Hmm. I don’t think that’s true, Puddleglum, unless you’re taking an odd sample.
Most of the EU places limits at the first trimester - roughly weeks 12-13 - with significant exceptions making it longers. Even Ireland - which only made it legal in 2018 - goes out to 12 weeks.
To get that average number down to 6-9 weeks requires including the middle east and parts of Africa or Latin America where it’s mostly just banned completely. I’d argue they shouldn’t included in a sample of what time limits are placed on abortion when the thing itself isn’t legal.
I find it very hard to reconcile the phrase “pro-life” with the idea that forcing a child (such as the previously mentioned 11-year-old from Ohio) to endure a life-threatening pregnancy is acceptable. The potential death of the already living child is preferable to termination?
And despite its accepted casual usage in discussing one’s pregnancy, the way the word “baby” is thrown around in anti-choice discussions is pure emotional manipulation; it ascribes a level of violence to a medical procedure.
Arbitrary indeed. Yet the insistence on drawing lines meant for all (or at least all within a given state boundary) is seen as a necessary societal good whereby our neighbor to the north is quite content in relegating the decision to the mother and her physician. Is there no place in your mind or code of morality for that as a policy?
I get that it’s a life - I’ve always believed that a fetus is a living human in one sense. But up to a certain point, it’s a life that uses the body of another person. So yes, life is an issue - won’t deny that. But allowing natural born persons to have ultimate jurisdiction over their bodies, and how it can be used by other living people or fetuses, is also an issue. What has always been challenging, and practically impossible, is in deciding which right carries more weight: the right of a fetus to live, or the right of a natural born person to decide she doesn’t want to continue being used to help bring a fetus into the world.
This is called ‘argument from ignorance’, i.e. if I haven’t heard of it, it can’t be true.
But I guarantee that women with unwanted pregnancies don’t call it a baby until there is no option but to have it. They don’t call it anything.
When my wife was pregnant with twins we called them babies because we very much hoped they would become babies. Not before 3 months, because we had lost fetuses earlier than that and couldn’t afford to get emotionally attached again. Not because they were actually infants, but because we were already looking forward to them being infants. But not everybody feels that way about their pregnancy, and we shouldn’t presume how they should feel or speak about it.
An unborn fetus is only a baby if the mother wants it to be the baby. That ought to be the final word but of course men won’t let it be.
I don’t think you understand how to parody. And let me add that the Georgia law specifically allows the zygote/embryo fetus to be claimed as a deduction on the STATE tax return, which you know if you’d bothered to read the law or this thread in its entirety.
I keep seeing references to “human life,” when it begins, etc. The Georgia law specifically and consistently confers (or affirms, if you’re anti-abortion) natural personhood. That’s a deliberate distinction, and an important one.
And for those who haven’t read the law, the term “natural” is used to distinguish human persons from “artificial” persons, such as corporations.
Respectfully, I don’t think you really believe that. You may think you believe it, but I’d bet that if you had to choose between saving one 10 year old child and two viable fetuses, you’d choose the child.
I think the purpose of defining fetuses/unborn children to be natural persons is clear: it is an anti-abortion bill and this definition has been pushed by the pro-life crowd and cynically one could say it is a bone to throw at them, or that the people of the State of Georgia honestly believe that life begins at conception and unborn children should be considered persons.
I am pro-life, but I disagree with defining unborn children as legal persons because of the possible unintended consequences of lawyers becoming creative with their pleadings and forcing courts to confront difficult questions. Hopefully the courts will do their job well and consider unborn children as natural persons considering the law as a whole.
Yes, historically under Anglo-American common law, it is not legal to kill a person, so the 6 week limit seems contradictory, along with the 20 week limit for rape and incest. But, again, nothing compels a state to continue to follow the common law. See for example, same sex marriage. Opposite sex couples were a requirement in the common law for hundreds of years, but people in many state changed that. That was not said to be invalid (at least when voted upon).
And also, yes, see the drinking, smoking, and drug use while pregnant could have some adverse legal consequences depending on how the courts look at it. If you let your 4 year old drink a fifth of whiskey, you would certainly be charged, not simply with furnishing alcohol to a minor, but with child abuse or neglect. Why, then, would it be different if a pregnant woman drank heavily and thereby “abused” the child?
In my state, the appropriate agency would be responsible for taking the 4 year old on an emergency basis. But how would the agency take an unborn child? What about the rest of the body of law regarding abused children? Should the fetus be “placed” with relatives?
