by Jill Stanek

As my vacation draws to a close (flying home Sunday night), I'd like to thank Bethany, HisMan, MK, and Valerie for taking charge of my blog this week. Their posts were excellent, varied, and drew much conversation. And who knew the Supremes would hand down their Partial Birth Abortion Ban decision Wednesday, which created more work for these four, although good work to be sure.

This PBA decision was years and years in the making. In 2000, the Supreme Court slapped down the PBA bans of 30 states by its Stenberg vs. Carhart decision. Before that, President Clinton vetoed a federal PBA ban twice.

Thanks goes to many stalwart pro-lifers who kept the PBA Ban alive and to President Bush, who not only signed this current ban into law but also appointed two strict constructionist Supreme Court judges who rightly and justly agreed partial-birth abortion should be banned.

Because I have Disney on the brain, I'm thus reminded of apt reminder quotes to pro-lifers from two great Disney movies, both which incidentally contained solid pro-life messages: From Finding Nemo, "Just keep swimming," and from Meet the Robinsons (still in theatres), "Keep moving forward."

See you Monday. Thanks again to Bethany, HisMan, MK, and Valerie.

Great. Now I have the "just keep swimming" song in my head.

I think the only reason Clinton vetoed it was because he asked for them to put a clause in there for "life of the mother" and they refused.

That's what I remember reading, anyway.

PIP, "life of the mother" was included. He wanted "Health of the mother". This is an important distinction because "health of the mother" can be taken very losely. Every pregnant woman in America could get a late term abortion if this language was used.

ooh. my bad.

Actually PIP,

It was Clinton's bad.

mk

Question: what about if the mother is having psychological problems during the pregnancy? Perhaps she's threatened to kill herself, perhaps she's bipolar, perhaps she's a paranoid schizophrenic, something along those lines. A severe psychological disorder, that has been made far worse by the pregnancy, perhaps to the point that she's suicidal or homocidal. Would that be an acceptable reason for late-term abortion?

No.

Why not?

In response to both Less and Rae,

If this woman is suffering such serious psychological problems then she needs immediate treatment and very likely hospitalization.
There is no psychiatric disorder that abortion will cure. If you abort this woman do you think she will be magically cured? That you can send her home and no longer be concerned? Its much more likely the abortion would exacerbate her condition.
Give this woman the help she desperately needs. What about adoption services if she is truly unwilling or unable to care for her child? Determine if and how this woman could be safely medicated. I believe in later pregnancy the medications would pose less risk and the risk would be considered acceptable and ethical if the woman's condition is this serious.
This is how you could manage this type of situation to the benefit of both the mother and child.

lol, Rae, do you really have to ask?
I mean, we've only been discussing this for how long now...

But okay:

Question: what about if the mother is having psychological problems during the pregnancy? Perhaps she's threatened to kill herself, perhaps she's bipolar, perhaps she's a paranoid schizophrenic, something along those lines. A severe psychological disorder, that has been made far worse by the pregnancy, perhaps to the point that she's suicidal or homocidal. Would that be an acceptable reason for late-term abortion?

First of all, we believe that abortion is murder. Don't you know that yet? (knocking on your head- anyone home?)

Take the things that you consider murder....like murder of a 2 year old, for instance, is there ANY compromise that I could come up with that would make it "okay" to kill a 2 year old, in your eyes?

Of course not! If it's murder, it's murder, right?

There's none of this, "Well, what if the 2 year old was causing his mom a lot of grief (which does happen by the way!)...what if the two year old was so hyper and loud constantly that his mother became more depressed and upset than she was before having the child? Would it be okay to kill the 2 year old in that instance?"

Of course not! If it's murder, it's murder, regardless of the circumstances surrounding it!

(Well, unless of course you are cold hearted enough to believe that Andrea Yates poor children deserved to die by being drowned, due to her craziness, but that's another topic for another time).

Willfully killing an innocent person is murder, and that is exactly what abortion does...it is the willful and purposeful termination of a baby who does not deserve to die.

In this topic, we are being specific to late term abortions, Rae, which even you will admit you feel are terrible and you say that the viable fetus is indeed a human being.

If it's murder when a woman who is perfectly healthy aborts a fetus at, say, 25 weeks, then it is also murder when a woman who is sick in the brain aborts hers at 25 weeks. The condition of the mother's mind has no bearing on whether the baby is human or not!

If a woman is depressed, ill, homocidal, suicidal, whatever....the solution is not to cause her MORE depression and trauma by allowing her to kill her child!

