Dear Democrats: You were right about ultrasounds
By Brian Kirwin | Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 | PolicyPart of political debate is to know when you made a mistake. The best thing to do is realize the points Democrats have made and learn from them.
And I have.
Democrats have made the point that government should not mandate health care decisions, and after the petitions, protests, posturing and Planned Parenthood paranoia, I have to say that I do see their point.
No government control of health care. I understand now!
so REPEAL OBAMACARE!
Democrats have made the point that government should never involve itself in decisions that are so personal like health care. We agree!
All Democrats, even the ones who told the joke that begins “I’m pro-life but,” who opposed the simple mandate that the procedures that most abortion providers already follow be followed – this invitation is for you.
Join us in repealing Obama’s government takeover of health care and tell the government once and for all that health care should remain private and out of the control, dictates, mandates and financial stranglehold of the government.
See…I’m a uniter!
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About the author
The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
Comments
35 Responses to "Dear Democrats: You were right about ultrasounds"
Very good take on the whole thing.
One term should be added to this post is individual “choice”, which is the centerpiece of the Dem’s legal, political and emotional arguments. They label themselves as “pro-choice”, so they have a natural alignment with those against “no-choice” Obamacare.
The fact is abortion is illegal in Virginia unless you meet the exceptions dealing with age of the unborn child and facility you choose. The ultrasound to determine age of the unborn child is a reasonable regulation to use a first trimester clinic. Women would be safer at second trimester licensed facility.
Oh I agree 100%!! I do not want the government dictating medical procedures to me or my family for any issue. What my doctor and I agree upon is what I should be allowed to have done to me (or not have done to me). Period. End of story. I would hope all conservatives would agree.
Of course that has nothing to do with what you call Obamacare which deals with how those procedures will be PAID for. Quite a differnt topic entirely – especially when I am on the hook for the costs in either case via my tax dollars.
Nah Eric, mandating what procedure your insurance company has to cover is just exactly the same thing as mandating what procedures you have to undergo against your will.
Don’t confuse these guys with reality.
Good, God, what a hypocrite! Didn’t I say just this same thing a few days ago — before it was cool to be against the ultrasound bill?
How’s it hypocritical, Lloyd the “appropriately named”, for Brian to admit that he was in error and he has seen your point?
First Brian, you wish it was just democrats. If it had been, I doubt the Governor would have changed his mind.
Second, the affordable insurance act is a totally different matter, and I see it as simply a public health issue. Yes, every citizen should have access to affordable health care, if for no other reason, that I value the health of me, my family, my friends, and even my opponents on Bearing Drift.
Point is, we don’t live on insular farms spread throughout the country; we live close to one another and interact frequently. I want the teacher of my children, my coworkers, the server of my meal in a restaurant, the patron next to me in a movie theater, my doctor and his staff, the orderly in the hospital who comes into my room, etc. to have access to health care.
I know, it is selfish for me to want public health that benefits my health; but that is just the way I see it. So did your leading candidate for President, but that is another matter.
Mike the Socialist
So Brian, while I don’t for one minute accept your convoluted categorization, should we say Romney the Socialist as well?
Mike, I think he’s probably going to be willing to go there with you on that one.
*slow clap*
I never did see how conservatives could be against Obamacare but for state mandated medical procedures. You can try to separate the two with a million different arguments, but the fact remains that a government was trying to legislate what you can do with your own body.
Dear Everyone and I do mean Everyone,
Is there some sort of Crazy Virus running around that everyone has caught?
Just askin’.
Mike: “So Brian, while I don’t for one minute accept your convoluted categorization:… oh, oh… Mike may be on to you. And then…”I want the teacher of my children, my coworkers, the server of my meal in a restaurant, the patron next to me in a movie theater, my doctor and his staff, the orderly in the hospital who comes into my room, etc. to have access to health care.”… made me throw up a little since Castro and his current living and dead Communist/Socialist buddies in Latin America and abroad have promised the same thing. And then there is Chavez getting his new cancer treatments in Cuba after he was treated for the same cancer and pronounced “cured” several months ago. If he gets much worse, he will probably get an invitation to help sell Obamacare in exchange for real treatment and some time in Lincoln bedroom to recuperate.
