Roe v Wade is on deck

[Emily Lake]

If personhood arguments are specious by nature, then "The facts remain: abortion laws kill people and benefit nobody (but lawyers)." is necessarily a specious argument. Don't make specious arguments. I got involved in this endlessly unresolvable worldview clash in the first place not because restricting access to abortion is important to me but because you were attacking a moderate Democrat with specious arguments, and that serves only to help turn the Democrats into a small-tent party that can't even beat a buffoon like Trump.

For clarity, I'm not a registered Democrat. I am and will likely always be registered Independent. Functionally and ideologically, I'm a classical liberal with a dose of socialism tossed in here and there.

 

[Emily Lake]

If it's not a consideration you think should be taken into account, stop raising the issue.

What needs to be taken into account is the specious nature of ”personhood” arguments for restricting access to abortion. Ignoring it doesn’t solve the problem.

I'm also not in the business of deciding what someone's rights are based on how much others value him.

What basis DO you use? You have obviously conferred rights of some sort upon fetuses, but the basis for that is not clear.

I would expect that it's something in the vicinity of "whatever makes me and those I support most powerful in the enforcement and promotion thereof."

Your expectation is supported by not a single thing that Bomb#20 has written, and seems to be something you've invented out of whole cloth.

 

[Emily Lake]

Let's simplify this.

At what point in time does a fetus's rights impose a legal liability on the woman?

At the point in time at which it's reasonably likely (75% or so) that a fetus delivered at that stage would survive and thrive. That's the point at which the difference between a prematurely delivered baby and a baby still inside it's oven is pretty much immaterial. Hence the commonly used term "viability", and why that stage of development was chosen.

 

[Emily Lake]

… seems to have conceded that the path of least harm is to allow the attending physician to make the decisions for which she formerly required the oversight of an “authority”, meaning legal authority, then morphed into requiring the assent of two doctors. Now her recommendation is consilient with my own, so I see no argument;

My view has not morphed one bit. You've just finally bothered to read for comprehension.

 

[Emily Lake]

I see no substantial difference in life value between a baby that will be delivered in 10 minutes versus a baby that was born 10 minutes ago and breathed, for example.

That’s part of my point. It’s a bad idea to base laws on opinions rather than facts. You stated your opinion. Others have other opinions, or we’d have no controversy. One SAFE opinion is held by a vast majority of PEOPLE: the baby that is crying is a baby. It is an opinion so widely held that one can justify calling it a fact.
A fetus to be delivered in ten minutes may or may not survive birth once “disconnected” biologically from the mother. But if they do, I know of nobody who will argue against its “personhood”.

The vast majority of people also believe that aborting a healthy fetus in the third trimester that doesn't pose any known risk to the mother is tantamount to murder. It's an opinion held so widely that we can justify calling it a fact.

That you personally don't hold that opinion makes you an outlier, not an expert.

I feel like we are arguing about whether women can drive cars and the discussion is about how people have used vehicles to kill people. For a person who "supports" abortion rights, you have spent an inordinate amount of time for the exclusions.

Why does this surprise you? I'm in absolute complete agreement for the first two trimesters, and I'm in agreement for the vast majority of cases that occur in the third. The only thing to argue about at all are the exclusions.

 

[Elixir]

The vast majority of people also believe that aborting a healthy fetus in the third trimester that doesn't pose any known risk to the mother is tantamount to murder.

So what? Theists claim that the majority of people believe in their skydaddy. The vast majority of people believe things that are not so.

… seems to have conceded that the path of least harm is to allow the attending physician to make the decisions for which she formerly required the oversight of an “authority”, meaning legal authority, then morphed into requiring the assent of two doctors. Now her recommendation is consilient with my own, so I see no argument;

My view has not morphed one bit.

Did you not demand 3rd part legal authorization, and also say your position was

THE DOCTOR HAS TO WRITE DOWN THE CONDITION THAT MAKES THE ABORTION MEDICALLY INDICATED IN THE PATIENT'S MEDICAL RECORD

???
Did you forget to include the cops in the all caps “position” you took above, or did you mistakenly require them before?

