Abortion Ban In South Dakota!

[The Central Scrutinizer]

But under our current law, other women can do what they want. That's just an external reality. What does it have to do with your friend's views?

If she believes that women should be allowed there own choice on the subject, then she is pro-choice. Those who feel that women should not have that choice, are anti-choice. Simple.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

And if they believe it should be illegal to shoot random strangers in the street? Is that also anti-choice?

Of course not. Because that "choice" affects another person by infringing on their rights.

Strictly speaking it is, but I've never ever heard people who oppose murder being called that. So I'll now ask the same question -- see the difference? To a person who believes that life begins at conception (they're wrong) the "choice" was to engage in sex.

Of course besides being anti-choice on abortion, what it really boils down to is that these people are anti-sex-outside-of-their-biblically-endorsed-jeebus-approved-monogomous-relationship. They can't stand the thought that someone somewhere is having fun.

No one credibly believes that it should be legal for a doctor to smother a newly-born but still unconscious baby rather than spank it. Are all those people also "anti-choice?"

See first response.

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

How smug and sanctimonious these South Dakotan lawmakers must feel. I really wish they all would take a small listen to "Freakanomics" and understand what the impact of aborting an unwanted child has on society.

My heart goes out to all those unmarried single women who find themselves knocked-up and single in SD. And if they're named Kenny and get a botched abortion due to lack of funds, tough luck. They're whores anyhow ....

Charlie (they killed Kenny, bastards!) Monoxide

 

[Manny]

Of course besides being anti-choice on abortion, what it really boils down to is that these people are anti-sex-outside-of-their-biblically-endorsed-jeebus-approved-monogomous-relationship. They can't stand the thought that someone somewhere is having fun.

Oh. Well, how about these guys? Or liberal atheist civil libertarian Nat Hentoff? Is it OK to call him pro-life, or does Jebus hold sway over his views, too?

Your position is, frankly, stupid and an assault on careful thought. You've decided that most of the people who hold a view you oppose also hold a lot of other views which you oppose and that therefore you don't like them and wish to apply unflattering terms to them. You wish to use such a demonizing term because it makes it easier for you to completely ignore that they may have good faith reasons for coming to a different conclusion than you on a public policy issue you care about. It is a childish attempt to avoid debate by namecalling.

 

[ceo_esq]

If she believes that women should be allowed there own choice on the subject, then she is pro-choice. Those who feel that women should not have that choice, are anti-choice. Simple.

Ah. I get you. Though the way you told the story, she only said "other women can", not quite "other women should be allowed to".

 

[Achán hiNidráne]

Personally, I though Penn Jellette said it best:

"Everyone is "pro-life" and "pro-choice," it's for or against abortion you're arguing about."

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Oh. Well, how about these guys? Or liberal atheist civil libertarian Nat Hentoff? Is it OK to call him pro-life, or does Jebus hold sway over his views, too?

Your position is, frankly, stupid and an assault on careful thought. You've decided that most of the people who hold a view you oppose also hold a lot of other views which you oppose and that therefore you don't like them and wish to apply unflattering terms to them. You wish to use such a demonizing term because it makes it easier for you to completely ignore that they may have good faith reasons for coming to a different conclusion than you on a public policy issue you care about. It is a childish attempt to avoid debate by namecalling.

If you support the rights of people to make their own choices about when and where they will reproduce, you are pro-choice. If you are opposed to people making this decision, you are anti-choice. It amazes me that you struggle with this concept. I get the impression that you are anti-choice. Sad.

 

[Art Vandelay]

You've decided that most of the people who hold a view you oppose also hold a lot of other views which you oppose and that therefore you don't like them and wish to apply unflattering terms to them..

It is a generalization, but it is disingenuous to pretend that there is not a connection between opposition to abortion and the repression of sexuality. A large portion of those who oppose abortion believe that sex is shameful, and people who try to avoid pregnancy are trying to “get away with” something (their actual words). If one were really opposed to abortion, one would do everything one could to make promote birth control. Yet anti-abortion activists are the most vocal opponents of birth control, showing that this is more about punishing people for “sin” than protecting life.

And, per NPR, in addition to not making provisions for rape or incest, it also makes no provision for cases where the mother's health is in danger. Only risk to life situations are allowed.

Isn’t “risk to life situations” a subset of “mother’s health is in danger”?

Except to make it a federal issue, and ban it despite the states. Observe how well states' rights work for medical marijuana. The loonies are more than happy to trample a principle of government in favor of a principle of morality.

It would be a huge leap from allowing states to prohibit abortion to allowing the federal government to prohibit abortion. Blue states would revolt under the latter.

