To think late-term abortion rules may need tightening up?

[FestiveNut]

Should people be able to abort healthy fetuses in a low risk pregnancy past 20 weeks gestation?

I read a very sad story concerning this earlier. I considered myself pro-choice in all circumstances but this thread has caused me to question that.

Should the threshold be lowered?

There are practitioners in the UK just waiting for the nod to abort a 39 week old baby?

Of course there are. They exist in other countries so why not here?

How do you know that any woman anywhere in the country could have access to an abortion at 39 weeks for any reason she wants

There are people all over the country unable to access medical care they need urgently, should we not allow access to that care because some will not receive it?

I’m 100% pro choice. What another woman chooses to do with her own uterus has absolutely nothing to do with me.

Every time the UK thinks about changing it we don't as it is too complicated with many different views. I think we are better off leaving the law alone particularly as there are not many late term abortions in the UK even for diabled babies where there is no number of weeks limit at all.

From a philosophical rather than a practical POV: It simply doesn't matter whether or not the fetus is a person or has inherent rights: nobody has the right to make use of another's body in order to secure their own survival. We even extend the right to bodily integrity to corpses in that nobody's corpse may be used for organ donation against their will.
Once we institute mandatory organ donation for the dead, I might be willing to debate a live woman's moral obligation to carry a pregnancy to term if balanced fairly towards the obligations of everyone else, but certainly not before then.

Xenia

Agreed.

SkullPointerException

This is one of the weakest arguments yet.

It simply doesn't matter whether or not the fetus is a person or has inherent rights: nobody has the right to make use of another's body in order to secure their own survival

Again, I say this facetiously, take that up with God. You have it the wrong way around. Natural law dictates that birth or delivery follows from pregnancy as surely as summer follows springtime. Unless that is, an outside intervention occurs. To argue that nature has no right to put us in this position is nuts. Bacteria has no right to exist ?

There are people all over the country unable to access medical care they need urgently, should we not allow access to that care because some will not receive it?

Not what I am saying at all as well you know. Mandating that these facilities must be made available on demand so that every woman, anywhere in the country can abort a 39 week old baby for any reason she wants is an outrageous thing.

Natural law dictates that birth or delivery follows from pregnancy as surely as summer follows springtime. Unless that is, an outside intervention occurs.

Natural law also dictates that people die of cancer, yet no one is arguing against chemotherapy

Natural law dictates that birth or delivery follows from pregnancy as surely as summer follows springtime. Unless that is, an outside intervention occurs. To argue that nature has no right to put us in this position is nuts. Bacteria has no right to exist ?

That right there is a logical fallacy commonly known as "appeal to nature". And you're basically refuting it yourself with your (intended to be hyperbole, no doubt) example:

Or are you honestly trying to argue that penicillin is a horrible atrocity seeing as it interferes with bacterias right to exist?

I very much hope not!

Natural law also dictates that people die of cancer, yet no one is arguing against chemotherapy

Indeed they are not. Interesting how the mother's feelings about a 35 week old baby can relegate it to the same status as a cancerous growth, on a whim....what power.

Come to think of it, the No side in the Irish referendum indulged in a lot of scaremongering about late term abortions, and in response the master of one of the main maternity hospitals stated that after 'viability' (i.e. 24 weeks) the procedure for terminating the pregnancy would be to induce labour and then give the baby the medical care it needs, rather than aborting the baby. I don't know if this is normal procedure or just Irish law, but it seems sensible to me. I'm absolutely pro choice but there has to be appropriate regulation.

SkullPointer

Fair enough, but I don't agree it is a fallacy. People widely believe that many things that are natural are good. And they are. Pregnancy and birth are obviously good from this perspective as they ensure the continuation of the species, so tough to argue that nature got that one wrong really.

It simply doesn't matter whether or not the fetus is a person or has inherent rights: nobody has the right to make use of another's body in order to secure their own survival

Absolutely. The woman should have the right to have the foetus removed from her body. But should she have the right to decide whether it’s heart is stopped before she undergoes the procedure? If the foetus is a healthy 39 week old, I would say not. She doesn’t have to have anything to do with the baby after it’s born.

Do I have the right to get a kidney removed because I decide I want it ?

You can choose to donate a kidney to someone else elon.

Not that it’s a valid comparison which I think you know.