 

[Elixir]

Then you should be a fan of the objectively observable fact of biological autonomy, and accept it as a rational point at which to define legal “personhood” to avoid metaphysical nonsense getting involved in legal decisions.

A newborn isn't biologically autonomous. They're entirely dependent on other humans for their survival.

All humans are dependent on other humans for their survival. Just not directly biologically dependent.
Go ahead and pretend there's no distinction there.

At the point in time at which it's reasonably likely (75% or so) that a fetus delivered at that stage would survive and thrive

According to WHOSE analysis? You went from the law, to two doctors, to one doctor... are we back to two doctors, as was the stated case a few hours ago? Is there a reliable test for predicting likely survival of a fetus within one percentage point? You'd be okay at just 74%, but not at 75%? Why?
I believe 75% is 99.873% arbitrary, made up, pulled out of your nether regions, whatever. Prove me wrong. Show me the magic of 75%.

As I indicated previously, the two docs standard would be okay with me as long as there exceptions for emergencies where two doctors are not available to give approval. You seem dead determined to create some daylight between my position and yours, simply because you don't like my cold and calculating way of looking at it. The other word for that is "rational". I'm having a harder time seeing any real daylight though, now that you've left the government out of the approval process... or have you?

 

[laughing dog]

Let's simplify this.

At what point in time does a fetus's rights impose a legal liability on the woman?

At the point in time at which it's reasonably likely (75% or so) that a fetus delivered at that stage would survive and thrive. That's the point at which the difference between a prematurely delivered baby and a baby still inside it's oven is pretty much immaterial. Hence the commonly used term "viability", and why that stage of development was chosen.

And when that point changes (as it inexorably will)?

 

[ZiprHead]

Write your version of the restriction on late term abortions you would like to see enacted and takes into account the mother's life and all the ways it can be threatened.

Here you go.

I'm revising my approach, based on the most generous policies in a fair bit of Europe.

Here's my original proposal:
Unrestricted abortions on request prior to the 27th week of gestation; at 27 weeks or later, abortions are restricted to medically indicated terminations when the life or health of the mother is at risk or when the fetus has severe deleterious conditions. For third trimester abortions, the doctor performing the procedure is required to document the conditions and risks involved, and their records may be subject to audit.

Here's my revised proposal:
Unrestricted abortions on request prior to the 27th week of gestation; at 27 weeks or later, abortions are restricted to medically indicated terminations when the life or health of the mother is at risk or when the fetus has severe deleterious conditions. For third trimester abortions, signatures indicating agreement from two doctors are required to be included along with documentation of the conditions and risks involved. REcords may be subject to audit.

ETA: Be aware that the latest period for unrestricted abortions in Europe is 24 weeks.

Thank you.

 

[Jarhyn]

I recall something a coworker used as a metaphor for fruitless work.

He would say 'there's no juice left in that grape'. And then I would move on.

I would go so far as to say that if you try to juice a grape too vigorously, you will even crack the seeds and release bitter flavors into the wine.

This effort to further busy over regulating doctors is kind of like that: squeeze any harder and add criminal penalties and women will start dying from delay of care. This is the "bitterness".

But we have already squeezed the grape: the AMA and licensing requirements already question doctors whose conduct breaches professional standards of medical ethics.

So I have to ask, what business does anyone have unless their real intent of squeezing the mash until the seeds burst, unless their real intent is to spoil the wine?

 

[Elixir]

what business does anyone have unless their real intent of squeezing the mash until the seeds burst, unless their real intent is to spoil the wine?

The “children”. Think about the “children”.
You’re worried about grapes while there are doctors out there killing children for money!

This really reminds me of church. Nothing has to make sense. No consideration for the greater good of people because only the glory of god is worthy. And fetuses.

 

[Bomb#20]

There are at least three painfully obvious reasons a healthy woman might quite rationally seek to abort a healthy fetus late-term. (1) Seven months into a much-wanted pregnancy, she lost her medical insurance. (2) Seven months into a much-wanted pregnancy, the baby's father walked out on her, or went to prison, or died. (3) Seven months into a much-unwanted pregnancy, she was finally able to lay her hands on enough money to pay for an abortion and/or for travel to a state where it's still legal.

