Only in America, abortion wars sour Supreme Court battle

[deadparrot]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Viewed from abroad, the United States' Thirty Years War over abortion, currently injecting venom into the fight over a vacant seat on Supreme Court, often seems unfathomable.

An issue that turns elections, frames political careers and cleaves US society, abortion has powered decades of trench warfare in the courts, only now and then erupting into national view.

The spark for the latest firestorm: President George W. Bush's decision to choose conservative judge John Roberts as his first pick for the Supreme Court, to replace retiring icon Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Pro-abortion rights advocates are outraged, since Roberts' appointment threatens to whittle down the 6-3 majority on the court favoring the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade judgement legalizing abortion.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050724/ts_alt_afp/afplifestyleusjustice

[burrowowl]

1. Yes, something that should be

between a woman and her doctor.
And ware, many blue laws re pivacy in the bedroom were struck down because of this.
Just wait until birth control pill dry up and only married people can have sex in the missionary position!

[undergroundpanther]

6. Throw this line at anti choicers..

Let the fundie hypocrites choke on it.


God's OK On Abortion


"Rejoice O one who does
not bear. Break forth and shout, ye who are
not in labor. For the desolate has more
children than she who has husband." (Gal.4:27 )

"If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, however many they be, but his soul is not satisfied with good things, and he does not even have a proper burial, then I say, `Better the miscarriage than he, for it comes in futility and goes into obscurity; and its name is covered in obscurity. It never sees the sun and it never knows anything; it is better off than he.'"

Ecclesiastes 6:3-5

"Cursed
be the day I was born.
did not kill me in my womb...that my mother may
been my grave. (Jer. 20:14-18)

"And when he hath made her drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed." (Numbers 5:27-28)


This nonsensical ritual, prescribed by God, to a woman suspected of infidelity, must undergo the drinking of a vile concoction made of bitter water and dust from the floor of a tabernacle. A priest calls a curse upon the woman's head to insure that if she has acted in adultery the drinking of the liquid will cause her to have a miscarriage. If she comes out clean, then she shall conceive.

Regardless of how ridiculous this procedure seems, any person who believes every word of the Bible must come to terms with the realization that the quoted God here sometimes authorizes abortion.


Also...this whole section is apparently a description of an abortion procedure..in the OT.


http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Num/Num005.html#top


"Why then hast Thou brought me out of the womb? Would that I had died and no eye had seen me! I should have been as though I had not been, carried from womb to tomb."

Job 10:18-19

Clearly there is a strong argument here that the quality of a life is as important if not more important than the act of being born.

read more..http://www.elroy.net/ehr/abortion.html



Think on THAT,misogynist Fundie control freaks.

[Erika]

2. Once again, why abortion was accepted in America

During the 1970's, thalidomide babies were being born with the most severe deformities. The rich women traveled to Europe for abortions if they took the drug during pregnancy as prescribed by their doctors.

The poor women were left here to deliver the deformed babies.

The rich aborted, the poor delivered.

I should add that little hands were appendages and known as "flippers" at the shoulder for these babies among other deformities.

[kskiska]

5. Not exactly

Therapeutic abortions were performed regularly and discreetly back then. But then a case that drew national attention changed that. Sherri Finkbine, a pregnant Romper Room TV personality (and mother of 3, I believe) in Arizona, inadvertently took some pills her husband had in order to sleep better. Then she discovered the pills were Thalidimide and was scheduled for an abortion in a local hospital. When word got out, all hell broke loose and the hospital backed down and refused to treat her. She pursued the case in court, then was forced to go to Sweden for the procedure. The fetus was deformed.

I was a young mother when this occurred and remember it vividly. Mrs. Finkbine went on to give birth to another child.

[Erika]

8. Abortions were illegal then and I cannot think of an exemption

Maybe if you were rich, there was an exemption given by the doctor.

It was the fact that the rich could obtain abortions by going to Europe but the others had NO choice. "Flipper children" were seen everywhere.

[noamnety]

25. The BBC has a short write up on her

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/low/dates/stories/august/26/newsid_3039000/3039322.stm

The fetus had no legs, only one arm.

