Just to be clear, you do realize that such abortions are considered elective, right? So when you find numbers for “elective third-trimester abortions”, those numbers include the abortions that you’ve already said are OK.
“Elective” in medical terminology doesn’t mean “oh I just decided to do that for no reason”, it means “non-emergency”.
So a woman having an abortion because the fetus she’s carrying is ancephalic is having an elective abortion.
A woman with lupus who aborts because carrying the pregancy to term will probably kill her is having an elective abortion.
Just like the brain tumor removal my spousal unit had was “elective”, because it was a planned event. Medical necessity has nothing to do with a surgery being elective.
When you put me on the same side of an argument as the guy that thinks that life begins at conceptions they have more of an opportunity to share their ideas with me and while I am hopefully immune to such idiocy, a lot of people are not. Consider for a moment that in 1980, you had millions of single issue voters who voted for Reagan SOLELY because of abortion. They had NO opinion on taxes, fiscal policy, affirmative action and were probably even mildy favorable towards social programs. They hang out with Republican for the next 30 years and before you know it, they have strong opinions on global warming, supply side economics, genetic heritability of IQ, the value of social programs (or lack thereof).
Why are you asking me? I think demanding denunciations is a moronic political exercise. It’s a smear tactic, that’s all. People should be judged by their own opinions, not the views of people who have a roughly similar point of view.
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Well, I think we should in fact denounce those that share similar views but then go out and shoot a doctor in church. It makes it harder to distinguish yourself from the actions of those extremists if you say much the same thing without saying “but we don’t think you should shoot doctors in church”
Well, we are talking in hypothetical land. Right now states can in fact outlaw elective abortions in the third trimester. I think they are illegal in 39 states, they all have an exclusion for pregnancies that threaten life or physical health.
Well, I have said several times that I don’t think life begins at birth. I don’t think for a minute that this will appease the pro-choicers who think that choice extends up to the moment of birth. Why would you expect the folks who think life begins at birth to stop thinking that merely because you are against third trimester abortions. I thought the point of these debates was not to make positional arguments (I won’t give up an unreasonable position because it will weaken my other mor reasonable positions) but to try and reach a “best position” If you believe that third trimester elective abortions are wrong then why continue to support them? I don’t support a “life begins at birth” position to create a buffer zone around my “elective third trimester abortions should be illegal” position.
It is very difficult to advance a debate where one side won’t admit to the things that they agree with you on for fear that this will shift the center of gravity in the argument.
What makes you think we agree with you? I think there is no real government interest served in banning third-trimester abortions. Some politicians might benefit for being publicly seen as defending the imaginary murdered babies, but the government itself would be wasting its time - and making a dubious incursion onto a woman’s rights over her own body as well.
And by the way - life began in the primordial soup millions of years ago; it’s erroneously simplistic to characterize a fetus at any point in its development as “unliving”. The debate is whether it should be counted as a person.
I don’t think anyone posted anything contrary to that on this thread. I think you can declare victory on that point. Heck, I’ll decalre victory too because I said the same thing about a dozen times.
I can only guess at the mental anguish that comes with putting a child up for adoption but during the third trimester, I no longer care about her mental anguish. She had 6 months to get an abortion and if the universe has conspired to make the addition of another child in her life impossible during those last three months, she can put the child into the foster care system and if they do not get adopted can try to regain guardianship later in life.
Hitler? Hitler wasn’t adopted. Or are you saying that we should kill all our children because they might end up being Hitler? You sure you want to bring up the whole Hitler thing?
Like I said, banning third trimester abortions (while supporting first trimester abortions) is not really based on religious principles. You are STILL arguing against a position that NOONE here has taken.
Yeah I did, I provided a couple of them. They were cites to nurses taht used to work for Dr. Tilelr saying that she was involved in the thrid trimester abortion of healthy fetuses from healthy women.
I’m sorry if that isn’t good enough for you. I know that testimonial isn’t as waterprrof as say a video showing an elective third trimester abortion but its a LOT more than anyone has presented on the other side of the argument. There is just a dearth of hard information on the subject. there certainly isn’t enough for all the procalmations (with extra exclamation marks) saying elective third trimester abortions simply don’t exist.
What part of " I witnessed evidence of the brutal, cold blooded murder of over 600 viable, healthy babies at seven, eight and nine months gestation."
Am I misreading or am I hoping that you are misreading?
I would too. I think women should be able to abort a late term fetus if it is horribly disabled. I don’t really buy into the whole “even if he only lives for a day or two, you are robbing that baby of two precious days”
Yeah and I think I agree with you.
I admit that it is not exactly clear the exact details of the 600 or so third trimester abortions witnessed by the nurse in my cite but I don’t think she was 300 years old and i don’t think she witnessed the entire universe of third trimester abortions on the entire planet.
