Rachel Maddow does an excellent job of showing how rights can be taken away by making whatever it is that people are trying to do inaccessible. Inaccessibility substitutes for making an act illegal. Its a rather cowardly, un-democratic means of getting one’s own political way. Maddow also interviews the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
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Maddow explains how hospital regulations would financially burden abortion providers rather than making abortion safer (Double wide hallways, swinging doors, 15 mile proximity to emergency room, etc.) Cuccinelli’s explanation is vague and full of weasel words, so that the average Virginian really doesn’t know what is being said.
Cuccinelli attempted draconian, technically illegal abortion legislation while he served in the Virginia Senate. He was unable to ever pass his legislation. Now he attempts to circumvent legislation by simply declaring his opinion to be law. His attempts to codify his own opinion won’t fly for long.
Cuccinelli will not last. Most people don’t like having other people in their bedrooms. It remains to be seen if McDonnell will execute Cuccinelli’s opinion into state policy. Meanwhile, Cuccinelli has driven Virginia so far to the cultural right that he endangers other Republicans who might not be extremists.
Finally, Maddow addresses something the rest of us have been aware of for a long time. There is a tendency to bully those who are pro-choice. Many pro-choice people feel too intimidated to admit they are pro-choice, much less hold their legislators accountable for their votes. Every woman in Virginia must decide that the women of Virginia are capable of making their own morally appropriate choices. They need to decide today that they will not allow others to define them. Pro-choice is not being pro-abortion and do not let anyone tell you it is.
Slowpoke, there is a great deal of truth in what you have said, esp # 3. We have all agreed on some rather strange things here.
Of course, ‘liberals’ to you is anything left of your beliefs. 😉 You are aware that no liberal would accept me for very long. They only tolerate me for a little while on reproductive rights.
This comment has nothing to do with the subject of this thread, but it has a lot to do with all the hatred that has been spewed out over the last few days…
“Hello” criticized my reading comprehension, I hope she will critique this also.
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Last week, one of my two oldest friends, a man I have known for almost half a century, dropped dead. Just dropped dead. His last words were to his lovely daughter whom he called and cried out, “Honey, come quick, it’s bad!” and then everything went silent. When his daughter arrived, he was setting in his favorite chair with the phone still in his hand—dead…plain, ordinary dead.
My friend was a staunch anti-Obama Republican, perhaps just to the right of Representative John Boehner whose bile-laden rhetoric Americans hear almost daily. My friend would send me “stuff” frequently about how bad President Obama was or what new program he had started that was sucking money out of our pockets, like the “Obamaphone”—started during President Ronald Regan’s watch and not paid for with tax dollars. I would send back refutations and ask him not to send me any more, but he would and I would and so it went. Now he is a pile of ashes in a pot; all his anti-Obama feelings and time wasted expressing them have literally gone up in smoke. I won’t get those e-mails anymore and God knows I am going to miss him and them.
So, what is my point? When I read through this blog and others, I am always amazed at the amount of bitterness and anger that I and others splash across these electronic pages. We go at each other as if there was no tomorrow but I have now discovered there is a tomorrow and for each of us it will not come one day. And we will be gone and all our bitterness will go up in smoke or will be food for the creepy crawlies that will consume us as we lie in the ground.
I will try to remember this in the future and perhaps I will be able to temper my thoughts. In the meantime, I want to apologize to those I have offended. I will try not to do it again but old habits, more than three-quarters of a century old, die hard. I will try to remember that one of these days there will be no more tomorrows…
George, thank you for a very sobering thought, very well expressed.
The object of his “opinion” has been discussed and I believe you have all registered some valid points but you should not lose sight of the rights he is trying to take away by doing an “end run” around the law. That in itself may be more dangerous than the object of his current objective. What will his next crusade be ? Make your sentiments known, I don’t live in your state but if I did I would be writing or calling my legislator.”Kudos” to the Blog for taking on this Issue!
