The Rapid City Journal features a story today about the sonogram bill that passed both houses in the legislature yesterday. The bills would require a sonogram be offered to women seeking an abortion before the abortion could be performed.
The subheadline on the front page of the Journal raises an interesting question about the so-called "doctor-patient relationship" in an abortion:
That "relationship" with an abortionist (it's hard to call someone in the business of taking human life a "doctor") is usually a farce, as pointed out by Senator Dennis Schmidt, sponsor of the Senate bill SB 88:
"They really don't have contact until the girl is on the table," he said.
Rep. Don Van Etten, a retired doctor, agreed and pointed out that abortionists fly in to Sioux Falls to perform scheduled abortions; they don't even live in the state, so how can they have any meaningful "doctor-patient relationship"?
I guess the Journal didn't like the sonogram bill very much, given this headline:
Wouldn't the headline be more accurate if it said, "Legislators versus abortionists?" or "Pro-abortionists versus informed decisions?"
The bills passed with a majority, yet the emphasis in the headlines seems to be on the claims of the minority opposition (i.e. those in favor of blocking every obstacle to abortion). How "objective" is that?
The article also brings out an important fact on a different issue, still related to abortion:
On the House side, Rep. Deb Peters, R-Hartford, who voted against the House version, HB1193, offered a different medical perspective.
"With my first child, I was told that my child was going to be born without a head, that the ... spinal cord was going to be outside the vertebra in the back," she said.
Peters said she had to undergo many tests.
"I had to do numerous things, and in that situation, you're faced with a life-and-death decision. It's not a decision that's taken lightly."
Peters, who opposes abortion, voted against the sonogram bill. "It's not doing what you think it's doing," she said. "You're going to be torturing women like me who have to make a life-and-death decision, and it's not fair."
(Peters later said she had the baby, who turned out to be a normal, healthy child.)
Some abortion proponents argue that mothers should be allowed to abort children with birth defects. In this case, Peters would have been killing a perfectly healthy child (as if a child with birth defects was less deserving of life).
Pro-abortionists always roll out the "doctor-patient relationship" excuse and the "doctors know best" excuse any time abortion restrictions are discussed. Yet we don't always think "doctors know best" when it comes to euthanizing their patents (well, not EVERY time). We don't always think "doctors know best" when it comes to doctors who molest their patients. We don't always think "doctors know best" when it comes to physician incompetence or medical malpractice.
So the belief that "doctors know best" isn't as monolithic as pro-aborts would have us think.
7 comments:
This is one to pass on to Newsbusters!
The way you and the rest of the pro-life movement use the term "abortionist" reminds me a lot of how the KKK uses the n-word.
I personally think pro-life people would be taken a lot more seriously if they didn't call other people names. And that goes for the other side too.
By your definition, Anonymous, we couldn't call people firemen, psychologists, farmers, or whatever. It's hard to communicate without terms of classification. After all, you called me "pro-life people."
As for your other point, there's no reason for a person to call someone a derogatory name based on their skin color; it has nothing to do with their character or their actions.
Abortionist, however, is one who performs abortions, and pro-abortion or pro-abortionist is one who supports abortionists. It's simply a term of description of what one does or supports.
Could your discomfort with the term have anything to do with guilt over the association with someone who kills unborn children?
I wasn't talking about the word itself. I was talking about how you were using it. It seemed like you were using it as an expletive. But I could have misread your intent. If I did, I'm sorry.
I hear name calling coming from both sides whether it's "murder" or "misogynist." I think stuff like that doesn't really help anything. So that was why I made that comment.
And I consider myself part of "pro-life people." What's wrong with that?
There IS nothing wrong with "pro-life people;" I was just pointing out that this is a label, too.
The only time I get worked up about labels is when they radically or intentionally misrepresent something. I don't get worked up when the pro-aborts call me anti-choice; in a sense I am--I'm against a woman choosing to kill any of her children, born or unborn. I know they mean it differently, but it still has some merit as a descriptor. Whether they use it as an expletive or not is up to them; I don't take it that way.
As I said, descriptors are useful, and we shouldn't shy away from them unless they're grossly inaccurate or misrepresentative.
Bob - What do Kate Looby and Dick Cheney have in common?
They both pull the trigger before identifying the target.
I thought of that gem listening to the to PP people explain why women should not be allowed to see a sonogram of their baby.
Both sadly and humorously true, Steve.
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