by hilzoy
"As The American Prospect's Ann Friedman writes, this has to be understood in context. It is the final, decisive act in "an ongoing campaign of intimidation and harassment against someone who was providing completely legal health-care services." That campaign stretched over decades of protests, lawsuits, violence, and, finally, murder. The different elements were not always orchestrated. But the intent remained constant: To counter the absence of a statute that would make Tiller's work illegal with enough intimidation to render it impossible.
This was, in other words, a political act. Tiller was murdered so that those in his line of work would be intimidated. In conversations with folks yesterday, I heard well-meaning variants on the idea that it would be unseemly to push legislation in the emotional aftermath of Tiller's execution. I disagree. Roeder was acting in direct competition with the United States Congress. And it's quite likely that he changed the status quo. Legislative language and judicial rulings had made abortive procedures legal and thus accessible. Yesterday's killing was meant to render abortive procedures unsafe for doctors to conduct and thus inaccessible.
If a woman cannot get an abortion because no nearby providers are willing to assume the risk of performing it, the actual outcome is precisely the same as if the procedure were illegal. Roeder has, in all likelihood, made abortion less accessible. It would be, in my view, a perfectly appropriate response for the Congress to decisively prove his action not only ineffectual, but, in a broad sense, counterproductive."
I agree completely. I would recommend the following:
(a) Repeal the ban on dilation and extraction. The Congress should not get into the specifics of what procedures can be used when. If it must, it should broaden the set of cases in which dilation and extraction can be used to include not only cases in which the life of the mother is in danger, but cases in which her health is in danger, or in which the child has a serious and incurable medical condition that would make its life short and miserable. It ought to be possible to draft this in such a way that Down Syndrome did not count, but the cases I wrote about
earlier would: "a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants"; "her babies developed with no faces, with no way to eat or breathe."
(b) Require training in late-term abortion techniques for Ob/Gyn certification. Note that these techniques are also used when the fetus has already died. Read
this article to see why this matters.
(c) Require that any hospital provide any woman whose fetus has died, whose life is in danger, or whose fetus has developed the kind of medical problem described in (a), with appropriate treatment to remove that fetus, and that that treatment be fully reimbursable by the federal government. If they have no one on staff who can provide that treatment, they should get someone. See (b) above. There should be religious exemptions, but they should not extend to the treatment of women whose fetus has already died.
One way to stop terrorism is by enforcing our laws. We should absolutely do that. But another is to make it clear that terrorism doesn't work. We should do that too. And the best way I can think of is to change our present situation, in which only a handful of doctors perform late-term abortions. We can keep whatever strictures we want* on the cases in which we think abortions should be permissible after viability while also ensuring that no one person has to take on him- or herself the risks that militant anti-abortionists want to subject them to.
Your idealized ends described here are not achievable through your idealized means.
Choose one, ends or means. You can't have both. Realize that while you are making your decision, or claiming you don't need to decide, people are suffering and dying.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | June 01, 2009 at 01:16 PM
I confess, I'm slightly torn on this point:
In principle -- that this murder constitutes terrorism, that we need to act as a society to make sure it does not pay -- I agree entirely.
On the other hand, I cannot help but fear that responding to these acts with legislation plays, one way or another, into the hands of those who commit it --
Either by "energizing their base" politically...
or bringing recruits into the violent arm of the movement (abortion opponents who interpret this action as "an act of war on the faithful", or something)...
or leading some, who may otherwise come to question their relationship with such men, to see their acts as equivocal to the government's response...
heck, if this kind of legislation is pushed now, I wouldn't be surprised to see right-wing websites coming up in the following months, claiming the Obama administration killed Tiller to make it politically possible...
Of course, then again, maybe I'm just being paranoid.
Posted by: Point | June 01, 2009 at 01:30 PM
I wouldn't be surprised to see right-wing websites coming up in the following months, claiming the Obama administration killed Tiller to make it politically possible..
there are already dark whispers in places like FreeRepublic questioning the "timing" and musing about the possibility that this might have been a "false flag operation" to enable exactly what you describe.
