Roe v Wade is on deck

[Bomb#20]

And in the second place, you realize you’re advocating a lunatic fringe position, don’t you? The existence of unnecessary late-term abortions isn’t controversial!. Everyone but a few extremists believe they happen. Here’s public opinion as distilled by a neural network trained on what everyone and their brother are saying. I asked Google “do any experts claim third trimester medically unnecessary abortions never happen” and it said

”No medical experts claim third-trimester abortions never happen for elective or non-medical reasons, but medical bodies and researchers agree that third-trimester abortions are exceptionally rare (less than 1% of all abortions) and are almost universally performed due to severe fetal anomalies or medical necessity.”​

So your theory is that a bunch of prolifers chose to undermine their own political agenda by adding to the case for making access to early term abortions easier, purely in order to convince the public of something the public already believe and to settle a dispute that’s only going on inside pro-choice circles. Do you really not understand how ridiculous that sounds? Why would any prolifer even be aware of your fringe opinion, let alone care enough about it to lie-for-Jesus in order to discredit it at the cost of building up the case for better sex education and easier early abortions?

You trust the AI?? In an area rife with deception?? What are you smoking?!

There has been major deception in the punishment community pretending the fetal defect abortions ("elective" in medical parlance) are "elective" in common usage, as by choice. Some of us have been trying to make this clear in this thread. Why in the world do you think the AI could possibly see truth behind the deception?!

Another guy keyword searching instead of reading.

As I said, I’m relying on the AI to reflect its training data, not to see truth. It’s sampling public opinion, which is something it’s better at than you or me. If the issue you’re postulating the hypothetical liars-for-Jesus are trying to trick us about were actually controversial then the controversy would be in the training data and would have come to the AI’s attention.

If you believe there are medical experts who say medically unnecessary third-trimester abortions never happen, how is this information available to you and to prolifers but not to Google?

 

[Emily Lake]

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?

This is a stupid demand.

It is as intelligent and much more on point than your baseless assertion that anyone aborts a baby two weeks prior to its due date.

I admire your baseless faith that nobody would ever do what you think they ought not do.

Do you think that there are no women and no doctors out there that believe it’s not a baby until the doctor imbues it with the magical essence of personhood? There are two posters in this thread who have unequivocally expressed that it should be completely acceptable first someone to abort at any point in a pregnancy, including immediately prior to delivery. TWO out of a dozen or so participants. What on earth makes you so certain that nobody else holds that same view?

Or do you think LD and Jarhyn are lying about their views? LD may be stubborn, but in 20 years I’ve never known him to be dishonest. And based on other expressed views, I see no reason to doubt that Jarhyn actually believes that some humans aren’t people.

The world is full of things that happen despite people’s strong beliefs y to hate it can’t possibly be so. Doctors would never give chemical castration drugs to pubertal children on request with no mental health evaluation… and yet they do. Mothers would never aid their husbands in sexually abusing little kids… and yet they do. Men would never kidnap, rape, and torture random women… and yet they do. Developed societies would never strip half their population of the most fundamental human rights… and yet Afghanistan has done so.

Some people are horrible. So me people will exploit, injure, and harm others without a single qualm. Luckily it’s rare… but it still happens.

It’s the duty of any well-functioning society to create safeguards that minimize both the impact and opportunity for such aberrant behavior. Removing or refusing to consider reasonable safeguards is reckless and dangerous.

 

[Emily Lake]

The deeply personal and hot button issues are reasons for the small sample size.

I didn't say differently. I was commenting on whether the results were particularly meaningful in any big ways or not.
Tom

The only purpose was to do a qualitative investigation of the reasons that late abortions occur.

The conclusion was that it’s pretty much the same reasons as 2ndT abortions. The author opines that restrictive laws result in some abortions being pushed out to 3rdT when they would have occurred sooner if access were more reasonable.

I think that’s meaningful, especially for the objective of removing stupid laws like Texas has.

