Patterico's Pontifications

11/7/2006

Question for Supporters of Partial-Birth Abortion

Filed under: Abortion,Dog Trainer,General — Patterico @ 12:26 am



The partial-birth abortion case is about to come before the Supreme Court. So I want to revive an issue I have raised here before.

This question is only for those of you who support partial-birth abortion. There must be some of you out there.

Here’s the question:

Assume the following facts. The fetus is viable. A doctor testifies that the safest method of abortion is to begin the delivery, and then abort the fetus. On cross-examination, he is asked whether delivery would be safer still for the mother — and he answers yes.

In other words, partial-birth abortion is the safest method of abortion — but delivery is safer still.

With those assumptions: in your view, may the state force the mother to deliver the baby?

If not . . . why not?

Show some guts. Assume all the above facts to be true and answer the question based on those assumptions. Then, and only then, question the assumptions if you like. But first, humor me and answer what I asked you — based on the assumptions I gave you.

When I asked the question before, I got 101 comments. Virtually nobody answered the question; most abortion supporters blew smoke. Which, frankly, is what I expect again — because it’s a tough question to answer.

But we pride ourselves on having some of the most intellectually honest leftists around. So . . . does anyone dare answer??

P.S. I have to give credit to the L.A. Times when credit is due. Despite the editors’ previous false suggestions to the contrary, today’s paper makes a shocking admission about partial-birth abortion (or D&X):

Only 1% to 2% of abortions take place after the 20th week of pregnancy.

Of these, about 3,000 to 5,000 per year are done with D&X. Doctors say only a small percentage of those are done because of medical complications or fetal deformity.

You’ll hear hacks on the “pro-choice” side argue the contrary — but even the L.A. Times says they’re wrong.

Every so often, the paper’s editors surprise me — and when they do, I have to give them credit. This is one of those times.

But don’t let that side observation distract us from the debate. I have a question for you supporters of partial-birth abortion, and I’m eager to hear the answer.

90 Responses to “Question for Supporters of Partial-Birth Abortion”

  1. Yes, any murder that is preventable should be prevented.

    JamesonLewis3rd (586173)

  2. I don’t have a lot of time to grapple with this one, because I’m about to go run off to work in a polling place all day, but here’s a stab:

    Assuming your facts (which is difficult to imagine, as you’re having a trial in less than nine months :), but i’ll suspend disbelief for the hypothetical), then I have the following question: is termination of the pregnancy by either delivery or abortion medically necessary?

    If not, and we’re at the point where the fetus can survive on its own, then the state may force the mother to deliver the baby.

    If yes, then the state may not do so; it is not the state’s role to choose medical therapies. That decision should be made by the woman and her doctor in consultation with one another.

    (I will be without internet access during the day, as the polling place where I work doesn’t have a local wireless I can snag. I will promise to read responses to my comment, but not until tomorrow. :))

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  3. As a method for removing an undesired birth/life, no.The decision to not carry the child should have been made much earlier. Giving birth would be preferable, but then you’d have to face the child then give it up for adoption.
    I could see in a rare circumstance where ,as a medical procedure, it would need to be performed. REMEMBER, in the rare circumstance.
    As for the State forcing a woman to give birth…after work.

    Paul from fl (967602)

  4. I am pro-choice but opposed to abortion as birth control. There is no medical indication for D&X. It might be an occasional way of dealing with a deformed fetus. I have performed abortions in the days when they were done at 20 weeks and saline infusion was the method. That was 1969, well before Roe vs Wade. Most of the OB residents I was working with at the time (I was a surgery resident and helped out to share the load) did not like doing them. The fetuses looked like small babies. The later adoption of suction curretage destroys the fetus so it doesn’t look like a child anymore, which must make it easier for everyone emotionally. Plus, the vast majority are done early, something that the saline method didn’t allow. I cannot imagine a physician who does more than a very rare D&X and yet there are guys in the midwest who do lots of them. They would have done well as gas chamber attendents in the Holocaust.

    Adoption should be alternative for girls too stupid or lazy to get the abortion early. Adoption is far too difficult now. If it were easier, there might be fewer abortions.

    Mike K (dfe6aa)

  5. […] Go read it. It’s a no-brainer to most of us. We figure that the woman had plenty of time to have an abortion before the baby was viable, and now that it’s old enough to live outside the womb, killing it can fairly be called murder by any sensible standard. If, somehow, she’s gone three-fourths of a year without noticing that she’s pregnant, then suddenly discovered it, will delivering this unexpected baby be that huge of a burden, compared with the alternative? I think abortion is always wrong, however to have gone that far in a pregnancy, and have the option of letting the baby live and deliberately choosing to kill it is beyond immoral. […]

    Pursuing Holiness » Blog Archive » And Now For Something Completely Different (bc33d8)

  6. The fetuses looked like small babies.

    I wonder why?

    Sigh.

    The programming so complete, they believe it even over their own eyes …

    David (c65bfa)

  7. aphrael says:

    is termination of the pregnancy by either delivery or abortion medically necessary?

    . . .

    If yes, then the state may not do so; it is not the state’s role to choose medical therapies. That decision should be made by the woman and her doctor in consultation with one another.

    But I’m asking you to assume that it’s undisputed that delivery is safer. The only reason for the doctor and mother to choose abortion is that it will get rid of the baby.

    Why in the world would we prevent the state from forcing delivery under those circumstances?

    Isn’t that the right way to look at this, when the fetus is viable? Not: what is the safest method of abortion? but: what is the safest method of ending the pregnancy?

    Patterico (de0616)

  8. viability is not a bright line. but assuming that you’re talking more than 30 weeks out, so that it will not take heroic efforts to keep the fetus alive, and the infant is not facing all the developmental difficulties associated with being extremely premature,

    the answer is still no.

    what do you mean by “force” anyway? Seize her passport? Lock her up in a padded cell? Put her in restraints? Force-feed her?

    but the state may try to punish the woman for murder and the doctor as her accomplice. the woman and doctor then get to put on a defense that factors other than the safety of the various procedures available justify the abortion.

    [I’m talking philosophy here. And by “force delivery” I mean “pass a law requiiring delivery.” So on what grounds would you and ada allow an abortion even though the fetus is viable and delivery is safer?? – – P]

    Francis (b01334)

  9. i like the way you loaded the question, but i’ll answer it anyway.
    nobody actually supports partial-birth abortion, but many of us support the woman’s right to choose, and i support it absolutely. in my view, the state may never force her to deliver the baby.

