Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts

Friday, September 1, 2023

Pregnant Girls & New Laws

 


Are your girls and granddaughters on the pill yet?

If you don't like the idea of elementary and middle school girls giving birth next summer or in the next few years, then birth control may be the only viable solution in Texas and other highly restrictive locations.


I came across an eye-catching headline this morning.

 

 "Highways are the next antiabortion target. 

One Texas town is resisting."

 

Caroline Kitchener of the Washington Post (https://wapo.st/3L6AGWn) tells the story of this new approach to end “abortion trafficking.”

 "A new ordinance, passed in several jurisdictions and under consideration elsewhere, aims to stop people from using local roads to drive someone out of state for an abortion."


Not everyone is on board with the new ways to shut down all abortions even though they may be staunchly antiabortion as this quote illustrates:

--------

“I hate abortion,” she said. “I’m a Jesus lover like all of you in here.”

 

Still, she said, she couldn’t help thinking about the time in college when she picked up a friend from an abortion clinic — and how someone might have tried to punish her under this law.

 

“It’s overreaching,” she said. “We’re talking about people here.”

--------

The journalist captures a key psychological factor when she addresses the fear factor associated with threats of lawsuits and restrictive laws aimed at ending what the antiabortionists call "abortion trafficking."



Those of us who have worked in schools and hospitals know girls and young teens get pregnant. On our morning walk, my wife and I talked about the age of our granddaughters—one just began her second year in middle school—hard to believe!

 

Perhaps it was the conversation that made the headline salient. Anyway, I looked to see if anyone was writing about young girls and early teens. It turns out, Cara Murez addressed the topic less than a year ago (US NEWS). Pregnancy isn’t easy on the body of these youngsters. If you are interested, see how difficult it is for pregnant girls in the age 10 to 13 range. And for some, there are lifelong consequences to deal with.

 School shootings aren't the only threats to young lives.

The article about Texas appears to focus on adults. I hope parents of young girls will also think about prevention.

 


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Thursday, August 27, 2020

Reason Fails in Politics, Religion, and Morals

 


Abby Johnson's recent speech at the 2020 RNC illustrates the power of evocative imagery to stimulate moral sentiment. People respond with disgust to the imagery she created and, predictably, lashed out at those who support abortion.

Her speech also illustrates the tight connection between politics, religion, and morality. In this case, the US Republican Party + Evangelical Christians + the Purity foundation of moral sentiment.

Johnson is also skilled at persuasion as she frames the election as a choice between two radical activists and a prolife president (North).

Of course, the opposition party (Democrats) or commentators responded to point out factual errors (e.g., Hesse) and expose the woman's antiequality beliefs. But facts, challenges to Johnson's morals, and logical arguments are never as powerful as images that evoke disgust. Disgust can energize avoidant behavior (e.g., not voting for pro-choice candidates), verbal attacks toward perceived threats (e.g., Democrats), and even violence.

Counterpoint imagery

One might reasonably ask if those supporting a woman's right to choose have equally evocative imagery to present. The prochoice movement has tried to argue that prochoice does not mean proabortion. That is of course true, but a statement does not appear to help dispel the abortion-disgust imagery.

Years ago, the horrific image of Gerri Santoro who died of a back-alley abortion made news and became a symbol of the prochoice movement (Arnold). Pitting this image of a woman who chose an abortion compared to a baby evokes different responses. It appears to have evoked fear in women of what could happen if abortion ever became illegal.

However, the death of a pretty pregnant woman in Ireland where abortion was illegal at the time did get considerable attention (BBC). The published images show her face but not her death linked to the denial of abortion. Her story became the basis for changes in abortion law in Ireland (thejournal).


A more powerful image evoking caring is that of the 16-year old pregnant girl who died because chemotherapy treatment was withheld due to antiabortion law in the Dominican Republic (Romo, 2012).


