Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act

[autumn1971]

If a woman does not want a fetus in her uterus, then the optimal outcome is to never have the fetus she doesn't want in the first place. That is in every way preferable to getting rid of it after the fact. So why does she have a fetus in her uterus that she doesn't want? Because something already went wrong, making the optimal outcome unavailable, like I said. All other outcomes, including abortion, are suboptimal. The ONLY scenario in which an abortion is the optimal outcome is one in which a woman becomes pregnant in order to have an abortion, because the abortion itself is desirable for some reason. I think we can ignore that scenario for this discussion, but if you feel differently, go ahead and make a case for it.

You haven't shown that I'm wrong, you've only shown that you aren't actually thinking about this in any depth.

Knowing this was going to be the response, I used the word “remain.”

Optimally a woman had a satisfying sexual encounter. End of that optimum. Later she discovers she is pregnant. She does not consent to her body being used as a life-support system for a fetus, so she has it removed. That is a second optimum.

I am allowed by law to refuse my teenage son a needed kidney even if it dooms him to death.

Would you refuse me that autonomy?

 

[ponderingturtle]

This is the USA politics section, not the Argentinian politics section.

Hey if it was a legitimate rape the body has ways of taking care of that.(now we are back to mainstream republican politics).

At least you accept that comprehensive education is what you consider an extremist belief. Ignorance is apparently a virtue.

 

[The Big Dog]

She does not consent to her body being used as a life-support system for a fetus, so she has it removed.

is that what abortion enthusiasts are calling it nowadays?

 

[Ziggurat]

Knowing this was going to be the response, I used the word “remain.”

Optimally a woman had a satisfying sexual encounter. End of that optimum. Later she discovers she is pregnant. She does not consent to her body being used as a life-support system for a fetus, so she has it removed. That is a second optimum.

No, it's not. If you don't want to be pregnant, then optimum is not getting pregnant. An abortion isn't a second optimum, it's only (potentially) the best of what's available because optimum isn't available anymore. This isn't a hard concept. Why are you having such a hard time with it?

I am allowed by law to refuse my teenage son a needed kidney even if it dooms him to death.

Would you refuse me that autonomy?

You obviously have some reading comprehension problems, because your question has nothing to do with anything I wrote. While my personal opinion is that you should be allowed to refuse, the posts you are responding to don't actually say or even suggest what the answer should be. It's simply not a relevant question to my point. I can only speculate that you think my argument somehow favors abortion restrictions, and so have to argue against it reflexively, but the argument in the posts you responded to doesn't actually do that at all.

 

[Ziggurat]

Hey if it was a legitimate rape the body has ways of taking care of that.(now we are back to mainstream republican politics).

At least you accept that comprehensive education is what you consider an extremist belief. Ignorance is apparently a virtue.

Yeah, you're not arguing against anybody on this thread at this point. Go wrestle with your demons in private.

 

[autumn1971]

is that what abortion enthusiasts are calling it nowadays?

I am not an “abortion enthusiast” any more than I am a tonsillectomy enthusiast.
Should the State force a mother to breastfeed her child if she does not want to?

I do support restrictions on third trimester abortions, but believe that they should be available in some situations.

 

[The Big Dog]

I am not an “abortion enthusiast” any more than I am a tonsillectomy enthusiast.
Should the State force a mother to breastfeed her child if she does not want to?

I do support restrictions on third trimester abortions, but believe that they should be available in some situations.

in some situations, yes

 

[Ziggurat]

I do support restrictions on third trimester abortions, but believe that they should be available in some situations.

Like what?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Like what?

How do you feel about this case?

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/late-term-abortion-rape_us_5c630b8de4b0a8731aeabbd6

 

[autumn1971]

Like what?

First, you are right, I read quickly and misplaced your point in my response. Sorry.

Now the “Like what” is a sticky wicket.
Certainly if carrying to term presents a high (how high? I don’t know) probability of grievous injury to the mother, or if the child is very likely to have zero quality of life. I would also think that a child concieved by rape if circumstances come down to the wire.

But I don’t know.

I doubt there is an answer that would satisfy more than a third of the population.

 

[Ziggurat]

First, you are right, I read quickly and misplaced your point in my response. Sorry.

Now the “Like what” is a sticky wicket.
Certainly if carrying to term presents a high (how high? I don’t know) probability of grievous injury to the mother,

Late term, cesarean section is preferred to abortion if the pregnancy endangers the mother, because cesarean is faster than abortion in such cases.

or if the child is very likely to have zero quality of life.

That gets into a general question of what both constitutes zero quality of life and how far to go to keep someone with reduced quality of life alive. It's indeed sticky, but it's not really specific to abortion, and can probably be handled as an after-birth issue rather than an abortion issue.

Most life-threatening developmental defects should appear before the third trimester.

I would also think that a child concieved by rape if circumstances come down to the wire.

If one is going to abort a child conceived by rape, it seems preferable to do that as early in the pregnancy as possible. The only circumstance where I can imagine that not being an option is if it's unclear whether the child was conceived of by the rapist or by someone else (for example, a couple is trying to get pregnant and the woman gets raped, so either the rapist or the partner could potentially be the father). You might need to wait long enough to do genetic testing to make the decision, but even there it's possible to do that in towards the end of the first trimester (chorionic villus sampling) or second trimester (amniocentesis), you don't need to wait until the third.

