Abortion

In my few years as a doctor I’ve seen some scary, scary things happen to women while they are pregnant. The average person does not grasp just how many health complications can arise in a woman during pregnancy, and just how significant the morbidity and mortality from these conditions are. I have no qualms in saying that pregnancy is the riskiest thing your average woman will ever do in her life.

For these reasons, in my opinion, no woman should ever be made to continue with a pregnancy unless she is absolutely certain that she wishes to. I don’t apologize for saying that the life of an existing person is more valuable than a potential life. Religion, ethics, father’s rights, none of that is even the tiniest bit significant when compared to the health of the woman. The Bible, the priest, the ham in the US Congress, they aren’t the ones at risk of dying while continuing with a pregnancy they don’t want to.
 
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Jericholyte2 said:
As others have said, what would then happen with miscarriages? What about legal rights for the mother? Would child support payments be due if the father is absent from the point of conception? What about child benefits, would the mother again be able to start claiming from conception?

If a foetus is classed as a human then surely all rights, responsibilities etc would be those of any other person.
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As I said above, a miscarriage (known in medical jargon as spontaneous abortion) is a natural process, and is simply the end-result of a woman's body rejecting the embryo or fetus for a variety of reasons. It's irrelevant to this discussion, really. Women don't plan to have miscarriages.
 
Ferguson’s Hairdryer said:
If a woman becomes pregnant through rape or the pregnancy is a threat to her well being then it’s a basic medical need.

If it’s ever done because “my body my choice” type of thing… I’ll ask those that support that view one question.
If someone punches a pregnant lady in the stomach and it causes a miscarriage would you want that person to receive an increase sentence or not? Or also in the worse case, someone murders a pregnant woman and baby also dies, would you want that person to receive the standard 15 years minimum (assuming unplanned no motive just random road rage type thing) or would you want extra years added because of the lost baby ?
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the law already has an answer for your question. The first clause in CA 187 (California murder statute) is:

Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought.
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Eboue said:
the democrats could simply pass a law legalizing abortion
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Adexkola has it right here. You'd have to be able to bypass the filibuster on the specific abortion issue and with Manchin in particular that's not going to happen. You can say Democrats control the Senate but they really don't in the sense that Manchin is a conservative Democrat and Sinema doesn't give two shits about Democrat control. You'd need a situation where Democrats actually controlled the Senate which isn't where we are now. Democrats should have done something in 2008-2010 on abortion because now it's just not going to happen.

adexkola said:
Relying on the courts to uphold Roe v Wade (a ruling that many legal experts on both sides have called shitty from a legal jurisprudence perspective) has always been a dangerous game.

If 48 senators can convince Collins and Sinema to kill the filibuster for this specific issue then abortion can probably be legalized nationwide. Otherwise it's hangers and back alleys in a year or two.
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crappycraperson said:
Doing that would be a "compromise" since that law only bans it after 15 weeks. By all accounts they want to overturn Roe.
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They do but they aren't attacking it directly. They are passing tons of different state laws like Texas and Miss. that they are pushing to SCOTUS to chip away at Roe until it's virtually meaningless.
 
Cloud7 said:
In my few years as a doctor I’ve seen some scary, scary things happen to women while they are pregnant. The average person does not grasp just how many health complications can arise in a woman during pregnancy, and just how significant the morbidity and mortality from these conditions are. I have no qualms in saying that pregnancy is the riskiest thing your average woman will ever do in her life.

For these reasons, in my opinion, no woman should ever be made to continue with a pregnancy unless she is absolutely certain that she wishes to. I don’t apologize for saying that the life of an existing person is more valuable than a potential life. Religion, ethics, father’s rights, none of that is even the tiniest bit significant when compared to the health of the woman. The Bible, the priest, the ham in the US Congress, they aren’t the ones at risk of dying while continuing with a pregnancy they don’t want to.
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I completely and wholeheartedly agree. Her body, her life, her choice.
 
