Although the GOP is currently bickering over which rape victims “deserve” abortions, there’s yet another egregious aspect to this bill: the cut off at 20 weeks which would essentially ban many medically-necessary abortions, those done to save a woman’s life and health.
Although the GOP is falsely-claiming fetus pain at the 20 week mark, factually, that’s the earliest point at which some tests of fetal anomalies can take place.
Fetal anomalies which mean a wanted pregnancy has gone toxically wrong and abortion may be needed in order to save a woman’s life or health.
Which would be banned by the GOP’s seemingly arbitrary 20 week cut off.
However, I don’t believe it to be an arbitrary time-line decision on the GOP’s side.
Like the Bush era “Partial Birth Abortion Law,” I believe the GOP are deliberately outlawing medically-necessary abortions, for a reason.
Once medically-necessary abortions are illegal, once the life and health of women are no longer an issue, legally, it would be a relative cake-walk for the Republicans to legislate against all the rest of what they can term “recreational” abortions.
I can assure you that rape victims will also be considered collateral damage at that point.
Remember John McCain’s dismissive finger italics around the “health” of the woman when debating abortion during his presidential campaign?
I do.
The GOP doesn’t give a damn in hell about a woman’s life or health, they’ll just be more collateral damage.
Pre Roe V. Wade, my older step-sister’s friend had her pregnancy go wrong, but was forced to carry that dead fetus to term because the local doctors feared legal prosecution with a late-term abortion.
Not only was that woman forced to give birth to a dead baby, but her system was so poisoned by the toxicity, she was never able to have another child.
In Central and South American countries with abortion bans – even those with rape, life and health exceptions – women die of ectopic pregnancies because doctors fear they’ll be charged, if they operate.
The GOP knows exactly what it’s doing with that 20 week abortion ban: we should, too.
They’re legislating for more dead women.
You can say that again
Year after year I ask myself if things in this country could get any more absurd. But then I answer – the struggle must continue for all of us. Women are only strengthened by surviving their subjugation.
Melissa McEwan’s response to the President’s statement on Roe was excellent.
Can’t agree about McEwan. She is making abortion to be some Holy Grail. It isn’t. It’s not an ideal that all should strive for. Abortion is an ugly dirty business like all taking of human life. Sometimes it is necessary to take human life. This decision is properly made by the mother, but to resent input from family and medical personnel is foolish. This act will affect the family relationship and to not even consider professional advice in any life event is always foolish. Input, not a veto.
She makes the same mistake as those who exalt war.
You couldn’t be more wrong. Abortion is an ugly dirty business like all taking of human life. At what point does human life begin? Are frozen pre-embryos in freezers human life? Would it be an ugly dirty business to destroy them? Very few abortions are performed after a fetus is more than a few inches long and weighs more than 3 1/2 ounces. Most occur when it weighs less than an ounce. IOW not a viable human life that others could care for if the mother ceased to exist.
McEwan has it exactly right.
No woman of any age that finds herself pregnant and doesn’t want to carry a fetus in her body to full term and birth should be forced by others to do so. It’s her body and her life. It’s not as if pregnancy and childbirth are risk free to the life and health of a woman. Or perhaps you’re unfamiliar with the term “maternal mortality.” Pregnancy and childbirth can and do kill women. Even with modern, high-tech medical care.
Well said. How about we require mandatory reporting by sex workers of the services they provide customers and the age of their customers? Such statistics would have as much relevance to good public health policies as reports of abortion procedures. Then men could also experience that continued wrath of the puritan busybodies.
There should be no carve out for any group or class of human beings where certain rights that affect absolutely nobody else are denied to them.
“There should be no carve out for any group or class of human beings where certain rights that affect absolutely nobody else are denied to them. “
I agree totally. But I still maintain that abortion is an ugly business that should be addressed solemnly, not as a lark or like buying a hat. I’m NOT in favoring of denying anyone, but it’s not something to be proud of. Just like killing an enemy soldier is not something to be proud of. It’s just something that needs to be done and is ugly and traumatic. In both cases, people wake up crying years later.