Roe v Wade is on deck

[Emily Lake]

I have confidence in the medical ethics and practices outlined by medical associations and medical facilities to provide guidance (and cover, where needed).

Which guidelines about abortion are those? Can you provide me a link to a governing medical body that actually has guidelines about abortion? I’d love to see those.

Does the AMA count?

Abortion is a safe and common medical procedure, about which thoughtful individuals hold diverging, yet equally deeply held and well-considered perspectives. Like all health care decisions, a decision to terminate a pregnancy should be made privately within the relationship of trust between patient and physician in keeping with the patient’s unique values and needs and the physician’s best professional judgment.

The Principles of Medical Ethics of the AMA permit physicians to perform abortions in keeping with good medical practice

AMA Code of Medical Ethics - Abortion

Can you explain to me exactly what part of that statement outlines the circumstances under which it is - and is not - appropriate for a doctor to perform an abortion?

Which word(s) in “physician’s best professional judgment” do you need explained.

Appeals to ‘the patient’s unique values’ doesn’t read like any sort of standard or guideline. It reads like ‘if you patient believes it’s fine to abort the day before delivery, and you’re okay with it, then go ahead’.

Perhaps to a rigid thinker.

You asked for guidelines. You got them. Join or lobby the AMA to change them if you feel they are insufficiently clear.

As written, if the physician has your beliefs, and the patient has Jarhyn’s… exactly what part of that paragraph would prevent them from aborting a perfectly healthy baby from a perfectly healthy mother two days before it’s due?

And remember that the AMA is a voluntary association that doesn’t govern all doctors, and does not set binding practice rules. Only about 20% of doctors are members of AMA.

85% of obstructions and gynecologists practicing in the US are members of the ABOG. There is a different organization that is decidedly ‘pro-life.’ Perhaps you’d prefer those standards?

Oh for fuck’s holy sake, Toni. You know full well that I’m not pro-life. Why on earth do you think a taunt like this is useful or effective? Do you imagine that I can be bullied into changing my values?

Make a rational and convincing argument. So far you’ve relied predominantly on appeals to emotion, and appeals to authority that does not actually exist. Now you’re resorting to emotional manipulation by threatening shame based on a view I don’t even hold. Do better.

In virtually no other circumstance do we expect to assert our moral judgement on the medical procedures and treatments received by patients, and almost none that I can think of with respect to male bodies. We do not coerce anyone to donate a kidney or even a pint of blood, even if another person’s life depends on that kidney or that pint of blood. But we tell ourselves the fairy tale that ‘good women’ will never willingly abort any baby under circumstances we personally disagree with. Any woman who would is therefore not a ‘good woman’ and so we believe that her rights are subject to our approval.

How very arrogant

Legal bans on psychological gay conversion therapy. Legal restrictions on lobotomies. The entire FDA. Hell - banning physician assisted death for terminal patients in pain. Female genital mutilation. There are a several legal restrictions based on moral judgement in place.

 

[Emily Lake]

As written, if the physician has your beliefs, and the patient has Jarhyn’s… exactly what part of that paragraph would prevent them from aborting a perfectly healthy baby from a perfectly healthy mother two days before it’s due?

There was a doctor that actually did that sort of thing. He went to jail for a very long time.

So it does actually happen then, as opposed to those arguing that it doesn’t. Legal punishment for it seems entirely appropriate.

 

[Jarhyn]

You’re falling into the fallacy of the beard. You can’t determine exactly how many chin hairs constitute a beard… and yet we all agree that beards exist

No, we don't. Hell, you can't even agree that my niece's beard exists.

There is no real objective thing such as a "beard". It's a subjective concept, with no one real answer. That's more a de-facto admission that beards DON'T exist except as collections of hairs.

It's not even forgegone that the hairs have to come from a chin.

I find this particularly hilariously disappointing about Emily, because this was literally part of the first lesson on the first day of Logical Reasoning, this discussion about the different kinds of definition and how "real" or "general" or "arbitrary" most "defined" concepts end up being.

Some concepts end up being defined strictly in terms of set operations, and these are the most general and universally real definitions, for all they only actually handle things that are excessively abstract. Whether or not something else is considered an "arbitrary" definition or not actually accords to whether you can describe it precisely in terms of the constructive elements of logic, and doing that will almost certainly yield something that might seem hopelessly complicated.

I mean, who would generally recognize this as the Pythagoras theorem:


But that's what the Pythagoras theorem looks like when you define it.

Definitions are not simple things and pretending like they are is just plain silly.

 

[Toni]

You really think that legislators are capable as a group of determining when it is ok to terminate a pregnancy?

Do you really think I’m suggesting positions review every case? We’re politicians reviewing every case when RvW was in place? Are politicians reviewing every case in the rest of the westernized liberal world, where gestational limits without medical necessity are in place, and have been for half a century?

It sure is easy to craft killer counterpoints to positions I don’t hold.

Keep in mind that there are actually legislators who believe that if a woman is really raised her body just shuts down any pregnancy

What point do you think you’re making with this? How does this have any bearing on what I’m advocating for?

