The Moderate Voice - Latest Comments in COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

roro80 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:52:23 -0000

I see nothing on that thread that indicates anyone advocating for "unlimited abortion entitlement". Those of us furthest to the left on this issue are merely advocating for keeping the tenets of Roe v Wade as far as legality, and be able to keep abortion on our insurance policies if the insurance companies wish to cover them. And of course they want to cover them -- it&#39s one of the easiest and cheapest forms of preventative medicine as far as they&#39re concerned. That&#39s all a far, far cry from "unlimited absolute federal abortion entitlement".

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

ProfElwood — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:55:11 -0000

Well, yes, it is. We&#39re discussing that exact thing, at least for the poor, on another abortion thread:

http://themoderatevoice.com/52754/an-abortion-c...

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

roro80 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:33:27 -0000

"It&#39s also obvious that a majority doesn&#39t approve of an unlimited, absolute federal abortion entitlement"

No, you&#39re right. Luckily, that doesn&#39t exist, nor is it being proposed by anyone.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

roro80 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:52:23 -0000

I see nothing on that thread that indicates anyone advocating for "unlimited abortion entitlement". Those of us furthest to the left on this issue are merely advocating for keeping the tenets of Roe v Wade as far as legality, and be able to keep abortion on our insurance policies if the insurance companies wish to cover them. And of course they want to cover them -- it's one of the easiest and cheapest forms of preventative medicine as far as they're concerned. That's all a far, far cry from "unlimited absolute federal abortion entitlement".

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

ProfElwood — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:55:11 -0000

Well, yes, it is. We're discussing that exact thing, at least for the poor, on another abortion thread:

http://themoderatevoice.com...

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

DLS — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:36:19 -0000

This always has been, and should remain, properly a state and local issue.

It&#39s also obvious that a majority doesn&#39t approve of an unlimited, absolute federal abortion entitlement.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

roro80 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:33:27 -0000

"It's also obvious that a majority doesn't approve of an unlimited, absolute federal abortion entitlement"

No, you're right. Luckily, that doesn't exist, nor is it being proposed by anyone.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

DLS — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:36:19 -0000

This always has been, and should remain, properly a state and local issue.

It's also obvious that a majority doesn't approve of an unlimited, absolute federal abortion entitlement.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

kathykattenburg — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:30:57 -0000

(you know, it scares the heck out of me to be agreeing with you and Father_Time on the same day).

That scares me, too! :-)

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

ProfElwood — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:32:47 -0000

I have to agree (you know, it scares the heck out of me to be agreeing with you and Father_Time on the same day). Of course, encouraging the overuse of oil by subsidizing SUV purchases wasn&#39t exactly a help. I&#39m certainly no fan of oil dependency or the mid-east wars that it&#39s gotten us into. I believe we&#39ve discussed this in more detail on other threads, so I&#39ll leave it at that.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

kathykattenburg — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:50:38 -0000

Rights aren&#39t rights at all if they harm someone else, so I can&#39t support abortions as a right without diluting the meaning of the word.

Do you believe that 5% of the global population have the right to use up a quarter of the planet&#39s fossil fuel resources? The fact that Americans do, harms many someone elses.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

tidbits — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:26:56 -0000

The state-by-state residency requirement is not tenable. If it went back to the states, then it would be up to the individual state to decide whether to have a residency requirement. You can&#39t say it&#39s a state issue, but the feds will impose a state residency requirement. And, states that voted for legal abortion would not impose such a restriction...even if they did, it would impossible to enforce. Interesting idea. Won&#39t happen. Wouldn&#39t work if it did happen.

And, it still doesn&#39t account for cross border [Canada] and off shore abortions. As I said before, the genie is out of the bottle, and you just can&#39t put it back in. Leave it legal and argue the morality on an individual basis. The practicalities just don&#39t work to try to get to illegality or even state-by-state, and way too much is at risk, far beyond the abortion issue, in overturning Roe v. Wade.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

kathykattenburg — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:26:13 -0000

In a practical sense, the genie is out of the bottle on abortion and has been for decades.

This is another good point. Although you may not have intended this shade of meaning, what I take from it is that, even if we went back, in a strictly literal and legal sense, to states determining the legality of abortion, women are not going back. Women have had a 35-year taste of individual bodily autonomy, and as a general proposition, they are not going to be willing to return to the days of wire hangers, bottles of bleach, back alleys, kitchen tables, and quack doctors. Been there, done that. Never will do it again.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

kathykattenburg — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:08:57 -0000

Actually, it doesn&#39t shock me out of my skull that you are fine with giving states the right to determine the legality of abortion. I&#39m not exactly sure why you thought I would be. It&#39s not a pro-choice position or a liberal position.

As for residency requirements to have an abortion, obviously that&#39s not going to help a woman who is already pregnant and needs an abortion. And just so you don&#39t come back at me with the same old non sequitur argument, sometimes a woman finds out, after she has conceived a wanted pregnancy, that the pregnancy is not viable for any one of many reasons, or that there are health concerns she was not earlier aware of, or that come up during the pregnancy.

