A Major Blow to Roe

[ismnotwasm]

http://www.msmagazine.com/summer2007/blowtoroe.asp

A Major Blow to Roe
The Carhart ruling chills doctors and shows no concern for women’s health

By Allison Stevens

"Dr. Paul Blumenthal was preparing to perform an abortion for a woman who was 22 weeks pregnant and carrying a fetus with a congenital anomaly. A professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford University, Blumenthal would have preferred to use a particular procedure he believed was the safest and most medically appropriate for the woman. But instead of going with his best medical instincts, he felt it necessary to recommend an alternative method that for the woman was more dangerous, more time-consuming and more painful.

The reason for the change? Blumenthal feared that by performing a “dilation and evacuation”—a quick, safe and legal procedure—he might be perceived as violating a federal law passed in 2003 that the Supreme Court has just ruled constitutional. It bans intact dilation and evacuation, a variant on the legal method, in which a physician partly delivers a fetus before completing the abortion procedure.

Passed by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by President Bush, the ban has not been enforced until now, as it was stayed in lower courts by successful lawsuits from Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of the National Abortion Federation, Dr. LeRoy Carhart and other physicians. They challenged the ban for its vague language, asserting it could apply to other procedures, and because it lacked an exception for the health of the woman—a precedent established more than three decades ago in Roe v. Wade and repeatedly reaffirmed in court cases since then."

[bliss_eternal]

1. This just sucks...!

That a doctor of his experience couldn't do what he felt was most efficient for the health of his patient.
Really makes me feel so many things. :grr::mad::(:cry:

[Katherine Brengle]

2. Seconded --

it's bullshit when a doctor can't perform a procedure that is in the best interest of the patient.

[bliss_eternal]

3. Did they think creating ridiculous legislation

would somehow force women to ~magically~ cease needing such procedures? :grr::mad:
It is nothing short of insane and cruel putting people's lives at risk based on their need to control.

I think often of fleeing this mess, but then I realize everywhere has it's issues and levels of hatred regarding women and our rights. (sigh)

[smokey nj]

4. No. They just want to make things as difficult and painful as they possibly can for women.

As far as they're concerned, women who would have this procedure deserve all the pain that can be heaped on them.