> a healthy > 12 week fetus with a healthy mother is a human life that must be protected
I respect this position, though I don't myself hold it, because pregnancy is a huge risk and can change you forever, and it's not always your choice (assault, etc.)
> The distinction is a moral one: is a fetus that’s more than 12-14 weeks old sufficiently developed that it cannot be killed unless it has a developmental abnormality, or the pregnancy jeopardizes the health of the mother?
I think we do have a factual disagreement though, because this is really rare and is largely an access issue. Most people don't know how hard it is to get an abortion in the US, especially for girls or poor women. Here's some info from Planned Parenthood [0]:
- A 2005 survey of U.S. abortion providers found that among women who have non-hospital abortions, approximately 19 percent travel 50 to 100 miles for services, and an additional eight percent travel more than 100 miles
- As of 2011, 89 percent of U.S. counties had no known abortion provider; these counties are home to 38 percent of all women of reproductive age. (Jones and Jerman, 2014). Furthermore, in 2008, 97 percent of non-metropolitan counties have no abortion services, and 92 percent of non-metropolitan women live in these unserved counties.
- In 2000, the average cost of a first-trimester, in-clinic, non-hospital abortion with local anesthesia was $372 (Henshaw & Finer, 2003). In 2009 this cost was $451. The median cost of medication abortion, which can be done in the first 63 days of pregnancy, was $490 (Jones and Kooistra, 2011). For low-income and younger women, gathering the necessary funds for the procedure often causes delays. A recent study found that women at or under 100 percent of the federal poverty level were more likely than women at higher income levels to have second-trimester abortions (Jones and Finer, 2012). Compounding the problem is the fact that the cost of abortion rises with gestational age: in 2009, non- hospital facilities charged an average of $1,500 for abortion at 20 weeks (Jones and Kooistra, 2011). Most women are forced to pay for abortions out-of-pocket.
- Causing additional delays are state laws that mandate parental consent, notification, or court-authorized bypass for minors, and laws that impose required waiting periods. For example, after Mississippi passed a parental consent requirement, the ratio of minors to adults obtaining abortions after 12 weeks increased by 19 percent.
- Adolescents are more likely than older women to obtain abortions later in pregnancy... [c]ommon reasons why adolescents delay abortion until after the first trimester include fear of parents’ reaction, denial of pregnancy, and prolonged fantasies that having a baby will result in a stable relationship with their partners (Paul et al., 2009). In addition, adolescents may have irregular periods (Friedman et al., 1998), making it difficult for them to detect pregnancy.
This is why women's health organizations are pushing so hard for telemedicine and medication abortions, because various pro-life policies have tragically upped the rate of abortions after the 1st trimester. If the pro-life community really wanted to push down that last 7.3%, they should campaign for more funding for abortion clinics, medicaid coverage of abortions, repeal of parental consent and waiting period laws, more access to mifepristone, and so on.
Whenever I find myself in conversation with members of the pro-life community I'm just depressed by the amount of misinformation they labor under, in particular the prevailing belief that there are significant numbers of women having abortions in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters "for no good reason". You're even trying to show here that it is the case by pointing out a discrepancy between Canada and Denmark and inferring, but we have clear evidence it isn't. It just isn't true. This is our factual disagreement.
IME there are two major parts of the pro-life community: those who are fine w/ 1st trimester abortions and those who aren't. The 2nd group is thrilled with Dobbs and is actively pushing for state and national abortion bans. The 1st group is having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that we actually had the regime we wanted pre-Dobbs: 92.7% of abortions occur in the 1st trimester, and the overwhelming majority of those that don't are for "good" reasons. They hear these bonkers stories of teen girls forced to give birth or receiving jail time for trying to get mifepristone, or women forced to go septic before they're allowed to have an abortion, and they can't square it with what they were told by the pro-life movement. My hope is that they realize they were led down the garden path by a craven political party's compulsive demagoguery, and they continue to make the GOP pay at the ballot box.
> I think we do have a factual disagreement though, because this is really rare and is largely an access issue.
No, it’s a moral dispute because the factual issue is immaterial under the other side’s moral view. The fact that it’s hard or expensive to get an abortion doesn’t justify killing a fetus that has a face and can feel pain. Likewise, it doesn’t matter how rare it is. Infanticide in general is rare, that’s not a reason to legalize it at the discretion of the mother.
