Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Oklahoma Enacts Tough Abortion Laws Requiring Ultrasounds
CHICAGO — Oklahoma lawmakers overrode their governor's veto Tuesday to enact tough abortion laws that force women to undergo invasive ultrasounds and allow doctors to withhold test results showing fetal defects.
Oklahoma is enacting tough abortion laws. The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the constitutionality of the ultrasound law, which it said "profoundly intrudes upon a patient's privacy." (AFP) Even women who are victims of rape or incest will be
required to listen to a detailed description of the fetus and view the
ultrasound image prior to terminating a pregnancy.
They will also likely be required to undergo vaginal rather than abdominal ultrasounds as doctors are required to use the method that "would display the embryo or fetus more clearly."
The second bill shields doctors from "wrongful birth" malpractice lawsuits brought by parents who would have aborted a fetus had they been informed about its genetic or other defects.
The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the constitutionality of the ultrasound law, which it said "profoundly intrudes upon a patient's privacy."
A similar Oklahoma law was struck down last year.
"Politicians have no business making medical decisions," said Stephanie Toti, a staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights.
"Another round in the courts won't change our strong constitutional claims against the law, it will only waste more of Oklahoma taxpayers' time and money."
Democratic Governor Brad Henry tried to block the bills last week, but the Republican-dominated Oklahoma legislature overwhelmingly overrode his veto with the help of Democrats.
Henry said that while he supports "reasonable" restrictions on abortions, the laws had serious constitutional flaws and represented an excessive intrusion of government into the private lives of its citizens.
"It is unconscionable to grant a physician legal protection to mislead or misinform a pregnant woman in an effort to impose his or her personal beliefs on his patient," the governor said in his veto message.
"State policymakers should never mandate that a citizen be forced to undergo any medical procedure against his or her will, especially when such a procedure could cause physical or mental trauma," he added.
Abortion foes hailed the veto overrides as a victory for the unborn.
"Ultrasound gives a mother a window to her womb," Mary Spaulding Balch, director of state legislation for the National Right to Life, said in a statement.
"It helps to prevent her from making a decision she may regret for the rest of her life and it empowers her with the most accurate information about her pregnancy so that she can make a truly informed 'choice.'"
In the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case, the Supreme Court ruled that states could not prohibit access to abortions prior to fetal viability -- which is generally seen to be somewhere around 24 weeks -- or when the pregnancy threatens the woman's health.
However, the court has upheld a number of state laws that essentially restrict access such as requiring parental notification when minors seek abortion or imposing strict and costly regulations on providers.
28 Comments so far
Show AllSo glad to see "opponents of Big Government" further discrediting themselves this way.
They scream about keeping government out of our lives when it comes to our right to own a gun or to let "health" insurance corporations rip us off without government regulation, but when it comes to oppressing women through draconian anti-choice laws, or oppressing gays by preventing their getting married, or sending our kids to foreign resource-rich lands to kill for corporate profits in illegal wars of aggression, then we must all salute the flag and obey "our" government.
Hypocrisy never looked so clear and obvious.
Ed, your observations provoke a thought:
The various elements point to an obsessive preoccupation with guns and power and other peoples' crotches.
We can only wonder where they would take their comfort were it not for the topics they find so disturbing. Not a well group.
[Hypocrisy never looked so clear and obvious.]
Without doubt.
To me, you make no sense!
Are these moral or economic decisions? It seems most of these decisions are closely tied to economics. What have you done to help the African Americans improve their lot in society as to make these abortions uneccessary? Very easy for you to sit in your poition of comfort and judge another's pain. If you don't believe in abortion, then don't get one. If you think being gay is sinful, then resrict yourself to opposite sex partners. I will thank you in advance for keeping YOUR dogma out of our laws and by extension our lives!
Couldn't agree more!
But when you say:
"It seems most of these decisions are closely tied to economics."
Ya, but I would add, either they couldn't afford the condom a few weeks earlier, or they were deprived from an education that would teach them to be responsible and use any safe and effective family planning method.
Abortion is just the worst form of berth control for people who know no better. Unfortunately ignorance and religious bigotry go hand in hand.
