Month: June 2009

Is there anyone on earth more narcissistic and deluded than Bill O’Reilly? (Or anyone more sycophantic than Juan Williams?)

The whining and sniveling is just embarrassing. Man up Billo —- if you can’t take the heat then maybe you ought to reconsider your inflammatory rhetoric.

In case anyone’s wondering about the tenor of his “criticism” here‘s a little example (via Newshounds):

You know, I’ve been covering the news in America for 30 years and this Kansas situation is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

A doctor named George Tiller is operating a late-term abortion mill that will destroy a viable baby up until birthing for a mental health exception, which much of the time is an episode of simple depression experienced by the mother.

Wednesday night on this broadcast, a pro-life advocate told us that Tiller injects poison into the baby’s heart while it is still in the womb, then removes the dead baby and cremates it. We have not been able to confirm the cremation assertion, but a letter purported to be from Tiller himself describes the injection.

Now even if you are pro-choice, you must see the ramifications of this barbaric display. If we as a society allow an undefined mental health exception in late term abortions, then babies can be killed for almost any reason. And in Kansas hundreds, maybe thousands, of babies have been aborted by Dr. Tiller — the price is $5,000 dollars each.

Is this the America we want? Is it? This is the kind of stuff that happened in Mao’s China and Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union.

Americans cannot turn away from this; cannot ignore it. There should be thousands of people demonstrating outside Tiller’s abortion clinic in Wichita.

The new attorney general in Kansas, Paul Morrison, says he might pursue the investigations into Tiller’s late-term operations and also into the abortions of girls ages 10 to 15 that have not been reported to authorities in Kansas, as required by law.

We hope Morrison does that, as this kind of stuff simply cannot be tolerated by a civilized society.

America is in the middle of an intense culture war, where the lives of babies are at stake. This has nothing to do with reproductive rights or any other euphemism. This has to do with terminating the lives of viable babies, because the mother wants to back out of the pregnancy in the late stages.

If we allow this, America will no longer be a noble nation — a country that stands for human rights and protection of the innocent.

If we allow Dr. George Tiller and his acolytes to continue, we can no longer pass judgment on any behavior by anybody.

What Tiller is doing is that bad.

O’Reilly has a perfect right to say whatever he wants. But he should be a little bit more humble and contrite when one of his many disturbed, gun nut fanboys decides to take him seriously and starts murdering people.

It’s hard for me to choose which fatuous wingnut gasbag I loathe the most, but I think Billo wins by a nose. His arrogance is so simultaneously cloying and macho that his act seems like some kind of retro, angry white man, drag queen performance art. It’s disturbing.

He must be feeling the heat from Beck who his giving him a run for his money on the Howard Beale betting pool.

Update: In case anyone thinks that O’Reilly doesn’t speak in the language of the “extremists” check out Randall Terry’s full statement (which was heavily edited by the mainstream media.)

Following is the statement of Randall Terry, Founder, Operation Rescue.

“Dr. Tiller was a mass murderer.

“I grieve for him that he did not have an opportunity to properly prepare his soul to face his Maker. Unless some miracle happened, he left this life with his hands drenched with the innocent blood of tens of thousands of babies that he murdered. Surely there will be a dreadful accounting for what he has done.

“I believe George Tiller was one of the most evil men on the planet; every bit as vile as the Nazi war criminals who were hunted down, tried, and sentenced after they participated in the ‘legal’ murder of the Jews that fell into their hands. But even Mr. Tiller – like other murderers – deserved a trial of his peers, and a legal execution, not vigilantly justice.

“His killing presents us a severe challenge.

“The arch proponents of child killing such as Planned Parenthood, the National Organization of Women, NARAL, and a host of other enemies of children are already blaming the pro-life movement for Dr. Tiller’s death.

“The child killers, and their allies in the Obama administration and on Capitol Hill, will attempt to browbeat the pro-life movement into surrendering our most effective weapons in this battle: our rhetoric, our actions, and our images.

