OPINION & EDITORIAL
Anti-abortion methods go too far
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Also by Emily Friedman:
- Tenure at paper teaches, changes (May 10, 2007)
- Straight or gay, hire either way (May 3, 2007)
- Tragedy provides opportunity to re-evaluate nation's violent culture (April 19, 2007)
- Anti-abortion methods go too far (March 29, 2007)
- 'Don't ask, don't tell' hypocritical (March 15, 2007)
Related Stories:
- Writer gives foes fodder (March 30, 2007)
- Letter to Editor (March 10, 2005)
- Americans losing respect for life (December 3, 2001)
- Abortion rights activist lacks heart (February 2, 2007)
- Where have all the children gone? (January 29, 2004)
by Emily Friedman
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Requiring women to view ultrasound images of their unborn children, requesting they listen to the sound of their children's heartbeats, and even bribing them to not have abortions are all ways Republican lawmakers nationwide have attempted to make having an abortion even more painful for women.
Abortion will likely forever remain a heated debate, and the recent appointment of more conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court has only made matters worse. Many Americans believe it's only a matter of time before Roe v. Wade — the 1973 Supreme Court case which ruled prohibiting abortions is unconstitutional on the grounds that it is a violation of a woman's 14th Amendment rights — is overturned. If the law is reversed, it will be up to the individual states to decide whether abortion should remain legal.
The law's future is certainly something to keep an eye on, as are the ways politicians are trying to sidestep the law and infringe further and further on women's rights. Most notable is the case in South Carolina where, according to MSNBC.com, the Legislature passed a bill requiring women to view sonograms of their children before proceeding with an abortion. The proposal passed in the legislature with a 91-23 vote, and the governor is expected to sign it in coming days. The legislation would make South Carolina the only state to require a woman to view an image of her fetus. Other states, including Michigan, already mandate that women who want abortions be asked if they would like to see a sonogram.
And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Texas, proposed legislation that would offer pregnant women $500 to abstain from having abortions. The money, he argues, would help women realize that putting the child up for adoption is another viable option. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has also chimed in. According to The Associated Press, the Republican signed a bill just last week, which, if and when Roe v. Wade is overturned, would immediately make abortion illegal in Mississippi.
It is obvious that these politicians are trying to make the inherently difficult abortion process even worse. But the justifications they use are even more alarming than the methods themselves. A state representative in South Carolina said he thought requiring women to see their babies before they are aborted would save "a lifetime of regret," as if these women would not have enough emotional distress as it was. Other politicians have had the audacity to presume that many women just don't understand what they are doing when they have abortions, as if to suggest that women who have abortions are often too stupid to really think through the decision. If you're offended, I don't blame you.
Anti-abortionists and pro-life advocates are not, unfortunately, a dying breed. As long as abortion is legal, they will be arguing it shouldn't be. They will continue to rally support for stunts like those in South Carolina and Texas. But whether they agree with the procedure or not, the fact of the matter is that for now, abortion in the United States is legal. Putting women through hoops and trying to convince them to change their minds about such a serious and personal decision is wrong.
And lawmakers who claim that most women are uninformed about abortion consequences are insulting. They imply that the decision to have an abortion is often made on a whim. While I agree providing women with more information about their options is better, forcing women to view photos of their unborn children is indecent and oversteps the legitimate bounds of government authority. A women's right to her own body is just that — her right.
Emily Friedman (efriedman@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in journalism and legal studies.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 6:37am):
There is no law allowing abortion, Roe V. Wade is not a law (majoring in legal studies, you should know the courts don't make law, they interpret it and the Constitution). As poor of a decision as Roe v. Wade was, it still deemed general laws against abortion Unconstitutional, thus limiting what legislators could pass to limit abortion.
I still find it hard to stomach (adopting one of those unwanted children myself) how anyone can be so selfish and self centered to think a child is so worthless it can be killed because it has not left the mother.
It is interesting, many in the left hate the death penalty because it is cruel and unusual and no one deserves to be murdered (even though they have proven they are not worth being part of society), yet they have zero concious when it comes to murdering a fetus just because it has yet to have a name and has not seen the outside world.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 7:15am):
By this time, everyone knows that abortion has been used for over thirty years to work uneducated fundies into a political frenzy. No one is actually going to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Look what happens when we elect a "pro-life" president: 600,000 dead Iraqis, more Americans without health care, sub-prime mortgage fallout, and a shrinking middle class.
