The news has been full of reports about the new laws in NC concerning abortion and voting. These have been characterized as restrictive and anti-abortion. I don't think so, and here is why.
Let us consider an important women's health service- mammograms. There is far more need for mammography than there are services. Most counties don't have mammographic services, and they rely on mobile units from major hospitals. Let us make access better by lowering requirements for these services. Doctors reading mammograms will not have to have hospital privileges. They will not have to be radiologists. They can perform a mammogram without any primary physician's order and they can read it on the spot for the patient.
Is that a reasonable set of operating parameters for mammography? Of course not. But that is exactly how most abortions are performed. And while I am not a fan of elective abortion I do believe it should be legal, and I have said why. How many commentators about this have seen an abortion? Have performed an abortion or suction curretage at all? Done one under local? I have done all these things, and I can tell you about their complications and what needs to be done to correct them. Most abortions in the US are done in freestanding clinics that do not provide anesthesia except local block. There are no facilities in most of these for immediate complications let alone major surgical problems. Major complications are rare but then so are positive mammograms. Does that mean inadequte rpecautions should be taken? Most providers of abortions do not have hospital privileges. They cannot manage their own complications and their problems are then sent to a nearby hospital for a full OR and a fully capable surgeon to manage. And I've been on the receiving end of that as well.
Abortion services are not available in the large majority of counties in the US. There are only 15 providers in NC. All but one fail to meet criteria as a surgicenter. To that I say that is a shame. If you want to promote women's safety and health what is wrong with requiring physicians with full privileges for surgery to perform the procedure, adn requiring the facility to meet surgicalr equirements? It's a surgical procedure. While many who vote for these restrictions oppose abortion it is quite revealing taht those who support abortion are willing to have it done under less than appropriate medical conditions. Remarkable what zeal does to judgment....
With regard to voter laws I see no issue with voting requirements. Saying these requirements discriminate is false. There is nothing inherently racial or political about them. I have alwasy opposed same day registration. Voting is a primary civil right that should not be infringed. But it too should be done by citizens, not anyone who casually comes into a voting center and affirms he/she is a voter. It is much ahrder to find and invalidate a vote than it is to ensure that real people who are real citizens vote, and vote once.
To those who say there are no confirmed cases of voter fraud I reply of course not. A fraud that is discovered is a failure by definition. The best forgers in the world have never been discovered. It is ablack swan problem. Knowing there is voter fraud, then no number of clean elections disporve the reality of voter fraud. and the allegations have never stuck, whether against Daley, or in Florida, or elsewhere. And yet everyone knows the truth. The dead vote in Chicago. Hundreds of Seattle voters have the same address- a homeless shelter downtown.
Voter ID requirements are a simple screen against the coarsest of frauds. We require ID for almost anything else- credit card checks, passports, concert tickets, utility registration. But not voting? That's nuts to me, and not prejudicial in anyway. And I think it is terrible to have voter registration through high school classes and same-day registration.
I don't see these things as partisan issues but civics issues that apply to everyone equally. that some people are more affected than others does not make a law unequal. By that reasoning I am going to sue the schools and the NBA for too many tall people and too many black players. I mean, the results are unequal so the choosing must be unequal.
In teh US we now consider the measure of equality not opportunity but outcome. That's corrosive and completely false not to mention unattainable. The NC laws, far from being reactionary, strike me as a popular response to prior insanity. The aberration is not these laws but the bizarre and abased values that led to the conditions these laws are correcting.
Ted
Let us consider an important women's health service- mammograms. There is far more need for mammography than there are services. Most counties don't have mammographic services, and they rely on mobile units from major hospitals. Let us make access better by lowering requirements for these services. Doctors reading mammograms will not have to have hospital privileges. They will not have to be radiologists. They can perform a mammogram without any primary physician's order and they can read it on the spot for the patient.
Is that a reasonable set of operating parameters for mammography? Of course not. But that is exactly how most abortions are performed. And while I am not a fan of elective abortion I do believe it should be legal, and I have said why. How many commentators about this have seen an abortion? Have performed an abortion or suction curretage at all? Done one under local? I have done all these things, and I can tell you about their complications and what needs to be done to correct them. Most abortions in the US are done in freestanding clinics that do not provide anesthesia except local block. There are no facilities in most of these for immediate complications let alone major surgical problems. Major complications are rare but then so are positive mammograms. Does that mean inadequte rpecautions should be taken? Most providers of abortions do not have hospital privileges. They cannot manage their own complications and their problems are then sent to a nearby hospital for a full OR and a fully capable surgeon to manage. And I've been on the receiving end of that as well.
Abortion services are not available in the large majority of counties in the US. There are only 15 providers in NC. All but one fail to meet criteria as a surgicenter. To that I say that is a shame. If you want to promote women's safety and health what is wrong with requiring physicians with full privileges for surgery to perform the procedure, adn requiring the facility to meet surgicalr equirements? It's a surgical procedure. While many who vote for these restrictions oppose abortion it is quite revealing taht those who support abortion are willing to have it done under less than appropriate medical conditions. Remarkable what zeal does to judgment....
With regard to voter laws I see no issue with voting requirements. Saying these requirements discriminate is false. There is nothing inherently racial or political about them. I have alwasy opposed same day registration. Voting is a primary civil right that should not be infringed. But it too should be done by citizens, not anyone who casually comes into a voting center and affirms he/she is a voter. It is much ahrder to find and invalidate a vote than it is to ensure that real people who are real citizens vote, and vote once.
To those who say there are no confirmed cases of voter fraud I reply of course not. A fraud that is discovered is a failure by definition. The best forgers in the world have never been discovered. It is ablack swan problem. Knowing there is voter fraud, then no number of clean elections disporve the reality of voter fraud. and the allegations have never stuck, whether against Daley, or in Florida, or elsewhere. And yet everyone knows the truth. The dead vote in Chicago. Hundreds of Seattle voters have the same address- a homeless shelter downtown.
Voter ID requirements are a simple screen against the coarsest of frauds. We require ID for almost anything else- credit card checks, passports, concert tickets, utility registration. But not voting? That's nuts to me, and not prejudicial in anyway. And I think it is terrible to have voter registration through high school classes and same-day registration.
I don't see these things as partisan issues but civics issues that apply to everyone equally. that some people are more affected than others does not make a law unequal. By that reasoning I am going to sue the schools and the NBA for too many tall people and too many black players. I mean, the results are unequal so the choosing must be unequal.
In teh US we now consider the measure of equality not opportunity but outcome. That's corrosive and completely false not to mention unattainable. The NC laws, far from being reactionary, strike me as a popular response to prior insanity. The aberration is not these laws but the bizarre and abased values that led to the conditions these laws are correcting.
Ted
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