Abortion

Sometimes the simplest messages are the most potent.

Apparently this ad has been televised only once, on MSNBC, immediately after the debate last night.  I figure it merits repeating.

In past discussions I’ve witnessed, where the principles of a centrist or libertarian party platform have attempted to have been worked out, one of the big challenges that must be overcome is that of abortion.  It’s a major political concern to many, and views on the subject tend to be highly polarized.

Frankly, when I was outlining the subjects I wanted to touch upon in my “Centrist’s Platform” series of posts, I was very tempted to skip over the subject due to the sensitivity of the matter.  (But, it’s not like many people actually read my rantings…so I’ll press on.)

On the one hand, you have folks who are morally horrified over such statistics as “20% of all pregnancies are terminated with an abortion”.   On the other, you have those who believe a woman should be in control of her own bodily functions.

Personally, I’m of a mind that an “abortion of convenience” is tantamount to murder, while an “abortion necessary to protect the health of the mother” is a tragedy, but something that should be available to those who need it.

However, “necessary to protect the health…” is a fuzzy term.  Mental and physical health matters are incredibly complex to perfectly define.  So, unless a legislative body is comprised predominantly of medical experts specializing in women’s health issues, I think such questions necessarily need to be left in the hands of a woman, her doctor, and others they may choose to include in the determination.

And because of the wide range of ambiguities involved…I submit that attempting any codification of the matter is an exercise in futility.

There, isn’t that simple?

If government involvement is required — a point I’m not sure I’d agree to begin with on — I’d prefer that it be focused on ensuring that people are adequately informed in order to make appropriate decisions and take appropriate measures before being exposed to a certain hormone-induced temporary drop in IQ and reason.

Oftentimes, other family issues are raised alongside the question of abortion.  Although the fuss seems to have declined somewhat in the past couple of years, the biggie would seem to be questions of same-gender marriage.

If I’m not mistaken, Americans have reached a point where a majority (or a near-majority) accept the notion of “civil unions” — the idea that the civic rights, privileges and responsibilities traditionally associated with marriage should be awarded to committed couples without actually describing the relationship as “marriage”.

Criticisms on that stance seem to focus on whether the state should “legitimize” same-gender relationships, versus whether the state should be obliged to bolster the social recognition of the status between same-gender couples by bestowing the label “marriage”.

What I’d like to know is — who came up with the idea that the state grants marriage?   Depending on your view, marriage is a sacrament bestowed by God, or is type of relationship that a committed couple agree to regardless of what others might say.

While I think there is something to be said for the state bundling rights, privileges, and obligations into a convenient label, to facilitate stable families… it boggles my mind to believe that anyone would buy into the notion that the state grants marriage.

Therefore, I’d like to see the government get out of the marriage business.   Let the state handle the paperwork and bureaucracy surrounded with the record keeping and protections needed to facilitate stable families blind to certain groups’ societal or religious biases.  Call that state recognition “civil union”.  And leave the question of whether a relationship is or is not “marriage” to religious or social institutions.

A diary entry over at Blue Mass Group made an comparison that couldn’t help but catch my eye.

It references a Boston Globe article on a plan to expand the protest-free buffer zones around abortion clinics in Massachusetts:

The legislation would almost double the current 18-foot buffer zone and bar protesters from entering it. Currently, protesters may come within 6 feet of someone within the zone to provide counsel or share information, as long as the individual consents.

Supporters say the measure is a public safety initiative that would protect women from intimidation they may face from protesters and would make it easier to prosecute violators.

But opponents said the bill violates protesters’ First Amendment rights by limiting their ability to distribute materials that could encourage women seeking an abortion to change their minds.

At BMG Shillelagh Law observes:

I hate to break it to you Marie, but every Election Day, my right to free expression is being infringed upon by state law. There is a 150 foot buffer zone between political sign holders and the entrance to the polling station.

So Marie, if I have to stand half a football field away from the door while I hold my “Question Two, Bad for You” sign, or pass out emery boards and combs with my city councillor’s name on them, then you can keep your Grim Reapers and bloody fetus placards 35 feet away from women who are already going through enough.

You know, I can’t help but wonder about the legitimacy of the differing sizes of the buffer zones. Frankly, at election time, I’m rather annoyed by having to run the gauntlet of campaign workers (especially given the traffic congestion they create on my street, outside the neighborhood polling place), and I’d love to have a 6-foot bubble requirement added to the law.

And, while I can appreciate the need some anti-abortion folks feel to intervene in something they believe is murder… why do they need a smaller buffer than political activists? Why is abortion-oriented “speech” any more or less protected than political “speech”?

Seen in the New York Times:

After months of conflicting signals on abortion, Rudolph W. Giuliani is planning to offer a forthright affirmation of his support for abortion rights in public forums, television appearances and interviews in the coming days, despite the potential for bad consequences among some conservative voters already wary of his views, aides said yesterday.[...]

The shift in emphasis comes as the Giuliani campaign has struggled to deal with the fallout from the first Republican presidential candidate debate, in which he gave halting and apparently contradictory responses to questions about his support for abortion rights.[...]

Giuliani advisers, describing their strategy in what has emerged as one of the most challenging weeks of his campaign, said Republican primary voters would forgive their concerns about him on abortion and other social issues if they concluded that his positions on those issues would actually appeal to Democratic voters and thus make him the strongest Republican presidential candidate in 2008.

I have to agree with the part of the idea expressed in the last paragraph. Even though I suspect that Giuliani’s pro-choice stance will disqualify him in the minds of many core Republicans…well, to any GOP strategists trolling the blogosphere, I’d like to point out that a major party fielding a fiscal-conservative and social-moderate-to-liberal candidate would be extremely appealing to me and other small-ell-libertarians and centrists out in the voting population.

