Chicago Tribune – February 12, 2008
(MCT)
WICHITA, Kan. – The latest skirmish in the abortion wars is being fought, not on the sidewalk outside a clinic, but in the ornate jury room of a 19th Century courthouse.
Kansas is one of a handful of states that allow citizen-initiated grand juries to investigate possible crimes. And anti-abortion activists have invoked a little-used law to get a grand jury impaneled that they hope will put a local abortion provider out of business and behind bars.
Women’s Health Care Services is one of the last remaining clinics in the U.S. where women can terminate pregnancies in the late-second and third trimesters. The Wichita facility draws patients from all over, which enrages local anti-abortion groups.
“People hate the idea of being known as the late-term abortion capital of the world,” said David Gittrich of Kansans for Life. So, when state prosecutors and legislators failed to take strong action against the clinic’s owner, Dr. George Tiller, “we put on a full-court press.”
In two and a half weeks last summer, Kansans for Life collected 6,923 verified signatures on petitions demanding that the District Court of Sedgwick County summon a grand jury to investigate alleged illegal abortions performed at Tiller’s clinic. Under state law, they needed fewer than 2,500, or 2 percent of the county’s voters.
Gittrich says his group had to act because the state was not doing anything to enforce a 1998 Kansas law outlawing abortions after 22 weeks gestation if the fetus could survive outside the womb. Under the law, it’s a crime to abort a viable fetus unless the pregnant woman’s life is in danger or continuing the pregnancy would cause “a substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
The law also requires a second, independent physician to confirm that the woman’s health is at risk.
According the state health department, 11,221 abortions were reported in Kansas in 2006, 233 of them involving viable fetuses.
Abortion opponents charge that Tiller sometimes does post-viability abortions when the only reported threat to the woman’s health is depression or anxiety. To Gittrich, terminating pregnancies with such flimsy justification is tantamount to abortion on demand. But after years of investigations, the state charged Tiller with 19 misdemeanors in June 2007. The charges allege he had an improper financial relationship with the doctor who provided the second opinion – not with performing illegal abortions.
The misdemeanor charges are still pending, but anti-abortion groups say they don’t go nearly far enough.
Calling Wichita the “front line” in the abortion battle, Cheryl Sullenger of Operation Rescue said, “Nowhere else is an abortionist so blatantly violating the law.”
One of the grand jury’s first acts was to subpoena medical records of some 2,000 patients who had sought abortions at Women’s Health Care Services since 2003 for pregnancies of more than 22 weeks. The subpoena said the clinic could redact the patients’ names and other identifying information. But lawyers for Tiller and his patients – who are fighting the subpoenas – said the disclosures still would constitute a gross violation of patients’ right to privacy.
“I don’t need the worst time in my life sprawled across the desks of people I have no idea who they are or what they want,” said a former patient who is among those challenging the subpoenas and was made available by her attorneys.
The woman, who spoke on condition she be identified as “Jane Doe,” said she discovered halfway through her pregnancy that her unborn baby had a serious heart defect and had only a slim chance of surviving the birth. Although she and her husband had never contemplated abortion, Doe said, the idea of watching their baby suffer was even more unthinkable.
“Even if it was a remote chance,” she said, “the thought of her being born alive and gasping for air for even 30 seconds – I couldn’t do it.”
Doe, a 41-year-old office worker with three living children, said Tiller was the only doctor who would terminate her pregnancy, and she’s grateful for the “very compassionate, very understanding” care she got at his clinic.
Last week, the Kansas Supreme Court temporarily blocked the grand jury from obtaining the records of Doe and the other patients. The court gave the judges overseeing the grand jury until Monday (Feb. 11) to file objections to the temporary stay. They have until Feb. 25 to respond to the demand that they quash the subpoenas entirely.
Daniel Monnat, one of Tiller’s attorneys, called the grand jury a “vigilante” effort: “A very small group of people can launch a petition drive and force a criminal investigation based on false claims.” He noted that only five states allow citizens to convene grand juries: Nebraska, Oklahoma, New Mexico, North Dakota and Nevada.
Bonnie Scott Jones of the Center for Reproductive Rights, who represents Tiller’s patients, said leaders of Kansans for Life and Operation Rescue were among the first witnesses to testify. They presented photographs of visibly pregnant women entering the clinic, Jones said. Leaders of Operation Rescue, which also posted the photos on its Web site, told reporters that their goal was to persuade the grand jury to seek the patients’ medical records.
