 North Dakota House Passes Abortion Ban
North Dakota's House of Representatives has passed a bill effectively outlawing abortion.
The House voted 51-41 this afternoon to declare that a fertilized egg
has all the rights of any person.
That means a fetus could not be legally aborted without the procedure being considered murder.
Minot Republican Dan Ruby has sponsored other bills banning abortion in previous legislative sessions - all of which failed.
He also sponsored today's bill and says it is compatable with Roe versus Wade - the Supreme Court decision which legalized
abortion.
(Rep. Dan Ruby, -R- Minot) "This is the exact language that's required by Roe vs. Wade. It stipulated that before a challenge
can be made, we have to identify when life begins, and that's what this does." VO CONTINUES But Minot Democrat Kari Conrad
says the bill will land North Dakota in court, trying to defend the constitutionality of a law that goes against the Supreme
Court decision that legalized abortion.
(Rep. Kari Conrad, -D- Minot) "People who presented this bill, were very clear that they intended to challenge Roe versus
Wade. So they intend to put the state of North Dakota into court defending Roe vs. Wade"
The bill now goes to the North Dakota Senate.
 Abortion: Why
it should remain a Women’s Choice
By: David Phillips
September 15, 2008
The Supreme Court’s ruling in the landmark case Roe v. Wade in 1973 that made abortion legal,
has been under attack ever since. The court’s ruling does allow individual states to restrict abortions to varying degrees,
but it does not allow any state to ban abortions completely.
Some of the limitations
put on abortion in various states have included Parent notification if the woman is a minor, restrictions on late term abortions,
and risk information to patients prior to the procedure.
Abortion is a hot subject
that provokes strong feelings on both sides of the issue, on one side you have those that want the decision to be made by
the individual and on the other side you have those that want the decision to be made by a law that would prevent abortion
in any case.
Recent polling shows that
60 percent of the country wants to keep abortion legal; this number is the lowest in seven years when more than 80 percent
wanted to keep abortion legal. This shows that the countries thinking on the subject is moving in the direction of changing
the laws on abortion to where they were before 1973. This swing coincides with the rise of the right wing evangelical base
that propelled Bush into office in 2000 and 2004.
But recent polls of women
only still show that more than 80 percent still favor keeping abortion legal.
Pro-Choice and Democrats:
First let’s set this
record straight, Democrats are not in favor of abortions; in fact most democrats are just as much against abortion as Republicans
are, the difference between the two sides is choice.
Choice for women to regulate
their own body, the decision for any women to carry a fetus to full term or to abort the fetus, this decision is something
that all women will have to deal with their entire life. The choice is theirs, not our Governments.
What Democrats favor is
educating women which will lower the number of abortions, support for women so they can make a sound decision. Support from
family, religious leaders, from friends, from reading material, someone to talk to about the challenges that go with either
decision of aborting the fetus or carrying the fetus to full term.
Education is the key to
lowering the numbers of abortions, not creating laws to ban abortions, because that will only drive women back to the days
before Roe v. Wade. Back to a time when women were either forced to leave the country to get an abortion, or to go to a back
alley where someone who is not qualified to do abortions puts the life of the women at risk.
But if the laws were changed
to make it illegal, what would be the penalty for the women? Would she be put
in prison? What about the Doctor, would you put him in prison?
Making abortions illegal
is not going to stop abortions, but it will get more women killed or sent to a hospital because of some infection that was
brought about by someone not qualified and with instruments that are not sanitary.
There will always be abortions,
no matter what laws are put in place; the best solution is to educate women as I described earlier and lower the numbers of
abortions that take place.
David Phillips is a Vietnam Era Veteran, a Democratic Party
Activist, and David is also the Publisher and Editor of the online political magazine YodasWorld.org
E-Mail Questions
or Comments: oneyoda@aol.com
You can also read David’s weekly column in the Santa
Ynez Valley Journal or you can go to their web site: www.Syvjournal.com
WOMEN'S RIGHTS -- BUSH APPOINTEE WHO CALLED CONTRACEPTIVES PART OF THE 'CULTURE OF DEATH'
RESIGNS
Last October,
President Bush appointed Susan Orr to oversee federal family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS). Orr, who previously directed HHS child welfare programs, was touted by the administration as "highly qualified."
But after less than a year on the job, Orr has resigned, the National Family Planning and Reproductive
Health Association reported last week. The Progress Report also spoke to HHS spokeswoman Jennifer Koentop, who confirmed that Orr will be stepping down. From the
beginning, Orr was controversial, with her strongest credentials seemingly being her support for failed abstinence-only policies.
In a 2001, Orr embraced a Bush administration proposal to "stop requiring all health insurance plans
for federal employees" to cover a broad range of birth control. In a 2000 Weekly Standard article, Orr railed against requiring health insurance plans
to cover contraceptives. "It's not about choice," said Orr. "It's not about health care. It's about making everyone collaborators
with the culture of death."
More recently, Orr's former employer, FRC, has been pressuring the Bush administration to restrict federal funding for family planning centers. Conveniently, Orr oversaw this funding.
Texas Lawmaker Offers Choice: Abortion or $500
Story Highlights
• Proposed law would pay $500 to women who choose adoption
• Critics say plan would
violate laws against buying babies
• Lawmaker also is a conservative radio talk show host
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas (Reuters) -- A Texas legislator has proposed that pregnant women considering abortion be offered $500
not to end their pregnancies.
Republican State Sen. Dan Patrick, who also is a conservative radio talk show host, said Friday the money might persuade
the women to go ahead and have babies, then give them up for adoption.
