Abortion and Women's Rights

[omgryebread]

Agh, really messed up a quote earlier, attributed it to someone who totally wouldn't have said it. Apologies to both parties, really really sorry.


Anyway, why is killing an unconscious, non-sentient thing painlessly in the womb so much worse than forcing it through the trauma of birth into an environment likely* to painfully kill it? Those that survive are likely to have disabilities.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118378/

*I tried to find numbers, but survival rates vary wildly, not just on age, but weight, sex, part of a multiple birth or not, and other factors.


I guess past 27 weeks you have a better point. It's still not good, because birth is a serious use of a woman's body. I fail to see how killing something unconscious and non-sentient (that's never been conscious or sentient) to prevent a woman from having to go through a pretty traumatic process she doesn't want to is wrong.

I actually have some trouble saying abortion is okay past 27 weeks. I was born at 27 and 5 days. I'm mostly okay, I have some learning disabilities, but I have other health problems that may be the cause of those, so it's hard to say if that's because of being a preemie. 27 week fetuses have a pretty high chance of living, and a decent chance of not having disabilities. But I'm totally unwilling to say that my mom's choice and my luck should have any effect on other women's choices. Especially when abortion is incredibly hard to get sometimes.

Strange to be talking about the mother caring about survival of the baby when she was ready and willing to kill it.

Wooooooowwwwww. People are never conflicted about things they did? Even things they did willingly? I guess we don't need counseling for soldiers and cops conflicted about killing people. And I mean, obviously abortion is a super easy decision.

[Izawwlgood]

Ok, point out where it says "100% of abortions performed after <x, where x > 21> weeks are performed solely for the sake of minimizing health risks to the mother." I don't doubt that it IS a reason. But if you're claiming 100%, then the burden of proof is on YOU.

I'm asking you now for the third time, to simply goto the wikipedia entry on abortions, look at the different techniques, read what they say, and tell me that you still don't believe that killing the fetus is to ensure the mothers safety during the procedure.
Here, I'll even provide links for you, spoilered because they're a potentially graphic in description alone.

Spoiler:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilation_and_evacuation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilation_and_curettage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysterotomy_abortion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intact_dil ... extraction

Just to clarify, I'm not claiming that all abortions performed after a certain time point are performed for safety to the mother purposes, and I wish you'd have read what I've been writing a bit more closely so as to avoid such confusion. I wrote,

And just to be crystal clear about this, because I still don't think you've gone to the wiki and read about this, to be CRYSTAL CLEAR, the reason those things are done is because giving birth comes with it a range of complications, and inducing premature birth comes with it additional complications. Killing the fetus prior to inducing labor MINIMIZES those risks.

Do you see the difference? My claim isn't that abortions are performed after a certain time because it's safer (the opposite being true) but that the fetus is killed in the abortion process because it is safer than delivering a live premie.

We've been over this a number of times, and I'm beginning to get frustrated with your inability to recognize this fact, or support your position that birthing a premie is better than killing it prior to birthing it for an abortion.

[Angua]

So if it doesn't happen, then not having it be legal shouldn't matter. And yet here we are with a ton of people saying that even if it did happen, it should happen.

As has already been said, the rare cases in which a healthy foetus is subject to a late-term abortion is when the mother was unable to get an earlier abortion in time for whatever reason. We don't want to put a limit on one day from when a woman is allowed to get an abortion to when she is not. You may not mind if a child has to live an extremely disabled life because the woman had to abort later, personally, I would be more horrified at the idea that the child might live like that for the rest of it's life when I could have waited an extra 3 months for it to be born healthier, in which case I'm just being basically blackmailed into going through a pregnancy because I don't want it to have that extra suffering if it's going to be born anyway. However, if it never lives, then I am spared the guilt, and still get right to my bodily autonomy (win-win for me, null (neither win nor lose) for the non-existent baby).

Well, except that's not what's being argued. What's being argued is that EVEN if there's no other reason besides the mother feeling like it all of a sudden very very late (up to the point of birth, and even PAST birth), she should have the right to have the abortion. Unless you're also saying that that shouldn't be right either?

What I am saying (and I believe a lot of other people as well) is that in order to say, abortion should only be allowed after this point, you are ignoring the small percentage of women who couldn't get it before then. This becomes even more important in places where abortion is demonized in general, as it's now even less likely for women to get an abortion in time. So, we are proposing that there isn't a line to start with, and leave it to birth, considering that in places where abortion isn't demonised, the health foetuses would pretty much be aborted before then anyway, and the late-term abortions would be left to the medical problems arising later in pregnancy. You seem to think that for the women who don't manage to get past this cut-off point (which for you seems to be vague viability) the women who have a late-term abortion have to acknowledge the likelyhood that their foetus would most likely spend the rest of it's life with severe disability because they couldn't be bothered to risk their bodies and their lives (not just in the alive sense, but also when it comes to how your life changes while you're pregnant). Can you not see how that chance would not be acceptable to some women who would otherwise choose to have an abortion??????

You are the one wanting to focus on late-term abortions, we are the ones saying that with free abortions for all, those will be less likely anway, and even if they are undertaken, the woman shouldn't be punished just because she was late getting an abortion. Very few women would wake up one morning halfway trhough a pregnancy that they'd been happily going through with and decide they are fed up with it - they've either already been thinking about it/trying to arrange it, or something serious has changed.

[morriswalters]

Just so everybody can have a look at some reasonably unbiased data see the article Elective Abortion. It has links to the CDC website as well as some other resources. This particular article is used as a citation in a Wikipedia entry.

See Morris's Rule.

You can imply you understand all you want, people are a lot more likely to believe you if it's actually reflected in what you say though.

Could you at least use some humor when you call me a liar. I can only imagine what you might say if I was totally against abortions rather than just late term elective procedures.

[FireZs]

I actually have some trouble saying abortion is okay past 27 weeks. I was born at 27 and 5 days. I'm mostly okay, I have some learning disabilities, but I have other health problems that may be the cause of those, so it's hard to say if that's because of being a preemie. 27 week fetuses have a pretty high chance of living, and a decent chance of not having disabilities. But I'm totally unwilling to say that my mom's choice and my luck should have any effect on other women's choices. Especially when abortion is incredibly hard to get sometimes.

Well, is it that much of a stretch to say that at the moment before you were born, you were not all that different from after? Would you be willing to extend the right for other women to kill their 27 week and 5 day baby after it's born?

Strange to be talking about the mother caring about survival of the baby when she was ready and willing to kill it.

Wooooooowwwwww. People are never conflicted about things they did? Even things they did willingly? I guess we don't need counseling for soldiers and cops conflicted about killing people. And I mean, obviously abortion is a super easy decision.

Yeah, and emotional conflict should only be resolved by killing the source. Not with, say, some tact? Like, not shoving the premie baby in the mother face afterwards? As I said, we don't shove the abortion in the woman's face afterwards (although there are people who would like that, presumably).

Ok, point out where it says "100% of abortions performed after <x, where x > 21> weeks are performed solely for the sake of minimizing health risks to the mother." I don't doubt that it IS a reason. But if you're claiming 100%, then the burden of proof is on YOU.

I'm asking you now for the third time, to simply goto the wikipedia entry on abortions, look at the different techniques, read what they say, and tell me that you still don't believe that killing the fetus is to ensure the mothers safety during the procedure.
Do you see the difference? My claim isn't that abortions are performed after a certain time because it's safer (the opposite being true) but that the fetus is killed in the abortion process because it is safer than delivering a live premie.
We've been over this a number of times, and I'm beginning to get frustrated with your inability to recognize this fact, or support your position that birthing a premie is better than killing it prior to birthing it for an abortion.

