And it's something I'd discovered on my own, independently. In a post on July 2, I discussed a little unscientific poll of mine called "What sort of law protecting access to abortion do you think Congress should pass?" I'd noticed the problem with the polls I was seeing: They were just asking if there should be statutes establishing a right to abortion. But:Roughly 15 weeks was a popular, consensus position Roe prevented for 50 years. Many on both sides will still disagree with it, but it’s likely where many states will land, and STILL more liberal than most European countries. https://t.co/JFrU63AWTl
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) July 11, 2022
There's such a wide range of things Congress could do, notably protect a short period of entitlement to abortion. I don't expect Congress to take advantage of the opportunity to come together and do something practical and helpful, and obviously my little unscientific poll shows an overwhelming preference for Congress to do nothing at all, but I just wanted to suggest that it would be sensible for Congress to create a statutory right to abortion in the first 10 weeks, leaving the rest of the legislative choice to the states. I'd like to see some proper polling of this question. I understand why Democrats in Congress are concentrating on the "viability" line that the Court had identified. But I wish they would consider an earlier point, in order to get a modest time-limited right in place to meet the real needs of women in states, like mine, who now have no right to abortion.
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106 comments:
23% is "a huge supermajority?
Yes, let's go with 15 weeks. Let's do a Mississippi. France can catch up to us later.
Mary Katharine Ham for Prime Minister.
How much of our politics is driven by the 10% at each end of the curve? I don't expect Congress to follow a reasonable solution. There's no money in it. And to compromise is to sell out the cause.
I'll be curious to see where Trump lands on this, since he's willing to say what everyone thinks but fears to admit.
How, exactly, would Congress create a statutory right to abortion before ten weeks? Just saying, "abortion is legal before ten weeks" would seem to invite another SCOTUS slapdown that this isn't a fedgov issue. Trying to push it through tied to health care funding would seem to open a box that neither side wants opened and would again give SCOTUS a chance to slap down Congress when it inevitably made its way up there.
if you phrase this different, you'll see the problem
don't say "allow access for the 1st 15 weeks", but instead say
"BAN Abortion at 16 weeks"
No democrat politician is going to support That! They'd lose all that funding from the murder mills. The worst part (for democrat politicians) is MOST people would be okay with it.
You just DON'T get high value parts off early term bodies.. Your profits are the higher the later.
And here's a REAL Horror Story! "BAN Abortion at 11 weeks"
Put THAT out there, and it passes in landslides.. NOW what do you do for spare parts/
Yeah. Exactly. 15-weeks and everybody STFU. Let’s move on. If a few States don’t want it, so what??? I hope Wisconsin does 15 weeks so we can diffuse Madison and the "up until birth" frothing liberals that are ruining our state. I don’t know if the GOP legislature is that smart though. And Evers would probably veto it. He's a dumb ass too.
But…this weekend the EU voted to condemn the US Supreme Court decision on Roe v Wade, even though as individual members of a “republic” most European countries are…14 to 16 weeks, and get to decide for themselves. Same structure as is now the case in the US. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. OK Boomers!!
Europeans are such arrogant assholes. Especially the one’s who head to Brussels. Can we PLEASE for the love of God, stop spending American tax money to defend these people? Let them flap in the wind with their “spotted dick”, hairy armpits, speedo’s, brothels, and Russian energy.
Because I am so far beyond pregnancy in my own life being a possibility and my only child has remained childless, I hadn't paid attention to the amazing knowledge of what babies look like week by week in the womb. As a result of all the recent controversy, I've gone to the trouble of looking at ultrasound images of fetal development. I accept that it's not a perfect world and, hence, a 9 or 10 week compromise would not make me take to marching in the streets to protest. Abortion (murder) at 9 months would.
Congress is no longer in the compromising business, which is another way of saying Congress is no longer a functioning institution — destroyed by, among other forces, judicial powergrabs like Roe v Wade.
The issue will be decided separately in each state. It's not a federal issue.
Roughly 15 weeks was a popular, consensus position Roe prevented for 50 years. Many on both sides will still disagree with it, but it’s likely where many states will land, and STILL more liberal than most European countries.
Yes, it makes sense that liberals would like an abortion right similar to the rules of Europe.
But it's hard for people to gear shift from "Mississippi's law is evil and bad" to "we need to codify Mississippi's law in all 50 states."
It's how cute the sonogram fetus is vs enough time to find out you're pregnant even if you have unreliable periods.
TEN weeks is the most medically justifiable stage, in that it's about when the child first exhibits the brain waves used to define the presence of human life; their absence has been used for some time to define human death.
To the extent a national law is possible, it should therefore be "no later than ten weeks" and let the States decide if they wish something more restrictive. Reasoned and reasonable debate will not be possible until there is a neutral and medically-based criterion to establish a legislated boundary. Reasonable exemptions to save the physical life of the mother, or in cases where the baby has no medical possibility of survival as anything recognizably human.
If you're looking for common sense solutions to a problem, I'm sorry to say, your Government is going to be the last one at this table. And they'll only be brought to the table kicking and screaming and threatening all the way. Unless it can be incentivized for some companies who have paid lobbyists and can spread enough money around Washington DC to make it happen.
