Talk Elections

Sponsor: Marokai Blue

24 hours Blue oni (or would you be red? I can never remember how that works).

~80ish% of all abortions take place within the first trimester. The issue of when there is a full-fledged life is a difficult one for us to determine, or even if it is a meaningful life, but the third trimester, if no other point, must be when that distinction has been crossed. By that point, the woman carrying the child has had months to consider her options, and if the pregnancy has progressed that far, it is irresponsible, to me, if nothing else, to terminate the pregnancy without reason.

By the point of the third trimester, the pregnancy shouldn't be terminated unless there is no other option or the child has been determined by a doctor to be suffering a severe defect in some capacity. I don't like playing the "it's a life, it matters so much because life is beautiful" card, because I think it's overly sentimental and also utterly ridiculous at such an early point like the first trimester; but by this point, there almost certainly is a recognizable and meaningful "life" in there, and I find it senseless to eliminate it by then.

Almost all abortions will not be affected, there are numerous out-clauses for understandable reasons to terminate the pregnancy, we can even add support for adoption services for women who would otherwise have wished to abort the child, but abortion without medical reason at that point should be illegal.

I'll need to wade through our books a little on this one, unless someone wants to help me out... What are our existing abortion laws?

I personally believe abortion should be banned completely, but I understand that this bill is probably the closest we'll ever get to that goal. So I could be convinced to support it.

But Marokai—you said that by the third trimester, women would have had more than enough time to come to a decision re: the termination of their pregnancy. If that's the case, and if you maintain that a fetus in the third trimester has indeed crossed the threshold of being "a life," why would we allow for exceptions in the case of rape and incest? If we were going to put a blanket ban on abortion, I'd understand the need for those exemptions. However, under this legislation, abortion would still be a legal option for many months of any woman's pregnancy. I feel like it would be justified to say "sorry, too late" if she suddenly decided she wanted an abortion in her third trimester.

I want to thank my at-large Senator for turning this proposal I gave him into an a bill. :)

I'll be honest - I wish there could be more restrictions on abortion, but with the overall nature of Atlasia and the Senate, I'm not sure what else could be accomplished. Right now, all abortions are legal in Atlasia to my knowledge. While this isn't perfect, it's a big step in the right direction.

This is far too strict for my liking. Frankly, I don't believe rights are there for something in a womb. This bill isn't fair. Do we really think women decide to wait until the 8th month to have an abortion "just 'cause"? At the very least there ought to be an exception for the health and well-being of the mother, but I still think the implications about a women's choice made by this bill are a little startling. 80% of abortions take place early because women don't want to carry something around for 30+ weeks before having their procedure done, for very, very obvious reasons.

Also, the penalty for doctors is extreme.

Just popping in to express my full support for this legislation, which would grant to what are living people rights that are taken for granted by those outside of the womb; namely, the right to not be murdered. As for the penalty for doctors, while I don't think the left-wing Senate would like it, perhaps just define it as manslaughter? Regardless, this is excellent legislation and best hopes for a speedy passage.

I agree with the opinion of our President.

I don't think many do, no. So, given the realities of when the distinction of "life" most likely crossed, why not prohibit it?


I really feel like there's an exception here for just about every objectionable thing. Abuse, incest, defect, threatening of life. Something vague as "the health of the mother" just feels like a loophole. Having lower back pain because of your baby? Have an abortion!


Because it's when they discover they're pregnant, consider their options, and seek out care. I'm not sure what point you're making here.


Admittedly I lifted the prison penalty directly from another regional anti-abortion statute from the Wiki (which I'm not even sure still is in place). I'm willing to reduce the prison term, and perhaps the ban on practicing again, but not eliminating either of them.

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Basically there are no restrictions on abortion whatsoever in Atlasia, on the federal level.


