Roe v Wade is on deck

[laughing dog]

And yet, as a gay man, you feel compelled to get involved in the personal discussion.

Pretty weak dodge dude. It's called ad hom.
I'm gay so pointing out the distinction between science and anecdotes is wrong, according to you.
Tom

My comment was obviously directed at your 2nd sentence which you conveniently clipped out.

And spouting ignorance about a study’s methodology and purpose is pretty much the opposite of distinguishing between anecdote and science.

 

[Emily Lake]

This isn’t hard. Require a medical necessity by law; rely on doctors to determine whether medical necessity is present and document the diagnose that supports it.

I don't trust the idiots that write the legislation to have a grasp of any particular situation.
For instance, why would I believe that some idiot running for office knows enough about "medical necessity" to define it for everyone? I don't think so at all. And I'm convinced that the majority of them will keep up the "crueler than thou" competition currently raging in US government for the sake of wealth and power.

I agree that a few late term abortions are morally repugnant, but I don't think that government interference in women's reproductive care is a solution.
Tom

Legislators don’t need to define medical necessity. They don’t define medical necessity for ACA when it comes to provisions for reconstructive and corrective surgery as opposed to cosmetic. The refs say the first two must be covered by insurance, and the latter cannot be eligible for subsidized coverage.

This is no different, and it’s increasingly absurd to pretend that such detail is required.

If it’s medically necessary, there will be a diagnosis code of the medical condition that supports it, documented in the medical records as the supporting evidence for why the procedure was done.

Cosmetic surgery won’t have a diagnosis code, because theres nothing to diagnose - there’s no medical diagnosis for “customer wants a smaller nose”. Corrective surgery will, because “deviated septum that restricts or diverts airflow” is an actual medical condition. There is no diagnosis code for “customer wants big ok’ titties”. There is a diagnosis code for “replace tissue lost to mastectomy” as well as for “giant boobies causing persistent back strain and ligament damage”.

Why are you (and others) demanding a degree of perfect specificity for this that is not present in any other regulations?

Look in the mirror.

You are the one demanding documentation in the third trimester. Documentation that certainly already exists.

lol, you think that expecting a doctor to write down a medical diagnosis to support a medical procedure is an exorbitant and unrealistic bar?

 

[Arctish]

The only option I would like limited is the abortion of a late term fetus when there is no known health risk or complication to either the mother or the fetus.

Why is it that every single attempted counter argument for my position relies on an identifiable and known medical need being denied? Or in your case, the pretense that disallowing late term abortions with no medical justification would somehow prohibit an early induced delivery?

Almost all of the opposing arguments used in this thread, by you and others, are scenarios that I explicitly consider reasonable and appropriate for an abortion. The exceptions are LD who doesn’t try to argue, but simply stands by his belief that on-demand abortion should be allowable at any point prior to delivery, and Jarhyn who thinks people aren’t people until he decides they are and views children as non-persons altogether.

The problem is you claim this, but keep calling for roadblocks that would be completely irrelevant under such a standard?

Ah yes, the insurmountable “ roadblock” of the doctor having to record a diagnosis code. Truly a horrible burden on doctors to expect them to do what they’re expected to do for any other medical service…

The problem with demanding a diagnostic code is the same problem with strict legislation governing abortions. The codes, like the laws, have to be written beforehand. So either the codes have to be general guides with a lot of leeway or they will become obstacles to women receiving appropriate health care.

 

[Emily Lake]

I don’t know if you truly don’t understand or if you’re nitpicking trivialities and playing word games. So let me try to be super clear.

Current regulations in 9 states: doctors can perform abortions at any time in the pregnancy, and no medical diagnosis is required.

What I want: in the first 2 trimesters doctors can perform abortions with no medical diagnosis; in the 3rd trimester a medical diagnosis is required.

That isn’t “not trusting physician judgement”. It’s requiring that physician medical judgement be employed.

The problem is your description of those 9 states does not reflect the reality on the ground. Just because it could be legally done doesn't mean it happens.

Just because it’s legal to knead women to death in Afghanistan does mean it actually happens!

That’s your argument. That we just believe real hard that nobody would ever do something you think they ought not do. Pure, unadulterated faith.

 

[Emily Lake]

…
“Abortion” is the name of a medical procedure. “Abortion on demand” is the name of a government policy, the policy of not getting involved. If you want to get rid of the phrase “abortion on demand” you’re going to need a new name for that policy if you want to go on advocating it. “Abortion” is a nutty term to use for the policy because it’s a procedure, not a policy, and because it will make everyone who uses it that way confusing and everyone who hears it used that way confused, and because it will be rhetorically good for prolifers and bad for women. And the majority isn’t against the government-not-involved policy because the word “demand” is horrifying but because killing beings that seem indistinguishable from preemies in the nicu is horrifying. The public is going to call the hands-off policy something unless people like you stop advocating it, which isn’t going to happen, so your only options are to come up with a better name for your preferred policy and get people to use it, or to have the public go on calling it “abortion on demand”. Pick one.