I'm sorry to sound so cynical, but I've been alive and seen it at work for enough years now.
I think that a nationwide 15 week standard would probably end up saving more lives than the polyglot of standards that are going to be put into pace over the next few years so this would be better than what we are going to have but as a pro-lifer I have great trouble supporting this solution. It would be like limiting the Holocaust to just left handed Jews.
If one opposes abortion under the belief that life begins at conception it would be a tough pill to swallow.
For those that support the Democrat dreams on abortion (no limits, fully paid for, and force healthcare personnel who oppose abortion to perform them) - I don’t care what they think as they are ghouls.
I just wanted to suggest that it would be sensible for Congress to create a statutory right to abortion in the first 10 weeks
Why 10 weeks? How did you pick that?
I'll avoid the philosophical and medical positions for a second.
From a legislative and therefore judicial standpoint, this poll is one of the clearest reasons why a "right to an abortion" is not consistent with policy or law. In reality, abortion policy has consistently been the will of the people in very limited circumstances - rape, incest, life of the mother, and for the first ~12 weeks. That's not a right - that's a limitation on a medical procedure to be acceptable within a confined set of circumstances.
This is why this remains a legislative need and not a judicial need. Roe was a mistake not because of the outcome per se, but because it created something that needs to be a legislative priority and has solid reason to be left to the states.
Every other "right" we have is a broad right with limitations only in narrow circumstances.
Women more likely than men to favor such restrictions; men more likely to support no limitations.
Will we ever get away from the "Men want to take away women's Right To Choose!" thing and admit that unfettered abortion benefits the bad men of the world?
Jersey Fled: 23% is "a huge supermajority?
Poorly worded by Benson. He was referring to the fact that only a small minority (28%) support allowing abortion after 15 weeks. He should've said something like "15 weeks or stricter"...
I wish they would consider an earlier point, in order to get a modest time-limited right in place to meet the real needs of women in states, like mine, who now have no right to abortion.
Implicitly you're trying to get Republicans and pro-lifers on board, yes?
My suggestion, if you want a universal rule, is look to our death statutes for human beings. Brain activity is the rule in all 50 states.
I would certainly feel a lot better if we took homicide off the table. And you do that by connecting our abortion rules with our death statutes.
Consider the case of People v. Davis
This is a liberal court (California) trying to decide if a murder prosecution can go forward against a man for shooting a pregnant woman and killing her unborn child.
The NYT wrote an article on the case.
The Court concluded...
The third party killing of a fetus with malice aforethought is murder under section 187, subdivision (a), as long as the state can show that the fetus has progressed beyond the embryonic stage of seven to eight weeks.
That's almost synonymous with brain activity (roughly 6 weeks after conception, or 8 weeks after last menstrual period).
You're urging the Congress to be pragmatic. I'd urge them to be honest, and talk about biological criterion as a reason for the point (as opposed to arbitrary line-drawing).
Basing a rule on "weeks" is inherently nebulous and unenforceable. Nobody knows when conception happens, except God. Are we counting from conception or last menstrual period? Because those are not the same thing.
The polling will soon change to favor no abortion except for life of the mother, criminal rape, and incest. Wait for it. It is a sure thing as this issue is debated more and more.
There are two parts of this that would require consensus: (1) what the policy should be; and (2) that abortion policy should be a matter for Congress to decide rather than the states. The second one is the far more difficult problem, in part because it's impossible to get a NATIONAL consensus as to no. 1. The states are clearly capable of making their own laws respecting abortion -- most already have -- and this is hardly an area in which uniformity of laws among the states is needed. Why can't THAT be the reasonable compromise we "all" agree on, i.e., that each state gets to decide for itself?
(For the record, I still maintain that a national law forcing states to legalize abortion would be unconstitutional. It would not be a legitimate exercise of the federal government's authority to regulate interstate commerce.)
Congress does not have the jurisdiction here, and somehow using the Commerce Clause to claim so just replicates the problems of Roe. Let each State figure this out. People will vote for what they want. Any adverse consequences of their abortion laws can be remedied over time. Though this is literally a life or death issue, we need to have patience for the process to play out. It’s too important to risk short circuiting the discussion and debate, again.
Have faith, small “f”.
Jersey Fled gets confused, and asks...
23% is "a huge supermajority?
no, but 23+12+37 IS
I still think it best left to the states, but I’m fine with 15 weeks and would support 20 weeks plus. But finding a middle ground solution would negate the topics fundraising benefit.
I don't expect Congress to follow a reasonable solution. There's no money in it. And to compromise is to sell out the cause.
This is correct. Congress stopped being a serious entity about 2008 or even before. I don't believe there has been a national budget since then. I don't know the solution. I suspect it will be ugly. Abortion is the least of our problems.
I don't want to live in a State where Planned Parenthood exists. I believe a majority of the citizens believe the same. Plan B will still exist. Let the other states decide what they will tolerate.
I'm opposed to all abortions, by the way.