Perhaps more shocking is the story of a 10-year old girl in Brazil who became pregnant following repeated rapes by her uncle. She reported abuse since age 6. Rape evokes disgust toward the rapist and caring and compassion toward the victim--especially when the victim is a girl!

The law allowed abortion in cases of rape. The case went to court and the judge granted permission for an abortion but the hospital refused. 

However, the story resulted in considerable divisions with many Evangelicals and Catholics calling the authorizing doctor a murderer (Lima, 2020). The girl did travel and obtained an abortion.



Perhaps my bottom line in this post is to emphasize the point that emotions play a critical role in morality. 

Evoking emotions like disgust or compassion can lead to different ""reasons" or justifications for a moral judgment or even a change in laws. 

Arguments based on reason and logic seem particularly weak in the face of powerful imagery.


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Monday, June 29, 2020

Abortion Law Struck Down by Supreme Court



The US Supreme Court struck down a restrictive Louisiana abortion law by a 5-4 vote. Justice Roberts referred to the 2016 precedent.

The law required those who perform abortions at clinics have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. It has been ruled unconstitutional because it places an undue burden on women.
The opinion was written by Justice Stephen Breyer.  (Fox News)

 ******
 “The legal doctrine of stare decisis requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike,” Roberts wrote in concurring with the decision. “The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana’s law cannot stand under our precedents.”

 Trump’s nominees, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, dissented from Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s majority decision. Each of the court’s four most consistent conservatives wrote separately to describe their disagreement.  (Washington Post)

******
Republicans had attempted to pass a law limiting legal abortions to age 20 weeks in 2018. Although they controlled the House and the Senate and had the support of the president, the law failed in the Senate (WP).

 Many evangelical Christians support the Republican party because of its position on abortion. Although some advocate for a total ban on abortion, the proposed law supported a woman’s right to an abortion up to 20 weeks and had bipartisan support. There was also bipartisan opposition.

Prolife includes antiabortion but is not limited to abortion. As is evident by the vote in 2018, many Republicans support abortion but they want to restrict the practice to the early weeks of pregnancy. Words like prolife obscure the facts about what a person beliefs about abortion and about the value of human life outside the womb. Details are important.

Read A House Divided for more on abortion and contraception


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Sunday, May 12, 2019

Mother's Day for Very Young Mothers


Imagine Sally’s pregnancy begins to show by Christmas time. Would she be happy that by April, before school is out, she would deliver her first baby weighing 7 pounds? Sally is one of several young American mothers who did not have an abortion. According to her doctor, Sally was age 10 when she gave birth. Imagine celebrating mother's day at age 10.

Photo for Illustration Only/ From Explorer Free to Use and Share



Changing Laws Affecting Mothers

In the U.S., 10-year old girls are in elementary school. I wonder how well elementary schools are prepared to help young mothers adjust to pregnancy and stay in school. I wonder how many churches and pregnancy centers help child mothers through pregnancy. I have not read much about prolife positions on the care of girl-mothers.

Recently, during the time of an average pregnancy, several American states have passed laws setting early restrictions on when a mother may legally end a pregnancy. It’s hard to keep up with the variations in language that permit abortions under certain conditions. Rumors abound. It is not surprising to learn that many women have questions (Shugerman, 2019).

An Alabama proposal debated last week prohibited doctors from aborting a fetus when it is “in utero.” The only proposed exception permitting a later abortion would be a serious risk to the mother’s health (Paul & Wax-Thibodeaux, 2019). Unlike other heartbeat laws, Alabama’s proposal did not include an exception for incest or rape. In case you are wondering, girls have delivered healthy babies. But there isn’t much to read about the mental health of these very young mothers.

On Facebook, conservative women and men see the restrictive abortion trend as progress toward a total ban on abortion in all 50 states. It is no secret that conservatives hope to undo the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade, which broadened laws permitting women to have an abortion.

