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ArdenB
Guest
Which states do you think would outlaw abortion, and do you think most women wanting one would just travel to states where it is legal?
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SoCalRC
Guest
I don’t follow this as closely as I used to but I think that there would be immediate or near immediate criminality in the following:
Alaska
Alabama
Arkansas
Florida
Louisiana
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Nebraska
Maryland
Ohio
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Texas
Utah
Wyoming
Only some of these seemed poised to have absolute bans, with the rest including exceptions. As far as travel, I think we’d see the most travel from the states without exceptions. In those states with exceptions, I’d expect to see a lot of rule skirting.
I would definately expect to see us follow Europe in trending towards a lot more in home use of chemical abortificants. I am not even sure how that, Fedex, and varying legality in different states would shake out in terms of law enforcement and prosecution.
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ArdenB
Guest
You really think Rhode Island would criminalize it? That’s the only state on your list that really surprised me.
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goblue32
Guest
I am almost 100% positive that Michigan should also be on your list, but I’m sure jenny granholm would disregard the law.
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JimG
Guest
I think that you would find few states with an outright ban, possibly many states that regulate it more heavily. However, even in states which regulate it, whether or not there would be enforcement is another matter.
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SoCalRC
Guest
Actually, it is illegal in Rhode Island now. The law is on the books, but superceded by Roe. If Roe rolls back, then the law would need to be replaced or overturned.
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SoCalRC
Guest
Just a few years ago I would have had it there. Michigan had pre-existing law. But there has been a flurry of abortion related legal activity there in '03 and '05 and I am not quite sure how some of the rulings, like the one from the Federal appeals court last year, effect the new laws, our some seeming changes the new laws made to the pre-existing one (ex. some definitions are changed).
Like I mentioned, I don’t follow this as closely as I used to.
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Holly3278
Guest
I don’t know if my state, Indiana, would ban it or not but I suspect that it would be much more severely restricted.
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JimG
Guest
Just a hunch, but I suspect that my state, Kansas, would keep abortion legal, hoping to attract abortion tourists from those states where it was prohibited. It does some of that now.
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Verisimilitude
Guest
Isn’t the late-term abortionist Tiller in Kansas?
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SoCalRC
Guest
Kansas also has some medical privacy laws, which I think are well intentioned and generally good, but which could actually make enforcement of an abortion prohibition difficult.
But don’t despair, secular law is just one prong in the fight. Look at Oregon. In terms of secular law and government policy, it is routinely pegged by pro life groups as the most abortion friendly nation in the union, but it is actually a national leader in lowering abortion rates.
My state, California, is a similiar situation. There is no way abortion will be made illegal at the state level here, but investment in other areas seems to have paid off in better than average reductions in our abortion rate as well.
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JimG
Guest
Yes, Tiller is in Wichita and draws patients from all over the country.
As to medical privacy, there is a built-in entanglement when trying to enforce abortion regulation. How can you enforce bans against late term abortion if you don’t know it’s happening–i.e. if it’s not reported?
Lately there has been controversy about underage abortion. If an underage girl has an abortion, either a statutory rape has occurred (if the father is of age) or a misdemeanor consensual sex has occurred between two minors. But a possible statutory rape cannot be investigated without knowing those circumstances, so it becomes a privacy issue.
As to medical privacy, there is a built-in entanglement when trying to enforce abortion regulation. How can you enforce bans against late term abortion if you don’t know it’s happening–i.e. if it’s not reported?
Lately there has been controversy about underage abortion. If an underage girl has an abortion, either a statutory rape has occurred (if the father is of age) or a misdemeanor consensual sex has occurred between two minors. But a possible statutory rape cannot be investigated without knowing those circumstances, so it becomes a privacy issue.
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gam197
Guest
More home abortions and traveling to those states that allow them; it doesn’t seem like it’s solving it one bit but only making it more difficult to obtain and women will travel.
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SoCalRC
Guest
Although I agree wholeheartedly with the Church that attacks on inalienable rights of the human person (in particular attacks on human life) should not be permitted in secular law, I have reached the conclussion that secular law by itself is the least effective strategy in addressing the evil of abortion.
