I do post stuff from the Calgary Herald as it is one of the papers I read on a daily basis. It is a point of view and in my opinion accords with what our faith tells us about this issue. This issue will always remain subjective depending on what point of view one looks at it. There are no universally accepted scientific and factual values on this issue. We leave in a free society and one is free to laugh at whatever feels funny so long as one is not deluded in the process.....Mehreen1221 wrote:KMaherali, Why do you paste stuff only from caglary hairold?...To me, honestly, it mostly sounds judgmental and subjective commentary on people's personal belief and morality, instead of with universally accepted scientific and factual values...most Europeans usually either laugh at that kinda stuff or get upset if they take it seriously...
Abortion in Ismaili Religion
Why would there be a scientifically accepted view on abortion. The issue is entirely politically and morally based. Medically, abortions have been necessary to save the life of the mother, but that's neither here nor there for this debate. You mentioned that one lives in a free society and yet you're backing an article that makes doctor's subjective to their own views. I'm assuming you're anti-abortion, so how would you feel if you or a loved one had a doctor who pushed for an abortion when keeping or removing the fetus provides no real difference. My guess would be that you would want the choice to be yours and not up to someone else. And that is essentially the viewpoint of pro-choice, it's not about being pro-abortions, but that every woman should be allowed to make a decision based on her situation and personal viewpoints rather than someone else making the decision for her.
I think the article is not about the doctors being subjective to their views but rather about them being able to practice according to their conscience and moral convictions.a1337 wrote:You mentioned that one lives in a free society and yet you're backing an article that makes doctor's subjective to their own views.
I think in exercising choice according to the freedom, we should also be provided with all the information necessary for our long term health and wellbeing. The article points to some of the harmful long term effects of abortion which individuals would perhaps be not aware of in making their choices.
Doctor's are service providers not decision makers! Doctors can and must not be permitted to impose there moral idiosyncrasies upon their patients, however, they should free feel to discuss important issues with their patients so that they can have a complete and full understanding of any issue they may be facing regarding their health and well being. As such this is a very progressive and good policy (quite a surprise coming from Alberta). This editorial is clearly bias and that's okay. But any rational person cannot reasonably be upset at a policy that requires doctor's not to withhold information from their patients.
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Mehreen1221
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Well, out of Freedom Of Choice [of morals as well)…Though each case can be different from others, whether abortion of a pregnancy and at what stage should be done or not depends entirely on individual cases and their medical, psychological and social effects and other details, but all this should not override the choice of the mother who is bearing the pregnancy… and this is the law pretty much everywhere after decades of struggle and debates...
Speaking of decision making for others...it's no wonder why that self proclaimed decider/stupider of the fate of the American people and the rest of the world to an extent, first chose caglary to visit and bullshitting after out of the office...atleast, he doesn't have to worry about flying shoes and ducking them.
Speaking of decision making for others...it's no wonder why that self proclaimed decider/stupider of the fate of the American people and the rest of the world to an extent, first chose caglary to visit and bullshitting after out of the office...atleast, he doesn't have to worry about flying shoes and ducking them.
Straight talk about life -- evasions about death
By Naomi Lakritz, Calgary HeraldMay 20, 2009 9:08 AM
The past week has been a time of, literally, discussions about life and death. U. S. President Barack Obama talked about abortion when he gave the commencement speech at Indiana's Notre Dame University. And Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde reintroduced for the third time her private member's bill decriminalizing euthanasia, which my fellow columnist Licia Corbella wrote about at length on Saturday. The parallels between abortion and euthanasia are striking. They're both about when--and where along the continuum--it should be legal to take someone else's life. The short, simple answer before someone trots out all the "yeah, buts" is--never.
Obama, who intends to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which permits partial-birth abortions, called on pro-life and pro-choice factions to find common ground.
Unless pro-choicers are prepared to acknowledge the scientific fact that a fetus as early as four weeks after conception is a human being with a beating heart and brain waves, and not a mere clump of cells whose humanness is relative only to its degree of wantedness, then no common ground is possible.
Obama made some redundant points when he said "let's make adoption more available" and "let's provide care and support for women who do carry their child to term."
Adoption is already widely available through state and provincial governments and private agencies. What really needs to happen is for pro-choicers to stop limiting their talk to abortion when they discuss choice, and start promoting adoption. They need to talk in terms of women choosing life, as in putting their babies up for adoption, not in choosing death by condemning those unborn babies to being ripped apart and consigned to oblivion.
As far as providing care and support for women to see their pregnancies through to the end, there are plenty of pro-life agencies, both secular and faith-based, which are busy doing just that.
There's no need to reinvent the wheel; there is only a need to promote the existence of the wheel so people can take advantage of it.
Obama also made two nonsensical points. The first was when he said "let's reduce unintended pregnancies."
Unless "we" are in the room at the propitious moment, handing out contraceptives to an amorous man and an ovulating woman, that is probably not a realistic goal.
The second point was when he urged abortion providers to get women to consider other options. Not likely, Mr. President. Each one of those babies consigned to the aforementioned oblivion means money in the pockets of the abortion providers. When death equals profit, those who make their living from it are not going to sabotage their earning potential by taking the moral high road.
The pro-life slogan has always been "choose life."
How interesting that the opposing faction never says "choose death" although that is exactly what opting for both abortion and euthanasia entail. Their approach is not so straightforward; they prefer to couch their ideology in euphemism. Lalonde, for example, refers to assisted suicide as the "ultimate compassion."
But compassion for whom? For the health-care system which saves money by moving elderly patients out of their beds and into their graves more quickly? For the patient's relatives who really ought to be spared all the messy, depressing, nasty realities of what death is like when it is allowed to take its natural course?
In her lucid moments during her last year of life, my mother would ask: "When can I go home? I want to get out of here." My brother did not tell her that she would have to go to a nursing home if she left the hospital, because she couldn't live alone anymore. Instead, he would promise her,"When you're well enough." She had dementia and she suffered a lot of pain, but she still wanted to live; she still had hope. She still had her sights set on getting well.
Yet, she would have fit to a T the description of the type of person Lalonde has in mind as a candidate for the "ultimate compassion," someone who "continues . . . to experience severe physical . . . pain without any prospect of relief." Who dares to presume that within a patient who does not seem lucid, who is in pain, or who can't speak, there is no spark of life that burns stubbornly and does not want to be extinguished?
Although Lalonde's bill comes with requirements for the patient to furnish written requests to die, 10 days apart, or to designate someone else to make such a decision on his or her behalf, as Corbella notes, the Netherlands' nightmarish experimenting with euthanasia has led to doctors killing patients who never gave their consent.
Life is a continuum and there is no demarcation zone on it where life is more hazily defined or has lesser value. I think if one must err, somewhere, at any place on the continuum, then it must always be on the side of life. Always.
nlakritz@theherald. Canwest.Com
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
By Naomi Lakritz, Calgary HeraldMay 20, 2009 9:08 AM
The past week has been a time of, literally, discussions about life and death. U. S. President Barack Obama talked about abortion when he gave the commencement speech at Indiana's Notre Dame University. And Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde reintroduced for the third time her private member's bill decriminalizing euthanasia, which my fellow columnist Licia Corbella wrote about at length on Saturday. The parallels between abortion and euthanasia are striking. They're both about when--and where along the continuum--it should be legal to take someone else's life. The short, simple answer before someone trots out all the "yeah, buts" is--never.
Obama, who intends to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which permits partial-birth abortions, called on pro-life and pro-choice factions to find common ground.
Unless pro-choicers are prepared to acknowledge the scientific fact that a fetus as early as four weeks after conception is a human being with a beating heart and brain waves, and not a mere clump of cells whose humanness is relative only to its degree of wantedness, then no common ground is possible.
Obama made some redundant points when he said "let's make adoption more available" and "let's provide care and support for women who do carry their child to term."
Adoption is already widely available through state and provincial governments and private agencies. What really needs to happen is for pro-choicers to stop limiting their talk to abortion when they discuss choice, and start promoting adoption. They need to talk in terms of women choosing life, as in putting their babies up for adoption, not in choosing death by condemning those unborn babies to being ripped apart and consigned to oblivion.
As far as providing care and support for women to see their pregnancies through to the end, there are plenty of pro-life agencies, both secular and faith-based, which are busy doing just that.
There's no need to reinvent the wheel; there is only a need to promote the existence of the wheel so people can take advantage of it.
Obama also made two nonsensical points. The first was when he said "let's reduce unintended pregnancies."
Unless "we" are in the room at the propitious moment, handing out contraceptives to an amorous man and an ovulating woman, that is probably not a realistic goal.
The second point was when he urged abortion providers to get women to consider other options. Not likely, Mr. President. Each one of those babies consigned to the aforementioned oblivion means money in the pockets of the abortion providers. When death equals profit, those who make their living from it are not going to sabotage their earning potential by taking the moral high road.
The pro-life slogan has always been "choose life."
How interesting that the opposing faction never says "choose death" although that is exactly what opting for both abortion and euthanasia entail. Their approach is not so straightforward; they prefer to couch their ideology in euphemism. Lalonde, for example, refers to assisted suicide as the "ultimate compassion."
But compassion for whom? For the health-care system which saves money by moving elderly patients out of their beds and into their graves more quickly? For the patient's relatives who really ought to be spared all the messy, depressing, nasty realities of what death is like when it is allowed to take its natural course?
In her lucid moments during her last year of life, my mother would ask: "When can I go home? I want to get out of here." My brother did not tell her that she would have to go to a nursing home if she left the hospital, because she couldn't live alone anymore. Instead, he would promise her,"When you're well enough." She had dementia and she suffered a lot of pain, but she still wanted to live; she still had hope. She still had her sights set on getting well.
Yet, she would have fit to a T the description of the type of person Lalonde has in mind as a candidate for the "ultimate compassion," someone who "continues . . . to experience severe physical . . . pain without any prospect of relief." Who dares to presume that within a patient who does not seem lucid, who is in pain, or who can't speak, there is no spark of life that burns stubbornly and does not want to be extinguished?
Although Lalonde's bill comes with requirements for the patient to furnish written requests to die, 10 days apart, or to designate someone else to make such a decision on his or her behalf, as Corbella notes, the Netherlands' nightmarish experimenting with euthanasia has led to doctors killing patients who never gave their consent.
Life is a continuum and there is no demarcation zone on it where life is more hazily defined or has lesser value. I think if one must err, somewhere, at any place on the continuum, then it must always be on the side of life. Always.
nlakritz@theherald. Canwest.Com
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
quran to the rescue !!!!!
"Say: Come, I will rehearse what God has really prohibited you from: Join nothing as equal with Him; be good to your parents, kill not your children on a plea of poverty; We provide sustenance for you and for them; approach not shameful deeds, whether open or secret; take not life, which God has made sacred, except by a way of justice and law (Chapter 6, Verse 151).
In another verse, the Holy Quran says: "Kill not your children for fear of want; it is We who provide sustenance for them as well as for you; for verily killing them is a great sin.
(Chapter 17, Verse 31).
It threatens the murderer with retaliation in this life
"O ye who believe! The law of equality is prescribed to you in cases of murder…", 2.178)
and the punishment of Hell in the life to come for the one who premeditatedly murders a fellow Muslim:
"If a man kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell, to abide therein (for ever)" [4.93].
"Say: Come, I will rehearse what God has really prohibited you from: Join nothing as equal with Him; be good to your parents, kill not your children on a plea of poverty; We provide sustenance for you and for them; approach not shameful deeds, whether open or secret; take not life, which God has made sacred, except by a way of justice and law (Chapter 6, Verse 151).
In another verse, the Holy Quran says: "Kill not your children for fear of want; it is We who provide sustenance for them as well as for you; for verily killing them is a great sin.
(Chapter 17, Verse 31).
It threatens the murderer with retaliation in this life
"O ye who believe! The law of equality is prescribed to you in cases of murder…", 2.178)
and the punishment of Hell in the life to come for the one who premeditatedly murders a fellow Muslim:
"If a man kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell, to abide therein (for ever)" [4.93].
Silence on abortion's link to breast cancer suspect
By Susan Martinuk, Calgary HeraldJanuary 29, 2010
For the past 15 years, there's been a growing controversy over the link between induced abortion and increased risk of breast cancer. But few Canadian women would know the details that may be germane to dramatically reducing their risk of breast cancer. And fewer still would know that a key researcher at the National Cancer Institute has now reversed her position and stated that abortion is a significant factor in raising the risk of breast cancer.
Women should know that one of the most respected researchers in the field, Dr. Louise Brinton (chief of the institute's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics) co-authored a 2009 study stating that induced abortion increased the risk of triple-negative breast cancer by 40 per cent in women under 45. The paper, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, stated the above and then further observed that this increase was "consistent with the effects observed in previous studies on younger women."
The debate about this link has been ongoing since 1996 when Dr. Joel Brind published a meta-analysis of 21 studies on the topic in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The pooled data showed that women who had abortions had a 30 per cent increase in developing breast cancer.
His work was immediately written off in the media as biased or substandard. Few bothered to report that one of the co-authors was staunchly pro-abortion or that a respected pro-abortion epidemiologist said the study was "very objective and beyond reproach."
Over 29 credible studies supporting the link have since been reported. A 2007 study in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reported that induced abortion was the risk factor that best predicted the incidence of breast cancer in women in eight European countries.
In the midst of this growing body of knowledge, Dr. Brinton organized a 2003 workshop to discuss the studies. It subsequently issued a statement to American women saying, "abortion is not associated with increased breast cancer risk."
Six years later, Dr. Brinton herself has published a study that directly counters that statement and lends its support to previous studies that demonstrate the link between breast cancer and abortion.
Of course, this time there are no accusations of bias or sloppy work. In fact, for the most part, there has simply been silence. There have been no statements from women's groups and no calls for further studies to confirm or deny the claims. Even the National Cancer Institute has refused to comment on the dramatic reversal.