I tend to agree that by that point, all involved should have figured that stuff about by then. Even so, determining the child was conceived by incestuous means may take some time to determine, and I think it's probably better to keep the exceptions in place (not only to assist in it's passage..) just to cover our bases. I doubt the rape-exception would actually be used unless it was legitimate by the point of the third trimester.

Well, the day "just about every objectionable thing" can be "every objectionable thing" is the day I will be satisfied.

This "distinction of life" mambo-jumbo is also concerning. Does my right to life expire if my mother is raped? Or, are we actually making the clear distinction between a born-being and a fetus that does not have rights?

I'm not going to try to convince anyone on the abortion issue since I'm sure we all have our minds made up on this, but I will only consider supporting this bill if the penalty is a monetary fee instead.

An amendment:

I strongly support Ben's amendment and if it is made plan to vote in favor of the bill.

I accept the amendment as friendly.

Sponsor Feedback: Friendly
Status: Senators have 24 hours to object.

May I remind the Senate that according to the available data only 1.4% of terminations take place after 21 weeks (the beginning of the 'grey area' with regard to viability) and that the estimated number of terminations taking place after 24 weeks is 0.08%. The number of terminations taking place after 28 weeks (bearing in mind the exponential decline in abortions after the first trimster) is likely to be about 0.03-0.04% equating to less than several hundred in any one year. There is very little evidence that terminations of pregancies taking place after 28 weeks are taken for reasons other than for the exempted reasons outlined in the bill above (deformity, threats to health)

In effect the bill will effectively 'save' either no pregnancies to a handful. The impact is minimal.

Then I fail to see why some leftists in Atlasia are getting their knickers in a bunch.

Because we care about women even if they are stuck in a very rare and difficult situation?

At the expense of a viable child's life because "location of the organism" trumps the qualities of the organism itself.

My point is as the procedure is so rare that with a restriction in the law and the possibility of a penalty it makes the 'call' on whether to perform third trimester abortions a more difficult one for a doctor and a women to make. How do you judge 'threat to life'? The change in the law doesn't bother me too much, I just think it is unnecessary given how few are performed.

The amendment has passed.


If you think that even those few cases of late abortion involve the destruction of human life, then is it really that hard for a bunch of lazy politicians to define what constitutes a "threat to life" considering what is at stake?

Oh come on, I figured someone would consider what I said atleast somewhat outrageous. Where is the life here, people? BEEF IT UP!!!

Going off of what afleitch said, there's something I should mention: this legislation does not come with a price tag.  I'm not sure, exactly, how it would be determined if the late-term abortions are for saving the life of the mother, but I can imagine the inclusion of all the new red tape would be somewhat costly.  But to be honest, I don't know of any statute which dictates that bills like these need to have price tags.  Still, that is one of the reasons I am very unlikely to support this measure.

Considering that no one here is a medical professional,  its best we don't.

Yea, someone might have a heart attack from the intensity of the debate. :P

I apologize for my recent lack of activity. Among a multitude other things, planning my own legislation has kept me more than a tad busy.

To cut straight to the chase, I will not be supporting this measure in spite of my skepticism of late-term abortion, for an array of reasons. Mostly, I feel the bill in its current form is vague in defining just what constitutes a justifiable abortion past the second trimester, and as well am wholly opposed to the idea the bill's sponsors seem to be pushing here - that if it rarely ever happens, we may as well ban it. In addition, Scott makes a very valid point regarding the potential price tag.

What bizarre objections. Restricting things might cost time and money! Don't do it! There's really nothing vague about it, but what can I even say in response to that? If you oppose any restriction on abortion whatsoever, simply say you oppose any restriction on abortion whatever. Don't dress it up to make it seem like you have some wise, statesmanlike objection. At least Napoleon is being intellectually honest even though I think completely sidestepping the issue of when a meaningful life exists in the womb is a completely crazy and lazy cop-out.

