Wow. My jaw just about literally hit the floor when they mentioned the woman who had a police officer come to her house and tape her legs together. It just goes to show, anti-choicers really just don't care about anything but making women suffer.

Devastating.

It reminds me of the quote I saw here on Feministing: "That inconvenient thing attached to the fetus? That's called a woman."

It's time for a revolution! It's time to rally on these issues, people.

They flat-out TOLD the women in some scenarios that their rights were less valuable than the fetus'. So much for the argument that the anti-choicers just want fetuses to have "equal" rights.

C-sections increase survival rates of neonates at the expense of decreasing survival rates of mothers, except when the mother is endangered by the continued pregnancy, like with an eclamptic. Every woman should have the right to decide if the risk is worth it.

You know what this reminds me of, too? People who are homophobic until their close relative/best friend turns out to be gay.

I personally have encountered many militant anti-Caesarian/anti-medication people who rival anti-choicers in obnoxiousness, but I'm glad to see that all kinds of women can agree on preserving our right to choose!

The situations experienced by those women are so archaic and ridiculous, it's horrifying. How can legislation give the doctors and the police the rights to do that to them? It just seems so unimaginable that someone could legally make the decision FOR them without their consent or any respect to their wishes. This has been said many many times before, but why does legislation only go as far as the fetus? As soon as a child is born, god help her if it's a girl because there won't be the same "legal" interest in what's right for her person when she's older.

All I can say is that I posted this to my LJ in hopes that some of my friends (whom I love dearly, but who are also sometimes morons) will get their heads out of their butts about bill
C-484 (which is Canadian, and basically makes it a seperate offense to harm a fetus while attacking a pregnant woman. *Shudder* )

Also, read more about it here: http://www.arcc-cdac.ca/c484.htm

And sign an online petition here:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/oppose-bill-c-484.html

I think the arguments in that video can be applied to the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, since it doesn't have a health exception or a mention of viability. So a woman who decides or needs to have an abortion during the second trimester would have to undergo a procedure that she and her doctor might think is less safe.

The most troubling information in that video was how much the doctors, not only law enforcement, were involved in this assessment of the value of these women's lives compared to their fetuses. How many of these cases were in states with "conscience" clauses that allow doctors to deny the healthiest treatment to women based on their own religious or moral convictions? How many of these doctors have sexist beliefs and believe that women should sacrifice anything and everything, including their health and lives, for everybody else, including the fetus that is inside them using their body?

TheUnfunnyFeminist: "How many of these cases were in states with "conscience" clauses that allow doctors to deny the healthiest treatment to women based on their own religious or moral convictions? How many of these doctors have sexist beliefs and believe that women should sacrifice anything and everything, including their health and lives, for everybody else, including the fetus that is inside them using their body?"

I don't believe these are conscience clause cases; those apply to DENYING care, not forcing it on women. These are cases where the doctors and judges genuinely consider the fetus/neonate to be their patient too, as well as the mother, and consider any mother who would not want to provide her baby the best care to be incapable of making medical decisions. That's the only way the law allows for it, if the woman is incapable, but they stretch the law because they believe that anyone who chooses differently than them must invariably be mentally incapable.

These are cases where the doctors and judges genuinely consider the fetus/neonate to be their patient too, as well as the mother, and consider any mother who would not want to provide her baby the best care to be incapable of making medical decisions. That's the only way the law allows for it, if the woman is incapable, but they stretch the law because they believe that anyone who chooses differently than them must invariably be mentally incapable.

It's not a matter of not wanting to provide their fetus or newborn the best care. What those women really want is for both herself and her pregnancy to be healthy. It's not much of a choice if the woman has to choose between her own life and health and the life and health of her fetus or newborn. And either choice she makes puts her in the predicament of having her decisions be made by doctors that don't have her best interest in mind. One could argue that a woman who would not want to provide herself the best care is incapable of making medical decisions, which is basically what she does if she chooses to sacrifice her health or life so that her child can be born healthy. That's no more or less noble than getting the procedure that saves her own life but sacrifices the life of her fetus or newborn so that she can raise another child later. So either way, she's screwed.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, none of these women wanted anything bad to happen to their fetus/neonate, they just disagreed on whether the c-sections were needed, but because they didn't agree with the doctor, they lost all rights to their own body. Because the default in this country is that a mother would sacrifice everything for her child, it's extended to extremes-- even to cases where the mother has not met or bonded with the child, or has other children to care for, or where the benefit to the child might be negligible while the cost to the mother is great.

I get the desire to not let parents hurt their children by denying them medical care, but it can't extend to labor and delivery. Under the law, the fetus is not a citizen until it is BORN (the cord is cut, or the placenta is also delivered if the cord is not cut).

I already voted No on 48. The fact that this even made the ballot is a sure sign that the apocalypse is approaching.

the thing is, "feta(i?)cide" laws are not necesarry. ive posted before that new york state has, in it's penal code, the charge of "abortion" - you can get charge with it if you do an act of violence to a woman causing her pregnancy to end.

it's a great rule because it acknowledges the act of violence done to the woman, and the ending of a probably wanted pregnancy, without erasing the woman and giving fetal personhood.