IDIOT STATEMENT: If you dont want to make it illegal, you support and condone it!

I've already addressed this... WHO is going to do this? What legal basis would there be for a third party to bring such litigation? How would a court rule on a matter of her doctor's word vs. some arbitrary doctor 'expert'? These are real questions you have to ask and consider, and as I see it, there is no answer, and if you find one, it won't work. The doctor/patient relationship carries great weight here, and no outside entity would have the legal right to dictate that, so the case could never be made.

Well Dixie its not like if the practice was outlawed completely it wouuld be so much easier to prosecute. The fact is it would be tough to catch doctors doing this unless the person who had the procedure had regret about it later and called the authorities on the doctor. Its not like they have abortion clinics with a sign in neon letters saying partial birth abortions performed here.

Also as for authorities not being able to meddle in medical procedures. We have all kinds of laws forbidding medical procedures. The law is able to intercede and adjudicate whether it was done legally even if there are instances in which it was legal.

Dixie I didn't consider mental health issues as a reason. I don't support using mental health issues as an allowance. If you disallowed mental health consideration and made it just about physical health that can lead to death or physically debilitating outcome would you be supportive?
 
IHateGovernment said:
Are mental health issues considered grounds for performing partial birth abortions under the health exception?
Click to expand...

They would have to be, it is established in case law already, "mental health" is legally defined as part of "health" and that would be the loophole. This is what I am trying to get you people to realize! There is no physical reason, there is no life or death reason, there could be a diagnosed 'mental health' reason, and that is what would be the case.
 
Now I see Dixies point. If you have a mental health exception you could just have a doctor claim that having a living child who the mother didn't care for could lead to depression which is bad for mental health.

This bears consideration and should be addressed but still doesn't warrant throwing all health or even life consideration out.
 
that's bull crap... make it illegal and most ALL doctors will never use the procedure again!

and it specifically states the exception is ''the life of the mother''.... not the mental health or even health of the mother, but the LIFE of the mother...

don't buy in to dixie's crap
 
I don't support using mental health issues as an allowance. If you disallowed mental health consideration and made it just about physical health that can lead to death or physically debilitating outcome would you be supportive?

But you can't do that. It has already been brought before the courts and decided, it's established law! Mental health is defined legally as health, there is no differentiation from a legal standpoint! No, I wouldn't be supportive because the procedure in question is NEVER a medical necessity for health or life of the mother, period! NEVER... not sometimes it might be... or some possibility it could be... but NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER! Got it? Try hard to understand that point, because it is very important to the debate here, if something is NEVER the case, why would you include it?

Look, let's take another example for comparison sake... let's go back in time to before the Civil War, when black people were viewed in much the same way as the unborn, "property" of the owner. Let's say someone from up North introduced legislation to outlaw slavery, and some slave lobbyists from the South decided to attach a disclaimer or 'exception' clause to slavery, allowing the practice if the owner was financially struggling. Would you accept this as a legitimate compromise? Would that be alright in your mind, to allow that one little exception to abolition? Of course not! It's stupid, it flies in the face of the whole abolition idea! What would be the reasoning behind such an exception? Would it be justified in ANY way? Would it effectively END slavery, or just cause people to change semantics?

We are talking about a medical procedure that is never required to save the mother's life or health, it is never performed in those situations, there are other safer alternatives, and no reason to allow such an exclusion or make such an exception, it is simply a means by which physicians who perform the procedure could continue doing it, under the guise of the mother's 'mental health' and no one could stop them from it!
 
Care4all said:
that's bull crap... make it illegal and most ALL doctors will never use the procedure again!

and it specifically states the exception is ''the life of the mother''.... not the mental health or even health of the mother, but the LIFE of the mother...

don't buy in to dixie's crap
Click to expand...

No, the exception that was debated included health, I read it. I am not presenting "crap" at all, this is the finding of Congress through extensive hearings from medical professionals, not Dixie's Crap! No one who has testified before congress has ever stated that this procedure has ever been performed to save a mothers life, or preserve her health. In fact, they have testified to the complete opposite! It is substantially MORE dangerous to her health and life to have this particular procedure, as opposed to numerous other procedures which DO have a health/life provision already.
 
Dixie the law stating mental health must be tied to any consideration of physical health could be altered. Its not part of nay constitutional right to my knowledge.

Look at it like this. We can kill another person if they are adversely affecting our physical health. If someone tries to harm us physically we can use deadly force to stop them within reason of course. However in no case can deadly force be used against someone to protect against mental harm.

Why would it not be possible to assign such standard to abortion?

As far as the slavery analogy the fact is that there were incremental compromises with slavery before its eventual end. In 1807 international slave trade was outlawed. Laws allowing for the freeing of slaves were introduced and states were entered into the union under the understanding that slavery would be outlawed there. These things led to the eventual abolition of slavery as such incremental acts allowed for the entrance of the idea into the pulbic psyche that slavery must be abolished.
 