Tax cuts are good for somebody, and it's not the middle and lower classes.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 9:31am):
It seems to me that women who want abortions must be stupid. If she didn't want the baby, why did she have sex in the first place? Rape? Ok, but that's only a minority of the cases. I refuse to believe that some women could be so stupid as to not know that having sex will get them pregnant.
Of course I'm for abortion. I don't want more bastard children and single mothers (I call them sluts) taking my tax dollars. Line 'em up and turn on the vacuum. Suck out mommy's mistake and flush that bastard.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 9:53am):
Emily, did you have a fight with your boyfriend over who controls the remote again? We'd really rather read something intelligent and thoughtful besides this crap. Don't you get it? No one cares about women's abortion rights anymore! Women are nothing more than just pretty objects to look at. They should be seen and not heard. A woman's place is in the home. Women's rights, HAW-HAW-HAW! Whoever heard of such a thing!
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 10:11am):
We wouldn't have any problem with finding enough native-born citizens to work low-paid jobs or enlist in the military if there weren't all these darn abortions!
I guess that the elite have decided to off-shore procreation or employ immigrants (legal and not) just like is done for many other jobs.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 10:35am):
Why not make them name the fetus and buy it an outfit before they can get an abortion? Makes about as much sense.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 11:17am):
10:11,
Steven Levitt (of "Freakonomics" fame) posted about that very issue on his weblog the other day: http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2007/03/13/zell-miller-is-wrong-but-he-isnt-crazy/
To summarize, abortion tends not to significantly reduce the long-term reproductive capacity of potential mothers. They simply have children a bit later. And although it may be true that having children later lessens the compounding effect of population growth, the 30 year time window we're using would make this effect miniscule, at best.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 11:31am):
Legalized abortion is responsible for the deaths of nearly 45,000,000 unborn babies. 45 million! The manner in which liberals masquerade abortion as a women's rights issue is unfortunate. Abortion is a HUMAN rights issue. If the people from Planned Parenthood, Naral, and politicians like Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton had their way, even the gruesome practice of partial-birth abortion would still be legal (voting records can be found on votesmart.org). This is the nightmarish practice during the third trimester in which everything but the baby's head is delivered. The baby is then stabbed in the head, and its brains sucked out.
Legalized abortion is one of the most sickening examples of the degradation of civilization. That anyone could approve of such a practice is absolutely horrifying.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 11:59am):
"Tax cuts are good for somebody, and it's not the middle and lower classes."
I'd say that was because tax cuts don't you any good if you don't pay much tax to start with.
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 12:10pm):
Here's the problem with adoption: it's WAY too expensive. The only people who can afford to adopt are well-off and white; the only people giving kids up for adoption are poor and black. The well-off whites don't want to adopt black kids, it's obvious.
Pro-lifers, you should be fighting for lower costs of adoption. That way, poor people can raise your unwanted children.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 12:12pm):
45,000,000 unborn babies...
Don't you mean 1st trimester fetuses? There's a difference.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 12:16pm):
"45 million!"
Where would they sit? How would they eat?
No room for illegal immigrants if they were all here!
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 12:18pm):
"Legalized abortion is one of the most sickening examples of the degradation of civilization. That anyone could approve of such a practice is absolutely horrifying."
45 million births into a society that already doesn't care for it's poor and children, nor even provide pre- and post-natal care... I find the lack of respect for the living to be even more sickening. How many of those children would not have health care, would grow up with both parents working 2 minimum wage jobs each, growing up hungry?
This Christian/pro-life when-it's-convenient-and-benefits-us attitude is horrifying. How many Iraqi children have been killed by our bombs? How many children did we kill in Vietnam? How many children were killed in El Mozote by US-trained paramilitaries? How many children in Mexico starve because of NAFTA?
