# Incoherent rage re: El Salvador and abortion **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 9, 2006, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957 "2006-04-09T13:10:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/1 "2006-04-09T13:10:54Z")
Holy shit. There’s an [article in today’s NYT Magazine](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/magazine/09abortion.html?pagewanted=all) that should be required reading for everbody on either side of the abortion debate. El Salvador has a ban on all abortions - no exceptions. What’s more, prosecutors actively seek convictions against women and providers, ranging from two to thiry years. A choice quote: > [@](#): > > According to Sara Valdés, the director of the Hospital de Maternidad, women coming to her hospital with ectopic pregnancies cannot be operated on until fetal death or a rupture of the fallopian tube. “That is our policy,” Valdés told me. She was plainly in torment about the subject. “That is the law,” she said. “The D.A.'s office told us that this was the law.” Valdés estimated that her hospital treated more than a hundred ectopic pregnancies each year. She described the hospital’s practice. “Once we determine that they have an ectopic pregnancy, we make sure they stay in the hospital,” she said. The women are sent to the dispensary, where they receive a daily ultrasound to check the fetus. “If it’s dead, we can operate,” she said. “Before that, we can’t.” Holy mother of fuck. I don’t know who the hell I’m pitting here. Next time I argue with my grandfather or one of my asshole uncles about why I left the Church (besides the whole God thing), the shit that clown JP2 pulled in helping create this fucked up situation is definitely gonna be near the top of my list of grievances. Jesus. The whole situation is just so mind boggling I don’t even have words for it. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/2 "2006-04-09T14:29:09Z")
> [@black455](#): > > Holy mother of fuck. > > I don’t know who the hell I’m pitting here. Next time I argue with my grandfather or one of my asshole uncles about why I left the Church (besides the whole God thing), the shit that clown JP2 pulled in helping create this fucked up situation is definitely gonna be near the top of my list of grievances. > > Jesus. The whole situation is just so mind boggling I don’t even have words for it. Guess what - That’s pretty much what SOME people want to institute here in the U.S. too. Take the “pro life” or anti-abortion movement, parse out what they say and what the logical conclusion is, and you get El Salvador. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/3 "2006-04-09T14:47:19Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Guess what - That’s pretty much what SOME people want to institute here in the U.S. too. Take the “pro life” or anti-abortion movement, parse out what they say and what the logical conclusion is, and you get El Salvador. You’re an ignorant asshole. The first sentence is obviously true – SOME people want anything. But that situation is NOT a logical endpoint of the views of the pro-life movement in he US. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/4 "2006-04-09T14:52:48Z")
Prove me wrong. Start at the “beaten, raped and sodomized very religious virgin” and work your way back. Then look at Sout Dakota. Then look at the Catholic church policy. Finally factor in the various other preachers, politicians, and what have you. Then tell me what the end game will be. ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/5 "2006-04-09T14:55:05Z")
I don’t know much about the situation in El Salvador, but I know that most of the Catholics priests/theologians/etc. in this country that I am familiar with have argued that it is morally permissible to kill the embryo in a case of ectopic pregnancy based on a doctrine called “double effect”. One site explains it this way: > [@](#): > > When a choice will likely bring about both an intended desirable effect and also an unintended, undesirable effect, the principle of double effect can be applied to evaluate the morality of the choice. The chosen act is morally licit when (a) the action itself is good, (b) the intended effect is good, and © the unintended, evil effect is not greater in proportion to the good effect. For example, “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not” (Catechism, no. 2263, citing St. Thomas Aquinas). that’s from [http://www.cuf.org/faithfacts/details\_view.asp?ffID=57](http://www.cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=57) I don’t see this kind of situation as being hte “logical conclusion” of pro-life views. In the case of an ectopic pregnancy, the embryo is going to die no matter what you do, so it makes no sense to delay treating the woman, regardless of what you think of abortion. ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_ham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/6 "2006-04-09T14:55:22Z")
Get a hold of yourself **SteveG** I grew up in a conservative Christian household and I know MOSTLY pro lifers and I don’t know ONE. SINGLE. PERSON. who wouldn’t allow a d&c on an ectopic pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/7 "2006-04-09T15:03:07Z")