Also, some problems with fetal development are not discovered prior to the third trimester. And sometimes the mother's health is seriously compromised later in the pregnancy.

I agree, which is why I fully support late abortions for medical reasons.

Why are you arguing against me for something you agree on?

 

[Emily Lake]

Okay… so what, in your view, creates the distinction between mammals and plants?

Mammals give me more joy than plants and we are mammals.

Why do they give you joy? What traits or characteristics do you resonate with that create joy in you, that are associated with them being mammals?

 

[laughing dog]

Okay… so what, in your view, creates the distinction between mammals and plants?

Mammals give me more joy than plants and we are mammals.

Why do they give you joy? What traits or characteristics do you resonate with that create joy in you, that are associated with them being mammals?

I don’t analyze why something or someone brings me joy. I just enjoy.

 

[Emily Lake]

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.

Diagnosis codes already exist, you numpty!

Why are you so dedicated to inventing obstacles that don’t actually exist?

I know they exist, you cotton-headed ninnymuggins.
I am pointing out the obstacles you are proposing should exist.

Ninnymuggins is definitely going in my lexicon!

Doctors sometimes encounter diseases that aren’t already identified and symptoms that have no known cause. The doctors dealing with the first cases of monkey pox in North America didn’t know what their patients had other than “ it appears to be some kind of pox”. The doctors treating pregnant women infected with Zika virus were at first bewildered by the symptoms and the effects on the fetuses. They had to rely on their best medical judgement in order to develop treatment plans.

I think you have to let doctors do what they believe is best for their patients even if there is no code for it.

Have you ever flipped through all of the ICD-10 codes? You seem to be assuming that they only cover very explicit and clearly identified things, but they’re a lot more broad than you might realize. There are a whole lot of codes that are symptom-based rather than cause-based.

Let me take this one step to the side, and try to remove the emotional anchor involved in abortion.

If a man goes to a surgeon and says “hey, I don’t want my left arm, it makes me unhappy”, do you think the surgeon should say “no problem, let me schedule you for an amputation”? Would you think it reasonable and appropriate for that doctor to perform an amputation without at least identifying a medical symptom that would support the action, even if it were as vague as M79.602, pain in left upper limb, unspecified?

Would you be copacetic if the doctor documented no diagnosis at all, and simply claimed the patient’s right to bodily autonomy as support for removing a limb?

What I’ve proposed isn’t onerous, it’s not oppressive, it’s not even unusual. It’s the standard expectation for any other medical procedure.

Seriously people. I really didn’t think “don’t kill babies without a medical justification” would be such a problem for otherwise intelligent and compassionate people.

There are very few medical procedures that are done solely at request of the patient with no expectation of supporting diagnosis. And those that are don’t involve killing someone else.

 

[Emily Lake]

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…

Abortion codes are well established.

Billing for Interruption of Pregnancy: Early Pregnancy Loss

This resource provides information on the key terminology for billing for interruption of pregnancy, as well as coding for early pregnancy loss.

www.acog.org

You really should check before you make such broad statements.

You might consider the difference between procedure codes (what you linked to) and diagnosis codes.

You really should read and understand before you think you’ve dropped the mic.

 

[Toni]

The deeply personal and hot button issues are reasons for the small sample size.

I didn't say differently. I was commenting on whether the results were particularly meaningful in any big ways or not.
Tom

The only purpose was to do a qualitative investigation of the reasons that late abortions occur.

The conclusion was that it’s pretty much the same reasons as 2ndT abortions. The author opines that restrictive laws result in some abortions being pushed out to 3rdT when they would have occurred sooner if access were more reasonable.

I think that’s meaningful, especially for the objective of removing stupid laws like Texas has.

Also, some problems with fetal development are not discovered prior to the third trimester. And sometimes the mother's health is seriously compromised later in the pregnancy.

I agree, which is why I fully support late abortions for medical reasons.

