Tag: Abortion

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“I don’t care what they call me as long as they mention my name.”

George M. Cohan

“There is no such thing as bad publicity. “

P.T. Barnum

Missouri state Senator Bill Eigel worries that the vague writing of an Abortion Bill would allow one year olds to get abortions. Why he is worried is a bit of a mystery. One year olds are incapable of pregnancy, so their need for abortions isn’t really an issue here. It won’t happen so it is nothing to be worried about. But, anyway, when has that stopped politicians from making an issue out of nothing.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s assume there is a one year old girl needing an abortion. She is unable to give her consent in the first place, so she was raped. the very people who would be protected by passage of the bill — victims of incest and rape. Furthermore, and the most important point to consider here, it is impossible for a one year old girl to carry a full term pregnancy to birth. She would need an abortion to save her life. So, if anyone should get an abortion, a pregnant one year old absolutely should.

If it were biologically possible which it isn’t.

On the other hand, Eigel generated a lot of pro-Life points fighting the scourge of one year olds seeking abortions. He also was able to get it without really having to take a stand on anything important. There won’t be any stories about one year olds dying from botched abortions or doctors debating whether to give a one year old an abortion because it will never happen. This, however important it is to you and me, is irrelevant to Eigel and his supporters. Eigel still gets pro-Life points for opposing abortion and, particularly important, defending babies from abortion clinics who would think nothing of aborting non-existent fetuses from one year olds.

The press dutifully reported Eigel’s concerns. The press will report any outrageous statement from any elected official because it might tempt shocked readers into reading their paper. Who wants to read about actual mature women needing an abortion when they can debate endlessly about one year old who will never need one. The only thing that happened here was Eigel got his name in the paper an his reputation enhanced with his voters.

You will all be relieved to know, pro-Choice or pro-Life, that one year olds will not have access to legal abortion. Absolutely nothing was learned from this nor was any debate furthered in discussing it. Why this was a newsworthy event is still a mystery but I am certain that the press would only use their limited space to report on truly important issues. Right?

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Robin Hansen worries that the worldwide population decline is driving the human species to extinction. His concern is shared by growing number of conservative thinkers. You would think in a world with 7 billion plus people that this could be put on the back burner. Apparently, I am wrong. Hanse believes it requires immediate attention. There becomes a point, are so Hansen thinks, that declining population becomes irreversible and that this point could come soon unless we change our ways. Don’t be fooled by the expected growth of population continuing and is expected to reach somewhere in the region of 10 billion by 2100. This is an urgent problem.

Hansen views our population cutting ways as similar to an addiction. People live in big cities where there are more things to do. People want to have some adventures before they settle into family life. They need to educate themselves for the complex modern world which requires quite a bit of training expense which, then, entails a bit of time to repay the money borrowed to obtain that training and education. They want to live a well rounded life. They use birth control to ensure they can have these experiences. They see themselves as something more than breeders. These all seem like reasonable things to want but they also are stopping people from having children, hence the crisis.

Hansen, then, wonders what can we do to make child rearing more attractive so people will stop enjoying their childless lives and start repopulating the planet. This is where things get dicey. Having children is both expensive and time consuming. People have to be willing to make this sacrifice. How do you get people to trade in leisurely Saturday mornings for transporting three kids in three different directions? As Hansen even admits, there are no easily solutions to this problem. Hansen lamely tosses out paying couples to have babies. Who exactly does he think will pay for this? Certainly not the American taxpayer.

This leaves the unspoken hint of coercion. Women will have to subordinate their ambitions and desires to repopulate the planet. It is worrisome that this is being framed as an existential crisis because, then, more drastic measures become acceptable. If the world needs babies, then the world better make sure women are having babies. While Hansen avoids suggesting the subordination of women, other conservative thinkers are not so cautious. There are conservative thinkers who want to do away with votes for women, who want to create a Christian Nationalists state where men are in control, and who want to restrict a woman’s right to an abortion even if her health is at stake.

