Abortion at 38 Weeks: A Thought Experiment?

[Anise]

Feministing, in my opinion, a major issue with making the onset of awareness the dependent factor in what ought to happen to a fetus is it leads to other moral dilemmas: is killing a born baby without awareness okay?

Also, is it wise to make moral judgments based on emotional reactions? Does the principle that whatever consenting adults do behind bedroom doors is their own business extend to siblings or can our gut reactions override such principles? Frankly, I am not terribly comfortable with late term abortions either, but I don't want to mistake my personal emotional reaction with morality.

[Minerva]

I'm not a troll. I'm just someone telling you the truth.

DAMMIT WHO LET IT OUT OF ITS CAGE

[Californiacicle]

I am pro choice but really I guess I am pro choice until the point of viability, 24-25 weeks. Like the first poster, unless the mothers life is in danger I just cannot justify it. Just give birth to a live baby and give it up. But I do understand the argument that a woman either has full autonomy or not and the whole trust thing.....

This is me. I was a late 23 week micro preemie.

[valsa]

This is me. I was a late 23 week micro preemie.

Not to be insensitive but the problem with the whole "just give birth and give it up" (other than the fact it's just as much bullshit to force an adoption on a woman as it would be to force an abortion on one) with regard to early preemies (especially micro preemies) is... who wants them?

Adopt agencies sometimes have trouble locating adoptive families for healthy minority newborns or newborns with minor special needs or medical unknowns. Exactly how is it anything but sadistic to not only force adoption on a woman, but also do so in a situation where her child is likely going to be in foster care, possibly for years, due to a significant risk of death and/or disabilities that scares away potential adoptive families? And how is that future any more humane than just terminating the pregnancy in the first place?

[Three and Done]

I thought I asked FG to put it in a nice strong box and mail it to General Delivery in Timbuktu? :?

[MarthaMarcyMayMarlen]

It would be more humane just not to have sex in the first place.

[valsa]

It would be more humane just not to have sex in the first place.

Blue ovaries are never humane.

[veron1que]

It would be more humane just not to have sex in the first place.

Since when are the only people who have the right to have sex, those who are fully prepared to raise another child?

That devalues human sexuality to reproduction, which is a major oversimplification of the human sexual experience.

To Add: Just realized I spent time responding to a troll, curse you generic avatar!

[treehugger]

It would be more humane just not to have sex in the first place.

Right, because abortions only happen because women are sluts who just want to sleep around and not face the consequences :roll:. Never mind medical conditions (which can affect even married couples :shock: ), moral issues, etc.... that is the most annoying argument for the pro-life movement. Believe it or not, married women who desperately want a baby sometime chose abortion because it the more humane thing to do (ie. fetus is not compatible with life, or mother;s life is at risk).

ETA: just realized I responded to a troll - Oh well...

[Three and Done]

Please ignore the troll, folks - maybe it will go away.

[MarthaMarcyMayMarlen]

Learn to control yourself and you won't get blue ovaries.

[MarthaMarcyMayMarlen]

Right, because abortions only happen because women are sluts who just want to sleep around and not face the consequences

CORRECT!!!!

[dawbs]

Just going to dive into a touch of the drug thing...

(FWIW< I find the discussion to be one worth having, but I still find the quagmire muddy. I can say that there are probably certainly cases where I would find it ti be 'immoral', but I don't want it to be illegal. Plenty of immoral things are legal; I prefer to keep them that way)

I suffer from 'persistent chronic migraine without aura'. Meaning, if I"m not medicated, I have 24-7 migraines. While I was still TRYING to get knocked up, my neurologist refused to prescribe me my medications. The medications that have a .001% chance of correlating with some heart abnormalities--I pulled the studies, one patient, who was on a cocktail of drugs including ithese, had a child w/ a heart abnormality. I was told "well, it's your first child, you want the best for it. It's not worth the risk"--while the docs knew that it was 'highly unlikely" for me to get pregnant.

