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Tullyswimmer t1_jdwnjjy wrote

Reply to comment by opperior in NH House passes abortion-rights protections by IBlazeMyOwnPath

Yes, I did. Now can you answer my question? If nobody would have an elective abortion after 24 weeks, and would only have one at that point because of a medical issue, then what is the problem with restricting elective abortions after 24 weeks?

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opperior t1_jdwqvk3 wrote

The rest of my sentence answers that exact question, but I'll expand on that anyway:

Say a woman is forced to have an abortion to save her life. There are only a few ways this could go:

  1. She has the abortion first. She is now required to defend the decision she and her doctor made while still dealing with the loss of her child. As has happened. And while the charges were eventually dropped under public outcry, the whole ordeal should never have happened in the first place, and the door remains open for it to happen again.

  2. She must get approval for the abortion, which can take time and lead to unnecessary complications. As has happened.

  3. She risks death for herself or the fetus. If the fetus dies and she lives, she still risks arrest. As has happened.

The point being, if you make it illegal after a set point, there must be a procedure to determine if a pregnancy is an acceptable candidate for termination, a procedure to determine if an unexpected termination was deliberate or not, and a punishment if a termination happens when it wasn't pre-approved. Forcing a grieving woman through this procedure with no fore-knowledge of whether or not she will be punished for something out of her control is the very antithesis of justice and humanity.

Edit: to expand further: This restriction also results in higher death rates for both women and infants, so if the goal is to save lives, it fails.

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Tullyswimmer t1_jdwxvdj wrote

> She has the abortion first. She is now required to defend the decision she and her doctor made while still dealing with the loss of her child.

Why? Why would she have to defend it? If it's "between the doctor and the patient" as you describe, wouldn't it be on the doctor to defend it, since they were the one who said it was necessary? The only case in which a woman would have to defend it if it was necessary is if a medical professional said it wasn't and she wanted it anyway, which is the definition of elective.

In the case you cited, it never once mentioned if it was medically necessary or not, or if she had consulted with a physician. If it's not medically necessary, that's elective, again.

>She must get approval for the abortion, which can take time and lead to unnecessary complications. As has happened.

Can you explain to me how that situation at 18 weeks would have be affected by restrictions after 24 weeks? I'm not sure I see the connection there. Even at 22 weeks, if your water breaks, you're probably going into labor. I know because it happened to my wife.

>She risks death for herself or the fetus. If the fetus dies and she lives, she still risks arrest. As has happened.

I'm sorry, are you equating losing a pregnancy due to methamphetamine use with a medically necessary abortion? And again, how would losing a pregnancy at 17 weeks be affected by restrictions affecting pregnancies past 24 weeks? I seem to be missing something here.

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opperior t1_jdx138y wrote

Why should a doctor have to be put on trial for doing what they think is best for their patient? Does a legal body have a better understanding of the medical issues involved?

Can you explain to me why the situation would be different at 24 weeks as opposed to 18 weeks? The same processes and procedures are in place, regardless of time frame.

Does the reason why a fetus is not viable matter? Would the situation be any different if the cause was the genetic anomaly as the report stated? Is it okay to let the woman die if drugs are involved? Again, why does the time frame matter? Pregnancies can be lost at more than 24 weeks for many reasons, including natural ones.

What you are missing is the idea that getting more people involved in a personal and highly traumatic decision - people who are less qualified to make that decision at that - will only make problems worse. Why do you think more restrictive states have higher fatalities?

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Tullyswimmer t1_jdx3o15 wrote

> Why should a doctor have to be put on trial for doing what they think is best for their patient? Does a legal body have a better understanding of the medical issues involved?

At no point did I say that the doctor should have to defend it, or be put on trial. They shouldn't. But if anyone has to defend the decision to do something out of medical necessity, it should be, you know, the medical professional who said it was necessary?

>Can you explain to me why the situation would be different at 24 weeks as opposed to 18 weeks? The same processes and procedures are in place, regardless of time frame.

I asked a question about why we couldn't restrict abortions after 24 weeks if they were never done for elective reasons after 24 weeks. I'm not sure how 18 weeks is after 24 weeks. Last I knew, 18 weeks was before 24 weeks, so anything that happened at 18 weeks would not then be covered by restrictions after 24 weeks. Unless my math is way off.

>Does the reason why a fetus is not viable matter? Would the situation be any different if the cause was the genetic anomaly as the report stated? Is it okay to let the woman die if drugs are involved? Again, why does the time frame matter? Pregnancies can be lost at more than 24 weeks for many reasons, including natural ones.

Declaring the fetus not viable would be permitted. As long as it was truly not viable, and not like Iceland where they consider Down's syndrome a legitimate reason to terminate. Yes, the situation would be different if there was an actual genetic anomaly and not substance abuse. No, it's not OK to let a woman die because of drug use but literally nobody is making that argument except as a straw man. And again, that case was at 17 weeks, I specifically asked about a ban after 24 weeks.

>What you are missing is the idea that getting more people involved in a personal and highly traumatic decision - people who are less qualified to make that decision at that - will only make problems worse. Why do you think more restrictive states have higher fatalities?

Again, if a doctor says it's medically necessary, and that's all that's needed, who else is involved in that decision? And states that are more restrictive tend to have lower quality healthcare, and less access to healthcare, in general, that states that are less restrictive. Surely that could contribute to higher fatality rates, no? Or if they magically made abortion unrestricted up until the moment of birth, no questions asked, (as you want), would they suddenly not have higher fatality rates despite no other changes to healthcare quality and access?

I will ask the question one more time, since I still have not gotten an answer. If nobody is going to terminate a pregnancy after 24 weeks for elective reasons, why is it a problem to restrict abortion access to only non-elective reasons after 24 weeks?

Everything you've provided as a citation or example, thus far, would either be elective, didn't happen after 24 weeks, or is hypothetical.

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opperior t1_jdxfum2 wrote

The part you are missing is that the time frame doesn't matter. My original point is that, by 24 weeks, any abortion would be because it is medically necessary. That medical necessity is the point, whether it happens at 24 weeks or at 17 weeks.

If there is a law in place that an abortion isn't allowed after a given time (whatever that time is) unless medically necessary, then any such abortion must be legally defended. Otherwise, what would be the point of the law? If all that is necessary is for a doctor to say it's necessary, then the law would be unenforceable.

So if abortions that late are medically necessary, and such a law is unenforceable, why have it? At that point it just causes more harm.

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Tullyswimmer t1_jdxlyf4 wrote

> The part you are missing is that the time frame doesn't matter. My original point is that, by 24 weeks, any abortion would be because it is medically necessary. That medical necessity is the point, whether it happens at 24 weeks or at 17 weeks.

It absolutely does matter. A 17 week fetus is not viable. A 24 or 25 week one is. If the law says "elective abortions are legal until 24 weeks, and only medically necessary after that" how does that "medical necessity" affect a 17 week pregnancy?

>If there is a law in place that an abortion isn't allowed after a given time (whatever that time is) unless medically necessary, then any such abortion must be legally defended. Otherwise, what would be the point of the law? If all that is necessary is for a doctor to say it's necessary, then the law would be unenforceable.

So again, there wouldn't be a problem with it? What you're arguing for is a law where elective abortions would be available until birth with no questions asked. If those never happen, why is it so critically important that they're legal?

>So if abortions that late are medically necessary, and such a law is unenforceable, why have it? At that point it just causes more harm.

Because you and I both know that elective abortions can and do happen after that point. Simple as that. You can try and dance around it all you want, but at the end of the day, if it was really that uncommon for them to happen, you wouldn't have a problem with restricting them.

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