When Roe vs. Wade was struck down, the Right cheered, the libertarians nodded thoughtfully, and the Left went into a full on panic.
The Right said that abortions were originally meant to be safe, but infrequent. The exception and never the rule. An abortion takes a life, even if it is a “potential” life, and that should be thought through very seriously before going forward. With the advent of “abortion on demand,” things got out of control and there was so much push that we had some people advocating for “post birth abortions.”
The Left said that abortions belonged to all women, that it should never be questioned, and that a woman is not a walking incubator. Abortion gives power to a woman, so she can’t be trapped in a relationship, can’t be forced into child care that she’s either unable or unwilling to provide. When and how abortions are done should be the discussion of women, and men ought be excluded.
I’m left enough to say that I believe it’s important to have a certain level of abortion available to women. There are simply too many situations where pregnancy is used as a cudgel to beat women down, even today, that I’m unwilling to even contemplate taking it away entirely. There are also just too many times when extenuating circumstances get in the way.
Today, I learned about a group of court cases challenging the abortion laws in Idaho, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. I’ll let you read the legalese yourself; I know you’re all capable of that. I’ll provide the “feels” for you.
The lady from Idaho was happily 20 weeks pregnant when she found out her unborn child had fetal abnormalities that would preclude it from life. The abnormalities meant that the child would not survive the birth, or in the extremely rare chance that it did, it would suffocate to death very soon after. She wanted to abort, because at 20 weeks, the child doesn’t feel anything. Neural pathways don’t, to our knowledge, pass along pain signals that early in gestation. At the moment of birth, though, the child would suffer, and horribly. She was denied that abortion, because Idaho only provides abortion under one exception: the life of the mother is in immanent danger. Her life was not in danger at all. No danger to the mom, no abortion. She, luckily, had the means to leave the state to have the child terminated peacefully, thanks to friends and family and a go fund me.
The woman from Tennessee had a terminally deformed unborn child that was also very much wanted. She also suffered from pre-eclampsia, a very life threatening disease related to pregnancy. Tennessee apparently doesn’t allow termination even when the mother’s life is in danger, as she was told she was in danger of a stroke. She was forced to wait to go into labor, which happened at 31 weeks. She didn’t have the financial ability to leave the state to have an abortion done. She’s still dealing with the medical aftermath of the medical problems that happened because of the pregnancy.
The woman from Oklahoma is a bit different, in that she had a molar pregnancy (which is never viable), and the doctors refused to do a termination because at the time she came in, her life was not “in immanent danger.” The hospital made her go sit in the parking lot until she got “closer to death” so they could intervene. She’s also suing the Oklahoma Children’s Hospital, because there are Federal laws that require hospitals to stabilize patience in life threatening conditions. The hospital’s legal team ruled that it would be less damaging to the hospital if the woman died, rather than the fetus (my words, not theirs).
I’ve talked abortion a few times on here. I’m talking about this now, because this is exactly the kind of thing that I was terrified was going to happen. The three cases above were abortions yes, because anytime a fetus is removed from the body, that’s abortion. It’s taking a life. Killing a potential baby. But all three cases deal with unborn children that would never have survived. The states involved (in two cases, and the hospital in the third) decided that the infant’s life was more important than the woman’s. And that’s wrong. There is no way in which that is right, not even a little bit.
Then there’s this problem, which is hindering the interstate travel of citizens of the United States. Gollad County, Texas, joins another two (not mentioned in the article) in prohibiting women going to get abortions from travelling through their area. If the women do (and these are counties on the edges of Texas, with major highways running through them, meaning people pretty much have to travel through the county somewhere in order to get out of state), the people who aided them can go to jail. And I quote,
“In addition to prohibiting elective abortions and the aiding or abetting of elective abortions within the unincorporated area of Goliad County, the ordinance also prohibits the performing of elective abortion and the aiding or abetting of an elective abortion performed on a resident of the unincorporated area of Goliad County “regardless of the location of the abortion, regardless of the law in the jurisdiction where the abortion occurred, and regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion was performed or induced on a resident of the unincorporated area of Golliad County.”