Posted by: cleek | June 01, 2009 at 01:40 PM
Of course, then again, maybe I'm just being paranoid.
I guess you can relax, hilzoy's program is not going to get passed in the US Congress, and sho knows it. It is only slightly more likely in a state legislature.
Just for speculation:Why were the OB/Gyns who performed late-term procedures in Wichita, Boulder, and I think Florida, and not say in NYC or LA? I understand about the local laws restricting the procedure, but that is not sufficiently explanatory, IOW, if it is true, why would NY or California have more restrictive laws than Kansas or Colorado?
My guess is that is has to do with logistics, that Operation Rescue might be able to marshall X resources in Kansas, but 10 times X in New York, even though they are a smaller minority in New York.
In any case, this does not bode well for the political prospects of passing hilzoy's plan.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | June 01, 2009 at 01:50 PM
Whoa, I was kind of joking there... now I'm just depressed...
Posted by: Point | June 01, 2009 at 01:51 PM
Abortion:
On demand, safe, legal, no questions asked.
Paul Rosenberg nailed it on Open Left today: There is either choice or there is coercion. There is no middle ground.
Posted by: Woody | June 01, 2009 at 01:52 PM
Why were the OB/Gyns who performed late-term procedures in Wichita, Boulder, and I think Florida, and not say in NYC or LA?
I'm guessing, here, but I'll bet there are in fact such doctors in the NY, DC, LA, SF, Seattle, and Chicago areas. The difference is, the doctors in those areas do not need to advertise their services -- they get as many patients as they can cope with in their respective metropolitan areas by local referrals.
Posted by: Doctor Science | June 01, 2009 at 02:06 PM
but I'll bet there are in fact such doctors
There is the now famous example, linked at Balloon Juice and quoted in a thread here, of the couple in Connecticut who were referred to Tiller in Kansas. I would consider that to be evidence against your guess.
Operation Rescue seems competent enough that if there were doctors performing the procedure regularly in NYC or LA they and we would know about it.
The doctor in Boulder claimed he was the last available.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | June 01, 2009 at 02:24 PM
The doctor in Boulder claimed he was the last available.
I don't write this to dispute this claim, but to express my befuddlement. My understanding is that D&E is used to remove dead fetuses from the wombs of the women carrying them. I don't know if these cases are considered abortions or not, but, either way, there's a pretty clear distinction between aborting a live fetus and removing a dead one. It seem inconceivable to me that there would only be one doctor in the US available to perform the service of removing a dead fetus from a woman's body.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | June 01, 2009 at 02:45 PM
Whoa, McArdle just said that doubling-down against domestic terrorists would not work...because it didn't work in Iraq or Afghanistan! And she just linked to this article.
Someone should slap her for her chutzpah. Especially considering she was all for beating Liberals and bombing Iraq back in 2003.
Posted by: Dhalgren | June 01, 2009 at 03:04 PM
There's a clarification at the bottom of this article which pretty directly refutes the Boulder doctor's claim to being the last available, along lines consistent with Doctor Science's guess.
Given that other doctors who perform the procedures in question keep low profiles, I can see how someone in Connecticut might have an ob/gyn who is unaware of nearer-by options, and so would erroneously think that she needed to fly all the way to Kansas.
Posted by: myq | June 01, 2009 at 03:14 PM
My understanding is that D&E is used to remove dead fetuses from the wombs of the women carrying them.
not always dead. Sullivan has a set of letters today from former patients of Tiller, and a few of them talk about seeking (or being told to seek) D&E in situations where the fetus has such severe defects that will pretty much guarantee it a brief and terrible existence.
