California Liberals Chip Away At Roe v. Wade

California assemblyman Ted Lieu has sponsored legislation (California Assembly Bill 2360) that would ban the private sale and use of ultrasound machines, the kind that take sonogram images of unborn babies. Apparently satisfied that California has solved its more important problems, Lieu felt compelled to act before some other private citizen gets ideas from Tom Cruise and takes pictures of her unborn babies with a machine.

What rationale does the assemblyman use to justify banning prospective parents from taking sound pictures of their fetuses? It appears to be a combination of class envy and unfounded paranoia. "This is not a toy for the rich and famous," says Lieu, who also cites reports (though I've heard of no actual studies) by doctors expressing concern that the sonograms might harm the unborn babies. "What we don't want is someone who unintentionally damages the fetus," he added. The bill has already passed the heavily democratic assembly and is now on its way to the state senate. So, let me get this straight:

1. It is about to become unlawful for a pregnant woman wants to take a photo of her baby by purchasing and using a soundwave machine to create images of the fetus inside her body. The woman has no right to exercise dominion over her own body if the purpose of her conduct is to take a picture. and...

2.  Though she cannot take a picture of the baby, it is a woman's constitutional right to abort the baby.

Try to reconcile these two concepts. This would make a great law school question. It would end with something like this: Debbie contends that, pursuant to the holding in Roe v. Wade, AB 2360 violates her constitutional right of privacy. Discuss.

I guess to understand Lieu and his bill, you should focus on his use of the word "unintentionally." If the expectant mother intentionally kills her baby, we want to allow that. If she wants to do something that might unintentionally kill her baby, the law must step in.

While this bill is idiotic, Lieu might not actually be an idiot. A graduate of The Leland Stanford Junior University, in law school, he held the coveted post of editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Law Review. Perhaps this just goes to illustrate the old adage that the A students become civil servants, while the B students end up working for the C students. Then again, in this case, perhaps not. Lieu lists his office address with the California State Bar as: "Ubs Wealth Management, 725 S. Figueroa Street, Floor 41sy, Los Angeles, CA 90017-5524"

Unfortunately, the Assembly is taking his bill more seriously than Lieu takes himself, according to this submission by Lieu to the Georgetown Class of 1994 Reunion:

After graduation, I clerked for Judge Thomas Tang on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and then served on active-duty as a military JAG. It’s just like the TV show. After defusing a nuclear threat, marrying my beautiful and brainy girlfriend, and saving the President of the United States (two of these three assertions are false), I decided I needed to try something that had no hope of winning, so I worked on the Bill Bradley for President Campaign.

When I realized that even Al Gore could win the popular vote, I decided that, golly gee, me too. So I ran for City Council in Torrance, CA (current pop. 150,000) and won the popular vote. At the same time, I worked at Munger, Tolles & Olson because winning the popular vote does not generate any income. Last year I moved to UBS Wealth Management (formerly PaineWebber), where I am a Corporate Vice President and Associate General Counsel. Currently, I am focused on the two joys of my life, my wife Betty (who is in-house counsel at Harriton Investments) and my baby boy Brennan. I like my baby because he sort of looks like me.

In recorded history, there is only one publicized example of a private citizen buying a sonogram machine to take prenatal photos. Ted Lieu is clearly the right man to make sure that we don't have a second. I can't wait to see how he boasts of this achievement for the next Georgetown reunion.

Comments

[terry]

hahahaha. even Al Gore the moron can get votes, so I, also the moron, can too. what a proud G Town alumnus

[Cranky Greg]

Lieu is a damn nutcase. What an idiot.

[So Called Dem]

There is nothing inconsistent about protecting the right to reproductive freedom and also protecting mothers to be from accidentally harming a baby that they choose to keep.