YAAQ (Yet Another Abortion Question)

The pro-choice group stresses that the question of whether a woman should have an abortion is entirely up to her because “nobody should tell her what to do with her body”.

Given the above stance, a thought experiment recently came to me:
What if in the future fetuses could be raised outside the womb (in some sort of artificial womb) until they were ready to be born?
And what if the procedure for abortion was such that the doctor inserts an instrument into the woman, grabs the fetus and asks the woman “I can pull this fetus out now and put it in the artificial womb, where it will be kept until birth, or I can crush it’s skull. Which do you prefer?”

Now, whether the woman decides one way or another does not affect her body in any way: the fetus quickly exits her body in both cases, in one case dead, and in the other case alive (or “not dead”).

Now that the decision does not affect the woman’s body, should the decision still be entirely up to her?

Interesting question, there are a lot of variables to consider, however.
[ol]
[li]Would this technology remove a woman’s choice to abort?[/li][li]Who is responsible for the fetus once it’s extracted?[/li][li]What happens if there’s negligence by means of the extractors?[/li][li]Would a woman who went in for an abortion be talked out of it to perform this procedure?[/li][li]If the woman chooses to keep the fetus and grow it until it’s a baby, how will this affect her psychological connection with something she didn’t carry?[/li][li]Is this procedure going to change a birthdate and how does that redefine life and a human from a fetus?[/li][/ol].

A woman’s right to choose what to do with her body is just one factor into the right to abort. The decision for [!28[group+syllabus!3A]!7C[level+case+citation!3A]!29/doc/{@54502}/hit_headings/words=4?"]Roe V. Wade](http://www2.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/foliocgi.exe/historic/query=[group+410+u!2Es!2E+113!3A) included the fact that Mary Doe was suffering from a neuro-chemical disorder and her doctor advised her against pregnancy. (I’d rather not tangent the debate into eugenics, but the decision to abort a child that’s predisposed or has the propensity for neurological disorder, disease, addiction et al, could be a factor for some).

I’d say that the decision is still up to the mother. The doctor can’t pluck the fetus without her consent to lead her to the crossroads in the OP. So at that point, the decision is still within a woman’s body to make.

To clarify your question…

I’m assuming the woman has a part in deciding whether this happens?

if the woman is no longer responsible for the fetus or whatever stage it happens to be in (it need not even have a skull), and can have it removed from her life without having to stop the thing from growing, i would say it’s certainly not necessary to kill it.

however, if you’d want to try someone for murder if he did kill the thing, i’d still be very much against that. in fact, i’ll go so far as to say if no one is interested in it, i can see no reason to ask a lab somewhere to help the thing grow into a child.

You miss the crucial flaw in the OP.

No abortion procedure nowadays involves a scenario such as: “the doctor inserts an instrument into the woman, grabs the fetus and asks the woman ‘I can chop the foetus into pieces and drag it out now, or you can choose to go full term.’”

So why should we give the OP’s inability to understand the psychological effects of abortion any more of our time?

We’re already there in some cases, as when the child is viable (“partial-birth abortion”) and they kill it anyway. This is as sick as it gets.

Women get abortions for two reasons: they don’t want to be pregnant and they don’t want responsibility for their children after they’re born (adoption covers the latter, so really it’s the chore and expense of pregnancy that makes killing their progeny “worth it.”)

On top of this understandable yet unjustifiable motivation are two foul encrustations:

A. People, mainly women, who need a cause, get into the whole feminism, my-body-my-body! screeching, and find a purpose in life in the whole sick business.

B. Worse, yet closely related to A, the people who find meaning in the evil of abortion itself. A woman is not truly a woman or a feminist until she’s had one, etc. I disagree with the conservatives and the religious right on almost everything else, but they’ve got this pegged absolutely correctly. It is a deep evil, a shame on our culture and country.

