Think hard, Dennis....
Governor Dennis Daugaard says he's "inclined to sign" HB 1217, the abortion coercive-counseling and three-day-wait bill that cleared the South Dakota Senate yesterday:
I think the merits of the bill are in their encouragement to women, especially those who are considering an elective abortion, to be counseled and to have a period of time to consider their decision.... To the extent that this bill encourages and requires some counseling or a little bit longer waiting period, a decision of this significance I think warrants that [Gov. Dennis Daugaard, in David Montgomery, "Daugaard Says He'll Probably Sign Anti-Abortion Bill," Rapid City Journal, 2011.03.03].
Encouragement to women... that may be the euphemism of the day.
Governor Daugaard qualifies his support, saying he wants to look for "unintended consequences that haven't been identified during the debate." That last line bothers me: it suggests that Governor Daugaard isn't bothered by the points of opposition raised so far about women's autonomy, HIPAA and medical privacy, separation of church and state, and the nearly insurmountable practical barriers this law creates to obtaining a legal medical procedure in South Dakota. The only way we get a veto may be by some surprise discovery. (Tony! Dusty! Hit the books! Find the style-and-form loophole that justifies a veto and gets us all off the hook, the way Rounds did in 2004 on that year's HB 1191.)
As the pen hovers over the desk, perhaps Governor Daugaard will take a look at the action the New York City Council just took to require more transparency from crisis pregnancy centers:
Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which consulted on the bill, said it was tailored in such a way that its constitutionality would withstand legal challenges.
"That is not viewpoint-based; it's about deception," Ms. Lieberman said. "Unlicensed ideologues have a right to be ideologues, to espouse their beliefs. But they don't have the right to dress up as doctors and masquerade as health care providers and deceive women into thinking they've been to the doctor when they have not" [Elizabeth A. Harris, "City Council Favors Pregnancy Center Disclosures," New York Times, 2011.03.02].
We want women to have the best information available, right, Governor? Do you really want the state to choose ideologically motivated, scientifically shaky crisis pregnancy centers as the favored source of that information? Or do you want to take the fundamentally Republican position that individual citizens can make better decisions than the government about seeking information and making decisions about their bodies?
"Or do you want to take the fundamentally Republican position that individual citizens can make better decisions than the government about seeking information and making decisions about their bodies?"
Cory, the Republican leadership do not believe in the individual, as proven by HB1230. They are just as much big-government collectivists as you are.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=1305198
Just food for thought on this issue regarding the one who is most injured in this debate - the unborn baby. While people are arguing about this bill, there remains the other person to be considered. I know most of the prolife people do not consider an unborn baby to be a person, but if the baby has a beating heart, can feel pain, etc, how can you argue it is not a person unto itself. Abortion does not involve only the woman, it also involves the unborn baby.
Steve, sometimes your comments are music to my ears. Nice to hear from you again.
Linda, I do not extend to the unborn baby the same consideration I extend to the women who must carry it. The woman is a full fellow citizen, deserving full Constitutional rights and autonomy over her body. I cannot force her to submit her body to the service of another living being, not even an unborn baby. Legal first-trimester abortion recognizes that moral and constitutional principle.
Have any of you read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale?
So some sort of alarm sounds at the end of the first trimester of pregnancy, and a "full fellow citizen" then exists? Before the alarm sounds the unborn child is a non-citizen? Until the alarm sounds, the unborn child is the one who will "pay the price" for being conceived. That beating heart, the fact that it has been accepted that the unborn child can and does feel pain in the first trimester is just not enough evidence that this is a person in th womb. Because you can't see a face, it's not a "full fellow citizen?" Whether the parents who conceived this unborn child due to irresponsibility, poor judgment or they changed their minds after the fact, the unborn child pays the price with its life. I guess that sounds fair and equitable to you but not to me. 72 hours for reflection and thought, a personal face-to-face interview between the abortionist and the patient and a full thorough explanation of the resources and options available to the parents of the unborn child is not too much to ask.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Ed. You poor rube. Go get that SAD evaluated.
The problem I see with this recurring debate is that it has been decided twice by the voters and each time we go through this it splits our state apart.
The question now is if the law that was crafted by out-of-staters, who see us as a convenient and inexpensive tool, is whether or not it will pass constitutional muster.
I don't think any minds will be changed in the debate and we as South Dakotans will be torn further apart to serve someone from New Jersey.
No, it's not fair, Ed, because you sophists know that HB 1217 adn the 72-hour waiting period make it almost practically impossible to get an abortion in South Dakota. You assume that every woman considering an abortion has made a poor choice and deserves punishment. You force her to reveal her pregnancy to people who have no business intruding on her personal medical decisions. Unfair across the board. That beating heart to which you so like to make emotional appeals still essentially enslaves that woman, as do you. You cannot force her to submit her body to the service of another being. HB 1217 tries to do that, assumes women are not rational, takes away their privacy in a way that we never do to men, and thus makes women second-class citizens.