So far, no states have technically banned abortion. Instead, they pose restrictions that would make it very difficult for a pregnant girl or woman to get a legal abortion. The punishment for an abortion appears to fall on the physicians rather than the women. Thus, it seems in these debates about laws, a woman is not a moral agent. It would seem a woman may mentally choose to have an abortion but may not legally obtain one if she waits too long or fails to comply with other rules governing her pregnancy.

Politically it makes sense to punish physicians rather than women. Perhaps it also makes political sense to make exceptions to an all-out ban on abortion in order to undo the horrors of rape and incest. But in other regions of the country, a complete ban on abortions might make political sense. By political sense I mean, the majority of voters in some states want a particular type of abortion law that is different from the laws in other states.

Now back to Sally

We usually think of teen girls when we think of young mothers. But, though rare, elementary school girls do get pregnant. The youngest and most famous young mother, Lina, was of kindergarten age (Yahoo, 2007). Presumably, girls will be having children as more and more laws approach an all out ban on abortion. It won’t matter to the lawmakers if the girls were raped by friends or relatives or strangers. It won’t matter to the lawmakers if the young parents were both children. Girls will be pregnant and will not be having an abortion.

We know girls will be delivering babies as they have done around the world for years. An unknown number of more girls will be pregnant when abortions are banned. Society has become more accepting of single teen mothers. But you don't hear much about girl mothers. An ethical society will need to change its institutions to respond to the needs of girl mothers in places where abortion is illegal. 

As far as biological maturity, it has been documented for years that girls begin puberty at ever earlier ages. According to Texas A&M, American girls got their period about age 16-17 just a 100 years ago. Currently, the average age is 12-13 with many having an earlier start, e.g., age 10. This age fits with the historical record of very young mothers—there’s a higher frequency of mothers at age 10 than for the younger years.

Changing Marriage and Relationship Patterns

Children can marry in many states. Between 2000 and 2010, about 248,000 American children got married. Most were girls and the youngest were 12 (McCoy, 2018). Thus, presumably, young mothers could be cared for by the fathers of their children, if those fathers had sufficient income to support a young family. This of course is theoretical. We know so many teen mothers are single. Despite the laws permitting child marriage, the average age of marriage has increased in the US. Recently, women were typically 27 and men 29 (Abadi, 2018). 

The bottom ethical line is, even if child marriage is legal, it is not a solution to the problem of very young mothers. And one must ask the ethical question: Is child marriage ethical? Can a child consent to marriage? Should parents have the right to consent to their children marrying at age 12 or whatever age? More importantly, does anyone think these young girls became pregnant by choice? Are they not victims of sexual assault?

Some single mothers are able to earn a living and care for their children. But it isn’t easy. Girl mothers are even more dependent on others than are 16-17-year-old mothers. The attitudes of parents and her local culture will be vital to the welfare of girl-mothers and their children.

Why Look at Extreme Cases?

If a governing group wishes to make laws consistent with ethical principles, then one must consider how such a law might affect people who are different in some important way to the average person governed by the law. 

Laws by their nature are coercive. Laws impose rules limiting the freedom of those governed by the law.

Ethical laws ought to consider morally relevant facts. Some elementary school age girls can and do get pregnant. They are victims of rape. Is it right for lawmakers to insist nine and ten year old girls to give birth?

So, who gets to make the decision for the care of these pregnant girls? How will the institutions of society support pregnant children at school, church, and in the community when girls must be pregnant for up to nine months?

Are sex education programs effective for girls who do not want to be pregnant in fourth or fifth grade? Can a girl really fend off a rapist? 

Are parents and law makers fully aware that most women and men have sex before they marry? And a significant number of people have sex before they are legally adults? Are decision-makers fully aware of how many girls and young teens are at risk of becoming pregnant as a result of sexual assault?

Do numbers even matter when a law is made? That is, shouldn't a law be written so that the lives of ten, one hundred, or a thousand lives are not harmed?

Adult women can vote and have a voice in decisions about laws that govern their reproductive rights. But who speaks for the girls?

