If a poverty-stricken family is not a sufficiently moral reason to kill a newborn (healthy or otherwise), it’s not a sufficiently moral reason to kill the same baby hours before birth, or while in the birth canal. I think that’s the moral equivalency being posited in the OP.
It’s true late-term abortions are rare. This is not so much because of legal policy but because as a practical matter maternal bonding increases with the age of the fetus. In addition, fewer physicians are willing to kill nearly-mature fetuses either because they feel it’s ethically unsound or because it is a much more complicated procedure. In any case, the frequency with which an event happens has no bearing on whether or not it is moral, would you agree? One can hardly excuse an pro-event position simply because the event being promulgated is rare; the event has to be evaluated on its own merits. While quantitatively "“minimally harmful” relative to the size of the total population, it seems reasonable to me to describe a late-term abortion as absolutely harmful to the baby in question.
To the point of “rabid” thinkers, then: it is as extremist a position to argue for unfettered late-term abortions (usually out of a fear that all abortions will be restricted) as it is to argue for zero abortions out of a fear that late-term abortions will become commonplace. When both those rabid yammerers can be taken out of the conversation, a reasonable societal compromise can be effected.
Whack=a=mole, there is something strange missing from these posts:
Your position in some of the other posts allow for a lack of concern for the mother. The language chosen in these two posts, especially the seond one, is openly hostile toward the mother. “Dump” her “kid”? “Place her baby with the State for adoption” would be a little more neutral if you were neutral about the mother.
Speaking about the mothers, that’s all you do in these two posts. The child has been born, but you have specified only the mother as the parent doing the “dumping” or legally walking away. Why is that? Do you think that all parents who place their babies up for adoption think of the infant as a “kid” rather than as a child they love or a baby they want to keep but can’t?
Have you ever been pregnant? Lost a baby? Had an abortion? Given birth? Given a child up for adoption?
A poverty stricken family can’t have someone else watch the fetus while mom’s at work. I would agree as the date of birth approaches the certain arguments (e.g., “minimize social harm”) in favor of aborting rather than giving birth diminish. Whether any one is still “sufficiently moral” to the mother would not depend on my morals, though.
As Zoe points about, the way we bandy about “She could give it up for adoption.” as if this is an easy choice isn’t entirely correct. For some people, adoption might be a non-issue. For others, making someone else have to deal it would not be “taking responsibility”, making adoption unacceptable.
Agreed. I’d leave the evaluation to the people most intimately familiar with the merits of their personal case. This may result in people making choices I, personally, would not have made or would not consider moral… but other people’s freedom is the price we pay for our own.
“Absolute harm” to non-humans is routinely discounted compared to even marginal benefit to humans.
Given that there are advocates of prohibiting abortion, the opposite “rabid yammerers” would be advocates of mandatory abortion, so your designation of “unfettered access” as an equivalent extreme is unfair.
As we’ve already noted “unfettered late-term abortions” likely results in basically the same “reasonable societal compromise” we have now.
In some states (not all) it has to be the mother who chooses to leave the baby under Safe Haven laws. Like it or not the woman is the one with the ultimate choice in deciding if she wants to have an abortion or keep it or give it away (IIRC some states also may require the father to agree to adoption/safe haven…others just the mother). It makes sense that the choice remain with the mother but like it or not the burden is hers for that choice.
I do have contempt for a woman who would carry a baby almost to term and would decide to kill the baby a day before she could give birth because she now feels the baby would be inconvenient. I am objecting strongly to the position I was responding too that such a thing should be ok and indeed be ok even some few days or weeks after birth.
Pawning it off on the state is better but then she has made me responsible for supporting her child and her poor decisions via my tax dollar. Giving it up for adoption is great. I am adopted (as is my brother and sister) so I am all for it.
I do not think there are many women at all, a bare handful, who would choose to abort so close to full term.
And I reject the notion that I must be a woman or have been pregnant or lost a baby to express an opinion on this.
My take on it as I understand the scriptures is that life does start at conception (Ps 139:13,15), where the unborn is knit together in the womb AND formed in the secret places underground. God often used being inside a being as equivalent as to being underground (Jonah 2:6).