Besides, the idea of Democrats controlling both Congress and the White House is as troubling to me as the 6 years of GOP dominance in Washington was. It would be very nice to see the GOP weigh electability very heavily when picking a nominee.

By now, you’ve probably heard the pro-life crowd celebrating and the pro-choice crowd regrouping in the wake of yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling upholding a federal partial birth abortion ban. For example, from Tom DeLay’s blog:

It appears that the nation is beginning to reap the benefits of President Bush’s two traditionalist appointments - Justices Roberts and Alito - without them this decision would not have been possible. We can only hope that this now leads to more state level efforts to restrict abortion and eventually bring Roe v. Wade up for review before the court, finally righting a 30 year old wrong.

Meanwhile, Cecile Richards at HuffPo writes:

Unfortunately, it’s a world all American women are now forced to imagine for themselves. In the last 24 hours, people all across America have expressed their outrage at a Supreme Court ruling that has brought about this seismic shift on reproductive freedom. The court told women that, with their health at risk during a pregnancy, deciding what to do is no longer up to them and their doctors. The Bush Supreme Court has let politicians come barging into that most personal of decisions.

Initially, I wasn’t too bothered by the law or the ruling. I am kind of miffed with the idea of politicians without medical degrees telling doctors how to do their jobs, but if the law’s authors are correct in that there are other viable procedures available and unaffected by the law.perhaps the intervention is marginally tolerable.

I had thought that there was an exception in the law permitting the procedure in the event that it was medically necessary, making it more of a “limitation to last resort” rather than a ban. The law includes the the following clauses:

(d)(1) A defendant accused of an offense under this section may seek a hearing before the State Medical Board on whether the physician’s conduct was necessary to save the life of the mother whose life was endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.

(2) The findings on that issue are admissible on that issue at the trial of the defendant. Upon a motion of the defendant, the court shall delay the beginning of the trial for not more than 30 days to permit such a hearing to take place.

But apparently Ginsburg disagrees with that sentiment:

For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception protecting a woman’s health.

Am I missing something here? The two clauses I quoted sound like a medical exception..which is necessary to make the law tolerable in my view. Banning a doctor from taking the acts necessary to protect the life and health of a patient would be beyond criminal in my mind.

I can’t help but think that Ginsburg was reacting to the Right’s war against Roe, rather than the question of whether it’s appropriate for Congress to legislate that a medical procedure should be the last tool in a doctor’s arsenal to be considered.

Seen in the Commercial Appeal:

The bill, which makes an exception for abortions performed in cases of rape, incest and when the mother’s life is in danger, is one of three abortion measures passed by the Senate today.

The other two bills would, in one case, require a woman considering an abortion to listen to a fetal heartbeat and look at a sonogram, and the other bill would require minors who don’t have a parent’s consent to get court permission before having an abortion.

I also hear that South Dakota seems likely to have another abortion-ban initiative, this time with the rape-and-incest exclusions included.

If you need a little light reading to inspire thought when roadtripping this holiday weekend, consider this article at Alternet:

Despite strong interest, pro-choice license plates only exist in Montana (and as a decal in Hawaii). If you Google “anti-abortion license plates,” all sorts of articles pop up about how they are legal in 13 states — there’s even ordering information. But searching for “pro-choice license plates,” you get a smattering of the same stories about anti-abortion plates, a few articles about design contests for a pro-choice plate and a few articles about how states like Tennessee allow anti-abortion plates but refuse to authorize pro-choice ones.

Personally, while I’m neutral on the idea of charitable, political, or special-interest groups being permitted to fund-raise using license plates, I do think that the rules governing such fund-raising ought to be objective and politically blind.

(Via Kos) It
appears that the South Dakota abortion ban will face a test on an upcoming
ballot:

Today, the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families
announced the filing of nearly 38,000 signatures on petitions to repeal the
extreme abortion ban passed by the legislature and signed into law by
Governor Mike Rounds on March 6. Petitions will be filed with the Secretary
of State at 2 pm today.

ISTR that South Dakota is a pretty strong pro-life state. It’ll be
interesting to see if, in spite of that sentiment, enough folks are miffed
by their state legiscritters expending so much energy on passing a law that
is moot given the lay of the land at the federal level.

When I skim through Alternet, I usually feel a need to keep several grains of salt around. However, I found this article worthy of note…even though I’m not sure that this doesn’t constitute “overhype”:

The architects of the South Dakota ban on abortion have a bold plan for our country.[...] The pro-life groups who are the most committed to ending legal abortion — and gotten the furthest in their goals — are also leading campaigns against the only proven ways to prevent abortion: contraception. Shocking as it may be, there is not one pro-life organization in the United States that supports the use of contraception.

Somehow, given public sentiment in the country, I doubt that such a movement would get very far.

However, given other developments in domestic news, sometimes it’s not too difficult to imagine that we’re moving in a totalitarian enough direction such that intimacy would be prohibited except between fertile, married couples.

Perhaps the anti-contraception folks would find their cause more supportable if they presented their case as a way to shore up Social Security. (Increase the population paying into the pool, and the funding issues are eased for a generation or two.)

As seen in the Wall Street Journal (free link today):

The latest telephone survey of 1,016 adults indicates Roe v. Wade is supported by a slim 49% to 47% plurality, compared with 52% who favored the decision in 2005 (see poll) and 57% in 1998.

Despite apparent waning support, a substantial majority (63%) of those polled don’t think it is likely that this Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade over the next few years.

However, 40% of those polled favor laws that would make it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion, while another 40% say no change should be made to existing abortion laws, and 15% favor laws that would make it easier to get an abortion.