Ron Allen of Northwestern University Law School, an expert in constitutional law and criminal procedure, sees nothing wrong with citizen-initiated grand juries.
“The initial conception of the grand jury,” Allen said, “was precisely that it could be a collection of laymen to act as another check on government – on government corruption or incompetence or overreaching.”
Judge Michael Corrigan, chief judge of the Sedgwick County judicial district, called the grand jury a “powerful tool” because it can investigate whatever it chooses.
The job of the 15 jurors, he said, is to determine whether there’s probable cause to file charges. They set their own schedule and they meet in the Historic Courthouse, a Victorian Renaissance structure across the street from Corrigan’s modern building. From there they can subpoena records and summon witnesses, with the county footing the bill.
Corrigan appointed a retired judge to oversee the grand jury, but that person is not supposed to influence the direction of their investigation. Jury members were selected from a pool of people randomly selected from voter lists.
Corrigan said the tool is used only rarely – mostly to look into alleged violations of abortion and obscenity laws.
Another grand jury is investigating a Planned Parenthood clinic near Kansas City based on a citizens’ petition spearheaded by Operation Rescue. In 2006 Tiller was the target of a grand jury convened by Kansans for Life. That one investigated the death of a mentally disabled Texas woman after a third-trimester abortion, but it did not vote to bring charges.
Tiller, who drives a bulletproof SUV, has drawn the wrath of the anti-abortion movement for decades. His clinic, a windowless fortress, was fire-bombed in 1985, and he was shot in 1993, Monnat said. These days an Operation Rescue truck is parked opposite the clinic gate, its panels covered with huge photographs of a bloody, dismembered fetus.
On Friday a lone protester from Operation Rescue stood vigil outside the clinic, trying to divert patients to the anti-abortion pregnancy center next door. Her arms were full of baby clothes and receiving blankets.
Dozens of white wooden crosses had been pounded into the sod of the parkway, representing “the unknown babies who have been killed here,” said the protester, Donna Lampkin.
Jane Doe remembers being confronted by similar protesters when she arrived for her abortion.
“I don’t think those people realize what they’re doing to us,” she said.
“I’m not the mother of three children – I’m the mother of four; I just don’t have one with me. I don’t regret what I did. (But) I’ll live with the tears and pain for the rest of my life.”
(c) 2008, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Mclatchy-Tribune News Service.
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posted February 12, 2008 at 8:52 pm
There is ABSOLUTELY no reason that anyone’s medical records should be used to please Anti-Choice people, who are basicly violating a patient’s right to privacy. Sure they will make it impossible to read names and addresses of the files! (or so they say). It is still private information, even without the name on top. These folks need to get a life of their own instead of interfering with women who have had to make a very hard decision. It is not the decision of the Anti-Choice people…it is NONE of their business what another woman does. It is between the doctor and the patient…not the nosey ones who think they are doing good. Good? No, interferring with another woman’s life, her body and her decision.
As for the women who stand outside the clinics with their pictures. They need to get a real life too. No one is making them terminate a pregnancy. No woman does it lightly…they need to “bugger off”.
posted February 12, 2008 at 9:09 pm
This is a law that gives a lynch mob legality. And they want to engage in a fishing expedition through those poor women’s’ medical records.
Some of those anti-abortionists have no concept of morality.
posted February 12, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Sadly, one of the inevitable consequences of living in a pluralistic society is that there exist certain social issues that do not allow any compromise between opposing world views. Abortion is probably the most egregious of these issues.
Even though I am strongly pro-choice, I am nevertheless sympathetic to pro-life supporters. If you sincerely believe that human life and all the protections of being a member of society begin at conception, then it must be exceedingly difficult to accept that a woman’s right to control her body could possibly supercede what, in your world view, is the right of another individual to live. Nevertheless, I feel the activists in this case are exceeding all reasonable bounds in requesting privileged information, even if redacted.
posted February 13, 2008 at 12:54 am
Thank you, Tysson; it’s nice to be understood.
