BTW, the 14th Amendment was used as a basis in Roe v. Wade to support a woman’s right to abortion.
I don’t think an amendment of any kind will stop abortion. In fact, abortion has been legal since a procedure has existed for it because one in four children were expected to die in childbirth and one in ten women were expected to die during pregnancy.
What we are talking about is abortion-on-demand versus abortion.
Abortion must always have a legal basis because a doctor by oath is sworn to do no harm. If that means saving the life of the mother, the unborn child or both then an abortion procedure must be sanctioned.
So abortion will always exist because pregnancy and childbirth can be risky.
That leaves those that are prolife with the dilemma of how to distinguish between a legitimate abortion and an abortion on demand. When that dilemma is codified into federal law, the dilemma is compounded by involving the federal government into a decision between doctor and patient.
Most every doctor is honorable and will always attempt to make the decision that leads to greater health. If they are confronted with abortion on demand, they will in most cases refuse because of their religious beliefs. They know that abortion on demand is usually due to underage pregnancy or economic hardship (a mother cannot take off from work, she cannot survive economically a pregnancy). This latter cause is a result of our high taxation and no-fault divorce laws, as well as the fact that the breadwinner of a family cannot in most cases today provide 100% for a family.
But when the federal government gets involved in this decision, the doctor has a Catch-22 situation. If they don’t do an abortion when necessary, then they are liable to claims of malpractice. If they perform an abortion, they are subject to federal criminal investigation if they miss documenting.
As an example in this latter case, suppose a woman suffers stroke while pregnant and the doctor determines the pregnancy is nonviable because of the women’s condition. If the doctor does not perform the abortion the woman could die and he could be sued for malpractice. If he performs the abortion to save her life, she may sue him later for emotional damages and harm. The doctor must document everything because if there is a lawsuit against the doctor for performance of the abortion, there will surely be a federal investigation of criminal wrongdoing on the part of the doctor.
In today’s litigious society, even if you save a person’s life, they sue you. And the federal investigators don’t care what you did, they will hang you if they can. The fifth amendment requires that life not be denied without due process of law. That means in emergency cases the doctor has no choice but to be the law and they can hang for it too. No thanks.
For the kinds of reasons noted above, most doctors have quit doing obstetrics leaving pregnancies to lower level midwives. But difficult pregnancies get bumped by midwives to an Obstetrician, often with little prior notice. The result is those that practice obstetrics are fed up. To add the additional dilemma of determining legitimacy of a possible abortion with the specter of a federal investigation is going to drive away even more obstetricians.
State investigations into medical practices are already feared and dreaded because often the investigator is a low level government employee with very little background in medicine. They can take months or years to close a case because they don’t have the background to ascertain medical violations or they have to follow arcane procedures that require various inputs at various levels to complete a file of CYA documentation. All the while the doctor or medical practice remains in fear that the investigator will take something out of context which often happens.
What is the best social medicine in this context is to go back to basics, when this country had low taxes, prosperity, children were considered a joy and blessing and a measure of family prosperity, and the government stayed out of people’s lives leaving them to enjoy their freedom. The only laws that directly affected social mores were given at the local levels. Look carefully at the Bill of rights, each amendment put a restriction on federal government, not a restriction on immoral behavior. A federal amendment to prohibit abortion-on-demand would necessarily involve parts of the federal apparatus to monitor and enforce it. And once we have federal police looking into our behavior, it won’t stop at abortion. Americans do not need that. They need more than ever to connect with their local governments and determine best policies for themselves and their neighbors.
The problem with America today is not abortion, prohibition of school prayer, gay marriage, teen promiscuity or any of the behaviors that are collectively determined to be off limits. The problem is the scope and size of the federal government, all three branches. The problem is an out of control federal government, period, end-of-story.
All the perceived behavior problems we can think of have a root in federal misjurisdiction. Abortion was ‘federalized’ with Roe v. Wade, school prayer was prohibited by federal involvement in education (I can still hear the ghost my great aunt born in 1898 having lived in Washington DC all her life even during the insanity of Eleanor Roosevelt, she lamented “How did the federal government ever get involved in education?”). All out social ills are amplified by an unconstrained federal government.
This is why we need Fred Thompson. He is the only candidate with the legal intellect to move the federal government back to the main road of federalism. This is a Ron Paul thread but Ron Paul, as admirable as are his views on the Constitution, will never be able to get the DC lawyers to jump through the hoops as Fred Thompson can. And make no mistake, lawyers do indeed control the federal government.
Blackmun also admitted openly in Roe that if an unborn child was a person, they would be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Do you think an unborn child is a "person"?
I doubt that a child who is having his skin burned off in a saline abortion, or is having his limbs torn from her body, cares much for such distinctions without a difference.
If that were true, they would have called it "the Bill of Limitations on Government."
Fact is, the Bill of Rights does limit government, but its primary purpose is the protection of the God-given, unalienable rights to life, liberty and property.
The heart of the original BoR is the Fifth Amendment prohibition on the taking of human life without an individual being charged, tried and convicted on a capital offense.
Baloney.
Re: your post #257:
I’ve rarely seen so many empty words used to justify a pro-baby-killing ideology.