The ACLU is our nation’s guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.
These rights include:
[….]
Your right to privacy – freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into your personal and private affairs….
….This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent. Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it. In other cases, as in this one, the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may be involved. All these are factors the woman and her responsible physician necessarily will consider in consultation….
[emphasis added]
Last Thursday morning there was a meeting in Warrensburg with Senator David Pearce (r), requested by some constituents, on the subject of HB 1307 and the upcoming override vote concerning the Governor’s veto of the imposition of seventy-two hour waiting period for an abortion. An individual in attendance provided us with audio from that meeting.
Senator David Pearce (r) [file photo].
About thirty-two minutes into the meeting there was this remarkable set of statements:
Senator David Pearce (r): ….Some of you have probably seen, um, the Internet, uh, campaign against me. Uh, maybe you’ve gotten the robocalls. And let me tell you who’s behind that. ACLU. And, uh, it’s not, there’s nothing that talks about pro life or abortion in that. It just says, uh, David Pearce should not, uh, be involved in your personal decisions. You want to talk to him? And then they, they automatically filter those phone calls to my office. Nothing [emphatic] about a seventy-two hour waiting period, nothing about babies being aborted. Nothing like that, so it’s a terribly misleading, um, uh [interrupted by a constituent question]….
Oh, the horror of having to explain yourself to constituents.
Apparently, just mentioning the ACLU is supposed to strike terror in the hearts of your constituents. Think about that for a moment – a politician in a room with a group of constituents that probably includes a significant number of ACLU members and sympathizers relates an anecdote that’s supposed to elicit, what, a negative opinion about the ACLU?
Really? As if anyone engaged in politics is required to use the language and memes of their opponents when they’re engaged in the rough and tumble struggle over issues?
The outrage could maybe be funny under other circumstances. In this case it’s just narcissism.
Uh, the ACLU is concerned about personal privacy. The issue of privacy and abortion was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court over forty years ago. Stare decisis.
Call yourself what you want, obscure and manipulate language, it still doesn’t change the reality of what you are.
Senator David Pearce (r) [file photo].
On the morning of Thursday, August 28th there was a meeting in Warrensburg with Senator David Pearce (r), requested by some constituents, on the subject of HB 1307 and the upcoming override vote concerning the Governor’s veto of the imposition of seventy-two hour waiting period for an abortion. An individual in attendance provided us with audio from that meeting:
Constituent: …Thank you Senator [David] Pearce [r] for joining us here today. We really appreciate it. We know you have a lot of things on your schedule. Uh, what we wanted to talk to you about is the House Bill 1307, increasing the wait time between counseling and an abortion from twenty-four to seventy-two hours…
[approximately twenty minutes later]
Male constituent: …I have three daughters….I know in the debate, uh, and I, I heard on the news, uh, one of the rep[resentative]s said, was asked, what the appropriate waiting period would be…and he said, nine months. How absurd. And, and, I, I cannot believe that…
[….]
Another male constituent: …I’ve been a Republican since voting for Nixon, Richard not Jay, so I, you know I’ve supported you. I’ve been proud to do it. I’ve thought you’ve always shared my values in amongst political things and, uh, I, I’ve painted a little broader stroke of this, boxed all my speech, kind of took some lines I was gonna use. But, the Republican Party has, over the years, I went back and the Reagan, Reagan years and all of those great years. I thought they really represented what I stood for. Leave people alone, let ’em live their lives, lets them do what they want to do. Okay, that’s always been the Republican way. And it seems like they’re drifting away from that, both federal and state level. Right now at the state level is a great concern and this issue of, of womens’ rights, it concerns me. I don’t like abortion. I think it’s personally disgusting. The next time I get pregnant I probably won’t have one. However, however, I really, really believe it’s that woman’s right to choose, nobody else’s. I don’t want you, or the Republicans, Democrats, Jews, I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do with my body. It isn’t right. It isn’t, it isn’t the way in America. I don’t think it is. And I support the veto in this matter, I really do…
Another constituent: …Can we count on you to vote to sustain the veto of House Bill 1307?
