A South Dakota Legislative Session can’t go by without someone grandstanding on abortion politics. Attorney General Marty Jackley offers Senate Bill 24, felonizing the already banned sale of fetal tissue, to burnish his gubernatorial campaign badge and invite legislators to revisit last year’s sham videos about Planned Parenthood. Senator Jeff Monroe (R-24/Pierre) offers Senate Bill 72 to ban all abortions after the twentieth week of pregnancy, except when the pregnancy exposes the woman to a risk of death or “serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function, not including a psychological or emotional condition.”
Without even getting into the “science” of fetal pain on which Senator Monroe and his fellow fetal posers based this bill, I can comfortably say Senate Bill 72 is wrong. South Dakota doesn’t need any further restrictions on abortion, which we have already regulated and stigmatized down to the second-lowest rate in the nation (only in Mississippi is abortion rarer). If anything, we need to repeal many of our Legislature’s degrading, insulting intrusions on women’s privacy and autonomy.
Legislators squawking for Senate Bill 72 aren’t fighting for fetal rights. They’re firewalling themselves for November, so that when serious candidates issue serious challenges on serious issues like corruption, teacher pay, and voter rights, they can shout back, “Squirrel!”—er, “I love babies!”
Now, what was that about “science”? SB 72 predicates its restriction on findings that “substantial medical evidence” that fetuses experience pain twenty weeks after fertilization. As you should suspect when Republicans like Senator Monroe claim to be acting on scientific evidence, they are wrong:
…Scientific research on pain in the fetus is extremely complicated, primarily because pain is a subjective experience and a fetus cannot indicate if something hurts.
Research on the topic has centered around the stages of brain and nervous system development, and what is known regarding the processing of pain in the brain. We reviewed the literature and spoke with several experts, and we conclude that a firm starting point for pain in the developing fetus is essentially impossible to pin down, and that definitive claims regarding pain perception at 20 weeks are unfounded [Dave Levitan, “Does a Fetus Feel Pain at 20 Weeks?” FactCheck.org, 2015.05.18].
District 3 legislative duo Rep. Al Novstrup and his son Senator David Novstrup are both co-sponsoring SB 72. I look forward to my neighbors bringing forward real science and questioning the Novstrups about why they are wasting their time with this deceptive effort to further attack the autonomy of South Dakota women… after we ask about corruption, teacher pay, and respect for voters, of course.
What if we all conceded we ignore and are even hostile to science that doesn’t fit our narrative all the while we amplify the findings of the science that furthers our agenda?
There absolutely IS sound science that says babies feel pain in the earliest weeks. Poke a foetus with a pin and it moves away – kind of self-evident, it would seem. Wouldn’t the compassionate, caring human thing to do be error on the side of caution? How did we get so callous to human pain?
As you dismiss those scientific findings, on the other side of the aisle my types dismiss global warming science highlighting how studies and data have been proven (criminally) fudged and methodologically flawed. Maybe beyond the tit for tat, ping pong appeal to our favourite scientific studies both sides should step back and look at the big picture of who we are and want to be as humans in relation to our own kind and the world around us. From that vantage point, we’d err on the side of caution with by restraining both abortion and our carbon footprint.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/01/14/planned-parenthood-drops-bomb-republicans-lawsuit-illegal-edited-videos.html
Maybe after this lawsuit,PP can target state’s AGs who perpetuate these unfounded myths and flat out lie,waste taxpayer monies defending unconstitutional laws and just being little shitz about this whole process.
Rich women have full reproductive freedom while women at middle and lower income levels experience chilling effects on their rights. South Dakota’s repeated attempts to restrict access to medical care is not only mean-spirited, it’s discriminatory anti-choice extremism.
But, applaud Monroe’s efforts diverting attention from his party’s culture of corruption where murders and their covers up are commonplace by clogging the legislative session with christianic religionist argle-bargle.
South Dakota Republicans love the foetus but hate actual non-white, non-christian children discarding them as collateral damage in the so-called War on Terror being prosecuted by South Dakota’s outpost for the military/industrial complex.
Couldn’t the fetus be given something so that it wouldn’t feel pain? A shot of morphine perhaps?
The comparison of a love for unborn babies to a dogs predatory instinct to destroy a squirrel is not a fair comparison. For instance, “I hate babies” fits somewhat better when compared to gruesome scenes of a squirrel grinded and killed by a dogs jaws, but it doesn’t quite compare to the horrific image of dismembered fetuses in a trashcan covered in blood. “Raising the Grand Old Flag”, which would result in the average American immediately saluting, is a better comparison to the need to protect unborn babies.
Paul I’ve thought of a bill like that which ensures the dismembering is pain free. The discussion would highlight the reality of fetal pain which is one of the reasons I support even ill conceived fetal pain bills.
We wouldn’t dismember a living baby bird without anesthesia. It’s basic human compassion.
So much for the sanctity of human life.
This is just more legislation that would endanger the lives of women with ectopic pregnancies.
In a surprise to no one South Dakota hates women’s rights the most and where women seeking certain medical procedures face higher hurtles than in any other state.
This crap just hurts low income women. Rich and middle class women merely go to Minneapolis and Denver to exercise their constitutional right to escape the slavery imposed on them by the religionist right.
Fetal surgery today is done earlier than week twenty and not without anesthesia for the child. Why do you suppose this is so? Yet a planned parenthood vacuum technician can pull a baby apart piece by piece and we think it’s okay. Seems hardly scientific that entire “procedure”. It’s barbarism. There are two patients in every pregancy and docs are all taught that in medical school. Until Roe v Wade is overturned in the same fashion the Supreme Court has reversed itself 230 times in our history, the one patient has no right to life. At least it should be given the mercy of a pain free death.
Women reading this who can’t afford to wait. Contact me and I’ll pay for you to come to New Mexico for your procedure
South Dakota: Land of Infinite Viceroys.
Thousands of actual living children have been ripped apart by military operations conducted by personnel at Ellsworth Air Force Base.
You people make me puke.
Hickey and Monroe approach the issue from a slavering, mouth breathing conviction that averting a birth once a vagina has been penetrated by a penis is murder. Believing that, they have no choice but pursue their fools’ path.
Rather than adopt a real ideology that would reduce abortions drastically–which would include comprehensive sex education and easy access to contraceptives for adolescents–they have decided that they might be able to reduce abortions among the poorest sector of women, and thus they are doing god’s work here on earth.
They do this while conceding that life on earth is meaningless anyway, because it’s just a holding pattern during which people suffer all sorts of pain and degradation before their bodies die and their souls are free to be with god for eternity.
I’m going to say this just one more time
As a man I have no dog in the fight, I don’t have a uterus, and I wont ever be put into a position of having to face the possibility of needing an abortion. But after some long thought I have decided that to not post would be the same as saying that I agree with the legislation in HB 1237.
Now I wont pretend that I know what goes through a woman’s mind when she decides that she needs an abortion. As a man I can only guess but wont ever actually know. But I do have a wife and a daughter and I do know how they feel about the subject. They have told me that it is almost impossible to describe how they feel in their own words let alone put those words into print so that everyone else can understand. Having said that I’m still going to try to tell you how I think they feel about what is happening in the legislature.
Now lets talk about how a woman must feel.
First lets get something out of the way. It doesn’t matter if you want to call it a piece of tissue, or even a baby, it makes no difference. Possession is nine tenths of the law and in the case of pregnancy it is now and has always been one hundred percent. One way or another the woman is the one that will have to deal with whatever she decides to do, no one else, not Roger Hunt, and not any of the co signers of the bill. In fact after they pass the bill they will in all probability just set back and do nothing to help in any way if a baby is actually born.
Roger Hunt is guilty of “mind rape”. He is just as guilty as a man that has been caught in a woman’s bedroom with his pants off and the woman beat up and tied to the bed with his dna all over the place. Several terms come to mind here.
INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE
A condition of compulsory service performed by one person, against his will, for the benefit of another person due to force, threats, intimidation or other similar means of coercion and compulsion directed against him.
Title 18, U.S.C., Sec. 1584, makes it a Federal crime or offense for anyone to willfully hold another person in involuntary servitude. It must be shown that a person held to involuntary servitude was so held for a ‘term.’ It is not necessary, however, that any specific period of time be proved so long as the ‘term’ of the involuntary service was not wholly insubstantial or insignificant.
Now I ask this. Are we willing to do away with the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution? Its not just about owning slaves , its about people being able to make life changing decisions about their bodies without interference from someone else. Its called the right of self determination.
Placing roadblocks that a woman has to stop at, and hoops that she has to jump through between her and her doctor is “mind rape” there is no other way to describe it. Roger Hunt is guilty of it, all the cosigners are guilty of conspiracy to commit mind rape as are those that would vote for this bill in the legislature.
That’s how I think women feel about this. There really isn’t anything a man has to compare with this except being a slave, nothing.
If you were the one getting to make up the rules knowing full well that those rules would never effect you or your body “most of the people in our South Dakota legislature fit that label” you are fine with the rules you have put in place. On the other hand if you were a young woman already traumatized by the situation you find yourself in those rules might just seem insurmountable at the time.
This procedure is something that most women want to keep private. Adding more layers and time seems to take most of the privacy away from them at a time they desire it most.
Here’s an analogy for you. Lets suppose that you had something wrong that caused you to have to go to the doctor. When you walked into his office there was the doctor and three or four good old boys sitting there. While you were being examined these good old boys were making suggestions as to why this happened to you and how you should go about fixing it. Then the next day you were down town and everybody you met knew what had happened in the doctors office. How would that make you feel?
One more thought and then I’m through. What do radical Islam and Roger Hunt, Harold Cassidy, Rep. Jon Hansen, and Leslee “I have had an abortion myself but I want to tell other women what they can do with their own bodies” Unruh have in common? They both seem to want to own and or control a woman’s body.
Trans penal devices all around except for Leslee, she needs serious philological help, she already has money from the federal government. Maybe she just needs to get laid.
Invasion of privacy is just a term until it involves you.
The Blindman
Larry, Bob, and I understand that a woman’s decision is hers and hers alone.
After 40 years of Roe vs Wade why Monroe and Hickey don’t understand it is beyond me.
