Roe v Wade is on deck

[Emily Lake]

There's no certainty for a neonate in the NICU either. Or even for an apparently healthy full-term infant at home asleep in a crib.

Not to mention million dollar hospital bills for months of neonatal ICU care. That's the kind of thing that totally destroys families.

Zipr in on the "kill the premies" side of the argument, I guess?

 

[Elixir]

There's no certainty for a neonate in the NICU either. Or even for an apparently healthy full-term infant at home asleep in a crib.

Not to mention million dollar hospital bills for months of neonatal ICU care. That's the kind of thing that totally destroys families.

Zipr in on the "kill the premies" side of the argument, I guess?

For someone who never stops complaining that their "position" is being misrepresented, you sure have a solid habit of misrepresenting others' positions. One might almost suspect that all that protest is just projection.

 

[bilby]

There's no certainty for a neonate in the NICU either. Or even for an apparently healthy full-term infant at home asleep in a crib.

Not to mention million dollar hospital bills for months of neonatal ICU care. That's the kind of thing that totally destroys families.

Zipr in on the "kill the premies" side of the argument, I guess?

I see that more as a "Universal healthcare now, like the rest of the civilised world already has" argument.

Months of neonatal ICU care over here has zero financial impact on any family.

 

[Elixir]

I believe that at some point in the pregnancy, it's not 'just a fetus' but is a baby

When, Emily? WHEN does a fetus become a baby?

 

[Emily Lake]

Ok: A fetus is not a separate person until it is born and separate from the mother’s body,

In any pregnancy which is intended to be carried until term ( or as close as possible) any medical intervention or care plan for mother or fetus affects both and is designed and delivered with that fact in mind.

I'm going to restate this from my perspective. Please correct where I've gone wrong.

"If the mother decides at week 38 that she doesn't intend to carry to full term, then the fetus isn't a person at all and it's perfectly fine to terminate it. On the other hand, if the mother intends to carry to full term, but goes into premature labor at week 30, it's a person, and termination would be murder."

What happens if the mother doesn't intend to carry to term, but ends up going into premature labor at week 28, and the infant gets delivered via c-section? Is it a person, because it's been born and is separate from the mother's body... or is it not a person since she didn't *intend* to carry it to term?

 

[Emily Lake]

A doctor who does that should be subject to civil penalties IMHO.

So why the fuck are you arguing with me about this?

 

[bilby]

I believe that at some point in the pregnancy, it's not 'just a fetus' but is a baby

When, Emily? WHEN does a fetus become a baby?

To be fair, she has already said that she doesn't and cannot know - just that it's not one at conception, but is one by the time it is born.

It's like this:



You can't draw an objective single line separating the red from the blue, but there's no doubt that the beginning is not the same as the end.

To me, this is as good an argument as any for letting each mother draw the line where she chooses, without interference from the law.

Emily seems to like the idea of having a law, but seems incapable of articulating a reason for this, particularly given the absence of a boundary that would make a sane basis for any such law.

 

[Elixir]

I believe that at some point in the pregnancy, it's not 'just a fetus' but is a baby

When, Emily? WHEN does a fetus become a baby?*
What are the medical indicia that would allow a positive determination by a medical professional, that a given fetus at a given moment is or is not a baby?
You SEEM TO BE (don't want to ascribe any actual position, because it wouldn't be yours of course) advocating for some subjective opinion to be rendered and automatically become the determinant about reproductive care. Whose opinion would that be?

* I don't pretend to know. For medical, ethical and legal purposes I advocate using biological autonomy, which can be positively determined, as the determinant. If you can't come up with something more reliable and quickly determinable, your opinion probably deserves respect just because you're a human with obvious intelligence. But I don't see any good, in letting an third party's opinion make other people's reproductive decisions for them, at least generally speaking.

A doctor who does that should be subject to civil penalties IMHO.

So why the fuck are you arguing with me about this?

For the twentieth time:
BECAUSE WHAT YOU ADVOCATE (RvW)
A: KEEPS THE COURTS IN THE DELIVERY ROOM/OR, AND
B: CAUSES AN INEVITABLE 24-48 HOUR DELAY IN CARE THAT IS KNOWN TO KILL PEOPLE

Mostly for me, it's that first one as far as what I think is is "the right thing".
But the tragedy and pain caused by political interference makes my blood boil.
Forget about it Emily. Neither what you want nor what I want is in the cards right now.
I'm sick of iterating my case over and over while getting nothing back.