But if I was in the Congress, and I had the opportunity to...
1) recognize the humanity of unborn children
2) outlaw late-term abortions in California and New York and the rest of the blue states
3) pass a federal law protecting the unborn child's right to life at 6 weeks, when she has activity in her brain
then I might be willing to sign on to
4) a law that allows abortions of embryos who have no brain activity.
That compromise, of course, would make everybody unhappy (including me).
My favorite solution would be for the feds to outlaw all abortions if the baby has any brain activity. And let the states allow or prohibit earlier abortions.
I'm opposed to all abortions, but I think it's most critical to stop the abortions that qualify as homicides under our death statutes.
What about sex-selective abortions - why is that a woman's right? Isn't it a part of women's wrongs?" And there is a lot of sex-selective abortion in the US.
"One major study that analyzed U.S. census data from 2000 found that third births in families of foreign-born Chinese, Indians and Koreans in the U.S. who already had two daughters displayed a ratio of 151 boys to 100 girls—an extreme male-biased ratio."
There are states where a majority understands that an innocent human life with human rights is being destroyed. Why do those states have to be part of a "national consensus" which, among other wrongs, will allow the killing of girl babies in the name of women's rights?
https://www.newsweek.com/sex-selection-abortion-rife-us-447403
Here's a good article in the NYT about brain development in the unborn.
(You'll have to ignore his political conclusions, which are corrupt and embarrassing).
However, in judging a fetus "one of us," and granting it the moral and legal rights of a human being, I put the age much later, at twenty-three weeks, when life is sustainable and that fetus could, with a little help from a neonatal unit, survive and develop into a thinking human being with a normal brain. This is the same age at which the Supreme Court has ruled that the fetus becomes protected from abortion.
Dr. John Campbell has some thoughts on the subject
America is ready to consummate an agreement.
Bu the Democratic Party is impotent on the issue.
I’m with Saint Croix in every respect, although I cannot come up with a convincing legal foundation for a federal law on the subject. What is the interstate commerce argument unless quieting the screeching of the bug-eyed lefties would bring peace and prosperity to national restaurant chains like Morton’s.
- Krumhorn
Can we — most of us — come together and agree to allow [killing pre-natal babies] in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy — or at least the first 10?
No.
The idea for a 10 week entitlement is that there are states which will more-or-less completely ban abortion. There are also states which allow abortion up to 9 months. So, how about some fairness and symmetry? If Congress legislates a 10 week entitlement, it also legislates a ban on abortions in the final 10 weeks too?
Can we — most of us — come together and agree to allow 15 bullets in each of our AR-15 clips - or at least the first 10?
I somehow believe that Mary Had A Little Ham wouldn't go for that compromise position.
So no, I'm not up for negotiating with these people. They're not honest and they're not negotiating in good faith.
When you negotiate with them ... you give up something, but they never give up anything.
No deal.
Can we — most of us — come together and agree to allow access to abortion in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy — or at least the first 10?
10-15 weeks limit is agreeable for those states where it is legal to kill prenatal babies up until birth (and perinatal babies after). Their blood lust will not allow it now, but time will tell. History is not on the side of legalized death.
An equal right to self-defense without reconciliation?
Six weeks to baby meets granny, in state, if not in process.
That said, since there is mystery in sex and conception, and neither women nor men possess dignity or agency, and human life is but a commodity to be sacrificed for social, redistributive, clinical, and fair weather causes, the performance of human rites shall not be denied. Now, we know, about the people... persons, and witch trials, warlock judgments, deplorables, privilege, diversity [dogma], etc.
Keep women, and girls, affordable, available, taxable, and leveraged.
Women, men, and "our Posterity" are from Earth. Feminists are from Venus. Masculinists are from Mars. Social progressives are from Uranus.
And not for nothing, but we already had this negotiation.
The deal was: "You can have an abortion up until the end of your second trimester."
That wasn't good enough for you people. Once we gave you that inch, you demanded the mile. Up until a governor of one of our 50 states literally said in a radio interview that babies could be FULLY BORN and BREATHING ... and THEN the mother and her doctor could decide whether they wanted to tear it limb from limb and murder it.
So no, we're not negotiating with you people.
#FetusMeToo. #BabyMeToo, without social distancing.
This obstinance about "let Congress pass a national law" is only yet another attempt to reimpose the tyranny of Roe. It will only guarantee generations more of protest and rancor.
Federalism is a system of incomplete justice, but in a national one-size-fits-all system, you have the potential for evil to exist everywhere. In a federal system, you at least can have justice somewhere, even if evil persists elsewhere. It is probably the best we can do given the human condition.
The best outcome politically is human life being protected in those states where it can be protected. If people want to be able to kill with impunity, they can go to some other state.
It would be a big improvement if people would stop talking about the arbitrary (weeks) and start talking about the baby's development.
Specifically, we ought to take homicide off the table. That's why I like brain activity as a standard.
And I particularly like brain activity because its unanimous in all 50 states.
Focusing on brain activity would require pro-lifers to explain why aborting embryos without brain activity is bad. And it would also require pro-choice people to explain why killing a baby is acceptable.