The topic of breast cancer has long been a media darling and, consequently, there's been no shortage of reports on the plethora of new medical discoveries that are constantly shifting the rules for preventing, diagnosing and treating this disease. We're told about coffee, chocolate and wine; and the usefulness (or not) of mammograms and the harms (or not) of hormone replacement therapy. But this urgent need to keep women informed and up-to-date on the latest research suddenly dissipates if it means turning a critical eye to the sacred cow of abortion.
In what is surely a Ripley's Believe it or Not moment, the Globe and Mail was the one Canadian newspaper to report the abrupt reversal and its political impact in Canada. Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott, widely known for his pro-life views, had previously mentioned the link and now felt vindicated by current events. But the Liberals' Status of Women critic Anita Neville was quick to call on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to silence Vellacott for his supposedly "false and misleading" statements. In a media release, Neville claimed Vellacott had denigrated "women and their rights and freedoms, adding "enough is enough . . . women deserve better from their elected representatives."
I agree with Neville. Women do deserve better. They deserve better from the leaders of women's groups and cancer groups. They deserve to have leaders who push for more information and research. They deserve better from politicians who try to push uncomfortable health facts under the dirty carpet. Most of all, they deserve to receive important health facts without political and ideological filters.
Susan Martinuk's column runs every Friday.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
By Susan Martinuk, Calgary HeraldJanuary 29, 2010
For the past 15 years, there's been a growing controversy over the link between induced abortion and increased risk of breast cancer. But few Canadian women would know the details that may be germane to dramatically reducing their risk of breast cancer. And fewer still would know that a key researcher at the National Cancer Institute has now reversed her position and stated that abortion is a significant factor in raising the risk of breast cancer.
Women should know that one of the most respected researchers in the field, Dr. Louise Brinton (chief of the institute's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics) co-authored a 2009 study stating that induced abortion increased the risk of triple-negative breast cancer by 40 per cent in women under 45. The paper, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, stated the above and then further observed that this increase was "consistent with the effects observed in previous studies on younger women."
The debate about this link has been ongoing since 1996 when Dr. Joel Brind published a meta-analysis of 21 studies on the topic in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The pooled data showed that women who had abortions had a 30 per cent increase in developing breast cancer.
His work was immediately written off in the media as biased or substandard. Few bothered to report that one of the co-authors was staunchly pro-abortion or that a respected pro-abortion epidemiologist said the study was "very objective and beyond reproach."
Over 29 credible studies supporting the link have since been reported. A 2007 study in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reported that induced abortion was the risk factor that best predicted the incidence of breast cancer in women in eight European countries.
In the midst of this growing body of knowledge, Dr. Brinton organized a 2003 workshop to discuss the studies. It subsequently issued a statement to American women saying, "abortion is not associated with increased breast cancer risk."
Six years later, Dr. Brinton herself has published a study that directly counters that statement and lends its support to previous studies that demonstrate the link between breast cancer and abortion.
Of course, this time there are no accusations of bias or sloppy work. In fact, for the most part, there has simply been silence. There have been no statements from women's groups and no calls for further studies to confirm or deny the claims. Even the National Cancer Institute has refused to comment on the dramatic reversal.
The topic of breast cancer has long been a media darling and, consequently, there's been no shortage of reports on the plethora of new medical discoveries that are constantly shifting the rules for preventing, diagnosing and treating this disease. We're told about coffee, chocolate and wine; and the usefulness (or not) of mammograms and the harms (or not) of hormone replacement therapy. But this urgent need to keep women informed and up-to-date on the latest research suddenly dissipates if it means turning a critical eye to the sacred cow of abortion.
In what is surely a Ripley's Believe it or Not moment, the Globe and Mail was the one Canadian newspaper to report the abrupt reversal and its political impact in Canada. Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott, widely known for his pro-life views, had previously mentioned the link and now felt vindicated by current events. But the Liberals' Status of Women critic Anita Neville was quick to call on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to silence Vellacott for his supposedly "false and misleading" statements. In a media release, Neville claimed Vellacott had denigrated "women and their rights and freedoms, adding "enough is enough . . . women deserve better from their elected representatives."
I agree with Neville. Women do deserve better. They deserve better from the leaders of women's groups and cancer groups. They deserve to have leaders who push for more information and research. They deserve better from politicians who try to push uncomfortable health facts under the dirty carpet. Most of all, they deserve to receive important health facts without political and ideological filters.
Susan Martinuk's column runs every Friday.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
India’s Inverted Abortion Politics
IN America, many state governments have tried to curb abortion by placing severe restrictions on providers and clinics, purportedly for women’s protection, despite opposition from the American Medical Association and other groups. If the limits are allowed to stand, self-induced abortions are expected to rise, leading to an escalation of health dangers to women, particularly those who can’t afford to travel for help.
In India, a curious inversion of this story is playing out: The government is trying to reduce the qualifications required of providers so that poor women will have easier access to abortions, while doctors are the ones opposing this relaxation of rules.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/03/opini ... 05309&_r=0
IN America, many state governments have tried to curb abortion by placing severe restrictions on providers and clinics, purportedly for women’s protection, despite opposition from the American Medical Association and other groups. If the limits are allowed to stand, self-induced abortions are expected to rise, leading to an escalation of health dangers to women, particularly those who can’t afford to travel for help.
In India, a curious inversion of this story is playing out: The government is trying to reduce the qualifications required of providers so that poor women will have easier access to abortions, while doctors are the ones opposing this relaxation of rules.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/03/opini ... 05309&_r=0
Pope Francis Eases Path to Absolution for Abortion
ROME — Pope Francis announced Tuesday that all Roman Catholic priests would be empowered to offer absolution for the “sin of abortion” during the church’s Holy Year of Mercy, which begins in December.
“I have met so many women who bear in their heart the scar of this agonizing and painful decision,” Francis said in a statement issued by the Vatican. “What has happened is profoundly unjust; yet only understanding the truth of it can enable one not to lose hope.”
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/world ... d=45305309
******
Response from anti-abortionist...
The Pope’s Unforgiving Message of Forgiveness on Abortion
"Despite the concern for what the pope calls an “agonizing and painful decision,” research shows that a vast majority of women who terminate pregnancies in the United States don’t actually feel bad about it. In surveys, nearly all say it was the right thing to do, and positive feelings of relief or happiness outweigh negative feelings of regret or guilt for more than nine in 10 women, even years after the procedure."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/11/opini ... ef=opinion
ROME — Pope Francis announced Tuesday that all Roman Catholic priests would be empowered to offer absolution for the “sin of abortion” during the church’s Holy Year of Mercy, which begins in December.
“I have met so many women who bear in their heart the scar of this agonizing and painful decision,” Francis said in a statement issued by the Vatican. “What has happened is profoundly unjust; yet only understanding the truth of it can enable one not to lose hope.”
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/world ... d=45305309
******
Response from anti-abortionist...
The Pope’s Unforgiving Message of Forgiveness on Abortion
"Despite the concern for what the pope calls an “agonizing and painful decision,” research shows that a vast majority of women who terminate pregnancies in the United States don’t actually feel bad about it. In surveys, nearly all say it was the right thing to do, and positive feelings of relief or happiness outweigh negative feelings of regret or guilt for more than nine in 10 women, even years after the procedure."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/11/opini ... ef=opinion
Last edited by kmaherali on Fri Sep 11, 2015 6:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
Does Down Syndrome Justify Abortion?
Villanova, Pa. — IT was the most heart-wrenching moment of our lives, and all I could do was stare at the tissue box.
A week earlier, my pregnant wife, Jennifer, had undergone a routine prenatal ultrasound that revealed “soft markers” suggestive of genetic abnormalities. Now we were in the consultation room awaiting the results of the amniocentesis, which would conclusively determine whether our daughter would be born with Down syndrome.
Of course they don’t put you in the room with the industrial-strength Kleenex just to tell you everything’s going to be fine. After the doctors gave us the news, they casually told us how an in utero diagnosis of Down syndrome meant perhaps a 50-50 chance of miscarriage or stillbirth.
If our daughter somehow made it to full term, her expected life span would be far shorter than a typical child’s, and she’d most likely have a whole host of medical issues requiring a lifetime of medical care. Then consider the cognitive impairments, special education programs and social ostracism. It was a lot to take in.
Hammering home the momentous difficulties that would await us as parents was clearly a tactical move by the doctor to push us toward an abortion.
That abortion is not the exception, but rather the expectation in cases of Down syndrome, is not limited to medical professionals. Though precise numbers are unavailable, at least two-thirds and as many as 90 percent of fetuses found to have Down syndrome in utero are aborted. Public opinion polls show that Americans are significantly less critical of abortion in the case of mental or physical impairment. Even the Dalai Lama says it is understandable.
So it raised eyebrows when we — a couple of pro-choice liberals — informed our doctors that we had chosen not to terminate the pregnancy. There was pushback: Did we not understand the decision?
We were sure that we’d love and care for our child regardless of her abilities. Today, despite complications and frustrations beyond those of raising a typical child, Sophia is an exuberant 8-year-old, soaking up the last rays of summer fun before entering third grade.
We have never had second thoughts, even though we understand why some parents might choose otherwise. Which is why it was particularly distressing to learn that this fall Ohio is likely to become the second state (after North Dakota) to outlaw abortion after an in utero diagnosis of Down syndrome.
The Ohio bill may be just the latest maneuver by pro-life conservatives in their war to curtail a woman’s right to choose. But as my wife and I learned, when it comes to abortion and special needs, there is no easy answer — and the idea that these deeply personal ethical and social decisions could simply be legislated away is ridiculous.
Both conservative lawmakers and their liberal opponents have surprisingly little understanding of the special-needs theater of engagement they’ve stumbled into.
For one thing, conventional pro-life versus pro-choice debates quickly become tinged with overtones about “slippery-slope” genocide, predicting the eventual disappearance of people with Down syndrome as a group. Such claims are often hysterical, but they’re not ungrounded: As our ability to screen for “undesirable” genetic traits expands, so does the potential for abortion based upon those characteristics.
Importantly, the conventional social dynamics around abortion are completely reversed. Among the families of people with disabilities, you’ll find ardent pro-choice advocates (like my wife and me) who choose not to abort. And with a vast majority of diagnoses ending in abortion, you’re likely to find many strident pro-life conservatives opting for abortion in the face of such challenges.
This doesn’t mean these people are hypocrites. Rather, it shows how tricky the issue is. In a typical pregnancy, women who choose to have an abortion are often saddled with shame and social stigma, even from friends, relatives and the broader public. Meanwhile, despite recent strides, there remains significant stigma associated with being the parent of a child with special needs.
In the end, my wife and I chose to have Sophia. We had to fight for her in the face of widespread medical and societal pressures to terminate. And that was our choice.
The Ohio bill would do away with that choice, forcing everyone placed in that unenviable situation to carry to term a child with developmental disabilities, regardless of their willingness and ability to love and care for that child once it is born.
At the same time, Republicans are pushing to slash assistance programs like Medicaid at the federal level and gutting home-based care and other services in Ohio that offset at least some of the tremendous medical and financial burdens placed on families of children with disabilities. Even if it somehow cleared the insurmountable constitutional hurdles, the foreseeable long-term impact of this legislation would be increased stresses on the family, bankruptcies and an influx of children with disabilities into orphanages and foster care.
Perhaps if Ohio’s Republican legislators grappled with such difficult decisions and their consequences, they might understand the futility and hypocrisy of imposing their abstract beliefs where they don’t conform to reality.
Mark Lawrence Schrad is an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/opini ... d=71987722
*****
To the Editor:
Re “Special Needs, Hard Decisions,” by Mark Lawrence Schrad (Op-Ed, Sept. 4):
I laud Mr. Schrad for his willingness to share his and his wife’s experience of continuing a pregnancy involving a baby with Down syndrome. But as a physician specializing in women’s health, I disagree with the premise of the article.
Abortion need not be justified to anyone at any time, nor does a decision to continue a pregnancy require justification. Women and couples know what is right for them, just as Mr. Schrad’s experience shows.
SHARON PHILLIPS
Brighton, Mass.
Villanova, Pa. — IT was the most heart-wrenching moment of our lives, and all I could do was stare at the tissue box.
A week earlier, my pregnant wife, Jennifer, had undergone a routine prenatal ultrasound that revealed “soft markers” suggestive of genetic abnormalities. Now we were in the consultation room awaiting the results of the amniocentesis, which would conclusively determine whether our daughter would be born with Down syndrome.
Of course they don’t put you in the room with the industrial-strength Kleenex just to tell you everything’s going to be fine. After the doctors gave us the news, they casually told us how an in utero diagnosis of Down syndrome meant perhaps a 50-50 chance of miscarriage or stillbirth.
If our daughter somehow made it to full term, her expected life span would be far shorter than a typical child’s, and she’d most likely have a whole host of medical issues requiring a lifetime of medical care. Then consider the cognitive impairments, special education programs and social ostracism. It was a lot to take in.
Hammering home the momentous difficulties that would await us as parents was clearly a tactical move by the doctor to push us toward an abortion.
That abortion is not the exception, but rather the expectation in cases of Down syndrome, is not limited to medical professionals. Though precise numbers are unavailable, at least two-thirds and as many as 90 percent of fetuses found to have Down syndrome in utero are aborted. Public opinion polls show that Americans are significantly less critical of abortion in the case of mental or physical impairment. Even the Dalai Lama says it is understandable.
So it raised eyebrows when we — a couple of pro-choice liberals — informed our doctors that we had chosen not to terminate the pregnancy. There was pushback: Did we not understand the decision?
We were sure that we’d love and care for our child regardless of her abilities. Today, despite complications and frustrations beyond those of raising a typical child, Sophia is an exuberant 8-year-old, soaking up the last rays of summer fun before entering third grade.
