In ectopic pregnancy the embryo has no chance of developing into a fetus. Therefore, it has no chance of reaching viability.
If the fetus was viable and the parents both wanted it to live, why on earth would they have aborted it instead of delivering it live?
Again, this sounds like your issues were discovered early in the pregnancy. I’m having trouble imagining that you would have agreed to abort the baby if it could have been born alive.
In case my previous two posts have not made it clear, I support a woman’s right to choose abortion for medical or any other reason in the early stages of pregnancy when the vast majority of abortions occur. I understand that any number of medical conditions could lead a woman to choose abortion in the later stages of pregnancy. What I’m looking for is a situation where baby could be delivered alive but doing so would greatly increase the risk to the mother’s life, compared to purposely aborting.
For example, say a woman is a hemofiliac (I think that’s the right term) in her ninth month. The doctor has determined that an emergency C-section is necessary for the baby’s survival, but the operation is too risky for the mother. In this situation, the doctor would ATTEMPT to deliver the baby vaginally even if there was little chance of success. This would not be abortion.
There’s nothing here that explains why delivery is more dangerous than abortion in these situations. In fact, the medical literature on eclampsia recommends delivery even if the fetus is immature.
If you are an ob-gyn and have recommended abortion as the only safe course to women with symptoms of eclampsia, you should have your license revoked for giving advice leading to the unnecessary death of a baby.
This, according to the person who didn’t even know what an ectopic pregnancy was ? I get the distinct impression your knowledge of “medical literature” is confined to what you see on anti-abortion websites.
Pre-eclampsia is exceedingly difficult to diagnose because the symptoms mimic more common problems associated with pregnancy, such as heartburn. Pre-eclampsia must be considered a possibility when these symptoms appear after the 20th week. I doubt that many women change their minds about having a baby due to these symptoms but if some do, I would argue that they have right to end the pregnancy.
This online source and others indicate that preeclampsia can be managed until the 37th week when delivery is recommended. Apparently the prognosis for a healthy fetus is quite good.
As you note, abortion and delivery are pretty much the same thing in the later stages of pregnancy. So if a woman chooses to end her pregnancy due to pre-eclampsia symptoms at a point when delivery is an option, then delivery is a preferable choice to abortion (because the baby may live rather than automatically being killed). Most women would probably wait to see if symptoms consistent with pre-eclampsia develop into actual eclampsia, in which case delivery is virtually always an option and abortion should not be considered.
You make an interesting argument that the cost of delivery versus the cost of abortion should be a factor in the decision. I respectfully disagree.
I personally don’t think that abortion has harmed society. In fact, there is another argument to be made that abortion reduces the demands on social services and frees up resources that would be better applied elsewhere.
Dr Butts, you misquote me. You are inventing ignorance and trying to pass it off as a quote by Rhodes.
You don’t know shit about my beliefs regarding first trimester embryos. I have not discussed this issue on this forum, and when I have discussed it elsewhere I have not made the absurd claims that you imply. I also find the sacred sperm crap to be stupid.
For the record, my thoughts are exactly in line with Cecil’s, as well as several other people posting on this debate. A first trimester embryo obviously has potential to become a person. It also has a unique human genome. But it has no thoughts, no feelings, no emotions. I see a HUGE “distinction” between an embryo and an adult. I use contraceptives, and I can see huge benefits to society from early abortions.
I do not, however, make a distinction between a newborn baby and a soon-to-be-born fetus. Both have developed organs, thoughts, emotions, and a right to equal protection. Even though both are basically parasites relying on their mother 100%.
The OP, as you will recall, was whether legal abortion has harmed society. I agreed that it has actually benefitted society. I also implied that lots of actions may benefit society but still be immoral.
Excellent. I am in favor of killing cows, sheep, bacteria, cancerous growths, and appendixes. Obvious benefit to society.
Whether a fetus is a “person” has probably been discussed extensively in other threads. I’m of the opinion that if it looks like a person, acts like a person, and thinks like a person, then IMHO it’s probably not a sheep or an appendix. But I see how you may get confused.
My question remains: would society benefit from legalizing the execution of homeless people? They are a burden on us. They can be dangerous.
And if it benefits society, does that make it moral?
Leaving aside everything else, I don’t know if you believe yourself a physician, but no ob-gyn in their right mind would, if given the choice, “wait to see if symptoms consistent with pre-eclampsia develop into actual eclampsia”. Pre-eclampsia requires treatment so that it doesn’t progress to eclampsia, and patients who do not respond to therapy (progressing from mild to severe pre-eclampsia even under treatment) generally require delivery regardless of gestational age. The same holds true for the 25% or so of women who go straight from mild pre-eclampsia to full-blown eclampsia.