What makes this concern irksome is that Conservatives are also panicking about immigration which would be a solution to the declining population problem. Many western countries now are below replacement population fertility. These are the very countries that poor immigrants want to go so why not just welcome these immigrants as the solution to our problem. I mean there are hordes at the Mexican border. Those hordes are largely young and fertile. Win Win, right.

Not exactly. These immigrants are criminals and/or have different values than us. OK, criminals I get and I support keeping those immigrants out. But the vast majority of immigrants are just looking for an opportunity for a better life which seems in alignment to the American Dream. Additionally, the vast majority of them come from Central America where Christianity is the most popular religion. Since some form of Christianity is the religion most Americans practice, this seems another point where the values of the immigrants align with the American people. This, to me, suggests we have a lot in common with the immigrants at the border, so why all the fuss about immigration?

This is why I don’t buy that this is a crisis worthy of my attention. Particularly when Conservatives get all wanky when Environmental groups talk about Global Warming. If global warming is a hoax based on extrapolating present temperature data into the future even though I can actually see the problems of a warming world — with more extreme weather, more fires and a warming ocean then why should I believe in declining population problem while sitting in traffic jams and searching for open parking spaces at crowded shopping malls.

This is all about controlling women’s fertility and getting the right women (read white middle class here) to have children. It would be far more encouraging if conservatives genuinely supported an agenda that supported families, but they don’t. They don’t want to spend any money on helping anyone, so the only tool they have in their tool kit is coercion which will only work if they take power away from women. And I think Conservatives will have a difficult time, even from Conservative women, if they try to take this power.

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Kate Cox lives in Texas which restricts abortion availability. She also is carrying a fetus that will die before it is born or soon after the baby is born. Because Texas has restrictive abortion laws, Cox had to petition the Texas courts in order to terminate her pregnancy. She received a judge’s approval to move forward with the abortion. Then, in jumps Ken Paxton, the Republican Attorney General for Texas. He decided that Cox must have her child and has threatened hospitals who might perform the procedure with legal action if they assist her.

Why Paxton would choose this particular abortion case to fight is baffling. The best that Paxton can get here is a Pyrrhic Victory. He may be able to force a woman to carry this dying fetus but only at the expense of losing the people who have conditional acceptance of abortions. Cox is making a decision based on the viability of the fetus. She wanted the baby but medical experts told her that her baby is doomed. Why is it better for her to continue her pregnancy, only to have the fetus die in her or die soon after the baby is born.

This is why overwhelming majorities of people, if forced to decide between liberal abortion laws and restrictive abortion laws, always choose liberal abortion laws. It is bad enough that Cox had to go to court to terminate her pregnancy but then to have the Attorney General of her state continue her struggle by taking it to the Texas Supreme Court is astounding.

Paxton is behaving in exactly the way that pro-Choice advocates are warning us about. They are blocking women from having abortions even when the circumstances would cause most people to abort. It is an unreasonable intrusion on Cox and for what? The death of the baby she wanted. It is personally cruel to Cox — extending her suffering for months longer than necessary and delaying her chance for another pregnancy. Why would anyone inflict this horror on anyone?

This puts to rest the idea that Paxton and the pro-Life fanatics will be reasonable about abortion. They won’t and they are proving it. And though I would never stop a Republican from committing political suicide, completely baffling given the political situation at the present moment. This was an easily avoidable battle. Cox did what Texas expected of her, a judge ruled in her favor but Paxton disagreed with the decision. Which is troubling particularly in a state the size of Texas? Is the Attorney General going to review every request for an abortion before the doctors can proceed? If so, I predict more liberal abortion laws in Texas’ future.

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Elon Musk thinks that the collapse of babies being born is a bigger concern than global warming. He is not alone. Many Conservative and Libertarian men share this concern. China, the second heaviest populated country, and until just a short time ago, the heaviest populated country in the world, has begun a population reversal. So what? Well, given all the present data, China will suffer a population collapse do to this reversal. Again, so what? China is also a country that many of these same men ascribe as the author of many of the evils in the present world, isn’t that a good thing. No, you see, the problem plagues much of Southern Europe (Spain, Italy and Bulgaria) and Eastern Asia (Japan and South Korea). The West is beginning to lose population as well.

