Late this afternoon I contacted Connecticut’s Senators and Congressmen asking for a statement regarding today’s Supreme Court Ruling. In a 5-4 ruling the court upheld a 2003 federal law that banned so-called partial birth abortions. Senator and Presidential Candidate Chris Dodd was the first official to respond. Below is his statement in full.
Throughout my career I have believed that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. I am deeply troubled by today’s Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003, a decision which will needlessly endanger women’s health throughout the country. I voted against this legislation in 2003 because it did not include an exception to allow this type of medical procedure when a mother’s health is at risk. In overturning long-standing Supreme Court precedent, today’s decision will create uncertainty throughout the country for women and doctors on what medical procedures are legal, and will undermine their ability to decide what is most appropriate for a patient’s health, free from politics. While I am disappointed by today’s decision by the Supreme Court, it has renewed my pledge to continue to support a woman’s right to reproductive choice.
It’s worth noting that Senator Dodd along with Sen. Joe Lieberman, Rep. John Larson and Rep. Rosa DeLauro voted against the ban in 2003. Rep. Shays is the only supporter of the bill still representing Connecticut in Congress.
34 responses so far ↓
Throughout my career I have believed that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
This statement has always puzzled me. If you are against abortion, you can really only be against it for one reason: that it involves the taking of a life. Conversely, if you are for abortion, then you have to think that a fetus is not a life. Now, I grant that you can debate where the fetus becomes a life — sometime between conception and birth. And I think it’s a logical argument to say you are for abortion before x weeks and against it thereafter, because that’s the point that you believe life begins (I am not saying that I agree or disagree, but merely that if you believe that, your logic is internally consistent).
However, if you are pro-choice, you obviously think that abortion (at least, before a certain number of weeks) is merely a medical procedure. So why do you care that it’s rare? Do you also want to make appendectomies rare? Or hip replacements? Or any other type of medical procedure? Since the logic of a pro-choice proponent is that abortion doesn’t involve the ending of a life, who cares if they are rare?
Another thing that puzzles me about pro-choice activists is that they might abhor that abortion is used for sex selection, or to select other types of designer babies. Since according to the pro-choice logic, a fetus is not a life, why do you care if people use sex selection to make the determination to abort?
I think it’s strange how both sides of the abortion activists try to avoid the main issue. For a while, pro-life activists seemed deermined to link abortion to breast cancer. I just couldn’t figure that one out. First, the data didn’t seem that great, but more importantly, it seemed to really muddle their message. Why the heck were they against abortion again?
Thanks to gmr for pointing out the absurdity of Dodd’s comment. Please everyone, read the first 10 or so pages of the SCOTUS decision where the barbarity of various abortion procedures are detailed. Available here (PDF): http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/05-380_All.pdf
This ruling reinforces the subtext in this nation that women still are second class citizens who can’t be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies and lives. And that it is permissable for science to be undermined or manipulated by religious superstition (or just queasy ignorance).
Sure, the procedure is gory and disgusting to contemplate. But now a woman who needs to terminate a late term pregnancy will be faced with the fact that the highest court in our land does not consider her life to be more important compared to the sick or malformed fetus inside her. The fetus that probably won’t survive anyway, and just might kill her. And instead of a medically accepted and safer procedure for her, her doctor will have to perform a riskier (and actually gorier) one which requires that the fetus be dismembered in utero in order to be removed.
Elections have consequences. Bush will come and go, but these men will be making rulings for a long time to come. A thought I find very chilling.
Are you telling me, with today’s medical technology, this horrible procedure is needed to save the life of a woman? BS.
Elections do have consequences, the people’s representatives voted for the law.
Thankfully the court rightly upheld it.
Nedweenie–Please, spare us the feminist drivel. Women are certainly treated as equal as men in all manners from title 9 to divorce court.
This ruling is rather limited in scope, and the abortion mills will keep on humming, killing millions, with no end in sight, much to the delight of liberals everywhere.
UT: the national association of OB/Gyns says the procedure is medically necessary. Maybe the Republicans should rail against them if they think the OB/Gyn’s wrong instead of going after the activists. Granted the GOP got the OB/Gyn’s in the corner with the med/mal debate but if the GOP really believes this procedure is morally wrong then they should take the OB/Gyn’s on. For now, I have to accept what the OB/Gyn’s are saying that once and a while the procedure is medically necessary. Even I have to admit the OB/Gyn’s do know medicine most times even if their business sense is driven by greed. In fact, I thought one of the GOP’s main objections to Roe was that the Supremes played doctor! How about some consisitency here.
gmr.
Isn’t it rather obvious why anyone would want abortion,or any other medical procedure, to be rare?
