The consistency is that as long as it’s in my body, I get to make all decisions regarding it, which means that you killing it makes it murder if I have decided it should live.
Wait. WHAT?!?!?
I might as well say taht the only way to jsutify being pro-choice is to trivialize murdering babies. WTF?
Noone ever said that pregnancy is a minor inconvenience.
I have not seen one single poster say “life begins at conception” what I have heard are concerns about abortions after viability or perhaps the second trimester, every pro-lifer so far that has stated an opinion has said that they would not restrict first trimester abortions (they may have some concerns but those concerns would not override the factors that favor liberal rules on abortions during the first trimester.
Meanwhile I have seen pro-choice advocates do everything from jsutify abortion the day before birth, the month AFTER birth, put words in my mouth, argue against arguments I have not made and in some cases refuse to engage in debate beyond “its none of your business if I kill my fetus because its MY fetus, its part of MY body”
This is an excellent point. From the dubious statistics
I can imagine that a woman living in the middle of Iowa or in a community where she will have to sneak around to have an abortion is going to put it off, perhaps into the second trimester. Making abortion more available should decrease this. I’d also love to know the actual numbers from the third trimester. 15 week, 16 weeks, 17 weeks isn’t much of a difference when there is that much variation in birth versus due dates anyway.
Bull. Those opposed to abortion at any time, even abortion pills, clearly think women should be forced to carry a child all nine months instead of having a simple procedure or even a pill. Either they consider this a minor inconvenience or they are for causing great suffering for their position.
The OP made no mention of viability. That is just a strawman introduced later. As far as I can tell, there are no pro-lifers in this thread - pro-lifers in my experience don’t support abortion in the first trimester. They push this third trimester crap not because it is a big problem (1,000 out of how many pregnancies) but because the bigger the fetus the more outrage can be generated.
Unless you have some scientific basis for setting the cutoff point, what argument do you have against those who say personhood begins at conception or perhaps implantation? You talk viability but then by sleight of hand you slip in 16 week numbers which isn’t anywhere close to viability.
Well the requirement would be on the doctor to offer the sonogram, the woman isn’t required to change her mind about the abortion.
You do realize that the fetus actually is part of the woman’s body, right? It’s attached and everything.
And speaking of words put in mouths and arguments not made, who argued that babies could be ‘aborted’ a month after birth? The only thing along those lines that I recall was you talking about killing ten-year-olds.
It is amazing to me in how little time society can go from a state where no woman is allowed an abortion, where millions of women resort to back-alley abortions with a coat-hanger and many die in the process, where reasonable people say “This is ridiculous, we should protect all these women and provide the right to abort before the fetus becomes a baby/attains personhood/attains consciousness/becomes viable/whatever” to a state where people are nonchalant about chopping up viable fetuses and vacuuming them out.
Humans are monsters.
Minor point here, but that’s a hypothetical fetus, not a fetus. It’s easy to be nonchalant in response to ridiculous hypotheticals.
It’s hard to judge intent on the internet, so I’ll give you a pass - but I think that “nonchalant” isn’t precisely the right word for it. What’s actually happening is that we’re mocking the idea that electively aborting viable fetuses is something that will happen at all. It’s an absurdly small nail to hang an argument on; it would be an obvious strawman if it weren’t for the fact that some people are actually making the argument.
This viable fetus crap is a bad joke - it’s nothing more than a blatant set up for goalpost movement. Damuri Ajashi is not wringing his hands in concern over the hordes of viable fetuses that are pulled out and tossed scraeming into the meat grinder. No, he is actually just hunting for a gotcha: specifically he wants us to say “well we’re not that extreme”. And thus having gotten us to concede that circumstances might matter, he would then proceed to declare that we had conceded the argument and that now he can rule women’s bodies from second trimester on, or first trimester, or conception, or wherever he feels most comfortable on his manufactured slippery slope.
Suffice to say, we’re not buying his load of crap. A fact which appears to disturb him greatly.
Pre-birth and post-birth is a bright line of nothing other than birth. Considering that the fetus one day before birth is virtually indistinguishable from a baby after birth I find that distinction insufficient to justify a difference in outcomes.
