Being a woman in this country just got a little more ridiculous

"You're loosing your rights and you don't even know it."--Dean Diane Raymond

Kat brought this up last night about how the Dean walked into my freshman honor's class and made this statement. It meant very little to us because we were wide-eyed and in awe of her presence. I mean, we were being taught by the DEAN of the college of arts and sciences. THE academic Dean. The one that matters!

I didn't know what her statement really meant. I'm sure she wasn't just talking about the issue at hand in this entry but it can definately apply.

First I want to start off with an article:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/04/18/scotus.abortion/index.html


Next I would like to commend Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for her dissent:
http://www.law.com/jsp/dc/PubArticleDC.jsp?id=1176887057227

Here is the text of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003
http://www.theorator.com/bills108/s3.html

Highlights from her dissent:
"In keeping with this understanding of the right to reproductive choice, we have consistently required that laws regulating abortion, at any stage of pregnancy and in all cases, safeguard not only a woman’s existence — her life — but her health as well. Faithful to precedent unbroken from 1973 until today, the Court held seven years ago in Stenberg v. Carhart, that a state statue banning the very procedure at issue today — intact D&E — was unconstitutional in part because it lacked a health exception. If substantial medical authority maintains that banning a particular abortion procedure could endanger women’s health, we held, a health exception cannot be omitted by the legislators."

"The Court asserts that its ruling furthers the Government’s interest in “promoting fetal life.” But the Act scarcely furthers that interest, for it targets only a method of abortion. The woman may abort the fetus, so long as her doctor uses another method, one her doctor judges less safe for her. The Court further pretends that its decision protects women. Women might come to regret their physician-counseled choice of an intact D&E and suffer from “[s]evere depression and loss of esteem,” the Court worries. Notably, the solution the Court approves is not to require doctors to inform women adequately of the different procedures they might choose, and the risks each entails. Instead, the Court shields women by denying them any choice in the matter. This way of protecting women recalls ancient notions about women’s place in society and under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited. "

"In treating those women, physicians would risk criminal prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment if they exercise their best judgment as to the safest medical procedure for their patients. The Court is thus gravely mistaken to conclude that narrow, as-applied challenges are “the proper manner to protect the health of the woman.” "


Parts of the Act that I find totally offensive:
The Congress finds and declares the following:

(1) A moral, medical, and ethical consensus exists that the practice of performing a partial-birth abortion--an abortion in which a physician deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living, unborn child's body until either the entire baby's head is outside the body of the mother, or any part of the baby's trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother and only the head remains inside the womb, for the purpose of performing an overt act (usually the puncturing of the back of the child's skull and removing the baby's brains) that the person knows will kill the partially delivered infant, performs this act, and then completes delivery of the dead infant--is a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary and should be prohibited.

So suddenly government officials have a right to decide what is MEDICALLY NECESSARY? Since when did THEY go to medical school?

And if they're sooooo qualified to decide what is medically necessary, why the hell don't they use the proper term instead of the retorical phrase of "partial-birth abortions"? IT'S CALLED IDX OR D&E thank you!
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/04/18/scotus.abortion/index.html

"Specifically, the ban encompasses what doctors call "intact dilation and evacuation" (also known as IDX), which Congress in its legislation termed inhumane.

It is a rarely used second-trimester procedure, designed to reduce complications to the woman. More common is "dilation and evacuation" (D&E), used in 95 percent of pre-viability second-trimester abortions, according to Planned Parenthood. Both are generally performed after the 21st week of pregnancy."

What I don't understand is the last part of the 2003 Act but that's probably because I know nothing about how to read law-based literature or whatever. In any event, I don't like what is happening here because it violates the doctor's right to practice, it encroaches on the doctor patient relationship, and in ways the hippocratic oath.

"Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God."

"I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick."

It is for the patient and the doctor to decide where they want to go with their life, prognosis, and treatment. Additionally, if the family (husband, partner, parents etc.) have wishes to keep the mother alive or if she herself wishes to choose her life over the unborn fetus (in those rare cases) then it is the physicians' duty to comply and aid where they can. There is so much more to this than "pro-life" and "pro-choice". As Kat said, if you're not pro-life what does that make you? Pro-death?

Honestly. What the hell?

Dan comes home earlier than expected

Create yours at BlingyBlob.com!

RA appreciattiion

yay. I'm appreciated.

Studying--halfway there

I'm studying and am now taking a break. I must note, for myself that daniel has been gone 72 days (give or take). He will return in 72 more days (again, give or take).

I'm halfway there. Yay.

I am so tired. But I must return to studying.

i hate everything

piece of shit.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton '08

So, Hillary looks really appealing to me right now after I went to a talk held by two Simmons Professors today. So I'll go into what they say and it is probably self-explanatory why I might like Hillary more.

Buuuuut I don't think she will win. I just don't see people voting for her. Also Catie brought up a good point: what if Obama and Hillary make it past the primaries and the Repubs run somone super conservative and then people vote for him/her whatever and we become a fucked up nation. More so than right now.

So the goal of the talk today was how Obama and Clinton are exceptions to the rules and how they are different from the usual problems with candidates at the federal level.

Of course with Hillary they talked about the gender thing.
She's shown strength in times of war. Just look at her resume. Post 9/11, people view that men are better. This isn't the case with Hillary. She's supported more military bills, they've been mostly bipartisan, she's visited Iraq and Afghanistan three times. She's a major critic on the war.

Also she's very capable of fundraising, more so than women that have come before. Usually corporations give to male candidates and the money also comes from men. In three months, she's raised 26 million! Compare that to 8.9million for Al Gore's campaign and 15 mill for John Edwards and 23 mills for Romney.

She's god a law degree, two terms in senate, she didn't divorce Clinton. Hell, her husband helps her fundraise. She's got a lot under her belt. And she's not too old and not too young.

OBAMA--he's an outsider, he's new. He's not pushing the race thing. There's the question of him being "black enough." but I don't see that part mattering much to ME. Poor guy. He's running a national campaign to actually win, which hasn't been seen before. African American candidates only run to force people to talk about issues important to them. One thing I don't like is he's attempting to "win everyone." African Americans are not supporting Obama. He's different because he's not from the Civil Rights movement. There are no religious affiliations with him. He has some challenges which are sad: limits on white support--he's doing a balancing act here. He's very new to this because of his new term and maybe he's been barred from participating in more gov'n position due to descrimination. I dunno. He has a different viewpoint.

I just think that I need to know more about Obama. There's a lot on Clinton out there but he hasn't really put his platform out there for everyone to see...I don't think he should try to "win everyone". That could backfire.