My own take on it is we are formed underground with the pull of the love of the mother in the body that God is knitting together, that love draws us more and more into that body.
3 common terms I believe indicate parts of human life are IMHO very descriptive of the following:
Conception = the beginning of human life - this is the only term that I know of in human life that indicates a begining.
Quickening (rarely used anymore) = soul is entirely inside the new being, the body is developed enough at this point.
Delivery= human birthright is granted, this makes the person capable as being perceived as fully human, part of the human family. You can see the effect of loss of a birthright in Gen 33 where Esau just wants to greet his brother, longing to be included as part of the family, but due to his selling his birthright Issac was unable to treat him as a member of humanity.
Since the unborn can’t be fully perceived as human till birth it is sort of between murder and negligent homicide. As for what stage of pregnancy, I personally think there is some difference between if it happens before or after the quickening, though there is no scientific test to find out when this happens.
The anti-abortion crowd thinks a woman should be able to carry a fetus for nine months and then hand over the child like a sack of potatoes and walk away, never looking back. If later in the future she finds out her child has been abused or killed, they feel it is better than abortion.
I know what would happen if all abortion were outlawed.
See America pre Roe vs Wade, the UK pre 1967, most of South America and most of the African continent currently.
Similar numbers of abortions happen- they’re just unsafe, and women die as well as foetuses.
20-30% of pregnancies worldwide end in induced abortion- the rates are similar for countries where abortion is illegel and where it isn’t. The main difference in the statistics is maternal mortality and morbidity.
Personally- I think method of abortion should be based on informed maternal choice and the medical expertise available and apart from that it is no-one’s business.
After 13 weeks you can have a fetocide and then an induced labout, or a D&X, or a D&E, or an induced labour without attempts at resuscitation- if you have all the facts at hand, you should be the one to make the choice that is best fo you, supported by your doctors. All options are morally equivalent but not all options are likely to be seen as equally desirable by the patient.
She has to go thrugh it, so she should decide.
Outlawing one particular medical procedure because you find it icky is not a good justification.
On preview - conception, from a root meaning “to take in”- can also be seen as the blastocyst implanting in the uterine lining, i.e. the beginning of the pregnancy.
Sperm meeting egg , to my mind falls down as a “beginning” because we know identical twins split 2-8 days afterwards.
It’s difficult for me to let this sort of silly assertion go uncontested. One might equally say “The pro-abortion crowd thinks a woman should be able have her term fetus’s skull crushed and the brains sucked out when it’s half-out of the uterus and walk away, never looking back.”
Even as one who takes no personal position on the morality of abortion I find your comment ridiculous, unsupported and inflammatory. It is the sort of raucous babbling that contributes to a very unnecessary schism in this country–a schism that promotes a fundamental divide with consequences extending well beyond the abortion debate.
There is practical compromise available on abortion if extremists on both sides can be appropriately marginalized to shouting only at each other. The public policy compromise is to terminate pregnancies early and to protect fetuses late in a pregnancy when they become indistinguishable from a newborn human being.
Your comment above seeks to invoke outrage over beating an unwanted child to death after birth while supporting cutting it to pieces during the birth process. There is no moral difference. I am willing to recognize the internal consistency of supporting late-term abortions together with a position in support of euthanizing unwanted or defective children. However you cannot maintain logical consistency by arguing for killing late-term fetuses and then standing in opposition to harsh treatment of babies.
As far as “personhood” goes, a late-term fetus and a newborn may be indistinguishable, but I think it’s obvious from the fact that we call them different things that there are other characteristics and circumstances we use to distinguish between the two.
For example, while it’s not as easy as handing it around “like a sack of potatoes”, as Annie-Xmas points out and you agree, an unwanted newborn can be transferred to the care of someone else. Practically speaking, a fetus is not transferable at all, your only options are to care for it against your will or kill it. A newborn has an additional option, making killing it too extreme a solution for the circumstances.
No idea but very few I suspect. Again in a large society I would expect someone, somewhere wanted a late term abortion for no other reason than the woman changed her mind for one reason or another but on the whole I think it would be very rare.
Note I support partial birth abortions as a medical necessity and think the bans imposed are stupid when medical reasons dictate that an abortion is necessary.
