There are plenty of women who were raised with a pro-life mindset, and then one day they were confronted with two options. Face shame, disappointment, and ridicule from friends and family while raising a child alone with no job or financial resources. Or have an abortion and remain a beloved daughter, sister, and church member…and still have hope of a successful career, marriage, and family.
Personally, I used to be rather agnostic about abortion, as someone who is not sexually active. But lurking on discussions like this one woke me up to the broader implications of equating a fetus with a person. It may “look” good as a law, but you better believe the regulations that follow would not be good.
As I said in the other thread, the solution is right in front of us: a compromise position that has broad support in public opinion (but virtually no support among the people who shout at each other: I’m a very rare exception).
–Allow abortion on demand in the first trimester (not just the six weeks in “heartbeat” bills, which is just not long enough to be practical) but ban virtually all abortions after that point.
–Require abortion clinics to offer them to all comers, even if they can’t pay: they can be hounded by bill collectors later, just like with other urgent medical care (I’d prefer this aspect of our health care system be eliminated entirely, but that’s a broader scope than this topic).
–Get rid of the bullshit laws in red states that throw up a snarl of red tape to make it difficult for clinics to locate there.
–Provide a robust safety net, including social workers trained in maternal care and parenthood generally, to support teenagers and other young or low income women who choose to keep their babies.
–Require all children in public schools to receive comprehensive (not abstinence-only) sex ed. No excusal even if parents request such.
–Provide regularly refilled buckets of condoms in the bathrooms of middle schools and high schools.
(If parents are so scandalized by this, they can homeschool or send their kids to a private school.)
I’m not saying people don’t change their mind about passionately held beliefs. I’m just saying no one changes those beliefs based on people shouting at them. They change them because of real life experiences, as you said.
You do know that free and accessible contraceptives is something most of them oppose almost as much as abortion, right? Other than banning abortion after 2nd trimester, your proposal is a bra-burning liberal’s wet dream.
Since men don’t get pregnant, they see carrying a “child” inside your body for nine months, with all the physical and psychological changes women go through at such a time, as “a temporary minor inconvenience.” Anything men don’t do is minor or even “nothing.”
My mind is not blown, because I’m well aware that women who have had children (who are, I strongly suspect, overrepresented in the “pro-life” contingent) have a much deeper understanding of what it means to carry an unborn child inside you than I possibly could.
I would not criminalize negligence resulting in the death of the fetus. Miscarriages are, unfortunately, just a part of life. It serves no purpose to punish the unfortunate woman who loses her baby, as if losing the baby isn’t punishment enough. I don’t want that situation to occur and I definitely won’t support a law that encourages the prosecution of a woman simply because she used to be pregnant, she is not pregnant now, and she did not deliver a baby.
I would however support a law criminalizing gross negligence resulting in the death of the fetus. The distinction is important. Gross negligence only occurs if the mother intentionally disregards reasonable caution. If the mother intentionally disregards reasonable caution as to the safety of the fetus, and as a result the fetus dies, then I would support a fine or possibly jail time.
As to the investigation or prosecution, a mere anonymous allegation of gross negligence resulting in the death of a fetus, without specifics, is not enough to investigate. If the allegation or “tip” is anonymous, there is no credibility and no possible testimony in a court of law. Without specifics, there is nothing for the police to follow up on. The only option is to question the (possibly grieving) mother, which in my opinion would be inappropriate. Why is it inappropriate? Because women miscarry all the time, it’s usually not due to gross negligence, and it is already extremely upsetting to lose a child. Sending in police to question a woman after miscarriage could easily exacerbate stress and tension and just isn’t worth it unless the police have solid evidence of gross negligence.
What about questioning spouses, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances? Miscarriage is an extremely personal plight and having the police spread the news across town is wrong for the same reasons.
What does that leave the police with? An source with very specific information about text messages or an online purchase might be enough to convince a judge to sign a warrant - probably not. A credible source such as a mandatory reporter might enter a suspicion to the case file, and enough of these suspicions could provide a reasonable basis for some sort of warrant.
