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20
AM
Oh dear God, why didn’t someone save that child and that young girl from her parents?
20
PM
Could her 13-year old body have handled giving birth? Other than that concern I think her parents have made a grave mistake.
20
PM
Under the doctrine of Informed Consent, a child cannot consent to a major medical procedure with her parent(s) approval. Conversely, a medical procedure cannot take place even with parental approval if the child disapproves. The only exception is if the child’s condition presents an immediate medical emergency. Pregnancy doens’t present that and even if it did come delivery, there is a thing called emergancy c-section.
21
AM
I’m glad everyone on this blog is so adamant about children’s rights over their own medical decisions. I am too. I assume you would feel the same way if a 13 year-old wanted to take oral contraception and her parents refused.
21
PM
Well, a better example from annonymous69 would have been a 13 year old who wanted an abortion rather than carrying the pregnancy to term (also not completely safe in the best of circumstances, let alone on an undeveloped girl’s body). The similarities are actually rather compelling, as I’m sure there are more cases of young girls forced to carry a pregnancy to term by their parents rather than forced to get an abortion. And similar threats to their mental health. I’m in favor of letting the person with the womb decide whether or not they carry a pregnancy.
21
PM
I’m in favor of letting the person with the womb decide whether or not they carry a pregnancy
Why exactly? Let’s start a debate from first principles.
22
AM
Becky, aside from the fact that abortion terminates a life, which should be reason enough to oppose it, it is also damaging to the physical and mental health of the woman. If that offends you hearing that from a man, let me encourage you to visit the Web site of Feminists for Life. They have some wonderful reading material on the physical and mental harm abortion causes, as well as women who underwent abortion and weren’t properly informed on the risks.
They also argue that abortion is anti-feminist.
22
AM
anonymous69, aside from a couple typos in my first post, I said that a non-life threatening medical procedure cannot happen without the child’s consent, even if the parents consent. But the child cannot ask for such a procedure without parental consent. Two approvals required for a procedure- both a child’s and the parents. So we’re not contradicting ourselves by expressing outrage in this case while supporting parental consent as a requirement for a minor’s abortion.
22
PM
Woodroe: First principles? Would be a right to one’s bodily integrity. If you don’t want to donate a kidney, you don’t have to (even if the person in need of it is your own child). If I don’t want to carry a rapist’s child to term in my body, I don’t have to. As soon as the state starts compelling women to either have an abortion, or to carry out a pregnancy, I believe the state crosses a line, invading individual privacy.
William: Yes, I do find it rather offensive. Because you have no chance of ever finding yourself in the situation of being pregnant against your will, so how exactly can you judge for me what is mentally/emotionally/physically damaging? Also: Feminists for Life is not a fact based, reality based organization. They openly attempt to claim things that are simply not proven, such as a link between depression and abortion, a link between breast cancer and abortion (I don’t feel like doing the research for you, but if you’re interested, Feministe has excellent breakdowns of where more fact-based science has ruled on both issues. For an abortion link, there simply isn’t conclusive evidence in recent studies. For a depression link, you often have women blaming abortion for their depression when they have other issues that also contribute (e.g., drug use, past sexual abuse, etc.))
I don’t really want to get into another abortion debate here, as it’s rather counterproductive. My point was simply to provide a better counterexample than the one annonymous69 offered.
22
PM
Well, as I’m sure you realize, “when life begins” becomes a quandary as soon as you start talking to someone who doesn’t agree with you. Is it at quickening? (Going back to Aquinas). Is it the potentiality of the egg? Is it the moment of sperm meeting egg? (despite the fact that early 50% of these fertilized eggs fail to implant on the uterine wall?). Is it at the moment of implantation? (that’s when pregnancy begins according to Western science). Is it the moment of viability? Of birth? Or does it happen sometime later, as suggested by cultures that do not give a newborn a name for several weeks (probably to account for high infant death rates)?
As for the idea of murder in the case of abortion: Is it also murder to refuse someone a kidney? To refuse to donate blood when you know it’s needed somewhere else in the world to save a life? To pay taxes when we’re at war?
