Abortion

Thoughts On The Abortion Coverage Ban

SallyM — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:36:34 -0500

Since I am a female with a deeply personal and emotional stake in this issue, no longer for myself but for my grandaughters and their future daughters, I am appalled and fearful at the direction that the issue of reproductive rights has just taken.
I am so old that I remember vividly the horror of an unwanted pregnancy, esp in the young, and the terrible, killer, back-alley desperate abortions that used to take place. This generation has no concept of what this meant. I pray fervently that they never have to find out.
Talk about health care...
Not only were they not allowed even basic good medical care, they were treated in barnyard circumstances, at worst they often died, or they were horribly brutalized, often never being able to reproduce agin in happier circumstances.
To those people who don't want their tax dollars to go for abortion, ask them if they are willing to have their tax dollars support that young girl throught her pregnancy, through the delivery, and to support her in keeping and caring for her child if she does not want to give it up. And never should she be forced to give it up by a society which is unwilling to support her in that decision.
HOWEVER, in the health care issue of today, for those who have no health care at all available to them, that issue has to take precedence. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO GET HEALTH CARE TO ALL OUR PEOPLE. WE CAN HARDLY CALL OURSELVES CIVILIZED OTHERWISE.

Extremism and Suffering Children

William John Cox — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:06:03 -0400

What does a shootout at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., the confessions of a Khmer Rouge jailer and the murder of a Kansas medical doctor have in common? The answer is "children," and how they suffer from being targeted and used by extremists to advance their own hateful agendas.

In 1981, acting as a public interest lawyer, I represented a Holocaust survivor who had been a 17-year-old boy when his entire family was murdered in Nazi concentration camps. We sued a group of radical right-wing organizations that denied the Holocaust and, as a publicity ploy, had offered a reward for proof it had occurred.

During the hearing in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, I asked, "If the Holocaust is a hoax, then where are all the children?" The answer was that the death camps were primarily industrial operations that worked prisoners to death, and children were quickly murdered because they were too young to contribute either their labor or body fat to the enterprise.

The presiding judge wisely disposed of the primary issue by simply taking "judicial notice" of the "historical fact" that Jews were gassed to death at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944.

As I was reading in Mother Jones about the murder of a guard at the Holocaust Museum last week, I was not surprised to learn that James von Brunn, the shooter, had left a note saying "the Holocaust is a lie," and that he was associated with the very same organizations we had defeated almost 30 years ago.

In the past, von Brunn expressed his admiration of Willis Carto, founder of the Liberty Lobby as an umbrella organization for other extremist groups, including the National Alliance organized by William Pierce, whose hatred had focused on African Americans.

Carto also established the Institute for Historical Review to promulgate anti-Semitic propaganda on college campuses, including the reward offer. And, he used the Noontide Press to publish a wide range of hate materials, including at least one book by von Brunn in which he claimed there was a Jewish conspiracy to "destroy the white gene pool."

In our lawsuit, we established that these organizations were essentially moneymaking operations that profited by tailoring and peddling hate materials to the various prejudices and hatreds of their customers.

Ultimately, the defendants paid a $90,000 judgment and issued an apology "to Mr. Mel Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, and all other survivors of Auschwitz for the pain, anguish and suffering he and all other Auschwitz survivors have sustained relating to the $50,000 reward offer for proof that ‘Jews were gassed in gas chambers at Auschwitz.’"

Last week, after being painfully reminded about the murdered children of the Holocaust, both Jews and Gypsies, another horrible story about murdered children came across my desktop.

Reuters reported that the chief jailer of the Khmer Rouge confessed at his trial in Phnom Penh that Pol Pot had specifically ordered the murder of the children among the 1.7 million Cambodians who were slaughtered, because "we were afraid those children would take revenge."

The Cambodian children were not murdered in gas chambers. They were taken into the "Killing Fields" and clubbed to death.

