hedrick

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Who is responsible for reporting it?
I doubt there were reported statistics on abortions in states where it was illegal. In states where it was legal, one article implies that they checked logs from abortion providers and hospitals. These studies were done after the fact, and involved a fair amount of work.
 
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Arcangl86

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I am sure it will be mandatory in Alabama if federal judges don't put a stay on its stupid law.
They can't ban it and then make reporting it mandatory. It would be a blatant violation of the protection from self incriminaiton.
 
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GodLovesCats

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They can't ban it and then make reporting it mandatory. It would be a blatant violation of the protection from self incriminaiton.

Sure they can. If the pregnancy is ectopic or life-threatening to the mother, an abortion is still legal.
 
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Dale

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Have you read the decision? That wasn't the argument.

The argument was that under our system, we have a limited government. Laws can only be made when there's a legitimate governmental purpose. There's no agreement on when someone is fully human, not in philosophy, religion, or the legal tradition. (The decision has a brief review.) Governments shouldn't base laws on a specific controversial philosophical position. They used the term "privacy." Today, that term makes people think of Facebook accumulating information on them. But that's not what they meant. They meant that people should be able to do things without having to worry about the law, except when there is justification for a law.

However governments can regulate medical procedures. They noted that the abortion laws were mostly from the late 19th Cent. At that time, abortions where dangerous. This provided a legitimate medical reason. However by the time of the case, this was no longer true. Hence it was no longer justified to prohibit abortion.

Nothing has changed that would invalidate that argument. There is still no philosophical agreement. Despite loud shouting in CF, 60% of our population believes abortion should be legal in the first trimester. Abortion is safer now than at the time of Roe v Wade. Maternity is actually more dangerous. (One possibility is better reporting, but no one seems entirely sure what's going on.)

Anti-abortion activists want the Supreme Court to allow laws made on the basis of religious convictions not shared by a majority of the population. I think even if they were shared by a majority they shouldn't be the basis for laws, but surely a minority shouldn't be able to pass laws based on its views.


Hedrick,

Yes, I have read Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, and studied them. They certainly reveal that Harry Blackmun, assigned to write both of them by Chief Justice Warren Burger, should never have been a judge, let alone on the Supreme Court. I could make several responses to your defense of R v W, which seems to take everything at face value.


One thing your defense doesn't address is that traditionally, before the judicial activism of the 1960's and 1970's, the law of marriage, divorce, and child custody was state law. Family law was governed by the states, the Federal government had no authority in this area. What was wrong with that system? Are you claiming that there was some crisis that caused the Federal government to throw out state laws on that subject?


At first glance, Roe v. Wade only declared one Texas law void, and Doe v. Bolton only declared one Georgia law void. In practice, these decisions are so radical that the abortion laws of all fifty states, and all US territories, had to be discarded and rewritten. The most liberal abortion laws in the country, as of 1972, were not liberal enough, they too went in the trash can. I believe the states with the most liberal abortion laws at the time were New York and California.


Here is one brief response. Roe v. Wade was intended to deal with the vexing problem of unwanted pregnancy in teen girls. This is what moved the Court to take such radical action. They were concerned about teenage girls having impaired educational opportunities when they become pregnant before they finish their schooling. Make no mistake, Roe v. Wade was intended to solve this problem once and for all. Did it? NO! Unplanned and often unexpected teen pregnancy is still a major problem.


One of the ways I know this is that it's a problem in the county that I live in. I live in a mostly rural and very conservative, even religious, county. But that county also has one of the highest rates of unwanted teen pregnancy in Florida. Our newspaper once ran a column by an employee of the Health Department who tried to warn teenagers, especially teen girls, on how much an unwanted pregnancy could mess up their life.


The fact is that Roe v. Wade encouraged promiscuity in general and particularly among teens. Legal abortion seemed to remove the urgency of waiting until marriage, or even any urgency of using other forms of birth control. In practice, once a girl becomes pregnant, she is often reluctant to get an abortion. I've read the testimonies of girls and women who have had an abortion. When they do get an abortion, it is often because they were told to do so by someone else, not because it was their first choice.


It is possible that Roe v. Wade made things worse. It appeared to solve the problem of teen pregnancy, but for many only created a false sense of security.


So, Hedrick, you defend the legal decision. Can you defend the results?
 
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Dale

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Have you read the decision? That wasn't the argument.

