Rachel Maddow's on the TV in the next room, waxing wroth over a GOP-backed state law (Texas?) that requires women be shown ultrasound images before proceeding with an abortion; she calls it "medically unnecessary" and I expect a lot of the American Left agrees.
--But what's her opinion about requiring girls to receive the HPV vaccine? Isn't that something the Dems have been all in favor of?
Both of the big parties -- matched set of jackboots that they are -- assume they own women's bodies. They just have differing plans for them. "For our own good," of course.
Isn't it time we told those creeps to Get Lost?
I agree that requiring HPV is wrong, but I can honestly see both sides of the abortion debate. On the one hand, it IS a woman's body, but on the other, an abortion means the death of the child. The key to which side you fall on in that debate falls, IMO, on when an embryo becomes a human being, with all rights intact. At that point, an abortion is murder.
ReplyDeleteWith that being said, I cannot find a spot in the constitution that delegates that power to the Feds. This is properly a state issue.
It would be so nice if each state would allow the citizens to vote it up or down on the issue.
ReplyDeleteBut sides are afraid they'd lose the issue.
I'm not sure how either side can be for a prohibition on prostitution either.
Agreed. I often roll my eyes when the same people who yap about a "woman's right to choose" will turn right 'round and tell her that she may NOT smoke, MUST wear a seatbelt or motorcycle helmet, MUST get this or that vaccination, may NOT eat this or drink that, etc.
ReplyDeleteWhere does one draw the line between sensible laws for public health and taking control over somebody else's body / life?
I add that I've heard the argument that, since we all pay for people's health care, we therefore have a right to tell them how to live so as to reduce those costs. It's really hard to disagree with that.
DM, right or wrong, it's the eagerness with which pols of both stripes presume to decide for me, as if I was a child or chattel, that I find disturbing.
ReplyDeleteThe current case law is that a fetus isn't "alive" until it can survive outside the womb. Thus, an abortion isn't murder of the baby. I don't necessarily agree, but that is the rule now.
ReplyDeleteIf a state should pass legislation that life begins at conception, maybe that would pass constitutional muster.
The exception is the murder or injury of the mother at any time during pregnancy.\
TJ: A popular vote on the issue would likely result in the tyrrany of the majority. If even one person's right to do something, it's wrong for the majority to deny that right. Remember, we're not a democracy, and we have the rule of law not men.
Why can't they just leave us alone? We pay them enough (or possibly too much?).
ReplyDeleteThe abortion ship has sailed and meaningful debate is over for at least this and the next generation. Fundraising, being what it is, however, both "sides" need to whip up an occasional frenzy to keep the money rolling in. I get the mail and emails from all the advocacy groups. Chiseling at the extremes edges of abortion law is not a very exhilarating sport; but it does pay.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it time we told those creeps to Get Lost?
ReplyDeleteYes. Yes,it is.
As a male the real problem is that any decision on pregnancy should be made before there is the possibility. Society today believes that the decision to bring life into the world is so trivial that it can be swept away with no consequence. In my limited experience every woman that has aborted, or given up for adoption a child, has been haunted, by that decision for the rest of her life. As a conservative I don't want to control your body, but I would like to see a social change away from abortion as an acceptable form of berth control.
ReplyDeleteThe burden of reproduction falling so heavily on women ought to make a fair-minded man be cautious with sweeping pronouncements.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I made up my mind about tax money provided for abortions by seeing one too many tv news clips featuring fat, childless feminist bulldykes laughing and clapping as police put chokeholds and handcuffs on protestors outside abortion clinics. Screw that.
I guess there's just a lower 'ick' factor associated in my mind with pro-birth. Maybe I'm not being fair, or have much business having an opinion, but one side tends to result in a live baby, for good or ill (but at least the little rat has a shot), and the other side usually results, if you do it right, in not very much at all. Actually, if I have any sort of libertarian tendency, it was contemplating what was being done with taxes in this instance that started me thinking about the subject beyond "you gotta pay 'em".
Mike James
Way past time. And yes, both parties want to control you for your own good, the only difference is what aspect of your life they wish to control at this particular time.
ReplyDeleteA similar debate has begun here in the UK after the head of the Royal College of Midwives spoke out against 'foetus parties'.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2086075/Midwife-expert-slams-foetus-parties-mothers-celebrate-pregnancy.html
One of the issues raised was that women who had had these 3D/4D imaging procedures where considerably less likely to consider abortion, seeing the foetus as more human.
As a male I, like Mike James, feel I have little right to sweeping proclamations, however my only concern is that a father has no legal right to be consulted or even involved, yet has the responsibility should the women decide to have the child. I'm not sure how it should work, it just seems - not right(?)
On HPV vaccine, as the primary cause of cervical cancer it should be encouraged. You could argue, as with most vaccines for infectious diseases, that as an endemic infection it could be wiped out if sufficient women were vaccinated, sufficient to reach the herd immunity thresh-hold.
Do I think they should be forced? No, definitely not (Saying that, there is a precedent. With TB, should you be diagnosed and refuse treatment you can face sectioning and forced administration of medications in this country).
This is an area fraught with difficult questions eg. If you refuse vaccination, develop HPV (putting yourself at risk for CC) then have sexual relations with someone who spreads the infection to someone who subsequently dies of CC are you culpable?
With that being said, I cannot find a spot in the constitution that delegates that power to the Feds. - Divemedic
ReplyDeleteWe the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
"Where does one draw the line between sensible laws for public health..."
ReplyDeleteThere is no such thing. "Public Health" is a term invented by those who would be our Central Planners. It is extremely close to "Racial Health" which fell out of favor in the mid 20th century (though it was very popular in the West for many years). Now we have "Public Health" which sounds more acceptable, but comes from the same mindset. -- Lyle
"Where does one draw the line between sensible laws for public health..."
ReplyDeleteNo such thing.
Anonymous claims there's "no such thing" as public health. He (or she) is mistaken. This isn't to say that what modern liberals, leftists and progressives are attempting to pass off as "public health" qualifies.
ReplyDeletePublic health deals with highly communicable diseases to which one can be exposed involuntarily in the course of one's normal daily activities. It's focus is rightly on sewers, community sanitation, clean water, vermin control and the like. It should not be stretched to include venereal diseases, 'reproductive services', obesity, smoking, etc. Those are private health issues.