Perhaps whatshould happen is that the 17 clinics that don’t meet ambulatory surgery standards should be grandfathered, or in this case grandmothered, with future clinics being required to meet a higher standard. My wife and I just had “outpatient” procedures done on our hearts and I can tell you the place was pretty sophisticated. Even first trimester abortions ain’t exactly like getting a tooth pulled or a wart burned off–maybe women should demand a higher standard for their own safety.
The big problem as I see it with Cuccinelli and Marshall is that their efforts have nothing to do with safety. Their motives are driven by their religious beliefs. Both are staunch, far to the right Catholics who are attempting to push their religious beliefs down the throats of the citizens of the Commonwealth. I thought we quit doing that about 1607 or certainly by July 4, 1776. It may be that Cuccinelli’s recent activities will wake up the people of the Commonwealth and he will get voted out at the end of his term. But Bob Marshall? He is like the Energizer Bunny–he keeps getting reelected and reelected.
MH, what I’m looking for is consistency. I support a woman’s right to choose to terminate. The idea is very foreign to me as a choice that I would make but I don’t presume to make it for someone else. However, it would seem that for any other personal right that’s been discussed on this blog for the last year the peanut gallery tends to favor the government over the individual. So, what I have successfully pointed out is that people on here are picking and choosing which ‘rights’ they’ll support and letting the ones that they’re not comfortable with go to the wayside.
I’m on the limb here as a conservative and saying that the government should not have the right to tell a woman she can’t have an abortion (the AG’s opinion does not change that and in fact says that Roe v. Wade limits regulations that the state may pass. I also am of the opinion that the state should not limit who can smoke in a private establishment, who may own and carry a firearm, or how much interest a bank may charge.
My belief is that when you limit one right you erode the others. An attack on gun rights is an attack on abortion rights and vice versa.
This is a message I’ve been preaching to my friends (here and elsewhere on the left) but some people just can’t connect the dots.
Supporting rights may also not get you the intended results – freedom of speech for example is a wonderful thing until you realize that the freedom to speak also means that a person can protest a funeral or wear the medals and devices of our military without having earned them.
Otherwise, what happens is you get government erosion on civil liberties and the phrase ‘reasonable regulation’ being used ‘to protect us’ from each other.
So, I encourage everyone to look within themselves and ask; “Am I supporting a platform only because the party I am most aligned to supports it or am I willing to support all civil liberties to protect the totality of our rights — even those most cherished by the opposite party?”
And upping outpatient standards on abortion procedure to hospital level will not improve safety standards for abortion.
What would improve safety with abortions would be to increase the number of physicians who are trained to perform this procedure. That won’t happen because it is just too much trouble for physicians to bother with. And frankly, it isn’t safe for doctors. Too many crazies out there willing to kill to prove their point. Remember Tiller’s assassine went into his church to execute him.
Marin, I don’t disagree with you. I don’t think abortion or gun rights (or free speech etc) are totally without limitation. However, I find it inconsistant that some folks want to regulate birth control, abortion, etc but holler and scream about less government interference.
I just don’t like bogus controls being used to accomplish what won’t fly legislatively. Additionally, I doubt that hospital regulations would pass court muster because of the undue burden ”stress test’ that is applied. I might not have stated my view in the best legal terms but I think you know what I mean.
The best improvement that could be made is having qualified doctors providing this service.
Marinm, although I can appreciate your comparision of the state’s ability to limit gun rights and smoking in private establishments to its ability to limit abortion rights, as a woman, I’ll have to strongly disagree. Men face absolutely no similar limitations on their reproductive rights – unless they’re sex offenders. I have to say that I’m astounded that anyone would be presumpuous enough to think that he/she should be able to make that personal decision for anyone else. I really can’t think of another valid anology. Guns and smoking just don’t cut it. They aren’t that personal.