The argument was that under our system, we have a limited government. Laws can only be made when there's a legitimate governmental purpose. There's no agreement on when someone is fully human, not in philosophy, religion, or the legal tradition. (The decision has a brief review.) Governments shouldn't base laws on a specific controversial philosophical position. They used the term "privacy." Today, that term makes people think of Facebook accumulating information on them. But that's not what they meant. They meant that people should be able to do things without having to worry about the law, except when there is justification for a law.

However governments can regulate medical procedures. They noted that the abortion laws were mostly from the late 19th Cent. At that time, abortions where dangerous. This provided a legitimate medical reason. However by the time of the case, this was no longer true. Hence it was no longer justified to prohibit abortion.

Nothing has changed that would invalidate that argument. There is still no philosophical agreement. Despite loud shouting in CF, 60% of our population believes abortion should be legal in the first trimester. Abortion is safer now than at the time of Roe v Wade. Maternity is actually more dangerous. (One possibility is better reporting, but no one seems entirely sure what's going on.)

Anti-abortion activists want the Supreme Court to allow laws made on the basis of religious convictions not shared by a majority of the population. I think even if they were shared by a majority they shouldn't be the basis for laws, but surely a minority shouldn't be able to pass laws based on its views.


Hedrick,

I'm surprised that you take Roe v. Wade at face value.

In Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun makes a completely untenable argument second-guessing the intentions of the Texas legislature. Blackmun assumes that the function of the legislature is to enact the recommendations of national professional associations like the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association into law. This is absurd. While the legislature would normally listen to the advice of doctors and lawyers, there is no single organization that is entitled to have its recommendations become law. The primary function of the Texas legislature is to embody the values of the citizens of Texas into law. Do you object to that?

In one sense, the companion decision, Doe v. Bolton, is even more radical. Doe v. Bolton came perilously close to throwing out Age of Consent laws. Those laws are something the women's movement fought for. With no qualifications whatever, Doe v. Bolton decided that there is no minimum age for an abortion. This was decided very indirectly, even dishonestly, you could blink and miss it. The roundabout removal of any lower age for legal abortion had no relation to the facts of the case. The woman who filed the suit in Doe v. Bolton was a 22 year old married woman.

Think about it--there is no minimum age for an abortion where the parents have a right to be informed. It may be statutory rape, but no one has to tell the father or mother of the girl involved. The doctor doesn't have to tell the police or the prosecutor, either. Can you make sense out of this? I can't.
 
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hedrick

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I'm surprised that you take Roe v. Wade at face value.
I don't subscribe to conspiracy theory. The opinion is convincing.
The primary function of the Texas legislature is to embody the values of the citizens of Texas into law. Do you object to that?
If it violates their rights, I do object. Obviously laws embody values to some extent. But under our form of government there are limits to imposing values on those who disagree.
 
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Dale

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Today most abortions in Europe are medical. If abortions are made illegal, the most likely result will be women getting the appropriate pills illegally. You can try to identify and prosecute organized crime, but that's no been very successful with other drugs. To have a real effect you'll need to prosecute women. State laws vary. One Georgia prosecutor has warned that women could be prosecuted under their law: DA Warns Women They Can Be Charged With Murder Under New Abortion Law | Daily Report. It probably wasn't the intent, but the law does seem to have that implication.

Making abortion illegal isn't all that's going on. There are also laws declaring a fetus a full person. Once you treat a fetus as a full human, anything less than ideal behavior becomes endangering a child, and unless there's an explicit exception, abortion becomes criminal for the woman under normal murder laws. Women have already been prosecuted for taking drugs while pregnant. There are also cases where miscarriages have been at least investigated. (I haven't check to see how far it went.) In that respect the new laws are stricter than pre-Rowe laws.


Hedrick: << To have a real effect you'll need to prosecute women. >>


Why? I don't understand the reasoning here.


Hedrick: << Today most abortions in Europe are medical. >>


This isn't true. Take this story from Finland in 2017, for example.

The story is Finland has Nordic region's lowest abortion rate.

<< "Social reasons are most often cited, and they are broadly interpreted in Finland," Heino says. >>

The reasons are "social" not medical, and that means the woman doesn't want to be pregnant.


Link
THL: Finland has Nordic region's lowest abortion rate


 
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hedrick

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Hedrick: << To have a real effect you'll need to prosecute women. >>
Why? I don't understand the reasoning here.
First, there may be a problem with terminology. A medical abortion is an abortion done with drugs, as opposed to surgery. See Medical abortion - Wikipedia.

If women can take the drugs without a doctor (at least a doctor in their state), prosecuting doctors won't help. You'll have to prosecute women or make drugs unavailable. We have generally been unable to keep people from getting drugs. I doubt that will change.
Hedrick: << Today most abortions in Europe are medical. >>
This isn't true. Take this story from Finland in 2017, for example.
The story is Finland has Nordic region's lowest abortion rate.
Unless I missed something, this says nothing about how abortions were done. I believe 96% are medical.