My OB's office also treated me as if I were somewhat despicable for being hesitant to discontinue these meds when I ended up pregnant.

I resigned myself to being a despicable person and threw fits until I got the damn meds [my eventual OB was OK w/ it--the nurse midwife I saw gave me grief over the fact that I was using coffee to control the migraines. She laid off when I went into my rant about the fact that the last time they took me off these meds I daydreamed, daily, of driving my car into a tree] . And I still seethe over the fact that my level of pain was 100% unimportant because I was gestating.

I think that's why I raise an eyebrow at 'despicable', because, really, 'my' pain would be considered good enough to to be OK--why are other people's pains, and their medications/self-medications/addictions not good enough to be OK?

[Minerva]

Learn to control yourself and you won't get blue ovaries.

I don't think it knows what blue ovaries are...

[Anise]

I think what MMMM is really suggesting (because clearly suggesting that never having sex is ridiculous), is that we should limit sex to the same sex.

Women, have sex with women- it's for the babies! ;)

[MarthaMarcyMayMarlen]

That would work.

[Mama Mia]

Just going to dive into a touch of the drug thing...

(FWIW< I find the discussion to be one worth having, but I still find the quagmire muddy. I can say that there are probably certainly cases where I would find it ti be 'immoral', but I don't want it to be illegal. Plenty of immoral things are legal; I prefer to keep them that way)

But I think the point that is being missed is that in the theoretical example, these abortions would ALREADY be illegal. After the point of viability abortion is limited to medical cases. In the U.S., I understand it is different in other countries. So is someone going to start campaigning to have the presumably extremely rare case of an elective abortion past the point of viability to be legal ? And if so, why ? If this virtually never happens is that where someone would want to put their energies ?

[valsa]

After the point of viability abortion is limited to medical cases. In the U.S., I understand it is different in other countries. So is someone going to start campaigning to have the presumably extremely rare case of an elective abortion past the point of viability to be legal ? And if so, why ? If this virtually never happens is that where someone would want to put their energies ?

Like the old saying "give them an inch and they'll take a mile", the anti-choicers are very good at chipping away abortion rights a little at a time. If someone wants to try and take a stand well ahead of the rest of the pack in an effort to buy a buffer zone for women's rights, I'm all for it.

I wish with all my heart and uterus that, in the U.S., we were fighting over the legality/morality of 38 week elective abortions instead of restricting abortions after a heartbeat can be detacted, allowing doctors to legally lie to pregnant women about the health of their fetus, and passing laws specifically to try and make abortion all-but-inaccessible to an entire region of the U.S.

[Mama Mia]

Wouldn't trying to expand rights, at least at this time, mean you would need the court to re-examine Roe v Wade, that seems like it would be a seriously risky move -and probably political suicide.

I know there are lots of people here saying that it should be entirely up to the woman until birth - but that is an incredibly extreme view I think. Even if you live in a liberal area with easy access - I don't think most people, even those who consider themselves very pro-choice are going to argue for elective abortion past viability. And in areas where people are arguing about the availability of very early abortion in the case of rape -- or to save the life of the mother with a tubal pregnancy - I can't imagine that there would be more than a handful of people who would agree with extending it past viability for non medical reasons.

[Coconut Flan]

Where I live, liberal as it is, I've searched and searched and there is not a clinic or doctor that I can find who will do fully elective abortions no questions asked past 22 weeks. You can't be more than 21.5 weeks when they first see you so there's another bit of a limit.

[OkToBeTakei]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-yo ... e-19621675

8 years for aborting. Not sure what to make of this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ate-ruling

In 2009, there were 136 abortions in the UK among women who had passed 24 weeks of pregnancy. Numbers are fairly consistent – around the 130 mark each year.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Abortion/P ... ction.aspx

Under UK law, an abortion can usually only be carried out during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy as long as certain criteria are met (see below).