As Cory pointed out, this is nothing more political grandstanding in preparation for the 2016 election.
The reality is that Monroe, Hickey or anyone else of their thinking can not legislate what a women choose to do with their bodies. Monroe can attempt to pass laws until hell freezes over, but if a woman chooses to have an abortion they will have one.
Bill your argument is predicated on three understandings I would dispute. One, that the fetus is a slave of the mother that can be killed at will. Two, that the father is irrelevant. Three, that the unborn child’s natural and/or legal rights are irrelevant until it draws breath. You’ve appealed to our empathy and compassion when considering the terrible sorrow a woman must feel when performing such an act. Perhaps the feeling of guilt is well placed? Certainly the irreversible actions of an abortion deserves every caution.
Jim, your argument is based on paternalistic dogma and steeped in scatology.
No foetus has any civil rights until the third trimester.
Larry, the rebuke with no civil rights until third trimester draws to mind the argument of a southern slave owner in 1850.
Is Monroe vulnerable in his district? Does he need this issue to raise money?
Does Monroe how many spontaneous abortions have occurred in his district due to exposure to ag chemicals, hormones, phthalates and heavy metal oxides from coal-fired power plants?
GMAFB.
It amazes me that grown men have nothing better to do than try to relegate women and girls to less than second class citizenship. There are millions of children in need of help,but you just can’t get over trying to punish their mothers for some damn thing or another. You will never stop abortions from happening and you don’t appear to be interested in trying to help prevent the need for them. Comprehensive sex education and birth control would prevent more abortions than any draconian laws you tools dream up.
Leave it to misanthropes like Sheehan to equate the intelligence of the slave class to that of a blastocyst.
Here we go again, Mr Hickey. Did you not read the post and information? And why do you dismiss “that” science and statement? And, since you say there IS settled science on your view …are you relying on non-objective sources for the so-called sound science? (please don’t bring up the doctored tape(s) again. I beg of you)
I kept reading and waiting for the “we wouldn’t do that to a baby bird” quote of yours, and you didn’t disappoint. Must be one of your favorites because you use it alot. (btw, quit using that quote until you visit a CAFO and see how living breathing animals (animals that aren’t fetus in the womb) are being treated before they are slaughtered. That quote of yours needs to disappear. We are cruel to animals. All for greed.
The science has been settled. And the law has been settled. Period. All of this is nothing more than controlling women’s bodies and freedoms. If these folks were truly serious about their beliefs of abortion, then they would be adamant and forceful about passing more bills that have to do with birth control. Actually spend the money before the unwanted or dangerous pregnancy occurs. But since they never talk about being more proactive in that sense, then yes, their movements are nothing but political – and nothing more than hurting women and making decisions for them.
Larry, misanthropes hate humanity. I’m advocating the opposite approach which is a love for protecting human life.
Mike, I like promoting sex education and birth control.
I’m paternalistic. Guilty. Many others are not, which only promotes abortions based on many women being abandoned after becoming pregnant.
Monroe and Sheehan are like every other white supremacist living in South Dakota: they are watching my home state being repopulated by nonwhites. It’s just that simple.
Dana and Roger – reread the part where I mentioned the Supreme Court reversed itself 230 times so far in our history. Who cares if something was settled law for 40 years. Slavery was once settled law. Science now tells us when human life begins. The law needs to change to reflect the science.
If you can find a right to gay marriage in the Constitution, please look harder to find the right to life for even our “posterity” – all our future offspring have a Constitutional right to life. Let’s move past the slaveholders mentality that some human beings are more human than other human beings. Why do you insist on thinking that way, Roger?
http://southdakotadashboard.org/demographics/race#0-9875-g
Larry Kurtz wrote:
That isn’t true of all South Dakota Republicans, but it’s true of far too many of them. Thanks for raising the subject, Larry.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/22/blessed-are-the-peacemakers/
If Republicans really believed in the sanctity of human life they wouldn’t be obstructing funding for the Indian Health Service.
Rich women have full reproductive freedom while women at middle and lower income levels experience chilling effects on their rights. South Dakota’s repeated attempts to restrict access to medical care is not only mean-spirited, it’s discriminatory anti-choice extremism.
Steve,
Do you truly the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery can be reversed in this day and age?
Steve Hickey,
I did not say anything about slavery, where did that come from.
If you insist on talking about slavery, I would equate white men attempting to control a woman’s rights as slavery.
Now back to the salve masters.
For all those caring about all humanity, the Cornerstone Rescue Mission in Rapid City has been overflowing with homeless people for this past month
All our future offspring have a constitutional right to life-why aren’t cops being charged with violating black people’s constitutional rights when they shoot unarmed people in the back? Don’t their future offspring have that same right to life? No-because the cops killed their potential dads-just shoot them down.
Cory, I am amazed that you chose to ignore science. That is not you. Not until the Ponca Indians in Nebraska were arrested for traveling to their homeland to bury the chiefs son did the Supreme Court decide that Indians were human being and deserved rights. The Supreme Court decided that abortion was a better alternative than kids being raised in communes by druggie hippies. We do not have communes anymore and we still have not figured out that a fetus is a scientific name, rather than human name for a baby. Some day we will realize they are human and not just something to kill since we have not taught our teens to be responsible. All those who were not responsible when they were young want to think they were right.
