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Normally I don't like to talk about items that are going on in different US States than the one that I live in, but if something like this passes in Virginia I see no reason why it would not also pass in Oregon.
A BILL to amend and reenact §§ 16.1-77, 18.2-73, 18.2-74, 18.2-76, and 32.1-127 of the Code of Virginia, relating to abortions; eliminate certain requirements.
Link to the bill:
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?191+ful+HB2491
I found the changes and how they could be applied very interesting.
Notwithstanding any of the provisions of § 18.2-71 and in addition to the provisions of § 18.2-72, it shall be lawful for any physician licensed by the Board of Medicine to practice medicine and surgery, to terminate or attempt to terminate a human pregnancy or aid or assist in the termination of a human pregnancy by performing an abortion or causing a miscarriage on any woman during the second trimester of pregnancy and prior to the third trimester of pregnancy provided such procedure is performed in a hospital licensed by the State Department of Health or operated by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.
(b) 2. The physician and two consulting physicians certify certifies and so enter enters in the hospital record of the woman, that in their the physician's medical opinion, based upon their the physician's best clinical judgment, the continuation of the pregnancy is likely to result in the death of the woman or substantially and irremediably impair the mental or physical health of the woman.
(c) 3. Measures for life support for the product of such abortion or miscarriage must shall be available and utilized if there is any clearly visible evidence of viability.
21. Shall require that each hospital that is equipped to provide life-sustaining treatment shall develop a policy governing determination of the medical and ethical appropriateness of proposed medical care, which shall include (i) a process for obtaining a second opinion regarding the medical and ethical appropriateness of proposed medical care in cases in which a physician has determined proposed care to be medically or ethically inappropriate; (ii) provisions for review of the determination that proposed medical care is medically or ethically inappropriate by an interdisciplinary medical review committee and a determination by the interdisciplinary medical review committee regarding the medical and ethical appropriateness of the proposed health care; and (iii) requirements for a written explanation of the decision reached by the interdisciplinary medical review committee, which shall be included in the patient's medical record. Such policy shall ensure that the patient, his agent, or the person authorized to make medical decisions pursuant to § 54.1-2986 (a) are informed of the patient's right to obtain his medical record and to obtain an independent medical opinion and (b) afforded reasonable opportunity to participate in the medical review committee meeting. Nothing in such policy shall prevent the patient, his agent, or the person authorized to make medical decisions pursuant to § 54.1-2986 from obtaining legal counsel to represent the patient or from seeking other remedies available at law, including seeking court review, provided that the patient, his agent, or the person authorized to make medical decisions pursuant to § 54.1-2986, or legal counsel provides written notice to the chief executive officer of the hospital within 14 days of the date on which the physician's determination that proposed medical treatment is medically or ethically inappropriate is documented in the patient's medical record;
Some key portions from the legislation are above, I neglected to bring in the stricken language about women needing ultrasounds and similar requirements because I think that is a separate issue.
https://freebeacon.com/issues/virginia-dems-attempt-to-pass-bill-allowing-abortions-up-to-40-weeks/ includes a video from the legislative proceedings with questions being asked of the bills sponsor Delegate Kathy Tran.
During Democratic Delegate Kathy Tran's presentation of the bill on Tuesday, Majority Leader Todd Gilbert (R.) asked her about the full extent of the bill's leniency.
"How late in the third trimester could a physician perform an abortion if he indicated that it would impair the mental health of the woman?" Gilbert asked.
"Or physical health," Tran said.
"Okay," Gilbert replied. "I'm talking about the mental health."
"I mean, through the third trimester," Tran said. "The third trimester goes up to 40 weeks."
"Okay, but to the end of the third trimester?" Gilbert asked.
"Yup, I don't think we have a limit in the bill," Tran said.
"Where it's obvious that a woman is about to give birth, she has physical signs that she's about to give birth, would that still be a point at which she could request an abortion if she was so certified?" Gilbert asked. "She's dilating."
Tran replied that was a decision the woman and her doctor would have to make before choosing to have an abortion. Gilbert asked specifically if the measure would allow for abortion right before birth.
"My bill would allow that, yes," Tran said.
https://freebeacon.com/issues/virginia-dems-attempt-to-pass-bill-allowing-abortions-up-to-40-weeks/ has a video of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam being interviewed about the subject. The Governor says that if the woman so wanted an abortion and was certified
So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if thats what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.
How can there be any discussion about this after the baby is already born?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Thursday January 31 2019, @03:46AM (21 children)
That said, I don't see any huge problems in the language of the bill itself. I won't beg the wrath of the neo-feminists yet again by pointing out that there is no provision for any conversation with the father; it doesn't matter when there was no such provision before right?