The more we focus on the unborn child, and her development, the more pro-life we all become.
And all politicians should emphasize that rape victims have a right to emergency contraception under Griswold v. Connecticut. Please go to a hospital if you are raped.
Or swallow two birth control pills.
Yes, watch the Republicans do it, blow a large hole in the bottom of the boat that currently is holding not only Conservatives, but also Moderates, fed up Independents and disgusted and disillusioned Democrats. Watch them do it! Because leading and governing is hard work, with many challenges. One must be determined to lead - or, be cowardly and satisfied with losing easy majorities. In American politics, coming in second can be as well-paid as winning and easier on the digestion.
“Can we — most of us — come together and agree to allow access to abortion in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy — or at least the first 10?”
Isn’t it awesome now that Roe is dead and never coming back that we can have a proper and short discussion of this issue?
And there is no reason for our federal government to involve itself in any way. They would cause the same problem the Roe court caused.
In the end this episode is going to make it clear to everyone the federal government is a bad tool for solving most domestic issues.
No the problem is NOT the "extremists at both ends". The Rightwing extremists have almost no power. The Leftwing extremists control the D party. Personally, I would happy to compromise at 12 weeks with exceptions for life of mother, etc.
BUT..if you think the D's would accept that and shut up, you're naive. They are never going to stop trying for Government funded abortion all the way to 9 months. In fact, I wont be shocked that if they ever get 5 liberals on the SCOTUS, they would reinstitute Roe. One reason the left is so unreasonable is that the Moderates won't fight them. They're always tryng to be in the midde and proclaiming that BOTH SIDES ARE WRONG.
I’m with Saint Croix in every respect, although I cannot come up with a convincing legal foundation for a federal law on the subject.
Actually a federal law protecting the rights of people from state prejudice and violence is why the 14th Amendment was passed.
The equal protection clause doesn't just apply to citizens (a.k.a. the born) but also non-citizens (a.k.a. the unborn). Negating the humanity of human beings is an ancient evil. The point of the equal protection clause was to right that.
The Supreme Court is too embarrassed by its own jurisprudence to recognize the humanity of unborn children. But Congress could do it. (Not this Congress, or this President, of course).
What is the interstate commerce argument unless quieting the screeching of the bug-eyed lefties would bring peace and prosperity to national restaurant chains like Morton’s.
All abortion is commerce and the debate right now is literally about women crossing state lines to abort pregnancies.
I'm of the relatively liberal opinion that Congress can regulate all the money stuff and the non-money stuff is up to the states. So if abortions were free, then there might be a question about how Congress can regulate abortions.
But abortion is not free. Abortion is a $1 billion industry.
(Note to Supreme Court: if you're going to find a "substantive" due process right, you might avoid anything that costs money and is a part of interstate commerce. Otherwise you have brought back Lochner).
They could have made that point, but they elected instead to distinguish Roe by referencing the unborn child. Which is far more on point to the pro-life movement. But Dobbs doesn't actually resolve the status of the unborn baby. That question remains unresolved.
I think if the federal government were to protect the right of the unborn child to live, the Supreme Court might uphold the law. They would be embarrassed, but I think they would do it.
Absolutely!
Roe has been on shaky ground my whole life. The argument has become-- Do you support no abortion, or do you support no restrictions? And while there are people who have heartfelt opinions at both ends, most people don't support those sides.
So yeah, it would be amazing to have support for plan B, the abortion pill, and 15 weeks. The issue as the number one issue in all the land would go away then.
But do the politicians want that? Someone on this thread already said it, but politicians seem to like to have issues to fundraise on, and then pass some complicated law that the agencies get to flesh out. They don't really seem to want to write good laws or solve any problems. That isn't where the $$$$ is at.
here's a fun thought question..
Let's assume that (somehow!) a law is passed that bans abortion after (say) 16 weeks.
Then there could be 3 possible further events
1) a new law, that reduces the number (12 weeks? 6? none?)
2) continuation of that law
3) a new law, that increases the number (21 weeks? 24 weeks? 39 weeks?)
WHICH would likely be the further event? Would most be okay with 16?
I'm guessing that it would (eventually) decrease. THIS is THE Problem with "compromise".
AS LONG AS, the question is: "Do you think abortion should be banned" Most people will say "no"
BUT, IF you put a number on it, that number (of allowable weeks) is going to get pretty low.
And WHERE is The Money, in THAT?
brain waves used to define the presence of human life
Whether one is a member of the species homo sapiens, i.e. "human" is a matter of DNA, not brain waves.
Whether an entity is living is a matter of biological activity, growth, development, taking in nutrition, molecular transfer, etc. The union of a live sperm with a live ovum results in a living organism. Brain waves do not define the presence of life.
nfettered abortion benefits the bad men of the world"
"Haha, no limits, baby!"
Gilbar says:
"Jersey Fled gets confused, and asks...
23% is "a huge supermajority?
no, but 23+12+37 IS"
So let me get this straight.
