Actually not quite moot - I think that they actually render it immoral to oppose elective late-term abortion, because if such abortions are illegal it opens the door for lawsuits against doctors who perform necessary life-saving operations and then somebody has regrets. (Possibly including somebodies who were neither parent.) If a single woman dies because a doctor is reluctant to expose himself to accusations of colluding with the woman to falsely do an unnecessary abortion, then that would be a grevious side effect to a policy that serves no positive purpose at all except to bolster fallacious anti-abortion arguments.
You totally missed the point. These are your definitions of personhood, and I’m cool with them, if you are ever carrying a baby that is. Other people have different definitions. Why do yours trump theirs? And, assuming you are okay with abortion pills, why shouldn’t a person not okay with them forbid you to use them?
A baby moving is cool - but it has nothing to do with personhood.
Here are some numbers on viability. While it is true that 24 weeks is usually used, only 39% of babies born at that age survive, and more than 80% have long term problems. The cite does not say, but I’d expect they’d all need expensive care until they mature. At 34 weeks the baby is basically full term. So, if a woman wishes to end a pregnancy at 24 weeks, you can either let her do so with an abortion, force her to carry it to term, or force her to pay for expensive treatment and possibly lifetime care.
I’d also like to see the percentage of elective vs. medically necessary 3rd trimester abortions. I’ll certainly buy that early second trimester ones are elective.
No that is exactly what I am concerned about. States have the ability to outlaw that (except in the case of the life or health of the mother but we are talking policy). SHOULD a state be able to prohibit abortion after viability because of a woman’s right to choose.
That’s not gotcha, that is trying to figure out what position I am arguing against. Every time I mention viability, people say “Whoa, who the heck said anything about viability, why are you bringing it up now?” and when I make it clear that I am talking about viability, someone says “of course a woman has a right to choose… right up to the point of birth”
I don’t think that I am the one that is greatly disturbed here.
For my part the only shifting I can think of is that I have different standards for second and third trimester and I gave a statistic about third trimester abortions in the same post where I give some stats on late term abortions that were as early as the middle of the second trimester. If that confused you, I didn’t mean for it to confuse you.
Yeah, I didn’t read the whole thread. I just read the post that was linked and Der Trihs said that he doesn’t see the difference between day before birth and day after birth in terms of brain function and elsewhere he says that fetal brain function doesn’t warrant giving them person status. If I took him out of context and he didn’t mean one or either of things then I’ll retract but Der Trihs is a big boy and he can tell us if I am misreading him.
I am pretty sure I asked at least 3 different people if they believe the right to an abortion extends right up to the point of birth and I think they all said yes that is what they believe. I believe at least a couple of them said something along the lines of “what is it about the word “choice” that you don’t understand”
How has it become dishonest? Who is being dishonest?
Please provide a cite. This is about the 4th time I’ve asked. If you can prove that this is in fact the case then I’ll drop the whole argument, elective abortions of viable fetuses is my whole argument. If they don’t exist, then neither does my argument.
If they do exist, what does that do to your position?
I hear what you are saying and maybe you are right when it comes to my decisions position on the second trimester but my position on the third trimester is not just my preference, it is based on a principled argument about when rights attach to a person. Some here have said, birth, I am saying it is viability and I am also saying that the pregnant woman doesn’t get to make the determination of when personhood attaches, that is the baby’s right not hers.
[quote=“ZPG_Zealot, post:244, topic:549037”]
A mother has a duty of care to her child, the duty of care does not require letting yourself die but it does require that you act reasonably. This duty of care has not been established between a mother and a fetus. For example I have no duty of care towards your child, if I saw it crawling towards a cliff and I could easily pick it up but didn’t and just let it fall over the edge of the cliff, the law would not have a thing to say to me.
No once again, no duty of care unless that lactating woman was an innkeeper and the enemy soldier was a guest (then there is a limited duty of care (which probably doesn’t extend to breastfeeding but probably does extend to acting reasonably)).
While I don’t agree with the logic of “well you got yourself pregnant so you gotta face up to the consequences” but the difference between the motorcycle accident and the viable fetus is that applying first aid to the motorcyclist doesn’t really involve killing a viable fetus or anything like it.
And if you have your abortion in the first or second trimester, I’m right there with you. A consequence of pregnancy can be abortion. I am saying that at some point before birth your right to an abortion is trumped by the state’s interest in the life of the fetus.
I guess I just find some of these attitudes regarding fetuses as parasites and cannibals a bit hard to understand.
My kid is less than a year old. I just don’t want to fuck up my kid’s life.
Here’s the thing. One big point of disagreement is that I think a fetus is a person with its own rights and you think a fetus is an extension of the mother.
