Here is my proposal for an amendment:

I would oppose this too. There is no need to go to the great lengths of creating a constitutional amendment when the legislature could accomplish the exact same thing.

I was under the impression that the legislature were the ones who passed amendments. A Constitutional Amendment passes through the federal legislature and then is ratified by the state legislatures. Perhaps you could clarify what you mean?

After Roe v. Wade is overturned (as it should be), it would only take 51 votes and the signature of the president to make abortion (albiet restricted) legal.

A constitutional amendment requires 2/3'rds of all concerned.

The largest problem with your proposed amendment to the Constitution is that you seek compromise. For that 20 percent minority, there is no compromise. It's a waste of time looking for one with people that do not seek one. It makes NO sense to me but that is the simple truth of it. They would rather keep tilting at windmills (and indirectly contributing to the numbers of abortions performed) than compromise and cut down (to some degree) the number of abortions performed every year. Many within this same group view the pill, the day-after-pill, condoms, IUD's etc...as a form of abortion as well.

20% is not capable of making law.... unless they get a sympathetic court to legislate from the bench which is my original point.

I ask again. Why are liberals so afraid of throwing out Roe v. Wade and letting the legislature (i.e., the people) decide whether abortion should be legal and under what circumstances it should be allowed (or not)?????

What is easier to pass is easier to repeal. Should the government change to a more pro-choice stance, such a federal law would disappear as easily as it appeared. A constitutional amendment would invalidate Roe, while a federal law would require Roe to be overturned beforehand -- "should be" does not mean "will be". In addition, you might run into a 10th Amendment issue with a federal law regarding abortion.


Lin731

The amendment I proposed is not necessarily just about compromise, it is about reconciling existing laws regarding the rights of a fetus. I am taking into consideration fetal murder laws. Many fetal murder laws consider a human fetus a person capable of being murdered. If a human fetus is capable of being murdered, elective abortion of a human fetus is murder. You can't have it both ways.

So what? If the people, through their elected officials decide that abortion should be illegal, it should be illegal. If they decide that abortion on demand should be the norm, then so be it.

What I'm against is taking those choices, via democratic representation, off the table via a bogus ruling by an unelected activist court with an agenda.

The hysterical wailing from people like NARAL and Nancy Pelosi is nonsense. The overturning of Roe vs. Wade would NOT make abortion illegal and it wouldn't result in "thousands of female deaths". Such statements are, for lack of a better word, idiotic.

The government changes stances all the time. But, the representative system changes a lot slower than a "direct democracy", without the capacitance of the layer of representatives and the sign-off required by the executive branch, would.

A constitutional amendment for or against abortion would speak for the people, for sure. But, I think it's overkill given this issue.

You are right... overturning Roe, in and of itself, would not make abortion illegal -- it would leave that decision to the states. You would then have some states in which a fetus is a person with rights, others in which it wasn't, and yet others in which you had conflicting laws regarding those rights. The same thing occurred prior to the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment was necessary in order to establish, nationwide, the rights of a person born in this country. It seems to me now that the same thing is necessary with this issue.

Ent, I wasn't referring to any proposal you made, I was referring to Erasmussimo's proposal. As for Fetal murder laws, I can't speak to those really. I don't know how many such laws exist or what the critera is. As for having it both ways, I'm not trying to have it both ways. To me fetal murder laws only make sense once the fetus is viable in it's own right. I feel the same way about abortion. I believe once a fetus is sufficiently developed (to the point of viability on it's own/fully formed limbs, nervous system, brain) than I believe abortions should be illegal except in cases where the mothers life is endangered by carrying it to term.

LH,
if that's how you feel about it, than what's all the fuss about? Americans by a wide margin already support abortions rights. Now we can argue about the degree of support (many I believe feel as I do, they support it up to a point) but when you have the hardcore 20 percenters in the Right To Life Movement pushing for an all out ban, THAT makes the folks in the middle nervous. That whole "give em an inch and they take a mile" analogy springs to mind. There is always concern that you could end up with legislation that simply panders for votes to the religious right at the expense of the majority, it wouldn't be the first nor the last time that political pandering has lead to legislation that doesn't serve the will of the majority.

Hayleyanne, thanks for your reply, it gave me more background information about this subject. I just was a bit amazed howsome posters have been treating this topic.

But still I am a bit puzzled. How is it possible that in one of the oldest democratic countries in the world, it is not possible to resolve this whole issue through the normal legislative process, like it was resolved in countries in western Europe? What is keeping the U.S. to walk this path now?