    [What’s your moral justification for allowing her to kill a being that is capable of surviving without her? In the hypo, she gets to end her pregnancy in the safest possible manner. What justification remains to allow her to kill the viable fetus?? — P]

    assistant devil's advocate (7164db)

  10. What’s wrong with abstinence? That’s an extraordinarily effective method of preventing conception!

    Murder is murder – however you tie pretty bows on it! I do NOT support a woman’s right to choose murder of the unborn. And yes, I AM a woman. With a very strong moral compass.

    Gayle Miller (855514)

  11. nobody actually supports partial-birth abortion

    Translation: no pro-abortion extremists actually support calling partial birth abortion “partial birth abortion” just because it is an abortion procedure that involved partially inducing birth. Let’s just call it something nicer, like “choice.”

    Xrlq (f52b4f)

  12. many of us support the woman’s right to choose, and i support it absolutely

    I view this as completely divorced from reality. In no other area of life do women, or men, have absolute rights “to choose.” Good hell, we are fine with government restricting a 17 year old’s right to choose to smoke (it’s for her own good, you know), but in this one area, abortion, women not only don’t have to choose what is safer for them (assuming Patterico’s hypo), they don’t even have to choose what is safer for someone else (assuming viability= “someone else” and “life” is safer than “death” for that someone else). How is this area qualitatively different from every other?

    Linus (cc24db)

  13. #9: “i like the way you loaded the question”

    In my opinion, Patterico isn’t loading the question, but presenting a thought experiment that helps advocates of a certain position explain their thinking to the rest of us.

    That has been very helpful~~thanks for essaying an answer

    m

    AMac (b6037f)

  14. but many of us support the woman’s right to choose, and i support it absolutely

    Sorry, I really don’t have a dog in this fight. I think PBA is pretty damn nasty, don’t want to see it outlawed, as there probably is a medical reason – sometimes – for it, but the sheer numbers of them leave me suspicious that’s it’s being used for reasons it’s “supporters”/defenders aren’t being truthful about.

    But I’ve got to comment on assistant devil advocate’s “position”. If you take what “ada” said in a literal sense, it’s incredibly ignorant, not to mention impossible. Only by running through a cultural and contextual filter can you realise that “absolutely” isn’t really that absolute.

    Absolutely? So you support a woman being able to go get a gun (avoiding any otherwise-mandated wait), and shooting herself in the abdomen?

    Self-medicating with controlled substances to kill the fetus?

    I know you really don’t – but that’s what “absolute” means. And why it’s infuriating to see a word get hijacked from it’s meaning, to mean something else.

    It also bothers me greatly that I immediately knew what ada “meant”. (Sorry. Back to the defense, or lack thereof. By the way, Patterico, this is a very good question.)

    Unix-Jedi (bc56eb)

  15. the onus for providing moral justification rests upon those who would infringe the liberty of their fellow citizens, not upon those who support it. liberty is one of just a very few things (love, peace) that has its own self-contained moral justification. i accord to pregnant women the same level of liberty i demand for myself, to do otherwise would be sexist and hypocritical.
    i wasn’t sent here by a higher power to arbitrate the morals of total strangers. i don’t know if i have the wisdom, to say nothing of the inclination, to play reproductive czar over pregnant women. every abortion is a moment of ineffable sadness, a tragedy writ small, but hard cases make bad law, i was not appointed to judge private matters between women and their doctors and i am not going to appoint myself.

    assistant devil's advocate (7164db)

  16. Well, I assume the term “viability” is meant to propose a situation where it’s not just the liberty of the pregnant woman at issue, but how to deal with that liberty when it infringes on the liberty of the viable fetus/unborn child/non-parturitioned American. Basically, so far we’ve weighed the woman’s liberty heavier, under certain circumstances. I gather Patterico’s asking whether it is weighed heavier under all circumstances.

    You can’t pretend it’s merely a “private matter between women and their doctors” and there’s no one else with an interest in the outcome.

    Linus (cc24db)

  17. Under the circumstances, can the state force the mother to give birth?

    No.

    Well, actually, the state probably could, but shouldn’t. Not the state’s decision, in my opinion.

    If she were to ask me, I’d start by asking her if she was sure that she wanted to go through with this, but in the end it’s her decision, and I support her making it, whichever way she decides.

    I’m one of those people who think that Roe was wrongly decided; babies can’t be split, and the government(s) should have been told to leave pregnant women to make their own decisions. The baby lives when it breathes, as any number of those who have stillbornes to bury can tell you.

    The test, in my eyes, is whether we support women making decisions, and in accepting that they do. Our society is not very good at the former, and bad at the latter. Some of the decisions they make will be wrong, bad, or both; this makes them human, it does not mean that they should not be allowed to make hard decisions.

    Smoke free?

    htom (412a17)

  18. “[I] was not appointed to judge private matters between women and their doctors and i am not going to appoint myself.”

    1. Then you do not believe in democracy.
    2. It is not a matter between women and their doctors. There is a child who will be killed.
    3. You do not value children.
    4. You question the right of society as a whole to value children.
    5. As an individual, you will not protect the weakest and most vulnerable but, at the same time, the most valuable, because he or she is our future as humans and as Americans, human being.
    6. As we live, we grow. I hope that you will change your position.

    nk (50d578)

  19. The baby lives when it breathes, as any number of those who have stillbornes to bury can tell you

    Ah, there’s the crux of the disagreement. Under this definition, there’s no difference between “partial birth” abortion, an abortion at 2 weeks, or any other time during pregnancy. Actually, this means that a doctor could bring the baby all the way outside the birth canal and then kill it before it breathes, because it’s not “alive” yet and thus not a person. Is this really what you meant to say?

    Linus (cc24db)

  20. Gruesomely put, Linus. Yes. However bad or wrong her decision could be, other humans, speaking with the voice of the state, a religion, a custom, “the law”, whatever, removing the decision from her — in either direction — is worse.

    For them to urge some other decision might be commendable, but removing the decision from her is to imagine her as a part of the placenta, not as a person.

    It is the taking of the decision that is wrong. Her decision may be wrong, too. But it cannot be as wrong as taking the decision from her.

