Abortion

Not sure "viablility" is a useful measure. No doubt in a few years, doctors will be able to raise a foetus entirely from conception in an artificial "womb", so a foetus of any stage of development could be transplanted from a woman to an incubator.

Now, will the religionists denounce this as an abomination against God/nature, or use it as an argument against abortion, or both, or neither?

I have no idea. (And I suspect neither will they - they'll wait to be told what to think by the leaders... )

 

Yeah, those numbers are 10 years old. Any shifts since then have been minor. I think many believe the 23-24 week range is the limit of viability. The improvements in the past 10-15 years has been decrease in the morbidity of the survivors.

Anyway, I think the viability issue and the abortion issue are not subjects that are easily combined. I got caught up in the discussion because I'm on call and had a lot of time to kill. The memories of those 24 weekers coming in to the hospital in labor is still pretty vivid in my mind. I trained at hospital with a Level 3 Nursery, so every pre-term delivery in central NJ was sent to us. I'm so glad I'm not there now. I love level 2!

 

I'll absolutely agree that there is a time when I change my mind about "choice." I think that's true for everyone; even the most radiacal pro-choice people would argue that it's not OK for a woman to have an abortion after their water broke, for example.

I also think that there's something much more fundamental about why I don't want a child to be abused and why, for example, I'm against murder. I simply feel that no one has the right to take another person's life and the government should prevent this regardless of the effect on society.

So, this comes back to when the fetus is considered a "person." As someone who's very obviously pro-choice, bluejay, at what developmental stage, if ever, would you say that it's inappropriate for a woman to have an abortion?

 

Squidy:

Wow, and here I thought you were a right-wing nutjob. Just with that belief alone, you've been kicked out of the Demented Right Wing Nut Club. So sorry.

Kind of funny - both "haha" and ironic - how men at one time got to tell women when and how to conceive, and whether or not they could abort, but the same men refused to have a safe and simple vasectomy done.

I mean, come on, you march into your doctor's office, he administers a local (OK that *does* sting a bit), makes a little teeny-tiny incision, snip-snip, and tells you to take it cool for a couple of days.

If you know what I mean.

Compare that to the huge production number of a tubal ligation, especially the complications that usually happen down the road.

I think we need *far* better access to contraceptive and family planning issues. We also have to actually broaden access to abortion if the woman so desires. Otherwise, we go back to this time-tested medical procedure:

A rusty coat hanger.

jay

 

That's what PC needs! More Heinlein! Right on!

 

I have to say abortions should not be allowed. Killing a human has been considered "wrong" by society for a very long time. The only thing is the definition of human. There are a lot of time periods that can be used, but they are all not in the least but clear, nor definite. The only time that a fetus goes from being definitively not-human to human is at the joining of egg and sperm. Before, there were two incomplete sets of DNA that could not, on their own, define a human. After, there is a complete set of human DNA, seperate and destinct from either parent.

So we, as a society need to work on two things. Make sure that woman who do not want to be pregant do not get so, and find a way to care for the fetuses (fetii?) of woman who are pregnant and decide they do not want to be. The first is not to terribly hard. Birth control is very effective and easy nowadays, and the majority of people shouldn't be copulating without barrier protection anyways, in this age of STD's. (Athough I am sure there are some monogamous, lifetime couples who could consider themselves safe.) Birth control is not cheap enough to be universally available, though. The second will be harder. We will need to devote some hard research and study. The first thing that seems obvious to me is surragate mothers. Remove the fetus from woman A and place it in woman B. Like adoption, but with all the emotional benifits of carrying the baby as well. To woman A, it is the same effect as an abortion. The fetus is gone from her body and responsibility, but with no death. Artificial wombs are also something to study. Not only for this application, but to aid the care for premature births as well. Religious faction may object here, but I truly doubt this could be considered worse than a dead fetus.

On a side note, it is completely impossible to run a society that has no influance whatsoever from religious morals. Do you steal the car sitting down your street? No, it would be "wrong." But why? Everybody has a set of rules that is their own. Religous groups tend to cluster people that have similar sets of rules, but everybody has then, none the less. We have always enforced one groups set of rules on others. People who want to steal cars obviously do not include the rule "Do not steal," but society on a whole has decided that rule is needed, thus reqiures those who would steal to follow a rule that is not their own.

Now, abortion is very different from thievery, but it is not victimless. Like other forms of killing, it diverts human diverity from an optimal coarse. Cutting out a set of DNA in this way is random, favoring neither fit nor unfit. Genetic growth depends on increasing the quality of DNA, not just maintaining the status quo. (How about that for wandering thoughts.)

 

It's not my decision to make. I can and will only choose for myself.

Your arguement avoids the question of what social problems result from abortion.