But a judge could look at the law and say hell no. As a woman would be privileged to kill an unborn child under certain circumstances and would not be punished with murder for killing a child outside these circumstances, it would be an absurdity to apply child abuse laws to children in utero as these laws were not drafted with this intent or purpose in mind and could not be enforced in any meaningful way.
However, these types of unintended consequences are not unique to abortion laws and the law can be revised if outrageous things happen or if some prosecutors go crazy with them.
Thanks for the complete answer! I cut it short just to save space.
It’s true that laws have unintended consequences, but this law may be raising that likelihood significantly (with the personhood definition) because of what amounts to a meaningless sop to supporters. From your post, I think you would agree with this, right? I think it’s unusual for a law to include such features, just to override the consequences.
I think the other part of it, assuming it’s really as toothless in the law as you say, is to get the Supreme Court to agree that fetuses are natural persons with 14th amendment rights. To me, that’s one way to get abortion banned nationwide, overriding any state laws to the contrary for equal treatment or due process reasons. (I remain not a lawyer)
Which post are you referring to, HD? I recall linking to a story about an Iowa woman who fell down stairs and was charged with attempted feticide. I might have included another link/example but can’t recall it at the moment.
I tend to believe that it is a bone to supporters and a poorly thought out one at that. This, the 14th amendment “persons” applied to unborn children is poor as a matter of federal constitutional law. I see a 9-0 against that idea at the Supreme Court.
However, Georgia is free to define “persons” as it pleases. Now, Georgia has its own due process clause in the state constitution:
So, if you are a Georgia judge, and the father of an unborn child, mother at 5 weeks of pregnancy, petitions a Georgia court for an injunction prohibiting her from getting an abortion on behalf of the unborn child’s right to life, what is to be done? What process is “due” under this new Georgia law to an unborn child who is legally a person?
Isn’t the State, by permitting this abortion under the new statute depriving the child of a right to life without due process? Whatever process is due, there is no process, so the law seems to violate the Georgia Constitution.
But the judge is constrained by Roe and Casey and must give the woman a chance to have an abortion without imposing an “undue burden.” But like Scalia said, what type of burden is “due” to her?!?
And what if Roe and Casey are overturned? There is a woman who is in danger of losing her life if she continues her pregnancy: an abortion exception that has been in every state law, even pre-Roe. There is nothing in the law that says that the unborn child is less of a person than the woman. What if you have a scenario (and imagine how quickly this hearing would have to be held) where every medical professional is in agreement that we either have the abortion and the unborn child, a person, dies, or the mother, a person, dies?
You have a guardian ad litem arguing on behalf of the unborn child, doing his or her ethical duty on behalf of his client saying that the child should live. The mother’s lawyer argues that she should live. How does a judge rule going by the law? Would the federal definition of persons trump Georgia law? Probably.
I think under that analysis, the rape and incest exception would have to fail. If we balance interests, the unborn child’s right to life would have to trump emotional trauma suffered by the mother (again, simply going by the Georgia law), and even if we used the federal definition of persons, it is still not clear in a post Roe world that a person’s interest in not carrying a rapist’s child overrides a state law definition of a person who has a right to life.
And some of the other arguments that may seem frivolous on their face are not. If a person 20 years and 3 months old attempts to buy beer, could he not sue and say he was old enough? Yes, the law says “no person under 21 years of age” but that law was passed when age began at live birth. Now that personhood is at conception, is it that much of a stretch to argue it?
Would private companies be allowed to specify that “age” in their contracts mean from birth? Usually companies can contract whatever they want, but would Georgia public policy forbid not counting in utero time? Probably not. But who knows?
If an unborn child is miscarried, do state laws requiring administration of estates mean that an administrator is appointed and paperwork must be filed to distribute the estate? Is the unborn child entitled to inherit? Can it be adopted in utero? In laws requiring hotels to keep a guest registry, must it count the unborn child as a guest at the hotel? If I fill out a form at the hotel and it asks how many adults and how many children, and I don’t list the child that my pregnant wife is carrying, did I commit a fraud? Could the hotel, if it found out, add an extra charge to my bill?
In short, I don’t see the horrors of murder and conspiracy punishments from the performance of abortions themselves, because they are directly covered by the law. But other consequences of the law would have to be litigated, and a solution would be had eventually after the lawyers get paid, but this needless concept of personhood for the unborn could be stripped from the law and the state could still enact abortion policy.
What if a lesbian gets pregnant by rape? Should she be forced to have the baby and then forced to give it up because some people believe gay parenting is child abuse. Amazingly, these same people who say “A child needs a mother and a father” support forcing single women to have babies.
I wish every women considering abortion would have the baby and give it to a same-sex couple. That would certainly make some of the anti-aborts heads spin.