Some people at the far end of unreasonable hold stupid views. That doesn’t suggest that we must rush full-speed to the compete other end of unreasonable views in response.

Do you really think you could determine at exactly what stage of development it is no longer permissible to terminate a pregnancy?

We don’t need an exact stage. If you’d read anything I’d posted with an open mind and intent to understand, you would know that. All we need do is find the point where the medical community generally agrees that a fetus is viable (something already in existence - at about 24 weeks), and add another week or two as a safety margin.

You’re falling into the fallacy of the beard. You can’t determine exactly how many chin hairs constitute a beard… and yet we all agree that beards exist.

Or what degree of disability or harm to the mother make it permissible?

What do you think constitutes harm? Have you forgotten that my position allows quite clearly for risk of death it injury to the mother to be prioritized?

You are suggesting that legislators enact laws which mandate limits on abortions.

You are suggesting that a group largely comprised of men, almost none of whom have any training in medicine, and some of whom have demonstrated an appalling lack of basic common knowledge about female anatomy, pregnancy and childbirth and miscarriage are better positioned to establish a framework that will limit the medical care a woman may receive, despite what she and her doctor think is appropriate

Do you not realize that exactly that scenario is causing severe medical harm and death, and occasionally arrest and imprisonment of women who miscarry?

Do you imagine that no women died from draconian anti abortion laws during third trimester miscarriages fir those same reasons during RvW?

You are so afraid some woman somewhere is going to have an abortion that you personally disagree with her having that you are willing to put at risk the lives of every fertile woman on US soil.

Who gave you that right?

 

[laughing dog]

You asked for guidelines. I showed one. Now you move the goalposts to “guidelines Emily Lake likes”.

BTW, the American College of Obstretricians and Gynecologists state

All people should have access to the full spectrum of comprehensive, evidence-based health care. Abortion is an essential component of comprehensive, evidence-based health care (1). As the leading medical organization dedicated to the health of individuals in need of gynecologic and obstetric care, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) supports the availability of high-quality reproductive health services for all people and is committed to protecting and increasing access to abortion.

ACOG strongly opposes any effort that impedes access to abortion care and interferes in the relationship between a person and their health care professional. Because the patient–clinician relationship is a critical component of the provision of the highest quality health care, any efforts interfering in this relationship harm the people seeking essential health care and those providing it. As such, clinicians should not be subject to criminal penalties, lawsuits, fines, or other punishments for providing the full spectrum of evidence-based care. ACOG condemns stigma, violence, intimidation, and threats against doctors, clinicians, and members of their professional teams and families.

ACOG supports every person’s right to decide whether to have children and, the number and spacing of children, and to have the information, education, and access to health services to make these decisions. Individuals seeking abortion must be afforded privacy, dignity, respect, and support, and should be able to make their medical decisions without undue interference by outside parties. ACOG advocates to improve access to full-spectrum reproductive services, to integrate abortion as a component of mainstream medical care, and to oppose and overturn efforts restricting access to abortion. Abortion Policy

The medical community does not appear to agree with your position.

IMO, you seem to want some sort of set of iron-clad protocols to prevent abortions that you consider murder. There are no such iron-clad protocols. In the end, IMO, the choices come to down to interfering with one of the most private and profound medical situations of woman and her household in order to preserve the potential life of a future person or to trust the judgment and choices of the women and the medical professionals. With the former, not only is the no guarantee the child will be born healthy or survive. Assuming that child survives, there is no mechanism or even expectation that it will necessarily be properly provided for, let alone brought up in a loving and nuturing environment. Nor is the resulting effects on the birth mother considered. And all because some people wish to grant priority over an unborn future child over an existing, sentient woman.

The claim made by Toni, Arctic’s, and some others was that doctors would never perform a late abortion without clear medical necessity, because medical guidelines and standards of practice prevent it.

I asked for evidence that such guidelines limiting unnecessary late abortions exist.

As you have agreed above, no medical guidelines exist that provide any limits or identify situations in which it would be medically unethical to perform a requested abortion.

Thus, the arguments made by others that we can rely on medical guidelines are shown to be false.

No. Following medical guidelines leads to medically ethical decisions by definition.

Oh, but what if it’s one of the 0.1% that end up spontaneously stillborn with no prior indication of risk? What if the parents don’t love it or it ends up being adopted by bad people? What if the mother is unhappy about not being able to kill a healthy baby late in the pregnancy?

Lots of rationalizations given for murder. All because some people wish to grant priority to happiness above life.

Coming from a supporter of RVW that straw man is so epically ironic that it cannot be taken seriously as stated.

My point was that your tradeoff between “convenience “ vs “life” ignores quite a bit in its analysis.

From what I can tell, you are willing to accept any amount of harm to pregnant women and the resulting child who want a “medically unnecessary abortion” to reduce the unmeasured but small number of such abortions.

That staggers what is left of my feeble brain.

 

[Emily Lake]

You aren't answering the question, though.

You're just restating your premise.

I agree that under Roe v Wade, women had a protected Right to an abortion before the point of fetal viability.

