TAG | abortion
[Santorum] lambasted the president’s health care law requiring insurance policies to include free prenatal testing, “because free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and therefore less care that has to be done because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society.”
On the other hand Santorum probably does approve of the prenatal testing discussed by David Frum here:
…It is the Obama administration that is winning the communications war. Republicans blame the media. OK, maybe. But then Republicans do things like this in the state of Virginia:
HB 462 Abortion; informed consent, shall undergo ultrasound imaging.
“Abortion; informed consent. Requires that, as a component of informed consent to an abortion, to determine gestation age, every pregnant female shall undergo ultrasound imaging and be given an opportunity to view the ultrasound image of her fetus prior to the abortion. The medical professional performing the ultrasound must obtain written certification from the woman that the opportunity was offered and whether the woman availed herself of the opportunity to see the ultrasound image or hear the fetal heartbeat. A copy of the ultrasound and the written certification shall be maintained in the woman’s medical records at the facility where the abortion is to be performed. This bill incorporates HB 261.”
The ABC news report on the Virginia bill explains:
“The ultrasound legislation would constitute an unprecedented government mandate to insert vaginal ultrasonic probes into women as part of a state-ordered effort to dissuade them from terminating pregnancies, legislative opponents noted.”
28
“A Gift in a Very Broken Way”
21 Comments · Posted by Andrew Stuttaford in politics, Religion
Via Think Progress (I know, I know), here’s Rick Santorum explaining why a woman left pregnant should be compelled to give birth:
Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.
“We”?
abortion · Christian fundamentalism · Fundamentalism · Rick Santorum
1
Free Speech at the Abortion (or anti-abortion) Clinic (2)
6 Comments · Posted by Andrew Stuttaford in law, politics
In a mildly encouraging development (and one that follows a somewhat similar case concerning politicians playing doctor, but in New York) a federal judge has blocked at least part of the new Texas sonogram law. Over at the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen has the details:
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked key provisions of Texas’ new law requiring a doctor to perform a sonogram before an abortion, ruling the measure violates the free speech rights of both doctors and patients. U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks upheld the requirement that sonograms be performed, but struck down the provisions requiring doctors to describe the images to their patients and requiring women to hear the descriptions.
The law is an example of Big Government Conservatism at its most offensive. To hear Republicans tell it, the GOP’s line on health care is straightforward: the party wants government to steer clear of the doctor-patient relationship, and certainly has no use for bureaucrats making medical decisions and imposing care instructions based on some kind of ideological agenda. For that matter, it’s important, Republicans say, for politicians to appreciate growing health care costs, and not mandate unnecessary medical procedures.
The Republicans’ sonogram measure in Texas ignores all of those principles, forcing government into the examination room and empowering state officials to make a medical decision, while imposing care instructions based on an ideological agenda.
Indeed, under this Texas law, women would not only have to receive a sonogram whether it’s medically necessary or not, but medical professionals would be forced to tell their patients, against their will, what Republican policymakers want the patients to hear. Doctors who refused could face criminal penalties and the revocation of their medical license.
Here’s yet another bossy, patronizing (and, I imagine, eventually taxpayer-funded) idea from the UK’s frequently lamentable Conservative-led government:
[Britain’s] Department of Health is to announce plans for a new system of independent counseling for women before they finally commit to terminating a pregnancy. The move is designed to give women more “breathing space”… The plan would introduce a mandatory obligation on abortion clinics to offer women access to independent counseling, to be run on separate premises by a group which does not itself carry out abortions.
The idea that enough women might require a state-supplied “breathing space” (as if they have had not already had time to think about what they are planning) and “independent” (define that term) counseling to need a change of government policy shows a sense of condescension that would be remarkable were it not coming from Britain’s political class, a group that has long made condescension something of a specialty.
One important thing to note, however: Unlike in certain US states this “independent” counseling will neither be mandatory, nor will some of its contents be dictated by politicians.
That’s something, I suppose.
Update
Via the Daily Telegraph:
The Prime Minister and Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, will vote against the proposals put forward by pro-life groups and campaigning MPs, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Their opposition follows claims that ministers were preparing to change long-established rules on advice given to pregnant women.The matter will still be debated in the Commons, but No 10 made it clear for the first time that Mr Cameron would vote against the amendments to the Health Bill tabled by Nadine Dorries, a backbench Tory MP. Downing Street sources said that the proposed amendments would “exclude proper choice”.
abortion · big government · UK
14
Free Speech at the Abortion (or anti-abortion) Clinic
Comments off · Posted by Andrew Stuttaford in politics
Yes, there should be rules against fraudulent counsel, but the idea of politicians dictating what can (or cannot) be said at a pregnancy advice center purely on the basis of their own views on abortion is less than attractive, so this looks like good news:
A federal judge blocked a controversial New York City law requiring emergency-pregnancy centers to disclose that they don’t offer abortion services. The new law, scheduled to take effect Thursday, poses a significant threat to abortion opponents’ First Amendment rights, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III said in a sweeping 22-page ruling Wednesday that imposed a preliminary injunction.
On the same basis, one can only hope that examples of big government overreach such as the one being litigated here are overturned:
Today Federal District Court Judge Same Sparks is scheduled to hear arguments in a case filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) on behalf of Texas medical providers challenging Texas’ new abortion ultrasound law. The law, scheduled to take effect September 1, requires that women seeking abortion services forced to obtain and view an ultrasound.