Ok, well rather than being wrong, you were just stating the irrelevant. I'm not talking about altering how we perform existing abortion procedures. This is just avoiding the point.

[Izawwlgood]

Quick read through of the article linked by morriswalters (thanks for linking by the way), showed this, for you FireZ:

If abortion presents a medical risk to the patient, then continuation of the pregnancy presents an even greater risk.

I think that's pertinent to your position.

[FireZs]

Well, except that's not what's being argued. What's being argued is that EVEN if there's no other reason besides the mother feeling like it all of a sudden very very late (up to the point of birth, and even PAST birth), she should have the right to have the abortion. Unless you're also saying that that shouldn't be right either?

What I am saying (and I believe a lot of other people as well) is that in order to say, abortion should only be allowed after this point, you are ignoring the small percentage of women who couldn't get it before then. This becomes even more important in places where abortion is demonized in general, as it's now even less likely for women to get an abortion in time. So, we are proposing that there isn't a line to start with, and leave it to birth, considering that in places where abortion isn't demonised, the health foetuses would pretty much be aborted before then anyway, and the late-term abortions would be left to the medical problems arising later in pregnancy. You seem to think that for the women who don't manage to get past this cut-off point (which for you seems to be vague viability) the women who have a late-term abortion have to acknowledge the likelyhood that their foetus would most likely spend the rest of it's life with severe disability because they couldn't be bothered to risk their bodies and their lives (not just in the alive sense, but also when it comes to how your life changes while you're pregnant). Can you not see how that chance would not be acceptable to some women who would otherwise choose to have an abortion??????

You are the one wanting to focus on late-term abortions, we are the ones saying that with free abortions for all, those will be less likely anway, and even if they are undertaken, the woman shouldn't be punished just because she was late getting an abortion. Very few women would wake up one morning halfway trhough a pregnancy that they'd been happily going through with and decide they are fed up with it - they've either already been thinking about it/trying to arrange it, or something serious has changed.

Yeah, I'm focusing on late-term abortions, because I don't have a problem with the other ones. And you're still miscontruing my point. My point is that if the mother doesn't want the child, she can deliver it immediately and sever her body's connection with the child. That alone adresses most of what you're talking about. Remember, her body is no longer a factor, as the fetus is out either way. You just seem to find it important that the fetus dies in the process.

Quick read through of the article linked by morriswalters (thanks for linking by the way), showed this, for you FireZ:

If abortion presents a medical risk to the patient, then continuation of the pregnancy presents an even greater risk.

I think that's pertinent to your position.

Yeah, and again, it's irrelevant. I'm talking about delivering immediately, not continuing the pregnancy.

[Aaeriele]

Could you at least use some humor when you call me a liar.

No.

[Angua]

And you're misconstruing my point - if the mother is forced to give birth to a live child which will have a much greater chance of disability and suffering, then she'll feel she's consigning them to that suffering (WHEN IT COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED BY HER WAITING JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER). You might think that women wanting abortions are cruel and heartless, and wouldn't care about the child they've put in that position, but I don't. You might think that a child is better off in suffering than never living at all, but I don't.

[Izawwlgood]

Well, FireZ, I'm done responding to you until you read the provided citations about why you are wrong about the safety of what you are proposing.

[FireZs]

Well, FireZ, I'm done responding to you until you read the provided citations about why you are wrong about the safety of what you are proposing.

None of which are "delivering the baby." But at this point you're just being spitefully obtuse. Well, that's the charitable interpretation anyway. I'll also charitably assume you can deduce what the alternative is.

And you're misconstruing my point - if the mother is forced to give birth to a live child which will have a much greater chance of disability and suffering, then she'll feel she's consigning them to that suffering (WHEN IT COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED BY HER WAITING JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER). You might think that women wanting abortions are cruel and heartless, and wouldn't care about the child they've put in that position, but I don't. You might think that a child is better off in suffering than never living at all, but I don't.

Ok, so if it's that important for the mother to believe that the baby came out dead, just tell her so. Or is lying worse than emotional trauma, and worse than killing the baby? Remember, the baby could also be healthy (like omgryebread
was).

[gmalivuk]

Quick read through of the article linked by morriswalters (thanks for linking by the way), showed this, for you FireZ:

If abortion presents a medical risk to the patient, then continuation of the pregnancy presents an even greater risk.

I think that's pertinent to your position.

Yeah, and again, it's irrelevant. I'm talking about delivering immediately, not continuing the pregnancy.

Well in addition, and as has been repeated numerous times in the past couple hours alone, inducing live birth is quite a bit riskier for the woman, especially when there are prior complications, than terminating before removal. So there's *still* the fact that the risk to the mother at any late stage of pregnancy tends to be lower for abortion than for that same woman giving live birth.

Can you explain to me how this is different then placing a value on the wyci?

It's different because we don't need to assign *any* specific value to it. I mean, I suppose we're assuming that it's not more valuable before birth than it is afterward, but I can't imagine anyone here disagreeing with that. Which means that, however valuable the wyci is, anywhere from zero to as valuable as a newborn, birth can still be a logical cutoff for when it's morally permissible for a woman to kill it.

You're assuming that the risk of abortion is unaffected by the change in risk of delivery. So that's supported by...well, nothing.

Actually, it's supported by the fact, already discussed repeatedly, that those women most likely to get abortions that late in the pregnancy are the ones who for whatever reason have an increased risk to their own health if they were to go through normal childbirth. And it certainly doesn't have to be 100% or even the majority to still make a significant difference. If 50% have a 1% chance of dying, and the other 50% have the "baseline" 0.01% chance of dying, that's still a total average 50-fold increase over the maternal death rate for normal childbirth.

And sure, you could still argue against the abortion rights of those few women who abort late in pregnancy despite there not being any health-related reasons, but you're getting into "vanishingly small fraction" territory now. That is, assuming you could find any woman who would abort past the point of viability for reasons unrelated to her health or that of the fetus.

I mean, I guess you might want to make a law to prevent something that doesn't actually happen, but that seems rather stupid to me.

[dedalus]

So this doesn't go into a quote-snipe war, I'll number your replies to my arguments in your post after mine from 1, and retort as per sec.

1. The argument goes like this - *anyone* who has to undergo an abortion would prefer to have an early term one rather then a late term one. This is fairly obvious, as early term abortions have less risk of problems, are usually easier procedures, are usually easier to get doctors to perform, and you don't have a baby inside you for 20 weeks. Hence, if someone had to undergo a late-term abortion, their reasons for doing so *are* going to be good ones. If they weren't, then they would have got an earlier abortion. So the argument isn't that 'even bad reasons for late-term abortions should be allowed', it's 'there is no bad reason to have a late-term abortion'. Your hypothetical 'we couldn't be bothered with a condom, and I was too lazy to get to a doctor for twenty weeks, and I don't actually want a baby' is a complete fallacy.

2. What is this 'good reason' for the other way? Please, I'm wondering what you in your infinite wisdom can contemplate as to why the general populace would be giving birth to more healthy babies then we'd be aborting late-term. And my argument is that 'The woman should be presented with the entire range of options, including giving birth, and, more specifically, abortion.' Stop putting words into my mouth.