Then we have the special case of the husband or boyfriend, the would-be-father. The father has special status because it is his child too. There is no other reason to afford him special status except that he has standing to claim injury. Ideally the father and mother are on the same page regarding the loss of the fetus, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. The father is free to sue in civil court on the basis that the mother’s gross negligence resulted in the death of his child. He also might be able to testify against the mother in criminal court (federal court allows this but I’m not sure if all states do). It makes sense for the state to investigate a possible crime if the father makes a credible complaint with specific details the police can follow up on. Otherwise, they should tell him “we’ll make a note of it but we can’t go about searching houses unless a judge agrees that there is probable cause” or “I’m sorry but we can’t go and interrogate a grieving young woman who just lost her baby because her ex-boyfriend thinks she stretched the wrong way. I’ll take your name and number for the record but nothing is going to come of it. You might want to talk to a lawyer about starting a civil case.”
Once the investigation is under way, it is up to the prosecutors whether to question possible witnesses and the mother herself. If a witness offers testimony, eg: a source or the father reached out to the police department, these people should be questioned notwithstanding the above reservations. Otherwise the DA should refrain from making it known that they are investigating anything - they should avoid questioning the mother or friends and acquaintances out of a respect for the mother’s privacy and a presumption of innocence. If the father initiates a civil case, the privacy is already shattered so police can investigate if they think the complaint is credible.
Negligence, yes. Gross negligence? Not necessarily.
The position I take in this thread is opposed to unintentional homicide as applied to the effects of a woman’s actions upon her own pregnancy unless there was gross negligence. You would need to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that she recklessly disregarded the safety of the fetus, and that this disregard lead to the death of the fetus. Gross negligence is a higher bar than mere manslaughter.
It’s all about the fetus. I don’t want to prevent women from controlling their own body any more than is necessary to protect the life of the fetus.
If they were natural miscarriages and she was not grossly negligent during the first six pregnancies, I would be “OK” with it. I wouldn’t be happy about it, and neither should she, but she does not deserve to be prosecuted.
If they were not natural miscarriages, that is, if the first six miscarriages were actually induced abortions, I still might not have an issue. It depends on whether her doctors thought she had a reasonable chance of successful pregnancy, and whether each abortion was medically necessary.
I would not have a problem with her insurance, including state insurance, asking to scrutinize the doctors opinions after-the-fact. I would have a problem if this scrutiny affected her care, that is, I will have no “waiting for the doctors to sort it out with insurance”.
Perhaps you do not realize that doctors are already on the hook for every single procedure they perform. You can bet that every hospital worries about the insurance issues and malpractice suits for every procedure performed under the sun. Ideally the doctors don’t think about it while they are working on patients. The only exception is for emergency room procedures, which are required regardless insurance, and people still worry about malpractice in the emergency room.
So what does this mean for abortions? Well if the abortion is in the emergency room, as in this woman will bleed to death in ten minutes unless we remove the fetus, insurance doesn’t matter and the doctors must immediately remove the fetus. You bet the insurance company will consider raising a dispute, and claim the abortion was medically unnecessary. I’m sure they do it now. I think the law says you have to pay for ER visits up front, then dispute later, but I might be wrong on that.
If the abortion is not in the emergency room, as in the woman isn’t about to die, then unfortunately all of the trickery currently defiling our health care system kicks in. Prior authorizations, flat-out denials, etc. I’m against all of that stuff and would welcome a law that bans such nonsense.
Now where does the state get involved? The state doesn’t actually run the medical board, but the medical board operates under the authority of the state. So technically when someone files a formal complaint against the doctor, the medical board is obliged to investigate. You may not realize this but any old Joe can write a nasty letter to the state medical board. Insurance companies can do it too. I feel like most of these complaints have no basis and are thrown out by the medical board’s team of reviewers. The ones that get through means the medical board found probable cause for a violation of state law or medical ethics, and cause innumerable headaches for doctors. The medical board (not the state, but operating under state authority) requests copies of all the pertinent records, holds a hearing, has doctors review the evidence, and punishes or exonerates the doctor in question. Punishment could mean a fine, loss of medical license, or even referral to law enforcement authorities.
The state can also get involved if the state is paying for the abortion via state-run or state-financed insurance. In this case the provider is liable for the amount reimbursed by the state for services performed, although a complaint might be made to the medical board as described above.
So in short, every doctor is already dealing with that threat.