Where are the statistics that say abortions have become more risky and that new regulations are needed? It’s my understanding that the State Health Department has left these standards alone for at least a couple decades. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. This is an attempt by Side-show Bob and his ilk to impose a particular religious view on the rest of us.
Has S-s Bob checked out other out-patient procedures for their risk factors? I’ll bet not.
Censored,
WRT rights (I understand you can’t think of another anology) so I leave you with…
They came first for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
I think MH sees what I’m saying even if she may not agree totally with me. 🙂
WRT your question about risk at clinics I think the number being thrown around is a 0.5% or atleast that’s what I heard on the local Fox channel from the Pro-Choice talking head and the Pro-Life talking head didn’t dispute it.
MH, I hear ya. We actually agree more on this than we don’t but I am pointing out that those across the right AND left have no problem dumping ‘rights’ into a ditch when it doesn’t meet party dogma (Censored’s post is a good example of that – no offense intended). If anyone is serious about defending rights than they have to protect the good AND the bad ones and I just don’t see that happening here.
Heck, even Cooch was railed on the right because he stood up (or atleast declined to join in) on the funeral-first amendment issue. It wasn’t the popular choice but it was the right one.
So, I defend your (our) right to choose to terminate but note that many here would not defend my right to wear a pistol into a K-12 school.
And that funeral 1st amendment to me, is wrong. I don’t think any right is without limits.
I am sitting here wondering what WRT means.
I don’t see any correlation between carrying on school property and abortion. I don’t think abortion is without some limits and I don’t think carrying a gun is an unlimited right either.
My problem with kook’s position is his political reason for throwing up road blocks. If there were real reasons, determined by a broad base of physicians, to improve the quality of medical care given during an abortion procedure, I would certainly be in favor of it.
As for KNOWING why Kook is doing what he is doing, his track record speaks for itself. Fortunately, his is only an opinion. But, like you, we guard against instrusion into rights. Once the camel’s nose is under the tent, all of a sudden, the tent belongs to the camel. On that subject, I believe we agree.
Sorry, WRT = With regard to. I type so fast that I shortcut probably where I should not.
I think someone else mentioned this before.. A key test would be to have a state delegate or other official ask for a legal opinion in such a way that it forces Cooch to turn against what you may feel is his desired outcome and see how consistent his logic and law opinion would be.
He already irked off a lot of pro-gun people because he gave an opinion that guns could be banned on government property if the property were rented out by a private organization and they wanted to exclude them. To me that’s a little bit shakey because then could the govt not outsource hiring to a ‘temp’ agency and then tell the temp agency that they only wanted white males or single women or no little people, etc. But, the way the question was asked didn’t leave the AG alot of wiggle room because he’s restricted by the boundary of the question.
We of course disagree on 1A and 2A but know that even though you won’t stand for me, I stand for you and our collective individual rights.
I could not figure out that one, Marin. So…I gave up and asked.
Actually, I have stood for you, just not all the way. And as I have said, I don’t feel any rights are totally without limits. I think you want to take it too far. We don’t live in the wild west. I also would not support abortion third trimester without serious health anomolies being involved. Very serious. Any abortion post viability would have to be because of a serious health issue in my world. There are no unlimited rights.
First of all, for people who have not lived through when abortion was illegal, you really can’t possibly know what women had to go through to avoid and unwanted preganancy. No one WANTS an abortion, it is that simple. How many women, for those arguing in favor of Cuccinellis attempt to make it even MORE difficult, know a woman faced with that very personal decision and decided to have the abortion. What he is attempting to do is based on his very personal religious belief and not on the rights of women. In what way does he support women AFTER they have a baby? Is he one of the conservative republicans that never cuts social services or welfare? NOT LIKELY!!!!!!!!!!
As an aside, laying in bed, sick with the flu, does not help ones dispostion.
Rez,
If you are being serious, please e-mail one of us offline. However, if you are truly sick, this blog is not the place to spend what valuable time you have left. People don’t come here to debate, unfortunately this is outgoing communication primarily.