Reply to SCOTUS: oral arguments for Dobbs v. Jackson (MS abortion case)

Forum Index » Political Discussion

Reply to "SCOTUS: oral arguments for Dobbs v. Jackson (MS abortion case)"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

There should be a scientific study to determine when life begins, you can try fetal reaction and do things like train in the womb. That would settle it when it's woman body vs baby's body.[/quote]
It’s called birth. [/quote]
A million times this.

Mic drop.[/quote]

Lol the problem is [b]you can deliver prematurely and it can be viable[/b]. So it's not that simple , we need a scientific study to conclude it and then move on.[/quote]

It is, indeed, that simple.

If you deliver prematurely and it is viable, life has begun. Because you gave birth.

[/quote]

All the “pro-lifers” value only one life - the fetus’s - and would literally sacrifice a grown woman’s life to ensure the fetus lives.  The issue is, and it was in Roe, when two lives are at stake with potentially different interests and one life lives inside the other entirely dependent on it before being born, what is the appropriate balance to strike between the two lives.  Roe said the balance is when the fetus can live outside the womb, I.e. viability.  At that point the state may prohibit abortion (even in cases of fetal abnormality) in all cases, with two exceptions, health and life of the mother.  Roe strikes a balance that the mother’s life and health has precedence over the fetus at all times, and absent a threat to the mother’s life or health states can ban abortion after the point of viability.

The point of viability may have some variation but not much.  There is about a 4 % survival rate at 21 weeks. The earliest a baby has ever been born is 21 weeks and 5 days (only 2 this early). There is closer to an 80% survival rate at 26 weeks, and a survival without impairment rate of about 75%.  Fewer than 50% of fetuses birthed before 24 weeks survive, which is why viability is still set at 24 weeks.  Despite modern medicine, the idea that technology will just keep pushing viability back has not really happened significantly because the limiting factor is the natural development of the fetus’s lungs.   Prior to 24 weeks, generally, the lungs are not developed enough to support proper oxygenation even with intubation and oxygenation.

So, for those of you who say we should push viability back to 21 weeks, 5 days, think about that from a public policy perspective -  many many babies will be born, receive hugely expensive but potential life saving care and 95 percent of them will die any way after enduring great pain themselves and leaving family members traumatized, not to mention with hundreds of thousands of dollars on medical debt which pushes them to economic collapse.  Parents and doctors will have little say in exactly how far to go to save these lives.  Even if the 21 week old, now baby lives, many will experience a life time of struggle and disability.  Whatever you think about giving birth to disabled children (and I support a parent’s right to choose to do this without intervention by the state), a policy that shifted disability back to 21 weeks would also mean radical change for our educational and employment systems (and to access broadly speaking everywhere in life) which doesn’t now provide adequate legal protections (despite ADA, 504 and IDEA) and funding to support the lives of disabled persons.  Society should better support disabled persons (not to mention non-disabled mother’s and parents via childcare structures and paid family and medical leave and universal health insurance), but we currently don’t and thus millions of disabled persons languish living less than full and financially stable lives.

Think what you will about what you personally would do in these circumstances, but I know I believe the trauma, expense and pain involved in this situation is so great that only the parents should decide what should be endured - not the state not the doctors.

By 26 weeks, the majority of early births survive.  By 26 weeks, (after the Roe cutoff), the vast majority survive and survive without impairment.

Stop focusing so simplistically on some magic line where life begins.  It’s simplistic, religiously based virtue signaling at the expense of real people’s lived lives.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics