Fetal personhood

I really like this line.

 

There are no parental obligations for a fetus, IMHO. Just as there are no parental obligations for a an egg or a sperm or a zygote that has been formed in the lab during the preparation for invitro fertilization. If a women decides she doesn't want to carry that zygote to term, it is her body and her decision. Perhaps she was raped or a young unmarried teen or she is not financially ready or not emotionally ready or her life would be in danger or she has some other reason, it is her body and therefore her choice whether or not she wants to carry that zygote to term. Once she decides that then she has parental obligations for that baby, at least IMHO.

 

As one who opposes abortion, the ramifications of this draft if it becomes case law, will have very unreasonable additional consequences, from understanding such as outlawing birth control, prosecuting women who have miscarriages, etc. When does life begin? I used to say at conception but I am more inclined now to say when there is a heartbeat. This is going to get nasty, very nasty, and unreasonable voices on both sides will drown out the rational voices on both sides of the issue.

 

The current availability of abortions has not completely stopped women and young girls from concealing their pregnancies, birthing a baby, and then murdering it and/or throwing it into the trash. I suspect that the rates of this happening will soar once abortion becomes illegal again. If you are against abortion, which one is more compassionate: to abort the baby before it even has the capacity to breathe on its own or to allow it to be born, take its first breaths, and then smother it?

And what of children born into abject poverty? What right does anyone have to force a child to be born into conditions that will ruin not only its life, but also the lives of its parents and siblings? A family that can support 2 or 3 children cannot necessarily support 5 or 6 without breaking. Even if contraception is legal and available, it can fail. There are people who use multiple different types of contraception to prevent pregnancy and it still happens.

How about children with severe genetic defects, children that might only live 1-2 years in pain (if they're lucky) before passing away? Should we force parents, especially ones who are already low income, to take on the expensive burden of caring for such a child?

Finally, it's already enough of a nightmare for women to get sufficient healthcare. There are so many horror stories about women being denied things like cancer treatment because the life-saving treatment will ruin the women's fertility. Nevermind that the woman is literally dying and is not currently pregnant; she might still be able to birth a child before she passes away, so we can't do anything that might impact her fertility! It's not a far step to assume that things like anti-depressants, anti-seizure medication, and asthma medication will soon be illegal to prescribe to women because the woman MIGHT become pregnant and there is no way to avoid that pregnancy or potentially serious birth defects/health issues when a woman is taking these medications.

I would prefer if abortions were not necessary, either medically or socially. (I definitely object to people who might use the availability of abortions as an excuse to skip contraceptives entirely.) I wish that every child born would be guaranteed a good start to life and parents without financial issues who love and care for them. But that's not the world we live in. Sometimes, one does have to choose between the lesser of two evils. In this instance, I think that the lesser evil is allowing people the freedom to get an abortion when they feel it is necessary to do so. Whether the reasons are financial, social, or medical.

 

I'm glad you put it this way. It's not a bad point, actually. Well, many people would not agree with the premise that the unborn seem to have more rights than the born. Also, I, personally, like women; have three of them at home. And I do not like how society casually punishes people for having a vagina. Not just on this issue.

 

To add to my post above, if you are against abortion while also being against universal healthcare and food assistance, as are most Republican issues, then you are a monster. That's it, end of story.

If you are somehow in favor of healtcare and welfare reforms (to give people more of each), but you'd want to start by banning abortion, you are a monster. Why is it more important to "save" the life of a fetus, but not the lives of its family?

And are you really saving its life? While the emphasis in at least some areas has shifted to assisting the parent(s), how long will the new status quo last in the face of there being an increasing number of unwanted pregnancies?

Adoption can be big business. https://talkpoverty.org/2019/08/23/government-more-foster-adoption-reuniting/

This is just federally-sanctioned human trafficking. In already overworked and under-funded agencies, how much emphasis do you think will actually be given to vetting the adoptive parents? As long as you're white, Christian, not LGBT+, and not disabled, I suspect not much. It already happens - people adopting many children "out of the kindness of their hearts" turn out to be horrific child abusers. Which would mean more children winding up in worse situations than what their parents could provide.

And what of the mother who thinks that they can be a single parent, gives it a try, and due to lack of mental healthcare, physical healthcare, and other monetary support realizes that they can't do this? If the child is lucky, the mother will realize this before the kid is in kindergarten. Young children (usually) get adopted quite quickly. Older children, or children with health issues, are more likely to stay in foster care forever.

Yearly, approximately 135,000 children are adopted in the US, approximately 80k of which are from the foster care system. http://archive.pov.org/offandrunning/fact-sheet/ Of the tens of thousands of children who enter the foster care system each year, approximately 20k will age out of the system https://www.childrensrights.org/newsroom/fact-sheets/foster-care/ Unfortunately, children who age out of foster care without being adopted are extremely likely to be homeless, be living off of welfare, or simply be in jail. https://www.fosterfocusmag.com/articles/foster-care-affects-you-your-money-your-wallet

Why is it okay to force children to be birthed into poverty and homelessness? When adults are being kicked out of their existing homes to build a highway bypass or when a slumlord is discovered to be exploiting tenants, this usually makes the news and something may be done about the situation. But, because this is a slow-moving situation that will take ~2 decades to discover the full horrifying ramifications of what is being done today, it doesn't seem as urgent. It'll be someone else's problem to deal with then. Who cares, because we must "save the unborn" today, without bothering to care what happens to them after they take their first breaths.