 

[pood]

Borges had a nice story about a bunch of columns gradually turning from blue to orange, but the transitions were so subtle they were nearly impossible to distinguish. I’ll have to look that up, I read it many years ago.

 

[Emily Lake]

A doctor who does what? Aborts a healthy late-term fetus when its healthy mother pays her to?

If she can find one still practicing, I guess so.
If the doc bears personal civil liability for needless late term abortions, it might weed out the few who would do it “just for the money”.
I think this hypothetical woman is crazy, drugged, depressed or otherwise impaired. No doctor with any decency would cater to her in the first place.

JFC - They DO practice, they DO perform them. Not often, but they DO happen! These doctors DO exist!

Look, take a step back here. If I were to support your approach, there would be no grounds on which such a doctor would be subject to any civil liability at all, ever. None. There would be absolutely no means by which to even attempt a suit - because you have specifically taken the approach that any abortion is always a woman's right no matter the circumstances, no matter how far along.

My approach allows for those suits to happen.

You keep mischaracterizing my position, often in blatant contradiction to what I've explicitly said. For example, you just keep insisting that somehow my approach requires a woman to *get permission from politicians*. What I have actually said is that for a later term abortion, a doctor would be expected to document the medical reasons supporting the procedure - just like they do for any other medical procedure. And "Well, she wanted it" wouldn't be considered sufficient reason, which would leave that doctor liable for malpractice at the least.

 

[Emily Lake]

The justification for killing a fish or a cow is that they're food which we have evolved to eat.

So are other humans.

For Papua New Guineans perhaps, but for the vast majority not so much.

Ya get them hungry enough and that majority, if it still exists, won’t be so vast.

We didn't *evolve* to eat other humans.

 

[Emily Lake]

Of course you casually dismiss the real life consequences of premature births on the child and the child’s family. You are pretty patronizing to me at the beginning of your post.

I wrote about real life, albeit very mild consequences for premature births or just pregnancy and childbirth. You can casually dismiss the real life consequences saying ‘most’ premature babies don’t need NICU as though the 40% who do is somehow trivial or without any discussion of exactly what interventions are required to allow premise to grow large enough to go home to their families, the number of medical issues, long term and short term faced by the infants —and their families. Or what kind of interventions are performed that are less intensive than NICU, or the cost involved.

Only a small portion of parents have paid parental leave. I’ve heard intelligent, well educated women hope that they would need a c-section because they’d have longer maternity leave.

1) What on earth makes you think I've casually dismissed the consequences of premature birth?
2) What makes you think I believe premature births are trivial?
3) What does parental leave have to do with any of this discussion?
and...
4) Do you feel that the fact that some premature births need NICU and it's tough on them and their families *supports* the idea that premies should just be killed instead?

You're accusing me of being dismissive of premies, and you've no reason at all to do so. You've taken my actual posts, you've personified them based on your personal experiences and the emotional toll those took on you, and then you're extrapolating to an entirely different discussion altogether. If you'd like to discuss the challenges of having a premie, and what's involved in a neonate stay, I'm happy to do so - elsewhere. But unless you're taking the position that premature births being expensive and difficult is a reason to support killing premies... I honestly don't know why you're bringing this up.

Where have I suggested that premies should be killed?

That's kind of my point, Toni. The challenges involved in a premature birth have no bearing whatsoever on a discussion of whether or not abortions should only be available in a limited capacity late in gestation.

 

[Emily Lake]

are fetuses that are 3 months old now people?

If your elected official sez they’re “viable” then they are people in Emilyworld.
If the doctor disagrees and acts on their professional opinion, they may be jailed.
That’s fucked up.

What's fucked up is your unrelenting willingness to mischaracterize my position.

that would be like assigning a shape to silly putty.
Your ”position” changes every time its flaws are identified.
There is no position of yours that holds up to scrutiny. “That’s not my position” can only get you so far.

My position has been very consistent from start to finish.

Here, how about you elaborate on what exactly you think I've changed my tune on, and provide supporting evidence for your claims?

 

[bilby]

The justification for killing a fish or a cow is that they're food which we have evolved to eat.

So are other humans.

For Papua New Guineans perhaps, but for the vast majority not so much.

Ya get them hungry enough and that majority, if it still exists, won’t be so vast.

We didn't *evolve* to eat other humans.

We didn't *evolve* to eat any specific species of animal or plant.