4) Seven months into a pregnancy she didn't want she managed to escape her abuser.

Yes, that too.

But all such cases are very rare and there's no indication that there are actual abortions from them. We have one paper listed--but in reading it it doesn't feel remotely like a normal research paper. And it used an inherently unverifiable data set.

Here's a paper recounting several actual third-trimester abortions not for the mother's health.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1363/psrh.12190

If the cited cases are representative, the takeaway is that the reasons for third-trimester abortions are pretty much the same as the reasons for late-second-trimester abortions. Fetal abnormalities were the most common reason, but a substantial fraction were for reason 3: difficulty raising the money. And a surprisingly high fraction were for reason

5) the mother didn't know she was pregnant.

 

[Bomb#20]

Okay, thanks for clarifying. Follow-up question: do you consider a preemie a person?

In virtually all cases yes.

And yet those exact same organisms, you would not consider to be persons, if they were enclosed by wombs instead of by ICU incubators, because then they would qualify for the "fetus" label, correct? What is it about the geometrical positioning of a womb that forestalls a different organism's personhood? And you accuse Emily of irrationality. What is your rationale for thinking personhood depends on an organism's environment rather than on its brain? Because from out here you look like you've fallen prey to a map-vs-territory fallacy.

There have been cases of families hauling dead (as in legally declared dead due to lack of brain function) people around to doctors trying to find one who could help them. Thus life processes in a human form are not sufficient to make a person.

Nobody here claimed life processes in a human form are sufficient to make a person. We all agree that fetuses without functional brains because of developmental defects or just not being far enough along in the pregnancy aren't people. So it's not clear why families too grief-stricken to accept death are relevant to the discussion, unless your point is to propose that the reason we keep a seven-month preemie alive in an ICU incubator, instead of just quietly euthanizing it and discarding it as a miscarriage, is that our culture is as irrational about preemies as those families are about their brain-dead loved ones. Was that your point?

 

[Elixir]

Nobody here claimed life processes in a human form are sufficient to make a person. We all agree that fetuses without functional brains because of developmental defects or just not being far enough along in the pregnancy aren't people.

How about semi functional brains? “Mostly functional” ones? How functional do you need them to be? What test of functionality do you propose? I suspect “none”.
Does failure to meet an arbitrary functionality threshold automatically relegated the fetus to non-personhood?

Such puffery is a distraction. All it reveals is that “personhood ” is ill defined, variable by interpretation and in no way a rational criterion for criminal legislation against abortion.

 

[Bomb#20]

Okay, thanks for clarifying. Follow-up question: do you consider a preemie a person?

In virtually all cases yes.

And yet those exact same organisms, you would not consider to be persons, if they were enclosed by wombs instead of by ICU incubators, because then they would qualify for the "fetus" label, correct? What is it about the geometrical positioning of a womb that forestalls a different organism's personhood? And you accuse Emily of irrationality. What is your rationale for thinking personhood depends on an organism's environment rather than on its brain? Because from out here you look like you've fallen prey to a map-vs-territory fallacy.

There have been cases of families hauling dead (as in legally declared dead due to lack of brain function) people around to doctors trying to find one who could help them. Thus life processes in a human form are not sufficient to make a person.

When the parasitic relationship has been broken, the baby is living by means other than by getting food and oxygen directly from the mother's metabolism... at that point I'd give it every benefit of the doubt, and provisionally call it a person.
I do NOT pick this time because I have some definition of personhood, or that I think something profoundly changes at the moment a cord is cut and a breath is taken (though it might), but because it is an identifiable moment in time that must come to pass, for a "person" to gain the attendant rights of a person.

Do you know what a "contrapositive" is?

"In general, for any statement where A implies B, not B always implies not A. As a result, proving or disproving either one of these statements automatically proves or disproves the other, as they are logically equivalent to each other."​

To ascribe rights to some being is to make a moral claim, a claim that some other being or beings ought not to violate those rights. So to say some event is a moment in time that must come to pass for some being to gain the attendant rights of a person is equivalent to saying that prior to that event, it is not the case that other beings ought not to violate the attendant rights of a person with respect to that being. You are, in effect, denying a moral claim. Let's call that moral claim "B". And on that denial, you are basing your claim that a preemie-age fetus is not a person. Let's call the claim made by Emily and myself, that a preemie-age fetus is a person, "A". So your above explanation amounts to "not B implies not A".

