If it is not her life, but only her health that is at risk, how much are we willing to make her suffer?
Does the doctor need to worry about a panel of political appointees second guessing his decision, potentially stripping him of his license and maybe even jailing him because they do not think that the criteria were met?
Does the doctor need to get back to her in a timely fashion, or can he just wait until it is too late, whether the spawn has gone on too long, or the woman is dead from complications?
And then the case is appealed on timely objections and hopefully the innocent woman wins a retrial.
Yes, but I would expect the police to barge into your home if a fetus has rights and abortion is illegal when medically necessary but legal and accessible when medically necessary.
And I want my daughters and sons to realize that having unprotected sex (or even protected sex) means you might become pregnant, and that abortion is killing a person, and unjustified unless her life is in danger. After conception or brainwaves or whatever criteria, it’s too late to back out.
And if I took the position that non-procreative sex between fertile individuals is sinful, I would want my daughters and sons to know that too.
Don’t equate my position with the status quo before Roe v. Wade. I make exceptions for medical necessity and possibly rape victims, and I am all for sex education and state funding and availability of abortions that meet those criteria, and support services and even Planned Parenthood. I would even prefer to support measures increasing the availability of contraceptives, either because I support it or as a compromise (sinful women are better than dead sinful women and dead innocent babies). I support culpability of the father, and if I believe making sexual promiscuity a sin this applies to men as well as women.
That state law does not go far enough to protect the woman. You would need a complaint by the husband or credible testimony from a credible witness such as a mandatory reporter.
If I have the authority, I say the investigation lacked probable cause from the outset and all evidence gathered thus far is fruit of the poisonous tree, then drop the case. If I don’t have authority, I either threaten to resign (if I think she is innocent) or do my job as commanded and press charges, noting my objections in the record, and watch her win the trial.
The mandatory screening is wrong to begin with, and I agree with you about that.
I am bothered by it, but the same thing happens when someone caring for an elderly relative gives the impression that they want the elder dead. If the elder then actually dies, yes, depending on the “tips” or complaints or a ton of reasons, there might be an investigation for a non-existent crime. I can’t speak for other pro-lifers, only myself, and even then only when I adopt their position.
Maybe it is crazy, but it is only crazy at the root. Everything else follows naturally.
The doctor; it’s up to the doctor; also up to the doctor; yes; and yes it must be timely.
I know I’m throwing a lot of responsibility on doctors. But that is their job! Doctors literally exist to make professional judgements with life-and-death consequences. This is the reason medical ethics are more important than personal morals.
ETA: Doctors must also give heavy consideration to the mother’s wishes.
They should probably kick down the door if she pours a glass of wine, or pulls out a cigarette, or starts doing laundry, or even stretches wrong.
Great for you. Then teach that to your sons and daughters. Why do you need everyone else to follow your prefered morality in order to do so?
I support all of those, and by supporting those, that doesn’t also preclude my support of a woman to have control over her body.
I also do not try to get others to be forced into my morality, and would not consider someone to be doing something that I Don’t like to be sinning. In fact, bringing sin into it pretty much concedes that you have no actual secular position here, but only a religiously based one, and we are not a theocracy.
Okay, so where is the limit? If the baby will live, but be severely mentally retarded, barely even conscious, is that a life to be kept? If it will live, but be a quadriplegic, or even just a paraplegic, does that baby need to come into being?
I’ve been following a story of a baby born without skin. It looks like it will live a bit longer, a bit more time of excruciating pain, but it may survive, would you rule that that baby needs to be carried to completion?
Unless you actually are willing to address these questions, then what you want is for women to be forced to bear babies as a consequence of them having sex, and any fig leaf that you actually care about the baby is shredded.
Why the hell do you think all of this is an issue only for children, or even only for raped people? Adult women have their own work to do, which might or might not be learning in school, but all of that nevertheless applies.
I didn’t say the woman’s right to life. I said the woman’s right to have a life: that is, as something other than an incubator, all of whose work, family responsibilites, and joy you want to subordinate to the needs of an eight-week fetus.
It appears to be your position that society as a whole should not demand that women of childbearing age have any right to make their own decisions. I disagree with you about that.
Fault has nothing to do with it.
No, it would not have to be such a scenario. I was going to say ‘why should it’, but I suppose you’re going to say again that having sex is the same thing as consenting to pregnancy. I disagree with that one also, but even if we posit it:
The law and the society do not require a person who did stab another in the kidney to donate a kidney in an attempt to make repairs.
The law and the society do not require a willing parent to donate a kidney, even though that person agreed to help make the kidney that turned out to be faulty.
Sometimes.
If you push the victim in the river in order to stop that person from kidnapping you, I expect it’s self defense. Even if the person said they’d let you go again in nine months, though they were in no way guaranteeing to keep you in conditions that wouldn’t leave you seriously damaged for life.