The article has percentages for various countries. As you can see, it varies a lot. In the US, it was 30%. If surgical abortions are stopped, that will increase. (Of course before Roe, people travelled to states where it's legal. Presumably that will also happen.)
 
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GodLovesCats

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First, there may be a problem with terminology. A medical abortion is an abortion done with drugs, as opposed to surgery. See Medical abortion - Wikipedia.

If women can take the drugs without a doctor (at least a doctor in their state), prosecuting doctors won't help. You'll have to prosecute women or make drugs unavailable. We have generally been unable to keep people from getting drugs. I doubt that will change.

Think about people going to Colorado just to buy marijuana and then being charted of possession in their own states. If women do this with abortion drugs, they better stay in the state where it is legal, not bring the drug home from Mississippi or Tennessee.
 
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hedrick

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Think about people going to Colorado just to buy marijuana and then being charted of possession in their own states. If women do this with abortion drugs, they better stay in the state where it is legal, not bring the drug home from Mississippi or Tennessee.
I don't think that's going to work. Having marijuana in their state meant they did something illegal there. Having an abortion in another state doesn't involve anything illegal in their own state.
 
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Dale

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Have you read the decision? That wasn't the argument.

The argument was that under our system, we have a limited government. Laws can only be made when there's a legitimate governmental purpose. There's no agreement on when someone is fully human, not in philosophy, religion, or the legal tradition. (The decision has a brief review.) Governments shouldn't base laws on a specific controversial philosophical position. They used the term "privacy." Today, that term makes people think of Facebook accumulating information on them. But that's not what they meant. They meant that people should be able to do things without having to worry about the law, except when there is justification for a law.

However governments can regulate medical procedures. They noted that the abortion laws were mostly from the late 19th Cent. At that time, abortions where dangerous. This provided a legitimate medical reason. However by the time of the case, this was no longer true. Hence it was no longer justified to prohibit abortion.

Nothing has changed that would invalidate that argument. There is still no philosophical agreement. Despite loud shouting in CF, 60% of our population believes abortion should be legal in the first trimester. Abortion is safer now than at the time of Roe v Wade. Maternity is actually more dangerous. (One possibility is better reporting, but no one seems entirely sure what's going on.)

Anti-abortion activists want the Supreme Court to allow laws made on the basis of religious convictions not shared by a majority of the population. I think even if they were shared by a majority they shouldn't be the basis for laws, but surely a minority shouldn't be able to pass laws based on its views.


Hedrick: "Abortion is safer now than at the time of Roe v Wade. Maternity is actually more dangerous."


The notion that abortion is safer than childbirth is given in the Roe v. Wade decision and I find it a very bizarre reasoning. Childbirth is necessary to society, we have to have children, we have to have a next generation. Abortion isn't needed in that sense. Why compare the two?

The notion that abortion is safer than childbirth is very hotly contested. I have seen articles by doctors who argue that the statistics that conclusion is drawn from were not collected with that purpose in mind, in short, they are inadequate.

A woman's death isn't reported as an abortion death unless she dies on the operating table. Even today, women often give false names when they go to an abortion clinic. If she dies the next day or the next week, this isn't counted as an abortion death. In contrast, when a woman who gives birth in a hospital under her real name, and suffers bleeding or infection can die up to a year later. This is counted as a death in childbirth. The statistics aren't comparable.
 
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GodLovesCats

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I don't think that's going to work. Having marijuana in their state meant they did something illegal there. Having an abortion in another state doesn't involve anything illegal in their own state.

I was talking about just buying abortion drugs in another state, then using them at home.
 
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hedrick

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I was talking about just buying abortion drugs in another state, then using them at home.
Yup, that would be illegal. But to stop it I think you'd have to prosecute the women. Which was my point in this conversation.
 
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hedrick

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The notion that abortion is safer than childbirth is given in the Roe v. Wade decision and I find it a very bizarre reasoning.
Remember, they argued that the only legitimate reason to regulate abortion was as a potentially dangerous medical procedure. At the early stages, where it's less dangerous than proceeding to childbirth, it's hard to make that argument.

You are obviously persuaded by reasons other than medical danger. However the Court's view is that those arguments are personal philosophy, and in fact (although they didn't use this fact) are accepted by a minority. It is not legitimate for the government to make things illegal because a minority of people object. (I would even be careful if it's a majority.) I understand that in CF people are *very* convinced and object *very* strenuously, but we don't want to make laws based on that.
 