The Abortion Act 1967 covers the UK mainland (England, Scotland and Wales) but not Northern Ireland. The law states that:

abortions must be carried out in a hospital or a specialist licensed clinic

two doctors must agree that an abortion would cause less damage to a woman's physical or mental health than continuing with the pregnancy

There are also a number of rarer situations when the law states an abortion may be carried out after 24 weeks. These include:

if it is necessary to save the woman's life

to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman

if there is substantial risk that if the child were born, s/he would have physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped

[treemom]

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

closer to 24-25 ish weeks I think.

[treemom]

I thought about it and sorted out my thoughts and realized that what I really meant was that if a woman decides in her 3rd trimester that she wants an abortion, then a 3rd trimester abortion is basically an early delivery. If the fetus is viable it should be delivered unless doing so would harm the mother, and handed over to the state.

Would you be okay with a 40-week newborn being discarded? How is this that much different than a 32 week baby? Also, 40-week babies are still helpless. They cannot survive on their own until they are at least 2-3, maybe even 4. How is that different than a fetus who has reached viability and did not die soon after birth?

As for 20-28 weeks, I'd call that the fuzzy period. If the mother seems mentally sound and financially stable, then encouraging her to carry the infant to term would be a good idea (if she refuses, she could be induced to deliver the baby and see what happens). If the woman is mentally or physically unstable and unable to care for a child, I'd encourage her to abort it, as the child's life would more likely than not be worse than death and its existence is more likely to wreck havoc on humanity than help it. Has anyone read the part in Freakonomics where it says that the #1 reason for the drop in crime rate in the 1990's was Roe vs. Wade? The effects of abortion are powerful and far-reaching, which is why access should be open.

The problem is, once viability is reach I have a hard time differentiating between abortion and early delivery. If a woman opts for "early delivery" let her know of ALL the risks doing so would have on the newborn should it be viable. Honestly, I doubt any woman in her right mind would agree to having a third trimester abortion, as the baby would be viable outside the womb and in order to "abort" it you'd have to actually just kill it which is ethically problematic.

I agree, however, that no woman should be forced to carry a baby any longer than she wishes. However there are ethical issues involved.

thank you for clarifying. The only thing I really have a comment for is this idea that anyone needs to encourage adoption or abortion. Women just need information and only if they ask "what would you do" should a provider say one thing over another. Except in the case in which an abortion improves the medical condition of a woman or having an abortion presents extra risk because of unique circumstances. In that case there is a medical need to offer an opinion.

But I am not looking for doctors to help me figure out my life decisions. I don't think other woman are either.

[treemom]

In the U.S. are third trimester abortions even legal currently without a medical reason ?

I know availability and regulation varies greatly by state - but I didn't think there was any state where abortion was legal past the point of viability without a life of the mother/ fetal incompatibility-with-life type of situation ? Isn't that even what Roe v Wade states ?

What currently happens if someone has an abortion past the point of viability without a medical reason ?

yes-ish. You can probably acquire one in the handful of clinics that do them that late. Abortions are legal on demand in most states on the edge of viability although regulations may make them difficult to procure.

And no, roe v wade doesn't state that. It states that regulation at that point is level, but it does not put in place that regulation.

[treemom]

Wouldn't trying to expand rights, at least at this time, mean you would need the court to re-examine Roe v Wade, that seems like it would be a seriously risky move -and probably political suicide.

I know there are lots of people here saying that it should be entirely up to the woman until birth - but that is an incredibly extreme view I think. Even if you live in a liberal area with easy access - I don't think most people, even those who consider themselves very pro-choice are going to argue for elective abortion past viability. And in areas where people are arguing about the availability of very early abortion in the case of rape -- or to save the life of the mother with a tubal pregnancy - I can't imagine that there would be more than a handful of people who would agree with extending it past viability for non medical reasons.

the court does not need to re-examine rvw in order for states to make abortion laws less restrictive. Rvw defined what laws would be constitutional, but did not require the enactment of those laws. Additional cases have focused on further specifics and how they relate to rvw. But there is no official "abortion past this point is illegal" that the court handed down. In fact, they actually said abortion must be offered up to delivery but that it can be highly regulated.