Posted by: cleek | June 01, 2009 at 03:29 PM
not always dead
I know. It's just that I would think removing a late-term dead fetus from a woman would be utterly uncontroversial and that such a service would be readily available to whomever might need it. Apparently that's not the case.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | June 01, 2009 at 03:39 PM
The Congress should not get into the specifics of what procedures can be used when.
Why not? Advocates on both sides of the aisle want Congress to get involved in the details of all sorts of things. What makes abortion procedures different?
Posted by: Chris | June 01, 2009 at 04:08 PM
Whoa, McArdle just said that doubling-down against domestic terrorists would not work...because it didn't work in Iraq or Afghanistan! And she just linked to this article.
Someone should slap her for her chutzpah. Especially considering she was all for beating Liberals and bombing Iraq back in 2003.
Do you think that McArdle's point is wrong?
Posted by: von | June 01, 2009 at 04:11 PM
I do, at least as directed against this post. See newer one. ;)
Posted by: hilzoy | June 01, 2009 at 04:20 PM
There's a clarification at the bottom of this article which pretty directly refutes the Boulder doctor's claim to being the last available, along lines consistent with Doctor Science's guess.
Given that other doctors who perform the procedures in question keep low profiles, I can see how someone in Connecticut might have an ob/gyn who is unaware of nearer-by options, and so would erroneously think that she needed to fly all the way to Kansas.
But, gee, I wonder why...
In my view, terrorism HAS worked and anti-abortionists are using it to get their way.
Posted by: gwangung | June 01, 2009 at 04:23 PM
The thing is: abortions this late are illegal in some states. In those states, whether or not someone can do them is beside the point.
Posted by: hilzoy | June 01, 2009 at 04:37 PM
By training, doctors are inclined to save lives, not end them, even in the womb. "Requiring" doctors to be trained in late term abortion presupposes a significant number of late term candidates on which to train as well as a medical staff inclined to acquire the training (which occurs through practice). Likewise, requiring a hospital to 'get someone' with the requisite level of training presupposes at least one 'someone' available for each hospital. Most doctors are not interested in removing fetuses from wombs absent exigent, life-threatening circumstances. They do it as emergency surgery (probably even in Connecticut, but probably not for what amounts to euthanasia). Finally, what level hospital would be subject to these requirements: 20 bed rural facilities or Level Five trauma centers? Does the author of this proposal even know that hospitals come in all shapes and sizes?
I suspect--but would have to run this down--that women whose lives are imperiled can obtain an abortion, particularly in acute/emergent circumstances, at most major, non-Catholic facilities.
Posted by: mckinneytexas | June 01, 2009 at 04:44 PM
"Most doctors are not interested in removing fetuses from wombs absent exigent, life-threatening circumstances."
You have a cite on that, I assume?
Posted by: Gary Farber | June 01, 2009 at 04:50 PM
myq: Thanks for the link, it's nice to see my guess was correct.
I made it in part based on a friend of mine who had a late-term, emergency ID&E in one of those major metropolitan areas about 5 years ago. I'm quite sure it saved the life of the other twin -- and indeed, ID&E aka "partial birth abortion" is frequently the best choice when one fraternal twin is dead or dying. But AFAIK the procedure is now banned *regardless*.
In my friend's case, I don't know if the one twin was absolutely certainly 100% dead when they began the procedure. But I am sure that if they'd have to flail around finding someone who knew what they were doing, both twins would have died.
I find it noteworthy that no restrictions on late abortion have a "life of the other twin" exception. Why, it's almost as though they're not really concerned about children's lives.
Posted by: Doctor Science | June 01, 2009 at 05:10 PM
While terror shouldn't pay, I'm not sure how the proposals hilzoy offers does that. The laws which have been passed about late term abortions remain to the pro-choice side of where the American public is. Dragging it further to the pro-choice side seems likely to lead to further radicalization not less.
