@pupski/Flickr
@synergy3k sends a story from Virginia, where Republicans now control both chambers of the Legislature and abortion is at the top of the agenda. Yesterday, one woman's public testimony seems to have turned back a bill that would have taken away abortion rights. Tara Schleifer told a Virginia Senate committee about the agony of deciding to end a pregnancy once tests found severe and ultimately fatal deformities.
"Each family has the right to follow their own conscience in making this most profoundly personal family decision," Schleifer said. "There is no black and white, right and wrong decision. All of it is awful."
The committee was locked seven to seven on the bill. An eighth vote belonged to Republican Senator Harry Blevins of Chesapeake. Just the day before, he backed a bill that requires women to undergo a medically unnecessary ultrasound before they can have an abortion (the bill that prompted an amendment requiring cardiac and rectal prostate exams before getting Viagra).
And then Blevins heard Schleifer describe her experience. He decided not to cast a vote at all. His abstention left the vote tied, which meant the bill did not pass. He explained:
"I don't feel like I have the ability to make a decision as difficult as the one that young woman made."
And with that, very big government got just a little smaller. I still think one of the hardest things about defending reproductive rights is that it forces people to take public stands on the most private of issues. How brave of anyone to do it, and how powerful even when anonymous.
(Image: @pupski/Flickr)
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1 small victory for women's rights! Maybe Mr. Blevins needs to talk to the rest of the GOP and ask them why "they" feel entitled to make the choice for families/individuals by taking away their right "to choose"?!
Huh. How about that.
""I don't feel like I have the ability to make a decision as difficult as the one that young woman made," said Republican Sen. Harry Blevins of Chesapeake."
That's when you vote against restrictions, you idiot!!! You don't just sit by the sidelines. *sigh*
Baby steps, I guess.
Megan, it was as good as a "no" vote and has the added benefit of not providing future opponents in his own party from beating him up with that "no" vote in the next primary season. It was simultaneously the right thing AND the smart thing to do.
So, when will the GOP bring God to court for aborting all the births which cease naturally? If they are against any and all life terminations by any and all, seems the one who causes most of them is the same one who they think is too weak to survive without them doing everything for him.
Won't these bills criminalize still-births and spontaneous abortions? I mean ... they don't really seem to give any regard to the mother in these cases, so why should they embrace "acts of God" that can be simulated with a bit of creative intervention by mankind?
At one point some months back, Utah was talking about prosecuting women who had spontaneous abortions for manslaughter. I think once they began discussing it while trying to write the bill, they realized that there were too many hypothetical situations that muddied the waters and that it was too complicated a subject to deal with.
My thoughts as well, JimT. These bills are more than men making decisions for women: they are making decisions for God as well. Or perhaps more accurately, they are dictating to God what His actions are to be in regard to reproduction. And if one is an atheist, think of these bills as man telling nature what to do, as if these bills can manupulate DNA, genes and other factors that make up and encapsulate a woman's body. Of course, all of these bills leave out the male, but it may be a matter of time before legislation is introduced to have men yield to sperm fertility counts, gene tests for diseases, and DNA mutations before sex of any kind. I really am curious as to how male lawmakers would react to such legislation.
Huh? She's only a woman.
A small voice of reason in the cacaphony of religious zealotry. There may be some hope for us yet. It's a baby step, but at least it's a step in the direction of reason and sanity.
Well, I know very little about Harry Blevins and I'm sure that I would disagree with him on any number of topics - but he earned a little bit of my respect today.
An example for other elected officials: your opinions should not be etched in stone - it's a good thing to listen to others and weigh their insights as well.
YES! So proud to be from Chespeake VA right now!! I knew there had to be at least one Republican in this world with a heart... Hope it lasts.
Nor do you have the right to make that decision for anyone but yourself! Isn't that the point we've been screaming about?!
Methinks even simply abstaining will cause Senator Blevins to be toast within his party as it's constituted today. Stay tuned to see what repercussions he suffers. A sad state of affairs.
Yes, and that is EXACTLY the point. NO legislator in ANY branch of government has the ability, let alone the right, to make that decision for someone else.
When will the rest of the GOP get that?
