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Safe Abortion Should Be Embraced As Progress

Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale and Susan Yanow on July 14, 2008 - 8:00am
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"We should reduce the number of abortions."

"Abortion should be safe, legal and rare."

"Teens in Gloucester made a responsible decision when they decided to keep their babies."

"Nobody likes abortion." 

The Right has done it again. True, they've not yet achieved everything they want legislatively; abortion is still legal and available - in some places under some circumstances (although they have been appallingly successful at whittling away at both availability and legality). But, they have successfully changed the discourse -- and the moral climate -- even within much of the pro-choice community. 

Thirty years ago, abortion was seen as a positive advancement -- medically, socially, and religiously. Medically, abortion was seen as a solution to a public health problem, because safe abortion reduced maternal mortality and morbidity. Socially, access to abortion gave women the ability to order their reproductive, family, and professional lives. From a religious perspective, abortion enabled women to be responsible stewards of their God-given gifts and talents -- to make decisions about how to order their lives so that they could best use those gifts to serve God and the common good. 

But now, after decades of badgering and finger wagging from the purportedly morally superior Right, not only are individual women succumbing to obligatory guilt where once there was relief and gratitude, but even the pro-choice movement has jumped on the bandwagon. Emphasizing the "rare" in "safe, legal, and rare," focusing more on reducing need than on increasing availability, expecting these decisions to be fraught with moral ambiguity and guilt...all of these (not bad in and of themselves) are disastrous when put to the service of disparaging, rather than rejoicing in, abortion. 

How about a reality check? 

The reproductive justice movement has clearly outlined what women need to control their reproductive lives.  We need support for the children we want and the abortions we need.  To be able to choose when and if to have children, we must value healthy sexuality, live free of overt and covert violence and coercion, have better contraceptive options, promote sex education in schools starting from an early age, and be a society that respects women and our moral agency.  We're not even close to that. If we were, there would still be women who needed abortions, but we'd need to rely on that solution less often. 

Yes, we need to be sensitive to women who struggle when choosing an abortion.  But that sensitivity has shifted our frame to "abortion is painful, abortion should be avoided." 

Can we reclaim the discourse?  When a woman gets an abortion, how about being thankful that a safe medical procedure exists to solve her problem? 

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56 comments
It is a lie to think abortion "solves" the problem.

Either you are ignorant about abortion or your view of abortion is unconscionable. See www.abort73.com
I am sure the Nazi's could justify what they did to the Jews as "solving" problems.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 14, 2008 - 1:35am.
When I read comments like

When I read comments like the one posted by anonymous above, I can well understand why they almost never sign their names. I would be ashamed to sign mine to a comment as stupid as that one. Anonymous accuses the writers of this essay of "nowing nothing about abortion." Well, I know somethng about abortion having done many thousands of legal abortions during my career and having seen the results of a fee thousnad illegal abortions during that same career. And having delivered the babies of several hundred disasterous pregnancies. THe NAzis would have loved anonymous. They did their best to creat the worst of all worlds: forced abortions for those women and groups they hated and the death penalty for those women whose chilkdren they sought for cannon fodder. Now people lke anonymous and most of what are called today the "religious Right, seek all children for cannon fodder.

Submitted by william f harrison on July 14, 2008 - 3:20am.
Bravo, Dr. Harrison!

You have seen the reality of abortion. Thank you for your crucially important work, and for speaking out with an informed point of view.
When I was a teenager, abortion was still illegal. One of my friends in high school had to go hundreds of miles to the Mexican border and entrust herself to an illegal abortionist with unknown training and credentials. She did that, because she was desperate. She was lucky. She lived. Another classmate was not so lucky. She died.
Once again, thank you.

Submitted by MaryOGrady on July 14, 2008 - 8:18am.
http://www.100abortionpictur

http://www.100abortionpictures.com/Aborted_Baby_Pictures_Abortion_Photos/

I find it hard to believe that you could still be against abortion and think of the baby as something not worthy to live when you see these pictures.

Submitted by Therese on July 14, 2008 - 10:03am.
Learn to read.

A) Learn to read your own comment. You contradicted yourself.
B) Most of those pictures are fake and/or of stillborns. It is illegal to take pictures of medical waste (a dead body is medical waste due to pathogens and other things)
C) Abortion is not about the "baby" not being worthy of life. It is about a womans life. You deem her life worthless when you put it behind that of a non-person who is in a parasitic relationship to her.

D) Don't post on RHR anymore. Some of us do not like seeing your ignorance.

