JCC Virginia GOP introduces bill to instrumentally RAPE all women who want an abortion (seriously)

I agree that abortion should be avoided (more due to expense and psychological stress than moral concern), which is why multiple methods of birth control (condoms, the pill, Plan B) should be cheap/free and easily accessible, and comprehensive sex education should be universal; that would probably reduce the number of abortions significantly. But as long as OZK and co. have a loud enough voice, I guess that isn't gonna happen.

 

I'd agree. I have no problem with the goal of trying to reduce abortions. What I question is the lengths to which some are willing to go to achieve that end. Case in point.

If not doing a mandatory ultrasound is "with-holding information" surely so is withholding information about crippling systemic genetic deformities that will limit a child's lifespan to a few painful months? All because Santorum doesn't want to have the possibility of another abortion? Really?

 

Oh, wannasee, I'd have to grade your paper in Cyrillic, because it doesn't even warrant an "F". But I'm on vacation from teaching medical ethics until Thursday, so your education will have to wait.

And we won't even get into the problems of trying to inject Catholicism into the debate.

Edits: Damn autocorrect.

 

So you support something that is invasive and painful as long it's impossible for you to experience the invasion and pain? Got it.

 

You aren't reading carefully.

 

Then you're not typing carefully enough as I got what Daj got

 

I don't know what to tell you. I have clearly stated at least twice that I do not support invasive procedures being mandated.

Why don't you quote the passage where I said I was for them?

She wants this single bit of information withheld, because she thinks showing it to them would be manipulative.

And while I don't expect a doctor to teach pregnant women EVERYTHING about pregnancy, I do expect them to share information with the mother that they feel might significantly affect her decision.

 

But you support this bill, which requires an invasive procedure in order to get an abortion. You act as though doctors don't ALREADY have this conversation with their patients. I know a few individuals who have had to get abortions and the thought process that goes through the decision to do it takes days/weeks. Women already know what they are "giving up". You act as though we are stupid and don't know what we are doing and that is extremely offensive to me.

 

damn i thought i would get lucky. well scratch plans for going to virgina. most women i know have restraining orders against me.

 

Please quote where she ever suggested such a thing. What she in fact said was that she doesn't think your argument amounted to an "ethical mandate" that justified a state law which forces every single woman receiving an abortion to get an ultrasound before hand. There's a huge gulf between saying "we shouldn't make everyone do this" and advocating that no one be allowed to. Only the latter is "withholding information." Otherwise, the default position is what we have now: the decision about whether to get that information is left to the woman and her doctor.

Why are you only invoking this in regard to things that would significantly affect the mother in favor of having the baby? As I asked before, do you also support mandatory exposure to things that would significantly affect the mother to want to have an abortion? If not, then I'd argue you don't really mean what you said in the quote above.

That besides, I would again insist that there's a difference between factual information and emotional material. Doctors are only experts in the former, and that should thus be the only thing they have a responsibility to provide. It is not for them to imbue the mother's decision with emotional valences or feelings of "right" and "wrong." The government doesn't legislate morality, and no one appointed doctors to run people's personal lives. The patient can work out for themselves whether they want to feel good or bad about the child.

 

I think the sense of her posts has been that she does not want the pictures shown, but she never states it explicitly in a neat little sentence. This is the best one I found:

She says "It's still manipulation to make a woman make the "right" choice of maintaining a pregnancy instead of the "wrong" choice of having an abortion."

Since she thinks showing pictures would be a manipulation of the mother, and since manipulation is "wrong", and since we do not desire to do wrong things, I think it is reasonable to infer that she doesn't want the pictures shown (withheld was probably the wrong word).

Yes, she doesn't think I gave a good enough reason. That's fine.

The topic of this thread is the proposed bill in Virginia. It stands to reason that I would only talk about that bill and things related to it.

Also, we don't actually know how showing the pictures would affect the mother's decision. If this bill were passed, it would be interesting to see the statistics...

Some schools give out egg-babies to students to teach them about the great responsibility of having a child, and Maury gives out crying dolls to teen sluts.

I certainly don't see anything "wrong" with it, provided that they are being given good information..

The pictures only have the meaning that the mother gives to them. There is nothing inherently shame-inducing about an ultrasound.

 

wannasee has a misogynist opinion? how surprising...

[image=http://cdn.styleforum.net/b/b8/b834f2bb_for-me-to-poop-on.jpeg]

 

Call me crazy, but maybe we should ask her instead of attempting to infer.

I could care less if a woman gets an ultrasound - as long is the justification for it is based in medicine and not reactionary to the current political climate. If the goal of the ultrasound is to make the woman make the choice of carrying the pregnancy out of guilt, then it's manipulative and wrong (not "wrong"). But silly me - my training taught me to make clinical decisions based on research and science, not out of an attempt to evoke an emotional reaction.