“Pro-lifers must not flinch, waver, or in any way alter our course in our epic struggle to make child killing illegal again.

“Our rhetoric must bear witness to the truth: abortion is murder.

“Our actions must be equal to this crime: we must continue with vigorous (yet peaceful) actions such as have been used by every social revolution since America’s birth. The easiest picture to have is that of the civil rights activists of the 1960s. They held ‘illegal’ marches, freedom rides, and ‘sit-ins’ at lunch counters; they were met with water canons, dogs, police brutality, arrests, and jail. If we are going to end child killing, we must unflinchingly adopt the strategies of heroes past.

“Our images must reflect the truth. We must continue to show the victims’ bodies that we have pulled out of dumpsters; we must not retreat a single inch from showing the decapitated heads of little boys and girls, the arms and legs that were suctioned or carved out of their mothers wombs; we must paint the picture of sewers and landfills being used as unholy graves for these holy victims.

“Of course we are peaceful; that is why this horrific shooting in a church has immediately garnered national attention. It is precisely because we are peaceful that Dr. Tiller’s killing sticks out like a huge wart on an otherwise flawless complexion. If abortionists were gunned down every week, it would gather no more attention than crack dealers who are gunned down every week.”

h/t to Julia

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Taking His Ball Blog And Going Home

by dday

I actually ran across the NPR report about Jeffrey Rosen’s gossip piece and the impact of it on the debate over Sonia Sotomayor on Sunday morning, and when I heard this I nearly broke my radio:

But its author, the noted legal writer Jeffrey Rosen, says he’s been burned by the episode, too — enough that he’s swearing off blogging for good.

“It was a short Web piece,” Rosen says now, sounding a little shell-shocked. “I basically thought of it as a blog entry”. . . .

Above all, Rosen says he’s drawn a lesson from how his initial essay was treated by people of both ideological stripes. He won’t be blogging any more. He wants to spend more time with the material before hitting “send.”

Yes, the medium of blogging made him use anonymous sources to smear a qualified Supreme Court nominee. The darn macros in the publishing tool just cross out all of the named sources, at least on Blogger and WordPress. It’s just like my friend Steve an associate of mine once said: “Jeffrey Rosen wants to slander people after thoughtful consideration, but the publishing tools he uses just force him into rash decision-making!”

Everyone knows the difference between Jeffrey Rosen the lowly blogger and Jeffrey Rosen the self-evidently esteemed writer on legal issues. The former engages in character assassination; the latter, in very deliberate and keen-eyed character assassination. Good to be rid of the former.

As Glenn points out, Rosen actually published the hit piece on Sotomayor not as a blog, but as a stand-alone article, much like writers do on the websites of major publications every single day. Maybe if we’re lucky, Rosen will vow not to write on the Internet ever again! Or write, period!

P.S. I guess Rosen must have missed the phone calls of these 45 Sotomayor law clerks. Surely an oversight.

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A Megaton Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

by dday

Bill Kristol responded to Susan Boyle’s loss on Britain’s Got Talent by calling for strategic bombing in London. No, wait, this time it was North Korea, actually.

Kristol explained, “I don’t rule out the possibility of us deciding — and I think it might be wise for us to decide — to knock out a few. They’re apparently rolling a long-term missile to a base to test another one, long-range missile to test another one. You know, it might be worth doing some targeted air strikes to show the North Koreans, instead of always talking about, ‘Gee, there could be consequences,’ to show that they can’t simply keep going down this path.”

Brit Hume, on the same program, endorsed Kristol’s proposal, but said he “can’t imagine” the Obama administration actually launching a military strike on North Korea.

Matt Yglesias noted, “Kristol doesn’t even attempt to say what he thinks this will accomplish. He just kind of tosses it out there for no reason because arguing that the United States should start wars is what he does.”