If you add the 37% who want abortion only in the case of rape or incest, the 12% who are OK with abortion up to 6 weeks, and the 23% who are OK up to 15 weeks, you get "a huge supermajority" for abortion up to 15 weeks?
I guess I am confuse.
I get that most people here (men anyway) with their libertarian leanings are at least nominally pro-abortion and pro-Roe -- even if they protest that they are neither -- but the desire to legislatively adopt the reasoning and framework of Roe that was just rejected by the Court is as unworkable as the judicial version of Roe.
The problem with Roe was not a problem of states' rights. The problem with Roe was a problem of killing human beings, with any line-drawing - 10 weeks, 15 weeks, "viability," etc. - being entirely arbitrary.
A prenatal baby is just as much a living human being at six weeks as she is at six months in the womb or six months post-birth or six years post-birth or sixty years post-birth. Killing her at six weeks is just as much killing as is killing in the latter stages of development.
There are no classes of humanity. There is no human, on the one hand, and subhuman, on the other. There is no class of human entitled to rights and another class who have no rights that others need to respect -- that is the thinking of Dred Scott.
"Can we — most of us — come together and agree to allow access to abortion in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy — or at least the first 10?"
No. Why do all the states need to do the same thing? As far as doing something for women, what about the youngest women?
By the way, the concept of "brain death" was implemented only in order to be able to harvest people's organs earlier in the process, not necessarily when they are actually dead (because if they are dead dead then the organs are useless). Hence you end up with people whose hearts are still beating being declared dead. And the heart only stops beating when it is artificially stopped in order to cut it out of the body to put in a cooler to be transported for transplant.
I wonder how many people fall in the 15 week category because that’s what the Mississippi law in Dobbs says and it seems like a good compromise. If a six weeks law been the one that was upheld would that be seen as good compromise instead?
And like "viability," using "brain waves" as any kind of measure is entirely relative to the ability of technology to detect the brain waves. Just because some machine cannot detect something does not mean that it is not there.
Four choices: sex or abstinence, contraception in depth, adoption (i.e. shared/shifted responsibility), compassion (i.e. shared/personal responsibility), and an equal right to self-defense... abortion through reconciliation. Perhaps they should consider expanding the scope of self-defense to be equitable and inclusive.
"I don't want to live in a State where Planned Parenthood exists."
Too late, (by far). Planned Parenthood exists in every state.
"I believe a majority of the citizens believe the same."
I believe your belief is completely delusional.
I believe most people do not ever even think of Planned Parenthood, unless they have a personal reason to think of it, or unless it is brought to their attention for some reason by others.
Once we gave you that inch, you demanded the mile. Up until a governor of one of our 50 states literally said in a radio interview that babies could be FULLY BORN and BREATHING ... and THEN the mother and her doctor could decide whether they wanted to tear it limb from limb and murder it.
In the future, we will not discuss slavery as the original compromise, but the performance of human rites and other ethical modes of social progress.
I'm with the numerous other commenters here who say, yes, fine, something in the range of 10-15 weeks would be a reasonable position to settle on for a huge majority, but only at the state level. Please, for the love of god, no more Commerce Clause jiggery-pokery. That sort of corrosive nonsense needs to end. One of the great glories of the US, perhaps the great glory, is that we aren't bound by ties of blood and soil, we're bound by the Constitution, a law, written by men. That's remarkable. But it is imperative that a reasonably intelligent, reasonably educated citizen can read that Constitution and know what it says. If the Supreme Court spends decades playing Jenga with it and spinning wilder and wilder filigrees until they come up with decisions that clearly contradict the obvious meaning of the 10th amendment, it erodes that one bond the entire country is based on.
The consensus among embryologists is that human life begins at conception. Therefore, abortion after conception is homicide.
It's just a matter then of moral relativists flipping a coin to decide whether they prefer their homicides committed at, say, 15 weeks or maybe two years. And, taking a tip from Zeke Emanuel, they could even permit abortion of 75+-year-olds.
In any event, Congressional action seems a legal stretch although it does likely offer the most immoral outcome.
Should powerful hormones that disrupt normal and healthy bodily functions - with the potential to cause adverse cardio-vascular effects and other problems and lead possibly to deadly toxic shock - be allowed to be sold over the counter without a doctor's examination and prescription?
Because I just heard a news report of same on the radio.
All the pro-aborts want is legal - everywhere and any time. Safe has little to do with it. And far from "rare," the more often it happens, the more money they make.
Why is it,Althouse/Meade, that you think this particular nail needs to be smashed down with the heavy maul of federalism when you have a servicable state legislature that can hit the same nail with a smaller hammer?
Whether one is a member of the species homo sapiens, i.e. "human" is a matter of DNA, not brain waves.
This is not wrong, but it is not necessary for a legal rule to track biology or morality or any other factor external to politics. A legal rule can involve an arbitrary number arrived at by a process of compromise, and some arbitrary number is the likeliest outcome for a general rule in states that offer any window at all for abortion-as-of-right.
