At 11th Hour, Georgia Passes “Women as Livestock” Bill
☥☽✪☾DAW ☽✪☾
2012/04/02 22:23:19
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After an emotional 14-hour workday that included fist-fights between lobbyists and a walk-out by women Democrats, the Georgia House passed a Senate-approved bill Thursday night that criminalizes abortion after 20 weeks.
The bill, which does not contain rape or incest exemptions, is expected to receive a signature from Republican Gov. Nathan Deal.
Commonly referred to as the “fetal pain bill” by Georgian Republicans and as the “women as livestock bill” by everyone else, HB 954 garnered national attention this month when state Rep. Terry England (R-Auburn) compared pregnant women carrying stillborn fetuses to the cows and pigs on his farm. According to Rep. England and his warped thought process, if farmers have to “deliver calves, dead or alive,” then a woman carrying a dead fetus, or one not expected to survive, should have to carry it to term.
The bill as first proposed outlawed all abortions after 20 weeks under all circumstances. After negotiations with the Senate, the House passed a revised HB 954 that makes an exemption for “medically futile” pregnancies or those in which the woman’s life or health is threatened.
If this makes its seem like Rep. England and the rest of the representatives looked beyond their cows and pigs and recognized women as capable, full-thinking human beings, think again: HB 954 excludes a woman’s “emotional or mental condition,” which means women suffering from mental illness would be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. It also ignores pregnant women who are suicidal and driven to inflict harm on themselves because of their unwanted pregnancy.
In order for a pregnancy to be considered “medically futile,” the fetus must be diagnosed with an irreversible chromosomal or congenital anomaly that is “incompatible with sustaining life after birth.” The Georgia “fetal pain” bill also stipulates that the abortion must be performed in such a way that the fetus emerges alive. If doctors perform the abortion differently, they face felony charges and up to 10 years in prison. Given all this, the so-called compromise suddenly does not look like much of a bargain.
For anti-choice lawmakers, it is an item of faith that fetuses feel pain at 20 weeks. But scientists disagree. Reviews of all existing medical evidence have found that fetuses have not developed the neurological structures to feel pain until at least 25 weeks, and likely not until 28 weeks, in the third trimester.
Although Roe v. Wade set the precedent for abortion to be legal up to 24 weeks, state legislatures continue to ram through restrictive anti-choice laws. Georgia will join six other states with fetal pain restrictions—Nebraska, Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma and Alabama. North Carolina prohibits abortion after 20 weeks.
Arizona is now poised to join the roster, as the Senate passed a 20-week abortion restriction Tuesday. The bill, which awaits final approval from the House, also requires women seeking abortions to look at a state-run website littered with anti-choice propaganda.
And in the Northeast, arguably the country’s most pro-choice region, the New Hampshire House voted Thursday to ban abortion after 20 weeks. The bill now moves to the Senate to join four other anti-abortion bills passed by the House this month.
Although GOP’s war on women continues to deal blow after blow, this week held two small victories: The Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down mandated ultrasounds while the Idaho House dropped the ultrasound bill all together
Read More: http://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/en-US/display/...
Top Opinion
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disclaimer 2012/04/03 01:51:38
This abortion thing should be settled already. I do not see a problem with the Roe v. Wade ruling.
As for people referring to woman as animals, that makes me sick to my stomach.
I suppose by "viable" you mean that if the doctors use every trick in their play book there is a possibility the child may survive. Not that it can survive under normal conditions?
P.S. I was also born at 32 weeks. Kind of a neat coincidence.
I can't, but I am not the spokesman for the world. Just as if they legalized marijuana today, it would not affect me because I would not use it. I chose not to partake but cannot deny others their rights. So in the case of abortion I would have to say that the guidelines should be that he the infant could live then it should not be killed. This determination needs to be made by top professionals in the field and not politicians. If I am not mistaken, that is how they came up with the "24 weeks" in "Roe v. Wade"
"P.S. I was also born at 32 weeks. Kind of a neat coincidence."
That is a neat little coincidence. :-)
At that early, they don't even have the fluid keeping the lungs from sticking to the pulmonary cavity. They have to use an artificial version of that fluid to even allow it to breathe. I think this is where science has conflicted with our regards to morality, because eventually, we could probably raise a human being from egg to birth outside of a womb. o___o
I've seen pictures, Mandy. I've also taken Honors level and college-level human anatomy and developmental courses. The problem is that I understand the mechanics beneath the surface-- such as the fact that at 21 weeks, it DOES have a distinguishable human shape, but that shape doesn't mean it can feel pain, nor does it mean it can think. It just can't register anything at that point in time, although when it reaches development a couple weeks afterwards, it can at least feel.
