Yeah, the DNC is re-thinking its position on abortion.
"Party leaders say they will continue to support Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion. But they are looking at ways to soften the hard line, such as promoting adoption and embracing parental notification requirements for minors and bans on late-term abortions."
Okay, let's take each of these separately.
1. Adoption. Adoption is a great option.
The most common reason given by women for having abortions was their finances (see slide 10 on this AGI page). If that's true, then isn't the obvious answer to decrease the incidence of abortion to give more money to women who are having kids? That would be through welfare or tax subsidies or in some other fashion. This, however, is not exactly what the Republican party runs on - giving more money to women having kids. Next, the GOP doesn't like gays adopting kids: if the DNC decides to embrace this position too (since we apparently need to pander to the Midwesterners who are uncomfortable with Will & Grace) then where does that leave us?
2. Parental Notification
Again, great idea. But. Now, I'm not even going to go into the logistical, social or pshychological issues. What I am going to go into are the legal issues. The courts (and SCOTUS) have consistently held that parental notification laws are only legal if they have a judicial bypass option - where the girl can go before the judge and peition for permission to get the abortion without her parents' permission. Lambert v. Wicklund (520 US 292) ruled that the notification of the parent/guardian may not be in the best interest of the minor; in such cases the girl can have an abortion, should she be able to prove/convince a judge of such circumstances. For more legal stuff, see this. So no matter what the DNC, RNC or any other group thinks, the court says judicial bypass has to be permitted.
3. Late Term Abortions
Here, I suppose, we're talking about D&X, which is about the procedure. If not, let's just look at the stats (see slide 12 from above). First trimester abortions are 88.1% of total abortions performed in this country. That's 12 weeks and below. 15 weeks and below are 94.3% of the total; 98.6% are performed before 20 weeks. According to slide 17, which also comports with my personal experience, lots of later-term pregnancies are terminated because the woman didn't know she was pregnant. It's really common for women to get at least one period when they're still pregnant, meaning they won't realize anything's up until about 9 or 10 weeks. Add financial issues to that, travel, shitty doctors and whatnot, and it's not surprising that some women have to wait a few more weeks.
Anyway, this "Partial Birth" thing is about a D&X, a procedure used for some later-term abortions. First, the "Partial Birth Abortion Ban" has been struck down by three federal courts because it does not have the constitutionally mandated exception for the woman's health (See: Stenberg v. Carhart). The legislature was aware of this requirement when it wrote the law, knowing it would surely be struck down, and continued not for any legislative purpose, but to make a policial point.
Second, the procedure is performed rarely, and in some cases is the best possible option. There aren't any statistics on D&X v. D&E numbers, but we do know that after 12 weeks D&Es or D&Xs are used. For more info see this site.
Alright, I can't read about this anymore. It makes me too angry. Comments? Contact the DNC.
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