We have never had second thoughts, even though we understand why some parents might choose otherwise. Which is why it was particularly distressing to learn that this fall Ohio is likely to become the second state (after North Dakota) to outlaw abortion after an in utero diagnosis of Down syndrome.
The Ohio bill may be just the latest maneuver by pro-life conservatives in their war to curtail a woman’s right to choose. But as my wife and I learned, when it comes to abortion and special needs, there is no easy answer — and the idea that these deeply personal ethical and social decisions could simply be legislated away is ridiculous.
Both conservative lawmakers and their liberal opponents have surprisingly little understanding of the special-needs theater of engagement they’ve stumbled into.
For one thing, conventional pro-life versus pro-choice debates quickly become tinged with overtones about “slippery-slope” genocide, predicting the eventual disappearance of people with Down syndrome as a group. Such claims are often hysterical, but they’re not ungrounded: As our ability to screen for “undesirable” genetic traits expands, so does the potential for abortion based upon those characteristics.
Importantly, the conventional social dynamics around abortion are completely reversed. Among the families of people with disabilities, you’ll find ardent pro-choice advocates (like my wife and me) who choose not to abort. And with a vast majority of diagnoses ending in abortion, you’re likely to find many strident pro-life conservatives opting for abortion in the face of such challenges.
This doesn’t mean these people are hypocrites. Rather, it shows how tricky the issue is. In a typical pregnancy, women who choose to have an abortion are often saddled with shame and social stigma, even from friends, relatives and the broader public. Meanwhile, despite recent strides, there remains significant stigma associated with being the parent of a child with special needs.
In the end, my wife and I chose to have Sophia. We had to fight for her in the face of widespread medical and societal pressures to terminate. And that was our choice.
The Ohio bill would do away with that choice, forcing everyone placed in that unenviable situation to carry to term a child with developmental disabilities, regardless of their willingness and ability to love and care for that child once it is born.
At the same time, Republicans are pushing to slash assistance programs like Medicaid at the federal level and gutting home-based care and other services in Ohio that offset at least some of the tremendous medical and financial burdens placed on families of children with disabilities. Even if it somehow cleared the insurmountable constitutional hurdles, the foreseeable long-term impact of this legislation would be increased stresses on the family, bankruptcies and an influx of children with disabilities into orphanages and foster care.
Perhaps if Ohio’s Republican legislators grappled with such difficult decisions and their consequences, they might understand the futility and hypocrisy of imposing their abstract beliefs where they don’t conform to reality.
Mark Lawrence Schrad is an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/opini ... d=71987722
*****
To the Editor:
Re “Special Needs, Hard Decisions,” by Mark Lawrence Schrad (Op-Ed, Sept. 4):
I laud Mr. Schrad for his willingness to share his and his wife’s experience of continuing a pregnancy involving a baby with Down syndrome. But as a physician specializing in women’s health, I disagree with the premise of the article.
Abortion need not be justified to anyone at any time, nor does a decision to continue a pregnancy require justification. Women and couples know what is right for them, just as Mr. Schrad’s experience shows.
SHARON PHILLIPS
Brighton, Mass.
Anti-Abortion Groups Join Battles Over Frozen Embryos
Anti-abortion groups are seeking a foothold on a new battlefield: custody disputes over frozen embryos.
......
As scientific advances have made frozen embryos common, they have brought new complications to divorces. Most courts have treated embryos as marital property, often favoring the party that plans not to use the embryos, emphasizing a right not to be forced to procreate. Some have applied contract law, decided which half of the couple more deserved the embryos, or required mutual consent.
But anti-abortion groups argue that such cases should be decided according to the best interests of the embryos, the same legal standard used in child-custody disputes. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed last month in the Missouri dispute, they say an embryo’s most fundamental interest is to be born: “No other right is of any avail if a human being is not around to invoke it.”
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/us/an ... d=71987722
******
Embryos Are Not Children
To the Editor:
Re “Groups Opposed to Abortion Join Fights on Frozen Embryos” (front page, Jan. 20):
Suppose a fire broke out in a fertility clinic and you had to decide to save either 12 embryos in a petri dish or a 3-year-old boy accidentally caught in the fire. Whom would you go to first? If one holds embryos equal to children, you would save the embryos over the little boy because the dish holds 12 “children.” Is this really what a pro-life advocate would do?
Embryos are not children. In fact, while still in the dish, embryos have not yet formed any specialized organ system. In natural procreation the rate of embryo loss is as high as 60 to 80 percent. Millions of embryos go to waste in natural reproduction.
The dilemma of embryo custody is reminiscent of the biblical story about King Solomon: Two women claimed to be the mother of one baby. Solomon’s solution was to cut the baby in half, which resulted in the real mother crying out, “Oh Lord, give the baby to her, just don’t kill him!” However, even King Solomon would have had a hard time doing justice in the case of McQueen vs. Gadberry, since both ex-husband and wife equally share parenthood.
The pro-life advocates claim that the embryo has “personhood rights,” yet this would imply that the embryo, with no life yet breathed into it, has the upper hand over the adult biological father.
AVNER HERSHLAG
Manhasset, N.Y.
The writer, an obstetrician, is chief of the North Shore-L.I.J. Center for Human Reproduction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/opini ... inion&_r=0
Anti-abortion groups are seeking a foothold on a new battlefield: custody disputes over frozen embryos.
......
As scientific advances have made frozen embryos common, they have brought new complications to divorces. Most courts have treated embryos as marital property, often favoring the party that plans not to use the embryos, emphasizing a right not to be forced to procreate. Some have applied contract law, decided which half of the couple more deserved the embryos, or required mutual consent.
But anti-abortion groups argue that such cases should be decided according to the best interests of the embryos, the same legal standard used in child-custody disputes. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed last month in the Missouri dispute, they say an embryo’s most fundamental interest is to be born: “No other right is of any avail if a human being is not around to invoke it.”
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/us/an ... d=71987722
******
Embryos Are Not Children
To the Editor:
Re “Groups Opposed to Abortion Join Fights on Frozen Embryos” (front page, Jan. 20):
Suppose a fire broke out in a fertility clinic and you had to decide to save either 12 embryos in a petri dish or a 3-year-old boy accidentally caught in the fire. Whom would you go to first? If one holds embryos equal to children, you would save the embryos over the little boy because the dish holds 12 “children.” Is this really what a pro-life advocate would do?
Embryos are not children. In fact, while still in the dish, embryos have not yet formed any specialized organ system. In natural procreation the rate of embryo loss is as high as 60 to 80 percent. Millions of embryos go to waste in natural reproduction.
The dilemma of embryo custody is reminiscent of the biblical story about King Solomon: Two women claimed to be the mother of one baby. Solomon’s solution was to cut the baby in half, which resulted in the real mother crying out, “Oh Lord, give the baby to her, just don’t kill him!” However, even King Solomon would have had a hard time doing justice in the case of McQueen vs. Gadberry, since both ex-husband and wife equally share parenthood.
The pro-life advocates claim that the embryo has “personhood rights,” yet this would imply that the embryo, with no life yet breathed into it, has the upper hand over the adult biological father.
AVNER HERSHLAG
Manhasset, N.Y.
The writer, an obstetrician, is chief of the North Shore-L.I.J. Center for Human Reproduction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/opini ... inion&_r=0
Surge of Zika Virus Has Brazilians Re-examining Strict Abortion Laws
RECIFE, Brazil — The surging medical reports of babies being born with unusually small heads during the Zika epidemic in Brazil are igniting a fierce debate over the country’s abortion laws, which make the procedure illegal under most circumstances.
Legal scholars in Brasília, the capital, are preparing a case to go before Brazil’s highest court, saying pregnant women should be permitted to have abortions when their fetuses are found to have abnormally small heads, a condition known as microcephaly that Brazilian researchers say is linked to the virus.
A judge in central Brazil has taken the rare step of publicly proclaiming that he will allow women to have legal abortions in cases of microcephaly, preparing the way for a fight over the issue in parts of the country’s labyrinthine legal system.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/world ... d=45305309
RECIFE, Brazil — The surging medical reports of babies being born with unusually small heads during the Zika epidemic in Brazil are igniting a fierce debate over the country’s abortion laws, which make the procedure illegal under most circumstances.
Legal scholars in Brasília, the capital, are preparing a case to go before Brazil’s highest court, saying pregnant women should be permitted to have abortions when their fetuses are found to have abnormally small heads, a condition known as microcephaly that Brazilian researchers say is linked to the virus.
A judge in central Brazil has taken the rare step of publicly proclaiming that he will allow women to have legal abortions in cases of microcephaly, preparing the way for a fight over the issue in parts of the country’s labyrinthine legal system.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/world ... d=45305309
How to Talk About Abortion
When moral philosophers and others take up an issue that is at the center of public debate, we tend to frame it as a matter of individual ethics. Is it morally permissible to eat meat? To offer money for sex? To have an abortion? Yet, such questions often fail to focus on the issues that are important and relevant for public policy and, as a result, can derail productive public debate.
The problem is that questions like these oversimplify the issues. Consider, for instance, that “abortion” is really an umbrella term for a number of different medical procedures — appropriate for different stages of pregnancy — each with significantly different health risks. Abortion is first and foremost a medical service or procedure, not an individual action, and thus a more important and relevant question for public policy is, Under what circumstances, or for what reasons, should a government prohibit properly trained medical professionals from performing an abortion? This is a question that fellow citizens can productively debate, and that may lead to a consensus.
The relevant public policy question raises issues of medical privacy, limits on governmental power, and the protection of public health, all of which as citizens we need to debate as a matter of social ethics and political values. The individual or personal ethics question — on the moral acceptability of abortion — is not likely to generate a public consensus, given the current lack of agreement on many background issues.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/opin ... dline&te=1
When moral philosophers and others take up an issue that is at the center of public debate, we tend to frame it as a matter of individual ethics. Is it morally permissible to eat meat? To offer money for sex? To have an abortion? Yet, such questions often fail to focus on the issues that are important and relevant for public policy and, as a result, can derail productive public debate.
The problem is that questions like these oversimplify the issues. Consider, for instance, that “abortion” is really an umbrella term for a number of different medical procedures — appropriate for different stages of pregnancy — each with significantly different health risks. Abortion is first and foremost a medical service or procedure, not an individual action, and thus a more important and relevant question for public policy is, Under what circumstances, or for what reasons, should a government prohibit properly trained medical professionals from performing an abortion? This is a question that fellow citizens can productively debate, and that may lead to a consensus.
The relevant public policy question raises issues of medical privacy, limits on governmental power, and the protection of public health, all of which as citizens we need to debate as a matter of social ethics and political values. The individual or personal ethics question — on the moral acceptability of abortion — is not likely to generate a public consensus, given the current lack of agreement on many background issues.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/opin ... dline&te=1
Abortion Pills Aren’t Enough to Keep Coat Hangers in the Closet
Medication abortions will not solve all the problems of a post-Roe world.
As abortion rights have come under increasing attack in the United States, commentators have held up self-administered abortion pills as a backup plan for a post-Roe world. They point to the millions of pregnant women worldwide who are using pills to self-manage abortion, citing them as an example of what reproductive health care might look like should in-clinic abortions be made illegal.
There’s no question that abortion pills are revolutionary. In the hands of women, the pills have transformed self-induced abortion from a once-dangerous endeavor into a safe procedure. Abortion help lines have walked women through the process of self-management, sometimes remotely or even over the internet. Where abortion is illegal, black market access to the drugs has resulted in significant decreases in complications and deaths.
Yet, even with these major advances, the idea that “coat-hanger abortions” are a thing of the past is misguided. The International Women’s Health Coalition welcomes do-it-yourself abortion pills as the extremely safe, effective and empowering technology they are. But we worry about the many women who will be left behind unless legal restrictions are removed, funding for abortion services is provided and barriers to access are eliminated.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/25/opin ... 3053091126
Medication abortions will not solve all the problems of a post-Roe world.
As abortion rights have come under increasing attack in the United States, commentators have held up self-administered abortion pills as a backup plan for a post-Roe world. They point to the millions of pregnant women worldwide who are using pills to self-manage abortion, citing them as an example of what reproductive health care might look like should in-clinic abortions be made illegal.
There’s no question that abortion pills are revolutionary. In the hands of women, the pills have transformed self-induced abortion from a once-dangerous endeavor into a safe procedure. Abortion help lines have walked women through the process of self-management, sometimes remotely or even over the internet. Where abortion is illegal, black market access to the drugs has resulted in significant decreases in complications and deaths.
Yet, even with these major advances, the idea that “coat-hanger abortions” are a thing of the past is misguided. The International Women’s Health Coalition welcomes do-it-yourself abortion pills as the extremely safe, effective and empowering technology they are. But we worry about the many women who will be left behind unless legal restrictions are removed, funding for abortion services is provided and barriers to access are eliminated.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/25/opin ... 3053091126
How Bangladesh Made Abortion Safer
The government’s effort to help Rohingya victims of wartime rape has lessons for the world.
Excerpt:
The M.V.A. revolutionized abortion care around the world, but in Bangladesh it did something more: It provided the rationale for a pragmatic policy and a path to limited legalization (in practice, if not in name).
A bill to legalize abortion failed to pass in the Bangladeshi Parliament in 1976, but M.R. was ruled exempt from the country’s restrictive ban, paving the way for its national rollout in 1979. Over the decade that followed, Bangladesh trained its legions of female paramedics, known as “family welfare visitors,” to perform the procedure, greatly expanding access to M.R. in a country with just one doctor for every 2,000 people.
Provided free of charge by the government and practiced at all levels of the health system, M.R. quickly came to be viewed as an essential piece of the national health care package. “It addressed a problem,” Rasheda Khan, a Bangladeshi anthropologist, told me, “without waking the sleeping lions — the religious fundamentalists.”
