I call it “Piss off your friends day”…
Published by Mike Stark April 20th, 2007 in UncategorizedFirst of all, I’m still cobbling together the Gingrich clips. Video editing is slow and difficult - at least it is with IMovie and a MacBook Pro when you’re trying to splice audio from one source, pictures from another and video from yet aother… but that’s the only way I can tell the story in sequence in a way that makes sense… so gimme a break, and know you’ll have it sooner or later…
Anyway, I called this “piss off your friends day” because I just read the Supreme Court’s partial birth abortion ruling. And it’s tough reading. I’m not sure if it’s because I have a beautiful 21 month old baby girl and a 26 week fetus (it’s a boy) cooking in my wife’s tummy, but reading the opinion was really, really difficult (and probably purposefully so). Anyway, my friends and I like to stake the claim to living in the reality-based world, so I thought it might behoove us to talk about something that we generally avoid. Seriously, we drive past the kooks protesting at abortion clinics and, well, I can’t speak for everybody, but I know I always held them in a certain amount of contempt. I guess I still do, because their positions aren’t necessarily consistent, but… well, after reading the opinion, I’m a bit (tiny bit… microscopically tiny bit that is) more sympathetic…
OK, this is the deal… we’ve got two forms of abortion available once a woman reaches her second trimester. The traditional method involves the doctor dilating the woman’s cervix until he can get medical instruments into her uterus. There, he basically hacks and chops at the fetus, drawing out pieces at a time… a leg here, the head next, maybe an wrist and hand, now the abdomen with the remaining limbs attached. The doctor then goes back in and scrapes the walls of the uterus to make sure there are no remaining bits left inside that could make the woman sick as they rotted away. Ugly stuff.
For a description of what’s been called “partial birth abortion”, let me quote from the text of the ruling:
In the usual intact D&E the fetus’ head lodges in the cervix, and dilation is insufficient to allow it to pass.
Haskell explained the next step as follows:
At this point, the right-handed surgeon slides the
fingers of the left [hand] along the back of the fetus
and “hooks” the shoulders of the fetus with the index
and ring fingers (palm down).
While maintaining this tension, lifting the cervix
and applying traction to the shoulders with the fin-
gers of the left hand, the surgeon takes a pair of blunt
curved Metzenbaum scissors in the right hand. He
carefully advances the tip, curved down, along the
spine and under his middle finger until he feels it con-
tact the base of the skull under the tip of his middle
finger.
The surgeon then forces the scissors into the base
of the skull or into the foramen magnum. Having
safely entered the skull, he spreads the scissors to
enlarge the opening.
The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a
suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull
contents. With the catheter still in place, he applies
traction to the fetus, removing it completely from the
patient.
This is an abortion doctor’s clinical description. Here is another description from a nurse who witnessed the same method performed on a 26�-week fetus and who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee:
“Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the
babyís legs and pulled them down into the birth canal.
Then he delivered the babyís body and the armsó
everything but the head. The doctor kept the head
right inside the uterus. . . .
The baby’s little fingers were clasping and un-
clasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the
doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and
the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like
a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to
fall.
The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-
powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the
babyís brains out. Now the baby went completely
limp. . . .
He cut the umbilical cord and delivered the pla-
centa. He threw the baby in a pan, along with the
placenta and the instruments he had just used.”
Rough stuff. But if we’re gonna live in “the reality based world”, I think it’s appropriate for us to sometimes consider the motivations of the fundies, Catholics and other people with genuine objections to abortion.
This is what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that it’s reasonable to believe that some of these folks (especially those that have had children), look at these procedures and are repulsed in a profoundly moral way. Maybe it’s not really the case that limiting abortion, for these people, is all about “controlling” a woman’s sexual freedom. Maybe there’s something more there…
I’m not saying that there aren’t an awful lot of hypocrits on the other side. And I’m not suggesting that an awful lot of horrible people like Ralph Reed haven’t used this issue to get filthy rich while ignoring forced abortions in the Northern Marianis Islands…. I think there are a lot of religious pimps out there that will get their due come judgment day.
But for the rank and file anti-abortion nuts… well, maybe they aren’t really nuts.