So if you give a ride to a friend and they don’t tell you why they want to visit someplace out of state, and it turns out after the fact that they got an abortion, you can be prosecuted. I mean, what the hell? What happened to “let the states decide”? They enacted laws in Texas, and women obeyed them and went elsewhere. Now they’re being prosecuted for doing that.
It’s too far. This is NOT “letting the states decide.” It’s stopping sovereign citizens from travelling freely within this damn country. It’s not legal.
I’m all for finding a good middle ground for abortion. I love AWA’s statement that it should be legal and infrequent. It should be largely used in cases like the above ones, where the babies have no chance of any kind of life, and what little they had would be quite literal torture. Anything past 12 weeks should definitely involve a hospital and not “just” a clinic, and it should involve counselling, too. Anything past 20 weeks should be only in dire cases where the baby would not survive or would survive in pain, or the mother’s life is at stake. But I’m also very much against throwing away a woman’s life for a potential life, even if the potential life is viable. Abortion is NOT birth control, and should not be treated that way, but neither do I think a woman should have to come up with a laundry list of reasons some male feels is valid, in order to get an early abortion or Plan B.
Here’s the thing, though. If you want to lower abortion rates, you pretty much have to raise birth control rates. And that is not what we’re seeing happen. In states that have more restrictive abortion laws, women seem to be having more trouble getting birth control. I won’t say it’s outright banned, but the numbers are plummeting. That is exactly the opposite of what should be happening. The fact that it isn’t should be making everyone, and especially those on the Right, question why.
The stories I hear, which I can’t confirm or deny, are that doctors are having a hard time getting birth control. They prescribe it, but there seems to be problems with delivery of birth control to the southern states. That issue does not seem to be happening in northern states. The Left focuses on the issue that Planned Parenthood was “thrown out” of southern states. I could not care less about that. You don’t have to go to PP to get low cost birth control; most pharmacies have it, many clinics, almost all Urgent Cares. Except in the south, apparently. While I’m definitely hearing this from strangers, random “people on the internet,” I’m also hearing it from people that I know, that I trust to give me factual information. The medications that made for safe and easy very early abortions (Plan B, etc) have been banned in a few states.
I believe it’s 11 states currently have “restrictive” access to abortion. Louisiana, for instance, “…prohibits abortion, even to save the life of the mother, and defines the moment of conception to be contact between a spermatozoan and an ovum.” By that definition, the only birth control that’s legal is a condom. IUDs, the Pill, foams and gels, Norplant… all these can allow the touch of a sperm to an egg, and therefore that’s “conception” per Louisiana. If they were to use the law in that way, it would mean someone taking the Pill could be charged with a ten year prison sentence and a $100,000 max fine.
People on the Left made dire predictions when Roe vs Wade toppled, and I said wait and see. It should cause a better law to come into being, and I still hope that’s the case, because even for those who are 100% pro abortion, it was a shitty law. But too many of the “extreme” predictions made by the Left are starting to come true, and it’s not because they’re being forced by the Left. Only a small number of these stories make it into the news. Too many women, myself included, hear horror stories from our friends in restrictive states, and how things are looking more and more horrid.
I’m tired of hearing, “Oh, but it’s the pendulum.” When I try to say that about gun control (which, btw, you should all know I have a problem with… I am NOT for gun control, by any stretch) I’m told it’s apples and oranges. There’s no pendulum for gun control, but there is for abortion and other “liberal” causes. I also hear people I love and trust on the Right saying, “Hey, that travel thing is wrong, and I stand against it,” and a number of other comforting things. But I do NOT see it being written about by anyone on the Right. The only voices I hear on the Right, at the moment, are the ones that scare the bejeezus out of me. And if that’s all I’m hearing, when I’m actively looking for things to hold onto in a situation that has me nervous, how much less is a person on the Left seeing?