Demonstrably unenforceable.

Unlike this law.

Name one person prosecuted under this law.

Don't f****ng patronize me until your own country respect womens' rights.

Let’s see: you complain about a law which infringes on some people’s rights to protect others, while your country infringes on everyone's rights for no legitimate reason at all. You accuse other people of “patronizing” you, while swearing. You are so incredibly disrespectful of others, it’s absurd for you to complain about perceived disrespect from others. Oh, and it’s spelled “women’s”.

Trust me, they're sold all over the place in Georgia. Yeah, it's technically illegal unless A) you have a doctor's prescription or B) you're teaching a sexuality class. But it's virtually impossible to enforce, and adult "novelty" shops are abundant.

The idea of a prescription for them seems bizarre to me. It’s okay if a doctor approves? Are they somehow possessed of some great expertise that us mere mortals lack? When they go to medical school, do they spend several years studying sexuality?

They have an honest, good-faith belief that a human fetus is a life.

Well, of course it’s a life. That’s just silly, and the idea of calling their beliefs “good-faith” if they base it on the idea that a human fetus is a life is ridiculous. A bacterium is a life, but who refuses to take antibiotics because of this? It’s dishonest to pretend that’s the criterion.

So make no mistake - these people are not pro-life. They are anti-choice.

They’re both. Your friend is pro-life, and anti-choice. The RR is pro-life and anti-choice.

And if they believe it should be illegal to shoot random strangers in the street? Is that also anti-choice? Strictly speaking it is, but I've never ever heard people who oppose murder being called that.

That’s because there isn’t a controversy about shooting random strangers in the street. There’s a widespread consensus that that’s wrong. If there were a major debate about it, and we were looking for labels for the different positions, I would consider “pro-life” to be an accurate description of people who are opposed to shooting people, and “anti-choice” of people who think it should be illegal.

So I'll now ask the same question -- see the difference? To a person who believes that life begins at conception (they're wrong) the "choice" was to engage in sex.

First of all, the fact that there aren’t exceptions for rape destroys that argument. Secondly, having sex is not a choice to be pregnant, any more than eating is a choice to get fat. The clear subtext is that pregnancy is a punishment for the “sin” of having sex, and abortion is an attempt to avoid responsibility.

Virtually no one, including possibly you, believes it should be legal to get an abortion at, say, 39 weeks unless the death of the mother is a real possiblity. No one credibly believes that it should be legal for a doctor to smother a newly-born but still unconscious baby rather than spank it.

You are wrong.

Are all those people also "anti-choice?"

On late term abortions, yes.

 

[RandFan]

If she believes that women should be allowed there own choice on the subject, then she is pro-choice. Those who feel that women should not have that choice, are anti-choice. Simple.

I agree, and I am for all intents and purposes pro-choice but I have to say in regards to your post, so?

If you honestly believe a murder is being committed why would you want anyone to have a choice? I never cared for the "choice" argument. To some degree it is a really dumb premise.

(P) Those that believe abortion is murder should be free to not-murder but they should not have any political influence to keep others from ostensibly murdering.

A better argument is that sperm isn't human life. Human eggs aren't human life. The immediate combination of the two isn't human life.

Sperm, egg and the immediate combination of the two don't feel pain. They don't think. They can't survive on their own. Do I need a "choice" to flush sperm down the drain? Does a woman need a "choice" to not fertilize her eggs?

The entire notion is just silly. Now, when a fetus becomes viable, can experience pain and is what many if not most of us consider human, should women then have a "choice" to abort? THAT is a valid premise as it relates to choice.

Until then it is just political posturing and propaganda. "Choice" is proven as an effective rhetorical device and that is why it is used. I reject the term "choice" from an intellectual stand point as it relates to the first trimester of pregnancy and the cessation of a fetus via abortion.

Bottom line: The issue isn't whether people should have a choice to decide whether abortion is murder but IF abortion can reasonably be seen as murder. Outside of a rational, scientific view the answer is NO!

 

[RandFan]

Prediction: This isn't going anywhere. It will raise emotions and debate but the Supreme Court isn't going to overturn Roe v. Wade.

 

[steve s]

Isn’t “risk to life situations” a subset of “mother’s health is in danger”?

The way it's written a woman could only get an abortion if her life is in danger, not her health. So if the doctors determine that delivery could leave the woman a paraplegic (in an extreme hypothetical case) she couldn't get an abortion because her life isn't in jeopardy, only her health.

Steve S.

 

[Art Vandelay]

(P) Those that believe abortion is murder should be free to not-murder but they should not have any political influence to keep others from ostensibly murdering.

