Ban on Partial Birth Abortion

After looking at the voting records of the leading canidates, on abortion, I'm am perplexed about something:

Do you think voting the below makes you liberal on abortion or just supporting abortion?

Voted NO on banning partial birth abortions except for maternal life. (Mar 2003) (this was HRC's vote)

To me this seems to me very much a liberal stand. To understand what the actual procedure is, I have to say voting NO for this is a very liberal approach.



Yes, no, : is this a liberal vote? To me this was the one thing I was hoping to be my deciding factor on voting, that ok if it's a dem for abortion but they were against partial birth I would vote for them. ... now I am thrown back into my issue of really unsure and uneasy of voting for someone who is for this.

but that is my issue. I'm not debating this form of abortion, but is it in fact a liberal stance or if you are for abortion you have to support this too...

thanks

Re: Ban on Partial Birth Abortion

What difference does it make if you call it liberal?

Because I am trying to look at the voting records of BO and HRC to see if they vote "liberal", or are they middle of the road dems. To me it is important, because I am not comfortable voting for a liberal dem, nor am I into a very conservative rebuplican.

thats why

[GrayMatterWife]

Re: Ban on Partial Birth Abortion

I think, in general, in nontechnical, layman terms, being against (that is, voting "No" on) a ban on PBAs is considered a very liberal position, even if the ban includes a "threat of maternal death" provision. I think both sides can pretty much agree, without having to give up any ground in terms of their ethical positions, that PBAs are the most viscerally unpleasant (grisly) type of elective (ie, not medically necessary) abortion, and are the least appealing to advocate. Regardless of your position on abortion rights, nobody likes to think about a procedure whereby a baby being partially born, then its brain crushed--even if it the only way to save the mother's life, and therefore a strong argument can be made for its ethical use, it is still a horrifically sad thing to contemplate. Advocacy of the least restrictive access any type of elective abortion that could be performed on a fetus that could feasibly survive ex-utero is generally considered a liberal position.

Of course, the really liberal position on PBAs is to advocate for the government to pay for them. But, as far as I know, there is no Senator or Congressman who advocates for that (I don't think the issue has come up).

From a Constitutional law perspective, the more emphasis that is put on the superiority of the mother's right to privacy (that is, right to be free from interference by the state from her decisions over her medical care), the more liberal the position on abortion rights will be. If the mother's right to privacy is tantamount, it should trump any right to fetus may have to exist. (If the fetus is not a person, it has no Constitutionally protected right to life or privacy).

That is why is it important to the pro-choice cause that the fetus not be given any kind of "personhood" status in other contexts of law (for example, through fetal homicide statutes). There is an argument that a fetus cannot be the victim of homicide in the circumstance in which the fetus's existence was involuntarily terminated (when the mother did not want the fetus's existence terminated) but then not be a victim of homicide in the circumance in which the fetuts's existence was voluntarily terminated (with medical necessity--that is, by an elective abortion).

I am not seeking to provoke an abortion argument, and not commenting on the validly of the Constitutional arguments. Just throwing in my two cents in terms of your original question.

Re: Ban on Partial Birth Abortion

Thanks Abigail. The hard thing about the fight for life, is what is more important to vote on, - the war and the casualties that are happening there or on an abortion stance? This is hard for me. I think it was Tara who said she couldn't in good conscious vote for someone who didn't think life was important, I totally agree. But which leaves the question in this election, what do we fight for?... I don't want to be one of the "one issue" voters, so I'm really chewing on this. What McCain said about 100 more years, makes me ill...

Ok anyway thanks for the answer.

[GrayMatterWife]

Re: Ban on Partial Birth Abortion

Thanks Abigail. The hard thing about the fight for life, is what is more important to vote on, - the war and the casualties that are happening there or on an abortion stance? This is hard for me. I think it was Tara who said she couldn't in good conscious vote for someone who didn't think life was important, I totally agree. But which lives in this election do we fight for?... I don't want to be one of the "one issue" voters, so I'm really chewing on this. What McCain said about 100 more years, makes me ill...

Ok anyway thanks for the answer.

If the preimient preciousness of life is a bedrock value for you, over all other considerations--and that includes human life in all its forms--any loss of life is horrible to contemplate. If you just wrestled with how the abortion issue should impact your vote, your perspective would be too limited. You need to ask yourself, in all seriousness, Is the way in which this candidate values life the way that I value life? That doesn't preclude hawks or "pro-war" candidates, necessarily. Sometimes there are things worth dying for (thereby, giving a value to that sacrificed life). On the abortion issue, pro-life voters would think that the woman's right to privacy over her medical decisions and her body are not worth causing the fetus to be sacrificed for. But, in terms of the war, maybe the question should be, Is this fight--the War in Iraq--and its attendant causes and results, something that it worth taking a life for, and if so, under what circumstances? Is this a cause worth dying for?

That question, I think, you can answer only for yourself.