Mississippi's proposed Amendment 26 to ban birth control and abortion

[Delta Starfire]

Just for the record, while I am definitely pro-choice, I also consider myself pro-abortion. That is to say that there is simply no moral quandary in my mind about the issue. If a woman doesn’t want a child and she’s pregnant, I personally think she ought to have an abortion. After all, what are the alternatives? Motherhood before you’re ready or when you don’t even want it? Not a good idea, since the best parents are generally going to be the ones who have their children when they’re ready for them and they should definitely want to have them when they do. Adoption? Sure, this option gets the birth mother off the hook, but only after an expensive nine months of pregnancy (especially if you live in a country with terrible health coverage, like the United States), and there’s a big enough problem with unwanted children in orphanages as it is, so we shouldn’t be contributing to it.

But, as I said, I’m pro-choice, so I definitely wouldn’t impose abortion on anyone. But if anyone asked for my opinion, that’s what I’d tell them: if you want it and you feel ready for the responsibility, then congratulations; but if you don’t want it, abort it and save everyone (including the potential child) a lot of trouble. Of course, it would still be and always should be the woman’s choice.

That said, I’ve often wondered about the position of the father in cases like this. Assuming the father is still in contact with the mother, how much input should he have in the decision? What if the father doesn’t want a child or if he doesn’t feel ready for the responsibility? Considering fathers can be approached and compelled to contribute financial support to their child (at least, I believe they can here in Britain), even if they’re not in a relationship with the mother and have no interest in the child, I sometimes think that perhaps the father’s opinion should be considered too. That, to me, is the only thing about abortion that I have a slight moral quandary over. I know where I would stand in the unlikely event that I managed to get a girl pregnant; I’d want her to have an abortion. But what if she didn’t want to do that and was intent on demanding money from me to support the child? That would put me in a position with no choices at all. That is a problem, I think, and I don’t really know how to solve it. I absolutely believe in a woman’s right to choose, but doesn’t a man also have a right to choose...?

If anyone else has any thoughts on that, I’d be glad to hear them. It would probably be more interesting than the usual track the abortion discussion follows.

I agree with making and Keeping Abortion illegal. I've very christian and very pro life. Hell, the doctor that perfected the procedure of abortion stopped after terminating over 100 or more pregnancies because he finally saw the heartbeat and realized it was alive.....ALIVE!

I disagree with outlawing birth control....I...I mean...so.....why.....who..................wtf...............

A tumour is also alive.

Edited October 11, 2011 by Eon

[Diogenes]

If I were a woman, I would NEVER have an abortion when there is a perfectly great other option to just let the kid get adopted to a family that will hopefully love and cherish the child.

[Delta Starfire]

Problem being, there aren't enough willing parents to go around. From what I've heard the systems pretty much constantly overwhelmed, and putting a kid up for adoption in no way guarantees that they'll end up in a safe, stable, and loving home.

Edited October 11, 2011 by Eon

[SchemingMinor]

If I recall, South Dakota tried an amendment like this earlier this year that classified abortion as a homicide, only to get it rejected thankfully.

http://legis.state.s...e=HB1171HJU.htm

Colorado had one in 2010 that included both birth-control and abortion which also was nullified.

http://www.prochoice...llotwatch.shtml

The derp is infectious and keeps on spreading. I swear if they try this provision in Florida I will shoot it down faster than a logical question does at the Flat Earth Society.

Edited October 11, 2011 by Kintobor

[Emmett L. Brown]

Psssh! If life begins at conception, then nature, or their deity of choice, a mass-murderer that makes Hitler look like Mother Theresa.

I'm of the contraversial view that human life begins at sentience, which happens a lot later, and doesn't require funeral services every time the womb auto-rejects a developing fetus.

Geez, that's dark. '_'

[turbojet]

Kagan, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kennedy, and Breyer will note vote in support of this law and I'd wager that Alito wouldn't either.

Alito usually votes Conservative. Kennedy is the wild card and trust me when I say that I've seen some shit.

[-Mark-]

Psssh! If life begins at conception, then nature, or their deity of choice, a mass-murderer that makes Hitler look like Mother Theresa.

I'm of the contraversial view that human life begins at sentience, which happens a lot later, and doesn't require funeral services every time the womb auto-rejects a developing fetus.

Geez, that's dark. '_'

[Solkia]

Note to SSMB: I'm in Mississippi right now. I live there. There isn't a bunch of crazies. I promise.

I agree with the OP in that a woman should have the right to choose.

Unrelated: Isn't there a cut-off date where the baby can no longer be aborted? I can't seem to remember.

Third Trimester i believe.

I'm kind of on indescision on the whole abortion thing, but birth control? wtf? Do they actually think this has a chance of passing?

