Why people are afraid of universal health care

[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?

Why would a doctor kill a normal healthy fetus at the 8th month of development rather than deliver it via a cesarean procedure? And why would a doctor do it on demand?

Because some doctors, just like some people (@laughing dog), believe that an infant isn't a person as long as it's inside the womb. Some doctors, just like some people believe that a woman should have an absolute right to an abortion, no matter what stage of development the fetus is at.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1363/4521013

Table 3. Percentage of women reporting specific reasons for delay in seeking abortion services, by timing of abortion

Any barriera	88	80	94
Not knowing about the pregnancy	43	40	45
Trouble deciding about the abortion	37	33	40
Disagreeing about the abortion with the man involved	18	16	20
Not knowing where to go for an abortiona	30	18	38
Difficulty getting to the abortion facilitya	20	12	27
Raising money for procedure and related costsa	51	31	65
Difficulty securing insurance coveragea	32	20	41

[th]

Reason​

[/th][th]

Allb (N=384)​

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First-trimester (N=166)​

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Later (N=218)​

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60% of the 218 women getting third trimester abortions cite trouble making a decision or a disagreement with their partner.

 

[Bomb#20]

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.

Are the universities and taxpayers picking up the cost of jumping through the FDA's hoops ten times?

 

[ZiprHead]

Why would a doctor kill a normal healthy fetus at the 8th month of development rather than deliver it via a cesarean procedure? And why would a doctor do it on demand?

And then deliver it to the loudest pro lifer he or she can find along with the itemized bill. And ask that pro lifer why he or she isn't out there fighting against all the starvation, malnutrition and war that is killing children across the globe instead of pontificating from the comfort of their hypocritical, moralist, demagogic echo chamber.

Are you saying pro lifers are woke?

 

[Emily Lake]

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.

Are the universities and taxpayers picking up the cost of jumping through the FDA's hoops ten times?

I think just the first two or three times.

It's the primary research that is probably the biggest cost though - there's a whole lot of failures involved in that preliminary novel research at the university level, and most of that is funded via grants. So there are many, many "well that didn't work" outcomes before there's a "we might be onto something".

 

[bilby]

Because some doctors, just like some people (@laughing dog), believe that an infant isn't a person as long as it's inside the womb.

An infant isn't a person. No matter where it is located.

A newborn baby hasn't had time to become a person; It is no more (or less) a person than a cat or a dog.

Kind and humane people don't kill cats or dogs for no reason; Or for no good reason. But that doesn't mean they are morally obliged never to kill one for any reason.

We attach the "murder" tag to killing a baby as soon as it has been born, as a legal convenience. Picking a point that is the start of personhood is hugely difficult, so we just arbitrarily use birth as the epoch, in the secure knowledge that doing so avoids the risk of being too late - a newborn is always too young to be a person, so our criterion carries no risk of accidentally treating as an unperson, someone who should in fact have been given human rights as a person.

The entire abortion debate consists of attempting to add a further safety margin to this definition, (for example by moving the threshold to conception, or to 22 weeks after conception) which is necessarily arbitrary, as would be any other definition, and as is the definition that uses birth as the chosen epoch.

There is no right answer, and conflating "living human" with "person" isn't a way to improve the answers we already have (and heatedly debate).

 

[laughing dog]

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?

Why would a doctor kill a normal healthy fetus at the 8th month of development rather than deliver it via a cesarean procedure? And why would a doctor do it on demand?

Because some doctors, just like some people (@laughing dog), believe that an infant isn't a person as long as it's inside the womb. Some doctors, just like some people believe that a woman should have an absolute right to an abortion, no matter what stage of development the fetus is at.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1363/4521013

Table 3. Percentage of women reporting specific reasons for delay in seeking abortion services, by timing of abortion

Any barriera	88	80	94
Not knowing about the pregnancy	43	40	45
Trouble deciding about the abortion	37	33	40
Disagreeing about the abortion with the man involved	18	16	20
Not knowing where to go for an abortiona	30	18	38
Difficulty getting to the abortion facilitya	20	12	27
Raising money for procedure and related costsa	51	31	65
Difficulty securing insurance coveragea	32	20	41

[th]

Reason​

[/th][th]

Allb (N=384)​

[/th][th]

First-trimester (N=166)​

[/th][th]

Later (N=218)​

[/th]​

60% of the 218 women getting third trimester abortions cite trouble making a decision or a disagreement with their partner.

