Abortion

I posted this to my blog back in January:

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I don’t believe human life begins at conception. The idea that a few microscopic cells can be considered human life just doesn’t make sense to me. Depending on what statistic you read, 1/4 to 1/3 of known pregnancies end in a miscarriage. That’s known pregnancies. Add in the miscarriages that happen before a woman even knows she’s had an egg fertilized, that would be a lot of “human life” lost if it started at conception.

But I do believe human life begins at some point in utero. Where exactly during the gestation period, I couldn’t pinpoint, but I can accept the legal ruling of somewhere in the second or third trimester – at around 24 weeks, a fetus is capable of surviving outside the womb, as a living baby. If a person, (a woman, of course), can’t decide if she wants to terminate her pregnancy within a few months, I can accept the state erring on the side of “it’s human life at this point,” and requiring that she just finish the pregnancy. I think this is reasonable for a civilized society.

I don’t support shaming or trying to talk a woman out of getting an abortion by forcing ultrasound or therapy or religion on her before the decision. I doubt many women make the decision, either way, flippantly. The decision should be between the woman and her doctor. But I do support notifying parents if the girl is under age. If a parent is expected to be, and is legally responsible for their underage child, then they can’t be kept in the dark about something like this medical procedure.

I also don’t think the man whose sperm fertilized the egg necessarily must be notified and give consent. Before it is actually a baby/human life, (at the second or third trimester, or at 24 weeks gestation), he was just the sperm donor to, (probably unintentionally), fertilize an egg. After that time, he is the father, then with the legal and moral responsibilities that comes with fatherhood. Now, within a relationship, (like a marriage), I think a woman should let the “sperm donor” know. I mean, if the relationship is healthy, I would think one would talk to their spouse before getting even a tattoo. So talking before an abortion should be a basic consideration. If a woman doesn’t want to tell their boyfriend/husband before terminating a pregnancy, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the relationship outside of that issue.

Those who insist that a woman should have the right to abort right up till the natural birth, I feel are gruesome. And those who insist that a woman should never end a pregnancy even with a morning after pill, I feel are controlling zealots.

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How do you feel on this topic?

Bullgrit

Edit/P.S.: I feel this is a health topic, and I would label it as such, but it is a controversial topic within politics and religion, so I labeled it politics trying to stay within the spirit of Morrus' new allowance for such discussions.

I believe that a 24 week limit on abortion would seem to be a reasonable compromise, barring exigent circumstances. I also believe that I don't really have a dog in this fight, as I don't own a uterus.

I believe that life begins at conception, but recognize that reasonable folk can differ. While I oppose abortion, I pragmatically accept that an absolute ban is highly unlikely.

So I support:

1) exceptions in the case of the life of the mother
2) bans after a certain period of gestation (I have not settled on a particular time period)
3) general policies that reduce the societal pressures leading to someone deciding to abort
4) general policies that streamline the adoption process

I should also mention a couple of other things, that inform my conclusions. I was loosely raised Catholic, by a father who hated the fact that he was taught through the Nova Scotia Catholic school system. When I was a teenager and kicking around downtown Toronto, I would frequently see the protesters in front of The Morgentaler Clinic (Dr. Morgentaler was a pioneer in Canadian abortion and went to jail, more than once, for his actions). Most of the protesters I saw, in front of the clinic, were middle-aged white men. In fact almost all of them. I saw the aftermath of the bombing of that clinic. A friend eventually became Dr. Morgentaler's executive assistant, for some years, prior to his retirement.

No one living is forced to give an organ to save a life. Even parents aren't forced to give an organ or blood or bone marrow to save their own kids. Because we have sovereignty over our own bodies when living. Even at the cost of someone's else life.

Why should a woman be forced to give her uterus (among other things) to let someone else live? Why that exception based only on gender?

If you want pro-life policies, try sexual education, have birth control easily available, make sure parents get paid when a child is born (and a bit before), have public daycares, etc.

I agree with Goldomark pretty much completely on this.

However!

This is also one of those areas where I feel that my opinion is not the important one. I am a woman who can never get pregnant. People like me and men and anyone else who can't get pregnant are not the people whose opinions matter on this subject, in my opinion. Women potentially facing the possibility of pregnancy and abortion are the ones who should make the choices and policies concerning it (with expert medical opinions, preferably from female doctors, informing policy).

goldomark said:

No one living is forced to give an organ to save a life. Even parents aren't forced to give an organ or blood or bone marrow to save their own kids. Because we have sovereignty over our own bodies when living. Even at the cost of someone's else life.

Why should a woman be forced to give her uterus (among other things) to let someone else live? Why that exception based only on gender?

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Those situations are distinguishable:

In organ donation, it is possible to do so voluntarily, and certain organs may be donated without killing someone. In those cases when it would not, you'd be making a qualitative decision that the donor's life is less important than the donee's. Definitely raises constitutional issues. Add to that, there is no affirmative duty to save someone's life unless it is actually your job: fireman, EMT, policeman, lifeguard, doctor, nurse, etc. (and then only in certain situations, or if you put that someone in danger. Barring those caveats, the state cannot force action. Legally, we're mostly free to stand by and let people die. It would be hard to find a state duty to snuff out a life as a medical remedy.

