Abortion at 38 Weeks: A Thought Experiment?

[valsa]

Also I didn't say viability, I said awareness, which so happens to occur around the same time as viability (as of the present day). Such is a coincidence.

Exactly what is your definition of "awareness", what proves that a fetus of 20-24 weeks possesses it, and why does it matter? We kill living things all the time that are aware of their own existance.

[kb2]

I hope y'all can help me think this stuff through. Part of this is personal, to be sure. I was a preemie and I am currently pregnant. The latter may make me cranky but I'd like to think I can still sort out the intellectual and moral issues with a degree of mental clarity. But to think that I could have been aborted when I survived just fine adds a harrowing personal dimension to an already difficult debate.

This sounds kind of like the "Your mom chose life, so you should too," argument. And here is how I think about it: it's not about me. What happens between another woman and her occupied uterus simply isn't about me, my life, my worth as a human being, or whether or not I should or deserve to exist. It's simply a decision she's making about her life based on her circumstances (and her wishes for her child if that's what she thinks of her pregnancy).

I know my life has worked out pretty well. But I wouldn't want to be the fetus my mom was forced to carry, and I wouldn't have wanted to have taken too many resources away from my siblings, or been a whole person my parents had to take care of when they didn't want to. I'm not offended by the idea that my mom might have considered abortion. I don't think she owed it to me to undergo the physical or psychological stress of a pregnancy, much less an unwanted one.

Also, as for doctors being pro-choice I think it depends on where you live. Where I am, most people are pro-life and this includes the doctors and nurses and nurses aides and phlebotomists...I worked in an ER as an undergrad student where they had to find the doctor who was OK with prescribing Plan B and then find the nurse who was OK with handing it over to the patient, and these people came from other parts of the hospital (or from home) because there was no one working in the ER who was OK with prescribing Plan B...people who conscientiously objected to Plan B did the work to find these people so the patient got the care they needed, but there's a minority of people maintaining full contraception/abortion health care in this area and it can be precarious at times.

[keen23]

I had my youngest when she was 37 weeks along. She needed no special care- though a NICU team was on hand for her delivery- and was my only baby to score a 9 and 9 on the APGARs.

I agree with treemom in that younger and younger viability is through science, and not some sort of magical understanding of self.

Here's an anecdote on third trimester abortion- my sister was working in an orphanage in a country with little to no prenatal care. She was taking care of a baby who was the result of a third trimester abortion. Basically, the Mom thought she was less along than she was. Birth was induced at what was supposedly 27 weeks. The baby was more like 32 weeks along. When he was born and didn't die within an hour, he was taken to the NICU (I guess?), and was eventually turned over the the orphanage.

I am very pro-choice. But I get very uncomfortable when the fetus approaches viability. Even more so at 32 weeks, when it's something like 90% of all babies who are born at that developmental stage have little to no problems from being born that early (again, magic of science). I don't think a woman should ever be forced to have a pregnancy that she doesn't want. But at some point, it's no longer an abortion, it's an early delivery. That's the wrong term, I know, and I'm missing the subtle nuances to my argument. It makes sense in my head, but I can't put it to words.

[desertvixen]

And in many areas access issues, waiting periods and costs might be another reason a woman is unable to even try to get an abortion before a more acceptable times.

QFT.

That's the thing - they don't have to repeal Roe v. Wade. It's enough to make it hard to use, because then they can a) rail against abortion and b) know they are still winning. The right means nothing if women cannot exercise it. Poor women don't always have access, young women don't always have access.

Hell, servicewomen and female military dependents don't always have access - just this year that we got language for Tricare to pay for servicewomen to have an abortion for rape. If I got pregnant and wanted an abortion, I would have to:

a) hide it until I could get to Planned Parenthood/a provider

b) somehow schedule or hide having the procedure/taking the abortion pill

c) pay out of pocket

[Anise]

I think once it reaches viability it makes more sense to give it up for adoption. And again, between 20-24 weeks is a grey area, and in the cases you're describing of the troubled women who absolutely could not be able to handle children I would recommend abortion, especially if drug or alcohol use had occurred in the womb to the extent that it would have caused significant damage to the fetus.

I think you have not really thought out your position. It's fine to abort a fetus whose development has been harmed by alcohol or drugs, but inducing early resulting in a micro preemie facing development delays is preferable to aborting?

Like I said, it's ultimately up to the doctor. Even till term, if the doctor and mother have compelling reasons to allow abortion to occur, I'm all for it.

