? (For example, I believe that PBA can only be done in emergencies, right?)
As of April 2007, 36 states had bans on late-term abortions that were not facially unconstitutional (i.e. banning all abortions) or enjoined by court order.[16] In addition, the Supreme Court in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart ruled that Congress may ban certain late-term abortion techniques, “both previability and postviability”.
Some of the 36 state bans are believed by pro-choice organizations to be unconstitutional.[17][18] The Supreme Court has held that bans must include exceptions for threats to the woman’s life, physical health, and mental health, but four states allow late-term abortions only when the woman’s life is at risk; four allow them when the woman’s life or physical health is at risk, but use a definition of health that pro-choice organizations believe is impermissibly narrow.[16] Assuming that one of these state bans is constitutionally flawed, then that does not necessarily mean that the entire ban would be struck down: “invalidating the statute entirely is not always necessary or justified, for lower courts may be able to render narrower declaratory and injunctive relief.”[19]
Also, 13 states prohibit abortion after a certain number of weeks’ gestation (usually 24 weeks).[16] The U.S. Supreme Court held in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services that a statute may create “a presumption of viability” after a certain number of weeks, in which case the physician must be given an opportunity to rebut the presumption by performing tests.[20] Therefore, those 13 states must provide that opportunity. Because this provision is not explicitly written into these 13 laws, as it was in the Missouri law examined in Webster, pro-choice organizations believe that such a state law is unconstitutional, but only “to the extent that it prohibits pre-viability abortions”.[17]
Ten states require a second physician to approve.[16] The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a requirement of “confirmation by two other physicians” (rather than one other physician) because “acquiescence by co-practitioners has no rational connection with a patient’s needs and unduly infringes on the physician’s right to practice”.[21] Pro-choice organizations such as the Guttmacher Institute therefore interpret some of these state laws to be unconstitutional, based on these and other Supreme Court rulings, at least to the extent that these state laws require approval of a second or third physician.[16]
Nine states have laws that require a second physician to be present during late-term abortion procedures in order to treat a fetus if born alive.[16] The Court has held that a doctor’s right to practice is not infringed by requiring a second physician to be present at abortions performed after viability in order to assist in saving the life of the fetus.[22]
From wiki.
If that is correct it would please me quite a lot. I’m still not convinced that fetuses at some point prior to 21 weeks are not also sufficiently developed to preclude, in my opinion, abortion, but for now it seems as good a cut-off point as any.
I’ve been trying to come up with some statistics with regard to how many abortions are performed each year in the U.S., and what percentage of them are performed when, but data is suspiciously scarce. I did learn that The Guttmacher Institute, here (PDF) distinguishes between four types of abortion providers: hospitals, abortion clinics, other (nonspecialized) clinics and physicians’ offices, so I think it’s safe to say that there are more late term abortions going on than would be done by only three clinics. Still, I am pleased to learn that the incidence of late-term pregnancies is as low as it apparently is, and that late term abortions (according to Wiki anyway) are generally defined as those occurring after the 20th week of pregnancy.
Starving Artist, the wiki article I linked above does list this data:
In 2003, from data collected in those areas that sufficiently reported gestational age, it was found that 6.2% of abortions were conducted from 13 to 15 weeks, 4.2% from 16 to 20 weeks, and 1.4% at or after 21 weeks.[13] … In 1997, the Guttmacher Institute estimated the number of abortions in the U.S. past 24 weeks to be 0.08%, or approximately 1,032 per year.[14]
Although it implies that gestational age is not always reported, so those numbers must be taken with a grain of salt.
And is quite often reported incorrectly. Determining the date of conception is necessarily a bit of a guessing game, since it relies on the mother’s recall about her MRP and so on.
True, but also consider the fact that gestational age is dated to the first day of a women’s last cycle, which typically means that even if a woman knows exactly the date of her last period there’s two weeks or so “tacked on” to the gestational age. I don’t know if I’m explaining that well, but it boils down to the woman’s cycle as opposed to the actual date of conception, which usually means an extra two weeks.
i.e. if a woman had a positive pregnancy test the day she missed her period, two weeks after she ovulated (and therefore conceived) she’d be considered 4 weeks pregnant.
Let’s see…in a country of approximately three hundred million people, there appear to be approximately three clinics providing the medical procedure recommended by the legally-required number of actual medical professionals and yet it should be okay to murder a doctor for following the law and medical practice because you, out of your stated ignorance of the facts of the matter, don’t wish to believe said facts. Does that about sum it up?
