It seems like there’s a big difference between Female infanticide in China, and US abortion rights. Even if both are reproductive rights. What I’m saying is that there is a point when a fetus becomes a person, and I’m not sure if that’s only after birth. Are there any state abortion laws that don’t take rape and incest into consideration? Do any states regulate late-term abortions? Why would that change if abortion legislation was at the state level?
What’s so “obvious” about “cases of rape or incest”? If your argument against abortion is that it’s the murder of a human person, isn’t a human person created via rape or incest just as much entitled to life as one created any other way?
If an embryo or early-term fetus is not considered the same as a human person, on the other hand, then it’s obvious that anybody who’s in the early stages of pregnancy and doesn’t want to be pregnant should be able to get an abortion for any reason they wish. Even if they’re relying on abortion as “birth control” (kind of a straw argument anyway, because most people who don’t want pregnancy do use actual birth control).
Somebody’s motives for terminating an early-term pregnancy, or the circumstances under which that pregnancy began, are irrelevant to that person’s right to terminate the pregnancy in their own body.
And yet, they both come from the government telling the people what they may and may not do with their reproductive systems.
You wanna open a door, that’s fine, just remember it opens both ways.
I think this is the OP’s question. If you actually think rape or incest is a way to create a human life, then you’ve misunderstood the discussion.
You’re conflating two different issues here:
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Is there a point in pregnancy before the moment of birth when it’s appropriate to start considering the fetus a fully human person who has a right not to be killed unless the life or health of the person carrying the fetus is at risk? (Yes, and all current abortion legislation in all states, following the guidance in the Supreme Court’s Roe decision, acknowledges that the right to choose an abortion can be more narrowly restricted later on in pregnancy.)
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Does an embryo or early-term fetus have different levels of rights depending on whether it was conceived as a result of rape/incest or voluntary sex? (Although some legislative abortion bans do allow rape or incest exceptions, from a fetal-personhood point of view that’s obviously shameless hypocrisy, unless you really believe that someone who was conceived as a result of rape is less of a human person than someone conceived in consensual sex.)
What?? There are already-born people living among us everywhere every day who were conceived as a result of rape, marital or otherwise. Are you really trying to claim that those people are somehow not really human?!
It sounds like what you’re trying to do here is a feeble attempt at justifying the shameless hypocrisy that wants to ban abortion on the grounds that “abortion is murder”, but nonetheless doesn’t like the optics of forcing a rape victim to carry and bear the rapist’s child. Even though, of course, that child is just as much a human person as any other child.
You’re right. I think this is the most difficult part of the abortion discussion.
I know how to simplify it. Keep decisions about abortion between a pregnant person and their doctor.
How so? Unique to what?
Because Roe V Wade hinged on your Right To Privacy. After that, other cases used that as leverage (like same sex marriage). If Roe v Wade is overturned, the other cases may follow suit. That’s may very, very general/basic understanding of it. I don’t have good grasp on the ins and outs of supreme court rulings, but if you poke around online, there’s a zillion articles covering this exact issue.
For the sake of argument, whenever they want. In practice, it’s none of my business.
Sidenote: I find it interesting that you bring the father into the discussion. While I have thoughts about the father’s role in abortion decisions, they’re of no consequence.
Also, what actually caught my attention about that quote was that you didn’t refer to him as the father, but questioned what her “husband’s” role in her abortion should be. Don’t assume that all, or even most, pregnant women seeking an abortion are married or even that the father is present in her life.
Legally, IMvHO, the father’s role in an abortion decision is should be about the same as her significant other’s role in her decision to do anything else she wants to do. A woman should never, ever, ever be required to have a man’s permission to make a decision about herself. Chipping away at bodily autonomy is a slope this country doesn’t slide down (and more than it already has).
A thousand times this
Compare for example Aktion T4. Also government policy. Or the procreation policies in Romania under Ceaușescu .
As said, abortion is one expression of the right to self-determination. As is birth control, or the right not to have sex at all. It really is that simple. Or should be at least.
It’s the only way to legally end a human life.
I don’t understand this. I’ll do some reading.
Wrong. Even accepting for the sake of argument that abortion ends a human life, does the name Terri Schiavo ring any bells?
Fair enough.
Plus there are countries where euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal, given the legal prerequisites are met.