Why is it up to the doctor, and not the mother? Surely women can make informed decisions. I'm sure the vast majority of women who abort do so after much soul-searching, and not on some whim. And unlike the doctor, women have to live with their decisions. If a doctor decides that a woman should give birth and put the child up for adoption, that's the end of the story for him/her. But the mother can face wondering what happened to the child or even the situation of an older child seeking her out and attempting to have a relationship with her.

Also, I have a question: if you see aborting after viability as murder, do you believe that after that point all fetuses ought to be brought to term regardless of danger to the mother's health or the health/normalness of the fetus?

[treemom]

Also I didn't say viability, I said awareness, which so happens to occur around the same time as viability (as of the present day). Such is a coincidence.

Huh? I said you said awareness. Right there...first sentence.

[treemom]

It is up to the doctor and mother. But she considers it the same as infanticide or murder. But thinks doctors should be making the decision on something she considers murder.

Which is just boggling to me. I need me some formergothardite n here...she always deals with the whole abortion is murder thing well.

I wish we could stop with using the word murder to describe anything that isn't murder. Like abortion. It has a word...we can even discuss these things that make us uncomfortable or even that we consider a moral wrong by using that word. Since murder and infanticide mean something different.

Also, I am so tired of my abortion being the "moral abortion" but the teenager who gets an abortion at 25 weeks just doing something horrible.

[Ellimenopy]

It is up to the doctor and mother. But she considers it the same as infanticide or murder. But thinks doctors should be making the decision on something she considers murder.

Which is just boggling to me. I need me some formergothardite n here...she always deals with the whole abortion is murder thing well.

I wish we could stop with using the word murder to describe anything that isn't murder. Like abortion. It has a word...we can even discuss these things that make us uncomfortable or even that we consider a moral wrong by using that word. Since murder and infanticide mean something different.

Also, I am so tired of my abortion being the "moral abortion" but the teenager who gets an abortion at 25 weeks just doing something horrible.

I'm so with you. I can't understand the desire to interject yourself into such intimate matters. And the intellectual in me just completely shuts done when loaded terms like "murder" are used.

[mockingbird]

I see infanticide and abortion after 24 weeks as fundamentally different actions because of the involvement of the women's bodies. A lot of anti-choicers act like where the baby/fetus is makes no difference because the body of the mother and the mother's right over her own body are made invisible. Whether a baby is induced, born at term, or aborted requires some level of involvement of the mother's body. By contrast, the care of an infant does not necessarily involve the mother's body. Women are not forced to keep their babies and breast feed them.

Stating that one actor's life is more important than another actor's right over their body is quite a moral claim and does not go without saying.

This is why I would have to say that it is the woman's choice like any other abortion. I don't know if I would have an abortion at that time, or how I would feel about it honestly. I think I would be personally inclined to think of a third trimester fetus as deserving to life just based on a viability + predicted quality of life (like keen23 said - different than a micropreemie that is very likely to experience severe problems if they survive) but again there may be complicating factors like health (either me or the fetus) or maybe I didn't know I was pregnant. (Also, I am not sure when I consider a fetus or baby a person. Spiritually, I tend to like the idea of the soul coming into the body at the first breath. At the same time, parents of stillborn babies often feel their baby was a person, so it is not a perfect view.)

But regardless of what *I* would personally do, I very strongly believe in patient autonomy in general and would not feel that it was my place to judge the woman or restrict her options. I just feel like if you are pro-choice it doesn't stop at a magic date even if certain decisions would make me squeamish or would be against my personal beliefs. Like others have said, if someone wants an abortion at 38 weeks they probably have a good reason. If she had the abortion I would also trust that the doctor talked with her about it, discussed her options and could judge that she was able to understand what having an abortion would mean. (And I mean the "understanding" part as just part and parcel of normal medical care. Doctors must evaluate competence for medical decision-making, but they should not abuse this privilege to suit their views. A woman being emotional or heck even considering abortion at 38 weeks would not make her incompetent!)

I don't think I would call it murder since I don't know for sure when the fetus is/becomes a person and I also think the woman must have priority as she is already alive, with experiences and relationships, while the fetus is more of a potential life. While *I* might decide for myself one way or another I don't think I'd be totally happy or at peace with either situation. It's such a rare situation that you have to be in a lot of suffering already to ask for an abortion at 38 weeks. You are perhaps weighing moral security vs. an extra burden on your body or life (or that of the fetus) and either way it's going to be very emotional. I think a lot of ethical decisions in medicine don't have morally right/wrong options... the decision is just what seems most humane or even just what is the safest, given what you know at the time.

eta riffle

[kb2]

It's famous violinist thought experiment time!