She got death threats for having aborted it.

That was 1962, so the dates of the previous post may have been slightly off, but yes, it was a fairly regular thing, I thought. I lived in a fairly small town in New York State, and one of the kids affected by it lived down the street from me. At least I remember my mom saying it was from something the mother had taken when she was pregnant that had been pulled off the market since. I can't swear that was the specific drug.

[tocqueville]

7. in the 70s there were no free abortions in Europe

and no thalidomide in the states, and the drug was already forbidden


Thalidomide is a drug which was sold during the 1950s and 1960s as a sleeping aid and to pregnant women as an antiemetic to combat morning sickness and other symptoms. It was synthesized in West Germany in 1953 and marketed by the Stolberg-near-Aachen-based pharmaceutical company Grünenthal from October 1, 1957 to 1961, mainly in Germany and Britain.

It was available in around fifty countries, although not in the United States, under at least forty different names (such as Talimol, Kevadon, Nibrol, Sedimide, Quietoplex, Contergan, Neurosedyn, etc.).

1967–1969 - Britain (1967) and Canada (1969) legalized abortion.
1969–1973 - The Jane Collective operates in Chicago, delivering over 12,000 safe illegal abortions.
1971 - Lorraine Rothman invents the Del-Em, a safe, cheap suction device for early abortions.
1973–1980 - The United States (1973 in most states), France (1975), West Germany (1976), New Zealand (1977), Italy (1978), and the Netherlands (1980) legalized abortion.

so I don't know what you got that story from

facts from Wikipedia

[Erika]

10. The early 70's was about the time the thalidomide issue hit the fan

I saw many "flipper babies" at the doctor's offices. The rich had already aborted in Europe.

[tocqueville]

13. You must have been in a very special hospital

"The story of thalidomide in the USA is very different from the European experience. Fortunately, Dr. Francis Kelsey of the US Food and Drug Administration was more alert and would not accept that the drug had been adequately tested for manufacture and distribution there.

As a result, only about 20 malformed babies were born in America and these were as a result of limited clinical trials that were carried out. (Thalidomide and the Power of the Drug Companies, Sjostrom & Nilsson, 1972)"


http://www.thalidomidesociety.co.uk/thalhistory.htm

[Erika]

15. The doctors offices were loaded with flipper babies

here in the U.S.

[Sgent]

26. They might have been

but if so the mothers were illegally transporting the drug into the US, OR they weren't related to thalidimide.

Thal... is actually one of the great success stories of the FDA. It was never sold or marketed in the USA, although as mentioned above there were a few cases related to clinical trials.

Note: Thalidimide is now available in the US as a treatment for Leporsy.

[saracat]

21. According to research President Kennedy gave an award to Dr. Kelsey

the scientist who didn't license thalidomide in the US, thereby limiting our thalidomide babies to twenty. I also thought that there were more but apparently not. But they are using thalidomide again( in aids treatment , and some other diseases) and we are staring to see more of these births! I guess we never really learn. They say that they are cautious not to give it to pregnant women but I guess we are not perfect!

[union_maid]

29. Not just "Europe" - Sweden

I don't remember the year. I would have guessed late sixties, but that would be a guess. The story is true, though. And there were legal abortions in the US all along. Just not "abortion on demand". You had to make a case to some sort of board, usually that the mother's life or health was in real danger.

[ugarte]

3. And every sperm is precious, a tiny baby American

Every embryo is unique”, says George Bush, surrounded by the adoptive mothers of former embryos, announcing that he is prepared to veto a Congressional bill (for the first time ever) allowing stem cell research. “Every embryo is a person”, adds Tom Delay.

[Erika]

4. And the rich women went to Europe to abort

while the poor were left here to deliver. That is what made abortion legal here.

[saigon68]

22. Those islamic rag heads are spawn of the devil

"Let's kill them", screamed the CHIMPANZEE


Hey Myers--- napalm and barbecue a few more of them for me.

[NewJeffCT]

28. he did not say every sperm is precious, did he?

no way, that is right out of Monty Python - "Every Sperm is Sacred, every sperm is great, if a sperm is wasted, god gets quite irate..."