I was under the impression that 24 weeks is the cut-off point in the UK unless there is a medical reason for a termination? Is OP arguing for an earlier cut-off point?

I think in many European countries the cut-off is around 12 weeks so the UK is an outlier, although in China I was surprised to know there wasn’t a cut-off date at all (I looked into it when I became unexpectedly pregnant) and the remains are often sold to use in medicine, which kind of grossed me out.

I think 12 weeks is generally fine as a cut-off point, but as the UK already as a 24 week window, I don’t think it’s fair to back off from it either.

On a more theoretical level, some women don’t even know they are pregnant until they go into labor—I think it’s ridiculous to suggest that literally any point until it pops out of the birth canal is fair game for termination. Current limitations are fine for the vast, vast majority of women who seek abortions anyway, I don’t see the point in pushing it further on than 24 weeks.

That issue about the heart stopping has always been one of the more interesting ones. If eg you could remove a baby from the mother and implant in a host or a machine (or a man) should the genetic father have that right rather than see the child die (if technology moves to that position being possible). It is complicated by the legal duties to keep and pay for your children although I suppose in the UK whether you want a child or not is your own option - you can have any child I tihnk taken into care if you don't want it.

Do I have the right to get a kidney removed because I decide I want it?

Which part of having a healthy kidney can result in severe mental or physical trauma?

But should she have the right to decide whether it’s heart is stopped before she undergoes the procedure? If the foetus is a healthy 39 week old, I would say not. She doesn’t have to have anything to do with the baby after it’s born.

That's an entirely different moral minefield, though, isn't it?

I'm actually with you on the notion that a woman has the right to have a fetus removed from her body but not necessarily the right to determine what happens apart from that. This would be internally consistent with the argument for bodily autonomy.

Naturally, you get a whole rat tail of implications out of a hypothetical scenario that results in a live baby after termination of pregnancy. But then, those are not so different from the question of sperms donation, for instance (e.g. how to prioritise one individual's interest in knowing who their bio parents are against another's not to be identified, etc.). I don't think that's unsolvable.

I don't agree it is a fallacy. People widely believe that many things that are natural are good.

... in other words: we're now using the equally fallacious argumentum ad populum to argue that an appeal to nature is not fallacious? This is very meta.

Natural law dictates that birth or delivery follows from pregnancy as surely as summer follows springtime

No it doesn't, not in reality.

In the days of "natural law" pregnancies half of all women were dying as a result of pregnancy, childbirth or the complications. Large numbers of the babies died as well.

There is a reason why so many men in times gone past took second wives in their 30s and 40s.

You can't argue nature and not accept the full reality of that nature.

If you want people to take it up with God, you need to prove God exists first...

Abortion, a woman's right to choose, but I would rather an argument about why people think it's ok to get rid of disabled people, but not those who look ok.
It complex, knee jerk reactions don't help. Just think why you would take xtreme measures

Again fair enough skull however you will not persuade me that pregnancy is morally wrong on account of my technically poor argument

JacquesHammer

There is no requirement that it causes me either of these things. My desire it be removed is all that matters. Bodily autonomy.

C8H10N4O2

That is not an argument that pregnancy is morally neutral and that the state should provide trained professionals to terminate it at any stage and for any reason.

Anyway, I've got stuff to do so will bid you all Merry Christmas, interesting set of views although it's unlikely anyone persuaded anyone else.

Honestly women don’t have late term abortions for fun. It’s not like a last resort method of contraception. No woman gets to 20 weeks+ gestation to think “I know I’ll have an abortion today, cba being pregnant anymore”. I’d argue all late abortions in the UK at least are for medical reasons. They’re also very rare.

There is no requirement that it causes me either of these things. My desire it be removed is all that matters. Bodily autonomy

Please explain how a kidney that you’re born with is in any way the same as a foetus.

If you really think that’s a reasonable, workable analogy it’s pointless even engaging further.

It’s almost like people don’t think before they start on their crusade to be noticed.

^Please explain how a kidney that you’re born with is in any way the same as a foetus.

If you really think that’s a reasonable, workable analogy it’s pointless even engaging further^

Oh right.

you're the genius arguing that a foetus is not a life and should not be given special consideration, so from that perspective it is a thing in my body I don't want to be there. If I am to be given control over my body don't I get to say on what I want in it ?