Why are you arguing against me for something you agree on?

It seems that you are arguing that ‘reasons’ must be spelled out and enumerated in legislation.

I don’t agree.

 

[Emily Lake]

Can I have some of whatever you’re smoking? Where the bloody hell did you see me accuse the pro-choice side of anything? I am the pro-choice side! I accused one specific person of special pleading on one specific point that was specifically about terminology and not about any specific trimester. Are you, like, keyword searching instead of reading?

Don’t you know that any challenge of a pro-choice person’s opinions, no matter how logic-based or reasonable, is a mortal sin that makes you an apostate… and therefore anti-abortion? You’re not allowed to have a nuanced view or to challenge the dogma of true believers.

As evidenced by y the very weird trajectory of this thread… supporting the guidelines of RvW and wanting it to made into a federal law means I’m an evil pro-lifers that wants pregnant women to bleed out in parking lots.

 

[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?

This is a stupid demand.

It is as intelligent and much more on point than your baseless assertion that anyone aborts a baby two weeks prior to its due date.

I admire your baseless faith that nobody would ever do what you think they ought not do.

Do you think that there are no women and no doctors out there that believe it’s not a baby until the doctor imbues it with the magical essence of personhood? There are two posters in this thread who have unequivocally expressed that it should be completely acceptable first someone to abort at any point in a pregnancy, including immediately prior to delivery. TWO out of a dozen or so participants. What on earth makes you so certain that nobody else holds that same view?

Or do you think LD and Jarhyn are lying about their views? LD may be stubborn, but in 20 years I’ve never known him to be dishonest. And based on other expressed views, I see no reason to doubt that Jarhyn actually believes that some humans aren’t people.

The world is full of things that happen despite people’s strong beliefs y to hate it can’t possibly be so. Doctors would never give chemical castration drugs to pubertal children on request with no mental health evaluation… and yet they do. Mothers would never aid their husbands in sexually abusing little kids… and yet they do. Men would never kidnap, rape, and torture random women… and yet they do. Developed societies would never strip half their population of the most fundamental human rights… and yet Afghanistan has done so.

Some people are horrible. So me people will exploit, injure, and harm others without a single qualm. Luckily it’s rare… but it still happens.

It’s the duty of any well-functioning society to create safeguards that minimize both the impact and opportunity for such aberrant behavior. Removing or refusing to consider reasonable safeguards is reckless and dangerous.

I absolutely do know as a fact that people have abortions for reasons I don’t agree with. One example is a friend whose first husband insisted she have an abortion when she got pregnant. She did so, against her own wishes.

I don’t believe anyone has any right to decide for someone else whether or not to continue a pregnancy.

I don’t care if my reasons aren’t good enough for you.

 

[Emily Lake]

Okay… so what, in your view, creates the distinction between mammals and plants?

Mammals give me more joy than plants and we are mammals.

Why do they give you joy? What traits or characteristics do you resonate with that create joy in you, that are associated with them being mammals?

I don’t analyze why something or someone brings me joy. I just enjoy.

Okay. In the spirit of metacognition and introspection… I posit that your empathetic impulse responds to the observation that mammals experience pain in a way you understand and instinctively react to. Plants don’t respond to injury or harm in a way you innately recognize as pain, and so your empathetic response isn’t triggered.

For anyone other than a psychopath, pulling the ears off of a mouse, or even the wings off of a fly, is considered cruel. It’s viewed as torturing that animal. The same is not true of picking the petals off of a flower or stripping the leaves from a twig.

 

[Emily Lake]

The deeply personal and hot button issues are reasons for the small sample size.

I didn't say differently. I was commenting on whether the results were particularly meaningful in any big ways or not.
Tom

The only purpose was to do a qualitative investigation of the reasons that late abortions occur.

The conclusion was that it’s pretty much the same reasons as 2ndT abortions. The author opines that restrictive laws result in some abortions being pushed out to 3rdT when they would have occurred sooner if access were more reasonable.