Senator David Pearce (r): Let me, uh, give some comments first. Um, this is a tough issue. I mean, uh, it is very emotional. It’s, uh, in many cases not a black and white issue and, and all of us have, uh, uh, strong feelings. It’s one of those core values, you know, that, that fundamentally you feel a certain way. And, um, those are things that, that, that don’t change. Uh, I’ve been a pro life candidate since the first time I ran in eighty-six and got defeated and, uh, when I ran in two thousand two, two thousand four, two thousand six, two thousand eight, and two thousand twelve. Um, very strong pro life candidate. Um, I’d just kind of like to talk about a few things I’ve heard and, and, and I appreciate and respect every one of you here, uh, for, for your thoughts. And I think it’s good we can get together and talk. Uh, although in the Senate it was a partisan issue. It was straight down party lines. Twenty-two to nine. In the House it wasn’t. So I don’t think that it’s something you can say it’s a Republican versus Democrat issue. Uh, there were probably at least twenty, uh, pro life Democrats that came to vote for the bill in the House. And so I think that, that would be, uh, somewhat, uh, misleading. Um, I sat right behind the bill sponsor, David Sater [r]. Uh, he handled the House bill and he was the Senate bill sponsor. And it was a protracted discussion we had on this bill. And, uh, David said that, and, and the reason I bring this up is that you had mentioned to my secretary that, that maybe next year there might be a compromise or maybe there would be a way to, to alter the bill. Um, at two particular times David went to the Democratic leadership in the Senate and offered to go down to thirty-six hours. That was rejected. Uh, went back and said, can we go forty-eight hours, that was rejected. And the reason why the Democrat [sic] leadership said they rejected those bills was, no, we want it seventy-two hours because that will be easier to prove the unconstitutionality of the bill. And so when this was happening there was a chance, there was a dialog, a chance for debate, a chance for compromise and it was flatly rejected. So I think you need to be aware of that. Um, also, uh, just on the political side, just so you’ll get a little bit of background information on this, two very, very controversial bills, this and right to work. And, and basically the Democratic Party, uh, said, we’ll sit down on the seventy-two hours if you won’t bring up right to work. So, um, this was used as somewhat political leverage on this issue. And so to say it’s a Republican versus Democrat there, there’s a whole lot more to the issue than that. Um, the one thing that, that I feel is lost in this whole discussion is the baby. You know, we talk about inconvenience, we talk about over population, we talk about poor versus wealthy. What about the baby? I don’t believe it’s a tissue, I don’t believe it’s a fetus, I believe it’s a baby. And when you take a life, you take a life. Uh, and so that’s my fundamental belief on that. I am not god, and when we’re talking about how many people should populate this Earth, that’s not our decision. Uh, and so I fundamentally think that somebody needs to stand up for that baby. Because he or she can’t make that decision. Somebody else is making it for them, somebody else is saying, you’re not gonna live. And so that’s why it’s such a huge fundamental core value decision for me and, and for others. And so, to me, I think, I think it’s a good thing when we’re having less abortions in our state. And we have. We’re down to, I believe, less than seven thousand in our state, I think it’s down to sixty-five hundred now. Um, we just have one abortion clinic in the state. I think that’s a good thing. Uh, if we were down to zero abortions I think that would be a positive thing. Uh, and so for those reasons, uh, I will vote to, to, uh, override the veto….
….I do believe in the case of rape or incest that, that abortion should be allowed. Uh, not all folks in the pro life community feel that way, but I do….
[….]
Still another constituent: Would you just address why seventy-two [hours] opposed to twenty-four [hours]? What is the purpose of that?
Senator David Pearce (r): Well, uh, both, uh, South Dakota and Utah have adopted that. Uh, so we would not be the first state, we’d be the third. I think these are important life and death decisions and so the longer [crosstalk] that a, that a person has to reflect that.
Still another constituent: Do you think women make it frivolously?
Senator David Pearce (r): What’s that?
Still another constituent: Do you think women make that decision frivolously? Because I don’t think they do. I think they go through a lot of torment before that twenty-four hour counseling. I’m sorry, just my personal experience with people I know….
Still another male constituent: And now you’re making it for them….
[….]
Still another constituent: You didn’t answer why the seventy-two was better than the twenty-four.
Still another male constituent: Yeah, you didn’t answer that.
Still another constituent: And then it’ll be a week and then it’ll be a month. I mean, what is the point of this?
Senator David Pearce (r): I, I fundamentally think these are life and death decisions. And the more that, that people can reflect and, and ponder on this I think it’s, it’s better. Uh, if it will decrease the number of abortions, uh, I think that’s probably a good thing. Uh, I just think it’s fundamentally something we’re gonna disagree on.
Still another male constituent: So, expand it to nine months.
[….]
“…So, expand it to nine months…”
That’s the goal.
Uh, if no republican voted against the bill and a small number of Democrats joined in to support it, it’s still a partisan issue. You know, there used to be pro choice republicans in the Missouri General Assembly. They were purged.
Uh, offering a “compromise” of thirty-six hours rather than seventy-two hours when you have a twenty-two to nine advantage to begin with is no compromise. Further that says a lot about the “core value” of those remaining “compromise” hours. One hour, nine months, it makes no difference, does it?
“…went to the Democratic leadership in the Senate and offered to go down to thirty-six hours. That was rejected. Uh, went back and said, can we go forty-eight hours, that was rejected. …”
Think about that for a second. The republican majority offered a “compromise” which was rejected, and then subsequently they offered a worse “compromise”. Accepting the second “compromise” would be gross malfeasance on the part of the Democrats in the Senate. The republicans expected acceptance on the second offer? Idiots.
Interestingly, Senator Pearce’s (r) interpretation of republican dogma on the imposition of seventy-two hour waiting period appears to be that the opposition was too clever by half in allowing the overwhelming republican majority to impose the full seventy-two hour period. Idiot.
“…And when you take a life, you take a life…”
“…I am not god, and when we’re talking about how many people should populate this Earth, that’s not our decision. Uh, and so I fundamentally think that somebody needs to stand up for that baby…”
If you’re for the death penalty and against Medicaid expansion in the State of Missouri (that intransigence on the part of the right wingnut controlled General Assembly is costing lives) and you’re against abortion you aren’t “pro life”. You’re against women controlling their own bodies. Period. If you’re a republican office holder in Missouri and you’re against the death penalty, you know that Medicaid expansion is the right thing to do, and you haven’t done anything about it then you’re nothing but a coward. Period.
“….I do believe in the case of rape or incest that, that abortion should be allowed. Uh, not all folks in the pro life community feel that way, but I do….”
That’s okay. Since they don’t appear too interested in promoting accessible health care for all and ending the death penalty it’ll fit nicely under their label.
Why seventy-two hours? Interestingly, we didn’t hear a rational explanation on that.
Senator David Pearce (r) is supposedly what passes for a “moderate” in the modern republican party. We haven’t seen any daylight between him and his party. He’s no “moderate”. In reality all he is for the republican majority and republican dogma in the Missouri General Assembly is a useful idiot.