I also agree that abortions past that point were subject to limitation due to the government interests in protecting both the pregnant woman and the fetus. Basically that meant third trimester abortions were limited to medical necessity.

If that's all you want to say, mission accomplished.

But if you want to talk replacing Roe v Wade with something similar then you're going to have to grapple with the issue of defining medical necessity. What are the characteristics of a medical necessity? At what point do the complications of pregnancy become severe enough to meet that definition? Who gets to decide when that point is reached? Is it the legislature or the medical professionals? Is it the doctor treating a pregnant patient or a board of directors at the hospital where that doctor works? Can a doctor perform an abortion before it is strictly medically necessary if the preponderance of evidence indicates an abortion will be medically necessary in the near future, and performing the abortion now will almost certainly result in a better outcome for the pregnant woman?

Has reading for comprehension fallen out of fashion?

I literally want RvW instituted as a federal law covering all US states. The explicit details that you demand of me weren’t needed for RvW, why do you think they must be itemized to reinstate RvW as an actual law rather than an interpretation?

I probably could if I wanted to research it. But I'm not all that invested in knowing the details. If you want to know them you can do the research yourself.

Your position relies on your assertion that such limitations exist within medical guidelines… but you aren’t even willing to see if those guidelines actually exist? Basically, you’re working from baseless faith, and you seem to think that faith alone is a sufficient argument. You made the claim, you asserted it as part of your argument - it’s on you to support your claim.

.
Can you provide Alaska’s guidelines for abortion as laid out by your medical board, and illustrate how those guidelines would prevent an on-demand 30 week abortion with no medical need for someone with Jarhyn’s views?

Sure.

It's right here.

That doesn’t support your claim at all. Did you actually read it?

Members of the Medical Board of the State of Alaska agree with you. So do I.

Can you provide me a position statement or practice guideline from that body that supports your claim?

BUT,

I disagree with having laws that present obstacles to doctors providing the best care to patients, which means I disagree with having laws that remove late term abortions from the list of available options for treating women experiencing complications of pregnancy or serious injury or illness, or for sexually abused minors who face serious medical and mental health issues if they attempt to carry to term, which means I disagree with "fetal heartbeat" laws and other such attempts to second guess doctors or force pregnant women to endure more pain, suffering, and risk of death than they already do.

Well, I suppose it’s good I’m not after laws that do those things then, isn’t it? Although it once again leads me to question who you believe you’re arguing with, or whether you actually understand my explicitly and clearly stated views at all.

History shows us that laws that are pro-life in theory become pro-death in practice. Current events show us the same. The only way anyone can call those laws pro-life is by ignoring the rise in maternal death rates in the places that are enforcing them, or by not valuing the lives of women at all.

Well then, it’s a good thing I’m not seeking pro-life laws. Have you actually read and understood my position?

We can wish all we want for an AI or a crystal ball or an oracle that will infallibly inform doctors when an abortion is necessary and when it might not be needed, but we don't have that technology. The best we can do at this moment is to rely on the "clinical judgment of the physician or surgeon, [that] an immediate threat of serious risk to the life or physical health of the pregnant [person] from the continuation of the pregnancy created a medical emergency necessitating the immediate performance or inducement of an abortion."

IOW, we have to trust the people who know the most about the situation to make that call, i.e. pregnant women and their doctors

It’s comforting to have unexamined faith based on what you believe ought to be true. It’s better when you know whether or not your assumptions are factual though.

 

[Toni]

You really think that legislators are capable as a group of determining when it is ok to terminate a pregnancy?

Do you really think I’m suggesting positions review every case? We’re politicians reviewing every case when RvW was in place? Are politicians reviewing every case in the rest of the westernized liberal world, where gestational limits without medical necessity are in place, and have been for half a century?

It sure is easy to craft killer counterpoints to positions I don’t hold.

Keep in mind that there are actually legislators who believe that if a woman is really raised her body just shuts down any pregnancy

What point do you think you’re making with this? How does this have any bearing on what I’m advocating for?

Some people at the far end of unreasonable hold stupid views. That doesn’t suggest that we must rush full-speed to the compete other end of unreasonable views in response.

Do you really think you could determine at exactly what stage of development it is no longer permissible to terminate a pregnancy?

We don’t need an exact stage. If you’d read anything I’d posted with an open mind and intent to understand, you would know that. All we need do is find the point where the medical community generally agrees that a fetus is viable (something already in existence - at about 24 weeks), and add another week or two as a safety margin.

You’re falling into the fallacy of the beard. You can’t determine exactly how many chin hairs constitute a beard… and yet we all agree that beards exist.

Or what degree of disability or harm to the mother make it permissible?

What do you think constitutes harm? Have you forgotten that my position allows quite clearly for risk of death it injury to the mother to be prioritized?

Every single pregnancy creates the potential for serious harm for the mother. Every single one. No matter how healthy, no matter how wealthy and how educated and medically sophisticated the mother and her family, no matter her race, no matter how great her prenatal care and her hospital and her medical team: any pregnancy can end in tragedy.