Abortion is a touchy subject for a lot of people, but it is also something a lot of people are confronted with in their lives. It is important to try as hard as possible to resolve this social aspect.

What's all the fuss about? The fuss is about unelected members of the judiciary legislating from the bench.

Your concern is taken care of via our process. How long could members of congress stay elected if they tick off more than 50% of the people in their district/state/country?

Not very long.

The folks in the middle don't have a point of view that is any more legit than those on the extremes. That's why we vote and then count them up. The position with the most votes (via their reps) wins.

If the majority don't want abortion, we shouldn't have it. If they do, we should.

Elections are supposed to decide these things.

When the courts step in and make law, they subvert that process and short-circuit the will of the people.

And just how do they measure the attitudes of the people in their districts? You said this earlier:


Last time I looked, polls were intended to reflect those attitudes. If you tell me that they elected a member of congress in an election based on their platform, I’ll respond with those platforms had more than one idea on them and for that particular election abortion may not have been the pressing issue to garner an individuals vote. I know that wasn’t a consideration when I cast my vote last fall.

And what happens when we elect a Democrat and they change their party affiliation to Independent or Republican? Or vice verca? It’s not who we elected and if they change party affiliations what’s to prevent them from changing their stance on abortion.

That’s why this decision ultimately needs to be decided by the people.


And I’ll ask you again, why isn’t the party who champions Right to Life moving forward with this? They don’t need our approval to enact legislation, unless I’ve missed something. My guess is the Rep’s know what the polls reflect and if they outlaw on demand abortions they’d loose votes from the moderates and if they upheld Roe v Wade they would stand a chance of loosing their Right to Life base. It’s a no win situation for those currently in office.

It will never happen and again that’s why the people need to vote.


Pushing their own agendas, not yours and mine.


Paid professionals who wine/dine, play golf, vacation and gamble with members of congress and the Supreme court. Send me pictures of you and your senator from the dining room or golf course and you might start to change my mind.


Really? Than why does my senator take money and vacations from pharmaceutical companies when there’s not a pharmaceutical company in our district?

If this is truly your view and complete understanding of how special interests groups work, than we really have nothing further to discuss.

LH,
look at NAFTA, an overwhelming majority of Americans opposed it, did it pass? You bet it did because of special interest lobbying...aka corporate America .

An overwhelming majority of Americans feel healthcare and prescription drug costs are out of control, have or "representatives" represented our needs or their big healthcare/pharm lobbies? Seems to me the medicare "reform" (and I use that term very loosely) not only enshrined healthcare's carte blanche but encouraged it via banning the government from bargaining for better prices and banning medicare recipients from buying gap coverages for the percentages not covered at all. Was that an example of our illustrious legislators representing the will of the people? Our representatives don't represent our interests anymore, they haven't for a long time. Most seem bought and paid for by special interest lobbies before they're ever sworn in and you expect me to have faith in them on an issue as important as abortion??? Sorry, I don't, they've given me zero reasons to have faith in them to serve anyone but themselves.

Renger-- pre-1973, the various states were all over the map as far as abortion laws went. However, the trend was toward the general legalization of abortion. Before this could happen, the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade held in 1973 that a woman has a fundamental constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy within the parameters articulated in that decision. Once the Court identifies something as a fundamental right-- it is off the table in terms of any kind of democratic legislation that would violate such a right.

Many people were upset with the decision for a number of reasons. Some (like me) did not believe that the text of the Constitution supports such a reading. Others believed that it violated the principles of federalism in our country. Many were shocked at how the Court took it upon itself to decide such a difficult moral issue. Instead of bringing the country together on this issue, it caused the issue to become a focal point at the national level. It has caused much division in the country. Many people have become "one issue" voters-- and that is a huge problem in my opinion.

You ask : what is keeping the U.S. from walking this path [democratic resolution] now? I think if the Court had let the issue take its natural course, we would have ultimately resolved the issue in a way similar to Europe. But now the issue has morphed into something much more and has skewed our politics at every level. As you can see from this thread-- it is difficult to have a constructive dialogue on the issue at all. No one wants to compromise. Because Europe has resolved the issue, it makes me believe that it is not the issue itself that is the barrier (morally contentious as it is), but rather the way that it got resolved.

In re-reading the proposal, I now think the 2nd section is unnecessary.  Here is the revised version:

Entspeak-- if you take section two out of your proposal we lose the exception for the mother's life and health. Why not just narrow it to mother's life as an exception?

I actually think this is a very good compromise. It acknowledges that abortion needs to happen in some circumstances but also respects the fetus after it starts to develop significantly.

