Pregnant Women Lose Civil Rights

[Newby]

You remove morals from society, then anything goes. And the anti-moralists can't claim that not to be true.

A lack of morals isn't an indication of lack of religion.....it is an indication of a lack of empathy.

Such as the lack of empathy for children killed in the womb by their very own mothers?

 

[Derideo_Te]

Ironic!

In other words, you have no rebuttal. I didn't think so. lol

That you cannot rise above mindless vulgarities means that there is nothing to rebut. You need to crawl out from your sewer if you want a response from me. I am not going to lower myself to your level no matter what kind of obscenity laden provocation a self confessed "Christian" like you wants to throw at me.

Oh my, are you judging me for my use of foul language?? An anti-authoritarian liberal is passing judgement about foul language??? What a hoot you are!!! lol Along with a major hypocrite and a sad and poor representative of your liberal acquaintances.

And keep on using pathetic excuses and wasted electrons to spout your non answer. It's extremely amusing!

Judging is what religious people like you do.

I just have standards when it comes to posting. Either you meet my standard or you will be treated accordingly.

Your mindless deflection of "authoritarian" is ludicrous.

This is the internet and I have no "authority" over what you spew. All I do have is the choice to react to your abysmal lack of civility. If you persist in being obnoxious I will exercise my right to give you a one way ticket to Cyberia. You won't be missed.

Have a nice day.

OMG! Thanks for the laugh!! And what's even funnier is that you're serious!!! lol

If you really believe what you just said, that 'religious' people judge, but you only have 'standards', that you're somehow 'better', then you're so far down the rabbit hole there is no hope for you.

You are, and have become, exactly what the liberal movement started out against, judgmental, authoritarian, 'holier than thou', and yet you don't see yourself as such. Hilarious!

Have a nice day yourself, you just made mine! lol

Did distorting what I actually posted make you feel better? Because you didn't resort to vulgarities that time.

Maybe you are capable of rising above your base instincts. Let's see what happens. Have a nice day.

 

[Newby]

As libs like to say, they will be on the wrong side of history when it comes to abortion, human history will see this as a blight on human decency just as slavery is viewed today. Who kills their own child when it's so easy to prevent conception? Murdering babies because of laziness and selfishness is on the same scale, if not worse, than slavery.

 

[emilynghiem]

This is happening all over states that have imposed restrictions on abortion. One case that wasn't in the article that happened just a year or so ago. A pregnant woman in Texas was found on the floor of her home by her husband. She wasn't breathing and he called 9-11. She was resuscitated and taken to the hospital. She was diagnosed as brain dead. However because she was 14 weeks pregnant, the hospital ignored her written wishes of DNR and not hooking her up to machines to keep her alive, the hospital hooked her up to machines. The husband had to go to court to get her taken off the machines. The state of Texas tried to incubate a mostly dead fetus in a dead woman's body.

This is what happens to women when their rights are taken from them only because she's pregnant and the state gives the fetus more rights than the living woman.




WITH the success of Republicans in the midterm elections and the passage of Tennessee’s anti-abortion amendment, we can expect ongoing efforts to ban abortion and advance the “personhood” rights of fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses.

But it is not just those who support abortion rights who have reason to worry. Anti-abortion measures pose a risk to all pregnant women, including those who want to be pregnant.

Such laws are increasingly being used as the basis for arresting women who have no intention of ending a pregnancy and for preventing women from making their own decisions about how they will give birth.

How does this play out? Based on the belief that he had an obligation to give a fetus a chance for life, a judge in Washington, D.C., ordered a critically ill 27-year-old woman who was 26 weeks pregnant to undergo a cesarean section, which he understood might kill her. Neither the woman nor her baby survived.

In Iowa, a pregnant woman who fell down a flight of stairs was reported to the police after seeking help at a hospital. She was arrested for “attempted fetal homicide.”

In Utah, a woman gave birth to twins; one was stillborn. Health care providers believed that the stillbirth was the result of the woman’s decision to delay having a cesarean. She was arrested on charges of fetal homicide.