Did I “jump the shark” ?? ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/8 "2006-04-09T15:04:48Z")
I know that not all (or even most) pro-lifers are that hard line. However, apparently the Vatican is. So fuck 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/9 "2006-04-09T15:14:21Z")
> [@tiny ham](#): > > Get a hold of yourself **SteveG** > > I grew up in a conservative Christian household and I know MOSTLY pro lifers and I don’t know ONE. SINGLE. PERSON. who wouldn’t allow a d&c on an ectopic pregnancy. A D&C isn’t going to abort an ectopic pregnancy, unless I’m VERY wrong about what a D&C and ectopic pregnancy are. D&Cs clear out the uterus, and ectopic pregnancies are in the fallopian tubes, which is why those pregnancies end in the death of the fetus without any interference. ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_ham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/10 "2006-04-09T15:16:13Z")
> [@Lynn Bodoni](#): > > A D&C isn’t going to abort an ectopic pregnancy, unless I’m VERY wrong about what a D&C and ectopic pregnancy are. D&Cs clear out the uterus, and ectopic pregnancies are in the fallopian tubes, which is why those pregnancies end in the death of the fetus without any interference. OK, I don’t know the term then, but I know that ectopic pregnancy ‘abortions’ are allowed under the most stringent of pro lifer’s. I had a pregnancy last year that was developing abnormally (no heart or lungs) and it was aborted, and not one pro lifer gave me an ounce of slack. SteveG is a bit over the top. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/11 "2006-04-09T15:31:37Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > You’re an ignorant asshole. > > The first sentence is obviously true – SOME people want anything. But that situation is NOT a logical endpoint of the views of the pro-life movement in he US. Not a logical endpoint? Bwa? It might not be what they want but it’s certainly a natural extension of many of their attitudes. You can’t really tell what they want until they stop clamoring for restrictions on women’s freedom. And it was hard for me to type those last two words: I think that if it is shown to definitively be a sapient being the person inside the womb’s rights are equal to those of the one carrying it. But when the anti-abortion acitivists seem mainly set on restricing freedom rather than saving life (such as requiring parental consent, or defunding aid agencies, or restricing procedures that usually only happen when medically necessary,) it’s not hard to conclude that their real priority might not be the unborn babies. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/12 "2006-04-09T15:41:35Z")
> [@tiny ham](#): > > OK, I don’t know the term then, but I know that ectopic pregnancy ‘abortions’ are allowed under the most stringent of pro lifer’s. According to this site for catholics, certain procedures may **not** be used to treat ectopic pregnancy: [http://www.cuf.org/faithfacts/details\_view.asp?ffID=57](http://www.cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=57) 1. MXT, or methotrexate. Using this drug in many cases would stop embryonic development, and allow the the implanted egg to detach and pass thru the uterus without surgery. This preserves fertility. 2. Salpingostomy. This procedure would open the fallopian tube, and remove the developing embryo before it ruptures the tube. It also allows for repair of the tube which preserves fertility. However, they’re okay with Salpingectomy, which removes the part of the tube containing the developing embryo. This procedure is more invasive, and is a greater threat to fertility. Go figure. **ham** , I’m not at all surprised your local pro-lifers didn’t cut you any slack. Around my area, the mainstream pro-life movement is against any abortion, even for birth defects, rape, incest, or threat to the health of the mother. The prevailing view here is that it’s all god’s will and we’re not to tamper with it. ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_ham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/13 "2006-04-09T15:53:19Z")
> [@Qadgop the Mercotan](#): > > **ham** , I’m not at all surprised your local pro-lifers didn’t cut you any slack. Around my area, the mainstream pro-life movement is against any abortion, even for birth defects, rape, incest, or threat to the health of the mother. The prevailing view here is that it’s all god’s will and we’re not to tamper with it. Well, I’m a complete knobhead in this case, because what I meant was they didn’t give me an ounce of trouble. Hi, I’m an idiot. Bottom line which I screwed up from post #1 is that **I don’t know any pro-lifers (and I do know a lot) who would scoff at an abortion of a abnormally developing or dying fetus that endangered the mother, and that Steve G was jumping the gun in painting american pro lifers with the same brush of the extremes of El Salvador Law** Let me read this again. Yes. OK…that’s what I mean ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/14 "2006-04-09T15:59:54Z")
