I suppose many people would find this article about the difficulty of finding an abortionist in South Dakota to reflect some sort of "primitive" moral value system, but since the Supreme Court has decreed that killing unborn babies shall be legal no matter what the public wants, social ostracism is probably one of the most effective ways to save lives.
Sioux Falls, S.D. -- The waiting room at the Planned Parenthood clinic was packed by the time the doctor arrived -- an hour late because of weather delays in Minneapolis.It was clinic day, the one day a week when the only clinic in South Dakota that provides abortions could take in patients. This time it was a Wednesday. The week before it was a Monday.
The day changes depending on the schedules of four doctors from Minnesota who fly to Sioux Falls on a rotating basis to perform abortions, something no doctor in South Dakota will do. The last doctor in South Dakota to perform abortions stopped about eight years ago; the consensus in the medical community is that offering the procedure is not worth the stigma of being branded a baby killer. ...
[Kate] Looby, [Planned Parenthood's state director,] whose father is an obstetrician-gynecologist, said she has talked to many doctors in South Dakota who say they have no personal objection to performing abortions but cannot risk their careers and community standing by offering the procedure.
The abortionists and the mothers should be ashamed of themselves. They and the men who fathered these children (when they enabled the abortion) should all be thrown in jail.
I expect the social pressures against abortion to grow stronger still, now that pro-life forces are funding the provision of ultrasound equipment to pro-life pregnancy counseling clinics. Nothing stirs the conscience like the image of that infant form in the womb.
A majority of the country wants abortion to remain legal.
Then let's let them vote on it, Mark.
BB: When have I said anything to the contrary?
Mark: So you support overturning Roe v. Wade and returning the question to the states? Or do you want a national vote?
BB: I'd love to see Roe v. Wade overturned just to see what happens if the issue blow up in the faces of social conservatives. Overturning it may be more of a Pandora's Box for anti-abortion advocates than a nail in abortion's coffin.
If the government has to have a role in the abortion issue, though, I'd prefer it to be a national issue.. not a state issue. To be sure, there are times when we're 50 individual states and there are times when we're one country.. and I think that in order for illegality to achieve its greatest power and influence it must be done nationally.. not state-by-state, since there will be a great many states with majorities that want it to remain legal.
Mark: "I think that in order for illegality to achieve its greatest power and influence it must be done nationally"
I don't quite understand you. Are you saying that you want a nationwide ban on abortion, so then it'll be a disaster and everybody will hate the conservatives. Something like Prohibition?
BB: I'm saying that if the government is going to get involved in the abortion issue at all, it should get involved nationally.. as in a national law that says it's either legal or illegal. My personal opinion is that the government shouldn't have a role in the abortion issue, either through judicial decree or laws passed by Congress and signed by the President.
Turning the issue over to the states.. lock, stock, and barrell.. will result in some states making it illegal and many others deciding to make it legal. The here-but-not-there nature of the illegality will make that illegality less effective than if it were imposed nationally.
To clarify.. I'm saying that if the government is going to get involved in the abortion issue at all, it should get involved nationally by passing a law that makes it legal.. or passing a law that makes it illegal.
I agree with you Mark. As much as I like to see individual states reserve as much autonomy as possible, the hit and miss of conflicting "legal/illegal by state" mess just simply wouldn't address the real issue. ie...folks would simply cross state line to find a legal place to have it done.
I really wish the whole matter wasn't a government issue to begin with. Passing laws on an issue such as this can give people the false impression that since the government aproves, it must be okay to do. Kinda takes morality and personal responsibility right out of the whole equation.
That's a bad thing, in my opinion.
And since a majority of the country wants abortion to remain legal.. perhaps the best thing is to leave it alone. Abortions can be stopped without government action. In fact, they've been on the decline for many years.
This is a social issue.. not a law-and-government issue. Introducing government bureaucracy and inefficiency into the process of cracking down on abortions seems to me to be the wrong approach.
While I would agree that the abortion mess is a social one- made even more of a mess with Big Brother's attempts to legislate it's moral temperature, I think your assesment that the majority of the country wants it to remain legal is way off the mark, and I'd be interested to know how you arrived at that conclusion.
The issue of abortion has sharply divided this country like few other issues have. One reason it remains so is because neither side has a decisive majority.
The only thing I'm sure of is that for every person that says abortion should be legal, another would step up with the opposite viewpoint, and vice-versa.
JP: Polls like a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll are how I arrived at that conclusion.
It's much more nuanced, to be sure, as you get into questions about specifics but generally, 57 percent want it to remain legal in all or most cases and 54 percent support Roe v. Wade.
I can't seem to post the link to the poll.. it says it's denied for questionable content.