Yes, I would prosecute a woman for getting pregnant if she really wanted a baby but had a high chance of miscarriage and knew about it. I didn’t realize I contradicted this somewhere else. The “really high chance” would mean a doctor said “if you become pregnant there isn’t a reasonable chance that the baby will survive” preferably followed by “you can be prosecuted for having sex with this condition if it results in pregnancy and pregnancy ends in abortion, which it will”. If the condition is permanent the doctor might add “you are eligible for sterilization if you so wish, that way you can keep having sex”. If it is temporary, the doctor might recommend waiting to have sex. If after all of that, the woman still has sex, then yes, I would prosecute her. I wouldn’t recommend jail time if she had a bona fide wish to birth the child, possibly just the cost of the abortion and legal fees. I try not to be a monster.
I always felt that the origins of the rule were simply this:
Aborted babies don’t join the church, and never turn into tithing members of the church and or extensions of its power base. Its about power by growth.
They hate non-reproductive sex. IIRC, the Mosaic laws specify that a man is supposed to wait so many days after his wife has finished menstruating before having sex with her again- which just so happens to be about when she’s due to ovulate again. And the strange double meaning of the term sodomy- both anal sex and oral sex- which amounts to “putting a penis where it’s not going to produce any children”. And of course the story of Onan, whom God punished for practicing a crude form of birth control.
And yet despite this obsession with fecundity, you have the extreme opprobrium towards women who have sex outside of marriage. If children alone were the point you’d think that women would have been encouraged to have as many as possible, husband or no husband. Yet virtually all pre-industrial societies have every sanction up to and including the death penalty for out of wedlock sex.
If a fetus has rights, my environmental and devil examples are perfectly applicable. Legalizing abortion is equal to visiting death and injury upon the future. Future potential people who die from smog or pollution or the devil are comparable to future potential people who die from abortion. Widespread abortions might make life easier for those living right now, but it means directly killing potential people.
Yes, I am assuming that a fetus has rights. I do so on purpose. I am not trying to convince you that fetuses have rights. I am trying to convince you that people on the other side of this debate aren’t motivated by misogyny. Surely some are, but I set out to prove that it is possible to be a “pro-lifer” yet not be motivated by a desire to control women’s bodies. For you to see my argument, you must adopt for the sake of argument that a fetus has rights. It’s not hard to do - I did it.
I see too much talking past one another in debates. On television, radio, real life, even on this boards. If you aren’t willing to consider the other side’s point of view, don’t debate their motivation.
This is the debate I would rather have in this thread. What in the world prompted you to write this? Was it something I said? If I really were an anti-abortion advocate I still would not want to just impose my will upon others, I would want to convince them why the fetus has rights.
Unless… are you saying the rationale behind giving rights to a fetus somehow imply wanting “control over society”, a “want to institute a theocratic authoritarian dictatorship” run on the whims of a “sky god”? That saying a fetus has rights means I 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”? Is that your understanding of the rationale underlying fetal rights?
Because surely that is not true. People might be ignorant, they might not realize that their position is baseless (I don’t know myself). There is no way that many Americans want a “theocratic authoritarian dictatorship”. If that is your honest assessment of the opposing side of the abortion debate, and not baseless and distracting hyperbole, I will address it directly.
I’m not trying to impose my will upon others.
How did you come to this conclusion? Torture is not fine for me if it imposes my will on society. In the quoted scenario the woman would get her abortion, then be prosecuted for wilful negligence. She would not be left there pregnant if she could not handle pregnancy - the doctor still certifies abortion on medical grounds and the state has no prerogative to second-guess a doctor until after-the-fact.
I don’t understand what you mean, because I have always considered the woman to be a person.
If the child is already born, the state cannot compel the parent to make those donations. It is indeed only required if the child is a fetus still living inside the womb. Even then, the parent cannot be physically compelled except in absolute emergency situations - until a doctor (preferably her doctor) arrives. Physical restraints and stress and jail for pregnant mothers can’t be too good for the baby, and should probably be avoided if at all possible. But I’m not a doctor.
I implied no such thing. The medical appeal in an urgent situation needs to be timely. That is totally different from the legal appeal, which would only ever happen after the fetus is dead.