In Louisiana, a woman who went to the hospital for unexplained vaginal bleeding was locked up for over a year on charges of second-degree murder before medical records revealed she had suffered a miscarriage at 11 to 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Florida has had a number of such cases. In one, a woman was held prisoner at a hospital to prevent her from going home while she appeared to be experiencing a miscarriage. She was forced to undergo a cesarean. Neither the detention nor the surgery prevented the pregnancy loss, but they did keep this mother from caring for her two small children at home. While a state court later found the detention unlawful, the opinion suggested that if the hospital had taken her prisoner later in her pregnancy, its actions might have been permissible.

In another case, a woman who had been in labor at home was picked up by a sheriff, strapped down in the back of an ambulance, taken to a hospital, and forced to have a cesarean she did not want. When this mother later protested what had happened, a court concluded that the woman’s personal constitutional rights “clearly did not outweigh the interests of the State of Florida in preserving the life of the unborn child.”

Anti-abortion reasoning has also provided the justification for arresting pregnant women who experience depression and have attempted suicide. A 22-year-old in South Carolina who was eight months pregnant attempted suicide by jumping out a window. She survived despite suffering severe injuries. Because she lost the pregnancy, she was arrested and jailed for the crime of homicide by child abuse.

These are not isolated or rare cases. Last year, we published a peer-reviewed study documenting 413 arrests or equivalent actions depriving pregnant women of their physical liberty during the 32 years between 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, and 2005. In a majority of these cases, women who had no intention of ending a pregnancy went to term and gave birth to a healthy baby. This includes the many cases where the pregnant woman was alleged to have used some amount of alcohol or a criminalized drug.

Since 2005, we have identified an additional 380 cases, with more arrests occurring every week. This significant increase coincides with what theGuttmacher Institute describes as a “seismic shift” in the number of states with laws hostile to abortion rights.

The principle at the heart of contemporary efforts to end legal abortion is that fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses are persons or at least have separate rights that must be protected by the state. In each of the cases we identified, this same rationale provided the justification for the deprivation of pregnant women’s physical liberty, as well as of the right to medical decision making, medical privacy, bodily integrity and, in one case, the woman’s right to life.

Many of the pregnant women subjected to this mistreatment are themselves profoundly opposed to abortion. Yet it was precisely the legal arguments for recriminalizing abortion that were used to strip them of their rights to dignity and liberty in the context of labor and delivery. These cases, individually and collectively, highlight what is so often missed when the focus is on attacking or defending abortion, namely that all pregnant women are at risk of losing a wide range of fundamental rights that are at the core of constitutional personhood in the United States.

If we want to end these unjust and inhumane arrests and forced interventions on pregnant women, we need to stop focusing only on the abortion issue and start working to protect the personhood of pregnant women.

We should be able to work across the spectrum of opinion about abortion to unite in the defense of one basic principle: that at no point in her pregnancy should a woman lose her civil and human rights.

Lynn M. Paltrow is a lawyer and the executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, where Jeanne Flavin, a sociology professor at Fordham University, is the president of the board of directors.

Pregnant, and No Civil Rights - NYTimes.com

Dear Dana:
May I ask then why depend on Govt to regulate health care policies and choices for people,
and then turn around and oppose how laws are implemented?

It seems clear why we should keep govt out of health care decisions, not inject more govt regulations!

 

[emilynghiem]

We have a certain segment of our population who wants to meddle in and control the lives of others. Basic rights, as guaranteed by our Constitution, have no meaning to them.

Which is what Conservatives are saying about ACA and federal mandates
taking away personal freedom and liberty in health care choices.

 

[Newby]

In other words, you have no rebuttal. I didn't think so. lol

That you cannot rise above mindless vulgarities means that there is nothing to rebut. You need to crawl out from your sewer if you want a response from me. I am not going to lower myself to your level no matter what kind of obscenity laden provocation a self confessed "Christian" like you wants to throw at me.

