The argument of "pro-choice" is bullsh*t.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@begbert2

The proposed restriction on abortions by Damuri Ajashi is, as best I can tell, “If we think there’s some tiny chance that the fetus could be kept alive through the expenditure of a hundred thousand dollars worth of unpaid medical attention, then the woman is forbidden to attempt any method of removing the fetus that does not guarantee a the resulting baby will live afterwards”. (I may be paraphrasing slightly. :D)

I know you’re kinda sorta kidding but Its not some tiny chance. I am making a hard cutoff at 6 months. This way the doctor doesn’t have to sit there and try and figure out if a baby is viable outside the womb. If the baby is six months you can only abort if there is a risk of death, physical disability or severe fetal abnormalities.

So I repeat: “I think that in cases where the fetus can be easily and safely induced to a live birth, requiring no additional effort or expense from the mother, the doctor should do that instead of an abortion.” However, that is something the doctor (and woman) should decide to do if they can and it’s medically prudent; I don’t think it’s a good idea to make blanket laws about it.

It seems like you are saying that introducing uncertainty as to exactly when a doctor may or may not perform an abortion is going to cause all sorts of havoc. There are 39 states that prohibit late term abortion except when the life or health of the mother is at stake. The term health is really fuzzy and yet there are clinics that seem to operate their business based on third trimester abortions using this somewhat hazy criteria. While my rule would provide less flexibility, it would certainly provide some more certainty to the Doctor because I have limited non-life saving abortions to physical disability or if the fetus has severe abnormalities. I don’t think I am making things fuzzier for the doctors.

@redtail23

@Damuri_Ajashi

I hear you. It can be tough. We shouldn’t make it so tough but once she hits her third trimester, I place the life of the fetus above her right to choose.

<snip>

I don’t think anyone does this on purpose and I think you have to be in a pretty tight spot to even think about doing this but at this stage of the game, the choice is gone.

<snip>

I never meant to give the impression that abortions were like icecream…

So you agree that generally women aren’t intentionally getting third-trimester abortions just for the hell of it, but only when (for whatever reason) they really, really feel they have to, yes? That’s quite a bit different from the image you’ve projected, which is that you think gazillions of women are having 3T abortions just for fun and lack of anything better to do.

I don’t think there are more than about 1000 third trimester abortions in a given year for any reason and I think most of those are for reasons I would be OK with (life of the mother, severely malformed fetus, risk of physical disability), but it also seems like there are more than a small handful of abortions of healthy pregnancies. I am saying I don’t care about your personal situation in the third trimester. In the first two trimesters, go have an abortion, I won’t stop you but if the third trimester rolls around and you still have a fetus inside of you, the only way to get it out right away is a c-section or an induced delivery.

What else would you call it? The law requires women trying to obtain an abortion to have a phallic object inserted into their vaginas against their will. In any other circumstance this would be considered rape. What makes it different in this case?

I’m not familiar with the law but OK I think the law is bullshit. We should limit the sonograms to the kind you can do on the belly. I think its wrong to think that just because you are willing to have a fetus extracted from your vagina means that you are indifferent to having a sonogram probe put in there. I don’t want to put up any significant roadblocks to abortions in the second trimester.

And as far as the “informed consent” bullshit, before you go there - the very same legislature, in the very same session, made it legal for a doctor to LIE TO HIS PATIENT without any repercussions if he doesn’t want to tell her that the fetus has birth defects so that she won’t even consider getting an abortion.

This is CLEARLY bullshit. I would make treat those doctors as if they had caused those birth defects. My second trimester fetus has a leaky heart valve that is going to limit his lifespan and require tons of medical costs, and you lie to me about it. Well, doc you just bought yourself a leaky heart valve.

So, no, neither they nor you can claim that these laws have anything to do with helping or protecting women.

I agree its bullshit.

I don’t think anyone else was claiming that, either (and please show me where if I’m wrong).

A couple of people were. Begbert has rescinded but several others were saying the same thing. If they have changed their minds about that fact then at least the debate can continue.

But what you have kept saying is that you think that “elective third-trimester” abortions should be illegal. And that would mean that you’re making abortions illegal for women with serious health issues and for women with essentially dead fetuses, in order to stop one or two abortions that you think aren’t justified.

First its not a single elective third trimester abortion and now its one or two? Can you provide a cite? I have some testimony from a nurse that used to work for Dr. Tiller that she had seen about 600 (did you mean one of two a year? I don’t think she’s 300 years old).

