Is Abortion Murder?

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Bowser, Aug 22, 2015.

?

I Believe Abortion Is...

  1. Murder

    5 vote(s)
    14.7%

  2. A Woman's Choice

    25 vote(s)
    73.5%

  3. A Crude Form of Birth Control

    6 vote(s)
    17.6%

  4. Unfortunate but Often Necessary

    18 vote(s)
    52.9%
Multiple votes are allowed.
Page 33 of 43
  1. spidergoat

    spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    No one aborts a fetus that's able to live prematurely.
     
    spidergoat, Oct 1, 2015
    #641

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  3. billvon

    billvon Valued Senior Member

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    There are approximately 1000 abortions a year in the US done after the 24th week, when the fetus is usually viable. (Stats from the Guttmacher Institute, study done in 1997.)
     
    billvon, Oct 1, 2015
    #642

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  5. spidergoat

    spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Well I stand corrected. I don't have time to research this now. But the standard is average viability, not minimum viability. There would always be exceptions. I err on the side of women, it's their life.
     
    spidergoat, Oct 1, 2015
    #643

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  7. pjdude1219

    pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    as a premature baby i'd like to agree with spider. thats senseless emotionalization of something to demand women have less control over their bodies than corpses.
     
    pjdude1219, Oct 1, 2015
    #644
  8. spidergoat

    spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    54,036
    If in the future, someone creates artificial wombs, and you can get a fetus removed on demand for no personal cost, then I'd be fine with outlawing abortion.
     
    spidergoat, Oct 1, 2015
    #645
  9. billvon

    billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,646
    So your parents thought that you were no more than a "lump of pre-human flesh" and they had "no more moral concern" over your well being "than a mole or wart" just before you were born? I tend to doubt that.
     
    billvon, Oct 1, 2015
    #646
  10. spidergoat

    spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    54,036
    His mother had that option, yes. I know it produces cognitive dissonance in your religiously conditioned psyche, but people don't become people all at once. And living ones are more important than potential ones. And look at the societal impact of outlawing abortion, it's horrible and robs women of autonomy.
     
    spidergoat, Oct 1, 2015
    #647
    Billy T likes this.
  11. pjdude1219

    pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
    maybe if they knew i existed. i was also an extra baby.
     
    pjdude1219, Oct 1, 2015
    #648
  12. GeoffP

    GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    22,087
    Ah. I'd agree with that, sure: hell, it's the most all-round position, really. Constructionally, I don't think there's any way one could postulate significant neural activity before the chance of independent physiological control for a given fetus, so it's well outside any objections could possibly make.

    But discussions on this subject can't finish on a happy note, can they? So... well, thanks for a crazily civil argument, you reasonable bastard. Why don't you go make some more sense on a roadway somewhere?
     
    GeoffP, Oct 1, 2015
    #649
    joepistole likes this.
  13. billvon

    billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,646
    Yes. And you have the option to see your unborn child as nothing but a mole or a wart. Most people don't. I suspect even you wouldn't.
    Ha!
    That has nothing to do with the issue. I agree that abortion should be legal. However, people who think that abortions mean nothing more or less than removing a wart - or that an unborn baby should garner no more emotion than a tumor - are fools.
     
    billvon, Oct 1, 2015
    #650
    Billy T likes this.
  14. spidergoat

    spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    You are talking about women who eagerly anticipate their future child. Those aren't the women who get abortions.
    The vast majority of women never regret their abortions, so the data doesn't your assertion. It is nothing more than a dividing bunch of cells and needn't elicit any special emotions. Do you weep for the earthworm you accidentally step on? They aren't any more complex than that.
     
    spidergoat, Oct 1, 2015
    #651
  15. Truck Captain Stumpy

    Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,263
    billvon
    it is not so much the argument "nothing more or less than removing a wart" IMHO so much as it is a definition of life and where viability starts. as noted above
    there is far more truth in this comment than most people understand or give credit to

    the legal argument bases its decisions on the average viability of the developing fetus, and that is why the cutoff for abortion is where it is at.

    however, assuming that the organism and tissue before this point is viable or even can be considered a human is bringing it all back to the argument about life and it's sacred whatever-whats-its definition.

    if you want to talk about the developing tissues as viable or potential, then you must also consider the far more important or other ecological impacts as well as other organisms that have greater ecological potential as well. this brings the argument into the realm of defining what would be more potentially viable as well as have a better impact or more important reason for survival, which then opens up everything from sperm and maggots to grass, trees and other organisms.

    then you also have to consider the implications of the globe and it's potential vs it's current state, right?

    so what would make the developing tissue more important than anything else? because it is human? or because it is a religious argument? is that egocentric?

    it is not logical to assume that the developing cellular tissue has life or awareness simply because of "potential"... otherwise we would not be allowed to excise cancerous tissue or take antibiotics.

    So where does one draw the line?

    IMHO, abortion should be legal (up to a point of development which is legally defined in current statutes) as it allows the rights of the mother to her own body. When said fetus hits a certain stage of development, then i understand the reluctance to abort said fetus due to it's viability and survival rate outside of the womb. the law clearly dictates this stage and i agree with it.
     
