Wisconsin passes abortion ban

[BaneTheBrawler]

I'm confused, then what would be the point of telling someone not to take them because of migraines?

migraines often are a result of imbalanced blood sugar. skipping the sugar pills can help alleviate them.

[MaachaQ]

The adoption system in the US is all kinds of messed up, it's no wonder that many women still go for abortion instead of adoption. Here's a recent case that I heard about:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/j...rican-adoption

Supreme court rules against Native American father in adoption case

A divided supreme court said Tuesday that federal law doesn't require that a Native American child be taken away from her adoptive parents and given to her biological father.

The justices' 5-4 decision came in a case about a federal law intended to keep Indian children from being taken from their homes and typically placed with non-Indian adoptive or foster parents. South Carolina courts said the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act favored the biological father of the girl, named Veronica. But the South Carolina couple who raised her for the first 27 months of her life appealed that decision.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court's majority, said the federal law didn't apply in this case because the biological father never had custody of the child and abandoned her before birth. Alito also said the law doesn't stop non-Native Americans from adopting the child when no other eligible candidates stepped forward.

The law "doesn't apply in cases where the Indian parent never had custody of the Indian child," said Alito, who was joined in his opinion by chief justice John Roberts, and justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer.

"The Act would put certain vulnerable children at a great disadvantage solely because an ancestor – even a remote one – was an Indian," Alito said. "A biological Indian father could abandon his child in utero and refuse any support for the birth mother – perhaps contributing to the mother's decision to put the child up for adoption – and then could play his ICWA trump card at the eleventh hour to override the mother's decision and the child's best interest. If this were possible, many prospective adoptive parents would surely pause before adopting any child who might possibly qualify as an Indian under the ICWA."

The court's decision sends the case back to the South Carolina courts.

But justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented and pointed out that the court's ruling doesn't mean Veronica will now go back to her adoptive parents. The law gives tribes and relatives a say in decisions affecting a child, she said.

"The majority does not and cannot foreclose the possibility that on remand, Baby Girl's paternal grandparents or other members of the Cherokee Nation may formally petition for adoption of Baby Girl," she said. "If these parties do so, and if on remand, Birth Father's parental rights are terminated so that an adoption becomes possible, they will then be entitled to consideration under the order of preference established in" federal law.

Her dissent was joined by justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.

Sotomayor said the court's decision turns the law "upside down, reading it from bottom to top in order to reach a conclusion that is manifestly contrary to Congress' express purpose in enacting ICWA: preserving the familial bonds between Indian parents and their children and, more broadly, Indian tribes' relationships with the future citizens who are 'vital to (their) continued existence and integrity.'"

Added Scalia in a separate dissent: "This father wants to raise his daughter, and the statute amply protects his right to do so. There is no reason in law or policy to dilute that protection."

The Obama administration, 18 states, several Indian tribes, current and former members of Congress and children's welfare groups filed briefs in support of the father. The National Council for Adoption and the American Association of Adoption Attorneys were among the groups that filed briefs in support of the South Carolina couple.

Dusten Brown, a member of the Cherokee Nation, invoked the federal law to stop the adoption arranged by the girl's non-Indian mother when she was pregnant and the Charleston, South Carolina-area couple, Matt and Melanie Capobianco. The couple was present at Veronica's birth in Oklahoma. Brown had never met his daughter and, after the mother rebuffed his marriage proposal, played no role during the pregnancy and paid no child support after Veronica was born.

But when Brown found out Veronica was going to be adopted, he objected and said the law favored the girl living with him and growing up learning tribal traditions.

South Carolina courts agreed and Brown took Veronica, now three, back to Oklahoma at the end of 2011, even though she had lived with the Capobiancos for the first 27 months of her life.

Sotomayor said "the anguish this case has caused will only be compounded" by the court's ruling if another change is made in the girl's living arrangements.

