fling93 loves fishies

My Wife's in the Paper!/PBA Ban

My wife was in the paper yesterday, featured prominently in a column in the San Jose Mercury News by Sue Hutchison (on the Web for a limited time -- probably a couple of months). It describes how my wife, Erika Jackson, is preparing the San Jose State chapter of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (FMLA) to spread the word about the growing threat to abortion rights, particularly President Bush's recent signing of the partial-birth abortion (PBA) ban. My wife's very active on campus (particularly for women's issues), so she's mentioned in the school paper quite a bit, but this was the first time she's appeared in a "real" paper, so she's quite excited, and I'm very proud of her.

She is, of course, far to the left of me (Political Compass results: Economic Left/Right: -7.00, Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.10, my results are here). Personally, I consider myself Pro-Choice for Libertarian reasons. Indeed, I'm not fond of the labels Pro-Choice and Pro-Life, but would prefer the more accurate (but admittedly unwieldy) Pro-Abortion-Control and Anti-Abortion-Control (just like Gun Control is the real issue, not guns themselves). But I also believe you're just asking for trouble if you don't call somebody by the label they pick for themselves, so Pro-Choice/Pro-Life it is.

Anyway, I believe that the fetus is probably a human life once brain wave activity starts, which is about 43-47 days after conception, so I would have no problems if abortions were illegal after that point. However, that's just my personal belief. The American public is vastly divided on where exactly that point is (not very many agree with the point I picked), which is not surprising, because this is not something we'll ever be able to prove. So I don't think it's the government's job to step in and enforce an arbitrary point unless that point has the broad support of our society.

As for the recent PBA ban, I believe it's purely a political move. The law itself makes no reference at all to the actual medical term for the procedure, Intact Dilation and Extraction (D&X). PBA, of course, being mostly a marketing term (just like Pro-Choice and Pro-Life). Indeed, the procedure is worded vaguely and with similar wording to a law that was struck down by the courts before, so I have to believe the law was intended to be struck down.

This is because a PBA ban has wide support, and the Pro-Life forces want that support in the next Presidential election. They don't want the public to feel satisfied with current abortion laws; they want the public to feel like the courts are the ones holding back a PBA ban (and thus, we need a President who will "fix" the courts).

I think Ampersand states that case pretty well:

...despite their rhetoric to the contrary - the Republicans in congress know that their ban will almost certainly be found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. And the funny thing is, the Republicans know perfectly well how to write a constitutional ban on late-term abortions - Sandra Day O'Connor, in her Carhart concurrence, explained very specifically what sort of ban would be constitutional.

A ban on partial-birth abortion that only proscribed the D&X method of abortion and that included an exception to preserve the life and health of the mother would be constitutional in my view.

O'Connor is the swing vote on this issue on the Court, so her opinion is effectively law. You want to write a constitutional ban on late-term D&X abortions? Sandy's told you exactly how to do it.

And yet, the Republicans write a ban that does not limit itself to one procedure, and does not contain any health exception. They've written a ban, in other words, that's specifically designed to be rejected by the Supreme Court. What's up with that?

And unless you've been living in a cave somewhere (without DSL access), you know that O'Connor (along with Rehnquist) is expected to be stepping down soon, which is why the next President's stance on abortion is going to be a key issue.

I like to consider myself a rather non-partisan person who realizes both major parties have their own agendas (one of which is to have their constituents be loyal and partisan so their votes are never in doubt), but in this case, I have to agree. Seems to be a clear case where two-party politics are shooting the American public in the foot.