What if my daughter gets raped with an ensuing pregnancy? We would go get counseling, we'd be considering all our options both emotionally and physically. Then, she, BY HERSELF, would have to go sit with some volunteer counselor and listen to why the rape and pregancy were God's Will. I am not allowed to attend this lecture with my recently-traumatized daughter.
The argument that this bill is about coercion is complete nonsense - it's about putting someone else's religious views in the way of a legal procedure. PERIOD. This bill makes me sick!
Dear Ed,
There is such a thing as rape: I know, I was violently raped at sixteen.
There is such a thing as incest: I know, I worked for the judicial system here in Madison and saw a grandfather in court who raped ALL of his five grandchildren. And he was not the only one up for incest in the years I worked there.
Neither of these scenarios involve women who were irresponsible, or had poor judgment, or changed their mind after the fact. What these scenarios are about is women - girls - who were powerless in the face of sadism. Of men who thought they had the right to do anything they wanted. And HB 1217 proves that not only did they have the right, but so do the men in our government, by making victims of rape and incest suffer over and over again.
Oh, and what do you do about a tubal pregnancy? In which, if there is no abortion, both the mother AND the child will die? Black and white worlds only exist on TV, in viagra ads.
Maybe Ed can tell us about the time he was raped and how he went through the decision to carry the rapists child full term. You can do that, can't you Ed?
Ed??? You still there?
Jana, Ed doesn't care what we think so I ran him off.
Greetings Cory, Larry, Jana, Rachel and Eve. First let me thank Larry and Cory for the wonderfully kind names you hurl about this site. Seems that anyone who disagrees with you is a rube or a sophist. I prefer if you would get past the name calling and address the issues as adults.
Larry, I would also prefer that you would not invoke the name of Jesus for your personel epithets. You know it just diminishes the respect we should have for your manners.
Rachel, just how many pregnancies result from rape? You know that the actual number is quite small. That is not to diminish the crime or the result, but to put the numbers in perspective here. My heart would ache over the agony of being in the position yoou describe, but a destruction of another human life is not the answer for me.
Eve, please don't patronize me my revealing that there is such a thing as rape. I know this to be true and am sad that that you were victimized by another. I pray that the residual anguish you experience will diminish and disappear over time. All of us humans sin and fall short of the will of God. That does not excuse our actions but we must realize thatthere is evil in this world and some fall victim to it. I would urge you to refrain from blaming men, in general, for this crime or to assume that our legislators are somehow complicit in a conspiracy to subjugate and victimize women. Your anger is understandable but please place the anger against the crime.
Jana, your statement is just too ridiculous to discuss with you.
I apologize for the tardiness of my reply.
Name-calling? Ed, I called you a sophist, because you engage in rhetorical tricks to justify bad law. I stand by the term as an accurate representation of the language you use. The fact you find it insulting does not negate the fact that it accurately describes you and your effort to deny women equal status as citizens.
I almost didn't capitalize it, Ed, as it is a concept rather than an actual historic figure; but, it would have excluded the importance of Mary in my prayer.
Ed, I wasn't patronizing at all: in your original post, you categorized all decisions to have an abortion as irresponsibility, poor judgment, or changing minds. You never considered, or included, rape, incest, or things like tubal pregnancy (where again, I'll say it, if there is no abortion, both the mother AND the child die). Nor did you include incest or tubal pregnancy and its ilk in your last response. (By the way, if women didn't get pregnant from rape, there wouldn't be any mulattos. Slave women were impregnated by their masters all the time.) These things are real, even though you appear to be squirming around them.
Finally, if the destruction of another human life is not the answer for anything, how do you feel about capital punishment and war?
Ah Eve,
I am not fond of wars, I do not believe that capital punishment imposed by the state is acceptable, and I find abortion morally repugnant. I put them all in the same catagory, necessary evils.
Joseph G Thompson
Joe, I appreciate your consistency. I also appreciate your apparent ability to distinguish moral repugnance from justification for government action.
Cori,
A government based on morals needs no laws to determine what is right or wrong, morality does that. A government based on laws has no need for morality since the law determines what is right or wrong and morality has no place in the the legal system.
We are a nation of laws.
Joseph G Thompson
Joe,
That's exactly how I see abortion, war, and capital punishment: necessary evils. (But then we agree on a surprising number of things.)
I, for one, am very glad that we are a nation of laws, rather than of morals. A secular government based on law is what has allowed every human right and freedom that we enjoy, as well as the ones that we do not.
Egads!
Those who know you believe you are pretty far left (which you are) and those who know me know I am pretty far right, (just to the right of the "Tea Party"). Our friendship must be based on mutual respect which explains why I can wish for a moral society and you can believe in a lawful society and we get along so well.
Joe
Love ya
Joe