I think that’s meaningful, especially for the objective of removing stupid laws like Texas has.

Also, some problems with fetal development are not discovered prior to the third trimester. And sometimes the mother's health is seriously compromised later in the pregnancy.

I agree, which is why I fully support late abortions for medical reasons.

Why are you arguing against me for something you agree on?

It seems that you are arguing that ‘reasons’ must be spelled out and enumerated in legislation.

I don’t agree.

Quote me saying so. Otherwise stop accepting Elixir’s and Jaryn’s twisted representation.

Respond to what I actually say rather than what some biased and maliciously motivated person says I secretly mean. I don’t speak in hidden codes accessible only to those granted extraordinary insight, I say what I mean. And at absolutely no point whatsoever have I suggested that the reasons must be itemized in legislation.

 

[Emily Lake]

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?

This is a stupid demand.

It is as intelligent and much more on point than your baseless assertion that anyone aborts a baby two weeks prior to its due date.

I admire your baseless faith that nobody would ever do what you think they ought not do.

Do you think that there are no women and no doctors out there that believe it’s not a baby until the doctor imbues it with the magical essence of personhood? There are two posters in this thread who have unequivocally expressed that it should be completely acceptable first someone to abort at any point in a pregnancy, including immediately prior to delivery. TWO out of a dozen or so participants. What on earth makes you so certain that nobody else holds that same view?

Or do you think LD and Jarhyn are lying about their views? LD may be stubborn, but in 20 years I’ve never known him to be dishonest. And based on other expressed views, I see no reason to doubt that Jarhyn actually believes that some humans aren’t people.

The world is full of things that happen despite people’s strong beliefs y to hate it can’t possibly be so. Doctors would never give chemical castration drugs to pubertal children on request with no mental health evaluation… and yet they do. Mothers would never aid their husbands in sexually abusing little kids… and yet they do. Men would never kidnap, rape, and torture random women… and yet they do. Developed societies would never strip half their population of the most fundamental human rights… and yet Afghanistan has done so.

Some people are horrible. So me people will exploit, injure, and harm others without a single qualm. Luckily it’s rare… but it still happens.

It’s the duty of any well-functioning society to create safeguards that minimize both the impact and opportunity for such aberrant behavior. Removing or refusing to consider reasonable safeguards is reckless and dangerous.

I absolutely do know as a fact that people have abortions for reasons I don’t agree with. One example is a friend whose first husband insisted she have an abortion when she got pregnant. She did so, against her own wishes.

I don’t believe anyone has any right to decide for someone else whether or not to continue a pregnancy.

I don’t care if my reasons aren’t good enough for you.

Generally speaking, Toni, I agree that nobody has a right to decide for someone else whether they should continue a pregnancy. The difference is that I also don’t believe anyone has a right to decide whether or not to murder someone else.

At some point in the pregnancy, more or less around 27 weeks, aborting without a medical reason is murdering someone else.

Why do you think it’s an unacceptable burden to expect a good reason before allowing someone to kill another person?

Perhaps more to the point… do you think that a baby prematurely delivered at 28 weeks is not a person, and that the mother should have the right to opt for the killing and destruction of that premie?

 

[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?

This is a stupid demand.

It is as intelligent and much more on point than your baseless assertion that anyone aborts a baby two weeks prior to its due date.

I admire your baseless faith that nobody would ever do what you think they ought not do.

Do you think that there are no women and no doctors out there that believe it’s not a baby until the doctor imbues it with the magical essence of personhood? There are two posters in this thread who have unequivocally expressed that it should be completely acceptable first someone to abort at any point in a pregnancy, including immediately prior to delivery. TWO out of a dozen or so participants. What on earth makes you so certain that nobody else holds that same view?

Or do you think LD and Jarhyn are lying about their views? LD may be stubborn, but in 20 years I’ve never known him to be dishonest. And based on other expressed views, I see no reason to doubt that Jarhyn actually believes that some humans aren’t people.