If your religous or moral beliefs cause you to oppose abortion, great... don't have one. But don't impose YOUR views on every other woman in the country. That is NOT "freedom".
Maureen, you said it all!
God allows us the freedom of choice. So should our government.
I think that by not voting, it was a touch cowardly. If you feel strongly that you cannot make such a decision for another person, vote against it. Let your own voice be heard in a sea of lunacity. At some point we must make these lawmakers aware of the fact that it is NOT their right to decide our lives. That is the biggest government of all. And the most frightening.
Ya think? You are clearly more classy than me, 'cause I feel it was full-bore, Webster-credentialled, 100%, self-serving, sneakin-out-the-back-door cowardice. stopped the vote, but didn't get to pro-choice black mark on his record. slimeball. (not you, the politician)
Every voter, and non-voter in America, esp. the "Christian Right", needs to read the book I jsut finished, "Moral Minority," by Brooke Allen. Then quit telling the "America was founded on Christian principles" lie.
Personally, I don't think men should have the right to make decisions over anything regarding women's health as a matter of public policy. Look how long it took before men allowed women to vote? In too many ways, women are still discriminated against by men simply because they can be, AND THEY ALLOW THEMSELVES TO BE.
Frankly, it baffles me that we don't have massive marches in the streets by women's organizations protesting this ridiculous overreach of men into women's private parts. These matters are NOT the purview of Government!
Women, what's your problem? Why are you allowing your rights to be steamrollered by a bunch of pathetic egotistical self-righteous bastards who continue to want to suppress you, your choices, and your access to cost-effective healthcare?
Who died and put you in charge of feminism?
Wow. Way to pay attention. Women HAVE marched in the streets. Hundreds of times. Our "problem" is that people don't listen, or apparently, notice.
He has a very good point....even though this is a female issue, it's more so a human rights issue.
David, thank you. Your words have been my mantra for many years. "MEN SHOULD HAVE NO VOICE IN THIS (abortion) ISSUE!" Men's "choice" ends with whomever they sleep with and men should choose carefully. To imagine a mostly female body of legislators pontificating about men's reproduction issues, well is unimaginable. This female body for instance might believe that spilled seed from auto erotic activity is killing a potential child and therefore make masturbation punishable by death. It is just that ridiculous. Yours is the answer I want to hear when a male is asked about their views on "choice." Men should simply say, "until men bear children, this is an entirely woman's issue." Thanks and congratulations.
for me, one of the most infuriating elements of the right to life debate is the assumption that abortion is simply a flippant decision - "oh, I'll just have an abortion.
or that the impact of that decision is not somthing that stays with you every day of your life - regardless of whether you teminated the pregnancy or not.
the debate is insulting. the consideration is ignorant.
I couldn't agree more. The debate insults not only the women, but the families who ever had to go through making those difficult decision.
Yeah, they assume that everyone who has one is cavalier in their decision. If men had to have the babies this would not even be a topic of discussion.
Government needs to get out of the way and let the free market take over- that's how we'll make everyone equal
...then of course the free market creates clinics which happen to provide, among many services, abortions
Ban abortions! Screw the free market! People can't make choices! For shame!
Once again we see that reality does not fit on a bumper sticker
The complex problems that bedevil us are not black and white but a thousand shades of grey.
Ethicist Judith Jarvis Thomson (on the subject of abortion) asks us to imagine that we wake up one day in a hospital bed with a machine connected both to your kidneys and to the kidneys of another man. You are told he is very famous and that he has kidney problems and that you are the only person in the world known to have the same rare blood type as the famous man you are now connected to. Now that you are awake you may choose to be disconnected from the famous man, in which case he will die, or you can stay connected for only a few painful bedridden months and save the man.
Thomson argues that the famous man does have a right to life, but not a right to the use of another person's body.
If a woman is raped and/or becomes unintentionally pregnant she is linked in a similar way to her baby as the two hypothetical hospital patients are linked to each other. Perhaps her fetus really does have a right to life. But, does a fetus have a right to the woman's body without her consent? If this is the case then should everyone be forced to become kidney doners?
EXCELLENT comment, Megan!! Yeah, it IS the most difficult, personal decision a woman can make AND as such it should be HER decison. Women will decide, NOT the Pope, not politicians!!