Submitted by Lilly on July 14, 2008 - 10:49am.
A. I didn't contradict

A. I didn't contradict myself in any way.
B. Abortion is about both the mother and the child, because it affects them both. Many, many pro-choicers have said that the baby has no legal right to life because the constitution doesn't pertain to them.
C. This is a public forum and I can post on it if I want to.
D. This was taken from a pro-life website, in answer to your comment that most of the pictures were fake and were of stillborns.
********
To begin with, why would we need to use phony pictures when deaad babies can be found in abortion clinic dumpsters?

More importantly, where would we get stillborn babies to photograph? Stillborn babies are legally required to be sent to either a funeral home for embalming and then burial or cremation. Also, if those babies were stillborn and not aborted, where did all the wounds and torn-off body parts come from? Does anyone seriously believe that hospitals provide us with baby corpses which we then beat to a pulp, dismember, and photograph?

As for miscarriages, when they occur the medical standard of care is that the material is sent out for a pathology report. So why would a physician give it to the pro-life movement to photograph? Perhaps the pro-choice mob is implying that these photos come from women who have miscarriages at home. That could be. After all, when a woman loses her baby the first thing she probably thinks about is alerting the pro-life movement so we can rush over with our lights and cameras.

Of course, the real question is why the abortion lobby becomes so hysterical over these pictures. If legal abortion is such a positive thing, not to mention a “fundamental constitutional right,” these photos should be found in every abortion clinic ad and on posters hanging in the offices of every pro-choice politician in America.

It is the ultimate in hypocrisy for these people to object when we show the bodies of the babies they killed, and we’re not the only ones who recognize this. In an article, Our Bodies, Our Souls, published in The New Republic magazine on October 16, 1995, the rabid pro-abort, Naomi Wolf, stated, “Those photographs are in fact photographs of actual D&Cs; those footprints are in fact the footprints of a 10-week-old fetus; the pro-life slogan, ‘Abortion stops a beating heart,’ is incontrovertibly true. While images of violent fetal work magnificently for pro-lifers as political polemic, the pictures are not polemical in themselves: they are biological facts. ...How can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? To insist that the truth is in poor taste is the height of hypocrisy.”

The pro-choice crowd throws a tantrum over these photographs for the same reason they panic over technology like 4-D and color ultrasound. Both expose realities which the abortion industry desperately needs to keep hidden. Ultrasound transforms the argument that unborn children are living human beings from a belief into an observable fact, and the graphic photos prove that abortion is the brutal of those children. For pro-aborts, that is a devastating one-two punch. They realize that when people see these images, the only way for them to support legalized abortion is to either deny what they are seeing with their own eyes, or harden their hearts to it.

Submitted by Therese on July 14, 2008 - 11:30am.
actual D&Cs

D&C are rare, they are preformed mostly during wanted pregnancies where something has gone terribly wrong and an abortion is done to expel a dead or dying fetus, not because a woman waited to get an abortion.
this is why the choice-side won't even take people like you seriously, posting pictures of rare procedures to try to represent them as common abortions is just plain deceptive.

Submitted by Tatyana on July 14, 2008 - 1:29pm.
just because D&Cs are rare

just because D&Cs are rare doesn't mean they're not horrible and should be outlawed.
And did I ever say that D&Cs are common? Not that I can remember.

Submitted by Therese on July 14, 2008 - 2:18pm.
D & Cs aren't horrible

to the women who's lives and/or future fertility have been saved by them. How can you say such an ignorant thing?

Submitted by MargaretSangerWasFramed! on July 16, 2008 - 10:51pm.
SHEESH!!!

Not everyone lives in the US of A. So the whole "constitution" thing can kiss my ass. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which applies to all countries) says that the fetus is not a person. Stop trying to peddle your lies to those who have seen the light.

I refuse to read anything taken from "a pro-life website" due to the arrogant, blatant misuse of medical terminology and ignorance pertaining thereto.

Submitted by Lilly on July 14, 2008 - 4:27pm.
What I posted from the pro

What I posted from the pro life website doesn't have anything medical in it, really. It's really just a defense of the pro-choice argument that our abortion pictures aren't real.
And, as I'm sure you all know, what's legal isn't always right. I'm going to bring up the old slavery thing. The Supreme Court ruled that blacks weren't persons. That's obviously really stupid. Now the Supreme Court and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights rule that unborn aren't persons, whereas before Roe they were definitely recognized as such.