Oh my, are you judging me for my use of foul language?? An anti-authoritarian liberal is passing judgement about foul language??? What a hoot you are!!! lol Along with a major hypocrite and a sad and poor representative of your liberal acquaintances.

And keep on using pathetic excuses and wasted electrons to spout your non answer. It's extremely amusing!

Judging is what religious people like you do.

I just have standards when it comes to posting. Either you meet my standard or you will be treated accordingly.

Your mindless deflection of "authoritarian" is ludicrous.

This is the internet and I have no "authority" over what you spew. All I do have is the choice to react to your abysmal lack of civility. If you persist in being obnoxious I will exercise my right to give you a one way ticket to Cyberia. You won't be missed.

Have a nice day.

OMG! Thanks for the laugh!! And what's even funnier is that you're serious!!! lol

If you really believe what you just said, that 'religious' people judge, but you only have 'standards', that you're somehow 'better', then you're so far down the rabbit hole there is no hope for you.

You are, and have become, exactly what the liberal movement started out against, judgmental, authoritarian, 'holier than thou', and yet you don't see yourself as such. Hilarious!

Have a nice day yourself, you just made mine! lol

Did distorting what I actually posted make you feel better? Because you didn't resort to vulgarities that time.

Maybe you are capable of rising above your base instincts. Let's see what happens. Have a nice day.

I saw no distortion, and perhaps someday women such as yourself will rise above your base instincts and abortions will not be necessary. I mean, that's what you advocate, right? The right of a woman to not rise above her base instincts, to fuck where ever and whenever she pleases without facing any consequences? You can't get any more base than that my dear. And I do apologize in advance for the 'vulgarity', I'm sure you never use them yourself.

 

[hadit]

She gave hers up when she got pregnant. See how that works?

Not according to the Constitution.

Yes, we understand that you don't know how the Constitution works.

The Constitution is also silent on when a man gives up his reproductive freedom. Perhaps you forgot that?

 

[hadit]

That's His prerogative. He has authority you do not.

Your God has no authority over anyone's Constitutional rights in America.

He has the final say on everything. You're on borrowed time.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

I hold that killing a baby is not a basic human right.

thank God, what men like you HOLD doesn't mean much, ernie...

Especially since he, rmkbrown and other RW men don't even know the difference between a baby and a fetus!

Until they're the ones getting pregnant, they really don't count for much.

 

[hadit]

I hold that killing a baby is not a basic human right.

thank God, what men like you HOLD doesn't mean much, ernie...

Especially since he, rmkbrown and other RW men don't even know the difference between a baby and a fetus!

Until they're the ones getting pregnant, they really don't count for much.

Neither is any more or less human than the other, so if you want to argue semantics, it seems to be a rather weak argument.

 

[Derideo_Te]

This is happening all over states that have imposed restrictions on abortion. One case that wasn't in the article that happened just a year or so ago. A pregnant woman in Texas was found on the floor of her home by her husband. She wasn't breathing and he called 9-11. She was resuscitated and taken to the hospital. She was diagnosed as brain dead. However because she was 14 weeks pregnant, the hospital ignored her written wishes of DNR and not hooking her up to machines to keep her alive, the hospital hooked her up to machines. The husband had to go to court to get her taken off the machines. The state of Texas tried to incubate a mostly dead fetus in a dead woman's body.

This is what happens to women when their rights are taken from them only because she's pregnant and the state gives the fetus more rights than the living woman.




WITH the success of Republicans in the midterm elections and the passage of Tennessee’s anti-abortion amendment, we can expect ongoing efforts to ban abortion and advance the “personhood” rights of fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses.

But it is not just those who support abortion rights who have reason to worry. Anti-abortion measures pose a risk to all pregnant women, including those who want to be pregnant.

Such laws are increasingly being used as the basis for arresting women who have no intention of ending a pregnancy and for preventing women from making their own decisions about how they will give birth.

How does this play out? Based on the belief that he had an obligation to give a fetus a chance for life, a judge in Washington, D.C., ordered a critically ill 27-year-old woman who was 26 weeks pregnant to undergo a cesarean section, which he understood might kill her. Neither the woman nor her baby survived.