People would take "pro-life" arguments more seriously if you actually cared about babies AFTER they were born. Give them health care, restore funding for foster care, restore funding for autism research, boost funding for special ed and preschool programs, stop murdering them overseas, and THEN we'll talk.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 1:13pm):
Sometimes the argument that the pro abortioners make is that a new fetus (say a week old) is not developed enough to feel pain. It is just a clump of cells. There is a chance that a woman might naturally miscarriage at this stage anyway. The problem is, the pro abortioners cannot present a consistent, well defined point at which it is no longer OK to abort a pregnancy. 1 month? 6 months? 8 months 29 days? In China, some babies are kill as they are born. Is this ok? Tell me exactly when a "woman's rights" stop being as important as a child's right to live. By the logic of "woman's rights" I could argue that a 1 year old child is too difficult to take care of and a woman should have the right to decide to end it.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 2:33pm):
Pro-abortioners, that's sweet. You should really use your talent for Hallmark Cards.
Merry Christmas!
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 3:52pm):
Abortions are going to occur whether it is legal or not. It's just a question of whether or not they are done safely or unsafely.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 3:53pm):
Frankly, 1:13pm, since the infant is almost certainly not self-conscious until sometime during its second year, why not be able to euthanize it any time during year one? Obviously this would strike anyone who bore it that far as abhorrent, and as such it would probably never be done in practice, but there doesn't seem to be any ethical reason to forbid it. Ethics and the public policies they entail should be based on more than knee-jerk emotional reactions.
Also, to the person who called abortion a "human rights issue:" a first trimester fetus is no more a human being than a malignant tumor. In what morally relevant way, apart from the mother's valuation of one over the other, are they any different? Preemptively I will rejoinder to your inevitable response that any silliness about the soul is not an admissible answer.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 3:59pm):
12:18pm, It's completely unfair for you to say I have a "Christian/pro-life when-it's-convenient-and-benefits-us attitude" or that I don't care about babies after they are born. Based on my statements about one issue, you stereotyped me and went on a rant. As if my ideas about abortion somehow mean that I am in favor of all the other things you find wrong with the world???
As to this argument:
"How many of those children would not have health care, would grow up with both parents working 2 minimum wage jobs each, growing up hungry?"
I find this reasoning completely baffling. What gives you the right, as a third party observer, to weight the pros and cons of a child's potential future life and determine whether or not that child should have the opportunity to live it?
Also, I agree with 1:13pm's point. People who are pro-choice need to answer the question: "at what point does it become a baby with rights?" The director of Planned Parenthood was on WPR a while back. Ben Merens asked her this question directly, and she refused to give him a straight answer. Aside from partial-birth abortion, one of the most disturbing aspects of pro-choice thinking is abortion on demand. When women can have an "abortion on demand" it means that they can have one for any reason at any time. In other words, abortion based on sex, race, or anything else is fine. If a woman is pregnant with a girl, but wanted to have a boy... abort the girl and start over.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 4:34pm):
...Abortion is a "Subhuman act".....
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 5:21pm):
We need every baby born so that we can keep our consumerist economy rolling. Bring on the 45 million un-loved buying machines.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 5:51pm):
Re: the 45 Million
I wonder what the tax eater to tax payer ratio would be?
ps. In some cultures the exposure of unwanted infants was an accepted tradition. Others ate the babies and small children in times of famine.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 6:32pm):
Steven Levitt of "Freakonomics" also once said that abortions have lowered the crime rate, since there are less unwanted, unloved children in the world.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 6:54pm):
Actually, the problem isn't abortion, it is the fact that someone could not keep it zipped or their legs together 45 million times when they could not handle the responsibility of having a child. Of course, it is always easier to blame everything else than to take some responsibility for actions.
The easy solution would be, when someone goes in for an abortion, the doctor sterilizes them at the same time, that way it never happens again (and if the father can be found, he should be fixed as well).
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 7:25pm):
No one uses abortion as a means of birth control, so I'm not sure exactly what your motivation is, 6:54pm.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 7:30pm):
Actually, the problem isn't abortion, it is the fact that many people don't try hard enough to prevent unwanted pregnancies....
If two people have sex without effective birth control, a pregnancy could be the result....
People know that, but alas................
REASONS GIVEN FOR ABORTIONS: AGI SURVEY, 2000-2001 [8]
Reason or situation.......number......% of abortions
not using contraception.....4,957 ...........46.40
forced to have relations......~64 ............0.6
using contraception.........5,726............53.60
contraceptive failed.......~1,808............16.9
(despite proper use)
..................total....10,683...........100
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html
Among women who had an unintended pregnancy in 2001,
52% had not been using a method during the month of conception.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/psrh/full/3904807.pdf
If only people would choose to use an effective birth control,
(or two).