The concentration of wealth in the hands of billionaires arguably does help cause those people’s problems. The society’s willingness to encourage such concentration certainly affects the cost of test strips.
But even if we grant that one, that doesn’t change the organ donation examples. Substitute instead that we don’t even require people to donate blood, which, unlike pregnancy, actually is only a trivial inconvenience.
You can’t make that true by saying it, even repeatedly. It’s not true. The only disagreement is not over the first point, and we most certainly can, and will, and have been debating the second point.
Your opinion does not control the universe, or the country, or even this discussion. I do understand in a sense why you might find that annoying; but I don’t understand why you think you can pull off claiming that only your opinion matters.
– fast moving thread. I might, or might not, tackle whatever’s come in since the portion I replied to above later.
So, I’m the boyfriend, and my GF has told me that she is pregnant, and has shown me the abortifancst that she is about to use, but I cannot report her, as we are not married and I am not a mandatory reporter?
Great, so you resign and someone with more zealotry for babies and hatred for women takes over.
But how else would we know if these sinful people are having sex when they know that a miscarriage could be a consequence?
Two big differences. The first is that the elderly person is actually probably going to die at some point in the not too distant future. That’s part of being elderly. The second is that a fetus is much smaller and is kinda hidden from easy view, so it is much harder to tell what exactly is going on there.
No, everything else is a bunch of cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy as they attempt to implement theocratic rule is a country based on secularism.
~Max
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So, we have doctor that performs abortions on a regular basis. Anyone that goes to that doctor asking for an abortion gets one. Will there be any investigation into this doctor?
Right, which is more or less how it should be. It is people trying to get between the doctor and the patient that is the problem.
I agree, and that includes terminating an unwanted pregnancy.
You believe “that non-procreative sex between fertile individuals is sinful”, so you don’t think anybody should be having it. And you want to force this position on the entire population; most of whom, whether or not they’re religious, believe no such thing.
You also think that the best way to force this position, which is a belief of certain religious sects, on the population as a whole, is to somehow convince everybody that the only topic which can properly be debated in relation to it is whether a fetus can be said to have rights.
That doesn’t seem to be working very well over here. I wish you similar luck everywhere else that you try it.
As I mentioned earlier, itis not that they want to control women’s bodies, it is that controlling women’s bodies is part of what is necessary for them to impose their religion upon society to bring on an authoritarian theocratic rule.
And you’re saying this why? What makes you think the state won’t consider all lines of evidence? And why would the husband be more credible than anyone else? Maybe the husband was the one who put something in her drink. Maybe the husband isn’t even in the picture, but the ex-boyfriend is.
You sound very naive here, sorry. Innocent people lose their court cases all the time. Good people bow down to political pressure all the time. If department policy directs staff to treat positive tox screens as probable cause, then you can grandstand all you want. It won’t change anything.
I don’t know the image you have of the hypothetical woman who falls down the stairs. Maybe if she’s clearly an upstanding woman–conventionally attractive, middle class, no infractions with the law–then she can expect mercy. But you better believe an “imperfect” woman would have a much harder time. She tests positive for meth? She lives in filthy house? She has five kids in foster care? THROW THE BOOK AT HER. The criminal justice system is the biggest destroyer of life in the US. Banning abortion will just destroy more lives, and it will be the “imperfect” people who suffer the brunt of this destruction.
Why would mandatory screening be wrong? Wouldn’t it be the only way to empirically determine if an aborticant was used to cause a miscarriage? If you don’t have mandatory screening, then what stops women from giving themselves chemical-induced abortions? Aren’t you making it awfully hard to enforce an abortion ban law?
If I am caring for my elderly parent and someone overhears me say that I can’t wait for them to die and then my parent ends up dying, yes, there may be an investigation depending on the circumstances of that death. But that investigation will not require me to get a medical exam to determine if I did something damaging to my body. If I get wasted the night before my parent dies from a heart attack, that’s not going to raise any red flags. If I get wasted the night before my miscarriage, you better believe some sanctimonious person will have a problem with it and try to ruin my life over it.
A lot of things follow “naturally” from an abortion ban. And those things are much scarier and more destructive than some aborted fetuses. It’s well and good for you to only think of the best outcomes (more wonderful baybies!!). But the worst outcomes are what we need to keep at the forefront of our minds.
It really bothers me that the husband/boyfriend/ex would be a credible tip* by default*. When it comes down to a he said/she said situation here, of course the male voice is given this tremendous weight and value.
Yes, all it takes is a jealous or upset significant other to officially begin an investigation. The police are free to realize there is no reasonable basis and close the case.
No, a tip or complaint is not all it takes to get someone prosecuted. It’s not even enough to open a serious investigation, unless the complaintant is credible. The district attorney will need a strong case with evidence before prosecuting.