More home abortions and traveling to those states that allow them; it doesn’t seem like it’s solving it one bit but only making it more difficult to obtain and women will travel.
If you think about it, abortion is not something that exists in isolation, but a symptom of a culture of death. Secular laws try to address the problem, after the fact, through prohibition, something that has not historically worked well with vices like drug abuse.
If we really want fewer abortions we need to change the culture. The bulk of procurred abortions are obtained in the US by women at or near the poverty level. Half of them are already mothers. Of course it is wrong for a single mother who is supporting other children to obtain an abortion, but if 27% of the women obtaining abortions really are Catholic, it is not just a matter of teaching them right and wrong. We need to look at issues like working two jobs and not being able to climb out of poverty, education to break cycles of poverty, and things we are doing as a society that attack the traditional family.
Again, I would like to see the law changed. But I think that we are kidding ourselves if we believe that the problem is going to be solved by ‘just overturning Roe’, etc.
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markomalley
Guest
Agreed.
How about teaching them the importance of chastity according to their state in life?
Interestingly, if men would act like (real) men and lead their households and take responsibility rather than walking off…that would make a HUGE difference (along with a healthy dose of chastity education). Seems like a single-woman led household has a far higher likelihood of being in poverty than a “traditional” family.
Teaching people to live within their means and not lust after material things that are not needs but wants can help people avoid getting into trouble to begin with. On the other hand, businesses should not exploit peoples’ natural covetousness through slick marketing…another area of moral education.
Teaching landlords to accept their moral responsibilities is important. But teaching lessees to be good stewards of the properties they are leasing is just as important. (i.e., a landlord should rent a well-maintained property and should maintain it during the lease, but if the lessee insists on trashing it, why should the landlord keep dumping money down the drain? Both parties have responsibility). This is not a situation where one party is right and the other wrong. Both should see their obligations to each other as not just legal, contractual obligations, but moral ones. If either side consistently abuses the situation, can one blame the other for acting in kind?
You can look at wages: an employer is morally bound to pay a living wage to each employee. But, as you well know, excessive wages above the competition cause an increase in overhead, which, in turn, force the prices of the goods and/or services he offers to increase. If they increase above the competition, will that cause sales to go down – thus impacting the ability to pay those wages. And do employees ALL reciprocate by being sure that they are fully productive during the workday…thus earning their keep? Do employees recognize that as a moral obligation? And then what happens when the labor market is saturated with new workers who are willing and happy to work hard for far less than “living” wages? When the government intentionally encourages that saturation of the labor market? You may insist upon paying “living” wages…but what about your competitors? Do they have the same moral framework?
Then look at retirement plans. Because of the unethical behavior of a few employers, the rules for retirement plans changed. Now the funds have to be invested and are carefully controlled. Many private-sector employers have done away with non-contributory schemes, in favor of 401(k) or 403(b) schemes. (What does that have to do with anything?) Do most workers care about the investments made by their retirement funds? Or do they simply want to see those funds increase in value, so that their retirement will be more comfortable? Sure, they may decide to divest from South Africa, Israel, or maybe even divesting from investments involving embryonic stem cell research…but do ANY of them consider how the companies they invest in are managed??? Think about the amount of money in the hands of those investment funds: those fund managers are charged with monitoring profit…to make sure there is a return. A divestment by a union-sponsored retirement fund, a mutual fund, or other managed investment fund could seriously hurt the value of a company’s stock. That impacts how the company runs its business operations. And that kind of impact is NEVER good for the employees of the company. That is yet ANOTHER moral issue.
The funny part about the above is that most people probably don’t even recognize what they are doing. They may realize that they are invested in the Fidelity Fund or the Ave Maria Fund. But they don’t consider the impact of those funds’ actions on the companies with which the funds invest.
Can government action fix those problems? In any of the areas above, I, honestly, can’t see how it could. Not in the long term.
The only way to truly fix it is, as you pointed out, to change the moral climate of society. What are we, as society, doing to damage the traditional family? What should we, as a society, do differently? Sometimes, the issues are obvious. Other times, like the discussion of the impact of retirement fund investments on business operations, are not terribly obvious.