Submitted by Therese on July 14, 2008 - 5:53pm.
**Now the Supreme Court and

**Now the Supreme Court and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights rule that unborn aren't persons, whereas before Roe they were definitely recognized as such.**

The Supreme Court interprets the Constitution, not the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Constitution never defined fetuses as persons. The state level laws that were put in place to make abortion/contraception illegal weren't even enacted until the 1800s - this is well after the Constitution was written. Some of these were overturned at the state level prior to Roe, they had nothing to do with recognizing the fetus as a person. They were just anti abortion laws. Common law did not restrict abortion either.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 15, 2008 - 11:51pm.
Here's an interesting link

Here's an interesting link about anti-abortion laws: http://www.priory.com/homol/abortionhist.htm
The unborn were recognized as persons, so of course the constitution pertained to them.

Submitted by Therese on July 16, 2008 - 12:20pm.
I can't find the word

I can't find the word person in that link, nor any reference to the Constitution.

Also, neither of those documents is prior to the mid-1800s, exactly when I mentioned the anti-abortion/contraception laws were enacted. This is well after the Constitution was written, just as I posted.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 16, 2008 - 12:31pm.
Whether abortion was legal

Whether abortion was legal or not at that time is both debatable and irrelevant. We have many laws that didn’t exist then and we’ve eliminated many that did. For example, at that time it was legal to own slaves and illegal for women to vote.
The right to life given in the Constitution is extended to people beyond those who were born or naturalized in the United States. For example, it's not legal to a foreign visitor to the United States or an illegal immigrant despite the fact that this person was neither born or naturalized here.

Submitted by Therese on July 16, 2008 - 5:36pm.
It is relevant as the

It is relevant as the Constitution did not protect fetuses. Its not debatable - you have failed to show a link where the Constitution defines the fetus as a person or where they were protected at the time of the Constitutions writing. Yes, others are protected by the Constitution that are born elsewhere but not born or naturalized here so not citizens. Still a birth issue.

The documents you provide are the AMA. The Supreme Court interprets the Constitution, not AMA policy. The AMA reversed its anti-abortion stance on its own without Roe v Wade.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 16, 2008 - 6:49pm.
By the way, you are the one

By the way, you are the one who said the Supreme Court ruled that the unborn aren't persons, but before Roe they were. Now you are trying to claim that the absence of any laws defining them as persons is irrelevant.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 16, 2008 - 7:13pm.
I can't find the word

I can't find the word person in that link, nor any reference to the Constitution.

Also, neither of those documents is prior to the mid-1800s, exactly when I mentioned the anti-abortion/contraception laws were enacted. This is well after the Constitution was written, just as I posted.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 16, 2008 - 12:31pm.
How silly you are

I didn't contradict myself in any way.

Umm...yes you did.

B. Abortion is about both the mother and the child, because it affects them both. Many, many pro-choicers have said that the baby has no legal right to life because the constitution doesn't pertain to them.

The fetus doesn't care what happens to it because it is not sentient. So it cannot affect the fetus.

C. This is a public forum and I can post on it if I want to.

Be prepared to take brickbats for idiotic statements, then.

D. This was taken from a pro-life website, in answer to your comment that most of the pictures were fake and were of stillborns.

I don't understand what you are trying to say here. Pro life sites are not medically credible. There is documentation to prove any "aborted fetus" photos are fakes.
********

To begin with, why would we need to use phony pictures when deaad babies can be found in abortion clinic dumpsters?

Where? Where can they be found? I've heard pro life anecdotes about this, but the evidence is very thin on the ground.

More importantly, where would we get stillborn babies to photograph? Stillborn babies are legally required to be sent to either a funeral home for embalming and then burial or cremation. Also, if those babies were stillborn and not aborted, where did all the wounds and torn-off body parts come from? Does anyone seriously believe that hospitals provide us with baby corpses which we then beat to a pulp, dismember, and photograph?

In the past, they were stolen from hospital morgues, now any pro lifer with a digital camera can sneak into the morgue of a hospital or a birthing center and snap away. Now, I can't believe you've never heard of Photoshop, it's easy to fake a photo nowadays.

As for miscarriages, when they occur the medical standard of care is that the material is sent out for a pathology report. So why would a physician give it to the pro-life movement to photograph?

See above.

Perhaps the pro-choice mob is implying that these photos come from women who have miscarriages at home. That could be. After all, when a woman loses her baby the first thing she probably thinks about is alerting the pro-life movement so we can rush over with our lights and cameras.

The "pro choice MOB"?! Oh, that is cute. The fakery is easy to see because the "aborted fetus" is too large to be an early term fetus.

Of course, the real question is why the abortion lobby becomes so hysterical over these pictures. If legal abortion is such a positive thing, not to mention a “fundamental constitutional right,” these photos should be found in every abortion clinic ad and on posters hanging in the offices of every pro-choice politician in America.

Brain surgery is legal too, but do you really think people will have graphic surgery photos hanging on the walls of their homes? Pro choicers don't like these photos because they are FAKES, BOGUS, LIES.

It is the ultimate in hypocrisy for these people to object when we show the bodies of the babies they killed, and we’re not the only ones who recognize this.

*SIGH* See above again.

In an article, Our Bodies, Our Souls, published in The New Republic magazine on October 16, 1995, the rabid pro-abort, Naomi Wolf, stated, “Those photographs are in fact photographs of actual D&Cs; those footprints are in fact the footprints of a 10-week-old fetus; the pro-life slogan, ‘Abortion stops a beating heart,’ is incontrovertibly true. While images of violent fetal work magnificently for pro-lifers as political polemic, the pictures are not polemical in themselves: they are biological facts. ...How can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? To insist that the truth is in poor taste is the height of hypocrisy.”

You are confusing opinion with fact. I wonder if the "pro life lobby" would like it if pictures of women who died back when abortions were illegal were posted all over.

The pro-choice crowd throws a tantrum over these photographs for the same reason they panic over technology like 4-D and color ultrasound. Both expose realities which the abortion industry desperately needs to keep hidden.

Straw man. We object to the anti abortion "crowd" mis-using these technologies to manipulate women.

Ultrasound transforms the argument that unborn children are living human beings from a belief into an observable fact, and the graphic photos prove that abortion is the brutal of those children. For pro-aborts, that is a devastating one-two punch. They realize that when people see these images, the only way for them to support legalized abortion is to either deny what they

Another straw man. Until the fakery is pointed out.

Submitted by MargaretSangerWasFramed! on July 14, 2008 - 9:09pm.
Umm...yes you

Umm...yes you did.
*****
Yep, I did notice it.
*****
The fetus doesn't care what happens to it because it is not sentient. So it cannot affect the fetus.
****
If I didn't care whether I died, and I did die, it would have definitely affected me, whether I cared or not.
*****
Be prepared to take brickbats for idiotic statements, then.
******
I am.
******
In the past, they were stolen from hospital morgues, now any pro lifer with a digital camera can sneak into the morgue of a hospital or a birthing center and snap away. Now, I can't believe you've never heard of Photoshop, it's easy to fake a photo nowadays.
*******
Yep, it is, but we have no need to. Anyway, it wouldn't exactly be honest to do so.
********
The "pro choice MOB"?! Oh, that is cute. The fakery is easy to see because the "aborted fetus" is too large to be an early term fetus.
*******
If you looked at the website that I put a link too, you would've seen that the aborted baby isn't always very large. For example, this one. (Tell me if it doesn't work) http://www.100abortionpictures.com/Aborted_Baby_Pictures_Abortion_Photos/Enlargement.cfm?ID=123
********
Brain surgery is legal too, but do you really think people will have graphic surgery photos hanging on the walls of their homes? Pro choicers don't like these photos because they are , BOGUS, LIES.
********.
Uh huh. Then why doesn't the abortion lobby get 'real' pictures of all the aborted babies (like from the dumpsters and things) and show them to the women considering abortion, just to show them what happens to their baby?

Submitted by Therese on July 15, 2008 - 11:05am.
if I told you once...

you looked at the website that I put a link too, you would've seen that the aborted baby isn't always very large. For example, this one. (Tell me if it doesn't work) http://www.100abortionpictures.com/Aborted_Baby_Pictures_Abortion_Photos/Enlargement.cfm?ID=123

...prolife sites aren't medically or scientitfically credible. Because if they were, they would admit early term fetuses are so tiny they have to ENLARGE the photo before working their Photoshop "magic".

Uh huh. Then why doesn't the abortion lobby get 'real' pictures of all the aborted babies (like from the dumpsters and things) and show them to the women considering abortion, just to show them what happens to their baby?

I would say it's because we aren't into manipulating women with appeals to emotion like the anti-abortion movement is.

Submitted by MargaretSangerWasFramed! on July 16, 2008 - 10:58pm.
The contradiction...

Was when you said "I find it hard to believe that you could still be against abortion and think of the baby as something not worthy to live..." Re-read it a few times. You definitely contradict yourself.

