Why people are afraid of universal health care

[laughing dog]

We don't have good indications of problems with third trimester abortions. We have big problems with politicians trying to backdoor ban abortions. Thus, while in general I agree with you (but I would put the dividing line at 7 months) in practice I would prefer an absolute line that the politicians can't touch it.

I'm open to some reasonable negotiation about where to place that line. But like you, I do think there should be a line. And politicians should, in my view, have no investment in that line - it's sole purpose is to define the stage at which a fetus is considered to be a human life rather than a lump of cells. For anything before that line, the government is prohibited from interfering, and the decision is entirely up to the mother (and whoever she decides to take advice from). After that line, the government still doesn't get a say, but it does need to be medically justified.

That later period termination would be similar in concept to assisted suicide. A ban on late period terminations would make it so that any doctor and mother having that abortion would be considered to have committed murder. Similarly, if assisted suicide is banned, any doctor who helps a patient end their life is considered to have committed murder. Limitations on late gestation terminations would do nothing more than require that there's a medical justification for it - if there is no medical justification then it is tantamount to murder. Likewise, when assisted suicide is not banned, it still requires medical justification - if there's no solid medical reason for a doctor to euthanize a patient then it's just plain murder, even if the patient really wants to die.

I see these two situations as very similar.

So to the rest of the thread participants, I have two questions:

1) A healthy person with no terminal illness and no significant pain comes into a doctor's office and says "hey doc, I don't want to live anymore". The doc says "alrighty then" and pumps them full of fentanyl until they overdose. Do you consider this to be murder?

2) A healthy mother comes into the doctor with a healthy fetus at 8.5 months into a pregnancy, there's no risk to the mother's health or wellbeing, there's no deformity or health risk for the infant. Mom says "Doc, I changed my mind, I don't want to have a baby anymore". Doc says "No problemo" and aborts the infant. Do you consider this to be murder?

If you gave different answers to those two questions... what do think makes them meaningfully different?

Both are unrealistic hypotheticals. No responsible physician would say yes in either case. The 1st case is different than the 2nd because it is charitably assisted suicide of a person. In the 2nd, a fetus is not a person.

 

[bilby]

So to the rest of the thread participants, I have two questions:

1) A healthy person with no terminal illness and no significant pain comes into a doctor's office and says "hey doc, I don't want to live anymore". The doc says "alrighty then" and pumps them full of fentanyl until they overdose. Do you consider this to be murder?

No.

2) A healthy mother comes into the doctor with a healthy fetus at 8.5 months into a pregnancy, there's no risk to the mother's health or wellbeing, there's no deformity or health risk for the infant. Mom says "Doc, I changed my mind, I don't want to have a baby anymore". Doc says "No problemo" and aborts the infant. Do you consider this to be murder?

Also no.

I consider both scenarios to be attempted murder - an attempt to kill discussion by the use of massively oversimplified hypotheticals.

Neither scenario is sufficiently plausible as to be worthy of consideration. Doctors don't behave in the way described*, and would not do so, regardless of the legality of the situation.

You could as well argue for laws against jay-walking, by asking whether a mother should be allowed to tell her children to go and play on the freeway.









* The vast majority of doctors hold human life in higher regard than the general public at large; That's why they became doctors. The handful of homicidal doctors (whose cases are always well publicised when they come to light, because they represent such a shocking departure from the norm) don't need to wait for patients to volunteer - they kill patients because the doctor wants them to die, not because the patient or anyone else does.

 

[Elixir]

Doctors don't behave in the way described*, and would not do so, regardless of the legality of the situation.

QFT
Meanwhile the chorus is “but they could!”
It’s just a power play, plain and simple, because the notion that they could is just a notion. The FACT is that they DON”T.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Neither scenario is sufficiently plausible as to be worthy of consideration. Doctors don't behave in the way described*, and would not do so, regardless of the legality of the situation.

Correct. That's like asking a surgeon to amputate your perfectly good legs.

 

[ZiprHead]

True, but padding costs is a necessity given the regulatory system. If a company couldn't pad the costs of drug A to recover the billion dollars it spent trying and failing to get drug B approved it'd go broke, unless it magically knew up front which drug was going to pan out. (That's not to say a better system isn't possible. I'm sure one is, and I hope some country comes up with it one of these years and takes over the job from us.)

So... about this...

A significant portion of the primary research into novel drugs is done by universities, and paid for by government grants. Companies will pick up rights to drugs that are promising based on that initial research. It's not uncommon for the very earliest trials to be conducted at a university, and a company only picks it up after it's passed that phase. Pharma companies aren't funding the core research; US taxpayers are.

This. ^^^

Once the basics are done, pharmaceutical companies take over to monetize the new drug or device.

That said, many pharma companies spend more on advertising and marketing than R&D.

 

[Emily Lake]

Both are unrealistic hypotheticals. No responsible physician would say yes in either case. The 1st case is different than the 2nd because it is charitably assisted suicide of a person. In the 2nd, a fetus is not a person.

In your opinion... a 38 week old fetus is not a person so long as it's still inside a uterus? Is it a person if it's delivered prematurely at 38 weeks?

 

[Emily Lake]

Neither scenario is sufficiently plausible as to be worthy of consideration. Doctors don't behave in the way described*, and would not do so, regardless of the legality of the situation.

Is it your belief that no doctor anywhere would ever provide a voluntary abortion to a woman who was 8 months pregnant?