Bangladesh has since documented steep declines in maternal deaths, which fell by an estimated 70 percent between 1990 and 2015. Much of that owes to dramatic increases in the prevalence of contraceptive use, which has helped halve the country’s fertility rate, and better access to health facilities. But many believe M.R. played an important role, and even as Republican administrations have withheld aid to the N.G.O.s that support its implementation, successive Bangladeshi governments have kept the program afloat.
With the equipment and expertise in place, humanitarian agencies were able to discreetly deliver M.R. to Rohingya refugees soon after they started arriving. “We decided, for the Rohingya, we have to respond to their need,” said Dr. Sayed Rubayet, the Bangladesh country director of Ipas, the nonprofit tapped to oversee the delivery of M.R. to Rohingya refugees.
By early October, Ipas had trained health workers in eight facilities serving the camps. It has since expanded the training to 33, and other groups have joined the effort, making abortion care one of the standard health services available to Rohingya refugees.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/opin ... dline&te=1
The government’s effort to help Rohingya victims of wartime rape has lessons for the world.
Excerpt:
The M.V.A. revolutionized abortion care around the world, but in Bangladesh it did something more: It provided the rationale for a pragmatic policy and a path to limited legalization (in practice, if not in name).
A bill to legalize abortion failed to pass in the Bangladeshi Parliament in 1976, but M.R. was ruled exempt from the country’s restrictive ban, paving the way for its national rollout in 1979. Over the decade that followed, Bangladesh trained its legions of female paramedics, known as “family welfare visitors,” to perform the procedure, greatly expanding access to M.R. in a country with just one doctor for every 2,000 people.
Provided free of charge by the government and practiced at all levels of the health system, M.R. quickly came to be viewed as an essential piece of the national health care package. “It addressed a problem,” Rasheda Khan, a Bangladeshi anthropologist, told me, “without waking the sleeping lions — the religious fundamentalists.”
Bangladesh has since documented steep declines in maternal deaths, which fell by an estimated 70 percent between 1990 and 2015. Much of that owes to dramatic increases in the prevalence of contraceptive use, which has helped halve the country’s fertility rate, and better access to health facilities. But many believe M.R. played an important role, and even as Republican administrations have withheld aid to the N.G.O.s that support its implementation, successive Bangladeshi governments have kept the program afloat.
With the equipment and expertise in place, humanitarian agencies were able to discreetly deliver M.R. to Rohingya refugees soon after they started arriving. “We decided, for the Rohingya, we have to respond to their need,” said Dr. Sayed Rubayet, the Bangladesh country director of Ipas, the nonprofit tapped to oversee the delivery of M.R. to Rohingya refugees.
By early October, Ipas had trained health workers in eight facilities serving the camps. It has since expanded the training to 33, and other groups have joined the effort, making abortion care one of the standard health services available to Rohingya refugees.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/opin ... dline&te=1
The Abortion Wars Have Become a Fight Over Science
Forty-six years after Roe, the two camps increasingly disagree on basic facts about abortion — and who has the authority to determine them.
It was perhaps, at first glance, an unusual feature of the 2019 March for Life that it downplayed what many have come to think of as the central claim of the anti-abortion movement: that the unborn have a constitutional right to life.
Instead, march organizers focused on proclaiming that science was on their side. They circulated material on “when human life begins,” whether abortions are ever medically necessary and when fetal life becomes viable. They praised legal restrictions based on what science supposedly says about fetal pain.
In return, abortion-rights advocates, citing studies from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the University of California, San Francisco, fired back that the March for Life peddles “junk science” and that its positions “fly in the face of evidence.”
This year’s skirmish wasn’t actually unusual, however. Rather, it was revealing of a larger shift in the terms of the abortion debate. Over the past few decades, the abortion wars have become as much a fight about science and medicine as they are about the law and the Constitution.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/opin ... dline&te=1
Forty-six years after Roe, the two camps increasingly disagree on basic facts about abortion — and who has the authority to determine them.
It was perhaps, at first glance, an unusual feature of the 2019 March for Life that it downplayed what many have come to think of as the central claim of the anti-abortion movement: that the unborn have a constitutional right to life.
Instead, march organizers focused on proclaiming that science was on their side. They circulated material on “when human life begins,” whether abortions are ever medically necessary and when fetal life becomes viable. They praised legal restrictions based on what science supposedly says about fetal pain.
In return, abortion-rights advocates, citing studies from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the University of California, San Francisco, fired back that the March for Life peddles “junk science” and that its positions “fly in the face of evidence.”
This year’s skirmish wasn’t actually unusual, however. Rather, it was revealing of a larger shift in the terms of the abortion debate. Over the past few decades, the abortion wars have become as much a fight about science and medicine as they are about the law and the Constitution.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/opin ... dline&te=1
Farman of Imam Mowlana Sultan Muhammad Shah
"The immediate religious duty of all my spiritual children to learn perfect infant care from conception till maturity. The unnecessary death rate must be reduced.
It is not only saving of lives but of souls. Each child saved may be some day a missionary, a teacher of faith and love of God, the Prophet, Aly and his successors."
"The immediate religious duty of all my spiritual children to learn perfect infant care from conception till maturity. The unnecessary death rate must be reduced.
It is not only saving of lives but of souls. Each child saved may be some day a missionary, a teacher of faith and love of God, the Prophet, Aly and his successors."
Life Begins at Conception (Except When That’s Inconvenient for Republicans)
It’s almost as if abortion bans aren’t actually about “life” at all.
When, exactly, do abortion opponents think life begins?
Over the past few months there has been a rush to pass abortion bans. Most of these bans center on the idea that abortions should be banned as soon as the fetal heartbeat is detected; that’s because “a heartbeat proves that there’s life that deserves protection under law,” according to a state representative in Kentucky, Robert Goforth.
On the other hand, many, including Mr. Goforth himself, also believe “life begins at conception,” as Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, said on “Meet the Press” last month. Or to take it still further, that the blastocyst, that clump of cells smaller than a raspberry that forms in the early days after a sperm meets an egg, is a person. As an Alabama state representative, Terri Collins, put it: “This bill addresses that one issue. Is that baby in the womb a person? I believe our law says it is. I believe our people say it is. And I believe technology shows it is.”
And yet.
Representative Collins recently sponsored what is arguably the most extreme abortion ban to pass to date — Alabama’s near total prohibition of the procedure, with no exceptions for rape or incest. But this ban does have one exception: Fertilized eggs, blastocysts, five-day-old embryos — people, according to some definitions — are exempt and can be destroyed, so long as they are not contained in the body of a woman. “The egg in the lab doesn’t apply,” said Clyde Chambliss, a state senator and another sponsor of the abortion bill. “It’s not in a woman. She’s not pregnant.”
But I was told by Tom Cotton that life began at conception?
In May, an appellate court in Ohio, in theory, delivered another blow to the “life begins at conception” school of abortion banning, though none of its members seem to have taken notice. Frozen embryos are not people, it told a couple whose embryos had been lost in a fertility clinic storage tank malfunction. (Ohio, by the way, was one of the states to pass a heartbeat bill — and so, technically, no inconsistencies here!)
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/opin ... y_20190610
It’s almost as if abortion bans aren’t actually about “life” at all.
When, exactly, do abortion opponents think life begins?
Over the past few months there has been a rush to pass abortion bans. Most of these bans center on the idea that abortions should be banned as soon as the fetal heartbeat is detected; that’s because “a heartbeat proves that there’s life that deserves protection under law,” according to a state representative in Kentucky, Robert Goforth.
On the other hand, many, including Mr. Goforth himself, also believe “life begins at conception,” as Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, said on “Meet the Press” last month. Or to take it still further, that the blastocyst, that clump of cells smaller than a raspberry that forms in the early days after a sperm meets an egg, is a person. As an Alabama state representative, Terri Collins, put it: “This bill addresses that one issue. Is that baby in the womb a person? I believe our law says it is. I believe our people say it is. And I believe technology shows it is.”
And yet.
Representative Collins recently sponsored what is arguably the most extreme abortion ban to pass to date — Alabama’s near total prohibition of the procedure, with no exceptions for rape or incest. But this ban does have one exception: Fertilized eggs, blastocysts, five-day-old embryos — people, according to some definitions — are exempt and can be destroyed, so long as they are not contained in the body of a woman. “The egg in the lab doesn’t apply,” said Clyde Chambliss, a state senator and another sponsor of the abortion bill. “It’s not in a woman. She’s not pregnant.”
But I was told by Tom Cotton that life began at conception?
In May, an appellate court in Ohio, in theory, delivered another blow to the “life begins at conception” school of abortion banning, though none of its members seem to have taken notice. Frozen embryos are not people, it told a couple whose embryos had been lost in a fertility clinic storage tank malfunction. (Ohio, by the way, was one of the states to pass a heartbeat bill — and so, technically, no inconsistencies here!)
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/opin ... y_20190610
I Asked Thousands of Biologists When Life Begins. The Answer Wasn’t Popular
Shortly after being awarded my Ph.D. by the University of Chicago’s department of Comparative Human Development this year, I found myself in a minor media whirlwind. I was interviewed by The Daily Wire, The College Fix, and Breitbart. I appeared on national television and on a widely syndicated radio program. All of this interest had been prompted by a working paper associated with my dissertation, which was entitled Balancing Abortion Rights and Fetal Rights: A Mixed Methods Mediation of the U.S. Abortion Debate.
As discussed in more detail below, I reported that both a majority of pro-choice Americans (53%) and a majority of pro-life Americans (54%) would support a comprehensive policy compromise that provides entitlements to pregnant women, improves the adoption process for parents, permits abortion in extreme circumstances, and restricts elective abortion after the first trimester. However, members of the media were mostly interested in my finding that 96% of the 5,577 biologists who responded to me affirmed the view that a human life begins at fertilization.
It was the reporting of this view—that human zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are biological humans—that created such a strong backlash. It was not unexpected, as the finding provides fodder for conservative opponents of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court had suggested there was no consensus on “the difficult question of when life begins” and that “the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, [was] not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
More...
https://quillette.com/2019/10/16/i-aske ... t-popular/
Shortly after being awarded my Ph.D. by the University of Chicago’s department of Comparative Human Development this year, I found myself in a minor media whirlwind. I was interviewed by The Daily Wire, The College Fix, and Breitbart. I appeared on national television and on a widely syndicated radio program. All of this interest had been prompted by a working paper associated with my dissertation, which was entitled Balancing Abortion Rights and Fetal Rights: A Mixed Methods Mediation of the U.S. Abortion Debate.
As discussed in more detail below, I reported that both a majority of pro-choice Americans (53%) and a majority of pro-life Americans (54%) would support a comprehensive policy compromise that provides entitlements to pregnant women, improves the adoption process for parents, permits abortion in extreme circumstances, and restricts elective abortion after the first trimester. However, members of the media were mostly interested in my finding that 96% of the 5,577 biologists who responded to me affirmed the view that a human life begins at fertilization.
It was the reporting of this view—that human zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are biological humans—that created such a strong backlash. It was not unexpected, as the finding provides fodder for conservative opponents of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court had suggested there was no consensus on “the difficult question of when life begins” and that “the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, [was] not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
More...
https://quillette.com/2019/10/16/i-aske ... t-popular/
Abortion by Telemedicine: A Growing Option as Access to Clinics Wanes
The coronavirus has created a surge in demand for telemedicine of all types — including for a quietly expanding program for terminating pregnancies.
Ashley Dale was grateful she could end her pregnancy at home.
As her 3-year-old daughter played nearby, she spoke by video from her living room in Hawaii with Dr. Bliss Kaneshiro, an obstetrician-gynecologist, who was a 200-mile plane ride away in Honolulu. The doctor explained that two medicines that would be mailed to Ms. Dale would halt her pregnancy and cause a miscarriage.
“Does it sound like what you want to do in terms of terminating the pregnancy?” Dr. Kaneshiro asked gently. Ms. Dale, who said she would love to have another baby, had wrestled with the decision, but circumstances involving an estranged boyfriend had made the choice clear: “It does,” she replied.
Abortion through telemedicine is a quietly growing phenomenon, driven in part by restrictions from conservative states and the Trump administration that have limited access and increased the distance many women must travel to abortion clinics.
Now, the coronavirus pandemic is catapulting demand for telemedicine abortion to a new level, with much of the nation under strict stay-at-home advisories and as several states, including Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, have sought to suspend access to surgical abortions during the crisis.
The telemedicine program that Ms. Dale participated in has been allowed to operate as a research study for several years under a special arrangement with the Food and Drug Administration. It allows women seeking abortions to have video consultations with certified doctors and then receive abortion pills by mail to take on their own.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/heal ... 778d3e6de3
The coronavirus has created a surge in demand for telemedicine of all types — including for a quietly expanding program for terminating pregnancies.
Ashley Dale was grateful she could end her pregnancy at home.
As her 3-year-old daughter played nearby, she spoke by video from her living room in Hawaii with Dr. Bliss Kaneshiro, an obstetrician-gynecologist, who was a 200-mile plane ride away in Honolulu. The doctor explained that two medicines that would be mailed to Ms. Dale would halt her pregnancy and cause a miscarriage.
“Does it sound like what you want to do in terms of terminating the pregnancy?” Dr. Kaneshiro asked gently. Ms. Dale, who said she would love to have another baby, had wrestled with the decision, but circumstances involving an estranged boyfriend had made the choice clear: “It does,” she replied.
Abortion through telemedicine is a quietly growing phenomenon, driven in part by restrictions from conservative states and the Trump administration that have limited access and increased the distance many women must travel to abortion clinics.
Now, the coronavirus pandemic is catapulting demand for telemedicine abortion to a new level, with much of the nation under strict stay-at-home advisories and as several states, including Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, have sought to suspend access to surgical abortions during the crisis.