They wouldn't have to make another choice........
http://www.sexual-health-resource.org/hormonal_birth_control.htm
Cash payments for using birth control..............
http://serr8d.blogspot.com/2007/02/project-preventionthe-road-as-opposed.html
I know their are a number of people who can't use birth control for one reason or another.
But is that true for all types of birth control,
there are many different types to choose from,
surely one to suite most every-one.
I would suggest that the number of people that can't use any of them at all would be very small
but many use this as their reason.
Bruce
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 8:01pm):
6:54, have you ever been on a date?
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 8:07pm):
No one uses abortion as birth control? I hope you are not saying seriously? If they weren't using it as birth control, there wouldn't be so many of them.
Who needs "protection" when you can always go flush a fetus (we were all one once) down the toilet into the sewer or toss it into a landfill.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 8:42pm):
Right, because an expensive and invasive surgical procedure with the possibility of physical and emotional trauma is such an obvious choice for a form of birth prevention!
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 8:53pm):
I wish that someone would have forced me to look at my sonogram before I had my abortion. And yes I was too unintelligent to know that I was actually killing my baby.
It's not like I researched the procedure before I had it done, trust me the less I knew the better off I thought I would be. As an abortion survivor I fully support the law requiring women to see their sonograms.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 10:17pm):
3:52pm: "Abortions are going to occur whether it is legal or not. It's just a question of whether or not they are done safely or unsafely."
First of all, a successful abortion is never safe: the baby dies. Second, this argument is completely illogical. If you are going to justify legalized abortions because people would be doing it otherwise, then you might as well legalize drug trafficking because people are going to do it anyway, and fewer people would get shot and killed if it were legal. Just think about how ridiculous your reasoning sounds when applied to other illegal and harmful/dangerous activities.
Anonymous (March 29, 2007 @ 10:45pm):
3:53pm, Well there is one obvious difference between a first trimester fetus and a malignant tumor: one will eventually develop into a full grown human being, the other will not. The morally relevant way that they are different is that **I** value one over the other, and I believe all people should, especially the mother.
But I do see your point. Regardless of religious beliefs, some people find abortion a heinous abomination, while others do not. Pro-lifers cannot force pro-choicers to understand why they value unborn human life. That's why I'm not especially concerned with convincing people that abortion is morally/ethically wrong (more concerned with just plain stopping it). But I do think people should be informed about what it actually is before they just pass it off as a women's rights issue. I wonder how many people's view on abortion would change if they actually saw one?
Anonymous (March 30, 2007 @ 5:04am):
8:01, yes I have been on a date or two. And I even "scored" (terms you would understand), but I was ready to take on the consequences, if any, to my actions. If ya can't do the time, don't do the crime!
The really neat thing is, there is more to dating than getting ripped, taking your clothes off, and doing the horizontal polka.
connor gyles (May 10, 2007 @ 2:37pm):
BABY KILLERS (liberals)
Anonymous (October 9, 2007 @ 1:38pm):
All of us used to be a fertilized ovum, fetus or unborn before our parents (whether they liked it or not) gave birth to us. Just like any life or thing on this earth, we all started from something. We try and save baby turtles on the beach, fish out immature kittens from sewers and mourn the death of panda fetuses, and we can't care for our unborn!! How crazy is that! We think that having children is a disability and an aberration, may even an ailment. You guys better be sure about this because when we all get old, who is going to work and pay for our social security, who is going to care for us? who is going to but all the gadgets that we make? Countries in Europe already have predicted that at the rate of abortion and contraception in their countries, their contries will eventually die off. THESE BABIES WILL BE OUR FUTURE DOCTORS, LAWYERS, BUSINESSMEN, RESEARCHERS, NURSES AND INVENTORS! We may have already killed the very people who would have cured many ailments of this earth. We could have killed a future president, a future Beethoven, probably even a future Einstein--think about that! A child is not a burden--eventually, that child can grow up to serve humanity. JUST MAKE SURE YOU GUYS ARE REALLY SURE ON WHAT YOU ARE SAYING!!!!!!!
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