That's a contrapositive. It's logically equivalent to "A implies B". So your explanation amounts to "If a preemie-age fetus is a person, then other beings ought not to violate its rights." When we work through all the "not"s, you jumped from an "is" to an "ought". Show your work.

 

[Elixir]

So to say some event is a moment in time that must come to pass for some being to gain the attendant rights of a person is equivalent to saying that prior to that event, it is not the case that other beings ought not to violate the attendant rights of a person with respect to that being. You are, in effect, denying a moral claim. Let's call that moral claim "B". And on that denial, you are basing your claim that a preemie-age fetus is not a person. Let's call the claim made by Emily and myself, that a preemie-age fetus is a person, "A". So your above explanation amounts to "not B implies not A".

That's a contrapositive. It's logically equivalent to "A implies B". So your explanation amounts to "If a preemie-age fetus is a person, then other beings ought not to violate its rights." When we work through all the "not"s, you jumped from an "is" to an "ought"

Blah blah.

To ascribe rights to some being is to make a moral claim

That's why I don't do that here. I "ascribe" rights to people who are unarguably people.
I don't bother with your personhood "some being" bullshit for the very reasons you indulge. If you find reason to deny personhood to living, breathing biologically autonomous PEOPLE, go ahead and make your case. If your case involves degrading living breathing people to "fetus status" you might want to re-read what you wrote.
You could be 110% correct in your philosophical maunderings, or not. IMO they don't bear whatsoever, on the case for legal interference (enforced "oughts") in reproductive healthcare. WHY DO I HAVE TO KEEP SAYING THIS?

 

[Bomb#20]

...You are, in effect, denying a moral claim. ...

Blah blah.

To ascribe rights to some being is to make a moral claim

That's why I don't do that here.

I didn't say you do! Was there some part of the word "denying" that you didn't understand?

Am I wasting my breath here? Is venturing outside your intellectual comfort zone long enough to follow a chain of reasoning longer than one link so much to ask? You don't come off as too dumb to be reasoned with, but too lazy.

 

[Bomb#20]

Nobody here claimed life processes in a human form are sufficient to make a person. We all agree that fetuses without functional brains because of developmental defects or just not being far enough along in the pregnancy aren't people.

How about semi functional brains? “Mostly functional” ones?

What about them? I already stipulated that personhood is a continuum, not a binary. Fetuses with mostly functional brains are part way to becoming persons.

How functional do you need them to be? What test of functionality do you propose? I suspect “none”.

According to an NYU article,

https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2024/june/are-newborns-conscious.html#:~:text=There%20is%20still%20an%20open,is%20present%20before%20that%20time.

"There is still an open debate about consciousness during pregnancy. It is widely believed that consciousness requires a thalamocortical structure, and this system develops at around 26 weeks of pregnancy, so it is unlikely that consciousness is present before that time."​

Fetuses start trying to cry at about 28 weeks, and start having dreams at 28 to 30 weeks. Those all seem like plausible functionality tests to me, but feel free to propose better ones.

Does failure to meet an arbitrary functionality threshold automatically relegated the fetus to non-personhood?

Well, depends on the threshold. If you flunk the "does it have brainwaves" test, then yeah, you're a nonperson. If you flunk the "does it have a thalamocortical structure" test, that would presumably make you a semi-person with a semi-functional brain. But what is the point in pressing for so much precision in a continuum, when the answers can't matter to you since you feel:

Such puffery is a distraction. All it reveals is that “personhood ” is ill defined, variable by interpretation and in no way a rational criterion for criminal legislation against abortion.

If that's true, well, you should have thought of that when you decided to base your argument on personhood. I'm only talking about personhood because you started it. You're trying to have it both ways: personhood is too ill-defined when Emily uses it to say killing a 30-week fetus for no medical reason is murder but it's plenty well-defined enough when you use it to say third-term abortion restrictions benefit nobody.