Good luck. I’ve asked for alternative terms to represent the situation under discussion a few times, and have yet to get a response.

The responses I got make no sense, unless the respondents aren’t interested in the implications for the outside world and just want an excuse to label your views “anti-abortion”.

We label her views "anti-abortion" because she repeats every pro-punishment deception about the issue, and keeps calling for approaches that will kill women.

This is completely false. Please refrain from intentionally posting disinformation about my views.

You’re a fucking mod, Loren. Do better.

 

[Emily Lake]

True, but a dog is alive and a brick is not and never will be alive.

And a brick is still the same potential pile of clay as a dog. What the destroyed object has the potential to turn into is immaterial — what matters is what it is when the blow is struck. A thirty-week fetus is not a twenty-week fetus any more than a dog is a brick. It’s a living animal that will suffer if someone kills it, the same as a dog struck by a martial artist.

No. Not alive is not alive. A fetus is alive and a brick is not.

So what? A geranium is alive and a brick is not. You think karate chopping a geranium raises the same moral concerns as karate chopping a dog?

No, nor does it raise the same moral concerns as karate chopping a dog.

Alive is not the relevant characteristic that makes a moral difference; sentience is.

Says you, not me.

If you really thought life makes the moral difference between a brick and a dog, and not sentience, then you would morally object to karate chopping a living geranium plant. You already indicated you don’t.

Alternatively… he doesn’t think sentience has any role in morality at all.

You’re assuming his moral framework resembles that of the majority of people brought up with western-style democratic values.

 

[Emily Lake]

Some abortions are medically necessary and some aren’t. That’s just a fact of reality that isn’t anyone’s fault, not even the Romans’. It will remain true whether we pay attention to it or not.

That's playing pretty fast and loose with the notion of a "fact". There is and always will be subjective judgement involved with determining what is or isn't medically necessary, even in a room full of physicians. If all medical experts firmly agreed on when abortions were necessary, this whole social debate would be simpler. The legal question would be much simpler.

Heap fallacy once more.

Just because some cases exist that are borderline or difficult to determine exactly does not imply that there is no meaningful difference between cases that are NOT borderline.

If we accept your argument as presented, then it follows that a doctor could decide that removing an ectopic pregnancy isn’t medically necessary and you would have no standing to disagree.

 

[Emily Lake]

True, but a dog is alive and a brick is not and never will be alive.

And a brick is still the same potential pile of clay as a dog. What the destroyed object has the potential to turn into is immaterial — what matters is what it is when the blow is struck. A thirty-week fetus is not a twenty-week fetus any more than a dog is a brick. It’s a living animal that will suffer if someone kills it, the same as a dog struck by a martial artist.

No. Not alive is not alive. A fetus is alive and a brick is not.

So what? A geranium is alive and a brick is not. You think karate chopping a geranium raises the same moral concerns as karate chopping a dog?

No, nor does it raise the same moral concerns as karate chopping a dog.

Alive is not the relevant characteristic that makes a moral difference; sentience is.

Says you, not me.

If you really thought life makes the moral difference between a brick and a dog, and not sentience, then you would morally object to karate chopping a living geranium plant. You already indicated you don’t.

First, life doesn't make moral differences - people do. Second, I mistyped. My sentence should read "No, nor does it raise the same moral concerns as karate chopping a brick". I would have a moral concern about karate chopping a geranium, just not as strong as karate chopping a dog.

What’s wrong with karate chopping geraniums? (Apart from looking ridiculous.)

Sorry, I guess I don’t need to know. Focus. If sentience isn’t the issue, why is your moral concern about karate chopping a dog stronger than your moral concern about karate chopping a geranium?

I really like and admire dogs and appreciate their value in our human society.

Karate chopping a dog seems senseless and cruel unless the dog is about to harm a person. Karate chopping a geranium seems senseless and stupid.

Senseless and stupid doesn’t sound like a moral concern. Reading horoscopes is senseless and stupid but whatever floats your boat. What’s the difference between geraniums and dogs that makes doing it to geraniums stupid and to dogs cruel?

IMO, deliberately injuring a dog is cruel while deliberately injuring a plant is callous.
As I said, I really like dogs. I don’t really like geraniums.

Are there any mammals for which deliberate injury is something you do NOT view as cruelty? Exceptions granted for self-defense, food, and similar situations.

Would you consider it merely silly to karate chop a rabbit for fun? A mouse?

 

[Toni]

Oh for the love of god. “On demand” is not a qualifier!

FFS Did you fail fourth grade grammar? I would not have thought so.