    Live is hard. It’s more important to help others make better decisions than to decide for others.

    htom (412a17)

  21. Looked right at it, twice, and didn’t see it.

    c/Live is hard/Life is hard/

    htom (412a17)

  22. First, a baby after 24 weeks can breathe and will do so spontaneously unless you smother it. An abortion doc in California was prosecuted for doing exactly that in the 80s.

    “The fetuses looked like small babies.

    I wonder why?
    Sigh.
    The programming so complete, they believe it even over their own eyes …
    Comment by David ”

    David, you completely missed my point. The aborted fetuses were three inches long. That’s not a baby but looks like one. You may want to split hairs but my opinion is the woman has the right to take the baby/fetus’s life until 20 weeks. After that period, she loses that right except for very rare circumstances. The life of the mother exemption (not health, that is a huge loophole) should handle the rare case.

    A feminist writer, whose name I forget, wrote that the biggest problem in abortion politics is the unwillingness of the “choice” side to accept that a life is taken. Once the fact is accepted that the mother has the right to take that life for part of the pregnancy (before viability) for reasons sufficient to her, everybody is being honest. Then we can have honest debate. Right now that isn’t happening.

    Mike K (dfe6aa)

  23. The other fact that needs to be faced is that not all of those conceived are going to be born alive; there may not always be a life there to be “taken”.

    htom (412a17)

  24. But it cannot be as wrong as taking the decision from her.

    the biggest problem in abortion politics is the unwillingness of the “choice” side to accept that a life is taken.

    This illustrates the point. One side views the situation as only removing “choice” from one individual and doesn’t even consider the other. It seems the response to the question “what about the fact that her decision infringes the child’s right to choose?” is “what child?” So, Mike’s right. Until both sides acknowledge that the fetus becomes a person at some point before birth, we’ll always be arguing apples and oranges.

    It seems clear that many abortion proponents do not believe that a fetus becomes a person at some point before actual birth and breath being taken. Let’s discuss that, rather than some “pro-choice” vs. “anti-choice” falsity.

    Linus (cc24db)

  25. I was born two months premature, via C-section. There is nothing about the process of moving from one location, inside the womb, to another, outside the womb, which changes the baby.

    If you believe that viable babies can be aborted on a whim, you should also believe that premature babies can be killed on a whim.

    Yours,
    Wince

    Wince and Nod (966b00)

  26. Why? You were born alive. Others are not. Because you were lucky doesn’t mean that others have been or will be.

    It is — or used to be, anyway — called the “miracle of birth”, not the “ordinary of birth”.

    htom (412a17)

  27. The process of borth also kills some mothers, htom. So you are also taking the position that it is OK to kill pregnant women.

    Yours,
    Wince

    Wince and Nod (966b00)

  28. Birth, not borth. Sheesh.

    Wince and Nod (966b00)

  29. Yes, it does, and I don’t (under most circumstances) support killing humans, pregnant or not. They, however, are already alive, unlike those who are not born and breathing. That’s the difference.

    [The only justification I’ve seen offered so far is “choice”: pregnant women might make the wrong decision, but it should be their choice. But why should this be an absolute? We believe in a wide-ranging freedom for parents to raise their kids as they see fit, and I see that as a deeply rooted moral right that parents have. But nobody thinks that right should be *absolute*, and if a parent chooses to raise their child in a way that society deems criminal — if, for example, the parent lashes the child daily with a whip, leaving deep wounds and scars — then society steps in. Why shouldn’t society also step in if a woman chooses to end a pregnancy in a manner that is both more dangerous to herself and lethal to the baby, when a safer alternative for ending the pregnancy exists: namely (in my hypo) delivering the baby? — P]

    htom (412a17)

  30. Any biologist will tell you that babies are alive before birth, htom. And people who are using ventilators after birth are also alive, even though they can’t breathe. I have a friend who stopped breathing and whose heart stopped. He was in a coma, with a ventilator. Now he breathes just fine and he’s tell you he’s alive if you ask. He might look at you funny, though.

    Ability to breathe does not define personhood.

    Yours,
    Wince

    Wince and Nod (966b00)

  31. Oh, and don’t let me distract anyone from Patterico’s point about absolute rights.

    Yours,
    Wince

    Wince and Nod (966b00)

  32. No wonder liberals also frequently do not believe in God. If I were them, I would be afraid to believe as well.

    If you are wrong, you are in some deep shit.

    Bugz (bbd0d0)

  33. Yes.

    Now riddle me this, Patman (& those who support a ban on late term abortions) —-

    Isn’t it wrong to outlaw such abortions for people who find themselves in circumstances like Coreen & Jim Costello did?

    Macswain (76d8da)

  34. Wince, you’re ignoring the sequence of events. Those on ventilators were born and breathing at one time. The unborn, almost by definition, have never been breathing (I can’t imagine a procedure where you’d return a breathing infant to the womb to drown!)

    There’s a difference between being living tissue and being a living being.

    Patterico — your witnesses willing to provide guarantees with their projections? Willing to suffer penalties if they’re wrong, suffer the same consequences? “Better odds”, “safer”, “good results”, … are not always perfect outcomes. Her risk, therefore her choice.

    That we don’t like that, or like that she is at risk, or like that the unborn baby is at risk, and don’t agree with her decisions, or her possible decisions … she and her fetus are at risk, not us, not ours, not the state, and not the state’s fetus.

    If you had a procedure wherein there was absolutely no possible risk … but you do not, and can not. Make what laws you will, they are always the map, and the world is always different than the map. Her risk, her choice.

    Concentrate on helping her, rather than ordering her.

    htom (412a17)

  35. Macswain,

    Yes. Just as it is wrong to get rid of self-defense aa a defense against the charge of murder.

    Yours,
    Wince

    Wince and Nod (966b00)

  36. htom,

    Any biologist will also tell you that a baby is a seperate living being with it’s own genetic code, not living tissue like an organ of the body.

    As for the sequence of events, why does it matter? You still have not explained what magic occurs that changes a fetus into a person when the fetus is born. You have asserted that breathing makes the difference. But you have done that by assertion and definition. You have not justified your position.

    Yours,
    Wince

    Wince and Nod (966b00)

  37. Isn’t it wrong to outlaw such abortions for people who find themselves in circumstances like Coreen & Jim Costello did?

    What happened to this couple is tragic but doesn’t come close to the usual reality of abortion, especially late term abortion. Hard cases make bad law, remember? And I will not be swayed in my opposition to abortion in general because of a tragic anecdote.

    htom,
    I’ve been pregnant 3 times. Never once did I discuss them as “clumps of cells” or “fetuses.” They were babies from the day the pregnancy test came up positive.