The underlying problem here is that you're bucking for a harm-minimization approach in preference to the conventional rights-based approach, but making a case against abortion laws based on harm minimization depends on showing such laws' harm to pregnant women would exceed their benefit to fetuses, and that's hard work. So you're trying to get away with skipping that step, by making up an excuse for why we shouldn't bother trying to measure the benefit to fetuses, and instead should just all agree to define that benefit to be zero. You brought up personhood even though you think it's an irrational criterion because you're trying to evade burden of proof.

 

[Elixir]

personhood is a continuum, not a binary.

.. rendering it utterly useless as a basis for legislation.

"There is still an open debate

More reason to reject it.

you're bucking for a harm-minimization approach in preference to the conventional rights-based approach

I don’t know what makes you think vaporware is a “conventional” basis for healthcare decisions, but I think that’s silly.

harm minimization depends on showing such laws' harm to pregnant women would exceed their benefit to fetuses

There you go, equating fetuses with women. I have already stipulated to allowing that superstition, as long as you can measure the benefit to fetuses. But no takers.
I have provided quantitative stats on harm to women and repeatedly requested quantification of benefits to fetuses, to no avail. If you can’t do that, why consider it at all? If you are sincere, you should be loudly demanding stats on fetuses “saved” by abortion laws, before willingly paying a price in PEOPLE’s blood for those unevidenced “benefits”.

making up an excuse for why we shouldn't bother trying to measure the benefit to fetuses

BULLSHIT. Measure away. Don’t stand there saying I should forego a “least harm” approach in favor of an UNEVIDENCED benefit to fetuses. It’s not my job to find evidence for your argument.
Yes, I think it perverse to express willingness to trade a woman’s life for that of a fetus. I can put that down to my own cultural conditioning, but I can’t excuse sacrificing women’s lives and well being for NOTHING.
SHOW ME THE BENEFIT.
COMPARE IT TO THE HARM.
Or explain why it is “better” to apply your “rights-based” approach even if it causes more harm than benefit.

you should have thought of that when you decided to base your argument on personhood.

The ONLY argument I have made based on “personhood” is that such an amorphous value is useless as a basis for making laws or healthcare decisions, especially life and death ones.
You’re projecting. Earlier you decried my “least harm” approach, and now I’m making a “personhood” argument?
No dude, that’s YOU and your “fetal rights” fixation, which you call “conventional” to dress it up as acceptable.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What I personally believe is that there likely exists a circumstance where the scenario you so broadly described would in fact be the better choice.

Can you describe a hypothetical circumstance in which you think it would be ethical and appropriate to terminate a healthy third trimester fetus that presents no known health risk to the mother? I'm not asking for hard data, I'll be content with a ferinstance.

And that it is not MY choice or YOUR choice to decide. Nor is it lawmakers' choice to decide nor law enforcement's choice to make.

But it *is* the lawmaker's decision to make when it pertains to euthanasia, is it not? Providing guidelines for when it is allowable or defensible to deprive someone of life seems like a reasonable thing for lawmakers to do.

I don’t think it should be the law maker’s decision re: euthanasia. I’m not certain it is in every state.

Do you think that any person should be able to request medically assisted suicide for any reason? Or do you think it should be allowable only in certain situations?

Here's the thing that keeps getting conflated in this thread - it keeps getting framed as being "the lawmaker's decision" when in actuality, it's the doctor's decision, and the lawmaker is only setting the boundary conditions within which the doctor can make the decision.

And those boundary conditions exist because the lawmaker is literally defining an allowable exception to what would otherwise be considered murder.

There are two separate decisions involved:

1) Does the law permit doctors to do X.

2) Does the doctor feel that X is an acceptable response to the condition.

In most situations #1 pretty much is irrelevant. Acceptable medical practice is defined by consensus as evaluated by medical boards, the law is pretty much silent on it. And in situations where #1 is a relevant factor it's almost always due to trying to push religious morality. Furthermore, basically any such law exhibits camel's nose behavior, always trying to become more restrictive. What's so strange about us considering doctors a better source of medical ethics than politicians??