It's weird to me that this is probably going to end up failing, because there's very few actual arguments against it and most of the population would have very little objection to restricting abortions at such a late stage. It's also weird to me that the fight we're having over this bill is on a completely different logic-plane than I expected to be fighting; not about the determination of life, but about vague, trivial "principled" objections covered up with flimsy concerns over cost.

Don't mind my rambling, I guess. I'm just baffled.

I am simply bringing up the cost because I don't see myself convincing anyone to change their opinion on the morality of the issue.  Obviously, the government would need a way to determine when a late-term abortion is 'medically necessary,' and since it is so unlikely that a woman is going to seek a late-term abortion for reasons other than her health, we could potentially be spending millions of dollars on something (such as an agency, let's say) that's only going to stop a few hundred abortions, and not have any record of precisely how much we're spending on it. The specifics of this ban need to be examined very carefully, and I think the senators themselves should determine whether or not it's worth it.

I am not surprised at all. And you shouldn't be either, since it is the direct result of rhetorical arguments made by people (including people such as yourself) in the context of RL politics. Once again RL politics is crossing over into the game to screw us.

Life, especially in contexts like this, use to be one of the safer social issues to make a conservative stand on. Now you likely won't get a principled debate over the underlying matter and it will instead be centered around the apparel and the drapes.

Okay and you are not only a Senator, but a prolific amender bills. You want a definition of medically necessary? Write up a text you find appropriate to do that and then we can negotiate the subject.

Why not ask the GM to do a cost analysis of the bill if we are so concerned with it? In a perfect world, the Judiciary would have got to chomp on it a while, but sadly the Committees have been delayed far more then we anticipated.

Instead of wailing about the problems, why don't we try and fix them?

So, the idea is to make this bill even more restrictive? Um, that does seem like what is going here so correct me if I am wrong.

I am not a supporter of the legislation nor am I a medical expert, so I don't feel it's exactly in my place to define what is "medically necessary" in the context of the bill.  I also have no objection to the GM analyzing the cost if the sponsor doesn't want to instead, but it is still important to raise these concerns.


That certainly wasn't my intention.  I'm simply pointing out the bill's flaws and why you can't prohibit something without bearing any type of cost.

I was referring to Ben's proposal.

It's a compromise, Mr. President. The penalties for performing an abortion have been reduced. On the other hand, a few of us believe that this bill gives women more than enough time to choose to get an abortion in the case of rape, incest, or anything else before the ban kicks in. As such, it is not unreasonable to afford more protection to the unborn at this stage in a pregnancy.

Okay, but I can't sign a bill that offers no protection to the health and well being of the mother, so that is where we should be looking to compromise. However, I also have to struggle with the idea of telling rape victims "sorry, you're too late". I know that the culture around here hasn't allowed for much female interaction, but women are real people and rape is a strongly emotional violation that many women have difficulty even talking about to get to the point of prosecution. A little bit of compassion is required- yeah, you will never be in this situation but ifyou can't even try to put yourself in someone else's shoes...compromise is not inherently good, you have to think about how people are actually affected. My job as President is to protect that.

Ben's amendment does offer protection to the health of the mother. We have not specified what that protection is because, as you said, we are not doctors. In a simulation such as Atlasia, we're just going to have to trust that the spirit of the bill is enough.

Also... It's all of our jobs to think about how people will be affected by the legislation we pass. I don't want to put extra stress on a woman either, but I believe we'd be giving her more than enough time to make a decision. Once an unborn human is viable outside the womb, I believe we need to be showing compassion to that child as well. At that stage, the consequences of not showing compassion for the child are, I believe, worse than the consequences for not showing compassion to the pregnant mother. We disagree here.

I suppose we'll just have to see what happens with the vote.

No, it doesn't.

Have I missed something...?


I read this amendment as "there will be no restrictions on getting an abortion if the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother."

There's a lot of health complications that aren't "life threatening" that a women need not endure, especially if that women was impregnated by rape.

I'm not entirely sure why removing the rape and incest exception made a couple Senators more likely to vote for it, but I wasn't going to complain.