    You might try looking up fetal development before you discuss breathing. At the 26th week, the fetus can inhale, exhale, and even cry. This is because the lungs are being prepared for air. So don’t say babies don’t breathe.

    http://www.wprc.org/fetal.phtml

    sharon (dfeb10)

  38. So on what grounds would you … allow an abortion even though the fetus is viable and delivery is safer?? – – P

    In a perfect world, none. But in a perfect world, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

    But in an imperfect world, we need to weigh the extremely clumsy power of the state against the right of a woman to exercise her liberty interest to control her body. I’m willing now to increase the regulatory burden on late-term abortions — require a second opinion on medical necessity, require counseling on the availability of adoption, probably others — but I remain unwilling to criminalize it, because of the secondary impacts on women who legitimately require a late term abortion.

    As a practical matter, in order to criminalize only those late-term abortions which are not medically necessary the state will need to assert the ability to insert itself into an intimate, difficult and time-sensitive process between a woman and her doctor. The state is poorly situated to do so.

    Let’s also bring a little reality back to the hypo. There are few bright lines in medicine. Various procedures are more or less likely to have certain kinds of adverse consequences than others, as measured over a statistically significant number of patients. But no patient can be absolutely guaranteed that in her case the recommended particular procedure will not have adverse consequences. Imposing the additional burden that the state may decide to press criminal charges if it disagrees with the decision on medical necessity means, to me, that a measurable number of women will not get a late-term abortion when they should have, and be harmed as a result.

    I don’t think that the benefit obtained, in lives gained, by criminalizing late-term abortion, is worth that cost.

    Francis (407362)

  39. The problem with the pro-choice argument is that it establishes arbitrarily chosen points or qualities that grant a fetus/baby the right not to be aborted. For some it is viability, which strikes me as the best benchmark in a bad lot.

    For others like htom, it is the ability to breathe. Frankly, I’ve never heard that one before. The problem with it is that it assumes it is okay to perform an abortion on a fetus before it starts breathing even if it could and would breathe if given the opportunity. Frankly, it is unjust and even a bit sick to justify the destruction of a fetus by actively dening it the opportunity to commit the one act that, in htom’s mind, would grant it the right to life. It would be like preventing someone from taking a driving test, then saying they can’t drive solely because they don’t have a license.

    For other’s the line is personhood. That’s an extremely fuzzy benchmark that is defined in wildly different ways by different people. Peter Singer, a medical ethicist at Princeton, says that personhood occurs when an individual can express the ability to anticipate oneself in the future–a position that by his own admission justifies infanticide. A lot of others simply toss out the term with no intention of ever defining it.

    The most sceptical viewpoint would hold that we don’t know at what point personhood is attained–or for the religious (which I count myself among) a fetus is ensouled. If personhood or ensoulment are the qualities that grant a fetus the right to life, then, the pro-life view is the most ethical route, since any other approach could well be destroying a being that, becuase of its own qualities, has an absolute right to live.

    T-Web (ac713a)

  40. As we enter into this election it overshadows the decision that the “supreme” court will weigh tomorrow. 1.3 million babies dead in a 2002 tally. We as a society will be measured and judged by our choices we make. Despite an overwelming support for a ban, The “supreme” court sanctions the murder of these children, is it any wonder why children who make it out alive are of little value in this society today. Used as sex toys and punching bags. You cannot give what you don’t possess and these same court justices do not have respect for life.

    I asked my father who had endured WWII if he could go back in time prior to WWII and had the opportunity to assasinate Hitler would he do so and spare the millions of jews from being erradicated. He responded with “Ok, I’ll answer that when you answer this,.. currently there are 12 members of the “supreme” court who have decided that it’s ok to murder innocent children, and by their sanctions more children have died here than in Europe. What are you doing about that now since it’s happening in your time of history?”

    I personally believe extreme situations call for extreme measures. When Judges are murdered for their decisions I leap for joy. When murderous doctors are themselves blown up in abortion clinics those activist bombers are heroes. Do not ask me to have sanctity of life for these people. I cannot give what they do not give others. What does it serve a nation whose morals say save the trees and kill the babies. American’s lack integrity if they overwelmingly state we do not sanction this and idly stand to see our views shot down by a court who values children as if they were a malignant tumor.

    purpose filled life (91f9b6)

  41. Patterico, I’m sorry for thread jacking. You may never get your questions answered.

    But the twenty first century John Brown showed up.

    Yours,
    Wince

    Wince and Nod (966b00)

  42. The argument is clearly NOT solely about a woman’s right over her own body. It is about when the fetus stops being part of the woman’s body and becomes “its own”. To ignore that, and simply hammer, “choice, choice, choice!” is like sticking your fingers in your ears and singing la, la, la.

    I’ve never heard the “when they breathe” line either, but hey, at least he’s picked a line, so we can talk about whether it’s the right line or not. It’s hard to have a debate about whose rights should prevail when one side of the debate doesn’t recognize the humanity of one of the parties.

    In answer to Patterico’s question, some commenters seem to be saying:

    in your view, may the state force the mother to deliver the baby?

    If not . . . why not?

    the answer is : no, because it’s not a baby, it’s just a mass of living tissue.

    Linus (cc24db)

  43. For me, not the ability to breathe but one even harder: successfully having done so. At 26 weeks, unborn, they have not. Your expectation that they will do so is commendable, but it is an expectation, not an accomplished deed. Born at 20 and breathing, they live. Stillborn at 39 weeks, they do not, and did not.

    Yes, the line is arbitrary. Any such line must be. It is, at least, a line which can be found in a dead infant, where it can be discovered if the infant was born living or not; there are distinctive changes in the lungs that can be observed in a proper autopsy.

    It’s a very, very, very old line. From the time of, if not the text of, the Code of Hammurabi, having to do with inheritance law; the stillborn could not affect inheritances.

    You can propose an earlier line if you want. There are going to be even larger problems with it in the very hard cases (and make no mistake about it, these are ALL very hard cases.)

    htom (412a17)

  44. According to the very doctors who perform these late abortions, nearly ALL of them are purely ELECTIVE.

    Dr. Martin Haskell, National Abortion Federation conference, San Francisco, 1996: “90% … it’s elected, at least through 20 to 24 week time period, and as you get on up towards 28 weeks, IT BECOMES CLOSER TO 100%.”