When it comes to ending human life, we just don’t entertain the kinds of arguments you’re making about “access.” It doesn’t matter. So the crux of the dispute is what you think about the act of killing a fetus at different stages of development. The weight of any reasons for doing so looks completely different depending on that starting point.
> Whenever I find myself in conversation with members of the pro-life community I'm just depressed by the amount of misinformation they labor under
I find myself in the same position when talking with pro-abortion people who think a fetus is a “clump of cells.” I was floored when my wife got pregnant with our first child and I realized how many weeks there were between when the fetus looks human and when Roe allowed states to stop doctors from killing it. Growing up in a pro-abortion area I had never been taught that information.
> in particular the prevailing belief that there are significant numbers of women having abortions in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters "for no good reason".
No, the fundamental issue is that we disagree about what constitutes a “good reason” for a killing a fetus at an advanced stage of development.
> You're even trying to show here that it is the case by pointing out a discrepancy between Canada and Denmark and inferring, but we have clear evidence it isn't.
If you think that the only “good reason” to kill a fetus in the second or third trimester is that the mother’s health is in jeopardy, or that the baby will not live, then the comparison of Denmark and Canada is extremely illuminating. Both countries have widespread abortion access in the first trimester, and both countries allow abortions after 12 weeks for medical reasons. But Canada allows abortions after the first trimester because the woman no longer wishes to be pregnant, while Denmark does not. Canada this has 17% of abortions occurring after the first trimester, while in Denmark it’s just 4%. From the perspective of Danish law, most of the second and third trimester abortions in Canada are not happening for “good reasons” (assuming the probability of later stage medical issues is similar in both countries).
And the “compulsive demagoguery” comment is just bizarre. The scientific fact is that each human individual starts out as a cell that has a good chance of being spontaneously aborted, and develops into a baby that everyone agrees is entitled to all the protections of any other human. Drawing a line where it’s okay to kill an alive, biologically human organism is fraught and is the subject of disputes all over the world. Even countries that have legal abortion don’t agree on the reasons (individual rights in the west, population control in Asia). In my home country it’s illegal except to save the life of the mother. But it’s tacitly accepted as population control for poor people up to 10 weeks. An effort to legalize it for population control reasons failed in 1976. It’s not something the GOP ginned up to get votes FFS.
> It’s not something the GOP ginned up to get votes FFS.
You're wrong on this one. The GOP is unbelievably craven and corrupt. Paul Weyrich (founder of the super successful conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation) explicitly demagogued the abortion issue to activate evangelical voters and create a large conservative voting bloc (with the ultimate end of creating segregated Christian schools) [0]. He wrote about it himself; he's proud of it.
You're saying it's immoral to abort a fetus after the 1st trimester outside of the typical exceptions (assault, life of the birthing person, etc.). I'm saying that almost never happens, and you're saying even so it should still be illegal.
I think what you're missing is that it's probably impossible to craft such a prohibition bill that still protects the birthing person, because again the cases where abortions occur after the 1st trimester are innumerable. You can say you don't care, or that you value the fetus more than the birthing person, but I don't think it's useful to equate it with "infanticide... at the discretion of the mother". That's wildly out of bounds here. It's an extremely high stakes, complex issue and both sides deserve respect.
I think you need to think through exactly what that regime would look like because, and I'll say it again, we already had it. For some reason you really want there to be a law, but that law wouldn't change the numbers, and it wouldn't have many important exceptions. As a result, women would still seek abortions in unexempted cases (both "good" and "bad"), the same number of overall abortions would happen, all that would change is that more desperate women/girls and caregivers would go to prison, and more desperate women/girls would hurt themselves seeking unsafe abortions.
> When it comes to ending human life, we just don’t entertain the kinds of arguments you’re making about “access.”
You're missing my point. If you're serious about your position ("we want as many abortions as possible to happen only in the 1st trimester") then you need to dramatically increase the access to abortion in the 1st trimester. That's what you should be all over HN posting about. A draconian abortion ban won't do what you want.