IOW, you’ve really been arguing a fairly extreme position, and I’m not sure that’s what you really meant.

I’m not even comfortable with one or two but if you can prove to me that there are only one or two. It is something that I will have to consider.

I do think we can tighten up the definition of “health” but otherwise I am satisfied with the current state of the law.

OK, explain this to me. Who are you to have a better understanding of what would adversely affect a woman’s health than she and her doctor do? Why do you think that legislators, who are easily influenced by screaming fanatics, have a better understanding of a woman’s health than she and her doctor do?

I’m serious about this. Below are questions I’ve asked people before when they’ve said similar things. Generally they can’t answer them - can you?

What qualifies as a serious enough health condition to warrant a 3T abortion?
[/quote]

Something that will cause a physical disability (diabetes counts).

Can a woman be required to undergo 3 months of bed rest? Who’s going to pay to support her while she’s doing that? If she doesn’t follow orders, is she a criminal? If she can’t afford to stay in bed, then shouldn’t she be able to have a safe surgical abortion rather than waiting for a life-risking spontaneous abortion?

No she cannot be required to undergo three months bedrest. If she needs to get the baby out and it is in the third trimester, she can induce or c-section. I also think that she should get at least 6 months paid maternity leave if she keeps the baby at least a month if she does not (just to recover).

Would a woman have to wait until she actually had physical damage to qualify, or would “probable” damage be enough? What probability is required? 95% 85% 75% 50% 25%? Where do you draw the line at how much risk to her life and health a woman is required to assume?

1%. If there is a 1% risk of death or disability from pregnancy that can ONLY be ameliorated by abortion and would NOT be ameliorated by induced birth or C-section, then you can have a C-section during your third trimesters along with my deepest sympathies.

What if a woman has a recurrence of serious depression or other mental illness? Can she be required to carry the pregnancy to term, even though it’s making her suicidal? After all, she’s not physically at risk from the pregnancy.

She does not have to carry to term, she can induce right away or C-section.

@begbert2

@Damuri_Ajashi

WOW!!! Its like you’ve been waiting for some sign that I don’t mean what I say. I am giving the woman a choice between delivering a live baby or carrying to term. I didn’t realize I had to qualigfy this statement by repeating, once again, that I am talking about cases where the fetus is capable of live delivery.

No you’re not, not until you go back and respond to the points about how you never defined “viable”, never stated how to detect viability, and never stated how you’re going handle the costs of keeping this supposedly-viable baby alive until it’s actually viable. Seven-month premees do not exactly leap from their cribs and start crawling, you know. Until you address these issues, “viable” is just a magic word that means “third trimester”, and which has nothing whatsoever to do with the ability to be delivered live in any meaningful sense.

Yes, I am using the term viable and third trimester interchangably. I thought about using more subjective criteria but you have convinced me that a line in the sand that roughly approximates viability is a better idea.

And if you don’t want to compared to a pro-life person, don’t make their arguments. They’d love to restrict a woman from conception on to procedures that produce a live and viable fetus. What, there aren’t any that early? Fine with them!

I don’t think I am making that argument.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Why is it so hard to believe that someone could be against third trimester abortions but still support the right to an abortion during the first two trimesters.

Oh, it’s not hard to believe; I’ve held that position myself. But the position is not argumentively defensible in the face of the woman’s rights argument, not without using the stick-fingers-in-ears-and-repeat-no-no-no! approach.
[/QUOTE]

What argument have I been ignoring? I understand all your concerns about choice and I make allowances for abortions up to the third trimester after that I don’t give a rats ass about choice. You can have your baby now or you can have your baby at the end of the pregnancy but you can’t kill it.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Cat_Fight

@Damuri_Ajashi

Cite?

I am not entirely familiar with the castle doctrine but every case I have come across has an element of self defense. I don’t think you can shoot a baby that crawled onto your lawn in any state in the union, not even West Virginia.

What if it crawls up into your vagina?

@redtail23

On the other hand…

OK, explain this to me. Who are you to have a better understanding of what would adversely affect a woman’s health than she and her doctor do? Why do you think that legislators, who are easily influenced by screaming fanatics, have a better understanding of a woman’s health than she and her doctor do?

I’m serious about this. Below are questions I’ve asked people before when they’ve said similar things. Generally they can’t answer them - can you?

What qualifies as a serious enough health condition to warrant a 3T abortion?

Thank you for bringing this up, especially mental illness. A friend of mine got pregnant while recovering from anorexia. She hadn’t had a period in forever, so didn’t think she could get pregnant, and she didn’t know she was pregnant until about five months in. Sorry, dudes, it was not going to happen. It was abortion or, well, suicide.

And that really is the case here. If Damuri Ajashi has so little grasp on the complexities of pregnancy that he/she honestly thinks there are women trotting into abortion clinics in the third trimester (well, the two that currently exist in the US and perform this procedure) – not because of restrictions and roadblocks like getting time off work without being fired, finding someone to care for the kids they already have, getting parental permission, finding a doctor who can fit them in to their schedule, traveling across several states (and going through a waiting period), raising money (a bit of a catch-22 as it gets more expensive the longer you need to raise the money), discovering a physical abnormality in the fetus or a physical problem in themselves, severe obesity, mental illness or retardation – but because they are simply lazy or negligent, then what on earth would keep them from performing the procedure themselves? Too concerned with their girlish figures?

The fact that we wouldn’t prevent illegal abortions doesn’t mean that we should just make them legal.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Marley23

@Damuri_Ajashi

Yeah, and I don’t think we should kill her either.

Why do the interests of the person who is definitely sentient take a back seat to the interests of the future person who at the time might have some measure of sentience? What is the state’s compelling interest in making women have children they don’t want to have?

The state has an interest in life regardless of its value. That’s why its illegal to murder Republicans.

We are not talking about equivalent interests here. I am not subordinating a woman’s life to a fetuses life. I am subordinating a woman’s choice in the third trimester to a fetuses life in the third trimester.

[DianaG]

@Damuri_Ajashi

We are not talking about equivalent interests here. I am not subordinating a woman’s life to a fetuses life. I am subordinating a woman’s choice in the third trimester to a fetuses life in the third trimester.

And how do you justify compelling a woman to share her body with a fetus, when she is not compelled to share even her blood with her offspring after they’re born?

I’ll ask again; what is so magical about a fetus that it deserves rights no other creature has? What makes my uterus less unilaterally mine than my liver is?

[DianaG]

@Damuri Ajashi

The state has an interest in life regardless of its value. That’s why its illegal to murder Republicans.

The state has no interest in life. The state has an interest in minimizing violence and other kinds of anarchy. That’s why the state forbids murder, but doesn’t compel organ donation.

[Marley23]

@Damuri_Ajashi

@Marley23

Why do the interests of the person who is definitely sentient take a back seat to the interests of the future person who at the time might have some measure of sentience? What is the state’s compelling interest in making women have children they don’t want to have?

The state has an interest in life regardless of its value. That’s why its illegal to murder Republicans.

Republicans are actually alive, therefore there’s no comparison there. So again, we’re dealing with a situation where a person who is alive and unquestionably human and entitled to full rights under the law is having her rights having her rights subordinated to someone without a full existence or consciousness, all with the goal of making her have a baby she doesn’t want.

We are not talking about equivalent interests here. I am not subordinating a woman’s life to a fetuses life. I am subordinating a woman’s choice in the third trimester to a fetuses life in the third trimester.

In the third trimester, you’re subordinating a woman’s life to the potential or partial life of the fetus. Denying it does not make the issue disappear.

[monavis]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Some of the formatting got screwed up.

@monavis

It depends a lot on the circumstance of the woman,if she has the possibility of dying, and or, leaving other children to be mother less) it should be her choice(SElf Defense).

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?

One cannot judge what another does in the privacy of their own homes if it is legal,and should not have someone elses beliefs pushed on to them. Suppose you lived under the laws of some religions who allow a parent to kill or maim their child or another. We should be grateful that our founding fathers had separation of State and Religion. Should a majority become a radical group, then freedoms that were fought for would no longer exist!!

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.

I am apparently not making myself clear. There is a legal time set for Abortions now, after that it is illegal( I believe ) unless it is a health problem for the mother at any stage,she has the choice of endangering her life or allowing herself to die for the pregnancy. That is for her, with her doctor, to decide, and I do not see any reason for the law to change, after a certain time it can be life threating for her and then in that sense, an abortion can be classified as self defense.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Damuri_Ajashi

The state has an interest in life regardless of its value.

Well, consider one state that has multiple restrictions on abortion versus one that has no restrictions at all. What indicators might we expect that lead us to conclude the second state, having lost at least some of its “interest in life” is more brutal or savage or whatever than the first?

[begbert2]

@Damuri_Ajashi

@begbert2

The proposed restriction on abortions by Damuri Ajashi is, as best I can tell, “If we think there’s some tiny chance that the fetus could be kept alive through the expenditure of a hundred thousand dollars worth of unpaid medical attention, then the woman is forbidden to attempt any method of removing the fetus that does not guarantee a the resulting baby will live afterwards”. (I may be paraphrasing slightly. :D)

I know you’re kinda sorta kidding but Its not some tiny chance. I am making a hard cutoff at 6 months. This way the doctor doesn’t have to sit there and try and figure out if a baby is viable outside the womb. If the baby is six months you can only abort if there is a risk of death, physical disability or severe fetal abnormalities.

And this law you propose is based on no science or actual medical development whatsoever, and any claims that it has anything whatseoever to do with (actual) viability have just gone completely down the toilet. It’s not about viability at all - it’s about 6 months - with an explicit awareness that when you say “the woman isn’t being forced to carry the child to term; she can just use a [nonexistent] treatment that will extract it alive”, that you know this is utterly false and you are forcing the woman to carry the child with no option of reclaiming her own body as her own.

I dub this logically and argumentively indistinguishible from setting the cutoff at 0 months, and toss it out as similarly based on logicless and oppressive dogma. When come back, bring argument based on justice and reality.

@Damuri_Ajashi

It seems like you are saying that introducing uncertainty as to exactly when a doctor may or may not perform an abortion is going to cause all sorts of havoc. There are 39 states that prohibit late term abortion except when the life or health of the mother is at stake. The term health is really fuzzy and yet there are clinics that seem to operate their business based on third trimester abortions using this somewhat hazy criteria. While my rule would provide less flexibility, it would certainly provide some more certainty to the Doctor because I have limited non-life saving abortions to physical disability or if the fetus has severe abnormalities. I don’t think I am making things fuzzier for the doctors.

“except when the life or health of the mother is at stake” is obviously fuzzier than “you’re legally okay, period”. I don’t know how you can admit this and then immediately turn around argue the exact opposite with a straight face.

The fact that clinics are currently dealing with the ambiguity and not all ending up in jail (likely in no small part due to the habit of doctors to lie in each other’s favor on the stand IMHO) does not mean that the current legal setup is not a nonsensical and pitfall-ridden morass.

@Damuri_Ajashi

A couple of people were. Begbert has rescinded but several others were saying the same thing. If they have changed their minds about that fact then at least the debate can continue.

Please do us a favor and pretend they have so the debate can continue anyway. Please.

There was anyone else but me?

@Damuri_Ajashi

She does not have to carry to term, she can induce right away or C-section.

This is bullshit and you know it - at the stroke of 6 months most or all inductions and C-sections would be de-facto abortions.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Yes, I am using the term viable and third trimester interchangably. I thought about using more subjective criteria but you have convinced me that a line in the sand that roughly approximates viability is a better idea.

I agree - birth. Unlike the 6-month line, it is certainly the case that most fetuses are viable at the point of birth, unlike no fetuses at all being viable at the 6-month point, which clearly makes my line a much more accurate one.

And it avoids the risk of enslaving women for two months at a shot - something which you don’t seem to be trying too hard to avoid.

Let me give you a hint - if you were picking a cutoff point where the fetuses were actually viable (and we knew it), you would have something resembling an argument - even DianaG could possibly be convinced to allow “you have to do a quick C-Section after this point”, because that would still give the woman the option of immediately reclaiming control of her organs. (Though there are still arguments against it if it is not the safest operation doable at that point.) However as long as you say “After this point you have no options until the doctor thinks there’s a good chance the fetus will survive outside the womb”, then your position is argumentively identical to the zero-monthers, in that your argument is based on cavalierly dismissing the woman’s legal rights to her body as soon as you think a fetus is getting sufficiently babyish.

@Damuri_Ajashi

And if you don’t want to compared to a pro-life person, don’t make their arguments. They’d love to restrict a woman from conception on to procedures that produce a live and viable fetus. What, there aren’t any that early? Fine with them!

I don’t think I am making that argument.

The only difference between their argument and yours is an arbitrary difference in timing. The logic is the same - The Baby Wins, Full Stop.

@Damuri_Ajashi

What argument have I been ignoring? I understand all your concerns about choice and I make allowances for abortions up to the third trimester after that I don’t give a rats ass about choice. You can have your baby now or you can have your baby at the end of the pregnancy but you can’t kill it.

The argument is that nowhere else in law does it even begin to start to pretend to hint at implying that a person can be required to give over the use of their internal organs to sustain the life of any other person, be that person a fetus, a 60-year-old man, a baby on your lawn, your beloved child, or the president of the united states. Your body is yours - at least since we outlawed slavery, anyway.

That argument is the one you’re ignoring.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@DianaG

@Damuri Ajashi

The state has an interest in life regardless of its value. That’s why its illegal to murder Republicans.

The state has no interest in life. The state has an interest in minimizing violence and other kinds of anarchy. That’s why the state forbids murder, but doesn’t compel organ donation.

I know that the statement you just made sounds really attractive to your argument and probably even make sense from your point of view but it simply isn’t true.

The state currently has an interest in fetal life. Just about every court opinion on abortion mentions this interest, its how they justify any state action whatsoever. If there was no state interest in fetal life then your point of view would in fact be correct. We could not regulate abortion, even up until the moment before birth. So there, there is ANOTHER way that you can move me from my position, I would do it more reluctantly than if you could prove that third term abortions of healthy pregnancies didn’t exist but if you could prove that a state actually didn’t have a legal interest in fetal life at any point during its gestation then I would have to conclude that they cannot legislate on it. I don’t think it is possible to do but good luck with that.

@Marley23

@Damuri_Ajashi

The state has an interest in life regardless of its value. That’s why its illegal to murder Republicans.

Republicans are actually alive

:dubious: OK maybe.

So again, we’re dealing with a situation where a person who is alive and unquestionably human and entitled to full rights under the law is having her rights having her rights subordinated to someone without a full existence or consciousness, all with the goal of making her have a baby she doesn’t want.

I don’t think I have been shy about saying full throatedly. YES I am in favor of FORCING a woman with a healthy third trimester pregnancy to carry to term or to have an early delivery no matter how much she wants to have an abortion.

We are not talking about equivalent interests here. I am not subordinating a woman’s life to a fetuses life. I am subordinating a woman’s choice in the third trimester to a fetuses life in the third trimester.

In the third trimester, you’re subordinating a woman’s life to the potential or partial life of the fetus. Denying it does not make the issue disappear.
[/QUOTE]

How am I subordinating her life? I thought I was pretty clear about the whole threat to life exception. Are you equating her ability to do whatever she wants to her life? Comfort, lifestyle, freedom are all important things but they are not life.

@monavis

@Damuri_Ajashi

…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.
…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.

I am apparently not making myself clear. There is a legal time set for Abortions now, after that it is illegal( I believe ) unless it is a health problem for the mother at any stage,she has the choice of endangering her life or allowing herself to die for the pregnancy. That is for her, with her doctor, to decide, and I do not see any reason for the law to change, after a certain time it can be life threating for her and then in that sense, an abortion can be classified as self defense.

Yeah, I am not at all sure what you are talking about. The law is pretty damn close to where I am.

The ban on partial birth abortion is the only nationwide restriction on abortion. Roe and all the other court cases only limit on how much the states can restrict abortion. they don’t have to have any limits at all. Only 39 states ban the abortion of healthy third trimester pregnancies.

Either you are confused or I am.

[Der_Trihs]

@Damuri_Ajashi

The law is pretty damn close to where I am.

The ban on partial birth abortion is the only nationwide restriction on abortion.

And it has no purpose besides endangering the lives and health of women. It doesn’t stop a single abortion; it just requires doctors to not use the safest method. Is that “close to where you are”?

Oh; and there’s no such thing as a “partial birth abortion”.

[Marley23]

@Damuri_Ajashi

How am I subordinating her life?

@Damuri_Ajashi

I don’t think I have been shy about saying full throatedly. YES I am in favor of FORCING a woman with a healthy third trimester pregnancy to carry to term or to have an early delivery no matter how much she wants to have an abortion.

That was easy. I didn’t even have summarize your position.

Are you equating her ability to do whatever she wants to her life? Comfort, lifestyle, freedom are all important things but they are not life.

That’s a bunch of crap. You are advocating forcing her to risk her life to give birth. That’s not a comfort issue. Birth always includes the risk of complications and health problems even if the woman does not have underlying issues serious enough that she needs an abortion for medical reasons. But you’re fine with forcing her to take that risk because you’re more concerned about the potential life of her fetus than the actual life she is living. You’re also supporting making her raise the child (although some of those babies would be put up for adoption, of course) even though that was not what she wanted to do.

[lonestar88]

@begbert2

The argument is that nowhere else in law does it even begin to start to pretend to hint at implying that a person can be required to give over the use of their internal organs to sustain the life of any other person, be that person a fetus, a 60-year-old man, a baby on your lawn, your beloved child, or the president of the united states. Your body is yours - at least since we outlawed slavery, anyway.

That argument is the one you’re ignoring.

Hmmm… Interesting.

But, is your body really yours? The state has numerous restrictions on what you can do with and to your body. You cannot inject drugs into your body, you cannot sell your body for sex, you cannot sell your kidney, you cannot commit suicide nor is assisted suicide legal.

There does not have to be a law requiring you to donate your body to anyone or anything. The state does not require anyone to get pregnant.

When the state restricts third trimester abortions, they are restricting what a doctor or you can legally do to your body. Most abortions are regulated by the state (required to be performed by a licensed physician), some abortions are restricted by the state. Currently 38 states prohibit some abortions after a certain point in pregnancy.

State Bans on Abortion Throughout Pregnancy

[DianaG]

@Damuri Ajashi

if you could prove that a state actually didn’t have a legal interest in fetal life at any point during its gestation then I would have to conclude that they cannot legislate on it. I don’t think it is possible to do but good luck with that.

I can prove that the state has no genuine interest in life simply by noting that it doesn’t force me to keep anyone alive who doesn’t happen to be a fetus. Not even by compelling simple blood donations.

Now prove to me why a fetus should be the exception.

[DianaG]

@lonestar88

But, is your body really yours? The state has numerous restrictions on what you can do with and to your body. You cannot inject drugs into your body, you cannot sell your body for sex, you cannot sell your kidney, you cannot commit suicide nor is assisted suicide legal.

With the exception of suicide, those issues are a matter of controlling crime and commerce, not bodily sovereignty.

[lonestar88]

@DianaG

With the exception of suicide, those issues are a matter of controlling crime and commerce, not bodily sovereignty.

And abortion rights are founded on a basis of privacy, not bodily sovereignty. Is bodily sovereignty a protected right under the constitution?

[DianaG]

Ever since they outlawed slavery, I think it’s implicit.

Is the use of another person’s organs a protected right under the Constitution?

[lonestar88]

@DianaG

Ever since they outlawed slavery, I think it’s implicit.

Is the use of another person’s organs a protected right under the Constitution?

a) is it implicit? I believe the government can still call up a draft.

b) no I don’t believe it is.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Bryan_Ekers

@Damuri_Ajashi

The state has an interest in life regardless of its value.

Well, consider one state that has multiple restrictions on abortion versus one that has no restrictions at all. What indicators might we expect that lead us to conclude the second state, having lost at least some of its “interest in life” is more brutal or savage or whatever than the first?

I’m not sure what you are talking about. States have all sorts of interest that they protect or waive in different ways. States have an interest in controlling gambling and prostitution, In Nevada these things are legal and in other states less so or banned altogether.

Are you saying that I am saying that states that permit the elective abortion of healthy third trimester pregnancies are barbaric? Well, perhaps I am, and perhaps they are.

@begbert2

And this law you propose is based on no science or actual medical development whatsoever, and any claims that it has anything whatseoever to do with (actual) viability have just gone completely down the toilet. It’s not about viability at all - it’s about 6 months - with an explicit awareness that when you say “the woman isn’t being forced to carry the child to term; she can just use a [nonexistent] treatment that will extract it alive”, that you know this is utterly false and you are forcing the woman to carry the child with no option of reclaiming her own body as her own.

I use 6 months because it is cumbersome to force a determination of viability. 6 months roughly approximates a good chance of survival viability so I go with 6 months.

I know more than my share of Ob-Gyn’s (a lot of doctors in the family) and they have in fact induced early delivery (as early as the 26th week) because pregnancy can cause severe risk of death to the mother and the mother doesn’t want an abortion.

Odds of a Premature Baby’s Survival by Length of Pregnancy
Length of Pregnancy Likelihood of Survival
23 weeks 17%
24 weeks 39%
25 weeks 50%
26 weeks 80%
27 weeks 90%
28-31 weeks 90-95%
32-33 weeks 95%
34+ weeks Almost as likely as a full-term baby
Sources: March of Dimes, Quint Boenker Preemie Survival Foundation

As you can see at the 6th month (26 weeks) the odds of survival are 80%.

I don’t see why this procedure can’t become more common.

I dub this logically and argumentively indistinguishible from setting the cutoff at 0 months, and toss it out as similarly based on logicless and oppressive dogma. When come back, bring argument based on justice and reality.

I don’t think saying no abortions at 6 months is saying the same things as no abortions at conception.

“except when the life or health of the mother is at stake” is obviously fuzzier than “you’re legally okay, period”. I don’t know how you can admit this and then immediately turn around argue the exact opposite with a straight face.

Yes your formulation would be clearer than my formulation. That is NOT what I was saying. I was saying that my formulation is clearer than present law. I have been chopping out some of the layers of quotes so perhaps the context wasn’t clear to you.

The fact that clinics are currently dealing with the ambiguity and not all ending up in jail (likely in no small part due to the habit of doctors to lie in each other’s favor on the stand IMHO) does not mean that the current legal setup is not a nonsensical and pitfall-ridden morass.

The argument was that MY formulation would create a situation where a doctor that is faced with saving the life of the mother or aborting the child will hesitate and the mother will die. I was pointing out that if this is a problem then it would be an even greater problem under today’s law and yet we don’t hear about all the dead mothers who died because their doctor hesitated due to the uncertainty surrounding the law. I was just countering an objection someone raised. I was not saying that my formulation provided more certainty than your formulation because it doesn’t. I agree, abortion on demand right up to the moment of birth is a VERY simple rule, too simple if you ask me.

There was anyone else but me?

Yeah there were at least two other posters. That is what made me go and find a cite for an assertion that was made by your side of the argument instead of sitting idly by while you guys came up with a cite. I figured if 3 people felt so sure that this was the case then maybe its true.

This is bullshit and you know it - at the stroke of 6 months most or all inductions and C-sections would be de-facto abortions.

cite?

I trust that the chart from the march of dimes is some evidence to the contrary. My anecdotal evidence is probably not enough to satisfy you but here is a wiki article on it. It covers all pre-term births but I couldn’t find anything more specific.

Preterm birth

“The remainder (30–35%) are preterm births that are induced for obstetrical reasons”

no fetuses at all being viable at the 6-month point, which clearly makes my line a much more accurate one.

Has anyone ever told you that you make a lot of categorical statements? I assume the March of Dimes cite above shifts your position a little bit.

And it avoids the risk of enslaving women for two months at a shot - something which you don’t seem to be trying too hard to avoid.

No, I’m not trying very hard to avoid it. Its the third trimester, I don’t care about the woman’s right to choose anymore, the fetal life is more important than the woman’s right to choose at that point.

The only difference between their argument and yours is an arbitrary difference in timing. The logic is the same - The Baby Wins, Full Stop.

See march of dimes cite.

@Damuri_Ajashi

What argument have I been ignoring? I understand all your concerns about choice and I make allowances for abortions up to the third trimester after that I don’t give a rats ass about choice. You can have your baby now or you can have your baby at the end of the pregnancy but you can’t kill it.

The argument is that nowhere else in law does it even begin to start to pretend to hint at implying that a person can be required to give over the use of their internal organs to sustain the life of any other person, be that person a fetus, a 60-year-old man, a baby on your lawn, your beloved child, or the president of the united states. Your body is yours - at least since we outlawed slavery, anyway.

That argument is the one you’re ignoring.

Yes, I am ignoring that argument because its not applicable in this case. You can have a C-Section or induce delivery.

Why does the burden of proof always seem to fall on me? Am I the only one that knows how to use google?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Der_Trihs

@Damuri_Ajashi

The law is pretty damn close to where I am.

The ban on partial birth abortion is the only nationwide restriction on abortion.

And it has no purpose besides endangering the lives and health of women. It doesn’t stop a single abortion; it just requires doctors to not use the safest method. Is that “close to where you are”?

Oh; and there’s no such thing as a “partial birth abortion”.

I don’t really agree with the Partial birth abortion ban. I think you can abort any way your doctor thinks best during the second trimester and I think the partial birth abortion ban doesn’t distinguish between second and third trimester.

There is a legal definition for partial birth abortion. If it doesn’t actually ever happen then what are you so worked up about?