Prolifers are not trying to control your uterus. They just think you should chose to control your own uterus and only get pregnant by someone you want to raise a baby with. If you can not control yourselves, do not blame others for not wanting you to kill your kid.
http://www.guttmacher.org/in-the-know/characteristics.html
Who is having abortions in America?
I am prolife but Roger E’s independent clause, “do not blame others for not wanting you to kill your kid,” is ProLife® gibberish.
It seems odd to me this comes from the same party who would deny poor children temporary assistance because a parent fails a drug test. Do they really care about the children?
Anything reacts to being probed. I know I do. So what does this prove and why does it matter to Hickey and Monroe and all the other bozoheads that want to control women? If Hickey and Monroe actually gave a damn about all of this, they would support birth control and easy access to it through over the counter purchases. Women’s rights is what this is about, and they want to kill that so they can have more slave labor. This is where they get their money from. Isn’t Hickey on the run for voter irregularity?
The continued attempts to misdirect attention from the issue of this blog post topic by using suggested hypocrisies towards a diverse group that cannot be tied to them is all in vein. Suggesting the legitimacy of the argument for pro-life is discredited by the thus far posted random topics to show double standards does nothing to refute the strength of the pro-life argument.
Curious whether a foetus feels pain when it’s developing a birth defect or leukemia from exposure to ag chemicals or being expelled into a toilet because a uterus has become incompatible with life from glyphosate.
25% of all pregnancies end before birth except in Kansas where spontaneous abortions are disproportionately higher than that.
Expect a clown like Jeff Monroe to write a bill that mandates the purchase and wearing of foetal pain monitors for women receiving SNAP or TANF after she pees in a cup.
Sidearms for the preborn!
Sheehan: if this thing withstands the legislative process with some luck Governor Daugaard will veto it. He’s the only Republican in the state with any brains whatsoever.
” The continued attempts to misdirect attention from the issue of this blog post topic by using suggested hypocrisies towards a diverse group that cannot be tied to them is all in vein. Suggesting the legitimacy of the argument for pro-life is discredited by the thus far posted random topics to show double standards does nothing to refute the strength of the pro-life argument.”
What the hell is that suposed to mean?
Lets see if we can find the hypocrisy by asking a couple of questions.
1. Do you want to stop abortions?
2. What is your relationship to that clump of cells in any womans body that might end up being a fetus?
3. Is there any way to stop a woman from having an abortion without gaining control of both her body and her mind?
4. Are you willing to support both the mother and the child until that child comes of age?
5. Maybe the most important one. Have you ever been pregnant?
In 1970 the world population was at 3 billion people. By 2012 that population was up to 7.3 billion. Whats that got to do with this topic? I have no idea, it was just interesting.
The Blindman
I get the feeling that Mr. Sheehan is nervous about hearing the truth on this charade. These guys are all in lockstep on how to enslave more women to menial jobs and other forms of scapegoating. Then they want them to pee in a cup at 42 bucks a head just so they can feed that kid the government is forcing them to deliver. Hickey and Monroe claim they are for limited government and yet they want government to check the uterus of all child bearing women.
Roger E-what about talibangelical wingnuts that want to force raped women to carry their fetus to term? We going to hear more about how “legitimate” rape doesn’t get women pregnant? 7 in 10 women that have abortions are religious. Maybe we should ban religion.
I get it now-women need to be armed so they can repel rapists.
Mr. Sheehan’s daddy gave Mr. Monroe a lot of money to run for the legislatures. I bet he fears it will take three times as much next time after Monroe finishes being insaner than most in the legislatures this year.
good eye, grud.
Sheehan, Jim $1,000
https://ballotpedia.org/Jeff_Monroe#2014_2
Sheehan: that’s a Church of the Holy Roman Kiddie Diddlers name, right?
That means Bill that you cannot get me to conclude a different outcome, solution, or other belief about pro-life through shaming myself or others by random accusations. The pro-life movement does not need to validate what is happening in Rapid City at a shelter, or to the Native American federal funding, in order be the correct approach.
1. Yes.
2. This clump of cells is well before 20 weeks which is outside the debate. Otherwise, none besides the interest in the brotherhood of man, or for a spiritual argument the fetus should ideally be treated as you’d treat God since He is reflected.
3. There is ultimately no way to stop a woman from having an abortion.
4. Yes, and I have. If you mean two strangers, I believe we are a compassionate people that will do a great deal to see them prosper despite hardship. For mothers who wish to not raise a child I’m a great supporter of adoption and believe that for the burden to one person will become a blessing for another. I’m not willing to get lost in the weeds tonight on this question so I won’t expand further.
5. I’ve never been pregnant. However, as I understand it, I was once a fetus. As a fetus previously let me make the bold declaration that life is good.
As for your keen observation of the growing world population, thanks in part to the good herbicides that terrifies Larry, do you regret the last 3 billion lives?
I regret your life, Sheehan.
sorry if this has been brought up before but this is just a distraction to avoid actually working on real problems that we have in this state.
In the end this means nothing because abortion is a legal procedure in the country.