Finally, as I later read about the murder of Doctor George Tiller by a "staunch opponent of abortion," yet another, more complex, image of suffering children came to mind.

Dr. Tiller’s clinic had been bombed in 1985, and he was shot in both arms in 1993 by an anti-abortionist; however, his murder reveals another way how children suffer as a result of extremist hatred.

He was one of the few doctors who had the courage to help women cope with impossible late-term pregnancies that threatened either their own lives, or which would deliver a child incapable of leading anything other than a life of misery, one whose quality of "living" would be so poor as to not even qualify as "life."

Dr. Tiller did not "murder babies." He was a healer who helped women abort late-term pregnancies under conditions where the fetus would die shortly after birth from conditions, such as an exposed brain or Down Syndrome with severe congenital heart defects, or where one twin had died in the womb and toxins were killing the other twin and the mother.

Many of his patients desperately wanted children, and Dr. Tiller saved their lives and preserved their health so they had the chance to bear healthy babies and build strong families.

While many extremists are the first to say they act on behalf of children, they are often the last to lift a finger to help poor mothers raise, educate or provide health care for disabled children.

"Pro-life" extremists are quite willing to condemn these children, and their families, to a lifetime of suffering to promote their own intolerant religious beliefs. As was Scott Roeder, the murderer of Dr. Tiller, who subscribed to hate literature advocating that the killing of an abortionist should be legally justifiable homicide.

Undoubtedly, Roeder was also exposed to the ranting of conservative propagandists, such as Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, who compared the doctor to a Nazi "operating a death mill" and who called him "Tiller the Baby Killer."

The effect of these twisted hate messages on Roeder is revealed in a post he made in 2007 on the Operation Rescue website, ChargeTiller.com: "It seems as though what is happening in Kansas could be compared to the ‘lawlessness’ which is spoken of in the Bible. Tiller is the concentration camp ‘Mengele’ of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgement upon our nation."

According to the Kansas City Star, Roeder was also involved in the "Freemen" movement, which had been among the organizations cultivated by Willis Carto, my former opponent in the Holocaust Case.

The Freemen declared they were not subject to any government and were exempt from all laws, including the payment of income taxes.

In 1996, Roeder was found to be in possession of bomb-making materials and was sentenced to probation on condition he avoided anti-government groups that advocated violence.

Dr. Tiller was serving as an usher in the Reformation Lutheran Church handing out church bulletins when Roeder invaded the sanctuary and shot him down. The church is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest of all Lutheran denominations in the U.S.

Evangelical Lutherans are "supportive of life" and encourage women to explore alternatives to abortion when possible; however, the church believes it can be "morally responsible" to end a pregnancy in cases where the pregnancy "presents a clear threat to the physical life of the woman," and in "circumstances of extreme fetal abnormality, which will result in severe suffering and very early death of an infant."

The church also opposes "laws that deny access to safe and affordable services for morally justifiable abortions."

The Catholic and Orthodox Churches and many fundamentalist evangelical congregations oppose virtually all abortions, including pregnancies that threaten the lives of mothers and those resulting from rape or incest. However, most mainstream Christian denominations, including the United Church of Christ, American Baptist Churches, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Methodist Church, and the Episcopal Church, support a woman’s right of choice.

In addition to the thousands of women helped by Dr. Tiller over the years, four children and ten grandchildren will mourn his death.

The son of Holocaust Museum guard Stephen Johns is undoubtedly devastated by the loss of his father to violent hatred, and even the son of Johns’ murderer has suffered from his father’s extremism.

The Washington Post quotes James von Brunn’s son, Eric as saying that his father "should not be remembered as a brave man or a hero, but a coward unable to come to grips with the fact that he threw his and his family’s lives away for an ideology that fostered sadness and anguish."

We have much to fear from these radicals. Even the Department of Homeland Security has issued a warning regarding a "resurgence in radicalization and recruitment by right-wing extremists."

An April 7, 2009 report concluded that: "Antigovernment conspiracy theories and ‘end times’ prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition, and weapons. These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement."