3. Who do you mean by 'we'. Who on this forum, in this thread, has demonised a doctor for recommending a woman take a baby to term because it is the best option to keep her and her baby in good health, and there isn't another good reason for her to abort? We might demonise the religious institutions that *always* push for bringing babies to term, but that's because they *always* push to bring babies to term, above and beyond what is good for the mother.

Again, there is this thing, where you are thinking, that we are saying, things that we are not saying. It is no good. We are having problems. I am thinking you are the source of them. (To be read in the voice of Mr. I. Montoya)

4. That word, I do not think it means, what you think it means. A mother can care about the fact that she has just aborted her baby. In fact, I'm pretty sure, that if you ask any of the women around here who have had abortions, it's a fairly big thing in their lives. And it'd probably be an even bigger thing if rather then aborting, there was a chance that they'd had the baby taken out of them, and may have to deal with an unwanted and very likely disabled child for the rest of their lives (even if the child was adopted).

Again, as people have been yelling and screaming at you, an abortion is a pretty big deal in any woman's life. She doesn't just wake up, brush her teeth, flush a fetus down the drain and go about her business. Can you not get this point?

5. Ok, here's what I think is the root of everything. When Angua quotes 40-70% chance of long-term survival and 25-50% chance of long-term disability, this doesn't mean that you can pick 4-7 out of a set of 10 babies and have them live, and then pick 2-5 of the surviving ones and have them live a full and happy life. Statistics and medicine don't work like that. We can't tell what will happen with any given birth, which means that every time you get your 2-5 healthy babies, you also get 3-6 ones that died over the course of a few days/weeks/months, and 1-5 ones that have a long-term, debilitating disability. And those 2-5 babies might be healthy *after* they go through many months of pallative care, but then they're going to a home that doesn't want them, or a foster home.

And you're misconstruing my point - if the mother is forced to give birth to a live child which will have a much greater chance of disability and suffering, then she'll feel she's consigning them to that suffering (WHEN IT COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED BY HER WAITING JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER). You might think that women wanting abortions are cruel and heartless, and wouldn't care about the child they've put in that position, but I don't. You might think that a child is better off in suffering than never living at all, but I don't.

Ok, so if it's that important for the mother to believe that the baby came out dead, just tell her so. Or is lying worse than emotional trauma, and worse than killing the baby? Remember, the baby could also be healthy (like omgryebread
was).

Wait up, you think that a mother is going to have a baby and then just walk away? Yeah, at about this point I'm labelling you a sociopath, or a troll. And (though I could be wrong about this), I presume that omgryebread did not come out a healthy baby. Xe(sorry, not sure on gender) just managed to live. Which, looking at the statistics, is pretty lucky, really.

Well, FireZ, I'm done responding to you until you read the provided citations about why you are wrong about the safety of what you are proposing.

None of which are "delivering the baby." But at this point you're just being spitefully obtuse. Well, that's the charitable interpretation anyway. I'll also charitably assume you can deduce what the alternative is.

Oh pots and kettles and various shades of blackness.

I don't think anything more will come out of this discussion. You're pretty happy to sit here saying 'killing bebbehs is bad', and then retorting to all the well-thought out arguments for abortion with 'but... but... KILLING BEBBEHS IS BAD!!!!'. Pretty sure I'm wasting my time here.

[FireZs]

Quick read through of the article linked by morriswalters (thanks for linking by the way), showed this, for you FireZ:

If abortion presents a medical risk to the patient, then continuation of the pregnancy presents an even greater risk.

I think that's pertinent to your position.

Yeah, and again, it's irrelevant. I'm talking about delivering immediately, not continuing the pregnancy.

Well in addition, and as has been repeated numerous times in the past couple hours alone, inducing live birth is quite a bit riskier for the woman, especially when there are prior complications, than terminating before removal. So there's *still* the fact that the risk to the mother at any late stage of pregnancy tends to be lower for abortion than for that same woman giving live birth.

Quite a bit, eh? How much? Got stats? It's 1/10000 vs 1/11000. That's not "quite a bit riskier." You keep wanting to make this point without any evidence to back it up. If you would just "read the thread," this wouldn't be a problem, since this has been repeated many more times than your unsubstantiated claim.

You're assuming that the risk of abortion is unaffected by the change in risk of delivery. So that's supported by...well, nothing.

Actually, it's supported by the fact, already discussed repeatedly, that those women most likely to get abortions that late in the pregnancy are the ones who for whatever reason have an increased risk to their own health if they were to go through normal childbirth. And it certainly doesn't have to be 100% or even the majority to still make a significant difference. If 50% have a 1% chance of dying, and the other 50% have the "baseline" 0.01% chance of dying, that's still a total average 50-fold increase over the maternal death rate for normal childbirth.

It's only a fact if fact means "things that people have said that help my argument." You have no stats to back that up. "Most likely" is your opinion, based on what people here believe about the motivations of these women. And you still haven't, even with your fake fact, shown that increased risk of childbirth doesn't also increase the risk of abortion at that stage for that woman. Seriously, this is just intellectually dishonest at this point.

And sure, you could still argue against the abortion rights of those few women who abort late in pregnancy despite there not being any health-related reasons, but you're getting into "vanishingly small fraction" territory now. That is, assuming you could find any woman who would abort past the point of viability for reasons unrelated to her health or that of the fetus.

I mean, I guess you might want to make a law to prevent something that doesn't actually happen, but that seems rather stupid to me.

Ok, make it and see if it actually does. I don't see why you need to defend something that clearly doesn't need to be defended, by your own admission.

[LaserGuy]

So this doesn't go into a quote-snipe war, I'll number your replies to my arguments in your post after mine from 1, and retort as per sec.

1. The argument goes like this - *anyone* who has to undergo an abortion would prefer to have an early term one rather then a late term one. This is fairly obvious, as early term abortions have less risk of problems, are usually easier procedures, are usually easier to get doctors to perform, and you don't have a baby inside you for 20 weeks. Hence, if someone had to undergo a late-term abortion, their reasons for doing so *are* going to be good ones. If they weren't, then they would have got an earlier abortion. So the argument isn't that 'even bad reasons for late-term abortions should be allowed', it's 'there is no bad reason to have a late-term abortion'. Your hypothetical 'we couldn't be bothered with a condom, and I was too lazy to get to a doctor for twenty weeks, and I don't actually want a baby' is a complete fallacy.

Would you feel that sex selection is a good reason? You generally can't tell the sex of the wyci until about 20 weeks with ultrasound, sometimes later, and the procedures that allow earlier determination do come with some non-trivial risk of miscarriage or complications. So conceivably, a person who wants to, say, have a boy and will not tolerate having a girl, would have to wait until at least 20, possibly as late as ~24 weeks before they could have their abortion.

[gmalivuk]

So there's *still* the fact that the risk to the mother at any late stage of pregnancy tends to be lower for abortion than for that same woman giving live birth.

Quite a bit, eh? How much? Got stats? It's 1/10000 vs 1/11000. That's not "quite a bit riskier."

That's also not what those stats mean. I'm talking about those women who choose to get abortions. You know, the ones who on average have a higher than 1/10000 chance of dying if they were to give birth, because some of them are getting abortions for health reasons?

Obviously you still haven't read any of the links Izawwlgood provided for you to see why they do the things to kill the fetus before abortions. If you had, you'd realize that those are to make the procedure safer for the woman. Which means that there is a higher risk when they don't do those things.

