MinnPost Abortion Rights Island This exchange occurred...
"When do you think the fetus / baby has rights that equal those of the Mother's?So I posed many times in different polite ways this simple question: Who has the greater right to life?
Not what does Roe v Wade say... What do you believe? I am very curious.
Fetal Development" G2A
"It's called birth. Pretty easy answer." Jason
- A 27 week old preemie
- A 33 week old fetus
23 comments:
Or
When does a woman lose rights over her body? When do lawyers, prosecutors and judges acquire rights over a woman's body?
--Hiram
I don't see the point of your question. A 27 week old premie needs a great deal of medical care to survive. In the case of severe disabilities parents should have the right to refuse extrordinary care.
What crime/punishment do you think this women should be given, if any?
Woman Charged With Murder For Taking The Abortion Pill [UPDATED]
Hiram, My answer is somewhere between 14 & 20 weeks, the child has the right to be protected by society. That gave the woman 4 to 10 weeks to take action.
Laurie, Before I answer what do you think should be done with her?
I think the updated misdemeanor charge is about right.
My answer is somewhere between 14 & 20 weeks, the child has the right to be protected by society.
At what point do women lose their rights to be protected by society?
Before I answer what do you think should be done with her?
For myself, I don't think abortion should be a crime so the answer is nothing. Now it's time for people who think abortion should be a crime, what punishment would they impose?
--Hiram
If there is a significant risk to the Mother, then her life takes precedence over that of the fetus, even after 14 - 20 months. (1 bird in the hand is worth more than 2 in the bush)
If the pregnancy is proceeding normally there is minimal risk to the Mother. She needs no protection.
I think you 2 are going to dislike my answer.
I think the punishment should fit the crime. I think women who choose to illegally try to kill their fetus should have their tubes tied. If they don't want to have a baby, give them what they wish for.
I suggest don't propose tube tying as a punishment on more widely read blogs as it wouldn't go over well. I think more widely available access to affordable abortion would go a long ways towards preventing this type of ending to pregnancies.
Depends on the blog, many will see my recommendation as common sense.
As compared to your recommendation that illegally killing a healthy fetus is no worse than a 19 year getting caught drinking a beer.
I am always amazed at how little value that little human heart has to the pro-choice crowd. It seems to be considered no more than a benign tumor that can be removed without giving it a second thought.
Being a farm boy and hunter, I am used to killing things. I wonder how many of the pro-choice people could actually kill a 20+ week old fetus with their bare hands. Yet in our philosophical hands off discussion they are just fine with it.
Not sure regarding the validity of this source, but it is worth looking at.
20+ week abortions
19 week old fetus/baby
By the way, I don't think anyone has answered my simple question:
Who has the greater right to life?
1.A 27 week old preemie
2.A 33 week old fetus
Rationale?
I think women who choose to illegally try to kill their fetus should have their tubes tied.
Well, of course, no.
"I am always amazed at how little value that little human heart has to the pro-choice crowd. It seems to be considered no more than a benign tumor that can be removed without giving it a second thought."
I am always amazed how eager the pro-life crowd is to turn over the most important and intimate decisions imaginable to the Denny Hastert's of the world.
These choices are as intensely personal as it's possible to believe. I am content to leave them to those who are confronted with them, to women, to their doctors, to their families, t their spiritual counselors. I don't think they should be left to legislators, judges, prosecutors, or the Koch brothers.
==Hiram
I still don't understand your question or the point you are trying to make. Do you want to make killing a fetus a crime such as murder?
I guess the premie has more rights as it is outside the womb, though as I mentioned, I think parents have rights in deciding medical care for a primie with severe health issues. How would you answer your question?
In my experience, pro life people are a lot more comfortable with their positions in theory than they are in practice. It's as if they want abortions to be illegal, but they don't want them to be a crime. They are also aware that imprisoning women for having abortions which for you logic fans, is the logically inevitable consequence of making abortion a crime, is politically unpopular.