I am saying the garbage truck worker should know the risks. The garbage truck worker can unionize or bargain for higher pay to compensate the risk of an accident. He can take out life insurance or petition laws ensuring a minimum of safeguards be in place. Intentional murder of the garbage truck worker is prosecutable.
Correct. Not wanting a fetus is not enough for me to support its abortion.
I mean entitled, definitely not required.
That arbitrary threshold is “near-impossible”, or alternatively, that she has a “reasonable chance” of successful delivery. Whether a woman meets the threshold is up to her doctor, and the woman chooses the doctor. If a doctor says she has a reasonable chance and she doesn’t, and for whatever reason the state investigates the abortion (it must not be automatic), the doctor is on the hook and not the woman.
I would only prosecute for 1) willful induced miscarriage, 2) medically unnecessary abortion, or 3) gross negligence resulting in medically necessary abortion.
Yes, number three means I would prosecute for the act of sex if such an act constitutes gross negligence. That would be like drag racing on a public road and running over a pedestrian.
Your comparison completely breaks down and is invalid. The environment benefits everyone. Who does that fetus benefit?
Given the fictive process above, the environment of the future will not benefit anybody living today. But working to save it does disadvantage people here and now.
Let me give you a better analogy. Let’s say you and your children are sick and in suffering. You can still function normally but life is uncomfortable. Doctors say you will all live but the suffering will not diminish. The devil visits and offers to cure you and your family and let everyone live a long and healthy life. In return, long after you and everybody you know are dead, he will kill some of your descendents and inflict the same disease upon the rest before making the offer again.
I think this example is also comparable to the abortion debate, if you accept the premise that fetuses have rights. Legalizing abortion is like agreeing to the devil’s contract - untold numbers of persons will die but in return people can have sex without worrying about pregnancy or labor. Banning abortion is like refusing the devil’s contract - innocent people will not die to the devil but in turn sex has consequences.
I’m not saying you are aligned with the devil, that wasn’t the purpose of the example. That’s why I used the environmental example first.
Then you and I are on the same page in reference to the original topic - “Pro-lifers want to control women’s bodies” - Okay, but…why?
I’m a random internet dude, not a doctor. There is no general rule as to when it is medically necessary to perform the abortion. It would probably depend on many factors I couldn’t possibly hope to understand. I can’t get any more specific than “if there is a reasonable chance that the mother will lose her life, she may request an abortion.” And I am nobody to say what percentage is a reasonable chance.
Quality of life, if temporary, shouldn’t be an issue unless the doctor believes there will be permanent effects. I hesitate to force doctors to stand by while a woman in extreme discomfort requests an abortion, but if her life is safe and the fetus is safe I also have a feeling that she and her partner brought this upon herself (rape excepted). If it gets to the point where doctors fear she might develop a permanent physiologic or psychiatric disorder, that is, she just cannot handle being pregnant, an abortion might be in order. But repeated abortions under these circumstances, and repeated sex leading to the same situation, constitute negligence unless she has a bona fide wish to deliver a child and works closely with the doctors to make it happen. At some point, even with a bona fide wish, if it’s not possible it’s not possible. I don’t think anyone will reach that point without some physiologic or psychiatric disorder being diagnosed.
I said timely objections, although strictly speaking the defense must also timely request an appeal.
No, the crime is gross negligence that actually leads to death of the fetus. Another crime is willful self-induced abortion, which requires that the fetus to actually die. And this law is already on the books in most jurisdictions.
Don’t get the theoretical anti-abortion law mixed up with negligence and self-induced abortion laws.
Well, in my opinion as an anti-abortion advocate, abortion amounts to killing a person and the law should punish people who kill other people.
The correct question is “when and why does the fetus acquire rights”?
The point is that anti-abortion/pro-life/whatever-you-call-them advocates are actually interested in the rights of the fetus, not controlling women’s bodies. They might have a religious basis, their argument might fall apart under scrutiny (I couldn’t say), but it is not because they are actually misogynists.
They are difficult questions, and not actually being an abortion advocate, I cannot answer them to my own satisfaction. There are religious arguments, sure: if the baby lives long enough for baptism we can save its soul. The state has no interest if the baby won’t survive into adulthood, or will be so maimed as to be unable to participate in society. The hospital would prefer to let the mother decide, or rather, her insurance company. The doctors see these things all the time and quietly regret the unfortunate reality of life. I don’t know who is right.
She was pregnant, now she’s not. Pretty open and shut case to me. Ask her if she wants to take a plea bargain, or face a jury or a bunch of religious fanatics.
And that matters how? He still dies due to someone else’s negligence.
And so is unintentional homicide.
So, it’s not about the fetus then, it is about limiting the control over a woman’s body.
So you are fine with her miscarrying half a dozen babies before she finally delivers a live one?