Kristol and his merry band of he-men think that the United States can drop bombs on any nation it chooses without consequences. This is despite the fact that never in human history has such a consequence-free imperialism ever come to pass. If we “targeted” air strikes on North Korea (10, 20 million dead, depending on the breaks), they would bomb Seoul. And kill a lot of people. Indiscriminate projection of military force has brought us through failed wars over the past several decades and the death of hundreds of thousands. Bill Kristol views this as an inconvenience.

Besides, Robert Farley makes the point I’ve made for years. North Korea doesn’t have a lot of money, and apparently their fissile material is finite. Every bomb they test equals one less bomb they have. So go ahead and test!

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Not Writing for Power

by batocchio

In May, Scott Horton interviewed Chinese playwright and activist Sha Yexin. The whole thing’s worth reading, but I found one exchange particularly striking:

5. At the recent Beijing meeting on Chinese drama and literature, you said that playwrights should never forget the role of literature and the aim of writing, and that they should never write for power. Could you elaborate on that?

Why shouldn’t one write for power? Here are my reasons:

First, power corrupts. The British historian Lord Acton said: “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This famous quotation has now become political common sense. Its correctness has been borne out by the intensifying corruption in China, where power is exercised without oversight or restraint. When corruption and power exist in co-prosperity, how can people fight corruption? In present-day China, anti-corruption is kept at a certain level to ensure that people will not revolt while power will not get out of control. In some districts, corrupt elements have become leaders of the anti-corruption effort. Undiscovered corrupt officials are fighting those already exposed.

Second, power makes people stupid. By using mathematical theories, the American scholar Jonathan Bendor proves the great value of independent thinking and the limitations of decision makers. When leaders are too busily occupied with myriad state affairs, institutional methods can be used to ease their cognitive constraints, by seeking wise solutions from among the people and encouraging independent thinking in government officials. But in a totalitarian country, such institutional methods do not and cannot exist.

Most power-holders in such countries are fond of dictatorship. Each of them puts forward his “ideas” and “theories” when it is his turn to rule the country, hoping to see his thought adopted as the “guideline” to unify the thinking of the whole nation. Acting in this way, they deprive themselves of the kind of wisdom and talent that are needed to solve the thorny problems facing the country. As a bunch of dumbbells, they can not help becoming an object of ridicule among the people.

Third, power brings flip-flops and hence suffering to the people. Since power has reduced the wisdom and intelligence of the power-holders and their think tanks, setbacks caused by repeated policy changes including the adoption of reactionary measures are bound to occur. Frequent ideological reversals and repeated changes in ideas and policy bring about great social instability. It becomes very difficult to attain a truly harmonious society and avoid more flip-flops in the future.

Fourth, power produces cruelty. Those who hold power can be overwhelmed by the glare of the spotlight that accompanies power. They may experience a peak period in which they feel accomplishment, happiness, or pleasure. But according to Abraham Maslow, the American psychologist, this peak period does not last long. The powerful had problems coping with the end of this period. Once they reject oversight, checks and balances that come from outside, they immediately become completely irrational and inhuman. If someone wants to share power with them or seeks to replace them with new power-holders, they become mad and cruel, and have no scruples in resort to guns, cannons, and tanks, producing huge social disasters.

If you are a writer who writes for power, objectively you are working, directly or indirectly, for corruption and stupidity, for more suffering and cruelty for the people. You may have some excuses if you are forced to write for power. If you write for power out of your own will, how can you evade your responsibility as an accomplice?

As may be easily understood, what I am speaking about is power in a totalitarian state. It is power without oversight and constraints, as compared with power born from democratic elections. Refusing to write for power also means refusing to write according to the will of those in power, or to promote their ideology in one’s writings.

One may choose to write for any other purpose: to write for art, for life, for oneself or others. But he or she must not write for power.

