This is a blatant falsehood, as has already been demonstrated in numerous threads.
"I Wish I'd Had a Late-Term Abortion" first person account.
- Thread starter iu_a_att
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If that's your point, then I think it is in line with my original point: the issue isn't that context can't be established or analyzed, it's that some people find the context to be wholly irrelevant.
The nontrivial question goes well beyond the abortion debate. The question is when, if ever, should the law/judgement ignore context? You suggest that the law, in the case of abortion, should ignore the context of a woman’s self-assessment of the danger of pregnancy as well as the woman’s doctors assessment of safety. I don’t think you mean that those assessments may not be real. Rather you mean that those assessments can easily be faked. You worry that this will allow women who face no threat to unjustly get abortions. Is this threat you imagine large enough to merit imposing additional burdens on women who are justified is getting late term abortions?
Laws often ignore the context of a crime. Context is more important when the mental state of the offender is relevant and context is usually relevant at sentencing. (Part of the reason for Trump’s criminal justice reform was to put more “context” into sentences).
I don’t advocate more burdens on women who are justified in seeking late term abortions. That said I prefer the justification to be more objective and clear.
No and no. "Maybe" was in response to Dina saying "...It would have been a kindness. Zoe would not have had to endure so much pain in the briefness of her life.... Perhaps I could have been spared as well." Maybe. As in maybe it would have been merciful. I don't know. Would it meet your approval if I used the same word, "perhaps," as Dina did?
You've omitted parts of the other statement I made: "In that context I can't imagine that love and comfort being denied to Zoe and instead replaced by a first human interaction consisting of cold steel and death." Was your omission intentional?
"In that context" refers to (Dina's) assertion that Zoe was capable of feeling pain and by (my) extension capable of feeling comfort and her mother's love -- "a first human interaction." There I was lamenting the prospect of betraying that love by aborting Zoe as she lay comfortably inside her mother. Cold steel is a room temperature, long needle used to inject potassium chloride into a 98-degree beating heart. Death is cardiac arrest.
As usual you know nothing about how the law operates in the real world.
The New York law provides a ;
health care practitioner "may perform an abortion when, according to the practitioner’s reasonable and good faith professional judgment based on the facts of the patient’s case: the patient is within twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.
“Health” refers to
"all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age — relevant to the well-being of the patient"
Health now means “well being”. We know enough about medical opinion that these standards mean zip when application of the standards is left to a single doctor who supports late term abortion on demand. And New York has now defined health care provider to include those who do not hold a degree in medicine. There can never be a prosecution for a late ter abortion under this law. There are no standards. New York has joined North Korea and China on late term abortions. And New York cheered and lit up the WTC in pink lights to celebrate.
I stay out of these discussions for a reason. Several, in fact.
The New York law merely put New York statutory law in line with current federal jurisprudence. It's only impossible to interpret it in any meaningful way because you want it to be impossible to interpret in order to make whatever nonsensical point you are trying to make.
You still don’t get it.
Just cuz it’s not unconstitutional to allow a late term abortion doesn’t mean unrestricted late term abortion is good public policy.
Defending this law on the basis it codifies SCOTUS opinions begs the fundamental policy question.
No, it doesn't. I mention that it simply codifies SCOTUS opinions because I was disagreeing with your original preposterous description of what the law actually does. If you want to argue this policy is misguided, fine, have at it. But don't try to deceptively argue that this law is something other than it is.
I quoted the law. And I said how it was a meaningless word pile. If you think my take on how the law works is preposterous, let’s hear why. Saying it codifies SCOTUS opinions says nothing.
It absolutely says something. It says your original comment that the restrictions are "so loose" as to be "nonexistent" were idiotic. Unless you think the current SCOTUS jurisprudence also effects "nonexistent" restrictions.
The New York restrictions on late term abortion are so loose that they mean nothing. There are no restrictions for all practical purposes. SCOTUS has nothing to do with this.
My only point is that I am impressed by the gulf that separates your imagining of Dina and Zoe's situation from Dina's account of the reality of her situation. You are "lamenting the prospect of betraying that love by aborting Zoe" via "cold steel" and death by "cardiac arrest". But what you portray as "betrayal" Dina calls kindness and love. What you portray as death by cold steel Dina sees as a silencing of the heart for her child in the warmest most humane way possible--far better than what she and the child endured. The juxtaposition of your fantasy with Dina's reality is worth meditating upon.
I'm mostly with you until "your fantasy" conveniently appears and ruins the potential of the sentence in which it resides. Replace that with "Zoe's reality" and it may be worthy of meditation. I'm not discounting Dina's heartfelt belief that an abortion could have saved Zoe much pain. And, while Dina says that aborting Zoe would have been an act of love, I'm also not discounting the alternative that one year of pain while being loved may have been a better outcome for Zoe.
What else can we say about your musings about "Zoe's reality" than that they are fantasies? Truly, given Zoe's condition we might wonder what even Dina, who bore and attended to her for a full year, might know of "Zoe's reality". But shouldn't we admit that whatever you might imagine about Zoe's reality on the basis of Dina's article is but a dim and foggy mirage compared to the deep and intimate connection Dina shared with her? If we had to choose between your meditations and Dina's as the more accurate representation of reality shouldn't we go with Dina's?
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