OK, I got it now, **ham**. I guess my point is I do know a lot of pro-lifers who would vehemently oppose the abortion of an abnormally developing or dying fetus that endangered the mother. And I don’t think **Steve G** is so far off base. Get to know “Missionaries to the Pre-Born” some time. Or not, if you prefer to preserve your sanity. But they’re thick in my area, and I rented a house to a family of them for many years. Very polite, very hard-working. But they’re on a mission from god. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/15 "2006-04-09T16:04:21Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Did I “jump the shark” ?? No you did not. Christian fundamentalists want the same thing as the muslim fundamentalists. They just have a different set of arbitrary rules they want to force everybody to believe in and follow. And yes there are many so called pro-lifers who make no exception to the no abortion rule. These whackos have even been known to kill people in their crusade to stop abortion. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/16 "2006-04-09T16:57:41Z")
I had to stop reading at several points because I found the article so viscerally disturbing. While some pro-lifers may not want to go that far, the article does quote one evil American senator who clearly hasn’t done much thinking: > [@](#): > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/magazine/09abortion.html?pagewanted=6&\_r=1](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/magazine/09abortion.html?pagewanted=6&_r=1) > > In the United States, this conundrum is only beginning to emerge, as it did on “Meet the Press” in October 2004, when Tim Russert, the host, asked Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican representative then in the middle of what turned out to be a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate, to explain his position in favor of a total ban on all abortion procedures. DeMint was reluctant to answer Russert’s repeated question: Would you prosecute a woman who had an abortion? DeMint said he thought Congress should outlaw all abortions first and worry about the fallout later. “We’ve got to make laws first that protect life,” he said. "How those laws are shaped are going to be a long debate. > > Russert refused to leave the congressman alone. “Who would you prosecute?” he persisted. > > Finally DeMint blurted, “You know, I can’t come up with all the laws as we’re sitting right here, but the question is, Are we going to protect human life with our laws?” Hey Senator Asshole, could you take some time and actually think about what will be the consequences of the laws you’re so eager to impose on the rest of us? I suspect he wants women in jail but doesn’t have the guts to say it out loud. :rolleyes: The pro-life movement attributes qualities to the fetus like innocence that the fetus doesn’t have. Meanwhile they demonize women as lazy whores who can’t be bothered with birth control. Or they infantilize us as people who commit murder but shouldn’t be prosecuted because the all powerful doctor conned us into it. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/17 "2006-04-09T17:22:59Z")
Actually a substantial number of them would make birth control illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Gladstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/90db22/32.png) [@Gladstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gladstone)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/18 "2006-04-09T18:08:46Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > You’re an ignorant asshole. > > The first sentence is obviously true – SOME people want anything. But that situation is NOT a logical endpoint of the views of the pro-life movement in he US. Isn’t this (admittedly limited) situation exactly what the Supreme Court faced in Stenberg v. Carhart when Nebraska enacted a law prohibiting partial-birth abortions without creating an exception for the health of the mother? "But where substantial medical authority supports the proposition that banning a particular abortion procedure could endanger women’s health, Casey requires the statute to include a health exception when the procedure is " ‘necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.’ " Stenberg, 530 U.S. 914, 938 (2000). ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/19 "2006-04-09T18:12:17Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But that situation is NOT a logical endpoint of the views of the pro-life movement in he US. Yes it is; at the core of the “pro-life” movement is an deep hatred for women. ---
**Author:** ![RyJae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@RyJae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RyJae)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2006, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957/20 "2006-04-09T19:03:14Z")
> [@Der Trihs](#): > > Yes it is; at the core of the “pro-life” movement is an deep hatred for women. My mother a devout pro-lifer, attended many rallies in her day, she will be surprised to hear she hates herself. I just think it was her guilt from aborting her first baby, at least that’s what she told us. No matter the debate on right, wrong, everyone has there own reasons. The smallest of which is probably what you’re basing your delusional assumptions on. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incoherent-rage-re-el-salvador-and-abortion/351957.md?page=2)