Yet, they are always so ready and willing to send our young men and women to other countries to kill people and be killed. By doing so, they are responsible for taking the lives of those already living and breathing. They are Hypocrites and their rationale and agenda for anti abortion legislation isn't so much religious peity as it is a means of creating a larger, poorer society that will be easier to control.
"I don't feel like I have the ability to make a decision as difficult as the one that young woman made"
This is what's known as "pro-choice." Senator Blevins, you are pro-choice. Embrace it.
Could have knocked me over with a feather when I read this.
Thank you, Tara Schleifer, for so eloquently speaking up for a woman's right to choose.
As someone who lost twin girls becasue of complications with childbirth, they were born prematurely but died within 24 hours, I know what it is like to lose a child. This is one area the government has no place in except to make sure there is affordable care for women what ever they choose. Of course I did not have a choice and the fact that both babies died haunts me to this day. I don't think I could ever have an abortion but I do not feel that I have the right to make that decision for others.
METhree, I am so sorry for your loss.
I think this is proof that some politicians actually take into consideration their constituency- that is a good thing. I wish stories like this would happen more often. The ironic thing is, that Senator Blevins has stood up for his small-government values for not participating in that vote. The government intervening to prevent abortions is increasing the government's power, not decreasing it. I have always been pro-choice, even though I am almost positive I could never have an abortion myself. It is not my place, or the government's to tell women what to do with their own bodies.
I really appreciate the comments by Janet1987 and Maureen Mower. They sum up the dilemma nicely.
To abort a beginning new life, is ALWAYS a fearful, horrible decision, arrived at with much soul-searching and thinking about other options. That's how it was in my case back in 1976, when my supposedly fool-proof (IUD) birth control failed. There I was, a young single mother with three teen-aged children. We had just climbed out of bitter poverty in the South Bronx. We were living in a beautiful part of the city, I was working and supporting the children, life was hard but getting MUCH better--and then my birth control failed. I wasn't about to put the one almost-life, ahead of the three who were already here--and move us all back to the South Bronx, back on Welfare, because I wasn't able to support 4 children. I did what I had to do. A bitter but very necessary choice.
Today all three children are successes. I found a wonderful man and married him. My oldest daughter is a travel agent. My middle daughter is an EMS. My last daughter retired successfully from the military after 20 years. None of that would/could have happened, had abortion not been an option for me. Yes it was a TERRIBLE decision. Yes, it haunts me still. Yes, I would do it again just as I did because the stakes were so high for the rest of my family. And NONE of that decision-making should EVER be taken out of the head of a family's hands, by religious zealots who have no idea what life is like for that family.
IF the religious right is so hell-bent on preserving every life--then let them PAY FOR IT. Offer every unwed mother money to keep her fetus--and more money to help her raise it without untoward effect to the rest of the family. To do anything else is to expose yourselves as the anti-human religious zealots that you actually are--as worthy of scorn as any piece of ordure that attaches itself accidentally to one's shoe!
This is not a novel idea, actually. Heck, I've seen it in romance fiction. Nora Roberts has a set of future-oriented romance novels, within which there are (I think) "professional mothers" - women compensated fairly by society for the gestation and raising of children. If, as seems to be the implication, that the gestation and raising of children is something that society should stick their noses into, rather than it being a decision the women gestating the child makes for herself, then of course society should be fairly compensating these women for their service to the nation. Heck, they should receive a combat Sargeant's salary, at least, since childbirth is hazardous.
It doesn't make sense to me though: Having a child is a very personal decision, and one that society should have no say in. All aspects of the process should be fully in the hands of the woman, as part of her inviolable reproductive rights.
Although I would never have had an abortion, even though faced with a difficult situation, I would not impose my feelings/convictions on another woman. So I am pro-choice, and I support the right to privacy guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. This decision is up to the woman, her doctor and her family ONLY. Whether the situation involves health, finances, or other circumstances is not a government concern. When faced with a problematic future, endangering life or health, or whatever the situation, it is a difficult enough decision that doesn't require further intervention by our lawmakers. As the expression goes, "Stay out of our wombs!" The restrictions on third trimester abortions is reasonable; earlier intervention is UN-reasonable.