The world is full of things that happen despite people’s strong beliefs y to hate it can’t possibly be so. Doctors would never give chemical castration drugs to pubertal children on request with no mental health evaluation… and yet they do. Mothers would never aid their husbands in sexually abusing little kids… and yet they do. Men would never kidnap, rape, and torture random women… and yet they do. Developed societies would never strip half their population of the most fundamental human rights… and yet Afghanistan has done so.

Some people are horrible. So me people will exploit, injure, and harm others without a single qualm. Luckily it’s rare… but it still happens.

It’s the duty of any well-functioning society to create safeguards that minimize both the impact and opportunity for such aberrant behavior. Removing or refusing to consider reasonable safeguards is reckless and dangerous.

I absolutely do know as a fact that people have abortions for reasons I don’t agree with. One example is a friend whose first husband insisted she have an abortion when she got pregnant. She did so, against her own wishes.

I don’t believe anyone has any right to decide for someone else whether or not to continue a pregnancy.

I don’t care if my reasons aren’t good enough for you.

Generally speaking, Toni, I agree that nobody has a right to decide for someone else whether they should continue a pregnancy. The difference is that I also don’t believe anyone has a right to decide whether or not to murder someone else.

At some point in the pregnancy, more or less around 27 weeks, aborting without a medical reason is murdering someone else.

Why do you think it’s an unacceptable burden to expect a good reason before allowing someone to kill another person?

Perhaps more to the point… do you think that a baby prematurely delivered at 28 weeks is not a person, and that the mother should have the right to opt for the killing and destruction of that premie?

I don't think that my opinion matters. The decision needs to be made by the mother and her medical provider.

I don't know how many times I can say this but it's my final word. No matter how you feel about it.

 

[Toni]

The deeply personal and hot button issues are reasons for the small sample size.

I didn't say differently. I was commenting on whether the results were particularly meaningful in any big ways or not.
Tom

The only purpose was to do a qualitative investigation of the reasons that late abortions occur.

The conclusion was that it’s pretty much the same reasons as 2ndT abortions. The author opines that restrictive laws result in some abortions being pushed out to 3rdT when they would have occurred sooner if access were more reasonable.

I think that’s meaningful, especially for the objective of removing stupid laws like Texas has.

Also, some problems with fetal development are not discovered prior to the third trimester. And sometimes the mother's health is seriously compromised later in the pregnancy.

I agree, which is why I fully support late abortions for medical reasons.

Why are you arguing against me for something you agree on?

It seems that you are arguing that ‘reasons’ must be spelled out and enumerated in legislation.

I don’t agree.

Quote me saying so. Otherwise stop accepting Elixir’s and Jaryn’s twisted representation.

Respond to what I actually say rather than what some biased and maliciously motivated person says I secretly mean. I don’t speak in hidden codes accessible only to those granted extraordinary insight, I say what I mean. And at absolutely no point whatsoever have I suggested that the reasons must be itemized in legislation.

You say you want a return to RvW. Under Roe which protected a woman’s right to abortion up until the point of viability of the fetus. Restrictions after that point were at states’ legislature’s discretion.

Two issues:

1. Medical advances have pushed the envelope of viability to younger gestational ages. However, long term medical and developmental issues are usually present for extreme premies who require a lot of medical intervention for months, if not years or permanently. So it’s possible but I’m not e tiredly certain that it’s kind. I’m fortunate and grateful that I’ve never had to make decisions about an extreme premie’s health care needs.

2. Medical imaging and testing have advanced sufficiently to be able to detect serious medical and developmental issues while the baby is in utero. Some serious medical issues are still not discovered until later than 24 weeks.

Some women do not know that they are pregnant until after 24 weeks. Occasionally not until they deliver a baby.