And you still haven't, even with your fake fact, shown that increased risk of childbirth doesn't also increase the risk of abortion at that stage for that woman. Seriously, this is just intellectually dishonest at this point.

I know, and yet here you persist.

I'm saying that the group we already have, who get abortions past 20 weeks, of whom 1 in 11,000 die from abortion-related complications, would have a higher-than-average risk of death during childbirth, on account of whatever fraction of them are getting those abortions for health-related reasons. I don't need to provide any additional stats to prove that it's still 1 in 11,000, because we're talking about the population of women who get abortions past 20 weeks. It's 1 in 11,000 for that population. According to numbers you yourself posted.

The point I'm making is that the *other* number you posted, of about 1 in 10,000 maternal deaths for live births, is *not* this same population. It is the whole population. And so, if we were to restrict it to only those few women effectively identical to the ones who get abortions after 20 weeks, we'd find a much higher mortality rate than 1 in 10,000. Because, as previously stated, those women are likely to be choosing abortions because carrying to term would involve a higher childbirth mortality rate than 1 in 10,000.

But not a higher abortion mortality rate, because this is already the exact same population as the 1 in 11,000 number was quoted for.

Can I make this any simpler for you? And are you really that bad at statistics, or are you just deliberately missing my point because it would suggest that the numbers *you* contributed to this thread don't actually help your case the way you hoped they would?

[omgryebread]

Would you feel that sex selection is a good reason? You generally can't tell the sex of the wyci until about 20 weeks with ultrasound, sometimes later, and the procedures that allow earlier determination do come with some non-trivial risk of miscarriage or complications. So conceivably, a person who wants to, say, have a boy and will not tolerate having a girl, would have to wait until at least 20, possibly as late as ~24 weeks before they could have their abortion.

Sex selection is a bad thing in general, because it leads to gender disparity, which is pretty bad (see: East Asia. http://www.economist.com/node/15606229 That article was part of a really amazing issue of The Economist)


That being said, pretty impossible to distinguish sex selection from other intentions.

[FireZs]

So this doesn't go into a quote-snipe war, I'll number your replies to my arguments in your post after mine from 1, and retort as per sec.

1. The argument goes like this - *anyone* who has to undergo an abortion would prefer to have an early term one rather then a late term one. This is fairly obvious, as early term abortions have less risk of problems, are usually easier procedures, are usually easier to get doctors to perform, and you don't have a baby inside you for 20 weeks. Hence, if someone had to undergo a late-term abortion, their reasons for doing so *are* going to be good ones. If they weren't, then they would have got an earlier abortion. So the argument isn't that 'even bad reasons for late-term abortions should be allowed', it's 'there is no bad reason to have a late-term abortion'. Your hypothetical 'we couldn't be bothered with a condom, and I was too lazy to get to a doctor for twenty weeks, and I don't actually want a baby' is a complete fallacy.

"There is no bad reason to have a late-term abortion." Seriously? That's your argument? Of course there're bad reasons to have a late-term abortion that aren't related to health. You seriously willing to try to prove that 100% of late term abortions are mother's health-related? That's ridiculous.

2. What is this 'good reason' for the other way? Please, I'm wondering what you in your infinite wisdom can contemplate as to why the general populace would be giving birth to more healthy babies then we'd be aborting late-term. And my argument is that 'The woman should be presented with the entire range of options, including giving birth, and, more specifically, abortion.' Stop putting words into my mouth.

And I'm saying, "the woman should be presented with the entire range of options insofar as the continued use of her body is at stake, when it no longer is, she should not have the option to kill the baby on its way out if it can live."

3. Who do you mean by 'we'. Who on this forum, in this thread, has demonised a doctor for recommending a woman take a baby to term because it is the best option to keep her and her baby in good health, and there isn't another good reason for her to abort? We might demonise the religious institutions that *always* push for bringing babies to term, but that's because they *always* push to bring babies to term, above and beyond what is good for the mother.

Again, there is this thing, where you are thinking, that we are saying, things that we are not saying. It is no good. We are having problems. I am thinking you are the source of them. (To be read in the voice of Mr. I. Montoya)

Ok, so you would support a doctor who recommends delivery instead of abortion. Good, because they do exist.

4. That word, I do not think it means, what you think it means. A mother can care about the fact that she has just aborted her baby. In fact, I'm pretty sure, that if you ask any of the women around here who have had abortions, it's a fairly big thing in their lives. And it'd probably be an even bigger thing if rather then aborting, there was a chance that they'd had the baby taken out of them, and may have to deal with an unwanted and very likely disabled child for the rest of their lives (even if the child was adopted).

Again, as people have been yelling and screaming at you, an abortion is a pretty big deal in any woman's life. She doesn't just wake up, brush her teeth, flush a fetus down the drain and go about her business. Can you not get this point?

Ok, so if it's a big deal either way, why not let the baby live on its way out? Why is the marginal gain in "big-deal-ness" worth killing the baby on its way out?

5. Ok, here's what I think is the root of everything. When Angua quotes 40-70% chance of long-term survival and 25-50% chance of long-term disability, this doesn't mean that you can pick 4-7 out of a set of 10 babies and have them live, and then pick 2-5 of the surviving ones and have them live a full and happy life. Statistics and medicine don't work like that. We can't tell what will happen with any given birth, which means that every time you get your 2-5 healthy babies, you also get 3-6 ones that died over the course of a few days/weeks/months, and 1-5 ones that have a long-term, debilitating disability. And those 2-5 babies might be healthy *after* they go through many months of pallative care, but then they're going to a home that doesn't want them, or a foster home.

So the mother gets to decide, and the healthy ones, well, they're just the cost we're going to have to pay for her to make that choice that is, once again, no longer about her body?

And you're misconstruing my point - if the mother is forced to give birth to a live child which will have a much greater chance of disability and suffering, then she'll feel she's consigning them to that suffering (WHEN IT COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED BY HER WAITING JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER). You might think that women wanting abortions are cruel and heartless, and wouldn't care about the child they've put in that position, but I don't. You might think that a child is better off in suffering than never living at all, but I don't.

Ok, so if it's that important for the mother to believe that the baby came out dead, just tell her so. Or is lying worse than emotional trauma, and worse than killing the baby? Remember, the baby could also be healthy (like omgryebread
was).

Wait up, you think that a mother is going to have a baby and then just walk away? Yeah, at about this point I'm labelling you a sociopath, or a troll. And (though I could be wrong about this), I presume that omgryebread did not come out a healthy baby. Xe(sorry, not sure on gender) just managed to live. Which, looking at the statistics, is pretty lucky, really.

Ok, so to allow her to be able to walk away, you kill the baby on the way out? And I'm the sociopath?

I don't think anything more will come out of this discussion. You're pretty happy to sit here saying 'killing bebbehs is bad', and then retorting to all the well-thought out arguments for abortion with 'but... but... KILLING BEBBEHS IS BAD!!!!'. Pretty sure I'm wasting my time here.

Except none of the arguments are very good. They're designed to argue for abortion as a general right, which as I said, I've no problem with for 99.99% of the abortions actually performed. People keep arguing with me like I'm a foe of abortion in general. I'm not. I keep making the same arguments because they've never been really addressed, and I have to re-explain everything again each time to people like you who Didn't Read The Thread(tm).