"Baby Girl has now resided with her father for 18 months," she said. "However difficult it must have been for her to leave Adoptive Couple's home when she was just over two years old, it will be equally devastating now, if at the age of three and a half, she is again removed from her home and sent to live halfway across the country."

Really, the birth parents can still yank back the kids sometimes after they've signed away their rights, sometimes years later, which has forced so many couples to move to things like surrogacy, invitro, and other such medical alternatives to adoption. All this time, they ignore the non-infants who were removed from bad parents and who sit in foster care, sometimes not getting a "real" home until they reach 18 and get forced into the world on their own. I would rather the bad parents whose kids ended up in foster care (or dead or in prison before reaching adulthood) had instead aborted those kids; it's harsh to say, but really, those kids had shit lives and they'll continue to have shit lives as adults if they even survive very long. I had a good friend growing up who was adopted, and yes she had a much better life with her familiy than she did with her birth parents, but she was very very lucky to get out of the foster system early.

On the subject of birth control: When I was on Depo after my first child, I didn't have a single period for around 2 years. As soon as my last Depo shot wore off when my husband and I planned to have our next child, before I even had a period again, I became pregnant. Now I don't take any birth control because my husband has had himself a surgery, and recently I had some very oddly long period cycles. I didn't feel pregnant, and of course hadn't been with any other men, but I did see a doctor and get checked out just in case. Not pregnant, but I had some type of infection that I got drugs to clear up and now my cycles are normal again. In Korea, abortions are all but banned, much more strictly than in the US. I doubt if I had been pregnant I would have had one anyway, but there are far fewer options over here due largely to some of the same conservative forces at play in US politics. Of course, the declining birthrate in Korea has something to do with the government not wanting abortions as well, and they are actively trying to encourage larger families, but that's a whole other thing...

[Plow]

You see, that is where you're wrong. When it comes to biology and function you can assign it black and white for certain - you cannot assign emotional context without shades of grey. In fact, your very problem is that you see this in black and white. Cancer cells are not the same thing as fetal stem cells and, as such, would NOT elicit the same emotional response. Pregnancy and Cancer are also not the same condition and, as such, do NOT elicit the same emotional response.

If you don't know what I mean, go to any woman you see on the street that is pregnant and tell them "Ah yea, I had cancer. I know how you feel."

See what kind of response you get.

So what you're saying is there's something... special? about the particular bag of cells that makes a baby?

Something which makes it harder/more impactful to actually see them?

That's an interesting point of view for an argument in favor of abortion.

I really feel like I'm dropping the ball here by failing to mention obvious things (like the whole "not all birth control is intended to give regular periods so if a baby sneaks in there it's even harder to know) point.

The other point being, regarding the adoption option - that only works if the birth father also consents to putting it up for adoption. It doesn't take long to imagine a multitude of situations where a woman wouldn't want to risk getting "stuck" with raising the baby because he wouldn't agree to relinquish parental rights, wouldn't want to tell the father that she's pregnant, etc. etc. - and beyond that a woman could be dead set on either abortion or adoption, have the father say "yeah i'll relinquish the rights" and then renege on that after she's beyond 24 weeks, meaning she's fucked.

An abortion is a choice a woman can make alone. Putting the baby up for adoption, even in the greatest healthy white baby circumstances, is not something she can "choose" alone.

Oh, I see, abortion should be protected because we can't have a child's father having a say in what happens to it.



Calming the crazy anti-abortionists would sure be a whole lot easier if you guys could support it without getting completely ridiculous.

[Abandon]

Plow, you goddamned twit. stick to wow, holy shit

[Plow]

Plow, you goddamned twit. stick to wow, holy shit

You may disagree, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be offended by arguments that "it's just a bag of cells that's not a person... which is really hard to actually look at because you know it's actually a developing person."


Or my favorite, "men are trying to control women's bodies and decisions by prohibiting abortion... and women have to be able to choose abortion because we sure can't be allowing men to have any input on the fate of their unborn children, let alone just say "have it and I'll take care of it."

