This is an entirely different issue from abortion. But let's focus on the State's interests. The State does not have a compelling interest in guaranteeing that you don't die prematurely. They only have an interest in protecting you from someone else deciding to end your life. Denying organ donation does not end someone's life; the underlying disease did that.
You realize that fetuses are in an organ donation paradigm, right? If a woman denies her organs to the fetus then it dies. Your distinction is laughable. I submit that people who need an organ transplant are similar to a fetus. They both require someone else's organs to survive and denying either results in their death. It's not fair to ignore the circumstances of a fetus while noticing those of the organ donor. The state can't say that I have to give you my organs, and they can't say the woman has to give hers either to the fetus. That's a choice. This is not some "no take-seys back-seys" game the state can play.
When we get to a point where a 20 week old fetus can be delivered and have a good shot of living with little to no risk to the mother (at least compared to carrying the baby to term), then we can talk about it. This would be great, because there are plenty of people who want to adopt and this would provide plenty of babies. For now, I see no reason to endanger the fetus with such a risky procedure.
Then the fetus is not viable at 20 weeks. Face it, what you WANT is to make it compulsory for pregnant women to have a full term birth, regardless of if they want to. This isn't an intervention in the protection of the unborn this an intervention in the control of her pregnancy, a control that belongs to her and any party she's allowed including healthcare practitioners. You want to protect the life of the children, then go develop a surrogate uterus. Until then, neither you nor any state can take charge of hers.
Control her pregnancy? What does that even mean? The woman has a right to make medical decisions concerning her own body up until the point where that decision would be akin to murder.
The right to make medical decisions is hers ALWAYS. It's not like she's even SUPPOSED to have pre-natal care or register her pregnancy with ANYONE. You can't FORCE THAT. That's why the 24-28 weeks "viability" thing is so stupid, it's artificial, not an intrinsic property of a fetus. A fetus isn't viable until it's born either "naturally" or through interventions like a c-section and even then viability would be an after-the-fact distinction by whether they lived or not. The fact that you won't even allow for an induced birth at 20 weeks only demonstrates that, you don't care about viability you care about the pregnancy! You won't mind at 20 weeks, you won't mind at 6 weeks, you won't mind at 2 hours. You're banking on a convenience of successful legislation for 20 weeks and I bet a year ago you probably would have said 24-28 weeks was fine too. And I bet deep down, as soon as someone enables you, as soon as the mob strolls in you'll be saying 6 weeks or 2 weeks or 2 hours too.
You're transparent.
And abortions can be characterized as legalized murder by medical aid. These kinds of arguments are not helpful.
The words "legalized murder" are self-refuting. It's a nonsensical phrase.
Lack of prenatal care does not automatically equal miscarriage. And prenatal care does not automatically equal healthy baby.
I want the State to intervene by making sure poor women have access to prenatal care. If a woman recklessly endangers the life of the baby, then I'd like the State to intervene as well.
And that demonstrates my point all the more.
) with an exemption on religious grounds. IOW, you'd have to opt-out rather than opt-in.