So what are the changes. They struck the requirement that abortions be performed in a licensed hospital. Deregulation is good, isn't it?
It no longer takes 3 physicians to certify that the operation is medically necessary to save the woman's life. Just one who's willing to sign a legally binding document he can be sued out of existence over will do. If it was my wife or daughter etc. whose life was at stake I think I'd see this as a good thing - well that's why I *do* see it as a good thing.
Converting 'must' to 'shall' is a fine point, I'm afraid I don't have time to research the jurisdiction just now and be sure exactly what it means. Maybe it's bad here? Seems like a softening though, and again, deregulation is good. When the patient and the doctor both agree that a procedure is necessary to prevent death we generally don't want the procedure to be delayed while the bureaucracy is reassured in triplicate that every possible gadget is available before we proceed.
So what's your beef? Do you think abortion should be illegal, and you're just trying to find little cracks to push it away bit by bit?
If so, how are you different from gun control nuts that think guns should be illegal, and look for little cracks to advance that agenda bit by bit?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Sulla on Thursday January 31 2019, @03:22PM (17 children)
Going to respond only in part right now
Hard to explain my position on abortion. In general i think people should be able to do what they want, as long as i am not required to pay for it. It seems to me to be clearly murder to kill a fetus that is developed to the point it is viable outside the womb, but i wont tell people what they can and can't do. If they want me to pay for it then fuck them i want it illegal, but they made the first move in attempting to force me to be a part of murder.
Mostly i posted this so in 10 years when a few of the super far left libs are pushing for post-birth abortion i can find this where they claimed they weren't. There will be a case soon in Virginia where a woman in labor says she wants an abortion because having a kid right now will be too much of a mental burden and she isn't ready to be a mother, the physician will agree, and the fetus will be born before the abortion can be done. The governors words then apply to this situation, i dont see what else "discussion" can imply.
Ultimately this bill wont pass and even if it did the supreme court would kill it, which in some ways is a shame. The language stricken about the ultrasound requirements and numbers of physicians seem fine to me as i think they are an unconstitutional burden placed on the mother. But they should have included more language about what requests that happen when a woman is in labor.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @08:45PM
Where does that allow for what you are talking about?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday January 31 2019, @11:49PM (14 children)
After birth, in the circumstances you outline, adoption is the only acceptable outcome.
I just wish that both sides of this issue would spend more of their energy addressing the underlying causes of the problem, which is I understand a much deeper and more difficult thing to come to grips with.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday February 01 2019, @12:08AM (2 children)
Interested in discussing this
How about
Abortion is fully deregulated
Hospitals/Physicians cannot be compelled to participate in an abortion or prevent an abortion from happening
Fetus can be aborted at any stage for any reason or no reason
Tax dollars can not go to fund abortion as you cannot compel a person to pay for something against their wishes
Insurance companies can choose whether or not they will provide coverage
Legal rights are granted upon exiting the womb
If a pregnant woman is murdered/involuntary manslaughter/etc, the charges can only be against the woman
I stumble with Human/God given rights. I was going to suggest the legal stipulation that Human Rights are granted when the fetus crosses the womb as a threshold. But I really hate the term "human rights" and man cannot stipulate "god given" rights. Seems dangerous to play with what is / when human rights can and cannot be extended, easier to go with "god given" even if I don't believe in a god because that takes it out of mans ability to change on a whim. I'll go with "legal rights" for now.
Thoughts?
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Friday February 01 2019, @06:07AM
Human rights are the rights that the Declaration of Independence says are "endowed by their Creator." This is neutral or even Deist language, there is no presumption to tell us who or what is ultimately our Creator; the point is that given our form of existence, these things follow, so whomever or whatever gave us that form of existence, may also be said to have given us those rights.
Human rights, G_d given rights, whatever you want to call them, the point is that they are not granted by the legal system, not granted by the government, not granted by other men. They are inherent, they may be respected or violated, but no one can nullify them or revoke them.
I'll give you that if you think a fetus is a child, then they couldn't be waived. A mother can't consent to the murder of her child, it's absurd. This is what makes that misunderstanding a poison pill for the entire notion of rights. If you accept that equivalence then ultimately I don't see any way to hold onto what we think of as western civilization at all; the entire structure is ultimately rendered untenable as we go down the logical path from there.