That being said, if you think my argument is "but...but KILLING BEBBEEHS IS BAD!!!" your argument is "but...but...DEAD BEBBEHS GOOOOD. BBEEBEEEH MUST DIE...MUST DIIIIIIIIIEEE"
Pot, kettle, your "shades," and all that.

[gmalivuk]

While I am pretty sure you've been intentionally obtuse all along, I wrote up hopefully an *even clearer* explanation:

We start with group A, who are the approximately 200,000 women who will have abortions in the next ten years at 21 weeks or later. According to your statistics, we can expect about 20 of these women to die from complications related to their abortions.

We also have group B, who are a completely randomly selected group of 200,000 other women who will give birth in the next decade. We can expect approximately 20 of these women to die in childbirth.

Now suppose we have group A', which is a group of 200,000 women specially selected to have all the same health-related (and fetal-health-related) traits as those in group A, with the only difference being that the women in A' are all going to give birth this decade instead of having abortions. Because at least some portion (it doesn't particularly matter what the exact fraction is) of the women in A will get their abortions for health reasons, we know the same portion of women in A' have all those same health conditions. Which means that these women have a higher than average risk of death in childbirth. Which means that we can expect *more* than 20 of them to die in childbirth.

Now read very carefully, because this is the part you keep missing: The women in group A' do not have a higher potential rate of abortion complications than the women in group A, because the two groups were specifically chosen to be identical in every way that would be pertinent to this potential. Therefore, they have a higher average risk from childbirth than from abortion.

[FireZs]

So there's *still* the fact that the risk to the mother at any late stage of pregnancy tends to be lower for abortion than for that same woman giving live birth.

Quite a bit, eh? How much? Got stats? It's 1/10000 vs 1/11000. That's not "quite a bit riskier."

That's also not what those stats mean. I'm talking about those women who choose to get abortions. You know, the ones who on average have a higher than 1/10000 chance of dying if they were to give birth, because some of them are getting abortions for health reasons?

Obviously you still haven't read any of the links Izawwlgood provided for you to see why they do the things to kill the fetus before abortions. If you had, you'd realize that those are to make the procedure safer for the woman. Which means that there is a higher risk when they don't do those things.

And you still haven't, even with your fake fact, shown that increased risk of childbirth doesn't also increase the risk of abortion at that stage for that woman. Seriously, this is just intellectually dishonest at this point.

I know, and yet here you persist.

I'm saying that the group we already have, who get abortions past 20 weeks, of whom 1 in 11,000 die from abortion-related complications, would have a higher-than-average risk of death during childbirth, on account of whatever fraction of them are getting those abortions for health-related reasons. I don't need to provide any additional stats to prove that it's still 1 in 11,000, because we're talking about the population of women who get abortions past 20 weeks. It's 1 in 11,000 for that population. According to numbers you yourself posted.

The point I'm making is that the *other* number you posted, of about 1 in 10,000 maternal deaths for live births, is *not* this same population. It is the whole population. And so, if we were to restrict it to only those few women effectively identical to the ones who get abortions after 20 weeks, we'd find a much higher mortality rate than 1 in 10,000. Because, as previously stated, those women are likely to be choosing abortions because carrying to term would involve a higher childbirth mortality rate than 1 in 10,000.

But not a higher abortion mortality rate, because this is already the exact same population as the 1 in 11,000 number was quoted for.

Can I make this any simpler for you? And are you really that bad at statistics, or are you just deliberately missing my point because it would suggest that the numbers *you* contributed to this thread don't actually help your case the way you hoped they would?

Whatever fraction of them are getting those abortions for health-related reasons? You say it's 100% (or close to it), I say it's 3%. Both numbers are pulled out of our asses. We don't know either way, and depending on what that number is, the effect on the comparability of abortion vs delivery can be large or negligible. As I said, you have no idea which it is. I could just as easily say that because most abortions are performed on white women (57%), and the childbirth mortality rate is lower for them (0.7/10000), that the effect on the overall stats for abortion mortality vs the risks of childbirth of that population goes in the other direction. Yes, I would be bullshitting, but so are you here.

While I am pretty sure you've been intentionally obtuse all along, I wrote up hopefully an *even clearer* explanation:

We start with group A, who are the approximately 200,000 women who will have abortions in the next ten years at 21 weeks or later. According to your statistics, we can expect about 20 of these women to die from complications related to their abortions.

We also have group B, who are a completely randomly selected group of 200,000 other women who will give birth in the next decade. We can expect approximately 20 of these women to die in childbirth.

Now suppose we have group A', which is a group of 200,000 women specially selected to have all the same health-related (and fetal-health-related) traits as those in group A, with the only difference being that the women in A' are all going to give birth this decade instead of having abortions. Because at least some portion (it doesn't particularly matter what the exact fraction is) of the women in A will get their abortions for health reasons, we know the same portion of women in A' have all those same health conditions. Which means that these women have a higher than average risk of death in childbirth. Which means that we can expect *more* than 20 of them to die in childbirth.

Now read very carefully, because this is the part you keep missing: The women in group A' do not have a higher potential rate of abortion complications than the women in group A, because the two groups were specifically chosen to be identical in every way that would be pertinent to this potential. Therefore, they have a higher average risk from childbirth than from abortion.

If not being biased and making up numbers means I'm obtuse, so be it. As I said, you have no idea what the "health-related (and fetal-health-related) traits" of group A actually are. Less than 20 may die, and it could be due to any number of factors, not the least of which is ACCESS TO ABORTION, which is generally more available to middle-upper class women living in liberal areas, which LOWERS the risk of delivery.

[gmalivuk]

Whatever fraction of them are getting those abortions for health-related reasons? You say it's 100% (or close to it), I say it's 3%.

I do not say it's 100% or close to it. I don't care what exactly it is, though I suspect that it's greater than the 12% of total abortions done for maternal health reasons, since most women who abort for other reasons have done so long before 21 weeks.

I could just as easily say that because most abortions are performed on white women (57%), and the childbirth mortality rate is lower for them (0.7/10000), that the effect on the overall stats for abortion mortality vs the risks of childbirth of that population goes in the other direction. Yes, I would be bullshitting

No, you'd just be flat-out lying. While it's true that 57% of abortions are performed on white women, this is quite a bit smaller than the 77% of live births that happened to white women in that cdc table.

So abortions are disproportionately performed for women in the higher maternal mortality risk groups. Again, by your own numbers. And yet, the mortality rate is *still* slightly lower for them than for giving birth.

[FireZs]

Whatever fraction of them are getting those abortions for health-related reasons? You say it's 100% (or close to it), I say it's 3%.

I do not say it's 100% or close to it. I don't care what exactly it is, though I suspect that it's greater than the 12% of total abortions done for maternal health reasons, since most women who abort for other reasons have done so long before 21 weeks.

I could just as easily say that because most abortions are performed on white women (57%), and the childbirth mortality rate is lower for them (0.7/10000), that the effect on the overall stats for abortion mortality vs the risks of childbirth of that population goes in the other direction. Yes, I would be bullshitting

No, you'd just be flat-out lying. While it's true that 57% of abortions are performed on white women, this is quite a bit smaller than the number of births that happen to white women. So abortions are disproportionately performed for women in the higher maternal mortality risk groups. Again, by your own numbers.

So that alone skews things away from your claim, even before we consider anything about the health of the women who get later abortions.

Ok, so what's the number? It's so convenient when you don't have any numbers you have to answer for.

[gmalivuk]

Ok, so what's the number? It's so convenient when you don't have any numbers you have to answer for.

