When should abortion/pregnancy termination become illegal?

[opebo]

I guess it should become illegal right around 2014 or so.

[Lief 🗽]

Depends on the race of the child, of course. And yes, Jew counts as a race.

[Person Man]

Women's right to choose > baby's right to life

Seeing this explicitly laid out this way is more than a little disturbing even to (normal) people who support legal abortion, you know.

Its equally disturbing to even abortion rights supporters when abortion opponents of abortion refer to the fetus as "it", as in "it should be a crime to murder it".

I think the emotionally healthy language (let alone PC) should be the adjective him or her (after the sexual differentiation) and the noun the potential child should be used up to viability and then it should be "child" or "baby" after that.

Point which PBA is used for unrestricted, no questions asked abortion.  Any point before birth for life at stake and health of mother.  Rape would be PBA cutoff as well.

You mean elective vs. theraputic abortion? The point should be that if a child can be delivered, abortion shouldn't be allowed at all. If its theraputic (pregnancy by illicit sexual contact in which the woman was part of the protected class of the law or if the abortion is to prevent death, disability or to perserve future fertility), it should be to the point of viability. If its for any other (elective) reason, it should be legal up to a minimal reasonable time for the woman to discover the pregnancy and abort.

[greenforest32]

Women's right to choose > baby's right to life

Seeing this explicitly laid out this way is more than a little disturbing even to (normal) people who support legal abortion, you know.

Maybe but I find it a good summary of my position that explains why I disagree with people who support legal abortion only in the first trimester.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

For me - the idea of abortion when there's reasonable chance for survival outside of the womb - is actually just silly to me.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Women's right to choose > baby's right to life

Seeing this explicitly laid out this way is more than a little disturbing even to (normal) people who support legal abortion, you know.

Maybe but I find it a good summary of my position that explains why I disagree with people who support legal abortion only in the first trimester.

You're still explicitly stating that you believe that a certain class of people has the right to absolute power of life and death over another class of people, so that makes me not like you very much, even though I can respect the same position arrived at on different grounds.

[greenforest32]

Women's right to choose > baby's right to life

Seeing this explicitly laid out this way is more than a little disturbing even to (normal) people who support legal abortion, you know.

Maybe but I find it a good summary of my position that explains why I disagree with people who support legal abortion only in the first trimester.

You're still explicitly stating that you believe that a certain class of people has the right to absolute power of life and death over another class of people, so that makes me not like you very much, even though I can respect the same position arrived at on different grounds.

My belief is that the government should not be forcing people (against their will) to give birth.

As for dislikes, well haters gonna hate

[dead0man]

For me - the idea of abortion when there's reasonable chance for survival outside of the womb - is actually just silly to me.

....and a little disturbing.  But yeah, I went with the "viability" option.  Abortion should be an early option for women, but it would never be an option for me.


(I may break down and tell my abortion story sometime...but probably not.  Touchy subject that.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Women's right to choose > baby's right to life

Seeing this explicitly laid out this way is more than a little disturbing even to (normal) people who support legal abortion, you know.

Maybe but I find it a good summary of my position that explains why I disagree with people who support legal abortion only in the first trimester.

You're still explicitly stating that you believe that a certain class of people has the right to absolute power of life and death over another class of people, so that makes me not like you very much, even though I can respect the same position arrived at on different grounds.

My belief is that the government should not be forcing people (against their will) to give birth.

As for dislikes, well haters gonna hate

You said 'after birth'. Was one of us maybe misinterpreting something? Because the way I read it you were condoning infanticide.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Depends on the race of the child, of course. And yes, Jew counts as a race.

WTF ?

[LastVoter]

I voted any point prior to birth after a quick glance at first, but now that I've read other options and posts and actually thought about it, I'm going with viability defined by Roe v. Wade.

[greenforest32]

Women's right to choose > baby's right to life

Seeing this explicitly laid out this way is more than a little disturbing even to (normal) people who support legal abortion, you know.

Maybe but I find it a good summary of my position that explains why I disagree with people who support legal abortion only in the first trimester.

