How would you tell if a woman wilfully caused it without an investigation? If she is in a car accident that causes a miscarriage, will you prosecute her for that?
What would your perspective be of a woman who really wants to have a baby, but she is not well enough to guarantee the health of the baby, and she miscarries 2 or three before one survives? Did she kill 2 or three lives, or did she bring one into the world? Would you prosecute her because she knew that there was a reasonable chance that she wouldn’t be able to bring it to term, no matter how careful she was?
Yeah, that is exactly what the debate is, you cannot assume that you have already won the debate and everyone agrees with you when all you have done is assert that you believe your opinion to be true. Nothing has any right to anything at all. Rights are things that we, as a society and civilization, decide to extend to others, because we wish them to reciprocate and grant them to us as well. What reciprocal right are you offering me in order to convince me that a non sentient clump of cells has more rights than the host of those cells wishes to extent to it?
I care about murder, because I don’t want to be murdered. I care about theft, because I don’t want to be stolen from. I’m just a touch too big for my mother to change her mind and decide to abort me at this point, so what benefit do I get out of granting the right to other fetuses that protects them from the wishes of their mothers?
You say “if I am correct”, do you entertain the notion whatsoever if you are not correct, as you have not made a single argument in support of your assertion, just assumed that your assertion was correct and went from there.
Woman dies because she can’t find a provider who is willing to extract her ecotopic pregnancy, leaving behind two kids and a husband who love her very much?
The pro-life response to that is, “Oh well. We all make choices. She shouldn’t have spread her legs if she wasn’t prepared to accept the consequences of her choices.”
A pregnancy is aborted so that a woman can raise her existing children and take care of her existing husband?
Pro-lifer: WHEN WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE PRECIOUS BABIES!
Not only is a clump of cells more important than the woman who is carrying it, the clump of cells is also more important than all the people who love and depend on the woman.
That doesn’t sound like a precious anything. It sounds like a monster.
My participation in this thread is not to actually argue for pro-life or anti-choice, it is to show that pro-lifers do not “want to control women’s bodies”. The fundamental disagreement is about the rights of the fetus. Any restrictions on women controlling their own body are entirely derived from the state’s interest in protecting the rights of the fetus.
Oh, well that’s different. If you don’t want to control women’s bodies, then let them get abortions.
I thought your position was that you wanted to prevent someone form getting abortions, but since you claim that you do not want to control their bodies, that must not be the case.
I could not. It would be a tip or complaint that starts the investigation, for example from the husband/boyfriend.
No, but if she caused the accident on purpose I would prosecute her for that.
If she miscarries without aborting a viable fetus, no charges. If her health condition requires the doctors to perform an abortion, and it can be proven that she had reason to expect an abortion (she might have a condition that makes delivery near-impossible), she would be prosecuted. The judge needs to give heavy consideration to the fact that she wanted the baby, and he should have discretion to waive bail, fines, and jail time. Similarly the state should be discouraged from prosecuting if she wanted the baby, unless it is not within reason that the pregnancy could be carried to term and she knew so.
And then if someone offers a tip or complains that she induced a miscarriage, that is an entirely different matter.
Reciprocal right? It’s too late for that, you will never again be a clump of cells.
You don’t get any benefit from this. You already “have yours” and I’ve “got mine”. The freedoms of future potential people can only be secured at the cost of present and future people’s freedoms. Just like future environmental issues to a senior citizen today.
I more than entertain the notion that I am not correct. See posts [POST=21661132]#164[/POST] and [POST=21661179]#171[/POST].
I guess I do want to control women’s bodies, but only when necessary to protect the rights of the fetus! I don’t get some sort of sick pleasure out of endorsing laws that restrict people’s freedoms.
You should read this post and then explain how you would ensure that women will be able to get ectopic pregnancies removed without dealing with obstinate or fearful doctors. If doctors are allowed to refuse to perform removal surgery right now, what would stop all of them from refusing under an abortion ban, with the threat of a prison time hanging over them?
Medical ethics transcends personal morals and that doctor was deeply wrong. If there was no other doctor immediately available it was his duty as a physician to deal with it. He should have been reprimanded by the medical board, if the woman had actually died he definitely should have lost his license. Ectopic pregnancies are bona fide medical emergencies and I would never support a law preventing urgent medically necessary treatment because it is likely to kill the fetus.
Considering we don’t prosecute people for killing in self-defense, don’t you think that’s a little absurd?
Did you read that story about a girl in Brazil who was raped by her stepfather, and was impregnated with twins? She was 9-years-old, and the doctor said carrying them to term would probably endanger her life. So what, in your view, should have been done? She was molested by a family member, so obviously she didn’t decide to have sex. But, her life was in danger. So by your rules, she was completely fucked.