--Hiram
Seems to me a rather simple matter if you look at the combination of Roe v. Wade and contract law. That is, at the point of "viability," arbitrarily set at 20 weeks, when a child can live outside the womb (granted great medical assistance), it becomes a "person" in its own right and enters into an implicit "contract" with the mother to bring it to term. The mother likewise enters into that contract by virtue of not having exercised her abortion choice when it did NOT kill an innocent "person," the "party of the second part." Any penalty for violating this contract would fall on the doctor performing the abortion, should it prove to be elective rather than of medical necessity as permitted by current law.
Jerry, I can't believe I sort of agree with you on the abortion issue. I, too, think pregnant woman should decide early in the pregnancy if they want to choose an abortion. I probably would give more latitude for second or third trimester abortions, but think that decision should be between a woman and her doctor.
Speaking of contract law, for you netflix streamers out there once you are done binging on "Orange is the New Black", I recommend the movie, "The Papers Chase" where Professor Kingsfiled does a pretty good job laying out some of the basics of contract law.
In my opinion, what is happening to the issue of abortion is what happens too much in a lot of other areas as well. We are confusing a moral and social issue with a legal issue, and the result is that we end up looking to lawyers for solutions to problems they are in no way capable of providing. Isn't just breathtakingly obvious that the only answer lawyers can provide to the issue of problematic pregnancies in our society, jailing women who have or who are seeking abortions couldn't be less relevant in terms of addressing the real issues involved?
--Hiram
Hiram, I have no idea what you mean by "the real issues involved." It seems to me like the deliberate murder of innocent children ought to be something regulated by law.
Laurie, I'm not sure what "more latitude" you would like, though I would accept that 2/3 of the second trimester is already "exempt" under my proposal and under Roe v. Wade. After that, I think third-trimester abortions should be limited to those "threatening the life or reproductive health of the mother." Those are things that could not be foreseen when choice was still an option, so...
Laurie,
If the preemie is struggling, do the parents and doctor have permission to cut it into pieces like they do in some abortion techniques? (ie see previous link)
My question was specifically pointed at Jason's foolish answer...
"It's called birth. Pretty easy answer."
Per his answer the older fetus would have fewer rights than the younger preemie, which of course makes no sense.
By the way, viability back when Roe v Wade was written was apparently 24 to 27 weeks. My thought is that it should be going down with all of the medical advancements we have made in the last 40 years.
It seems to me as the preemie is already outside the womb there would be no need to cut it into pieces. If that is a procedure used for some late term abortions the doctor must have some reason for doing it.
The latitude I was referring to is I would allow parents to choose abortion in the second trimester when it has become know that the fetus has serious medical issues. Of course some people would choose to spend their life caring for a child with major disabilities / health needs, I just don't think they should be forced to when abortion is an option.
Being a supporter of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide, I am fine with terminating the life of people with severe disabilities whether they be a fetus or a living human.
I am just not a supporter of abortion just because it is the "woman's body and right". My view is that after ~14 weeks, that baby or the mother had better be severely at risk.
On MP someone just challenged me that the woman was most capable to make the right decision. However as I think of your abortion pill lady, I am guessing she was desperate and maybe depressed... Probably not the best person to be making important decisions.
Laurie, in addition to "life and [reproductive] health of the mother," which are exceptions made by every pro-life person/group I know, including the exceptions of "rape, incest or gross fetal deformity" brings the percentage of people calling themselves "pro-life with exceptions" to well over 50%. These additional exceptions, I would think, could be exercised in the first 5 months of pregnancy, so including them is not required to avoid conflict with Roe v. Wade nor with the "contract law" approach. The percentage calling for "any abortion, any reason, any time (during pregnancy [and even after]) is tiny, but they are VERY vocal, and that's the only reason, IMHO, this continues to be a screaming-match issue.
By the way, recent studies say the number of abortions is down substantially, and attributes much of the change to some combination of bad reporting, more crisis pregnancy centers, and more "medicinal" abortions rather than surgical (apparently the number of unwanted pregnancies has remained the same). This latter would point to a shift to earlier terminations, and that is at it should be.
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