That said, I'm happy to go along with certain things you have proposed with minor modifications that would actually bring them in line with where the public is.
a) I agree that Congress shouldn't be micromanaging which procedure is selected when necessary. So lift those restrictions but add a requirement for complete documentation that in fact the life or serious health of the mother was in danger, or medical proof that the fetus has a serious and incurable medical condition that would make its life short and miserable.
b) is this training going to require actual abortions? I'm pretty sure that requiring that would have unintended consequences. It is one thing to require training in case of dead fetuses. It is another to mandate abortions on doctors.
c) sounds fine.
Posted by: Sebastian | June 01, 2009 at 05:26 PM
Sebastian: The laws which have been passed about late term abortions remain to the pro-choice side of where the American public is.
Your "American public" must therefore exclude all the women who have ever needed a late-term abortion, and anyone who, having thought about that situation, has decided they don't believe the government should get to decide what a woman who needs a late-term abortion should do, or what her doctors should do to help her.
That so many conservatives who think about the situation decide that they'd rather have the government make these decisions than any woman, does suggest that their claims to believe in individual freedom and small government are as mythical as their claims to oppose abortion because they care about human life. It's all about state control of women's bodies.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | June 01, 2009 at 05:38 PM
"Your "American public" must therefore exclude all the women who have ever needed a late-term abortion, and anyone who, having thought about that situation, has decided they don't believe the government should get to decide what a woman who needs a late-term abortion should do, or what her doctors should do to help her."
No, they just are in the distinct minority. You don't have to exclude people to have a majority. You just have to have more than them. In this case much more of them.
And of course a lot of this discussion turns on 'ever needed'. Your definition includes things that the majority of the American public does not.
Posted by: Sebastian | June 01, 2009 at 06:08 PM
Jes, regardless of what you or I think about it, the fact is that the current state of US law with regard to abortion--particularly late-term--is pretty well in the middle of the spectrum of pro-choice views in America. You don't have to like the fact that the mainstream position of pro-choice Americans tends to include /some/ restrictions on late-term abortions, but Sebastian isn't wrong.
You may want to take a step back from this topic. I can count on one hand the number of comments you've posted in the last 24 hours that have not included some kind of vicious slight, word-twisting, or unjustified mind reading. Not only against anyone who doesn't agree with your hard-line absolutist position on the matter, but against people who substantially agree with you but don't happen to use your approved verbiage.
You're not doing yourself, the site, or women's rights any favors by acting this way. It would be nice if you could show some sign that you understand this.
Posted by: Catsy | June 01, 2009 at 06:14 PM
GF--no, of course not. But I have a fairly solid knowledge of how doctors practice medicine, having known and represented quite a few, including a number of OB-GYNs. None of them do or would think of doing elective abortion. Women seeking abortions go mostly to abortion clinics because that is pretty much the only game in town. Performing elective abortions may be vindicating a woman's right to choose, but it is hardly 'the practice of medicine' per the Hippocratic oath or the prevailing standard of care. Doctors who make their living doing abortions may or may not be OB-Gyn's. Abortion practice is not a recognized medical specialty or sub-specialty. Rather, medical practice focuses on prenatal health, neo-natal care, etc. These areas of practice are the polar opposite of electively terminating a pregnancy.
Posted by: mckinneytexas | June 01, 2009 at 06:34 PM
Unless the "them" in the sentence refers exclusively to your anecdotal experiences, the mere existence of practitioners who do in fact perform "elective" abortions renders this sentence prima facie false.
Also, you may want to clarify what you mean by "elective" in this context. It has a specific medical definition and does not mean what most anti-choice activists use it to mean.
Posted by: Catsy | June 01, 2009 at 06:39 PM
None of them do or would think of doing elective abortion.
Would they do an abortion on a victim of rape or incest, which on another thread you grouped with medically necessary abortions? Are those somehow not elective?
Posted by: Phil | June 01, 2009 at 06:58 PM
Let's just forget legal/illegal,moral or immoral, right or wrong.
