Nashville Attorney Jennifer Eberle with Kinnard Law has been following Tennessee’s abortion ban law closely the past few months, and she takes issue with one word that keeps coming up: exception. She says Tennessee’s law does not have an exception for doctors.
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"President of the anti-abortion group Tennessee Right to Life, Stacy Dunn says doctors have nothing to fear from this law.
ReplyDelete“We’ve had an affirmative defense provision in a law since 2017 in our post-viability ban. And after 5 years, no doctor has been prosecuted under that affirmative defense provision. That is the protection that the doctors have,” says Dunn."
Stacy is either a disingenuous liar or a fucking moron. And I'm so pro-life that women like her think I'm an extremist.
The way this law is written is equivalent to a law that states that any homeowner who shoots an intruder who is raping his daughter *must* be charged with murder. Then, after being booked and processed, that homeowner has an ironclad defense. But that has no affect on the fact that he was charged and booked for murder. A charge if murder doesn't vanish. It's on your record permanently. If they want doctors who save women with ectopic pregnancies charged and booked, and forced to go through the trial process, they should just admit that. Not spout bullshit about "prosecutorial discretion" etc, especially when the law makes the charges mandatory. And prosecutorial discretion is bullshit anyway.
"No one has been charged" is something only the braindead or evil use to defend an unjust, idiotic law. "No one has been charged"...bite me you insufferable, dishonest twit.
To be clear: I don't give a damn about doctors who perform abortions that aren't literally and unquestionably necessary to save a life, for instance ectopic pregnancy. If the pregnancy won't kill you? Murder is a sin. Murder of the helpless is an even more depraved sin. Millstones and impalements all around.
But Stacy is a fucking moron and/or liar. And if this law actually mandates prosecution, with an "affirmative defense" or not? Women actually *are* going to die because of it. And that's evil. But Stacy and her kind are fine with that. However, suggest prosecuting women who use abortion as birth control, and they recoil like Dracula from a crucifix. Which tells you everything you need to know about their actual priorities.
Could a doctor be sued successfully for willful neglect if allowing a woman to die knowing an abortion could save her life? To me, that would be malpractice and I am sure there are laws on the books to that effect, like depraved indifference. Knowing our current state of jurisprudence, I am also sure the lawyers designed the system to have those conflicting laws in place....after all, its good for business. Billable hours!
ReplyDeleteI don't know how the ectopic pregnancy ever came to be mentioned in the Roe v Wade discussion other than to fear monger. An ectopic pregnancy is never a viable pregnancy and will never reach the end of the first trimester. When I was running as an EMT we had many calls that the mom had suffered a miscarriage days or hours before the severe pain set in. It becomes a life emergency when the tube ruptures and internal bleeding sets in. The baby has passed by this time and it is no longer considered an abortion by the medical community. It has now become a life emergency for the mom and usually a tubal ligation as the rupture has damaged the tube beyond repair.
ReplyDeleteOne must wonder...
ReplyDeleteWas this law written by someone who is actually for unrestrained abortion? WHEN a doctor proceeds with a medically sound abortion, in order to save the life of the mother, and the doctor is charged with a felony, that conviction will not stand in a court. Once that conviction is exonerated or whatever, the law itself will be up for debate, and overturned.
I'm about as pro-life as one can get, and I feel this law was either foolishly written, or was written in order to be overturned.
-Just a Chemist
IANAL And I haven't read the full statute involved. But if the law only allows for an "affirmative defense" than it I would consider it a defective law. There are times when
ReplyDeletean abortion is medically necessary. Those times are rare but they do exist. And the law
should never ever be used to abuse doctors for providing necessary care. As the oft stated quote points out "the process is the punishment", so if some agenda driven mouth breather DA decides to use this law to pillory a physician doing his job properly than regardless of the trial outcome the doctor has been severely punished without justification. The law needs to be changed. I am not a fan of abortion. And there simply must be limits placed on it's practice, otherwise unscrupulous immoral evil people will advocate for and eventually achieve "post partum" abortions where actual live infants are killed. But a total and complete ban on them with no exceptions is just as much an absurdity as allowing abortions after the 40th week of gestation.
Affirmative defense. Just like our gun carry laws. It's illegal to carry "with the intent to go armed". WTF you say? Same thing. CHL and the not-real-constitutional carry are affirmative defenses.
ReplyDeleteSteve S6