The cops are busting down the door because actual self-induced abortion, even attempted self-induced abortion was (I assumed) a crime in and of itself.
Drinking wine, smoking, doing laundry, and stretching are not crimes in and of themselves, even if there was a law on the books criminalizing gross negligence that leads to the death of the fetus. There is no safe amount of drinking or smoking while pregnant but doing either of those activities is no guarantee that the fetus will be killed.
That is the distinction - one is actually a crime with intent and actually kills the fetus while the other might cause a crime and might kill the fetus, but easily without intent.
I looked into it and to my surprise, you are right. I made the unfortunate mistake of trusting Wikipedia:
I spent about an hour looking at state laws and only a couple of them actually criminalize self-induced abortion: [DEL]Delaware[/DEL] (repealed '17), [DEL]Idaho[/DEL] (overturned '12), Nevada, [DEL]New York[/DEL] (repealed '19), Oklahoma, South Carolina, and now Alabama and Georgia if you’ve been following the news. A few different internet sources listed other states as anti-self-induced-abortion-states, but in the same breath admitted that those states were, according to their own courts, misapplying their own laws.
Nevada’s laws criminalize self-induced abortion via drugs after 24 weeks without doctor’s orders[1]; also via injury to the mother, arguably including self-inflicted injury, at any time[2]. Oklahoma’s statutes explicitly prohibit self-induced abortion unless done under the direction of a physician[3]. South Carolina allows only for abortion in any case with the physician’s consent[4], piles on additional requirements for the second and third trimesters, and makes it a misdemeanor for a woman to induce her own abortion any other way[5].
I do think the fetus has rights but those rights don’t always trump the rights of the mother. And I hope I’m not being arbitrary as to when the rights of one win over the rights of the other. All of this is assuming that the fetus has rights, of course.
I do not wish to pass a law without the general support of society. I hope that remark removes any lingering fears as to any tyrannical motive behind my position!
Admitted, however, do not commit the fallacy of the undistributed middle. Someone who opposes the legalization of abortion is not necessarily a misogynist.
Would you care to start a thread on that subject? Your short criticism of religion here has failed to convince me that religion has no place in political or legislative debate.
Well, as I said the main arguments are of a “religious” nature. There are also secular arguments, none of them rigorous enough to convince me personally.
You were once a zygote, and I assume you desire your own self-preservation. What if your parents wanted to abort you? Could you still endorse a law that might have prevented your own existence? Does that make you a hypocrite? Or perhaps, do you distinguish your zygote and fetal predecessors from your “self”?
You say that the fetus is part of the woman’s body. But what about the father’s rights? A father can sue if his wife refuses to share custody of a child. Why do we say the child, once born, is the “father’s son”? At what point does the father have some vested interest in the child? Is it at birth? When the father pays for food and housing? What if the mother pays for food and housing? How can it be that something goes from being part of the woman’s body to being a joint responsibility of the man and woman?
What then of homicide laws which increase the penalty when a fetus and the mother are injured or killed? How is that consistent with the position that the fetus is not a person?
I concede that I am not up to the job of actually defending the anti-abortion position. Try as I may, I cannot personally justify any universal system of morals without assuming certain tenets of religion a priori. Your thoughts?
States may currently regulate abortions after viability (23-25 weeks, or the third trimester). States may also currently regulate abortions at any earlier time so long as they do not present an undue burden on the woman’s constitutional right to an abortion (Planned Parenthood v. Casey).
** SlackerInc**'s suggestion replaces that with a solid line at the end of the first/beginning of the second trimester. So that means the states have more regulatory power. In return the states provide social services, sex education, contraceptives, etc.
It would sound like a sweet deal except for funding and more importantly constitutional complications.
Even when I try and adopt a Catholic viewpoint, one living sinner is better than a living sinner plus a dead innocent. Contraception should be a point of compromise.
So, if I am hearing you correctly, you are leaving it to the fact that there will never be overly zealous prosecutions?
Even if there is no investigation, as you said, it would be going on in secret, so if a woman loses her baby, she now has to worry about getting a knock on the door from some police officers who would like to ask some questions, now that their secret investigation has determined that there is probable cause.
In an ideal world where the police and DA’s never over reached, where they never used the power of the law as a bully whip, where the law is equally applied across racial and economic boundaries, that might be feasible.
