Ban On Abortion Procedure Near

[Seneca]

Ban On Abortion Procedure Near

(CBS/AP) The Senate advanced one step closer Wednesday to final congressional passage of a bill to ban certain abortions, clearing a procedural hurdle on a 93-0 vote that belied years of struggle surrounding the legislation itself.

The bill would ban what critics call "partial-birth" abortions, and Republican leaders hope to have the legislation on President Bush's desk by the end of next month.

Final passage is not in doubt, since the measure cleared the House and Senate by wide margins earlier this year.

The only difference between the two measures is a Senate-passed endorsement of the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling that declared women have the right to an abortion.

More: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/18/politics/main573860.shtml

[Brucey]

1. These are the same people who say government

should stay out of our personal lives. They mean government should not restrict polluting, corporate lies and thievery, and the right of everyone to own a big gun and a big SUV.

[arwalden]

2. But It's NOT "Partial Birth"....

These are the same people who call ZYGOTES "babies". Think about it.

-- Allen

[slappypan]

3. a horrible precedent being set here

"Doctors can also be sued by the fetus' father — if he is married to the mother — or by the woman's family if she is a minor. "

Notice how the woman is eliminated from the equation — it becomes a dispute between a doctor and some third party. The woman is truly treated a vessel, as if she doesn't matter and doesn't exist. Very disturbing.

[Skittles]

5. Very disturbing?

Very Republican.

[catzies]

19. Very fundy -- fundyMENTAL

I know pro-choice Republicans (there are a few) and they see this for the crock o'shit this is. It's part of the relentless chipping away at Roe v Wade, which will eventually become toothless even if it remains the law of the land.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

6. Now this IS bad news...

"Doctors can also be sued by the fetus' father — if he is married to the mother — or by the woman's family if she is a minor. "

Talk about a way to make sure no doctor every performs an abortion on a minor or married woman without her husband in tow --- even if the law allows for it. With the chance of a lawsuit on their hands, they will simply stop offering the procedure.

[elfwitch]

14. Woman as a vessel

This kind of crap almost lends credibility to those who claim that a marriage license merely a receipt for the transfer of goods.

The fact that there have been cases where pregnant coma patients have been left on life support only to allow a birth to occur (regardless of how far along the woman was) reduces women to baby furnaces.

Once they get this one and the Unborn Victims of Violence thing passed, American women are just as screwed as those poor repressed women in Muslim countries the Bushies are always claiming to want to help.

Pretty easy for those who will never have to carry one around to make these decisons for those of us who do.

[clar]

4. How dare they

I'd like to know who didn't vote. This is a canard, and a terrible precedent. Women do not get late term abortions on a whim. Allowing the fetus' father to sue? That's just crazy.

[Blitz]

22. Here's your list

YEAs ---93
Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Allen (R-VA)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Bond (R-MO)
Boxer (D-CA)
Breaux (D-LA)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burns (R-MT)
Byrd (D-WV)
Campbell (R-CO)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Chafee (R-RI)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Corzine (D-NJ)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
Daschle (D-SD)
Dayton (D-MN)
DeWine (R-OH)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Fitzgerald (R-IL)
Frist (R-TN)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hollings (D-SC)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Nickles (R-OK)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Santorum (R-PA)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Talent (R-MO)
Thomas (R-WY)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Wyden (D-OR)

Not Voting - 7
Edwards (D-NC)
Graham (D-FL)
Hatch (R-UT)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Miller (D-GA)
Smith (R-OR)

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=1&vote=00351

Note some of the people voting "AYE":

Feingold (D-WI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Clinton (D-NY)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Murray (D-WA)

My point is, virtually EVERYBODY supported this, from the most conservative to the most liberal senators. The people who didn't vote were 4 Senators who are running for President (they're not voting for or against anything at the moment), 2 Republicans and Zell Miller.

I'm pro-choice but perhaps it's worth examining the story behind this bill and the compromises made before condemning every member of the Senate (more than a few of whom are staunchly pro-choice but voted "AYE" anyway on what was, apparently, a largely procedural vote).

Partial birth abortion is, in my mind, a tough issue and I see it as at least somewhat distinct from the general abortion debate. I believe that most of the people who are not at the extremes of the debate on either side share this view.

[amazona]

7. since this only performed to save life/health of mother...

...this is scary indeed.

[radwriter0555]

8. Hey, let em ban something that doesn't get used, works for me...

what difference does it make?

[GinaMaria]

16. they aren't just banning something that doesn't get used

the language is so vague that it could be applied to anything.

[catzies]

20. You think they don't know that??

:mad:

[yankeedem]

23. If it doesn't get used

Why ban it?

[david_vincent]

9. I can see Canada becoming England...

while America plays the part of Ireland. Eventually American women will have to go north of the border.

[sham]

11. And I'll be volunteering to drive them!

This is such bullshit.