I haven’t read any plays by Sha Yexin yet, but now I want to seek them out. There are many different reasons to write, not all of them profound nor political, but over here in the States it can be easy to take the freedom to write for granted. The stakes for Sha Yexin and a number of other writers are higher. I’m reminded of the samizdat tradition in Soviet Russia of clandestinely passing around censored writings. (The German film The Lives of Others captures this dynamic well, and incidentally, it’s not one of the greatest “conservative” films ever made, although I’m glad some conservatives appreciate it.) Sha Yexin’s admonition not to write for power is well-taken. It also makes me think of one of my favorite pieces on writing, William Faulkner’s Nobel speech (although it seems a crime to quote just a section):

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed – love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

(This post is a partial recap of an earlier one that included some personal memories of studying in Russia, although I’d recommend driftglass’ take on the same interview and Chicago politics.)

Thought For The Day

by tristero

It is those of us who oppose the banning of abortion who always hold the moral high ground, and not only when one of the pro-coat hanger crowd murders a health provider.

Another Phony Soldier Weighs In

by digby

General Petraeus spoke out last week. And now another left wing loser denies the necessity for torture and calls for investigations:

In front of a packed audience tonight at the Times Center in New York City, General Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of all coalition forces in Iraq, called for a truth commission to investigate the abuses and torture which occurred there.

The General described the failures at all levels of civilian and military command that led to the abuses in Iraq, “and that is why I support the formation of a truth commission.”

The General went on to say that, “during my time in Iraq there was not one instance of actionable intelligence that came out of these interrogation techniques.”

I interviewed General Sanchez after the event and asked him to elaborate on why he felt the US needed such a commission. “For the American people to really know what happened, ” he replied, “…this was an institutional failure, a personal failure on the part of many….”

“If we do not find out what happened,” continued the General, “then we are doomed to repeat it.”

Typical left wing loser. Why does he hate the troops so much?

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“Troubling”

by digby

According to this article in Roll Call, my instincts about the Republican “concern” strategy on Sotomayor was right. The only problem was that the talk show shriekers jumped the gun a little bit early:

The plan was for Republicans to hit the airwaves with a preliminary set of concerns over Sotomayor’s record and with some of her public statements – and to keep the comments by conservative activists at a distance while not angering the party’s base. Republicans also are keen to maintain at least the appearance of open-mindedness, and McConnell has pushed his members to not make statements prejudging her until the Senate is further along in the confirmation process. Instead, McConnell and his colleagues spent significant time dealing with the controversy and having to distance themselves from the charges while not rejecting them outright. […]
Ironically, conservatives may have inadvertently tipped Senate Republicans’ opening hand to Democrats in attacking Sotomayor for a 2001 speech in which she said she hoped her Latina background could help her be a more effective jurist than a white man. McConnell, Sessions and other Republicans pegged those statements, as well as an affirmative action case she ruled on as a judge on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, as the “preliminary concerns” at the heart of their initial message strategy. But because conservatives highlighted the speech almost immediately following Obama’s announcement, Senate Democrats and the White House have been able to put together a defense that relies on similar statements by two stalwarts of the conservative movement – Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Sessions, countered Republican complaints by pointing to Alito’s comments during his confirmation hearings that his immigrant background shaped his handling of civil rights complaints.

They had wanted to roll out the racism charge with a little bit more finess and not give the Dems a chance to point out their utter hypocrisy. Unfortunately, Newtie and Rush are on a roll and didn’t want to wait.

I think in the end, they’ll get what they want anyway, which is just to rough her up publicly to boost the morale of the wingnut troops. It’s about all they can hope for.

Update:

from Julia:

Conventional wisdom is that
GOP senators sidestep harsh criticism of Sotomayor

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press
Writer Sun May 31, 4:41 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Leading GOP senators on Sunday offered more subtle criticism of the
first Hispanic nominated to the Supreme Court, but passed up the chance to
stifle racially charged critiques of Sonia Sotomayor by some fellow Republicans.

The party out of power in Washington is struggling to develop a unified
political strategy to oppose the Supreme Court nominee.

Sotomayor, an appeals court judge, already faces scrutiny from conservatives
over a 2001 remark that her experiences as an Hispanic woman would lead her to
better decisions than those made by a white man. Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh
has called her a “racist” while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, saying a
“Latina woman racist” is unsuitable for the court, has called for withdrawing
the nomination.