Hey Tim, wear a condom and STFU!
And how many African Americans are in our jails -- !!!
Huge percentage of their population --!!
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Actually, the anti-abortion crowd long ago attempted to piggyback onto leftist civil-libertarian concerns by declaring that reproductive rights are a Trojan Horse for cultural oppression and genocide of black and Hispanic minorities.
Sort of an Establishment "White Op" caper, I guess you could call it.
There are ads posted on Philly public transportation featuring a large photo of an African-American tot with blurb warning minority persons of the insidious practice of encouraging black women to have abortions.
They're sponsored by anti-abortion groups, of course, with the dubious message of "Don't let 'Them' fool you into having that abortion, because 'They' are determined to thin the herd!"
I don't know how successful this infoganda is-- the cute little model who posed for the ad must be in college by now!
The fanatics behind such ads don't give a damn about what becomes of the post-fetal child, of course; I suppose they assume that all the money saved on abortions could ensure a happy and prosperous life for all. After all, they're too exhausted by compulsive fetus-rescuing to be bothered with the pesky details of what happens after they heroically succeed.
So it doesn't surprise me that a drive-by Junior Infogandist would lob this bogus stink bomb into the comments.
Hey Tim, you're male STFU!
I am sure it tittilates the perv-goobers on the right to know that pregnent women will now be forced to have a phallic shaped probe inserted into thier vagina's for the government required ultra-sound testing. Governmental forced rape. Disgusting.
Exactly --
and these are the new Witch Hunts . . . !!
."According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Hey you sick, effed up, controlling man-childs, get out of MY uterus! My sexual being is NONE of your business. If you really want to reduce abortions/unwanted pregnancies, promote the use of and use yourself CONDOMS! Hey Okie Tea-bagger women, why aren't you screamming bloody murder about the invasion of your private parts?
I'm glad this article mentioned viability. A discussion started the other day after this article:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/14-6
I wondered if anyone cared to comment further?
Key:
[[Me.]]
[Saturnalia.]
Me again.
[[Does a fetus ever deserve any rights at all apart from the mother?]]
[No, it is not alive. It might become alive if it can gestate and be born. Until it's born, it has no rights at all. I know that seems harsh, but the alternative is that we call them alive from conception and then the anti-abortion crowd will start to work on banning birth control and damning people for 'spilling' their seed on the ground.]
Not alive? Is your arm alive? Is a parasite alive? Biologically speaking, arms, parasites, and fetuses all qualify as living. Even you seem to think so (see below)!
The "every sperm is sacred" slippery-slope argument sounds like an appeal to fear. I'm about love, not fear. I'm paraphrasing but Ghandi said truth can transform fear into love. Is there truth about abortion?
[[ Is there any time during gestation when the fetus can be recognized as human?]]
[After birth.]
Birth terminates gestation and is indeed a major life event so I very much respect this opinion.
[[ How about during the ninth month when long-distance connections in the brain begin to hook up? Does consciousness matter?]]
[No, and no.
The thing is, even after the baby is born it's a helpless little animal. It cannot communicate like other people can, it cries if it's hungry, or cold, or wet, or smelly. If you don't pay attention to it, it will die. Even if you pay attention to the thing, it still might die for no apparent reason....I'd say it's better to abort than to deal with delivering a dead, or dying baby.]
How can we know it's dying before birth if it's not alive?!?
A woman's right to choose is a solid majority opinion. The idea that any woman who wants an abortion should be able to get one the day before she delivers regardless of circumstances is a tiny minority opinion. Indeed there is no place in the world where this is practiced (but see infanticide below) even though according to the law in some places it would technically be possible. Certainly no doctor in the U.S. operates this way, not even George Tiller when he was still kicking. Roe vs Wade relies on the concept of viability, and the courts have extended choice protection beyond viability in some circumstances.
Have you ever asked a woman who carried a fetus to term if she thought it was alive during the ninth month?
Taking extreme positions not based on anything but a slavish or religious belief in choice perpetuates the argument and probably leads to less women having access because it means the pro-choice position does not pass the gut test.