    Dr. George Tiller, National Abortion Federation conference, New Orleans, 1995: “We have some experience with late terminations. About 10,000 patients between 24 and 36 weeks, and something like 800 fetal anomalies between 26 and 36 weeks in the past 5 years.”

    … Do the math: 8% for “fetal anomalies” The rest? Following Haskell’s premise: Elective!

    Dave Pierre (55b389)

  45. I can tell you the argument (short version) I used for a debate. It was a catholic school so the debate focused on the religious/biblical view of abortion.

    Genisus 2:7 says “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” King James Version

    If the Bible says a living soul does not exist until the breath of life enters his nostrils then up until that point it is not murder. Partial birth abortion would not be murder as the fetus never takes a breath.

    *For the record, our team didn’t win the debate but did get a draw. Considering the school, it was a success.

    cbi (1fa75a)

  46. I’m unabashedly pro-choice, but third-trimester abortions and partial-birth abortions should only be performed for health reasons. In Patterico’s hypothetical, deliver the baby and give it up for adoption if you like.

    I think a woman should always be able to choose her own health as a priority, at whatever stage of pregnancy. Government can’t demand that she risk her health for the sake of carrying a baby to term. But if health isn’t an issue, she can’t wait so long that partial-birth abortion is the only option. If we’re going to take that approach, then we go right down the slippery slope where a woman has the right to elect an abortion the day before she’s due. That’s absurd.

    A partial-birth abortion ban with a health exception would pass easily in Congress, if the Republicans would let it, and I wouldn’t lift a finger to oppose it. Mind you, I’d appreciate improved access to contraception and an end to abstinence-only sex education while we’re at it.

    Steve (43f553)

  47. For me, not the ability to breathe but one even harder: successfully having done so. At 26 weeks, unborn, they have not. Your expectation that they will do so is commendable, but it is an expectation, not an accomplished deed. Born at 20 and breathing, they live. Stillborn at 39 weeks, they do not, and did not.

    But what if he/she is born at 20 weeks and lives on a ventilator? Is that still breathing? It certainly wouldn’t have been possible at the time the Bible was written.

    sharon (dfeb10)

  48. Improved access to contraception? What part of “buy condoms at Walgreen’s; use appropriately” is not improved enough for you?

    Anwyn (d24425)

  49. Hmmm. My comment got kicked into an earlier position in the batting order. It was meant to reply to Steve, #48.

    Anwyn (d24425)

  50. Let’s try this again. Assuming this comment gets put at the end of the current list, my above comment about condoms was meant to reply to Steve, who is right now comment #49 but if this comment gets sandwiched above will move to #50. Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3 …

    Anwyn (d24425)

  51. It’s a very, very, very old line. From the time of, if not the text of, the Code of Hammurabi, having to do with inheritance law; the stillborn could not affect inheritances.

    Are you sure you want to go down the road of “it’s tradition” when you’re smack in the middle of an abortion thread?

    Linus (c376df)

  52. #43 (current order) At 20 weeks and on a respirator, they are alive. At 30 or 10, too.

    I don’t especially -like- this line. But I have seen none better, and I started debating abortion in 1963(?); it was our State Debate topic. I have seen many proposed lines that are much worse.

    Linus — That’s the history. Someone was saying that they’d never heard of it before.

    I completely understand the revulsion this line between the not-yet-alive and the living draws forth in many. “Ugly! Yuch!” is not a good replacement.

    You want some other line: start proposing them.

    htom (412a17)

  53. Funy, I always thought the woman’s “right to choose” referred to the woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body. In other words, that she can choose not to support the baby growing inside her because the baby doesn’t have a right to compel her to support it. Now I learn that this right has morphed into the right to kill the baby as long as it is inside her womb so that she doesn’t bear the responsibility of supporting it.

    In the interest of equality between the sexes, shouldn’t men have this right too? I mean haven’t we advanced beyond the dark-ages view that women need special protection? So if the father doesn’t want to support the baby, shoudn’t he have the right to kill it as long as it is still in the womb?

    Just asking. If the right is the right to kill rather than the right not to carry, why does just the mother have this right?

    Doc Rampage (4a07eb)

  54. I suppose my proper reply is “Yes, it has.” No, men don’t get that right, and they don’t get the infanticide post-partum defense either. Some bits of life suck when you’re a man, I suppose, and you’ll just have to deal with it.

    htom (412a17)

  55. I don’t know when life begins but I feel very strongly that it happens after insemination and before delivery.

    If the fetus can live outside of the womb than yes. if not than no.

    Now the harder questions, if the fetus will have a brief and pain filled life should we still force the delivery?

    Joe (3406ee)

  56. One of the differences I have with many people. I think that life is not an event but a process that began long ago, we inherit it from our parents, and bequeath it to our children. There is no “beginning” as such; both sperm and ova are living when they merge. There is a separation which may be successful (or not); it’s discernable at autopsy.

    Let’s have some other lines nominated.

    htom (412a17)

  57. “Assume the following facts. The fetus is viable. A doctor testifies that the safest method of abortion is to begin the delivery, and then abort the fetus. On cross-examination, he is asked whether delivery would be safer still for the mother — and he answers yes.

    “The Fetus is viable” but how premature? And who pays for care?

    “A doctor testifies [sic] ” …and then changes his mind[?]
    So you’re asking about punishment?

    Are you opposed to all late term abortions or simply certain procedures, where others could be used? And Sharon refers to the Costello’s testiminy as; ” a tragic anecdote“?
    That’s nasty. And she misunderstands, or misuses the line about hard cases and law. In this country we limit the state’s right to interfere. Her logic has it reversed. Does Sharon think the law should prevented them from making the choice they made?
    And I still can’t get over the use of the term ‘anecdote’

    If the question is whether or not the life of the fetus equals that of the life or health of the mother? It does not.

    Is the question about one procedure or another?
    If the act of abortion is legal, the technique is the doctor’s decision, not yours, nor shou it be. That’s a lousy precedent and one obortion oppnents want.

    Finally, I’ve spend the last few days arguing over a war and a policy that’s killed hundreds of thousands of men women and children; on top of the sanctions policy in the 90’s and the estimates for that lone are now about 225,000 dead children.

    But the unborn are innocent, while the living are not.
    And today you call the democratic victory a disaster.
    You’re not interested in policy.