In Iowa, a pregnant woman who fell down a flight of stairs was reported to the police after seeking help at a hospital. She was arrested for “attempted fetal homicide.”

In Utah, a woman gave birth to twins; one was stillborn. Health care providers believed that the stillbirth was the result of the woman’s decision to delay having a cesarean. She was arrested on charges of fetal homicide.

In Louisiana, a woman who went to the hospital for unexplained vaginal bleeding was locked up for over a year on charges of second-degree murder before medical records revealed she had suffered a miscarriage at 11 to 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Florida has had a number of such cases. In one, a woman was held prisoner at a hospital to prevent her from going home while she appeared to be experiencing a miscarriage. She was forced to undergo a cesarean. Neither the detention nor the surgery prevented the pregnancy loss, but they did keep this mother from caring for her two small children at home. While a state court later found the detention unlawful, the opinion suggested that if the hospital had taken her prisoner later in her pregnancy, its actions might have been permissible.

In another case, a woman who had been in labor at home was picked up by a sheriff, strapped down in the back of an ambulance, taken to a hospital, and forced to have a cesarean she did not want. When this mother later protested what had happened, a court concluded that the woman’s personal constitutional rights “clearly did not outweigh the interests of the State of Florida in preserving the life of the unborn child.”

Anti-abortion reasoning has also provided the justification for arresting pregnant women who experience depression and have attempted suicide. A 22-year-old in South Carolina who was eight months pregnant attempted suicide by jumping out a window. She survived despite suffering severe injuries. Because she lost the pregnancy, she was arrested and jailed for the crime of homicide by child abuse.

These are not isolated or rare cases. Last year, we published a peer-reviewed study documenting 413 arrests or equivalent actions depriving pregnant women of their physical liberty during the 32 years between 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, and 2005. In a majority of these cases, women who had no intention of ending a pregnancy went to term and gave birth to a healthy baby. This includes the many cases where the pregnant woman was alleged to have used some amount of alcohol or a criminalized drug.

Since 2005, we have identified an additional 380 cases, with more arrests occurring every week. This significant increase coincides with what theGuttmacher Institute describes as a “seismic shift” in the number of states with laws hostile to abortion rights.

The principle at the heart of contemporary efforts to end legal abortion is that fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses are persons or at least have separate rights that must be protected by the state. In each of the cases we identified, this same rationale provided the justification for the deprivation of pregnant women’s physical liberty, as well as of the right to medical decision making, medical privacy, bodily integrity and, in one case, the woman’s right to life.

Many of the pregnant women subjected to this mistreatment are themselves profoundly opposed to abortion. Yet it was precisely the legal arguments for recriminalizing abortion that were used to strip them of their rights to dignity and liberty in the context of labor and delivery. These cases, individually and collectively, highlight what is so often missed when the focus is on attacking or defending abortion, namely that all pregnant women are at risk of losing a wide range of fundamental rights that are at the core of constitutional personhood in the United States.

If we want to end these unjust and inhumane arrests and forced interventions on pregnant women, we need to stop focusing only on the abortion issue and start working to protect the personhood of pregnant women.

We should be able to work across the spectrum of opinion about abortion to unite in the defense of one basic principle: that at no point in her pregnancy should a woman lose her civil and human rights.

Lynn M. Paltrow is a lawyer and the executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, where Jeanne Flavin, a sociology professor at Fordham University, is the president of the board of directors.

Pregnant, and No Civil Rights - NYTimes.com

Dear Dana:
May I ask then why depend on Govt to regulate health care policies and choices for people,
and then turn around and oppose how laws are implemented?

It seems clear why we should keep govt out of health care decisions, not inject more govt regulations!

Emily,

The ACA providing contraception is reducing the incidence of abortions.

Hard to argue that isn't a good outcome.