Of course, the issue here is beyond the normal abortion arguments; the case here is not even the legality of abortion, but the fact that Tiller is accused to _breaking_ those laws. I ask, in all seriousness, this question—if you cannot see the medical records, even with personal information removed, how can one investigate this? Should the law simply not ever investigate any potential malpractice by an abortion doctor? I have not been following this case particularly closely, but if I recall correctly (feel free to correct me), Mr. Tiller has been accused of giving abortions to underaged girls who, legally, could not have become pregnant without being abused. If this turns out to be true, Tiller violated the law by not reported cases of child abuse. Can we simply not find out if this was the case, knowing that those same girls could well still be being abused today?
And, if I may just rant for a minute: I am sick to f*ckin’ death of hearing “anti-choice.” And this really annoys me, because frankly, I do not like the “two pros” way of speaking; I’m tongue-tied enough as it is, thank you. Logically, it SHOULD be “pro-abortion” and “anti-abortion,” but that upsets pro-choice people because, after all, it implies that those who support giving absolutely anyone an abortion for any reason at any time may think abortion is okay, when they insist that no, they really hate it. So I suffer through trying to wrap my tongue (which is tied enough as it is) around two “pros,” just to be nice to people who think I’m a bigoted, inbred idiot, only to have them then throw it back in my face with insults. Being “pro-choice” is a kindness we are giving you, damn it, and if you don’t show some f*ckin’ gratitude, we’ll take away your right to euphemize your politics for the sake of not sounding nice. So, PFFFFFT.
(sigh) That being said, God bless.
posted February 13, 2008 at 3:34 am
>”Even if it was a remote chance,” she said,
>”the thought of her being born alive and gasping
> for air for even 30 seconds – I couldn’t do it.”
Of course, one has to wonder if this mother even
thought about the pain and the anguish her child
went through while the doctor used the methods
to have the child taken from the womb.
Even the woman who made the quote above at least
recognized a child was a human being. Which brings
up a good question: Why is an unborn child a human
being only when he or she is wanted but only a
“mass of cells” when the unborn child is not wanted?
And for what? To play God? To say anyone or any doctor
knows and understands with a 100% certainty what will
happen or become of the child once he/she is born?
I recall a relative of mine was “Pro-Choice”. What
changed his mind? Finding out he was not expected
to even be conceived due to medical reasons. Gave
him a bit to think about.
Later on in life he and his wife had a son. 5 years
later they had another child, a daughter, born with
a fatal condition. A neural tube defect. Most
children with this condition soon die after in mere
hours because of being left alone until they expire.
They stayed with her until she passed. Which was 7-8
days later. Despite her losing battle she had a will
live because they let her know she was loved. And
not by merely tossing her away. A year or so later
they had a son who died of the same condition, in
his case it was at birth. They and their little boy
miss the children deeply. And they felt life was too
sacred to be tossed by the wayside because it doesn’t
meet up to our standards.
As for the medical records, when there’s a strong
potential for rapists to drive a child or teenager
across state lines and get them an abortion just so
they can cover up their crime and think they can get
off scot free without it ever being reported simply
because the clinic is more concerned about money
while hiding behind a “privacy clause” they know is
criminal, you bet I’m for handing over records.
posted February 13, 2008 at 7:48 am
If he were covering up child molesting where’s the molested child who reports it? If he were covering up rape where’s the raped woman who reports it? If they wanted to catch child molesters or rapists they’d give Dr. Williams immunity.
This is not about child molesting or rape, it’s about a brave doctor who’s providing a lot of women and families a needed service, often a desperately needed service, that these zealots don’t happen to like. And thanks to an old and clearly dangerous law they can try to pursue him through the courts.
They want those records so they can pore over them and find something he did incorrectly. Well who among us hasn’t done something incorrectly. But these fanatics will use it to put him in jail and who knows what may happen to the women?
It’s a sad day when a few people can turn your own government into a machine to persecute you. I sincerely hope the Kansas Supreme Court protects his and the women’s rights.
posted February 13, 2008 at 7:50 am
And those of you who want to deliver a child to watch it suffer for a few days, that’s your right; just don’t try to force your decision on other people please.
Now is there any new news here since we discussed this last? I don’t think so, so why is it here now?
posted February 13, 2008 at 8:13 am
“I ask, in all seriousness, this question—if you cannot see the medical records, even with personal information removed, how can one investigate this? Should the law simply not ever investigate any potential malpractice by an abortion doctor?”