I would do so but I'm not entirely sure how. I can't imagine the costs would leave the low single digit millions.


I'm angry that when I propose the few right-wing things I'm willing to fight for that they get nowhere. :P

I'll grant that rape presents a unique set of circumstances, but every pregnancy comes with health risks that aren't especially "life threatening." By that logic, any pregnancy could be terminated. And I do not perscribe to that school of thought. To me, there comes a point when the sanctity of life has to become more important.

I'm happy with this bill. As has been pointed out a very small minority of abortions occur after this stage. The exception for the life of the mother is also important. I don't really see how you can tighten up the language. You can't expect us to research every single medical complication that could occur, and it's not really necessary. Doctors write up their cases and it could be ascertained from that whether the abortion was medically necessary to save the woman's life. I guess you can mandate that there be a clinical write up of all abortions performed beyond the allowed time frame?

I would like to offer up an amendment getting rid of the criminal penalties for Doctors violating this law. Instead I will increase their ban on practicing medicine up to 5 years from 3 years.

Amendment:

I accept Sbane's amendment as friendly. I do not accept Scott's amendment as friendly.

Sponsor Feedback: Friendly
Status: Senators have 24 hours to object.

Sponsor Feedback: Hostile
Status: Waitin on a Sunny Day (the other amendment to finish :P)

I do not object to sbane's amendment.

You what, I like this "I don't object thing" some have seem to have started. It will keep people checking these threads more often. Keep doing it.


Sbane's has passed.


I will start the vote on Scott's later tonight.

Sponsor Feedback: Hostile
Status: The above amendment is now at vote, Senators please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

Nay

Nay

Absolutely not. For one, our funding for programs that are not regional-specific should not disporpotionately favour one region. Secondly, pregnancy itself threatens the "health of the mother." This amendment would have the effect of rendering the entire bill obsolite (except, interestingly, the extra spending for the Northeast). So nay, nay, nay, all the way, way way.

Half of his amendment could. I'd be open to discussing funding for safe-sex education in a new bill. Right now, the funding-related section of his amendment only favours one region. Why on Earth should a federal body pass something like that?

I am open to withdrawing the amendment and writing a new one that re-appropriates funds to all the regions, but with that said I'll admit I originally porked the bill for political reasons.

Nay.

Nay

Everyone's against pork when there aren't real resources at stake :P

Pork only works if you can 1) get away with or 2) Other Senators have the opportunity to do so and in fact take advantage of it. :P

Nay.

Nay. I wouldn't vote for the amendment even if it wasn't porked.

Nay, but I am very amused at the introduction of pork projects in the Atlasian Senate!

Vote on the Amendment 50:07 by Scott:

Aye (0):
Nay (7): Bacon King, Ben, HagridoftheDeep, NC Yankee, NVTownsend, and Redalgo
Abstain (1): Scott

Didn't Vote (1): sbane

The amendment has failed.

There is something wrong with that vote result above, if you see it don't spill it, I want the person it applies to to catch it. >:D It doesn't affect the results and the numbers are accurate.

()

*ahem* >:(

So you were paying attention, good. :P

Is there more amendments coming? I was under the impression, that was the case. If so, can we please expedite that.

Amendment:

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Sponsor Feedback: Unknown Quanity
Status: Press Enter to Void and Try Again

Amendment to be considered once Scott's is passed.


Sponsor Feedback: Unknown
Status: Invalid Entry

I accept Scott's as friendly, but I don't accept yours, Yankee. Sorry. :P

I'm not going to object to Scott's amendment right away, but if it does pass, I'll be presenting an amendment to allow regional opt-outs—without the provision that unclaimed monies will be split amongst participating regions.

I object to Scott's amendment. Why is the additional funding necessary as a part of this bill? (I'm prepared to vote for the amendment if this can be explained, BTW.)

What don't you like about Yankee's amendment, out of curiosity?  I think that will improve the way the cash is distributed.