There is no doctor in the world that is going to approve such an action. They are on the hook. If they have 100 patients, and each of them have a 90% chance of delivering their baby, that mean that the state is going to be going after them for the 10 that turned out to not be “:reasonable chances”.
So you would prosecute a woman for getting pregnant if she really wanted a baby but had a high chance of miscarriage.
Make up your mind.
To some extent, sure, but we are talking about, once again, something that effects every, vs a fetus.
That would be a terrible deal that should not be taken.
That’s a terrible analogy. How exactly is legalizing abortion like visiting death and injury upon the future?
No really, I’ve seen bad analogies, and that is one of the worst. It doesn’t actually have any connection to the topic, and neither it’s premise nor conclusion follow in any logical fashion, and to top it off, it is predicated upon me condeding the entire argument and accepting the a fetus has rights, which is what the debate is actually about.
No, you are saying that non-procreative sex is a sin, and therefore, pro-choicers are enabling sin. Not all that much better, really. These are your opinions, and you wish to impose your opinions on others, even if they don’t share those opinions.
Because they want more than just control over women’s bodies, they want control over society. They want to institute a theocratic authoritarian dictatorship, where they justify their whims by saying that they got them from the sky god. They want to shut down debate about the secular benefits of policies by declaring those policies to be or to enable sin in the eyes of their religion.
Just look at how much privacy and intrusion you are willing to impose upon society in order to get your way in regards to a bunch of clumps of cells. The point isn’t the cells, the point is the disruption of society.
If you cannot answer these questions, then you shouldn’t be imposing your will upon others.
So, torture is fine for you if it imposes your will on society. I disagree.
As you said, you are considering it from the perspective that the fetus is a person, have you ever tried considering that the woman is a person too? Try thinking of it from that perspective for a change.
What if I have a child who needs regular blood transfusions, and a parent is the only one whose blood type matches. For that child to stay alive, the parent has to go through painful blood draws several times a week–enough blood loss to make them feel sick and woozy and unable to really work or function.
Can the state compel the parent to make those donations? For how long? Till the child is 18? Until the parent dies of old age? If the parent resists, can they be physically compelled–held in jail–or just prosecuted after the child dies?
You are right, that is not what you said, but you did imply that the appeals would be answered in a timely way. Of course they need to be filed in a timely fashion, but you know what kind of backlog our justice system has right now? Try adding in the hundreds of thousands of cases of abortion to it, and see if “timely” is an adjective that has any relevance.
You were saying that the cops could bust the door down if they suspected that she was doing something harmful to the baby, not that she was successful.
And, you’ve made this claim a few times that willful self induced abortion is a crime. Can you cite this, because that makes abortifacient drugs illegal, doesn’t it? And they’re not, at least not in most places.
I’m not. I’m just trying to see if you have a consistent position in regards to the life of the fetus over the rights of anyone else. So far, not so much.
And you will impose your opinions of those subject upon others through legislative means.
Well, you do have to admit that at least some of them are. I don’t think that many of them hate women, most of them just don’t give two shits about women as long as they are able to control them.
Religious arguments do not belong in legislative debates. We chose to leave that shit behind a couple hundred years ago. There are countries with religious based governments, and they are mostly pretty shitt yplaces to live, especially for women, and I have no interest in allowing that sort of thing to happen here.
I don’t know who is right either, which is why I do not presume to make the decision for others, and leave the decision to the person most invested and impacted by the decision, the mother.
If the decision is to be made by anyone else, then you have to answer all of the questions that I have posed, and more, if you want to continue to pretend that this is a balancing of rights, vs just a complete and naked desire to control the morality of other people.
Teach them that, then. Seriously. No one is forcing you not to impart this message to your kids.
The messages mine will hear are:
Having sex means you might become pregnant, even if you have protected sex, so unless you are prepared to handle that risk, dont do it.
In the event that you make a mistake and think you might be pregnant, don’t freak out and panic and feel like it’s end of the world; you can come to me and I will help you figure out what to do. I will not shame you.
If it’s only a few days after you had sex, you can take plan B. This isn’t something that you want to dawdle with, though; time is of the essence.
If you’ve already missed your period, abortion is an option and I will support you in getting one if you’re still in the first trimester.
If you want to keep it, that’s an option too.
We already know what happens when you beat society over the head with “it’s too late to do anything if you get pregnant!” That kind of black and white messaging causes people to have children they can’t take care of. It causes people to become trapped in shot gun marriages that make everyone miserable. It causes women to kill themselves either through suicide or backalley abortions. What it doesn’t cause is an increase in responsible conduct high enough to offset the harms listed above. Humanity has a bad track record with abstinence.
Sometimes I think humanity would be better off if we were an egg laying species.
My position is that abortion is a woman’s right, based on the right of bodily autonomy. I also believe that access to reproductive health care–including but not limited to abortion–is a social positive. However I realize it is impossible to convince anyone of this if they don’t already believe it.