Aside from the above, I&#39m not sure how it could possibly be legal to have a residency requirement for abortion services if you&#39re not paying for it with public dollars. If abortion is legal in my state, for example, and a woman travels to New Jersey from Mississippi, where abortion is illegal, assuming she can afford to pay for the abortion herself, how could a state government require her to be a legal resident before she could have one?

If a "liberal minded" woman wants to get an abortion - she can actually MOVE to that state - and preferably stay there.

It isn&#39t just "liberal-minded" woman who need abortions or choose to have one, although there *are* women who never thought they would ever have an abortion who find at some point in their lives that they have to have one.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

JeffersonDavis — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:46:03 -0000

"but throwing abortion as an issue back to the states will not satisfy opponents of legal abortion because the inevitable outcome of women flocking to the states where abortion is legal "

Read my comment. You may be pleasantly surprised.
As far as the flocking goes. You can require that abortion clients be legal residents of that state. If a "liberal minded" woman wants to get an abortion - she can actually MOVE to that state - and preferably stay there.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

JeffersonDavis — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:43:05 -0000

I agree in the spirit of Tidbits argument of rationality. But I can actually get behind your state-to-state (pre-RowVWade) idea. As long as none of my federal taxes go to abortion, I&#39d be willing to let it go state to state. It has worked with same-sex unions thus far. You may be right. Leave all social issues to the states. That&#39s a compromise I can live with.

I would be willing to bet that Kathy Kattenburg will poop in her pants when she reads that.

LOL

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

ProfElwood — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:56:40 -0000

"ask for some clarification on others."
Understandable, this has got to be one of my more "off the wall" ideas.

"Legally, it is. It&#39s called viability, and the medical establishment considers ..."
There&#39s bunch of different answers with different principles behind them. GreenDreams brought up the constitutional definition (birth), JeffersonDavis uses synapse viability, if I remember right, and, of course, there&#39s the conception group. All of them have good arguments on their side.

"arguing over whether the kid dies legally or illegally."
I&#39m not talking about anything medical here, just that the law has effective limits. Speeding, drug use, prostitution, office gambling, and a host of other things are illegal, but because they don&#39t directly impact another person, the law really can&#39t stop them. The kid is obviously affected, but, quite often, no one knows that the mother is pregnant, or at least, no one who would turn the mother in. Yes, late term pregnancies are more of an exception, not just because they&#39re more difficult, but also because the pregnancy is harder to hide.

"Sometimes those reason include..."
Take a look at your list again: not being capable of supporting a child, and just not ready to be a parent are both saying that she can&#39t afford it. Right now, couples will pay $30,000 and more to adopt a child from overseas, since the US market (I&#39m using that word on purpose) is limited to freewill donors. Although some states allows couples to cover certain expenses for the mother, it&#39s hard to encode into law what all of those expenses might be.

"there are huge moral issues involved here . . ."
You think? Between adoption and abortion, I&#39d rather deal with the moral problems of adoption.

"women getting pregnant on purpose in order to sell their kids,"
If these kinds of problems really concern you, then are you concerned with AFDC encouraging girls to get pregnant in order to get the payments? The law currently sets the profit (again, I&#39m using that word on purpose) at $0. It could set at a different level into order to curb the worst abuses.

"This doesn&#39t take into account the fact that giving up your child for adoption is generally way more traumatic than having an early-term abortion."
We were looking at adoption before we went through infertility treatments. Quite often, a baby adoption works like a divorce, with the mother getting visiting rights and choosing the parents, so that she knows how the kid turned out. I think you may have the "trauma" thing backward, unless you have statistics to contrary.

"This is why I&#39m pro-choice".
I&#39m more anti-law, since I think the unborn have some rights (even if they&#39re not constitutional, GreenDreams) also. Rights aren&#39t rights at all if they harm someone else, so I can&#39t support abortions as a right without diluting the meaning of the word.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

tidbits — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:50:23 -0000

Your analysis is correct, Kathy. The additional wild cards are availability across the borders and offshore. Prior to Roe, safe abortion was the province of the rich or those lucky enough to live in a state where it was legal.

In a practical sense, the genie is out of the bottle on abortion and has been for decades. That did play a part in Roe v. Wade, and it&#39s why even some of us who are Troglodilian in our views on the underlying moral issue do not see value in overturning Roe. Truth is abortion should remain safe and legal not because of any moral argument, but because the practical alternative is unacceptable.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

kathykattenburg — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:32:44 -0000

My warning. In wanting Roe v. Wade overturned to send the abortion issue back to the states, be careful what you wish for.