And if not, then you believe it’s morally justified to physically force a little girl to bear incredible physical pain and permanent changes to her body as a result of her abuse when it could be very easily avoided?
Yes, unless the doctor refuses to certify medical necessity in violation of medical ethics.
ETA: If it’s a little girl the doctor really must certify the necessity of abortion. If it’s an older patient I’m open to an exception, but for the sake of argument I will say yes. I’m open to the state taking care of the children and paying for the procedures and follow up therapy and other sorts of things.
This is a moral monstrosity, IMO – akin to raping a little girl over and over again for 9 months. Nothing in the real world could justify such an abominable thing.
If it’s a little girl the doctor must certify the abortion. If the doctor risks letting the girl die because he doesn’t want to kill the fetus, you bet I’ll want his head on a pike.
You saying they were “wrong” is nice and everything, but that’s not a safe guard. Neither is talking about what “should” have happened after the fact.
A woman having to be dicked around by medical providers who care more about what Pastor says than what their medical training says is not an abstraction that just goes away because people like you don’t agree with it. When you ban one kind of medical procedure, even well-intentioned doctors become hesitant to perform anything that resembles that medical procedure. Because there’s no guarantee that their colleagues or supervisor will agree with their decision and back them. If they get charged with a crime, there’s no guarantee the judge or jury will take their side.
I can imagine some doctors deciding that aren’t willing to perform any surgery on a pregnant woman because they don’t want to deal with the legal bullshit if there’s complications and the fetus dies. No doctor wants to be interrogated by some uneducated self-important blowhard who wants to know who do he thinks he is to risk a “natural person’s life” over some piddly gallstones.
It doesn’t matter to me if abortion bans intentionally control women’s bodies or not. Regardless of their intent, the primary effect of these laws is that women lose the right to their own bodies. They lose the right to go to a medical professional and receive the most effective treatment their healthcare coverage can buy. They lose the right to privacy when it comes to normal bodily functions (e.g., expelling a non-viable embryo or fetus). And once promulgated on a widespread basis, there would be nothing to stop new legislation that would further restrict what women can do. If the pro-life side can’t come up ways to speak to these issues without defaulting to “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BABY’S RIGHTS!”, then they will always be branded as ignorant misogynists who only care about controlling women’s bodies.
What if the little girl is unusually big and physically mature and the pregnancy poses no more risk than for an adult? Are you still okay with forcing this little girl to endure incredible pain and permanent changes to her body for 9 months when it would be very easy to avoid?
It would be idiotic to trust a single doctor’s word on something like this. Especially when the doctor is white and the patient is black. I don’t trust a rural, white, elderly male doctor to objectively evaluate a black nine-year-old pregnant and not judge her to be more “womanly” that she actually is…[because this kind of shit happens routinely](https:/girl /www.huffpost.com/entry/black-girls-adultification-white-report_n_5cdf3a51e4b09e057803fbe9?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMgFKs_G-SxER6fXi6KbjSYRp7m1uZEKgylIE0QmetZm8lWu4rE-z1LUpEZIQ26u7LEkEmJyi4Q0HlE2l41AwHMkGq6IBLZX6s0ISAihzglSSRpuzvACJE1NNj3uQxcUOuzEdLhXNyUe-Slv-7O96lzwhYDSnZhy8d3OV4SHap5B).
And I don’t trust an all-white male law enforcement department to believe her rape claim so she can be granted a rape exclusion. It won’t matter to them that she’s nine. If she’s got womanly parts, she’s got a woman’s mind and a woman’s duty to ACCEPT HER CONSEQUENCES!!
Well why did feminism happen when it did instead of any time in the last 4,000 years, unless it was because the circumstances that rewarded married motherhood and discouraged female independence changed? I would go so far as to believe that if industrial civilization ended and humanity reverted to an agricultural lifestyle, feminism would die out even if women sought to preserve it.
To those have been arguing the good fight, I salute you. This whole issue has wiped me out, and I can’t even conceive of eloquently arguing against giving up control of my body to protect a clump of cells that cannot survive outside my womb, essentially becoming my own prison for months on the say so of… What? Someone without medical expertise but with a really strong sense of what’s right for that clump? To hell with the incubator, she’s partially responsible for her condition anyway. if her body rejects that embryo, and she miscarries, she better hope that she doesn’t have a vindictive ex willing to call in “a tip” or she’ll face the"fun" of an investigation.
I’m just exhausted. But I’m grateful that some remain willing to engage in debate, cause I’m just done.