I doubt there is an answer that would satisfy more than a third of the population.

Not fully, but I think there are compromises which a majority feel they can live with.

 

[Ziggurat]

Hypothetical:

A woman is 35 weeks pregnant. She is diagnosed with cancer, and the recommended treatment is chemotherapy. If she takes chemotherapy while pregnant, it will kill the fetus. She wants to take chemotherapy, and wants to end her pregnancy in order to do so safely.

Should the woman be able to have a late term abortion? Or should she have to deliver the baby early?

 

[Ziggurat]

How do you feel about this case?

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/late-term-abortion-rape_us_5c630b8de4b0a8731aeabbd6

Seems like she's discussing two options (caring for the infant until it died, vs. late term abortion), even though there's a third option which was presented to her and she refused: let the infant die after birth. I'm not convinced the abortion would have been better than letting the infant die after birth.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I wonder why.

One criminal doctor? That's where your beliefs about late term abortions come from?

The grand jury report states that "A medical expert with 43 years of experience in performing abortions was appalled. This expert told us, 'I've never heard of it [cutting the spinal cord] being done during an abortion'."[45]

It's like I said, there may be some sick physicians but there is no medical standard or procedure for killing a live born fetus.

Some fetuses are killed during the abortion procedure out of necessity. These are not viable outside the womb fetuses.

There was this clue:

The seven other murder charges are all of first-degree murder; they relate to babies, whom staff have testified they saw move or cry after complete birth, and whose deaths are alleged to have resulted from subsequent lethal action. They arise because of the "born alive rule", a principle of common law

First highlight: Fetuses take breaths, you don't kill them.

Second highlight: not just common law but common sense and common medical practice, you keep the fetus warm until it dies naturally. Why these idiot rogue doctors think they have to speed things up is beyond me.

And BTW, nothing in that account of the criminal doctor says anything about how many weeks along those abortions took place at.


This is a good chance for you Zig to grow your knowledge of the facts surrounding late term abortions.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What if the fetus is delivered at 30 weeks, and is likely to be perfectly healthy with a bit of medical care? Should the mother be allowed to deny that child that medical care?

Hell, let's say a mother gives birth normally at full term, and the baby needs no special medical attention at all. Should that mother be allowed to deny that baby food? She has the ability to make decisions in the best interest of that child, after all.

There are laws governing parental neglect and abandonment.

Preemie survival stats by week of gestation

30 weeks completed: 98% survival

Physicians would not ask that mother, they would simply treat the infant at that point.

An abortion at 22 weeks is more borderline:

22 weeks completed: 21% survival

Generally once you pass 20 weeks gestation abortions are going to be for the life of the mother. Doctors are not out there aborting late term fetuses.

After 20-22 weeks, a patient would be counseled to complete the pregnancy.

Dr Triller did some of those abortions when the pregnant woman was a girl, age 12 for example. He didn't do them for anyone that walked in the door. The criminal in your (Zig's) link is a criminal. It's not realistic to think that is what abortion doctors actually do.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Bull like this is why the abortion debate goes nowhere. Have you heard of Christian Scientists? Anti-vaxers? People think they do have the right to deny children medical care. Has nothing to do with abortion, especially late-term abortion, which happens with NON-HEALTHY babies, often it's to remove a dead body. Late term abortions occur when the woman WANTS to be a mother and for some reason or other she isn't going to get to be.

Laws are in place already to protect an infant from neglect. Laws are not needed to protect the dead or dying in order to kill an otherwise healthy adult female.

Separate debate, nothing to do with abortion, but states vary whether they allow parents with religious beliefs to deny medical care to their children and for which medical problems.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

That isn't always the case. There really are instances where a pregnant woman decides very late in the pregnancy that she doesn't want to have a baby, and would rather abort it.

That may be so but abortion providers are not going to accommodate such women. You believe in a myth.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Since I explicitly stated that the fetus in my hypothetical was delivered, obviously not. Why did you even think your question was worth asking?

I know this shocks people, but yes, actually, some of them are. And we know this because some of them already have.

Other than the criminal doctor you cited, where is your evidence?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I didn't say it was common. And while we don't abolish welfare to stop welfare fraud, we do try to crack down on it. I'm not defending the particulars of this bill, which I'm not that familiar with. The devil is in the details, and good intentions can still go awry. But there is an actual problem it's trying to address, even if it should be addressed differently.

No, it's a bill to gin up the base with promotion of a myth.

Such abortion providers like the one you cited were successfully prosecuted based on current laws.

The Democrat's base won't let them do this, but they'd benefit from proposing an alternative bill of their own.

Only because the GOP bill promotes falsehoods.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

My personal favorites are how badly catholic hospitals treat women going through failed wanted pregnancies myself they are finally getting the punishment they deserve for their lack of faith that caused the failure of their pregnancy.

WA State has a serious problem with Catholic hospitals taking over other hospitals.

They delayed an emergency c-section for an detached uterus until the fetal heart rate ended because the 'Bishop' said so. The woman lost her uterus because of it and she desperately had wanted the child.

They tried to but lost denying Planned Parenthood access to the hospital's lab when they took over the only hospital in B'ham.

And, BTW, they deny some pain meds in terminal patients because according to the 'Bishop' suffering is in God's plan.