Clearly that the women could give multiple reasons because the percentages add up to over 200%. So a better interpretation is that 60% is the upper limit for those troubles. That study does not indicate which reason(s) played a predominate role in the decision.

So I find that data is not very supportive of your position. Nor are your hypotheticals, because there is no reason to believe responsible physicians would acquiesce to the reason.

 

[Arctish]

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?

Why would a doctor kill a normal healthy fetus at the 8th month of development rather than deliver it via a cesarean procedure? And why would a doctor do it on demand?

Because some doctors, just like some people (@laughing dog), believe that an infant isn't a person as long as it's inside the womb. Some doctors, just like some people believe that a woman should have an absolute right to an abortion, no matter what stage of development the fetus is at.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1363/4521013

Table 3. Percentage of women reporting specific reasons for delay in seeking abortion services, by timing of abortion

Any barriera	88	80	94
Not knowing about the pregnancy	43	40	45
Trouble deciding about the abortion	37	33	40
Disagreeing about the abortion with the man involved	18	16	20
Not knowing where to go for an abortiona	30	18	38
Difficulty getting to the abortion facilitya	20	12	27
Raising money for procedure and related costsa	51	31	65
Difficulty securing insurance coveragea	32	20	41

[th]
Reason

[/th][th]
Allb (N=384)

[/th][th]
First-trimester (N=166)

[/th][th]
Later (N=218)

[/th]​

60% of the 218 women getting third trimester abortions cite trouble making a decision or a disagreement with their partner.

What was the number of women getting third trimester abortions for non-medical reasons?

Sure, we can all imagine Cruella DeVille getting pregnant so her husband will give her a huge snow leopard fur cloak to wrap up in, and then going to Dr. Doom at 8.5 months pregnant for an abortion once her husband has procured it. We can also imagine a woman seeking an early delivery aka an abortion at 8.5 months because she is absolutely miserable and unable to sleep, and a doctor either inducing labor or performing a cesarean because s/he knows prolonged sleep deprivation can causing severe depression and anxiety, and s/he believes the pregnant woman is close to having a mental breakdown and might try to induce labor herself.

A law won't stop Cruella DeVille and Dr. Doom from doing whatever they want.

It could stop a doctor from intervening as necessary to secure the best health outcomes for his/her patients, which appears to have happened at least twice in Texas since extremists were able to enact their 'who gives a fuck about women when there'a a fetus involved' agenda.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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?

It's a big world. Nothing's impossible.

Is it your belief that it is a situation sufficiently likely to arise as to justify specific legislation (given that all legislation has unintended consequences)?

I think that once is too many times.

I would not be sanguine about a doctor murdering a healthy person at their request under the guise of assisted dying, not even once. I would not be sanguine about a doctor murdering a healthy baby two weeks before delivery at the mother's request under the guise of choice either. I absolutely think it is worthwhile to place reasonable limitations to prevent unlikely but extremely horrible outcomes.

Also, it's not as unlikely as you insist. We went through this just a couple of months ago, and both I and Tigers! provided evidence that late abortions WITHOUT medical risk to the mother or child DO happen.

Is third‐trimester abortion exceptional? Two pathways to abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy in the United States - PMC

In the United States, third‐trimester abortions are substantially more expensive, difficult to obtain, and stigmatized than first‐trimester abortions. However, the circumstances that lead to someone needing a third‐trimester abortion may have ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Of the four cases that they discuss in which the later abortion was prompted by new information TWO of them were cases where the new information was that they were pregnant. In both of those cases, both the fetus and the mother were perfectly healthy, but the mothers did not want to have a kid and ELECTED to abort in the third trimester.

You posted that one before. I don't find it any more credible than the last time.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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?