Now before y’all think I’m going soft, let me dispel those fears. I’m happy to admit that abortion, at least in teh second trimester, is a damned ugly procedure. But as a society, we do all sorts of ugly things in furtherance of a greater good. War, for example, no matter how justified, is the ugliest thing humans do. We allow people to grow filthy rich and spend their money on extreme frivolties while children around the world (and in this country) starve. How is that justified? Well, most people will defend it on the basis of individual liberty, and say that we cannot sacrifice liberty to some socialist vision of keeping everyone from starving to death. I understand the argument, but how is the result not ugly?
In the end, I recognize the ugliness and moral repugnance of the procedure, and I’ll concede it to my opponents, just as I hope they would concede to me that war and starvation is ugly. But just as war and starvation are tolerated because they serve some larger moral goal, I’m gonna tolerate abortion because it serves a larger moral goal: ensuring that when a baby is born, it’s wanted and loved. I’ve seen too many reports of babies being left in toilets or dumpsters. I’ve witnessed too many kids born into abusive families. Or born with developmental disabilities because mom was an alcoholic…
And finally, if we can justify extreme disparities in wealth - to the extent that we think it’s OK to let people buy Bentley’s and Lear Jets while others starve to death - because individual liberty is that important… well, how can it be that a woman’s individual liberty with regards to whether or not to have a baby is any less important?
21 Responses to “I call it “Piss off your friends day”…”
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I (heart) ABORTION!
There’s no such surgical procedure as a “partial birth abortion”. It’s a term invented by one of Tom DeLay’s staffers.
Is the description of the procedure kinda gross? Yup. But then again, so are graphic descriptions of most surgical procedures.
Even before the wingnuts decided to outlaw it, the intact D & E was an extremely rare procedure. When it is performed, it is for the following reasons 1) The life and/or health of the mother is seriously threatened–An IDE is much safer for the mother and less invasive than other late-term procedures (Note also that the law the SCOTUS upheld does not include any provisions for protecting the life or health of the mother–so much for any pretense that this law is “pro life”) 2) The fetus is either dead or so seriously deformed that it stands little chance of surviving.
The procedure you’re desribing is not something women elect to do just because they’re tired of being pregnant or because they found out the baby is going to be born with the wrong color hair. It’s done either when the life or health of the woman is seriously threatened, or when the fetus is either dead or so deformed it’s highly unlikely to survive. It’s a horrible, wrenching decision that should be between a woman and her physican. Period.
Justice Kennedy has done us a powerful service by spelling out the horrors of abortion.
Well, if we all went to a slaughter house we might not enjoy the next steak we ordered.
Will the day ever arrive when rationale and logic prevail?
Hey Nick, just keep reading your bible, dopey.
Still believing the same lies from 10 years ago…….READ ON. Source at bottom. Newspapers. MSM papers are quoted in third paragraph. Partiasl birth is frequently done in the 2nd trimester.
*****************************
State health departments and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control keep track of the number of abortions but not the techniques used. So the National Abortion Federation conducted a survey of its members who provide abortions in the second or third trimester, “in an attempt to get a guesstimate in terms of numbers,” says Saporta. According to a source familiar with the survey, the federation came up with 400 to 600 “late-term” abortions (this estimate was based on interviews with the few providers who used Haskell’s procedure in the third trimester, the rarest of abortions) and then added 20 as a hedge, in case they were aiming too low. The entire abortion-rights coalition began to use this approximation, a consensus guess. In a group letter to Congress in October 1995, pro-choice activists wrote: “This surgical procedure is used only in rare cases, fewer than 500 per year. It is most often performed in the case of wanted pregnancies gone tragically wrong, when a family learns late in pregnancy of severe fetal anomalies or a medical condition that threatens the pregnant woman’s life or health. Restricting surgical options in these cases would only make tragic situations worse.”
Douglas Johnson spied his first opening. He knew this number was off, because his side was counting both second- and third-trimester abortions. He and his allies furiously lobbied reporters to do independent research and expose what he called the “disinformation campaign” by abortion-rights supporters.