Why is it okay to kill a person slowly, through miserable living conditions and lack of basic needs, but it's not okay to abort them so that they don't have to endure such things?

 

And, again, what of disabled children/children with health conditions? Remember, the US is a society that barely treats disabled or unhealthy people as people at all. Even today, it's not unusual to hear about children in relatively well-off (middle class) families who cannot get the wheelchair, prosthetic limb, surgery, etc. that they need because their family cannot afford it.

Approximately 1 in 33 births has some kind of birth defect: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/data.html Since the page specifies "births", I do not think this includes abortions completed because of things like Trisomy 18. The percentage rises from 3% of births to 5% of births once you account for issues that aren't immediately discovered: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/12230-birth-defects That already costs at least $2.6B annually: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/infographic.html While it seems like the global number of children born with birth defects is decreasing, some defects are on the rise and nobody knows why. https://www.cnn.com/2016/01/22/health/birth-defect-gastroschisis-increase/index.html

Now, I am not saying that disabled people are worthless or that all disabled people should be aborted/euthanized. But the sad reality is that many American families would not be able to care for a disabled child. Raising a child with special needs can cost many times what it costs to raise an average healthy child.
https://www.feldmanlawgroup.com/blog/2020/february/the-high-cost-of-raising-a-special-needs-child/
https://www.cesisolutions.org/2018/10/cost-of-raising-special-needs-child/
https://mint.intuit.com/blog/planning/the-cost-of-raising-a-special-needs-child-0713/
https://adayinourshoes.com/hidden-costs-parenting-disabled-child/

In a perfect world, parents would not have to shoulder the entire monetary burden of raising a child with health issues. But we don't live in that world. If every fetus has a "right to life", does that not include food and medical care? Because, without either, you will die. Yet, if you force people to birth children that they do not have the financial resources to care for, you are potentially condemning both the parent(s) and the child(ren) to a slow and painful death due to lack of food, medicine, and other resources.

Again, I do wish that abortion was not something that was necessary. But there is also no reason to give the unborn more rights than the already-living who need our help and resources.

 

Call it Gish Gallop all you want when all I am doing is providing sources to back up my arguments. I, personally, hate it when people roll up and say "thing bad" or "thing good" without providing any sort of statistics, data, or even tenable solutions to the issue(s) at hand. And this is a discussion forum, not a book where I can provide a properly annotated bibliography.

 

"Gish Gallop"? That's a new one on me.

I started this thread to demonstrate what the Pro Life movement's next goal might be and to highlight the (to my mind) extreme danger to democracy of Judicial Legislation. That, after all, is the reasoning in Alito's draft opinion. It might be true that Alito is hostile to abortion personally but he didn't base his opinion on that hostility. He based it on a view of the role of the Supreme Court in the federal system.

Thing is, he could have declared some sort of fetal right to life. Easy enough to do. But he didn't. Now, why?

Think about that friends.

 

You called people who disagree with your positions monsters. Any hope of a discussion is lost; providing data to support your position is pointless when only people who agree with you will continue to participate.

 

Another point that I think hasn't been mentioned is that past history indicates that making abortions illegal doesn't make abortions unavailable. It makes safe abortions unavailable. When abortions were illegal in the past, there were still plenty of folks offering illegal abortions in less than ideal conditions.

 

With horrible results all too often.

I see that the Senate will be voting down a bill guaranteeing abortion rights in the near future. Strictly political posturing given that no one wants to suspend the filibuster lest the same be done to them. Well, the vote will force every Senator out of the brush and into the open on the subject, something senators like to avoid.

Assuming the Supreme Court adopts the Alito opinion the States will be the ones who decide.

 

Incidently, I'm not at all sure that this Supreme Court would uphold a federal abortion rights guarantee. Or even a federal ban. I get a sense, maybe nonsense, that the Justices want to force the issue back onto the States because "that's where it belongs."

 

Another interpretation is that the conservative members are there to accomplish some things, this being one of them.

Mitch McConnell said that if the GOP took back the majorities in Congress, plus the presidency, they would consider a nationwide ban on abortion. Hardly forcing "the issue back onto the States." Would this court, in the name of those slippery states' rights, overturn such a ban? I seriously doubt it.

 

True but in that same interview McConnell stated that he wouldn't seek to suspend the filibuster to achieve such a nationwide ban (if it was the same USA Today interview. )

I think everyone is feeling their way right now. If there were a nationwide ban my GUESS is that it wouldn't be an absolute ban from conception. It might well be a nearly absolute ban on abortion after viability.

The GOP isn't monolithic on this subject. New Hampshire isn't likely to take the same view as Louisiana.

 

You cannot trust what he says he won't do, only what he says he will do.

The GOP doesn't need to be monolithic. It is being led by one particular part of the party, but the rest just go along.

 

No, I called people who hold a certain position to be monsters.

If you want to increase healthcare and welfare first, and then talk about banning abortion - I will still think you're misguided, but at least we can talk. If you want to enact laws that will cause suffering and death first, then maybe increase healthcare and welfare to maybe relieve some of that suffering and death at some nebulous future point - that is just wrong and evil.

Approximately 1 in 50 pregnancies is ectopic. Without a surgical abortion, these women will die in agony. https://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/ectopic-pregnancy.aspx Allowing that to happen does not make one a good person.

 

The impression I'm getting FWIW is that abortion just isn't as important to the middle of the road voter as it is to the militant edges. The price of gas seems to matter more.