I mean, I DO see a human. I just don't see a person.
I don't understand how you can think a week-old fetus would be a person when the fate of the blastopore hasn't even been determined at that point (a difference between protostomatic and deuterostomatic organisms). I suppose I'll have to chalk it up to difference of opinion and outlook. I just register everything I know about the point of development, which is pretty thorough, and use it to make an objective assessment and not a purely visceral/emotional one (as you do, I think, by looking at the picture(s) alone).
Every human being starts this way. That is true. But the beginning doesn't equal the end. I think it's dishonest to call it a developed human being. When it becomes implanted, it's little more than a bunch of dividing cells-- it doesn't even have a shape. It would be equally unfair for me to call an acorn a tree.
I think that to deprive any creature capable of conscious thought is a pretty big deal. That's why I don't step on spiders, and that's why I would protect a child with my life. It's also why, near the beginning of the third trimester, I would find it perfectly unreasonable and selfish to abort for convenience, because at that point, I think it's fair to say it's got some level of developed consciousness. But I think it's also unfair to tell a woman, "Whoops, you got pregnant, now you have to carry it to term because everyone else thinks so."
Look at it this way-- we women are born with our wombs. We didn't choose to have them. You might possibly think that automatically confers responsibility to carry a baby to term if it appears there, but I consider it wrong to force a woman to give up her body (and possibly her life, career, edu...
Every human being starts this way. That is true. But the beginning doesn't equal the end. I think it's dishonest to call it a developed human being. When it becomes implanted, it's little more than a bunch of dividing cells-- it doesn't even have a shape. It would be equally unfair for me to call an acorn a tree.
I think that to deprive any creature capable of conscious thought is a pretty big deal. That's why I don't step on spiders, and that's why I would protect a child with my life. It's also why, near the beginning of the third trimester, I would find it perfectly unreasonable and selfish to abort for convenience, because at that point, I think it's fair to say it's got some level of developed consciousness. But I think it's also unfair to tell a woman, "Whoops, you got pregnant, now you have to carry it to term because everyone else thinks so."
Look at it this way-- we women are born with our wombs. We didn't choose to have them. You might possibly think that automatically confers responsibility to carry a baby to term if it appears there, but I consider it wrong to force a woman to give up her body (and possibly her life, career, education, opportunities, etc) for someone else's comfort. I consider it wrong that a woman has to say no to sex because if pregnancy occurs, she has no options.
Personally, if I got pregnant, I'd want an abortion the way a fox chews off its own leg to get out of a steep trap. I'd be one of those girls who would end up starving myself for weeks on end, among other things, out of sheer desperation if a safe abortion wasn't available to me. Abortion isn't for everyone, and neither is pregnancy, and I think it's unfair to legally require that people place the life of the unborn over that of the mother. It makes me furious that there are people who treat me, and other women, like we're not capable of making our own choices.
I find it upsetting that you sort of place the unborn's welfare over the born. You might not have said it like that, but I'm reading what you're saying, and you find it sad that I might not want a a baby. Even/especially at seventeen. You find it sad that I'd choose my life over that of something that isn't capable of thinking until a certain point, and until further along, doesn't have the consciousness to be considered a person/personality.
In short, you're sad that I wouldn't give up my educational opportunities, dreams, etc. in order to bring unwanted life into this world. I find that really, really disturbing. Like skin-crawling disturbing.
I don't acknowledge its personhood because until a certain point, it doesn't HAVE one. A person is someone you regard as an individual, typically with character. I don't consider it a person then. What about me? What about what this "future person" would be robbing me of? Why, when a woman is pregnant, is all the concern suddenly about her womb and not her? Why is the in-process development of a potential person so much more important than a woman old enough to be pregnant?
Do I feel compassion for women who are in difficult situations such as rape and incest? CERTAINLY! But killing another human being isn't the right answer. Sometimes the right thing to do is the horribly difficult thing to do as well.
You're hurting your cause, quit being a dogmatic tool and start using common sense. Many conservatives will at least give your opinion the time of day, but judging from your rhetoric, you wouldn't give them the same courtesy.
The great American Conflict for woman today