He said during a legislative conference in New Braunfels, 45 miles south of Austin, there were 75,000 abortions in Texas
last year.
"If this incentive would give pause and change the mind of 5 percent of those women, that's 3,000 lives. That's almost
as many people as we've lost in Iraq," Patrick said.
Patrick has filed legislation to make the payment state law, but the legislature has not voted on it.
His proposal calls for giving any woman going to an abortion clinic the $500 option, to be paid no more than 30 days after
the baby is born and given up for adoption.
Critics say the proposal would violate Texas and federal laws against buying babies, which Patrick rejected as "the typical
ridiculous criticism."
Heather Paffe, political director of Planned Parenthood of Texas, said Patrick's proposal "is very cynical and insulting
to women and their families."
"It's insulting to think women would make that kind of decision so easily," she said.
  WOMEN'S HEALTH -- DOCUMENTS SHOW WHITE HOUSE EFFORT TO BLOCK WIDER
ACCESS TO PLAN B CONTRACEPTIVE:
Depositions released Friday by the Center for Reproductive Rights provide a virtual smoking gun showing
that the Bush administration "sought to unduly influence the agency" during the application process to review the Plan B "morning after" contraceptive.
The new documents show that senior FDA scientist Dr. Florence Houn "testified in July that she was
told by Dr. Janet Woodcock, then acting deputy commissioner of the FDA, of the need to appease the 'administration’s constituents' by rejecting over-the-counter (OTC) status for women of all ages and then approving it down the road
with an age restriction."
Houn's statement "directly contradicts the testimony of Dr. Woodcock, who earlier testified that she
was not aware of any political pressure."
In a surprise announcement, the FDA said last Monday "that it was moving toward endorsing sale of the morning-after pill without a prescription," but only for women 18 and older.
Unfortunately, critics say the move may be a political ploy to increase the chances of confirming the
agency’s acting commissioner, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, who faced contentious Senate confirmation hearings on Tuesday.
WOMEN'S RIGHTS
The Assault on Liberty
President Bush addressed a gathering
of tens of thousands of people who want Roe v. Wade to be overturned and reaffirmed his support for criminalizing abortion. Bush told the crowd they were "making progress" toward their goal. The organizers of the rally,
March for Life, favor criminalizing abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Bush's hostile views towards women's rights are of even greater concern because he
could "make several Supreme Court appointments in his second term" who oppose Roe. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, at least
21 states would quickly outlaw abortion. That's why it's so important for progressives not to abandon their commitment to reproductive rights.
BUSH'S AGGRESSIVE ANTI-WOMAN AGENDA:
Bush's opposition to abortion is more than just talk. The National Right to Life Committee heralded the 2003-2004 Congress
as "the most successful ever for the pro-life movement." With the help of his right-wing allies in Congress, Bush signed a number of laws which erode
women's rights in the United States. The new laws criminalize certain abortion procedures, define a fetus at any stage of
development as a person, and make it harder for women to obtain abortions at publicly funded hospitals. Out of over 200 judges
nominated to the federal bench by Bush, only two have expressed any respect for abortion rights.
THE NEXT GENERATION OF INTIMIDATION:
Now "lawmakers in Congress and several states, meanwhile, are introducing the latest in a wave of measures aimed at making it more daunting
to obtain an abortion." One bill would require abortion providers to read a script telling women 20 weeks or more pregnant
that an abortion could cause pain to their fetus. Also under consideration: a bill that makes it a crime – even for family members – to take a minor to another state for a legal abortion.
PUTTING WOMEN'S HEALTH AT RISK:
Criminalizing abortion won't end abortion – it will just put women's health at risk. In 1930, "almost 2,700 women died from illegal abortions – and that's just the number who had abortion recorded as their official cause of death."
In 1962, "almost 1,600 women were treated for incomplete illegal abortions in at Harlem Hospital." Forty-three percent of
all abortions worldwide are performed in countries where abortion is illegal. According to the World Health Organization,
"80,000 women around the world still die each year of complications from illegal abortion." Maybe that's why Laura Bush opposes overturning Roe v. Wade.
COMMON GROUND – REDUCING UNWANTED
PREGNANCIES: In a speech yesterday at the New York State Capital, Sen. Hillary Clinton said, "There is an opportunity for people of good faith to find common ground in
this debate – we should be able to agree that we want every child born in this country to be wanted,
cherished and loved." The best way to reduce the number of abortions is to help people out of poverty, get them access to
medical care – including family planning – and a high-quality education. That is what happened during the 1990s,
and the abortion rate declined. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during the Clinton years the
abortion rate fell by about 27 percent. Now that we have abandoned many of those policies and poverty is back on
the rise, the trend has reversed. A new independent study by an ethics professor at Fuller Theological Seminary finds that
"contrary to popular assumption, abortion has risen in the U.S. during George W. Bush's presidency." And protecting women's rights isn't about rejecting
faith. The Rev. Debra W. Haffner writes that "for more than fifty years, many religious leaders from diverse denominations have affirmed the moral
agency of women."
BUSH PRAISES ANTI-ABORTION TACTICS:
Bush praised abortion opponents for "the civil way that you have engaged one of America's most contentious issues." But since
1982 "there have been 169 arsons and/or bombings of abortion clinics." The Pro-Life Action League, a group affiliated with the march, supports "sidewalk counseling," which involves approaching "a woman about to enter an abortion clinic…in an effort to
talk her out of aborting the baby."
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