Texas Sonogram Bill

The House passed a bill requiring mothers to view sonograhic images before having an abortion.

Thought it would be interesting to see what the people at Huffingtonpost.com would say in the comments sections of articles on the bill.

http://obtuseobserver.com/?p=2135

Short version, they are furious that a mother should have to look at a picture of her baby before killing it. How's that for irony that'll make you sick?

myp said:

I don't know how I feel about this. Regardless of where you fall on the abortion issue, forcing someone to do something like "view images" reduces freedoms. Everyone getting an abortion knows what is in fact happening with the fetus inside of them.

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How has a freedom been reduced? Whose freedom? The better informed mother's or the deaqd baby's?

Let's look at medical procedures. For a doctor to perform surgery he needs informed consent. This is a wobbly definition but it basically means that the patient should understand what's going to happen. Ultrasound, xrays, ct-scans. mris etc are common methods of educating the patient.

Establishing a legal baseline for doctors who perform abortions that enhances informed consent protects the doctors from later law suits and more fully educates the patient as to what is going to happen.

No, not everyone knows what the abortion entails.

Roe in Roe v Wade became adamently pro-life when ultrasound images became available. Why? Better understanding of what will be killed during the abortion.

Bernard Nathanson, whose testimony was crucial in the Roe v Wade decision changed his view after witnessing an abortion with ultrasound images. He said:

Abortion is now a monster so unimaginably gargantuan that even to think of stuffing it back into its cage ? is ludicrous beyond words. Yet that is our charge ? a herculean endeavor

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/bernard-nathanson-dead-at-84/

Ever seen an ultrasound image of a baby.... not a picture but of your baby? It is the baby's mother that will view it. The evidence is that seeing the image provides a better understanding of what's at stake and not seeing same is an effort to avoid understanding what is at stake.


your riposte?

myp said:

I understand the point about consent, but mine is that everyone knows you are killing something that can turn into a baby. You can't deny that- that's why most people get abortions in the first place, they don't want the baby. Making them view a sonogram is just an attempt to stir some emotional response in them so that they change their mind. It is just further regulation.

And for the record, abortion is an issue I have still not made my mind up on when it comes to law. Morally, I am against it in most cases (the exceptions being when the mother's life is in danger) but I realize that that is my opinion and not that of everyone. Fact is, life is a human definition and whether or not a fetus is life is questionable (let's not get into that debate though ).

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It is a baby - just very young.

The emnotional response is a reaction to a better understanding of the facts.

It is further regulation designed to help prevent mothers from having their babies killed. That kind of regulation is ok with me.

Life has an objective scientific defintion. It is not subjective. The value one places on life IS however.

A fetus is alive and it is human. Fetus deswcribes a matter of degree not kind. It describes the phase of life not whether or what kind. That is not questionable it is scientific fact. Go look up fetus on Webster.


The legal fiction you're trying to find is whether or not the law regards the baby as a "person" for purposes of recognizing it having legal protections.