The Center for Reproductive Rights claims that the law violates patients’ and doctors’ First Amendment Rights by requiring “physicians to violate basic standards of medical ethics by compelling them to disregard the wishes of patients who do not want to receive this information.” Bebe Anderson, lead attorney from CRR stated that the law is “most definitely the most extreme of this kind in the country. [It is] an intrusive hijacking of the doctor-patient relationship.”
The law requires that doctors show the woman the ultrasound. If the woman refuses to view the image, the doctor must describe it in detail and play the sound of the fetal heartbeat, if a heartbeat is present. Following the ultrasound, the woman must then wait a 24 hour period before obtaining an abortion.
30
Mitch Daniels: Still Looking at 2012?
Comments off · Posted by Andrew Stuttaford in politics
Poor Iowans would be prohibited from having a taxpayer-paid abortion in cases of rape or incest under an amendment to a budget bill approved by a House committee this week.
Again, grotesque…
Time reports on a new law from South Dakota:
In an ongoing effort to push legislation to reduce abortion rates — in part by restricting women’s access to the procedure — South Dakota’s Gov. Dennis Daugaard, a Republican, signed into law on Tuesday the most stringent such bill yet.
The new law requires women who seek abortions to first undergo a consultation at a “pregnancy help center,” centers whose counselors oppose abortion. The law also requires women to wait three days after meeting with an abortion provider before she can receive the procedure.
And what sort of qualifications do the people who work at these centers possess?
The centers themselves — which are also known as crisis pregnancy centers, and have been increasing in number nationwide — are not regulated by any medical authority.
So is this, as some like to claim, just a matter of ensuring that these women are “fully informed”, albeit by people with no obvious qualification to do so?
According to the new law, pregnancy help center staff may control who should be allowed in the room during counseling sessions (such as spouses, parents and religious counselors), independent of the woman’s wishes.
Nope, it seems not.
And then there’s this, via the New York Times:
[The law] makes exceptions for medical emergencies, but not for rape or incest.
Grotesque.
This story comes from Mother Jones, and it comes with plenty of ‘coulds’, so some caution is called for. Nevertheless it doesn’t make pretty reading. Here’s a key extract:
Under a GOP-backed bill expected to sail through the House of Representatives, the Internal Revenue Service would be forced to police how Americans have paid for their abortions. To ensure that taxpayers complied with the law, IRS agents would have to investigate whether certain terminated pregnancies were the result of rape or incest. And one tax expert says that the measure could even lead to questions on tax forms: Have you had an abortion? Did you keep your receipt?
In testimony to a House taxation subcommittee on Wednesday, Thomas Barthold, the chief of staff of the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee, confirmed that one consequence of the Republicans’ “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” would be to turn IRS agents into abortion cops—that is, during an audit, they’d have to determine, from evidence provided by the taxpayer, whether any tax benefit had been inappropriately used to pay for an abortion
The proposed law, also known as H.R. 3, extends the reach of the Hyde Amendment—which bans federal funding for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake—into many parts of the federal tax code. In some cases, the law would forbid using tax benefits—like credits or deductions—to pay for abortions or health insurance that covers abortion. If an American who used such a benefit were to be audited, Barthold said, the burden of proof would lie with the taxpayer to provide documentation, for example, that her abortion fell under the rape/incest/life-of-the-mother exception, or that the health insurance she had purchased did not cover abortions.
“Were this to become law, people could end up in an audit, the subject of which could be abortion, rape, and incest,” says Christopher Bergin, the head of Tax Analysts, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit tax policy group. “If you pass the law like this, the IRS would be required to enforce it.”
Ugh.
A hideous story from Nebraska (via NTV):
It’s the story you may have seen, but the side you’ve never heard. A grieving Grand Island couple spoke out to NTV News, after newspapers across the country report they wanted an abortion to end a non-viable pregnancy — only to be denied.
Danielle and Robb Deaver [are] setting the record straight…In reality, they wanted a healthy baby girl, but instead medical complications forced them to make what they call the hardest decision — one that was denied by a new abortion law.
“She was so wanted,” said Danielle Deaver, as she choked back tears. It’s the emotional pain no doctor can ever take away, after learning she could not avoid the physical pain her daughter was experiencing.
Elizabeth Deaver, 22 weeks old, was dying inside her. Without amniotic fluid, she would not develop, Danielle’s uterus was slowly crushing her, and because of a new abortion law on the books, Danielle was told there was nothing she could do.
“People are hearing that we wanted an abortion and that was never the case,” she said. “We want to be very clear that’s not what we wanted, that’s not what we were looking for and that’s not what we were denied.”
What the Deaver’s asked for and were denied, was the option to induce labor. “It wasn’t an easy, frivolous thing that we decided it,” she said, and then added through tears, “It was an awful, horrible, gut wrenching thing that we had to decide.”
It was a decision that was not their own, even after all the options to save their daughter were exhausted.
“We asked every scenario every outcome anything we could do to make it OK, there was nothing we could do to make it OK,” she said.
Her husband Robb added that inducing labor, when they wanted, would not have prevented the inevitable. “We were going to hold her and watch her die and what was horrible was the terrible and agonizing wait that we had to go through before that happened which was unnecessary,” he said. It’s now the same situation they’re trying to prevent other families from having to face.
“They make these laws and paint with a very large brush and people fall into these gray areas because it’s not as black and white,” said Danielle of Nebraska’s 20-week abortion ban.
One can only have sympathy for the Deavers: both for their terrible loss and for the additional agony they were put through. As for the politicians who drew up that law in the way they did, well…