I honestly can't be bothered to find out, because my point still stands whatever it is. Sure, it's a *stronger* point if we make reasonable assumptions (like at least as many of the abortions at 21+ weeks are performed for health reasons as abortions in general), but as long as it's not 0 even if it is 0, abortion is less risky than childbirth, on account of the abortions being disproportionately performed for women who were already at higher risk for maternal mortality.

Again: that fact is based entirely on numbers you yourself have provided. So if there's anything pulled out of anyone's ass, it's yours.

[FireZs]

Ok, so what's the number? It's so convenient when you don't have any numbers you have to answer for.

I honestly can't be bothered to find out, because my point still stands whatever it is. Sure, it's a *stronger* point if we make reasonable assumptions (like at least as many of the abortions at 21+ weeks are performed for health reasons as abortions in general), but as long as it's not 0 even if it is 0, abortion is less risky than childbirth, on account of the abortions being disproportionately performed for women who were already at higher risk for maternal mortality.

Again: that fact is based entirely on numbers you yourself have provided. So if there's anything pulled out of anyone's ass, it's yours.

Ok, well it's 3%, given your assumptions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_i ... _abortions

The effect is small, and the risk, even though higher, is comparable. Fluctuations from year-to-year can easily wipe that out.

Also, where'd you get that 77% number?

[gmalivuk]

Ok, well it's 3%, given your assumptions

Try 12%. (That source is linked to right in the Wikipedia citation, so I'm unsure what 3% comes from.)

But again, let's ignore that fact entirely. There's *still* the disproportionate risk issue counting against you:

There were 4316233 registered births in 2007. [ref] Of those, 3274163 were born to white women. In that same year, 548 women died in childbirth, including 335 white women. So 10.2 per 100k white women and 20.4 per 100k non-white women die in childbirth. In a group that is composed of 57% white women, then, we would expect 16.0 per 100k to die in childbirth. Meanwhile, only 9.1 per 100k women die who have abortions after 20 weeks, a group you claim is also composed of 57% white women.

So childbirth is 76% riskier than abortion, using your own numbers, and even if we assume that there are no health differences between people who have abortions after 20 weeks and the general population of pregnant women, apart from those that already correlate with race.

Also, where'd you get that 77% number?

I just used your original CDC table, along with math. Mortality rates there were only given to 3 significant figures, though, and the above full-precision numbers make it more like 76%. Still quite a bit higher than 57%, though.

[FireZs]

Ok, well it's 3%, given your assumptions

Try 12%. (That source is linked to right in the Wikipedia citation, so I'm unsure what 3% comes from.)

But again, let's ignore that fact entirely. There's *still* the disproportionate risk issue counting against you:

There were 4316233 registered births in 2007. [ref] Of those, 3274163 were born to white women. In that same year, 548 women died in childbirth, including 335 white women. So 10.2 per 100k white women and 20.4 per 100k non-white women die in childbirth. In a group that is composed of 57% white women, then, we would expect 16.0 per 100k to die in childbirth. Meanwhile, only 9.1 per 100k women die who have abortions after 20 weeks, a group you claim is also composed of 57% white women.

So childbirth is 76% riskier than abortion, using your own numbers, and even if we assume that there are no health differences between people who have abortions after 20 weeks and the general population of pregnant women, apart from those that already correlate with race.

Also, where'd you get that 77% number?

I just used your original CDC table, along with math. Mortality rates there were only given to 3 significant figures, though, and the above full-precision numbers make it more like 76%. Still quite a bit higher than 57%, though.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2411798.html was where 3% (actually 2.8%) came from, but looks like your 12% is more up-to-date.

Yeah. I think that "76%" is really disingenous, when you consider that the actual risk in both cases is really really low. It's not like one is 1/1000 and another is 1/100000, like the hundreds of percents you were suggesting earlier (see? real numbers do help). As I said, comparable. On the same order of magnitude. To put it another way, the increase in risk is like the increase in risk from driving in Washington State to driving in Texas(9.9/100k vs 16.2/100k, same year). I don't think you can justify killing the baby on the way out based on those numbers.

[dedalus]

Look, I'm going to be as polite as I can, but I'm not promising much. Many people before me have tried and failed to make a cohesive, civil argument against you. I may have to forgo this formality in the face of your blatant idiocy:

Firstly, I'll go back to your latest round of quote-sniping (which, for the record, is a terrible habit of yours; it's polite to make cohesive arguments against people so that we aren't reduced to bickering over tiny facts and can focus on the argument at large). I never said that '100% of late term abortions are mother's health-related', I said that 100% of late term abortions are made for good reasons. There are more possible *good* reasons for a late term abortion then the mother's health, many have been made before. And this also *doesn't* mean it is physically impossible for a late-term abortion to have a bad reason, it means that because people have 20 weeks to decide whether or not to keep the baby, and people aren't in a coma for 20 weeks, and having a baby is kind of a BIG FUCKING THING, they will have made the decision well before then unless they have a bloody good reason.

Also, as we've been saying again, when abortions occur, you cannot guarantee with reasonable reliability, that the baby will live. Moreover, it is completely immoral to base (as you have been) the ability of a baby to live on the principle of 'let's take the baby out, and see if it does.' This is for a bunch of reasons, as have been dictated by people before: You risk more harm to the mother, you risk putting the baby through torment and pain for many months until it either dies or manages to survive, and you force the baby upon the mother. When you say that the mother is not going to care about her child if she doesn't want it, that's showing your complete disconnect with the situation, your complete ignorance about the situation, and these sociopathic tendancies I'm a bit worried about. Having a child is a bigger thing then buying a car - people have been genetically and evolutionary coded into caring about their babies over many millions of years. Get this idea through your thick head - a woman will care a lot about an unborn child living inside her, but that doesn't mean she has to like it, want it, or decide that giving it life is worth the sum of the outcome of every other factor. Which again goes back to my the previous paragraph; if a woman carries a baby inside her for 20 weeks, then decides to get rid of it, you'd better fucking believe she's got a damn good reason, because otherwise she would've gotten rid of it early, or she wouldn't be getting rid of it.

And of course doctors who recommend delivery in the appropriate situations exist - they're called doctors. But appropriate situation means more then 'if we do this you've got X chance of surviving and the fetus has Y chance, if we do this you've got A and they have B, and X+Y>A+B'. I also support doctors that have all options available to them, like a late-term abortion. One that doesn't have all the side-effects of a forced early delivery.

As for your crap about 'marginal gains in big-deal-ness', you're just being intellectually dishonest.

And no, to allow her to walk away, I don't kill the baby. I never let the baby come to life. You're the one who's drawn this arbitrary line in the sand and said 'babies that have an X% chance of living outside the womb are alive'. To be honest, for many of the premature babies that we'd have to force out under your regime, I don't think I'd consider them to be alive until they weren't going to die. The problem isn't arguing over whether I'm killing babies and you're not, the problem is that you're forcing everyone through a long, very painful, drawn out scenario just to satisfy your stupid line in the sand. When you're comfortable with what I'd say comes close to torture simply to be able to draw this line, that's what I'd describe as sociopathic.

And we're not justifying the abortion simply based on the fact that it's going to kill less mothers. There's a lot more at stake here. And you don't seem to get that.