 

How can the ultrasound be simultaneously devoid of meaning and so meaningful that there's an "ethical imperative" to make sure every woman sees it before they have an abortion?

 

LOLWUT?

You just keep retreading the same arguments, and your arguments are terrible.

 

Bear in mind, this is the same user who compared getting a haircut and being forced to watch to getting an ultrasound before getting an abortion. But perhaps for him, getting millions of dead cells cut off is an emotional experience.

 

You know what Wannasee?

When it comes right down to it, you have no idea what that procedure incurs, you said you'd be against anal intrusion for something that was needed, because it was to intrusive.

So, Honestly **** you.

You have no idea how procedures like that can affect women, because you have no ***ing idea what's it's like to deal with those things.

Take your **** to the Senate before you piss off every woman in this forum off

 

wannasee, I believe it is time for your nap. Go to your room and think about what you said, young man, before you are allowed (if ever) to come out and rejoin the grown up conversation.

Just read through this whole thread and had to say it.

 

I did consider waiting for you to reply yourself, but then I figured that you, being a doctor, wouldn't be on again for a while, so I just went ahead with the discussion. Sorry about that.

That being said, my inference was valid.

Even if I grant that what you say is true, that the goal of the ultrasound is to evoke an emotional reaction, I still don't think there is anything wrong that.

Emotions are an integral part of a human being. Guilt, as long you are not neurotic, is a healthy emotion. It tells you "hey, don't do this, because it's wrong".

Shielding a person from guilt is shielding them from themself, and from their conscience.

I understand that, as a doctor, your main objection to the ultrasound is that it is not medically necessary, but I would like it if you would address the points I made with regard to guilt and emotions, and also my earlier point concerning whether it was ethical to not give information that would influence a mother's decision.

The ultrasound images themselves are devoid of meaning, but a woman can still have a reaction to them.

This is to say, the images themselves are not what matter, but only the woman's reaction to them. Nothing follows necessarily from showing them to her.

In this way they are both meaningful, and meaningless.

I never used the term "ethical imperative". I said there was an ethical reason for showing the images. There's a difference between the two.

If you have a problem with the comparison I made, you are welcome to point out where it is faulty. I, too, thought it a rather silly comparison to make, but I made it so that someone would challenge me on it and we could then delve deeper into the issue.

Of course on the internet, people just point and laugh.

I don't know whose posts you've been reading, but you certainly haven't been reading mine.

I hope your parents make an extra big meal tonight.

 

Wannasee, I spoke to you like a child because you are acting like one. That wàs a low blow and completely inappropriate. And don't presume to know anything about my life.

Though given some if the things you have been saying in this thread, this is hardly surprising. Continue to plead your inane case from the peanut gallery. Paul has a saner argument than you ever can hope to have.

 

I wasn't acting like a child; I was making an argument that you didn't find persuasive.

 

No, it was because you made your argument in such an inane and ignorant manner that I don't find it in the least persuasive. Yes, I don't agree with it but I am willing to accept that a person has an opposing view to me on a subject provided that both their argument is sound and they accept that not everyone shares their opinion. This also means that they're willing to accept new information or points of view, and don't just discard it because they might make them change their mind. If you have an opinion, stand on it and acknowledge that it might be based on misinformation. It's rather insecure.

You, wannasee, continue to ignore the more informed (and much better expressed) views of other JCers, including women, to what seems to be sheer stubbornness. Have you ever entertained the possibility that you might not be right? That you don't have all the facts.

And while considering that, you may want to consider what could have happened of you'd made your stupid and insensitive haircut comparison to a woman in conversation. She might have every right to slug you one for that, and then shave your hair. ALL of it.

 

I'm baffled as to why you seem to think women going for an abortion live in some sort of emotional bubble. Some may feel guilty enough already about getting one as it is without having a doctor forcing them to look at an ultrasound. Surely you can see that it simply isn't right to force women to go through any more emotional trauma than they already have to?

Unless you think your patient might be mentally incapable, I would think most doctors assume their patients to be sound of mind and capable of making their own decision. It isn't the role of a doctor to try and force an emotional reaction.

If you yourself thought the comparison was silly, then why make it? Surely if you wanted to generate deeper discussion then you could've come up with one that isn't nonsense?

Also;

 

What new information do you feel I've ignored? What opinion do I have that you think is based on misinformation?

YOu have to provide examples, otherwise I don't know what you are talking about.

And I would ask you to desist from the personal comments, because I can only reply in kind.

Again, who have I ignored? I'm willing to listen to any facts people have to offer.

And I don't think that I am "right". There is no "right" answer in these situations. You just have to weigh the arguments and see which one you most agree with.

I tend not to engage people in an intellectual discussion if I feel that they cannot maintain objectivity.