When you say that I can be charged with murder for killing your fetus, you are saying it is a person (otherwise it wouldn’t be murder, it would be induced miscarriage or something else). If its a person then it is murder not only when I kill it but also when you kill it. It is either murder for both of us or neither of us.
Perhaps what you mean is that it is an abortion when you kill it and it is mayhem or maiming when I do it.
You don’t get to define say whether something is murder or not, that is determined using objective principles of law I would think.
Excuse me? I’m supposed to prove a negative now? Why don’t you come up with some evidence that your absurd scenario actually happens?
It’s hard to get a third trimester abortion even for medical reasons, especially given the fact that doctors willing to perform them tend to be targeted by “pro-life” assassins. Only 2, 3 in the country left IIRC. Third trimester abortions are for medical reasons, period.
I think you’re off by a factor of 10. This cite says it’s 100 every year, not 1,000.
So does this one.
http://www.pregnantpause.org/abort/definejm.htm
I don’t know the exact basis for those figures. However this chart says there were 1.21 million abortions in 2006 and most of the stats match what has already been discussed. It says 1.5 percent of abortions happen after the 21st week measuring from the woman’s last period, not the date of conception. (The date of conception, obviously, would be later.) 1.5 percent of 1.21 million is about 180.
There are two ways to screw up your kids life. One is to not care about what they do, not give them advice and feedback, and just watch them go to hell. The other is to watch everything they do, never let them make mistakes, and hover over them to the extent that they are scared of leaving. About the best you can do is to tell them you’ll be there for them no matter what.
As best I can tell, there’s enough randomness in the equation that your kid could get screwed up no matter what you do.
There are approximately 33,000 ways to screw up your kids, assuming a conservative estimate of five stupid things you will do or say every day from their birth until their eighteenth birthday. No use worrying over any particular one of them.
That is half of the debate. There has been a long term argument over abortion including heated debate in the Supreme Court. For me, it is the idea that I have reasoned out that abortion is wrong, therefore you should not have one. That, in spite of the fact you have reasoned it out and came to different conclusion.
I may be missing something and math is not my strong point but I think your math is substantially off.
1.5% of 1,210,000 = 18,150
No, you’re right. I was taking 0.01 percent of the 1.21 million, but that was the third trimester percentage. So I don’t know the basis for the statement that there are about 100 third trimester abortions per year. Fox attributed it indirectly to the Guttmacher Institutite, which tracks data like this.
I’m probably not as familiar with all the usual arguments and their typical responses as some people might be but if I am supposed to accept the analogy of the 60 year old man then if the 60 year old man reaches the point where he doesn’t need to be hooked up to me anymore (it would probably be better for him if he remained attached to me for a couple more months) but is currently still hooked up to me, can I kill him in order to detach him when there is a way to detach him without killing him?
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You’re right ,we are actually still arguing whether or not abortion ever becomes murder even the day before birth.
Its not that anyone thinks the line is currently at birth. This isn’t a deabte about what the rule is, I think its a debate about what the rule SHOULD BE. I think the debate is that some pro-choicers think the line is at birth and their rationale is somewhere between “its the woman’s choice period” and “its so hard to decide, the best thing to do is just to leave it up to the woman up to the moment of birth because the alternative can lead to too many bad things” At least thats what I think their argument boils down to. I think that personhood is created at the latest by viability.
I think he is asking whether the “its my body, its my choice” extends to all situations or only when the only harm that could result is to something inside your body. I don’t think its very instructive because there is a duty of care that mothers have towards their children. they don’t have to die for them but they have to act reasonably.
And if it ever came down to abortion or losing a kidney in the third trimester, you can have that abortion.
Tailor made? I am saying that personhood attaches at viability. The 60 year old man analogy (which I don’t think is perfectly appropriate) that keeps getting thrown around would support a position that you can’t kill the old man at the point of viability, doesn’t it?
I thought we had determined that fetuses could feel pain and dream by their third trimester, someone said that this indicated higher brain function.
You’ll have to ask someone who used this analogy. I try to avoid them because usually people end up arguing about the details of the analogy and ignoring the main issue.
Oh, OK. I was using the “day before birth” example to understand exactly how far the choice privilege extended. I could probably believe without a cite that the “day before birth” scenario doesn’t really happen. Can you provide a cite for the statement that there are no elective third term abortions?
OK then please provide a cite proving that there are no elective third term abortions.
I spent a few minutes yesterday looking for one and didn’t find it. I don’t know if there are surveys on this topic. Especially if there are only 100 of them per year.
I say you should ask the mother. If she says it is murder, then it is. That choice thing again. I know the law probably doesn’t agree with me, just my opinion.