The telemedicine program that Ms. Dale participated in has been allowed to operate as a research study for several years under a special arrangement with the Food and Drug Administration. It allows women seeking abortions to have video consultations with certified doctors and then receive abortion pills by mail to take on their own.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/heal ... 778d3e6de3
Texas’ Abortion Law Should Force America to Change Its Ways
Abortion is a failure for every woman and her unborn child — a failure of love, justice and mercy. Texas’ new abortion law is far from perfect, but I hope it can move us closer to these ideals.
The highest purpose of human law is the protection of human life, from its beginning to its natural end. As a pro-life Christian, I believe that each of our individual origins are in the moment of conception. That’s when my life and your life began. Not in some abstract, ethereal way, but for real — all the very particular DNA, chromosomes, eye color, hair texture and toes of you.
The Texas law doesn’t ban abortion from this earliest beginning. Rather it bans almost all abortions after cardiac activity in the unborn child is detected, usually around six weeks into pregnancy, when cheeks, chin and jaws are also starting to form.
Because most abortion procedures in Texas take place after six weeks, the new law, as one of the nation’s most restrictive, will certainly reduce abortions in Texas drastically. It will also continue to be challenged in the courts. But if we start from the biological and ontological reality that each human life begins at conception, the law is hardly “extreme,” as President Biden has called it. A law preserving the life of a human being at any stage can be considered “extreme” only within a distorted social context.
Because of the challenges Roe v. Wade has presented to attempts by states over the years to limit abortion in any meaningful way (such as after the first trimester, a restriction most Americans favor), the Texas law doesn’t criminalize abortion outright. Rather, it allows private citizens to sue providers and others through civil litigation. Successful suits may result in fines hefty enough to put many abortion practices out of business, an innovative workaround.
Deputizing private citizens to enforce the ban is certainly fraught with risk. Some fear the law will turn otherwise uninterested citizens into bounty hunters who chase abortion providers, although one judge’s temporary restraining order that blocks one group from suing Planned Parenthood shows that checks and balances are in place.
Perhaps the most pivotal part of this law is that it creates a cause of action against anyone who “aids or abets” the performance or inducement of an abortion. But it doesn’t fully define “aids or abets.”
Thus, the law demands that we ask: What does it really mean to offer aid to someone to whom abortion seems the best option?
In America, of all the pregnancies that don’t end in miscarriage, nearly one in five is aborted; this is a society in which things are wildly off track. A world like this, spun by forces that lead to that many lives being undone, doesn’t happen by chance. It takes all of us.
It takes a village to make abortion seem like the best choice.
We can change our ways, though. The Texas law ought to compel us to help women with unwanted pregnancies in meaningful ways. The millions of dollars that Texas lawmakers have allocated to the Alternatives to Abortion program, which offers support to those who “choose life in difficult circumstances,” is a start. But Texas’ infamously high maternal mortality rate must also be addressed. It is not pro-life to save the child, only to lose her mother in the process. Unborn children don’t exist in a vacuum. Their lives are conceived, birthed (or not) and lived in community. To serve them, we must serve their communities.
A few years ago, following another abortion controversy, a pastor argued in a since-viral Facebook post that “‘the unborn’ are a convenient group of people to advocate for,” because they don’t make demands on us. Unlike others who need help, they don’t disagree or argue or require that we change our lifestyles or societal structures. They are silent. As long as they live in their mother’s womb, defending their lives requires no sacrifice from us.
This idea challenges me. It should challenge us all, including those who think other things outweigh letting little embryonic girls and boys to continue to live. A world that pits a mother’s well-being against her child’s life is a world that needs extensive repair.
And the fact is that in our consumerism, individualism and pragmatism, we live in a transactional society that gives rise to bounty hunters on the left and on the right. Outside the abortion clinics, and inside them, too.
We need to be people who act (not transact) for mercy, justice, and love.
And love isn’t love that doesn’t act.
As history has shown again and again, we sometimes need the law to teach us to love. Sometimes it takes a law to remind us that fellow human beings are not ours to own, harm, or kill.
Love is a higher law. But it is still a law. And this is where we must begin.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/opin ... pe=Article
Abortion is a failure for every woman and her unborn child — a failure of love, justice and mercy. Texas’ new abortion law is far from perfect, but I hope it can move us closer to these ideals.
The highest purpose of human law is the protection of human life, from its beginning to its natural end. As a pro-life Christian, I believe that each of our individual origins are in the moment of conception. That’s when my life and your life began. Not in some abstract, ethereal way, but for real — all the very particular DNA, chromosomes, eye color, hair texture and toes of you.
The Texas law doesn’t ban abortion from this earliest beginning. Rather it bans almost all abortions after cardiac activity in the unborn child is detected, usually around six weeks into pregnancy, when cheeks, chin and jaws are also starting to form.
Because most abortion procedures in Texas take place after six weeks, the new law, as one of the nation’s most restrictive, will certainly reduce abortions in Texas drastically. It will also continue to be challenged in the courts. But if we start from the biological and ontological reality that each human life begins at conception, the law is hardly “extreme,” as President Biden has called it. A law preserving the life of a human being at any stage can be considered “extreme” only within a distorted social context.
Because of the challenges Roe v. Wade has presented to attempts by states over the years to limit abortion in any meaningful way (such as after the first trimester, a restriction most Americans favor), the Texas law doesn’t criminalize abortion outright. Rather, it allows private citizens to sue providers and others through civil litigation. Successful suits may result in fines hefty enough to put many abortion practices out of business, an innovative workaround.
Deputizing private citizens to enforce the ban is certainly fraught with risk. Some fear the law will turn otherwise uninterested citizens into bounty hunters who chase abortion providers, although one judge’s temporary restraining order that blocks one group from suing Planned Parenthood shows that checks and balances are in place.
Perhaps the most pivotal part of this law is that it creates a cause of action against anyone who “aids or abets” the performance or inducement of an abortion. But it doesn’t fully define “aids or abets.”
Thus, the law demands that we ask: What does it really mean to offer aid to someone to whom abortion seems the best option?
In America, of all the pregnancies that don’t end in miscarriage, nearly one in five is aborted; this is a society in which things are wildly off track. A world like this, spun by forces that lead to that many lives being undone, doesn’t happen by chance. It takes all of us.
It takes a village to make abortion seem like the best choice.
We can change our ways, though. The Texas law ought to compel us to help women with unwanted pregnancies in meaningful ways. The millions of dollars that Texas lawmakers have allocated to the Alternatives to Abortion program, which offers support to those who “choose life in difficult circumstances,” is a start. But Texas’ infamously high maternal mortality rate must also be addressed. It is not pro-life to save the child, only to lose her mother in the process. Unborn children don’t exist in a vacuum. Their lives are conceived, birthed (or not) and lived in community. To serve them, we must serve their communities.
A few years ago, following another abortion controversy, a pastor argued in a since-viral Facebook post that “‘the unborn’ are a convenient group of people to advocate for,” because they don’t make demands on us. Unlike others who need help, they don’t disagree or argue or require that we change our lifestyles or societal structures. They are silent. As long as they live in their mother’s womb, defending their lives requires no sacrifice from us.
This idea challenges me. It should challenge us all, including those who think other things outweigh letting little embryonic girls and boys to continue to live. A world that pits a mother’s well-being against her child’s life is a world that needs extensive repair.
And the fact is that in our consumerism, individualism and pragmatism, we live in a transactional society that gives rise to bounty hunters on the left and on the right. Outside the abortion clinics, and inside them, too.
We need to be people who act (not transact) for mercy, justice, and love.
And love isn’t love that doesn’t act.
As history has shown again and again, we sometimes need the law to teach us to love. Sometimes it takes a law to remind us that fellow human beings are not ours to own, harm, or kill.
Love is a higher law. But it is still a law. And this is where we must begin.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/opin ... pe=Article
Medication Abortions Are Increasing: What They Are and Where Women Get Them
This article is about how easy abortion has become!
Most abortions overseas involve pills, and the method is used in about half of legal U.S. abortions. It also seems to be the future of illicit abortion.
Medication abortions are considered as safe as surgical abortions administered by a doctor in a clinic.Credit...Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Taking pills to end a pregnancy accounts for a growing share of abortions in the United States, both legal and not. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade as expected, medication abortion will play a larger role, especially among women who lose access to abortion clinics.
What is medication abortion?
It’s a regimen of pills that women can take at home, a method increasingly used around the world.
The protocol approved for use in the United States includes two medications. The first one, mifepristone, blocks a hormone called progesterone that is necessary for a pregnancy to continue. The second, misoprostol, brings on uterine contractions.
When can it be used?
The Food and Drug Administration has approved medication abortion for up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. World Health Organization guidelines say it can be used up to 12 weeks at home, and after 12 weeks in a medical office.
Is it effective, and is it safe?
Yes on both counts.
In U.S. studies, the combination of these pills causes a complete abortion in more than 99 percent of patients, and is as safe as the traditional abortion procedure administered by a doctor in a clinic. A variety of research has found that medication abortion has low rates of adverse events, and a recent Lancet study found that patients are generally satisfied with it. Growing evidence from overseas suggests that abortion pills are safe even among women who do not have a doctor to advise them.
“Some people still assume we’re talking about something dangerous or done out of desperation, but increasingly this information is becoming more mainstream,” said Abigail R.A. Aiken, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin who leads a research group there on medication abortion.
Who uses this method?
About half of people who get legal abortions in the United States (and three-quarters in Europe). During the pandemic, medication abortion became more common because patients wanted to avoid going to clinics in person, and a change in federal law made it easier for them to get prescriptions via telemedicine.
It usually comes down to patients’ personal preference, said Dr. Maria Isabel Rodriguez, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health and Sciences University, who has worked on abortion research and policy design. “Some people like surgical, because it’s over with faster, they’re able to have anesthesia, and it’s finished in a defined time,” she said. “Medication can feel more private, some want it at their own home, some say it feels more natural for them, and some say it feels more possible to process a loss.”
Medication abortion is also used illicitly by those who live in a place that restricts legal abortion or by those who can’t reach a clinic. The U.S. abortion rate is higher than officially reported by doctors, evidence suggests, because people are ordering pills online. That invisible abortion rate may rise if more states move to ban abortion — bans would apply to both surgical and medication abortions.
Who prescribes abortion pills?
Doctors with a special registration required by the F.D.A.
But it recently lifted rules that required an in-person appointment. That means more providers are offering medication abortions through telemedicine. The doctor and patient meet online, then the doctor sends pills to the patient’s home through the mail. (Some brick-and-mortar pharmacies have become certified to fill prescriptions for the pills, but this is not yet common.
New start-ups that specialize in telemedicine abortions, like Hey Jane and Just the Pill, have begun offering the service in states that allow it. But 19 states prohibit pills from being prescribed by telemedicine or delivered via mail. In those places, patients still need to see a doctor in person to pick up the pills. Other states ban medication abortion after a certain number of weeks.
How will looming state abortion restrictions affect medication abortions?
If Roe is overturned, about half of states are expected to ban abortion altogether. Those laws will affect all abortion methods, including procedural abortions and pills.
What about pills from overseas?
Online pharmacies overseas sell the pills. An organization called Aid Access offers women in all 50 states advice and prescriptions from European doctors before shipping pills from India. These extralegal channels are becoming more popular as abortion becomes harder to access in some states. After Texas enacted a law in September that banned abortion after about six weeks, requests to Aid Access for abortion pills tripled.
The F.D.A. has asked these groups to stop sales of these medications into the United States, saying they circumvent U.S. drug safety protocols. But researchers who have analyzed the pills in laboratories have found that pills ordered using these services are generally authentic.
The second of the two medications in the official regimen, misoprostol, can also end a pregnancy when used alone. It is around 80 percent effective on its own, although it sometimes has to be taken more than once. That pill is also used to treat ulcers, and is available over the counter in many countries, including Mexico. But the only F.D.A.-approved method in the United States is to use both pills.
The Issue of Abortion Around the World
Card 1 of 8
An evolving landscape. Women’s access to abortion continues to be debated around the globe. Here’s a look at the state of affairs in some countries:
Colombia. The country’s top court decriminalized abortion in 2022, making it the third major Latin American nation to allow access to the procedure. The decision paves the way for abortions to become widely available across this historically conservative, Catholic country.
Guatemala. After lawmakers passed a sweeping new bill mandating up to 10 years of jail time for women who obtain abortions, protests erupted. A few days later, in an abrupt reversal that surprised analysts, President Alejandro Giammattei said he would veto the bill.
Mexico. In 2021, Mexico’s Supreme Court issued a historic decision that decriminalized abortion. The move set a legal precedent for the nation, but applying it to all of Mexico’s states will be a long path, and several challenges remain.
Poland. The country is one of the few that has moved to restrict abortion in recent years. A near-total ban went into effect in January 2021, fueling discontent among those who believe human freedoms are being eroded under the increasingly autocratic Law and Justice Party.
China. The country’s central government said last Septemberthat it intended to reduce the prevalence of “medically unnecessary” abortions. In recent years, China has been focusing its efforts toward promoting childbirth and slowing the population’s aging.
Thailand. The Thai Parliament voted in 2021 to make abortion legal in the first trimester, while keeping penalties in place for women who undergo it later in their pregnancies. Advocates say the measure doesn’t go far enough.
Argentina. In 2020, the country became the largest nation in Latin America to legalize abortion — a landmark vote in a conservative region and a victory for a grass-roots movement that turned years of rallies into political power.
Are pills from overseas legal?
No. It is illegal to sell prescription medicine to Americans without a prescription from a doctor licensed in the United States. But enforcement of overseas providers has been uncommon, as it is with other medications Americans order from abroad. And sales would be hard to stop because the medications generally come in unmarked packages in the mail.
“I’m not there, so I don’t have any legal risk,” said Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, the Dutch physician who runs Aid Access, and says she has lawyers advising her, both at home and in the United States. “I know from where I am, I am complying with the law.”