I agree with the general idea that the political outcome will have more staying power if it is tied to some significant developmental marker on the way to the full bundle of human attributes, but it needn't be the earliest marker (human DNA). Other possible markers include brain wave, heartbeat, sensation of pain, viability, and birth. Brain wave has a lot to recommend it because of its detectability, its symmetry with the legal rules defining death, and its proximity to an arbitrary number that corresponds with political polling.
15-weeks (or somewhere around there) is where I come down. I am sympathetic to the woman who does not want the huge life-altering act of having and caring for a child. You shouldn't have let it happen, but "life happens" sometimes. I know that. But you've got to get off the pot when you are in that position. At some point, "a clump of cells" becomes murder.
50 years of chance to reach a workable compromise was lost because the Supreme Court decided to make up a right that did not exist.
Robert Cook: Too late, (by far). Planned Parenthood exists in every state.
Planned Parenthood's website says, "CURRENTLY ARE NO HEALTH CENTERS IN WYOMING."
I wonder how many people fall in the 15 week category because that’s what the Mississippi law in Dobbs says and it seems like a good compromise. If a six weeks law been the one that was upheld would that be seen as good compromise instead?
Some states have a heartbeat threshold. How is that for a "compromise"? And it WOULD be a compromise -- and an unjust one at that -- given that at least on paper it would allow for the killing of some since life is present even before the heart starts beating.
Of course, as a practical matter, by the time a woman determines that she is pregnant, the baby's heart is likely already beating. Such a law would effectively prohibit all elective abortions except for abortifacients soon after conception.
Robert Cook said...
"I don't want to live in a State where Planned Parenthood exists."
Too late, (by far). Planned Parenthood exists in every state.
"I believe a majority of the citizens believe the same."
I believe your belief is completely delusional.
Robert Cook thinks a majority of people support the dismemberment and sale of fetus parts for Planned Parenthood profit.
I think most people disagree with Cook.
Rusty said...
Why is it,Althouse/Meade, that you think this particular nail needs to be smashed down with the heavy maul of federalism when you have a servicable state legislature that can hit the same nail with a smaller hammer?
Slight correction: Federalism is the system where state governments pass the laws individually.
I believe Ann does not value systems and the functional outcomes of systems.
Ann values feelings. People who value feelings tend towards authoritarian measures where their feelings are strongest and lack the ability to emotionally distance themselves from their position and accurately assess the results.
She can feel free to correct me.
Hard to accept murder at time XX:XX but not after.
While it is just word games, I want the law to read" a baby's life at 15 week gestation is protected under federal law". Let the States define, that protection. Ignoring the baby has always been the lie, the left tells itself, in order to get to sleep at night.
A national law isn't going to be enacted any time soon unless the Democrats keep Congress and eliminate the filibuster, and then the law is going to be abortion at any time- that is where the most passionate part of the Democrats' base wants it. The Republicans aren't going to pass a national law either that bans abortion or allows it within a certain window, even if one could probably demonstrate conclusively that a national law that set it at 0-15 weeks would save the lives of more people rather than letting half the states ban it, and the other half allow it up to 40 weeks gestation (or later).
You will probably get the maximum national consent by allowing the states to practice federalism, and this is naturally where the Republican Party is going to be happiest.
The US Congress should not attempt to rule on an issue the Supreme Court has just returned to the states. But Congress can set rules for:
The District of Columbia
The personnel and dependents of the US military at US posts and bases, in country and overseas.
Felons in federal prison. (How such persons started a pregnancy being a serious issue for separate litigation, hearings, and law...)
What the health insurance plans of federal employees are obliged to cover. (Inclusive, or not, of travel in pursuit of an out-of-state provider?)
Block-Grants in Aid to states that "choose" to run or allow abortion clinics.
Etc.
1: It's not a Federal issue. Congress should not do anything, and all attempts by either Congress, the President, or both to get the Federal gov't involved should be slapped down
2: 49% say ban by 6 weeks, 72% say ban by 15 weeks
So if there's ANY consensus, it's "no State should be able to ALLOW (not outlaw, but allow) abortions after 15 weeks"
Michael K said...
"Abortion is the least of our problems."
Indeed. That's why politicians will spend so much time and energy arguing about it.
If you add the 37% who want abortion only in the case of rape or incest, the 12% who are OK with abortion up to 6 weeks, and the 23% who are OK up to 15 weeks, you get "a huge supermajority" for abortion up to 15 weeks?
Yes. "Supermajority" usually means 60% (as in the Senate requirement for cloture) or two-thirds (to override a veto). 72% is certainly a supermajority.
Let me explain it a bit better- you can't add up the percentages that way to get a supermajority- the 37% does not overlap with the rest of the "Ok with it under 15 weeks" unless that entire 37% is ok with abortion between 0-15 weeks. They will be happier, but not content, nor politically disengaged on the issue afterwards.
Would this 15 week rule be a minimum to protect abortion rights, like Roe but substituting for viability. Or the national equivalent to Mississippi’s upheld 15 week law? If I’m uncertain (or perhaps just confused), perhaps survey respondents are too?
My hunch is that proposal is a Roe substitute but some people are assuming Mississippi.
