Freedom Of Choice Act

[nemorathwald]

Barack Obama promised Planned Parenthood that the first thing he would do as President is sign the Freedom Of Choice Act. This was one of the reasons I voted for him. Essentially, FOCA will codify Roe vs. Wade into federal law. Abortion has been legal since before our generation existed, and I am comfortable knowing my mother had a choice in whether to bring me into existence. That is the one person in whose hands I would put that decision. I would like FOCA to be a definitive and unprecedented rejection of the Pro-Life movement by America.

I know that in reality, it will not reflect any such mandate. It will merely reflect the failure of the Pro-Life movement to surmount their burden of proof. They have never made a sufficient case for foetal personhood, reflected in the indecision of the vast majority of Americans on this issue. When the population regards the effects as intangible, they default to permissiveness. "Don't like abortion, don't have one" is the new climate in our culture since Roe vs. Wade, even though we would never say "Don't like slavery, don't own slaves". It may take another generation to shake our heads in wonder that we ever believed the material for a potential person is already a person. Only then will abortion rights be safe.

I am curious about the requirement, allegedly in FOCA, that all hospitals must offer abortions, or shut down. How true is this claim? Is it true that Catholic or other religiously-based hospitals will be included in this requirement? Do you think they will shut down, as some Cardinals have promised, or do you think they will have "that room in the back" and close their eyes to it?

Is it plausible or ridiculous for Pro-Lifers to claim that FOCA will force doctors to become abortionists against their will? How many branches of medicine require the student to learn how to perform an abortion? Is it true that "abortion providers would not have to be qualified with even a nursing degree", or would the opposite occur, in which it would raise the standard of institutional accreditation to perform the procedures?

How many medical professionals do you think would resign and leave the medical industry or go overseas, rather than work for a hospital that performs abortions? Not many, I postulate.

Comments

[charlie-ihsan.livejournal.com]

I imagine there would be an exemption for explicitly religious hospitals?

[(Anonymous)]

The legislation never mentions hospitals. It also never mentions religious-conscience exemptions. If a private hospital chooses not to accept government money, I'm not sure whether they would be sued for refusing to perform an abortion; but it's possible. Recently eHarmony was sued for refusing to accept gays, and the litigation forced them to create a gay dating service.

[le-bebna-kamni.livejournal.com]

The issue with eHarmony is slightly different than the issue with abortion. In the case of eHarmony, it could be argued that they were denying access to already existing services, based on the demographic of the people who wanted to use the service. This would be on par with a clinic that provides abortion services refusing to give abortions to women who had fewer than 4 children, for example -- and that is what the law is designed to protect against.

However, the law says nothing about requiring a clinic that does not already provide abortion services to do so -- just as all non-dating sites are not suddenly required to provide dating services to gays -- nor is any Supreme Court justice in the near future likely to rule that this is what the law means.