Walk uninvited into a strangers home in a red state in the middle of the night.
It’s likely that someone will end your life, and they will do so completely legally.
Why should it be automatic that teen pregnancies be aborted? Are you aware that not all victims of rape or violence want to abort when pregnant? That women with real medical reasons to terminate might opt instead to risk their lives to give birth?
You’re depriving women of choice. Of agency. You’re basically saying they don’t know what’s good for them so someone else needs to step in and set those silly women straight.
Here’s my anecdote to counter yours: my mother suffered from significant cardiac disease from a very young age (she started suffering from angina in her 20’s). When she was pregnant with her last child (me, as it happens) in pre-Roe Missouri her medical issues were severe enough that she was offered the option of terminating her pregnancy despite Missouri largely banning the procedure. So she definitely had a significant risk. Yet she chose to carry me to term. Her choice. As it should be. No woman should be forced to be pregnant and no woman should be forced to abort.
Oh, how freakin’ patronizing. You’re saying pregnant people aren’t capable of making their own decisions. Again, patronizing. Also infantalizing.
What if the problem isn’t solvable? What if one parent is a carrier of a genetic defect they absolutely do not want to pass on? What if a person is absolutely sure they don’t want a baby, ever?
If someone is afraid of being a parent WTF is it important to you if they get over that or not?
Maybe the person actually DOES want the abortion, whether wealthy or poor or in between. Why should someone be forced to be a brood mare/walking uterus for someone else?
Yes, adoption should always be an option. Along with other options. But the decision should be that of the person who will actually be pregnant and give birth.
Are you aware of how many children in the US are NOT adopted? The less than perfect ones? The not-quite-white-enough ones? The fallen-through-the-cracks?
You had an excellent outcome. Bravo. I am truly and sincerely happy for you but what you enjoyed is not a universal for children whose birth mother/parents were unwilling or unable to raise them.
If you can’t handle stress and fear you have no business being a parent, because I guarantee that stress and fear do not stop at birth. But again, you demean women by implying they are incapable of handling such a situation.
I have known quite a few women who both chose abortion and didn’t choose abortion. BOTH are life-changing decisions. Why do you assume that choosing to give birth is less life-changing or less stressful or less fear-inducing than getting an abortion?
By and large, women seeking either abortions or to continue a pregnancy don’t need “therapy” to understand their decision, or make it. “I can’t afford a child/another child” isn’t going to be “cured” by therapy, as just one example. How arrogant you are to presume adult human beings who are pregnant are incapable of making these decisions. What makes YOU more qualified than the people who are actually pregnant?
Except for assisted suicide, unassisted suicide, death penalty, self defense, war etc.
But ignoring that for a moment, keep in mind the ramifications of your wording there. I’m assuming it wasn’t intentional, but you said ‘human life’ implying that the fetus is a human life…when did it become one? Conception? Heart Beat? X weeks of gestation?
You’re right. That might even happen in a blue state.
I’ve seen this said a few times. I’m making an assumption here, but I assume Jake didn’t mean the abortion was automatically done, but the woman was automatically allowed to have one under his system which would otherwise require therapy.
To be clear, I don’t agree with the therapy thing, I think it’s an awful idea, but we should make sure we’re arguing against it for the correct reasons.
Not to mention the undisputed legality of capital punishment in many jurisdictions, and the undisputed legality pretty much anywhere of taking human life in self-defense.
I think the whole issue becomes much clearer when we look at human personhood as something that develops gradually over gestation, rather than demanding compliance with religious dogmas about “ensoulment” or other doctrines requiring immediate full personhood to somehow happen instantaneously at fertilization.
If human personhood is a gradual development during fetal growth, then it’s perfectly reasonable to say that someone who doesn’t want to be pregnant may choose to terminate the pregnancy during the early stages of development.
Some people have a religious or other supernatural belief that full human personhood is somehow immediately conferred at the moment of fertilization, and therefore they understandably want to reduce the incidence of abortion. ISTM that the best way to do that is to massively increase the availability and public awareness of reliable contraception.
(As well as increasing resources for pre- and post-natal care and support, so that people who actually would be willing to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term aren’t driven to terminate it simply for lack of resources.)
Not to mention people like Carl Wayne Buntion, John Dillinger, Travon Martin, and Osama Bin Laden.