Top of my class all through grammar school, thanks for asking. I expect you think insulting me proves I’m wrong, but you didn’t supply evidence.

In this national debate “On demand” qualifies an abortion to differentiate it rhetorically from abortions performed due to medical necessity, determined by Church andr State.

If that were the case it would imply nobody demands an abortion she medically needs. But let’s pretend you’re right for the sake of discussion — let’s pretend “on demand” is the French-style adjective you seem to be insisting it is, appended to the back of the noun to specify it’s the “not performed due to medical necessity” type. I asked what you wanted to replace “abortion on demand” with and you said “abortion”. So you are advocating that we use “abortion” to mean “not medically necessary abortion”. How you can possibly imagine anyone but anti-abortion crusaders would benefit from that terminological choice is mind-boggling.

Can you make a cogent case for the need to differentiate between ‘medically necessary’ abortions and abortions ‘on demand?’

Why is it anybody’s business?

Because a fetus two weeks prior to delivery is a baby, and you goddamned know it. It’s not a shocking idea to expect a good reason for killing a bsby.

Why is it anybody’s business if a parent kills their newborn? Or toddler? Or dependent elderly parent?

Where is your proof that a fetus two weeks prior to term is aborted?

 

[Emily Lake]

since you saw fit to butt in on an exchange you weren’t a party to.

Holy crap! You do that all the time. White knighting yourself is your stock and trade.

EMILY MUST BE DEFENDED AT ALL COST.

Alternatively… some of youse could give a go at just not being dishonest dicks while disagreeing with my views.

@laughing dog does a pretty good job of it.

 

[Emily Lake]

since you saw fit to butt in on an exchange you weren’t a party to.

Holy crap! You do that all the time. White knighting yourself is your stock and trade.

EMILY MUST BE DEFENDED AT ALL COST.

I'm afraid Emily's demons may be beyond the reach of any defenses you might offer.

I invite you to snack upon this artfully prepared plate of diverse ordure.

 

[Emily Lake]

Yeah, you feel the need to come rescue the damsel in distress.

I’m no damsel. I don’t need rescuing. And if you were honest about it, you would note that Bomb calls out fallacious arguments without any apparent consideration for who the target of those faulty arguments is.

Bomb is very consistent- he attacks bad logic.

It might be worth considering why this forum tacitly allows dishonest and malicious falsehoods about some - but only some - members. It might also be worth considering which members frequently engage in such disinformation, and at what point such behavior approaches harassment.

 

[Emily Lake]

Geraniums aren't beings who have complex nervous systems. Next question which has a super obvious answer anyone who's studied philosophy would be able to answer.

That works. So does that mean you agree me then, that ld is wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second? A thirty week fetus’s nervous system is a lot more complex than a twenty week fetus’s.

Perhaps the issue does not reside with measures of complexity of a nervous system.

The issue has a lot more to do with bodily autonomy, imo.

Would you supplant mother killing her breastfeeding reborn in the basis of bodily autonomy?

 

[Emily Lake]

wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second?

Not to butt in, butt iirc, you need to take that up with Emily. The very core of Emily’s arguments for intervening in 3rd trimester abortion, is/was her assertion that “at some point” prior to birth, the fetus becomes a baby and at that point, the rights and benefits of being a baby should accrue to the fetus.
Much argument ensued about blues, reds and purples, but that mythical point of babyhood was never given objective definition.
According to Ems, the “fact” that no concise definition or diagnostic procedure can pinpoint “the point”, would oblige us to go through an elaborate process of soliciting and obtaining expert opinions other than that of the woman’s primary doctor, to make sure they concur that the 3rd T fetus to be aborted is not yet a baby.
I’m pretty sure Ems would say that’s not her position, but that IS what she said it WAS and I’ve not heard if she has modified it.

The red is something you invented all by yourself, and does not represent my views in any way whatsoever.

And you fucking know it.

 

[Emily Lake]

I’m pretty sure you’re not up to reviewing her sparse “position statements”, and I know I’m not. But I recall her insistence on oversight of 3T abortions in varying degrees - whether you believe it or not.

Adoctor recording a medical diagnosis to support the procedure in no way resembles your disingenuous framing.

 

[Emily Lake]

wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second?

Not to butt in, butt iirc, you need to take that up with Emily. The very core of Emily’s arguments for intervening in 3rd trimester abortion, is/was her assertion that “at some point” prior to birth, the fetus becomes a baby and at that point, the rights and benefits of being a baby should accrue to the fetus.
Much argument ensued about blues, reds and purples, but that mythical point of babyhood was never given objective definition.
According to Ems, the “fact” that no concise definition or diagnostic procedure can pinpoint “the point”, would oblige us to go through an elaborate process of soliciting and obtaining expert opinions other than that of the woman’s primary doctor, to make sure they concur that the 3rd T fetus to be aborted is not yet a baby.
I’m pretty sure Ems would say that’s not her position, but that IS what she said it WAS and I’ve not heard if she has modified it.