Dixie the law stating mental health must be tied to any consideration of physical health could be altered. Its not part of nay constitutional right to my knowledge.

No, not really, because then you get the Mental Health lobby! There once was a time when 'mental health' was not considered 'health' and couldn't be used as legal basis, they had the law changed to include 'mental health' as a part of 'health' and they aren't about to let you just waltz in and change that law. And WHY? Why would you need to do that in this case? It has been established that there is no medical necessity for this procedure, for the most part, it is an elective procedure, not something that is ever 'required' for any reason other than convenience sake.
 
Dixie it appears you and I are at an impasse. For me it is more important to save as many lives as possible. Even if the law with the health exception saved ten lives I would support it.

You on the other hand see this as ultimately retarding the chances of reaching the final goal.

Now with my position there is a chance that adopting a lesser evil position could create a complacency that will prevent abortions total eradication.

However you are also taking a risk. By sticking to your hard line position you may come up with nothing and then no lives would be saved at all.

I choose to take some lives off the table and hope to save the rest another day.
 
No, not really, because then you get the Mental Health lobby! There once was a time when 'mental health' was not considered 'health' and couldn't be used as legal basis, they had the law changed to include 'mental health' as a part of 'health' and they aren't about to let you just waltz in and change that law. And WHY? Why would you need to do that in this case? It has been established that there is no medical necessity for this procedure, for the most part, it is an elective procedure, not something that is ever 'required' for any reason other than convenience sake.

I understand the difficulty but we're already going against the abortion lobby no matter what we do. The abortion lobby says you're anti choice if you don't want federally funded abortion clinics. We might as well take on the mental health lobby as well. We should stand up to them.
 
As far as the slavery analogy the fact is that there were incremental compromises with slavery before its eventual end.

That was not the point of the example or question. Would this be a satisfactory compromise to you when considering abolition? If we say... we'll outlaw slavery, but leave the exception for when someone really feels like they need slaves to earn a living... is THAT acceptable in the objective of banning slavery? The answer is, NO! Its' an excuse, an out, a way to allow the practice to continue under a false presumption and interpretation.

If mothers were feeding their babies into wood chippers, and we wanted the terrible practice to stop, would you accept an 'exception clause' in the law, stating that it was still okay if the mom was stressed out? We simply can't make exceptions like that, it flies in the face of reason. Why? What's the purpose of it? Are you saying that even though the experts are telling you it is never a medical necessity, that they are wrong, and we should make a law allowing it anyway? That makes no sense to me whatsoever! Why even bother with banning it?
 
That was not the point of the example or question. Would this be a satisfactory compromise to you when considering abolition? If we say... we'll outlaw slavery, but leave the exception for when someone really feels like they need slaves to earn a living... is THAT acceptable in the objective of banning slavery? The answer is, NO! Its' an excuse, an out, a way to allow the practice to continue under a false presumption and interpretation.

It would only be an unacceptable compromise if it meant that that was all we were ever going to get and that the slavery issue would be ended by it. But that wouldn't be the case because further legislation can always follow.

The women's rights movement is a good example women were slowly granted all of their freedoms not in one swift stroke.

In the 19th century the womens rights movement was tied to the black writes movement. Some suffragettes said that both blacks and women should be granted together or it was nothing. Others said granting the rights to blacks would sow the seeds for women to eventually gain suffrage. History shows the latter were correct to do so.

If mothers were feeding their babies into wood chippers, and we wanted the terrible practice to stop, would you accept an 'exception clause' in the law, stating that it was still okay if the mom was stressed out?

Lets not take this to extreme degrees. Obviously we can make an incremental stance and not support one such as this that is silly.
 
Me too, that's why I want to ban the practice completely, with NO exceptions!

But if we can include the exception we can start saving lives right away instead of waiting for your perfect law which may never come.
 
Why add an exception that doesn't need to be? For ANY law? Pick one! It doesn't matter! Shoplifting? ...it's illegal unless the person is indigent and without money! Is that acceptable? Rape? ...it's illegal unless the woman is dressed provocatively! Is that acceptable? Vandalism? ...it's illegal unless they did something to piss you off! Is that okay? Forgery? ...Illegal unless someone can't produce an original! Would that fly? Embezzlement? ...only if you can show you weren't being paid a fair wage! ...you okay with that one too?

Look, I have argued until I am blue in the face here, and it's obvious to me that some of you are too politically invested, or tainted by your liberal hogwash to ever be objective and honest in this debate, and I am not going to ever convince you otherwise. As far as I know, people like C. Everett Koop don't post here, and are not going to come on here and back me up, and most of you are too cowardly to ever stand in my corner here, so there isn't a lot else I can say. I think I've presented a valid case and made my points well, and if you disagree with me, so be it. I can't change my opinion on the subject, and if you took the time to actually READ about the procedure in question, perhaps you would change your minds? I obviously can't do that, and there is really no point in continuing to try.
 