I am not sure how I want to screw up the whole law. I am pretty sure that my position is exactly the state of the law (more or less) in 39 states and pretty damn close to the state of the law in another handful of states.
Well, viability is where the supreme court has drawn the line. In practice, people seem to use the third trimester.
No. I think the decision should belong to the expectant mother and I think it should be a reasoably informed decision taking into account the time sensitive nature of the process.
Why do people keep religion in their arguments when I have not used religion to support my religion? There’s a term for that isn’t there?
OK I’ll try harder to keep up and not make any mistakes. Because heaven knows you haven’t made any mistakes. I just got the impression that you were insinuating that elective third party abortions didn’t exist so they must of necessity be hypothetical. My mistake.
I don’t know how many times I have to say that I am not talking about cases where the woman’s life is in jeaopardy. I don’t think a woman should have to DIE to give the fetus a chance at life.
If you are asking what is it about the LIFE of a viable fetus that is more important than the woman’s ability to CHOOSE? Then I guess my answer is that I have a preference for preserving life even at the cost of restricting choice.
If I have been unclear by what I mean when I say elective abortion, let me state this ONE MORE TIME. I don’t think a woman’ should eb forced to continue a pregnancy that will cause her heath of physical disability. I don’t think that there is much point in forcing a woman to give birth to a horribly diabled baby that will likely die before its first birthday. I AM willing to force — eliminate choice — tell the woman what to do with her own damn body — subordinate the rights of the mother to the rights of the child — in the case of a healthy pregnancy in the third trimester.
You understand that no matter how much you try to wriggle out of it, you are casting women as inherently less worthy of self-determination than fetuses, right?
Because you had 6 months, half a year, 26 weeks, 180 days to choose to end your pregnancy. At that point the state has an interest in protecting the life of your fetus than you do in depriving your fetus of the use of your organs.
I think that there is a balance between the rights of the fetus against the rights of the mother and at some point the balance tips towards the rights of the fetus.
I’m sorry if I haven’t been clear enough in my arguments.
You still haven’t explained why. At what point does one human’s well being become more important than another’s? Why do you feel that it’s perfectly reasonable to say to a person “Sorry, but you just don’t matter anymore. Your body doesn’t belong to you, and you serve at the pleasure of Damuri Ajashi.”
"I AM willing to force — eliminate choice — tell the woman what to do with her own damn body — subordinate the rights of the mother to the rights of the child — in the case of a healthy pregnancy in the third trimester. "
What part of that sounds like I am trying to wiggle my way out of anything?
I am subordinating a woman’s right to CHOOSE to a healthy viable fetuses right to live. I recognize the woman’s right to choose (I do not think it is absolute), I also recognize the fetuses right to live (once again, I do not think it is absolute), there is a balance and at some point the scale tipstowards teh fetuses right to live. I don’t know what part of that I can be more clear about.
I don’t understand what you are trying to get at with that question. Are you equating life/death with choice? We are not talking about the life of the mother versus the life of the fetus. We are not talking about the choice of the fetus versus the choice of the mother. If that was the debate the mother would win. We are talking about the life of the fetus versus the choice of the mother. A mother that has had 6 months to choose.
I’d like to start by frankly admitting that I overlooked that post when it was first presented.
That said, the lady’s credibility is way down for me. How on earth would she know a viable fetus from an unviable one? Both produce masses of human flesh which probably smell about the same when burnt. Non-viable fetuses still have hearts with walls to peirce long before there’s any possibility that they’re sentient, much less viable.
She would be qualified to note that medical records were falsified regarding times, though that sounds like it was probably done to step around some legal restriction - and in this thread the validity of legal restrictions is not assumed. That bit about lying to women about not being ‘too far along’ - she wasn’t lying to them. They got aborted, didn’t they? They clearly weren’t too far along to get an abortion. If they were too far along in the receptionist’s personal view of when abortions should be allowed, well, that’s rather different and her personal opinion isn’t really that important to me.
So. While that is admittedly a better cite than anything else I’d noticed you bringing, the testimonials on it are still pretty flimsy.
The fact that states have something in law doesn’t mean it’s not screwed up.
Do you not see how that’s a touch messed up? Do we have any practial reason to think that a fetus is viable when it’s just entering third trimester?
You spoke of the “rights of the fetus”. The fetus doesn’t have rights, legally speaking. It’s not a separate entity and doesn’t have personhood. The only place where you can derive a claim for fetal rights is when you cite it as having personhood granted from somewhere else - a higher power, perhaps?
When you use arguments with a theistic base, it’s valid to point that out, even if you didn’t invent their theistic bases yourself.
