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?
Perhaps it's because you aren't providing examples of actual instances where a healthy woman got a doctor to abort her healthy fetus for reasons you think were insufficient to justify the act.
I think healthy mother + healthy fetus in the 3rd trimester is insufficient! And a couple of case studies showing that have already been provided!
Are you jumping on board with Loren and Jarhyn and just assuming those women must have been lying?
No.
I'm saying that you aren't providing an example of a healthy woman who aborted a healthy fetus a few weeks before her due date. You aren't giving us anything to examine so we can figure out how it happened that she got an abortion under whatever circumstances existed at that time. Your posts are long on declarations and short on information.
You want to ensure that healthy fetuses gestating inside healthy women are not destroyed scant weeks before they reach full term. Okay. What do you suggest should be done that isn't being done now?
Federal law guarantee unquestioned access to abortion in the first 2 trimesters, and limited to medical necessity in the last trimester.
I seriously don’t think I can be any clearer than that. And I’m getting tired of answering the exact same question over and over from people who seem to be just handing it back and forth like a hot potato.
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?
If you can show us that it happened and we agree there was no justification for it, we can discuss ways to improve our rules, guidelines, and oversight to ensure it doesn't happen again.
I'm sure most of us know that some people are psychopaths and that some psychopaths are women. We realize that a psychopathic pregnant woman won't bond with her fetus the way a normal woman does no matter how many hormones are released into her bloodstream. It is entirely possible that she might tire of being pregnant and seek an abortion. It is unlikely she will find a doctor to oblige her because most doctors aren't wanton killers. But if could happen.
What can be done about that?
I'm sure most of us know that some health care professionals were discovered to be serial killers. Some were psychopaths while some had other anti-social personality disorders. I haven't heard of an obstetrician who was a serial killer but it could certainly happen. A psychopathic obstetrician could persuade women to get abortions when there is no medical justification for one.
What can be done about that?
Right now the best we can do is to ensure that health care professionals examining pregnant women are aware of the possibility that the woman might harm her fetus and to be alert for signs she is considering it, and to have mental health care services available for pregnant women who need them. Also, hospitals and clinics should have a way to review doctor's and nurses performance to ensure they follow standards of care and medical ethics set by their state's medical board. If they suspect a doctor performed an abortion that was not medically justified there should be some kind of inquest to determine the facts.
In several states, there is no requirement that lathe abortions be medically justified, thus no inquest will ever be performed. It is perfectly acceptable in those states to abort at any time in gestation, and no reason at all is required beyond the mother wanting it. There are no medical guidelines that prohibit or restrict it.
Which states have no restrictions?
There are several states that don't restrict abortions based on length of gestation. But AFAICT every state has a State Medical Board that sets standards and oversees performance of medical personnel within that state.
Can you provide those standards with respect to abortion for any of the 9 states and DC that outline limits on late abortion, or standards that would prevent one days before delivery without a medical need?
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.
I have never heard of a woman getting an abortion one day before her due date. I have heard of induced labor and C-sections. I have also heard of emergency surgeries on pregnant women that result in the delivery of full term infants. Frankly, I think the story of the woman who got an abortion that killed her baby a day before her due date is an urban myth along the lines of the scary stranger calling from inside the house.
Many people keep insisting that such medical board or medical association guidelines and standards exist. But so far none have been provided. The closest is a wishy-washy paragraph from AMA (which doesn’t oversee all doctors or practitioners and is a voluntary association) that basically says decisions should be made in accordance with the patient’s values. So if the patient has LD’s values, anything goes.
If your beef is with the fact that Alaska allows abortions at 30 weeks gestation then say it plainly. If you think that means doctors will perform abortions "on demand" regardless of the health of the woman or her fetus, you're wrong. Alaska isn't some libertarian fantasy land where no one can tell anyone else what to do. Our health care providers follow the guidelines set by our State Medical Board.
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.
Instead of being upset that third trimester abortions can happen here, find out why they happen.
Is it because of a lack of health care services in the villages and the difficulty of arranging travel to the cities means that almost every medical treatment, even for things like cancer, is delayed up here? Is it because our chronic shortage of doctors means conditions that can cause maternal death go undiagnosed longer than they typically do in the Lower 48, so the abortions needed to save women happen later in their pregnancies?
It could be any of those things. It could be all of them. It could be something else.
The important thing is to understand why late term abortions are allowed before you criticize States for allowing them. And to not assume that people seeking or providing them are evildoers who want to kill babies.
I’m all for understanding why, and addressing delays to earlier abortions that lack a medical need. But I still maintain that a medical need should be present late in the pregnancy for it to be allowable.
Members of the Medical Board of the State of Alaska agree with you. So do I.
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.
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.
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