I've always liked the word "altricial" to describe human infants though it's mostly reserved for birds. It means born early in development, and I'd agree humans are about as altricial as they come considering its a good twelve years before they reach reproductive age. However, I'd argue that humans, as social animals, never outgrow the need for others. I know that I would die a quick death left to my own devices, and this from someone who has survived for weeks alone in the woods, well, alone except for the mutt.
How many women want an abortion in the ninth month anyway?
[If you want to use the religion argument on the debate... The ancients had access to abortion, yet Jesus never mentioned it. He did mention that if you were a slave you should obey your master, but never mentioned the topic of abortion....]
No I definitely do not "want to use the religion argument on the debate." You are only a slave if you obey your master. Try to unshackle yourself from NARAL, NOW, the Democratic Party, and all the other organizations that exist only so long as this debate can be perpetuated.
[Nor for that matter did he mention the topic of infanticide, which was another way that the ancients practiced population control.]
Once again, by bringing up infanticide in the context of abortion, you admit that the fetus is alive. Of course infanticide IS relevant. How can a woman legally get an abortion the day before she gives birth at nine months but if she tosses her two months premature baby in the dumpster she can get the death penalty? (For the record I favor counseling, not prison, for the latter.) Should we not consider these conundrums rather than blandly dismissing them as anti-choice?
[[ In the not to distant future full-on test tube babies, er fetuses will be bred.]]
[I hope you mean that they'll be gestated outside of a mother's womb. I'd actually like to see that happen, just for the joy of having all of those who opposed abortion and the right to choose saddled with 50 or 100 kids to raise. (yes, I'm being facetious.)]
"Bred" may not have been the best word, and you hope correctly. I'm sorry you have chosen to make jokes rather than intelligent dialog. On the other hand, you're stumbling onto an important consideration about reproductive technology, which is that it tends to be available to and used by the upper classes. I'm sure test-tube babies will continue to be used to maximize the reproductive potential of the wealthy...
Eugenics and abortion, what a combo. Have you EVER considered the suffering miserable tormented life of an unwanted child. I suggest you do so.
Have you ever considered having an intelligent conversation? Why be so dismissive? Do you not see that you are a tool of the Democratic Party who have to perpetuate this argument? Any chance you can respond to something I actually wrote?
Oh, joy. I'm famous! Being quoted from one thread to another, it makes me ever so happy. I'm not sure why you want to continue a discussion that had died a natural death weeks ago, but I'm game.
[Is your arm alive? Is a parasite alive? Biologically speaking, arms, parasites, and fetuses all qualify as living. Even you seem to think so (see below)!]
Yes, they are alive. But not too many people will argue that a parasite has the right to live at the expense of it's host. Of course a baby is not a parasite, but a fetus can indeed be classified as one.
[How can we know it's dying before birth if it's not alive?!?]
Gee, I dunno. Maybe if the doc did a test to see if the thing had a heartbeat, or an ultrasound to detect any problems. Of course, you'd need to have a health care system that gave enough of a damn about the health of the patients rather than the health of the health care insurance corporation. Of course, the key thing is the choice the woman makes. I'm a man, a gay one at that, so my opinion of abortion is of very little relevance; isn't it?
[You are only a slave if you obey your master. Try to unshackle yourself from NARAL, NOW, the Democratic Party, and all the other organizations that exist only so long as this debate can be perpetuated.]
Canadian too. We have the New Democratic Party as an option in Canada, but they are a socialist party and will likely never form a national government. One other difference between our countries is that we do teach our young how to avoid getting preggers or other STDs by using safe sex, birth control and try to teach them that if they do have sex, they should be in a 'long term' relationship. You guys seem to think that you can just order teenagers and other people to do something and they'll be happy to comply with your authoritarian delusions.
[[Nor for that matter did he mention the topic of infanticide, which was another way that the ancients practiced population control.]
Once again, by bringing up infanticide in the context of abortion, you admit that the fetus is alive. Of course infanticide IS relevant. How can a woman legally get an abortion the day before she gives birth at nine months but if she tosses her two months premature baby in the dumpster she can get the death penalty?]
