General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Should there be any restrictions at all on abortion? [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Denying that is willful dishonesty even more profound than anything anit-vaxxers and QNuts can come up with. The entire purpose of abortion is to stop the reproduction of a second person.
If person once formed does not have a right to life, does any person at any point? Really? What inconveniences to ourselves might cause us to say forget it? Is a "right to life" actually only based on "ability to fight those who'd kill"? No actual endowment of an inalienable right at all?
Polybius is right.
Of course abortion must become illegal or subject to only very strict conditions at some point. Where that point should be is the issue, and one will never be agreed on by everyone. Roe's stood as long as it has because most people could support the limits it set based on science and viability out of the womb.
In the third trimester, fetuses become viable, can live as babies outside the womb. After 23 weeks, hearing develops enough that babies are able to hear sounds from "outside" and learn to recognize their mothers' and other voices and sounds. They can be startled by noises and cry. After birth some seem to remember music they heard in the womb; for sure they know and are easily comforted by those who were around them before birth. It's unproven but widely believed from observations in utero that unborn babies, who sleep most of the time, have dreams.
Remember, where allowed, people still routinely dismember and skin food animals while they're still alive. "People" will do anything, which is why we must have social mores and legal restrictions.
OF COURSE many women would change their mind and abort after the point of viability if allowed, some right up to 40 weeks. Some fathers would persuade or instruct them to. After all, parents are legally responsible for a baby whose birth was induced, while abortion produces dead "tissue" that the hospital or clinic disposes of.