More on the War Powers Act

Back in March 2011, I commented on the previous statements of (now President) Obama, (now Secretary of State) Clinton and (now Vice President) Biden when they were US Senators regarding the War Powers Act.

In April 2011 there was a lengthy article in the Harvard National Security Review by Michael J. Glennon. Unlike myself, Mr. Glennon believes the War Powers Act is constitutional (he cites an opinion by the Office of Legal Council in the last days of the Carter Administration among his arguments on that point.

Mr. Glennon is mightily ticked by what he feels are 'empty words' by these former Senators, now members of the executive branch. He adds to this 'they said that back then, they say this now' group former Professor Harold Koh. Mr. Koh is now in the executive branch, a legal adviser to the US State Department.

Mr. Glennon never uses the word 'hypocrisy', for which I give him an 'attaboy'. This is because he looks at the arguments used to distinguish the situation in Libya from earlier cases and proclaims these arguments 'faulty', 'dubious', etc. rather than hypocritical.

Glennon's paper is here.

Requiring Sonograms vs Preventing Unnecessary Medical Procedures

The Florida legislature (the GOP has a majority in both houses) has apparently passed a bill that, with some exceptions would require a woman who intends to have an abortion to first have a sonogram. The Governor (a Republican) apparently intends to sign it. My brother points out that this is a medically unnecessary measure (for the woman intending the abortion). He also points out that, at least at the national level, the GOP wishes (or at least some do) to require national restrictions on medical malpractice lawsuits because that threat of the lawsuits incentivise unncecessary medical tests.

Is this hypocrisy?

Well, one of my requirements for hypocrisy could be called the same person requirement. That is, if Smith says 'x' and Jones then does 'not x', it can't be called hypocrisy. As an example, if the Florida legislature does something that a national legislature says not to do, it isn't hypocrisy by my definition.

The other problem here is that the Florida legislature could argue that the sonogram, while not medically necessary for the pregnant woman, is medically necessary for some babbies, that is, those babbies who would be born if the woman sees the sonogram but not otherwise. This is, I think, based on the emotional power of the sonogram to show the human features of a fetus and the theory that the law should, in some degree, protect the rights of the fetus. The legal theory is one that is an iffy matter of opinion but with respect to the emotional power of the sonogram, it seems the evidence is pretty strong. In fact, I didn't use a sonogram as the image for this post as it seemed to me a bit too emotionally strong.

Article of legislative initiative here.

Governor's intent to sign sonogram law here.

Pro-life organization website here. Abortion images are high on their content list but sonogram images are also on the list.