One day, you wake up in hospital. In the nearby bed lies a world famous violinist who is connected to you with various tubes and machines. To your horror, you discover that you have been kidnapped by the Music Appreciation Society. Aware of the maestro's impending death, they hooked you up to the violinist. If you stay in the hospital bed, connected to the violinist, he will be totally cured in nine months. You are unlikely to suffer harm. No one else can save him. Do you have an obligation to stay connected?

Or, alternatively: you are not required to be a living donor of your organs or tissue. You will never be forced to donate a kidney, a lobe of the liver, bone marrow, or blood. You're not even allowed to donate if your health is at risk. Somewhere out there is probably a living, breathing human being who could live longer with your kidney/liver lobe/bone marrow/blood and who may die because you don't want to do it, despite the low risk of all these donations. These are people who are fully aware of their impending death and are probably as distressed by it as people can be, but you are not required to save them using your own body.

[Mama Mia]

So glad to see that the board has decided to lighten up on calling people in to dog-pile on an unpopular opinion :roll:

[Minerva]

Feministing:

1. Can you link us to the studies that prove that fetuses get their first glimmer of awareness at 24 weeks? Because last I read, 24 weeks was considered the earliest point at which the brain has the wiring necessary for awareness, not the point where awareness is known to begin. There's a grey area in the 3rd trimester where we don't know if/what the fetus can feel.

2. Can you link us to the brain wave stuff, too? I read about the fetal brain wave studies, and the fetuses had to be outside of the womb for their brain waves to be measured. They had to already have been aborted, so you couldn't use that technique to decide whether to have an abortion.

3. Do you think people should be forced to be living organ donors? What about blood, plasma, platelets and bone marrow? Should we be forced to donate those?

4. When you say that your mantra will be "if in doubt, abort it out," do you mean you'll be advising patients with unplanned but otherwise healthy pregnancies to have abortions? I could see a lot of patients being upset and/or hurt that their doctor tried to insert themselves in that decision.

[miffy]

I think if the fetus is viable, but the mother does not want the child then possibly delivering the baby & adopting it out may be better than aborting it. Only with the advice of a SECULAR doctor though. Surely an abortion at 5+ months would be like labor?

One of my friends had an abortion at roughly 6.5 weeks. To me its no different to a late period. TBH I think people who don't get an abortion as soon as they can get an appointment are probably not managing their own life very well to begin with. This statement doesn't include women who develop serious complications during pregnancy.

I wonder what happened when Michelle Duggar found out that her pregnancy wasn't viable? Did they induce it? or 'abort' it? Because Barbara Eden (I Dream Of Jeannie) discovered her son was dead, yet carried him to full term.

[JesusFightClub]

No problem at all with people (women, in a startling revelation, being people) getting an abortion at any stage. In fact...(nah, better leave that one out).

There are loads of reasons for this. One is maybe we have a mum who's sick on the drink or drugs. She's tried to keep off (or maybe hasn't tried for whatever reason) but it's got her. So if the foetus becomes a person with rights at some stage, that means that poor mum gets either done for murder, or if she gives birth, child abuse and child neglect for taking substances while the baby was in the womb. So no matter what she does, one actual living human (the mum) who desperately needs help becomes one more person in the jail.

There's no way round this. If at some point the foetus becomes a person with human rights while still unborn, that carries grave implications for any mother. Whatever you do, even by accident, it's as if you're doing to another born person. Eat a soft cheese? POISONING A BABY. Drink a glass of wine? POISONING A BABY. It starts to get really daft, but if in law an unborn child is basically the same as a born child at X amount of weeks, whatever a mum chooses to do, she's doing to her child. I don't see how criminal charges wouldn't result.

Another is the provision of life thing. If my dad needs a kidney, I'm a donor who's a perfect match, I am not obliged by law to give him a kidney. Why should the mum at any stage be obliged by law to provide life to someone else by virtue of being a woman? That is a very strange legal imbalance.

Finally "oh well she can just give birth and adopt it out". That kind of ignores reality on multiple levels. Even if the baby is not a wanted one and can't be kept, the emotions of birth and the pain she will likely feel over the adoption is going to be pretty traumatic. As another poster said, if Baby wants to seek her out, she may not want to be found (then feeling the pain and guilt of what feels like a double abandonment for both mother and child) or she may desperately want to be found and every birthday is a torment for her, only to find Baby has spent his whole life consumed with rage at her. Nothing about adoption is easy or simple. You don't just pop'em out, hand 'em over and mummy and baby are content forevermore.

