Roe v Wade is on deck

[Loren Pechtel]

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

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

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

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

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

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

You're splitting disingenuous hairs, Loren.

Doctors will document procedures, because that's how they get paid. But the don't always document conditions or medical necessity. Cosmetic surgeons don't document medical indications - the reason is "the patient wants it".

At present, in states with no restrictions on abortion at all, the doctor doesn't have to write down any justification or reason for the service. They document the procedure performed, not the medical indication for the procedure.

And they're not going to indicate that in the chart?!?!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Re-reading some of this thread, hoping not to be again accused of intellectual sloth (call me stupid instead - it’s more accurate) I came across some revelatory stuff.

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

Disallowance as an objective? How is that constructive? I would hope for an outcome-based objective instead of disallowance for disallowance’s sake.
(I think I already took down the “solid medical indication” bit.)

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

Making stuff illegal as an objective is downright perverse IMO. Call me crazy but I thought making things illegal NECESSARILY had objectives to diminish whatever behavior is being illegalized.
I’m SURE that’s what Emily meant, but her choice of phrasing reveals an underlying authoritarian bent.

Don't be stupid. The objective is DON'T MURDER BABIES.

Don't be stupid. The objective is DON'T SACRIFICE WOMEN.

When you focus on one failure mode and ignore the opposite one you are quite liable to end up at a wrong conclusion.

 

[Jarhyn]

You can even kind of spot the "opinion in the air, without reasonable foundation" in the nature of the word "disorder", hiding an invented ought as an "is".

Disorder applies to that which violates some order. In this case, "order" is the drive to reproduce, which historically has overcome all other drives that evolution has embedded within us. Anything that goes against that is literally a disorder. Color me proudly disordered.

That's the thing though: show me the thing that justifies the drive from an individual perspective, and then maybe I might care.

People who want to reproduce will reproduce. People who don't want to reproduce won't.

I suspect the problem will sort itself out, if there is any such problem.

 

[Elixir]

I suspect the problem will sort itself out, if there is any such problem.

I think that’s NECESSARILY true, given human nature. The stigma of having a “disorder” notwithstanding.

 

[Jarhyn]

I suspect the problem will sort itself out, if there is any such problem.

I think that’s NECESSARILY true, given human nature. The stigma of having a “disorder” notwithstanding.

Well, it's more that whole "survival of those who survive and reproduce" rule.

Ultimately, whatever patterns that remain selected-for after that can't really be all that disordered even from the perspective of "for the benefit of those who survive and reproduce".

I think that non-reproductive castes litter all of nature and that it is the fool who decides that the non-reproductive castes have no merit for existence.

Ants act as an extreme proof that non-reproductive individuation can be very beneficial within a genome.

It would be foolishness to think humans and other species alike altogether lack genes that express, at times, a non-reproductive beneficial expression.

That said... Individuals have no obligation to that either way. Survival is democratic.

 

[Elixir]

Survival is democratic.

True ‘nuff. The fitness landscape OTOH, is an utter tyrant, both to individuals and to species.

 

[Bomb#20]

You can even kind of spot the "opinion in the air, without reasonable foundation" in the nature of the word "disorder", hiding an invented ought as an "is".

Disorder applies to that which violates some order.

So what? Who besides you and the idiot Catholic Church is arguing that not reproducing is a disorder?

In this case, "order" is the drive to reproduce, which historically has overcome all other drives that evolution has embedded within us. Anything that goes against that is literally a disorder. Color me proudly disordered.

Nonsense. If evolution had given us a drive to reproduce then contraceptives wouldn't be a $20 billion a year business. Evolution never gave a rat's ass whether we want to reproduce, just as long as we want to have sex.

 

[Bomb#20]

You can't compel a doctor to treat a patient other than if they are an employee in a facility that handles emergencies, and that requirement extends only as far as dealing with the emergency. (By working in such a place a doctor has implicitly agreed to deal with whatever emergencies come through the door. You knowingly put someone in peril, you are obligated to do your best to resolve that. The pilot can refuse the flight, the pilot can't jump in the middle of the flight. And you implicitly put people in peril by hanging out the "ER" sign, you must follow through on the label.)

"He little thinks how eloquently he has pleaded his rival's cause!"

You've just explained in a nutshell why it can be unethical to get a non-medically-indicated third-trimester abortion. By passing up the chance to get an early-term abortion, the mother has knowingly put someone in peril. A first- or second-trimester abortion is refusing the flight; getting it in the third trimester is jumping in the middle of the flight.

 

[Bomb#20]

A doctor would have no standing to refuse, and no standing to require mental health intervention.

Why do you think a doctor couldn't refuse? You can't compel a doctor to treat a patient other than if they are an employee in a facility that handles emergencies, and that requirement extends only as far as dealing with the emergency. (By working in such a place a doctor has implicitly agreed to deal with whatever emergencies come through the door. You knowingly put someone in peril, you are obligated to do your best to resolve that. The pilot can refuse the flight, the pilot can't jump in the middle of the flight. And you implicitly put people in peril by hanging out the "ER" sign, you must follow through on the label.) You are not describing an emergency, the doctor is free to say "I will not do this."