Consider the law about self defense.

You may use deadly force in self defense when a reasonable man would consider a deadly threat to exist. Certainty of harm is not required--you can shoot the armed robber because you're not sure if he will be satisfied with the take from the robbery and might inflict harm in an attempt to get more.

Applied to pregnancy: at some point it becomes a person. We have no perfect definition of "person", nor do we have a perfect ability to measure whether something meets this definition anyway. But this does not matter if the pregnancy poses a threat to the woman--why should she not have the same right to defend herself against her fetus as she would anyone else? Note that inviting it in doesn't change matters--a lawful guest isn't a threat but if they attempt to inflict harm they become a threat.

There is no requirement of a second opinion against an imminent threat.

Great.

So why are you arguing against me?

Based on your post here… your opposition to my views is equivalent to you taking the position that ALL killings are self-defense.

 

[Emily Lake]

How are the able to verify?!?!

. They could ask the person to sign a waiver so they could look at their medical records or ask them to show them medical records.

The records would contain the information the survey was seeking. If they had the records they wouldn't need the interviews.

That’s not true. The records will show that a 3rdT abortion occurred; in some cases it might include the medical diagnosis involved by n a necessary abortion. But the records would not include why the abortion took place so late in the pregnancy.

They glossed over the sampling problem. Why should I trust that they verified something that should be very hard to verify.

They didn't have a sampling problem because they weren't making a statistical study.

Why should a reader trust your wild accusations based on a easy to spot misunderstandings?

You still are not understanding the sampling problem I am talking about.

I understand that it’s an imaginary problem you’ve invented to bolster your pre-existing belief.

 

[laughing dog]

True, but a dog is alive and a brick is not and never will be alive.

And a brick is still the same potential pile of clay as a dog. What the destroyed object has the potential to turn into is immaterial — what matters is what it is when the blow is struck. A thirty-week fetus is not a twenty-week fetus any more than a dog is a brick. It’s a living animal that will suffer if someone kills it, the same as a dog struck by a martial artist.

No. Not alive is not alive. A fetus is alive and a brick is not.

So what? A geranium is alive and a brick is not. You think karate chopping a geranium raises the same moral concerns as karate chopping a dog?

No, nor does it raise the same moral concerns as karate chopping a dog.

Alive is not the relevant characteristic that makes a moral difference; sentience is.

Says you, not me.

If you really thought life makes the moral difference between a brick and a dog, and not sentience, then you would morally object to karate chopping a living geranium plant. You already indicated you don’t.

First, life doesn't make moral differences - people do. Second, I mistyped. My sentence should read "No, nor does it raise the same moral concerns as karate chopping a brick". I would have a moral concern about karate chopping a geranium, just not as strong as karate chopping a dog.

What’s wrong with karate chopping geraniums? (Apart from looking ridiculous.)

Sorry, I guess I don’t need to know. Focus. If sentience isn’t the issue, why is your moral concern about karate chopping a dog stronger than your moral concern about karate chopping a geranium?

I really like and admire dogs and appreciate their value in our human society.

Karate chopping a dog seems senseless and cruel unless the dog is about to harm a person. Karate chopping a geranium seems senseless and stupid.

Senseless and stupid doesn’t sound like a moral concern. Reading horoscopes is senseless and stupid but whatever floats your boat. What’s the difference between geraniums and dogs that makes doing it to geraniums stupid and to dogs cruel?

IMO, deliberately injuring a dog is cruel while deliberately injuring a plant is callous.
As I said, I really like dogs. I don’t really like geraniums.

Are there any mammals for which deliberate injury is something you do NOT view as cruelty? Exceptions granted for self-defense, food, and similar situations.

No.

Would you consider it merely silly to karate chop a rabbit for fun? A mouse?

No.

 

[Emily Lake]

What always gets me is how Emily Lake can 'agree' on a main principle, but somehow it always derails into the weeds.

This reads like you’re blaming me for the incessant details that other people keep bringing up. Perhaps I’m wrong, but the scare quotes around agree certainly come across that way.

 

[Tigers!]

Yeah, you feel the need to come rescue the damsel in distress.

I’m no damsel. I don’t need rescuing. And if you were honest about it, you would note that Bomb calls out fallacious arguments without any apparent consideration for who the target of those faulty arguments is.

Bomb is very consistent- he attacks bad logic.

It might be worth considering why this forum tacitly allows dishonest and malicious falsehoods about some - but only some - members. It might also be worth considering which members frequently engage in such disinformation, and at what point such behavior approaches harassment.

That's because you have the audacity to disagree with some members on some topics that should not be debated or even discussed.