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Dale

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Have you read the decision? That wasn't the argument.

The argument was that under our system, we have a limited government. Laws can only be made when there's a legitimate governmental purpose. There's no agreement on when someone is fully human, not in philosophy, religion, or the legal tradition. (The decision has a brief review.) Governments shouldn't base laws on a specific controversial philosophical position. They used the term "privacy." Today, that term makes people think of Facebook accumulating information on them. But that's not what they meant. They meant that people should be able to do things without having to worry about the law, except when there is justification for a law.

However governments can regulate medical procedures. They noted that the abortion laws were mostly from the late 19th Cent. At that time, abortions where dangerous. This provided a legitimate medical reason. However by the time of the case, this was no longer true. Hence it was no longer justified to prohibit abortion.

Nothing has changed that would invalidate that argument. There is still no philosophical agreement. Despite loud shouting in CF, 60% of our population believes abortion should be legal in the first trimester. Abortion is safer now than at the time of Roe v Wade. Maternity is actually more dangerous. (One possibility is better reporting, but no one seems entirely sure what's going on.)

Anti-abortion activists want the Supreme Court to allow laws made on the basis of religious convictions not shared by a majority of the population. I think even if they were shared by a majority they shouldn't be the basis for laws, but surely a minority shouldn't be able to pass laws based on its views.



Hedrick: "There's no agreement on when someone is fully human, not in philosophy, religion, or the legal tradition. (The decision has a brief review.)"


I am well aware of Harry Blackmun's preposterous foray into history, philosophy and even religion. Everything he said is wrong.

Blackmun said that Protestants have no problem with abortion and he also said that Judaism has no problem with abortion. He was wrong on both counts.

John Calvin condemned abortion, as you are probably aware.

Martin Luther condemned abortion in the strongest terms.

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod passed a resolution condemning abortion in 1971.

The Southern Baptist Convention also passed a resolution condemning abortion in 1971.

The Southern Baptists are officially the largest Protestant denomination in the US.


The Supreme Court issued their decisions in Roe v. Wade/Doe v. Bolton in January of 1973. If Harry Blackmun or his clerks had done any research before issuing these far-reaching decisions he would surely have uncovered these facts.
 
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hedrick

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Dale

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First, there may be a problem with terminology. A medical abortion is an abortion done with drugs, as opposed to surgery. See Medical abortion - Wikipedia.

If women can take the drugs without a doctor (at least a doctor in their state), prosecuting doctors won't help. You'll have to prosecute women or make drugs unavailable. We have generally been unable to keep people from getting drugs. I doubt that will change.
Unless I missed something, this says nothing about how abortions were done. I believe 96% are medical.

The article has percentages for various countries. As you can see, it varies a lot. In the US, it was 30%. If surgical abortions are stopped, that will increase. (Of course before Roe, people travelled to states where it's legal. Presumably that will also happen.)


You are mistaken. The term "medical abortion" as used in my post #68 has nothing to do with whether the abortion was done surgically or with drugs. It refers to the reason for the abortion, whether it was a serious threat to the health of the pregnant woman or else she just doesn't want to be pregnant.

On European abortions, take a look at this story.


Quote

By John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor

7:30AM GMT 04 Feb 2013

Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said that pregnant women and doctors actively “pretend” that the women’s mental health is at risk so that they can sign off abortions without questions being asked.

And the chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners said a woman simply saying that she did not want to be pregnant now counted as enough evidence to justify an abortion.

End Quote


Link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9846014/Mental-health-excuse-to-sign-off-abortions.html
 
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RDKirk

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I'm calling for the end of abortion so that more people will be born who will make disciples of all the nations.

You're taking time away from making disciples of all the nations to tell others to go make disciples of all the nations.

No, not at all.

The water boy and the cheerleaders are all playing their part in winning the game.

The cook, the clerk, and mechanic are all doing their part in winning the war.
 
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RDKirk

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People are quoting statements from textbooks out of context, and turning description into theology. As a matter of description, the fertilized egg is human (as is the unfertilized egg and sperm), and has the DNA that the child will have. But that doesn't answer the question of when they become human beings.

There is a conflation here of science and philosophy. Scientifically, we can say that the fertilized egg is the egg of a homo sapiens (sorry, but a chicken's egg is not a chicken).

"Human" is a philosophical concept that carries a lot of baggage with it beyond the strictly scientific. My great-great-grandparents were not considered "human," and certainly were not considering having any rights a white man need recognize. The US Supreme Court even said so in just those words.
 
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