How does this relate to the OP? The evil side of abortion takes cruel delight in the kill itself. This evil is now deeply rooted in our culture and is not going away. It’s easy to predict, therefore, if the technology described were to come into being, evil would continue to fight for the kill itself.

Not sure what you’re asking here. All I meant was that the procedure for abortion and the procedure for removal of the fetus were identical, except for the dead fetus in the former case.

That is, if a woman is pregnant and doesn’t want to be pregnant any more, she can go to the doctor where she can have an abortion or “fetus removal”. Both procedures will look identical to her.

So, the decision to go with abortion vs “fetus removal” has nothing to do with her body.

Of course there are other implications, such as who will raise the baby once born, if the woman selects “fetus removal”, but that is not the point of the OP. I was just trying to show that the “it’s my body” argument has its problems.

Other arguments may still be valid (such as “even if you can take care of it, I don’t want a child out there that is my biological child, and not raised by me”), but I have always not liked the “it’s my body” argument.

Aeschines, you’ve forgotten the main reason to have a late-term abortion, and the reason it is protected by law: sometimes it is necessary to protect the health and/or life of the mother. For example, it is often used in the case where the baby has a brain stem but failed to develop a brain. Typically the fetus will eventually die in the womb and cause serious physical problems for the mother. It is often better to abort the fetus before it grows any larger.
And what the hell are you talking about with point B? I know no one who feels that unless you’ve had an abortion you can’tjoin the feminist club. Methinks you’re talking from your ass.

Anyway, on to the OP: I think if such a thing were possible, the choice would not be up to the woman but rather up to whoever assumes responsibility for the fetus after the mother has given it up. If no one does, then the choice is obvious. If someone chooses to take responsibility for it, then it seems clear to me the fetus would be allowed to gestate outside the womb.

You may kiss my ass. You can go and be sodomized by the farm animal of your choice. You can also put yourself into my shoes and have to decide to abort or die.

If I try to sustain a pregnancy, I will die. Twice already I was within hours of dying. I opted to have my tubes tied. I also ended up getting pregnant many years after having my tubes tied. Oh, and by the way … both my pregnancies were accomplished while correctly taking birth control pills, and not affected by any antibiotics or other meds. Pregnancies happen no matter what contraception is used, short of having a panhistovrectomy I did my best not to be put into the position of having to decide between my life and anothers.

Ok mods, ban me now. I apologize for my language.

Very true, I was giving the OP the benefit of the doubt with his supposition for the sake of debate. I was also ignoring the fact that the current procedures of medicinal abortions with methotrexate or mifepristone or surgical means with vacuum aspiration weren’t being used. I need to stop that. :slight_smile:

Notice I didn’t say anything about what the law should be vis-a-vis abortion. I recognize that it’s a big, complicated mess involving a lot of genuine health issues. I also happen to think it’s sick and evil for a healthy woman to go and kill her healthy offspring. I also understand that there are sick things about society that encourage them to do so.

Aruvqan, I take no offense at what you said, and I’m sorry to hear of your troubles. I really don’t like the idea either of telling people what to do with their lives. Abortion is one of those areas where the generally neat and useful principle “Livea and let live” just doesn’t apply.

As for talking out my ass, that might be the case. One cannot escape the propaganda zones. The pro-choice people try to paint it all in as positive a light as possible, while the pro-choicers focus on the horrors. Based on what I’ve seen and heard, there is some genuinely malevolent evil out there (mostly concentrated in the warped people who kill healthy fetuses for a living).

[QUOTE=stpauler]
Interesting question, there are a lot of variables to consider, however.
[li]Would this technology remove a woman’s choice to abort?[/li][/QUOTE]

Why would it?

[QUOTE]
[li]Who is responsible for the fetus once it’s extracted?[/li][/QUOTE]

Someone other than the mother.

[QUOTE]
[li]What happens if there’s negligence by means of the extractors?[/li][/QUOTE]

Well, whatever happens with any case of negligence.