The trouble as I see it, here, is that the activists are going on a fishing expedition in the hopes that they can uncover illegal activity. This is not the proper role of a grand jury. While I can see an argument for allowing citizen petitioned grand juries in terms of checking government power, the use here seems an abuse in its own right.
“I have not been following this case particularly closely, but if I recall correctly (feel free to correct me), Mr. Tiller has been accused of giving abortions to underaged girls who, legally, could not have become pregnant without being abused. If this turns out to be true, Tiller violated the law by not reported cases of child abuse. Can we simply not find out if this was the case, knowing that those same girls could well still be being abused today?”
Who has made these accusations? Where are the alleged victims? This is where I find this use of convening a grand jury so frightening from a civil rights perspective. Although our protections against the state are rapidly eroding, at least for now the state generally has to meet certain minimum requirements before it is allowed to go through your personal records and the standards are generally much higher when the state wishes to access medical records of patients. I’m not at all comfortable with a process in which those minimum standards can be easily side stepped by a group of activists with a political agenda.
posted February 13, 2008 at 8:23 am
“Why is an unborn child a human
being only when he or she is wanted but only a
“mass of cells” when the unborn child is not wanted?”
This is at the very heart about why a pluralistic society is ill equipped to deal with this social issue. Pure rationality is incapable of creating a clear dividing line. As such, whether or not an embryo or fetus is a “mass of differentiating cells” or an “unborn child” or, even, “human,” depends entirely on an individual’s world view informed by culture, religion, personal ethics, etc. Unfortunately, the different “solutions” to this moral “problem” do not lend themselves to compromise.
posted February 13, 2008 at 9:26 am
Exactly, Tysson.
I have found no anti-choice advocate who has begun to resolve all the other practical issues involved with legal personhood and few who are even aware of them. Property is as much a constitutional right as life and thus a miscarriage SHOULD have an estate. They should also have death certificates. And age should then be counted from conception, not birth. Bear in mind that most fertilizations never develop into even an ephemral preganancy and most that do sponateously abort anyway.
I also have to wonder why the life begins at conception religious groups do not give the sacraments to the unborn. When was the last church funeral for a miscarriage you went to?
posted February 13, 2008 at 10:21 am
Excellent points, Redleg.
posted February 13, 2008 at 11:17 am
“I have found no anti-choice advocate who has begun to resolve all the other practical issues involved with legal personhood and few who are even aware of them.”
To play devil’s advocate, we have yet to resolve the absurdities of corporate personhood, either, but that hasn’t stopped us, for better or worse, from extending legal rights to corporations.
That said, I agree that there are a number of practical issues that the pro-life side either do not consider or do not find compelling enough to warrant addressing. From my world view, this leads to logical absurdities. Nevertheless, I accept that from their world view, many of the positions on the pro-choice side are equally absurd.
On a final note, I suppose I would echo Joey’s frustration with nomenclature. Neither pro-life nor pro-choice are really satisfactory descriptors inasmuch as each connotes something about the opposing view that really misses the mark. Nevertheless, in the spirit of respectful debate, I would encourage the least inflammatory terms.
posted February 13, 2008 at 11:51 am
aiko:
No one can convince me that the little girl with her neural tube defect who lived for 7-8 days didn’t suffer. Is it harder to have an abortion or spend 9 months knowing that at birth there will be death immediately or close to it? Personally, the abortion would be my choise. The woman who chose to not carry to term knowing that the infant would die a horrible death right after birth, has my admiration. It was her decision…not anyone elses…not the governments or her neighbors, just perhaps her family…but untimately hers.
And how many rapists drive their victims over the border for an abortion?? Maybe to non-doctor hacks…I don’t think rapists stick around long enough to see if the victim is pregnant! Or there is always wire coat hangers…a choise without legal abortions or the morning after pill, or RU 486.
Joey:
Rewording my post. NO ONE has the right to dig into any woman’s medical records, whether it concerns an ABORTION or any other situation. Nosy pro- life people need to get a life of their own and leave other women’s reproductive rights alone…if they need to have an ABORTION it is no one but the woman’s decision…not anyone elses.
This grand jury was called for no reason except to give the ANTI-ABORTION people a chance to put a legitmate medical practice out of business, because they disagreee with ABORTIONS. If this doctor wasn’t available, another one would be. Roe v. Wade gone, hacks pop up. There has always been ABORTIONS and there will always be, and keeping it legal keeps women from dying from the hackers who would sprout up if the courts were to stupidly make ABORTION illegal.