By the way, I think open heart surgery is pretty disgusting-looking, and I don't want to look at photos of it, but it's still a positive thing.

I've seen abortions take place, and I've seen 3D ultrasounds (of my own children, in utero) and guess what? Still pro-choice, if not more so. Pregnancy is HARD, and no one should be forced to go through it when she doesn't want to.

Submitted by doublejen on July 14, 2008 - 1:04pm.
Oh yes, I see my

Oh yes, I see my contradiction. I meant to say "I find it hard to believe that you can still be FOR abortion". I was pretty dense to not see that. Sorry!Open heart surgery is done to help you live, not make a human being die. A procedure that makes babies in the earliest stages of development die can never be a 'positive' thing.

Submitted by Therese on July 14, 2008 - 2:22pm.
positivity

Open heart surgery is done to help you live

True... and terminating an unwanted pregnancy "is done to help you live."  You don't get to decide which procedure one may have in order to help them live.  And despite your insistence, nobody here is advocating killing babies.  Further, terminating an unwanted pregnancy has and will continue to be a positive thing for some women regardless of whether or not you approve of it. 

Submitted by Mellankelly1 on July 14, 2008 - 6:14pm.
Yes, in some pretty rare

Yes, in some pretty rare cases, it's done to help the mother live. However, it always means for the human living inside of her.

Submitted by Therese on July 14, 2008 - 7:20pm.
not so much "rare"

Yes, in some pretty rare cases, it's done to help the mother live.

Oh really... every single woman that I have spoken with that has terminated a pregnancy has done so in order to help her live.  My abortion helped me live... it saved my life and helped to make me the woman (and mother) that I am today.  You don't get to decide what does or does not help a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy... only she knows what will help her live. 

Submitted by Mellankelly1 on July 14, 2008 - 9:31pm.
I was talking about in the

I was talking about in the case of, if a mother gave birth, she would die.

Submitted by Therese on July 15, 2008 - 10:32am.
thanks for the clarification

I was talking about in the case of, if a mother gave birth, she would die.

Then perhaps you should have written that.  Although it's good to know that there are situations where you think it is okay to kill "babies in the earliest stages of development". 

 

 

Submitted by Mellankelly1 on July 15, 2008 - 7:58pm.
You're welcome. When a

You're welcome.
When a mother's life is in danger, I think there should be every means possible to save both, and if it's the baby that has to die, at least do it in a more humane way than most abortions are done.

Submitted by Therese on July 15, 2008 - 9:10pm.
And what gives you the

And what gives you the right to decide 'the baby has to die' for any reason?

Submitted by Anonymous on July 15, 2008 - 11:27pm.
And if the mothers life is

And if the mothers life is in danger and she only consents to medical treatment to her body for her life? Who gives you the right to force or even imply medical treatment on the woman to try to save the 'babies' life?

Submitted by Anonymous on July 15, 2008 - 11:43pm.
Here in an excerpt from the

Here in an excerpt from the blog 'Bold Truth' that will answer your question:
Obviously, when the life of the mother is at risk, it is justifiable to intervene, even if the baby dies. That is what pro-lifers believe. Only a thin veil separates pro-lifers and pro-choicers when the health of the mother is in danger. The nuance between the two is this: pro-lifers recognize that the standard abortion procedure is not the appropriate surgical intervention to be made in such a case. Another approach should be used that doesn't seek to kill the unborn baby so directly. Yes, it may have the same result of the baby (as a secondary effect), but you wouldn't use the standard abortion procedure (which is simply a seek-and-destroy mission against the unborn child). For pro-lifers, the intention is not to kill the baby but to allow surgeons to access fix the mother's health problem. If anything could possibly be done to save the mother while also saving the baby, it would be done. But if the two are mutually exclusive, it is justifiable to take an action that would save the mom and have a secondary effect of the baby.

Intentions and the means of action are important in a civilized society. For example, intention makes all the difference between first degree and self-defense. Likewise, if you need to put your sick dog to sleep, you would choose a means of action that results in the least amount of suffering possible for your dog. I'll say it again: intentions and the means of action are important in a civilized society.

Medical research has shown that there is no health condition of an expectant mother that absolutely requires the standard abortion procedures in order to save the woman's life. None. There is always another way to save the woman's life, a way that is more respectful of the unborn baby, even if the baby has to die as a secondary effect. That's the basic reasoning of pro-lifers. That's why pro-lifers believe that all forms of abortion can be banned without the risk of criminal prosecution in the case where a woman's life is in danger.

