Choosing Choice: an editorial (1 Viewer)

[1069]

Referendums nationwide made it clear that Americans favor the status quo on abortion rights.

LA Times Online
November 11, 2006

THE BALLOTS CAST across the nation spoke so unambiguously about abortion that even the most intransigent anti-abortionists should be able to construe the message: Voters do not want Big Brother opening the doors of private homes — or the doctor's office — and coercing people's most personal medical decisions.

Anti-abortionists have been craving a test case to put before the U.S. Supreme Court, in hopes of overturning Roe vs. Wade — and thought they had it when the South Dakota Legislature passed a ban on abortion. Instead of challenging the law in court, though, pro-choice forces cleverly put the matter to a popular referendum. Even in that socially conservative, anti-abortion state, a decisive majority Tuesday preserved a woman's right to choose. To some extent, they were bothered by the ban's extraordinary lack of compassion, refusing to exempt even the victims of rape and incest. But a frequently voiced complaint about the ban was that government simply shouldn't interfere with private lives.


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[Real Korimyr #9]

... thus forcing patients to undergo a certain medical procedure before seeking the treatment of their choice. For what other medical situation would this kind of government interference be tolerated?

Uhm... all of them? Before I can purchase my medications-- which I've been using for years-- I have to obtain a doctor's permission, and submit to whatever other procedures the doctor requires first. In my case, this is usually blood testing, though I've sometimes been required to submit to testing to re-diagnose my illness.

Once, they even made me visit a shrink to make sure that the pain meds I was requesting were for "legitimate reasons" and not for an addiction.

You say that's not the government... but it's the government that prevents me from simply purchasing my medication in the first place.

 

[Jerry]

I live in Rapid City and I'm telling you that if HB1215 had the rape and incest exceptions, and more flexibility on the health exception, it would have passed.

I vehemently oppose abortion and even I did not support HB1215.

We'll see it again in a few years, hopefully with the necessary changes.