Naaman directed me to the text of the bill that was submitted in South Dakota.
I'm embarrassed that I didn't read the text beforehand. It looks quite complete in my opinion and could certainly be the model upon which future bills from other states are built on. This line is probably the most important one:
Moreover, the Legislature finds that the guarantee of due process of law under the Constitution of South Dakota applies equally to born and unborn human beings, and that under the Constitution of South Dakota, a pregnant mother and her unborn child, each possess a natural and inalienable right to life.
I will ask others who are more expert at these types of legal documents, but for now I like what I see! I will include the rest of my original post just because the need to deny exceptions and compromises is still valid.
I do consider the Pro-Life law in South Dakota a positive one because it shows what can be accomplished when people get together to challenge the culture of death.
What you might not know is that the law has a hole in it which is so wide you can drive a MAC truck through it.
What is this hole? Here's a quote from the Washington Times:
"Under the measure, doctors in South Dakota would face up to five years in prison for performing an abortion. The only exception would be for women who need abortions to save their lives"
Many of you may ask what the big deal is, so let me give you my point of view. If you have an exception, any exception, you are saying that the person inside the womb is negotiable, like an object. In my opinion, a person is a person, from the moment of conception.
Let's look at this from another perspective. Let's say you are hanging on a rope and your daughter is hanging onto your foot. You are losing strength because of the extra weight she is putting on you and the rope starts to slip.
a) Do you kick your daughter to free yourself from her grip so that you might live?
b) Do you do everything you can so that you both might live?
I imagine most of you will select b. I imagine you would get extra strength from somewhere to make sure that both of you lived.
If we live with the thought that we should kill our children to save ourselves, we will always try to put ourselves first. We won't make much of an effort for our children. Not only is a moral issue, it is a psychological one. We will develop a selfish attitude that puts us before our children.
Should we push for this type of legislation? Absolutely not.
Should there be exceptions for the health of the mother or the life of the mother? Absolutely not.
Are the people who pushed forward this legislation evil? Absolutely not. They did what they thought was right.
We should never intentionally push for this type of law though. A woman should not be put into a position where she should decide the death of her child. It is immoral to ask that of her. Doctors should always do everything possible to save both lives, period.
If you join with this type of legislation you have just joined the abortion movement. "How dare you!?!" you might exclaim. Think about it, if you sign a piece of paper or support this legislation, every child killed by this law is a death on your hands. Abortion doctors will still be in business, only this time you are signing their paychecks.
We must not lose the war to win a battle. We must not be satisfied with winning this battle. This isn't about saving some people, it's about saving all people. There is no compromise.
Please don't sign the death warrants for unborn children. Do not support "exception" legislation which intentionally kills people. We must stay strong and not waver on this issue or we will take on the attitude of "oh well, we saved 90%, that's better than nothing".
There are no exceptions. There is no compromise. Abortion is wrong and must be stopped.
United we stand - Divided they die - pass it on
Peter, you're simply wrong about this point. The SD ban does provide a "life of the mother" exception, but not the way that you're claiming.
Read the text of the Ban on the SD legislature's website:
http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2006/bills/HB1215SST.htm
Here's how the "life of the mother" exception is worded:
"Section 4. That chapter 22-17 be amended by adding thereto a NEW SECTION to read as follows:
No licensed physician who performs a medical procedure designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother is guilty of violating section 2 of this Act. However, the physician shall make reasonable medical efforts under the circumstances to preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child in a manner consistent with conventional medical practice.
Medical treatment provided to the mother by a licensed physician which results in the accidental or unintentional injury or death to the unborn child is not a violation of this statute.
Nothing in this Act may be construed to subject the pregnant mother upon whom any abortion is performed or attempted to any criminal conviction and penalty."
In other words, the doctor is expected to save both lives, or at least to try to save both lives. If the unborn child is killed in the process of trying to save the mother, then the doctor is not to be blamed. However, deliberately killing the unborn child still seems to be prohibited.
Please, please, please don't take the Media's word about an abortion issue. Not even a right-leaning organization like the Washington Times should be trusted, especially not when we can do the research ourselves.
I defy someone to point to one single instance in which the life of the mother can ONLY be saved by killing the unborn child.
Even the opponents of banning partial-birth abortions have yet to find such an instance - much less first-trimester abortions.
Peter, thanks for updating the post. I'm sorry if I caame across as hostile. Like you, I'm passionate about the cause of Life, and sometimes that causes me to react sharply.
In this particular case, pro-lifers are about to be placed under a huge microscope. For years, PP/NARAL/NOW (the Unholy Trinity?) have been whipping up their membership with hyperbolic claims that Roe is under attack. Well, now they're finally right. The real fight won't happen until the court challenges progress all the way to the Supreme Court, which will take several years. However, I'm sure that the pro-abortion forces are already gearing up for all-out war and looking for any opportunity to attack us. If they can frame this debate about "those nasty anti-choicers" instead of the real issue of Life, they'll do it with glee. Let's not give them any opportunities to do so.
CB:
I defy someone to point to one single instance in which the life of the mother can ONLY be saved by killing the unborn child.
Ectopic pregnancies.
cb "defies" someone to point to one single instance in which the life of the mother can only be saved by killing the unborn child.
Easy.
In a normal pregnancy, the zygote descends through the fallopian tube and implants on the wall of the womb. In an ectopic pregnancy, it implants on the wall of the fallopian tube. If untreated, the developing child will break the tube and the mother will bleed to death.
Ectopic pregnancies are about two percent of all pregnancies.
There are five ways to treat ectopic pregnancy, and all of them are abortions. (Specifically: use a drug to cause the endometrium to slough off, carrying the zygote out with it; remove the entire fallopian tube that contains the zygote; remove the part of the tube that contains the zygote then sew the ends back together; cut into the tube, remove the zygote and suture the incision; or squeeze the zygote out of the tube.)
Yes, there really are situations where abortion is the only answer. Ectopic pregnancy is one of them.
This complete failure to recognize that when choosing between a mother and her unborn child, ceteris paribus, the mother *should* be chosen, is why if this passes you'll find yourselves thrown out of office by a whole new wave of pro-choice voters before long.
When 2% of husbands are losing their wives to ectopic pregnancies, the bullshit about how "all lives are equally precious" will simply end. The discourse will be over, and you will have lost - you'll be a tiny electoral minority for at least a good ten or twenty years or so.
Maybe you don't think about it or not, but deep down in your heart, you *want* the abortions to continue - because it's a wonderful electoral issue for you, so long as you never have to actually ban them, and let women die because of it.
Every husband I know would choose the abortion of an unborn child over the death of their wife. Without exception.
Unborn kids are people. They're people we care about deeply and love, but they're people, not gods. We do not stop being people ourselves just because we've conceived a child.
The world will never work the way you want it to. The weight of crushing inevitability is against you.
I had written about this as well on my site at http://spaces.msn.com/jamiebeu/blog/cns!6E0753BD56367285!281.entry
I thought this was interesting:
The bill as written does make an exception if the fetus dies during a doctor's attempt to save the mother's life.
Essentially this exempts the doctor from liability, if the fetus dies while the mother is being operated on. I think this is a difference of semantics from the statements in previous articles that there is an exemption if the mother's life is at risk.
I've also taken to address the counter-arguments of the abortion advocates in my latest post http://spaces.msn.com/jamiebeu/blog/cns!6E0753BD56367285!287.entry
Please post there if you have any additional arguments I could use to defend the pro-life position.