That’s right this discussion is about how much we can dictate to a woman about her own body when there is another life involved. You say not at all, I say sometimes a lot sometimes not at all depending on the circumstances.
I don’t know if I am misunderstanding your question but I thought the reason most people find abortion morally wrong at some point during gestation, it becomes murder.
Correct. And since we need to draw a line somewhere…
Except that the baby is existing on its own, without assistance from the woman’s body. It’s breathing, performing bodily functions, and so on. And the fetus isn’t doing that. It may be capable of doing it by the end, but until birth, it isn’t.
People who don’t think abortion is murder usually have the same issue, so I don’t think that’s it. And saying “some point during gestation, it becomes murder” does not resolve anything either. It’s just an assertion.
Regarding the post-birth issue:
Assume a woman is in some very remote area, and she gives birth to a baby all by herself. Now the baby has been born, and she is the only one around to feed it and take care of it. Also, she has no baby food or formula, so she can only breast feed the baby. She has plenty of food for herself.
Can she just say “It’s my body and I can do whatever I want with it, and I don’t want to use my body to feed this baby”, and proceed to let the baby starve to death?
Two questions
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For the pro-choice people who are OK with abortions up to the last minute because of the “It’s my body I can do whatever I want with it” argument, even if the fetus is a person/viable/etc: What is your stance on the above scenario? Should she be allowed to let the baby starve?
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For the lawyers: Are the woman’s actions legal? If not, why not?
That’s a new one: if a tree has an abortion in the forest and no one is around, does it make a noise?
Polerius, your question doesn’t shed any light on the issue. You’re just asking if it’s okay to do something wrong if nobody finds out about it. Most people would say yes, it’s still wrong in most circumstances. It’s no different from any other mother except there are no witnesses. Who said the rightness or wrongness or abortion had anything to do with the mother’s proximity to a supermarket?
And how the hell would that situation be legal? Murder in an isolated area is still murder.
If you simlpy don’t care about any other arguments then what is the point of this discussion. You are basically saying, you can’t convince me so you are going to have to force me (if you can).
Now let me make myself clear. If the state has an interest in protecting a life inside your body, it can pass a law to protect that life. I don’t think the state has an interest in a zygote, blastocyst, an embryo or even the first month or so of the fetal stage, but once you hit the second trimester when fetus starts to move, I start to get concerned that about the rights of the fetus and I feel comfortable with teh state imposing non-prohibitive restrictions on abortion. If the fetus gets to the point where it can survive outside of the mother’s womb, I feel pretty comfortable with the state imposing prohibitive restrictions on abortion (as in you can’t have one unless your pregnancy puts you at risk of death or disability).
At the point of viability I am no longer interested enough in your opinion or personal issues to let you kill the viable fetus.
Or say fuck it, and treat it as a right to life issue rather than a label fight. I don’t think you can ignore either the woman’s right to choose or the fetus’s right to live.
Of course she can - she’s in some very remote area, so there’s nobody to stop her.
Now, if we weren’t in absurd-hypothetical land, she’d put the child up for adoption.
Can you be forced to donate a kidney? Discuss.
Present law agrees with the OP.
http://www.answers.com/topic/roe-v-wade
I get really upset at those on both sides who frame the argument as if present law draws a before/after birth line. It does not & need not.
You totally misunderstood my question. The scenario did not involve people never finding out what happened. At some point the woman will come in contact with some people and they will know what happened. When that happens, will she be guilty of murder?
If yes, why is what she did murder? People have been repeatedly claiming in this thread that “It’s my body and I can do whatever I want with it, and no one can force me to use my body to keep another human being alive, no mater how sentient they are and regardless of their personhood”.
So, why is what this woman is choosing to do with her body (i.e. not breastfeed the baby) a crime?
I don’t know if you were directing that at me but I was quoting Guttmacher as well and I was talking about the 16th week as well. I can’t find anything for post 26th week. But Guttmacher labeled 16th week as late term so…
4.2% from 16 to 20 weeks, and 1.4% at or after 21 weeks
the Guttmacher Institute estimated the number of abortions in the U.S. past 24 weeks to be 0.08%, or approximately 1,032 per year