Posted on 04/19/2007 9:56:32 AM PDT by presidio9
Ever since Roe v. Wade in 1973, graphic descriptions of abortion have been staples of abortion opponents. Abortion rights advocates have preferred more scientific terms. Neither is by accident.
The Supreme Court adopted the more graphic approach Wednesday as a conservative majority of justices upheld a nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure.
"The way in which the fetus will be killed ... is of legitimate concern" to the government, the majority said.
In opinions after Roe v. Wade, the decision saying a woman has a constitutional right to abortion, clinical terminology has been the order of the day at the court.
All that changed in 2000, when Justice Anthony Kennedy described abortion procedures in painstaking detail. He did so as a dissenter in Stenberg v. Carhart, the ruling striking down Nebraska's ban on what opponents call partial-birth abortions.
"Repeated references to sources understandable only to a trained physician may obscure matters for persons not trained in medical terminology," Kennedy wrote in 2000. "Thus it seems necessary at the outset to set forth what may happen during an abortion."
Kennedy then explained abortion procedures in explicit terms that hadn't been seen previously at the court. The break with tradition prompted Justice John Paul Stevens to note in a concurring opinion, "Much ink is spilled today describing the gruesome nature of late-term abortion procedures."
Kennedy returned to form Wednesday when he wrote the decision of the court.
"It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns ... what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast-developing brain of her unborn child," Kennedy wrote.
In a forceful dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that Kennedy's word-choice goes too far.
"Throughout, the opinion refers to obstetrician-gynecologists and surgeons who perform abortions not by the titles of their medical specialties, but by the pejorative label `abortion doctor,'" wrote Ginsburg. "A fetus is described as an 'unborn child,' and as a 'baby;' second-trimester, previability abortions are referred to as 'late-term.'"
An obvious attempt on her part to abstract the language to make the unborn child appear non-human. A favorite trick of the pro-abort mentality. The term “products of conception” is another term they like use.
Looks very cute, they’re jivin!
You are, at least here in Massachusetts, of all places.
Well, since he's a doctor, at least he has an excuse.
How about this. After my wife miscarried, her brother told her, "I'm sorry you lost the fetus." We were both creeped out.
Oh, the horror!...
Ginsberg: “It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey,between previability and postviability abortions.”
Wait a minute. What is this “firmly drawn” line? Is this sophistry or what?
Which begs the question: Why would anybody be sorry they lost a fetus? Isn’t that what fetuses (feti?) are there for? To be gotten rid of?
Saying that it’s a “baby” means that you want to keep it. If it’s a “fetus,” you don’t.
Six Months In Utero
Only someone with truly evil intentions to justify a truly evil act against this being would insist that he/she not be referred to as a "baby". Evil incarnate.
The truth hurts.
If you control the language, you control everything.
That's how you're supposed to "terminate" a pregnancy.
duh!
You have just described all liberals/leftists in general and the entire dhimmicrat party in specific.
That fetus looks A LOT like a baby.
Missed this one too, you have been busy!!
I love it when I can see a new .gif and a day or so later think of how it use it with a previous .gif
Added 150x0 TP at IM
Composited +0+0/South
Smartcropped at GW and resized slightly to 260x260 - reset delay to 10 and uploaded it
I could visualize the completed animated graphic perfectly before I started it
‘She seems to be a rather miserable human being.’
“You have just described all liberals/leftists in general and the entire dhimmicrat party in specific.”
Yes, as a matter of fact, I did....(chuckle)
duh!
It "terminated" the pregnancy and gave us a Grandson.
It also solved the uremic poisoning. She recovered very rapidly.
Wait a minute. What is this firmly drawn line? Is this sophistry or what?
I guess that we need to draw the line at the current record, which is held by Amillia Sonja Taylor. Little Amelia was born on October 24, 2006, and went home in February with no major long-term medical complications. Therefore, 5 months and ten days is a proven firmly drawn line of viability. However, to be on the safe side (and because I like round figures), I would personally recommend 5 months at this point (and medical science is sure to catch up soon anyway), or a month earlier than the "fetus" pictured in Ben's photo in the pervious post.
Yes, you are enjoying it.
It’s a baby; we’re right to say so, and we all have to keep saying so.
I have begun to use the term “dismembered while alive” to describe abortion, and though it causes some to cringe, I really don’t care.
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