Obviously I’m PRO-ABORTION,not ANTI-ABORTION….or pro-choise not pro-life.
Redleg:
Points I hadn’t thought of…
posted February 13, 2008 at 11:51 am
Redleg
For what it is worth when my wife miscarried we had a church funeral. We named the child and fully expect to me him/her in heaven. All of this was done because of our pro-life beliefs. I suspect it happens more often then you think. I would add having funeral like that helps with closure. I would recommend it to anyone regardless of the politics/ethics ect of abortion.
posted February 13, 2008 at 12:37 pm
As for Redleg’s other points they aren’t as deep as he or some of you think. So what if a miscarried baby has an estate, it has no assets? As such why bother with the estate. I have some experience in this areas and this part of the law tends to be very practical, not very theoretical.
The idea of a death certificate is separate from personhood. We issue death certificate to hand legal issues around property. Humanity exists for centuries without death certificate, were we not humans before then? In short we issue death certificates to record deaths so people can know they can legally transfer title of assets, stop payments of certain benefits that are based on the person being alive ect. But it never has been seen as a record of personhood coming to an end. Once again this law is about practical issues, not theoretical ones. The people who thought it up were worried about payments not going to a dead person, not personhood.
And this would seem to be true of the other examples. One can acknowledge personhood without being logically required to extend these other rights/privileges.
posted February 13, 2008 at 1:19 pm
“For what it is worth when my wife miscarried we had a church funeral. We named the child and fully expect to me[et] him/her in heaven.”
Sorry for your miscarriage but I’m curious what you expect to find there. Will it be a miscarried fetus, forever suffering (or in heaven experiencing) the “life” of an embryo unable to even persist in the womb? Or will it magically survive and grow up in the (I’d think) very unnatural conditions of heaven (and if so at what age will it stop “growing”)? Or will it be granted an artificial memory of childhood and be pre-aged to, oh, say 35 years old?
Of course that brings up lots of other questions of peoples’ conditions in heaven but I’ll leave them for another discussion.
posted February 13, 2008 at 1:19 pm
“On Friday a lone protester from Operation Rescue stood vigil outside the clinic, trying to divert patients to the anti-abortion pregnancy center next door. Her arms were full of baby clothes and receiving blankets.”
If only she could have been there with an armload of condoms just months earlier!
These Rescuers need to get a life, and stop pestering people. Nothing about these women’s decision to terminate their pregnancies is any of these pests’ business. I’ll grant them that abortion is a tragedy, certain that women who have come to make that decision did not do so lightly. However, unless these women are members of the Rescuers’ own families, these pests really have no input beyond prayer into the decision these poor women have made to terminate pregnancy.
Jesus said let the wheat and tares grow together, and, later, He would separate them. That was not a mandate for us to stand on the highways and biways, loudly casting aspersion on every single human act by which we are offended, for which we can find passages of scripture to support our judgemental bigotry. Believers can neither dictate fundamentalist beliefs into civil law, nor can they control the behavior and the choices of others who believe differently. Christians are only mandated to be salt and light in a tasteless dark place. We can’t force others use our salt or walk in our light.
posted February 13, 2008 at 2:01 pm
It is a tremendous mistake to think that an issue as emotionally charged as this can be resolved by a dispassionate, objective statement of rules. If we are expecting women to raise the children, we should also expect them to make decisions about the pregnancy. If we expect religous or other socially minded groups to help bind our society into a meaningful whole, we have to expect them to raise their voices. But rules are, as they saying goes, meant to be broken. So why not design a system that expects personal responsibility as well as community division. We are not all the same, so no one set of rules for an issue like this will be appropriate. We need to honor each other and not make demons of anyone who is opposed to us. I surely wish we could approach this with appropriate maturity and respect.
posted February 13, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Nnmns
Actually, I would find a discussion of what we are like in heaven more interesting then most of the conversation one finds on Beliefnet. Most of them are a set of badly reasoned arguments or just name calling. It is one of the reasons I haven’t replied much over the years.
But the short answer to your question would be, “you badly under estimate the idea of an all powerful God”.
If I am correct that an all powerful God has promised an eternal life in a paradise then why shouldn’t I expect Him to keep His promise? Your question is one of those odd questions that seems to presume that God is some how limited to the laws and rules we see in this world. He is all powerful, why can’t He create a paradise for that child?