Finally, Johnson hit pay dirt in 1996 when a reporter for New Jersey’s Bergen Record began calling abortion doctors in her state and asking about the practice. The doctors confirmed that they routinely used the procedure to end second-trimester pregnancies. The Washington Post followed with its own story. Media Matters on PBS slammed the media for not doing their homework on the issue. The spin from Johnson was devastatingly effective: The abortion-rights supporters had been caught in a lie.
http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/17/black-c.html
For one thing the Nurses discription was from an anti abortion rights activist. Now, I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t LAST night. I have read and heard enough out right lies in testimony from anti-abortion rights, creationist and fundies in general to kinda look with EXTREME prejudice upon these kinds of spectacularly gruesome comments or testimonials. Time after time these GAWDly folk will either outright lie or so twist someones words they are unrecoqnizable to the person who is being quoted. And frankly I DO regularly engage in conversations with the folks attempting to deny women access to womens health clinics and quite a few have had abortions themselves. Some, like the bimbo that was Paula Jones’s handler during the Clinton abortion have had NUMEROUS abortions. And this bimbo had one BEFORE it was legal and has had PARTIAL BIRTH BABY MURDERS. So not ONLY is she a murderer, she’s a SERIAL KILLER!!! So women, if you’re against abortion…DON’T HAVE ONE! Men, if you’re against abortion, DON’T FUCK WOMEN!!!! See, it’s simple ain’t it. If you have a brain that is and live in the reality based universe. Of course if you base your world view on superstition and SUPERNATURAL intervention then any stupid shit will cut it.
From the American Prospect article linked above:
Today, Ron Fitzsimmons says that his interview with the Times–and other public comments, particularly the “I lied through my teeth” remark–”was one of the stupidest things I have ever done …. It became a warped sound bite.” But after spending the past 20 years working to protect a woman’s right to abortion, he still feels he was right in stating the truth as he knew it.
“In my heart, having talked to many doctors, I knew that the procedure was being used in the late second trimester, but I did not volunteer the information. That bothered me greatly,” he explains. “We should not be apologizing for this. The apologetic tone stigmatizes abortion, creates guilt for women, and leads to people killing our doctors.”
I also notice that almost nobody in the so-called “liberal” media is discussing the fact that the law the SCOTUS upheld does not include provisions for the protection of the life and/or health of the mother. Those provisions were included in a draft of the bill but were removed by the wingnuts in Congress. So much for the law’s supporters being “pro life”.
ya, and descriptions of war are also horrible…yet the wingnuts insist we keep on fighting them
go and see what is occuring in countries that still outlaw abortions…like mexico
neither the courts nor the state legislatures will ever fully overturn roe v wade…but they will continue to chip away at the laws until all procedures are virtually illegal in most states
its like the frog in boiling water analogy
I will keep reading my Bible. It’s quite a good book, actually. It teaches me not to suck babies’ brains out.
I ask you to look at what the culture of death has done to this country - the man can’t even express his disgust for abortion procedures without making sure you know he’s not “going soft” and that there’s really lots of religious hypocrites out there. What does this say about you all? This Court opinion has really disturbed you because it is really better for your side of the argument if people don’t know what abortion really is. And what does that tell you?
All of your lashing out is out of a guilty conscience because you know what abortion really is. This is the fruit of the Enlightenment you offer us - 40,000,000 dismembered and burned babies.
Only God can take away the guilt and regret you feel and I pray you will reach out to Him. 1 John 1:9.
Well it might not teach you to suck babies brains out, but it DOES teach you to stone them to death if they are disobedient. Or you can sell them into slavery! And they’d BETTER obey their new masters, cause you know what da good book gotta say bout DAT! In actuality it’s a whole bunch of books from a LOOOOOONG time, some well writen, some not. But it ain’t one thing skippy, it ain’t da word of GAWD! It’s the words of MEN trying to set up a structure to keep people in line and themselves in power. So you, and Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and Ted Haggert(quick! what’s it say about snortin ,eth an suckin dick!?) and all the rest of your tounge talkin, knuckle draggin, mouth breathin asswipes and kiss my Irish ass. An I ain’t EVEN Irish!