My in-laws are getting fucked by the Bush* misadministration. MIL & FIL's retirement savings have taken a major blow. 38-year-old brother-in-law was laid off from a good paying job and had to move in with his parents just to get by. Now he's making $8/hr, with no hope in the near future of getting his own place again, and little hope of getting a good-paying job again.

Yet what is the one issue that keeps all three of these people voting Republican? You guessed it! Abortion. Something that is none of their business in the first place. Something that has absolutely no effect on any of their lives. They're so blind! It just doesn't make sense to me....

[noonwitch]

13. Screw driving them, I'll buy a boat

I live in metro Detroit-if abortion was made illegal here, considering the Patriot act and the post 9-11 increase in border security, they'd be checking for women to be crossing over the bridge and tunnel for abortions. I'll get a boat and take them across Lake St. Clair.

[qanda]

10. I say take the issue off the table...

I am against abortion and I see it as the way that Republicans control a good portion of the "Christian" vote. Republicans will NEVER outlaw abortion because it is a "one issue vote" for too many of its voters. If partial birth abortions are taken off the table then that will be one less issue they can use to fool people into believing that they are the "moral" party.

[Atlant]

12. You have heard of "the camel's nose", right? (NT)

[Bridget Burke]

15. Since he's "against abortion"

It's probably fine with him.

[David__77]

17. Horrible.

This is the terrible setback for women's rights in this country. My slogan is: "Abortion on demand and without apology!"

Women are not incubators.
Fetuses are not children.
Abortion is not murder.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Selwynn]

21. I am pro-choice, not pro-abortion...

The difference is, the slogan that was given above "Abortion on demand and without apology!" Is not mine. I don't believe Abortion that is something that should be treated as casual or common place. It is a often tramatic experience on the mother and a major, if not the most major life decision of a person's life. The power over the *potential* development or lack thereof of a human life is a great power indeed.

Instead my slogan would be "Make Abortion safe and rare" as I believe a former vice president once said. I would like a society in which mothers, especially single mothers were not treated with disdain and so left to fend for themselves that many times abortion is the best possible option in the face of no other real possibilties. In my perfect world, there would be no abortion, because every child would be wanted by someone, and the pathology of the citzens would be such that there was a great and strong desire to nuture the mere potential for a new human life, even then difficult. But when difficult, society could be counted on not to abandon the mother, but to completely support the mother through every step of the way.

But as we all know, we don't live in my perfect world. However, I like to strive towards the ideals of my perfect world. Therefore, I take up the slogan of making abortions safe, which means protecting doctors, and ensuring the governemtn does not come between a woman and her right to professional medical care, and making abortions rare, which means continuing to evolve society to a place where woman feel more and more free and able to choose to bring that potential new life into the world, either because the support stucture is there for her, or becasue there are real an legitimate alternatives availible.

HOWEVER --

This is arguably one of the most difficult and complicated issues out there, and because of that, there is absolutely NO WAY I believe a bunch of congressional MEN thousands of miles away should tell any woman how to make decisions over her body! That's what's wrong with anti-abortion laws. A woman should be free to have medical consultation, free to wrestle with the tough decision, free to have real alternatives, but not forced to look at alternatives by the government, nor forced to endure word-of-mouth false promises about alternatives to abortion. This is arguable one of the most diffiuclt decisions of some women's lives -- it is absolutely imperitive in a free society that the freedom of the final decision be left with woman and rigourously protected! In this sense I am pro-choice, but I wish more and more people would choose "life" (sorry for the term) until a point where abortion was truly and voluntarily rare.

The reason why I take that stand, is because abortion is not murder. It is an ethical dilemma, but not one of murder. The ethical dillema is: do I use my power to stop this potential for life from become actual human life, a person? Also, and especially important for pro-choice folks like me, which is the higher value demand - a possibility of future human life or the present reality of an actualized human being -- whose needs are more important, if both cannot be honored and one must scarifice something? I side with ACTUAL life over POSSIBLE life and that's why I'm pro-choice. But I am not pro-abortion. I think abortion is sometimes an unfortunate necessity in a society that has gone so wrong so as to make it an unfortunate necessity.

There was a cartoon I saw in the ACLU building in my town. It was a picture of a doctor coming in to an examination room to see a woman, and he said: "I'm here to tell you you're pregnant, now this is going to be one of the most complicated, emotional, and challenging times of your whole live, filled with some very important decisions that will effect you forever.... so you're Congressman will be in in a minute to tell you what to do. "

That cartoon above, explains the reasons why I am pro-choice. That doesn't mean I don't wish other woman would make the choice to have the child, it just means I recognize and accept the realize that this is NOT always what's best for the mother, and I honor that.

[David__77]

24. Why not abortion on demand and without apology?

Should there be restrictions in women seeking to terminate pregnancy? Waiting periods? Having to view a crate full of aborted fetuses in a film? Forced to undergo ultrasound?

Why not without apology? Is abortion a crime against society? I say "without apology" because having an abortion is no reason to be ashamed--others may disagree and may believe that a woman should feel guilt for having an abortion.

I support women and their reproductive choices. I do not believe abortion is murder.