From: bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (J H Woodyatt)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Mississippi Doctors want Supreme Court to end 24-hour delay
Date: 10 Oct 92 01:41:05 GMT
Reply-To: bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com
Organization: Abiogenesis 4 Less

forgach@noao.edu (Suzanne Forgach) writes:
# From article by bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (J H Woodyatt):
# >
# > _San_Francisco_Chronicle_, October 3, 1992 (Page A6):
#   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
# 
# A completely impartial and unbiased source, I'm sure.
# (snicker)

Your paranoia is showing, Ms. Forgach.  I wonder what source of news
on the abortion issue you would accept as unbiased.  And why.

# >           The Mississippi Law originally was to take effect
# >           in September 1991, but a federal judge barred its
# >           enforcement pending a decision on the lawsuit.
# >           The New Orleans appeals court allowed the law to
# >           take effect when it dismissed the lawsuit in
# >           August.
# > 
# >           Since then, the appeal filed yesterday said,
# >           ``Mississippi abortion providers have seen the
# >           number of women obtaining abortions plummet by
# >           more than 50 percent.''
# 
# 50%!!  Good Lord!  Halleluiah!   Let's repeat this in all 50 states!

In light of the fact that this plummet in the rate of abortions does
not appear to be accompanied by any drop in the rate of unplanned
pregnancies (I should imagine that *anything* that resulted in a 50%
drop in the rate of unplanned pregnancies in Mississippi would make
the news *somewhere*), your celebration over the prevention of so many
women from exercising their reproductive rights is more than a little
macabre.

# >           The law creates an undue burden in Mississippi,
# >           even if it might not in Pennsylvania, the appeal
# >           said.  
#  
# More likely a drain on the pocketbooks of Mississippi abortionists!

Oh, yeah, that heinous liberal conspiracy ragsheet, the _San_
_Francisco_Chronicle_ (the whole editorial staff is nothing more than
a cabal of long-hair, greasy, pot-smoking, leftist cranks, you know),
couldn't possibly be telling the truth when they print that the
*APPEAL* said the law created an undue burden...

Get a grip, Ms. Forgach.

# >           Mississippi has only three abortion
# >           clinics, and most residents -- many of them poor
# >           -- must travel long distances to get an abortion,
# >           it said.
# 
# 
# Why don't they just _ask_ these women why they don't come back??
# 
# My bet would be that it __ain't__ finances and "undue burdens", at all, but
# the simple fact that, relieved of the abortionists' hard sell and rush jobs,
# they simply changed their minds, and their hearts, in favor of their
# children.

Ms. Forgach, the appeal stated that the rate of women seeking
abortions in the first place was the rate that dropped 50%, not the
rate of women who choose to have abortions after they've been made to
wait the mandatory waiting period.

# >           The mandatory delay has led to increased
# >           surveillance and harassment of women seeking
#                              ^^^^^^^^^^
# >           abortions, the appeal said.  
# 
# Crap on crackers, as I'm sure only "The San Francisco Chronicle"
# could dish up.

Are you questioning the _Chronicle_'s reporting of what the appeal
said?

# >           And anti-abortion
# >           advocates have used patients' license plate
# >           numbers to get their names and addresses and
# >           contact them during the waiting period.
# 
# 
# Perhaps they simply talk to them as they walk out of their initial
# appointment.
# Not too hard to do if you're waiting outside on the sidewalk, and people
# aren't hurrying past in their shame of what they're about to do.

Perhaps.  But if so, then the appeal would be lying.

# > I wonder -- assuming the appeal isn't rife with lies and half-truths,
# 
# Well, I'm assuming it is.

This is why I don't ever want to see you on a jury, Ms. Forgach.  You
are making a blind leap of faith without a shred of evidence simply
because your tiny mind would pop like a zit if you ever had to think
for yourself.  A common affliction among fundamentalist geeks and
right-wing cheeseheads -- especially those on Usenet.

# > how could the Supreme Court not decide that the waiting period does
# > not amount to an `undue burden?'
# 
# By deciding that public access to license plate identities is where the
# "burden" is.    In a great many states, Woody, laws have been passed
# making such information completely UNavailable to any Tom, Dick, or
# Harry who asks for it, simply because MURDERS have been committed by people 
# who just didn't like the way somebody else was driving, and obtained
# the name and address from the MVD, went to the residence, and blew them away.

The State I live in is one of them.  Apparently, Mississippi is not.
And no, keeping license plate information public is *NOT* what is
causing an undue burden on women seeking to exercise the right to an
abortion in Mississippi.

-----

# > I would like to see the opinions of some of our regular anti-abortion
# > posters regarding the news clipping quoted above, and specifically, I
# > would like to see a defense of the charge that using license plate
# > numbers to get names and addresses of clinic patients 
# 
# I am not going to defend getting information through license plates.  For
# the reasons stated above, I don't think license plate identities should
# be available in any state.

There are arguments to the contrary.  But I agree with you on this
issue.

# However, simply following the patients off the property, and offering them
# prenatal help, maternity care, and an ear to listen to, is COMPLETELY
# honorable, compassionate, and within reason!

This is a debateable point.

# > and contacting
# > them during the mandatory waiting period is an immoral invasion of
# > privacy which amounts to harassment, and that such harassment is
# > essentially misogynistic in character.
# 
# This is malarky.  OBVIOUSLY, since the article states that a full 50% of
# Mississippi women now cancel their abortions after scheduling them, [...]

The article states no such thing.  You are hallucinating.  Read it
again.


-- 
J H Woodyatt (a.k.a. Dr. Strychnine)
Space Systems/Loral

``Men who have no time to read should devote their time to reading
books of quotations.''
                                              -- Winston Churchill
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