No, actually…It’s even more “interesting”
The organism growing inside her womb is not alive until it exits the birth canal.
Interesting definition of life.
Oh, now I’m interested in how it can kick and move around in the womb if it’s not alive untill birth.
Okay, I’m the mother of three children, having lost a fourth (a twin), during pregnancy, so I’ll jump in with a strong pro-life opinion.
First, to the OP: Should abortions performed during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy be considered a crime?
Let me preface this by giving my reasoning first, followed by my answer.
First, consider the state of sex ed in schools today vis a vis the situation at the time of Roe v. Wade, 1973:
Girls and boys in schools for nigh on 30 years (I can personally attest to sex ed since the mid 70’s, in three differing states) have been taught the “facts of life”.
Second, consider the availabilityof birth control/contraceptive devices today:
Birth control pills
IUD
Sponge
Condoms/spermicide
Depo-Provera shots
NuvaRing
Norplant
Cervical cap
Diaphragm
Female condoms
Emergency contraception:
Morning after pills
So, how do things stand? In the year 2003, there is an increase in education on sexual activity and responsibility. There has been a dramatic increase in birth control/contraception methods. There is now available emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy even after intercourse.
Based on this information, I believe that the majority of pregnancies currently ending in abortion can and would be prevented by responsible actions by the parties involved. That they are not is not due to lack of options or access, IMHO. As this is the case, the argument for abortion as birth control is patently absurd. As to the argument that abortion be acceptable for the usual litany of “life of the mother, incest, rape”, again, emergency contraception is available and can be taken for 72 hours after intercourse. While I’m not trying to be a hard-ass about this, I am trying to impress the seriousness with which I view this situation on those reading my words. I don’t take this lightly at all. I consider all parties in a pregnancy, mother, father and child to be integral to the solution of the problem. So, I don’t expect those countering my viewpoint to misread my stance as being made on a whim, or with disregard to the realities of life.
Having made a short argument long, I think you can see my answer coming. After long and careful consideration, I do believe that abortions should be a criminal act. And at this point I am hoist on my own petard. In apparent contradiction, I do NOT wish to charge women with murder, or other variations on that crime. A woman desperate enough to seek out an abortion, knowing the law is being broken, is in much worse trouble than the legal system can deter. I would, however, prosecute the doctor, with conviction resulting in loss of medical license and a stiff fine/community service. In other words, I’m sympathetic to the woman, not to the doctor. Yes, I know I’m employing a double-standard.
I view all the information available, the progress in pregnancy prevention since the “sexual revolution” and I can arrive at no justification for the ongoing numbers of abortions in this country. Sexual liberation has not been the liberator the generation of the 60’s promised us.
<minor quibble>
Why is it that so many people are referring to a pregnant woman who may want an abortion as a ‘mother’?
If she doesn’t have or want children and will not be giving birth, she’s not anyone’s mother.
</minor quibble
Are you saying that there would be no punishment for a woman who has an abortion?
Actually, remember that when the term “life” is used in abortion debates, it generally means “consciousness,” i.e. when is this organism a person. After all, there are plenty of living things that aren’t people.
But then, I suspect you knew that already.
Hmm. I didn’t see that in the abortion debate handout. I thought the abotion debate was exactly about what exactly “life” and “person” meant. Someone should tell the Supreme Court that these things were already decided!! :rolleyes:
Smal quibble but I’d suggest the actual meaning of “life” in these debates is "human life worth protecting". Whether or not it is worth protecting, or indeed if ‘personhood’ has anything to do with it, is another matter.
It’s hard for me to imagine all the possible scenarios that could be at play in a first trimester abortion, so I don’t know that I could give a definite answer to the question about legal sanctions for the event.
I also certainly don’t think that even if a sudden reversal of Roe were to occur, that abortions would cease overnight. Maybe this sounds like a cop out to my pro choice friends, but I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the legal sanctions aspect of the debate. I’m inclined to think that I would probably not favor legal sanctions for the woman in crisis (I suppose someone could craft a hypothetical scenario that might be an exception to that rule…I guess that’s why we have courts and legislatures to modify laws and sanctions).
I think what Frederica Mathewes-Green has to say here strikes me as sensible.
I’m not sure if the following is a great analogy or not…but
I know many people who believe that recreational drugs (or at least some drugs) should be illegal. At the same time…those people are not convinced that the best way to address the problem is to throw every drug user in jail. Those two notions (illegal drugs, but not focusing on jailing all users) are not necessarily mutually exclusive for those people.
In the same way, I agree with Frederica Mathewes-Green that “abortion should be illegal–in any civilization, laws protecting the weak from the strong belong to the irreducible core of justice”, while at the same time thinking that jailing women in crisis, as a general rule, is not the best way to solve the problem.
Would I favor legal sanctions against the providers in the OP scenario? Certainly more likely than sanctions against the woman.
What “should” the legal sanctions be? Well not having spent much time thinking about that portion of the debate, I have no real opinion to offer.
Joel and beagledave: So, what would your responses to the question posed by the thread be? There are positions other than “All abortions must be outlawed” and “Women should be able to say ‘Screw this, I want an abortion!’ once their contractions start”. We could adopt what would be, by current standards, very restrictive laws on abortion–make all abortions after the first trimester illegal for any reason–and nearly 90% of all abortions would still be legal.
So, how do y’all think the law should deal with the women who have 88% of abortions these days, who are not having third-trimester abortions or “partial-birth” abortions or late-term abortions?