Email me if you want and I'll send you the link.
Looking for unbiased stats from ABC News/Washington Post would be like me looking for unbiased stats on a Focus On The Family website.
Besides, 57% wanting it to remain legal, and 54% supporting Roe vs Wade is not a clear majority, Mark. That doesn't back the statement that "most" of the country wants it to remain legal.
Rather, it tells me what I already know- that is the issue has no decisive majority, and won't be cooling off anytime soon.
I did some research of my own, and found this site to be fairly thorough and unbiased. It contains a variety of polls that contradict your belief that Americans as a whole are on the side of pro-abortion.
You might want to have a look.
JP: Actually, every poll listed there is consistent with what I've said.. which is that a majority want abortion to remain legal in all or most cases. I never said the majority was clear. All I said was that there's a majority.
Additionally, every poll on that page that addresses it indicates that a clear majority of Americans want the Roe v. Wade decision upheld.
I also noticed that they included the poll I was talking about on that site you provided. If that poll was so far out of the mainstream, why was it included?
I didn't include the link to demonstrate that any views were in/out of mainstream.
The polls simply show that no one can be cavalier in saying that the majority of Americans want aortion.
Tossing around the word "majority" in this sense is misleading. You're a sharp guy, Mark. You know what I mean.
Consider this:
In hot issues, 51% can be technically considered a majority. But it doesn't do justice to the issue as a whole.
If, for example, a city of 1000 people was devastated by some sort of disaster, and 51% of the population survived, would the news reports say that only a minority of the citizens died, while the majority of the people survived?
No way. They'd recognize that both statistics were heavy and that the difference between casualties and survivors was slim, and they'd be honest about it.
In spite of the survivors being in the "majority", dollars to doughnuts says they'd report that HALF the population was killed, and it would be a tradgedy on every news station.
It's all about perspective. Pro-abortion folks love using the word majority; But we don't rule by mob in this country- at least that's not what we're supposed to be about.
The abortion issue can't be solved by saying that the majority of the country is for it. That's way too slanted of a view.
JP: At what point does a majority become "clear" to you? If it's not 52% (the percentage of those who want abortion legal for all or most cases, subtracting the margin for error from the original 57%) then what percentage is it?
If you want to talk about "rule by mob" in this case, I'd expect to see you do the same when the Republicans and other people on this blog do the same when they cite statistics and poll results.
Just out of curiosity, JP, would you be opposed to the Republican leadership changing the rules of the Senate for overriding a filibuster from 60 to 51?
It's also not a "cavalier" statement to say that a majority of Americans wants abortion to remain legal in all or most circumstances.. it's an true statement that is supported by the aggregate of polling results on the issue. If you want to talk about those who don't support abortion under any circumstances, go right ahead.. but the fact that nearly half of all Americans don't support abortion doesn't make false the fact that more than half of all Americans support abortion.
If the legality of prostitution can be left up to the states to decide, abortion is another issue that can finally be decided democratically within each state after Roe is overturned.
Mark: Email me the post that got banned, I'll try to figure it out.
A) Even if/when Roe v Wade is overturned, I and many others will push for a federal abortion ban if there are some states that don't take care of their own business. So, it's somewhat disingenuous to make only the federalism argument. That's part of it, but not all of it.
B) Polls at this stage don't mean much, because most of the argument up to this point is about a court case, not any proposed set of ban or restrictions. If I remember correctly, the partial-birth abortion ban had something like 80% public support. Once RvW is overturned we can have a real debate about the issue and discuss some real laws, and I think the pro-life side will be more convincing.
MW: Public opinion is indeed as strongly against partial birth abortions as you said.. but that's a long way from supporting a ban on all or most other abortions.
I'd say the polls do mean something, because the questions aren't exclusively about the case. Many of the poll questions on the page JP provided deal with how people feel about abortion.. not about Roe v. Wade. Some of the questions even dealt with how people wanted abortion laws crafted; whether they preferred them more restrictive, less restrictive, etc. The results indicate that people favor some restrictions on abortions.. but probably not enough to meet the demands of you and your ilk.
Mark, I guess what riles up me and my "ilk" is the way people go around leaning on polls to substitute for common sense and prop up their own morality.
Saying abortion should be legalized because "the majority of Americans support it" is just a total cop out.
It's as bad as someone doing something very questionable and saying, "well, there's no law against it, so it must be okay."
Sad state of affairs when we ought to know what's right and wrong, but we follow the crowd instead.
I mean, what do YOU think, aside from polls. I didn't see anything in your comments that reflects any thought on your part aside from quoting polls. Is the taking of a defenseless life justified?
At what cost? What are the considerations?
