# Natural Abortion **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [November 23, 2008, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/natural-abortion/474163 "2008-11-23T23:27:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ephg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d26b3c/32.png) [@ephg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ephg)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/natural-abortion/474163/1 "2008-11-23T23:27:03Z")
There is such a thing as natural abortion. This usually happens when an embryo or fetus is deformed or has some genetic problem that causes the body to reject the embryo. If you ever new a women who’s period was late, it really means that she was pregnant but the body rejected the embryo. Since this is a natural process, it must have been instituted by God. This would mean that God is guilty of murder. Using the logic that the egg is a human at time of fertilisation. Plus, there are conditions in which a fertilized egg will not attach to the placenta. Again this means a natural process has “killed the baby”. ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/natural-abortion/474163/2 "2008-11-23T23:44:13Z")
Hi **ephg** , let me extend you a (um, late) welcome to the SDMB. It is customary to include a [link to the article](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2825/round-2-when-does-human-life-begin) when posting a response. I’m having some difficulty making out what you’re trying to say, but I am going to preempt your critics and assume that you are more in the ‘Pro-Choice’ camp, based partially on the information you’ve got in your profile (‘retired scientist’). It seems like you’re making pro-choice arguments based on the premise that your opponent’s ‘Pro-Life’ arguments are religious ones. I don’t see anyone bringing up God or Jesus or Allah or anything, so your argument is pretty perilously close to a straw man. While (I think) I agree with you, I’d be careful not to attribute stances to your opponent that he does not hold. It only serves to make you look out-of-touch. ---
**Author:** ![eagle37](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b38774/32.png) [@eagle37](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eagle37)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/natural-abortion/474163/3 "2008-11-23T23:44:32Z")
At 04:44 PM 11/21/2008, you wrote: \> \> That was the rationale for allowing states to prohibit abortion of a viable \> \> fetus except to preserve the life or health of the mother. And this rule is to be found where? eagle37 ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/natural-abortion/474163/4 "2008-11-23T23:52:31Z")
> [@eagle37](#): > > At 04:44 PM 11/21/2008, you wrote: > \> \> That was the rationale for allowing states to prohibit abortion of a viable > \> \> fetus except to preserve the life or health of the mother. > > And this rule is to be found where? > > eagle37 Read _Roe v. Wade_, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). You can skip right to the end, where it is nicely summed up for you: > [@](#): > > XI > > To summarize and to repeat: > > 1. A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type, that excepts from criminality only a lifesaving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of the other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. > > (a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman’s attending physician. > > (b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. > > (c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life [p165] may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. (emphasis mine). ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/natural-abortion/474163/5 "2008-11-24T00:39:12Z")
> [@ephg](#): > > If you ever new a women who’s period was late, it really means that she was pregnant but the body rejected the embryo. Bullshit. Many women also have irregular periods, and as was the case for _many_ years when my husband was out to sea, and I had not had sex for several months [many times 4 to 6 months at a time] the irregularity had absolutely NO possibility of being a pregnancy that self terminated. Unless you want to propose I should change my name to Mary and start a religion …:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/natural-abortion/474163/6 "2008-11-24T00:48:13Z")
> [@ephg](#): > > This would mean that God is guilty of murder. And? What does this have to do with the abortion debate? Are you trying to suggest that God would never commit murder therefore miscarriage cannot be murder therefore abortion cannot be murder? Why or why not? You’ll have to break it down for me, because I’m about as pro-choice as they come and I can’t follow you. Natural process (God, if you like) stops beating hearts in adults all the time. If I make an adult’s heart stop beating, I’m a murderer under our law. Where’s the problem? And I also agree with \*\*aruqvan \*\*- if you think the only reason for a delayed period is an undiagnosed pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage, you don’t know jack about women’s reproductive health. Absolutely, spontaneous abortions occur, but they do not occur with every, or even most, delayed menses. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/natural-abortion/474163/7 "2008-11-24T02:01:40Z")
> [@ephg](#): > > This would mean that God is guilty of murder. That’s a strange way of putting it, when you think about the Judeo-Christian God of the Great Flood that killed millions, working through Moses to create plagues such as the Angel of Death in Passover, bears sent to kill all those people who mocked Elisha…it’s pretty clear that God it either a mass murderer, or else the term simply doesn’t apply to the person who’s running the casino, so to speak.