If mothers were feeding their babies into wood chippers, and we wanted the terrible practice to stop, would you accept an 'exception clause' in the law, stating that it was still okay if the mom was stressed out?

Lets not take this to extreme degrees. Obviously we can make an incremental stance and not support one such as this that is silly.

But that is precisely what you are saying! We are talking about a medical procedure that is never required to save a mother's life or protect her health, and is substantially more of a risk to her than other alternatives would be, a hideous and shocking procedure that can only be described as legal infanticide. You are suggesting we allow exceptions for it! I am suggesting that is inherently WRONG! There IS NO EXCEPTION that is acceptable to me and it shouldn't be to you either! NONE!
 

Why add an exception that doesn't need to be? For ANY law? Pick one! It doesn't matter! Shoplifting? ...it's illegal unless the person is indigent and without money! Is that acceptable? Rape? ...it's illegal unless the woman is dressed provocatively! Is that acceptable? Vandalism? ...it's illegal unless they did something to piss you off! Is that okay? Forgery? ...Illegal unless someone can't produce an original! Would that fly? Embezzlement? ...only if you can show you weren't being paid a fair wage! ...you okay with that one too?

Honestly it warrants consideration if the opposition to it is so strong you can never pass it without token concessions. However opposition to these crimes is fairly universal so its not applicable. Also none of these laws have the backing of constitutional protections via the ninth amendment.

Look, I have argued until I am blue in the face here, and it's obvious to me that some of you are too politically invested, or tainted by your liberal hogwash to ever be objective and honest in this debate, and I am not going to ever convince you otherwise.

Dixie I don't know if the some of you you refer to includes me but I have already explained my position to you and it has nothing to do with politics or liberal hogwash. As I stated before I want to save as many lives as I can with a realistic assessment of such a policy's efficacy. We have two choices we can accept the law with exceptions and understand that in its current state some lives will be saved by passing this law but some will not. Doing this we can still elect to push for even more stringent limitations. You act as if we don't pass a law with no exceptions then we can never do so in the future this isn't true. The other route we can go is hold out for a better deal but bear in mind that the lives that could have been saved by accepting the less stringent law will have been lost because of your holding out.

I'm sure your intentions are noble in this but to me this is unconscionable. Should the babies that could have been saved by a less stringent law be martyrs so that you can hold out for an all or nothing deal?
 
You won't take my word for it, you want to call it "Dixies Crap", you want to keep arguing for some pointless caveat in banning this hideous practice... well, maybe you will accept the words of a former pro-choice RN:

In September, 1993, Brenda Pratt Shafer, a registered nurse with thirteen years or experience, was assigned by her nursing agency to an abortion clinic. Since Nurse Shafer considered herself "very pro-choice," she didn't think this assignment would be a problem. She was wrong. This is what Nurse Shafer saw:

" I stood at the doctor's side and watched him perform a partial-birth abortion on a woman who was six months pregnant. The baby's heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen. The doctor delivered the baby's body and arms, everything but his little head. The baby's body was moving. His little fingers were clasping together. He was kicking his feet. The doctor took a pair of scissors and inserted them into the back of the baby's head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. Then the doctor opened the scissors up. Then he stuck the high-powered suction tube into the hole and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the baby was completely limp. I never went back to the clinic. But I am still haunted by the face of that little boy. It was the most perfect, angelic face I have ever seen."

Think about it while you sit there at you computers trying to argue the indefensible!
 
But that is precisely what you are saying! We are talking about a medical procedure that is never required to save a mother's life or protect her health, and is substantially more of a risk to her than other alternatives would be, a hideous and shocking procedure that can only be described as legal infanticide. You are suggesting we allow exceptions for it! I am suggesting that is inherently WRONG! There IS NO EXCEPTION that is acceptable to me and it shouldn't be to you either! NONE!

I have enough faith in our court systems that if a doctor is found to be killing babies in an inproper way that he would be prosecuted and found guilty once it was deemed that he acted in a manner that was not necessary to protect the physical health of the mother. I have already said that mental won't be good enough.

Look you are right there aren't any reasons for performing partial birth. If you can do partial birth than you can also do normal birth or Caesarean. Nevertheless the supreme court will always rule that any law that does not give you a recourse to protect your own life violates your rights under the US constitution. You must accept the reality of this a tailor your demands accordingly otherwise we are left with nothing.

How many children died from this procedure because of Republican's stubborness? One would be too many.
 
You won't take my word for it, you want to call it "Dixies Crap", you want to keep arguing for some pointless caveat in banning this hideous practice... well, maybe you will accept the words of a former pro-choice RN:

Don't be so defensive I didn't say anything about what you're saying is crap.

I know all about the procedure thats why I'm so opposed to it. The difference between you and me is that I see the compromise as at least saving some babies from this gruesome fate. If you hold out none will be saved and other babies will be killed by this disgusting act. I am willing to even compromise my principles if it will save lives. Will you?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top