Extremists who murder children and who are willing to condemn children and their families to a lifetime of suffering to promote a philosophy of hatred or a religion of intolerance, threaten the freedom and safety of everyone, especially those who oppose them.

Efforts of extremists to compel others to adopt their warped views and unhealthy beliefs have resulted in the enslavement of their victims in prisons and concentration camps. Or, through their efforts to impose their religious beliefs through legislation, they have mentally and emotionally shackled others by forcing them to accept unfair laws they can’t believe in.

The innocent children have no voice in these matters but the sound of their cries, yet they suffer the very most of all.

William John Cox is a retired supervising prosecutor for the State Bar of California. Acting as a public interest, pro bono lawyer, he filed a class action lawsuit in 1979 on behalf of every citizen of the United States petitioning the Supreme Court to order the other two branches of the federal government to conduct a National Policy Referendum; he investigated and successfully sued a group of radical right-wing organizations in 1981 that denied the Holocaust; and he arranged in 1991 for publication of the suppressed Dead Sea Scrolls. His writings are collected at http://www.thevoters.org, and he can be contacted at u2cox@msn.com.

Bush Court to Women: Drop Dead

Bob Fertik — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:17:03 -0400

NOW's outstanding President Kim Gandy speaks for me:

Today the Supreme Court upheld this nation's first abortion procedure ban—a ban enacted by George W. Bush and conservatives in Congress. Five justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito—both installed by Bush and a Republican-majority Senate—ruled that the law does not violate a woman's constitutional right to abortion.

Not since Bush v. Gore has the Supreme Court made such a political decision, or one that so completely distorts the law and disregards the U.S. Constitution.

The law is so vaguely written that it may ban the most common abortion procedure used after 12 weeks of pregnancy, and there is no exception to allow its use if the woman's health is in serious danger. The joint ruling in Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood is a major step in the campaign to outlaw all abortions, first by chipping away at and then by fully overturning Roe v. Wade.

Bush used his allies' control in Congress to push through anti-abortion legislation, and he used their power to confirm anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court—justices who have now upheld that same legislation.

The National Organization for Women and other advocates predicted as much, and fought tooth and nail against the confirmation of Roberts, and even more passionately against Alito, who replaced Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Now we see that apparently, everything Roberts and Alito said at their confirmation hearings about respecting precedent was a pack of lies.

When the time came for women's rights supporters in the Senate to prevent confirmation of Sam Alito, the "fifth vote" against abortion rights, only 25 senators stood up for women. And indeed he was the fifth vote for the majority in today's decision. The senators who voted to end the Democratic filibuster, thus allowing Alito to join the court, must be reminded that their failure led to this day. We must stop the stacking of the federal courts and work toward a congressional majority that supports women's rights.

Tellingly, seven years ago in Stenberg v. Carhart, the Supreme Court ruled against an almost identical ban enacted in Nebraska. The clear precedent set by Stenberg in 2000 was the reason three U.S. Courts of Appeal declared the federal ban unconstitutional. But last year the Bush administration pressed on with appeals to the Supreme Court by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

So why did Gonzales forge ahead when a clear precedent had been set only six years earlier? And why did the court uphold this ban, effectively undoing that precedent? In the dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explains it quite clearly:

"Though today's opinion does not go so far as to disregard Roe or Casey, the Court, differently composed that it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation, is hardly faithful to our earlier invocations of the 'rule of law' and the 'principles of stare decisis.'"

In other words: The Supreme Court changed, stupid!

This is a clarion call for feminists, progressives and everyone who cares about justice, equality and democracy. We must link arms and say "No more."

We must elect a Congress that will repeal this ban and a president who will sign the repeal.

November 2008 can't come soon enough.

Abortion ban in South Dakota

Rowedy — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 17:56:15 -0400

Though there were a lot of signatures on the petition to get the issue on the ballot, it might still be a close vote on whether to keep the ban or get rid of it.