Why would a doctor kill a normal healthy fetus at the 8th month of development rather than deliver it via a cesarean procedure? And why would a doctor do it on demand?

Because some doctors, just like some people (@laughing dog), believe that an infant isn't a person as long as it's inside the womb. Some doctors, just like some people believe that a woman should have an absolute right to an abortion, no matter what stage of development the fetus is at.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1363/4521013

Table 3. Percentage of women reporting specific reasons for delay in seeking abortion services, by timing of abortion

Any barriera	88	80	94
Not knowing about the pregnancy	43	40	45
Trouble deciding about the abortion	37	33	40
Disagreeing about the abortion with the man involved	18	16	20
Not knowing where to go for an abortiona	30	18	38
Difficulty getting to the abortion facilitya	20	12	27
Raising money for procedure and related costsa	51	31	65
Difficulty securing insurance coveragea	32	20	41

[th]
Reason

[/th][th]
Allb (N=384)

[/th][th]
First-trimester (N=166)

[/th][th]
Later (N=218)

[/th]​

60% of the 218 women getting third trimester abortions cite trouble making a decision or a disagreement with their partner.

What was the number of women getting third trimester abortions for non-medical reasons?

Sure, we can all imagine Cruella DeVille getting pregnant so her husband will give her a huge snow leopard fur cloak to wrap up in, and then going to Dr. Doom at 8.5 months pregnant for an abortion once her husband has procured it. We can also imagine a woman seeking an early delivery aka an abortion at 8.5 months because she is absolutely miserable and unable to sleep, and a doctor either inducing labor or performing a cesarean because s/he knows prolonged sleep deprivation can causing severe depression and anxiety, and s/he believes the pregnant woman is close to having a mental breakdown and might try to induce labor herself.

A law won't stop Cruella DeVille and Dr. Doom from doing whatever they want.

It could stop a doctor from intervening as necessary to secure the best health outcomes for his/her patients, which appears to have happened at least twice in Texas since extremists were able to enact their 'who gives a fuck about women when there'a a fetus involved' agenda.

Exactly. Even if the data in the report is accurate (and I very much doubt it--I see none of the usual hallmarks of proper research and I see it's done by simply asking) we are already up to three sacrifices that have gone public, plus another who died without seeking medical help.

 

[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?

Why would a doctor kill a normal healthy fetus at the 8th month of development rather than deliver it via a cesarean procedure? And why would a doctor do it on demand?

Because some doctors, just like some people (@laughing dog), believe that an infant isn't a person as long as it's inside the womb. Some doctors, just like some people believe that a woman should have an absolute right to an abortion, no matter what stage of development the fetus is at.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1363/4521013

Table 3. Percentage of women reporting specific reasons for delay in seeking abortion services, by timing of abortion

Any barriera	88	80	94
Not knowing about the pregnancy	43	40	45
Trouble deciding about the abortion	37	33	40
Disagreeing about the abortion with the man involved	18	16	20
Not knowing where to go for an abortiona	30	18	38
Difficulty getting to the abortion facilitya	20	12	27
Raising money for procedure and related costsa	51	31	65
Difficulty securing insurance coveragea	32	20	41

[th]
Reason

[/th][th]
Allb (N=384)

[/th][th]
First-trimester (N=166)

[/th][th]
Later (N=218)

[/th]​

60% of the 218 women getting third trimester abortions cite trouble making a decision or a disagreement with their partner.

Clearly that the women could give multiple reasons because the percentages add up to over 200%. So a better interpretation is that 60% is the upper limit for those troubles. That study does not indicate which reason(s) played a predominate role in the decision.

So I find that data is not very supportive of your position. Nor are your hypotheticals, because there is no reason to believe responsible physicians would acquiesce to the reason.

It's entirely supportive of my position that it CAN AND DOES happen. It directly contradicts the oft-repeated "Oh that would never ever happen, no woman would do that, and even if a woman wanted it, a doctor would definitely never ever do it!"

Well guess what - some women DO want it, and some doctors DO perform them. The claim used to argue against *limitations* past viability are demonstrably false.

