How can you draw a strong moral distinction between, on the one hand,
killing it first and then removing it
and on the other hand,
removing it first and then killing it?
Even if we stipulate that abortion is a bad thing to do, I don’t see the point of drawing this distinction.
Generally, the distinction made is that “partial birth” abortions are done after the fetus has reached viability and could live on its own outside the womb. There are people who don’t see the problem with destroying an embryo or partially formed fetus, who nevertheless have a moral problem with doing so what is, in effect, physically identical to a newborn baby.
The point is to rename a rare medical procedure with a scary name, pretend it’s common, and use it to wedge in anti-abortion law. With the side benefit of risking the lives of women who need the banned/restricted procedure.
Partial birth abortion was used as a wedge issue in the abortion fight. It provides a more visceral reaction for people to latch on to in opposing abortions.
Sure, but it’s not the procedure that’s the problem there. It’s the state of development of the fetus.
Because many on the pro-choice side have argued that personhood occurs at the moment of birth. This is a sensible and necessary position, or else they’d have a harder time drawing a distinction between abortion and infanticide).
Abortion techniques which involve bringing the fetus partly out of the womb, even partially, test that definition.
No…it’s the procedure.
IIRC since Partial Birth Abortions are illegal doctors have to revert to the older and more dangerous (to the mother) Dilation and Evacuation (where essentially the baby is dismembered in-utero and the pieces removed).
The government did not stop later term abortions. They just made them more dangerous.
I find that definition of personhood to be insupportable, especially now that something like thirty percent of babies are born by Cesarean section. While I can see why some pro-choicers may have adopted it, it surprises me to hear that many of them still hold it.
Yeah, there’s nothing magical about passing through the birth canal. “Personhood”, like so many things, is fuzzy and soritical.
It is not a Pro Choice position. It is an Anti-Choice position.
Partial Birth abortion just “feels” too close to actual birth such that they can decry how horrible it is killing these babies. Nevermind that very, very few partial birth abortions are done post viability and when done it is for significant reason (the mother will die or the baby is already dead or will die during birth).
The vast majority of any partial birth abortions are preformed for good cause (fetus is dead, fetus has anencephaly which essentially means its brain has not formed and will die in birth or very shortly afterwards, hydrocephalus where the baby’s head has expanded to dangerous levels for the mother and she cannot give birth and baby will die anyway, etc.).
I meant the position that a fetus becomes a person at the moment of birth.
Perhaps there are some few rabid, fringe, pro-choice loonies who believe that but most do not (and I know a LOT of pro choice people and have worked with a variety of pro choice groups). It is NOT a pillar in any remotely credible pro choice group I am aware of.
If the fetus is dead, then the procedure isn’t an abortion, even if it follows the same steps as a particular abortion procedure. I don’t think there’s anyone who objects to a procedure for removing a dead fetus from the womb.
The problem is that the law bans a procedure. If the law had banned late-term abortions due to foetal development, it would have been solidly respectable under our common-law tradition. (Yes, despite Pro-Life rhetoric, even under Roe, which left an out for viability.) But to say that one can have a D&E at late term but not a safer D&X is perverse.
The significant moment would be when mother and child are physically separate and the transfer of care and stowage is physically as simple has handing off the baby to someone else. Whether your “moment of birth” is caesarian or vaginal isn’t important.
A coherent and meaningful definition of “personhood” would probably settle on a developmental milestone a couple of months after birth, IMO, but there’s no compelling reason to debate about such a fuzzy line when “birth” is pretty straightforward and sufficient to avoid the conflict of rights problem.
There is no moral distinction here, unless one method versus the other is clearly more unsafe for the mother in that particular case.
None.
There may be a convenience factor to crushing or evacuating the contents of a head outside the uterus versus inside it for easier removal, for example, but there is no moral distinction between the two except in those instances where one method might be considered safer than the other.
As a practical matter it is more disquieting to kill a fetus out in the open.
FTR I have a close friend who had a partial birth abortion nearly 10 years ago and it was a horrifying ordeal. She was only in her early 30s at the time, so was not considered high risk, but at her level 2 ultrasound (18weeks) they noticed some suspicious developmental abnormalities. Further testing resulted in a diagnosis of Triploidy which is a rare chromosomal disorder that is incompatible with life.
She was thoroughly devastated but also averse to actively terminating the baby since she was starting to feel him move (and this was a planned wanted baby). Plus her doctor “reassured” her that most triploidy pregnancies result in spontaneous miscarriage which would prevent her from having to make a horrible decision. But her pregnancy marched on and by 25 weeks she could really feel him moving and therefore kept putting off the “termination”.
Meanwhile she ran to every neonatologist under the sun for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th opinions hoping against hope for a different diagnosis or prognosis, but they all simply confirmed the original doctor’s diagnosis that she would likely miscarry and if she didn’t her baby would die during or shortly after birth.
Ultimately she and her husband decided to terminate at about 30 weeks (past the point of viablilty). It was an agonizing heart-wrenching decision for them, and ultimately I’m sure they wished they’d made it earlier. But they were anguished, despondent and completely depressed so it took some time.
But I get really angry at people who pass judgement on anyone faced with the horrible decision of having a partial birth abortion, esp those who refer to the mothers as “baby killers”. They are not doled out willy nilly for convenience purposes like many in the pro-life camp seem to believe. My heart breaks for any woman/couple who is forced to make such a painful decision. Some of the propaganda spread by the pro-life groups on this topic couldn’t be further off the mark.
ETA: As for the OP, I agree there is no moral difference, regardless of the method used.
I, for one, would like to hear some stories about women who just got tired or bored of being pregnant after eight months and got the procedure, or who were simply too lazy to drive to the abortion clinic in the first few months (as has been suggested on these boards before).
I’m glad the OP put ‘partial birth abortion’ in quotes as, AFAIK, the term is political rather than medical. I don’t see a moral dilemma, here, more of a semantic one.
As an OB-GYN nurse (also) specializing in high risk pregnancies, this is similar to what I have experienced.
An ultrasound reveals a problem, the problem needs further and investigation, perhaps some specialized testing or counseling, a decision needs to be made, there is oftern a “shock wall” that needs to be overcome…all this takes time and soon you are well into the second or even third trimester.
My patients have decided to carry to term and hope for the best, or to give up and move on, perhaps to try again later. I will support them in whatever decision they make.
I don’t intend to live their lives for them and won’t pass judgement on their decision as to what is best for themselves and their families. Some of our babies have hypoplastic lungs (often suffering a slow and painful suffocation death), missing kidneys, massive cystic hygroma, holopresencephaly, VATER’s or VACTREL’s syndrome, various trisomies or deletions, etc.
I consider it a priveldge to be allowed so intimately into my patient’s private lives for a short time and to be able to offer help in such a difficult situation.
Having been is a similar situation, I know how personally gut-wrenching it can be.
I advise people to get the best information they can (write down your questions and make the Doctors repeat things until you understand it), make the best decision they can, and don’t look back or second guess your decision because you could spend a lifetime wondering “what if”.
Also, I don’t like the way our medical words are hijacked and politicized. For example, an ‘abortion’ is simply the loss of a pregnancy and the term does not carry a value judgement or address how or why the loss occurred. We would differentiate further if it was a spontaneous loss or an induced loss, if it were before or after 20 weeks, etc. I don’t know who stole that word and made it ugly.
I doubt that it’s a question of boredom. It’s not unreasonable to expect that a woman might change her mind late in the pregnancy, especially if some other life-changing event were to occur (e.g. getting divorced, losing a job, losing a boyfriend).