Evolution doesn't work like that. Populations evolve to survive and reproduce. They don't evolve to do anything else, the things they end up doing well are just niches in the entire probability space explored by evolution.

Evolution sets and respects no moral boundaries. Appealing to evolution to determine whether or not it is OK to eat something is meaningless, unless you are simply looking at whether one can survive the event.

All fungi are edible, but some are only edible once.

 

[Emily Lake]

There's no certainty for a neonate in the NICU either. Or even for an apparently healthy full-term infant at home asleep in a crib.

Not to mention million dollar hospital bills for months of neonatal ICU care. That's the kind of thing that totally destroys families.

Zipr in on the "kill the premies" side of the argument, I guess?

For someone who never stops complaining that their "position" is being misrepresented, you sure have a solid habit of misrepresenting others' positions. One might almost suspect that all that protest is just projection.

Alternatively, if you use your thinky-brain, you might catch on to me poking a bit of fun at a topic that is entirely irrelevant to this discussion.

 

[Emily Lake]

There's no certainty for a neonate in the NICU either. Or even for an apparently healthy full-term infant at home asleep in a crib.

Not to mention million dollar hospital bills for months of neonatal ICU care. That's the kind of thing that totally destroys families.

Zipr in on the "kill the premies" side of the argument, I guess?

I see that more as a "Universal healthcare now, like the rest of the civilised world already has" argument.

Months of neonatal ICU care over here has zero financial impact on any family.

Fair point

 

[Emily Lake]

I believe that at some point in the pregnancy, it's not 'just a fetus' but is a baby

When, Emily? WHEN does a fetus become a baby?

How many facial hairs does it take to make a beard?

The reason is that it's the best, most reasonable balance point I can find. I refuse to fall victim to the heap fallacy. Early in the pregnancy, a fetus is a collection of cells that has the potential to become human, but isn't there yet. Late in the pregnancy, it's not just a fetus, it's a baby - and as such, there ought to be very good medically necessary reasons to terminate it. There's not some dictate handed down from a mythical sky daddy to say when it changes from a pre-human to a human. It's a bit of a range. Viability seems to be a pragmatic place to draw the line.

If you'd like to discuss exactly when that line should be drawn, I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is the idea that no line can ever be drawn - and that includes both sides of this debate. I am not supportive of no line because it's a baby from conception. I'm also not supportive of no line because it's never anything more than a parasite until it is magically granted personhood by the doctor's hands or the magical essence of mommy's vagina.

 

[Elixir]

IF A WOMAN'S LIFE OR HEALTH IS THREATENED THEN TERMINATE THE PREGNANCY

Why do you keep pretending someone says you disagree with that?
The problem is
WHO SAYS IT'S THREATENED, and HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?

Why can't you re-state your position in a line or few, as I did mine above?

 

[Emily Lake]

I believe that at some point in the pregnancy, it's not 'just a fetus' but is a baby

When, Emily? WHEN does a fetus become a baby?

To be fair, she has already said that she doesn't and cannot know - just that it's not one at conception, but is one by the time it is born.

It's like this:

View attachment 49683

You can't draw an objective single line separating the red from the blue, but there's no doubt that the beginning is not the same as the end.

Good illustration.

To me, this is as good an argument as any for letting each mother draw the line where she chooses, without interference from the law.

Emily seems to like the idea of having a law, but seems incapable of articulating a reason for this, particularly given the absence of a boundary that would make a sane basis for any such law.

The reason for it, as I have articulated several times, is that at some point in the pregnancy, it's no longer a fetus but a baby, and at that point you are murdering an infant.

You might not *agree* with my reason, but to claim that I'm incapable of articulating the reason that I've repeatedly articulated in very clear language is absurd.

As far as a boundary that makes a sane basis for a law... "About the same time that a prematurely delivered baby would be given treatment to save and maintain its life" seem like a pretty sane basis.

You might not *agree* with where I've set the boundary, but to claim that one does not exist is disingenuous.

If

 

[Elixir]

Not often, but they DO happen! These doctors DO exist!

So *yawn* how many dead women are you willing to trade per fetus saved? Or, how many confirmed "saves" (abortions that never happened solely because of their illegality, and resulted instead in a live birth) do you need to justify the death of one woman whose care was delayed or denied? These considerations should be paramount in the enacting of laws. Criminal laws have NO place in the game, IMO, and nobody in all these discussions has offer any evidence that they have ever produced improved outcomes.