The regulation issue is an important one, and I agree with pro-choicers that needless regulations that raise the cost of operating should not be imposed.
However, I also wish liberals would approach ALL business regulation this way. Abortion clinics do not merit special consideration, and should be subject to all regulations affecting all medical clinics. If a regulation is considered too onerous for an abortion clinic, and unnecessary, we should be questioning why an urgent care clinic or dental clinic would be subject to the same regulation.
One prudent regulation that I think should be imposed is that late term abortions should only be performed in hospitals, and only if two doctors confirm that the patient is likely to suffer damage to her physical health if she carries it to term. These late term clinics are like many online pharmacies, if you come in wanting something, you’ll get it whether or not its medically necessary.
That’s garbage. George Tiller for example only aborted a healthy fetus if "two doctors certified that carrying the fetus to term would cause the woman “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
And forcing a woman to give birth to a hopelessly deformed or dead fetus is disgusting and purely an attempt to torment women. Why don’t you just go all the way and call for a law that requires a man to stand over her as she gives birth, slapping her and spitting on her over and over while screaming “slut!” ?
As for your other argument, the law is clear: abortions can be outlawed after viability. That’s the way almost every other country does it and how almost all states in our country do it. If deformation makes it unworthy of life after it’s you know, alive and viable, then why not allow it to be killed after day 1? What’s so special about it’s birthday?
Because after its birthday, it’s not relying upon the biological support of another human being who has decided, for whatever reason, to withdraw that voluntary biological support.
If the baby is viable, it doesn’t need biological support. There’s no particular reason to kill it. If the woman doesn’t want it in her body anymore, that can easily be remedied.
Women who went to Gosnell weren’t interested in terminating their pregnancy. All they had to do was wait a short time longer. They wanted their babies dead.
That’s what Kansas law required. Well, not exactly, but it did require a “non-affiliated doctor” to make the determination along with the doctor performing the abortion.
So I guess it could have all been done at Tiller’s clinic, so long as Tiller wasn’t employing the doctor at the clinic. Which shouldn’t have been a high bar to clear, unless you want to make sure you always get the answer you want.
But states don’t even have to do that. California, a pretty liberal state I’m sure we’d all agree, bans late term abortions entirely. Seven states ban late term abortions unless the mother’s very life is in danger, and only five allow late term abortions for fetal defects:
Pennsylvania in particular also required two doctors to make the determination. That definitely wasn’t happening, since Gosnell was the only doctor at the clinic:
Pennsylvania’s post-viability abortion restriction states that no abortion may be provided after the 23rd week of pregnancy unless the attending physician and another physician who has examined the woman concur in writing that the procedure is necessary to preserve the woman’s life or to prevent a “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.” The physician must use the procedure most likely to result in fetal survival unless in the physician’s good faith medical judgment that method poses a significantly greater risk of the woman’s death or a “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” of the woman than other available methods. A second physician must attend. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 3211 (Enacted 1989).
The directive that fetal survival had to be attempted was declared unconstitutional. However, in Gosnell’s case, these women were actually fully birthing these babies, THEN he killed them.
Really? So you’ve decided that a much riskier, involuntary surgical procedure is an perfectly acceptable alternative to a voluntary abortion because it’s so “easy.” Because that’s respecting a woman’s bodily autonomy in what way?
But you are misguided. You will find no physician or scientist anywhere that will tell you that artificial life support of a fetus is in any way superior to biological support.
Who is financially responsible for the medical care incurred for both the woman’s Cesarean and the intensive medical care required for the preterm infant? If the child survives, where does the infant go after it leaves the hospital’s NICU? Who is responsible for any long-term care costs of a child who develops chronic illness as a result of preterm delivery? How much physical suffering is deemed too much; where do you draw the line?
It’s human from conception. The egg is human. The sperm is human. Nobody disputes that it’s human. But it is not a biologically independent person. Period.
Orphans are independent (biologically) human beings.
I am not suggesting that babies have no rights. They, as independent human beings, certainly do. Babies are born. Fetuses are aborted.
Do you force an unwilling woman to submit to a medically risky surgery to remove the fetus intact and alive? At what point in the viability spectrum? Who pays for all this expensive medical care? And how much suffering of the preterm infant is too much? How much suffering of the mother is over the line?
If for whatever reason the baby is alive once free of her body, her choices end right at that second and her wishes are irrelevant. The baby is entitled to all the benefits of being a US citizen and would be in the care of the state’s system for unwanted children.
Also, viable fetuses should only be aborted if the woman’s physical health is actually in danger. Nations that allow such abortions for pure choice reasons are nearly as rare as nations that allow the death penalty.
I have sympathy for that position, but if we’re talking pure choice here, there’s 23 weeks to exercise that judgement. There’s also the matter of doctors’ wishes. Doctors cannot be forced to perform procedures they do not wish to except to save a life. There are very few providers(only one left actually) that are willing to terminate pregnancies in the third trimester. Planned Parenthood won’t even do it for you.
The saying goes, “abortion is between a woman and her doctor.” That’s true. We’re not going to move the goalposts and say a woman is entitled to one whether a doctor is willing or not.
So you are in favor of requiring a woman to undergo a medically risky surgery to deliver a medically compromised preterm fetus even in cases in which she didn’t know she was pregnant, had no access to an early abortion, or is carrying a fetus with a medical anomaly that very well be life threatening. With the full knowledge that the resulting infant will likely suffer in the NICU, and potentially for the rest of its life? With full knowledge that the woman may never be able to have a normal, vaginal birth?
For the love of sanity, why?! What is life if you can be forced into an involuntary surgical procedure to give birth to an infant that dies 48 hours later because it’s lungs are underdeveloped or its brain did not develop properly.
I like how you define “intimidated by anti-abortion terrorists” as “unwilling”. Makes it sound all noble and ethical, rather than a matter of coercion at gunpoint by bigoted, woman hating religious fanatics.
Most of what you are talking about is covered by “threat to the physical health of the mother”.
As for the deformed fetus, I rely on two principles here: first, a presumption that the laws covering this have been carefully considered: 45 states do not permit late term abortions if the fetus is unhealthy but the mother is and can deliver normally. Second, that a viable fetus is entitled to the same rights as an adult in the same situation. We don’t put down adults, we shouldn’t put down viable fetuses.
I anticipated that response. There’s some merit to it, but not as much as you think. There are hundreds of abortion providers, all of whom face threats. The reason 99.9% of them refuse to do abort viable fetuses is due to conscience, not fear.
