So I've been thinking about this point, Thad, and I'd like to hear some example, hypothetical or real, where the difference between mental and physical distress is clear. I'm not trying to argue the point, just trying to clear up the facts so I can see how big of a deal this is.
NARAL (PDF; text isn't selectable so I'm copying this by hand; may be typos):
A health exception must also account for the mental health problems that may occur in pregnancy. Severe fetal anomalies, for example, can exact a tremendous emotional toll on a pregnant woman and her family.
- Gilda Restelli was nearly 30 weeks pregnant when doctors discovered that her fetus had only fragments of a skull and almost no brain. She and her husband had been told by medical experts that their baby had almost no chance of survival after birth. Restelli quit her job, not because she was physically incapacitated, but because she could no longer bear the hearty congratulations of strangers who were unaware of the tragic circumstances surrounding her pregnancy. The Restellis made the agonizing decision to end the pregnancy, and even though state law included a health exception, the couple had to battle government officials to ensure doctors would not be prosecuted for providing abortion care.
[...]
- When two doctors confirmed that, among other ailments, Tammy Watts's fetus had no eyes and extensive internal organ abnormalities including kidneys that were already failing, Tammy and her husband recognized that their much-wanted child would never survive. After her experience, Tammy said: "You can't take this away from women and families. You can't. It's so important that we be able to make these decisions, because we're the only ones who can."
First of all, Obama said "mental distress" while you said "mental illness". This seems to be a substantial diffrerence in terms, and I want to know how they would fit into cause for a late-term abortion.
Yes, but he also said, "I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy." As in, mental health doesn't enter into it.
Also, the difference between mental and physical stress is a pretty blurred line, since a significant amount of mental stress will take a physical toll. Our brain is a physical thing and so is everything it controls. Would a doctor not be able to convince a court that mental stress can take a permanent physical toll on a potential mother? That seems like a grey area that could go either way, and maybe that's the problem.
That's an excellent point, and I found a good article that brings it up,
Abortion Restrictions and the Drive for Mental Health Parity: A Conflict in Values? (PDF again.)
The drive toward full mental health parity in the insurance coverage context is historic because it highlights an increased understanding and acceptance of mental illness. This may be attributed in large part to recent breakthroughs in brain research that point increasingly to the physical origin of many mental disorders. Explains Chris Koyanagi, policy director for the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, "We are increasingly understanding the interrelatedness of various physical and mental health disorders, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate one from the other. All body systems, including the brain, are based on the same biological process, which we are now interpreting. This distinction between systems based on the terms 'physical' and 'mental' is meaningless. Science is a long way ahead of policymakers in terms of understanding mental illness."
So it's another case of the government being well behind modern science in our understanding of how things work. People's gut reaction is still to dismiss mental health issues as less significant than physical ones, when in fact the distinction is largely artificial. People yak about the power of positive thinking to overcome mental issues, but thinking positively works about as well to overcome severe depression as it does to overcome kidney failure.
It's just hard for a politician to come out and say that getting an abortion just because you don't want a baby and you're really sad that you're pregnant doesn't count as a valid medical reason.
I can't tell if you're joking or not, but the reason people don't like saying things like that is because it's an offensively condescending thing to say.
The careless, vapid slut who doesn't do anything about her pregnancy for six months and then decides she's sad because she's fat and just has to terminate the pregnancy is a :strawman: argument on par with Reagan's welfare queens. It may be true in rare cases, but it's a very distorted and out-of-touch characterization of a group that deserves sympathy and help, not derision.