You think it is possible to create a legal framework that doctors are compelled to follow that will cover any and every situation possible without running foul of the law AND at the same time protecting the life and health of every woman?

That is impossible.

Instead, circumstances such as those that exist in states with draconian anti-abortion laws will happen. Women will die or be rendered infertile and/or arrested and imprisoned because they either avoid seeking care if they suspect a miscarriage or they are denied medical care in a timely manner Doctors will be arrested and imprisoned or more likely: they will stop practicing in that state or will avoid any practice that makes them vulnerable to needing to help a woman after a miscarriage. The ability of all women to access health care will be adversely affected

That is already happening.

You want to go back to some previous era where you imagine that never happened.

It did. It just wasn’t newsworthy. Your proposal will make it worse.

 

[Emily Lake]

L

"It is the law" is not an answer; "is" does not answer "ought" in that way.

What do you suggest should be done that isn't being done now? [Question of OUGHT]

Federal law guarantee unquestioned access to abortion in the first 2 trimesters, and limited to medical necessity in the last trimester. [Response about IS]

I seriously don’t think I can be any clearer than that.

I return to my previous point, "It is the law" is not an answer; "is" does not answer "ought" in that way.

I don't think I can be any clearer than that as to why your response was not responsive

She didn’t say anything about what the law IS. She answered a question about what the law should be with a statement of her opinion of what the law OUGHT to be.

Perhaps you fantasized that you read “guarantees” when you saw the word “guarantee”.

No, she made a declarative statement about what the law IS.

At least attempt to use your brain. Perhaps sobriety might help?

There is no federal law for me to be referencing as an “is”. A federal law is what I think ought to be.

 

[Emily Lake]

You’re falling into the fallacy of the beard. You can’t determine exactly how many chin hairs constitute a beard… and yet we all agree that beards exist

No, we don't. Hell, you can't even agree that my niece's beard exists.

There is no real objective thing such as a "beard". It's a subjective concept, with no one real answer. That's more a de-facto admission that beards DON'T exist except as collections of hairs.

It's not even forgegone that the hairs have to come from a chin.

I find this particularly hilariously disappointing about Emily, because this was literally part of the first lesson on the first day of Logical Reasoning, this discussion about the different kinds of definition and how "real" or "general" or "arbitrary" most "defined" concepts end up being.

Some concepts end up being defined strictly in terms of set operations, and these are the most general and universally real definitions, for all they only actually handle things that are excessively abstract. Whether or not something else is considered an "arbitrary" definition or not actually accords to whether you can describe it precisely in terms of the constructive elements of logic, and doing that will almost certainly yield something that might seem hopelessly complicated.

I mean, who would generally recognize this as the Pythagoras theorem:
View attachment 54705

But that's what the Pythagoras theorem looks like when you define it.

Definitions are not simple things and pretending like they are is just plain silly.

You’re very confident about your wrongness.

You’re also bordering on incomprehensible.

 

[Emily Lake]

You really think that legislators are capable as a group of determining when it is ok to terminate a pregnancy?

Do you really think I’m suggesting positions review every case? We’re politicians reviewing every case when RvW was in place? Are politicians reviewing every case in the rest of the westernized liberal world, where gestational limits without medical necessity are in place, and have been for half a century?

It sure is easy to craft killer counterpoints to positions I don’t hold.

Keep in mind that there are actually legislators who believe that if a woman is really raised her body just shuts down any pregnancy

What point do you think you’re making with this? How does this have any bearing on what I’m advocating for?

Some people at the far end of unreasonable hold stupid views. That doesn’t suggest that we must rush full-speed to the compete other end of unreasonable views in response.

Do you really think you could determine at exactly what stage of development it is no longer permissible to terminate a pregnancy?

We don’t need an exact stage. If you’d read anything I’d posted with an open mind and intent to understand, you would know that. All we need do is find the point where the medical community generally agrees that a fetus is viable (something already in existence - at about 24 weeks), and add another week or two as a safety margin.

You’re falling into the fallacy of the beard. You can’t determine exactly how many chin hairs constitute a beard… and yet we all agree that beards exist.

Or what degree of disability or harm to the mother make it permissible?

What do you think constitutes harm? Have you forgotten that my position allows quite clearly for risk of death it injury to the mother to be prioritized?

You are suggesting that legislators enact laws which mandate limits on abortions.

You are suggesting that a group largely comprised of men, almost none of whom have any training in medicine, and some of whom have demonstrated an appalling lack of basic common knowledge about female anatomy, pregnancy and childbirth and miscarriage are better positioned to establish a framework that will limit the medical care a woman may receive, despite what she and her doctor think is appropriate

Do you not realize that exactly that scenario is causing severe medical harm and death, and occasionally arrest and imprisonment of women who miscarry?

Do you imagine that no women died from draconian anti abortion laws during third trimester miscarriages fir those same reasons during RvW?

You are so afraid some woman somewhere is going to have an abortion that you personally disagree with her having that you are willing to put at risk the lives of every fertile woman on US soil.

Who gave you that right?

It’s very strange to me that so many people here have taken the stance that RvW is horrible, and that reinstating it will kill tons of women.