Mary Katherine Ham is the "conservative thinker" who was married to a monster who helped get Obama elected. It's fairly clear that if mental activity were the criterion, she would be eminently abortable.
"If you add the 37% who want abortion only in the case of rape or incest, the 12% who are OK with abortion up to 6 weeks, and the 23% who are OK up to 15 weeks, you get "a huge supermajority" for abortion up to 15 weeks?"
Obviously, you get a "supermajority" of 72%, all of whom are in favor of allowing abortion in the case of rape or incest. Math is hard, logic is harder.
Jersey Field is confused about the difference between up to, and past.
IF you don't think there should be abortion, you don't think there should be abortions past 16 weeks
IF you don't think there should be abortion past 12 weeks, you don't think there should be past 16 weeks
IF you don't think there should be abortions past 15 weeks, you don't think there should be abortions past 16 weeks
A legal rule can involve an arbitrary number arrived at by a process of compromise...it needn't be the earliest marker (human DNA). Other possible markers include brain wave, heartbeat, sensation of pain, viability, and birth.
Or we also have the real examples from history of Black people and Jews.
"Abortion is the least of our problems."
The least of our problems? Seventy million innocents slaughtered in the last 50 years in this country alone. That's the least of our our problems? When does it become a problem for you at all?
I appreciate that you are personally complicit in this - a perpetrator - and thus really do not care, but killing other human beings is actually the WORST of our problems.
I seem to recall a biblical attempt to arrive at a workable compromise by splitting the difference. If memory serves, it got a bit dicey in the middle, but it all worked out pretty well in the end.
Whether one is a member of the species homo sapiens, i.e. "human" is a matter of DNA, not brain waves.
"Human" is a matter of DNA+ (there's other things in mother's egg that are also necessary)
"Living" as a biological term means ingesting nutrients and engaging in cell growth / division
If you go from that to "Living Human", then someone with a heart beat is a Living Human being, even if they've gone years with no brain activity.
Since that's not where we're currently at, then "Living Human" can include other requirements, like detectable heartbeat / brain waves / graduating from Med School / etc.
It's a hard question
Which is one of the many reasons why it should be addressed at the State level, not the Federal.
Because unless you've got a direct pipeline from the One True and Infinite God, you dont' have the only valid answer to the question
allowing abortion in the case of rape or incest
The former is involuntary sex, a slave condition, affirmative action taken against the individual and society, now universally prohibited.
The latter is a form of superior force, but also a testament to social progress in minority quarters, which would fall under #NoJudgment #NoLabels in an expanded, inclusive community.
Either way, six weeks to baby meets granny, in state, if not in process where life or a unique evolutionary process is created with sex and conception.
a biblical attempt to arrive at a workable compromise by splitting the difference. If memory serves, it got a bit dicey in the middle
Not attempt, but enlightenment for those who would make the Choice for social, redistributive, clinical, and fair weather causes.
"I understand why Democrats in Congress are concentrating on the "viability" line that the Court had identified." That's not really true. When Dems have tried to pass laws around this, they have gone to the other extremity from the extremity of a GOP ban on all abortions. They want to allow abortion up to 9 months with the tiniest of restrictions (finding a single doctor who says your mental health is threatened, which Planned Parenthood would have a catalog of such doctors on retainer in such a world). Aborting a pregnancy at 38 weeks is actually murder from any truly scientific angle you choose. When Dems talk of 'codifying' Roe, I'd be largely fine with that. But THAT is not what they actually want to do. Life doesn't begin at conception but it surely does for all practical purposes before the 3rd trimester. Somewhere, Democrats lost their mind on this very reasonable idea with the pro-legal abortion lobby gradually morphing into an anti-birth movement.
The consensus among embryologists is that human life begins at conception. Therefore, abortion after conception is homicide.
That's not going to work as a matter of law. Nobody knows when conception happens!
The chemical test that tells women they are pregnant only starts working once the zygote implants itself in her uterus. That's 7 to 10 days after conception.
And there's another basic problem with saying that it's a homicide to kill a human being without any brain activity.
You're implicitly saying that any doctor who performs a heart transplant is killing people.
Are you saying that? I've never heard of pro-lifers protesting heart transplants.
I would echo what Breezy said. This is not a federal issue. Let the state's decide, individually.
Roe' regrets. Ruth's remorse. Jane's jesters. Human rites in retrospect.
And like "viability," using "brain waves" as any kind of measure is entirely relative to the ability of technology to detect the brain waves. Just because some machine cannot detect something does not mean that it is not there.
I think that's a very strong point. We should always error on the side of life. I favor outlawing all abortions. And, we should recall, the Hippocratic oath forbids abortions, just like it forbids assisted suicide.
But if you're talking about murder prosecutions, you have to prove that a baby died. Brain death is the life-or-death point for human beings.
Sheesh gilbar. You're not really that dense, are you?
23% favor a ban at 15 weeks. That's not a "huge supermajority" in favor of a ban at 15 weeks. 49% favor a ban at a point less than that. 12% favor a ban at 6 weeks and 37% say only in the case of rape or incest.
