jayem
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- Jun 24, 2003
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It's not just NY state law that says a fetus isn't a person. It's also the Constitution. Where does it say, or even imply, that the unborn are "persons?" This is exactly what the SC ruled in Roe v. Wade. This is from Section IX of Justice Blackmun's 7-2 majority opinion:
All this, together with our observation, supra, that throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.
FindLaw's United States Supreme Court case and opinions.
But back to this bill: Did the Senators who introduced this legislation hold any hearings, or get any opinions from qualified OBs, or other experts in the field? I'm not an OB, but I had a 40 year career in health care. This law addresses a situation that hardly ever occurs. Terminations that are done at viability (22wks or more at the earliest) are a bit over 1% of all such procedures. And, in this country, they are done legally only for serious maternal, or fetal health problems. I won't go into the details, but when done properly--under ultrasonic guidance, so the physician knows exactly where he is and what he's doing--the D & E procedure most commonly used induces near-instantaneous fetal death.
If anything should be a crime, it's an attempted late term abortion so badly botched that it results in a live delivery. At the very least, it's grossly negligent medical practice.
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