I bet the same people who want to do drug tests on poor people and hurt kids are the same ones who are for this bill. Love the fetus and hate the child.
Sheehan and others seem to misunderstand the slavery analogy. The fetus is not the slave under the pro-life bill, the fetus is the master and the woman is the slave required to give up her own right to bodily integrity during the pregnancy, even when this endangers her health or mental condition.
Next, Roger E. has touched on a truth – this isn’t about saving a fetus or life, it is about the fear of women being able to express their sexual nature. These laws are aimed at restricting a woman’s ability to exercise her freedom as a sexual being. That is the explanation why so-called pro lifers don’t support contraception rights nor help for kids after they are born.
And it seems ironic that no one mentions or appears to care a hoot about the pain a woman suffers from child birth, especially considering the legislation is intend to require involuntary child birth.
There are a lot of men here talking about what women ought to do. The same may be said of SB 72: 44 of 51 sponsors are men.
Sheehan has invoked unicorn poop as his guide to pro-life rendering his argument in support of Monroe’s war on women’s rights moot.
Pick a lane, Dick.
So, we’re back to forced reproduction. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time, right?
The Sheehan/Monroe faction would forbid a union of the same gender to adopt: right, Jim?
Catholic Social Services subsidized to monopolize adoptions in South Dakota work for you, Jim?
I know of no political topic that I’m disqualified from because of my gender, and the same goes for a female. It has been said so far that sex education is needed because of irresponsible young adults. I agree with that, but that leads into the question of allowing the same labeled irresponsible individual to make a 2nd life changing act in a cavalier fashion. Certainly, no one considered responsible intentionally becomes pregnant with the goal of an abortion. You have what has been referred to here as the ‘irresponsible’ and you have the ‘innocent’ that has been created as a result that may then pay the price. The pain that bearcreekbat is referring to associated with giving birth is natural, and in no way compares to the psycological torture many women face everyday post abortion which was likely an unnecessary act. Potentially one irresponsible decision after another, promoted and supported by those that would wish to live a blind life free from guilt no matter the actions taken.
Larry, you vile human being, I do not speak for Jeff Monroe. I will stat that two loving parents, regardless of their gender, is better then no parents or death.
And most of adopted kids would go to white couples, right? Assimilated by the American Borg to go forth, conquer the great unwashed and convert them to capitalism with better living through chemistry? Oh, yeah…and democracy.
Jim Sheehan-where do you get your information on how many women suffer post abortion?
Mike: I’m shaped by my personal experiences and people I’ve met. An Illinois college student dropping to her knees weeping on a balcony about her excuses for a partial birth abortion. A tortured loved one that continues to run from that one decision she can never take back. How often those that I know nearly had an abortion and now their life is full of joy with their children still alive today. I’m sure the internet can provide you with plenty of statistics that you can ignore or scoff at in your own time and leisure.
Sex education is needed so those young girls and boys DON”T become irresponsible young adults. Telling teens not to have sex is akin to telling wingnuts not to hyperventilate when they see the Black guy in their White House.
Also,too. More babies are being born with organs outside their tiny bodies.
http://time.com/4190247/babies-organs-gastroschisis-trend/
tales from crypt.
one person’s partial birth abortion is another’s ectopic ablation.
I dont think Kurtz is vile, hes just misunderstood. As for the human being thing , wouldnt that be a compliment?
The Blindman
J S-it wouldn’t have anything to do with gawd fearing,upstanding kristians running up to women at Planned Parenthood clinics and calling them murderers and showing so called aborted fetal tissue would it?
I’ve seen stats that claim x number of post abortion women suffer guilt and I’ve seen stats that claim the majority of women don’t have any problems. What I believe makes no difference either way since I will never have to choose to abort or not. I will,otoh,offer all my support to those women whichever choice they make-and right now women are afforded that choice to decide for themselves w/o the help of any of us guys.
Bless your heart, Bill. i’ll stand for vile. it’s the human part that’s hard to stand for.
Mr. Sheehan is just one of many plantation owners who loves them some slaves. These poor women who cannot afford to leave their surroundings to have the dignity of living their lives without pests like Mr. Sheehan, Hickey and that bone cracker or cracker Monroe trying to rule their lives. I think they fear women so they want to subjugate them. We have seen evidence of this in other plantation times of the master controlling and shackling the slaves to force them into obedience. Much like the way these plantation owners run the penal systems for cheap labor, here they are exposed for the same regarding women.
Unicorn poop, Larry, really?
Anybody that can come up with that may not be a human being.
It gave me a nice chuckle.
April may be the cruelest month, Roger but February usually sucks, too.
Driving the weaker bulls from the herd gives the wolves something to do in their spare time. i’m sure you’ll agree, Jim.
I’d say I’m a bull and I protect the weak bulls from the wolves. That’s a purpose of mine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWCvi-XvQuo
The National Institutes of Health calls a miscarriage before twenty weeks a spontaneous abortion but after that it’s recorded a stillbirth. If it doesn’t stop in the electrons of Cory’s server just where will it stop?
All these men on here debating whether or not they have a right to tell women what to do with their own bodies. To the men here who have no problem minding their own business, I thank you. As for the rest of you, I have a little story.
