Posted on 01/20/2008 12:29:36 PM PST by narses
Pro-life legislation continues to be proposed by lawmakers
COEUR d'ALENE -- Roe vs. Wade was decided Jan. 22, 1973, but for many the decision that guaranteed a woman's right to choose abortion was not so final.
The debate continues 35 years later.
Every year, pro-life legislation arises, leaving debate framers on both sides to reinvigorate one of the most divisive topics in American life.
This year's possible legislation is, for now, confidential, said Kerry Uhlenkott, Right to Life Idaho's legislative coordinator. Nor could she say who is sponsoring possible legislation.
Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene, introduced a bill last year that would have made coercing a woman to have an abortion illegal. It failed.
Tim Hunt, North Idaho field organizer for Planned Parenthood of the Inland Northwest, said his camp opposes the bill.
"We simply think the government should stay out of the bedrooms of America," he said.
Hunt said he heard rumors of a new bill that would define personhood as starting at conception. Hunt called that a "thinly-veiled attempt" at illegalizing abortion.
"We're not pro-abortion. What we are is pro-choice. Anything that interferes with that is likely to raise our hackles," Hunt said.
New statistics from the Guttmacher Institute say that abortion rates are falling. In 2005, the institute reported that 1.21 million abortions were performed. This number was down from 1.31 million in 2000.
While about 6 percent of pregnancies in Idaho ended in abortion during 2005, 93 percent of Idaho's counties had no abortion provider in 2005. Nationwide, 19 percent of pregnancies during 2005 resulted in abortions.
Nancy Tefft, executive director of Open Arms Pregnancy Care Center in Coeur d'Alene, has been facilitating post-abortion groups for 10 years.
"Looking at women I know that have been very wounded by abortion, I think that was a sad day," she said about Jan. 22, 1973.
But, "we still want to be here to support women in whatever place they find themselves," Tefft added.
There are no abortion providers in North Idaho, and no Planned Parenthood clinics. There is a Right to Life Coeur d'Alene, which could not be reached for comment.
Area women who choose to have an abortion usually travel to Spokane, said Jet Tilley, director of public policy for Planned Parenthood of the Inland Northwest.
"It's really important for Planned Parenthood that people understand our conversations primarily don't have anything to do with abortion," she said.
Much of their energy, Tilley said, is spent expanding access and information about contraception and advocating for laws that support choice.
"The Supreme Court has always upheld that women's health must be the paramount consideration," Tilley said. "The latest findings have not stuck to that standard."
A federal ban on abortions during the second trimester of pregnancy was upheld in April 2007. Planned Parenthood subsequently denounced the decision, saying it made no allowances for women's health.
Right to Life in 1976 celebrated the Hyde Amendment, which prohibited federal funding for abortions. Uhlenkott said the amendment has "saved over one million lives."
A recent pro-life victory provides that women "at least be offered" the ability to see an ultrasound of their unborn child. Uhlenkott said women who view ultrasounds are more likely to cancel their abortion.
"There's a real mood in this country to protect the rights of the unborn," Uhlenkott said. "I think it's just a matter of time before (Roe vs. Wade is) overturned."
Planned Parenthood works to limit unintended pregnancies, the number of which Tilley said is a key indicator to how many abortions occur.
Decreasing unintended pregnancies and sexual education can be as controversial as abortion. Those on the pro-life side often support abstinence until marriage.
Uhlenkott said she advocates "striving for a good family life." Promoting interaction between children and parents helps promote abstinence, she said.
According to Tilley, "What we know about abstinence-until-marriage education is that it doesn't work."
Tilley said birth control use is up. And the pro-choice movement celebrated in 2006 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of the emergency contraceptive's over-the-counter sale.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, 86 percent of women who receive abortions are unmarried. According to Open Arms Pregnancy Center, more than 80 percent of relationships terminate after an abortion.
For Uhlenkott, abortion is akin to slavery. "This isn't a thing. It's a human being that's being killed."
Is it alive? Yes.
Is it of the species homo sapiens? Yes.
Then it’s one of us and as entitled to protection as we are.
End of argument.
And again, to no purpose!Wrong. The mood and view of the cfountry HAS changed and continues too. Let me guess, you think we ought to drop the abortion plank and elect Rooty, right?
