I can’t imagine there is a physician anywhere in the US who would perform an elective abortion on a woman who is days away from her due date. I don’t care what the law might technically allow (and I doubt any state would allow such an abortion), a physician who would perform this type of abortion should be reprimanded as severely as possible by the AMA.
I have just read the article and nowhere does it say that if she’d had an abortion just before birth then she would’ve been in the clear, so this post looks like a pretty weak attempt to push the ‘abortion is murder’ stance. I would like to see a cite of ANY country in the world where voluntarily opting for an abortion of a 39 week foetus is legal. In the UK, abortion is illegal after 24 weeks for example - an arbitrary time period, for sure, but presumably one the doctors have advised could produce a viable human life.
So your argument is a pointless one. A 39 week abortion would land the woman AND the doctor in trouble with the law.
True, but would it be murder? Would the punishment be the same? I personally think it should be–the purpose of an abortion is to end a pregnancy, and if the fetus is viable, then you can end that pregnancy by inducing birth or by surgical removal.
But that sort of logic might lead to being required to remove the baby, and see if it lives, just in case it might be viable. That would be rather cruel in my opinion, so I’m okay with a bright line instead, as long as that bright line is based on the low end average for viability.