'Fat' Tony's Ready to Repeal Roe v. Wade

CactusPat — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 01:32:10 -0400

"Fat" Tony Scalia makes no bones about it. He'd repeal Roe v. Wade if given the chance. And says as much in a televised debate with the ACLU's president, Nadine Strossen. The debate in and of itself is a milestone for Scalia who's had a penchant for banning the media from his public appearances. Is this a public rolling out of the radical right-wing judicial agenda?

Scalia debates head of ACLU on TV
Justice Antonin Scalia on Sunday defended some of his Supreme Court opinions, arguing that nothing in the Constitution supports abortion rights and the use of race in school admissions. Scalia, a leading conservative voice on the high court, sparred in a one-hour televised debate with American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen. He said unelected judges have no place deciding politically charged questions when the Constitution is silent on those issues. Arguing that liberal judges in the past improperly established new political rights such as abortion, Scalia warned, "Someday, you're going to get a very conservative Supreme Court and regret that approach."...
"On controversial issues on stuff like homosexual rights, abortion, we debate with each other and persuade each other and vote on it either through representatives or a constitutional amendment," the Reagan appointee said.

"Whether it's good or bad is not my job. My job is simply to say if those things you find desirable are contained in the Constitution," he said.

Strossen countered that such a legal approach would have barred the landmark 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, a unanimous decision outlawing racial segregation in public schools.

"There are some rights that are so fundamental that no majority can take them away from any minority, no matter how small or unpopular that minority might be," she said. "And who is better positioned to represent and defend and be the ultimate backstop for rights of individuals and minorities than those who are not directly accountable in the electoral process — namely federal judges?"

The ACLU debate comes as the Supreme Court this term will hear closely divided issues involving partial-birth abortion and school integration. They are expected to test the conservative impact of the court's two newest members, Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Scalia, 70, has consistently voted to limit the use of race in school admissions and has called for the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing a woman's right to abortion to be overruled. But his influence was often limited by moderate Sandra Day O'Connor, who cast deciding votes on those issues against him.

With O'Connor now retired and Alito succeeding her, Scalia — whom President Bush passed up for chief justice — will have new opportunities to sway his new colleagues and centrist Anthony Kennedy closer to his viewpoints.

During Sunday's debate, Scalia outlined his judicial philosophy of interpreting the Constitution according to its text, as understood at the time it was adopted. He reiterated that race has no place in school admissions, a viewpoint that put him on the losing side in 2003.

"The Constitution very clearly forbids discrimination on the basis of race," Scalia said in response to a question by moderator Pete Williams of NBC. "It doesn't seem to me to allow Michigan to say we think it's good to discriminate on the basis of race when you want to make sure everyone is exposed to different backgrounds. We cannot use race as the test of diversity."

Scalia, who marked his 20th anniversary on the court last month, generally finds himself taking the opposite position to the ACLU. Most notably, he wrote a majority 5-4 opinion last term giving police more leeway to enter private homes.

He also unsuccessfully sided with the government in cases where the court struck down Ten Commandments displays in Kentucky courthouses and declared that the military commissions President Bush established to try suspected al-Qaida members were unconstitutional.

But during Sunday's debate, Scalia noted there were cases in which he and the ACLU agreed. They included rulings upholding flag burning and a 2004 opinion arguing that a U.S. citizen seized in Afghanistan in wartime could challenge his detention as an enemy combatant in U.S. courts.

Strossen, who enjoys a friendly relationship with Scalia despite their differences, applauded those opinions but added, "I don't want you to think you're too popular with this group."

"I'm very distressed about your failure to find protections in the Constitution for the right of consenting individuals in their homes to decide what they see and read, and what type of sexual relations they have," she said as hundreds of ACLU audience members cheered.

Scalia, who has at times had a prickly relationship with the media, agreed to have C-SPAN televise Sunday's event live — a more recent accommodation as the court begins to show greater signs of openness under Roberts.