On the adoption note, "blonde, blue-eyed to term child with no health issues" does better by a mile than "Mixed race, we think, but we don't know who's the dad because the mum's a prostitute and baby's born with foetal alcohol syndrome" in the I WANT THAT BABY stakes. We all know it, so no point in pretending.

[Minerva]

TBH I think people who don't get an abortion as soon as they can get an appointment are probably not managing their own life very well to begin with. This statement doesn't include women who develop serious complications during pregnancy.

Or maybe they needed time to decide. Or maybe they're poor. Or maybe they had decided to keep it and circumstances changed. I doubt you meant for it to be, but that came off as judgemental.

[veron1que]

I disagree with putting limitations on abortions due to the "rights" of the fetus.

If one acknowledges that the fetus has rights then all other sorts of messy complications can result. For example, if you can't abort a baby at 38 weeks because the baby has a right to live, then can you also be forced to deliver early because the baby will die if you don't?

I also am very cynical about the term viability. Yes micro-preemies do live and can grow to live normal lives. But without the machines they really wouldn't have survived, they weren't a viable full term pregnancy. I think it's wonderful that families who want to take advantage of the advancements in NICU have those opportunities, but mothers shouldn't be obligated to induce labor at 30 weeks because the baby won't make it to 31. Yes I realize we are talking about abortion, but abortion laws rooted in person-hood arguments can be construed to mean legal obligations for a woman to treat her pregnancy a certain way to protect the rights of the fetus (i.e. drinking while pregnant/doing heavy drugs = child abuse).

Where do you draw the line with the rights of the fetus?

I think it is about judgement. I fully trust the ability of mothers to be able to choose what is right for them, and for doctors to choose if they will perform such a procedure. Law has no business dictating what should be done.

And I don't think every mother who will ever want a 38 week abortion will be someone who didn't know they were pregnant. I could totally understand a single mother who is poor and loses her job because of her pregnancy. She's 38 weeks, she loves her baby, but knows that there is no way she can afford the child. She's been laid off, already has significant debt, the father is out of the picture, and she is deeply concerned for the child's welfare. It'll break her heart, but I can understand her desire and right to have an abortion. She will mourn the loss of her kid. I don't think it's fair to say, well give it up for adoption, easy-peasy. Because maybe ten years down the line she'll be in a place to support that kid. Is is far to torture her with the knowledge that she has a kid out there and she can't be there to see that person?

I don't think abortion is ever an easy decision to make, and I don't think that people who desire later term abortions are wishing to go on a murderous rampage. I think there is a profound emotional struggle in that decision and it is hers alone.

edited for spelling

[Mama Mia]

JFC: I don't see why criminal charges would result ... they don't result if a baby is born and tests positive for drugs at birth, or has obvious disabilities/ withdrawals resulting from substance abuse while the mother was pregnant. In many cases Child Welfare will get involved, but I've never seen the mother face criminal charges, and it's a field I've worked in. I suppose that could vary by area of course.

[treemom]

So glad to see that the board has decided to lighten up on calling people in to dog-pile on an unpopular opinion :roll:

Wtf? I didn't call her to dogpile. She has excellent refutations for it. Calling her to dog pile would have been pm'ing her for fucks sake.

Calling abortion murder is not just an unpoplular opinion to me...it is calling me a murderer.

[treemom]

I think if the fetus is viable, but the mother does not want the child then possibly delivering the baby & adopting it out may be better than aborting it. Only with the advice of a SECULAR doctor though. Surely an abortion at 5+ months would be like labor?

One of my friends had an abortion at roughly 6.5 weeks. To me its no different to a late period. TBH I think people who don't get an abortion as soon as they can get an appointment are probably not managing their own life very well to begin with. This statement doesn't include women who develop serious complications during pregnancy.

I wonder what happened when Michelle Duggar found out that her pregnancy wasn't viable? Did they induce it? or 'abort' it? Because Barbara Eden (I Dream Of Jeannie) discovered her son was dead, yet carried him to full term.

At 20 weeks abortion is nothing like labor. It is still closer to what people think of abortion as like.

