Roe v Wade is on deck

[Loren Pechtel]

I genuinely don't mind having my views challenged, and having people disagree with my views and perspective. What I am infuriated by is people who continue to ignore my views - regardless of how many times I've stated them clearly and explicitly - in order to argue against something I haven't said and don't support... and use that strawman to berate me with. Which has happened a lot in this thread.

You keep complaining about people ignoring you views--yet I do not recall any response to the numerous challenges pointing out that you seem focused on solving a non-problem. This looks very much like Texas--abortion is permitted to save the woman's life (but you had better understand that there is no such case.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There's this thing called adoption, it's been around pretty much forever. Even animals have been known to adopt and rear someone else's offspring.

So you believe in forced carrying to term.

In the third trimester, when there's no fetal defect and no known risk to the mother, yes I do. Are you just catching on to this now?

No, I just thought such a position is the province of nutjob religionists and dystopian science fiction.

Meh. I think it's the province of nutjob hardliners and dystopian carelessness to kill viable and healthy fetuses for no good goddamned reason, so I suppose that makes us equal on this.

Realistically... you can view it as nutjob and dystopian, but the overwhelming majority of woman support the same view I hold. Because once you step outside the realm of philosophical academic discourse, just about everyone acknowledges that a fetus in the third trimester is a baby. And pretty much everyone would agree that if someone forcibly killed that baby against the mother's will, it should be treated as murder. And while it might suck for some people sometimes, you can't have it both ways - it can't be murder if it's against your will and healthcare if it is your will.

I see nobody arguing for killing viable and healthy fetuses for no good reason. Rather, I see a lot of us who do not trust the politicians with making a medical decision about when said fetus poses a danger.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

CA.
They have hired a board of psychics to divine the malice and aforethought of doctors who perform abortion?
Or is it the “unlawful “ part that needs litigating?

That's actually the substance here.

Consider: Robber shoots 30 week pregnant woman in the stomach and kills her baby. Do you agree that this is murder? Or is this property damage? Or perhaps battery?

Do you think the robber should face criminal charges for the forced termination of the developing fetus?

I'll go with assault with grievous bodily harm.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Requesting assisted suicide is one thing. Having the request granted is another.

With requested suicicde, I think it should be speciality with extensive training in psychology, psychiatry and medicine.

I'll go with a middle ground.

Obvious, severe suffering--minimal requirements. There should be very few hoops for the terminal cancer patient to decide they don't want to continue.

Not so obvious, not so severe--extensive requirements. Is what's causing the suffering permanent (or permanent enough--I knew someone who chose suicide over a broken hip. By her life expectancy, permanent)? Is there anything that hasn't been tried that can reduce the suffering?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I do think that a person should be allowed to request a medically assisted suicide. But I also think that a thorough examination by mental health professionals is in order first, as well as thorough examinations and serious discussions about why suicide is requested and if the patient might not benefit sufficiently from other, less permanent t treatment. Those in intractable pain is one such example. For myself, dementia would be an example under which I’d prefer assisted suicide for myself, having watched my mother die of dementia. I don’t want that for myself or for any family or loved ones to have to go through watching me die like that.

Yup. Pretty much any slow cause of death will have a point where the quality of life goes negative or nonexistent (if your mind is gone I don't think the concept of quality of life even applies.) Everyone will define that point differently, and it can be influenced by non-medical factors. (Take, for example, a case from a discussion elsewhere. He had serious medical issues but was not facing imminent death--but chose death after his wife died. Not grief, from the timeline he must have gone through the approval process while his wife was still alive.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Murder in California law - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Code defines murder as "the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought"​

which would seem to allow lawful killings being not included in “murder”. So an abortion can be a killing without being murder.

Yup. The acts that constitute "homicide" are wider than the acts which constitute "murder". People frequently use the words interchangeably but they are not.

(I'm picturing a local case where the family was trying to try it in the press. Billboard, I don't recall the details but it said "homicide". Yes, that was never in doubt!)

 

[Jarhyn]

Murder in California law - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Code defines murder as "the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought"​

which would seem to allow lawful killings being not included in “murder”. So an abortion can be a killing without being murder.

Yup. The acts that constitute "homicide" are wider than the acts which constitute "murder". People frequently use the words interchangeably but they are not.

(I'm picturing a local case where the family was trying to try it in the press. Billboard, I don't recall the details but it said "homicide". Yes, that was never in doubt!)

And I can't help but I think that we can't actually afford here to allow Nazis to divert us too far astray of considering the actual reasons people tend to care, and the well-explored limits of what we allow people to be "busy-bodies" about.

At some point it comes down to "well, I would hate that to happen to me"... But I wouldn't. I would have preferred my birth mother to abort me, because it is the right answer. I'm glad I'm alive today, but I'll never be glad she didn't have an abortion.

People like me are harmed all the time, particularly when "convenience" abortions are denied: People end up growing up unwanted, resented, rejected, often homeless and often on the wrong side of the law.