DT

 

[hadit]

This is happening all over states that have imposed restrictions on abortion. One case that wasn't in the article that happened just a year or so ago. A pregnant woman in Texas was found on the floor of her home by her husband. She wasn't breathing and he called 9-11. She was resuscitated and taken to the hospital. She was diagnosed as brain dead. However because she was 14 weeks pregnant, the hospital ignored her written wishes of DNR and not hooking her up to machines to keep her alive, the hospital hooked her up to machines. The husband had to go to court to get her taken off the machines. The state of Texas tried to incubate a mostly dead fetus in a dead woman's body.

This is what happens to women when their rights are taken from them only because she's pregnant and the state gives the fetus more rights than the living woman.




WITH the success of Republicans in the midterm elections and the passage of Tennessee’s anti-abortion amendment, we can expect ongoing efforts to ban abortion and advance the “personhood” rights of fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses.

But it is not just those who support abortion rights who have reason to worry. Anti-abortion measures pose a risk to all pregnant women, including those who want to be pregnant.

Such laws are increasingly being used as the basis for arresting women who have no intention of ending a pregnancy and for preventing women from making their own decisions about how they will give birth.

How does this play out? Based on the belief that he had an obligation to give a fetus a chance for life, a judge in Washington, D.C., ordered a critically ill 27-year-old woman who was 26 weeks pregnant to undergo a cesarean section, which he understood might kill her. Neither the woman nor her baby survived.

In Iowa, a pregnant woman who fell down a flight of stairs was reported to the police after seeking help at a hospital. She was arrested for “attempted fetal homicide.”

In Utah, a woman gave birth to twins; one was stillborn. Health care providers believed that the stillbirth was the result of the woman’s decision to delay having a cesarean. She was arrested on charges of fetal homicide.

In Louisiana, a woman who went to the hospital for unexplained vaginal bleeding was locked up for over a year on charges of second-degree murder before medical records revealed she had suffered a miscarriage at 11 to 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Florida has had a number of such cases. In one, a woman was held prisoner at a hospital to prevent her from going home while she appeared to be experiencing a miscarriage. She was forced to undergo a cesarean. Neither the detention nor the surgery prevented the pregnancy loss, but they did keep this mother from caring for her two small children at home. While a state court later found the detention unlawful, the opinion suggested that if the hospital had taken her prisoner later in her pregnancy, its actions might have been permissible.

In another case, a woman who had been in labor at home was picked up by a sheriff, strapped down in the back of an ambulance, taken to a hospital, and forced to have a cesarean she did not want. When this mother later protested what had happened, a court concluded that the woman’s personal constitutional rights “clearly did not outweigh the interests of the State of Florida in preserving the life of the unborn child.”

Anti-abortion reasoning has also provided the justification for arresting pregnant women who experience depression and have attempted suicide. A 22-year-old in South Carolina who was eight months pregnant attempted suicide by jumping out a window. She survived despite suffering severe injuries. Because she lost the pregnancy, she was arrested and jailed for the crime of homicide by child abuse.

These are not isolated or rare cases. Last year, we published a peer-reviewed study documenting 413 arrests or equivalent actions depriving pregnant women of their physical liberty during the 32 years between 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, and 2005. In a majority of these cases, women who had no intention of ending a pregnancy went to term and gave birth to a healthy baby. This includes the many cases where the pregnant woman was alleged to have used some amount of alcohol or a criminalized drug.

Since 2005, we have identified an additional 380 cases, with more arrests occurring every week. This significant increase coincides with what theGuttmacher Institute describes as a “seismic shift” in the number of states with laws hostile to abortion rights.

The principle at the heart of contemporary efforts to end legal abortion is that fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses are persons or at least have separate rights that must be protected by the state. In each of the cases we identified, this same rationale provided the justification for the deprivation of pregnant women’s physical liberty, as well as of the right to medical decision making, medical privacy, bodily integrity and, in one case, the woman’s right to life.

Many of the pregnant women subjected to this mistreatment are themselves profoundly opposed to abortion. Yet it was precisely the legal arguments for recriminalizing abortion that were used to strip them of their rights to dignity and liberty in the context of labor and delivery. These cases, individually and collectively, highlight what is so often missed when the focus is on attacking or defending abortion, namely that all pregnant women are at risk of losing a wide range of fundamental rights that are at the core of constitutional personhood in the United States.

