The Yes-or-No People
Feb 21st, 2006 at 1:09 pm by Susie
I don’t mention it much, but once upon a time, I was an apprentice lay midwife and I’ve assisted at several dozen home births. (Sometimes people are surprised that someone who’s delivered so many babies supports abortion rights.)
I bring it up because we occasionally saw parents dealing with very difficult choices and I understand more than most how important it was for them to make those choices freely. And I have to say, this news really disturbs me, because late-term abortions are done under the most tragic circumstances, anyway. So what right do these “pro life” people have to stick their noses into this most personal kind of tragedy?
WASHINGTON Feb 21, 2006 (AP)— The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will consider the constitutionality of banning a type of late-term abortion, teeing up a contentious issue for a newly-constituted court already in a state of flux over privacy rights.
The Bush administration has pressed the high court to reinstate the federal law, passed in 2003 but never put in effect because it was struck down by judges in California, Nebraska and New York.
The outcome will likely rest with the two men that President Bush has recently installed on the court. Justices had been split 5-4 in 2000 in striking down a state law, barring what critics call partial birth abortion because it lacked an exception to protect the health of the mother.
Women who choose this kind of abortion are faced with overwhelmingly serious health problems if they don’t. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t figure out what makes it a more moral choice to say, “I’d rather die now so this baby can be born and my other children will be motherless”? I mean, these are simply not yes-or-no questions. No one else has the right to answer them.
Interesting, that the anti-choice people are so strongly convinced that most women who have abortions are doing it on some kind of whim: “They just don’t want to ruin their figure,” etc.
They don’t think very much of women, do they?
I agree - the idiocy of these ‘wingers who think a woman would carry a child for 6 months and then go “Naaaaaa - changed my mind” is just unbelievable. If a late term abortion is needed, it is needed for a very tragic reason. (Me: Father of pre-mie twins born at 30.6 weeks)
if it’s passed without an exemption for the mother, by the supremes, if they really say that the life of an un-born child is more important than the life of the mother, then this country is going to explode. i think they’d sooner ban all abortion then do that. although… i know an abortion ban is complicated, with states rights and all, but do you think they’d ban it out-right, or ban all abortion except when the mother’s life is in danger?