I am still unmoved. Well, then think about the economy which depends upon consumers buying products, you idiot. If there are less consumers, there are less customers for the products business is selling. So that’s the real problem money. I should have guessed. The worry is that the combined problem of an overburdened social security system and the lack of new customers will undermine Western economies.

This is irritating for a number of reasons. Predictions based on present data is quite often wrong which is, again, something that these Conservative men should understand. They are constantly making this same claim when discussing Global Warming. Sometimes these predictions just don’t pan out. For example, many demographers in the 1940s were predicting a low population growth in the USA for the 1950’s based on the low birth rates of the 1930’s, instead they got a Baby Boom. The explanation is simple. Parents of the 1930’s were reacting to the Depression, while parents of the 1950’s were reacting to the post-World War II economic boom. People make different decisions when their circumstances change.

If women knew it was an essential for the continuation of civilization as we know it, then they might be prone to having children, until then I think a few less people being born might be something to give a little time to get used to and see what happens. Perhaps, the ever ingenious human being will come up with an alternate way to live other than consumer consumption of mostly useless products for an endlessly expanding population.

Instead of thinking about these new possibilities, these free thinkers are slyly going after abortion and birth control. David Strom, pro-life writer, recently gloried that more babies are being born in Texas population since the reversal of Roe v Wade. So then he celebrates the birth of 10,000 babies while ignoring the women who gave birth to these babies. At best this is a morally ambiguous achievement. A woman is being forced into having a baby against her will, a reasonable person might also show some sympathy for the women put in this position. He doesn’t. Furthermore, the Roe decision also has emboldened anti-birth control advocates to step up their efforts to make birth control more difficult to obtain. Yes, and, also they are going after a women’s right to vote. The real goal here is obvious — keeping women barefoot, pregnant and powerless.

With all these efforts to make women mothers, you would think that the Republicans would try to make motherhood more attractive. They aren’t. A good example of this penchant for stopping government involved in anything even if it would help potential mothers is a recent development in Idaho where the Republican dominated legislature there decided to stop tracking maternal health mortality program. There isn’t enough money and, besides, the government should be involved in learning more about public health problems. Right. Message received.

So, to summarize, the world needs more babies. Women aren’t stepping up and having them. Governments need to make it more difficult to obtain abortions and birth-control in order to make this happen. And, no, the Government isn’t going to help women with their health or any of the many expenses a baby might cause her. Well, then, how fucking urgent can it be?

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Nancy Davis wanted the baby she was expecting. Then she discovered her baby would either die in her womb or die soon after birth because the fetus didn’t have a skull. She decided to abort but, unfortunately she lives in Louisiana which restricts abortion access. Because the law was vaguely written, the doctors at her hospital were confused whether an abortion would be legal in this case. The hospital opted to tell Davis she needed to go to another state where the procedure was legal.

A 16 year girl in Florida wants to get an abortion so she can continue her education. Since she is 16 and parentless, she had to go to the Florida courts to determine whether she could. The judge decided against her — saying she was too immature to make such a decision. Yes. You heard it right. The girl is too immature to make a decision to abort but is mature enough to take over full time care of a baby.

This is a horror story for a variety of reasons.

  1. The woman’s choice is overruled by lawyers and judges. The court can make a decision that ignores her wishes completely.
  2. Doctors aren’t going to risk their careers by breaking the law. If they are afraid to act, they won’t. This could create a deadly medical crisis for the woman in an emergency situation.
  3. The law creates needless delays in treatment while a lawyer or a judge is consulted. This is especially important in states where there are more stringent time restrictions for abortions. The clock is ticking on her access and any delay could cause her to miss this deadline.
  4. Poor women are in a particular bind. They may not have access to lawyers and may have trouble coming up for both an abortion and the travel to Pro-choice state. She will have fairly grim choices — waiting for the fetus dies in her or to be born dead, get an illegal abortion or spend money she doesn’t have to travel to a state where she can get an abortion.
  5. The ability to travel to Pro-choice states makes abortion restrictions meaningless. All that you are doing is making abortion inconvenient for those who can afford to travel.
  6. The state is making an already difficult circumstance even worse for the woman. Instead of getting the abortion where she lives, working with the medical professionals she is familiar with, and going to back to her home after the procedure, she has to figure out where abortion is legal, find a doctor to perform the abortion, travel hundreds of miles away from home to get it. All this additional stress just so the state doesn’t have the abortion performed within its boundaries.