I am a South Dakota woman. I was raised in the Catholic church. I grew up in an average middle class family who valued hard work. I started babysitting at age 10 and had my first part-time job at 15. I worked hard in school and got good grades. I didn’t have many boyfriends and I was not promiscuous. I strove to be as perfect as the Catholic church taught me to be. I didn’t get in trouble because I feared by father’s wrath more than I feared the wrath of God. Mostly, I never wanted to do anything to disappoint my parents.
Then, at age 19, I made a mistake. My first thought when I realized I was pregnant was “Oh my god, my parents are going to kill me.”
From then on, the only thing that mattered to me was that they never find out. You see, all that shame and guilt that had been ingrained in me by my religious upbringing, made it impossible for me to even consider being honest with my parents. My biggest fear is that because of the way we were taught growing up, they were going to disown me. I had seen it happen. I remembered when a girl got pregnant in junior high or high school and how they were shamed and ridiculed. The fear of abandonment was more than I could bear. I had committed the ultimate sin by getting pregnant out of wedlock.
I have never been more scared in my life. I was in no position to support a child. What if I told my family and they abandoned me? Do I terminate the pregnancy or risk being shunned by family for the rest of my life?
I went to Rapid City and had an abortion. Would you like to know what the doctor said to me that day? “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
I am now 57 and I have never shared this with my family. I have no regrets regarding the decision I made. I know it was the right choice for me. I married about ten years after the abortion. I have two great kids and beautiful grandson who I adore.
I was the epitome of the responsible teen. One night, I was young and dumb.
So gentlemen, this is why a decision like this is none of your business and certainly not the government’s business.
It is not your body. It is not your life.
Democrats regulate businesses. Republicans regulate women.
Again, Mr. Hickey. I urge you to read what happened in Romania when the DICTATOR made abortion in his country illegal. Just see what happened. Horrific. No sir, the science is NOT settled as to what you are saying. (and yes, I am saying that y’all are trying to be dictators here) Yes, I guess there are some people in this country that just don’t want to learn from history and just want to repeat it.
I applaud SDBlue for sharing her very real life experience. Very courageous of you SDBlue. And I think what is even more important about her sharing this, is that it not only defeats every single argument that pro-lifers make about how/what women “should” feel – but it also demonstrates what happens in life. Mistakes are made. AND it doesn’t make you a bad person (although others want to make women appear to be “bad”) not so. SDBlue says it perfectly. “this is why a decision like this is none of your business and certainly not the government’s business”. Exactly!
Thank you SD Blue for showing us all courage and a remarkable story. You are so absolutely correct in your last statement. Empty people like Sheehan, Hickey and Monroe will never have courage to do anything but to bully women into their view of submissive slaves.
To go with what Winston spoke clearly of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhg-8o2FGYc
I am pro-life. I tire of people using that moniker when they really are only anti-abortion. I have always seen Roe v Wade as the Sword of Damocles, hanging over every decision to test it’s true merit of being pro-life. True pro-life legislation would: make all pre-natal health care free – to ensure the health and well-being of mother and un-born; make all medical needs associated directly and indirectly with the delivery of children free of cost to all women in the US; guarantee both health care and nutritional provision for all children in the US for ALL who choose to have these costs covered.
Those are things that would help encourage all women in the US to bring pregnancies to term, to be pro-life. All that can also happen under Roe v Wade.
I’ll add my thank you to SDBlue for sharing her poignant story, she is right at every turn.
Being a Catholic myself, I can recall when “good girls” got in trouble they would disappear for 9 months, usually to church run home for girls. Of course everybody in the neighborhood knew what that meant, just another element of shame.
Again, thank you SDBlue for standing strong in that painful time of your life and for standing strong now.
How about tossing in maternity leave for mothers, jobs that pay enough to be able to live outside of poverty $15.00 an hour for one. How about day care. How about education relief so that young single mothers have a chance to better their situation. Pro-life is bull puckey without that. I am a man that can see first hand what happens to women that have kids in any situation. It costs a lot. I watch as they struggle to take care of their kids in day care that costs them more than if they stayed at home and did nothing. We have no public transportation that is reliable and if you are out in a rural area, you are doomed. The robber baron class of slave owners don’t give a care about the unborn, they only see them as not being in their crooked system to abuse later.
Thank you, O and Jerry! Life is so much more complicated than this one oversimplified issue.
SDBlue, thank you for sharing your story. At peril of oversimplifying things myself, I would suggest that your closing words make the one simple slogan that every candidate who respects your rights should use in every speech this year against incumbents like Monroe, the Novstrups, and the Haggars: It is not your body. It is not your life.
Thank you all for your kind words. Cory, I suggest we make a bumper sticker and stick it on every GOP desk in the Capitol.
Heidelberger: I appreciate your devotion to science and willingness to push the envelope…if we can’t prove the little f*&$rs can feel pain, do IT!
Why argue over such minor details. Their eyes aren’t even open. They can’t live on their own, so they must not be alive. And they look like aliens. Freaks.
It’s not your body.
It’s not your life.
Good lines.
So whose life is the one being ended in the abortion? What is it that’s flinching, moving, in there to avoid the pain, the killing pain?