    Truck Captain Stumpy, Oct 2, 2015
    #652
  16. iceaura

    iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Anything after the 24th week is not a randomly selected pregnancy - "usually viable" does not apply.

    Few of those tragedies involve a healthy baby headed for a normal birth. Most discussions of late term abortion involve pregnancies beyond the 16th week, and after the 20th week abortion becomes a rare and specialized event - last I checked there were exactly four doctors in the US who would perform one, under any circumstances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_...bortion_by_gestational_age_2004_histogram.svg

    Roe vs Wade specifically allows States to severely restrict third trimester abortions.
     
    iceaura, Oct 2, 2015
    #653
  17. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    In American law, it stops being a fetus and becomes a person when it is breathing, on its own, outside of the mother's uterus. As I noted in an earlier post, that is the point at which, if you kill it deliberately, you will be prosecuted for murder.
    That may or may not be true. But there is no law against being a fool. If there were, the entire government would be in prison.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Oct 2, 2015
    #654
  18. GeoffP

    GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    22,087
    Access to abortion is variously limited prior to that point - 28 weeks is common. I submit this means that the fixed point of transition between fetus and person is not so fixed even in practice.
     
    GeoffP, Oct 3, 2015
    #655
  19. Bells

    Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    It is a decision that should remain between the woman and her doctor.

    The very few doctors who perform late term abortions do so under threat of death and acts of terrorism. But their work is necessary. The previous abortion threads on this site alone have detailed interviews with these doctors and they also have cut off point, because past that poses a danger to the mother and breeches their ethical guidelines.

    Many women who obtain abortions later on in their pregnancy are not doing it for convenience, but because of a severe complication in the pregnancy or with the foetus itself, or because they were unable to access an abortion earlier on in their pregnancy due to financial reasons, lack of facilities where they live and having to travel to another State or because they were prevented by laws in their state from accessing one. Others did not know they were pregnant until well into the pregnancy. To deny these women a health care that is absolutely necessary for them is unconscionable. There seems to be this mistaken belief that women are waiting until their waters are about to break before simply 'changing their minds' and aborting. This is not founded in reality. No real and reputable doctor would perform such an abortion. Doctors who do perform late term abortions do not.

    Currently, many hospitals in the US are refusing to even provide adequate health care to pregnant women and these hospitals, or the group that manages these hospitals are being taken to court for failing to provide adequate and necessary health care to pregnant women, some of whom are even experiencing miscarriages or fell pregnant to rape or incest or may have been raped or been a victim of incest.

    Trinity Health Corporation, headquartered in Michigan, owns and operates more than 80 hospitals around the country. Trinity Health Corporation requires that all of its facilities abide by ethical and religious directives, according to the complaint. These are guidelines developed and distributed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The directives prohibit a doctor working at a Catholic hospital from terminating a patient’s pregnancy even when failure to do so puts the patient’s health or life at risk.

    Hospitals within the Trinity Health system have, as a result of these policies, repeatedly and systematically failed to provide patients suffering pregnancy complications with the emergency care required by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) and other federal laws, according to the complaint.

    In the span of one year, at just one of the defendant’s hospitals, several patients with pregnancy complications were denied the care they needed and to which they were entitled under federal law, the complaint states.

    “We’re taking a stand today to fight for pregnant women who are denied potentially life-saving care because doctors are forced to follow religious directives rather than best medical practices,” ACLU of Michigan Staff Attorney Brooke A. Tucker said in a statement. “Catholic bishops are not licensed medical professionals and have no place dictating how doctors practice medicine, especially when it violates federal law.”

    Advocates allege that pregnant patients seeking emergency care who were turned away from Trinity hospitals “have become septic, experienced hemorrhaging, contracted life-threatening infections, and/or unnecessarily suffered severe pain for several days.”

    “To put it simply and humanely, patient welfare must be the number one concern of health care professionals,” ACLU Staff Attorney Alexa Kolbi-Molinas said in a statement. “Every pregnant woman who enters an emergency room should be guaranteed that she will get the care she needs, and should not have to worry that she won’t get appropriate care because of the hospital’s religious affiliation.”

    Ten of the 25 largest hospital systems in the U.S. are Catholic-sponsored. Nearly one in nine hospital beds in the country is in a Catholic facility, increasingly putting comprehensive reproductive health-care services at risk.

    [...]

    Thursday’s lawsuit follows a demand letter sent by the ACLU of Michigan in September to another Catholic-affiliated facility, Genesys Hospital, for refusing necessary patient care. Genesys is run by Ascension Health in Grand Blanc, Michigan.

    The demand letter was sent on behalf of Jessica Mann, a pregnant woman with a life-threatening brain tumor. Genesys Hospital has repeatedly denied Mann’s request for a tubal ligation at the time of her scheduled cesarean section delivery next month, despite Mann’s doctors advising her that another pregnancy could risk her life.