    Alois Fahyling (6aa211)

  58. AF, If the question is whether or not the life of the fetus equals that of the life or health of the mother? It does not.

    Not quite an equivalence. I would agree with you if you made the argument in terms of life of the fetus (baby) vs life of the mother, but you kind of snuck in “or health” under the radar screen, didn’t you? Are you really suggesting that the life of the baby is less important than the various mental states of the mother, e.g., depression, that are included in descriptions of her “health”?

    Harry Arthur (78f625)

  59. Henry, let’s leave that decision up to the woman, her family, her doctor, and her priest not your’s.

    Alois Fahyling (6aa211)

  60. Where does the government get off restricting my CHOICE to inject Heroin into my body? It doesn’t hurt anyone else. Keep your laws off my body! If Heroin can be outlawed, then I think abortion can also be completely, 100% outlawed. I don’t understand why 1000s of other personal choices are outlawed without a second thought, but baby murder is somehow a sacred right.

    Chris M (167ca9)

  61. That would be because they’re not yet born. Once they’re born, killing them is illegal (and has been for centuries.) Your insistance on confounding the unborn and the born is what causes your confusion. They are treated differently because they are different.

    Drug abuse has its own built-in life sentence and I suspect that attempts to totally illegalize abortion would be even less successful than the illegalization of heroin.

    htom (412a17)

  62. […] Patterico has posted an interesting hypothetical that goes to the heart of much of the abortion debate. Assume the following facts. The fetus is viable. A doctor testifies that the safest method of abortion is to begin the delivery, and then abort the fetus. On cross-examination, he is asked whether delivery would be safer still for the mother — and he answers yes. […]

    Hoystory » Blog Archive » An interesting hypothetical (322185)

  63. htom:

    You have not given any good reason why a women’s body is somehow solely her domain, while my body is subject to state interference regarding what I choose to do with it. What is so special about abortion that it gets a pass? The dangers of Heroin are not a reason, since it is only dangerous to me. Why do I need to be protected from myself, while a woman’s fetus deserves no protection?

    Chris M (167ca9)

  64. I should have used a :sarcasm: tag, perhaps?

    I suppose the argument would be that while you were under the influence of heroin, or your behavior in obtaining it, would damage other persons. Probably true; I’m not sure that this should be a reason for the current laws and foolish activities to enforce those laws (which seem to be doing more damage than the drug addicts ever did.)

    I don’t think of the fetus as being a person to be protected in the sense that its death in an intentionally induced abortion is any kind of a homicide.

    Your opinion is probably different.

    htom (412a17)

  65. The question is not whether or not a person’s body is solely his or her domain. The question is at what point the state should be allowed to go against the presumption under our system of individual responsibility.
    It is legal to kill yourself slowly by living on Big Macs and Jack Daniels; it is not legal to kill yourself by drinking cyanide.
    Should there be a difference? Liberals seem to worry more about McDonalds while conservatives worry about more direct methods.

    But perhaps as a people, we think that the decision to or not to propagate the species is and should be considered largely a personal matter, and that there should be a wall, a cut-off point, beyond or before which the state may not intrude. If so, any attempt to pass beyond that point should be rejected as an attempt to weaken the wall of separation between the state and the person.

    Life is messy and often tragic. There is no cure for that.
    And a few men and women will be sloppy with their lives. But if we want to protect the freedom that all of us value, for ourselves, and if we want to avoid the capriciousness of rulers willing to change laws at their whim, we have to be willing tell the state to let the sloppy live their lives as they see fit.
    The vast, vast, vast, majority of women are saddened by their need to make the choice to abort a fetus that would have become a child. Of the few who feel no sadness, most of them are numb from the pain of lives that were disasters long before they ever became pregnant.

    If aggressive defenders of choice sometimes sound as if they have contempt for conservatives they think of as moralizing pedants, abortion opponents often act as if they assume those who disagree with them think abortion is the equivalent to a nose job or a new pair of shoes. I’m sure there are idiots who fit that description, but those idiots are rich, and the rich will get abortions no matter what. Yet law isn’t about the rich, it’s about everyone. It’s about the poor and the middle class as well, who want the right to live their lives and raise their families as they choose, and who sometimes need to make decisions that cause them pain but which under the circumstances they see as necessary and will not regret.

    The votes yesterday show that most people in this country think such decisions should be theirs to make.

    Alois Fahyling (6aa211)

  66. Most of you are (predictably) weaseling out of answering the theoretical question. Assuming that it’s clear that it’s safer to deliver, on what possible moral basis can you argue that the state should not intervene?

    Patterico (de0616)

  67. Richanrd Posner, quoted here

    The wave of “partial birth” abortion statutes that broke over the nation after a description of the D & X procedure was publicized — does not exhibit the legislative process at its best, whatever one thinks of abortion rights. Whipped up by activists who wanted to dramatize the ugliness of abortions and deter physicians from performing them, the public support for the laws was also based — as is implicit in Judge Manion’s defense of the laws– on sheer ignorance of the medical realities of late-term abortion. The uninformed thought the D & X procedure gratuitously cruel, akin to infanticide; they didn’t realize that the only difference between it and the methods of late-term abortion that are conceded all round to be constitutionally privileged is which way the fetus’s feet are pointing. Opposition to the bills that became these laws was at first muted not only by ignorance of the character of a late-term abortion but also by the fact that few women are likely to be affected by the laws. Circumstances conspired, as it were, to produce a set of laws that can fairly be described as irrational.”

    Does/did the procedure take place within the timeframe of what is legally permissible? If so it should be legal however it is performed. And I don’t think I was one of those who dodged the question. But if you are arguing that new technologies have changed the limits of viability, then we have a problem. And a messy one. And this problem is going to happen sooner or later. But I would never defend the right of the state or anyone else to confiscate an 8 week old embryo because technology has now made it possible for that embryo to be viable outside the womb.

    And by the way I’m not a fan of Poser.

    Alois Fahyling (6aa211)

  68. Alois, you quote:

    The uninformed thought the D & X procedure gratuitously cruel, akin to infanticide; they didn’t realize that the only difference between it and the methods of late-term abortion that are conceded all round to be constitutionally privileged is which way the fetus’s feet are pointing.

    Good grief. If everyone agreed that those barbaric practices are constitutionally privileged, conservatives wouldn’t be working so hard to put judges in office who believe in interpreting the Constitution rather than making shit up.