[QUOTE]
[li]Would a woman who went in for an abortion be talked out of it to perform this procedure?[/li][/QUOTE]

If she went in for an abortion, and she didn’t know of the alternate possibility, she could be informed of it, but not forced to choose it.

[QUOTE]
[li]If the woman chooses to keep the fetus and grow it until it’s a baby, how will this affect her psychological connection with something she didn’t carry?[/li][/QUOTE]

If she decides to keep the fetus alive and then raise the baby, then this isn’t really an abortion question, but I would assume this would be similar to women who use surrogate mothers to carry their fetuses.

If she decides to keep the fetus alive, but doesn’t want to raise the baby, then there is no “psychological connection” with the baby, since she won’t be raising it. Of course, as I said above, there may be psychological problems with knowing that a baby with your genes is somewhere out there.

[QUOTE]
[li]Is this procedure going to change a birthdate and how does that redefine life and a human from a fetus?[/li][/QUOTE]

I would say that the birthdate would be when the baby emerges from the artificial womb, not when the fetus is extracted from the mother.

Exactly, I was just addressing the “it’s my body” argument. There are many others.

I’m not sure I understand. Yes, the doctor can’t pluck the fetus without her consent. It’s just that, at the instant he is about to crush the fetus’ skull, he can ask her if she is OK with him removing it alive and putting it in an artificial womb to be raised later by someone else.

Her decision one way or another has nothing to do with her body (it doesn’t affect it either way). Of course her decision does affect her psychologically, but, as I said, that is another issue.

She should still have the right to kill her fetus. If she doesn’t want to bring a child into the world that should still be her choice.

The argument that a woman MUST have the right to terminate all parental rights when the fetus is extracted to the uterine replicator, or else she would have the right to kill the fetus fails.

Right now men do not have that option. If a woman decides to give birth to a child, the man is legally obligated to provide support for that child, even if he wanted the child to be aborted, or even if he wanted the child to be born but wanted to sign away parental rights.

It would seem that uterine replicators would place the woman in the same place legally that a man is in. The baby is not in her body, but extracting it does not free her from her legal obligations to that baby, any more than the fact that when a man creates a child he isn’t pregnant with the child. The child is still his child, whether it is in his body or not.

A man does not have the right to decide to abort a baby. The current reasoning behind this law is that the man isn’t carrying the baby, the woman is. But what if the woman wasn’t required to carry the baby either?

So the scenario is, a man and a woman have sex, the woman finds out she’s pregnant, and the embryo/fetus is extracted and put in the uterine replicator. If it stays there and someone funds the maintence of the replicator, in 9 months the baby will be decanted.

Once the embryo is extracted, it seems to me that both parents should be in the exact same position legally. The only rationale for treating parents of differnt sexes differently is due to the biology of mammalian reproduction. Once the embryo is externally gestated the special interests of the mother no longer trump the intrests of the father OR the embryo.

Now, currently is is legally permissable to dispose of embryos. Since embryos can’t grow much beyond a few cells with our current technology this is deemed acceptable. The embryo will eventually die unless implanted in a woman, so unless someone volunteers there is no way we can mandate that the embryos be preserved. This of course is why some people think in vitro fertillization is wrong. But most people have no problem with creating embryos and destroying some.

But what happens when any embryo lying around in some freezer can be brought to term without requiring any woman’s body? We obviously can’t requisition women’s wombs for the good of a baby. But what if we don’t have to? Currently our abortion laws and ethics presume a conflict between the right of the baby’s mother to bodily autonomy, and the human rights of the unborn baby. At some point the rights of the mother trump the rights of the baby, at other points the rights of the baby trump the rights of the mother. But what if there were no conflict…if the rights of the baby had no impact on the bodily autonomy of the baby’s mother?