 

[Toni]

You really think that legislators are capable as a group of determining when it is ok to terminate a pregnancy?

Do you really think I’m suggesting positions review every case? We’re politicians reviewing every case when RvW was in place? Are politicians reviewing every case in the rest of the westernized liberal world, where gestational limits without medical necessity are in place, and have been for half a century?

It sure is easy to craft killer counterpoints to positions I don’t hold.

Keep in mind that there are actually legislators who believe that if a woman is really raised her body just shuts down any pregnancy

What point do you think you’re making with this? How does this have any bearing on what I’m advocating for?

Some people at the far end of unreasonable hold stupid views. That doesn’t suggest that we must rush full-speed to the compete other end of unreasonable views in response.

Do you really think you could determine at exactly what stage of development it is no longer permissible to terminate a pregnancy?

We don’t need an exact stage. If you’d read anything I’d posted with an open mind and intent to understand, you would know that. All we need do is find the point where the medical community generally agrees that a fetus is viable (something already in existence - at about 24 weeks), and add another week or two as a safety margin.

You’re falling into the fallacy of the beard. You can’t determine exactly how many chin hairs constitute a beard… and yet we all agree that beards exist.

Or what degree of disability or harm to the mother make it permissible?

What do you think constitutes harm? Have you forgotten that my position allows quite clearly for risk of death it injury to the mother to be prioritized?

You are suggesting that legislators enact laws which mandate limits on abortions.

You are suggesting that a group largely comprised of men, almost none of whom have any training in medicine, and some of whom have demonstrated an appalling lack of basic common knowledge about female anatomy, pregnancy and childbirth and miscarriage are better positioned to establish a framework that will limit the medical care a woman may receive, despite what she and her doctor think is appropriate

Do you not realize that exactly that scenario is causing severe medical harm and death, and occasionally arrest and imprisonment of women who miscarry?

Do you imagine that no women died from draconian anti abortion laws during third trimester miscarriages fir those same reasons during RvW?

You are so afraid some woman somewhere is going to have an abortion that you personally disagree with her having that you are willing to put at risk the lives of every fertile woman on US soil.

Who gave you that right?

It’s very strange to me that so many people here have taken the stance that RvW is horrible, and that reinstating it will kill tons of women.

It’s so strange to me that you think that we can a) reinstate RvW, which was decided in a Supreme Court case, not by any legislature and b) that RvW was some kind of nirvana best case scenario.

Abd that women and physicians are morally bankrupt and cannot be trusted to make medical decisions.

 

[Emily Lake]

No. Following medical guidelines leads to medically ethical decisions by definition.

I agree… but that requires guideline to follow in the first place.

Coming from a supporter of RVW that straw man is so epically ironic that it cannot be taken seriously as stated.

My point was that your tradeoff between “convenience “ vs “life” ignores quite a bit in its analysis.

From what I can tell, you are willing to accept any amount of harm to pregnant women and the resulting child who want a “medically unnecessary abortion” to reduce the unmeasured but small number of such abortions.

That staggers what is left of my feeble brain.

It only staggers your brain because you aren’t reading, or you are ignoring.

Perhaps you might outline what kind of non-medical harm you’re concerned about? And perhaps include your reasoning for why killing a baby is necessary to prevent that non-medical harm?

 

[Emily Lake]

You really think that legislators are capable as a group of determining when it is ok to terminate a pregnancy?

Do you really think I’m suggesting positions review every case? We’re politicians reviewing every case when RvW was in place? Are politicians reviewing every case in the rest of the westernized liberal world, where gestational limits without medical necessity are in place, and have been for half a century?

It sure is easy to craft killer counterpoints to positions I don’t hold.

Keep in mind that there are actually legislators who believe that if a woman is really raised her body just shuts down any pregnancy

What point do you think you’re making with this? How does this have any bearing on what I’m advocating for?

Some people at the far end of unreasonable hold stupid views. That doesn’t suggest that we must rush full-speed to the compete other end of unreasonable views in response.

Do you really think you could determine at exactly what stage of development it is no longer permissible to terminate a pregnancy?

We don’t need an exact stage. If you’d read anything I’d posted with an open mind and intent to understand, you would know that. All we need do is find the point where the medical community generally agrees that a fetus is viable (something already in existence - at about 24 weeks), and add another week or two as a safety margin.

You’re falling into the fallacy of the beard. You can’t determine exactly how many chin hairs constitute a beard… and yet we all agree that beards exist.

Or what degree of disability or harm to the mother make it permissible?

What do you think constitutes harm? Have you forgotten that my position allows quite clearly for risk of death it injury to the mother to be prioritized?

Every single pregnancy creates the potential for serious harm for the mother. Every single one. No matter how healthy, no matter how wealthy and how educated and medically sophisticated the mother and her family, no matter her race, no matter how great her prenatal care and her hospital and her medical team: any pregnancy can end in tragedy.

You think it is possible to create a legal framework that doctors are compelled to follow that will cover any and every situation possible without running foul of the law AND at the same time protecting the life and health of every woman?

That is impossible.

