2008 Obama and Reproductive Rights
posted by on July 8 at 19:08 PM
Apropos of yesterday’s posts about Obama’s stated support of a ban on abortions after 22 weeks (and his stated opposition to a “mental distress” exemption to such a ban), here are some reactions from the excellent reproductive rights blog RHReality Check.
First up: A woman who actually had a late-term abortion has this to say about why women actually get such abortions (hint: It isn’t, to use Obama’s words, because she was “just feeling blue”):
I sat in my obstetrician’s office and listened without fully understanding as the doctor repeated the medical term “anencephaly” over and over in reference to the child I carried.More than a month later I sat in a university hospital with obstetrician number five as he patiently and painstakingly presented ultrasound scans from “normal” pregnancies and then scans from my own pregnancy. Each of the multiple anomalies present — omphalocele, spina bifida, anencephaly and others — were explained and, for the first time I fully understood why the child I already deeply loved and wanted would never survive outside of my womb.
Several days after that appointment my husband and I, in consultation with the doctor, made the decision that we would not attempt to carry to term and would terminate.
Because there were only potential and no immediate threats to my physical health, there are many who would stand in judgment of our family’s decision. To be honest, there are many who have and still do. One thing that has stood out, however, is the fact that other families who have faced similar choices — even those who made the opposite decision — have never wagged an accusatory finger in our direction. There’s something about the process of deciding between Option A and your child’s death, Option B and your child’s death or Option C and your child’s death that tends to put things in perspective. A perspective, it seems, of which Senator Obama has absolutely no understanding.
Next up: Amie Newman, a former staffer for the defunct First Hill clinic Aradia Women’s Health Center, tries to make sense of Obama’s opposition to a mental-health exemption in light of his stated support for the standards laid out in Roe v. Wade:
Last year, in a questionnaire on reproductive health issues sent out to all of the presidential candidates at that time, Barack Obama’s campaign had this to say to RH Reality Check:RH Reality Check: Does Sen. Obama support any restrictions on abortion, or does he believe it should be entirely up to women?Obama campaign: Obama supports those restrictions that are consistent with the legal framework outlined by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. [Clinton’s campaign, for those who are curious, said she supported legislation in the Senate that “consistent with Roe v. Wade, would have prohibited post-viability abortions except when, in the medical judgment of an attending physician, abortion is necessary to preserve the life or health of the woman.” That legislation included a mental-health exemption.]
Roe v. Wade allows the law to consider a woman’s mental health as well as her physical health when making decisions about late term abortion. Presumably, therefore, Obama should support the mental health exception as presented in Roe v. Wade. But that’s not what his recent comments suggested to many reporters, journalists and media outlets. […]
The “truth” that I’m looking for from Barack Obama, from John McCain, from all of our politicians - is not the one truth about these issues but their own truths.
Does Barack Obama now honestly believe that a small percentage of the already tiny percentage of women who undergo late term abortions, those who, under the advice of a skilled physician, decide that a D&X is the safest procedure, if a heart-wrenching one, for them, are somehow not broken enough to receive one?
More to the point: does Barack Obama’s truth point him towards erring on the side of giving women less control over their own health and bodies, while giving government more?
Next, Vicki Saporta of the National Abortion Rights Federation lays out the history of the health exemption to late-term abortion bans:
Contrary to the speculation of some abortion opponents, a woman does not obtain a later abortion simply because she’s “having a bad day.” These cases often involve severe fetal anomalies that can cause great emotional distress and be devastating to a woman’s psychological health.Historically, the Supreme Court has recognized the importance of women’s health, and 35 years ago, established that medical judgments should encompass emotional and psychological, as well as physical health factors.
However, last year the Supreme Court took a significant departure from previous rulings when it upheld a federal ban on certain abortion procedures that lacked an exception to protect the health of the woman in Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
This decision permits the government to interfere with a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy and effectively overturns a core tenet of Roe v. Wade by abandoning over 30 years of protection for women’s mental and physical health.
Finally, Frances Kissling, head of Catholics for a Free Choice and a prominent Obama supporter, decries his pandering and use of anti-choice code language:
To satisfy those opposed to all abortions, candidates are willing to make remarks that diminish women’s moral sensibilities as well as rights and feed into right wing anti-abortion beliefs that women and doctors will find a loophole to allow abortion under any circumstance at any time in pregnancy. For Obama to feed into that sentiment, even unwittingly, is unacceptable.Most pro-choice supporters, including me, believe some limits are reasonable especially if one believes that some balance between women’s autonomy and rights and fostering a soicety in which life in all its forms is respected would be wise. It would take more space than I have now to flesh that concept out but at a minimum, viewing abortion in the third trimester as an exception over which medical evaluation is appropriate is beyond the pale of pro-choice views.
