The irregular anti-clerical column: 'Abortion far worse than Child Abuse'

[Malthus]

When asked about the massive cases of child abuse uncovered in Ireland, he lamented them in one (one!) phrase, proceeded to announce than in any case abortion was far worse and then delivered a stirring tirade on the 40.000.000 'children' 'murdered' in abortions in Spain in 23 years of very limited abortion (only three cases allowed under the law: rape, serious danger for the mother, grave fetus malformations)

If you have 40 million abortions in 23 years in a country like Spain, then obviously abortion is not that limited in practice.  Either the limitations are not followed in practice, or "serious danger for the mother" is interpreted very loosely.

We don't have so many abortions, I thought it would be self-evident... there are only about 40,000,000 native Spaniards plus roughly 5,5-6 millions inmigrants... cardinal Cañizares is saying that without abortion Spain would be the most populated country in Europe with over 85,000,000 inhabitants about 60% of them under 23 years old... that 40,000,000 number would equal some 2,000,000 abortions each year (and at least 75-80% of all pregnancies ending in abortion).

In short, it is sheer madness!

Thank goodness for abortion. Otherwise, we'd be knee-deep in Spaniards in no time. 

[Valmy]

Thank goodness for abortion. Otherwise, we'd be knee-deep in Spaniards in no time. 

Bullfighting would soon be the most popular sport in the world.

[Malthus]

Thank goodness for abortion. Otherwise, we'd be knee-deep in Spaniards in no time. 

Bullfighting would soon be the most popular sport in the world.

Though sadly a terribly inefficient means to dispose of the excess numbers of Spaniards.

[The Minsky Moment]

So, the extreme position isn't the health of the mother, it is the "quote" health of the mother, which has been, according to McCain, stretched to mean most anything.

Agreed that was the gist of what McCain meant to say.

But the issue is more complicated than that, because the full context of that comment was a question about appointment of Supreme Court justices and the viability of Roe.  The last Supreme Court decision on Roe was Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld a federal ban on partial birth abortion on a 5-4 vote.  One of the critical issues at dispute in that case was the health exception - the Court had previously held that a ban without an effective health exception was unaccpetable under Roe.  The statute at issue in Gonzales v. Carhart did not have a health exception per se, although it did have a provision that a doctor accused of violating the (criminal) prohibition could seek a State Medical Board hearing - and if the hearing concluded that the physician's conduct was "necessary to save the life of the mother" - that would constitute a valid defense to the crime.

The problem of course is that the physician has to make the medical decision before the fact, and then hope that a State Medical Board endorses his call after the fact.  If the physician turns out to have been wrong, or even if a majority of the state medical boards hearing panel just happens to disagree with his assessement ex post, he would then find himself facing up to 2 years in jail.  The petitioner and dissent both argued -- very persuasively in my view -- that this setup eviscerates the health exception because even a doctor who in good faith believes there is a serious health risk acts very much at his or her peril in peforming the partial birth abortion - and the safest course is just not to do it.  The supposed justification for doing this on the part of the proponents of the legislation was the idea that unless kept in careful check, doctors would evade the partial birth ban by inventing spurious health concerns.

In this context, McCain's sneering comments implying abuse of the health exception take on a more sinister light, because they reflect and echo a legislative strategy adopted by the anti-abortion movement that in my view is extremely dangerous and worrisome.

[alfred russel]

In the Kreutzer Sonata, there is the theory that the world won't end violently, but that god intends for us to be abstinent, and when the we finally achieve the universal abstinent state man will quietly die out.

Maybe Tolstoy was on to something, only that god intends for us to have abortions. And now Spain with its abortion clinics in hyperdrive is truly the land of the divine.

[Razgovory]

In the Kreutzer Sonata, there is the theory that the world won't end violently, but that god intends for us to be abstinent, and when the we finally achieve the universal abstinent state man will quietly die out.

Maybe Tolstoy was on to something, only that god intends for us to have abortions. And now Spain with its abortion clinics in hyperdrive is truly the land of the divine.

For one of those gnostics, the visible universe was an illusion or (more precisely) a sophism. Mirrors and fatherhood are abominable because they multiply and disseminate that universe

-Tlon, Uqbar, orbis Tertius