In general, recent state laws do not punish women for obtaining abortions, but have focused enforcement on abortion providers. The exception is older laws in South Carolina, Oklahoma and Nevada. That could change if Roe is overturned and if illicit medication abortions become more common. In recent months, some states have moved to increase criminal penalties on prescribing, providing or delivering pills.
“It is not a codified crime to self-manage abortion” in all but those three states, said Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director for If/When/How, a reproductive rights policy and advocacy group. “But it is not lawful for a person to seek prescription medication without a prescription.”
What is the process like?
The first pill, mifepristone, typically has no discernible effect on patients. The second, misoprostol, taken 24 to 48 hours later, causes cramping and bleeding that builds in intensity, Dr. Rodriguez said.
The process lasts about six to eight hours, and is most intense for about one hour. She recommends patients stay home, without other obligations. Ibuprofen and a heating pad are also recommended, because the pain can be strong and the bleeding is much heavier than for a period. After the pregnancy has passed, the cramping and clotting stop, though women generally bleed, similar to a period, for about a week.
In rare cases, less than 1 percent of the time, a patient has heavier-than-expected bleeding and needs medical care. Similarly rarely, the abortion is not complete and needs to be followed up with another dose or a surgical abortion. Women who have these complications can be treated by a doctor with experience treating miscarriages; the symptoms and treatment are the same. Once a medication abortion is begun, it cannot be reversed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/09/upsh ... 778d3e6de3
Most abortions overseas involve pills, and the method is used in about half of legal U.S. abortions. It also seems to be the future of illicit abortion.
Medication abortions are considered as safe as surgical abortions administered by a doctor in a clinic.Credit...Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Taking pills to end a pregnancy accounts for a growing share of abortions in the United States, both legal and not. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade as expected, medication abortion will play a larger role, especially among women who lose access to abortion clinics.
What is medication abortion?
It’s a regimen of pills that women can take at home, a method increasingly used around the world.
The protocol approved for use in the United States includes two medications. The first one, mifepristone, blocks a hormone called progesterone that is necessary for a pregnancy to continue. The second, misoprostol, brings on uterine contractions.
When can it be used?
The Food and Drug Administration has approved medication abortion for up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. World Health Organization guidelines say it can be used up to 12 weeks at home, and after 12 weeks in a medical office.
Is it effective, and is it safe?
Yes on both counts.
In U.S. studies, the combination of these pills causes a complete abortion in more than 99 percent of patients, and is as safe as the traditional abortion procedure administered by a doctor in a clinic. A variety of research has found that medication abortion has low rates of adverse events, and a recent Lancet study found that patients are generally satisfied with it. Growing evidence from overseas suggests that abortion pills are safe even among women who do not have a doctor to advise them.
“Some people still assume we’re talking about something dangerous or done out of desperation, but increasingly this information is becoming more mainstream,” said Abigail R.A. Aiken, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin who leads a research group there on medication abortion.
Who uses this method?
About half of people who get legal abortions in the United States (and three-quarters in Europe). During the pandemic, medication abortion became more common because patients wanted to avoid going to clinics in person, and a change in federal law made it easier for them to get prescriptions via telemedicine.
It usually comes down to patients’ personal preference, said Dr. Maria Isabel Rodriguez, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health and Sciences University, who has worked on abortion research and policy design. “Some people like surgical, because it’s over with faster, they’re able to have anesthesia, and it’s finished in a defined time,” she said. “Medication can feel more private, some want it at their own home, some say it feels more natural for them, and some say it feels more possible to process a loss.”
Medication abortion is also used illicitly by those who live in a place that restricts legal abortion or by those who can’t reach a clinic. The U.S. abortion rate is higher than officially reported by doctors, evidence suggests, because people are ordering pills online. That invisible abortion rate may rise if more states move to ban abortion — bans would apply to both surgical and medication abortions.
Who prescribes abortion pills?
Doctors with a special registration required by the F.D.A.
But it recently lifted rules that required an in-person appointment. That means more providers are offering medication abortions through telemedicine. The doctor and patient meet online, then the doctor sends pills to the patient’s home through the mail. (Some brick-and-mortar pharmacies have become certified to fill prescriptions for the pills, but this is not yet common.
New start-ups that specialize in telemedicine abortions, like Hey Jane and Just the Pill, have begun offering the service in states that allow it. But 19 states prohibit pills from being prescribed by telemedicine or delivered via mail. In those places, patients still need to see a doctor in person to pick up the pills. Other states ban medication abortion after a certain number of weeks.
How will looming state abortion restrictions affect medication abortions?
If Roe is overturned, about half of states are expected to ban abortion altogether. Those laws will affect all abortion methods, including procedural abortions and pills.
What about pills from overseas?
Online pharmacies overseas sell the pills. An organization called Aid Access offers women in all 50 states advice and prescriptions from European doctors before shipping pills from India. These extralegal channels are becoming more popular as abortion becomes harder to access in some states. After Texas enacted a law in September that banned abortion after about six weeks, requests to Aid Access for abortion pills tripled.
The F.D.A. has asked these groups to stop sales of these medications into the United States, saying they circumvent U.S. drug safety protocols. But researchers who have analyzed the pills in laboratories have found that pills ordered using these services are generally authentic.
The second of the two medications in the official regimen, misoprostol, can also end a pregnancy when used alone. It is around 80 percent effective on its own, although it sometimes has to be taken more than once. That pill is also used to treat ulcers, and is available over the counter in many countries, including Mexico. But the only F.D.A.-approved method in the United States is to use both pills.
The Issue of Abortion Around the World
Card 1 of 8
An evolving landscape. Women’s access to abortion continues to be debated around the globe. Here’s a look at the state of affairs in some countries:
Colombia. The country’s top court decriminalized abortion in 2022, making it the third major Latin American nation to allow access to the procedure. The decision paves the way for abortions to become widely available across this historically conservative, Catholic country.
Guatemala. After lawmakers passed a sweeping new bill mandating up to 10 years of jail time for women who obtain abortions, protests erupted. A few days later, in an abrupt reversal that surprised analysts, President Alejandro Giammattei said he would veto the bill.
Mexico. In 2021, Mexico’s Supreme Court issued a historic decision that decriminalized abortion. The move set a legal precedent for the nation, but applying it to all of Mexico’s states will be a long path, and several challenges remain.
Poland. The country is one of the few that has moved to restrict abortion in recent years. A near-total ban went into effect in January 2021, fueling discontent among those who believe human freedoms are being eroded under the increasingly autocratic Law and Justice Party.
China. The country’s central government said last Septemberthat it intended to reduce the prevalence of “medically unnecessary” abortions. In recent years, China has been focusing its efforts toward promoting childbirth and slowing the population’s aging.
Thailand. The Thai Parliament voted in 2021 to make abortion legal in the first trimester, while keeping penalties in place for women who undergo it later in their pregnancies. Advocates say the measure doesn’t go far enough.
Argentina. In 2020, the country became the largest nation in Latin America to legalize abortion — a landmark vote in a conservative region and a victory for a grass-roots movement that turned years of rallies into political power.
Are pills from overseas legal?
No. It is illegal to sell prescription medicine to Americans without a prescription from a doctor licensed in the United States. But enforcement of overseas providers has been uncommon, as it is with other medications Americans order from abroad. And sales would be hard to stop because the medications generally come in unmarked packages in the mail.
“I’m not there, so I don’t have any legal risk,” said Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, the Dutch physician who runs Aid Access, and says she has lawyers advising her, both at home and in the United States. “I know from where I am, I am complying with the law.”
In general, recent state laws do not punish women for obtaining abortions, but have focused enforcement on abortion providers. The exception is older laws in South Carolina, Oklahoma and Nevada. That could change if Roe is overturned and if illicit medication abortions become more common. In recent months, some states have moved to increase criminal penalties on prescribing, providing or delivering pills.
“It is not a codified crime to self-manage abortion” in all but those three states, said Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director for If/When/How, a reproductive rights policy and advocacy group. “But it is not lawful for a person to seek prescription medication without a prescription.”
What is the process like?
The first pill, mifepristone, typically has no discernible effect on patients. The second, misoprostol, taken 24 to 48 hours later, causes cramping and bleeding that builds in intensity, Dr. Rodriguez said.
The process lasts about six to eight hours, and is most intense for about one hour. She recommends patients stay home, without other obligations. Ibuprofen and a heating pad are also recommended, because the pain can be strong and the bleeding is much heavier than for a period. After the pregnancy has passed, the cramping and clotting stop, though women generally bleed, similar to a period, for about a week.
In rare cases, less than 1 percent of the time, a patient has heavier-than-expected bleeding and needs medical care. Similarly rarely, the abortion is not complete and needs to be followed up with another dose or a surgical abortion. Women who have these complications can be treated by a doctor with experience treating miscarriages; the symptoms and treatment are the same. Once a medication abortion is begun, it cannot be reversed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/09/upsh ... 778d3e6de3
In overturning Roe, the Supreme Court rejects the myth of ‘bodily autonomy’
By Tish Harrison Warren
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” the Supreme Court declared on Friday in its majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It boggles the mind, really. The fight over abortion that has raged as long as I can remember has taken a decisive turn. The broad spectrum of emotions in reaction to this decision — from outrage to jubilation and everything in between — will be on full display for weeks and months to come. Our feelings about this decision matter. But it is also critical that we continue to examine and clarify the merits of the arguments about abortion.
“Bodily autonomy” has become a chief argument against abortion restrictions. Referring to abortion restrictions as “forced birth” is common among abortion rights advocates. Julie Rikelman, who argued in favor of abortion rights in the Dobbs oral arguments at the Supreme Court, stated that the right to an abortion is grounded in “liberty,” which includes the right “to physical autonomy, including the right to end a pre-viability pregnancy.” The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs rightly rejects the idea that rights to bodily autonomy are expansive and absolute, and therefore make abortion rights necessary.
Of course, injustice is often writ large on bodies. And injustice against women in particular is often manifest as a lack of power over our own bodies. We see this in myriad ways. A 2021 United Nations report found that nearly half of all women in 57 developing countries are denied bodily autonomy, with violations including rape, forced sterilization, virginity testing and female genital mutilation. In American culture, women’s bodies are often viewed as primarily valuable only for their sex appeal and beauty. Violence is a constant threat to women’s bodies, with one in five women experiencing completed or attempted rape during their lifetime and nearly one in four women experiencing domestic violence. To have a just society, we must have protection of and safety for female bodies, and women — like men — need to be able to make decisions about their own bodies.
Yet the way we understand and define bodily autonomy has profound implications in our debates about abortion and in how we understand what justice for women looks like. The Dobbs Supreme Court decision recognized that there is no inherent right to abortion that flows from a commitment to liberty or autonomy, in part because “abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledged, because it destroys what those decisions called ‘fetal life’ and what the law now before us describes as an ‘unborn human being.’”
Here are three ways that I find abortion rights arguments that appeal to bodily autonomy unpersuasive and ultimately harmful to our understanding of freedom and what it means to be human:
1. Bodily autonomy is limited by our obligation to not harm others. We already recognize in law that there are limits to physical autonomy. One can’t walk down the street naked, even if one really wants to, or go 75 miles an hour in a school zone, even if slowing down poses a burden on the driver.
These limits came up in the Dobbs oral arguments. Twice, Justice Clarence Thomas brought up a case where a woman was convicted of child neglect for ingesting harmful illegal drugs while pregnant. The Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Dobbs addresses this as well, saying that an appeal to autonomy, “at a high level of generality, could license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like.” Our desires to do as we wish with our bodies must be respected but they also must be limited by the needs and rights of others, including those who live inside our own bodies.
2. The term “autonomy” denies the deep interdependence and limitations of every human body. One definition of autonomy is “independence.” But no human has complete bodily autonomy from birth to death. The natural state of human beings is to be deeply and irrevocably interdependent on one another. The only reason any of us is alive today is that someone cared for us as children in the womb and then as infants and toddlers. Almost all of us, through age or disability or both, will eventually depend on other human beings — other human bodies — to bathe, dress, feed and otherwise care for us.
A child in the womb is dependent on a mother for life in a way that does place a unique burden on a mother. But this burden does not end at birth. Parenthood — at any stage — is an arduous good. A 1-year-old baby is dependent on adults for nourishment, protection and care in ways that can be profoundly burdensome, yet we cannot claim “bodily autonomy” as a reason to neglect the needs of a 1-year-old. Abortion seems to punish a fetus for its lack of bodily autonomy and deny the profound reliance that all of us who have bodies hold.
With this deep interdependence that we all share come obligations to one another. We do not always choose the ways our bodies are dependent on others. And we often do not choose the obligations placed on our lives by others who are dependent on us. Covid threw in sharp relief ways that our bodies and our bodily health depend on the choices of other people. I’ve criticized those on the right for casting a choice about whether to get a Covid vaccine as entirely an individual decision. This kind of individualistic rhetoric is the very logic of autonomy — that people can do what they want with their own bodies without regarding their obligations to others. But human bodies, unlike machines, simply aren’t autonomous. Our choices about our own bodies impact the bodies around us.
3. The pressing issue when it comes to abortion is whether championing “bodily autonomy” requires us to override or undo biological realities. In the Dobbs oral arguments, Julie Rikelman described what women experience if they lack access to abortion: “Allowing a state to take control of a woman’s body and force her to undergo the physical demands, risks and life-altering consequences of pregnancy is a fundamental deprivation of her liberty.”
But is restricting abortion the same thing as forced gestation? Is it correct to compare abortion restrictions to a state “taking control” of a woman’s body and a deprivation of liberty?
Whatever one thinks sex is and what it is for — whether a sacred act or a mere recreational pleasure — all of us can agree that sex is the only human activity that has the power to create life and that every potentially procreative sexual act therefore carries some level of risk that pregnancy could occur. (Birth control significantly lessens this risk but does not entirely take it away since birth control methods can fail.) Yet, the state does not impose this risk of producing human life; biology does. Except in the horrible circumstances of rape or incest, which account for 1 percent of abortions, women and men both have bodily agency and choices about whether they will have sex and therefore if they are willing to accept the risk of new life inherent in it.