The Senate’s top Republicans didn’t disavow those assessments, although they
urged different language to oppose President Barack Obama’s first nominee to the
high court.

And then the light dawns: GOP senators OK with shrill criticism of Sotomayor

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press
Writer Mon Jun 1, 4:22 am ET

WASHINGTON – Republican Senate leaders won’t call Sonia Sotomayor a racist. But
they’re fine with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich playing the race card to rile
up an out-of-power GOP.

Republican lawmakers and officials are cobbling together a strategy to oppose
Sotomayor, an appeals court judge and the first Hispanic nominated to the
Supreme Court. While some of Sotomayor’s past comments could pose a challenge
for President Barack Obama’s nominee, elected leaders are navigating a tricky
question of how to object without alienating the nation’s fast-growing — and
increasingly politically active — Hispanic population.

For now, it appears Republican lawmakers will urge respect. But they’ll allow
talk-show host Limbaugh to call Sotomayor a “racist” and former House Speaker
Gingrich to say she’s a “Latina woman racist.”

The two-sided strategy would allow Limbaugh and Gingrich — who hold tremendous
sway among the Republican faithful — to do the political attacks while those
facing election can avoid potential backlash if they derail a historic
nomination.

Ya think?

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Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines

by dday

Not hard to picture the reaction of an unbalanced person to this daily drumbeat.

Apparently, Billo will “address” the subject on his program tonight. But only tonight, I suspect. Then he’ll find another enemy to demonize. And then feign shock when that person gets gunned down, too.

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Shocked And Outraged
by digby
Alex Koppelman makes an interesting observation:

President Obama has weighed in on the murder of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller. In a statement released Sunday evening, Obama said, “I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.”It’s somewhat interesting to see that the White House put out this statement under the president’s name. Though he often officially weighs in on tragic events like the shooting in Binghamton, N.Y. last month or the plane crash near Buffalo back in February, when there’s an issue the political team would rather not have Obama’s name on, at least not directly, statements go out through someone like Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.Obviously, the act of condemning a murder is generally uncontroversial — or at least it should be. But the abortion issue is always fraught with controversy, and may affect two important fights for the administration in the near future: The confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and the passage of healthcare reform. So in some cases the White House may simply prefer not to have Obama himself wade in to the fray.

But he did, and good for him. After the Notre Dame nonsense and now this tragedy, it’s clear that the anti-choice zealots are not going to join in his call for respectful dialog. And they certainly have no interest in finding common ground. The fanatics’ intentions are less concerned with “life” (obviously) than with control and power.
You can’t help but be struck by the fact that when Bush was in office, these political killings pretty much stopped. It’s true that Islamic terrorism was the focus during that period, but it’s not like the “domestic holocaust” ceased after 9/11. It was just politically inconvenient to murder abortion doctors or shoot up churches or kill cops since it would have put their favored politicians in an uncomfortable position. It was very considerate of them to wait until a Democrat was in office to become morally overwrought. I’m very grateful that Obama spoke out personally and with some emotion, using words of outrage instead of the more predictable cop-out words of sorrow. At times like these a leader has to speak out.
Update: I love how the wingnuts are all calling for civility and admonishing the left not to use this right wing hate crime for “political gain.” I just don’t now how these people live with the cognitive dissonance. Here’s Malkin:

*Princeton University professor Robert P. George is right about this: “Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence.” *President Obama is right about this: “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.” *Unfortunately, some are not content to leave it at that for now. They fail to respect that there is a proper time and place to indulge in political battle. You can go here, here, and here for all that. Another round-up here. Tiller’s family is grieving. Those who have jumped to score political points before Tiller is even buried are no better than the Phelps family thugs of the “Westboro Baptist Church” who respect no bounds of civility. Unfortunately, it’s too much to ask the cable news networks and hyper-partisan snipers on the Internet to have the decency to restrain themselves.