Your question would seem to suggest I should expect my 93 year old grandfather whose mind was failing to be this broken down man with no memory.
Why can’t God do what the Bible clearly talks about and make us new creations? And why shouldn’t one be able to at least entertain the idea it will be so outside the box by our standards we have a hard time imagining the out come?
In all honesty I have been reading your replies to stories on this site for what seems like years. The general impression I get is you are rather skeptical of traditional Christian beliefs. The question one could ask is the problem really those traditional beliefs, or as your question seems to imply your vision of an all powerful God too small?
Don’t take that question as a jab at you. I think it is a fair question as it seems the question really presumes the idea of a God (after all you grant in the question there will be a heaven), but one that isn’t all powerful. That difference more then anything else seems to be at the heart the difference between your question and my expectations.
Lastly, thanks for your sympathy, but it did happen a very long time ago. That would be one of the reasons I would be willing to put the idea out there. Also, if one is going to share something like that one better be prepared to expect commentary on it.
posted February 13, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Why are pro lifers almost always for war? The words LIFE and WAR don’t ususally go together, eh? So that blows their whole arguement of preserving life out of the water. Also, if maintaining life is so important to them, why are they going about it trying to kill other people? Kind of ironic, wouldn’t you say?
posted February 13, 2008 at 4:31 pm
ab, thanks for the civil and thoughtful response. I asked what you expected to find in heaven. I don’t expect you or anyone to find a heaven and no I don’t believe in any kind of a god. My error may have been in not putting “”‘s around “heaven” like I do around “God” to show a non-standard usage.
But I do sometimes point out the illogic of believing in an all-powerful god along with some of the standard parts of Christian mythology.
I guess such a question would include: If your god can create a heaven for a few cells, why would you or it get excited about abortions; just create a heaven/heavens for all those “aborted souls”.
posted February 13, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Nnmns
Why can’t I believe that God will bring the aborted children in heaven and have a concern for what happens here on earth?
Is neither God nor I allowed to care about both? If not, why not?
posted February 13, 2008 at 9:37 pm
ab care away. Just don’t try to impose your caring on other people who have their own needs, especially if you think the kids will thrive in “heaven”.
posted February 14, 2008 at 1:38 am
This is far and away one of the better debates that I have heard on this highly charged and sensitive issue. In the past I have sided strongly with “pro-choice” advocates, and indeed I still do, but I have learned to respect the opinions of the self described pro-life folks (I agree that the tag is politically motivated – I have never met a pro-choice advocate who did not have what I consider to be a guiding reverence for life). As such I will refer to them as anti-abortion, a term that I cannot imagine could be found disrespectful to anyone.
The change in my opinion of the anti-abortion set is that I have come to understand that most of them honestly believe that they are protecting the precious lives of the unborn. Whether or not their opinions were dictated by an oppressive religious hierarchy is another issue, and I can not be angry at them for that either. I challenge myself to have compassion for their condition. Furthermore, it is not only the religious right that hold this opinion. I heard an OBGYN state in secular terms that no one would ever convince him that life did not start at conception. I may not necessarily agree, but whom am I to tell him that he is wrong? This is a subjective matter. I can respect that! I would ask that you respect my opinion as well, in spite of what your religious beliefs, books or patriarchs have to say on the matter. These are your beliefs, not mine. (If you don’t understand the difference between belief and fact, well, this discussion, I’m sad to say is pointless from my perspective.)
That being said, I am heartened by impassioned debate on the issue. I can respect that folks on either side of the issue use all LEGAL means to promote their values and beliefs. I fundamentally cannot respect nor abide the continued WAR that is being raged over the principle of sanctity of LIFE: bombs going off, people shooting each other, merciless harassment, guilt-projection, professional doctors allegedly breaking the law, malicious and underhanded politics, disguised political agendas. Its just another form of us vs. them. This is called WAR and if you are engaging in these activities, I ask you to question your commitment to the sanctity of LIFE, regardless of the position that you hold.
Please folks. We’re talking about value for LIFE. If we can’t work through this without tearing each other to shreds, what hope do we have when the conflict centers around something less honorable?
posted February 14, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Responding to Ab a bit late.