WI_Red said:
the law already has an answer for your question. The first clause in CA 187 (California murder statute) is:
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Was more about what people would expect/want. California law is California law and has no bearing on anywhere outside of California, as I’m aware there are people doing 20 years plus to life without parole because they got caught shop lifting 3 times, or in possession of tiny amounts of weed 3 times in California or other states in the USA.
 
Ferguson’s Hairdryer said:
Was more about what people would expect/want. California law is California law and has no bearing on anywhere outside of California, as I’m aware there are people doing 20 years plus to life without parole because they got caught shop lifting 3 times, or in possession of tiny amounts of weed 3 times in California or other states in the USA.
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38 States (according to my googling) have murder statues that include the death of a fetus.

On a federal level:
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-212) is a United States law which recognizes an embryo or fetus in utero as a legal victim, if they are injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
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The key wording in all those statues is some variation of the the phrase "unlawful killing". Since a miscarriage resulting from a battery would be unlawful it would be covered, and rightfully so.
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
They do but they aren't attacking it directly. They are passing tons of different state laws like Texas and Miss. that they are pushing to SCOTUS to chip away at Roe until it's virtually meaningless.
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If you read the arguments from yesterday, you will find that both Kavanaugh and ACB have laid the groundwork for turning over Roe with the judgement for the current case itself. They have both said that precedents can and should be overturned, former made it a point to mention that per him constitution does not cover abortion rights and states or congress passing law on it is the way to go. It is only the Chief justice Roberts who does not want to go in that direction. Most analysts seem convinced that by June'22 Roe will be gone.
 
crappycraperson said:
If you read the arguments from yesterday, you will find that both Kavanaugh and ACB have laid the groundwork for turning over Roe with the judgement for the current case itself. They have both said that precedents can and should be overturned, former made it a point to mention that per him constitution does not cover abortion rights and states or congress passing law on it is the way to go. It is only the Chief justice Roberts who does not want to go in that direction. Most analysts seem convinced that by June'22 Roe will be gone.
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I was talking about the general strategy of the right-wingers in red states to pass laws to chip away at it. But this is the most far-right the court has been in about 100 years so it is certainly a possibility though I wouldn't say it's a sure thing just because they are trying to establish some rationale now. I think Roberts will likely contain the more extreme elements and not overturn it outright.
 
i thank you all for the responses especially Penna. I did not mean to impugn women who decide to make that terribly hard decision. I just mean that in my personal view there is no legal way that that which is going to be life is not itself life. Women don't get pregnant and give birth to anything but a living thing. that is why it was so hard for me and my girlfriend to even speak about that decision about a living thing that carried both of us within it. and when she lost it we felt the loss of a life not the loss of a potential one.

I think about him/her, my gf does too. we wonder what they would have been like, whose eyes they would have had, who they would have sounded like. i just don't see how this cannot be the loss of a life any different from another
 
DJ Jeff said:
i thank you all for the responses especially Penna. I did not mean to impugn women who decide to make that terribly hard decision. I just mean that in my personal view there is no legal way that that which is going to be life is not itself life. Women don't get pregnant and give birth to anything but a living thing. that is why it was so hard for me and my girlfriend to even speak about that decision about a living thing that carried both of us within it. and when she lost it we felt the loss of a life not the loss of a potential one.

I think about him/her, my gf does too. we wonder what they would have been like, whose eyes they would have had, who they would have sounded like. i just don't see how this cannot be the loss of a life any different from another
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That's very moving to read, and I'm so sorry. x
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
I was talking about the general strategy of the right-wingers in red states to pass laws to chip away at it. But this is the most far-right the court has been in about 100 years so it is certainly a possibility though I wouldn't say it's a sure thing just because they are trying to establish some rationale now. I think Roberts will likely contain the more extreme elements and not overturn it outright.
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I think that Roberts is genuinely interested in maintaining the public reputation of the court, and paying respect to years of precedent. That is the only reason why he would rather keep the shell of Roe up, the same way he kept the shell of the Voting Rights Act up, while he gutted the bill of it's power.