I agree. And I too would like to see Roe overturned, so that the states could act as they are supposed to (according to the 10th amendment). But I, too, am not so pollyanish as to think that this would be the solution to the problem. It would simply remove the tacit approval of the State.
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gam197
Guest
I am not buying this argument at all. If I wait until the culture has improved to the point where abortion will be outlawed, that day will never come. Before abortion was legal, the U.S. was imperfect but people were working on improving working conditions, upping men’s wages, inventing appliances to improve daily life and they will continue to do this after abortion is outlawed. When one has that kind of attitude, abortion stays legal.
No, abortion should have been never been allowed in and to excuse it because the culture had or will have what some perceive as major imperfections is not acceptable.
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SoCalRC
Guest
I’m not sure why you feel so strongly that there is something objectionable to my point. The local Catechism in the US is the UNITED STATES CATHOLIC CATECHISM FOR ADULTS.
It calls upon Catholics to avoid promoting an overall culture of death and to work for positive societal change on that front. This is not an either/or situation. One can work for both societal change and changes in secular laws. My point is just that the former seems potentially more effective.
Consider, abortion rates have dropped dramatically over the last few decades. There appears to be no statistical relationship to the change and the status of secular law (ex. Oregon is considered the most abortion friendly state in the union in terms of secular law, but it also is a national leader in reducing abortion rates). There isn’t even a relationshop between reduction and national leadership’s position on abortion (abortion rates reduced more dramatically under Clinton than Bush).
So positive change is possible, even without legal changes. I see no problem in pursuing that. Legal changes can also be pursued, but the odds of significant progress any time soon are daunting. Overturning Roe, a major hurdle, would likely only open the door for prohibition in 15-18 states. And, as noted, prohibition, for things like alcohol and illegal drugs, has not been particularly successful in US history.
Daunting odds should not disuade a Christian, but I see no reason why we should not also answer our Christian obligation to transform our culture through faith as well as secular politics.
Peace
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gam197
Guest
I know what the Catholic Catechism teaches but to use it to justify abortion on demand is shameful… Abortion may have gone down a little but much of that is due to laws put in place by pro-life groups by making it more difficult to obtain an abortion. Abortion is still taking the lives of 4000 children daily.
Abortion should have never come into the U.S.,should be outlawed and that takes top priority over everything else.
Fifty million deaths and you are talking about positive change.
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SoCalRC
Guest
I’m sorry, but it is completely wrong to assert that I support abortion in any way. My goal is no abortions. In that light, I consider a dropping abortion rate as positive change.
Every time we convince an expectant mother to not choose abortion, I consider that positive. Every time we can help a young person make the right choice and avoid an unwanted pregnancy, I consider that positive.
Abortion was here before it was outlawed (it was openly advertised until the mid 19th century), it was here while it was outlawed, and it is here now. Saying something does not make it true, we have no evidence that the 400,000 fewer abortions per year that was achieved in the 1990s had any connection to secular laws.
My goal is to elliminate an infallibly vile evil, that means I want to attack the problem on every possible front. Secular law alone has shown itself not to be enough, and it is also too slow.
I am not sure how resisting evil with every legitimate means at my disposal is a twisting Catholic teaching to support abortion. But presumably you will explain your logic to me. To me, NOT fighting abortion on every possible front, leaving still more children to die while we wait decade after decade hoping for laws to change seems like a twisting of Catholic teaching.
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gam197
Guest
Abortion was not that available in the 19th century. There were few ads and if you read any book writren by Comstock, you will see that the abortionists were arrested. This is all documented by him as he was extremely conscious of recording every event in print and every court document.
We have got to stop saying that when abortions were illegal, there were just as many as it just helps to weaken the argument for making abortions illegal. Heck if nothing is going to change, what is the big deal.
American Life League quotes a very low figure on abortions prior to 1960’s and Dr. Nathanson, in his book tells how they upped the figures on abortion they were doing in New York City and he states that the figures were really much lower.
I agree that we must fight abortion on every possible front but it crucial that we change secular laws.
Secular laws help to lower the rates. When there are no open clinics and the general opinion is that abortion is an evil, it plants a very different outlook in young people’s minds.
I agree we need to do everything we can to help get at the root causes and hopefully we will continue to help females make the right decision.
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