Comment on Is the right to abortion a "negative right" or a "positive right"?
alvvayson@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Once you assign rights to the unborn, you very quickly end up in an “no abortion except to save the life or health of the mother or prevent unnecessary suffering of a non-viable fetus”.
And this is exactly why most jurisdictions have limits on abortion.
In my country, elective abortions are only legally allowed up to 24 weeks of gestation and the doctors only perform it up to 22 weeks.
Above that, there needs to be a serious medical situation that falls in the exceptional categories.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 7 months ago
because at 24 weeks- assuming advanced medical care is available- there’s a reasonable chance that child could survive outside it’s mother’s womb. it’s 50/50 at that point. no doctors- even the US- are performing abortions on fetus’s that are past 24 weeks, unless there is something very, very wrong. (ie the fetus has died, and it needs to be removed.)
and generally, that’s about five months, so it’s plenty of time to figure your shit out.
I would argue, however, that given the nature of it, that abortions should be available- and without restriction. People don’t suddenly decide to end a pregnancy half way through without VERY good reasons. for doing so; and slapping vague and arbitrary rules around it is stupid. Politicians cannot account for every situation, and the laws are far more likely to hurt the people being regulated than they are to hurt the fetus.
alvvayson@lemmy.world 7 months ago
One could also argue that legally allowing unrestricted abortions past 24 weeks is counterproductive, since it galvanizes the pro-life movement. Look at any rally and most protestors are showing pictures of very late term abortions. I remember being in school as a teenager and the pro-life activists coming to our classroom to graphically describe partial-birth abortions that suck out the brains of babies. I was pro-life for the next ten years or so.
Obviously, that’s not representative at all of what a normal abortion looks like. But it’s much less galvanizing to show a 6-8 week old bunch of unrecognizable bodily fluids, which is much more representative of the average abortion.
A clear timeline also puts a healthy pressure on pregnant women to make a difficult decision earlier, when everything is easier, less impactful and less risky, instead of postponing it.
I’m not an expert, but the happy balance seems to be with easy accessibility up to 12 weeks and progressive restrictions after that.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 7 months ago
if we’re being honest… that’s bad medicine. And ultimately… we should not have other people’s religion dictating what healthcare is available. period.
no system of laws can be flexible enough to account for every situation and any attempt to do so is more likely to deprive people of healthcare. because some people believe weird things. Hell. Their own
immutable word of godscripture contains instructions on how to do it. you know. The same scriptures many insist can’t possibly be wrong and therefore, the world is only 6k years old, and that dino bones were planted and didn’t actually exist… or something.Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 7 months ago
To be fair, all it says is that if your wife is pregnant with another man’s baby, you should sweep the church floor, put that dust and dirt in some water, and make her drink it. Then the Lord decides (if there was enough germs in the potion to endanger the fetus.)
So it really doesn’t say “How” to abort a pregnancy, just how to punish your whore wife.
alvvayson@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Are you implying that Roe v Wade is religious? Cause you aren’t making much sense.