crappycraperson said:
If you read the arguments from yesterday, you will find that both Kavanaugh and ACB have laid the groundwork for turning over Roe with the judgement for the current case itself. They have both said that precedents can and should be overturned, former made it a point to mention that per him constitution does not cover abortion rights and states or congress passing law on it is the way to go. It is only the Chief justice Roberts who does not want to go in that direction. Most analysts seem convinced that by June'22 Roe will be gone.
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I think subsequent legislation pointed at Griswold v Connecticut (right to Contraceptives for married couples) will make it's way to the SC soon after Roe is repealed, and with Roe gone, Griswold is hanging on by a thread.

I've been listening to snippets of the arguments from the judges, and the conservative side is so desperate to compare the repeal of Roe to the repeal of heinous rulings like Dred Scott, Plessy, and so on.
 
Cloud7 said:
In my few years as a doctor I’ve seen some scary, scary things happen to women while they are pregnant. The average person does not grasp just how many health complications can arise in a woman during pregnancy, and just how significant the morbidity and mortality from these conditions are. I have no qualms in saying that pregnancy is the riskiest thing your average woman will ever do in her life.

For these reasons, in my opinion, no woman should ever be made to continue with a pregnancy unless she is absolutely certain that she wishes to. I don’t apologize for saying that the life of an existing person is more valuable than a potential life. Religion, ethics, father’s rights, none of that is even the tiniest bit significant when compared to the health of the woman. The Bible, the priest, the ham in the US Congress, they aren’t the ones at risk of dying while continuing with a pregnancy they don’t want to.
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Agreed. And most of the people wanting to dictate to women about abortion seem to be men. Go figure.
 
DJ Jeff said:
i thank you all for the responses especially Penna. I did not mean to impugn women who decide to make that terribly hard decision. I just mean that in my personal view there is no legal way that that which is going to be life is not itself life. Women don't get pregnant and give birth to anything but a living thing. that is why it was so hard for me and my girlfriend to even speak about that decision about a living thing that carried both of us within it. and when she lost it we felt the loss of a life not the loss of a potential one.

I think about him/her, my gf does too. we wonder what they would have been like, whose eyes they would have had, who they would have sounded like. i just don't see how this cannot be the loss of a life any different from another
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Losing a pregnancy can be immensely traumatic and of course an abortion will be almost never harm free to the person getting it, but it is their choice to accept that harm as an alternative to carrying an unwanted foetus to term. When my wife and I were thinking of trying for another kid quite late in life (too late as it would happen) we carefully considered the possibility that a foetus with developmental problems might be the result and that we might have to choose abortion or to raise a severely handicapped child. As a biologist fertilisation is just another biological process to me. Cells are alive, sperm are alive, eggs are alive etc etc, so the moment of fertilisation isn't as special as many other people would hold, and my wife isn't religious either. However, we both recognised that any decision to abort would have emotional and physical consequences (for my wife) no matter what we logically knew. I guess what I'm saying is that when considering the legality of abortion we need to remove emotion as it doesn't help us reach sensible decisions particularly in this area.

Biology is used by all and sundry to try to justify their position on abortion and this to me is doomed to failure as there is no consensus amongst biologists, not even the atheist biologists.

Many religious arguments seem to say that as your DNA is unique you are a person from the moment a sperm and egg meet. By this measure the sperm and egg are also unique and I don't think anyone (barring possibly a few Christians who take the "spilling seed on the ground" thing literally) is proposing that a sperm or egg is a person with rights. So this argument is probably dead in the water from the beginning. Or should be.

Not to mention that lots of things can change the person that eventuates from that DNA before and after birth, from epigenetics (increasingly apparent that this is a huge factor) to direct things like drugs, alcohol, the woman's nutrition and nurture factors etc etc etc.