I do not think there is any just way to legislate what a woman decides to do or why she decides when she’s pregnant. I don’t think it is possible to elucidate every single reason it is ‘acceptable’ to abort a fetus in the third trimester. We know that some women are deceived about their due dates ( I was) or have obstacles thrown in their way when they seek abortions prior to third trimester. We know that severe health risks to fetus or woman may not be known until sometime during the third trimester.

AFAIK, no one goes into a clinic at 32 weeks gestation and says she wants an abortion just because. Should that happen, it would doubtless involve lengthy conversations and tests to see what issues there were causing her to want an abortion.

But no: I do not feel I have a right to deny anyone an abortion because their reasons do not meet my personal criteria.

 

[Elixir]

Okay… so what, in your view, creates the distinction between mammals and plants?

Mammals give me more joy than plants and we are mammals.

… said Hannibal Lechter.
(I’ll let myself out)

 

[Emily Lake]

Perhaps more to the point… do you think that a baby prematurely delivered at 28 weeks is not a person, and that the mother should have the right to opt for the killing and destruction of that premie?

I don't think that my opinion matters. The decision needs to be made by the mother and her medical provider.

There are many times where I suspect you're responding with a knee-jerk reaction based on what you assume I might secretly mean rather than a considered response to what I've actually said.

This is one of those times.

 

[Emily Lake]

The deeply personal and hot button issues are reasons for the small sample size.

I didn't say differently. I was commenting on whether the results were particularly meaningful in any big ways or not.
Tom

The only purpose was to do a qualitative investigation of the reasons that late abortions occur.

The conclusion was that it’s pretty much the same reasons as 2ndT abortions. The author opines that restrictive laws result in some abortions being pushed out to 3rdT when they would have occurred sooner if access were more reasonable.

I think that’s meaningful, especially for the objective of removing stupid laws like Texas has.

Also, some problems with fetal development are not discovered prior to the third trimester. And sometimes the mother's health is seriously compromised later in the pregnancy.

I agree, which is why I fully support late abortions for medical reasons.

Why are you arguing against me for something you agree on?

It seems that you are arguing that ‘reasons’ must be spelled out and enumerated in legislation.

I don’t agree.

Quote me saying so. Otherwise stop accepting Elixir’s and Jaryn’s twisted representation.

Respond to what I actually say rather than what some biased and maliciously motivated person says I secretly mean. I don’t speak in hidden codes accessible only to those granted extraordinary insight, I say what I mean. And at absolutely no point whatsoever have I suggested that the reasons must be itemized in legislation.

You say you want a return to RvW. Under Roe which protected a woman’s right to abortion up until the point of viability of the fetus. Restrictions after that point were at states’ legislature’s discretion.

Two issues:

1. Medical advances have pushed the envelope of viability to younger gestational ages. However, long term medical and developmental issues are usually present for extreme premies who require a lot of medical intervention for months, if not years or permanently. So it’s possible but I’m not e tiredly certain that it’s kind. I’m fortunate and grateful that I’ve never had to make decisions about an extreme premie’s health care needs.

2. Medical imaging and testing have advanced sufficiently to be able to detect serious medical and developmental issues while the baby is in utero. Some serious medical issues are still not discovered until later than 24 weeks.

Some women do not know that they are pregnant until after 24 weeks. Occasionally not until they deliver a baby.

I do not think there is any just way to legislate what a woman decides to do or why she decides when she’s pregnant. I don’t think it is possible to elucidate every single reason it is ‘acceptable’ to abort a fetus in the third trimester. We know that some women are deceived about their due dates ( I was) or have obstacles thrown in their way when they seek abortions prior to third trimester. We know that severe health risks to fetus or woman may not be known until sometime during the third trimester.

AFAIK, no one goes into a clinic at 32 weeks gestation and says she wants an abortion just because. Should that happen, it would doubtless involve lengthy conversations and tests to see what issues there were causing her to want an abortion.

But no: I do not feel I have a right to deny anyone an abortion because their reasons do not meet my personal criteria.