And while we are taking a trip down fantasy lane, JUST IMAGINE:
Jenna Bush has a fling with Bubba, and gets knocked up, due to her "friendly nature," rationlizes that odds are the kid will be white, so everybody thinks it's Mr Fiancee's child.
But oh shit!!!! Through the wonders of modern medicine, as long you you are one of the priveleged few, and due to some doctoring that most of us aren't privy to, it is discovered that fucking BUBBA is the father.
Six and a half months into the pregnancy, Jenna has an unexpected "miscarriage."
Performed by doctors in it only for the big money, MUCH worse than Tiller.
Trust me, if any abortion was made illegal, the Rushpublibots would be the first ones paying big money to "protect their daughters' reputations."
And fuck everybody else.
It's how they roll.
Posted by: Undeniable Liberal | June 01, 2009 at 07:42 PM
One way to stop terrorism is by enforcing our laws
Yup. PATRIOT Act. It's terrorism; treat it like terrorism. Close down the loudmouths calling for murder and anybody who's ever donated money to them.
Posted by: lightning | June 01, 2009 at 07:50 PM
Undeniable Liberal: the posting rules forbid profanity. Thanks.
Posted by: hilzoy | June 01, 2009 at 07:56 PM
BTW, am I the only one who's a bit curious about the late- term abortion of the conjoined twins?
I'd expect this from an indigent mother; not somebody who could afford to fly to Kansas. If the facts are as stated, looks like it's deep into malpractice territory.
Posted by: lightning | June 01, 2009 at 08:05 PM
"Unless the "them" in the sentence refers exclusively to your anecdotal experiences, the mere existence of practitioners who do in fact perform "elective" abortions renders this sentence prima facie false."
It does refer to my anecdotal experience and is not intended as statistical evidence. I was explaining, in direct response to an earlier challenge by Gary Farber, that, while I don't have authoritative evidence to support my sense that "Most doctors are not interested in removing fetuses from wombs absent exigent, life-threatening circumstances", I do have what I believe to be a reasoned basis for my belief.
Posted by: mckinneytexas | June 01, 2009 at 08:21 PM
You don't have to like the fact that the mainstream position of pro-choice Americans tends to include /some/ restrictions on late-term abortions, but Sebastian isn't wrong.
Yes, yes he is. He isn't asserting that the status quo of restricted access to abortions is in line with American pro-choice thinking; he is once more claiming that the legal status quo is more pro-choice than the American public. It was wrong the first time he said it, and it's still wrong.
It's probably for the best that profanity is banned by the comment policy. Someone who performed legal medical procedures for women in need, because he believed someone had to, has been gunned down in the latest round of anti-choice violence; and we still get to read lectures about how the "majority" agrees that abortion is an abomination, that the US has unrestricted abortion on a whim thanks purely to judicial activists, and all this unfortunately isn't yet completely criminalized because the Silent Majority hasn't risen to completely strip women of their bodily autonomy? Yeah, profanity gets really tempting.
Posted by: mds | June 02, 2009 at 12:50 AM
lightning, I take the phrase "a new sonogram" to mean they'd had earlier sonograms. Presumably the earlier sonogram hadn't indicated conjoined twins.
I don't know whether, in 1994, a sonogram should have been expected to indicate that, or whether more frequent sonograms would have been expected. I don't know pretty much anything about pregnancy, actually. I just know the phrase "a new sonogram" means there was an old one.
Posted by: eostrom | June 02, 2009 at 12:53 AM
I did respond to Catsy upthread, last night, but my comment - like a couple of other comments made yesterday - seemed to just vanish into the ether. Ah well. Catsy, my comment to you amounted to a sarcastic "thanks for your concern", so there you have it.
mds: Someone who performed legal medical procedures for women in need, because he believed someone had to, has been gunned down in the latest round of anti-choice violence; and we still get to read lectures about how the "majority" agrees that abortion is an abomination, that the US has unrestricted abortion on a whim thanks purely to judicial activists, and all this unfortunately isn't yet completely criminalized because the Silent Majority hasn't risen to completely strip women of their bodily autonomy? Yeah, profanity gets really tempting.