Where the fuck did Obama say he supports a ban on abortions after 22 weeks? Do you know that you are freaking out over something that you misread into his comments, as opposed to something he actually said? I'm starting to think you are on the same journalistic level as the Fox "terrorist fist-jab" anchor, whoever she is.
I don't want to see any erosion on choice either, but I don't know where the fuck you are getting this. Someone please organize an intervention / reality check for Erica.
Nice red herring for a traditional fish slapping dance, other than that....
Given the law he was discussing we are talking about viable foetuses (or perhaps we should call them homunculi to satisfy those who believe in virgin birth and such).
Like it or not Roe v Wade sets out the issue as a balancing act between the rights of the foetus and the mother. The mother's right isn't absolute. It's not her decision per se. It's not just her body. At some point there are two individuals there, and that happens before birth, and the law needs to somehow balance both sets of rights. Anyone who can't get that far in the debate should be burned as a duck, oops, I mean a witch. I get confused because they weigh the same.
This is an easy case to build into the legislation, and perhaps I presume too much, but I sort of assumed Obama would take this into account.
The fact is Hillary did the same thing of pandering when she said she supported guns and hunters and over a year ago when she called abortion an "often tragic choice".
The fact is the Democrats support Roe and the Republican candidate does not. FDR didn't win and bring about the Democrat majority by campaigning as the furthest Left president ever and neither will Obama. The Left can whine and cry and threaten to sabotage his campaign because he supports civil unions (you know, like those centrist, sell-out counties France and the UK) and abortion rights in the first trimester but not our ideal......but persepective people, perspective. This is a nation that had sodomy laws on the books three years ago and where probably over 30 states would ban abortion outright if it were overturned. Let's try to get a candidate that accepts Roe as law of the land elected and stop nitpicking over minor details. You'll never have a candidate who is a Kucinich viable nationally......maybe some of you should have read Obama's book before you jumped to the conclusion he was somewhere left of Nader.
So far nobody but the usual Hillary dead enders are excited about this, uh, whatever it is. Scandal? Pretty much got it all to yourself. Stick with this dynamite and ECB is going to be seen as a real visionary.
Or not.
Vote McCain amirite?
I didn't see anywhere Obama saying that women have late-term abortions for frivolous reasons. He said he didn't support exceptions for frivolous reasons, not that such reasons are common. I assumed that was to poison the well for the the anti-choice crowd's straw man arguments.
This is not why the vast majority of late-term abortions are performed. Fetal health problems diagnosed late in pregnancy only account for 2% of late abortions (Alan Guttmacher Institute Study).
Late-term abortion isn't such a black and white issue that differing opinions are harmful. Obama stated his opinion. Big deal. Do any of you really see Obama challenging abortion laws as president? Come on, give it a break already.
@8: yes. Thank you.
I swear, Erica, you act like a McCain supporter.
Stop it already with Obama and abortion. This is the most disingenuous "reporting" of the issue for the second straight day. I looked to see if this is a story anywhere else and could find nothing. Because it is not a story - Obama hasn't changed his position; his positions are reasonable; he's got a 100% rating from NARAL; and nobody is outraged by the latest comments except some bitter HRC sore losers and a woman who aborted her messed up baby (note - she was able to get her precious abortion, good thing that happened before Obama was elected!)
Stop trying to hurt the Democratic candidate over such contrived parsing on an issue that is OVERWHELMINGLY more important for the Democratic position to prevail on Supreme Court appointments and the rest. Stop trying to sabotage Obama with false, trumpted up, exagerrated hyper scenarios. Everyone can see through it but it annoys the hell out of us anyway.
Does clintonsarmy have the day off? I haven't seen the posts today.
You know, you almost had me with this one, ECB. I'm very receptive to stories like that woman's. But after going back and actually reading what Obama said in the original interview, I'm calling bullshit. I think you are distorting what he said, and I think you're doing it on purpose. I think that's kind of, shall we say, dishonest.
22 weeks? Obama didn't say that. He didn't say any of the things you say he said, not in context. Even your "faith-based" outrage turns out, upon examination, to be so much milder than you made it out to be -- he doesn't want Jewish organizations to be forced to hire Catholics, or vice versa. You make it sound like he's the third coming of George W. Bush on the subject. But that's not only not true, it's into the realm of a DELIBERATE LIE.
There is precedent for flipping and flopping on this issue for political gain.
But Obama's not doing that.
"she was able to get her precious abortion"
"Everyone can see through it but it annoys the hell out of us anyway"
@10, thank you for that. It makes all this so worthwhile. (wipes little tear clinging precariously to the tip of his nose, saving it the ignoble fate of so many of the other slog induced tears of vengeful joy)
At least I don't slather make-up on my face like a trollop, you cunt.
I agree with the point many people are making in responses to this post and many others. He will be better than McCain. People who argue he wouldn't are loons. And if what Erica is saying or implying is the Obama will be a terrible president, and we should all sit this one one, then I disagree with her wholeheartedly.