You would oppose the same operations – a million a year – if it was cats or cows or ponies.
Imagine if you found out a local vet was terminating dog pregnancies without telling the owner?
Freak out, no?
All a property issue, is it?
How about erring on the side of being sure we aren’t killing babies, since there’s so much unknown about it all?
PS: One thoughtful woman’s story: when abortion suddenly stopped making sense to her – it was an article in Esquire….
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430152/abortion-roe-v-wade-unborn-children-women-feminism-march-life
tim johnson: While my first inclination is to mock the ridiculousness of your post, I am going to restrain myself and just say this: Being pro-choice does not make me any less “thoughtful” than a woman who chooses to be against abortion. In a world where the English language has been turned into a series of acronyms, I keep coming back to one from my childhood. MYOB. It is just that simple.
Tim, without you, I never would have found the place to put this in about national review.
” I think a lot of the fault, actually, belongs to the conservative intellectual leadership of America that you see in this issue of “National Review.” The conservative cause that animates the Republican Party, we don’t appeal to young people, we don’t appeal to millennials, we don’t appeal to young women, we don’t appeal to minorities. We appeal to only cranky old white guys like me. – Alex Castellano, THIS WEEK”
Just keep on being you and making me post stuff that show that you boys are so full of yourself you are actually regurgitating increasing nonsense. Hell, even your own see it. We get it, you want to keep the bully pulpit so you can continue to push women around like you own them, you don’t. Leave the ladies alone man and turn on your re-runs of Trump speeches.
Here ya go Tim, you can thank me later after you send some of your bully money to a place that really works for and with women’s health. Yes Tim, even you can be a changed man if you take the time to look past the plantation slave owners like Mr. Sheehan, Hickey and Monore (his Monroe doctrine is really sucky) and get the old checkbook out, better yet, pay pal for this worthy organization. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/iud
Just for argument sake, let’s say that Cory is right. That the science is not clear. I would much rather err on the side that the unborn does feel pain, than to believe that it does not, only to find out it does. And we who claim to be human, with compassion, were so unbearably wrong.
We could also err on the side of caution and have the police search every home, every day, to ensure that no one is plotting a terrorist attack. But that error would also be grossly unconstitutional.
We as humans sure don’t want to worry about whether a clump of cells can feel pain. Give a fetus a chance to develop a conscience so we can make it feel bad when we allow it to starve or be abused and neglected because some compassionate human beings decided every fetus needs to be born whether they are wanted or not. We ,as compassionate human beings, can’t or won’t accept responsibility for the living children now. Lets add millions more. Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
http://bigstory.ap.org/f8bf2c4371ea403c9c88fca613568170
Sheehan, your arguments are undoubtedly well intended given your support of contraceptive availability, sex education and public policies helping a pregnant woman. Perhaps there are a couple points you have not considered.
First, legalized abortion is not about terminating pregnancies willy nilly. It is about providing safe health care for women who decide to terminate their pregnancies. When abortion was illegal, and where it is illegal today, the stats show that the abortion rate is not reduced in any significant way. Instead, women with the financial resources will often travel to obtain an abortion where it is still legal and women who cannot afford that option will turn to dangerous back alley methods that threaten their health and safety. Prohibiting abortion doesn’t save fetuses, it endangers the lives of women who decide to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. And we know that the later the termination, the greater the need for safe medical help, hence an arbitrary 20 week rule creates even greater dangers for the women it affects.
Next, 20 weeks is a long time to remain pregnant if the pregnancy is unwanted. Common sense tells us that most women who seek medical help for an abortion after 20 weeks have some other significant issue going on besides merely not wanting to be pregnant. A pediatric cardiologist, with much more knowledge, training and experience than I have (or you for that matter I would guess), helps us understand some of the reasons.
“Why do some women wait so long? The answer is that comprehensive fetal testing, such as anatomical sonograms and ultrasounds of the heart, are typically performed just before 20 weeks of gestation. Such scans are critical for uncovering major birth defects, such as anencephaly (severe brain malformations), major heart defects, missing organs and limbs, and other severe birth defects. Fetal development is a complex process that often goes awry. Roughly 2 percent of all pregnancies are complicated by a major birth defect, and of those about 0.5 percent have a chromosomal defect, such as an extra or missing segment of normal DNA. Birth defects are a leading cause of infant mortality, and in many cases of severe birth defects, no medical treatment can salvage a fetus’s life or result in any measure of normal future health.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/07/texas_abortion_ban_after_20_weeks_prenatal_testing_reveals_birth_defects.html
And one other point – can you think of any other law that imposes the power of the State upon any individual to involuntarily submit his or her body to the needs of another innocent person (assuming you believe a fetus to be an innocent “person”) to save that person’s life? We know there are many instances in which by strapping you down and taking an organ or two we could save someone else’s life, but we have no such laws. What is it about women that make them the only target of such a use of the force of the State to help another person?
“What is it about women that make them the only target of such a use of the force of the State to help another person?” The same can be said for babies and what an abortion procedure does to their bodies. What is it about babies that make them the only target of such a use of the force of the State to help another person?