My solution would be to get this woman to a counselor, to be around people who support her and care about her, to get whatever medications she needs till she can find the source of the problem.
People should consider this woman and give her your TIME...not a quick fix and "BEGONE".

The pregnancy is not the cause of the mental illness. It may temporarily increase symptoms, depending on the woman in question, but it does not cause it. If a woman attempts to commit suicide while pregnant, it is not the baby's fault but the fault of the mental illness that the woman had prior to becoming pregnant!

Someone needs to give loving support to this woman, not a quick fix which doesn't actually solve the problem. Do you think having an abortion will solve her mental illness? Will it??

Abortion kills an innocent human being, willfully, and with premeditation. Abortion is murder.

Murder is murder is murder, and it doesn't matter what kind of off the wall scenario you guys come up with, it's still going to be murder of a human being.

Mary, the key part of that is that the pregnancy has made the condition worse. I agree that treatment will be warrented, but I was curious.

There are also legitmate and very real phobias of pregnancy and children. What about women who have such conditions?

Less and Rae -

I say no. That should not be considered 'health' of the mother.

Why? Because I KNOW that there are many things that can be done in these situations. How do I know? Because 90% of what Less described was/is me. And I've survived. Doing quite well too.

oh yea, and lets not forget. My Mom committed suicide when I was pregnant. That kinda sucked and didn't make anything much easier. I did miscarry that pregnancy, probably from the stress and my medical problems. But when I was pregnant with Catherine and off my meds, I began to think my Mom had the right idea.

With the proper care, a woman can survive that scenerio. And Mary is right, when it comes to psychological problems, medicating the Mother for her own safety/sanity is considered the best way to go. The baby is closely monitored and the medication used are ones with the least amount of side effects to the baby.

Once again - when going to a regualar OB/GYN the health of the Mother is ALWAYS a factor. If you don't have the mother, you don't have a baby.

Why? Because I KNOW that there are many things that can be done in these situations. How do I know? Because 90% of what Less described was/is me. And I've survived. Doing quite well too.

...And we've all seen the beautiful results of your pregnancies! :D

Less,

There are any number of situations besides pregnancy that can trigger a crisis for a psychiatric patient including death of a family member, loss of a job, or a marital breakup, to name just a few. My answer remains the same for all. Give the person the help and support they need.
Valerie and Bethany do an excellent job of explaining how this can be done with the proper care, supervision, and if needed medication.
Concerning phobias, there are a variety of them and people cope with them all the time. Therapy is also available for those who need help coping with phobias.
Speaking of phobias no one knows that subject better than me. I love scuba diving and I'm as claustrophobic as they come. Figure that one out!

Okay guys, thanks. I was just curious as to what your reactions to this would be. I understand that treatment would be better than a late term abortion, but what about a woman who refused treatment? In my experience, I've seen a lot of those afflicted with bipolar refuse treatment for a variety of reasons. If she refused treatment and insisted upon abortion, what would happen then? Would you force treatment on her, put her in a hospital? I don't have an agenda with this question or anything, I'm just curious.

Less,

The woman would have the right to refuse treatment if she was considered competent to do so. Laws may vary on this but I can remember in my state when those attempting suicide, even those not seriously attempting suicide but trying to get attention(yes, I saw that often) were committed to the local mental health facility and had no right to refuse. This came as a very unpleasant shock to many of them who thought they could just walk out of the hospital after recovery.
If the woman is judged incompetent and suicidal she could very well be hospitalized against her will, pregnant or not.
If she is considered competent and refuses treatment, I can't imagine there is much you could do to stop her from having an abortion, any more than you could any other woman.

Okay, thanks Mary. I didn't know about those suicide laws: I think it's quite the good idea, but I had no idea.

It's interesting to me, as I see many of my peers refuse treatment for various mental illnesses. It seems as though there's become an association between depression/bipolar and intense creativity.

I've often seen a connection between mental illness and high intelligence as well as creativity. I would have no idea what it is or why. Its so tragic when mental illness gets in the way of people with such potential.

Oh goody, the lying monster returns... YAY! I was growing weary of the lazy bible cut n pasting.

Aww, so cute, Cameron.

Cameron -

Who's on first?

Valerie,

"Who's on first" is the wrong question.

It should be, "Anybody home"?

HisMan:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You're right!

Thanks, I needed the laugh!

Hi all. I'm back.

Any news Mom?