# Abortion after 24 weeks - good enough reason? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 5, 2003, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082 "2003-12-05T03:21:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/61 "2003-12-09T13:33:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stratocaster \* > **Hmm. So if all your _if’s_ were true except the second, it’s OK to kill a child who could otherwise live.** You mean a fetus? Better to kill it than to let it be born to a mother who doesn’t want it. > [@](#): > > **It’s an “I get to kill a kid who could otherwise live because I don’t want to have to deal with him” argument.** It’s more of a “Becoming a parent should be a choice” argument. > [@](#): > > **I’ll ask again, how’s that a different moral circumstance than an unwanted toddler, once the child is delivered?** A toddler can be put up for adoption. A fetus can’t. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/62 "2003-12-09T17:59:42Z")
Good enough reason for me to have an abortion if I were the mother: I honestly don’t know, I’ve never been in that position; nor, since I’m male, am I likely to be at any point in this lifetime. Good enough reason to butt out and refrain from interfering if a woman decides to get an abortion for the specified reason? “Because she wants to”. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/63 "2003-12-09T18:09:00Z")
If right-to-lifers wish to push for a bill that says the fetus or baby must be kept alive after removal from the uterus under circumstances where we have the technology to do that, I think that would be reasonable as long as increased risks to the mother’s health are not substantial. The important right possessed by the mother is the right to not be pregnant, not the right to prevent the fetus from remaining alive. Then you can make appropriate analogies to adoption. ---
**Author:** ![yguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/eb9ed0/32.png) [@yguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yguy)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/64 "2003-12-09T19:00:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr2001 \* > You mean a fetus? Better to kill it than to let it be born to a mother who doesn’t want it. How do you figure that? Were Andrea Yates’ children better off because she murdered them when she did than if she had waited 5 years to do it? > [@](#): > > It’s more of a “Becoming a parent should be a choice” argument. In at least 98% of the cases, that’s exactly what it is. What you’re advocating is tantamount to the right to renig on a contract in which at least one life is at stake. > [@](#): > > A toddler can be put up for adoption. A fetus can’t. That’s a practical consideration, not a moral one. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/65 "2003-12-09T20:31:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ruadh \* > \*\*I’m not dodging at all and I _do_ see it as a question about performing a particular invasive procedure. Just as I have a right to decide I want my left ear pierced and not my right ear pierced, I have a right to decide whether I want to have an abortion or give birth. \*\*But piercing your ears doesn’t necessarily lead to killing another living entity. Do you really hold that regardless of how trivial an effect something might have on you, so long as there is \*any \* effect you get to make a decision that _kills_ a child that could be delivered? If so, let me take you back to your initial answer. Suppose the child could be teleported from your womb (indulge me again, please), but he’s severely handicapped. So, it’s possible to no longer have this burden on your body, but you _do_ have a living infant that you have to deal with, whether that is to transfer custody somehow or whatever. Do you still get to say, no, I’d rather just kill him? I’m not trying to belabor this, really. I’m just trying to triangulate to what the moral lever seems to be for some pro-choice folks. I promise I won’t expand the hypothetical to include spaceships or violinists ;). (Where’s beagledave? I know how he loves hypotheticals.) > [@](#): > > \*\*Apparently, because I really don’t understand where you’re going with this and why. My point is that once a child is born, a woman who wishes to transfer custody of it can simply walk away from it. But she can’t simply walk away from a fetus she’s carrying. This is why there is a difference between aborting a fetus you don’t want and killing an infant you don’t want. In the latter case, you _do_ have a noninvasive choice. \*\* Frankly, I don’t see how you could answer the first question and not understand where this was going, but, OK, whatever. I can’t think of another way to phrase what seems to me a given in the hypothetical (Mr2001 seems to have responded similarly). Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/66 "2003-12-09T21:21:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stratocaster \* > \*\*\*\*But piercing your ears doesn’t necessarily lead to killing another living entity. Do you really hold that regardless of how trivial an effect something might have on you, so long as there is \*any \* effect you get to make a decision that _kills_ a child that could be delivered? Basically, yes. Of course childbirth wouldn’t be trivial, and I don’t consider abortion to be killing a _child_ anyway. > [@](#): > > Suppose the child could be teleported from your womb (indulge me again, please), but he’s severely handicapped. So, it’s possible to no longer have this burden on your body, but you _do_ have a living infant that you have to deal with, whether that is to transfer custody somehow or whatever. Do you still get to say, no, I’d rather just kill him? Assuming Junior really could be teleported? Where one minute I’m pregnant, one minute I’m not, without me actually having to do anything (or have anything done to me)? I don’t _think_ I would object to abortion being illegal under those circumstances. It’s hard to say for sure given the complete impossibility of it ever becoming reality, though. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/67 "2003-12-09T21:30:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ruadh \* > \*\*Basically, yes. Of course childbirth wouldn’t be trivial, and I don’t consider abortion to be killing a _child_ anyway. \*\*If another woman decided differently and the baby was delivered, would it somehow become a child? I understand (but don’t agree with) the argument about “my body, my choice, under any circumstances.” But how would this not be a child simply because he was not born, if he would be a moment later? And if the delivered baby is not a child, what is he? > [@](#): > > \*\*Assuming Junior really could be teleported? Where one minute I’m pregnant, one minute I’m not, without me actually having to do anything (or have anything done to me)? I don’t _think_ I would object to abortion being illegal under those circumstances. It’s hard to say for sure given the complete impossibility of it ever becoming reality, though. \*\* I hear ya. Thanks for being a sport and answering. I appreciate it. You are at the very least consistent in your beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![yguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/eb9ed0/32.png) [@yguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yguy)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/68 "2003-12-09T22:33:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ruadh \* > \*\*I don’t consider abortion to be killing a _child_ anyway. \*\* Evidently you believe, then, that a fetus is not a human being five minutes before birth, but that it is immediately after. Care to say why? ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/69 "2003-12-10T06:45:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yguy \* > \*\*How do you figure that? > > Were Andrea Yates’ children better off because she murdered them when she did than if she had waited 5 years to do it?\*\* Non sequitur. She killed her children _after_ they were born. > [@](#): > > **In at least 98% of the cases, that’s exactly what it is. What you’re advocating is tantamount to the right to renig on a contract in which at least one life is at stake.** Contract? What are you talking about? What I said was “becoming a parent should be a choice”. If she wanted to become a parent, why would she want an abortion? ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/70 "2003-12-10T07:19:42Z")
Stratocaster and yguy, it’s very simple. Pre-birth = fetus. Post-birth = child. ---
**Author:** ![yguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/eb9ed0/32.png) [@yguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yguy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/71 "2003-12-10T07:42:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr2001 \* > Non sequitur. She killed her children _after_ they were born. And mothers who have abortions kill them before they are born. What is the substantive difference? > [@](#): > > Contract? What are you talking about? A woman who has intercourse of her own free will implicitly takes on the risk of pregnancy. If conception occurs, there is a human life within her, which, again, she has implicitly agreed to provide a safe haven for. Since it may be presumed that that life will not willingly let her out of the “contract”, she’s on the hook for it. > [@](#): > > What I said was “becoming a parent should be a choice”. If she wanted to become a parent, why would she want an abortion? If I go out driving on an icy road at night to get a sixpack, and I wrap my car around a telephone pole, did I want that to happen? No, I wanted a sixpack. Who is to blame that I got the other besides me? ---
**Author:** ![yguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/eb9ed0/32.png) [@yguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yguy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/72 "2003-12-10T07:44:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ruadh \* > \*\*Stratocaster and yguy, it’s very simple. > > Pre-birth = fetus. > Post-birth = child. \*\* If you mean to be insolent, you’re doing fine. What part of this answers my question? ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/73 "2003-12-10T08:39:57Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by yguy_ > **And mothers who have abortions kill them before they are born. What is the substantive difference?** The difference is the availability of alternatives. A born child can be put up for adoption immediately; a fetus cannot. > [@](#): > > **A woman who has intercourse of her own free will implicitly takes on the risk of pregnancy. If conception occurs, there is a human life within her, which, again, she has implicitly agreed to provide a safe haven for.** Wrong. She didn’t implicitly agree to provide a safe haven, only to the possibility of becoming pregnant. Pregnancy is one possible outcome of sex, and delivery is one possible way to deal with pregnancy. Abortion is another possible way. When she chose to have sex, she accepted the risk of becoming pregnant, but she didn’t choose how she would resolve the pregnancy. > [@](#): > > **If I go out driving on an icy road at night to get a sixpack, and I wrap my car around a telephone pole, did I want that to happen? No, I wanted a sixpack.** There’s a difference between setting a chain of events in motion, and agreeing to one possible outcome. You didn’t _agree_ to wreck your car, and if you were offered the choice of whether or not to wreck, you’d be perfectly justified in choosing not to. If you go skiing, you accept the risk of breaking your leg. That does _not_ mean you don’t get medical treatment, because you agreed to some “implicit contract” to spend the rest of your life with one leg. If you move your TV from the living room to the basement, you accept the risk that you might accidentally drop it. However, if you _do_ drop it, you aren’t obligated to deal with the broken TV any particular way - you can buy a new one, you can go without a TV, or you can try to fix it. Insisting that a woman who has sex automatically agrees to deliver a baby is as silly as insisting that when you drop your TV, you automatically agree to buy a new one. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/74 "2003-12-10T10:35:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yguy \* > \*\*If you mean to be insolent, you’re doing fine. What part of this answers my question? \*\* Well, presumably you’d agree that birth is the cutoff point for it to be considered a fetus, right? After birth, it’s definitely not a fetus. By the same token I consider birth the _starting_ point for it to be considered a child. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/75 "2003-12-10T16:04:28Z")
::sniffs armpits:: ::checks shoulders for dandruff flakes:: Umm, so I guess the questions implicit if one could keep all aborted fetuses alive (either in artificial wombs or by implanting them in the bodies of consenting people) were not of interest? **AHunter3** wrote: > [@](#): > > If right-to-lifers wish to push for a bill that says the fetus or baby must be kept alive after removal from the uterus under circumstances where we have the technology to do that, I think that would be reasonable as long as increased risks to the mother’s health are not substantial. The important right possessed by the mother is the right to not be pregnant, not the right to prevent the fetus from remaining alive ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/76 "2003-12-10T16:23:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yguy \* > A woman who has intercourse of her own free will implicitly takes on the risk of pregnancy. If conception occurs, there is a human life within her, which, again, she has implicitly agreed to provide a safe haven for. Since it may be presumed that that life will not willingly let her out of the “contract”, she’s on the hook for it. i hope you realize the mysogeny inherent in this notion. it’s a sorry reflection of the same idea that runs through the whole anti-choice movement. giving a thing that’s never even had a memory nor made what we could reasonably consider a choice more rights than an adult woman is absurd to me, and requires more than a little lack of compassion for the fairer sex. as to what makes something a child after birth and a fetus before birth, it’s based on the rights it gains socially. in my estimation, when the fetus is part of the woman’s body, it is part of the woman’s body. no member of society should have a right to coerce a woman to make a certain medical decision regarding her body. when the child is born, society gains the right to value that child implicitly, so the child gains implicit value. a fetus has no implicit value as a person. it simply isn’t a person. as far as outlawing abortion should the possibility exist to noninvasively remove the fetus from a pregnant woman, i think that would be just as bad as outlawing abortion with no nonsurgical alternative. to me, it is inherently bad to let laws make medical decisions for people. that said, i would certainly be more against the act itself, given that alternative, but i think the law still has no place there. ---
**Author:** ![yguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/eb9ed0/32.png) [@yguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yguy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/77 "2003-12-10T21:35:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr2001 \* > The difference is the availability of alternatives. A born child can be put up for adoption immediately; a fetus cannot. Again, this is not a moral consideration. The humanity of the fetus hardly depends on what options are available to the mother. > [@](#): > > There’s a difference between setting a chain of events in motion, and agreeing to one possible outcome. You didn’t _agree_ to wreck your car, and if you were offered the choice of whether or not to wreck, you’d be perfectly justified in choosing not to. Ah, but I WAS offered that choice. Realizing the risk, I could have stayed off the highway. > [@](#): > > If you go skiing, you accept the risk of breaking your leg. That does _not_ mean you don’t get medical treatment, because you agreed to some “implicit contract” to spend the rest of your life with one leg. Sexual intercourse is unique among human activities in that it brings new life into the world. Your analogy would fit if medical treatment consisted of killing someone, stealing their leg and attaching it to me, so that the solution to my problem comes at someone else’s expense. > [@](#): > > If you move your TV from the living room to the basement, you accept the risk that you might accidentally drop it. However, if you _do_ drop it, you aren’t obligated to deal with the broken TV any particular way - you can buy a new one, you can go without a TV, or you can try to fix it. Insisting that a woman who has sex automatically agrees to deliver a baby is as silly as insisting that when you drop your TV, you automatically agree to buy a new one. Again, my TV is an inanimate object. If I choose to fill it full of buckshot just because, I have committed no crime. ---
**Author:** ![yguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/eb9ed0/32.png) [@yguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yguy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/78 "2003-12-10T21:46:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ruadh \* > \*\*Well, presumably you’d agree that birth is the cutoff point for it to be considered a fetus, right? After birth, it’s definitely not a fetus. By the same token I consider birth the _starting_ point for it to be considered a child. \*\* This is all semantics. Neither is a child an adult, nor a Down’s syndrome victim a Nobel Prize winner; but all are human beings. Kindly tell me what basis you have for thinking a fetus five minutes before birth anything but a human life. ---
**Author:** ![WaryEri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ea666f/32.png) [@WaryEri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WaryEri)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/79 "2003-12-10T22:12:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yguy \* > \*\*This is all semantics. Neither is a child an adult, nor a Down’s syndrome victim a Nobel Prize winner; but all are human beings. Kindly tell me what basis you have for thinking a fetus five minutes before birth anything but a human life. \*\* Surely you’re aware of the difference between saying something is not a child, and saying it’s not a human life. You’re asking him to justify something that he hasn’t said. Pick a term and stick with it. Human life does not neccessarily mean human being. Human being does not neccessarily mean person ( thought these may be closer, and counter examples are harder to find). None of them neccessarily mean child. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082/80 "2003-12-10T22:29:19Z")
Apart from the fact that I’m a “she”, WaryEri’s right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-after-24-weeks-good-enough-reason/217082.md?page=5)