{"id":604,"date":"2004-02-11T13:58:17","date_gmt":"2004-02-11T21:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/02\/11\/ashcroft-goes-after-medical-records-of-women-who-have-had-abortions\/"},"modified":"2004-02-11T13:58:17","modified_gmt":"2004-02-11T21:58:17","slug":"ashcroft-goes-after-medical-records-of-women-who-have-had-abortions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=604","title":{"rendered":"Ashcroft goes after medical records of women who have had abortions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lis at Riba Rambles <\/a>has highlighted an interesting news story. The case is National Abortion Federation vs. John Ashcroft<\/i>, in which the NAF is trying to get the so-called “partial birth” abortion ban overturned. One of the parties suing is a doctor who performs late-term abortions.<\/p>\n

Ashcroft’s lawyers tried to subpheona the medical records of the doctor’s patients from the hospital. Although they agreed to let the hospital strike off the patients’ names, they reserved the right to try and get further identifying information from the hospital later.<\/p>\n

Happily, the court slapped the attempt down – Lis has quotes from the ruling<\/a>. Still, it’s scarey stuff, and yet another example of how little Ashcroft seems to understand the notion of “privacy.” Especially, of course, as applied to pregnant women.<\/p>\n

Update<\/b> Will Baude responds<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Why is it that people feel compelled to accuse Ashcroft of not understanding “privacy” rather than, say, understanding perfectly well, but disagreeing about what should be private?<\/div>\n

I think Will overestimates how literal my readers are. I trust that “Alas, a Blog” readers, being smartish sorts, realize that a smart, accomplished politician like Ashcroft comprehends arguments that he disagrees with. They would therefore not take my words literally.<\/p>\n

What if I had said something along the lines of Will\u2019s suggestion? “Ashcroft understands privacy perfectly well, of course, while disagreeing with me on what is private.” That version would better suit literal-minded readers, but would have failed to effectively communicate my disdain for Ashcroft and the (in my opinion) anti-women views he represents.<\/p>\n

My original version isn’t as literal, but better communicates my attitude.<\/p>\n

Of course, if I were engaged in direct debate with Mr. Ashcroft, that would be a reason to choose the more polite version. But I think expressing disdain (and in this case, heartfelt disdain) for the views of public figures is perfectly reasonable rhetoric.<\/p>\n

SECOND UPDATE<\/b>: This <\/a>cracked me up. My, this post has generated some odd criticisms. Anyhow, point well taken; I’ve made a correction..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lis at Riba Rambles has highlighted an interesting news story. The case is National Abortion Federation vs. John Ashcroft, in which the NAF is trying to get the so-called “partial birth” abortion ban overturned. One of the parties suing is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-partial-birth-abortion","category-abortion-reproductive-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}