If an unborn child is a person with the rights of a person, who protects the rights of that unborn person? What defines a person? Is a person a being with a heartbeat, a brainwave, a potential to live without a biological dependency on another human? Those are the decisions lawmakers have considered when writing laws limiting abortion.

When it comes to life and death decisions about people, it makes sense to think about end-of-life care as well as beginning-of-life care. If life is sacred, as is if often claimed, ethical people ought to be concerned about preserving life from conception to the grave. 

In all of these decisions, one ought to consider who is responsible for the lives at issue? Ethical decisions require an ethical decision-maker. If women are not permitted to make decisions about their pregnancy, then they are not considered moral agents. Instead, the lawmakers and the physicians become the de facto moral agents who decide life and death.

 If governing bodies do not trust women to make an ethical decision about their pregnancy, who will they trust to make an ethical decision about their pregnant girls? The governing body has assumed the moral authority and abbrogated any rights of parents.

If the unborn are truly persons, why not change birth certificates, elligbility for medical services, tax laws about counting dependents and so forth? Should insurance companies offer life insurance to pregnant girls and women in case of a miscarriage or still birth? Why isn't it common to hold funeral services when a woman has a miscarriage? I do not see much evidence that societies focused on forcing children to give birth cares much about those girls who have been raped.

Abortion Ethics

You might suspect that people of many religions have considered the ethical issues involved in abortion decisions. There really are many different cases that can challenge any ethical principles concerned with harm to mothers and unborn children as well as concerns about the rights of the unborn, mothers, and fathers. Laws without exceptions are simply stated and do not require moral judgment. Ethical decisions require wisdom. Ethical decisions may sometimes requuire people to make difficult choices. Ethically, one should err on the side of life, but one should not ignore the sacred lives of little girls who have become pregnant because of some rapist.

Extreme ethical positions can evoke disgust. 

Extreme ethical positions make the holders of such positions look like they don't care about people.  
Conservative Christians have made extreme pro-choice people look uncaring and immoral with pictures and videos showing the destruction of babies aborted near term. The images evoke disgust.

Liberal Christians are concerned about the lives of women destroyed by pregnancies due to brutal rapes. And conservative Christians don't seem to care about these women when they insist they deliver their rapist's child. The sexual assualt of children is disgusting. It ought to evoke an emotional response. Is it not equally disgusting to force little girls to give birth?



Examples of ethical thinking about life and abortion: Family Research Council, BBC, Focus on the Family,  MSNBC,


I am prolife. 
All lives ought to be sacred. 
Ethical leaders must consider the imact of laws on all persons.

Read more about abortion, birth control, and morality in


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Additional Notes.

The case about Sally is fictional but based on the facts that girls aged 10-11 do give birth to babies.

Less is known about early puberty in boys, but a similar decline in the onset of puberty is evident. There are theories about why this declining age of puberty has happened for girls and boys, but definitive answers are lacking.

Young fathers are more rare than young mothers. In 1998, Sean Stewart was permitted to miss school to be with his 16-year-old girlfriend when she delivered their child. He was 11 and she was 15 when she became pregnant (Watson-Smyth, 1998).

In 2010, a young couple, age 14, appeared to have community support according to the story by Blake in The Telegraph.


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Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Abortion and Prolife 2019




29 November 2019
Ohio introduced a bill that would require doctors to "reimplant ectopic pregnancy" or face "abortion murder" charges according to The Guardian. Obstetricians and gynecologists have tried to inform the Ohio lawmakers that the idea is not medically possible. The bill bans abortion and defines a fertilized egg as an "unborn child."

29 October 2019
CNN's Caroline Kelly reviews the status of new abortion bans. "Of the nine so-called gestational bans -- which bar abortions past a certain point in pregnancy -- passed this year, none have gone into effect after most of them have been blocked by judges. In particular, court actions have kept all of the so-called heartbeat bans -- bills outlawing abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy -- from coming into force."