Even knowing what their rhetoric has led to - their claims that women who need late-term abortions are selfish cows who just randomly decided one day not to have the baby; their claims that abortion is murder - there are still pro-lifers all over the Internet saying very sweetly "Oh, what George Tiller did was wrong, the baby-killer, but no, no, I don't support his murder. Not at all. Nothing to do with us pro-lifers over here."
This is one of the few blogs I never have any difficulty reading no matter where I am, because of the no-profanity rule.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | June 02, 2009 at 03:29 AM
Well, I don't support his murder. For that matter, I don't even know that what he was doing was wrong, since I have no evidence he ever did an elective late term abortion, which happens to be the only sort of abortion I actually object to.
Hope you haven't got me confused with those "every fertilized egg is a person" nutcases.
I will, however, note that, thanks to Doe v Bolton, decided the same day as Roe v Wade, we must rely on Tiller's unsupported word that the abortions he did were not elective, since the Court ruled that a doctor's decision that an abortion was medically necessary was, unlike any other procedure, not subject to review.
Abortionists have a Supreme court granted right to lie about whether abortions are medically necessary, and know that they can never be called on it. They're the only medical specialists with that guarantee.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | June 02, 2009 at 06:41 AM
I don't even know that what he was doing was wrong, since I have no evidence he ever did an elective late term abortion, which happens to be the only sort of abortion I actually object to.
Commentator Deekaa6 on Balloon Juice writes about his and his wife's experience with an elective late term abortion performed by George Tiller.
By "elective abortion" I mean an abortion where the pregnant woman makes the decision out of a range of other options. In the case of the Deekaa6 family, the "other option" was wait and have a Caesarean section and then kill one conjoined twin in order to give the surviving twin a short and painful life in the ICU for newborn babies. Not a very big range of options, but I've already read one pro-life blog asserting that it was wrong of George Tiller to provide that woman with the alternate option of deciding to have a late abortion.
Abortionists have a Supreme court granted right to lie about whether abortions are medically necessary, and know that they can never be called on it.
JFTR: while I remain uncertain if Brett is actually aware of this (ie, if he is actually lying) this assertion is, of course, not true.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | June 02, 2009 at 07:04 AM
That's my reading of Doe v Bolton, and I'm not alone in it. If you can point to abortionists being sanctioned for fraudulently claiming elective abortions were medically necessary, I'll gladly abandon it.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | June 02, 2009 at 07:27 AM
I will, however, note that, thanks to Doe v Bolton, decided the same day as Roe v Wade, we must rely on Tiller's unsupported word that the abortions he did were not elective, since the Court ruled that a doctor's decision that an abortion was medically necessary was, unlike any other procedure, not subject to review.
So why did a prosecution alleging that Tiller had broken rules on the need for two independent opinions for late abortions fail?
As for reviews, what about the families who've had to undergo the agonies of deciding whether or not to terminate a severely disabled child or a pregnancy that endangered health (as in the cases that keep on getting posted by e.g. Andrew Sullivan)? How would you feel if your family had gone through that and then had to give detailed evidence on whether or not their problems were quite severe enough to justify their doctor's decision? (And of course, you'd have to accept media scum poring over and pontificating about every detail of your private life in that). Or is it your presumption that in order to track down one unjustifiable late abortion, it doesn't matter how many women who had late abortions justifiably have to suffer that kind of inquisition, because after all, who isn't happy about having their medical history discussed by Rush Limbaugh?
Posted by: magistra | June 02, 2009 at 08:27 AM
There was an infamous case many years ago over here in Germany, when abortions were only allowed under a very narrow set of circumstances ('the 4 indications'). A doctor's office was raided (by police) in order to get his patients' data with the intention to go after him and his female 'customers' for having abortions not covered by the indications (although officially it was for alleged tax fraud).
