Absolutely untrue.
All life is equally sacred.
Are you asking me to value one person’s life over another?
Where did I blithely dismiss anything?
I have compared life to life, equally.
You’re just wrong and so is he. All the risks I cited are very real and occur in a statistically significant number of pregnancies. If you’d ever been through pre-e or hyperemesis, what makes you think someone wouldn’t think twice about a pregnancy? I had the latter during my first pregnancy. I didn’t want another pregnancy for a long time after that. I was terrified of one in fact as the pain had been so bad. If you personally had spent a few weeks throwing and begging a doctor for pain relief I can assure you, you might feel the exact same way.
While the risk of death may be real if statistically insignificant, the risk of medical complications for many women most certainly isn’t.
Sure, if a given case involved a pregnancy that resulted in nine months of general serious discomforts and periodic (non-labor) bouts of “the greatest pain I’ve ever felt,” I’d be willing to consider the case.
But since very few pregnancies actually meet that condition, why should I want a general rule based on the rare case?
How convenient. Equality means never having to make a decision.
You are. You shrug when I point out that pregnancy kills and injures women. Yet you want permission to force them into it against their will to save something you think is life.
Your position on this issue is incredibly extremist. You believe that an ectopic pregnancy is the same thing as a full grown living women. You are prepared to force her into surgery to uphold that belief.
You’re a right wing theocrat. I am grateful that most Americans are not.
Do you dispute the primary point that the vast majority of abortions occur because women don’t want a baby versus fear of death or ailment?
Yes, a C-section is major surgery.
But why is the rate of C-sections so high? In 1965, less than 5% of births were via C-section. Is it possible that the large number of C-sections today arise from women are asking for C-sections with no medical rationale?
At least one (PDF) study points out:
So this would appear to be a case of “Don’t piss on my leg and then tell me it’s raining.” In other words, the reason for the high percentage of cesarean births is something other than medical necessity.
I dispute your claim that NO woman would abort because of fear of health complications.
Most pregnancies involve serious discomforts. Most involve all sorts of horrible things like morning sickness, heartburn, weight gain, back aches, horrible headaches followed by hours and even days of what is said by most people to be the greatest pain they’ve ever felt. If you’d ever woken up nine weeks pregnant and spent the next month throwing up from morning sickness you might agree. I had the worst headaches and was told I really couldn’t take anything to relieve them as it might be dangerous for the fetus so I just suffered.
Again I’m grateful that you are not king of the universe and women may choose to avoid such hells.
I don’t shrug. I know that the mother’s death as a result of pregnancy is extremely rare, but the death of the unborn child as a result of abortion is effectively 100%.
And I balance the two risks.
That’s not quite true. I’d happily accept a ban on abortion with exceptions for ectopic pregnancy.
Am I missing something? Where is Bricker supporting forcing women into pregnancy? There’s a fairly large chasm between forcing women into pregnancy versus supporting existing or expanding restrictions on abortions. Almost everyone supports some restrictions on abortions. Usually the primary question ultimately boils down to how far those restrictions should extend.
Dave, Obviously every woman will have her own set of reasons - which she will have considered very carefully and in full knowledge of the consequences. So? Is it your point that some reasons for baby-killin’ might be OK and others not? If so, if you’re willing to allow anything at all as a justification, then guess what? That makes you pro-choice, amigo. The only thing then left to discuss is why *your *choice should override the woman’s.
Is that intended to be some kind of logical rebuttal?
But my point isn’t that complications don’t happen; it is how many abortions occur because of fear of complications of death versus how many just don’t want a baby. Surely you would agree that most abortions occur because of the latter, right? Now, I don’t know whether the percentage is 75%, 90%, 95% or what, but my guess is that it is very very high. If that is the case, shouldn’t an argument focus on the far more likely reason that women have abortions instead of the remote cases?
So… the conditions you list are:
4%
5%
2%
and the already-discussed C-section.
Suppose I said, “Let’s ban abortion, but allow it in any case in which the mother has a medical risk of gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, or hyperemesis ?”
That would seem to address your worry. But I’m pretty confident you’d STILL be opposed… right?
So that suggests to me that your real objection isn’t medical.
From my reading on the subject there are quite a lot reasons for the rise including the reasons you cite. It’s not just selfish women too posh to push as the Brits say. What we probably need to do is work on reducing those rates to help women and their babies be healthier. A good vaginal delivery is safer for all concerned and has a much faster rate of recovery. I was lucky to have two despite some serious medical concerns. I had a far faster recovery than a friend who gave birth at nearly the same time and had an emergency C-section because of placenta previa.
What we don’t need to do is force them into a pregnancy they don’t want.
But you don’t want that, Bricker. You want all abortions illegal because you think the fetus is a person. Why should it matter to you if a woman kills that fetus because of hyperemesis or because she just doesn’t want to be pregnant? You still think it’s a killing and essentially murder no matter why. You’ve made that quite clear.
Bricker wants abortions illegal in nearly all cases. He’s essentially stated that over and over again. How is that not forcing a woman into a pregnancy? Most Americans really don’t want to overturn the framework of Roe v. Wade. Bricker does and admits this.
I don’t want the mother to die to save the child. I don’t want the child to die to save the mother. But in the case where one or the other must happen, I have no problem choosing the mother to live.
So I don’t want the mother to kill the child if there’s only a 5% chance that she’ll die. But as a matter of law, I don’t propose that my own feelings become the law (at least until you all recognize your rightful ruler, King Bricker I.)
So as a matter of public policy, I’d be very happy with a ban on abortion and an exception for any case in which the mother has a medical risk of gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, or hyperemesis.
Would you?