Polls can tell us what people want...but they don't speak to the question of whether or not what people want is the right thing.
JP: Oh how many times have I heard MW and other people who post here talk about how politicians should do what a majority of the citizens want them to do. That's the issue here. Poll results don't dictate what is right and wrong, and never have I suggested otherwise.
As for my personal beliefs, I don't think abortion is right in instances where it's simply a way for the mother and/or father to avoid the responsibility of raising a child. Aside from that, I have no major objection to it. The main thing, though, is that I don't believe the government should have the power to intervene in these decisions. As much as many conservatives don't want the government holding a gun to their head forcing them to pay for various programs and initiatives through taxes, I don't want the government holding a gun to the head of mothers and fathers telling them what they cannot do with regards to abortion.
I support private endeavors that offer alternatives and incentives to get people to avoid having abortions and I support efforts to help avoid unwanted and unplanned pregnancies.. but I don't think the government should be iron-fisting the issue one way or another.
I'm glad to see that Mark is at least more libertarian-leaning instead of being another socialist strawman. I congratulate him.
As I've said before, I'd rather have abortion's legality and restrictions be decided on a state-by-state basis since it will never be guaranteed that the Left will not regain control of the Supreme Court and/or both houses of Congress to just lift a ban on abortions nationwide. This is not a "one size fits all" issue for the Feds to completely control.
BTW, Mark, I wouldn't worry about social conservatives. Remember how Bush campaigned on banning gay marriage in '04? (Remember the assault rifle ban renewal pledge in '00 too?) Where's the bill now? I don't see him lobbying Congress to ban it. Why? I think he's not doing it because he's allowing the states to decide for themselves in a more democratic fashion as opposed to socialist federal judges issuing edicts to the contrary of popular will.
My state voted to ban gay marriage. I don't care what other states do regarding that issue and neither should the Feds.
r80: Oh, I always worry about social conservatives. They'd love nothing more than to legislate their views at the expense of my liberties.
Government exists for two basic reasons: To collect/distribute money and to make laws that limit liberties. Neither are particularly appealing to me regardless of which side of the ideological table wants to use those two reasons to suit their own agendas.
Vigilance isn't just for countering terrorism. It's also for my right to watch what I want on broadcast services that I pay for and for my right not to pay for a bridge to nowhere in Alaska.. among other things.
I wouldn't be too concerned about the Supreme Court either. It's rarely far from the mainstream of public opinion: Bland Justice
I will admit that fringes of the Right can be a problem, but we're more likely to follow the global trend toward Euro- or Canadian-style secular socialism than becoming a moral theocracy.
I agree, Mark. I wish the Libertarians (or at least Contract With America purists in the GOP) could get the size of gov't back to its properly reduced Constitutional norms and restore fiscal responsibility in gov't.
However, I disagree with your last post about the Supreme Court. Public opinion should have absolutely no place in the decisions of the judicial branch. Supreme Court justices aren't legislators. Judicial activists in the courts should be purged from the bench.
The Left's view that the Constitution is a flexible "living document" that can be used as a plaything for social engineering should be ended.
r80: That's exactly the point I was trying to make by providing the "Bland Justice" link. The Supreme Court isn't an "activist court". Do the courts influence public opinion or does public opinion influence the courts? I suspect it's the latter far more than the former.
It's been my experience, at least on this blog, that judges are "activist judges" when they make a ruling that's not in favor of social conservatives.. and that judges should "pay no attention to public opinion" when they rule in favor of social conservatives.
I don't want unconstitutional activist judges on either side of the political spectrum. I want this stupid ideological tug-of-war in the courts to end.
Even though Harriet Miers was supposedly against Roe, I didn't want her on the court because she was probably going to open up more unconstitutional "cans of worms" that we'd have to deal with later.
Mark, while I share your distaste for the fact that our government has made allowing/disallowing abortion its resonsibility, I don't quite get your own personal take on abortion.
If I understand you correctly you don't aprove of it as a way to escape parental responsibility, but aside from that you don't object.
What exactly does that mean?
What other asides are there?
Some would point out aortions to save a mothers life, but that's overblown. I mean, if pregnancy were that dangerous of an occuation, we wouldn't have laws about abortion...we'd have laws governing pregnancy instead.
In cases of rape or incest, innocent lives could be saved by simply having the child adopted.
Just what is it that makes killing the child not be objectionable to you?
Thanks for letting me prod.
r80: Harriet Miers was a joke. I don't care what she personally believes.. she just wasn't qualified.
JP: It means that I do not have any personal objection to abortions made for reasons other than the escape from parental responsibility. It's really no more complicated or nuanced than that for me.
You can prod further on this if you want to, but there's nothing more for me to say.