I believe that increasing funding to education programs and expanding the availability of contraceptives will reduce the number of abortions more than the ban itself.

I object to the inclusion of the Department of Internal Affairs, given my opposition to the position of SoIA. I have no problem giving the same work to the GM instead.

Sponsor Feedback: Friendly
Status: Objection Entered by Senator Franzl. Senators please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain. 

Aye.

Such is illegal as those duties currently reside with the SoIA. Only after, or as part of your repeal bill passing can all these duties be transferred. Since that isn't even a forgone conclusion, such isn't satisfcatory.

I hope that should your bill fail, that your will stop these Grover Norquist style, obstructionist sabotaging of the position. :P You sure you aren't a Conservative Marokai? ;)

Edit: Just realized the second paragraph made no sense. :P

Aye,

but I would appreciate a possible funding source if that is possible.

I am not a conservative, I am not a conservative, I am not a conservative, I am not a conservative... :P

Aye.

I just realized something: if we abolish the SoIA position, how many bills that refer to the SoIA will we have to go back and fix? :P

A certain person doesn't seem to give a damn, he is too busy pretending to be Dick Mourdock.

We just added three more in thel ast month and a half. The Education bill, your bill thing from last month and Seatown's Co-Op bill. So quite a lot.

God knows what else.  There's another argument against abolishing the position..

Abstain

I think I may have brought it up in the Getting Real Dump about the cabinet thread, but I lose many posts in transmission, so I can never be sure what I posted or not, unless I check.

Abstain

Aye

Aye. This amendment on it's own will prevent more abortions than the current bill would.

We are one vote short by may count. WTF SENATORS?!!!! Are they doing after debate frat parties now? BYOB all way? :P What about yesterday then? 

I change my vote to AYE just to get things moving.

Vote on amendment 51:12:

Aye (6): Ben, Franzl, Marokai Blue, NC Yankee, sbane, and Scott
Nay (0):
Abstain (1): Hagrid

Didn't Vote (3): Bacon King, NVTownsend, and Redalgo

The Amendment has passed.

Amendment to be considered once Scott's is passed.


Sponsor Feedback: Declared Hostile by Senator Bunning
Status: Waiting just long enough for it to click that the previous amendment vote is over. :P

Sponsor Feedback: Declared Hostile by Senator Bunning
Status: Senators, the above amendment is now at vote, please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

Nay

Nay

Nay. Also, with the passage of the last amendment I no longer support this bill.

If the funds were completely opt-outable, would you change your mind?

It is possible yet unlikely. I got to thinking a bit after a brief exchange with Sam awhile back and decided the federal government of Atlasia makes a habit of tackling some issues better left to the individual regions. That's not to imply I am about to go libertarian on ya'll, but I am going to start dragging my heels when I think this highest tier of government is not doing something imperative to fulfilling its core function of upholding the social rights of the people.

In this case, regulating late-term abortions is consistent with that mission of state. The funding in question, in contrast, has a more diffuse yet nonetheless significant cultural impact. Each region ought to generate strategies of their own, with those policies representing both the values and social mores of their respective peoples better than would a one-size-fits-all approach - in effect addressing the issue in a more decentralized, culturally sensitive manner.

Even if a region could opt out, its taxpayers would still have to fund this in the other regions.

Nay.

Aye


If you have any ideas on how to approach that I would be happy to work with you. I just don't like seeing dollar amounts added to bills, with no implementation procedures, standards for receiving funds etc. We can't leave Scott's text in there as is, without adding some kind of procedures to implement it. I don't wnat to see this bill fail, either.

That's the position I'm in, too.

If the amendment passes, I'll be amending the amendment to take out the provision stating that unclaimed funds will be split amongst the other regions.

(Are you allowed to amend an amendment?)

Nay.