In the world we live in, it will be used to harrass women when they are at their most vulnerable.
But you said that a fetus is a person. You don’t have to be grossly negligent to be punished for a person’s death, just regular negligence will do.
So, is a fetus a person, or is it a person only under certain (convenient) circumstances?
But you will control women’s bodies in the name of protecting the life of the fetus.
And what is a “reasonable chance”? I’ve asked this before, and you said you would leave it to the doctor’s judgment.
But, a doctor doesn’t just make a “judgement” out of the blue. They aren’t trained to make independent judgements about things. They are trained to make judgements based on criteria that they have learned in doctor school and by following the literature. An oncologist doesn’t look a a tumor and call for chemo, he compares the tumor against what the literature says, and follows the guidance and advice.
What guidance and advise are you giving these doctors? What criteria do they follow? Without these guidances, you are putting the doc on the hook without giving them and way of knowing where the line is. It’s like someone asking what the speed limit is, and being told to just use your best judgement, and if we disagree with your judgement, then we’ll give you a ticket.
Also, who will be creating this criteria? Will it be doctors, or will it be politicians?
No, I do know this, but you are adding in another thing for them to be on the hook for, without even providing any guidance as to how they are to stay within the new rules. You will just prosecute them if you feel as though they broke the rules that you refuse to actually give them.
Not an ER doc or insurance adjuster, but I’m pretty sure all of that is incorrect.
As am I, but it is the same cohort that insists that a fetus should be considered a person that is also against reforming our medical system. But sure, many people die while waiting on insurance to approve a procedure. Insurance has no interest in the survival of the patient. That has nothing to do with reproductive rights. Insurance will gladly pay for an abortion, as an abortion is far cheaper than a delivery, especially a delivery that would be further complicated by the illness or trauma that brought the woman to the hospital in the first place.
Yep, that’s how it works pretty much now. But what you are talking about is providing political guidance to a medical question.
No, every doctor is dealing with the threat that if other doctors determine that they did what was not in the best interests of the patient, that they will face some sort of disciplinary action, which can be as little as requiring them to study up on a botched procedure before they can do it again. You are adding a political component.
Yes, you contradicted this upthread. What is the really high chance? I guess what you are saying is that diabetics can’t have children?
Once again, the environment is a benefit to all of our descendants. Who is a fetus a benefit to?
Well, yeah, we are talking past each other a bit, as I am explaining why I do not think a fetus should have any more rights than its mother chooses to grant it, both for moral and practical reasons.
If I assume that a fetus has rights more rights than the mother, then sure, such things make sense. But the same is true that if I believe that animals have more rights than people, then PETA’s position makes sense. If I believe that pedophiles have more rights than children, then NAMBLA’s position makes sense.
It is that precise thing that we are arguing in this thread, why should a fetus have any more rights than the mother chooses to extend it?
And if you can’t convince them that the fetus has rights, you will impose your will upon them, correct?
Well, yeah. Theocrats are a real thing. Dominionists and Fundamentalists and Young Earth Creationists (oh my), they really do exist, and they really do want to impose theocratic rule. They are not a majority, but they leverage their power through getting people to join them by deceptive feel good labels like “pro-life”.
I don’t think that is the motive of most of the rank and file of those who ascribe to pro-life, just as most of the people who donate to PETA are not for stealing dogs out of people’s backyards and killing them in the back of a van. But, most of the rank and file don’t really think about it, they see “pro-life” and they think, “Well, I am pro-life, so I will support the group that has that in the name.”
Not that many want a theocratic authoritarian dictatorship, but an unfortunate number will support those who do based on ideas like fetuses are people.
It’s not enough to assume that a fetus is a person with rights to understand where they are coming from. It is necessary to understand why they feel that a fetus is a person with rights to understand where they are coming from. And the non-religious or imposing morality based arguments fall flat and are exposed for their hypocrisy for when they don’t care about a fertilized egg from the time of conception to the time of the first missed period, and they don’t care about that life once it has been born into the world.
I will only accept secular arguments for fetal personhood, and there is no secular argument to extending a fetus any more rights than the mother chooses to extend to it.
You, the person behind the devil’s advocate that you are playing? Sure, I suppose not. You as in the person I am debating here, yes, you do.
