I’ve been around the Dope long enough to realize that these kind of comments from Der are often ignored, but someone has to call you on this shit once in a while.
I don’t agree with this law either, and support a woman’s right to choose. But the idea that the pro-life/anti-abortion movement is “ultimately a hate movement against women” is ridiculous. Do some of the people involved hate women? I’m sure some do. But most are concerned with what they see as a human life, and protecting that life, however misguided you and I might think that concern is. The majority are not trying to hate on women; most do not think that women are evil. I know you feel strongly about this, but having read other posts of yours, I also know you to be an intelligent person. Think for a moment before you keep spouting this nonsense.
I think it would pass constitutional muster. It’s bad public policy for the reasons I mention above, but of course constitutional is not a synonym for “good idea.”
Rational basis review is satisfied if the court can conceive of a rational basis that would relate to the law under consideration. They need not adopt the “we don’t want doctors sued for failing to recommend abortions” rationale; they could assume that the legislature wished to encourage medical personnel to offer ultrasounds by removing the fear of liability, that the importance of widely available ultrasound providers outweighed the loss to society in removing the tort.
Now, I notice you have declined the opportunity to quote me directly, but have characterized me (using quote marks, even!) as saying that a vanishingly few rape victims are affected.
So was it your righteous outrage on behalf of rape victims that caused you to transform my correct statement about tiny percentage into a callous statement about “vanishingly few rape victims?”
Her first argumentative sentence emphasizes the rape and incest victims, 1% of all abortion seekers. There are ten ways to write that sentence. Any neutral reader would, if asked, say that the focus of it was the rape and incest victims; they were clearly the attention-grabber of the line.
A question, though. There were two laws passed - one mandates ultrasounds, the other provides the liability shield. Given that the first law requires ultrasounds, could the court plausibly accept that the purpose of the second law is to “encourage” ultrasounds? My understanding is that the rational basis the court can conceive of still needs to be more than a fanciful or far-fetched one.
Note: Since this is an emotional subject, I feel a need to point out I’m not making a dig at Bricker, or anyone else who wants to weigh in here - I’m just trying to play these concepts out, see where they go.
Since you addressed me after I said I was gone, I’ll address this point.
You had any number of ways to phrase your first post. You started it by emphasizing the “disconnect” (which choie and countless others said was not an issue) between the lack of exceptions and those who attacked this law. Your attention-grabber was that.
Is this a good law or not? Do you defend this law being used against even one rape victim. Yes or no, they’re small words. Then I withdraw from this thread.
Oh for chrissake. This is why I don’t start GD threads. (And you can parse “GD” either way.)
Personally I don’t see a problem with my pointing out the inclusion of rape/incest victims in this nauseating law – not because people who “disfavor” the law will suddenly favor it by removing rape/incest victims, but because it’s quite possible that some who favor the law without rape/incest victims might realize just how even more fucking awful and wrong and cruel this requirement is when applied to rape/incest victims.
But since it caused a hijack, I apologize. (Admittedly, any tiny space that a mite can crawl into is a wide enough space for some folks to drag things into a Grand Canyon of a hijack.)
I’ll add, btw, that affecting ~70 rape/incest victims doesn’t seem like “vanishingly small.” What if it were your sister, wife or daughter, Bricker, who was one of the seventy? Or if, imagine this… it were you?
Meh, six of one, half a dozen of the other. If you can’t distinguish the actions of those motivated by their hatred of women from the actions of those trying to save a life, the difference between them is just semantics, as far as the results for womens’ rights are concerned. Regardless of their motivations, they are acting exactly the same as someone who hates women would be expected to act. I’m sure it makes no difference to the woman whose rights are being trampled.
A statute is presumed to be valid if the classification drawn by it is “rationally related” to a “legitimate state interest.” United States Railroad Retirement Board v. Fritz, 449 U.S. 166 (1980). “[The rational-basis standard] is true to the principle that the Fourteenth Amendment gives the federal courts no power to impose upon the States their views of what constitutes wise economic or social policy.” ibid, quoting Metropolis Theatre Co. v. City of Chicago.
And it’s “…entirely irrelevant for constitutional purposes whether the conceived reason for the challenged distinction actually motivated the legislature . . . [the] legislative choice is not subject to courtroom fact-finding and may be based on rational speculation unsupported by evidence or empirical data.” FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U.S. 307 (1993).
Well, someone who hated woman might want to make them wear a scarlet letter, or force them to be publicly shamed in some way. Someone who hated women might want to do all sorts of things beyond what this particular law does.
This law is trying to play at the emotions- it’s pretty clear that they think if only the woman can see the “unborn baby” and hear its heartbeat, that will make her emotionally reject the idea of aborting the fetus. One might argue that it insults a woman’s intelligence, but I don’t see the obvious implication of them acting just liek woman-haters would.
Thank you, and others who correctly divined my OP’s point.
If anything was emphasized, it was the part I put in italics, which is also the subject line of the OP, and also also is the subject of my post’s final questions.
Doctors hiding vital information and/or lying (through omission) to their patient(s). To address something mentioned elsewhere in the thread, how does this get past the Hippocratic Oath? Can doctors have their licenses revoked for this, or does the law make this impossible too?
I see a lot of people saying bad law, mean anti-abortion people, dumb, stupid, icky-poo. What I do not see is anyone calmly laying out a reasoned argument for how the ultrasound law violates existing law, preferably with citations to supporting authority.
I’ve laid out the basics of arguments the State may raise in defense of the laws, albeit with minimal cites–I mention only Casey. Anyone care to do the same (or better) for the Plaintiff’s side?
Yes, if you focus only on that one sentence (1% of the OP, perhaps :p), rape and incest victims is the attention grabber. Unfortunately for your argument, the title of the OP is “Oklahoma law: doctors can’t be sued for hiding birth defects from parents” and the OP clearly brings up more than just rape and incest, and clearly refers to all women and all parents. YOU are the one that has focused on the rape stuff to make a side point about how these laws are being responded to.
This is a thread about laws, but that does not mean that only lawyers can reply, or that only legal arguments are valid. There are medical and moral questions involved as well, and I think those that have weighed in intelligently on those issues would be annoyed to have their thoughts dismissed as you’ve just done, counselor.
If the ultrasound is required, medically, prior to the abortion, and this law only adds the requirement that the woman see the results, then maybe it isn’t an “undo burden”. I suppose it makes sense that some sort of ultrasound is needed for the doctor to know what he or she is doing.
Can any of our medical professionals weigh in on that?
As for the part about withholding information about birth defects… that seems much more like a medical ethics issue than a legal one. I can’t imagine the AMA condoning such a practice.
Yes, that’s true. But I wasn’t presenting an argument. I was rebutting a portion of the argument that was presented for debate. I didn’t take a position on the larger issue because my position was in accord with the OP’s.
I don’t defend this law being applied to one person, rape victim or not. So: no.
It’s not a good law, so: no.