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Steve Gilliard, 1964-2007
It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog, passed away June 2, 2007. He was 42.
To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.
Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.
Steve meant so much to us.
We will miss him terribly.
Ms. Magazine's Jessica Stites: "Putting a face on [the] Supreme Court decision"
Not playing around
From Ms. Magazine's Jessica Stites:
Today's ruling upheld Bush's ban on the D&X (dilation & extraction)
abortion procedure. Its language, however, is vague enough to
potentially outlaw D&E (dilation and evacuation), the procedure used
in 95% of post-first trimester abortions. No exception was provided
for the health of women.
But what does that mean in real-life terms?
One answer comes from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Martha
Mendoza, who in 2004 learned that her 19-week-old fetus was dead in
her womb. Even then — just months after the ban was first passed -- it
was already becoming difficult to find a doctor willing and able to
perform a D&E. Martha Mendoza tells of her struggle to find one in her
lucid, heart-wrenching Summer 2004 Ms. essay "Between a Woman
and her Doctor":"...I'd been through labor and delivery three times before, with great joy as well as pain, and the notion of going through that profound experience only to deliver a dead fetus (whose skin was alreadystarting to slough off, whose skull might be collapsing) was horrifying.
I also did some research, spoke with friends who were obstetricians
and gynecologists, and quickly learned this: Study after study shows
D&Es are safer than labor and delivery. Women who had D&Es were far
less likely to have bleeding requiring transfusion, infection
requiring intravenous antibiotics, organ injuries requiring additional
surgery or cervical laceration requiring repair and hospital
readmission.
A review of 300 second- trimester abortions published in 2002 in the
American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology found that 29 percent of
women who went through labor and delivery had complications, compared
with just 4 percent of those who had D&Es.
... [But] the years of angry debate that led to the passage [of the
2003 abortion procedure ban], restrictive state laws and the violence
targeting physicians have reduced the number of hospitals and doctors
willing to do dilations and evacuations (D&Es) and dilations and
extractions (intact D&Es), which involve removing a larger fetus,
sometimes in pieces, from the womb.
... After examining me and confirming I was bleeding but not
hemorrhaging, the attending obstetrician, obviously pregnant herself,
defensively explained that only one of their dozens of obstetricians
and gynecologists still does D&Es, and he was simply not available.
Not today. Not tomorrow. Not the next day."
Read the article in full
- posted by Jen
MS. Magazine: "Supreme Court Decision on Abortion"
Guess all that praying paid off, huh?
From Jessica at Ms. Magazine:
Wanted to send around some background on today's disastrous Supreme Court ruling. Cristina Page (author, HOW THE PRO-CHOICE MOVEMENT SAVED AMERICA) explains the possible fallout from the ban in the Winter Ms.:
If the abortion procedure ban is found to be constitutional, not only would it prohibit a specific late-term procedure—intact dilation and extraction (D & X)—but could possibly outlaw every abortion procedure performed after 12 weeks of pregnancy (the first trimester), including the more common dilation and evacuation (D & E) method. This could have dramatic consequences, since 143,000 American women annually have abortions during their second or third trimester. It would be particularly hard on women awaiting the results of amniocentesis, the common diagnostic tool for severe birth defects, which is usually
administered during the 15th to 18th weeks of pregnancy. If the ban is judged constitutional, there may be no legal way to terminate certain pregnancies, no matter how grave the birth defect discovered.
The ban would also prevent doctors from providing a D & X procedure in certain circumstances when it's considered the safer option, such as cases involving preeclampsia or some cancers. As Eve Gartner, lead
counsel for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, explained to the justices, "In some cases…[it] averts uterine perforation, it averts the spread of sepsis or infection; it [potentially] averts the spread of…malignant cancer throughout the woman's body. … This Court has never recognized a state interest that was sufficient to trump the woman's interest in her health.
Rest of article here.
- -posted by Jim in LA
Oh Hell, no
Giuliani Shifts Abortion Speech Gently to Right
By RAY RIVERA
Published: February 10, 2007As he prepares for a possible run for president — a road that goes deep into the heart of conservative America — Rudolph W. Giuliani takes with him a belief in abortion rights that many think could derail his bid to capture the Republican nomination.
But in recent weeks, as he has courted voters in South Carolina and talked to conservative media outlets, Mr. Giuliani has highlighted a different element of his thinking on the abortion debate. He has talked about how he would appoint “strict constructionist” judges to the Supreme Court — what abortion rights advocates say is code among conservatives for those who seek to overturn or limit Roe v. Wade, the 1973 court ruling declaring a constitutional right to abortion.
The effect has been to distance himself from a position favoring abortion rights that he espoused when he ran for mayor of New York City, where most voters favor abortion rights.
“I hate it,” he said of abortion in a recent interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. “I think abortion is something that, as a personal matter, I would advise somebody against. However, I believe in a woman’s right to choose. I think you have to ultimately not put a woman in jail for that.”
For Mr. Giuliani, a Brooklyn-born Roman Catholic who once considered entering the priesthood, the issue has been a source of discomfort throughout his political career, especially during his first bid for mayor of New York nearly two decades ago.
Now, as he courts voters in more conservative areas, Mr. Giuliani is turning to the same nuanced approach he used back then to explain how he can be both for abortion rights, while being morally opposed to abortion.
While Mr. Giuliani also faces obstacles for his stands favoring gun control and gay rights, perhaps no social issue resonates as deeply in the hearts of Christian conservatives as abortion.