Our bodies undeniably place a disproportional burden on women in reproduction. There is an inescapable asymmetry in male and female bodies when it comes to making and carrying life. To address the particular difficulty that pregnancy places on women, we need to hold fathers more responsible through child support laws. And we need to create a culture that does not shame women for unintended pregnancies but supports them through pro-women policies like paid parental leave, access to affordable child care, free health care and other measures. Yet, the state, in the end, cannot and ought not entirely rescue us from the known realities of human biology.
A sperm and an egg unite to grow into a human inside the body of a woman. The state doesn’t force this to happen any more than it forces aging or forces weight loss from exercise or forces lungs to take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide.
To use language of forced gestation or of a state “controlling” women’s bodies is to portray biology itself as oppressive and halting the natural course of the body as the liberative role of the state.
For both men and women, bodily autonomy can’t mean that we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, with our own bodies without natural consequences or obligations to others. If this is what we mean by “autonomy,” then no one can champion bodily autonomy without ultimately advocating harm.
I recently came across a blog post by the literature scholar Alan Jacobs, describing Simone Weil’s insistence that “if we need a collective declaration of human rights, we also, and perhaps more desperately, need a declaration of human obligations.” I find this beautiful. Speaking as a woman, with a woman’s body, I want safety and freedom for all women. I want women to be full participants and empowered leaders in public life. I believe we, as human beings and image bearers of God, have a right to bodily integrity, protection and liberty.
But these rights also carry obligations to others, perhaps especially to those vulnerable bodies that depend on us. This is the heart of the question about abortion: What are our obligations to one another? We have an obligation to unborn children. We have an obligation to seek women’s safety and flourishing. For too long these obligations have been pitted against each other, but they need not be and, to move forward, we must create a world where they never are.
Have feedback? Send me a note at [email protected].
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” the Supreme Court declared on Friday in its majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It boggles the mind, really. The fight over abortion that has raged as long as I can remember has taken a decisive turn. The broad spectrum of emotions in reaction to this decision — from outrage to jubilation and everything in between — will be on full display for weeks and months to come. Our feelings about this decision matter. But it is also critical that we continue to examine and clarify the merits of the arguments about abortion.
“Bodily autonomy” has become a chief argument against abortion restrictions. Referring to abortion restrictions as “forced birth” is common among abortion rights advocates. Julie Rikelman, who argued in favor of abortion rights in the Dobbs oral arguments at the Supreme Court, stated that the right to an abortion is grounded in “liberty,” which includes the right “to physical autonomy, including the right to end a pre-viability pregnancy.” The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs rightly rejects the idea that rights to bodily autonomy are expansive and absolute, and therefore make abortion rights necessary.
Of course, injustice is often writ large on bodies. And injustice against women in particular is often manifest as a lack of power over our own bodies. We see this in myriad ways. A 2021 United Nations report found that nearly half of all women in 57 developing countries are denied bodily autonomy, with violations including rape, forced sterilization, virginity testing and female genital mutilation. In American culture, women’s bodies are often viewed as primarily valuable only for their sex appeal and beauty. Violence is a constant threat to women’s bodies, with one in five women experiencing completed or attempted rape during their lifetime and nearly one in four women experiencing domestic violence. To have a just society, we must have protection of and safety for female bodies, and women — like men — need to be able to make decisions about their own bodies.
Yet the way we understand and define bodily autonomy has profound implications in our debates about abortion and in how we understand what justice for women looks like. The Dobbs Supreme Court decision recognized that there is no inherent right to abortion that flows from a commitment to liberty or autonomy, in part because “abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledged, because it destroys what those decisions called ‘fetal life’ and what the law now before us describes as an ‘unborn human being.’”
Here are three ways that I find abortion rights arguments that appeal to bodily autonomy unpersuasive and ultimately harmful to our understanding of freedom and what it means to be human:
1. Bodily autonomy is limited by our obligation to not harm others. We already recognize in law that there are limits to physical autonomy. One can’t walk down the street naked, even if one really wants to, or go 75 miles an hour in a school zone, even if slowing down poses a burden on the driver.
These limits came up in the Dobbs oral arguments. Twice, Justice Clarence Thomas brought up a case where a woman was convicted of child neglect for ingesting harmful illegal drugs while pregnant. The Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Dobbs addresses this as well, saying that an appeal to autonomy, “at a high level of generality, could license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like.” Our desires to do as we wish with our bodies must be respected but they also must be limited by the needs and rights of others, including those who live inside our own bodies.
2. The term “autonomy” denies the deep interdependence and limitations of every human body. One definition of autonomy is “independence.” But no human has complete bodily autonomy from birth to death. The natural state of human beings is to be deeply and irrevocably interdependent on one another. The only reason any of us is alive today is that someone cared for us as children in the womb and then as infants and toddlers. Almost all of us, through age or disability or both, will eventually depend on other human beings — other human bodies — to bathe, dress, feed and otherwise care for us.
A child in the womb is dependent on a mother for life in a way that does place a unique burden on a mother. But this burden does not end at birth. Parenthood — at any stage — is an arduous good. A 1-year-old baby is dependent on adults for nourishment, protection and care in ways that can be profoundly burdensome, yet we cannot claim “bodily autonomy” as a reason to neglect the needs of a 1-year-old. Abortion seems to punish a fetus for its lack of bodily autonomy and deny the profound reliance that all of us who have bodies hold.
With this deep interdependence that we all share come obligations to one another. We do not always choose the ways our bodies are dependent on others. And we often do not choose the obligations placed on our lives by others who are dependent on us. Covid threw in sharp relief ways that our bodies and our bodily health depend on the choices of other people. I’ve criticized those on the right for casting a choice about whether to get a Covid vaccine as entirely an individual decision. This kind of individualistic rhetoric is the very logic of autonomy — that people can do what they want with their own bodies without regarding their obligations to others. But human bodies, unlike machines, simply aren’t autonomous. Our choices about our own bodies impact the bodies around us.
3. The pressing issue when it comes to abortion is whether championing “bodily autonomy” requires us to override or undo biological realities. In the Dobbs oral arguments, Julie Rikelman described what women experience if they lack access to abortion: “Allowing a state to take control of a woman’s body and force her to undergo the physical demands, risks and life-altering consequences of pregnancy is a fundamental deprivation of her liberty.”
But is restricting abortion the same thing as forced gestation? Is it correct to compare abortion restrictions to a state “taking control” of a woman’s body and a deprivation of liberty?
Whatever one thinks sex is and what it is for — whether a sacred act or a mere recreational pleasure — all of us can agree that sex is the only human activity that has the power to create life and that every potentially procreative sexual act therefore carries some level of risk that pregnancy could occur. (Birth control significantly lessens this risk but does not entirely take it away since birth control methods can fail.) Yet, the state does not impose this risk of producing human life; biology does. Except in the horrible circumstances of rape or incest, which account for 1 percent of abortions, women and men both have bodily agency and choices about whether they will have sex and therefore if they are willing to accept the risk of new life inherent in it.
Our bodies undeniably place a disproportional burden on women in reproduction. There is an inescapable asymmetry in male and female bodies when it comes to making and carrying life. To address the particular difficulty that pregnancy places on women, we need to hold fathers more responsible through child support laws. And we need to create a culture that does not shame women for unintended pregnancies but supports them through pro-women policies like paid parental leave, access to affordable child care, free health care and other measures. Yet, the state, in the end, cannot and ought not entirely rescue us from the known realities of human biology.
A sperm and an egg unite to grow into a human inside the body of a woman. The state doesn’t force this to happen any more than it forces aging or forces weight loss from exercise or forces lungs to take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide.
To use language of forced gestation or of a state “controlling” women’s bodies is to portray biology itself as oppressive and halting the natural course of the body as the liberative role of the state.
For both men and women, bodily autonomy can’t mean that we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, with our own bodies without natural consequences or obligations to others. If this is what we mean by “autonomy,” then no one can champion bodily autonomy without ultimately advocating harm.
I recently came across a blog post by the literature scholar Alan Jacobs, describing Simone Weil’s insistence that “if we need a collective declaration of human rights, we also, and perhaps more desperately, need a declaration of human obligations.” I find this beautiful. Speaking as a woman, with a woman’s body, I want safety and freedom for all women. I want women to be full participants and empowered leaders in public life. I believe we, as human beings and image bearers of God, have a right to bodily integrity, protection and liberty.
But these rights also carry obligations to others, perhaps especially to those vulnerable bodies that depend on us. This is the heart of the question about abortion: What are our obligations to one another? We have an obligation to unborn children. We have an obligation to seek women’s safety and flourishing. For too long these obligations have been pitted against each other, but they need not be and, to move forward, we must create a world where they never are.
Have feedback? Send me a note at [email protected].
Re: Abortion in Ismaili Religion
After Ruling, University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System Pauses I.V.F. Procedures
The U.A.B. system said it was worried about potential criminal prosecutions after Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system has paused in vitro fertilization treatments after the State Supreme Court, pictured here, ruled that frozen embryos in test tubes should be considered children. Credit...Kim Chandler/Associated Press
The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system announced on Wednesday that it was pausing in vitro fertilization treatments as it evaluated the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos should be considered children.
“We are saddened that this will impact our patients’ attempt to have a baby through I.V.F.,” a statement from the health system said, “but we must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for I.V.F. treatments.”
The health system’s Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility will continue performing egg retrievals from women seeking fertility treatment, the statement said, but it will not undertake the next steps in the process — combining the eggs with sperm in a lab for fertilization, and allowing embryos to develop — for now.
“Everything through egg retrieval remains in place,” the statement said. “Egg fertilization and embryo development is paused.”
In response to a question, a spokesperson for the health system said that embryo implantation procedures, the final part of the I.V.F. process, had also been paused.
The health system includes the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital, the largest hospital in the state and, according to its website, among the 20 “largest and best equipped” hospitals in the country.
Thumbnail of page 1
Read the Alabama Supreme Court’s Ruling
The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children.
READ DOCUMENT https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... uling.html
The decision by U.A.B. comes just five days after the Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling saying that frozen embryos in test tubes should be considered children.
The ruling stemmed from appeals cases brought by couples whose embryos were destroyed in 2020 when a hospital patient removed frozen embryos from tanks of liquid nitrogen in Mobile, Ala., and dropped them on the floor.
The ruling referenced the antiabortion language in Alabama’s Constitution, saying that an 1872 statute allowing parents to sue over the wrongful death of a minor child applies to “unborn children,” with no exception for “extrauterine children.”
“Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory,” Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote in a concurring opinion.
It has become standard medical protocol during in vitro fertilization to extract as many eggs as possible from a woman, and then fertilize them to create embryos. One or two embryos are typically transferred into the uterus to maximize the chances of successful implantation and a full-term pregnancy; the others are frozen for possible future use.
The ruling sent shock waves through the world of reproductive medicine, as infertility specialists and legal experts took measure of the potential effects on access to in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said that the ruling was going to cause “exactly the type of chaos that we expected when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for politicians to dictate some of the most personal decisions families can make.”
From 2017 to 2019, 10 percent of American women ages 15 to 44 said they had received some form of fertility service, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2021, assisted reproductive technology, which includes I.V.F, accounted for 91,906 births in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Alabama, 1,219 procedures using assisted reproductive technology were performed in 2021, according to the C.D.C.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/us/u ... 778d3e6de3
The U.A.B. system said it was worried about potential criminal prosecutions after Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system has paused in vitro fertilization treatments after the State Supreme Court, pictured here, ruled that frozen embryos in test tubes should be considered children. Credit...Kim Chandler/Associated Press
The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system announced on Wednesday that it was pausing in vitro fertilization treatments as it evaluated the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos should be considered children.
“We are saddened that this will impact our patients’ attempt to have a baby through I.V.F.,” a statement from the health system said, “but we must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for I.V.F. treatments.”
The health system’s Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility will continue performing egg retrievals from women seeking fertility treatment, the statement said, but it will not undertake the next steps in the process — combining the eggs with sperm in a lab for fertilization, and allowing embryos to develop — for now.
“Everything through egg retrieval remains in place,” the statement said. “Egg fertilization and embryo development is paused.”
In response to a question, a spokesperson for the health system said that embryo implantation procedures, the final part of the I.V.F. process, had also been paused.
The health system includes the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital, the largest hospital in the state and, according to its website, among the 20 “largest and best equipped” hospitals in the country.
Thumbnail of page 1
Read the Alabama Supreme Court’s Ruling
The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children.
READ DOCUMENT https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... uling.html
The decision by U.A.B. comes just five days after the Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling saying that frozen embryos in test tubes should be considered children.
The ruling stemmed from appeals cases brought by couples whose embryos were destroyed in 2020 when a hospital patient removed frozen embryos from tanks of liquid nitrogen in Mobile, Ala., and dropped them on the floor.
The ruling referenced the antiabortion language in Alabama’s Constitution, saying that an 1872 statute allowing parents to sue over the wrongful death of a minor child applies to “unborn children,” with no exception for “extrauterine children.”
“Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory,” Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote in a concurring opinion.
It has become standard medical protocol during in vitro fertilization to extract as many eggs as possible from a woman, and then fertilize them to create embryos. One or two embryos are typically transferred into the uterus to maximize the chances of successful implantation and a full-term pregnancy; the others are frozen for possible future use.
The ruling sent shock waves through the world of reproductive medicine, as infertility specialists and legal experts took measure of the potential effects on access to in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said that the ruling was going to cause “exactly the type of chaos that we expected when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for politicians to dictate some of the most personal decisions families can make.”