I don’t see how we could allow mothers to terminate the lives of unborn babies if their bodily autonomy did not depend on that termination. As for psychological, economic or social rights, well, our current laws certainly don’t allow fathers to kill babies for those reasons. If a mother simply doesn’t want the hassle and expense of raising a baby she can abort the baby. But a father cannot do that, he is legally obligated to raise the baby, even if his only interaction with the mother was a quick few minutes of depositing sperm into her. So even if a woman cannot be obligated to carry a baby to term in her own body, she can certainly be obligated to pay child support until that baby is 18 years old, just like the baby’s father.

It seems to me that uterine replicators remove every justification for abortion, except for euthanasia of babies who are not developing correctly. And in that case we currently allow the removal of life support from severely ill people who have no chance of getting better. If a baby is going to die anyway there’s no sense in keeping the uterine replicator running, any more than there is in keeping a comatose terminal patient on life support.

Conception and birth are taken as bright dividing lines by both pro- and anti- abortion people. But the reality is that they are not bright dividing lines. Uterine replicators would simply make the biological reality a little more obvious.

But that right does not stem from the “it’s my body” argument (at least in my hypothetical scenario from the OP).

So, where does that right stem from?

This also brings up the issue of the father’s choice. If the fetus can be removed alive with no difference to the woman’s body, does the father have a say in whether the removed fetus can be alive or not? If not, why not?

With current technology, the fetus is dependent on the mother, so I can see why she has more say in the matter than the father. But if we have the scenario in the OP, the fetus is not dependent on the mother to exist, so why does the mother get more right to choose than the father?

That argument doesn’t hold much traction with me, because I think men should have the option of terminating their parental rights and obligations since they have no control over whether to bring the child into the world in the first place.

It still comes from the “my body” argument, since to remove the fetus you still need to go through her body. If she doesn’t want her body used to extract a fetus out alive, than you are still invading her personal autonomy.

Yes, but our personal autonomy is not unlimited. I don’t have the right use lethal force against people who annoy me, or people who violate my personal space, or even people who assault me physically. I only have the right to use lethal force in certain well defined cases.

If I put a baby in your arms against your will that doesn’t give you the right to kill it, no matter how much you loathe babies.

And yes, I realize that someone like yourself who advocates allowing euthanisia of babies until they start talking wouldn’t have much problem allowing parents to kill babies at any time for any reason. Most people who support the right to abortion aren’t so inhuman.

Direct quote from you -

Women get abortions for two reasons: they don’t want to be pregnant and they don’t want responsibility for their children after they’re born (adoption covers the latter, so really it’s the chore and expense of pregnancy that makes killing their progeny “worth it.”)

Where in this steaming feculent pile of words do you include any sympathy for women in my situation? According to you i got an abortion because I didn’t want to be pregnant, or didnt want the responsibility for the kid once born.

Your head is so far up your fundament that you need an oxygen tube down your throat.
or perhaps you are implying that mrAru should bury me and use the proceeds of my insurance policy to raise the kid after I die, provided it survives me.

I’m obviously really dense, but I fail to see the problems with the “it’s my body” argument. Could you elaborate on this, maybe list the problems as you see them?

From my POV, both men and women have the right to not be pregnant if they choose, and the right to not be a parent if they choose. Currently, the pregnancy issue is addressed by abortion for the woman and biological circumstances for the man. Neither has to parent the child (adoption, no role in child’s life, etc).

If a technology existed that allowed the abortion to proceed, so the woman was no longer pregnant, but didn’t kill the fetus, I cannot see why the woman would be allowed to kill it, if someone else was prepared to take responsibility for the fetus. The killing of the fetus in an abortion is incidental to the purpose, which is to end pregnancy, IMO (apart from the rare cases where the fetus is damaged/deformed and the point is to kill it)

Whether the bio-donors (because they wouldn’t be mothers and fathers if they only provided genetic material, being a parent is way more than that) would be then forced to pay support, whether the people who chose to take responsibility for the fetus would provide support or whether we would get huge “aborted fetus” orphanages at the taxpayers expense is an interesting thought experiment