If a homeless person (or any stranger) came into my house, wouldn’t I technically have the right to defend myself to the point of killing him or her, in many states?
Well, a fetus at an early stage doesn’t think at all, so no problem with abortions then, eh? Carl Sagan suggested making the cut off when substantial brain activity has started, which is a reasonable compromise, at least.
That’s not the discussion. The reason to allow choice is that there is no way of getting closure on this issue, since it is a philosophical one, not a scientific one. Given that, women should have the right to their bodies (including the right to not have an abortion, of course) unless there is significant harm to society. Given that no one has come up with any, abortion should be legal. That legal abortion actually has benefits is lagniappe.
BTW, do you think that people with fatal illnesses should be allowed to terminate their own lives with dignity, or is this another place where the state knows better?
I posted an article a ways back regarding the inventor of the oral contraceptive being very upset about the results, being that birth rates started to plummet after that. I think it would really matter to check out in nations across the board.
As it is with demographics the best you can do is draw a strong corrolation, as there are always multiple factors involved in anything.
But if we looked at demographic data on multiple nations, like in the US and Europe we might be able to see. Did European Nations have the same 40s Baby Boom that we did?
A friend of mine who works at the state department is very into this kind of stuff, and he tries to get people to study it, he says that in the departments he knows, people are simply not that interested in these demographic issues because they see it as tomorrow’s problem. So the result is that this work just largely isn’t being done on a wide scale to see what the factors that have lead to widespread demographic collapse are.
Are you talking about hemophilia? The “royal disease”?
First, hemophilia affects men – a women can only be a hemophiliac if her father was a hemophiliac who conceived with a hemophiliac carrier. (The chances of which, are fairly rare – and the few recorded cases – single digits – usually died when they started to menstruate).
Women are carriers, who pass the gene on to their offspring – but only their sons can actually be affected. Their daughters have the potential to pass the gene on as well, but they will not be infected.
MEN who are infected will not pass it on to their sons, but ALL of their daughters will be carriers.
So, if you’re going to give us medical scenarios, at least come up with something that’s actually, I dunno, possible?
But okay, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you had a hemophiliac woman, the chances of her surviving even a ROUTINE pregnancy would be slim to none. In fact, I suspect her doctor would reccomend she adopt, rather than risk pregnancy. sigh
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
(And thus, this proves my point as to how it has harmed society – by endless debates like this one!!!)
Yep, I’d say home invaders can also be killed for the benefit of society. And that IMO it’s moral.
I’d also suggest that maybe a fetus is not a home invader, if that’s what you’re trying to imply. Except in cases of rape, the mother accidently invited the fetus into the womb. If I bring someone into my home and then find him to be extremely disagreeable, I may have a legal right to kill him, but I doubt that it’s a moral imperative.
But you’re also correct that we’re getting a little off-topic. I apologize to anyone who feels I’ve contributed to hijacking this thread. I’m really not trying to raise the debate as to whether a sperm is a person, an egg is a person, an embryo is a person, a fetus is a person, a newborn baby is a person, or a home invader is a person. There are other threads for that discusssion, and if we were to discuss it in length there I think most of my critics would find that I agree with them.
The OP is “How has legal abortion harmed society?”
Which naturally raises the questions “Has legal abortion harmed society?”
and “Has legal abortion benefitted society.”
Is it too far off-topic to ask “If legal abortion benefits society, then does that necessarily make it moral?”
There are unalterable spiritual laws, one such law is you reap what you sow, sometimes called karma, and there are many other forms of this widely accepted belief. As such aborting a person is basically throwing them out of the human family. There is simply no record of them ever existing, no name, no SS#, no certificate of death, no tombstone, and most mothers of aborted children refuse to acknowledge that they had that child.
Look around in society at the people who are thrown away, homeless, jailed, phyc patients confined at hospitals. I’ve talked to some of these people, most of them got involved in things like drugs/sex/other to releave the pain that they are just not treated like a person and thrown out of human society. There really is nothing ‘wrong’ with these people, ‘normal’ people are not somehow better then them, they are not ‘defective’, they just are not recognized as part of the human family.
This I believe has been revealed to me is a direct result of abortion.
Well, we can argue over whether failed birth control is an accident or a malicious act by a hostile sperm. But that results in an embryo.
Allowing that embryo to develop into a fetus is definitely an invitation. If your birth control fails, accident or not, you’ve got plenty of time to stop a fetus from developing if you are so inclined.