“We can’t perfectly identify every single possible type of potential unidentified risk that might possibly happen, therefore we must allow healthy babies with no identified or suspected risk to the mother to be killed just in case”

Instead, circumstances such as those that exist in states with draconian anti-abortion laws will happen. Women will die or be rendered infertile and/or arrested and imprisoned because they either avoid seeking care if they suspect a miscarriage or they are denied medical care in a timely manner Doctors will be arrested and imprisoned or more likely: they will stop practicing in that state or will avoid any practice that makes them vulnerable to needing to help a woman after a miscarriage. The ability of all women to access health care will be adversely affected

That is already happening.

“Some states have draconian and abusive anti-abortion laws, therefore RvW standards are also draconian and abusive and will kill people”

You want to go back to some previous era where you imagine that never happened.

It did. It just wasn’t newsworthy. Your proposal will make it worse.

“RvW standards will make things worse than what we have in the 23 states that are more restrictive than RvW ever was. In fact, RvW standards will make things worse than RvW!”

 

[Emily Lake]

It’s so strange to me that you think that we can a) reinstate RvW, which was decided in a Supreme Court case, not by any legislature and b) that RvW was some kind of nirvana best case scenario.

I’m not seeking to reinstate RvW, which was never actually a law in the first place. A prior judicial interpretation based on a stretch of the constitution was reinterpreted and found to not be supported by the constitution. I want congress to do its fucking job and make an actual law. Preferable a constitutional amendment, but actual legislation would suffice.

And yes, I do think RvW was the most reasonable and appropriate balance.

Abd that women and physicians are morally bankrupt and cannot be trusted to make medical decisions.

Not all by any means. But are you under the naive impression that no women hold LD’s view, and no dictors hold Jarhyn’s?

For the record, I think a fair number of doctors are often incredibly misguided and arrogant, and make disastrous medical decisions. That view is supported by lobotomies, hysterectomies as treatment for mental health issues, psychiatric gays conversion therapy… And the current practice of creating life-long medical issues by giving minors chemical castration drugs that prevent their natural development and cause sterility and inorgasmia, giving minors cross-sex hormones that cause physical harm and materially increase their risks, and performing medically unnecessary amputations of heathy body parts on children as a means to treat a transient anxiety about their maturing bodies.

Physicians aren’t saints anointed from on high incapable of being zealots. The list of medically supported travesties throughout history should at least give you pause.

 

[laughing dog]

No. Following medical guidelines leads to medically ethical decisions by definition.

I agree… but that requires guideline to follow in the first place.

I’ve posted 2 guidelines. Existence does not require your approval.

Coming from a supporter of RVW that straw man is so epically ironic that it cannot be taken seriously as stated.

My point was that your tradeoff between “convenience “ vs “life” ignores quite a bit in its analysis.

From what I can tell, you are willing to accept any amount of harm to pregnant women and the resulting child who want a “medically unnecessary abortion” to reduce the unmeasured but small number of such abortions.

That staggers what is left of my feeble brain.

It only staggers your brain because you aren’t reading, or you are ignoring.

More irony from the it’s ok to snuff life in the 1st and Second trimester for reason X but not the 3rd.

Perhaps you might outline what kind of non-medical harm you’re concerned about? And perhaps include your reasoning for why killing a baby is necessary to prevent that non-medical harm?

In order to do do, I need to know which term “non-medical” or “harm” you don’t understand. Also, a fetus is not a baby.

 

[Toni]

It’s so strange to me that you think that we can a) reinstate RvW, which was decided in a Supreme Court case, not by any legislature and b) that RvW was some kind of nirvana best case scenario.

I’m not seeking to reinstate RvW, which was never actually a law in the first place. A prior judicial interpretation based on a stretch of the constitution was reinterpreted and found to not be supported by the constitution. I want congress to do its fucking job and make an actual law. Preferable a constitutional amendment, but actual legislation would suffice.

And yes, I do think RvW was the most reasonable and appropriate balance.

Abd that women and physicians are morally bankrupt and cannot be trusted to make medical decisions.

Not all by any means. But are you under the naive impression that no women hold LD’s view, and no dictors hold Jarhyn’s?

For the record, I think a fair number of doctors are often incredibly misguided and arrogant, and make disastrous medical decisions. That view is supported by lobotomies, hysterectomies as treatment for mental health issues, psychiatric gays conversion therapy… And the current practice of creating life-long medical issues by giving minors chemical castration drugs that prevent their natural development and cause sterility and inorgasmia, giving minors cross-sex hormones that cause physical harm and materially increase their risks, and performing medically unnecessary amputations of heathy body parts on children as a means to treat a transient anxiety about their maturing bodies.

Physicians aren’t saints anointed from on high incapable of being zealots. The list of medically supported travesties throughout history should at least give you pause.

Are you under the impression that the person's health and life at stake is anyone other than their own?

Seriously.