[Random Rhyme]

Banning birth control? Ok now this is overdoing it. I may have my issues with abortion but going against birth control is on the extreme side.

Edited October 11, 2011 by S. Rhymes

[TheGerkuman]

I’d want her to have an abortion. But what if she didn’t want to do that and was intent on demanding money from me to support the child?

The way to do is it is to make a provision in the law that stops extortion, I guess. There's a big difference between having a child with someone and then leaving them in the lurch to look after it themselves and having irreconcilable differences over pregnancy.

It'd also be in people's interests to ask about these sorts of things when they seriously get with them so that they don't put yourself in the situation to begin with.

Aaanyway, I'm sure everyone here's heard my 'I don't personally agree with abortion, but keeping it legalised is the only way to ensue the safety of the women in question' stance. But banning birth control is even sillier. I don't think the Supreme Court would try and overturn Roe vs Wade though; the US' policy of church and state seperation generally only gets infringed upon if the leglislators believe it's fufilling 'The Will of the People', and the abortion/anti-abortion split seems to be 50-50. (Or leaning more to the pro-choice side)

[Axl.EXE]

Banning birth control? I mean, I can sort-of see them trying to do abortion (HURR DURR ABORSHUN IS EVUL) but birth control?

Note to self: If this gets passed, I'm moving to a saner country. Like maybe Norway. DiZ, Norwegian can't be that hard to learn, can it?

Edited October 11, 2011 by Axl

[Patticus]

A lot of people across Scandinavia speak fluent English, Axl, so learning Norwegian wouldn't be strictly necessary, but you'd get lots of brownie points if you did make that effort.

[PSI Wind]

The weird thing about Abortion is that the baby is alive at some point, but if you abort it before said point, it's not really killing it. The PROBLEM with this is that no state is similar to when they consider the fetus to be alive, wether it be when the brain develops, the heart develops, etc (I think). If we can all agree at a point, then they should ban abortion ONLY once the fetus reaches that age. But Birth-Control!? Why?

[Delta Starfire]

The way to do is it is to make a provision in the law that stops extortion, I guess. There's a big difference between having a child with someone and then leaving them in the lurch to look after it themselves and having irreconcilable differences over pregnancy.

It'd also be in people's interests to ask about these sorts of things when they seriously get with them so that they don't put yourself in the situation to begin with.

Prevention is better than cure, I would agree, but there’s no point closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. The question is what should be done in the event of a pregnancy that one party wants and the other doesn’t.

To further complicate the question, what should be done in the case where the father wants the child, but the mother doesn’t...?

Aaanyway, I'm sure everyone here's heard my 'I don't personally agree with abortion, but keeping it legalised is the only way to ensue the safety of the women in question' stance.

In the past, I’ve ignored people with this position, because I didn’t see that I had any quarrel with them. But I recently got into a discussion about this with a friend and realised that I can always have an intellectual quarrel with someone, even if they’re not out to take away anyone’s rights. Since I’m feeling belligerent, would you mind explaining why you have that position...? Do you object to abortion in all cases or are there exceptions?

But banning birth control is even sillier. I don't think the Supreme Court would try and overturn Roe vs Wade though; the US' policy of church and state seperation generally only gets infringed upon if the leglislators believe it's fufilling 'The Will of the People', and the abortion/anti-abortion split seems to be 50-50. (Or leaning more to the pro-choice side)

Actually, the Roe v. Wade decision had nothing to do with church/state separation; the decision was based on the right to privacy under due process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. Despite the fact that most opposition to abortion is religious (mostly from Catholics and fundamentalist Protestants), nobody's going to be dumb enough to introduce language into an anti-abortion law that gives that away; they'll make it sound as secular as possible, because of the Lemon Test, which stipulates that any law must have a clear, secular purpose. Personally, while I would strongly disagree with such a law, I can see it passing the Lemon Test quite easily. Religion doesn't even need to be brought up; the law's supporters need only argue that they're protecting unborn children from murder and assert that life begins at conception. There's nothing necessarily religious in that idea—I know atheists who think that way—so all the presiding judges have to do is agree with that position, then they'll rule in favour of the state and abortion will no longer be a constitutional right; instead, it will be relegated to a states rights issue and the more conservative states will start trying to ban it. That's what the anti-choice lobby is trying to do.

Personally, given that the supporters of laws like this are almost always religious and, given that the Supreme Court is dominated by Catholics, who belong to a religion that is officially anti-choice (to the point that they will excommunicate people—i.e. condemn them to hell—for being complicit in providing abortion rights), if this law passed and was upheld by the Supreme Court, I would say that that it almost certainly violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the Lemon Test and the First Amendment, because religion is ultimately the motivation behind it. Unfortunately, because it will never say that on paper, and because you can be anti-choice without being religious, it could have a good chance of scraping by with just the letter of the law; unfortunately, that’s all you need.