If someone decides to have an abortion at least 90% of the time it’s because they weren’t planning on becoming pregnant in the first place.
Now that it’s been proven that abstinance only courses are a total waste of time and money perhaps teaching family Planning and making sure every kid in high school knows how to avoid pregnancy perhaps we can lower the amount of abortions.
PS-If we could make Hip replacements and appendectomies and all the other surgical procedures rarer that would also be a good thing.I’ve had both of those surgeries and neither was a picnic and if any medical procedure can be avoided by either pharmacudical methods,behavior changes or even contraception thats always a good thing for both society and the individual
Apparently the National Association of OB/GYN’s were very underwhelming in their arguments to a whissy-washy swing vote that is Justice Kennedy.
toucan – What do you think of the fact that the American Medical Assoc. thinks the procedure is never medically necessary and endorsed the ban? That was kind of the point of the decision.
The rationale of the court was that because there was disagreement over whether or not this procedure was ever medically necessary and there were alternative procedures available to women with later term pregnancies, banning it wasn’t a barrier to a woman’s constitutional right to choose an abortion. In ther words, in this situation the court deferred to Congress as it wasn’t placing any barriers to a woman’s constitutional right to choose.
Maybe the GOP should have listened to the whining OB/Gyn lobby who claims that certain birth induced defects that last a lifetime aren’t preventable because as we know they most often are. The GOP and the Donkeys both play politics with life.
Maybe the GOP shouldn’t have listened to the whining OB/Gyn lobby who claims that certain birth induced defects that last a lifetime aren’t preventable because as we know they most often are. The GOP and the Donkeys both play politics with life. CORRECTED
Harry Reid voted for the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, yet yesterday condemned the Supreme Court for their vote upholding a law he voted for….Another profile in courage.
Stark: I think the crap put out by the AMA stating that the continuum of care beginns and ends with a doctor is a bunch of crap. I beleive the individual should make his or her own medical decisions after considering the advice of properly trained and licensed medical professionals who follow a standard of care duly sanctioned by the government based on sound medical science to protect the consumer. And I think the medical care delivery system in this country is totlally f–ked up.
BTW Stark, Roe was about the government’s interest in protecting life – both that of the mother and that of the fetus after the first term as they defined life based on the medical evidence before them in 1973 – but I ain’t getting into it anymore on here. This is a little bigger than you and nme bloggers.
toucab – My only point is that the court, rightly, said that there was a disagreement among experts as to what this procedure means, and because banning it would not be a barrier for a woman to get an abortion, the legislature had the option of choosing which expert to believe.
toucan – Roe was actually about whether or not the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, passed in 1868 to ensure that freed slaves had the same rights as everyone else, contains a right to have an abortion.
UnionThug and Righty,
Next time either of you are in a room with 10 woman you can be assured that 3 or 4 out of those 10 have had an abortion during there lives.One of those who had may even be your sister,girlfreind, wife or even your mom but because of your attitude you’ll never be trusted enough to know about it.
http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/facts/women_who.html
Isn’t it amazing that while our Democratic Senator takes his run for the presidency serious enough to put out a thoughtful position on this issue John McCain was Singing “bomb
bomb
bomb ,bomb.bomn Iran”
It must suck to be John McCain and find yourself a POW for the second time especially since this time it’s of his own making.
ctkeith,
“It must suck to be John McCain and find yourself a POW for the second time especially since this time it’s of his own making.”
Whatever your or anyone else’s view of his politics….He is a man who deserve our respect for what he went through for his/our country. I doubt many of us on this blog site could measure up. I know I certainly would never be able to.
Suck to be John McCain?? It would be an honor to be John McCain!!!!
Al,
I’ll take Barry Goldwater over John McCain any day of the week.
When I met Sen. Goldwater on Camelback Mountain while I was living in Arizona I ask him what he thought of Sen John McCain. He gave the one word answer he always gave when asked,” USELESS”.
I ‘d been told it’s what he’d say but hearing it out of the old mans mouth made it alot sweeter.
Al, civilizing boors is a waste of time and energy, as even G.B. Shaw would tell you.
ctkeith,
As I said, we all have a right to disagree with anyone’s political views, as is obvious on this site, that’s fine. But I suggest it does not “suck” to be John McCain for any reason ( or, anyone else who has sacrificed for this country as he has. Any democrat, republican, or any other group label we want to use). These people are true heroes.) ……
As to your meeting with Sen Goldwater when you were living in Arizona, and his comment to you below:
“When I met Sen. Goldwater on Camelback Mountain while I was living in Arizona I ask him what he thought of Sen John McCain. He gave the one word answer he always gave when asked,” USELESS”.”