Who actually benefits from any of this? Certainly not the pregnant woman. The state has taken away her power of choice so that the state can act as if they are morally superior to the mother. In the meantime, most women will slip off to another state, or obtain an illegal abortion, or quietly slip into poverty with a child now in tow.

What a mess.

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Pregnancy, even for a healthy woman, poses a health risk. In fact (see link to Scientific American) an abortion is less risky for a healthy woman than a full term pregnancy. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pregnancy-is-far-more-dangerous-to-women-than-abortion/ Doctors usually monitor the pregnancy to see how it is affecting the woman’s health and how the fetus is developing. In part, the doctors are checking to see if the woman’s health is capable of handling the stress of pregnancy, labor and childbirth. All conditions that affect the health of the woman. How does this work now in states that have restricted abortion access in the post-Roe world? Any woman having a baby could say there is a health risk and she would be right. So, then, could she get an abortion if she doesn’t want to take that risk? The danger to a woman’s health, of course, varies from patient to patient. A situation that would be of little risk for a woman in good health could be much more dangerous for a women who is overweight, or who is diabetic or who has high blood pressure.

Even more important, who makes the decisions regarding the abortion. If the decision no longer rests with the doctor and the patient, who now needs to be part of the discussion? What are the health risks that will allow an abortion and what are the health risks that a woman will have to chance? Some women are more risk averse than other women, how will the individual woman’s preferences figure into the decision? Until then, why would any doctor in an anti-choice state risk prosecution if they believed someone would evaluate their decision later and then jail them if the state thought their decision was wrong.

Of course, right now, the answers to these questions are unknown. The laws will be tested and the anti-choice state governments will have to come up with answers to these questions. In the meantime, thousands of pregnant women are in limbo regarding basic healthcare. Somebody in state government is making the decision for them. Worse still, these people don’t seem terribly interested in how the individual woman wants to proceed with her pregnancy. Imagine somebody telling you what to do with your body and not even bothering to ask you what you want to do.

While writing this blog I came across an article by Sara Bolbotz in the Huffington Post. She gives more detailed information on how the saving the life of the mother exception could detrimentally affect the life of the mother.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/death-risk-pregnancy-despite-lifesaving-exceptions-for-abortion_n_62b715c9e4b04a61736b0aa9

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Since the Supreme Court has returned the abortion laws back to the states, a woman’s right to one is dictated by 50 different state legislatures. Some states will outlaw all abortions except when the life of the mother is in danger. Other states will include some choice if the woman has been raped or in the case of incest. Some states will allow abortion on demand.

So the state, in ones that restrict abortion, can have the final choice on how a woman handles her pregnancy. If the state chooses to restrict access to abortion then women must obey the law of the state even if it differs from the individual woman’s conscious. This means that in Ohio a woman can not have an abortion if she learns her baby will be born with Down’s Syndrome since that state made this illegal. There is no consensus on the morality of getting an abortion if the fetus has Down’s Syndrome. Different women will make different choices. But now her decision hinges on whether her state allows her to abort. If her state forbids abortion in this circumstance, the woman will be forced to carry the baby to term.

Doesn’t it then follow, if the state can regulate a women’s fertility, that a state could decide to control population through a two child maximum law. If she finds herself pregnant after 2 children, she would be required to have an abortion. No matter that a woman’s personal conscious tells her that abortion is wrong, the state tells her she must abort.

How horrible is that?

Now imagine a woman forced to carry a Down’s Syndrome fetus until the birth. How horrible is that?