So even assuming life/personhood needs to involve DNA from an egg and a sperm, and not earlier, is the crucial point,
  • fertilisation when DNA combines to form a new genome, leading to the 2 cell stage?
  • implantation when you get a pregnancy?
  • gastrulation (approx. 14 days) where you can no longer get twins or multiple individuals?
  • when you can detect a heartbeat (approx week 6-7), as we sometimes classify death as when it stops?
  • when you can detect brain activity (approx week 24-28), as we sometimes classify death as when it stops?
  • during the perinatal period when a birth is possible?
  • birth?
And even if you can decide on a criteria when a foetus starts to be a person/individual that doesn't answer the question of when the rights of the foetus equals that of the woman carrying them, as that is the point when abortion would not be allowed. Given that late term abortions are allowed in many places to protect the life of the woman carrying the foetus it suggest to me that it is fairly widely accepted that this point is very far into a pregnancy but that politically it isn't acceptable not to restrict abortion earlier under "normal" circumstances.

So not really a biological question IMO.

Edit: I also think that people confuse human being with human person. When a foetus qualifies as a human person is what we need to agree upon when drafting abortion legislaation.
 
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Wibble said:
Agreed. And most of the people wanting to dictate to women about abortion seem to be men. Go figure.
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Maybe they have louder voices but there are also many women in that camp. It's a religious issue imo, not a gender one.
 
jackal&hyde said:
Maybe they have louder voices but there are also many women in that camp. It's a religious issue imo, not a gender one.
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A lot of the religious reason are patriarchal ones. But, in my opinion, organized religion is inherently patriarchal anyway.
 
Need some conservative Supreme Court justices to kick the bucket soon (or retire, but that won't happen).
 
So in countries as Belgium and Holland abortion has been possible for over 30 years, and in other developed countries they are still discussing this. Feck me.
 
In these abortion discussions rape keeeps getting mentioned as some kind of mitigating factor to permit abortions.

For someone who is prolife why would a child conceived through rape be any less deserving of a chance to live. To me rape is irrelevant to the discussion.

Just one of my controversial academic musings. I am prochoice (to an extent).
 
Redlyn said:
In these abortion discussions rape keeeps getting mentioned as some kind of mitigating factor to permit abortions.

For someone who is prolife why would a child conceived through rape be any less deserving of a chance to live. To me rape is irrelevant to the discussion.

Just one of my controversial academic musings. I am prochoice (to an extent).
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Women are just vessels after all.
 
Redlyn said:
In these abortion discussions rape keeeps getting mentioned as some kind of mitigating factor to permit abortions.

For someone who is prolife why would a child conceived through rape be any less deserving of a chance to live. To me rape is irrelevant to the discussion.

Just one of my controversial academic musings. I am prochoice (to an extent).
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The problem with all this Prolife discussions is that nobody really cares about the life of the mother - and therefore not really about the life of the kid either.

Every kid should have the chance to be wanted...
 
Redlyn said:
In these abortion discussions rape keeeps getting mentioned as some kind of mitigating factor to permit abortions.

For someone who is prolife why would a child conceived through rape be any less deserving of a chance to live. To me rape is irrelevant to the discussion.

Just one of my controversial academic musings. I am prochoice (to an extent).
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The baby is no less deserving in and of itself.

It comes down to the individual woman though and what she chooses to do with her body. I find it ridiculous to think that any man should have a right to mandate her choices.

Being the victim of rape would very likely factor into a woman’s choice though - and what right does someone have to tell her that traumatic ordeal is irrelevant to how she deals with a consequence of something she has no control over.
 
Heardy said:
The baby is no less deserving in and of itself.

It comes down to the individual woman though and what she chooses to do with her body. I find it ridiculous to think that any man should have a right to mandate her choices.

Being the victim of rape would very likely factor into a woman’s choice though - and what right does someone have to tell her that traumatic ordeal is irrelevant to how she deals with a consequence of something she has no control over.
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Yeah agreed
 
I never really understood the incest/rape distinction as I am assuming that in cases where an abortion is desired that the incest is a result of rape 99% of the time, right?
 
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