I’ve only been to Richmond, VA once, and I liked it, but I’ll defer to the girl who lives there. Anyway, my blog entry for today is entirely mostly lifted from a comment I made on her blog. (What can I say, I’m lazy.)
During my 7-month stay in Dallas, Texas, I tried really hard not to be one of “those people” [who complain about their new city of residence]. I gave it my all, to keep a positive attitude and see the good things about my new “home” (where I never did really feel at home). I knew it wasn’t just because the place wasn’t Georgia — because when I lived in New York City I felt at home there almost immediately. Anyway, I am glad I gave it “the old college try” with the positive attitude. I mean, what more can you do?
But in the end, I couldn’t hold it in. I mean… I could count on one hand the number of places you could get sweet tea in Dallas. There’s no excuse for that!
So that’s where that is.
I went to the Georgia for Democracy Volunteer Night tonight. It got me all riled up about the anti-choice bills coming through the Georgia General Assembly this year. (I actually wrote a fairly long entry about it earlier, but foolishly forgot to copy it to the clipboard, and then Safari crashed — which it does once every, oh, 3 months or so. Lucky me. :P ) I’m calling GARAL tomorrow. I’ve chosen my cause and this is it!
Oh, and I’m in a story on Nick’s blog. I’ll go ahead and warn you, though: it’s kind of disturbing. (It’s a two-parter; read the Jan. 14th entry first.)
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Not that I’m really itching for a fight or anything, actually more or less seeking an honest reply, but let’s take the 24-hour waiting period bill that’s being pushed through the House … how is that restricting choice (or ‘anti-choice’ to use your words)?
Going even further, how is parental notification ‘anti-choice’? Just curious.
I’m really itching for a fight or anything
At first I read that as “itching for a flight.” And I was confused.
And I have answers for both of your questions. I will write them out after I eat dinner. Stay tuned! ;)
let’s take the 24-hour waiting period bill that’s being pushed through the House … how is that restricting choice (or ‘anti-choice’ to use your words)?
The 24-hour waiting period in most cases works out to be much longer than 24 hours. Most Georgia counties do not have a doctor in the county that performs abortions. And of those that do, in many cases the doctor works only a few days a week. These facts make it very difficult for rural women — especially low-income — to even have access to the procedure in the first place, much less after a waiting period.
If these women still manage to get an appointment with a doctor, they have to have the money to travel to the clinic, which can be up to hundreds of miles away; they may have to take many days off work and thus lose wages or even risk losing their jobs altogther; they may have to try to arrange for childcare or leave their family unattended; women who don’t own cars have to find transportation.
Also, the decision to have an abortion isn’t one that’s usually made as a snap decision. By the time a woman calls a doctor or clinic, she has already thought things out and doesn’t need a further “waiting period.” Of course, this type of claim is more difficult to prove with facts and statistics , so it’s exactly the kind of thing proponents of the bill will either dismiss with “How can you know that?” (even though research has shown this is not a decision women make on a whim, and common sense will tell you it’s true) or try to turn it around and use it against pro-choice supporters. So I guess it’s best to stick with facts that are more “provable.” Such as…
In addition to the barrier of access, delays also increase the expense and medical risk of abortions. During the first five months after Mississippi’s waiting period law went into effect, abortions after the 1st trimester increased by 17 percent.
Going even further, how is parental notification ‘anti-choice’? Just curious.
Well, first of all, what if a girl was raped by her father? That presents some problems in the parental consent department. Yes, under the current law, there are ways to get obtain a waiver for the parental consent requirement by going through the court system, but those convoluted legal routes are intimidating and confusing for young women, especially those who have been sexually abused and/or may not have a supportive home environment, not to mention time-consuming and expensive.
There are enough problems with the current law; the proposed bill would only make it worse. As far as I know (and I could be wrong, I don’t know for sure) there would be no such way to get around the parental consent requirement. The proposed bill also requires that only *actual* parents can give consent, not guardians — so this poses a problem for children whose parents are nowhere to be found who live with other family members, and, depending on the legalese, children in foster care.
And those are my answers to your 2 questions!
Thanks for your thorough answers Amber. We do just disagree on the first question concerning 24-hour waiting periods, but I do respect your position and your defense of it.
I will pose a John Kerry-like nuance for the latter concerning parental notification. Kerry had said he favored parental notification, but opposed the particular bill that the Senate faced precisely because of the problem you posed. I concur with that, but if a girl was raped or sexually abused by a parent, it would be completely pointless for her to secure permission from said parent. So it would be nice to think that it would be possible to find some specific language to address that scenario, but then also still allow for parental notification for a 14-year-old who got pregnant by her 16-year-old boyfriend.
Because I simply can’t believe that it’s ‘OK’ for a scared 14-year-old girl to have an abortion on her own, but then we prohibit her from voting, from buying alcohol, from purchasing a firearm, from driving a car …
It’s hard to write laws that address “fathers raping daughters” sorts of situations. Any law is likely to not have much of an answer to that sort of scenario.
I mean, we require permission slips from parents for their kids to go on field trips. But what if her father is just an anti-intellectual who doesn’t believe in field trips for no good reason? Well, that’s a tough situation, but in general it still seems appropriate to require permission slips.
Obviously abortion is a much more serious case, as is a daughter being raped by her father. Much more serious. But the point I am making is simply that any time you require parental permission for anything, that obviously will create a side problem of what to do when the parents are jerks (of some form or another). It’s a good question, but I don’t see how it off-sets the generally good idea of requiring permission from parents.
IOW, I think I agree with JMac on this one. C’est possible?
IOW, I think I agree with JMac on this one. C’est possible?
Cue promo for ‘The Day The Earth Stopped Spinning’ … :)
Well, Xon, then don’t you think there should be safeguards kept in place — such as the ones currently there — to provide alternate routes in such a situation? Can you imagine how much pain and trauma a kid who’s been sexually abused by a parent has already gone through? Why put them through even more pain in the name of the law? We won’t even get into the fact that the girl may have been so traumatized that even getting her to admit that her father raped her is a challenge. And calling a father who’s a rapist a “jerk” is probably the grossest understatement I’ve ever heard.
Yes, it is an understatement. In a society run as I would like, any such father (after being convicted in a court of law) would be executed. How’s that?
I’d need to see the text of the law in question in order to evaluate your assessment that it removes the “alternate routes” of the legal system. Rest assured I have no problem with such alternate routes being available (though I also am generally skeptical of how often such routes are very effective..as you said, the kid isn’t going to be very enthusiastic about going through what is necessary to both accuse her own father of sexual assault and to see it through to a conviction.