Mary, where actions are not illegal, the State stays completely out of it. Without laws requiring abortions, the State cannot use force to require any woman to have an abortion nor to require doctors or anyone else to perform abortions against their will. Where abortion is not required by law, the State does not target “babies” or anyone else with the use of force – it leaves these decisions to the privacy of the woman and her doctor. And since the “baby” cannot speak for itself, the State leaves it to friends, family, clergy, and other private actors to advocate for the continuation of the pregnancy. The police are not involved.
But where actions are made illegal, the State then uses its force to enforce that law. In the case of abortion, if the State makes it illegal for a woman to have an abortion or a doctor to provide safe medical help inducing an abortion, the State can then have police round up the woman and the doctor, prosecute them and jail them.
Another point often overlooked by folks who think the State should be given the power to regulate abortion is that once the State is given the power to control a woman’s reproductive choices, the State could then use the force of law to also require involuntary abortions or sterilization. In that case, the State could (as in China for example) do exactly what you ask about – use the force of the State against the fetus and require a pregnant woman to terminate a pregnancy against her will.
Is there any provider in South Dakota that performs legal abortions? I know there are no doctors in Rapid City that performs abortions.
This is an effort by the leaders of our state to just make headlines. The real problems of our state are white collar crime, corruption, skimming and the inability of our leaders to attract good businesses to our state. You would think our Attorney General would be able to focus on something other then the tired old GOP playbook. Is it possible for him to come up with something original. If it is I have not seen it. From what I have heard he had the chance to take on corruption a couple of years ago in western South Dakota. Instead he turned his back. From what I know and what I would expect is that when you turn your back on corruption it just tends to get worse. South Dakota deserves better.
Roger C-there is one PP clinic in Sioux Falls and a doctor from Minn flies in several times a week to provide necessary services. This may need to be updated.
Huge point, Jon. Every pro-choice legislator facing grouchy anti-abortion voters should point out that all of the Legislature’s restrictions on abortion didn’t stop Joop Bollen from taking EB-5 investors and the state for a ride. Our abortion laws didn’t stop Richard Benda from cashing in on a Future Fund grant, then shooting himself when his EB-5 money dried up. Our abortion laws didn’t stop Jason Gant from losing iPads or Garrett DeVries from stealing our flag. Our abortion laws didn’t stop Rick Melmer from cashing in on GEAR UP or Scott Westerhuis from shooting his family. Voters who think that they do their full duty as citizens by paying attention solely to abortion politics play right into the hands of the corrupt cronies who take advantage of our distraction to pick our pockets.
Tim, these aren’t just “good lines.” These are statements of constitutional law and the proper role of government. If we are going to deliberately err, we have a long tradition of erring on the side of protecting constitutional rights instead of responding to our emotional impulses. It galls us to let an obviously guilty man go free, but if his conviction hinges on illegally obtained evidence or other abuses of his constitutional rights, we set him free. It may gall you to think that a fetus may suffer pain, but if the alternative is denying a woman her dignity and autonomy under the Fourth and Thirteenth Amendment, then we let her abort her pregnancy.
And hot off the press today… a Grand Jury in Houston finds no wrong doing on the part of Planned Parenthood. However, served up felony indictments on the director and another employee from the Center For Medical Progress – who were the instigators….er, I mean, the directors of the highly suspicious doctored videos of Planned Parenthood.
In Texas….TEXAS!!
Apparently, more and more people are seeing through this disgusting ploy that was attempted by the Center For Medical Progress. A ploy that way too many folks, and folks that comment on this blog, rely on for their “facts” about Planned Parenthood and abortion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/us/2-abortion-foes-behind-planned-parenthood-videos-are-indicted.html?_r=0
National Review founded by Wm. F. Buckley
On the Esquire article Tim links: Mathewes-Green has the liberty to change her mind and argue her moral point. But she is mistaken: the issue is not as simple as “abortion ends a human life.” Even if she were right, her statement would be incomplete and would require a crucial qualifier, per bearcreekbat’s reminder: “Abortion ends a human life that exists entirely within and on the involuntary sustenance of another human life.” In that more complete description, the moral situation is not as simple as what anti-abortion crusaders wish it were. The rights of the latter human outweigh any claims you might assign to the former.
Mathewes-Green can choose never to have an abortion and never to recommend any other woman have one. I’m not outlawing her moral choice or forcing her to obey my choice. She is obliged to afford others the same liberty, autonomy, and dignity.
BCB, thanks for the apt response to Mary. I couldn’t understand what she was saying at first, but it appears she was drawing an incorrect analogy. The state is not targeting fetuses with any force; if anything, certain politicians are using fetuses as a means to reinforce their own political pwoer and insulate themselves from broad scrutiny of their entire voting records.
I think the original text of this bill says it all about where the bill’s authors are coming from. From 19(e) the state must collect:
(e) Race [[and hispanic origin]] of mother;
This is all about those irresponsible brown people, unlike us, who really, really, love babies.
Especially ones that look like us.
Mathewes-Green makes a living as an anti-abortion crusader and apparently always has. It behooves her to put as dirty and nasty a face on abortion as she can.
http://www.mtv.com/news/2731625/planned-parenthood-virtual-reality-sundance/
Lady was called all kinds of vile names just for visiting a PP clinic.