When Roe happened, there was a huge countrywide decline some years later, and while a lot of that was probably ditching tetra-ethyl lead, it's also strongly linked to abortion, too. It was probably both; fewer unwanted kids and none of them lead-headed.

It led directly to an improvement in standard of living for everyone, I expect.

It's hard to argue with results like that.

Nobody is being injured, even in an abstract way (at least not more than by a MukBang channel existing) when the fetus doesn't get born. The fetus hasn't even earned a right to be cared about by someone else other than the person pregnant with them, a thing earned by the simple act of becoming capable of being passed off to literally any other party's mercy.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

a divorce walks in the door and says "Hey doc, I'd like to call it quits", and the doctor says "Sure thing, let me just inject you with this"...

Where do you keep finding these corrupt doctors?

Serious question: If assisted suicide is legal, then why would you consider this doctor to be corrupt?

You miss the point. The cited example is doing it without proper understanding. You seem to be operating on a basis that there is no other control besides what the politicians make.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

My husband was born at 34 weeks gestation. He has had a lifetime history of various respiratory illnesses, including asthma and for one entre year, repeated bouts of bronchitis and pneumonia. I seriously thought I would be left a widow with 2 children in my mid-20's. Whether or not that was connected to his premature birth, I have no way of knowing. AFAIK, no doctor ever inquired and I did not attend every medical appointment.

I understand that you care very much about babies --me, too! But I also care very much about people being able to control their own bodies and to make their own medical and reproductive choices. I may not agree with those choices but I made my own choices and have lived with them.

The impression I got from the article you linked is that premature birth is a definite risk factor but it's a general thing. As such, not relevant to diagnosis or treatment. Like my wife's Asian heritage means a higher risk of osteoporosis--screening is more important, but it has no bearing on how the doctor reacts to the results of a dexa scan.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Frankly, I think we can do both? It's just psychotic to allow government genital inspectors into our reproductive health care at any stage of it... and this is, ultimately, where all this is going.

In a giant leap for mankind toward sanity, it would be great to get the government out of our reproductive healthcare decisions altogether. Seems pretty far out of reach for now.

Yeah, which is kinda the point.

Rather than push for formalization of reproductive healthcare laws that liberate government from health care altogether, these Nazis push first and hard for repeal of the few protections we have with no care for presenting an alternative first.

It's really the fact that all this time, we pushed for sex education and family planning education, and the availability of birth control, but the fact is, these people don't WANT to prevent unwanted pregnancy. If they didn't, want unwanted pregnancies to happen, they would be pressing for those laws from Congress and doing everything in their power to get those laws through Congress rather than boosting the Genital Inspection Party.

Instead, we have Betsy Bowers or whatever, in whichever flavor of gender you prefer, pretending they're perfect enough to throw stones at women (and men) who should have every reason and right not to have genetic offspring.

Yup. Simple test: I have yet to see the right wing support anything which makes sex safer. And in most cases they come down on the side of making it more dangerous.

 

[Elixir]

I have yet to see the right wing support anything which makes sex safer. And in most cases they come down on the side of making it more dangerous.

Cue Emily disavowing any affiliation with "the right". And in fairness she'd be right IMO. She is TRYING to be moderate, while still accommodating legal protections for fetuses. It's just that ... that doesn't work. And that is what she struggles with.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Certainly: the same authority our society places over nearly everything in life, democracy.

You misspelled “law enforcement”.
I must have missed where Ems suggested putting abortion to a vote, case by case.

I must have missed where "democracy" means "We don't have any laws; the entire population just votes on whether to put somebody in jail, case by case."

How is democracy going to regulate abortion? My suggestion is via professional medical regulatory boards.
You and Ems gravitate to law enforcement.

Not to mention an eminently suspicious gravitation away from actually caring for the sake of people after they are born.

There is a well observed heuristic that identifies 99.99% of bad faith arguments:

Do they propose and push solutions to the consequences of policies they claim to want before pursuing those policies?

Seriously, it's really that simple.

No, this causes false positives. I can say that having sex with kids is wrong without proposing a solution for those with pedophilic tendencies and it's not bad faith.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I did suggest creating federal legislation.

Thank you for confirming.
May I assume that the intent of such federal legislation would be to reduce the incidence of abortion, by dissuading some of those who would seek an optional late term abortion from doing so?

The objective is to disallow late term abortions that do not have a solid medical indication for them.

Put bluntly: The objective is to make it illegal to kill babies for convenience, even if such situations would be rare.

I don't get this. It was ALREADY illegal to abort beyond viability in Roe v Wade. So what are you going on about? There is 'no such thing' as "late term abortion". That phrase was made up by the RTL nutters and is NOT a medical term.

No, there are medical reasons even in the third trimester. A healthy fetus will usually be delivered at that point but cases exist where a dying fetus can take the woman with it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I did suggest creating federal legislation.

Thank you for confirming.
May I assume that the intent of such federal legislation would be to reduce the incidence of abortion, by dissuading some of those who would seek an optional late term abortion from doing so?