I don’t want to hear about extenuating circumstances. I want to hear about how if a person’s private life (and when we’re talking birth control rather than abortion, there is only one life involved, so it should not even be a question) is their own. I want to hear about how people are going to fight to get birth control into these states that are having mysterious shortages and problems. I want to see Plan B made available again. I want to see the RIGHT of people to interstate travel restored and protected once more. And I want to see the people I trust to uphold the Constitution, doing so.
Hagar,
who is just a wee bit grumpy this morning
I understand there will be situations which are not addressed in many of the state’s laws which ban abortions for various situations. But the ‘crossing state lines’ to have abortions issue I already addressed in the previous post on this subject. Insurance companies and state laws are the problem here. A national healthcare insurance company has to comply with each state’s laws. Herein the problem exists.
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Personally I disagree with many restrictions in many state’s laws. In the cases you provide in this article, those states should have made exceptions, but then again, state legislatures don’t always word, nor define, prohibited conditions as they should. This kind of vagueness or whatever you want to call it, is also true in gun and self-defense laws too.
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The bottom-line truth is, Abortion Rights is to be determined by State legislatures and never the federal government. Federal taxes should not be paying for abortion. Just as it is currently with gun and self-defense laws, it’s the states which different significantly state to state, which determines how people will have to comply to be lawful. Same as it now is with abortion.
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It’s far from perfect in both cases, but it’s better than a national federally funded law.
Here is a link from a leftist publication which does a fairly good job of explaining “Crossing State Lines” – https://www.americanprogress.org/article/u-s-health-insurance-system-excludes-abortion/
I have seen similar articles, definitely. The bottom line is, crossing state lines freely is a Constitutional thing. That’s it. There’s no wiggle room in that. Give wiggle room there, and suddenly we’re back to there being wiggle room in the First and Second Amendments. Nope, won’t go there. Leftist I may be, but the Constitution says what it says. We don’t get to make up laws that apply to only some people, or only some of the time.
It’s not a matter of crossing state lines, it’s a matter of having taxpayers pay in one form or another, someone’s abortion who doesn’t reside in the state AND, the insurance laws of that state. By doing that, they are getting around what the US Supreme Court fixed. They turned it over to the states, to manage in accordance with each state’s laws, for insurance companies, and patients needing such care.
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A pregnant woman can cross state lines for all of eternity, but the second she attempts to have an abortion in a state she doesn’t reside in, she is attempting to break the law of her state and her insurance company will not pay for the procedure, which means the taxpayers of the state which allowed her to break her state’s laws, will have to pay for her abortion—-exactly what was terminated at the national level.
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You, I believe, are in error here…. that is, unless you want to make the claim that the anti-abortion states and the insurance companies who do business in accordance with those state’s laws, are in fact being unconstitutional. Is that your claim?
I don’t care about insurance. The women in question (those in the article) paid themselves, not via insurance. No “out of state insurance” was invoked. Hence, not an issue. You want to claim that your insurance is no good in another state, fine. Those states can decide to do that. I think it’d be stupid, because states are small, but that’s perfectly fine with me. But stopping anyone from traveling out of state for any reason is unconstitutional.
Ok, I have to ask, because you keep saying there are law enforcement officers monitoring pregnant women so that they can’t travel out of state? Please educate me as to how a state acquires the knowledge a pregnant woman is leaving the state for an abortion in another state.
As I’ve said in other responses, either you believe the Constitution is correct, or you don’t. Or you feel parts of it are wrong; feel free to work to change it. I encourage my Leftist friends to do so all the time. What you can’t do is claim that the Constitution only applies to some people, or a class of people, or that its protections don’t apply to some people. That’s wrong, on all levels.