I guarantee that now someone somewhere in the US is having an abortion that I think that were I in her shoes, I would not have and that she is actually morally wrong to do it. But I think the same about a lot of decisions--for instance I don't like tattoos. I don't think people should have a choice about whether or not to vaccinate their children, barring medical exceptions. That decision very much affects the lives of the children who are unvaccinated and potentially is lethal to anyone who is unable for medical reasons to receive a vaccination. I don't think that addicts and mentally ill people who are unable to manage their own affairs should be allowed to dun their family for money to bail them out of whatever emergency they've gotten themselves into, even when it well may be a life/death situation but actually, that's an ongoing situation in some families. The list is enormously long.

People make decisions every single day that I disagree with, strongly. People still support Donald Trump, for instance. How many deaths is that responsible for????? Millions. And more every single day.

I will never convince you.
You will never convince me.

Let's just be done with this.

 

[Arctish]

You aren't answering the question, though.

You're just restating your premise.

I agree that under Roe v Wade, women had a protected Right to an abortion before the point of fetal viability.

I also agree that abortions past that point were subject to limitation due to the government interests in protecting both the pregnant woman and the fetus. Basically that meant third trimester abortions were limited to medical necessity.

If that's all you want to say, mission accomplished.

But if you want to talk replacing Roe v Wade with something similar then you're going to have to grapple with the issue of defining medical necessity. What are the characteristics of a medical necessity? At what point do the complications of pregnancy become severe enough to meet that definition? Who gets to decide when that point is reached? Is it the legislature or the medical professionals? Is it the doctor treating a pregnant patient or a board of directors at the hospital where that doctor works? Can a doctor perform an abortion before it is strictly medically necessary if the preponderance of evidence indicates an abortion will be medically necessary in the near future, and performing the abortion now will almost certainly result in a better outcome for the pregnant woman?

Has reading for comprehension fallen out of fashion?

I literally want RvW instituted as a federal law covering all US states. The explicit details that you demand of me weren’t needed for RvW, why do you think they must be itemized to reinstate RvW as an actual law rather than an interpretation?

If that's all you want, then say "I want the provisions established under Roe v Wade to become Constitutional law" and stop right there. Stop posting what sounds like an argument for increased restrictions on third trimester abortions. Stop presenting that imaginary woman who wants to kill her fetus a day before her due date as though the possibility she might succeed is important to you.

But if that imaginary woman and her imperiled imaginary fetus is important then stop complaining when people focus on that part of your post.

.
Can you provide Alaska’s guidelines for abortion as laid out by your medical board, and illustrate how those guidelines would prevent an on-demand 30 week abortion with no medical need for someone with Jarhyn’s views?

Sure.

It's right here.

That doesn’t support your claim at all. Did you actually read it?

Yes.

Did you read all of it or just that one page?

I get the feeling you want everything to be spelled out in excruciating detail so you can nitpick it to pieces. But laws and regulations don't do that, they state things in simple terms and people argue interpretations in court. Then people argue over the court's rulings until they get further clarification, either from the courts or from lawmakers passing an updated version of the original law.

If you want to take a deeper dive into it, have at it. My point wasn't that every single possibility has been considered and contingency has a plan, it was that abortion is regulated in Alaska despite what you apparently believe.

 

[Arctish]

You really think that legislators are capable as a group of determining when it is ok to terminate a pregnancy?

Do you really think I’m suggesting positions review every case? We’re politicians reviewing every case when RvW was in place? Are politicians reviewing every case in the rest of the westernized liberal world, where gestational limits without medical necessity are in place, and have been for half a century?

It sure is easy to craft killer counterpoints to positions I don’t hold.

Keep in mind that there are actually legislators who believe that if a woman is really raised her body just shuts down any pregnancy

What point do you think you’re making with this? How does this have any bearing on what I’m advocating for?

Some people at the far end of unreasonable hold stupid views. That doesn’t suggest that we must rush full-speed to the compete other end of unreasonable views in response.

Do you really think you could determine at exactly what stage of development it is no longer permissible to terminate a pregnancy?

We don’t need an exact stage. If you’d read anything I’d posted with an open mind and intent to understand, you would know that. All we need do is find the point where the medical community generally agrees that a fetus is viable (something already in existence - at about 24 weeks), and add another week or two as a safety margin.

You’re falling into the fallacy of the beard. You can’t determine exactly how many chin hairs constitute a beard… and yet we all agree that beards exist.

Or what degree of disability or harm to the mother make it permissible?

What do you think constitutes harm? Have you forgotten that my position allows quite clearly for risk of death it injury to the mother to be prioritized?

You are suggesting that legislators enact laws which mandate limits on abortions.

You are suggesting that a group largely comprised of men, almost none of whom have any training in medicine, and some of whom have demonstrated an appalling lack of basic common knowledge about female anatomy, pregnancy and childbirth and miscarriage are better positioned to establish a framework that will limit the medical care a woman may receive, despite what she and her doctor think is appropriate

Do you not realize that exactly that scenario is causing severe medical harm and death, and occasionally arrest and imprisonment of women who miscarry?

Do you imagine that no women died from draconian anti abortion laws during third trimester miscarriages fir those same reasons during RvW?

You are so afraid some woman somewhere is going to have an abortion that you personally disagree with her having that you are willing to put at risk the lives of every fertile woman on US soil.

