The brain activity issue is more complicated than that. As I recall you actually get brain activity fairly early, but it isn’t like the activity you see in people, and the brain tissue involved dies well before birth anyway; it’s basically just the equivalent of scaffolding. You don’t see “humanlike” brain waves until around six months.
And assuming that that’s enough to make it a “person” is really reaching, and fairly irrelevant anyway. Even if it was a thinking, talking actual little person it still wouldn’t have the right to parasitize someone against their will, any more than someone would have the right to steal someone else’s kidney if they needed it. The whole personhood argument is really besides the point.
Why not? In the first case, she’s saying that once you’ve had N weeks (22 per the OP) to decide whether to abort, there comes a point at which ab abortion ought be performed only for health reasons.
In the second case, she’s addressing an unchosen pregnancy.
Pro- choice people are also Pro -life they are concerned for the already born. Look for them to have a good life, there are many who call themselves pro-life and are really just pro-birth. To me the test should be; if they were in a room with several frozen embryo’s and one helpless born person, and they could only save one from the burning building;, who would they save? It is really a religious question,
This would be as opposed to the pro-rape, pro-incest, and pro-child molestation positions? (As I see it, in a Newspeak environment where calling for the death penalty but opposing abortions is “pro-life” and saying a woman has a choice whether to carry a pregnancy full-term or terminate it is “pro-abortion”, then insisting that no abortion is available for pregnant victims of rape, incest, or child molestation is equivalent to favoring those behaviors. If you disagree, kindly distinguish the usages in a logical manner.
a- Up to 22 weeks, abortions are freely available and fully funded with federal money regardless of the citizenship of the woman.
b- Any pharmacist that refuses to dispense contraception or morning after pills shall lose his license permanently.
c- After 22 weeks, abortions shall be available if fetal testing reveals that the child would be born with severe deformities. A list of abortible deformities and the criteria for determination would be provided by law.
d- Religious organizations that continue to protest the 22 week rule would have their tax exempt status revoked.
I’ve pointed out several times before that a just-fertilized zygote is certainly and unambiguously human life. But that fact is also completely irrelevant to the abortion debate. Human life isn’t sacred or special or worth protecting-- A cancerous tumor is human life, too, and nobody has any qualms about excising those and incinerating them. What’s important isn’t human life, but personhood.
Yeah, I know, everyone on both sides of the debate will jump in now and say “Well, duh, that’s what we meant”. But I think using the wrong terminology this way really does encourage sloppy thinking.
Wait, are you seriously suggesting that we should have a law whose existence people shouldn’t be allowed to protest? That looks to me like a fundamental betrayal of the core principles of democracy.
I am. I would never fight for a 14 week end date, but it wouldn’t bother me all that much. I do have a problem with late term abortions where the mother’s life isn’t in jeopardy, or the child isn’t so horribly malformed that death is near certain shortly after birth…at that point you’re really killing a viable child simply because you haven’t given birth yet. If you wanted to make it 24 weeks, where most fetuses are viable, I’d be OK with that too. And, in all cases, I think that if there’s a good chance the mother will die or have serious life-altering complications, that takes precedence over anything else.
That said, as a guy, I don’t feel comfortable actively telling a woman what to do with her body, but at some point, it does become pretty close to infanticide in the womb…where that line is has in many cases really been the sticking point. I think it’s ridiculous to think it’s at conception. At the same time, seeing my son in my wife’s belly right now (she’s 35 weeks), and there’s no way you can tell me that’s not a child in there…heck, you can see and feel his knees moving and reacting to external stimuli. If you did a C-section right now, he’d be just fine. Where is that line between simply a part of the woman’s body and a fully independent child? I don’t know…First trimester is pretty much where almost all miscarriages happen, so abortion in that timeframe doesn’t really bother me. Viability may be the best line to draw to take in both sides. (though the ardent pro-lifers would never go for it.)
It is? It’s unconstitutional to outlaw abortion at 8 months, as long as there is an exception for the health of the mother? Can I have a cite for that?
I think the abortion issue around independence is more about the right of the woman to choose what happens to the fetus/baby, when choosing what happens within her womb. As the fetus/baby becomes more independent, their individual rights become more important.
It’s like that old I Love Lucy episode, when Lucy got handcuffed to Ethel and desperately wanted to meet the big Hollywood Movie Producer, and the locksmith didn’t have the right key, so they got Fred to chop Ethel’s hand off. Ok, that’s made up, but it’s ridiculous because nobody would accept that Lucy has the power to decide what happens to Ethel’s body, especially when there are other ways to sever the link without Ethel losing her hand.
With a post-viability abortion, the woman is deciding the fate of the fetus/baby by choosing a particular method for severing their link. If there are other methods of ending the pregnancy that do not impinge on the fetus/baby’s ability to live, then I would consider it reasonable to restrict the woman’s choices to those options.
No, as opposed to the pro-choice position, where people’s choices are respected even if they choose not to support or assist in abortions.
“Pro-choice” = the belief that people should be able to choose for themselves whether or not to have/support/enable abortions. “Pro-abortion” = the belief that people should not be allowed to choose not to for themselves.
The rest of your garbage about being in favor of child molesting and rape is too reminiscent of Der Trihs’ crap to bother with.
Is this “choice” label applied to any other issue besides abortion? Do I get to say I’m “pro-choice” wrt wars if I don’t want my $$ going to fund a war I disagree with, or am I just “anti-war” in that case.