Perhaps you are right regarding the inclusion of the second section. In reading more about it, it appears that the choice to end one life in order to save another is more a matter of bioethics than an issue resolved by law so an exception is probably necessary. I will put that back in. But, before I will remove the "health" condition, I have a question. To what extent do we mean "mother's life"? Does it mean only risk of death or risk to her quality of life? Where do we draw the line there?

Proposed Amendment:



Yes, I think it is a fair compromise, thank you. I'm of the belief that Constitutional Amendments should be written as a positive protection of rights rather than a denial of them. And, I believe, an amendment should take into consideration fetal rights in areas outside abortion.

I'd say put the "life" exception back in as that covers the risk of death to the mother. The trickier question is how to draft a workable and acceptable "health" exception? If the "health" exception remains in the proposal, I think it should be modified to read: "a significant threat to the physical health of the mother". We would still have to nail down what that means, but at least it would weed out abortions based on the mental effects of carrying and giving birth to a child. It would also set the bar high enough with the modifier "significant" to weed out more trivial physical concerns, but admittedly there would still be a fight over what constitutes "significant".

Yes. I included the word physical to avoid the mental health complaint. Perhaps the second section should read:



I removed the word risk because there is always a risk. I believe the actual threat has to exist before an abortion should be allowed. Preeclampsia, for example, is a risk in all pregnancies, but the risk of such a disease alone is not enough to justify an abortion.

I also removed "life" because it seems fairly obvious that the threat of death is a threat to the physical health. I think the addition of "definite, serious and significant" should narrow the field enough.

Will this have women rushing to illegal abortion clinics, do you think?

Got it. Yes, I agree and I think your language is good.

Will it have women rushing to illegal abortion clinics? Good question. I am sure there would be some post-8 week pregnant women who would seek out an illegal abortion. But if we set the bar at 8 weeks, we would have to live with that result. That is why this is such a difficult issue. We don't want women feeling trapped into thinking they have no option but an illegal abortion, and on the other hand, we want to protect fetal life after a certain point.

I have three objections to this wording:

1. no provision for saving the life of the mother. I don't like the idea of reverting to regime in which conception could be a death sentence.

2. no provision for genetic defects. Imagine the situation wherein the doctor tells the mother that the child will have Tae-Sachs, will suffer enormously, and die before adulthood -- but there's nothing that can be done. I object to that scenario.

3. Eight weeks is so early that a great many women will be past the deadline before they're even aware of the pregnancy. They will feel cheated, and therefore justified in seeking an illegal abortion. And I believe that it won't be long before we see a "super RU488" pill that terminates pregancy after many weeks -- which would put any such amendment into the same predicament that the 18th Amendment found itself in.

As to the first objection, I agree, but if you had read further in the thread, you would've seen that the original second section was modified and put back in to account for the life of the mother.

The modified amdendment is as follows:



As to your second objection, it is worth taking note of. I will think on language to cover such a situation.

As to your third objection... I will post a response to it a little bit later... I have to get to work.

Okay so far....



Here's where my problems begin:

1. While your amendment dictates to woman what they can and cannot do, it completely ignores one primary cause of abortion...Absent fathers taking NO responsibility of any sort for the children they helped create.

2. I'd also have the provision for serious genetic defects in the fetus.

3. Rape and incest.



I completely disagree with the 8 weeks for the same reason Erasmussimo does. With my first pregnancy I didn't know I was pregnant until the 3rd month. Many women still have periods for the first few months and have no outward signs to indicate pregnancy



No problems with this.

Here is another version, taking into consideration genetic defect and fetus definition.



This amendment does not take away a woman's choice to have an abortion, but establishes the point at which she has no choice because, rightfully so, the fetus's rights supercede a woman's right to privacy regarding the decision to abort at some point. I don't think you can have a constitutional amendment laying out the responsibilities of a father.

As for rape and incest, I don't think that those situations would need specific protection beyond the specified time limit. Particularly if the time limit is adjusted to the end of the first trimester.

The change to the end of the first trimester, it must be remembered, also affects other areas apart from abortion -- fetal murder laws, for example.

The technological ability to safely abort the fetus later should have no impact on the point at which abortion is proscribed.

I completely support your proposal entspeak. It covers Lin's concern for those women who would not know they are pregnant at 8 weeks. It also does a good job of balancing the rights of the unborn child-- after the first trimester. And the rape and incest issue (as well as genetic defect) is covered with the 12 week period. It is a reasonable compromise on this issue.

