David Savage: Some Experts Say Partial-Birth Abortion Is Safer (But I Won’t Tell You What the Others Say)
The L.A. Times‘s David Savage has an article about the partial-birth abortion decision. Savage implies that the opinion takes as a given the prospect that the ban will cause women significant health risks, but brushes that concern aside:
The Supreme Court’s opinion sets out two major changes to abortion law.
[The first is described. It has to do with a preference for as-applied challenges.]
Second, the court in the past said it would strike down abortion laws that might threaten the health of some patients. Kennedy’s opinion acknowledged that some nationally recognized medical experts testified that the ban on D&X could “create significant health risks” for some women who undergo midterm abortions.
But that alone is not enough to void the law, Kennedy concluded. There are other safe methods of performing these abortions, he said, and doctors are not entitled to “unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice.”
Savage highlights the fact that some doctors say that the ban creates “significant health risks.”
What he doesn’t mention is that many others disagree. This disagreement is a major point of the opinion, and is stated again and again (though not mentioned by Savage). Here are some representative quotes from the opinion:
[W]hether the Act creates significant health risks for women has been a contested factual question. The evidence presented in the trial courts and before Congress demonstrates both sides have medical support for their position.
. . . .
There is documented medical disagreement whether the Act’s prohibition would ever impose significant health risks on women.
. . . .
The medical uncertainty over whether the Act’s prohibition creates significant health risks provides a sufficient basis to conclude in this facial attack that the Act does not impose an undue burden.
Savage has done this exact same thing before on the exact same topic: noting that some experts say partial-birth abortion is safer — without noting that other experts disagree.
It’s not an accident, folks.
There is great debate as to the health risk to the mother in not allowing partial-birth abortion. There should be no debate on the high health risk to the baby in allowing it.
Lew Clark (b08a67) — 4/19/2007 @ 6:51 amThe problem lie with the belief, I feel correctly,
semanticleo (2f60f4) — 4/19/2007 @ 7:02 amthat the anti-abortion crowd uses this emotionally charged, and egregious example, to facilitate the slippery slope incrementally taking all abortions into illegal activity. Some here do not oppose
birth-control, but oppose abortion. Make no mistake, the hard-liners funding this campaign
want to legislate morality and control the human behaviors their religious standards (in unhypocritical theory) proscribe. Partial-birth abortion is not defensible, except in the most extreme cases. Certainly, the reported 5,000 partial-birth abortions appears excessive. Those (extremists) wanting to preserve it as an option,
fear the cataclysmic effects on women who might be forced to submit to a coat-hanger in the basement
as their only option.
It’s never the only option. That’s the lie that has been pushed on women since the public push for legal abortion on demand began.
Anwyn (a130c1) — 4/19/2007 @ 7:29 amInfanticide might be safer still. Or, if killing the fetus isn’t absolutely required in terminating the pregnancy, a C-section might be safest.
But where does it say that regulations must be firmly based on scientific consensus, or other objective fact, anyway? Would that this was true.
Kevin Murphy (0b2493) — 4/19/2007 @ 8:20 amI thought you had to be a doctor to practice medicine on other people in this country.
htom (412a17) — 4/19/2007 @ 8:36 amsemanticleo said, “Make no mistake, the hard-liners funding this campaign
want to legislate morality and control the human behaviors their religious standards (in unhypocritical theory) proscribe.”
OK. If you’re going to repeat Justice Ginsburg’s opinion you might as well quote her.
I’ve worked for the “hard-liners funding this campaign”. Here is their strategy, the short-short version.
Build a fence around Roe to the point where Roe has little to no standing whatsoever in case law. Relegate it to the back alleys(no pun intended) of jurisprudence. Establish new case law by capitalizing on the weak arguments of Roe defenders and instill in the minds of as many Americans as possible the actual results of Roe, the unfettered, unlimited, unprecedented abrogation of the rights of the people to legislate where the Constitution explicitly empowers the people to do so.
The financial supporters do not oppose Roe as much as they oppose Griswold. Griswold is the privacy garment woven by the SCOTUS. Griswold is the root of their concerns.
SCOTUS already knows that Norma McCorvey was manipulated by her handlers. They already know the Roe plaintiffs fabricated their supporting data. They already know that the Roe plaintiffs used Cyril Means’ distorted history of English Common Law. But the court has attached itself to stare decisis. Chief Justice Roberts has pledged to follow a path of moderation applying stare decisis so as to avoid significant leaps in case law.
The supporters of this bill new there would be Constitutional challenges to it. That was 2002-2003. The court makeup at that time was against them and they knew it. They had no idea that O’Connor would announce her retirement, CJ Rehnquist would pass away, and no clue as to whom would replace them.
Gabriel Sutherland (90b3a1) — 4/19/2007 @ 8:46 amI probably don’t need to point out that the commenter accusing abortion opponents of using “emotionally-charged” examples is the same one referring to “extremists”, “hard-liners”, and coat hangers … but I will point it out anyway.
John Barrett Jr. (0cfc08) — 4/19/2007 @ 11:46 amDavid Savage? Hahahahaha. The poor fool is Linda Greenhouse in drag. Savage is a press release writer for lawless leftists like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her adoring Constitution hating followers at Planned Parenthood, NARAL, People (Freaks?) for the (anti) American Way and other fill in the blank fanatics.
Tom (4b4b8c) — 4/19/2007 @ 12:46 pm“the short-short version.”
shorter version; legislate morality.
semanticleo (2f60f4) — 4/19/2007 @ 3:20 pmhtom at 5, “I thought you had to be a doctor to practice medicine on other people in this country.”
You do. But you don’t have to be a doctor to hold an opinion on the morality of a medical procedure, or to hold an opinion about whether the procedure should be prohibited by law.
You also have to be a prosecutor to charge people in this country with murder. But you don’t have to be a prosecutor to support anti-murder statutes.
Paul (639638) — 4/19/2007 @ 4:01 pmshorter version; legislate morality.
Damned legislating morality. If it weren’t for that we’d all have black slaves to mow the lawn.
Anwyn (a130c1) — 4/19/2007 @ 4:08 pmThat was an exercise in sarcasm, for the humor-impaired among us.
Anwyn (a130c1) — 4/19/2007 @ 4:08 pmWhenever the reference to authority is based upon “some” people who say such-and-such, I am reminded of my mother sternly admonishing me that if some people (for example, my idiot friends) jumped off a cliff, would I follow them?
The appeal to anonymous authority, especially to “some people” is perhaps the weakest of arguments for or against anything, because there will always be some people stupid enough or venal enought to assert as fact that which is pure hogwash.
Austin mike (not the Mike above) (e2b7e5) — 4/22/2007 @ 12:44 pmListed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Mexico Luxury Vacation Villas.
vacationing in mexico (8a983a) — 4/7/2008 @ 7:47 am