You're still explicitly stating that you believe that a certain class of people has the right to absolute power of life and death over another class of people, so that makes me not like you very much, even though I can respect the same position arrived at on different grounds.

My belief is that the government should not be forcing people (against their will) to give birth.

As for dislikes, well haters gonna hate

You said 'after birth'. Was one of us maybe misinterpreting something? Because the way I read it you were condoning infanticide.

?

The poll question is "when should abortion/pregnancy termination become illegal" and I voted the after birth option listed in the poll. That options means abortion would be legal throughout the entire period of the pregnancy, no?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Either you're misreading the poll options or I am, because that's what I read 'Any point prior to birth' to mean.

[greenforest32]

Either you're misreading the poll options or I am, because that's what I read 'Any point prior to birth' to mean.

Maybe it was written wrong

I read "When should abortion/pregnancy termination become illegal?" plus "Any point prior to birth" as meaning that 'abortion should become illegal any point before birth' which really doesn't make sense.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Either you're misreading the poll options or I am, because that's what I read 'Any point prior to birth' to mean.

Maybe it was written wrong

I think that's most likely, yeah.

[Person Man]

As a reference, there are several stages of signicfance between coitus and birth. They are;

1- Fertilization- about a couple of days after you do it (when the sperm cell breaches the membrane of the egg. This is when the independent chemical reactions of the potential human being begins)

2- Implantation- about two weeks after you do it (when the conceptus becomes lodged in the uterus and the woman becomes pregnant) (when the conceptus becomes a zygote)

3- Cleavaging- when the conceptus becomes an embryo and is more or less differentiated. This happens around a month after doing it.

4- "Quickening"- When all of the embryo's basic organs are present, the embryo develops a gender and perhaps when a woman can feel the first fetal movements. This marks the end of the third month, the first trimester and when the embryo becomes a fetus.

5- Viability- When a fetus is generally able to be born and has a reasonable chance of surviving prematurely. Without modern medicine, this is in 7 months, with it, it can be as early as 5 and a half.

6- Birth (Self Explanatory)

To me, #1 doesn't really mean anything as most conceptuses do not implant or develop. Assigning any rights to this stage would make modern human life next to impossible.

For #2, this would be the time when expirementation and cloning with no original intent on the clone growing into a healthy adult should stop. Most embryonic stem cells are derived between point 1 and point 2.

3 would be the ideal time to stop allowing for abortion, but only a few women would know that they would be pregnant by this time. In some countries where abortion is illegal, restoring menstural regularity is a semi-viable alternative to abortion per se....but it may or may not be reliable or equitable in any case.

4- Would seem to be the most reasonable time to stop allowing for elective abortion (abortion where the need can't be defintely established). It would give reasonable time in all but a handful of cases (in some cases, a child could be born without the mother knowing she was pregnant as some cancer patients die before they know they have cancer) for a woman to know of her pregnancy and to save the money needed for the procedure if she has no money or any alternative funding method. Hereafter, abortion should only be performed for theraputic purposes (illegal sexual activity where female was member of protected class or to prevent death or permanent disability or sterility)

5- Would be the most reasonable time to stop even theraputic abortion, unless the abortion is done when the fetus is dying and cannot be saved.

6- Abortion should only be done in the time up to birth when induced abortion would be only an acceleration of a reasonably certain spontaneous abortion when the induced abortion is needed to prevent death or permanent disability or sterility.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I'd say at the point of viability with the exception of harm to the mothers life or rape cases... Or if the baby will be so deformed or mentally deficient that they will needlessly suffer through life

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I can't justify having different standards in the cases of rape or incest.  The ethical justification for allowing abortion is that the developing organism inside the mother has not yet become what is considered to be a human life.  There is no ethical reason for disadvantaging the survival of that organism because its biological father was a total creep and loser.   Besides, in any but the most restrictive of abortion regimes, rape victims will have legal access to abortion in time to abort on that basis.  Incest is a more difficult issue to deal with, since the victim may have been prevented from having access to legal abortion services in a timely manner.