If we want to end these unjust and inhumane arrests and forced interventions on pregnant women, we need to stop focusing only on the abortion issue and start working to protect the personhood of pregnant women.

We should be able to work across the spectrum of opinion about abortion to unite in the defense of one basic principle: that at no point in her pregnancy should a woman lose her civil and human rights.

Lynn M. Paltrow is a lawyer and the executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, where Jeanne Flavin, a sociology professor at Fordham University, is the president of the board of directors.

Pregnant, and No Civil Rights - NYTimes.com

Dear Dana:
May I ask then why depend on Govt to regulate health care policies and choices for people,
and then turn around and oppose how laws are implemented?

It seems clear why we should keep govt out of health care decisions, not inject more govt regulations!

Emily,

The ACA providing contraception is reducing the incidence of abortions.

Hard to argue that isn't a good outcome.

DT

Not that it was difficult to get condoms before. Now don't go off on how "the pill" is great for medical reasons, because you specifically cited reducing abortion. That's done easily with better condom use, and you can get them almost everywhere.

 

[depotoo]

2. The people have certain natural rights which are retained by them when they enter into Society. Such are the rights of conscience in matters of religion; of acquiring property, and of pursuing happiness & safety; . . . of these rights therefore they shall not be deprived by the government of the United States.

 

[Newby]

This is happening all over states that have imposed restrictions on abortion. One case that wasn't in the article that happened just a year or so ago. A pregnant woman in Texas was found on the floor of her home by her husband. She wasn't breathing and he called 9-11. She was resuscitated and taken to the hospital. She was diagnosed as brain dead. However because she was 14 weeks pregnant, the hospital ignored her written wishes of DNR and not hooking her up to machines to keep her alive, the hospital hooked her up to machines. The husband had to go to court to get her taken off the machines. The state of Texas tried to incubate a mostly dead fetus in a dead woman's body.

This is what happens to women when their rights are taken from them only because she's pregnant and the state gives the fetus more rights than the living woman.




WITH the success of Republicans in the midterm elections and the passage of Tennessee’s anti-abortion amendment, we can expect ongoing efforts to ban abortion and advance the “personhood” rights of fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses.

But it is not just those who support abortion rights who have reason to worry. Anti-abortion measures pose a risk to all pregnant women, including those who want to be pregnant.

Such laws are increasingly being used as the basis for arresting women who have no intention of ending a pregnancy and for preventing women from making their own decisions about how they will give birth.

How does this play out? Based on the belief that he had an obligation to give a fetus a chance for life, a judge in Washington, D.C., ordered a critically ill 27-year-old woman who was 26 weeks pregnant to undergo a cesarean section, which he understood might kill her. Neither the woman nor her baby survived.

In Iowa, a pregnant woman who fell down a flight of stairs was reported to the police after seeking help at a hospital. She was arrested for “attempted fetal homicide.”

In Utah, a woman gave birth to twins; one was stillborn. Health care providers believed that the stillbirth was the result of the woman’s decision to delay having a cesarean. She was arrested on charges of fetal homicide.

In Louisiana, a woman who went to the hospital for unexplained vaginal bleeding was locked up for over a year on charges of second-degree murder before medical records revealed she had suffered a miscarriage at 11 to 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Florida has had a number of such cases. In one, a woman was held prisoner at a hospital to prevent her from going home while she appeared to be experiencing a miscarriage. She was forced to undergo a cesarean. Neither the detention nor the surgery prevented the pregnancy loss, but they did keep this mother from caring for her two small children at home. While a state court later found the detention unlawful, the opinion suggested that if the hospital had taken her prisoner later in her pregnancy, its actions might have been permissible.

