Stupid Anti-Abortion Ballot Measure

Amanda Marcotte is making a somewhat slippery slope argument. I agree with her that he anti-abortion movement is batshit crazy. The statement that women can be convicted because fertilized egg was in their peroid is a faulty legal argument. Who would know a woman flushed the egg out of her system? A woman can't be convicted of killing a person she can't see or knows exist. That is why the Colorado ballot to declare fertilized eggs living people is silly.

The Colorado Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for an anti-abortion group to collect signatures for a ballot measure that would define a fertilized egg as a person.

The court approved the language of the proposal, rejecting a challenge from abortion-rights supporters who argued it was misleading and dealt with more than one subject in violation of the state constitution.

If approved by voters, the measure would give fertilized eggs the state constitutional protections of inalienable rights, justice and due process.

Colorado for Equal Rights needs 76,000 signatures to get on the ballot. My advise is don't sign this piece of legal nonsense.

My fear (which is not a slippery slope argument) is that doctors will fear performing abortions during ectopic pregnancies.

Ectopic means "out of place." In an ectopic pregnancy, a fertilized egg has implanted outside the uterus. The egg settles in the fallopian tubes more than 95% of the time. This is why ectopic pregnancies are commonly called "tubal pregnancies." The egg can also implant in the ovary, abdomen, or the cervix, so you may see these referred to as cervical or abdominal pregnancies.

None of these areas has as much space or nurturing tissue as a uterus for a pregnancy to develop. As the fetus grows, it will eventually burst the organ that contains it. This can cause severe bleeding and endanger the mother's life. A classical ectopic pregnancy never develops into a live birth.

Nicaragua's anti-abortion policy has killed women with ectopic pregnancies. If anti-abortionists were too eliminate all abortions, the public would rally against their policies as with South Dakota and Terri Schiavo. Women would tragicly die in the short term.

The anti-abortion movement has been an uttter failure. They had a Republican executive branch, congress and Supreme Court. The leadership they supoported did not have the political courage to outlaw abortion. Republicans know the political consequences would hurt their party for a decade. It is much easier for the GOP to pay lip service to Christian fundamentalists that have no other party to turn to. Meet the old Christian Right con. Same as the old con.

Olga Reyes Victim of Nicaraguan Anti-Abortion Policy

Another woman has died because of Nicaragua's anti-abortion policy.

Two weeks after Olga Reyes danced at her wedding, her bloated and disfigured body was laid to rest in an open coffin — the victim, her husband and some experts say, of Nicaragua's new no-exceptions ban on abortion.

Reyes, a 22-year-old law student, suffered an ectopic pregnancy. The fetus develops outside the uterus, cannot survive and causes bleeding that endangers the mother. But doctors seemed afraid to treat her because of the anti-abortion law, said husband Agustin Perez. By the time they took action, it was too late.

Raw Story has a video report of Olga Reyes' tragic story.

It goes without saying that this is horrible medical policy. Daniel Ortega needs the Catholic Church to stay in power. In the short term more women will die. Nicaraguans will eventually get angry about young women dying and overturn the policy. The anti-choice movement will lose. It will come at the cost of the health and safety of thousands of women.

Punish the Woman

Amanda Marcotte and Jill Filpovic have fascinating post on how the actions of the anti-choice movement have dire consequences for women. Short anser: the health of women is a nonissue to the Right to Lifers. It is hard for the movement to call themselves pro-life when they put women at risk.

Amanda links to a Slate article about how the Christian Right has successfully pressured states to not from vaccinating teen girls from cervical cancer. The Christian Right argues that the drug would promote promiscuity. It doesn't matter that they don't have scietific data to back this nonsense. They are going to claim it because the Christian Right is seriously hung up on sex. Nothing else explains abstinence-only education programs that teach bogus information that HIV can be transmitted from tears.

Jill gives attention to Nicaragua's hidious no abortions policy.

The law has also killed at least 82 women since its institution.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was a secular radical leftist. Now he is arm-twisting the legislature into institutionalizing a no abortion policy. He needs the backing of the Catholic Church to stay in power. Including, when the woman's life is at risk. María de Jesús González was denied an abortion because of the law.

What González did next was - when you understand what life in Nicaragua is like these days - utterly rational. She walked out of the hospital, past the obstetrics and gynaecological ward, past the clinics and pharmacies lining the avenues, packed her bag, kissed her aunts goodbye, and caught a bus back to her village. She summoned two neighbouring women - traditional healers - and requested that they terminate the pregnancy in her shack. Without anaesthetic or proper instruments it was more akin to mutilation than surgery, but González insisted. The haemhorraging was intense, and the agony can only be imagined. It was in vain. Maria died. "We heard there was a lot of blood, a lot of pain," says Esperanza Zeledon, 52, one of the Managua aunts.

González was not stupid and did not want to die. She knew her chance of surviving the butchery was small. But being a practical woman, she recognised it was her only chance, and took it. The story of why it was her only chance is an unfolding drama of religion, politics and power that has made Nicaragua a crucible in the global battle over abortion rights. This central American country has become the third country in the world, after Chile and El Salvador, to criminalise all abortions. It is a blanket ban. There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or life- or health-threatening pregnancies.

The fetus in Gonzalez's body was growing outside the womb. There was zero chance of a child being born. The complications put her at risk for internal bleeding. The law saved neither the fetus (which was beyond saving) or Gonzalez. There is nothing pro-life about that. The Nicaraguan government gave this woman a death sentence.

Side note: Amanda linked to my post on Karen Malec. It's worth reading and related to abortion issues.

Nicaragua's Dangerous Anti-Abortion Law

Nicaragua is a classic example of why the church and state should be separate. The Roman Catholic church has been successful in persuading to ban abortion. Incuding, when the woman's life in at stake.

Aside from the blow to women who become pregnant after rape or incest, the law is viewed as risking the lives of the some 400 women who suffer dangerous ectopic pregnancies in Nicaragua each year.

The law's timing was seen as central to its success, as left-wing lawmakers reluctantly supported it to help Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega get the Church's backing to sweep back to power.

Endangering women is not pro-life. It's about a church wanting to force the religious views on others. Pure and simple.