The fact that the fetus is a life form doesn't give it the absolute right to keep on living. What is your argument anyhow? That life is sacred and we shouldn't kill anyone? If that's it, I can almost agree with you. The reason I say almost is that what happens to the truck driver who is momentarily careless and kills that same two month old baby? (or the thousands of other people who die each year due to 'accidents' on the road?) We don't jail, nor do we kill those who fuck up when driving. How many corporate executives are going to jail for killing their employees this year? This decade? Have any of them gone to jail for that in the last century? How many soldiers have gone to jail for unlawfully killing someone? How long was W. Calley in jail for after being convicted over the Mai Lai massacre?
So, we know that you oppose abortion. What we don't know is if you yourself have ever had to make the choice of carrying a child. Are you male or female? I think you're male, personally. Although it's nearly impossible to tell by your words or your username. If you're male, you do not have the right to force your beliefs on others, you could - like myself - decide never to have an abortion, but that decision is moot as neither of us will ever face that choice for ourselves (if we're both male). If you're female, I have no problem with your choice to carry every fetus you can to term. But I don't think that you should try to force others to do what you want to do.
You said, and I quote now for the third time, "it is not alive." As I mentioned, you had already contradicted yourself on this point. You misinterpret my position on abortion.
Canada huh? That's the state next to Alaska isn't it?
As I said the other day, I'm sympathetic to the argument that men should not even have an opinion on this topic but then am also convinced by the argument that pro-life women bring their men along to the discussion so that pro-choice women should too.
Soooo, while I'm at it, I'm going to suggest a way for women to solve the access problem because it's actually the most serious anti-choice restriction right now Okies and Cornhuskers notwithstanding.
In order to solve the access problem, that is the problem that most women do not have ready access to abortions even in states without restrictions, women should only matronize OB GYN doctors who offer abortions. At first this girlcott could take the form of simply asking your OB doc if they offer abortions and suggesting that they should offer them because of access issues. Also, ask where the nearest doctor is who does offer them. Bring it up every time you visit.
Then, if that doesn't help. If they or at least the place they work still do not offer abortions, then go someplace else. Vote with your pocketbook.
Or, women in Oklahoma could just quit having sex until the law is overturned!!
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
"HITLER'S DEBT TO AMERICA"
The Guardian UK
http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/offSiteArchive/HitlerDebtToAmerica.html
"Tough abortion laws"? Finging out possible 'less than 'fit' potential babies'? For THAT 'real' purpose?
In 'politics', little is as it seems.
You can read about it, under the banner : "WAR AGAINST THE WEAK - *Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race.* by Edwin Black.. I doubt many of you (like me) had ever heard of this 'American National Bestseller?). You have now.
Is a fetus alive? I would say, yes it is. Of course it is, if it is indeed a LIVING fetus.
Sperm. are little living things too. Throwing these little living things on to barren ground... tsk. Poisoning them.. tsk. Suffocating them as they try to swim to nourishment and BECOME a child (one cannot 'become' what one is already is).. tsk. Throwing them down the toilet.. tsk. Do that with your OWN sperm, or that sperm 'you' didn't want and so raced to destroy before it could reach nourishment and become a baby... (You wanted the pleasure but that comes with a price - The continuation of the species.. (which is what the 'pleasure' is all about.)
For those potential mothers who wish their most-likely baby-to-be to go to heaven, but 'knowing' it can't unless it has been baptised (!).. baptise your stomach, wherein the baby-to-be lies. And place two pennies, instead of one, on the plate. So that the Church has not been cheated of any gold.
There is one fool proof method of birth control --
VASECTOMY --
Let's start paying for vasectomies -- and rewarding males
who get them!!
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
[VASECTOMY]
Well, actually... There is a small chance that you can still procreate even after you've had a vasectomy, even if the operation is done 'right' there is a chance. Very small, but it's still there.
If you want to be sure that you'll not have a child, stick to your own sexual 'kind' male with male, female with female. Or you could just go for Castration. (funny how even gay men don't like that idea...)
Religion cloaked in hypocrisy.
Typical.
Just more intimidation and fear brought on by people wanting to stop others from making up their own minds.
Margaret Atwood is proving more and more an able Cassandra.