Can’t we all get along?
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They Cannot Know

by digby

I just want to give a rousing “shove it” to all the right wing jackasses who have absolutely no sympathy for women and their loved ones who are faced with the horrible prospect of a life threatening delivery of a fetus that is destined for an extremely short, brutal, painful life. These strangers have decided that they have a right to dictate what people must do in the most gut wrenching, complicated situations with which any human being can be confronted. Who do these people think they are?

I’ve heard a lot of people saying recently that the abortion debate has changed because now that people can see the cute little baby inside the woman’s body with the ultrasound we feel the humanity of it. Perhaps that’s true. But that same technology also allows us to see the heartbreaking, doomed baby in the third trimester and we know that it will put the mother’s life and health at risk to carry that pregnancy to term. For all the joy that the ultrasound brings to the happily expectant parent, nothing could be worse that the horrifying news that a late term ultrasound shows a fatal birth defect. This technology goes both ways.

From Talk Left, we have a testimonial from someone who went through this:

In 1994 my wife and I found out that she was pregnant. The pregnancy was difficult and unusually uncomfortable but her doctor repeatedly told her things were fine. Sometime early in the 8th month my wife, an RN who at the time was working in an infertility clinic asked the Dr. she was working for what he thought of her discomfort. He examined her and said that he couldn’t be certain but thought that she might be having twins. We were thrilled and couldn’t wait to get a new sonogram that hopefully would confirm his thoughts. Two days later our joy was turned to unspeakable sadness when the new sonogram showed conjoined twins. Conjoined twins alone is not what was so difficult but the way they were joined meant that at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants. We were advised that our options were to deliver into the world a child who’s life would be filled with horrible pain and suffering or fly out to Wichita Kansas and to terminate the pregnancy under the direction of Dr. George Tiller.

We made an informed decision to go to Kansas. One can only imagine the pain borne by a woman who happily carries a child for 8 months only to find out near the end of term that the children were not to be and that she had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy and go against everything she had been taught to believe was right. This was what my wife had to do. Dr. Tiller is a true American hero. The nightmare of our decision and the aftermath was only made bearable by the warmth and compassion of Dr. Tiller and his remarkable staff. Dr. Tiller understood that this decision was the most difficult thing that a woman could ever decide and he took the time to educate us and guide us along with the other two couples who at the time were being forced to make the same decision after discovering that they too were carrying children impacted by horrible fetal anomalies. I could describe in great detail the procedures and the pain and suffering that everyone is subjected to in these situations. However, that is not the point of the post. We can all imagine that this is not something that we would wish on anyone. The point is that the pain and suffering were only mitigated by the compassion and competence of Dr. George Tiller and his staff. We are all diminished today for a host of reasons but most of all because a man of great compassion and courage has been lost to the world.

People always act like this issue is simple. But pregnancy is one situation in life that falls across all kinds of moral, emotional and rational lines, calling into question the autonomy of the very body in which we live and lifelong commitments made in the heat of the moment — painful choices and primitive imperatives in the most basic human drive we have. Whether it’s the idea that women should be “punished” with pregnancy for failing to use birth control, to the idea that adoption is a simple and painless alternative, to the insistence that women who carry a child for seven or eight months must be forced to give birth when the child has no chance at life to the spectacle of the Octamom, the fact is that there is no broad brush answer that can be applied to all these different circumstances. Certainly, the crude instrument of the law isn’t the answer as even the anti-choicers tacitly admit when they refuse to consider the women who have abortions murderers and instead focus on the doctors.

Indeed, the murder of Dr Tiller in a demented defense of a “culture of life” should be all it takes for everyone to see that this is not the simple, straightforward issue they’d like to believe it is. And once you recognize that it’s a unique circumstance in which the moral boundaries are blurry and indistinct, the only possible course is to trust the person with the most knowledge of the circumstances, the symbiotic relationship to the fetus and greatest stake in the outcome — the woman.

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