 

We are not working with Mr. Potato Head here. The parts are not interchangeable. By the time a fetus has implanted in a mother it shares that mother's blood. You would not only have to find a willing surogate but also a transplant match. Treating a "life" like this does not glow of respect for the DNA or the woman.

Religious beliefs may have had a hand in large matters like murder, adultery and theft but they are not the end all for developing laws in our land, at least not until the right controls everything which I desperately hope never comes to pass.

 

I think that you've misunderstood me. I'm very much pro-choice. I think that, overall, there are no social problems that result from abortion. If you or someone else chooses to have an abortion, that's your choice and it doesn't affect me.

However, the murder of someone I don't know (and never come in contact with) doesn't affect me either. Never-the-less, I find any type of murder reprehensible (see my comments in the "Death Penalty" topic; Mystery Squid is really stirring things up), and I do believe that the government should be in the business of stopping murder. My point is that, perhaps, there's something larger to be considered than just the direct "social problems."

You say that it's not your decision to make. Do you honestly believe that a mother should be able to choose to have an abortion at any point in her pregnancy? Even if she's in the delivery room?

 

I think most folks here are not saying that they are going to kill a fetus that could live on its' own outside the mother. In the delivery room that baby is coming out kicking unless the Doc screws up or there was some otherwise previously unknown medical complication.

Stopping a pregnancy that is not viable outside the mother is a woman's choice. I was a single mother because the choice for me was to have that child. I cannot make that choice for another. I do think that most elective abortions should be done by 12 weeks and only up to 24 if the mother's life is in danger.

 

Murder and abortion are two different subjects, politically woven together by conservative spin doctors. How many women have announced during a delivery--I'd like to kill my baby now. How does a womans right to choose for herself get escalated into these ridiculous hypothetical situations that either never occur or occur infrequently. Creating laws based on the infrequent worst case scenerio, that also violates personal freedoms to accomodate one groups preference and opinions is unjust and repressive.

The government in the business of stopping murders, please! Then lets focus on the 10,000 killed by gun violence a year, the 100,000's sick and dying from environmental pollution, cigarette smoking and drug addiction. I don't think so because the government and the corporation benefits from all of this. Instead let's focus on the 5 women who decided to have late term abortions.

The something larger to consider is not for the government to decide. They should not be legislating this particular matter because it has little negative effect on us as a society. That is why I refuse to set limits or decide for anyone else. Your choice, no conditions, not my business. Pro-choice is pro-choice, conditions take way choice.

 

implantation is one hell of a dance to go through even as a small oligocellular ball, but then let it grow and to try to remove the fetus from one woman, without killing it, without killing woman a... then try to place it into woman b, again without killing the fetus, without killing woman b... well, it'd be damn near impossible.

it's not like you can keep one on ice while you're doing prep.

the blood of the mother is the source of all nutrients, oxygen, everything. 5 minutes and the fetus would suffocate, i imagine. then... you get the same results with the addition of 2 cut-open people on the operating table.

then you have the whole hormone issue, to falsely get woman b's body to think it's pregnant and not just reject the fetus.

keep in mind this is a very crucial, delicate developmental stage and i would hazard a guess that anything of this kind of nature would completely screw up development.

 

I appreciate the thoughtful tone of these discussions. Abortion, hormones, contraception and related topics have been discussed from every perspective by Garrett Hardin in multiple books, Mandatory Motherhood, Promethian Ethics, et al.

If you are conservative, you support society infrastructure such that abortion is avoided to the extent possible. When there is a decision to be made, it is by the woman and her physician.

 

Dude probably doesn't have a clue about hormones, placentas or any other fairly basic medical information. The risk to both mother and fetus and the improbability of success is way out there!

 

With all due respect to your personal opinion, most of what you have stated in this post is misinformation.

Women are not birthing receptacles.

 

Actually, blood and antigens(the proteins your body rejects) are very different between a fetus and mother. That's why a mother can have O- blood and the baby could be B+. There is a body of research about antigenic effects of pregnancy, but in general, the placenta is the most effective barrier to rejection. For that reason, the mother won't "reject" a fetus. If your argument were true, every child would be a perfect donor match for it's mother.

 

For the first few days after conception, nutrition is derived from osmosis. Even after implantation, it takes a few more days for the blood nutrients & waste to communicate. By the time a pregnancy can be identified by blood tests or ultrasound, removing it would almost surely destroy the embryo.

 

i have to step in again. I can't get away from this attitude from a lot of women that they are the absolute only ones with a say in this.

Ok, I marry a woman...everything is great...we discuss and agree to have kids...we have been married 12 years...she gets pregnant...that is all she wants so he has a vasectomy...at 4 months she "decides" she wants an affair with her boss and he hates kids. She wants a divorce AND an abortion....DEFEND THAT!!!!!

That "father" has the right to raise HIS (only) child

 

Easy to defend. You can't force a woman to have a child agaisnt her will period. Married, unmarried. . .like it or not.