If the doc refused, and that WAS a violation of the pergnant person's civil rights as Ems has suggested before, WHY ARE THERE NO CASES OF SUCH LITIGATION? I have looked, to no avail. I'm no search ninja so maybe I missed it, but right now I don't believe it is even rare; I think it flat NEVER HAPPENS.

I sorely wish there was such a case, and that it would land in front of the Trumpsucking bastards of SCROTUS. That would put them in a real pickle. Are they going to uphold the woman's "civil right" to demand that a doctor perform an operation in possible violation of their hippocratic oath, or affirm the Doc's right to refuse to perform an abortion?

Which way do you think they might rule, @Emily Lake ?

Actually, a doctor's and a nurse's right not to participate in an abortion is protected in federal law. It's called the Church Amendments; Congress passed them in 1973 right after RvW came down.

 

[Bomb#20]

Do you personally believe that it is unethical for a doctor to abort a third trimester healthy fetus that presents no known risk to the mother?

If I was a doc like my brother, I would refuse to abort such a fetus. As would my brother or any of his MD friends, or any OB/Gyn I ever encountered over the 20+ years I spent on the periphery of the emergency medical community.

Please stop asking the same question again and again after it has been answered multiple times.

If I were a doc I'd refuse to do an elective abortion even in the first trimester. Ob/gyn work isn't brain surgery, and if I were a doc I'd be a brain surgeon, because brain surgeons are the most awesome docs there are. And what's the point of putting myself through all it takes to become a doc if I'm not going to be awesome?

"Is it ethical?" and "Would you do it?" are not the same question.

 

[laughing dog]

You can't compel a doctor to treat a patient other than if they are an employee in a facility that handles emergencies, and that requirement extends only as far as dealing with the emergency. (By working in such a place a doctor has implicitly agreed to deal with whatever emergencies come through the door. You knowingly put someone in peril, you are obligated to do your best to resolve that. The pilot can refuse the flight, the pilot can't jump in the middle of the flight. And you implicitly put people in peril by hanging out the "ER" sign, you must follow through on the label.)

"He little thinks how eloquently he has pleaded his rival's cause!"

You've just explained in a nutshell why it can be unethical to get a non-medically-indicated third-trimester abortion. By passing up the chance to get an early-term abortion, the mother has knowingly put someone in peril.

Only if you accept that a fetus in the third trimester is someone.

 

[Elixir]

You can't compel a doctor to treat a patient other than if they are an employee in a facility that handles emergencies, and that requirement extends only as far as dealing with the emergency. (By working in such a place a doctor has implicitly agreed to deal with whatever emergencies come through the door. You knowingly put someone in peril, you are obligated to do your best to resolve that. The pilot can refuse the flight, the pilot can't jump in the middle of the flight. And you implicitly put people in peril by hanging out the "ER" sign, you must follow through on the label.)

"He little thinks how eloquently he has pleaded his rival's cause!"

You've just explained in a nutshell why it can be unethical to get a non-medically-indicated third-trimester abortion. By passing up the chance to get an early-term abortion, the mother has knowingly put someone in peril.

Only if you accept that a fetus in the third trimester is someone.

I strikes me rather odd that B2 is unwilling or unable to simply state that belief.
Apparently it doesn’t matter what he believes about that, but what I believe about that is important, even though it is irrelevant to my “position” regarding abortion laws.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Whether you wish to admit it or not, the reality of your position is that you want to mandate some pregnant woman has to put her life in danger to satisfy your "religious" view about a fetus's personhood.

False. Demonstrably false based on my actual stated position and the policy approach that I support.

Your policy approach needlessly creates more liability for doctors, in demanding a second doctor put their nose into it. Once in, their nose is in, they can become liable for everything down the road.

 

[Bomb#20]

"He little thinks how eloquently he has pleaded his rival's cause!"

You've just explained in a nutshell why it can be unethical to get a non-medically-indicated third-trimester abortion. By passing up the chance to get an early-term abortion, the mother has knowingly put someone in peril.

Only if you accept that a fetus in the third trimester is someone.

I strikes me rather odd that B2 is unwilling or unable to simply state that belief.
Apparently it doesn’t matter what he believes about that, but what I believe about that is important, even though it is irrelevant to my “position” regarding abortion laws.

Do you do this forum drunk? I've told you and told you that he or she is someone, and you keep not remembering you were told. Once you even quoted me telling you and asked "Based on what?", so I told you based on what.

 

[laughing dog]

"He little thinks how eloquently he has pleaded his rival's cause!"

You've just explained in a nutshell why it can be unethical to get a non-medically-indicated third-trimester abortion. By passing up the chance to get an early-term abortion, the mother has knowingly put someone in peril.