You can stream the video from C-SPAN - rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/e101506_civilrights.rm?mode=compact (copy and paste url into RealPlayer via file/open). Also check out all the streams available at the ACLU website....

Gov. Blanco (D-LA) Signs Law Banning Abortion

Chip — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 17:48:11 -0400

Governor Kathleen Blanco of Katrina-ravaged Louisiana recently signed a law banning abortions, including those for rape and incest, except for cases where the mother's life is in danger. The Louisiana law will take effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Medicaid requires abortion funding, and Louisiana's new law, if enacted, will allow those exceptions. Blanco cited overwhelming support for the law and noted the pending law reflects her own personal convictions. She did qualify that by hoping for a new law providing choice for rape and incest victims. Blanco, like recently re-elected New Orleans' Mayor Ray Nagin, was the subject of intense controversy regarding her role in the pre-planning and aftermath of Katrina. Blanco's term expires in 2007, but a recall petition was begun on January 10, 2006 and will end July 9, 2006 after the 180 day statutory limitation. What will the outcome be?

Bush orders incubators for .07 ounce aborted fetuses

Bob Fertik — Sun, 24 Apr 2005 03:06:44 -0400

It's time to start a serious campaign to impeach George W. Bush.

Doctors Are Warned on Fetus Care
Guidelines Are Issued on Born-Alive Infants Protection Act

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 23, 2005; Page A07

The Bush administration issued guidelines yesterday advising physicians and hospitals that under a 2002 law they are obligated to care for fetuses "born alive" naturally or in the process of an abortion, and medical providers could face penalties for withholding treatment.

The law, signed by President Bush nearly three years ago, conferred legal rights on fetuses "at any stage of development." It specifies that a fetus that is breathing, has a beating heart, a pulsating umbilical cord or muscle movement should be considered alive and entitled to protection under federal emergency medical laws and child abuse statutes.

Keep in mind three facts about fetal development.

An embryonic heart starts beating on the 22nd day (3 weeks)
An embryo becomes a fetus at 9 weeks.
At 9 weeks, the average fetus weighs .07 ounce (2 grams).

Thus, the Bush administration has just ordered incubators for all 9-week (.07 ounce) fetuses "born alive" through spontaneous or induced abortion.

Of course, fetuses don't have the slightest possibility of survival in an incubator before the 23rd week, so a rational doctor might choose to ignore Bush's order when presented with a 9-week (or a 22-week) fetus.

David Grimes, a licensed obstetrician/gynecologist who previously worked for the abortion surveillance division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the act and yesterday's instructions were medically unnecessary.

"I don't see this as a big issue; physicians are going to do what's appropriate," said Grimes, who now practices in North Carolina. "It's all rhetoric from persons with political views they want to advance."

He said the act's definition of alive is "silly," given that it implies a fetus miscarried at 14 or 16 weeks "with no chance of survival" would be legally identified as a living person.

Hey doc - just because it's "silly" doesn't mean it isn't legal! If the law says the fetus is alive - and protected by law - then that's the law, until a court declares otherwise! Read again:

The law, signed by President Bush nearly three years ago, conferred legal rights on fetuses "at any stage of development." It specifies that a fetus that is breathing, has a beating heart, a pulsating umbilical cord or muscle movement should be considered alive and entitled to protection under federal emergency medical laws and child abuse statutes.

Notice that this law does not conflict with Roe v. Wade, because it does not prevent a woman from having an abortion. Instead, it orders doctors to keep the aborted fetus alive!

Since an embryonic heart starts beating on day 22, all fetuses aborted alive at 9 weeks are covered by this law - and any doctor who fails to put such a fetus in an incubator could be punished.

If you think the Bush administration would exclude care that has no chance of medical success, I have two words for you: Terri Schiavo.

And if you think a federal court would tell the Bush administration to keep its hands off 9-week fetuses, I have two other words for you: Tom DeLay.