Heart, I know this wouldn't happen in real life, but I am going to pose a scenario to better understand where you are coming from.

Lets say that a woman goes to the hospital on her due date because she starts to feel contractions. While at the hospital something tragic happens ( loss of all finances, husband dies on way to the hospital) so she doesn't want to have the baby anymore. Would you say that as long as the baby is killed before it exits the mothers body, that it should still be allowed?
I know this is a super far pitched scenario but I want to make sure I understand 100% what you are trying to say in this debate.

That's very close to the scenario I proposed. So... again... one week til due date, baby/fetus is full-term, or due date arrives or even passes... the pregnant woman can decide to abort, no matter the reason? No matter whether the baby/fetus is healthy? What if there isn't even a 'big' reason, what if she simply changes her mind and says naaa, I'd rather not?

D4J, I was typing my comment to Heart and I see that you guys already took care of the question. Things are moving super fast today, and I am not keeping up!

It's ok, I still kinda want to get further clarification because what I read is that it should be legal to abort a full-term healthy fetus if the pregnant woman wants to for whatever reason.

I vote yes to both scenarios recently presented. Fully support any woman's choice to have or not have a child at any time during her pregnancy. Any situation you'd like to throw at me and my answer is the same. I support women's rights to full choice.

I don't really get all hyped up about the abortion debate. What I do wonder about is the doctors who perform abortions. Let's say it was legal to get an abortion anytime, I think you would still be hard pressed finding a doctor to perform the abortion. I consider myself pro choice, and I can't say what I would do if put in any certain situations with my own pregnancy... but if I were a doctor I don't think I could do it. I am sure there are doctors who would, my point is that there might not be many of them.

D4j and Jazzy -

Yes, I believe it should legal to abort a fetus for whatever reason, period end of subject, during any stage of the pregnancy, full stop. I don't like it when the government and laws start interfering with a woman's right to choose. Lawyers and politicians tend to put road blocks where there shouldn't be when it comes to medicine, imo.

That said, morally I don't condone it and know that there would be a LOT of conversations at the hospital if a pregnant woman actually requested an abortion of a healthy fetus in her healthy womb for no medical reason at the end of the pregnancy. I'm quite certain it would go to the hospital's ethics committee. In the end, I'm fairly certain the ethics committee would override the pregnant woman's wishes and agree to end her pregnancy (what she wanted), but not abort the fetus (aka they'd agree to do a c-section or induce labor but keep the fetus-->baby alive and assist in adoption and placement of the newborn).

imadanseur wrote:

I vote yes to both scenarios recently presented. Fully support any woman's choice to have or not have a child at any time during her pregnancy. Any situation you'd like to throw at me and my answer is the same. I support women's rights to full choice.

Same response with me. Though if a woman is actively laboring, I do not think an abortion would be permissible. You still will have to go through the legal process of requesting an abortion and unless that is a very long labor, the baby is going to be out by the time the paperwork is signed. Even then I think that if you suddenly lost all your finances or your husband died, no medical doctor or attorney is going to allow you to terminate a pregnancy right then and there because you would not be of sound mind. If you are actively laboring and just went through some crazy trauma, no, you would not be able to make the decision to terminate a pregnancy. Even I can see that.

At any point before natural active labor - yes, abortion should be legal.

~~

DefyingGravity wrote:

That said, morally I don't condone it and know that there would be a LOT of conversations at the hospital if a pregnant woman actually requested an abortion of a healthy fetus in her healthy womb for no medical reason at the end of the pregnancy. I'm quite certain it would go to the hospital's ethics committee. In the end, I'm fairly certain the ethics committee would override the pregnant woman's wishes and agree to end her pregnancy (what she wanted), but not abort the fetus (aka they'd agree to do a c-section or induce labor but keep the fetus-->baby alive and assist in adoption and placement of the newborn).

No, if late-term abortions were legal at any point in the pregnancy, a hospital would not be ALLOWED to force a woman to go to an ethics committee to defend her choice. That would go to court in a heartbeat because it would be an undue burden. Again, women have the RIGHT to obtain an abortion and do not have to defend their reason to do so to anyone, let alone a committee of doctors who would then force her to give birth to the child. That would be crazy, crazy illegal.

It is perhaps a likely scenario, but that would be in the federal Supreme Court so fast it'd make your head spin. And they would rule in favor of the woman. Just because an ethics committee forces you into giving birth doesn't make it any more legal than anyone else on the planet forcing you into giving birth.

Heart wrote:

No, if late-term abortions were legal at any point in the pregnancy, a hospital would not be ALLOWED to force a woman to go to an ethics committee to defend her choice. That would go to court in a heartbeat because it would be an undue burden.

Just because it's legal for a woman to get a late-term abortion doesn't mean a medical center/hospital has to perform the elective procedure without questioning the request. If she wanted to get the procedure done at that facility, then YES, she would go through the ethics committee. That's a simple fact. An ethics committee is not illegal. They exist at every academic medical center I have been to. All it takes is one call by one healthcare provider and they open an investigation. Even people with power of attorney over a patient get sent to the committee who questions their decisions. We've sent patients to the ethics committee who are requesting stomach stapling if we don't think it's in their best interest. If they don't want to go through the committee, they simply go elsewhere. Legally the pregnant woman (or POA or person requesting stapling in my examples) have the right to make a decision, but if it's not ethical in the eyes of the committee then they put a stop to it. The woman would have a right to go somewhere else if she didn't like the options presented to her. She would have the CHOICE to be induced, get a c-section, go elsewhere, or *maybe* they would allow her to get the elective procedure done at their facility (though if it got out, the press would have a field day...).

DefyingGravity wrote:

Heart wrote:

No, if late-term abortions were legal at any point in the pregnancy, a hospital would not be ALLOWED to force a woman to go to an ethics committee to defend her choice. That would go to court in a heartbeat because it would be an undue burden.

Just because it's legal for a woman to get a late-term abortion doesn't mean a medical center/hospital has to perform the elective procedure without questioning the request. If she wanted to get the procedure done at that facility, then YES, she would go through the ethics committee. That's a simple fact. An ethics committee is not illegal. They exist at every academic medical center I have been to. All it takes is one call by one healthcare provider and they open an investigation. Even people with power of attorney over a patient get sent to the committee who questions their decisions. We've sent patients to the ethics committee who are requesting stomach stapling if we don't think it's in their best interest. If they don't want to go through the committee, they simply go elsewhere. Legally the pregnant woman (or POA or person requesting stapling in my examples) have the right to make a decision, but if it's not ethical in the eyes of the committee then they put a stop to it. The woman would have a right to go somewhere else if she didn't like the options presented to her. She would have the CHOICE to be induced, get a c-section, go elsewhere, or *maybe* they would allow her to get the elective procedure done at their facility (though if it got out, the press would have a field day...).

Comes down to undue burden.

d4j wrote:

What if there isn't even a 'big' reason, what if she simply changes her mind and says naaa, I'd rather not?

Then we've got WAY bigger problems to worry about than whether or not abortion is legal.

Heart wrote:

Comes down to undue burden.

Well then I advise you to become a lawyer if you're so certain you have a case, because our ethics committee is sued often by pissed off patients and families and we don't lose. If you could prove this "undue burden" stuff, which many lawyers have tried before, you'd be a millionaire.

/end hijack.

I think that I know what's good for me better than anyone else does, and I especially find it doubtful that the government knows what's better for my health and safety in specific in all instances than my doctors and I do. The government and society shouldn't get to decide if a woman should be pregnant or shouldn't be pregnant, because A) how arrogant is it to assume that they know best? and B) our right to abortion care derives from our constitutionally implied right to privacy. That right to privacy means that a woman's uterus is not public property but private property. It's hers. It doesn't matter if she's a nine year old who's been raped by her father or a thirty year old mother who has an aggressive form of cancer or a twenty year old who's in college or a forty four year old who already has all of the children she wants. The right to privacy trumps your feelings.

I'm also against any restrictions on abortion. For abortion in general, one of the best analogies is organ donation, especially since pregnancy is essentially temporary multiple organ/body donation. It's very common for people to lose perspective on the issue of abortion because entrenched, internalized cultural misogyny dictates that womens' bodies exist mostly for the benefit of others, and that the wishes of a given woman for her body can and should be overridden by the wishes of other people. Shifting the analogy helps rid us of this kind of insidious prejudice. So, while not a perfect analogy, here are some reasonable parallels:

If someone signs up to be an organ donor, no matter for what reason, they are always entitled to decline to donate - even at the cost of someone else's wellbeing and very life.
Similarly, if someone with a uterus happens to have potentially procreative sex, she is under no obligation to sustain a pregnancy. Sex is, in and of itself, not "consent" for pregnancy in the same sense that signing up as a potential bone marrow donor is consent to have your marrow removed. You consented to have them send you mail, not show up and aspirate your marrow. Folks who aren't trying to get pregnant are consenting to sex, not pregnancy - and in the event that a pregnancy occurs, they have the sole and inalienable right to decide whether or not they consent to sustaining it.

If someone agrees to make a specific bodily resource donation, they can still back out anytime they wish, even if it costs a life. Even if someone is in the process of donating something, even if they are on the operating table (assuming it's a process where they remain conscious), they have every, uncontested right to say stop, I am no longer willing to do this. Even if that donor's donations have kept someone else alive for a period of time. Even if the medical preparations undergone by the prospective recipient are such that she or he will die (and would not otherwise have died immediately) if the donation is not completed. Professional transplant ethicists are very careful about this. We simply have no right to hijack another person's body, even if it would lead to benefit for others.

A pregnant woman's body and organs are being used as vital support and nourishment by another entity: it is a constant donation over a period of nine months. Just like any other person donating their physical resources, she is entitled to opt out and stop the process at any time.

Another thing to consider is the fact that placing restrictions on abortion in general can lead to an increase in late-term abortions. When people are forced to deal with mandatory waiting periods, huge expenses due to the discriminatory lack of coverage by many insurance plans, or travel long distances (often out of state, sometimes out of country), the abortion that was going to happen anyway will happen later in the pregnancy. I imagine even most people with an anti-choice position would prefer to see abortions, if they are going to occur (and make no mistake, they always have and always will), happen earlier in the pregnancy. It would therefore be wisest for those not in support of late-term abortion to oppose abortion restrictions that make early abortions harder to obtain and hence late term abortions more common.

No, I do not think it should be legal. Then again, I'm against abortion period.

love,
DanceDynamic

d4j - sorry it's a bit late. I can only talk about how I FEEL, but I guess laws aren't supposed to based on how people feel. PERSONALLY I would always abide by the current legal limits for abortion in my country. The only reason I would abort past that would be the reason we previously discussed, or if I was running the risk of death by carrying the child. I'm not going to leave my husband a widow and my kid motherless, it's just not going to happen. PERSONALLY I like to think I'd've made up my mind whether I wanted the kid or not after a couple of weeks tops, and hopefully I wouldn't find myself in a situation where as I'm going into labour I'm thinking "nahhh, can't be bothered with this actually." That's how I feel. But I don't presume to speak for all women. I wouldn't fight FOR their right to have abortions the day before due date, but I wouldn't fight against it either. It's got absolutely nothing to do with me. Laws are there to be decided by greater minds than me...I can only tell you what I'd do within those laws.

DefyingGravity wrote:

The woman would have a right to go somewhere else if she didn't like the options presented to her. She would have the CHOICE to be induced, get a c-section, go elsewhere, or *maybe* they would allow her to get the elective procedure done at their facility (though if it got out, the press would have a field day...).

This is sort of what I was touching on before. I can't fathom seeing all that many doctors offering to perform a very late abortion. So what I am trying to understand, Heart, is if you are saying that if hypothetically it were legal, that doctors should then be required to perform the abortion? That sort of rubs me the wrong way. Many doctors do what they can to uphold their morals. I am sure that some doctors would offer the abortion, but the pregnant woman would need to go to them, not demand that any doctor she happens to be seeing perform the abortion.

Doctors are not required to perform abortions now even. If I were to become an OB-GYN, I would be under no requirement to perform an elective abortion, unless I wanted to. This is actually a big problem, because training doctors who are willing to provide abortions really isn't on medical school's priority lists so there a huge shortage of doctors willing to provide elective abortions. I think it would extremely difficult to find a doctor willing to provide such a late-term abortion. Many doctors providing abortions at ANY stage are already subject to much discrimination. Props to them for standing up for what they believe in.

hooray4jj wrote:

DefyingGravity wrote:

The woman would have a right to go somewhere else if she didn't like the options presented to her. She would have the CHOICE to be induced, get a c-section, go elsewhere, or *maybe* they would allow her to get the elective procedure done at their facility (though if it got out, the press would have a field day...).

This is sort of what I was touching on before. I can't fathom seeing all that many doctors offering to perform a very late abortion. So what I am trying to understand, Heart, is if you are saying that if hypothetically it were legal, that doctors should then be required to perform the abortion? That sort of rubs me the wrong way. Many doctors do what they can to uphold their morals. I am sure that some doctors would offer the abortion, but the pregnant woman would need to go to them, not demand that any doctor she happens to be seeing perform the abortion.

Honestly, it gets technical and I'm not feeling well so I'm not going to be able to get to this tonight, maybe tomorrow if I'm feeling better. It gets really technical and I think I might have been wrong because Roe v. Wade was strict scrutiny (which is an even higher standard, meaning the Court is more likely to rule in favor of the woman; other cases have used undue burden though). A private organization can technically refuse but if it gets to the point where the woman is de facto being denied a fundamental right the court will of course step in. And in this hypothetical scenario, late-term abortion would be a right, so if she were not able to find any doctor willing to perform the procedure the Court would have to step in. It's not so much that the hospital doesn't have the right to refuse but when it gets to the point that the refusal causes the procedure to be de facto outlawed that it's not okay. Think of it in terms of a pharmacist refusing to dispense Plan B or birth control. If there is another pharmacy available, it's not a big deal; but if that's the only pharmacist there is, then it becomes a problem. The woman's fundamental right to get the procedure would outweigh the hospital's right to refuse and desire to cover its own butt.

Update: conferred with 2L law student friend. He informed me that I am wrong and that courts have consistently ruled that doctors have to adhere to their ethics and can't be forced to do anything. Quote, "so if she can't find anyone to perform the procedure, too bad."
"So then she gets a coat hanger and pokes it out?"
"Exactly."

However, he also thought that late-term abortions were outlawed everywhere, which they definitely aren't. (Almost all states have provisions for the health of the mother, which allows for some comfortable wiggle room. What I was looking at made it seem like there were 2 states with no restrictions, but I'm not sure.) He also told me that Con Law was "boring" (SACRILEGE!) and that today he was doing some online shopping in class. (What IS interesting? "Tax law... it involves money." IKR!)

So yeah, my apologies for getting that wrong. The undue burden is for legislation but not individual doctor ethics.

I am always amazing at the amount of people who agree with abortion. I don't think it should allowed, at any stage, unless the baby or mother are high risk. With high risk, I strongly agree with it. I don't think an unborn baby should be allowed to greatly harm or kill the mother, and I don't think we need to bring babies into this world who are going to have an incredibly hard life.

I mostly disagree with abortion (with some, but not many exceptions) because of the amount of options women have. Don't want babies? Use protection, tie your tubes or don't have sex. Condom break? Use the morning after pill. Still pregnant? Own up to your irresponsibility and have the child and give it to one of the massive amounts of people who want babies but can't have them. Heck, you can even get paid to have that baby!

I guess I just don't get it. All, and I mean ALL, of the people I know who have had abortions pretty much use it as contraception. I think this is most often the case, and is just wrong. Again, I'm not saying this is always the case with everyone or there aren't legitimate needs for abortion. The right is often abused.

^ Protection sometimes fails. Doctors will not tie a woman's tubes unless she already has children because they don't think that any woman *really* doesn't want children. They all think they'll change their minds and sue or something. Don't have sex? Right, spoken like a virgin.

Having an abortion is one way of facing up to your responsibilities. IMO it's actually more irresponsible to have an unwanted kid and dump it on the government to look after. For every couple out there that's desperate for a baby, there are probably 2 children who will never be adopted.

Do us a favour and toss your rose-coloured glasses in a fire.

Virgin? Lol, hardly. I'm actually one of those people who had at first an unwanted pregnancy. I was 22, and had broken up with the father and had a pretty serious falling out. It was my irresponsibility, and my lack of forthought that got me there. My daughter is 11, and the light of my life. There are a lot if un-adopted children - not BABIES. People want a baby, not the kid that was already partially raised by someone that obviosly had a hard lifeif they can't keep their kid.
Is it really nessessary to get nasty just because someone has a different opinion than you? I wasn't being hostile about my opinion. You can disagree without psuedo-insults.

^This isn't a debate about whether abortion should be legal at all, it's a debate about whether it should be legal in the 3rd trimester because the baby, in most cases, will be viable with proper healthcare.

What you're talking about just plain isn't applicable to this conversation. It's like if you're asked if you like black or white better and you say "well, actually... Red is the way to go because X Y and Z...". That may be what you believe, but that's not what was asked.

This has been a great debate with a lot of different perspectives and it'd be a shame to turn it into a dead-horse-beating debate over whether abortion in general should be legal.