In another case, a woman who had been in labor at home was picked up by a sheriff, strapped down in the back of an ambulance, taken to a hospital, and forced to have a cesarean she did not want. When this mother later protested what had happened, a court concluded that the woman’s personal constitutional rights “clearly did not outweigh the interests of the State of Florida in preserving the life of the unborn child.”

Anti-abortion reasoning has also provided the justification for arresting pregnant women who experience depression and have attempted suicide. A 22-year-old in South Carolina who was eight months pregnant attempted suicide by jumping out a window. She survived despite suffering severe injuries. Because she lost the pregnancy, she was arrested and jailed for the crime of homicide by child abuse.

These are not isolated or rare cases. Last year, we published a peer-reviewed study documenting 413 arrests or equivalent actions depriving pregnant women of their physical liberty during the 32 years between 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, and 2005. In a majority of these cases, women who had no intention of ending a pregnancy went to term and gave birth to a healthy baby. This includes the many cases where the pregnant woman was alleged to have used some amount of alcohol or a criminalized drug.

Since 2005, we have identified an additional 380 cases, with more arrests occurring every week. This significant increase coincides with what theGuttmacher Institute describes as a “seismic shift” in the number of states with laws hostile to abortion rights.

The principle at the heart of contemporary efforts to end legal abortion is that fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses are persons or at least have separate rights that must be protected by the state. In each of the cases we identified, this same rationale provided the justification for the deprivation of pregnant women’s physical liberty, as well as of the right to medical decision making, medical privacy, bodily integrity and, in one case, the woman’s right to life.

Many of the pregnant women subjected to this mistreatment are themselves profoundly opposed to abortion. Yet it was precisely the legal arguments for recriminalizing abortion that were used to strip them of their rights to dignity and liberty in the context of labor and delivery. These cases, individually and collectively, highlight what is so often missed when the focus is on attacking or defending abortion, namely that all pregnant women are at risk of losing a wide range of fundamental rights that are at the core of constitutional personhood in the United States.

If we want to end these unjust and inhumane arrests and forced interventions on pregnant women, we need to stop focusing only on the abortion issue and start working to protect the personhood of pregnant women.

We should be able to work across the spectrum of opinion about abortion to unite in the defense of one basic principle: that at no point in her pregnancy should a woman lose her civil and human rights.

Lynn M. Paltrow is a lawyer and the executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, where Jeanne Flavin, a sociology professor at Fordham University, is the president of the board of directors.

Pregnant, and No Civil Rights - NYTimes.com

Dear Dana:
May I ask then why depend on Govt to regulate health care policies and choices for people,
and then turn around and oppose how laws are implemented?

It seems clear why we should keep govt out of health care decisions, not inject more govt regulations!

Emily,

The ACA providing contraception is reducing the incidence of abortions.

Hard to argue that isn't a good outcome.

DT

And this is where 'logic and reason' comes in and they steal money by means of force from hard working Americans to give to others for their birth control costs, among other things. Just give us your money and shut up!

However, when 'logic and reason' are used to advocate that people conduct themselves in a responsible manner with responsible behavior, i.e. go to school, study hard, get a good job, pay for one's own living expenses, have responsible sex, then we're all just crazy, we can't expect people to behave in such a manner!! We can't expect people to face the uncomfortable consequences of their very own behavior!! Ridiculous!

Amazing how their brand of 'logic and reason' are applied.

 

[Derideo_Te]

She gave hers up when she got pregnant. See how that works?

Not according to the Constitution.

Yes, we understand that you don't know how the Constitution works.

The Constitution is also silent on when a man gives up his reproductive freedom. Perhaps you forgot that?

You have the wrong end of the stick.

A man cannot un-impregnate a women post facto. Once the egg is fertilized the reproductive rights are entirely up to the woman concerned.

 

[Derideo_Te]

That you cannot rise above mindless vulgarities means that there is nothing to rebut. You need to crawl out from your sewer if you want a response from me. I am not going to lower myself to your level no matter what kind of obscenity laden provocation a self confessed "Christian" like you wants to throw at me.