On abortion, I don't think Obama would do anything other than support policy decisions which uphold a woman's right to choose.
What I am bothered by is that he seems to have a habit of making statements that seem very careless. What speechwriter or advisor would suggest you use the phrase "when she's feeling blue"? His statement doesn't make me think he's anti-choice, but it does make me think he doesn't understand the issue as fully as I wish he did.
I guess in all of this, I know ECB gets irate, and I guess maybe I feel for her when she does, because I feel a disappointment in him as a candidate. Not because he isn't Hillary Clinton or John Edwards or Joe Biden. But because he isn't what I wanted him to be. At times (not ALL the time, or even MOST of it), he slips and reminds me that he's just a politician like every other candidate, and that he's never really going to understand the realities of the lives of the people in this country who need him the most.
I am voting for him. I am encouraging my friends to vote for him. That doesn't mean I can't wish he were a better person.
Here is my 2 cents but unless you have a vagina you should have no say. I know it will never ever happen but I look forward to the day that the right for a WOMAN to choose is just that Her right. So unless you have a uterus and Obama and most of the Supreme Court doesn't they should leave Roe V. Wade alone and worry about more important things like What color Michelle will be painting the Presidential apartment.
@19
That's right, I forgot, the fetus is only carrying the WOMAN'S genes. How silly of me to misunderstand high school biology class. Because, all of you ignorant hicks, the fetus is the woman's property because it's in there for a whole 9 months and was created by only the woman.
Look, I respect pro-choice legislation when well thought out, reasoned, and appropriate, but your arguments about "only people with a uterus should decide" is ridiculous. Abortion is not a black and white, aka penis and uterus, issue. Far be it from me to bring you into the gray area, though.
1. Pls stop bashing HRC with no facts. Even Herbert in NYT is accusing Obama of lurching to the right. Many Obama supporters are saying yes great it's a great move to win! He's not going to get tagged as a KErry or a Dukakis or a McGovern, facts, history, logic, all that boring stuff explains it.
[Me: some of it I like for policy, some for tactics/message/innoculation, some of it I don't like. On the whole a wise move because we're talking about how centrist he is -- not about how he's an ACLU liberal or a radical or how if someone attacked and molested his child no, he wouldn't answer with a long discourse about why the death penalty is wrong, the way Dukakis did when asked what is someone attacked your wife, instead, Obama can now say "I'd have to stop myself from killing the guy and let the law do it."
2. Off topic:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/08/AR2008070802781.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Nice article on como se dice "pander" en espanol. Pandejo, he pandered??
But a title like "Latin Lovers"? Blatant ethnic stereotyping but for some reason is culturally okay to constantly tie Latin to spicy, hot, lovers, caliente, etc. Our notions of what is racist and what is okay are rather arbitrary at times.
3. Obama donors not giving to HRC:
apparently they're not too smart. You see, when they do start giving this will be the signal for the HRC high donors to give to Obama .....so they're preventing more money from going to Obama. Their choice alas. But the big O has signalled them to do it, they aren't, so it's another thing dividing Obama supporters from Obama.
Erica IS a McCain supporter. She's one of those "If it's not my beloved perfect Hillary then I will avenge her lose" idiots.
If McCain wins then that troll who bitches about Dan's early support for the war can shift to hassling ECB, and it will be well deserved.
loss, not lose. It's early!
@20 here is an additional half cent or at least a clarification to my post. I am aware of the biology of conception. I completely agree that both the mother and the father should make the decision together. My point albeit unclear was that the government should just stay out of it. The decision is hers and if she came to that conclusion by discussing it with her partner, alone or with her doctor it is hers to make.
A man as ignorant and pandering as Obama will be a disaster as president!!!!
So if late-term abortions were outlawed, this woman would have had to carry her child to term, a child with a death sentence of a medical disability.
This happens, actually. If a family decides that it would be too cruel to take extreme measures to keep the child alive, then they take the child off life support. Same outcome, but they avoid late-term abortions.
So really, this isn't a case to swing my opinion. It's just a case where a woman fallaciously claimed she had no other choice, but she did.
As others have said: drop it, Erica. You're not making a single productive argument.
And the answer is to elect McCain as president so he can replace the liberal Supreme Court justices (who are so ancient they're barely alive) with more young conservatives (like Roberts) who will overturn Roe v. Wade and ban all abortions for decades! Yeah, there you go.
Troll.
@26: How long would you have this woman carry a fetus that is 110% guaranteed to die in its first few days out of the womb? How much more money would you have her family spend on the whole pointless process of labor, birth, extreme life-support measures, and inevitable death? Do you want her to have to watch her massively deformed baby as it slowly expires?