[Minerva]

JFC: I don't see why criminal charges would result ... they don't result if a baby is born and tests positive for drugs at birth, or has obvious disabilities/ withdrawals resulting from substance abuse while the mother was pregnant. In many cases Child Welfare will get involved, but I've never seen the mother face criminal charges, and it's a field I've worked in. I suppose that could vary by area of course.

Criminal charges have resulted in the US. See Jennifer Johnson and Laurie Barker. I am posting too much in this thread...

[miffy]

At 20 weeks abortion is nothing like labor. It is still closer to what people think of abortion as like.

I guess that cancels out my idea then. At what point does it become 'labor'?

[miffy]

Or maybe they needed time to decide. Or maybe they're poor. Or maybe they had decided to keep it and circumstances changed. I doubt you meant for it to be, but that came off as judgemental.

I didn't mean to seem judgemental. I tend to see things from a perspective of privilege. I guess its good that im aware of that??? I hope! haha :oops:

[Mama Mia]

Wtf? I didn't call her to dogpile. She has excellent refutations for it. Calling her to dog pile would have been pm'ing her for fucks sake.

Calling abortion murder is not just an unpoplular opinion to me...it is calling me a murderer.

I don't see how having an abortion when the fetus has conditions that are incompatible with life, as in your case, would be considered murder regardless of people's opinions regarding the abortion of a viable fetus. It seems like two entirely different things. Along the same lines if the issue was the life of the mother over a potentially viable fetus, and the only option was abortion ( as opposed to early delivery ) - that would seem to be along the lines of self-defense.

I am just talking about once the fetus is at a viable stage to live outside the mother, for the sake of this discussion. Not about when life begins or any of that.

i

[OkToBeTakei]

No problem at all with people (women, in a startling revelation, being people) getting an abortion at any stage. In fact...(nah, better leave that one out).

There are loads of reasons for this. One is maybe we have a mum who's sick on the drink or drugs. She's tried to keep off (or maybe hasn't tried for whatever reason) but it's got her. So if the foetus becomes a person with rights at some stage, that means that poor mum gets either done for murder, or if she gives birth, child abuse and child neglect for taking substances while the baby was in the womb. So no matter what she does, one actual living human (the mum) who desperately needs help becomes one more person in the jail.

There's no way round this. If at some point the foetus becomes a person with human rights while still unborn, that carries grave implications for any mother. Whatever you do, even by accident, it's as if you're doing to another born person. Eat a soft cheese? POISONING A BABY. Drink a glass of wine? POISONING A BABY. It starts to get really daft, but if in law an unborn child is basically the same as a born child at X amount of weeks, whatever a mum chooses to do, she's doing to her child. I don't see how criminal charges wouldn't result.

Another is the provision of life thing. If my dad needs a kidney, I'm a donor who's a perfect match, I am not obliged by law to give him a kidney. Why should the mum at any stage be obliged by law to provide life to someone else by virtue of being a woman? That is a very strange legal imbalance.

Finally "oh well she can just give birth and adopt it out". That kind of ignores reality on multiple levels. Even if the baby is not a wanted one and can't be kept, the emotions of birth and the pain she will likely feel over the adoption is going to be pretty traumatic. As another poster said, if Baby wants to seek her out, she may not want to be found (then feeling the pain and guilt of what feels like a double abandonment for both mother and child) or she may desperately want to be found and every birthday is a torment for her, only to find Baby has spent his whole life consumed with rage at her. Nothing about adoption is easy or simple. You don't just pop'em out, hand 'em over and mummy and baby are content forevermore.

On the adoption note, "blonde, blue-eyed to term child with no health issues" does better by a mile than "Mixed race, we think, but we don't know who's the dad because the mum's a prostitute and baby's born with foetal alcohol syndrome" in the I WANT THAT BABY stakes. We all know it, so no point in pretending.

JFC. I worked with this group in the 90's. My experience may have been very different to what you describe, possibly because of this woman.

http://www.nhsggc.org.uk/content/defaul ... s1061_37_4

[Gertie]

My mom is hard-core pro-life and was a pro-life activist during my childhood, and I was raised/indoctrinated with that attitude. Now my opinion is at the other extreme, i.e. I don't think there should be any legislation restricting abortion, and I assume that every woman who has an abortion has a reason for it that I may or may not understand, so I choose to trust that that woman is making the right decision. I realize my current opinon is an extreme, and that maybe it's because I was raised in a household that was extreme in the other direction. I also have no experience with abortion. So what I'm saying is--I appreciate that this discussion is happening and giving me (and others) the chance to hear different points of view and experiences. I think that's important.