Apologies if this seems overly didactic, but I fail to see why women are being labeled as murderers for refusing to use their bodies to create a life, when many people on this forum are pro-war, pro-death penalty. Women are capable of making moral decisions based on their own understanding of their situation. Some women might choose an abortion because of financial situations, or because, if they’re going to have only one child at some point in their lives, they would rather wait to have that child until they’re able to care for it (in which case do you consider it “murder” that the later child wouldn’t be conceived/born later if the first pregnancy IS carried to term?).
What it boils down to, for pro-choicers, is that women deserve to make their own decisions as to how they use their reproductive capacities. I don’t see abortion as murder for the same reason that I don’t consider it murder when one person refuses to donate a kidney to another person in need of it. I respect the fact that women can make moral decisions as to what is best for their own mental, physical, and emotional health, as well as the well-being of their already existing families (ie, some women might choose not to risk a pregnancy if they have health problems, are already financially strapped, and already have children to care for).
Sorry this is inordinately long, but I don’t think abortion is such an easily black and white situation. Which is also why I don’t think the state should get involved in reproductive choices. Which, by the way, is why I think this Italian judge was entirely out of line.
22
PM
Becky, do people have a right to terminate their own life?
23
AM
Annonymous: I think you’d change your story if you were one of the participants in “women’s logic” with a uterus. If you’re worried about “children’s rights,” I suggest being the first man to find a way to implant a uterus in his body. And then find a way to transfer unwelcome fetuses/embryos into said uterus.
Woodroe: I’m not sure I understand your question. As for the right under the law, I’d love to know how you propose to punish those who attempt to take their own lives. As for some sort of “natural rights,” I don’t see how we can compell someone to live who does not want to do so (physically speaking, for example, short of locking them up in a straightjacket, which I can’t say I’m totally on board with unless the person is clearly not in his/her right mind). I can imagine situations in which a person might choose to terminate his/her life in the face of extreme pain, no cure, and doctors’ predictions of little time left. In those sort of cases — and as an Oregonion thinking of legislation we’ve tried to pass — I don’t see why the state should interfere in an individual, family decision. Of course safeguards must be in place (doctors, second/third/fourth opinions, family consent, etc.), but I do believe in leaving these sort of decisions to the private sphere.
23
PM
Anonymous: Your misogyny is showing. Heard of rape? Abuse? Cajoling significant others into sex (even within a comitted relationship)? Condom failure? Failure rates in general (sometimes even tubals aren’t fool-proof)? Oh, and where do men fit in this “keeping your legs closed” paradigm (pun intended)? And (on a lighter note) why do people even use this expression when (hate to be the one to break it to you) women can have sex with their legs closed?
If you limit abortion rights to those women who you think “deserve” an abortion because they actually meant to “keep [their] legs closed,” you’re basically using pregnancy as a punishment for having had sex. Very pro-children attitude, indeed!
My right to an abortion means my right to exert control over my body if something happens beyond my ability to prevent while still, you know, having a healthy life with my partner. (I completely reject, for the record, the idea that people shouldn’t have sex unless they want to become pregnant. I think most people in a committed relationship understand this. Birth control — in my opinion — is a moral good. It makes for less conflict in marriages when one partner wants sex and the other doesn’t want to be pregnant for the 10th time but does want the intimacy that comes with, and sustains, a marriage. It means spacing children in a way that allows us to better care and rear them.)
23
PM
I’m actually completely on board with the reasoning that we already have millions of uncared for/unwanted children, so why force women to have more unwanted children?
And I’ve got to confess that I didn’t know Leavitt’s argument. I’d suspect the fall was more complex though than that those women are “mostly trash.” At current rates, over a third of U.S. women will have had an abortion by age 45. Since pregnant women are actually more likely to suffer domestic abuse, I imagine fewer unwanted pregnancies contributes to the fall in crime rates. And when people don’t feel desperate, I think they tend to be less likely to commit a crime… And when children are raised because they’re wanted rather than forced… etc.
23
PM
Didn’t a former Bush official get in trouble for saying that aborting more black babies would reduce the crime rate in this country or something like that?
23
PM
Read Freakonomics David.
23
PM
I thought liberals were all accepting, caring people? Where’s your tolerance man?