Freedom of Choice Act

You know, most liberals with at least a thread of dignity and half a heart would admit that, personally, they oppose abortion (Biden, Giuliani).

It's the detestable, repugnant liberals who will one day have partial birth abortions legalized through federal funding because they, too, "have no problem with abortion." Your nonchalant, apathetic comment is disgusting.

If abortion is to be legal and taught as a viable option to kids, or anyone for that matter, so should the procedures. Start showing photos and methods involved in tearing an unborn child limb from limb. Show them how in a partial birth abortion a baby is completely birthed, expect for the head, so that scissors can be jabbed into the back of the skull to widen a whole big enough for a suction tube to extract the baby's brains.

Disgusting.

Oh yeah, and Obama voted against a ban on partial-birth abortions. That's our president.

 

The Freedom of Choice Act died in committee back in 2007, and it has not been re-introduced by Congress since then. Obama said something recently about how he supports the act, so everybody is waiting for Congress to re-introduce it. There are all kinds of wild and crazy ideas out there about what this all means.

Reality is that there are many federal laws that very clearly and very specifically protect doctors and med students at institutions that get federal funding from having anything to do with abortions against their will. Some very obvious ones include:

Title 42, Sec 300a–7
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/42/usc_sec_42_00000300---a007-.html

Title 42, Sec 238n
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00000238---n000-.html

Title 42, Sec 2996f
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/42/usc_sec_42_00002996---f000-.html

Now read the text of the Freedom of Choice Act as it was last introduced --
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.1173:

Do you see anything about repealing all the other federal laws protecting doctors that want nothing to do with abortions? No. All you see is proposed law that is trying to protect the rights of women who choose to get an abortion. It is very unlikely--but still hypothetically possible that the Supreme Court could ignore the obvious and "legislate from the bench" by trying to interpret the act to make a Pro Life doctor or med student conduct an abortion against their religious convictions, which is why you will see the wording of the act get more and more specific once it gets introduced in Congress, once it undergoes the scrutiny of the judiciary committee, and once it goes to the Congress for a vote. At very least, it will have an amendment saying something like "nothing in this chapter shall be construed as allowing the goverment to require any person or entity to any way participate in the performance of abortions contrary to their religious beliefs or moral convictions."

Granted, I'm pro Life, and I don't approve of a law giving women the right to an abortion. Anybody else who doesn't approve of such a law can write their political representatives in Congress and let them know how they feel.

 

It'll probably need to be changed a bit.

 

The cost to taxpayers having to pay for food, housing, and education of low income children far exceeds the cost of an abortion. You are going to be paying either way.

 

Obama is not taking away states rights. It is both branches of Congress would pass this bill. Obama would sign it into law. Obama does not make rulings or set policy that determines federal funding for hospitals or healthcare institutions. Congress does. So your scenario is a bit unrealistic.

Years of precedence have already shown that med students cannot be forced into doing things they don't want to do.

 

So why did Bush wait until two weeks before leaving office to do this? Let's use a little reason....


"The Bush administration has delivered a victory to pro-life health care providers by issuing a rule affirming the right of doctors and other medical workers to refuse to participate in abortions and other procedures to which they object."


Affirm: "To support or uphold the validity of; confirm."

Hmmmm... Could it be that this was all for absolutely nothing? All this did was affirm 30 years of precedence and a law that was already in place since before I was born. The law has been upheld countless times that doctors cannot be forced to take part in procedures against their moral code. So, no problem there, right? All doctors who have been around in the last 30 years know this, right?

So perhaps Bush just did this to get all you guys in a wad if Obama happens to nullify it? This entire anti-abortion movement sure seems to have to resort to alot of propaganda and partial truths to try and scare people into compliance. I thought the quotes by the guy from the CMA, a fundie pro-life group about how scared they were was cute. I guess when their side cant argue facts, then deception is where they have to go next.


“Medical students have been reporting to us that they are deciding not to pursue careers in obstetrics and gynecology for fear of coercion to do abortions,” CMA Senior Vice President Gene Rudd said in a written statement. “Obstetricians are already being forced out of the profession because of soaring malpractice insurance costs. Forcing yet more obstetricians out of the profession simply for following the Hippocratic Oath and other medical ethical standards would only further harm patient access.” -Citation Seriously Needed

 

Less than an hour ago, the Times Picayune posted this about the Freedom of Choice Act:

the legislation has languished in Congress for 20 years -- only once getting out of committee. As a practical matter, its passage does not for now appear to be a high priority for either abortion-rights groups or the Obama administration, which is focused on the economic crisis.

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/01/local_catholics_join_drive_to.html

 

Yeah, probably one of those things that will be used in the future as a political shakeup. For some reason I was thinking it had already been passed in the last session, waiting for a signature, but I see that I was clearly mistaken.

 

All the articles I read so far from the media got me confused into believing that Obama said something recently about how he supports the Freedom of Choice Act (for example, Fox News -- LINK)

It appears the reality is:

For months, anti-abortion groups have circulated Obama's pledge in a 2007 speech to Planned Parenthood that "the first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." But the legislation has languished in Congress for 20 years -- only once getting out of committee. As a practical matter, its passage does not for now appear to be a high priority for either abortion-rights groups or the Obama administration, which is focused on the economic crisis. (LINK)

Obama's 2007 speech was back during the same year, 2007, that the Freedom of Choice Act last died in committee. It hasn't been re-introduced in Congress since then.