As for Redalgo, I find it bizarre what people are changing their positions on in regards to this bill. Making the abortion exceptions more strict, gets your support. Adding funds for sex ed, that is outrageous and you can't support it. Huh?

What a weird reaction this bill has gotten. We get people arguing against any abortion restrictions whatsoever, regardless of the question of life; we get otherwise pro-choice people supporting strict abortion statute, but not sex ed money. You're all weird. >:(

With all due respect to the good Senator Marokai...

This is a low-priority issue to me, and as is such I can afford to be staunchly idealistic and refuse to compromise without any feelings of regret if the bill fails. Adding funds for sex education and the provision of contraception is not outrageous to me (to the contrary, I think it is a wonderful idea), yet having the federal government handle that matter conflicts with my overarching convictions about which responsibilities of state ought to be vested in which tiers of a federalist government.

In regards to the exemptions for rape and incest, my attitude is the original language needlessly complicated the bill, created some potential for abuse of the provisions (e.g. falsely claiming to be a rape victim to get a third-trimester abortion one otherwise would not be allowed to have), and I am not convinced a reasonable person who was a rape victim or committed incest would take more than the first six months of their pregnancy to decide whether they should terminate. From my perspective, in the third trimester it's fair for the fetus to attain a handful of rights - with some of those coming at the expense of the mothers' being reduced.

Also, I will not deny being weird. xD

And NC Yankee, I am afraid I do not have any ideas. Under a more ideal set of conditions I would have plenty of time to spend on deliberating this bill, but as things are I haven't. That is one of a handful of reasons why I am not seeking re-election to the Senate anytime in the short-term future. My apologies for needing to bow out, but I now have other matters demanding my attention. I may come back here to discuss the bill before the final vote, but it is rather unlikely.

2-5, which means we are stuck here till the 10th.

Come on people, this hasn't had a new vote on it since the 6th. Seven people voted in one day's time and the last three somehow manage to not in five.

Instead of doing nothing here, we should start planning are next move? What can we get six votes on here. So far we have been running circles around this bill on important but ancillary issues. Is their even six votes to ban late term abortion, with or without any other additions?

No Mr. Bond, I expect you talk!


No, I won't stop! You can't shut me up, you can't turn me off.


A subverted Bond villain quote and a George Carlin reference played straight.

I'd like to know the same, because I'm just as confused on what approach to take here. Some people are opposing it outright, others are trying to find smaller things to use as CYA material for voting to oppose it; people who would support it have weird ancillary conditions for doing so, but then that specific window dressing grossly offends someone else. Every direction the bill seems to try and go in always steps on someone else's toes.

Restricting very late-term abortions isn't an unpopular proposal, why is this so difficult?

Maybe your side's "War on Women" crap has crossed into the game and made impossible for liberals to vote for any restrictions on abortion and remain in the clique. :P

We know who started the War on Women here and it wasn't the left...

There was a War on Women here? I never noticed. I didn't realized we had women to wage war on. :P Which gets back to my point. This game is small and if you suppress the opposition so much they give up, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Discussing the University bill earlier reminded me of something. There was a clause in that that stated "regions refusing to offer a location, wil lhave the money offered to other regions", or something like that. That bill had seven ayes, I wonder if any of them are amongst those making an issue of this "snooze you lose" clause on this amendment? :P 

The regions better get to work on that. :D

Vote on Amendment 51:12:

Aye (2): NC Yankee and Scott
Nay (5): Franzl, Hagrid, Marokai Blue, NVTowsend and Redalgo
Abstain (0):

Didn't Vote (3): Bacon King, Ben, and sbane

With time having expired, the amendment is defeated.

Sponsor Feedback: Unknown
Status: Invalid Entry

Ah, there is no vote here. :P

I'm gettin' ahead of myself. :P

Ah Hello, Marokai, people who voted nay on the previous amendment, give me some answers here.

I'll deal with it, despite my objections to the existence of the DoIA. I'm not sure of the controversy outside of that, though? I'm friendly to it.