Growing up, I always considered Sen Goldwater to be a visionary …..Are you sure he wasn’t referring to the Congress that Sen McCain would one day find himself part of? Fine, if you want to toss in the President too, go ahead…
Just wondering, if you lived out in Arizona recently enough to have met the man…… What the hell brought you back here?? Too much clean air???
Al–
I used to respect McCain until he became a lying shill for the Bush regime.
His sing of “bomb, bomb, bomb, ,,, bomb, bomb Iran”, just disqualified him from becoming Preznit. It’s a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Maybe my Republcian relative is right. They did screw with John’s head when he was a POW.
And yeah, it must suck to be McCain. I bet he is out of the race by Thanksgiving.
Of course they screwed with “John’s head” when he was a POW in VietNam; and sometimes they won as he tried to kill himself, which he regrets for sure, but he kept his men alive and in forward thinking spirits. Remember he let the AF guy who could repeat every inmates’ name from memory so back home would know who was in captivity? I don’t agree with McCain on Iraq these days and his experience may be clouding his judgement on it too, but to suggest he is menatlly unstable reeks of Karl Rove in SC in 2000.
You suggest that a Presidential candidate, — who goes on camera singing, “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, …. Bomb, Bomb, Iran…”, — isn’t mentally unstable?
Since when did war become a laughing matter??
Context, context, context, TBCT….your boy, the screamer, pulled one and it didn’t bother me that much becasue I understoood the context …other times Dean has pulled some real boners..I wonder how long you could survive in a prison camp.
BTW BB; I don’t think it was “good for the team” for Shays to endorse Lieberidiot before the GOP had their convention nor do I thikn it was good for the party for Torres to take money to do GOTV for Leiberman especially when he had publicly challenged Shays’ decision to endorse the slimey Senator.
TrueBlue,
I’ll let John McCain judge for himself if he thinks it “sucks” to be him these days. I am certain there were plenty of days as a POW in Vietnam he must have felt that way, so I am sure he would recognize the feeling.
Myself, I don’t need to respect him as a politician, to respect him always as a man. If your standard were my standard, I don’t know who I would respect right now.
By the way, do you any answers yet to the three questions I asked you the other day? The incongruency (I didn’t say incoherency) of some of your posts sometimes has me confused. At times I cannot tell if we agree, or disagree.
Al,
I didn’t agree with almost any of Barry Goldwaters political positions but they were something John McCains Posititions are not ,CONSISTENT!!!
McCain is as phoney as the day is long and always has been.
PS- I seem to remember Republicans at their National Convention not having any problem at all mocking a true War Hero with their little purple heart band-aids.
PPS-McCain IS a POW for a second time and it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.When he didn’t stand up and take a strong position against torture during the hearings on Abu-ghraib he showed he is special kind of coward.
McCain took a strong stand against torture, ctkeith, a very strong stand. You may not have approved of how he did it and that’s just fine. As for the mocking of Kerry that totally sucked but to blame Mccain for that sucks too. I am a not a real McCain fan, BTW.
McCain is so yesterday. Sadly, he has no chance of winning the GOP nomination. Why are we still talking about him?
What’s being under-reported is Dodd’s wife. Will someone ask if they are raising their kids as Catholics, Mormons, or both?
If the GOP nominates Romney, Jackie Clegg could provide a ton of cover…
ctkeith,
McCain’s political views, or positions, I will just measure against all the others from either party who play the game of explaining how what you heard, is not what they said, because what they said, is not what they really said to begin with.
But a coward? Well I don’t think I need to dignify that comment.
At this point I think I have defended him enough. He’s a big boy he can take it from here.
Why don’t you just ask the question that TrueBlue asked that someone ask in his post #32 so we can really lower the intellectual level of this thread and have some real dorm room fun.
Wow, how quickly the thread went from a disputation on the SCOTUS decision to the predictable “your party’s front runners are a bunch of kooks” exchange.
CTKeith: Did you read the court Opinion? Any of it? Here’s the link:
http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/05-380_All.pdf
Read the description of the procedure, particularly pages 3 through 11 of the opinion.
I’m a firm believer in the observation that if men got pregnant, there would be drive-through abortion clinics on every street corner.
Having said that, I have to agree with gmr that the “safe-legal-rare” position is illogical.
Also, of those 3 or 4 women out of 10, one of whom may be my mother or significant other: A first trimester abortion would not be an issue. A late term “procedure”? If the it was performed to save the woman’s life, or if there was a severe medical problem with the developing fetus, then again not an issue.
If it was a late-term procedure that falls into your “90% of the time” bucket, then I have an irreconcilable issue.
The procedure described in the court opinion is hideous. We might as well legalize infanticide.
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