4 October 2019
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to rule on abortion restrictions. They will rule on a Louisiana law, which the court temporarily blocked in February. The Louisiana law requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. (USA Today)

1 October 2019
A federal judge temporarily stopped a Georgia "heartbeat bill" from becoming law. The bill included exceptions for rape or incest when the woman files a police report. Abortions would be permitted when a fetus is not viable or a mother's health is in danger.  USA Today

28 August 2019
CBS news reported Missouri's 8-week abortion ban has been temporarily blocked, but other restrictions were not blocked. Doctors will be prohibited from ending the lives of the unborn with Down Syndrome. Call centers will be required to offer literature to women seeking an abortion. One of the booklets provides a statement on when life begins: "The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being."

27 JULY 2019
Update on abortion in Europe. Malta is the only EU state with a complete ban on abortion.
The Economist

15 JULY 2019
Abortion Law: Global Comparisons - Council on Foreign Relations

27 JUNE 2019

"WITH THE FATE OF abortion access in question with a newly conservative majority Supreme Court, states are taking matters into their own hands, imposing virtual bans or severe restrictions on the procedure or by enshrining the right to abortion in state law."
  U. S. News

5 JUNE 2019

A U.S. map of states illustrating abortion laws that changed to different levels of restriction.  NPR.


January 22, 2019 An Iowa state judge ruled the state's "heartbeat" law was unconstitutional (CNN).  In New York, the governor signed a bill allowing women to get an abortion after 24 weeks if their life or health is threatened by the pregnancy. Also, a woman can have an abortion at any time if the fetus is not viable. (TheHill).


Polish leaders are working to make abortion illegal according to Roache in FP (2019).

Irish doctors will soon provide the first legal abortions in 2019. Only 162 physicians have signed up as providers. (Guardian, 2019).


Is abortion a leading cause of death? Snopes (2019) looks at the data and finds a higher frequency of abortions than reported but notes the problem with stories that fail to consider that death is a term that applies to people. When life begins and when a fetus is a person is a constant battle in some nations like the USA. The debate has many nuances and is worth reading to learn how people argue.


Learn more about Christianity and Abortion along with other sex-linked morality issues in A House Divided: Sexuality, Morality, and Christian Cultures available from PICKWICK with FREE copies to professors and book reviewers.



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Saturday, November 17, 2018

New Abortion Bill Helps Identify Views of Life and Death

Ohio Americans and their thoughts about abortion are represented in a new bill, which is in process, according to The New York Times.


The purpose of this post is to understand how people think about life and death. What people say about abortion reveals their values. The language of legislation and related penalties reflect their morality. Actions taken to support or challenge legislation also reveals their values.

According to the news report, the legality of an abortion would be determined by the presence of a heartbeat. Thus, abortion is legal if there is no identified heartbeat. Do you know when a heartbeat can be detected? At this point, a heartbeat can be detected at about six weeks.

When does human life begin? People are understandably divided about this issue. Facts exist about fetal development but facts alone do not dictate moral judgments. Some people think life begins at conception thus all abortions ought to be illegal. Others think abortions ought to be illegal when the unborn is able to survive outside the mother. Survival rates vary for early births. Medical advances come close to helping babies live when delivered near 20 weeks. Earlier this year, Congress and the President supported a bill aimed at allowing abortions up to 20 weeks. The bill did not pass the Senate (NYT).

The illegal abortion would be classified as a felony. Thus, the rhetoric of abortion as killing an unborn child, or murder, is not supported here. This language suggests a difference in thinking between unborn lives and babies.

The person who would become a criminal is the doctor. No other person is legally responsible for the act as described in the article.

The penalty for the abortion also indicates the moral importance of the act to those who wrote it and voted for it. Violators are subject to prison and a fine. Thus we glimpse their view of the value of the life of the unborn.

The motivation for the bill appears in the news story--to test Roe v. Wade at the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the USA, this Ohio bill would be one of the most restrictive laws if enacted. Next year's governor will sign the bill, according to the story.

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