Tim, I just don’t like all the uninsured costing me more. When an uninsured gets sick, I got to pay more for mine. I’m just plain sick of the doctors and the hospitals passing the cost on to me. It’s just not a very economical way to dispense medical care. Or maybe you would like the uninsured to sign some waiver that says if they and their children get injured, they do not get to avail themselves of any medical services. With computers these days, it could be easy to keep a list of the deserving and the not deserving.
So Tim J, are you trying to say that anyone in the U.S. that gets cancer treatment is always cured immediately?
Most industrialized democratic nations have universal access to health care, and most have much better performance of their health care systems that we do. When our nation is famous for our high rates of cancer, obesity, coronary heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, perhaps a rational person would try to find out what is going on.
I believe most americans want universal access to health care for the reasons I had enumerated in my last post. Many would have supported an extension to all of a Medicare type program, but the affordable health care act has done almost as well.
In a civilized nation, we don’t turn people away if they are sick, injured, or need medical care; we provide it, and those of us with insurance pay for it. The Affordable Health care act takes this a step farther, and frankly, it should be fully implemented.
Frankly, the fare
Glad to see Brian Kirwin admits that Mitt Romney’s a socialist and will now be unendorsing him.
Kirwin never endorsed Romney. Bearing Drift did.
Correct me if I’m wrong but Kirwin would rather have Chris Christie in a heartbeat but that’s not to happen. Abortion is the most invasive surgery as it rips a life and soul out of a mother. I’ve never met a woman who hasn’t been changed after an abortion. Someone who is bound and determined to have an abortion will not change their mind after a forced minor invasive ultrasound. Perhaps efforts of support through Crisis Pregnancy centers would best serve women and the “choices” they feel they must make.
http://www.cpcfriends.org/
Kathy, you seem quite torn. Should a woman be allowed to choose to end her pregnancy or do you believe that there are other entities who have a larger say in what should happen inside her body?
Please forgive me if I seem torn Susan, as a mother of six I am not torn. As soon as I knew I was pregnant I understood the responsibility to eat right and take care of myself in every way for the health of the child, (children as I also had twins) growing inside of me. I realize I don’t own any of my children who are all now grown but I was blessed by God to be an instrument in their development and growth. They all belong to God as He is the giver of life. I did the best I could and it is up to them to follow a good and right path and after a point, they take full responsibility on how they turn out with their own choices. I gave all of them life, it’s up to them on what they do with the life given to them by God and the choice of me not ending their lives before they have a chance to make their own choices. I never thought for a second I would make the choice for them if they would live or die before they could live at all.
Thanks Kathy. My wife was to the point of tears in reading your comment… you nailed this one.
I appreciate your lovely description of the choice you made for yourself. I was asking whom you thought had the ultimate power of decision for all the other pregnant women. You did not answer that question.
Tim, give the wife a tissue please.
Susan, what a condescending response!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am condescending, Brian? Kathy responded to my query by stepping up on the rock of self-righteousness and nominating herself for mother of the year.
I too love my children dearly, and hope I have done right by them. Does this make me as good a person as Kathy? Tim, is your wife crying at my personal motherhood description?
Susan, given the fact that you’ve been more than willing to play the emotion card with all the rape hyperbole, it’s a bit disingenuous of you to mock Kathy’s comment.
But that’s what we expect from folks like you – those Republicans are all evil, so they’re only worthy of scorn and mockery. It’s sad that you can’t even acknowledge that those who disagree with you have a legitimate position.
I’d capture the issue by saying: “Congratulations to the women of Virginia” for raising up and forcing the GA to hear their voices. You can spin it anyway you like, but those voices were republican, democrat and independent voices standing together to say “stop the madness.”
Well done Ladies!
Susan responds to being called condescending by being even more condescending
If I agreed with Susan G, we’d both be wrong.
A special moment showing Susan G. or one of her “sisters” displaying righteous indignation about “medical waste” at the capitol yesterday?
http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10150688318848373&set=a.104463578372.113304.753323372&type=1&theater
“I got legal advice from various people, including my attorney general, that these kinds of mandatory invasive requirements might run afoul of Fourth Amendment law,” McDonnell said. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution guards against unreasonable search and seizure.
Looks like even Cuccinelli didn’t like the bill.