NaSultainne: According to the National Right to Life Committee–as far as I know, one of the larger and more mainstream anti-abortion organizations–human life begins at conception. I didn’t find a statement (after a pretty quick search of their website) by the NRLC on the issue of “emergency contraception” or the “morning after pill” in so many words, but that statement on human life beginning at conception/fertilization seems to indicate pretty clearly they would be opposed to anything that terminates a pregnancy from the moment of the “union of sperm and egg”. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops explicitly considers “emergency contraception” to be a form of abortion:
Your “emergency contraception” would therefore be considered to be abortion by some fairly important parts of the pro-life movement.
No it doesn’t.
If the person used it in that context, then they are guilty of being incredibly lazy in their use of biological terms.
Generally, most pro choice folks I know will frame a discussion about the zygote/embryo/fetus in 3 parts:
- Is it alive?
- Is it human?
- is it a “person”
The first two are scientific concepts. Almost all pro choice folks will stipulate that the z/e/f is alive. I would guess that the majority of pro choice folks will stipulate that it is human.
The majority of pro choice folks will then take the trach that RTFirefly did…which is to suggest that legal protections only come when the z/e/f attains “personhood” status as a result of things like sentience, brain or nervous system development, viability (well…until neo natal ICUs got better making that a more inconvienent standard) or other criteria like language.
Claiming that something like the z/e/f growing inside of the womb is not alive (or “not a life”) is something that is not supported by embryology, biology, or even (I suspect) most pro choice folks
Why force a baby, which is essentially a screaming poop machine and a lifelong obligation, upon anyone? Taking care of a colicky baby is the worst hell imaginable, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
If it weren’t for the enjoyability of sex, natures way of tricking us into perpetuating the species, most of us who are here right now probably wouldn’t be here. 
I’m sure if a magical windows style popup screen came up in midair that said “Are you SURE you want a baby?” the majority of soon to be parents would say no.
**
I answered your OP, both in terms of a proposed prohibition on just first trimester abortions…or even a reversal of Roe… (leading to possible state laws outlawing abortions)
in ireland they wanted a 12 year jail sentence for any woman who was desperate enough to self abort.
that doesn’t fly, seeing as how we have the right to travel, and her equally desperate next door neighbour with 500 euros and a plane ticket to london wouldn’t have been punished.
essentially, no, i don’t think punishment is the way to go on this one.
I see abortion as a conflict of rights situation. The pregnant woman has human rights as anyone does. Thus, the question becomes “what rights does the fertilized egg / blastula / fetus / baby have?”
MEB has hit the nail on the head as far as I am concerned. Early on the scale must tip towards the woman. She is not an incubator. Her desire whether to procreate or not supercedes any societal desire to protect so-called “life.” Why “so-called”? Due to the uncertainty of early pregnancy, for one. One half of all fertilized eggs don’t grow anyway. Therefore, to call the morning after pill abortion - as some do - is simply nutty.
But, what about the fetus? This is the grey area. If a woman wanted to choose not to procreate, around the middle of the pregnancy - somewhere - you must ask the question: “why haven’t you chosen abortion yet?” A choice does not mean at any time. Here, viability becomes an issue. The fetus is far more likely to become baby.
Finally, baby. This is where the pro-lifers score major points. To start a birth to kill a viable baby is far too close to infanticide for me. Thus, I oppose partial-birth abortion.
But, as MEB has astutely pointed out, there is no guarantee that comprimise on some of the extreme cases will convince the anti-abortion folks to give up bringing the issue up time and time again.
I would love to stop debating this topic over and over, as I find most people are for some, but not all, abortions. No comprimise will ever be perfect, but so be it.
Folks, like IUDs, ALL birth control pills (not just “morning-after” pills) are highly likely to cause abortions of the newly fertilized zygote. While they stop the ovaries from releasing eggs to some extent, they are not 100% effective; the rest of the birth control comes from their making the uterus an unsuitable place for the embryo to implant … so it just gets washed out, as it were.
So criminalizing all abortion (defining the creation of the zygote as the magic moment) would criminalize all reversible birth control except for barrier/spermicide methods. No more IUDs. No more Pill. Not bloody likely. You’d have riots.
Well, a great many claim that it’s just a blob of cells, or a lump of tissue. That assertion, while extremely popular, is demonstrably wrong.
I’m pretty firmly pro-choice, so my answer to the OP is uninteresting.
If I may, I would be interested in the pro-life position on whether any criminal sanctions that would apply to the pregnant woman (credit to catsix, I originally typed mother), also apply if the abortion was performed outside the US, in a country where such an abortion was legal?
And even if you believe such “foreign” abortions would incur criminal sanctions, is it even practical to think such enforcement is possible? Isn’t the result a kind of class-based distinction, where the well-off can send their daughters to another country for a safe abortion, and the poor are left with coat hangers?
And one minor thought to share with the otherwise sensible post by NaSultainne: The only perfectly effective birth control is abstinence. If a woman is on the pill, gets pregnant anyway, but is unaware of the pregnancy until after the “morning-after” pill is no longer effective - is she just as irresponsible as you imply other women carrying unwanted pregancies are?
In other words, let’s discard the actual meaning of this term so that we can claim that the unborn is not actually alive.
Great googly moogly.
If she has a child, she’s a mother. A pregnant woman already has a child; it’s just that this child has not yet emerged from the womb.