It is dumb only if you accept that abortion is murder. There's nothing dumb about saying that people are free to have opinions about what is murder, but they don't have the right to impose those beliefs on others. If you're Hindu, and you consider killing cows to be murder, you should be free to not kill cows, but you have no right to force others to not kill cows.

There also another argument: even if one were to accept that an embryo is a human life, it does not follow that its death is murder. Doctors refer to pregnancy as starting when the embryo implants in the uterine lining, but Catholics consider it to start at fertilization, and consider anything that stops fertilization (such as the morning after pill) to be murder. Now, think about that. If a starving man comes up to you and asks for food, and you refuse, that may be wrong, but is it murder? Can you imagine a law saying that you have to give him food? Preventing implantation is essentially the same thing. The embryo needs nutrients to survive, and the morning after pill denies embryo those nutrients.

 

[Art Vandelay]

The way it's written a woman could only get an abortion if her life is in danger, not her health.

That's like saying that you can get an abortion in San Francisco, but not California. There's a difference between "not all women with health concerns will get an exception" and "all women with health concerns will not get an exception".

 

[CFLarsen]

Where is a hotbed of enlightenment, these days?

Try Denmark.

 

[ceo_esq]

If you support the rights of people to make their own choices about when and where they will reproduce, you are pro-choice. If you are opposed to people making this decision, you are anti-choice. It amazes me that you struggle with this concept. I get the impression that you are anti-choice. Sad.

I see no real problem with the conventional nomenclature. It's just convenient shorthand, nothing more. But it has a fairly sensible basis: the abortion issue usually boils down to whether, in case of an irreconcilable conflict, the social interest in the preservation of the life of a fetus should prevail over the social interest in preserving the option of choice of the mother. Ergo, pro-life or pro-choice. Pretty simple, really.

Maybe we could settle the nomenclature dispute this way: let each camp have control over the nickname of the other camp. We'd probably see some neutral-sounding nicknames then. (Although if reciprocal spite prevailed and the scheme backfired, we might end up being obliged to describe ourselves as either "baby-murderers" or "women-slavers").

 

[clarsct]

It is dumb only if you accept that abortion is murder. There's nothing dumb about saying that people are free to have opinions about what is murder, but they don't have the right to impose those beliefs on others. If you're Hindu, and you consider killing cows to be murder, you should be free to not kill cows, but you have no right to force others to not kill cows.

There also another argument: even if one were to accept that an embryo is a human life, it does not follow that its death is murder. Doctors refer to pregnancy as starting when the embryo implants in the uterine lining, but Catholics consider it to start at fertilization, and consider anything that stops fertilization (such as the morning after pill) to be murder. Now, think about that. If a starving man comes up to you and asks for food, and you refuse, that may be wrong, but is it murder? Can you imagine a law saying that you have to give him food? Preventing implantation is essentially the same thing. The embryo needs nutrients to survive, and the morning after pill denies embryo those nutrients.

Not to argue, per se, but to add:
Many fertilized eggs never implant into the placenta. In fact, the odds are that any woman who menstrates and has been sexually active for more than a year or two has flushed at least one fertilized egg down the toliet. Are they all murderers, then? Should we lock these women up?

As for the rest:
I don't see it as anti-choice, but more anti-woman. Punish those sluts for being sexual, dammit! Who cares about the emotional costs! We're doing GOD'S work!

Bah.
My official take:
WOMBAT. Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time.(with apologies to tim)

 

[Mark]

Yeah, I'm sure your queen was appalled.

Question for all the fitfully righteous people who share Claus' sentiment, if not his arrogance:

What's so surprising about South Dakotans acting like South Dakotans? This isn't friggin' New Jersey we're talking about here.

Yet another civil liberty under assault from the Republicans and you adopt your standard "What, me worry?" attitude. There's a surprise.

 

[Cleon]

Yet another civil liberty under assault from the Republicans and you adopt your standard "What, me worry?" attitude. There's a surprise.

Mark...The woman who introduced the bill is a Democrat.

 

[Mark]

Mark...The woman who introduced the bill is a Democrat.

I stand corrected. However, the AP story about this said the Republican Governor was anxious to sign the bill...and Republicans were encouraged because of the new make up of the Supreme Court.

Neverthless, I was wrong to call it a "Republican assault." This is clearly a bi-partisan assault on our civil liberties and I will be writing my Democratic Senators in protest.

I stand behind the "What me worry?" comment, tough. This is a terrifying first volley in the latest assault. That a Democrat started doesn't make it better...it makes it worse.

 

[HarryKeogh]

Please don't use the term "pro-life". These people are "anti-choice".

I thought they were "homicide bombers"