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memminger_Prozess (sorry, no English wiki link).
Let's say, it was no glorius chapter in the annals of German law and a prime example of using the court system to suppress the availability of abortion itself. Normally the confidence between doctor and patient is legally sacrosanct and abortion is about the only area where attempts are made to undermine it. I think the infamy of this affair had much to do with the liberalization of abortion laws that followed later. It was still a balancing act to get it past our Supreme Court and fought tooth and nail by the RCC and the (esp. Bavarian) Christian conservatives.
Posted by: Hartmut | June 02, 2009 at 08:35 AM
"was wrong the first time he said it, and it's still wrong [link in which you will find my comment if you look]."
I'm not relying on some outlier study of recent changes to US opinion on abortion, Jes. I'm relying on the established consensus of the past 20-30 years which steadily has been more pro-life than the current state of the law for the entire time.
Posted by: Sebastian | June 02, 2009 at 11:18 AM
I'm relying on the established consensus of the past 20-30 years which steadily has been more pro-life than the current state of the law for the entire time.
And yet, the established consensus of the past 20-30 years has remained steady at: When a woman needs an abortion, she gets one, and neither state nor federal government is allowed to tell her otherwise.
As with gay marriage, while anti-marriage activists make a big deal about a lot of people who think gay sex is icky and gay marriage is morally dubious, the fact is: When people are allowed to get married, they do; when people need an abortion, they get one.
It doesn't matter what their views on abortion in the abstract are, or even whether they think that most women's abortions aren't justified: a woman who is pregnant and who doesn't want to have a baby will head for the nearest available clinic and have an abortion, proving herself very directly pro-choice.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | June 02, 2009 at 11:52 AM
and neither state nor federal government is allowed to tell her otherwise.
...are allowed to make it very, very difficult and expensive for her, but not to stop her. As for example, the woman in Connecticut who flew to Kansas to be treated by Doctor Tiller: the abortion she had might have been illegal in Connecticut, but her doctor there was allowed to advise her where to go.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | June 02, 2009 at 12:07 PM
"And yet, the established consensus of the past 20-30 years has remained steady at: When a woman needs an abortion, she gets one, and neither state nor federal government is allowed to tell her otherwise."
I think you are confusing consensus with Constitution-as-currently-applied
Posted by: Sebastian | June 02, 2009 at 12:14 PM
"So why did a prosecution alleging that Tiller had broken rules on the need for two independent opinions for late abortions fail?
I've briefly reviewed accounts of the case, and while it most certainly did not fail on the basis of Doe v Bolton, that in itself suggests that either my reading of that case is wrong, or it's been superceeded. So I'm tentatively concluding I'm wrong, until I've had some time to look into this.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | June 02, 2009 at 12:26 PM
No. I'm pointing out the real world consensus that actually exists, as opposed to the successful propaganda campaign of the pro-life movement that eschews examples of actual late-term abortions and actual data about real-term abortions (remember all those claims you used to make about how the data didn't exist, which I used to disprove by linking to the data?) in favor of random speculations about how women might behave if not properly supervised and controled by the state.
Very few people, presented with actual examples of late-term abortions, react with a desire for the woman involved to be prosecuted, or otherwise prevented by state or federal government from having access to the health care she needs.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | June 02, 2009 at 12:32 PM
"remember all those claims you used to make about how the data didn't exist, which I used to disprove by linking to the data?"
Nope. Please link to medically verified data showing the exact reasons for each late term abortion.
"No. I'm pointing out the real world consensus that actually exists"
You linked earlier to polling data which proved my point on late term abortions.
Posted by: Sebastian | June 02, 2009 at 12:48 PM
You linked earlier to polling data which proved my point on late term abortions.
Could you summarize those findings for us? The data are already hazy in my memory. How many people polled want to ban late-term abortion even if it's deemed medically necessary?