In short, why shouldn't late-term abortions be allowed in this case? What does one achieve by forcing the woman to carry a doomed fetus to term?
ECB is desperately waiting for Hillary to get the VP slot. It's clear if she doesn't get it she's working herself up mentally to vote McCain this fall.
@30 for most insightful.
All of you who are getting on Erica's case are mysogynists. I bet you even call women "cunts" in mixed company, or wbile watching sports on television. My deepest and closest friends - people I would receive an enema of used motor oil for - respect the courage of strong women like Erica. In fact, we picket every establishment that has stand up urinals.
All of you who are getting on Erica's case are mysogynists. I bet you even call women "cunts" in mixed company, or wbile watching sports on television. My deepest and closest friends - people I would receive an enema of used motor oil for - respect the courage of strong women like Erica. In fact, we picket every establishment that has stand up urinals.
I would really like annie to chime in on the subject of Obama's reproductive policy. She and I had a good debate about Clinton's a while back.
This would allow the subject to transcend the insanely boring "Clinton vs. Obama" lens through which it seems like 99% of the posters are looking.
Obama said:
"the bottom line is that in the end, I think women, in consultation with their pastors, and their doctors, and their family, are in a better position to make these decisions than some bureaucrat in Washington."
and also:
"My only point is this -- historically I have been a strong believer in a women's right to choose with her doctor, her pastor and her family.
I'm sure some women include their pastor in their abortion decisions, just like some women involve their moms, or friends, or husbands, or whoever. But Obama consistently inserts a pastor into the decision.
Abortion rights activists explicitly exclude pastors from abortion decisions (and anyone else except doctors). For example, Planned Parenthood's consistent position is that decisions should be made "between a woman and her doctor."
Are you getting the point here? Obama's statements directly contradict the core message of abortion rights activists. He either doesn't agree with the basic premise of "a woman and her doctor" or he doesn't understand why its important, and therefore, as an abortion rights activist, I have a right to be pissed off about it.
Hey Erica, I found a shirt for ya.
@35,
He's making the point that a woman's decision to get an abortion should be up to her value system, which for most women includes religion. You're deliberately being a dipshit, aren't you?
@ 35:
obama likes to bring up pastors when the person who is asking him the question is a pastor.
damn, people.
ECB, please state your policy planks for the record so we may parse and use your words out of context against you.
i would also like to position those planks against any known candidates, past and present, and see if there is anyone in the world suitable for the presidency but you.
@37 - accusing ECB of being a dipshit is a bit much, don't you think?
Now, saying she's carrying water for the McCain/Bush crowd ... that's fair.
@ 29 - @ 26 wasn't saying that the woman HAD to carry her pregnancy to term, only that she could have - with no harm to herself and with the same outcome for the fetus.
Some women have carried their brain-dead infants to term simply so they couldn donate the organs to save other infants. Children are born needing heart transplants - but how many donor hearts do you think are available for such a small person?
So it is a matter of choice, which is what Roe v Wade is all about. Some women can't stand the thought of carrying a fetus that will never be viable, while others take comfort in knowing that someone else's child will live because of their sacrifice.
I agree that is a woman's choice but was shocked to learn that 1 in 3 pregnancies end in abortion in this country.
Schweighsr at 40:
Please provide the source for your statement that 1/3 of US pregnancies end in abortion.
@35 s/pastor/counselor
@26, @40
I actually wonder if 26 is female or has any experience with pregnancy or is actually a troll. Well yes, we all have choices we could make. For instance, instead of having an abortion. a woman could choose to commit suicide. so much for that rationale.
As for the "with no harm to herself and with the same outcome for the fetus" argument." My, but how omniscient yet incapable of empathy you are. How dare you suggest such bullshit as "no harm to herself" this really points to the core issue of the mental distress versus mental illness distinction.
Frankly, those who minimize the mental distress component to any abortion, ("just have the blues") either have no clue about what mental distress can mean to a person or are being disingenuous . This reminds me of the "welfare queen" stories.
And yes, once again, I will still vote for him, because he is not as bad as McCain. Those who cannot tolerate constructive criticism of Obama and who equate said criticism with support for McCain are not doing the democratic process any favors.
@40: There is a possibility of harm to the woman- some anencephalic fetuses don't actually live until delivery. A dead fetus can cause infections and other serious damage to the mother's reproductive tract. Does the mother have to wait until she knows the fetus is dead? What's a good enough reason?
And, as @43 points out, the mental health of the mother counts, and some women's mental health will be severely adversely affected by waiting weeks or months to deliver a doomed child. @26 is arguing that the woman in the example could have delivered without physical harm to herself; not only is this not necessarily the case, but she completely ignores mental health as a significant issue.
I wouldn't dream of forcing those women you mention to abort the fetuses they want to carry to term, so I'm not sure what you're arguing against. Just don't make a woman carry a doomed fetus to term.
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