Funny, some people want the government to have the right to force a medical treatment on you. That’s a scary thought, so give the Democrats a point for seeing the slippery slope…..that time. Some miss it on forced abortions for population control in the new Green religion. Forced “mental treatment” in different parts of the world,has historically been used to squash politcal opponents. So, this Libertarian has to agree with Democrats in opposition to forced treatment.
Equally funny is that some seem to think that how we pay for our medical care will not affect what treatments you are “forced” to have against your will. They line up the “straw men” pointing to all the current imperfections and pretty much blame it all on a lack of Obamacare. Socializing medicine will not produce newer and better treatments at a faster rate than one that makes it financially worthwhile to do so. That is just the fact. It is also fact, that some policies are different than others. If we are eventually covered by some monolithic “choice”, you will certainly be forced to have a policy or treatment that is possibly inferior. It is force by denial rather than force with physical abduction. Take a look at the waiting periods in some of those socialized systems that some Democrats put on a pedestal. They say “rights delayed are rights denied”. The same logic lends itself to medicine. Treatment for your failing heart delayed, is pretty much treatment denied. Especially if you die before being treated.
Further, how can steadfast supporters of Obamacare like Mike, point at symptoms of a gluttonous culture and blame high rates of obesity and associated illnesses on a lack of an Obamacare like system? It only further muddies the issue and distracts everyone from finding the best possible course.
“I just don’t like all the uninsured costing me more.” – Susan G.
Susan, was that a comment on illegal immigrants making use of our medical system? Or are you talking about wanting to force young healthy people to give you medical welfare rather than buy cheaper plans or just risk that they can pay for a broken leg in an accident not covered by car insurance? At what point are you applying force? I might agree that you shouldn’t be forcibly probed, but I don’t at all agree that Obamacare is anywhere near fiscally sound or even a solution.
The issue is complicated when you mix in abortion, because you deal with issues of the beginning of an individual life and whether that life entitles you to the body of another person for your survival. It also brings into question as to whether a new individual should have a claim of damage if evicted from the womb. At what point are you responsible for that life? To many, this isn’t an easy to answer black and white question.
Not on the same level, but illegal immigrants and uncovered citizens is a life issue too. But at what point are we forced to pay for everyone. We don’t have the capability to pay for everyone. I also find it disgusting that some that see government as the solution to everything totally disregard the healthcare provided by charity and neighbors/co-workers stepping up to help. You’re missing a very key part of the equation if you think government is “all”. Amazingly, people donate blood and organs all the time of their own self-less free will. I would hate to see the day of forced “donation”, even if it did save lives.
There is also a difference between an individual sending money to poor nations and the government confiscating your wealth to do it. Are we responsible to provide medicine for the entire planet? Somebody needs to draw a line somewhere and I don’t think that line should be drawn by the whim of partisanship to be ever changing by political pendulum swings or popularity contests.
Finding a real best case solution for all will be difficult with all the partisan games clouding the field. Add that to a politician’s need to pander for re-election and it is pretty difficult to be optimistic.
Susan G. obviously has had one-too-many abortions, and with each baby she killed, her Planned Parenthood Dr. also ripped out a little more of her soul, morality and dignity. She is now feeling a little sad and desperate that those abortions won’t be “persons” who will be there to pay for her Obamacare. Nor will those “persons” be there to help fly her to Costa Rica get that hip replacement when she falls down the stairs at the capitol protesting for the right to kill others whom she has judged as not to have a right to life.
Such ill will directed towards me. Why? Have I defended by views too stridently? Were we pro-choice women and men supposed to allow the GA to do what it wanted and not speak a word? If we did voice our opposition, what tone were we supposed to have? When another step toward eliminating women’s ability to choose was being taken away, should we have said, “Gosh, I don’t like that, but I guess it’ll be ok.” I wonder what tone second amendment folks would have expressed if the right to own a firearm was being limited by the GA? “From my cold dead hands,” ring a bell? THe folks here at BD seemed baffled by the battle that waged this past week. To quote SNL, “Really?”
I have to agree with Susan, Tara. I understand your passion, but that was a bit over the top.
If anyone of either side hopes to “change the hearts and minds” or just have a civil debate on the issues, we could stand to attack the argument rather than the person making it.
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