> From the perspective of Danish law, most of the second and third trimester abortions in Canada are not happening for “good reasons”
Again you're not responding to the facts I've laid out for you. There are lots of other potential reasons for this (access, primarily), and your only evidence for this is your inference, which is no evidence at all. This is a classic post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which you're stubbornly making even in the face of other more parsimonious explanations. I don't know why you insist on believing there's a significant population of women out there that are doing this, but you've yet to show any evidence for it.
I respect this position, though I don't myself hold it, because pregnancy is a huge risk and can change you forever, and it's not always your choice (assault, etc.)
> The distinction is a moral one: is a fetus that’s more than 12-14 weeks old sufficiently developed that it cannot be killed unless it has a developmental abnormality, or the pregnancy jeopardizes the health of the mother?
I think we do have a factual disagreement though, because this is really rare and is largely an access issue. Most people don't know how hard it is to get an abortion in the US, especially for girls or poor women. Here's some info from Planned Parenthood [0]:
- A 2005 survey of U.S. abortion providers found that among women who have non-hospital abortions, approximately 19 percent travel 50 to 100 miles for services, and an additional eight percent travel more than 100 miles
- As of 2011, 89 percent of U.S. counties had no known abortion provider; these counties are home to 38 percent of all women of reproductive age. (Jones and Jerman, 2014). Furthermore, in 2008, 97 percent of non-metropolitan counties have no abortion services, and 92 percent of non-metropolitan women live in these unserved counties.
- In 2000, the average cost of a first-trimester, in-clinic, non-hospital abortion with local anesthesia was $372 (Henshaw & Finer, 2003). In 2009 this cost was $451. The median cost of medication abortion, which can be done in the first 63 days of pregnancy, was $490 (Jones and Kooistra, 2011). For low-income and younger women, gathering the necessary funds for the procedure often causes delays. A recent study found that women at or under 100 percent of the federal poverty level were more likely than women at higher income levels to have second-trimester abortions (Jones and Finer, 2012). Compounding the problem is the fact that the cost of abortion rises with gestational age: in 2009, non- hospital facilities charged an average of $1,500 for abortion at 20 weeks (Jones and Kooistra, 2011). Most women are forced to pay for abortions out-of-pocket.
- Causing additional delays are state laws that mandate parental consent, notification, or court-authorized bypass for minors, and laws that impose required waiting periods. For example, after Mississippi passed a parental consent requirement, the ratio of minors to adults obtaining abortions after 12 weeks increased by 19 percent.
- Adolescents are more likely than older women to obtain abortions later in pregnancy... [c]ommon reasons why adolescents delay abortion until after the first trimester include fear of parents’ reaction, denial of pregnancy, and prolonged fantasies that having a baby will result in a stable relationship with their partners (Paul et al., 2009). In addition, adolescents may have irregular periods (Friedman et al., 1998), making it difficult for them to detect pregnancy.
This is why women's health organizations are pushing so hard for telemedicine and medication abortions, because various pro-life policies have tragically upped the rate of abortions after the 1st trimester. If the pro-life community really wanted to push down that last 7.3%, they should campaign for more funding for abortion clinics, medicaid coverage of abortions, repeal of parental consent and waiting period laws, more access to mifepristone, and so on.
Whenever I find myself in conversation with members of the pro-life community I'm just depressed by the amount of misinformation they labor under, in particular the prevailing belief that there are significant numbers of women having abortions in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters "for no good reason". You're even trying to show here that it is the case by pointing out a discrepancy between Canada and Denmark and inferring, but we have clear evidence it isn't. It just isn't true. This is our factual disagreement.
IME there are two major parts of the pro-life community: those who are fine w/ 1st trimester abortions and those who aren't. The 2nd group is thrilled with Dobbs and is actively pushing for state and national abortion bans. The 1st group is having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that we actually had the regime we wanted pre-Dobbs: 92.7% of abortions occur in the 1st trimester, and the overwhelming majority of those that don't are for "good" reasons. They hear these bonkers stories of teen girls forced to give birth or receiving jail time for trying to get mifepristone, or women forced to go septic before they're allowed to have an abortion, and they can't square it with what they were told by the pro-life movement. My hope is that they realize they were led down the garden path by a craven political party's compulsive demagoguery, and they continue to make the GOP pay at the ballot box.
[0]: https://cdn.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/99/41...