With abortion, one life is always going to get ended. One particular life which has- at this time- no say and almost no legal status. But for certain subset of cases, there is no medical necessity to the procedure.

I subscribe to the ideas from Freakonomics.

They did research and math. They found that abortion being legal reduces the crime rate.

Women who are in situations where they would consider abortion are likely not in a situation where they can or will do well in raising their child. The result is a child raised in poor, possibly unwanted circumstances, growing up in a resentful environment and turning to crime.

Why subject a child to that risk when you can wait for more stability.

Furthermore, Freakonomics found a trend, that women are sort of "destined" to have how ever many kids she "wants" to have. In that, if she kind of wanted 3 kids, but has an abortion in her younger years, later, she still will have three kids, when she is ready. From a practical standpoint, the headcount isn't being reduced, just timed to when a woman is more ready for it.

From a spiritual standpoint, an early stage fetus doesn't have enough neural network to represent a person yet. If you believe in souls existing separate from the body, a soul planning to land in a baby to be born 8 months from now that gets aborted or miscarried, will just move on to another baby candidate. Granted, that's kind of the definition of reincarnation or some kind of recycling. But that's not any more far fetched than assuming that souls are magically generated from nothing constantly to bind to physical forms. It doesn't have to be a bad thing unless you choose to believe it is. Given the whack jobs who willingly blow themselves up to kill people so their own soul will go to heaven, I can't believe anything bad happens to baby souls that don't get born. A heaven/soul system that doesn't handle stuff like that isn't a heaven at all.

From a political standpoint, the folks blocking abortion are the same folks who vote against any kind of assistance for poor people (who tend to be the ones lacking in birth control, etc). So they are forcing poor women to have babies that they are stuck with raising in an environment with scarce resources. Which in turn cranks up the crime rate.

From a culture standpoint:
people have sex. all the religion in the world hasn't stopped it, and in fact Christians who self identify score rather high on the demographic on cheater sites. Clearly, abstinence is just wishful thinking.
So the very people against abortion are the very people being hypocritical and damaging to themselves (at least here in TX, stripclub and church mecca)
women don't always have the same choices guys have, and that can mean having sex with the boyfriend to keep him around because it provides food and shelter. Let's not call it prostitution, but it is a practical aspect of life.
condoms break, pills don't always work. Even careful people need a next line of defense. The anti-abortion crowd judges and puts a stigma on folks who are stuck making a tough choice.

I would suspect that abortion would go down when poverty levels lower, access to birth control and sex ed goes up. When folks have the knowledge, tools and opportunities to avoid trouble, make better choices, etc, it will naturally not happen often enough to be a big deal. Even now, it's not like there's zillions or abortions going on. They just need to be available for when they are needed.

Dannyalcatraz said:

In organ donation, it is possible to do so voluntarily, and certain organs may be donated without killing someone. In those cases when it would not, you'd be making a qualitative decision that the donor's life is less important than the donee's.

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Danger to the doner is irrelevant. Forcing a parent to donate blood to its child or stranger is still impossible, so is forcing someone to give bone marrow and those aren't very risky procedures.

With abortion, one life is always going to get ended.

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So what? From organdonor.gov:

Each day, an average of 79 people receive organ transplants. However, an average of 22 people die each day waiting for transplants that can't take place because of the shortage of donated organs.

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There are lots of death related to the need of organs. Why not force living people to give organs, blood or bone marrow if it doesn't kill them? Why not "force" the dead who really do not need those? Why not at least force parents when it is there own kid? Why stop "forcing" at birth?

One particular life which has- at this time- no say and almost no legal status.

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If a kid needs a kidney and is dad is a compatible donor, the kid still has no say in what his dad will do and he has a better legal status than a zygote.

Is the dad being an ass? Sure, but that ain't illegal.

But for certain subset of cases, there is no medical necessity to the procedure.

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There are all sorts of risks associated with pregnancy, some less apparent than others. Necessity is relative. But that point is irrelevant. It is a woman's uterus, she does what she wants with it. Like a father does what he wants with his kidney, liver, lung, bone marrow, blood or poo*.


*Yes, poo transplant is a thing**. Check it out!
** Yes, I had to talk about.

I don't believe one can analyze the particulars without considering the the overall process, and considering features at all steps of the process:

Women carry many thousands of unfertilized eggs. Only a few, if any, will be fertilized and become new people. Those eggs are alive before they are fertilized. Most are never released, and most which are released die unfertilized.

Folks avoid turning them into babies by using birth control or abortion, or by not having sex at all. (Or, by not using in-vitro fertilization.) Historically, what babies were made was controlled by controlling what men and women had sex. In modern times, birth control and abortion are an option. (Abortion has been an options for a very long time, but was very dangerous until relatively recently.)

There was a time where having many babies was a viable strategy, given mortality rates. That is no longer feasible.

Folks have strong drives both to reproduce, and to cull competition. Reproduction has very strong economic and legal repercussions. There are historical aspects to state control of reproduction, including issues such as involuntary sterilization and state coerced reproduction.

Thx!

TomB