Those at 6 weeks don't favor a ban at 15 weeks.
Those who want abortion only in the case of rape or incest don't favor a ban at 15 weeks.
There is no supermajority in favor of a ban at 15 weeks. I suspect that the average of where the states end up will be in that 10 to 15 week range, but that will be a result of political compromise, not a concensus around that number or the preferences of a "huge supermajority" Many on both sides will grit their their teeth and learn to live with it.
"I've never heard of pro-lifers protesting heart transplants."
I think Mark did at 9:52am. My apologies if I misconstrued.
You're implicitly saying that any doctor who performs a heart transplant is killing people.
Are you saying that? I've never heard of pro-lifers protesting heart transplants.
Yes. And I'm not saying it implicitly, but explicitly. That's exactly what the ghouls are doing.
If you have never heard about this, then you've not been paying attention to the extensive controversies in bioethics on so-called "brain death."
Meanwhile, you would never bury a person who merely lacked detectable brain activity.
There has never been a single murder trial where proof of brain activity was required.
Brain activity is NOT the sole determinate of whether someone is alive.
"Brain death" is a purely utilitarian creation. It is a LEGAL creation in order to permit actions that in the past - when irreversible cessation of heart activity was deemed to be evidence death - would have been considered homicide.
Hope springs eternal, I reckon. The Supreme Court has eliminated the 'right to abortion' so the ectrosophiliacs (it becomes tiresome, writing 'pro-abortion rights people') will use every rhetorical, legislative, and judicial gambit to restore it (as is their right, of course).
If the question is solely political, i.e. 'what is politically, practically, possible, in this specific set of circumstances?', then I could vote for an Oregon law* that limited elective abortion to the first 10 or 15 weeks, sure. But the ultimate goal would remain: eliminating the use of law to enable the killing of unborn human beings.
*Here in Oregon, the only way forward will be via referendum, the Legislature in Salem being either afflicted with ectrosophilia or else, well, not to put too fine a point on it, useless.
I see my apology was unnecessary.
There has never been a single murder trial where proof of brain activity was required.
If there was a factual question -- say, a guy is in a coma and you pull the plug -- brain activity would be clearly relevant.
I'm kind of astounded that you seem to think there is no purpose for death statutes. You're just ignoring these laws that are in all 50 states.
You have to have a rule, otherwise doctors could be prosecuted for murder for doing a heart transplant.
In another California case, People v. Lyons (can't find the case, but the NYT covered this one as well), a man (Lyons) shot another man in the head.
He was brain-dead at the hospital. With the consent of the family, doctors removed his heart and transplanted it into another person.
At the murder trial, the defendant argued that he didn't murder anybody, the doctors did.
So in that case you would acquit him of murder?
DNA, Schme-NA.
What about the human soul? Isn't there something special about human life? Abortion at 10 weeks is no different that abortion at 37 weeks, or 0.00001 weeks. Early stage abortion just makes it easier for us to ignore what is really happening, and then later to forget what we had to ignore.
Pope John Paul II (who I believe qualifies as a pro-lifer!) has spoken eloquently about the magnificent gift it is to donate your organs to other people.
Transplants are a great step forward in science's service of man, and not a few people today owe their lives to an organ transplant. Increasingly, the technique of transplants has proven to be a valid means of attaining the primary goal of all medicine - the service of human life. That is why in the Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae I suggested that one way of nurturing a genuine culture of life "is the donation of organs, performed in an ethically acceptable manner, with a view to offering a chance of health and even of life itself to the sick who sometimes have no other hope"
He also talks about when people die...
In this regard, it is helpful to recall that the death of the person is a single event, consisting in the total disintegration of that unitary and integrated whole that is the personal self. It results from the separation of the life-principle (or soul) from the corporal reality of the person. The death of the person, understood in this primary sense, is an event which no scientific technique or empirical method can identify directly.
Yet human experience shows that once death occurs certain biological signs inevitably follow, which medicine has learnt to recognize with increasing precision. In this sense, the "criteria" for ascertaining death used by medicine today should not be understood as the technical-scientific determination of the exact moment of a person's death, but as a scientifically secure means of identifying the biological signs that a person has indeed died.
And he speaks on brain death criteria specifically...
Here it can be said that the criterion adopted in more recent times for ascertaining the fact of death, namely the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity, if rigorously applied, does not seem to conflict with the essential elements of a sound anthropology. Therefore a health-worker professionally responsible for ascertaining death can use these criteria in each individual case as the basis for arriving at that degree of assurance in ethical judgement which moral teaching describes as "moral certainty".
I wouldn't say he's a ghoul, would you?
Mark said...
Meanwhile, you would never bury a person who merely lacked detectable brain activity.
No, you just pull out the feeding tube, remove any IVs, especially any providing water, turn off any supporting machines, and wait for the heart to stop.
Is that murder?
Because if you took someone who was alive, and put him in a room where he could get no food or water, that would certainly be murder
The supermajority referred to here comes from the second set of questions, not the first. Yes, it's confusing. Surveys are often redundant.
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