Pro-lifers are not anti-woman. We just want to make sure that no abusive measures are taken against the unborn child. So contrary to what some other bloggers may claim, pro-lifers accept that a mother's life may be saved, even if the unborn child dies. Moreover, abortion can be banned without having women worry about criminal prosecution if the pregnancy is ended because their life is in danger.

Submitted by Therese on July 16, 2008 - 12:26pm.
Really? So a woman could

Really? So a woman could also kill an infant to save herself from a natural death too? Self defense does not allow one to kill another to save oneself from dying from a natural death. And in this case the woman brought the whole situation on herself (and the baby) given that death is a consequence of her having sex. The baby is innocent and you are overriding natural death in both cases. Is the fetus suddenly packing heat? The fetus doesn't intend to harm the woman so why is it judged as if it did? How do you know what the womans intentions are anyway? If she didn't want to be pregnant in the first place and her life becomes endangered by the pregnancy - perhaps she really does want to kill the fetus and is happy the whole situation arose.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 16, 2008 - 12:42pm.
Women don't always bring

Women don't always bring the whole situation on themselves. Some women were trying to be responsible by using birth control, some women were d, etc.
This is from a pro life website:
If a car wreck has trapped two passengers in such a way that saving one might take the life of the other, the emergency personnel on the scene would never intentionally kill one to get the other one out. Instead, they would do everything possible to save both. If in that process one loses its life, that would be seen as a regrettable, but unavoidable, outcome. That dynamic applies when a pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. The woman’s physician should be directed to do everything possible to save both mother and baby. If in that effort the child dies, that should be considered an unavoidable, thus lawful, outcome. However, it is as morally indefensible to kill the baby to save the mother as it would be to other to save the baby.

Submitted by Therese on July 16, 2008 - 5:29pm.
**Women don't always bring

**Women don't always bring the whole situation on themselves. Some women were trying to be responsible by using birth control, some women were d, etc.**

This would be applicable for any reason for abortion, so why the free pass here? The woman is no more/less responsible for other consequences of pregnancy (health condition or other) than the consequence that her life is endangered. Its the same act, with perhaps the same attempts with failed birth control. You are simply picking and choosing the one you agree with and eliminating those you don't want to accept and deciding that the fetus can be killed in this case.

**
If a car wreck has trapped two passengers in such a way that saving one might take the life of the other, the emergency personnel on the scene would never intentionally kill one to get the other one out. Instead, they would do everything possible to save both. If in that process one loses its life, that would be seen as a regrettable, but unavoidable, outcome. That dynamic applies when a pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. The woman’s physician should be directed to do everything possible to save both mother and baby. If in that effort the child dies, that should be considered an unavoidable, thus lawful, outcome. However, it is as morally indefensible to kill the baby to save the mother as it would be to other to save the baby.**

How does this apply to aborting (acting in a manner to terminate the fetus life to save the womans life) - this has more to do with trying to save both and if one dies as a result so be it. That is different than allowing a decision to actively terminate the fetus to save the woman. Are you trying to say you believe in abortion to save the womans life only when the doctor, in the course of trying to save both, somehow accidentally terminates the fetus life? But still a woman who obtains an abortion to save her life should be prosecuted? This is different than your blanket exception for the life of the woman above. Theres a difference here... this still leaves the case where the doctor and woman actively decides on abortion to save the womans life as a prosecutable offense. Once again, according to pro-lifers pregnancy was something the woman decide - not similar to a car accident where all parties involved are not assumed to be guilty.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 16, 2008 - 7:03pm.
This would be applicable

This would be applicable for any reason for abortion, so why the free pass here? The woman is no more/less responsible for other consequences of pregnancy (health condition or other) than the consequence that her life is endangered. Its the same act, with perhaps the same attempts with failed birth control. You are simply picking and choosing the one you agree with and eliminating those you don't want to accept and deciding that the fetus can be killed in this case.
*******
I'm not deciding that the baby can be killed in this case. It's a matter of equal rights, and I thought I explained it in the analogy.
*******
How does this apply to aborting (acting in a manner to terminate the fetus life to save the womans life) - this has more to do with trying to save both and if one dies as a result so be it. That is different than allowing a decision to actively terminate the fetus to save the woman. Are you trying to say you believe in abortion to save the womans life only when the doctor, in the course of trying to save both, somehow ally terminates the fetus life? But still a woman who obtains an abortion to save her life should be prosecuted? This is different than your blanket exception for the life of the woman above. Theres a difference here... this still leaves the case where the doctor and woman actively decides on abortion to save the womans life as a prosecutable offense. Once again, according to pro-lifers pregnancy was something the woman decide - not similar to a car where all parties involved are not assumed to be guilty.
*******
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. The difference from a woman deciding on abortion to save her life is that the unborn baby isn't some sort of second class citizen who has less of a right to life than the mother. The doctors should try very hard to save both, just like they would with two born persons.