    Posner is also equivocating about the differences between procedures. The electorate is generally horrified about and wants to ban all procedures that murder a viable infant inside the womb when it would be just as easy and safe for the mother to deliver it alive. The fact that some of the law hasn’t been written that way says nothing about what the public actually supported. You have to take what you can get.

    Still, this fits the common leftist prejudice that anyone who disagrees with them must be stupid, ignorant, or morally corrupt. So many leftists seem to be incapable of crediting the possibility of an informed and principled opposition to their pet causes.

    Doc Rampage (47be8d)

  69. When did morality become important in making legal decisions?

    That it may be safer in general does not make it safe in practice. Her risk, her choice. The state is at no risk and has (or would have, in my ideal world) no unrequested voice in the discussion.

    Indeed, the only moral foot I can see the state having in this matter is that the fetus is the state’s property, an idea I reject.

    htom (412a17)

  70. Morality is critical to making decisions about what to criminalize, and contrary to the flip sloganeering of some, it would be disastrous were it otherwise.

    But forget that. Let’s pretend that morality has nothing to do with criminal law.

    Is there a reason you’re dodging the question?

    Pretend we’re in philosophy class. I’m interested in principles. So every practical objection you make, I’m asking you to assume it away, just so I can find out what your moral principles are.

    Are you up to it?

    Assume that in this particular case, delivery is safer than partial-birth abortion. It’s clear and undisputed.

    Also, the fetus is viable.

    The mother says: I don’t care. I know I could save the baby, but I want it dead. And I know my rights — if you kill it before it’s born, it’s good and legal. So kill it. I don’t care if it causes greater medical risk. I want it dead.

    htom:

    1) Are you willing to say that is an immoral decision on the mother’s part?

    2) Can the state interfere, USING THOSE ASSUMPTIONS?

    3) If you answer #2 “no,” what is your moral argument? No slippery-slope arguments; we’re only looking at one case and ASSUMING that it will not cause a slippery slope to other cases with different facts.

    There is no argument that the woman is deprived of a safer alternative — we’re assuming this is the safest.

    There is no argument that she is being forced to continue the pregnancy — delivery will end it.

    She is being deprived of only one right, and it is a right that is totally divorced from medical needs or the need to end the pregnancy. It is the precious right for her to see her viable child DEAD.

    Please answer the questions with that in mind. If you dare. You’ll be the first if you do.

    What are your answers?

    Patterico (de0616)

  71. The first? Did I stutter or something?

    [Actually, you did answer and you agreed that the baby should be delivered. I’m still waiting for someone to morally justify the opposite answer. — P]

    Steve (f6a7f5)

  72. I think of the law, sometimes, as a mathematical plane containing all possible acts, with two perpendicular axes, one labeled in the direction required – not required, the other in the direction forbidden – not forbidden. Some acts are required, some forbidden, some both, some neither. The law makes the distinctions to put acts into the quadrants (I assume that there is an attempt to minimize the area where acts are classified as both, but it’s not always successful.) Those that are neither required nor forbidden can be called “free”. “Freedom is the distance between the required and the forbidden”, Grandpa said.

    You can imagine a similar, moral plane, for right – not right, and wrong – not wrong. Some acts are sometimes right and sometimes wrong, both or neither, depending on the circumstances. People’s moral codes, informed by religion, philosophy, tradition, … and all of the human vices and virtues, assign acts to those quadrants. I see no reason to expect that one plane overlays the other, and frequently think that life is complicated enough that the planes are usually if not entirely normal (mathematical sense) to each other.

    Is it an immoral decision on the mother-to-be’s part? I don’t know, it depends on her moral code, not mine (or yours, or the state’s (lacking a soul, can a state even have a moral code?)) If I was her … (trying to imagine circumstances where I was in that place) … I can imagine bizarre circumstances where I would desire that the fetus not be born alive, and think it moral by my code to desire that. Given your hypothetical, I can’t know whether she’s facing such circumstances, so I must presume that she might well be, and hence I’d agree with her decision. In her eyes it can be a moral decision (moral in the sense of moral v immoral, it’s always a moral decision.)

    Your question seems to me to be whether this moral question is resolvable by legal means. It’s not. The law has no standing in a discussion of placing act in places on the moral plane (right vs. wrong); it has already decided the answer by evaluating the act on its own plane, and uses the power of the state to force the conclusion it “desires”.

    Your hypothetical is built on a vacuum; in some circumstances, I think (by my code) her actions are immoral, in other circumstances, they are moral. Since I have only the vacuum to refer to to choose between the cases, I err to the side of allowing her to decide; it is (in my eyes) her soul at direct risk, and my duty to support her in making the best decision that she can.

    It seems to me that you are saying that in all such cases, the decision to abort is always immoral, and so the State should be allowed to overrule the decision of the woman. I think you need to exercise your imagination.

    Lest I have missed something:
    1) I think that it is a moral decision; whether her particular decision is moral or immoral I don’t know; the hypothetical doesn’t provide the information I use to make such evaluations. If you want to presume her decision is immoral, that’s your presumption.
    2) Given what we know from the assumption, the State (in my opinion) does not have any moral reason to forbid the abortion, or punish those who perform it.

    Why? The moral decision to be made is hers to make, not the State’s. As much as it may desire a new citizen-thrall, I see no grant of authority that allows it to require free women to produce them. I’m equally sure it would be immoral, even if legal, for the state to require non-free women to do so.

    htom (412a17)

  73. My sloppiness, I haven’t followed the abortion debate that closely.
    Casey Casey Casey Casey Casey. Yes.

    “There is no argument that the woman is deprived of a safer alternative — we’re assuming this is the safest.”

    Birth: But at this point it’s the abortion we’re debating, not one procedure vs another. And I don’t think most people who are pro choice would disagree.

    Alois Fahyling (6aa211)

  74. But your argument seems to assume that the abortion choice in such a case is now legal. Is it?

    Alois Fahyling (6aa211)

  75. My very limited understanding is that the legality in the hypothetical depends on which State, Territory, … of the USA she is in. Another question is whether she should be allowed to leave a state where it’s forbidden, whether or not she intends to travel to a place where it is not.

    htom (412a17)

  76. htom:

    Stripping away all those words to get to the simple Q&A.

    I asked:

    Assume that in this particular case, delivery is safer than partial-birth abortion. It’s clear and undisputed.

    Also, the fetus is viable.