But a fetus isn't a child. Any more than a caterpillar is a butterfly. I often hear the term "unborn child." A term invented by propagandists, it's a parallel construction to 'undead corpse' and one is exactly as likely as the other to occur in reality rather than a work of horror fiction. They are self-destroying terms. Corpses are dead, children are born, the human body becomes individual at birth, and ceases to be animate at death, only in between those two events can the notion of rights granted by the Creator really make sense.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday February 01 2019, @07:58AM
Canada has no abortion laws, well the regular laws about practicing medicine and such. Fetuses have no rights as they are not legally human until birth. Hospitals, along with the Provinces that run the hospitals do have regulations and can decide on which medical procedures they allow, for example my local hospital doesn't do births along with a lot of types of surgery, probably including abortion. It seems to work generally though there are Provinces (actually one I believe) where abortions aren't available, some Provinces are small. Never heard of late abortions, at least without a compelling reason and generally we don't have a large number of abortions due to sex education and birth control being available, 2.23/1000 compared to the US, 4.17/1000 in 2003, rates seem to be dropping in both countries.
Tax dollars do pay for many (most?) abortions, just like they pay for a lot of stuff against some tax payers wishes.
The courts do seem to frown on attacks on pregnant women and are likely to be harsher on sentencing but legally, it is the women attacked.
The reason we have no abortion laws is based on the Right of Security of Person, which is the right the Supreme Court used to strike down the abortion laws back in 1988. Governments are reluctant to even talk about abortion laws, we had some high profile jury nullification's on the subject back in the '70's and the people were very unhappy when the government appealed and over rode those nullifications (no double jeopardy right until '82 when we repatriated the Constitution and added the Charter of Rights)
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday February 01 2019, @08:03AM (10 children)
Lack of education and reasonable access to reasonably priced birth control?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday February 01 2019, @09:20AM (9 children)
And treating the symptom rather than the cause, I'm afraid.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday February 01 2019, @04:32PM (8 children)
Ah, being human.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday February 01 2019, @05:56PM (7 children)
Is it unimaginable to you that, given birth control and medical information, humans could learn to quit unintentionally creating lives?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday February 01 2019, @07:48PM (6 children)
So we're back to education and available birth control.
The problem is that there is a large spectrum of impulse control in people for various reasons.
One example is fetal alcohol syndrome where sufferers can have (very) limited impulse control. Prisons are full of them and I wouldn't be surprised if they have a large number of unplanned pregnancies.
OTOH, there are people with very low sex drives who have no problem avoiding unintended pregnancy. These people don't stand out, especially now a days when being unmarried/childless is quite socially acceptable, as they fit in with ideal morals.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday February 02 2019, @02:20AM (5 children)
No, you're missing the point.
We ALREADY HAVE those things, and yet we haven't eliminated the problem. Far from it. CDC estimated that 49% of pregnancies in the USA were unintended - in 2006, not 1806. Among women <=19yo it was more like 80%.
As I say, that's treating the symptoms not the causes. The causes are mostly social and economic changes. Having children and taking care of them has gotten much more expensive and much more 'problematic' might be the best way to say it. It's far less inviting than it was for previous generations. That's part of it - without that you might not have fewer pregnancies but you would have fewer unintended or unwanted pregnancies, which is what we're talking about after all.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday February 02 2019, @03:28AM (4 children)
My understanding is that in many States, there is very little sex education, especially at the early age when it helps the most, due to religious reasons, very little access to birth control, for religious reasons and as a whole America is still very Puritan. Does the average high school have condom vending machines? Is it easy for an underage girl to go to her Doctor, whip out her medical insurance card (government issued here) and get a reasonably priced birth control prescription without her parents knowing or being shunned by the Doctor/Nurses? Even for older women, is it easy and cheap to get a birth control prescription in most all States?
I live in a bible belt here in Canada, those religious people are nuts in their attitude towards sex (and very unchristian in lots of other attitudes). Anti-abortion but the last thing they want is educated kids when it comes to sex and they sure get upset about access to birth control. They seem to think if they don't tell the kids about sex, they'll never figure it out. Just have to watch most any mammal, sex comes naturally and it is a lot easier to divert a strong urge such as sex then to stop it. These religious people would never tell/encourage their kids to masturbate either.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Sunday February 03 2019, @01:11AM (3 children)
Only thing i can comment on education wise (as i agree it is a situation where more is always better) is that i grew up in a very liberal city with sex ed in every grade from 5-12. In 5, 7 and 9th grades it was indepth and the remainder was a passing thing. My school had condoms available to any who wanted them. My graduating class ended with three single mothers and two girls with abortions. I dont think an education can fix stupidity, although it might reduce the number of times it happens.
My class also had extremely high drug use, so that could also play a part with lowering inhabitions and not thinking about consequences as well
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday February 03 2019, @05:13AM (2 children)
Yea, it's complex. I remember one girl who was rumoured to have quit due to pregnancy. My son, who graduated 4 years back, doesn't remember any, which doesn't mean there weren't secret abortions.