[Person Man]

I can't justify having different standards in the cases of rape or incest.  The ethical justification for allowing abortion is that the developing organism inside the mother has not yet become what is considered to be a human life.  There is no ethical reason for disadvantaging the survival of that organism because its biological father was a total creep and loser.   Besides, in any but the most restrictive of abortion regimes, rape victims will have legal access to abortion in time to abort on that basis.  Incest is a more difficult issue to deal with, since the victim may have been prevented from having access to legal abortion services in a timely manner.

That's not the issue about rape. The issue is that restricting about is more about promoting responsibility and chasity than it is about protecting fetal rights or any other humanitarian issue.  I don't say this because I generally support abortion rights and am trying to be cynical about the opposition, but because even when abortion is entirely prohibited (or only permitted in perhaps 1 or 2 out 100 pregnancies), the penalties for providing or having an abortion anyways has ranged from being similiar to a serious misdemeanor (such as DUI, having a dime bag of Pot on your person or Domestic Violence where there are no aggravating circumstances), where one may get a months of probation, a few days in jail and a large ticket to at most a mid-grade felony (such as a very serious Battery where someone almost dies, a Robbery or Burglary) where one generally gets no more than a decade of prison time. You don't just get a few months in the County Detention Center for killing someone on purpose. If abortion was really about hard-core murder, the South Dakota State Legislature would have made the maximium punishment for it as Life or Death instead of Five Years in 2006.

That being said, if you are raped, the law proscribing abortion's objective to perserve chasity and responsibility is greatly lessened if you had no power over whether or not you concieved.

[Dr. Cynic]

I'd say at the point of viability with the exception of harm to the mothers life or rape cases... Or if the baby will be so deformed or mentally deficient that they will needlessly suffer through life

Pretty much my position as well.

[phk]

After the first heartbeat.

[Person Man]

After the first heartbeat.

That sounds too pre-enlightenment, when we all thought the main organ responsible for our consciousness was our heart. I would say the first regularly recorded brain waves...and I doubt at either rate, that its as immediately after conception as antiabortionists say.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

That being said, if you are raped, the law proscribing abortion's objective to preserve chastity and responsibility is greatly lessened if you had no power over whether or not you conceived.

I reject the idea that abortion should be proscribed in order to preserve chastity and responsibility.  Do we criminalize fornication anymore?  Do we still send debtors to jail for failing to repay their debts?  The only reason I see as being valid for proscribing abortion is that in doing so one is protecting a human life.  When human life begins is a subjective question that is best left to legislatures to determine the answer a society will use. (Which may lead to objective standards for determining if a human life has begun according to that subjective answer.)

[BugsBunny]

Women's right to choose > baby's right to life

Seeing this explicitly laid out this way is more than a little disturbing even to (normal) people who support legal abortion, you know.

Maybe but I find it a good summary of my position that explains why I disagree with people who support legal abortion only in the first trimester.

You're still explicitly stating that you believe that a certain class of people has the right to absolute power of life and death over another class of people, so that makes me not like you very much, even though I can respect the same position arrived at on different grounds.

Many "pro-choicers" don't consider embryos and fetuses to be people, Nathan. And basically greenforest's statement is typical "pro-choice" logic--"pro-choicers" believe that the rights of women are superior to the rights of their prenatal offspring, at least until some stage of pregnancy.

[BugsBunny]

It should morally be illegal from the moment of conception, but I think a perfect compromise is when the fetus can feel pain. If the mother is going to die, then I think abortion is alright.

The feeling pain argument is flawed. Some post-natal humans are unable to feel pain due to genetic disorders, and they aren't given less rights than post-natal humans who can feel pain. Thus, why should prenatal humans who are able to feel pain be given more rights than those who cannot?

I tend not to compromise on issues which involve the killing of millions, but if I had to compromise, the perfect compromise would be to make half of all elective abortions (those done for convenience) illegal and keep half of them legal. This would probably keep abortion legal for any reason until about the 7th week of pregnancy, and make all elective abortions illegal after that point.

In your "compromise", about 95% or more of the elective abortions currently performed in the U.S. would stay legal. That's hardly a compromise for us anti-abortion people.