Sponsor Feedback: Friendly
Status: Senators have 24 hours to object.

The amendment has passed.


Where are people ate here? (Nothing here is misspelled, just a coded warning of what might consider doing if too many people are still being impossible on this. :P) Do we have six votes currently, or no? >:D

Half the Senate feels like it's disappeared lately. :P

I'm happy with the bill in its current form.

Time to vote?

Yeah, I suppose I'm comfortable with going to a vote now.

What's a severe birth defect?

Yeah, I just caught that now because I was so pre-occupied with some other elements of the bill. I'm not too sure about that language...

I'm open to changing it, but the question I had while writing this was "What else is workable?" Just saying "birth defect" is quite broad, and not including an exception at all seems heartless. I'm not sure what the alternative is without resulting in a huge section-all-to-it's-own digression on what constitutes a severe defect.

What were you counting as a birth defect?

I don't think the law should discriminate between, say, Down's babies and "normal" babies... but if a child is likely to live in immense pain, have a severely limited functioning capacity, or be at significant risk of an early death, I could see why we might provide options.

What you described there was basically what I had in mind, I just didn't know what else to write to provide that exception.

How does this look, then? Senators? Mr. President?

Very good and well worded definition.

Much better worded than I could've come up with. I accept as friendly.

Those words look quite familiar. ;)

I support the amendment.

If we had more time, I would have given you a short time to write the text on your own, but we have been held up by this and other issues for over a month on this bill. :P

Sponsor Feedback: Friendly
Status: Senators have 24 hours to object.

The amendment has passed.


Is that it?

People? I am not going to let this fail because no one spoke up when I asked. >:(

I will vote in favor.

I'm ready for a final vote.

I ask Unanimous Consent to waive the cloture requirement and proceed imediately to a final vote. Senators have 24 hours to object.

Seeing no objection, the bill is now at final vote. Senators, please vote Aye, Nay or abstain.

Aye

Aye, though I still object to the section three rider.

Aye.

Aye

Aye

This seems to have enough votes to pass. I'm declaring a twenty-four-hour vote change period.

I guess the 24 hours has elapsed. :P

Aye (?)

Vote on Final Passage of the Late-Term Abortion Restriction Act:

Aye (6): Ben, Franzl, HagridoftheDeep, Marokai Blue, NC Yankee, and Redalgo
Nay (1): Averroës Nix
Abstain (0):

Didn't Vote (1): Sbane/Oakvale
Didn't Change Vote of predecessor (1): JulioMadrid

Vacant (2): Bacon King and NVTownsend - Simfan was four days after vote ended.

The bill has passed and has been presented to the President for executive action.

Yay!!

I have vetoed this bill and put forth my own version.

Late-Term Abortion Restriction Act

Section 1: Restriction and Exception.

1. Abortion in the third trimester of a pregnancy, hereby defined as the 28th estimated week of gestation, shall not be performed in the Republic of Atlasia.

2. Restrictions on abortion shall not apply in the following circumstances:
a. The pregnancy threatening the life or health of the mother.
b. The pregnancy showing signs of severe birth defect.
              1. For the purposes of this text, a severe birth defect is defined as being an abnormality, which produces a likely chance that the child will be afflicted with immense pain, have a severely limited functioning capacity, or be at significant risk of an early death.


Section 2: Criminal Penalty.

1. Any individual who performs an abortion in the third trimester outside of the previously mentioned exceptions receives a one year ban from work as a medical professional.

Section 3: Funding for Safe-Sex Education and Contraceptive Services

1. $10,000,000 shall be appropriated to each region for the purpose of expanding safe-sex education programs and access to contraceptive services.
2. The Department of Internal Affairs shall be charged with designing a criteria of what consitutes a qualifying sex education program in each region.
3. The Department of Internal Affairs will be in charge of distributing all the said monies to each region.
4. Any region that fails to construct a qualifying program or expansion of services, will have their money witheld until the standards are met.