Trying to research, DDG wants to give Canadian results. This article, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/canadas-teen-birth-and-abortion-rate-drops-by-369-per-cent/article571685/ [theglobeandmail.com] claims that Canada's teen pregnancy rate has dropped by 36.9% between '96 and '06 with America having a 25% drop. This study, https://www.med.uottawa.ca/sim/data/Abortion_e.htm [uottawa.ca] points out the drop is least in Quebec, which also has sporadic sex education. It also has some stats that might interest you about abortion in Canada with no laws. Eg, 90% done in first trimester, only 2-3% after 16 weeks and past 20-21 weeks only for compelling health or genetic reasons.
This study by the NIH, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194801/ [nih.gov] seems to state the best sex education is a mix, birth control and abstinence. Also has statistics on the various States.
Personally, I don't like abortion but also don't like removing a womans right to decide whether she wants to bring a pregnancy to term, as well as history has shown that prohibition just makes things worse, back alley abortionists in the case of abortion. Best seems to find the best way to educate. The other problems such as poverty are harder to deal with.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Sunday February 03 2019, @06:32PM (1 child)
I generally fall into the category of being okay with full legalization as long as i am not compelled to pay because of moral issues. Healthcare groups would work well for this, some places already make their christian orginazation healthcare groups so i don't see why pro-abortion groups can't either. If i was able to put aside the morals for money a good thing to do would build an aflac-like assurance for abortion/protection services that covers abortions/blan b/birth control. I am sure you could get enough new yorkers, californians, and oregonians onboard to make it quite profitable.
In general i can't imagine more education is bad. Although i absolutely hated the classes. I don't particularily enjoy three weeks of classes on jacking off in 5th grade, but this is just disagreements over content.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday February 03 2019, @09:47PM
Yes, a problem with taxes (and other group things like insurance) is they go to pay for things that people find immoral, whether abortion or certain types of military conflicts and lots in between. OTOH, they also go to birthing and keeping people alive. Cost for my child's birth to us was zero besides the regular medical premiums and taxes.
I'll note that about half of abortions in Canada take place in private clinics, paid out of pocket I assume.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @12:40AM
Here you go, the left claiming Trump is wrong about the left wanting exactly this:
https://i.redd.it/7g8e34b81rd21.png [i.redd.it]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Monday February 04 2019, @06:12PM (2 children)
If the father is that determined to have his own baby then he can either hire a surrogate himself or start researching womb transplants. As long as he's trying to grow that child in someone else's body without a contract, it's going to be their decision what happens to it.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:00AM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:12PM
The best way to immediately fix many of the issues with child support is with improved access to all forms of birth control, including abortion.
If you hit someone with your car, even if it's an accident, even if you aren't the one who got injured, you're still going to be paying at least part of the medical bills. This is no different...even if the pregnancy is an accident, even if you want nothing to do with it, you're still part of the cause and therefore partly responsible for the effects. Now, IMO, "I'm willing to pay for an abortion" (while one is still possible of course) ought to be an out -- if she doesn't want one, that's her choice and her responsibility. But that requires specific legislation, and such legislation would be seen as encouraging abortion and therefore would probably be unlikely to pass.
Another option is child insurance...although I'm not sure that our economy is quite in a state where that would be a workable scheme yet. But if society agrees that we need to encourage people to have children -- and based on existing regulation, from abortion restrictions to tax benefits, it seems that we do -- then one logical solution would be a pregnancy insurance, paid by tax dollars, which would pay the costs of child care. Of course, seeing how badly the existing foster care systems get abused by people trying to take advantage of similar payment schemes, I don't think we can quite make that work yet. Then again, it has some added efficiencies -- both in terms of having a single payer system for things like early childhood education, as well as the potential to bypass certain legal issues that make it harder to detect child abuse -- if the government pays for everything for that child, then it seems reasonable that the government could mandate annual physical exams and such which could help detect abuse or neglect. And of course the system would be voluntary, but if that means foregoing free education, healthcare, childcare, possibly even food and housing stipends, then I doubt may would opt out. Or it could be as simple as a UBI where the child gets one too, but I think that has a bigger abuse potential.
I think the more long-term solution is just going to be reproduction or complete child care (if we're talking a future with no human wombs necessary) as a profession. That also would probably need to be tax-supported, but it would be more like Brave New World where parents get replaced by a class of certified teachers and child care specialists. I realize Brave New World itself was intended to show a dystopian future, but I really do think we can do better at raising children than whatever idiot happens to knock someone up. Most of us can probably identify at least one parent who *really* shouldn't be raising kids; and it's an important enough job that maybe it ought to be left to a professional.