Only if you accept that a fetus in the third trimester is someone.

I strikes me rather odd that B2 is unwilling or unable to simply state that belief.
Apparently it doesn’t matter what he believes about that, but what I believe about that is important, even though it is irrelevant to my “position” regarding abortion laws.

Do you do this forum drunk?

You ask that as if it is a bad thing.

 

[Elixir]

Do you do this forum drunk?

No. Don’t drink until bedtime. A half shot of Brandy.
I don’t have great short term recall though - maybe you could refresh me with a word?
Something like a counterpart to my
“I believe that personhood is too poorly defined and unidentifiable to be rationally considered as a factor in criminal statutes”.
If you want to elaborate:
“A more important reason I oppose abortion laws is that they lead to very harmful abortion laws no matter their intent.”

Do you support abortion laws?
Why or why not?
Should personhood be a consideration?

 

[Elixir]

If evolution had given us a drive to reproduce then.

Right o! Evolution retained in humans a drive to do things that cause reproduction.
Evolution also gave us a possibly lethal and apparently unique ability to use technology to satisfy evolutionarily embedded impulses while avoiding all the downsides from body odor to STDs to parenthood.
Contraceptives wouldn't be a $20 billion a year business if people didn’t want more sex than children. They want more sex than children because evolution gave them sex drives like other mammals. The brain that gave them the means to satisfy the immediate urge without exposure to possible long term liability is what is worth the B$20.

 

[Emily Lake]

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

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

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

My view has not morphed one bit.

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

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

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

The cops were never included, Elixir. My view hasn't changed at all from the very beginning. You just keep trying to wedge cops and lawyers into the situation all by yourself.

You say Roe vs Wade but then you keep trying to stick camel noses in. And you keep going after the supposed improper abortions.

How about you tell me in your own words exactly how you think RvW was written and enacted, then specify where I'm somehow sticking a camel's nose in beyond RvW?

 

[Emily Lake]

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

Where do you keep finding these corrupt doctors?

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

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

You seem to be laboring under the false assumption that doctors have well-defined standards of practice, a playbook for how to treat everything, and very clear ethical guidelines for every situation.

They don't.

Principles​

I. A physician shall be dedicated to providing competent medical care, with compassion and respect for human dignity and rights.

II. A physician shall uphold the standards of professionalism, be honest in all professional interactions, and strive to report physicians deficient in character or competence, or engaging in fraud or deception, to appropriate entities.

III. A physician shall respect the law and also recognize a responsibility to seek changes in those requirements which are contrary to the best interests of the patient.

IV. A physician shall respect the rights of patients, colleagues, and other health professionals, and shall safeguard patient confidences and privacy within the constraints of the law.

V. A physician shall continue to study, apply, and advance scientific knowledge, maintain a commitment to medical education, make relevant information available to patients, colleagues, and the public, obtain consultation, and use the talents of other health professionals when indicated.

VI. A physician shall, in the provision of appropriate patient care, except in emergencies, be free to choose whom to serve, with whom to associate, and the environment in which to provide medical care.

VII. A physician shall recognize a responsibility to participate in activities contributing to the improvement of the community and the betterment of public health.

VIII. A physician shall, while caring for a patient, regard responsibility to the patient as paramount.

IX. A physician shall support access to medical care for all people.

AMA stated ethics guidelines.

Any physician operating out of those ethics guidelines can be referred to regulatory agencies for discipline including license revocation. Not being a member of the AMA does not excuse you from ethical practices.

Which of those ethical guidelines relates to third trimester abortions, and provides guidance on when they are ethically appropriate?

You seem to be laboring under the false assumption that doctors have well-defined standards of practice,

See above.

Standards of Practice are not the same as Ethical Guidelines.

a playbook for how to treat everything,

I get the idea that you wish doctors to be like mechanics with access to the Motor Mechanics database of car repairs. It doesn't work like that.

I know it doesn't work like that. That's my point. Some posters have made an appeal to medical standards of practice and ethical guidelines, with the assumption that such ethical principles provide meaningful guidance on when it's appropriate and ethical for a doctor to perform a third trimester abortion and when it's not. The reality is that the ethical principles that are published do not provide any guidance on abortions at all - not a single word. Furthermore, the ethical principles vary from organization to organization - there is no single organization whose ethical principles apply to all doctors - only about 15% of the practicing doctors in the US are part of AMA at all for example.

And beyond that, there are no comprehensive standards of practice for doctors. They don't exist. There is no handbook - thus my point that some posters are laboring under the FALSE IMPRESSION that there are well-defined standards of practice. There are none. None exist with regards to abortion.

 

[Emily Lake]

You seem to be laboring under the false assumption that doctors have well-defined standards of practice,

See above.

Looks one hell of a lot better defined than "some point in the pregnancy".

Exactly what part of that do you think pertains to abortions at all? What the hell part of it even pertains to pregnancies?