[tocqueville]

9. this should be settled once for all by LEGISLATURE

and not by court rulings

but you need a President with balls, same thing for the guns

[Erika]

11. Not when legislatures are made up primarily of men

and the USSC having 8 of 9 members male.

[tocqueville]

12. by legislature I mean exactly the contrary

legislature in Europe is passed by parliaments, not by judges. Thus they respect the will of the people. The judges job is to see that the law is applied, not to create it.

[Erika]

14. I live in America

where men rule the legal system.

By the way, have you ever seen a flipper baby?

[tocqueville]

16. only on film or on pictures

as the majority of us

don't tell me you have seen all the 20 that were born in the US due to clinical research

The Congress of the United States was created by Article I, Section 1, of the Constitution, adopted by the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787, providing that

"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives."

and there are women in Congress, and more can be elected

[Erika]

17. I saw the flipper babies in Boise Idaho

for God's sake. Don't tell me about some 20 born in America.

I looked at them wondering and hoping their life would be filled with others showing them compassion.

[tocqueville]

18. there were only 20 born in America, it's a fact

and each one was one too many

and most of them got a life filled with compassion.

[Erika]

19. Get real

If I saw them in Boise, Idaho, there were more than 20. The U.S. was filled with them. I don't know who you believe as sources and I don't care. If they were common here, they were common throughout the country.

[undergroundpanther]

20. My grandma

Had an abortion in I guess the early 50's.
her husband was dying of TB,he was an abusive drunk piece of shit,and she could not take care of ANOTHER kid,she had NINE children.
Anyways she went to the doc,and he aborted it.It was all hush,hush.He called it a different name,it wasen't listed as abortion procedure.
But she had one and I think in her situation is was the most kind thing she could have done.

Sometimes the best way to be a parent,is to NOT become one..

Back in those days it was hell for women ,dying your hair blonde meant you were a slut and all..Rape was the woman's fault..gay people didn't exist, and women were not allowed by landlords to cohabitate and rent a place to live with men.That is how backwards things were.

This is the way fundies want things where men controlled women and women were chattel.

[Erika]

23. And the fundies want us to return to that land of hell

We're not going.

[ninkasi]

24. Well, I'm way past child bearing age...

but will fight to my last breath for the right of my daughter, my granddaughters, my great granddaughter, and my nieces to make their own choices when it comes to whether they bear a child or not.

We can all see, and be shocked and horrified, at the stories of child abuse, and deaths caused by husbands, and live-in lovers, and yes, sometimes the mothers. You can never convince me that each and every one of those children was wanted, and loved, and that their birth was a cause of joy to their families.

I hate child abuse, but I also hate the narrow minded bigots who believe that they should have the right to make not only their own decisions, but those of other people. I can only be responsible for myself when confronted with a question of ethics or morals...I can protest things I consider wrong, such as war, but when it comes to a decision between a woman, her doctor, and her conscience, there is no room for my feelings in the decision.

Perhaps if we had better health care, the opportunity for living wage jobs, the right to an education for all who desire to go to college, perhaps then, more women would not anguish over choosing between aborting a child she can not afford to raise, and the children she already has. Perhaps she thinks of her already born children, already on shaky ground with no more safety net if unexpected expenses come up, or her or her husband's job is sent to China or India, and feels, in good conscience, that bringing another child into that world would be wrong.

Let the fundies come to us AFTER we have full, living wage employment, and government sponsored health care for all, and a decent education for all, and a government who does not start needless wars, and who respects our environment, and after all of these things have happened, PERHAPS some women would not be scared shitless to bring another life into the world as it exists now.

Even then, though, if the woman feels that she can not carry the fetus to term, and give birth, that is her decision. Until medical science comes up with a way to transplant the fertilized egg into the body of one of the white neocons who wish to rule women, and let him deal with the pregnancy, the birth, and the rearing of that child, then let them keep their sanctimonious rantings to themselves, and leave us alone to make our own decisions.

[Moderator]

27. Kick