    In December 2013, the ACLU of Michigan and the ACLU sued the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on behalf of Tamesha Means, a patient who was denied appropriate medical treatment because the only hospital in her county is required by the bishops to follow religious directives. That case, which is on appeal, charges that the bishops acted negligently in issuing a policy that requires hospitals to violate not only the law, but also the standard of care.    ​

    This should not be an issue in this day and age and women who require health care should not be denied health care because they are pregnant. To deny women this essential health care and risking their lives is absolutely inexcusable by any stretch of the imagination. Sadly, the debate against abortion is putting women's lives at risk, and also poses a risk and danger to the doctors, nurses and staff who do work at clinics that do perform abortions, early to late term.
     
    Bells, Oct 3, 2015
    #656
    pjdude1219 likes this.
  20. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    If you shoot a woman in the abdomen and kill a 30-week-old fetus, you will NOT be prosecuted for murder anywhere in the USA. You will surely be prosecuted for something, depending on the jurisdiction, but it will not be for murder.

    Assaulting a person (male or female) with a firearm is a rather strong charge that could put you in prison for quite a while, whether the victim is a man, a woman, or a pregnant woman. Of course if you did indeed kill a fetus, the jury and the judge will surely come down a lot harder on you out of sympathy for the victim, and probably give you the maximum prison sentence allowed by the law of the state in which the crime took place. But you will not be prosecuted for murder.

    Yes, the laws in the USA vary wildly from state to state. In general (but perhaps not universally), a Catholic hospital will give the fetus priority over the life of the mother in the situation described. This is a very good reason to avoid Catholic hospitals if you're not Catholic.

    Most Americans (even many American Catholics, who are probably already disobeying church doctrine by using contraception) take the position that if the fetus dies, the parents can have more children later. On the other hand, if the mother dies, not only will the family never have more children, but moreover the widowed father will be under severe stress, responsible for taking care of the baby while somehow continuing to earn enough income to run the household.

    Again, to quote my ex-wife, "Contraception, abortion, and the whole range of reproductive questions, are women's issues, and only women should be empowered to discuss and vote on them. I'll give a flying fuck about what men think, the first time one of you assholes gets pregnant."
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2015
    Fraggle Rocker, Oct 3, 2015
    #657
  21. Capracus

    Capracus Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,324
    Not correct.

    Currently, at least 38 states have fetal homicide laws. The states include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. At least 23 states have fetal homicide laws that apply to the earliest stages of pregnancy ("any state of gestation," "conception," "fertilization" or "post-fertilization"); these are indicated below with an asterisk (*)

    Cal. Penal Code § 187 (a) defines murder as the unlawful killing of a human being or a fetus with malice aforethought.

    http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/fetal-homicide-state-laws.aspx

    She should‘ve let a doctor kill it instead.

    On Monday, the state of Indiana sentenced 33-year-old Purvi Patel to 20 years in prison on charges of feticide - an act that causes the death of a fetus - and neglect of a dependent. She received a 30-year-sentence on the felony neglect charge, 10 of which were suspended. A six-year sentence for feticide will be served concurrently.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-a...ged-two-asian-american-women-feticide-n332761

    The age of gestating assholes is near.

    Womb transplants
    • The operation takes around six hours, with the organ coming from a donor who has died but whose heart has been kept beating

    • The recipient will need to take immunosuppressant drugs following the transplant and throughout any pregnancy to prevent the chance their body might reject the donor organ
    • The health of the woman will be monitored closely for a year and then an embryo will be implanted in the womb
    • This embryo would arise from a combination of the woman's own eggs and the partners' sperm - using an IVF procedure
    • If all goes well the baby will be delivered eight months later by caesarean section
    • Couples will be given the option of trying for two pregnancies before the womb is removed
    • Once it is no longer needed, the womb can be taken out by a team of surgeons. This would prevent the need for the woman to be on immunosuppressants for the rest of her life

    http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34397794
     
    Capracus, Oct 4, 2015
    #658
  22. river

    river

    Messages:
    17,307
    Seems to me that boy's dictate the future of women.
     
    river, Oct 4, 2015
    #659
  23. billvon

    billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,646
    That's a different argument, one I agree with.

    Compare the following two statements.

    "I agree with the idea behind euthanasia, and think that you should have the right to discontinue extraordinary measures to keep your mother alive if there's no reasonable chance she will recover."

    "Why not just toss your mother? Right now your mother is not human; she is nothing more than a stinking pile of rotting meat. It's legal to throw rotting meat out if you find it in your refrigerator, why can't we do the same to your mother?"

    Both express the same logical sentiment. It takes a real asshole with an agenda to use the second -and the likely result will be more fighting over euthanasia and less agreement. Many people use the same tactics in the abortion with the same result.

    No, it's not. It's legal to get an abortion in the US past the age of viability in several states. We do about 1000 abortions a year that are older than 24 weeks (the commonly accepted threshold of viability.)
    Because it is a potential human being. Talk to any couple who is expecting a baby and ask them if their developing fetus is more important to them than the wart on their foot.
    Exactly.
    At either viability or birth, or somewhere in between. Here in the US it's one or the other depending on state.. You can make a good argument for viability. However, one of the good arguments is NOT that "a fetus is no more important than a wart."
     
    billvon, Oct 4, 2015
    #660
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