    The mother says: I don’t care. I know I could save the baby, but I want it dead. And I know my rights — if you kill it before it’s born, it’s good and legal. So kill it. I don’t care if it causes greater medical risk. I want it dead.

    1) Are you willing to say that is an immoral decision on the mother’s part?

    Your answer: no, it’s moral.

    2) Can the state interfere, USING THOSE ASSUMPTIONS?

    Your answer: no, the state can’t interfere, because the woman always gets to choose.

    Wow.

    That seems pretty radical to me.

    Patterico (de0616)

  77. “Assume that in this particular case, delivery is safer than partial-birth abortion. Its clear and undisputed.”

    Why not just write “abortion.”?
    Why the mention of a specific procedure?

    [Because the question is directed to supporters of partial-birth abortion. Presumably, they think it’s sometimes safer, so I’m going with that assumption for the sake of discussion, and asking: what if delivery is safer still? I’m happy to rephrase the question in the way you suggest. Will you now answer it? — P]

    Alois Fahyling (6aa211)

  78. The question facing the woman is always a moral question, and hence gets a moral decision. If you disagree with her decision, that does not make her decision immoral (it does mean that either you have a different moral code, or different understandings of the factors in her decision.)

    An “immoral decision” on her part would be that her decision was inconsistant with her moral code. My moral code, your moral code, … are not required elements of her moral code. These differences in people’s moral codes lead to disputes over what constitutes “right action”, and the refusal to grant others their own beliefs is a form of theocracy.

    If her moral code is such that it allows such an abortion, for her to request one is moral, regardless of whether or not I (or you, or the State) agree with her decision. The way to persuade her not to have the abortion is to find a way to show her that in her moral code that the proposed abortion is immoral.

    Coercing or forcing her to comply with another’s moral decision, when non-compliance is harming no other person, no one else’s property, is immoral.

    I suppose that is a pretty radical idea.

    htom (412a17)

  79. “Presumably, they think it’s sometimes safer”

    In fact it sometimes is safer.
    Or do we have to go back the the Congressional Testimony of Coreen & Jim Costello AGAIN?

    And I answered your question directly above: #73, With a question: #74.

    Still, I have to ask, what is your definition of viable?
    Does it extend to $200,000 in medical fees and a 15% chance of the premature infant’s survival?

    Alois Fahyling (6aa211)

  80. I may not have been clear: I would accept your position, given that birth were the safer option. But my other questions stand.

    Alois Fahyling (6aa211)

  81. htom, your moral relativism makes you a danger to society; therefore, I’ve decided kill you. A lot of people may be upset at this, but they can’t say that what I’m doing is immoral because it’s moral according to _my_ moral code.

    Doc Rampage (47be8d)

  82. Have you ever read The Virginian ?

    If you have, you’ll understand that I take Scipio’s warning, “Don’t change your clothes”, to heart, and yours, as well.

    Tun’s Tavern calls!

    htom (412a17)

  83. Another way of putting this question is: should a woman have a right to an abortion? Or should she simply have a right to end her pregnancy in the safest way possible — whether that be abortion or delivery?

    It’s a purely philosophical/moral question, meaning questions about legalities are a dodge.

    Patterico (de0616)

  84. Coreen and Jim Costello do not make it clear why D&X was supposedly the way to go, and not D&E. 95 percent of doctors do D&E.

    It would have been more instructive, but less heart-wrenching, to hear from her doctors.

    Also, it doesn’t sound like a typical partial-birth abortion. The brains weren’t sucked out? Odd. Usually they are.

    Patterico (de0616)

  85. Conditioning a “right” on “safety” is a legal dodge, since I assume that you’re going to have the State determine which methods are “safe”.

    You have the right to worship … safe religions.

    You have the right to publish … safe opinions.

    You have the right to be safe in your home … unless officer safety says you should be shot.

    htom (412a17)

  86. “Or should she simply have a right to end her pregnancy in the safest way possible whether that be abortion or delivery?”

    You were talking about a “post viability” abortion (without decribing what you meant by viablity). Assuming that viabiluty has a defininiion we agree with I would accept the state’s right to intervene at this point.

    And as to the Costellos you’re arguing against a procedure not the abortion. I do not want the state interfering in technical matters. You are opposed to abortion and are therefore arguing any way you can for state interference. It’s logical to try but that is trying to interfere in medical decisions themselves. I can’t call it a cynical attempt to bypass doctor’s medical independence, but it’s a maneuver, and a tricky one.
    Here’s an article: A doctor’s right to choose.
    Your comments about the Costellos’s are no more than dismissive rhetoric. Someone else here call their testimony an “anectote.”

    [What do you know about my opinions on abortion? I submit to you that you are making assumptions. — P]

    Alois Fahyling (6aa211)

  87. htom,

    I may do a post on this, but how do you feel about a parent’s right to choose his/her child’s medical care. I support it. But I want the state intervening in extreme situations — like when Christian Scientists let their children die of easily curable diseases.

    Patterico (de0616)

  88. You like the hard cases, don’t you?

    :shakes head and sighs:

    Parents have the right to choose their children’s medical care. There are going to be cases where this will result in horrible outcomes for the children (and perhaps for the parents as consequences thereof.)

    Of course, there are going to be horrible outcomes even if the State is put in charge — perhaps more of them, as armed police begin to conduct midnight raids to “rescue” the children. The presumption that modern medicine knows all and cures all is either excessive advertising or just plain folly. I suspect that it always will be.

    Families will have to spend even more resources, not only in caring for the child, but in the courts to defend their decisions.

    Let those few families be; they risk their child’s life if their God does not save it. The State is neither supposed to be our Uber-Parent nor our Uber-God. If it is, it has already become an abusive narcissistic one and we should be set free of it.

    htom (412a17)

  89. >>Assume the following facts. The fetus is viable. A doctor testifies that the safest method of abortion is to begin the delivery, and then abort the fetus. On cross-examination, he is asked whether delivery would be safer still for the mother — and he answers yes.

    In other words, partial-birth abortion is the safest method of abortion — but delivery is safer still.

    With those assumptions: in your view, may the state force the mother to deliver the baby?

    Doug (a90377)

  90. It didn’t take my comments, which are: Yes, per the Roe decision, the state can find it in its interest to protect the unborn life at that point. Doesn’t have to, but it can.

    If delivery is safer, then it’s hard to believe that abortion would have been chosen in the first place — sounds like a made-up, silly premise to me.

    Doug

    Doug (a90377)


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