Obviously, the proposal allows for "elective" abortions. Many will be opposed to this. But we live in a democratic society and there has to be compromise on this difficult issue. No one is forced to have an abortion. Those who believe it is "murder" can work to persuade women to give their children up for adoption and focus their good intentions in that area. And instead of putting all their money into political groups to try and get Roe overturned, that money can be put to use to help fund women who make the courageous decision to have their children instead of aborting them. Finally, with an amendment like this, we will be rid of the abortion "litmus test" for every political candidate or judge that wants to serve this country.

I'm coming into this pretty late. Mostly everything I would've had to say has already been said, and probably better, by lordhelmet and hayleyanne.

Ideally I'd like to see Roe v. Wade, and preferably Casey as well, overturned, so that we could have a purely legislative solution, as lordhelmet advocates. Failing that, I'd support entspeak's substitute amendment in its final version.

Further, I'd support appointing hayleyanne to the Supreme Court.

Who was thrown out of office as a result of passing NAFTA? To this day, the president who signed that bill is adored by democrats and his "wife" is the front-runner for that party's 2008 nomination.

The people deserve the government that they elect. If they feel strongly about a specific issue and yet vote in the representative who doesn't reflect their views, who's fault is that? Frankly, I was in favor of NAFTA and so were a lot of people. Republicans got elected on pro free-trade platforms. Perhaps the issue you have is that your side just didn't get enough votes to prevail? Or, the person you voted for really didn't reflect your views? Do you think that the pharma industry (or any other industry) should be prohibited from lobbying representatives to get their views across? Or, should only groups that represent unions, environmentalists, trial lawyers, and the abortion industry be allowed access?

Special interests are just effective individuals. They know how to influence the system and they do. Anyone can join a "special interest" group and many do. Furthermore, most people who complain about their representatives never call, email, or write to them to state their views. Do you?

I've got a thick folder of letters that I've sent to my representatives throughout the years. In fact, one staffer once told me that they have calculated that every letter represents the view of thousands who were not motivated (i.e, too lazy) to send one themselves. So, the impact of a phone call or letter is far greater than one might expect.

What alternative system do you recommend? You say the elected representatives don't reflect "our views". Should representatives be appointed? Should we just go to a monarchy of elites or a politburo of the intellectual aristocracy? What recourse would the citizens have then when the leaders did what they wanted?

I can't think of a better system than the one we have today. It does work. It's not the fault of the "system" that 40-50% don't bother to vote. That's THEIR fault, not the fault of the system.

What does that have to do with the fact that our representatives didn't represent our interests there or in the other examples cited? I know many Reaganites that worship him as though he were God even though he drove up some of the worst deficits and bloated government in our history (two things that Conservatives have always opposed in the past). Let's say for the sake of argument we'd have ousted everyone of those politicians who voted for NAFTA, would their replacements be any different? Nope, because it takes money to get elected and that money comes from lobbies, pacs, corporations..."Meet the new boss, just the same as the old boss..."

I do agree that people get the government they deserve to a degree. Since by and large most Americans don't bother voting at all and a large chunk of the ones that do vote, base their decisions on who puts out the best smear campaign. Figures lie and liars figure seems to be the political mantra in this day and age...

Scary voice-over: "So and so voted against such and such 10 times...Do YOU want THIS man running the country?" What the ad doesn't tell you is that he voted for it in other configurations 100 times. Movie trailer politics at it's worst.

But, Lin, you are confusing "your" interests with the interests of the "voters" who elected those people. Reagan was elected via landslides; both times. People voted for the things he stood for; warts and all.

One can become a cynic who thinks that both parties are the same and no vote matters. But then we have an election in Washington State or FL that is decided by a few votes.

Those who refuse to participate in the system, with all it's faults and quirks, only have themselves to blame.

There are ways to get your point across and magnify your personal power when it comes to politicians. However, one's side doesn't always win. The problem that the democrats seem to have these days is with our "system" of democracy. They don't win and they don't like it.

That's why they are infatuated with the judiciary. It gives them a fast-track to subvert democracy, defy the voters, and get their way in spite of what the people want.

1. I think that some division of pregnancy would be useful to helping the voting population make this moral and ethical choice.

2. Should the amendment be adopted? Of course not. We have a legislative and executive branch that is charged with representing the people on such matters. A "constitutional amendment" is not only massive overkill, but it's contrary to what's require to settle this issue. Of course, that assumes that we don't have a runaway judiciary rewriting the constitution after too many inside-the-beltway-cocktail-parties as they did in "Roe vs. Wade". I assume that Roberts will form a new majority that throws out such bogus decisions out and puts those issues back where they belong; in the hands of the people and their representatives.

3. Would I vote for that amendment? Of course not. The entire premise is misguided in my view.