Submitted by Therese on July 16, 2008 - 7:47pm.
No you didn't explain equal

No you didn't explain equal rights - there is no 'equal right' to kill another to save oneself from natural death. Can you provide an example?

Submitted by Anonymous on July 16, 2008 - 7:57pm.
** I'm not sure what you're

**
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. The difference from a woman deciding on abortion to save her life is that the unborn baby isn't some sort of second class citizen who has less of a right to life than the mother. The doctors should try very hard to save both, just like they would with two born persons.

***

Its not like two born persons. First of all, any medical treatment to save the fetus would have to be done to the womans body. We do not save two people by doing medical treatment to one person on behalf of another person without the first persons consent. That person has the right to only consent to life saving medical on their own behalf without regard for how others might require their body to live.

Abortion acts to kill the fetus, no matter what the womans circumstances are. Its the same procedure, regardless of why its performed. Who else can the woman kill to save herself from dying naturally?

Submitted by Anonymous on July 16, 2008 - 8:08pm.
That person doesn't have

That person doesn't have the right to deny treatment on their own behalf if another person's life is at stake, because, with the unborn baby, more is at stake then doing medical treatment on its body. The baby's life is at stake.
Again, babies aren't second class citizens that the woman can kill to make herself live. Everything must be done to save both, and if that can't be done, save that person who has more of a chance of survival.

Submitted by Therese on July 16, 2008 - 9:37pm.
**That person doesn't have

**That person doesn't have the right to deny treatment on their own behalf if another person's life is at stake, because, with the unborn baby, more is at stake then doing medical treatment on its body. The baby's life is at stake.**

Can you tell me which law you are referring to? There is absolutely no law that forces someone to get medical care to their own body to benefit another person - even when that other persons life is at stake.

**Again, babies aren't second class citizens that the woman can kill to make herself live. Everything must be done to save both, and if that can't be done, save that person who has more of a chance of survival.**

No we don't make decisions to kill patient A in the car wreck to save patient B even if patient B has a better chance of survival and acting against patient A would help patient B live. You are just making things up to suit your purposes, when you want to justify abortion, and your original car wreck analogy doesn't support what you are saying - you didn't leave this exception in your own analogy. Please provide a legal example for the cases you have set up (hint - there is no legal case).

Submitted by Anonymous on July 16, 2008 - 10:17pm.
Can you tell me which law

Can you tell me which law you are referring to? There is absolutely no law that forces someone to get medical care to their own body to benefit another person - even when that other persons life is at stake.
******
I know there isn't. I'm saying a woman shouldn't have the right to deny treatment to her unborn baby if the baby will die without the treatment, because its mother doesn't have authority over his life and .
******
No we don't make decisions to kill patient A in the car wreck to save patient B even if patient B has a better chance of survival and acting against patient A would help patient B live.
******
Yes, but I'm talking about when the mother's life is at stake if she has the child. Of course we wouldn't other or the child if both would be able to survive.

Submitted by Therese on July 17, 2008 - 10:16am.
**I know there isn't. I'm

**I know there isn't. I'm saying a woman shouldn't have the right to deny treatment to her unborn baby if the baby will die without the treatment, because its mother doesn't have authority over his life and .**

Great, so a born child should have equal protection to compel the woman to have medical treatment to her body to save the childs life.

**Yes, but I'm talking about when the mother's life is at stake if she has the child. Of course we wouldn't other or the child if both would be able to survive.**

And I've consistently given you examples where one persons life is at stake but they don't have the right to take any action to kill another person to save their life. You claimed its 'like two born people' and I've given you those examples - what you are trying to do is treat it differently allowing for killing a fetus only because you happen to agree with killing it to save the woman from natural death. The fetus would have the right to self-defense. And since the fetus can't defend itself, the government would protect it from any action taken to kill it.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 17, 2008 - 10:58am.
**The baby's life is at

**The baby's life is at stake.**

By the way, I already did take this into account in my response above at 8:08 that we don’t do this even for the life of another.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 16, 2008 - 10:39pm.
thanks for the props!