[LaserGuy]

Look, I'm going to be as polite as I can, but I'm not promising much. Many people before me have tried and failed to make a cohesive, civil argument against you. I may have to forgo this formality in the face of your blatant idiocy:

Firstly, I'll go back to your latest round of quote-sniping (which, for the record, is a terrible habit of yours; it's polite to make cohesive arguments against people so that we aren't reduced to bickering over tiny facts and can focus on the argument at large). I never said that '100% of late term abortions are mother's health-related', I said that 100% of late term abortions are made for good reasons. There are more possible *good* reasons for a late term abortion then the mother's health, many have been made before. And this also *doesn't* mean it is physically impossible for a late-term abortion to have a bad reason, it means that because people have 20 weeks to decide whether or not to keep the baby, and people aren't in a coma for 20 weeks, and having a baby is kind of a BIG FUCKING THING, they will have made the decision well before then unless they have a bloody good reason.

I'll ask again then: do you consider sex selection a good reason for an abortion? Because it happens to be one of those things that can't easily, safely, be determined until around 20 weeks have past, and a lot of people (not so much in North America) do get abortions for this reason.

[dedalus]

Firstly, I'd point out that it's pretty much not prevalent in the US - at least, in the statistics Angua gave it didn't even rate a mention, and I'd presume that puts it as less then the 2% she had for her last reason.

Secondly, if people are doing that, then you've really got to ask why. For example, in China, there's still massive sexual discrimination, and a one-child policy. Which means that a couple with a daughter will have a much harder time then if they have a son which can provide for them. This isn't a good situation at all, but I can't really blame the individual couple for it too much. So, I don't think it's a good idea, and it needs to be fixed, but it needs to be fixed on a cultural level, not on a 'prohibit this couple from having an abortion' level.

[FireZs]

Look, I'm going to be as polite as I can, but I'm not promising much. Many people before me have tried and failed to make a cohesive, civil argument against you. I may have to forgo this formality in the face of your blatant idiocy:

Firstly, I'll go back to your latest round of quote-sniping (which, for the record, is a terrible habit of yours; it's polite to make cohesive arguments against people so that we aren't reduced to bickering over tiny facts and can focus on the argument at large). I never said that '100% of late term abortions are mother's health-related', I said that 100% of late term abortions are made for good reasons. There are more possible *good* reasons for a late term abortion then the mother's health, many have been made before. And this also *doesn't* mean it is physically impossible for a late-term abortion to have a bad reason, it means that because people have 20 weeks to decide whether or not to keep the baby, and people aren't in a coma for 20 weeks, and having a baby is kind of a BIG FUCKING THING, they will have made the decision well before then unless they have a bloody good reason.

Also, as we've been saying again, when abortions occur, you cannot guarantee with reasonable reliability, that the baby will live. Moreover, it is completely immoral to base (as you have been) the ability of a baby to live on the principle of 'let's take the baby out, and see if it does.' This is for a bunch of reasons, as have been dictated by people before: You risk more harm to the mother, you risk putting the baby through torment and pain for many months until it either dies or manages to survive, and you force the baby upon the mother. When you say that the mother is not going to care about her child if she doesn't want it, that's showing your complete disconnect with the situation, your complete ignorance about the situation, and these sociopathic tendancies I'm a bit worried about. Having a child is a bigger thing then buying a car - people have been genetically and evolutionary coded into caring about their babies over many millions of years. Get this idea through your thick head - a woman will care a lot about an unborn child living inside her, but that doesn't mean she has to like it, want it, or decide that giving it life is worth the sum of the outcome of every other factor. Which again goes back to my the previous paragraph; if a woman carries a baby inside her for 20 weeks, then decides to get rid of it, you'd better fucking believe she's got a damn good reason, because otherwise she would've gotten rid of it early, or she wouldn't be getting rid of it.

And of course doctors who recommend delivery in the appropriate situations exist - they're called doctors. But appropriate situation means more then 'if we do this you've got X chance of surviving and the fetus has Y chance, if we do this you've got A and they have B, and X+Y>A+B'. I also support doctors that have all options available to them, like a late-term abortion. One that doesn't have all the side-effects of a forced early delivery.

As for your crap about 'marginal gains in big-deal-ness', you're just being intellectually dishonest.

And no, to allow her to walk away, I don't kill the baby. I never let the baby come to life. You're the one who's drawn this arbitrary line in the sand and said 'babies that have an X% chance of living outside the womb are alive'. To be honest, for many of the premature babies that we'd have to force out under your regime, I don't think I'd consider them to be alive until they weren't going to die. The problem isn't arguing over whether I'm killing babies and you're not, the problem is that you're forcing everyone through a long, very painful, drawn out scenario just to satisfy your stupid line in the sand. When you're comfortable with what I'd say comes close to torture simply to be able to draw this line, that's what I'd describe as sociopathic.

And we're not justifying the abortion simply based on the fact that it's going to kill less mothers. There's a lot more at stake here. And you don't seem to get that.

And I didn't say you said that '100% of late term abortions are mother's health-related', I said that what you said, that "there is no bad reason to have a late-term abortion" is bullshit. Of course there are bad reasons. That you can't think of any doesn't mean they don't exist. That you imagine the set of people who seek late-term abortions uniformly share a set of values you've projected onto them is, well, unrealistic to say the least. I don't have to better fucking believe anything just because you say so. There are all kinds of people out there, kiddo, not everyone's gonna have the same psychological profile. And as we said, we "risk more harm" in the sense that instead of driving in one state, she's driving in another, in terms of riskyness. It's comparable risk. And you're talking like every single premie is a "suffer for hours then die" case. Ok, I'll give you that. I'll give you that if you can tell that it's going to die shortly out of the womb, you can kill it before it comes out. Will you give me that a 9-month baby with no problems should be delivered instead of killed on the way out? I don't think you will. I'm not the one drawing lines here. You are.

Firstly, I'd point out that it's pretty much not prevalent in the US - at least, in the statistics Angua gave it didn't even rate a mention, and I'd presume that puts it as less then the 2% she had for her last reason.

Secondly, if people are doing that, then you've really got to ask why. For example, in China, there's still massive sexual discrimination, and a one-child policy. Which means that a couple with a daughter will have a much harder time then if they have a son which can provide for them. This isn't a good situation at all, but I can't really blame the individual couple for it too much. So, I don't think it's a good idea, and it needs to be fixed, but it needs to be fixed on a cultural level, not on a 'prohibit this couple from having an abortion' level.

Well, at least you thought of one bad reason to have a late-term abortion. That's progress, I guess.

[dedalus]

I wouldn't say it's a 'bad reason', only that it's bad that it's a reason.

If all these other bad reasons exist, could you please tell me what they are? I'm curious.

Oh, also, could you please cite some abortions at 9 months? Because I'm pretty sure that's a negligible category.

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

It's not bad per se, but it does reinforce dangerous patterns. If gender were purely cosmetic, it would be perfectly cromulent.

[FireZs]

I wouldn't say it's a 'bad reason', only that it's bad that it's a reason.

If all these other bad reasons exist, could you please tell me what they are? I'm curious.

Oh, also, could you please cite some abortions at 9 months? Because I'm pretty sure that's a negligible category.

So you're not ok with it?

"Only that it's bad that it's a reason?" Come on, that's a pretty damn large hole in your "they thought so long and hard about this it must be good!" spiel.

