From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Third Trimester Anti-Abortion Laws
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 00:17:25 GMT

In article <1992Oct4.024107.3318@midway.uchicago.edu> eeb1@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <1992Oct3.205911.1082@rotag.mi.org>
>kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes:
>
>>You don't think there is any room for preventitive laws, Cathi? You're
>>willing for the blood of unnecessary late-term abortions to stain your
>>hands BEFORE you would allow (overdue) restrictive legislation to be passed?
>>Isn't this the same "retroactive social planning" that has made such a mess
>>of our government already?
>
>I mostly agree with the above.
>
>>Look, the situation is quite simple:
>
>Hardly.
>
>>	*IF* there are so few late-term abortions, and *IF* they were all for
>>	good reasons, then it doesn't cause any harm to pass restrictive 
>>	legislation, since in practice there would have to be reasonable
>>	exceptions, e.g. mortal risk to the mother, severe fetal deformity,
>>	etc.
>
>Don't kid yourself, Kevin -- there's a cost to restricting
>third-trimester abortions.  Even if nobody was denied an abortion,
>everyone would have to get court/doctor's approval for their abortions
>... this at a time when the women getting abortions can *least* afford
>additional hassle.

What makes you think I support laws which mandate court approval of third-tri
abortions? There only needs to be as much cost as necessary to implement the
laws. You seem to think that an official court process is necessary. I think 
maybe periodic spot-checks of hospital records, with followups on anything 
suspicious (possibly culminating in a sting operation) might achieve the
desired results with a fraction of the social cost. When it comes to 
IMPLEMENTATION, I'm pretty much with Cathi: don't fix it unless it's broken. 
But at the same time, my point was that I had no overriding THEORETICAL 
problems -- moral, legal or otherwise -- with reasonable third-tri restrictions.

>>	And it could do some actual good to pass such laws, if they could
>>	be traded for a _permanent_ guarantee of the Right to Choose for non-
>>	late-term cases, which make up the vast majority of all abortions.
>
>Kevin....  Oh, PLEASE!  A significant minority of Americans (though by
>no means all of the pro-life movement) think that abortion is murder
>because to them a z/e/f is a person.  

Conversely, there are also many "soft" pro-lifers who might be placated by 
third-tri restrictions. Witness the many third-trimester threads in this 
newsgroup.  Such a compromise might garner us pro-choicers the clear majority 
we need to pass something like the FOCA, which, at the risk of sounding 
callous, is a bargain at maybe a dozen restricted abortions a year, out of 
1.5 million or whatever.

>Many of them *can't* compromise
>on this....  And to be truthful, I respect them for that.

Respect them all you want, but they must not prevail. And if compromise is
what it takes to protect first- and second-tri abortion rights from that
minority, then so be it. 

(Note that I don't claim any expertise in political strategy, however. I'm
only explaining what options would be acceptable to me personally, not 
necessarily recommending a particular course of action for the pro-choice 
movement...)

								- Kevin
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.politics.misc,alt.sex,alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush