Smasharoo wrote:
So now you're overturning Roe v. Wade? Can you construct an argument that actually recognizes the legal reality of the world we're living in today? Or is that too much to ask?
Is it too much to ask for me to modify my personal ethical standards based on US law? Yes, it's too much to ask. Was that even a vaguely serious question?
So your answer is "yes. I want to overturn Roe v. Wade, because it isn't sufficiently pro-abortion". Let's be honest here. Yes or No: Elective abortion should be legal right up to the moment of birth?
Smasharoo wrote:
Ever? How about after 22 weeks, which is the current legal standard in the US. WTF?
What the fuck are you talking about? Do you understand abortion law *at all*?
Yes. Do you? The legal standard set in Roe v. Wade (which I recall quoting at length in a recent thread) clearly allows for restriction of abortion past the point at which it is possible under existing medical science for the fetus to live outside the mother. The rationale is clearly based on the idea that any abortion at that point could be replaced with a removal of a live fetus instead, and unless there are significant health effect deltas between the two (which obviously includes emergency procedures to save the life of the mother), the arguments for abortion based on a woman's rights to control
her own body, no longer apply.
In fact, in Roe v. Wade the entire argument for allowing or disallowing abortion is based on statistical health outcomes, and *not* some kind of absolute right. If current medical science means that an abortion procedure will result in fewer statistical health problems than bringing a pregnancy to term, then denying an abortion to a women is the state imposing harm on the women (by preventing her from making a health decision). The choice to abort isn't the right. It's the right to not be forced to make a choice that will result in greater statistical harm to oneself.
The abortion position has gained over time because as the medical procedures themselves have improved, the risk of health harm from the abortion itself is much smaller than the risk of health harm from carrying a pregnancy to term. But it's important to understand that this is what the "right" rests on. If at some point in the future medical science improved to the point where there was less risk of health harm carrying a pregnancy to term than having an abortion, Roe v. Wade would no longer prohibit restrictions on abortions.
The 22 weeks statement comes because currently most states use that as the point at which the odds of a fetus surviving out of the womb are sufficiently high as to allow for restriction of abortions past that point (point of potential viability). To be fair, some states use 24 weeks instead. The point is that your claim that no one has ever defined this is incorrect. While the precise number may vary (slightly), there very clearly is a point in time and no one's really that far out of agreement over when it occurs.
If you want to claim victory over whether or not 22 weeks is a "national standard", by all means, go ahead. Doesn't change the fact that your original statement to which I was responding was completely incorrect. We absolutely can (and do) set a time period at which the right (interest technically) of a glob of human cells to live outweigh the rights of the human who's body they are currently living in. I get that you don't want this to be true, but that is currently the legal truth.
Edited, Jun 12th 2014 7:30pm by gbaji