It’s too bad you needed a book to teach you not to suck babies’ brains out, Nick. I’m not familiar with the particular verse that teaches that, but I’ll let that pass.
If you want to preach the love of Christ, by all means do so.
If you want to use the Bible to pretend you’re “holier-than-everybody,” and sissy-slap at people who want women to have all life-saving options available to them–no matter how tragic and difficult their choice may be–then you’re wasting your time and would be better off leaving Chick tracts on public transportation.
If you want to outlaw concepts because you fear their wanton abuse is resulting in the deaths of millions of innocents, might I suggest starting with War and Poverty?
When discussing this please remember how grotesque it is when mothers die from pregnancy complications, what it is like for children to lose their mothers and husbands to lose their wives. Think of how grotesque it is to force a woman to continue a pregnancy with a baby that she knows will die at birth. Remember that sometimes this procedure can save women’s lives, their health, and their ability to have another child–one that can survive.
Whenever you think of or discuss this issue it is crucial that you keep it in the context that it occurs. The antis always take the woman and her family out of the picture but this has everything to do with the survival, health, safety, and well-being of women and their families.
I call it a massive “appeal to emotion”…have a swell day.
I think my head is going to explode reading this tripe. If you are serious about what you write–and I think you are–then I weep for the future of law in this country.
Nick Apr 23rd, 2007 at 11:23 pm
so condescending.
All of your lashing out is out of a guilty conscience because you know what abortion really is. This is the fruit of the Enlightenment you offer us - 40,000,000 dismembered and burned babies.
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ya, they aren’t babies. anything else? you are trying to insinuate that all abortions that take place are late term abortions? I CALL BULLSHIT!
like all pro-lifers — no real facts… just count on uninformed emotion.
Only God can take away the guilt and regret you feel and I pray you will reach out to Him. 1 John 1:9.
——————–
hehe — that’s like talking to me about santa claus. both fictional.
“But just as war and starvation are tolerated because they serve some larger moral goal, I’m gonna tolerate abortion because it serves a larger moral goal: ensuring that when a baby is born, it’s wanted and loved.”
What a load of bullshit. No fetus asks to be born. And if those engaging in sex aren’t able to want of love a child, then they need to make sure pregnancy will not happen. It’s quite interesting to see you refer to a baby as “it”…that says everything about your political stance.
“hehe — that’s like talking to me about santa claus. both fictional.”
It’s also like talking to Professor Fartsworth about grammar and diction: mim no understand. hehe
Ya know, maybe the fundies ARE right! First we outlaw abortion, make it a capitol offense. Hell, if the woman was gonna snuff a BABY she should be snuffed herself donchathink!?! And DEFINITLY a DEATH penalty for jerkin off! Think about the THOUSANDS of potential BABIES the reprobaits are shooting all over the sheets!!!!! Yeah, yeah, and make sure only married heterosexual couples are allowed to fuck and ONLY to make babies!!!! There, good ol christofacist FAMBLY VALUUUUUUES!!!!!
Mike,
I’m glad to hear that the real world description of the D&E abortion procedure has given you pause. It is a gruesome procedure and a moral outrage.
I could say much, but will address two specific points. You said:
First, what about adoption? Why not ban partial-birth abortion and ease the way for those women who do not want and/or cannot properly care for their children to put them up for adoption to be cared for by parents who would love and provide for them? Since you recognize the moral tragedy that is partial-birth abortion, why not seek an alternative? After all, we seek peace talks, negotiations, etc. as alternatives to war. Why stick with the morally repugnant partial-birth abortion option?
Second, I share your desire that every child born into this world be wanted and loved. It’s tragic when children are not cared for and not loved. Along those lines, is it really loving to end the life of a child (in the womb–or partly in the woman and partly outside of the womb)? Is it a good justification to say that the child would have a developmental disability and therefore is a “life not worth living?” A good friend of mine works with the mentally handicapped (young adults and adults) in New York City (as a teacher/life helper). He’s told me many heart-warming stories of the people he works with. What a tragedy to say that their disability would have justified ending their lives in the womb.
I hope your new son is doing well. I’ll see ya around the Law School.
Regards,
UVA 2L