The objective is to disallow late term abortions that do not have a solid medical indication for them.

Put bluntly: The objective is to make it illegal to kill babies for convenience, even if such situations would be rare.

I don't get this. It was ALREADY illegal to abort beyond viability in Roe v Wade. So what are you going on about? There is 'no such thing' as "late term abortion". That phrase was made up by the RTL nutters and is NOT a medical term.

You have not been keeping at all. A "late term abortion" (aka third trimester abortion) FOR ANY REASON is perfectly legal in some states. Its been gone over multiple times. Check out abortion laws and rights in Oregon, for example and get back to us with your research.

Just because the industry has adequately self-regulated doesn't mean there's no regulation.

Self-regulation tends to fail in situations where there is considerable money to be made from breaking the rules, but that's not the case here.

 

[Toni]

My husband was born at 34 weeks gestation. He has had a lifetime history of various respiratory illnesses, including asthma and for one entre year, repeated bouts of bronchitis and pneumonia. I seriously thought I would be left a widow with 2 children in my mid-20's. Whether or not that was connected to his premature birth, I have no way of knowing. AFAIK, no doctor ever inquired and I did not attend every medical appointment.

I understand that you care very much about babies --me, too! But I also care very much about people being able to control their own bodies and to make their own medical and reproductive choices. I may not agree with those choices but I made my own choices and have lived with them.

The impression I got from the article you linked is that premature birth is a definite risk factor but it's a general thing. As such, not relevant to diagnosis or treatment. Like my wife's Asian heritage means a higher risk of osteoporosis--screening is more important, but it has no bearing on how the doctor reacts to the results of a dexa scan.

It is very much relevant as far as what immediate health concerns there may be to look out for as well as longer term effects. My husband had a childhood history of asthma that has changed into a tendency to have more serious lower respiratory infections coming along with seasonal flu, etc. There was one truly bad year with repeated bouts of pneumonia and bronchitis, but better since.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What safeguards do you imagine are in place to prevent an inappropriate death from occurring?

vs what safeguards prevent sacrificing the woman.

You have presented one very iffy study that purports to have found improper abortions. No quality data. However, we are now up to several deaths from women denied abortions due to too strict safeguards. There will be false outcomes, period. The goal should be to pick a regulatory point that minimizes the harm caused by both the false positives and false negatives. Do not optimize one at the expense of the other unless your purpose is screening (there are many cases where it's cheaper to use a test with a low false negative rate but then run a second test on the "positive" results.) You are absolutely focused on one type of error and ignoring the other when the objective should be balance.

 

[Elixir]

The goal should be to pick a regulatory point that minimizes the harm caused by both the false positives and false negatives.

That’s the “least harm” approach, which I favor.
It is rejected by B#20 in favor of some “rights” argument that is too convoluted for me to even understand its promised benefits, let alone how it’ supposed to diminish harm.
It gives supremacy to fuzzy and manipulable factors like “personhood” and “viability” and diminishes the value of a woman’s LIFE experience, to equal to or less than that of 9 months of in-utero “experience”.
YMMV, but I doubt it. I don’t think even Emily is willing to go out on that frail limb.

 

[Elixir]

...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.

I might very well be too dumb or lack the training required to follow the chain. Thanks for reminding me to re-examine the limits to my ability to process information. I do try to follow the chain, but find myself stopped cold when I encounter open links.

You can put it down to laziness, but scout’s honor (I was never a scout) I am quite unafraid to venture outside my “comfort zone”. OTOH I believe there is little virtue in keeping a mind so open that your brain falls out.

I confess - I see no way that it would be reasonable to restrict abortion access to satisfy a “rights” argument, if it means more harm. Which it does, according to every fact so far available to me.

 

[Elixir]

Requesting assisted suicide is one thing. Having the request granted is another.

With requested suicicde, I think it should be speciality with extensive training in psychology, psychiatry and medicine.

I'll go with a middle ground.

Obvious, severe suffering--minimal requirements. There should be very few hoops for the terminal cancer patient to decide they don't want to continue.

Not so obvious, not so severe--extensive requirements. Is what's causing the suffering permanent (or permanent enough--I knew someone who chose suicide over a broken hip. By her life expectancy, permanent)? Is there anything that hasn't been tried that can reduce the suffering?

Assisted suicide is a red herring in the abortion discussion.
THERE IS NO DANGER TO THE PATIENT POSED BY A DAY OR TWO DELAY.
(assuming that some legal hurdle must be cleared).
Restricting access to assisted suicide doesn’t kill anyone.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Whether a fetus has a right to his or her mother's blood and food is a complicated question that depends on the details of the individual case.

There ya go. Let’s not abridge the rights of the mother due to complicated questions about another organism’s parasitism on her body. Details of the case are no business of government IMO.
Emily, whose “position” has now evolved to

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

… 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;

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

Which is a duh! No doctor is going to perform anything at that level without documenting why. That's simply standard medical practice.