[Axl.EXE]

(Post deleted, whoops, WRONG THREAD ._.)

Edited October 11, 2011 by Axl

[SonikkuForever]

Because the woman is choosing to murder a defenceless, innocent, human child! How can you not see that it’s murder?!

At least, that’s what they’ll say. But when you quiz them on it, a lot of anti-choicers will say that abortion’s okay in cases of rape or incest, and only some extremely hardcore religionists (usually Catholics) seem to think that no exception should ever be made even when the mother’s health is at risk (like when she’s a nine-year-old girl pregnant with twins). I’m personally puzzled by the first two exceptions though. Why do some people make an exception for rape or incest, especially if their reasoning is along the lines of “it’s an innocent human child and has a right to life”? That really confuses me. What is it about rape or incest that makes a foetus less than an innocent human child that has a right to life? Whatever circumstances may have led to its conception, the foetus can’t be guilty of any wrongdoing, so why are rights that it would otherwise be asserted as having being denied in these cases?

This is one of the few cases where I actually have more respect for the more fundamentalist position, because at least it’s consistent. Not much respect, mind you, because the whole anti-choice movement is an irrational assault upon a woman’s right to control what happens to and in her own body.

With the whole rape/incest thing, couldn't the woman use the morning-after pill to prevent fertilization?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

With the whole rape/incest thing, couldn't the woman use the morning-after pill to prevent fertilization?

Considering that rape can happen at anytime, she may not remember to take the morning-after pill all the time or even be bothered to do so. And even then, that's not much of a justification for it.

Incest tho...eww. Why? WTF? Ugh. No I don't have much to say about it other than that.

[leave_nothing]

I can comprehend the abortion side of it but banning birth control? Would we honestly want to devolve our society to that of a third-world country?

Mildly want this to be passed just to see Mississippi's fertility rate skyrocket though.

[Cynical]

Well.. I'm not for abortion, but I'm also not for the idea of a young woman suffering.

Well, if it is a life... Then it has to be born. No exceptions. But, the teen can give her child up for adoption.

There's couples that can't have children due to... Y'know.. So it would be a good idea to give the child up.

[Mega]

But should the woman really have to go through nine months of pregnancy? It seems a bit harsh, even if one can argue that it is a life.

[Scar]

Its up to the individual not the law.

The woman has to experience the trials and tribulations of pregnancy. She and the father (if he's around) have do deal with the elevated emotional and physical stress of looking after the child after birth. If the woman doesn't consider herself ready for this, then I think she has the right to abort. Also rapes can also create pregnancies. If the woman is made to live with the pregnancy, then the child may well become the living memory of that trauma, resulting in extrenuous mental instability in the mother.

Given how Americans, especially the Southerners dislike Government intervention (NHS was met with incredible contempt and "I hayve a raaht tuu own a guun, the Gov'men cay'n tell mey wha ta dou"), I find it highly hypocritical that they suddenly want the government to intervene in the lives of countless families.

Edited October 18, 2011 by Scar

[Cynical]

But should the woman really have to go through nine months of pregnancy? It seems a bit harsh, even if one can argue that it is a life.

Well, The only suffering in pregnancy is delivering the child.. Or abuse from the parents, but that's clearly illegal.

But I guess it's up to the woman responsible... I'd hate to see another lost life.

Edited October 19, 2011 by Cynical

[Diogenes]

Well, The only suffering in pregnancy is delivering the child..

Nnnno, the 9 months of carrying around what is effectively a 7-pound parasite, along with all sorts of hormonal changes and stress...it's not easy. It doesn't just sneak up on you all of a sudden after 9 months.

[Cynical]

Nnnno, the 9 months of carrying around what is effectively a 7-pound parasite, along with all sorts of hormonal changes and stress...it's not easy. It doesn't just sneak up on you all of a sudden after 9 months.

A 7 pound parasite?! I don't think of a baby as a parasite. Well of course it's not easy, but you'll live with the burden for the rest of your life. (If you chose abortion.)

I... Sort of (not really) suggest watching Juno.

Edited October 19, 2011 by Cynical

[Emmett L. Brown]

A 7 pound parasite?! I don't think of a baby as a parasite. Well of course it's not easy, but you'll live with the burden for the rest of your life. (If you chose abortion.)

I... Sort of (not really) suggest watching Juno.

The body thinks it's a parasite. That's why we have a positive virus that causes the body not to reject the foreign organism growing inside. Alas, sometimes it fails, leading to the fetus being ejected in a flow of heavy menstruation.

If you think of all fetuses as a baby, then nature is a real killer.