Who gave you that right?

It’s very strange to me that so many people here have taken the stance that RvW is horrible, and that reinstating it will kill tons of women.

To quote someone posting in this thread, "Has reading for comprehension fallen out of fashion?"

People arguing against legislators* enacting laws that mandate limits on abortions are not saying Roe v Wade was horrible or that reinstating it will kill tons of women. Quite the opposite in fact.


*(a group largely comprised of men, almost none of whom have any training in medicine, and some of whom have demonstrated an appalling lack of basic common knowledge about female anatomy, pregnancy and childbirth and miscarriage)

 

[Emily Lake]

No. Following medical guidelines leads to medically ethical decisions by definition.

I agree… but that requires guideline to follow in the first place.

I’ve posted 2 guidelines. Existence does not require your approval.

No, you’ve posted two very general statements, neither of which outlines conditions under which it is and is not appropriate to perform an abortion. Neither of them do what you’ve claimed they do.

You and others have strongly asserted that there exist overarching medical guidelines from a comprehensive governing body, which would prohibit a doctor from aborting a later term fetus that is healthy, with a mother that is healthy.

Neither you nor anyone else has provided any guidelines that do that.

Coming from a supporter of RVW that straw man is so epically ironic that it cannot be taken seriously as stated.

My point was that your tradeoff between “convenience “ vs “life” ignores quite a bit in its analysis.

From what I can tell, you are willing to accept any amount of harm to pregnant women and the resulting child who want a “medically unnecessary abortion” to reduce the unmeasured but small number of such abortions.

That staggers what is left of my feeble brain.

It only staggers your brain because you aren’t reading, or you are ignoring.

More irony from the it’s ok to snuff life in the 1st and Second trimester for reason X but not the 3rd.

A developing fetus really is a spectrum. At the start of the pregnancy, it’s a lump of cells, but is not remotely fully formed - it’s the ingredients for bread dumped in a bowl, unmixed, and the yeast has barely begun to grow. Partway through, it’s developed to something that is identifiable as a human form, with the major components started but not completed, and if removed from the womb it won’t survive - it’s dough, and it;s risen, but it isn’t bread. In the last trimester (roughly), anyone who looks at it will see a baby, it has all the components of a human, nothing is missing, and they’re in the process of finishing. If removed from the womb, it has a greater than coin-flip likelihood to survive, and that likelihood grows every single day in a meaningful way - it’s bread, identifiably and clearly bread. The center might still be a bit soft, the crust might not be as firm as desired, but it’s edible bread.

The fact that you think there is no meaningful difference is baffling, and I have a hard time believing it. It’s the difference between red and purple and blue; even if you can’t draw a bright-line division between red and purple, everyone knows that violet is not cherry. Even though you can’t draw a clean break between purple and blue, we all can tell the difference between violet and cerulean. It’s absurd beyond measure to pretend you can’t tell the difference, it’s doubly absurd to pretend you are incapable of distinguishing red from blue.

Perhaps you might outline what kind of non-medical harm you’re concerned about? And perhaps include your reasoning for why killing a baby is necessary to prevent that non-medical harm?

In order to do do, I need to know which term “non-medical” or “harm” you don’t understand.

I don’t know what the fuck you mean by either. Give me the definition you’re working with for each.

Also, a fetus is not a baby.

At some point, it most definite Is. Pretending otherwise is willful blindness and I don’t buy it.

 

[Emily Lake]

It’s so strange to me that you think that we can a) reinstate RvW, which was decided in a Supreme Court case, not by any legislature and b) that RvW was some kind of nirvana best case scenario.

I’m not seeking to reinstate RvW, which was never actually a law in the first place. A prior judicial interpretation based on a stretch of the constitution was reinterpreted and found to not be supported by the constitution. I want congress to do its fucking job and make an actual law. Preferable a constitutional amendment, but actual legislation would suffice.

And yes, I do think RvW was the most reasonable and appropriate balance.

Abd that women and physicians are morally bankrupt and cannot be trusted to make medical decisions.

Not all by any means. But are you under the naive impression that no women hold LD’s view, and no dictors hold Jarhyn’s?

For the record, I think a fair number of doctors are often incredibly misguided and arrogant, and make disastrous medical decisions. That view is supported by lobotomies, hysterectomies as treatment for mental health issues, psychiatric gays conversion therapy… And the current practice of creating life-long medical issues by giving minors chemical castration drugs that prevent their natural development and cause sterility and inorgasmia, giving minors cross-sex hormones that cause physical harm and materially increase their risks, and performing medically unnecessary amputations of heathy body parts on children as a means to treat a transient anxiety about their maturing bodies.

Physicians aren’t saints anointed from on high incapable of being zealots. The list of medically supported travesties throughout history should at least give you pause.

Are you under the impression that the person's health and life at stake is anyone other than their own?

Are you pretending that this discussion is about what to do when someone’s life or health is at stake late in a pregnancy?

I will also remind you that we’re talking about two lives, and whether or not it is moral and acceptable to allow the intentional killing of one life when there is no identifiable need.