Nope. Please link to medically verified data showing the exact reasons for each late term abortion.
Because you and Brett know that sluts lie all the time about their late-term abortion parties. We get it.
Posted by: mds | June 02, 2009 at 03:31 PM
Mds:
Noted from the cite Jesurgislac provided:
Percentage of people WILLING to allow a late term abortion:
Note that under Jesurgislac's alleged consensus, even the last one would be ok, and only 10% of the American public agrees.
Posted by: Sebastian | June 02, 2009 at 04:38 PM
So, for late-term abortion: four out of five agree that a woman should be able to terminate if staying pregnant means a big, life-threatening risk to her health (and nearly half agree that a woman should be able to terminate if staying pregnant means a serious risk to her health even if it's not life-threatening): and well over half agree that a woman should be able to terminate if the fetus is otherwise going to be born with a serious birth defect. Nearly three-quarters agree that any girl or woman pregnant as a result of rape should be able to get a late-term abortion.
Looks like a consensus to me, Sebastian.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | June 02, 2009 at 05:45 PM
Shorter Point: Let's not do anything; otherwise, we might make the terrorists madder.
Posted by: Lex | June 02, 2009 at 07:05 PM
Looks like a consensus to me, Sebastian.
Don't try to move the goalposts, Jesurgislac. Under current law "needs an abortion" obviously equals "doesn't like the sex of the child." Which most Americans disapprove of. Hence, late-term abortion should be banned. Or at the very least, Sebastian needs the authority to go through women's panty drawers, looking for proof that they really need that abortion, instead of just now realizing they won't fit into their prom dresses.
From a comment thread at Hullabaloo:
"The greatest con job the anti-abortion movement has done is convincing most people that late term abortions are demanded by flighty, irresponsible, promiscuous sluts whose only desire is not to be faced with the consequences their [sic] actions, and performed by doctors devoid of ethics, morality, conscience or common humanity."
Posted by: mds | June 02, 2009 at 08:35 PM
The greatest con job that the pro-choice movement has attempted, largely unsuccessfully, is to try to maintain the line that flighty, irresponsible promiscuous sluts and doctors devoid of ethics are non-existent.
The law does not try to restrain the person of ordinary, intact morality, it is, (Leaving aside things like speed limits.) an effort to restrain or sanction those who DON'T rise to that level of normality.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | June 03, 2009 at 06:44 AM
Nice out for yourself there, Brett.
In any case, you should adjust your shirt. Your authoritarian stripes are showing underneath your libertarian costume. But your newfound support for the drug and gun laws in this country is both sudden and unwelcome.
Posted by: Phil | June 03, 2009 at 07:01 AM
My point is, I think, straightforward: You can't dismiss a law as unneeded because only wacked out monsters would commit the conduct in question. Wacked out monsters exist.
Now, you can argue that conduct shouldn't be illegal because there's nothing wrong with it, or because it might be wrong, but outlawing it fails any cost benefit analysis.
But not because normal people wouldn't do it. Not everybody is "normal".
So, defend elective post-viability abortions, if you feel like it. But saying that there's no point in outlawing them because nobody would want one is just wrong. Real people want all sorts of nasty and irrational things.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | June 03, 2009 at 07:27 PM
Nobody, of course is doing any such thing as saying that "there's no point in outlawing them because nobody would want one." They're saying that nobody wants one because of "Woohoo! Dangerous late term abortion! Let's do some carbombs and hit the clinic!!" For certain values of "nobody," which I'm using as shorthand for "a vanishingly small and easily ignorable number of people."
Posted by: Phil | June 03, 2009 at 07:47 PM
I mean, if we're going to pass laws based on what maybe a dozen people might do, we might just have some misplaced priorities in our culture.
Still and all, to see you admit that only people who don't rise to the level of ordinary, intact morality would break our gun laws is refreshing.
Posted by: Phil | June 03, 2009 at 07:50 PM