Not according to Planned Parenthood. Back in 1960, their medical director, Dr. Mary Calderone, proudly proclaimed,
“Abortion is no longer a dangerous procedure. This applies not just to therapeutic abortions as performed in hospitals but also to so-called illegal abortions as done by physician. In 1957 there were only 260 deaths in the whole country attributed to abortions of any kind…Second, and even more important, the conference [on abortion sponsored by Planned Parenthood] estimated that 90 percent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians…Whatever trouble arises usually arises from self-induced abortions, which comprise approximately 8 percent, or with the very small percentage that go to some kind of non-medical abortionist…So remember…abortion, whether therapeutic or illegal, is in the main no longer dangerous, because it is being done well by physicians.” (American Journal of Public Health, July 1960)
But you cannot compare the medical-legal climate of the 1960s to that of today. If physicians **today **are legally barred from performing abortions, they are not going to do it due to the legal consequences. So you’ll be left with a lot more “self-induced” abortions which according to the quote above is where the trouble arises.
That’s exactly what irishgirl was doing, though. In fact, her exact words were “I know what would happen if all abortion were outlawed. See America pre Roe vs Wade…”
This happens a lot in discussions on abortion, BTW. One side says, “If you outlaw abortion, then milliions of women will start dying from illegal abortions again!” When the other side points out that this is a persistent myth, the inevitable response is “But things are different now!”
Physicians were legally barred from performing abortions prior to Roe v Wade, but that did stop them all from performing them anyway.
I could be wrong but my sense is things were a bit looser back then as regards what doctors would do than they are today. I think the likelihood of a doctor getting caught today is greater than it was then.
Anecdotal but I recall as a kid (read early 70’s) my grandfather died of intestinal cancer. The way my parents told me years later he was in massive amounts of pain and was 100% on his way out…just a matter of hours, a day or so at the outside, and he’d never ever get out of that bed. Supposedly with a wink and a nod everyone said their goodbyes and the doctors gave him a bit too much pain killer and sent him on his way.
I just do not see most doctors risking their livelihood and jail time these days to give a woman an abortion.
Exactly my point. I’m from a family of doctors spanning several generations. Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s doctors had God-like freedoms that they do not enjoy today. Now there are strict regulations and oversight, not to mention the PI attorneys who advertise on TV (hence the birth of the term “defensive medicine”).
You might find a random Kevorkian type who is willing to go to jail to make a point, but for the most part in this day and age you won’t find any doctor willing to lose his license and/or go to prison so that some woman can have an abortion. The medical-legal climate is completely different now.
Depending on how you want to define third trimester, the number might be a little over 1,000/yr. However 23-24 wks is listed as almost 5,000/yr, and that’s pretty close to a viable infant.
Be aware, though, that the further along the pregnancy, the more likely there is to be deliberate underreporting of the actual gestational age. It becomes increasingly uncomfortable to terminate late pregnancies, so there is motivation on all sides to minimize the gestational age.
Well,if we’re gonna speculate; some of the reasons given for later-term abortions:
The last two could easily be the result of pro-lifers putting up barriers to abortion access by driving out providers and requiring notification laws. If a late-term abortion is worse than an early-term one, it can’t hurt to point out that making the latter more difficult to get only encourages the latter.
And in any case, the article doesn’t indicate how many of the rough-estimate thousand (which could by even rougher-estimate be higher) were purely elective.
If the rape/incest exception is something the hard-line pro-lifers feel they have to allow to keep from alienating the mushy middle, I guess I can tolerate a third-trimester-elective ban for the same reason. After all, it’s been theoretically possible to get a “five minutes shy” abortion in Canada for 20 years, and we haven’t (yet) slippery-sloped into declaring open season on toddlers.
My only argument is with anti-abortion people who claim “Every woman regrets having an abortion and no woman regrets adoption.” They make adoption to be some kind of la=la land where everything goes exactly right.
When you hear people saying that Michelle Landers did the right thing by choosing adoption over abortion and handing her child over to the people who would later beat her to death and that she doesn’t regret doing it, you have to wonder how crazy the anti-abortionists can get.