 

[Emily Lake]

Exactly. Even if the data in the report is accurate (and I very much doubt it--I see none of the usual hallmarks of proper research and I see it's done by simply asking) we are already up to three sacrifices that have gone public, plus another who died without seeking medical help.

This is stupid.

The situations you mention wouldn't happen if abortion were in place as it was under RvW. It would be legal prior to viability, and risks to health would be a legitimate reason past that point.

 

[Toni]

Because some doctors, just like some people (@laughing dog), believe that an infant isn't a person as long as it's inside the womb.

An infant isn't a person. No matter where it is located.

A newborn baby hasn't had time to become a person; It is no more (or less) a person than a cat or a dog.

Kind and humane people don't kill cats or dogs for no reason; Or for no good reason. But that doesn't mean they are morally obliged never to kill one for any reason.

We attach the "murder" tag to killing a baby as soon as it has been born, as a legal convenience. Picking a point that is the start of personhood is hugely difficult, so we just arbitrarily use birth as the epoch, in the secure knowledge that doing so avoids the risk of being too late - a newborn is always too young to be a person, so our criterion carries no risk of accidentally treating as an unperson, someone who should in fact have been given human rights as a person.

The entire abortion debate consists of attempting to add a further safety margin to this definition, (for example by moving the threshold to conception, or to 22 weeks after conception) which is necessarily arbitrary, as would be any other definition, and as is the definition that uses birth as the chosen epoch.

There is no right answer, and conflating "living human" with "person" isn't a way to improve the answers we already have (and heatedly debate).

ENORMOUS disagree with the bolded portion. I am certain I have spent more time around neonates including premature babies. They are indeed persons with unique personalities, preferences and responses to various stimuli, including the voice of parents/loved ones and music, among other things.

When Roe was enacted, it was exceptionally rare or perhaps even impossible for a fetus to survive outside the womb prior to 24 weeks gestation. It still is pretty rare but the time frame for saving extremely premature babies is now extended back as far as 21 or 22 weeks, albeit usually with a very long hospitalization and usually significant lifelong disability. I count among friends and family a number of people with very significant disabilities and do not think that their lives are less valuable than mine, even if I can run faster or further or see or hear better or a host of other 'normal' abilities that I possess that they do not.

That said, I do believe that ultimately, it is up to the mother whether to continue a pregnancy but that decision does not rest solely with her but must also include her well trained health care provider in the decision making. In other words, a woman may wish to terminate at 8 months but it is exceptionally rare that a physician will agree that is medically indicated...........

But there are always exceptions: situations where continuing a pregnancy even one more hour is a significant risk to the health and life of the mother. She should be able to choose her own life.

 

[Toni]

Exactly. Even if the data in the report is accurate (and I very much doubt it--I see none of the usual hallmarks of proper research and I see it's done by simply asking) we are already up to three sacrifices that have gone public, plus another who died without seeking medical help.

This is stupid.

The situations you mention wouldn't happen if abortion were in place as it was under RvW. It would be legal prior to viability, and risks to health would be a legitimate reason past that point.

I'm linking an article that describes in depth the situations where late term abortions are performed. These circumstances are rare but they exist. It is important that termination of a pregnancy is an available option if circumstances warrant:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/06/health/late-term-abortion-explainer/index.html

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposes undue political interference in the practice of medicine, including legislation that bans abortion at an arbitrary cutoff point. While exceptions are often suggested for gestational age bans, the fact is that it’s impossible to predict every circumstance that might arise in pregnancy.



Related article'I'm an abortion travel agent' and other tales from Texas' new desert
Additionally, exceptions can also generate significant confusion for health care providers attempting to interpret these laws and practice accordingly, particularly when they face criminal charges if they violate the law, even if accidentally.

It is an exceedingly precarious position between counseling patients on the most appropriate and compassionate care for their health and interpreting vague legal exceptions.

Particular to abortion care later in pregnancy, I would urge everyone to exercise more compassion. It’s important to acknowledge that we simply cannot possibly know the circumstances of every pregnancy or the challenge of making decisions when things go terribly awry.