Its not like two born persons

Frankly, I am flabbergasted that you would admit that a fetus and a person are two separate things.  Kudos to you for your honesty and thank you for providing (once again) the reason why the pregnant woman should be the person who decides the course of her own pregnancy... BRAVO!!

Submitted by Mellankelly1 on July 16, 2008 - 11:16pm.
Just to clarify the

Just to clarify the difference - in the car wreck we don't take an action to kill Patient A to save Patient B. In abortion we do have to knowingly take an action against the fetus (patient A) to save the womans life (patient B). The exact purpose of abortion is to act against the fetus to actively impact the fetus body and terminate the fetus under these circumstances - not something we would do in the car wreck. If the woman had lifesaving open heart surgery, with no action against the fetus, and the fetus dies as a result, that would be more parallel to your case.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 16, 2008 - 7:54pm.
But even in this heart

But even in this heart surgery isn't unintentional. Its a biological fact that actions taken on a womans body impact the fetus body and life. Though not touching the fetus body per se, its intentional that you are directly interfering with the means it uses to maintain its life given her blood, organs etc all are being used to keep it alive, you just happen to have an excuse you like to do so and toss the fetus rights aside. Theres also no parallel like this in a car wreck example.

Any interference a woman chooses to her body not directed at the fetuses body but negatively impacting the fetus cannot be said to be any more/less intentional toward the fetus simply because her life is endangered or not.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 17, 2008 - 3:00am.
By the way some pro-lifers

By the way some pro-lifers do allow the health exception and other pro-lifers do not allow abortion even to save the womans life.

Submitted by Anonymous on July 16, 2008 - 12:59pm.
seems like a pretty thick veil to me...

Only a thin veil separates pro-lifers and pro-choicers when the health of the mother is in danger. The nuance between the two is this: pro-lifers recognize that the standard abortion procedure is not the appropriate surgical intervention to be made in such a case. Another approach should be used that doesn't seek to kill the unborn baby so directly. Yes, it may have the same result of the baby (as a secondary effect), but you wouldn't use the standard abortion procedure (which is simply a seek-and-destroy mission against the unborn child). For pro-lifers, the intention is not to kill the baby but to allow surgeons to access fix the mother's health problem. If anything could possibly be done to save the mother while also saving the baby, it would be done.

Lovely... and who will decide which situations are appropriate to kill "babies in the earliest stages of development" - also, who will decide which method is appropriate to use in each scenario... you?  Doesn't it make sense to allow each person whose life and/or health will be directly effected by the situation decide which measures should be taken?  I find it rather odd that you speak in such generalizations about people and/or situations that have little or nothing to do with you... would you wish to review each case prior to any action being taken?

But if the two are mutually exclusive, it is justifiable to take an action that would save the mom and have a secondary effect of the baby

Why?  You are all about the right to life of the fetus so why is it justifiable to kill it in certain situations?  Do you just flip a coin?  You go an about how important this "[baby] in the earliest stages of development" is so why, suddenly, is the pregnant woman's life more important than the fetus?

Intentions and the means of action are important in a civilized society

Are you actually asking us to believe that you know the reasoning behind every woman who has terminated her pregnancy (aside from fact that she doesn't want give birth to and raise a baby)?  Really?  Because I would beg to differ.

Medical research has shown that there is no health condition of an expectant mother that absolutely requires the standard abortion procedures in order to save the woman's life

Oh, I'm sorry... which research would this be?

There is always another way to save the woman's life, a way that is more respectful of the unborn baby, even if the baby has to die as a secondary effect.

Oh, okay... now you get to decide what is a "respectful" way for a woman to terminate her pregnancy.  It is honestly unbelievable to me that one can profess to care so much about women when their goal is to take rights away from any woman who may be facing an unwanted pregnancy... if you believe that pregnant women cannot and should not be making decisions about their pregnancies then you are most certainly anti-women (well, perhaps you're just anti-pregnant-women).

Submitted by Mellankelly1 on July 16, 2008 - 11:10pm.
I'd also like to know what

I'd also like to know what the more 'humane' procedure would be when the baby 'has to die' as stated in the reply to the post about **it's good to know that there are situations where you think it is okay to kill "babies in the earliest stages of development".**

Submitted by Anonymous on July 17, 2008 - 12:18am.
These are great questions

These are great questions Mellankelly1.... and Therese's answers are? Would love to see the Research links!

Submitted by Anonymous on July 17, 2008 - 11:26am.
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