abortion classic or dud?

ugh ugh ugh fuck wnd seriously

meanwhile, on their way out of power:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-te.conscience30nov30,0,7247123.story

Rule will strengthen right to refuse care
Measure focuses on health workers' 'right of conscience'

By David G. Savage | Tribune Washington Bureau
November 30, 2008
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care workers to refuse to participate in any way in morally "objectionable procedures" such as abortion and possibly including birth control and artificial insemination.

For more than 30 years, federal law has dictated that doctors and nurses may refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further by making clear that health care workers may also refuse to provide information or advice about abortion to patients.

It also seeks to cover far more employees. For example, in addition to a surgeon and a nurse in an operating room, the rule would extend to "an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments," the draft rule said...

^ That is fucking ridiculous. If you don't want to dispense accurate MEDICAL information to which all your patients have a right then don't become a health care professional. Fuck.

I am helping with an annual meeting for the MA Emergency Contraception Network this afternoon. I wonder if this will be brought up.

Also, I love Jennifer Baumgardner.

Yeah, I read a quote from some religious spokesperson about how this will protect Catholic hospitals etc who said they should be protected from both PERFORMING the services, and also from having to REFER anyone to another practitioner. I mean, REALLY?@?@?

have definitely run into some srsly pro-life ppl at med school :-/

I'm sitting at my desk coding surveys we're conducting regarding educational attainment among preg and parenting teens. I just worked out that one of the respondents got preg at 12. So great we already don't provide these kids with accurate comprehensive sex ed and now we're going to further restrict their access to vital reproductive and sexual health services? Way to go Bush!

x-post

One of my prof is currently doing a study on med students and their decision whether or not to be trained to preform abortions. It sounds pretty interesting from what she's told me.

That recent article (somewhere online?) was interesting, about the woman in med skoo who thought all the way through that she'd be an abortion doc but ended up realizing that even though she still supports students being trained to do abortions, a different field was a better fit for her.

Oooh, interesting. I'm going to see if I can find that. If you remember where it was online def let me know.

WaPo

Also a detail not to be missed is that this rule-change is going to be an exec order, which will probably be on the stack of crap that the incoming Obama admin will just cancel come Jan 21st-ish.

Fun bit is that this is pretty much W not giving a shit about something for 8 years, but tossing a bone and just setting something up for RW douchebags to rail against and solicit funds for when it will inevitably be overturned.

posted elsewhere about this, but a rep from Nat'l Advocates for Pregnant Women came and spoke and it was very eye-opening

Where did you post elsewhere about that? I wd like to know.

chicago thread. basically i just said that it infuriated me (eg. women that have refused c-sections are being locked up under the statutes used to protect fetuses).

ditto women that used illegal drugs during pregnancy: woman had a stillborn child, and was also discovered to have used cocaine while pregnant. locked up for HOMICIDE because the law said that the fetus was a person, and that she killed it with drugs. THIS IS DESPITE THE FACT THAT COCAINE HAS NOT BEEN LINKED TO STILLBIRTH whereas, say, EtOH has but no one goes to jail for that

Ahhhhh yes, is this an unfortunate side-effect of that drunk driver who killed a pregnant woman being prosecuted for TWO deaths??? I believe this is what's known as a slippery slope. o_O

btw she was a poor minority lady lol

>:(

:-( I am too busy to really think/post about this now but it's all such a dangerous thing legally and well - argh. It's just so complicated. I would have loved to hear that woman's talk.

she was a real firebrand :D

OK, I had to look. From the NAPW website:

In the name of fetal rights and under the guise of the war on drugs, hundreds of women have been arrested for being pregnant and continuing to term in spite of a drug or alcohol problem. One state, South Carolina, by judicial fiat has declared that viable fetuses are legal persons and that pregnant women who use illegal drugs or engage in any other behavior that jeopardizes the fetus can be prosecuted as a child abusers or murders. Indeed, the arrest of pregnant women is not limited to those using illegal drugs. In Utah, a woman was charged with murder based on the claim that she caused a stillbirth by refusing to have a c-section earlier in her pregnancy.These arrests are taking place in spite of the lack of authorizing legislation and in spite of overwhelming opposition from medical, public health and child welfare organizations.