It's nice to see you concede that I have NOT said what you claimed I did.

Also worth noting that third trimester is generally considered to be either 27 or 28 weeks.

 

[Arctish]

Doctors sometimes encounter diseases that aren’t already identified and symptoms that have no known cause. The doctors dealing with the first cases of monkey pox in North America didn’t know what their patients had other than “ it appears to be some kind of pox”. The doctors treating pregnant women infected with Zika virus were at first bewildered by the symptoms and the effects on the fetuses. They had to rely on their best medical judgement in order to develop treatment plans.

I think you have to let doctors do what they believe is best for their patients even if there is no code for it.

Have you ever flipped through all of the ICD-10 codes? You seem to be assuming that they only cover very explicit and clearly identified things, but they’re a lot more broad than you might realize. There are a whole lot of codes that are symptom-based rather than cause-based.

Let me take this one step to the side, and try to remove the emotional anchor involved in abortion.

If a man goes to a surgeon and says “hey, I don’t want my left arm, it makes me unhappy”, do you think the surgeon should say “no problem, let me schedule you for an amputation”? Would you think it reasonable and appropriate for that doctor to perform an amputation without at least identifying a medical symptom that would support the action, even if it were as vague as M79.602, pain in left upper limb, unspecified?

Would you be copacetic if the doctor documented no diagnosis at all, and simply claimed the patient’s right to bodily autonomy as support for removing a limb?

What is it about a code that would prevent a doctor from agreeing to remove a limb, with or without a diagnosis?

Anything preventative will come from medical ethics and review boards with the power to rescind certifications or a license to practice medicine, not from having a code on a form.

What I’ve proposed isn’t onerous, it’s not oppressive, it’s not even unusual. It’s the standard expectation for any other medical procedure.

Seriously people. I really didn’t think “don’t kill babies without a medical justification” would be such a problem for otherwise intelligent and compassionate people.

There are very few medical procedures that are done solely at request of the patient with no expectation of supporting diagnosis. And those that are don’t involve killing someone else.

I still think you are confusing allowing abortions at any stage of development and not having a specific list of conditions that must be met in order to justify them, with having no regulations or medical ethics at all.

The code isn't the important thing, providing needed medical care is.

I get it that you don't trust doctors and their patients to always make the calls you want them to make, but no one can accurately predict what doctors and their patients might be facing over the course of a pregnancy. IMO we must allow doctors and pregnant women to make those choices about treatments, code or no code, because they are the ones with the information needed to make the best choice.

 

[Toni]

Perhaps more to the point… do you think that a baby prematurely delivered at 28 weeks is not a person, and that the mother should have the right to opt for the killing and destruction of that premie?

I don't think that my opinion matters. The decision needs to be made by the mother and her medical provider.

There are many times where I suspect you're responding with a knee-jerk reaction based on what you assume I might secretly mean rather than a considered response to what I've actually said.

This is one of those times.

There are many times when I think that you fail to comprehend what I write.

My position is that the decision needs to be made by the woman and her doctor. They can use whatever criteria they wish, the doctor is free to decline if he feels that processing will violate his professional ethics. He’s free to make recommendations for counseling or another provider.

Their criteria dies not need to match mine.

When I was very young, I could not imagine wanting to have an abortion.

There was a circumstance some years later that had I been pregnant. I would have gone to any lengths to end the pregnancy, even if it meant ending my own life.

I have helped women procure abortions. They did not necessarily use the sane criteria that I thought I would use if I were in their situation. But it was their body and their life and not mine. I helped them find safe, legal, compassionate care.

If that is not explicit enough for you, I do not care.

I am not interested in splitting theoretical hairs over difficult decisions that some women find they need to make. I absolutely would not want anyone impeding my right to make such decisions for myself and procure the medical help I felt necessary, whether that was to terminate my pregnancy or to carry the pregnancy to term.

I find such discussions to be abhorrent.

No more.