Pro-choicers: would you take this abortion deal?

And just to be clear, if it’s a surrogate mother and the parents change their minds or don’t like how the fetus is developing, it’s still her body, her choice.

Oh,please. That’s about China, not about abortion.

How should we track them and to what end?

Methods of tracking would range from next to useless (anecdotal) to inappropriately invasive (from a mandatory survey prior to the abortion to tracking who gets genetic tests, what the results were and then if these people went on to obtain an abortion). I can’t see an end that would justify such intrusion.

Who decides what is a “significant” risk? You? A committee of bureaucrats?

A qualified medical practitioner.

Sex selective abortion happens here too, and it’s almost never for the purpose of aborting males.

As for tracking, the census already does that. If we notice that the percentage of males is increasing, that has social implications. If we notice all the gay people disappearing, that does too.

Yeah, sure, sure it does. :rolleyes:

I had previously withdrawn my point. Yes, churches often do advocate for moral causes, even those (like anti-abortion and anti-gay rights) which I disagree with them about.

It happens.

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/couples-expecting-girls-demand-abortions-because-they-want-boys-say-obstetricians/story-fnet085v-1226630636083

Just as any one has the right to self preservation, a woman should have the right to self defense. Her doctor and the woman should be the one’s determining this, not some outsider who does not know her circumstance. It is something that will affect her the rest of her life, regardless of what Choice she makes.

Oh yes. And, as I understand this proposal, that would apply to foetuses after 22 weeks too.

I think that’s a good point in a way, in that, if there are so few (as good as none?) late-term abortions being done for non-medical reasons right now, they don’t need to be legislated against. Otoh, if that’s the case then it’s also true that this proposal would not prevent large numbers of women from having late-term abortions, since they’d still be allowed to for medical reasons.

Are the women involved allowed to have any input on how much risk they wish to accept? What if different practitioners assess the risks differently?

There may not be many parents who would refuse to donate a kidney to their child if they were a match but I still would not want the government to mandate such a thing.

No.

The proposal is that late-term abortions would be permissible only if the life (not just health) of the woman were “clearly and directly threatened.”

There is no allowance at all for taking the baby’s prospects into account, and apparently no input from the woman herself.

Okay, fine. Who’s on the hook for raising the severely disabled “fetus” for the next 18 years? Paying the hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical care and therapy? Do we just have Post-23 Week Fetus Homes or something?

You cannot ignore the practical reasons for abortion. In fact, IMO, that’s the only ones we should be debating. You have no invitation nor any right to get into anyone’s else personal morality in this regard.

What about the medical status of the fetus? What if, at 24 weeks, you find out your child is Downs, or missing part of it’s face or any number of really horrible things have gone wrong? Just, too bad, you have to raise and pay for a disabled kid for the rest of your life?

It doesn’t usually take till 24 weeks to find out your child has Down’s. If some states don’t screen until then, then the limit should be higher. I said something similar earlier when explaining why 24 weeks makes more sense to me than 22. UK law allows abortion after 24 weeks if the child will be severely disabled, and that makes sense to me.

Adoption should also be made easier to do - after all, birth itself can cause serious disabilities, and some parents simply can’t look after a severely disabled child well, which isn’t fair on the child or them.

It’s hard enough to keep an abortion thread on track; let’s not hijack this one, ok?

Please don’t poison the well by assuming that children born at 23 weeks must necessarily be severely disabled. A lot of them are, but some are not.

And yes, the government should care for all children who don’t have parents, whether they’re born at 23 weeks, or full term.

I’m not ignoring practical reasons for abortion. You must have missed where I said I support the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion.

They are if the woman wanted to terminate the pregnancy because the baby was profoundly disabled.

But only on the terms that you, in your armchair, are most comfortable with.