While hundreds of women have been arrested, there thousands more who have been subjected to punitive and counterproductive child welfare interventions that treat what women do or experience during pregnancy as evidence of civil child neglect or abuse. In increasing number of state are using a single unconfirmed positive drug test on new mothers or babies as a basis for involving child welfare authorities and in some cases removing the newborn from family custody. Women who have tested positive for drugs administered during labor, women in federally approved methadone treatment programs and women whose drug use in no way compromises their parenting ability have had their children taken from them.

~~blood coming out of my eyeballs~~

Yeah, head exploding, cannot think too much about it this morning lest I start screaming in all caps.

If fetuses are legal persons, can you have them arrested for stealing nutrients from your bloodstream?

A mirthless "haha" -- maybe it would lead to mandatory abortions, in order to keep the fetus in custody while his or her case went to trial.

~~blood coming out of my eyeballs~~
Yeah, head exploding, cannot think too much about it this morning lest I start screaming in all caps.

Exactly.

Just one more way of preserving the rights of those who can afford to go to court...

engage in any other behavior that jeopardizes the fetus

height of ridiculousness. foetal rights outstripping women's rights.

jennifer baumgardner and amy richards are great. i went to see them read at bluestockings a month or so ago. i was reading a review of the recent abortion/family book that accused her of some white privilege, but it's kind of hard to take seriously because i learned about white privilege from their writings.

RW'ers are freaking out over Obama's inauguration, and a lot of it is over abortion. It just seems like it is the only issue they care about.

Even if you didn't vote for Obama, it is an historic occasion, no? I think the sore loser attitude and the "one issue" approach says a lot about some people's commitment to politics.

I mean these people don't want to talk politics at all unless it is about abortion. I think this is very controlling and a bit disturbing. A lot of Republicans are pro-choice and are guilt tripped about their beliefs.

It's always some old religious white guy doing this. I go to church, and the people that nod their heads and do whatever the church says are usually white guys aged 50-70. What is the psychology behind this.

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2009/01/pro-life_group_up_in_arms_over.php

It's just tradition to show respect for the occasion, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican.

What is it with these old white people who refuse to talk politics unless it is some religious issue (gays, abortion)? Younger people who are anti-abortion at least try to discuss it with others, in my experience.

What are these people so bitter about? If you disagree with abortion, you can still protest at a clinic or offer counseling for pregnant women.

Even if you didn't vote for Obama, it is an historic occasion, no?

Seems there are some who disagree. Some friends of my grandparents are hosting an inauguration party and one woman has reportedly declined the invitation because she "sees nothing historic about the event". I don't even know on what grounds you could possibly argue that! It's just code for "I AIN'T VOTE FOR NO N1GG3R" afaic. Fuck this lady.

Hi 3v3rybody!

N3xt Monday 3v3ning, __________ ar3 co-sponsoring an MVA workshop h3r3 on campus! With a fr33 dinn3r!

MVA stands for manual vacuum aspiration. It's a r3lativ3ly simpl3 surgical t3chniqu3 for t3rminating a pr3gnancy. Two local physicians, Drs. __________________ , will b3 coming to campus to t3ach you (y3s, YOU) how to p3rform an abortion on a papaya.

If you'd lik3 to com3, 3at and l3arn, pl3as3, pl3as3, PL3AS3 RSVP to m3, or to ____________________ by th3 3nd of th3 w33k. W3 n33d to g3t an id3a of how many papayas to g3t, and how much food to ord3r.

l33t'd up for.....no particular reason, i guess

anyway, papayas!

uh

http://img.groundspeak.com/waymarking/display/04716e74-a9f1-4477-ad9d-54b10501f6c5.JPG

are you going??? sounds fun

would it be rude to eat the papaya, after

OK that baby papaya thing is amazing.

I've heard of that, gbx. In that one article where the woman med stude went to the same workshop. Did I ever find that Wash Po article for you?

Laurel I think you did because I read it after you mentioned it.

I don't think you did!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/14/AR2008111401698_pf.html

She linked to it upthread. Unless you're talking about a different article?

Good memory, E! Thanks for reposting.

Papayas??

Regarding the idea that abortion is "traumatic to the mother"

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/127868/why_are_even_smart,_liberal_men_freaked_out_by_abortion/

And I wanted to throw in that I am fond of replacing "pro-life" with "compulsory pregnancy advocates" (thx Jenny, and feminist bloggers everywhere).

oh cool, thanks, i will read that E!

....later, at least

Ah, now I understand about the papayas, sort of.

I would totally go to this fyi. Even if there were not fr33 f00d.

So would I.

should i go and BLOG about it?