Anyone have an Ashcroft vodoo doll handy?

[lagilman]

A pretty no-frills article.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department has subpoenaed
hundreds of medical records from six Planned Parenthood
sites as part of the government’s defense in lawsuits
challenging the Partial-Birth Abortion Act.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Abortion-Records.html?ex=1078886388&ei=1&en=755b71268a9da95f



Every commentary I've read in the past few weeks agrees that there is no way today to guarantee that identities will be protected, even if the names are edited out. That's more than scary. That's terrifying.

And, again, I ask why they need these documents? Surely, before they banned the proceedure, they had enough evidence to support the fact that it was a danger to society?

(mind you, I support the ban in most cases. But I also believe in inexpensive birth control and the morning after pill and first trimester abortions on-demand, and all those other things that allow me my own personal freedom to decide if I'm going to be a parent or not. Since I, unlike a male, don't have the option to ignore the question.)

Do I believe that, if they're given these records, it will stop there? No, I don't. Not with Ashcroft in charge. This will give them precedent to get pretty much any records they want.

I didn't used to be this bitter. I also didn't used to feel this much under attack on my personal freedoms and choices, every time I turned around.


I feel the heart-sick need for a dandelion break coming on.

Comments

[bgliterary.livejournal.com]

I'm as sick and disgusted by this, and all the rest of the Bush gang's tactics, as you are, but...

thank you for reminding me of the brilliance that was Bloom County. ;^)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Don't know if you've read my LJ yet, where I rant at great length about this. This just stopped being academic for me - I have medical records stored at a DC Planned Parenthood!

No, they aren't about an abortion. But they're still my medical records and I don't want ANYbody pawing through them, name and SSN deleted or not, in an effort to make a political point. Because if he gets his way on this, if anyone gets their way on this, all the other records will thrown open for the new cause du jour. It's the camel's nose in the tent, the slippery slope, the precedent. (Not to mention the little niggling unConstitutionality about unreasonable search and seizure.)

mind you, I support the ban in most cases.

I don't. Squicky as it is, I notice that the people *for* late term abortions are doctors and the people *against* it are ministers and lawyers. Which is enough to tell me who has the actual clue about the medical necessities.

Y'know what would be fun? Bringing a class action suit against the Justice Department for practicing medicine without a license. Anybody know a lawyer who wants to get a headline or two?

[lagilman]

I support the ban in most cases -- and, as you will note, support other, earlier ways of ending an unwanted pregnancy. Except in cases where soemthing goes wrong late-on, I don't think the decision should be made in the third trimester. At that point (again, excepting a medical problem) the decision has been made by default, and the woman can make arrangements for placement after the birth if she wishes. My opinion only, mileage may and does vary.

The "unborn victim" law has me worried more than this, to be honest. Yes, it's a good and valid thing to have to bring suit against an attacker.. but it can be twisted so easily. And as I was raised to believe that the life which has already drawn breath has rights above and beyond the unborn life, in case of medical trauma... well, conflict just waiting to happen, the moment someone tries (as they will) to use this against a woman needing an abortion.

On the other hand, I wonder how long it's going to take for every PP clinic in the country to 'lose' their records....

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Except in cases where soemthing goes wrong late-on, I don't think the decision should be made in the third trimester

Well, yes. Thing is, since it's fairly rare and hard to get, I find it kinda hard to believe that late-term abortions are being used for simple birth control.

I wonder how long it's going to take for every PP clinic in the country to 'lose' their records....

"Ooops, we'd love to comply with your search warrant but it looks like that facility just got attacked by a radical pro-lifer and all the records are now confetti spread over about a mile radius. That other facility? Firebombed just last night. Lucky, after we were closed, nobody hurt, but those records are ash. And the one in Texas? No records because they've been stalling the building of it, so we haven't been able to move in yet. Oh, wait, here's one with the records you want. The radicals just poured skunk oil in the file cabinets, but they're still *readable.* Want some nose plugs with that?"

The unborn victim law freaks me the hell out. Far too easy to twist. And besides, I just love the notion that my net worth as a human being is subject to revision according to my reproductive status.

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

Do I believe that, if they're given these records, it will stop there? No, I don't. Not with Ashcroft in charge. This will give them precedent to get pretty much any records they want.

They already have the precedent--that's how they got the subpoena in the first place.

And now, all they have to do is manufacture a "terrorist" connection--perhaps someone who wrote an article criticizing Bush's invasion of Iraq--and they will expand the subpoena to all the financial records of every patient, doctor, employee, or supporter of those clinics. And every person remotely associated with them, as well.

Think I'm kidding? Try putting on an anti-war conference in Chicago. That's exactly what happened to the conference organizers and attendees, when Justice claimed that someone associated with that conference climbed the fence of a military base.

[deire.livejournal.com]

Northwestern in Illinois and University of Michigan hospitals have entered the legal fray against the Justice Department. They are seeking a stay from a federal judge, and they are currently turning over no records.

[kefiraahava.livejournal.com]

From what I have read on the subject, in the cases where the procedure is performed, it's largely because there is something so terribly wrong that either there's no chance of independent survival on the fetus's part because of really awful birth defects that render it incapable of living independently and/or the mother could die giving birth.

I read about the women who've undergone it testifying some time ago. It was gut-wrenching. We're talking malformations like no brains--maybe enough brain stem to support breathing, but otherwise nothing else, as I seem to recall before I got so upset I had to stop reading.

And these males sitting on their arrogated tin-god thrones have the gall, the immorality, to Decree these women have to suffer the agony of carrying to term? And bear the burden of caring for whatever survives? No. Just...no.

I support the procedure, though I understand why others do not and am not disrespecting that choice. Having dealt with the fallout of developmental disability in my family all my life and knowing from that what I can and cannot handle, I made a vow at nine years old that if some man tried to tell me I had to carry a fetus with developmental disability to term, I would kill myself and that fetus before it could happen.

I am not exaggerating. The scars are that deep--and this is most of the reason I don't intend to have children and Ashcroft can keep his prying male non-childbearing hands OFF my body and my medical records. And this article terrifies me. What's next? =The Handmaid's Tale=?

April 25, people. Washington, D.C. March for Women's Lives. I'm going.

And I've always been this bitter. But then again, I've had cause. The list of siblings of people with disabilities I'm on--cutting across religions/nonreligions--is seething over this, saying essentially "Yeah right, Ashcroft and the rest are So Concerned About Fetal Rights...but do any of them lift a hand to help US take care of our siblings with disabilities when they're inconvenient disabled adults, not Fetuses to Be Guarded? Or lift a hand to help the women struggling to raise children who don't happen to have disabilities? No. Jeb Bush got his ya-yas out by appointing a 'fetal guardian' for a profoundly retarded woman RAPED IN A GROUP HOME BY AN ATTENDANT. Who is going to take care of that woman--WHO DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING TO HER--and who is going to adopt that child? Not Governor Anti-Choice Jeb Bush. He's moved on, having wreaked more havoc on that poor woman than has already been wreaked upon her by that attendant whose gonads ought to be removed and stuffed down his throat sideways with a crowbar...."

April 25th. A $40 donation to Planned Parenthood NYC will get another woman on the bus who can't afford to go otherwise.