[Helm]

Men and women don't have the same stake in pregnancy.

[Plow]

Men and women don't have the same stake in pregnancy.

Right, and since nature decided that, we can't give men any rights even if it will cause them tremendous mental suffering.

However, since nature decided that pregnancy was a result of sex, entire lives being thrown out the window to save someone a few months of trouble has to be an entirely uncontrolled option... as long as that person is female.

[Plow]

In other words, mothers and babies don't have the same stake in abortion either, but you don't give a fuck there.

[Helm]

I find it difficult to be concerned about something that has never had sentience vs something that does have it. So far you haven't made an argument, let alone a compelling one, to support why other people should prioritize a fetus over a person with sentience/a history - even if it's only a "few months" of an issue to you. All you do is flail around like an idiot saying you're either on the Plow Boat or you're some sort of gleeful baby killer or lacking any sort of responsibility.

[Plow]

It's almost impossible to define when a baby becomes sentient. Partly because the networks that create our understanding of sentience aren't even fully supported until months after birth (they do start serious production shortly after the 5 month mark people were freaking out about in the last thread), and literally never really "finish"; and partly because babies in utero are asleep almost the entire time.


You're welcome to accuse me of not knowing female biology well, I don't attempt to make any claims that imply I do; but if you want to move the discussion to brain development you're stepping into my field.

[Helm]

I bet.

[BaneTheBrawler]

I bet.

why would you even dispute this? clearly plow has a developing brain. that makes him an expert, by all the laws of the internet.

[kuronosan]

So what you're saying is there's something... special? about the particular bag of cells that makes a baby?

Something which makes it harder/more impactful to actually see them?

That's an interesting point of view for an argument in favor of abortion.




Oh, I see, abortion should be protected because we can't have a child's father having a say in what happens to it.



Calming the crazy anti-abortionists would sure be a whole lot easier if you guys could support it without getting completely ridiculous.

Just stop. Please. You're not winning here. This isn't a competition. This is fact.

You're taking what I said out of context. I said there is something distinctly different about fetal stem cells when compared to cancerous cells. I did not say that made them special, I said they were specialized.

You'd make a great lawyer with your word-twisting skills. I often find myself wondering how I could agree with you on certain issues when you can't even display the slightest intellectual ability.

[Plow]

So you're saying they're not special, they're just more special than other things.

Got it.

[Day]

Plow you sure up early plowing hard this morning in like 8 threads. good job.

[kuronosan]

So you're saying they're not special, they're just more special than other things.

Got it.

Do you not understand the difference between specialized and special? Do I really need to give you a molecular biology lecture or should I just assume you've never taken a real biology course?

[ringthree]

Plow you sure up early plowing hard this morning in like 8 threads. good job.

That was the first thing I thought. Plow gets up extra early to shit up threads.

[Waraji]

Can I plant my crops in this thread yet? Or does it still need more Plowing? It's my first time, I want to make sure I'm doing it right.

[Plow]

It's not about your use of the word specialized.

. Cancer cells are not the same thing as fetal stem cells and, as such, would NOT elicit the same emotional response. Pregnancy and Cancer are also not the same condition and, as such, do NOT elicit the same emotional response.

You're giving credence to the idea that this particular bag of cells is different and more valuable than another bag of cells.

I.e., these ones are special.


You simply can't make the argument that viewing an ultrasound of a baby is any different than viewing a cancer cell, or an x ray of your ankle, or a tooth you just lost, or a chunk of dirt in a corner, without ascribing it virtues that make it "special." It just so happens that conflicts with your opinions in abortion arguments, so you try desperately to phrase it differently; what you're saying still means the same thing.

[Helm]

Cancer is cancer. You're not going to have anyone telling you to keep it or you're a cancer killing douchenozzle or try to show you its figurative beating heart to make you think maybe you shouldn't remove it.