Okay, I suppose you are correct, she does have a choice. Sh can avoid the torture by going to jail.
You? or the persona that you are arguing from? The position that you are arguing from considers the woman to be less of a person than the embryo inside of her.
Needs to be, heh. Yes, it does need to be, but it won’t.
And if a fetus is a person, then there already is a law on the books that does criminalize regular negligence as well.
And how do we tell without invesitgaions?
The result of fetal personhood is that many miscarriages will need to be looked at. Not all, just as most deaths are not investigated as homicide. But there will be suspension for any unexpected miscarriage that is not attended by a physician. Even if not prosecuted, there will be many grieving mothers subject to harsh questions from people who do not really consider her to be a person. There will be pressure to make an example of mothers who violate the laws.
And what this will do will be to criminalize all forms of self abortion, up to and including plan B.
Assuming that the fetus is a person with the rights that we grant a person created many moral quandaries. Quandaries that are intentionally created by those who want a fetus to be considered a person. The theocrats don’t actually care about the fetus, they care about creating the quandaries, so that we spend all of our time arguing about the minutiae of whether a glass of wine counts as an attempt to self abort, while ignoring that they are imposing their religious preferences upon a secular nation.
The only logical and consistent way to consider the rights of the unborn is to extend to them the rights and protections that the mother wishes to extend to them.
But, would you use deception to get the general support of society? Those who you are arguing on the behalf of can and do.
No, many are not. Maybe even most are not. But the root of the desire to control reproductive rights is in the desire to control not just women, but society. You don’t have to be a misogynist to think that women should stay at home and raise babies who will become uneducated and illiterate children, unable to organize against their oppressors, while the men toil in the fields until they are too tired to rebel. Nothing in that necessitates misogyny. That said, many of them do also hate and fear women.
How about hundreds of years of history. Name me one theocratic country in the modern world that you would like to live in.
You want a reason why religion has no place in political or legislative debate? Okay, because God told me it doesn’t.
Have fun arguing against that.
Right, as I said, there is no secular reason to extend a fetus any more rights than its mother chooses to extend it. The rest is opinion justified by claiming that the sky god agrees.
When I was a zygote, I didn’t care about my self preservation. If I had been miscarried or intentionally terminated, I wouldn’t have cared at all. I was a zygote, all I cared about then was about the ending of Game of Thrones. If I had been miscarried or intentionally terminated, I would not be here now to care whether or not I existed.
As I said in this or another related thread, I fear and avoid death because I have plans, and death would interrupt those plans. As a zygote, I had no plans to be interrupted.
A father can only sue to share custody if he is supporting the child, he is not suing because he is denied access to his half of genetic material, he is suing because he is paying for something that he is not getting. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard “father’s son” outside of cheesy movies and possibly gangster shows.
None of this relates to the topic of abortion or fetal personhood, and sounds more like MRA complaints than any argument related to reproductive rights.
The mother with a desired pregnancy has plans for that baby. She has plans of raising that child. Someone else causing its death interrupts those plans. I am against laws that would actually consider it murder if a fetus dies, but I am for laws that would add an extra penalty on top, for inconveniencing those who did have plans for that child. That’s really a balancing of parental rights, and fetal rights do not need to enter into it.
You are correct that you cannot justify any universal system of morals without assuming certain tenets of religion, which is why imposing your morals on others is never justified, except through appeals to a sky god.
We can justify reciprocal rights. I don’t want to be murdered, so I will lobby my community to not permit murder. I don’t want to be punched in the face, so I will lobby my community to restrict violence. I don’t want people to take my stuff, so I will lobby my community to disallow theft. This requires no religious tenets, only secular arguments as to how a policy would affect the community, and whether that would make the community a better or worse place, as determined by the criteria created by the community.
I can’t not want to be aborted. If I am in a position to be aborted, then I can’t care. If I’m not in a position to be aborted, then I don’t care. There is no reciprocal right to be granted or recieved.
You gave it a good try, though, enough so that from time to time I forgot and thought you were actually defending the position, not just playing someone that did. Unfortunately, as you see from having tried to do so, there really is no way to justify their positions without appeals to an outside authority who conveniently only talks to them.