It’s unconstitutional to make people who are morally against something to pay for it in the form of a tax, (What Roberts did to Obamacare is a case in point) when in fact their state bans some or all of it in one form another. Such is the case here. State’s Rights is part of the constitution, and therefore I agree with you, let the states decide what is legal and what is not. As I said previously, there is the second amendment for all states, but the states are free under the bill of rights to establish exactly how that constitutional right is interpreted, imposed and enforced. As it is with gun rights, so it is with abortion rights. Both are equal in constitutionality. And again, follow the money, and you’ll see who exactly is imposing the enforcement in each state.
When I was a toddler my parents were informed by a doctor in no uncertain terms of a particular medical issue that was going to trouble me for life. He wanted to do some surgeries that had a chance of fixing it (and surely a chance of messing me up further), but my parents decided to hold off until I was older, and their budget was more permissive. By the time I was old enough to remember, it had essentially gone away on its own, and now no one least of all me would ever guess it had happened.
Doctors aren’t perfect and that fact is frustratingly underacknowledged in this area. Searching around I find no great shortage of stories about ‘miracle babies’ who survived what doctors estimated to be, in some cases, certain death at birth. Most with defects but some even who appear sound and healthy. I get that in some cases perhaps the baby simply lacks a heart, or a brain, or such things and this is easy to see, but one should be very cautious about giving doctors too much faith and power.
That’s all fine, but it doesn’t address the main issue: interstate travel is being restricted. That’s unconstitutional.
I’ll consider taking the ‘hardships’ experienced by babykillers seriously when those animals stop committing terrorists attacks against churches and pregnancy support centers (not to mention the, you know, FUCKING MURDERS they’re guilty of, and NOT just of the unborn either) and not a single nanosecond sooner.
So you’re fine with gutting the Constitution just to get back at people you don’t like, who aren’t directly affecting you personally? I’m not cool with that. I’m not even cool with that when it’s “for my side”. Either you’re Constitutional or you’re not. You don’t get to pick and choose. Doesn’t work that way.
Back in the day, it was promoted as ‘Safe, Legal, Rara’. That got people to support it and it generally stayed that way for a long time.
Now it’s ‘anytime, anywhere, for anyone’ w/ no limitations on age or state of pregnancy.
In the state I live in, the left is pushing an ‘Abortion Protection’ initiative for the state constitution. It is so openly worded that it can include minors and late term abortions ‘if the physician determines it’s necessary for the patient’s life or health”. It also uses the wording ‘reproductive care’ , including but not limited to….. IOW ‘gender affirming care’ for minors. No laws allowed against mutilating surgery for minors who decide they’re the wrong sex.
The left wing media keeps crying that’s ‘debunked’ but the very wording damns them. The measure pushed by the dems in the Senate before the latest SCOTUS decision had similar wording.
So now you get deep red states going in the exact opposite direction in response and making highly restrictive laws w/ few exceptions.
The unfortunate truth well said Tantiv V. To not take what you have voiced here would be to take a disingenuous approach to the subject. But it should remain a State Issue and should never be a Federal Issue.
Yep, and here’s where I really don’t care. Saying, “But the OTHER side did it!” is a kindergarten response, and it does not make your doing it, too, correct. Wrong is wrong. Unconstitutional is unconstitutional. Laws must apply to everyone equally, or they aren’t laws, they’re tyrrany.
Pollyanna optimist moment here:
It will all work out.
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Seriously, this will all work out. It is human nature. When something significant happens, people will take it too far. Gov. of NM got a taste of power, took it too far, got smacked down by the legal system.
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As you noted, restricting travel is not exactly legal. Give it a few minutes, and it will work itself out.
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Besides, how will these counties/areas know someone on the interstate is going through there for that purpose? Are there going to be check points?
Give it a bit. It will simmer down, and a reasonable amount of abortion in each state will show up. Same with travel for abortions.
I would like to think you’re correct. My concern is that a lot of people, largely women and children, will suffer and/or die while it’s up for debate. I was and am fine with states making the choice for themselves (whether I agree with their choice or not). That’s the way to do it. But the number of things that politicians are sticking their noses and fingers into right now has me concerned.