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an Ohio bill [would] ban abortions in cases where a pregnant woman has had a positive test result or prenatal diagnosis indicating Down syndrome. Physicians convicted of performing an abortion under such circumstances could be charged with a fourth-degree felony, stripped of their medical license and held liable for legal damages. The pregnant woman would face no criminal liability.
Several other states have considered similar measures, triggering emotional debate over women's rights, parental love, and the trust between doctor and patient.
The Ohio bill's chief Senate sponsor, Republican Sen. Frank LaRose, said Republican lawmakers accelerated the measure after hearing a mid-August CBS News report on Iceland's high rate of abortions in cases involving Down syndrome. The report asserted Iceland had come close to "eradicating" such births.
[...] Doctors and medical students are fighting the measure.
Parvaneh Nouri, a third-year medical student at Wright State University, told lawmakers it would do little to stop abortions but could stop information-sharing between patients and their doctors.
“It destroys the trust of our patients, for which we have worked tirelessly over generations of physicians to cultivate,” she said.
Indiana's version of the law has been blocked by a federal judge while North Dakota's law has gone unchallenged due to the state's only abortion clinic not performing abortions after 16 weeks. An Oklahoma bill that would prohibit abortions based on any genetic abnormalities did not reach the state Senate.
Previously: Down Syndrome Births Nearly Eliminated in Iceland
(Score: 2, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 26 2017, @03:31PM (1 child)
Sounds remarkably similar to an antebellum argument that Nebraska not allowing slavery, plus any enslaved person entering the state would be automatically freed, would infringe on the right of a slave owner to bring his slaves with him into Nebraska. Slavery is of course extreme control of another's body. The US Civil War was won decisively by the forces on the side of freedom. It was won through force of arms, and through superior reasoning and logic, and the large imbalance in industrial might that in no small part arose from the inefficiencies of a slave economy as compared to a free one.
Yet today, 150 years later, there are still fools who romanticize the slave owning side. I wonder if the day will ever come that the slavers are so completely discredited that no one will bother singing their praises. Could be centuries, seeing as how some would even start up the Crusades again, and that's been over 500 years ago. The Confederates were on the wrong side of everything-- the wrong side of decency and morality, wrong side of the Bible (despite there being mention of slavery without condemning it), wrong side of all scientific evidence which showed the Africans were not an inferior race in contradiction to Confederate propaganda that used that notion of inferiority to justify slavery, wrong side of economics with their notion that a slave economy could be more productive than a free one, and on the wrong side of the contest of strength, and in the wrong in being the ones to start the violence. But somehow none of that matters to neo-Confederates. What does matter to them is conformity. If they see they are out of step with everyone else, most will quietly shift. The few remaining noisy ones should not be given megaphones and be allowed to pretend that they have much more support than is actually the case. But on that one, the media can't say no to dramatizing situations as much as possible.
The fight over abortion is much newer. Seems to be rooted in Christian fantasies of how life should work, and not grounded in the harsh reality that pregnancy is risky. It is in a way a backhanded acknowledgement that pregnancy is hard. It's also a very male, militaristic vision. We must produce more Christian Soldiers, every one is needed for ultimate victory over all opposition! Outlawing abortion provides more human cannon fodder for the wars, as if there's no doubt that those children will share their views and be willing to march off to fight and kill heretics. It'd be great if Down Syndrome could be prevented, as well as all kinds of other birth defects and complications. But even if such a happy day comes, we should still allow abortion for many other reasons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 26 2017, @07:50PM
Just in case anyone forgot Trump's nonsense on this issue, in the fog of all his other nonsense.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/30/donald-trump-women-abortions-punishment [theguardian.com]