From 2017 to 2019, 10 percent of American women ages 15 to 44 said they had received some form of fertility service, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2021, assisted reproductive technology, which includes I.V.F, accounted for 91,906 births in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Alabama, 1,219 procedures using assisted reproductive technology were performed in 2021, according to the C.D.C.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/us/u ... 778d3e6de3
Re: Abortion in Ismaili Religion
French Lawmakers Enshrine Access to Abortion in Constitution
Legislators passed an amendment giving women the “guaranteed freedom” to end their pregnancies, which experts called a global first.
Video: https://nyti.ms/3QwQEcu
Lawmakers and crowds of supporters cheered as France became the first country in the world to explicitly protect access to abortion in its Constitution.CreditCredit...Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via Shutterstock
French legislators on Monday voted to explicitly enshrine access to abortion in the Constitution, making their country the first in the world to do so.
Acutely aware that they were breaking historical ground from the grand assembly room inside Versailles Palace, the politicians delivered impassioned speeches about women’s rights around the world, paid homage to the courageous Frenchwomen who had fought for abortion rights when it was illegal and leaped up time and again to offer standing ovations.
“We are sending the message to all women: Your body belongs to you and no one has the right to control it in your stead,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said, before the gathered lawmakers voted 780-72 for the amendment.
The amendment declares abortion to be a “guaranteed freedom,” overseen by Parliament’s laws. That means future governments will not be able to “drastically modify” the current laws funding abortion for women who seek one, up to 14 weeks into their pregnancies, according to the French justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti.
Amending the Constitution is not without precedent in France; the current Constitution has been modified over 20 times since it was adopted in 1958. But it is rare. Lawmakers last amended it in 2008.
The motivation for the latest change was the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, an issue raised repeatedly by legislators. But the move also reflects the widespread support for abortion in France, and a successful campaign by a coalition of feminist activists and lawmakers from multiple parties.
“France is showing the right to abortion is no longer an option, it’s a condition of our democracy,” said Mélanie Vogel, a Green Party senator and major force behind the bill.
Image
People gathered at Trocadéro Square in Paris to watch live coverage of the voting on Monday.Credit...Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
Ms. Vogel said in an interview, “I want to send a message to feminists outside of France. Everyone told me a year ago it was impossible.” She added: “Nothing is impossible when you mobilize society.”
The Vatican and the French Conference of Bishops opposed the amendment, as did anti-abortion activist groups. But in France, a country where calls to protest regularly bring hundreds of thousands to the streets, opposition was notably scarce.
Instead, hundreds of Parisians gathered Monday afternoon in Trocadéro Square to watch the vote broadcast on a large screen. “We hope it guarantees our rights, especially in the face of the terrifying threat of the extreme right,” said Yanna Antigny-Fernandes, 21, moments before the final count was declared, to the sound of celebratory screams and Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls).”
“It’s Simone de Beauvoir who said that women’s rights were the first freedoms to be attacked.”
With the vote, France became the first country in the world to explicitly write access to abortion into its Constitution, according to five constitutional experts.
“It’s not stating reproductive choices or the right to have children; it’s a very different language when you say access to abortion,” said Anna Sledzinska-Simon, a professor of comparative constitutions and human rights law at the University of Wroclaw in Poland. “The French are calling it by its name — that’s crucial.”
Constitutional experts say the amendment broadens the mold of France’s fundamental text, written by men for men.
“It’s a big milestone, because it goes to the very foundation of this idea that constitutions were about men’s autonomy,” said Ruth Rubio-Marín, author of a book on gender and constitutions, noting that historically women were only defined as “breeders and caretakers.”
Image
“We are sending the message to all women: Your body belongs to you and no one has the right to control it in your stead,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.Credit...Stephanie Lecocq/Reuters
Other constitutions, like Ecuador’s, have been broadened to include things like support for caregiving and the equal division of domestic work. But they often remain aspirational, said Ms. Rubio-Marín, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Seville in Spain.
“That this is happening in the Old World, in an established democracy where the constitution is taken seriously — in that way, it’s historic,” she said.
The fight for legal abortion in France burst into public view in 1971, when 343 Frenchwomen signed a manifesto written by the French feminist Simone de Beauvoir declaring that they had undertaken clandestine, illegal abortions and demanding that the law change.
Four years later, a female minister, Simone Veil, successfully pushed through a temporary law decriminalizing abortions.
Throughout Monday’s special legislative session, lawmakers paid tribute to Ms. Veil, as well as Gisèle Halimi, the former lawyer whose defense of a 16-year-old student who had endured an illegal abortion after having been raped led to her acquittal in 1972.
“We have followed in your footsteps and like you, we succeeded,” said Senator Laurence Rossignol, a former women’s rights minister. She added that French feminists would continue to fight internationally against “those who resist,” citing politicians including Donald J. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
“Liberty, equality, fraternity,” she said, citing France’s national motto. “And, if I could add, sorority.”
Over the past five decades, the law assuring abortion rights has continually been expanded, to the point that it is now considered among the most liberal in Europe. It includes the right to fully funded abortions for women and minors up to the 14th week of pregnancy upon request, with no waiting period or required counseling sessions.
Later abortions are permitted if the pregnancy is deemed a risk to the woman’s physical or psychological health or if the fetus presents certain anomalies.
After the Covid pandemic hit, France quickly ensured that women seeking abortions could receive medical consultations virtually, said Laura Rahm, a researcher at Central European University, in Vienna, who examined access to abortion in France for a five-year European study.
“A system always shines or cracks when it’s put under pressure,” she said. The French system had clearly shone, she said.
Still, studies show that 17 percent of women travel outside their home regions — known as departments in France — for abortion services, sometimes because of a growing shortage of medical facilities locally.
While the law states that women should have a choice of medical or surgical abortions, in practice that’s often not the case, said Sarah Durocher, national co-president of Le Planning Familial, a French equivalent of Planned Parenthood.
Image
Anti-abortion demonstrators in Versailles on Monday.Credit...Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Putting the “guaranteed freedom” to have an abortion in the Constitution means that will have to change, she said.
“This will give birth to other things,” said Ms. Durocher, noting that 130 centers offering abortion had closed in France over the past decade. “For example, real policies so there is effective access to abortion.”
Despite the new amendment, French feminists say France remains a male-dominated society where sexism persists. Settling into her perch overseeing the session as the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet noted that she was the first woman in French history to preside over such a gathering, a congress of both houses of Parliament.
But unlike in the United States, the issue of abortion in France is not politically charged or highly divisive. Instead, most French people believe abortion is a basic public health service and a woman’s right. A recent 29-country survey showed France with the second-highest support for legalized abortion in the world, after Sweden.
But attempts to introduce abortion into the Constitution had failed before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The decision drove French lawmakers to safeguard the practice, presenting multiple bills within months. Last year, the French government introduced its own bill seeking to enshrine it in the Constitution.
Just last week, members of a coalition of lawmakers and feminist organizations feared that the Senate, dominated by conservatives, might derail the amendment, but it passed.
“We managed to create this environment, where if you voted against this change, it meant you wanted to maintain the right as a legislator to potentially prohibit abortion in the future,” said Ms. Vogel. “So if you are not against abortion, you had no reason not to vote in favor of it.”
She added, “That narrative penetrated society.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Legislators passed an amendment giving women the “guaranteed freedom” to end their pregnancies, which experts called a global first.
Video: https://nyti.ms/3QwQEcu
Lawmakers and crowds of supporters cheered as France became the first country in the world to explicitly protect access to abortion in its Constitution.CreditCredit...Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via Shutterstock
French legislators on Monday voted to explicitly enshrine access to abortion in the Constitution, making their country the first in the world to do so.
Acutely aware that they were breaking historical ground from the grand assembly room inside Versailles Palace, the politicians delivered impassioned speeches about women’s rights around the world, paid homage to the courageous Frenchwomen who had fought for abortion rights when it was illegal and leaped up time and again to offer standing ovations.
“We are sending the message to all women: Your body belongs to you and no one has the right to control it in your stead,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said, before the gathered lawmakers voted 780-72 for the amendment.
The amendment declares abortion to be a “guaranteed freedom,” overseen by Parliament’s laws. That means future governments will not be able to “drastically modify” the current laws funding abortion for women who seek one, up to 14 weeks into their pregnancies, according to the French justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti.
Amending the Constitution is not without precedent in France; the current Constitution has been modified over 20 times since it was adopted in 1958. But it is rare. Lawmakers last amended it in 2008.
The motivation for the latest change was the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, an issue raised repeatedly by legislators. But the move also reflects the widespread support for abortion in France, and a successful campaign by a coalition of feminist activists and lawmakers from multiple parties.
“France is showing the right to abortion is no longer an option, it’s a condition of our democracy,” said Mélanie Vogel, a Green Party senator and major force behind the bill.
Image
People gathered at Trocadéro Square in Paris to watch live coverage of the voting on Monday.Credit...Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
Ms. Vogel said in an interview, “I want to send a message to feminists outside of France. Everyone told me a year ago it was impossible.” She added: “Nothing is impossible when you mobilize society.”
The Vatican and the French Conference of Bishops opposed the amendment, as did anti-abortion activist groups. But in France, a country where calls to protest regularly bring hundreds of thousands to the streets, opposition was notably scarce.
Instead, hundreds of Parisians gathered Monday afternoon in Trocadéro Square to watch the vote broadcast on a large screen. “We hope it guarantees our rights, especially in the face of the terrifying threat of the extreme right,” said Yanna Antigny-Fernandes, 21, moments before the final count was declared, to the sound of celebratory screams and Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls).”
“It’s Simone de Beauvoir who said that women’s rights were the first freedoms to be attacked.”
With the vote, France became the first country in the world to explicitly write access to abortion into its Constitution, according to five constitutional experts.
“It’s not stating reproductive choices or the right to have children; it’s a very different language when you say access to abortion,” said Anna Sledzinska-Simon, a professor of comparative constitutions and human rights law at the University of Wroclaw in Poland. “The French are calling it by its name — that’s crucial.”
Constitutional experts say the amendment broadens the mold of France’s fundamental text, written by men for men.
“It’s a big milestone, because it goes to the very foundation of this idea that constitutions were about men’s autonomy,” said Ruth Rubio-Marín, author of a book on gender and constitutions, noting that historically women were only defined as “breeders and caretakers.”
Image
“We are sending the message to all women: Your body belongs to you and no one has the right to control it in your stead,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.Credit...Stephanie Lecocq/Reuters
Other constitutions, like Ecuador’s, have been broadened to include things like support for caregiving and the equal division of domestic work. But they often remain aspirational, said Ms. Rubio-Marín, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Seville in Spain.
“That this is happening in the Old World, in an established democracy where the constitution is taken seriously — in that way, it’s historic,” she said.
The fight for legal abortion in France burst into public view in 1971, when 343 Frenchwomen signed a manifesto written by the French feminist Simone de Beauvoir declaring that they had undertaken clandestine, illegal abortions and demanding that the law change.
Four years later, a female minister, Simone Veil, successfully pushed through a temporary law decriminalizing abortions.
Throughout Monday’s special legislative session, lawmakers paid tribute to Ms. Veil, as well as Gisèle Halimi, the former lawyer whose defense of a 16-year-old student who had endured an illegal abortion after having been raped led to her acquittal in 1972.
“We have followed in your footsteps and like you, we succeeded,” said Senator Laurence Rossignol, a former women’s rights minister. She added that French feminists would continue to fight internationally against “those who resist,” citing politicians including Donald J. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
“Liberty, equality, fraternity,” she said, citing France’s national motto. “And, if I could add, sorority.”
Over the past five decades, the law assuring abortion rights has continually been expanded, to the point that it is now considered among the most liberal in Europe. It includes the right to fully funded abortions for women and minors up to the 14th week of pregnancy upon request, with no waiting period or required counseling sessions.
Later abortions are permitted if the pregnancy is deemed a risk to the woman’s physical or psychological health or if the fetus presents certain anomalies.
After the Covid pandemic hit, France quickly ensured that women seeking abortions could receive medical consultations virtually, said Laura Rahm, a researcher at Central European University, in Vienna, who examined access to abortion in France for a five-year European study.
“A system always shines or cracks when it’s put under pressure,” she said. The French system had clearly shone, she said.
Still, studies show that 17 percent of women travel outside their home regions — known as departments in France — for abortion services, sometimes because of a growing shortage of medical facilities locally.
While the law states that women should have a choice of medical or surgical abortions, in practice that’s often not the case, said Sarah Durocher, national co-president of Le Planning Familial, a French equivalent of Planned Parenthood.
Image
Anti-abortion demonstrators in Versailles on Monday.Credit...Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Putting the “guaranteed freedom” to have an abortion in the Constitution means that will have to change, she said.
“This will give birth to other things,” said Ms. Durocher, noting that 130 centers offering abortion had closed in France over the past decade. “For example, real policies so there is effective access to abortion.”
Despite the new amendment, French feminists say France remains a male-dominated society where sexism persists. Settling into her perch overseeing the session as the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet noted that she was the first woman in French history to preside over such a gathering, a congress of both houses of Parliament.
But unlike in the United States, the issue of abortion in France is not politically charged or highly divisive. Instead, most French people believe abortion is a basic public health service and a woman’s right. A recent 29-country survey showed France with the second-highest support for legalized abortion in the world, after Sweden.
But attempts to introduce abortion into the Constitution had failed before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The decision drove French lawmakers to safeguard the practice, presenting multiple bills within months. Last year, the French government introduced its own bill seeking to enshrine it in the Constitution.
Just last week, members of a coalition of lawmakers and feminist organizations feared that the Senate, dominated by conservatives, might derail the amendment, but it passed.
“We managed to create this environment, where if you voted against this change, it meant you wanted to maintain the right as a legislator to potentially prohibit abortion in the future,” said Ms. Vogel. “So if you are not against abortion, you had no reason not to vote in favor of it.”
She added, “That narrative penetrated society.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/worl ... 778d3e6de3