Exactly, tidbits. People who want to go back to pre-Roe v. Wade have either forgotten or never knew what the practical state of affairs was before Roe v. Wade. We need to learn from our mistakes, not go back so we have to learn the lessons all over again.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

kathykattenburg — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:28:42 -0000

And that is one of the reasons why Roe v. Wade came about in the first place -- because a patchwork of differing state laws on abortion made access to this essential medical procedure difficult or impossible for women to obtain.

Not only that, but throwing abortion as an issue back to the states will not satisfy opponents of legal abortion because the inevitable outcome of women flocking to the states where abortion is legal would be opponents of legal abortion pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion outright, to prevent women from escaping their own states&#39 criminalization of abortion.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

roro80 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:18:44 -0000

Hey Prof -- I&#39d like to maybe clear up a few of the issues here, ask for some clarification on others.

"a fetus has to be considered a baby at some point before birth"

Legally, it is. It&#39s called viability, and the medical establishment considers this the dividing line between the second and third trimesters -- about 6 months. This is why it&#39s illegal to get an abortion after this time unless something has gone terribly, horribly wrong. At this stage, the baby can be taken out of the mother&#39s womb and will generally live given the proper medical care, etc. This means that it&#39s rare to have an abortion if the baby&#39s healthy but the mother will die if it doesn&#39t come out -- they just take it out. This is already part of the Roe v Wade decision.

"Although there are a few exceptions, for the most part we&#39re arguing over whether the kid dies legally or illegally. "

I&#39m really curious about what you mean here. Are we still talking late-stage abortion? I would agree with this statement if we&#39re talking about first-trimester abortions, minus the calling the fetus a "kid". First trimester abortions are extremely easy and safe procedures if done correctly; even DIY (do research first, of course!). Later stage abortions get very dangerous. After about the 4th month of pregnancy, almost all abortions are done for more health-related reasons -- not just "I don&#39t want this thing".

"The real effects of making abortions illegal would be to endanger more women&#39s lives and put some of the women and abortionists in jail afterword."

Agreed.

"I&#39d rather allow adopters to pay for healthy infants again. It&#39s not that I&#39m comfortable with the idea of selling kids like they were a house or a can of beans, but I prefer that to throwing them away like trash."

This shows some naïveté about the reasons women get abortions. First trimester abortions -- remember these are easy, safe, cheap -- are done for any reason the woman wants (legally). Sometimes those reason include shame, not wanting to carry a child, an inability to carry a child, not being capable of supporting a child, just not ready to be a parent, can&#39t keep their job while pregnant, whatever. With most of the reasons women get early abortions, it doesn&#39t make sense for the woman to carry that fetus to term, whether they&#39ll be paid for the eventual kid or not. Again, most later abortions are done for other reasons -- the fetus has a disease, etc. It doesn&#39t make sense if the eventual kid will have a disease to then keep the pregnancy in the hopes of getting money for it. Of course, there are huge moral issues involved here -- women getting pregnant on purpose in order to sell their kids, beautiful but poor women being taken advantage of and used as baby-makers for the rich who may be infertile or don&#39t wish to ruin their bodies through pregnancy, etc. This doesn&#39t take into account the fact that giving up your child for adoption is generally way more traumatic than having an early-term abortion.

I don&#39t think it&#39s the "lesser of two evils"; in fact, I certainly think it&#39s the worse of two evils. This is why I&#39m pro-choice.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

ProfElwood — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:33:13 -0000

The legality of abortion has never been a big deal to me, even though I have to agree that a fetus has to be considered a baby at some point before birth. The problem is, if the mother wants it out, she&#39ll get it out, legal or not. Although there are a few exceptions, for the most part we&#39re arguing over whether the kid dies legally or illegally. The real effects of making abortions illegal would be to endanger more women&#39s lives and put some of the women and abortionists in jail afterword.

I&#39d rather allow adopters to pay for healthy infants again. It&#39s not that I&#39m comfortable with the idea of selling kids like they were a house or a can of beans, but I prefer that to throwing them away like trash. The definition of trash here being something that you don&#39t want and can&#39t sell.

I understand that the change wouldn&#39t save a lot of kids lives, and would have some other, unforeseen problems with it, but I still think it would be the lesser of evils.

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

kathykattenburg — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:30:57 -0000

(you know, it scares the heck out of me to be agreeing with you and Father_Time on the same day).

That scares me, too! :-)

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

JSpencer — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:42:41 -0000

Another comment here: When abortion was illegal, women were not detered from seeking them, however the dangers were such that thousands of women per year died from unsafe procedures. Was that preferable?

Re: COMPROMISE NEEDED WITH ABORTION FOES IN HEALTHCARE REFORM

ProfElwood — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:32:47 -0000

I have to agree (you know, it scares the heck out of me to be agreeing with you and Father_Time on the same day). Of course, encouraging the overuse of oil by subsidizing SUV purchases wasn't exactly a help. I'm certainly no fan of oil dependency or the mid-east wars that it's gotten us into. I believe we've discussed this in more detail on other threads, so I'll leave it at that.