Oh my, are you judging me for my use of foul language?? An anti-authoritarian liberal is passing judgement about foul language??? What a hoot you are!!! lol Along with a major hypocrite and a sad and poor representative of your liberal acquaintances.

And keep on using pathetic excuses and wasted electrons to spout your non answer. It's extremely amusing!

Judging is what religious people like you do.

I just have standards when it comes to posting. Either you meet my standard or you will be treated accordingly.

Your mindless deflection of "authoritarian" is ludicrous.

This is the internet and I have no "authority" over what you spew. All I do have is the choice to react to your abysmal lack of civility. If you persist in being obnoxious I will exercise my right to give you a one way ticket to Cyberia. You won't be missed.

Have a nice day.

OMG! Thanks for the laugh!! And what's even funnier is that you're serious!!! lol

If you really believe what you just said, that 'religious' people judge, but you only have 'standards', that you're somehow 'better', then you're so far down the rabbit hole there is no hope for you.

You are, and have become, exactly what the liberal movement started out against, judgmental, authoritarian, 'holier than thou', and yet you don't see yourself as such. Hilarious!

Have a nice day yourself, you just made mine! lol

Did distorting what I actually posted make you feel better? Because you didn't resort to vulgarities that time.

Maybe you are capable of rising above your base instincts. Let's see what happens. Have a nice day.

I saw no distortion, and perhaps someday women such as yourself will rise above your base instincts and abortions will not be necessary. I mean, that's what you advocate, right? The right of a woman to not rise above her base instincts, to fuck where ever and whenever she pleases without facing any consequences? You can't get any more base than that my dear. And I do apologize in advance for the 'vulgarity', I'm sure you never use them yourself.

You really are clueless. You are making erroneous assumptions and as such it is highly amusing to watch.

Please don't stop. You can't buy entertainment of this sort.

 

[Derideo_Te]

That's His prerogative. He has authority you do not.

Your God has no authority over anyone's Constitutional rights in America.

He has the final say on everything. You're on borrowed time.

Your superstitions have no bearing on my reality.

 

[Mertex]

How can you claim that a woman is brain dead and put on life support to save the life of the baby, THEN claim that the rights of a living woman were violated?

Oh, so when you make a will, after you die it is no longer valid because you are no longer a living person? She had indicated that she didn't want heroic measures to keep her alive....what do you not understand about that? She made her decision when she was living, so yes, the rights of a living woman were violated.....geez....it's not rocket science.

 

[Derideo_Te]

I hold that killing a baby is not a basic human right.

thank God, what men like you HOLD doesn't mean much, ernie...

Especially since he, rmkbrown and other RW men don't even know the difference between a baby and a fetus!

Until they're the ones getting pregnant, they really don't count for much.

Neither is any more or less human than the other, so if you want to argue semantics, it seems to be a rather weak argument.

The weakness of your position is that you are arguing that your fingernail clippings are "human" and have a "right to life". No one is denying you your right to clip your fingernails even though they are made of the same DNA as you are and are therefore "just as human" as any other part of you.

 

[Mertex]

Her husband just didn't want to be saddled with a baby which is no reason to murder the baby.

Oh, so now you can even interpret what people are thinking. Geez, I didn't realize conservatives had such powers, no wonder they want to make all these rules, they know exactly what others are thinking.....you all need to assist in crime solving with such powers.

 

[hadit]

I hold that killing a baby is not a basic human right.

thank God, what men like you HOLD doesn't mean much, ernie...

Especially since he, rmkbrown and other RW men don't even know the difference between a baby and a fetus!

Until they're the ones getting pregnant, they really don't count for much.

Neither is any more or less human than the other, so if you want to argue semantics, it seems to be a rather weak argument.

The weakness of your position is that you are arguing that your fingernail clippings are "human" and have a "right to life". No one is denying you your right to clip your fingernails even though they are made of the same DNA as you are and are therefore "just as human" as any other part of you.

Nope. A developing baby has unique human DNA that matches neither the father nor the mother. It is, therefore, not a part of the mother's body, and in fact, produces the placenta specifically to prevent mixing of things like blood. Please try again.