Re: "that paltrow must be a complete idiot."
How so?
I thought she made some excellent points!
For example:
1) Lack of scientific backing for the 'pain' claim. (Maybe there is scientific backing? It just isn't referenced in the bill....)
2) Even if the 'pain claim' is accepted on it's face as factual... then you have to deal with the inconsistency of how you can tell women that 'powerful anesthetics administered to the women' wouldn't ALSO affect the fetus... when the government is simultaneously telling women about all the substances that WILL RAPIDLY CROSS the placental barrier, including: pain-killing drugs <GGG> (cocaine, opiates, etc., etc.), nicotene, alcohol, etc., etc., etc., and the EXACT SAME DRUGS that the bill proposes be administered *directly* to the fetuses.
Seems BIZARRO contradictory. :-)
3) And if other medical procedures cause fetal pain: ("...Imagine the pain a fetus experiences with a forceps delivery, suffering extensive bruising during and after! And what about the pain experienced with internal monitoring in which a sharp metal wire is forced through fetal skin into their delicate scalps? Or the extraordinary pain the fetus suffers when labor is induced and the fetus is subjected to repeated, violent maternal uterine contraction and then forced through the unimaginably narrow vaginal canal? Shouldn't these fetuses also be entitled to their own painkillers? Shouldn't the pregnant woman be fully informed of the indescribable pain she could be causing her soon to be, but yet unborn child by bearing it?"), then WHY NOT MANDATE THE SAME LEVEL OF DISCLOSURE about the 'fetal pain' in *those* circumstances??????
Don't we truly 'care' about the pain the fetus experiences... or is this just a SHAM, a red herring in legislation that's really aimed at something else? <GGG>
4) Finally... if 'fetal pain' is a subject worthy of amelioration by federal legislation... then WHAT ABOUT THE MILLIONS OF FULLY BORN ADULTS who suffer needless pain because that self-same federal government's authoritarian 'Big Daddy' drug laws that restrict what physicians are allowed to do to relieve pain?
If "there is a valid Federal Government interest in reducing the number of events in which great pain is inflicted on sentient creatures", as the bill plainly states, then why should the legislation only cover "unborn children"? There are millions of born Americans who suffer chronic pain and are blocked by draconian drug laws from obtaining medication to alleviate unrelenting suffering, and physicians who are put out of business for trying to relieve chronic pain.
Let's go all out, and let doctors relieve pain wherever it exists! Why discriminate against the born?
Re: "but going past that .....have you heard about all the states that are having to rethink their death sentences (esp. Ca.) due to lawsuits from prisoners about the pain and suffering they might suffer in an execution?"
Not really. But I DO THINK that executions should be quick and painless. Torture is not in the State's interest... and, technology being what is is, I can't imagine why it should be difficult to kill quickly or painlessly....
Re: "Now compare that to a partial birth abortion."
OK, how? (And, WHY? Aren't 'partial birth' abortions banned now... and EXTREMELY rare in any event?)
(PS --- the author of the article ALREADY SAID she would support the goals of this bill --- if it was expanded to include what it omits now --- and, so would I! That would mean that fetus in 'partial birth abortions' would be FULLY anesthetized... and so would they be in all those other procedures. I think that's not only humane, but logical and sensible also. I think most everyone would agree with that.)
So, OK, if you want to we can 'compare' 'executions' with 'partial birth abortions' (as an intellectual exercise...), but I'd ask you to also 'compare', say... 'executions' of fully born adults... or even of teenagers... with ending pregnancies in the first trimester (when 90%+ of all terminations happen), or, at progressively even EARLIER periods: such as the first 6 weeks, or at the stage of a hundred cells or so (about the size of the period at the end of this sentence... WELL prior to any central nervous system), or even *earlier*, prior to implantation for example, at the phase where IUDs and the 'morning after pill', or even the 'rhythm method' come to bear.... |