They can't fight it. It's always up to the Nine High Priests of Justice. If a majority of them want there to be a right, then there's a right. If a majority doesn't want there to be such a right, there isn't such a right. If a majority want it to sometimes one way and other times the other way (Planned Parenthood v. Casey*), then that's how it shall be.
*In that case it was a "plurality."
He won't get it. But even if he did, it wouldn't kill the pro-life movement. The truth can never be permanently vanquished.
True enough, but don't know if it can become a reality to reverse or change it substantially, depends on how the court is stacked and if they would hear it again. There are so many pro abort vested interests now.
If this was going on in the beginning of my reproductive years before RvW, I can't imagine anyone I knew getting a back alley abortion, but I guess it was possible. My neighbor told me her aunt who lived in St. Louis got 5 or so illegal ones way back when. But that was St. Louis.
The only way I even heard of abortion was when I was a teenager and read in the papers how some women would go to Sweden and later New York when it became legal there. Still doubt anybody I knew would have done that, but you never know. It was never a topic of family discussion or among my friends. We were pretty naive.
Amen.
Bad on the mother physically and psychologically but worse on the baby. God save the children.
Fifty years ago when I was young girls were much more careful about who they slept with. Having a child “out of wedlock” was shameful and they were
very concerned about “Sophyillis and Ganora” Now society has persuaded them that having sex is recreational and that pregnancy and STDs are like sunburn, something for which there is always a remedy. Hard to convince them that these things are more like cancer, until they suffer the consequences. Even then they are supposed to “move on” and just keep on doing what they are doing, because it is all fun-fun-fun!
“Rooty?” lol Abortion is a phony issue! It has been a phony issue for at least five presidential elections. While it gives msm commentators and newscasters something to talk about, something to polarize the public about, it is NOT an issue to be decided by the President. It is an issue that can only be honestly decided by a national referendum - that is what you should be calling for, rather than using that issue to obfuscate every Presidential election.
Yes, it should be ignored. And politics will not solve the problem. On one hand, the matter should be left to the states to decide or, on the other hand, it should be left to a national referendum to decide. If it should be clearly rejected by the majority, that’s that. If it should be clearly embraced by the majority, that is also that.
So you are supporting Rooty and can’ty take the pro-life platform in the party, right? As for your faux solution it is neither constitutional nor rational. Like your man Rooty.
“If it should be clearly rejected by the majority, that’s that.”
Yikes, glad you ain’t in charge. Slavery decided by a majority vote? Murder? Sorry neither constitutional nor reasonable.
Trouble is that the Supreme Court has stood in the way of either option you mention. How do you suggest the American people reassert their right to have the say on such matters except through this tiresome process of trying to elect presidents who will hopefully appoint Justices who will overturn Roe? You present what may be valid approaches, but they are both “you can’t get there from here” kinds of situations.
The only time that ‘you can’t get there from here’ is really true is when driving on the streets of Boston! :) The fact is, people often get what the demand, if they demand it forcefully enough. The reason some other countries don’t face the ‘abortion issue’ in every election is because it has been decided already by a national vote. Yes, that vote may come up again, in five or ten years, but that issue does not continue to linger or to obfuscate every election.
Narses, please! Do you really think that slavery and murder would be approved today by a majority vote in America?
Would abortion?
The only way people can get what they demand in this matter is through presidential elections and hoping for openings on the court to be filled with proper justices who can read the Constitution. Seven unemployed lawyers in black dresses set out a law in clear violation of constitutional principles, violating every notion of “representative government” and the result has been the legalized murder of 50 million Americans and an unsettled government ever since.
Maybe it’s time to find out. If abortion were to be rejected, you would, no doubt, be happy (as would I). But if abortion were to be approved by a clear majority, then what? Would you still believe in democracy?
I think we agree that the Roe vs Wade decision was a seriously flawed legal decision. But packing the supreme court to bring about a reversal doesn’t seem to be what will satisfy the country. Certainly, all of those who demand legal abortions will not simply go away. We would be swapping one ongoing controversy for another. A national vote on the matter, while not making all happy, would clear the air, so to speak and those left unhappy would have to face the fact that the majority has spoken.
It seems you assume that a national vote would go in favor of the pro-abortion crowd because they’re “not going to go away” if the court overturns Roe so they’re not going to go away as the result of a national vote, either. Overturning Roe would only put the matter back in the hands of the respective states where the voting public would have some say in the matter.
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