I would like to ask each Senator to give his opinion on whether or not this bill has attained the status of law. I am asking with reference to the dispute going on in the Administration thread over the seven-day time limit for the veto power.

If we do not UNANIMOUSLY believe that this bill is law I would like to move if we can to an immediate vote on the President's proposed version. I believe we need Marokai's consent to do so. I crave his indulgence for such consent.

What is the relevance of the Senators agreeing unanimously to whether or not this bill is law, as to the consideration to proceed? One Senator doesn't cede his rights just because the other nine do. Any of them could sue, regardless of the actions of the other nine.

Also, in the situation where this isn't law, Marokai would also have 72 hours to state his desire for an override of the veto.

Scratch that last bit, I didn't notice the redraft:


The vote on the redraft occurs first. If it fails and the original gets sent back to the President and he vetoes it again, then an override process can kick in, not before.

Marokai can also withdraw the bill at this present juncture if he doesn't want to vote on the redraft.

I was hoping for a gentlemen's agreement. Oh well.

Thank you for the clarification as to procedure.

I know, and thus perhaps with what I said in consideration, you might want to have reversed your unanimity request. Otherwise, any lone wolf Senator can scuttle your "gentleman's agreement", which was my point. :P

Either way, the original version of the bill is now law. The president did not veto it within seven days. There is only one definition of the word "within" and there is only one definition of the word "day." What transpired in the Administration thread does not meet the required criteria for a legitimate veto.

As for these procedural matters you're pointing to, Yankee, wouldn't it appear that the presidential veto was supposed to occur after the redraft had been presented? Since Napoleon's pseudo-veto happened beforehand, what becomes of his proposed redraft? I'd think it would have to be filed as a new bill.

Either way, it's a good thing the veto doesn't count.

Still... if the president was so interested in making the minor change he proposed, it kind of baffles me that he wouldn't have just worked with the senate on this specific issue in the first place. While I'm personally against the idea of lessened penalties, I'll bet most senators would've supported his version of the bill. Unfortunately, the way it's been done sort of seems like he's trying to cram it down our throats, especially because the veto came first. "Pass my version or else."

Um, that's news to me.


I suggest reading this thread, when your mind is in its proper state.

Well at this point it's becoming moot because nobody's budging, and if we're really adamant about this we could either go to the Supreme Court or do a veto override.

We had already lowered the penalties. When I mentioned that it was part of a compromise, you accepted that premise and made an argument about something else. You did not propose a one year ban on practicing medicine anywhere in this thread before your attempted veto. Candy Crowley will tell me if I'm wrong.

No of course not. The Constitution allows him to veto a law and then return it with a redraft, which the sponsor can then either request a vote on or withdraw the whole bill. If the vote fails, the sponsor can request it be sent back up to the WH as is and likely receive a second veto. At that point the override process kicks in, with the 72 hours commencing as off the second veto for the sponsor to request an override vote on the text.

I desperately don't want this to be a nasty fight, but I kind of consider this law at this point..

If you want to not have the big fight, I'll just take the amended version for the sake of us all moving on with our business here. It's up to you guys to decide which you want to accept. If Yankee thinks it's law, he's the determiner of our business; if he doesn't, then consider it reluctantly accepted.

I like the amended version, actually.

I would generally be willing to work with this compromise, but I also share the opinion that the originally passed version is, in fact, law.

My preference would be to side with the interest of Senate functionality and let this slide, and that was the stance taken before. However, the fact that this keeps popping up and has come up three times in about two years, makes me wonder if we should take the opportunity to get a Supreme Court rulling on the legal definition of a day and how it would be interpreted in this instance.

So then will the compromise version include a clause repealing this law?

No, because the President and Senate are still at odds over whether or not this is, in fact, law. The compromise version can only be considered valid if we believe that the President got it here in time. Otherwise, there is no compromise, only the original law.