Abortion later in pregnancy is not used as an alternative to delivering healthy women’s full-term, viable pregnancies. Additionally, it’s callous to suggest that healthy women with viable pregnancies at term abruptly change their minds and seek abortion care as the solution.

A bit of personal history: I have had an early miscarriage, which actually is medically called an abortion. I had wanted very much to be pregnant--we had just begun to try. I have friends and family members who have lost pregnancies very early as I did, and also much further along, even past 20 weeks. And a friend who lost a newborn at birth, friends who have lost children in infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, teenagers, young adults. I can tell you with confidence that an early miscarriage is not the same as one at 20+ weeks which in turn, is not the same thing as losing a child in childbirth or in early infancy. Not physically, not emotionally: it's not the same thing, no matter how much a pregnancy was or was not wanted, hoped for, planned for or how accidental.

I count myself extremely fortunate that I had healthy pregnancies, except for that very early miscarriage that occurred just as I was suspecting I might be pregnant. I know I am lucky. I've had too many friends and loved ones who were far less fortunate than I was. Judging someone or punishing them for making a different decision than you think they should have done is morally reprehensible and a far greater sin than having an abortion.

 

[Emily Lake]

Judging someone or punishing them for making a different decision than you think they should have done is morally reprehensible and a far greater sin than having an abortion.

If I were suggesting a ban on abortion, or an extremely low threshold like 1st trimester, or even a strict ban on 3rd trimester abortions, your comment might be more meaningful. Given that I've done none of those things, your comment is misplaced.

But I'll take your judgement that it's morally reprehensible to judge others under advisement

 

[Elixir]

The difference between my views on abortion and what I understand of Emily's views on abortion is minuscule in the grand scheme of reproductive things. Not that many fetuses aborted or dead mothers either way, compared to the havoc possibly in store for us.
What bugs me about Emily's "stance" is her refusal to offer rationale for that tiny difference.
Of course that which bugs me causes me to judge her - or at least judge the quality of her posts.
Likewise I have had motives assigned to me that only I know for sure to be wrong (or right).

I have noticed over time that reprehensibility is an assigned quality, generally speaking (latin "rebuke") and everyone can wear the tag.
I just lament infinitely more over the loss of a pregnant mom than the loss of thousands of fetuses. After all, so 10-25% of all (US) pregnancies end in miscarriages, and probably millions more go undetected if they're very early. I know god's a dick, but if those are people he's just sick.

 

[Toni]

Judging someone or punishing them for making a different decision than you think they should have done is morally reprehensible and a far greater sin than having an abortion.

If I were suggesting a ban on abortion, or an extremely low threshold like 1st trimester, or even a strict ban on 3rd trimester abortions, your comment might be more meaningful. Given that I've done none of those things, your comment is misplaced.

But I'll take your judgement that it's morally reprehensible to judge others under advisement

Please note: that was a general comment and not intended to be a critique cusm or edict for any individual.

I confess that I often reply without considering who the response is..in response to. No intended offense. I’ve learned just how much I don’t know —and don’t need to know about other people’s lives and decisions. I’m be changed my mind over what circumstances I’d consider an abortion, partially due to the courage and vision of others who made different choices than I would have done had I been in their shoes.

People make decisions all the time that I disagree with or think are ill advised or just plain wrong -but they are not my decisions. I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut ( believe it or not) and to recognize I don’t walk in their shoes.

Frankly I have made decisions that I am certain scared the shit out of my parents. I think my father expected my marriage to fail from the day I got married up until the day he died—and here we are, 46 years later, stil glad to be married. But who could blame him? We started out at 22, with no money, a baby in the way and precious little help from our families. For both of us, we are the only ones among all our siblings still married—and nobody in their right mind would have ever guessed we’d make it. My father married three times and seriously reconsidered the wisdom of his last marriage—although his kids are all grateful to his widow for putting up with him and taking care of him. Not an easy task. We’re glad she undertook it and we did not have to,

Anyway, no one really knows anyone else’s real, whole story. Our understanding of our own lives changes over time. If we are fortunate, it is deeper and kinder.