Commentator Cerberus makes a comment that is worth posting in full. Read on:
Excellent point Dean. To anyone who claims that a fetus is a full human life deserving of all of the same treatment as a born human, we should be asking them if they really truly mean that.If they believe that, would they:
- want to convict the mother and the physician with homicide with no chance of parole for 25 years (or, given that most pro-lifers are conservative, no parole at all or even execution). (If the analogy to homicide is to be carried through properly (showing how ridiculous the whole notion is), the woman is not merely consenting to the homicide but hiring a contract killer.)
- when a miscarriage occurs, should there be a full coroners enquiry and report at taxpayers expense?
- if it turned out that the mother's actions may have had some contribution to a miscarriage, should she be convicted with homicide, manslaughter or reckless endangerment?
- I have a cousin who went past term, went into the doctor on a Friday who said let's wait the weekend and schedule an induced delivery for Monday. The fetus was lifeless on Monday. Should the doctor be charged with a criminal offense (rather than just be investigated or sued for malpractice)?
Put the question this way, and you will find the little support for criminalizing abortion evaporate very quickly.
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4 comments:
Gawd, some prochoicers are as ridiculous as some prolifers.
Morning after pills (tho the safety of the drug may be an issue??) should be available, with physicians ok, to any women who asks for it.
Prolifers should ok with this, because, until implantation, there can be no life, implantation takes place aprox 8 days after fertilization (if I remember my biology correctly) and the MAP inhibits implantation (correct me if I am wrong).
Abortion should be illegal after 20 months. I believe that is the new earliest date at which the scientific community has said 'baby' can live on it's own. But that date would require alot of medical intervention. So prochoicers should settle for 22 months and be happy. Of course there would be special cases where the law would not apply, such as fetal death, mother's life in danger etc.
My understanding is there are not many (if any) late term abortions that wouldn't fall under 'special cases', so why prochoicers are so against any law is confusing...
let's get some laws on the books and shut up both these extreme groups.
Wilson: Your comment isn't even remotely responsive to Cerberus' comment. His point was if we're going to criminalize abortion, the penalty should apply equally to the woman as to the doctor.
Your rant about a reasonable time-frame for abortion has nothing to do with that. It's vaguely reasonable and I don't know if I'd disagree with you (except last I checked 20 months is a little long . . .), and I don't think many of the pro-choice crowd would say that there should be a point at which the option is cut off (with exceptions for life/health of mother, etc.) It's categorically false to say that ALL pro-choice people are "against any law." Most would happily settle for reasonable restrictions.
But then most anti-abortionists paint pictures of the pro-choice crowd wanting abortion available up to 8 months and 29 days. That's not the case.
And the suggestion that "let's get some laws on the books" is a little naive; the battle's been being fought for decades. Reason went out the window a long time ago.
Can we (at the very least) agree that an abortion is a tragedy...?
Steephil: Of course we can. I don't think anyone would dispute that. The anti-abortion crowd like to paint a picture of women gleefully walking in to get an abortion, treating it like they were going in for a check up, instead of making a serious decision that they've thought long and hard about.
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