Well, a lot of people in the late term abortion category (71%) are there because they thought they'd have more time, or they didn't know they were pregnant. So no, they may very well have not thought about it long and hard. If they're at, say, 27 weeks 5 days, just as an example, and there's no additional danger to the mother, why is it better to kill the baby on the way out instead of keeping it alive on the way out? What's the difference between the fetus inside and outside at that point? Remember, risks are comparable, use of the mother's body has ended at this point, fetus actually has good chance to survive and become omgryebread, there's a foster family for the child, etc(listed for the benefit of those who don't read the thread).

[LaserGuy]

I wouldn't say it's a 'bad reason', only that it's bad that it's a reason.

If all these other bad reasons exist, could you please tell me what they are? I'm curious.

Oh, also, could you please cite some abortions at 9 months? Because I'm pretty sure that's a negligible category.

This paper cites at least one 36 week and one 37 week abortion (it doesn't give the exact values, only ranges that include these values) in a sample of 239 late-term abortions that all took place at a single clinic, over a 5 year period. So of late-term abortions that occur for medical reasons, plausibly ~1% will be in the 36th or 37th week of pregnancy. So for a crude estimate... 1% of abortions occur after 21 weeks in the United States. Of those, 12% are apparently medical related. 1% of those will be in the 36th or 37th week. There were 800000 abortions in 2010. That works out to ~10 abortions/year in weeks 36 or 37. This is probably a low-ball estimate since I'm neglecting the 88% that aren't medical (>28 week abortions are illegal in the UK except for medical reasons), and I don't know for sure that there were only two in the sample. Generously, I'd say maybe 100/year. Yeah, it's pretty small.

[dedalus]

Ummm... do you get the idea that these people are often put in the position where they have to have a male child to ensure staying alive in old age? I'm pretty sure they would have thought about it long and hard, and put their lives over the potential life of the fetus. And then they have another child later.

Also, just remember that in this situation the child *won't* get cared for (in third world countries states aren't known for their amazing ability to care for adopted children), and in China, I'm pretty sure that if the child lives that would count as their kid. So in this case either the existence of the child is bad (for the couple), or the child will die anyway.

As for this other reason, again, there's more going on here then just a case of 'oh, let's get this kid out of you and you can go on your way' (which you seem to be confusing an abortion with). You put the woman through many days of physical and emotional pain, with the knowledge that what she's giving birth to will most likely either a. die or b. become disabled, and if she doesn't care for it, it will be put into foster care (which on average is not usually as good as a biological family). So you're creating this immense sense of guilt, along with a huge emotional bond, and then taking the baby away? All because she didn't know that she was pregnant till too late? Yeah, again, considering the stats for survival at the 20-24 week period, it's a terrible thing to force a person to do.

Ninja'd: I'm pretty sure those terminations were for medical reasons as well. Maybe someone who knows the jargon might contribute their 2 cents.

[Aic]

Your hypothetical 'we couldn't be bothered with a condom, and I was too lazy to get to a doctor for twenty weeks, and I don't actually want a baby' is a complete fallacy.

My first reaction was surprise. You expect people to be educated, reasonable and caring, but I generally assume (and sometimes see) that people are dumb as feck and don't have sudden enlightenment when something's growing in their womb. Thus I would've found that mentioned scenario very likely. [insert uninteresting stuff here about the general image of our "uneducated trash" not using contraception or abortions and throwing loads of children into a bad social and financial environment in my country because they don't give a damn.]
But since people threw in quite some important numbers and stuff about the actual decisions to late-term abortions, I seem to be wrong about abortions out of dumbness. Or at least for the US.
Well law-wise you can't get late-term abortions in my country except out of severe medical reasons anyways, but it's still interesting for me.

[dedalus]

You expect people to be educated, reasonable and caring

Oh fuck no, I expect people to be emotional and scared about it. I've been in the situation of not knowing whether a girl will get pregnant, and it wasn't even my body. That being said, I'd presume not everyone acts exactly the same as me, but I couldn't see a reaction of 'I'm pregnant, meh.' And even less, 'I'm pregnant, meh, oh, it's 20 weeks in, I should probably go deal with that.'

[morriswalters]

Ummm... do you get the idea that these people are often put in the position where they have to have a male child to ensure staying alive in old age? I'm pretty sure they would have thought about it long and hard, and put their lives over the potential life of the fetus. And then they have another child later.

Also, just remember that in this situation the child *won't* get cared for (in third world countries states aren't known for their amazing ability to care for adopted children), and in China, I'm pretty sure that if the child lives that would count as their kid. So in this case either the existence of the child is bad (for the couple), or the child will die anyway.

As for this other reason, again, there's more going on here then just a case of 'oh, let's get this kid out of you and you can go on your way' (which you seem to be confusing an abortion with). You put the woman through many days of physical and emotional pain, with the knowledge that what she's giving birth to will most likely either a. die or b. become disabled, and if she doesn't care for it, it will be put into foster care (which on average is not usually as good as a biological family). So you're creating this immense sense of guilt, along with a huge emotional bond, and then taking the baby away? All because she didn't know that she was pregnant till too late? Yeah, again, considering the stats for survival at the 20-24 week period, it's a terrible thing to force a person to do.

Ninja'd: I'm pretty sure those terminations were for medical reasons as well. Maybe someone who knows the jargon might contribute their 2 cents.

Not to put too fine a point on it, she put herself(along with whatever male helped her) in that position. No one else. They created the problem. The couples express and only purpose(assuming they weren't trying for a child) was to have a short period of intensely pleasurable experience. We have no obligation to make it easy for them to mitigate the host of problems that come up inevitably because of it. Apparently no reasonable accommodation is sufficient according to some. If you say 20 weeks, wait that's not enough time, 28 weeks, wait she still may have not been able to do it. At what point can the rest of us throw up our hands and say enough is enough? I'm not really happy to have legislation on this, Government is absolutely no good at doing this. In Canada, which according to the Wikipedia has no abortion laws as of 2004, some Canadian Provinces must send patients wanting them to the US because Doctors don't want to do them on demand(elective) at that late date.

[Ulc]

If you say 20 weeks, wait that's not enough time, 28 weeks, wait she still may have not been able to do it. At what point can the rest of us throw up our hands and say enough is enough?

That's actually very easy to answer.

Never.

[dedalus]

What Ulc said. They have no obligation to you to satisfy your personal morality at the cost of huge changes to their lives.

The couples express and only purpose(assuming they weren't trying for a child) was to have a short period of intensely pleasurable experience.

And they probably used protection, and they probably thought that it would work. And it probably didn't. Or, she wanted to use protection, and he didn't, and she got coerced into it. Or maybe the condom split but they didn't know about it. And then she didn't realise that she was that late term because she thought she'd gotten pregnant 3 weeks later when the condom split, and she didn't realise that getting an abortion early makes such a difference to the morality of the situation, and he'd ran off when he found she was pregnant so she'd been trying to find him, and she couldn't find an abortion provider, or her parents were intensely pressuring her to have the baby but she really can't go through with it but it's now just too late... As soon as you class people as statistics and count feelings by numbers you're going to miss everything.

If you want to have less late term abortion, the answer is simple, and it makes everyone happy, and it doesn't require any laws. Education, and destigmatisation of early term abortions. If people know what choices they have after unintended pregnancies, and know how much it happens, and know that there are places out there for them, then they'll get shit sorted out sooner. And if it becomes easier to get an early term abortion, then late term abortion rates will decrease, especially the ones that are for reasons of 'I didn't realise'.

Also, sex is more then 'a short period of intensely pleasurable experience', and if you honestly think of it as just that, then I kinda feel sorry for you.