As an attorney you should know that minors can and do have estates, and that the after-born and pretermitted heirs do pose issues now that would only be exacerbated by adding those whose very existence can only be verified by medical testing of another person to the mix. Bear in mind we have exhumations and DNA testing of corpses to prove descent, why not mandatory pregnancy testing for any women whose children could be beneficiaries or heirs?
And under equal protection and aggravating circumstances why would a woman NOT be eligible for the death penalty for having an abortion?
Perhaps the date of your conception is known and provable but its not for most people. Life under the law is life under the law.
posted February 14, 2008 at 6:05 pm
And I think death certificates are surely used to determine dangerous medical circumstances (epidemics, etc.) so why would not pregnant women have to be examined every couple weeks or more to verify they are still pregnant, and if they are not why would they not need to have a medical exam to determine what caused the death of the little negatively-aged tyke?
posted February 14, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Just to be clear my experience with these issues has to do with financial and tax issues- I am a CPA not an attorney. The Bar likes to claim we accountants practice law when we do this, but that is a discussion for another day.
I don’t deny minors, even extremely young minors, could and do have estates. But your point seems to be that a pro-lifer is required to support the idea someone is an heir and subject to the estate laws upon conception.
I am not seeing any practical point to this even if you are correct.
Let’s say for sake of argument you are an heir and could collect in an estate from conception.
If the baby comes to term and there is an estate with actual assets you would deal with it at that point in time.
If the baby doesn’t come to term because of miscarriage, there is no next generation to pass the estate on to so it really is no different then if the baby never existed as far as I can tell.
So is you point that the mother by aborting the child has denied a child of his estate? Say for example the father dies after the mother gets pregnant and his estate is to go to his children. So the abortion has denied the one child his share. Is that your point?
But under current law I could give 100% of my assets to one of my two children. It doesn’t make the one child less part of humanity. I haven’t violated the one child’s basic human rights. The laws that allow me to do that aren’t a fundament violation of the child’s basic human rights or the Constitution.
Same with my example above if we don’t recognize an unborn child for estate purposes doesn’t seem to logically mean we have to legally not recognize the child for protection of life under the law.
We have these kinds of laws that treat humans at different stages of development differently in a number of areas. (We give minors a whole lot less rights then majors, but it doesn’t mean they don’t have full protection to live.) Just because I want the law to recognize that conception is when a human has a basic right to live doesn’t logically require me to recognize that it has to share in an estate, has voting rights…..
Likewise when it comes to the death penalty you are not correct.
We treat different kinds of killings with different level of punishment all the time. 1st degree murder is a capital crime, at least in PA 2nd degree murder isn’t. And a killing that is ruled an accident has at times been given sentences as little as a few years of probation. (Find stories of Lenard Little of the St Louis Rams who killed a lady while driving drunk never did jail time. Although he was found guilty of some form of reckless driving not an accident.) Lastly, a killing in self defense isn’t seen as a crime at all.
The decision as to what level of punishment is based on our collective view of what justice requires. So nothing stops me from recognizing the difficult situations that women go through when seeking abortions. I am pro-life not stupid or unaware. I don’t claim women go happily into abortions and I understand they struggle. I just can’t endorse the ending of a life despite the struggle. So we can support as a matter of justice little or no punishment for the women, and instead point it toward the Dr who we believe is enabling an unjust action.
posted February 14, 2008 at 7:32 pm
“So we can support as a matter of justice little or no punishment for the women, and instead point it toward the Dr who we believe is enabling an unjust action.”
The Doctor is a hero who is giving these women and families what they desperately need at some real risk to himself. Because you don’t happen to think they should be able to solve those problems you want to imprison the Doctor. Because you realize the political problems with imprisoning the women you find reasons not to. But you make it impossible for future women to get safe abortions unless they are able to travel to where they are available.
“…it really is no different then if the baby never existed as far as I can tell.”
Yes, aside from the wailing and gnashing of you people and any regrets the mother to be has, it is not an important event. As I’ve argued often before and will not between the two or three of us, an abortion is far different and far less serious than killing a person. I wish you people could come to realize that.
posted February 14, 2008 at 9:36 pm
ab:
Without the doctor performing a needed service, the woman herself would be performing her own abortions or go to someone who would indeed be performing an illegal action…unsafe medical treatment. Unless the doctor isn’t certified as a medical doctor, then what he does isn’t an unjust action. A woman has the right to a safe abortion, should she find it is necessary.