Supreme Court strikes down Texas's restrictive abortion requirements

[JollyRoger]

I did not. Violence against abortion providers isn't justified because it doesn't work. All pro-lifers that I know of understand this.

So it would be justified if it did work?

 

[Lexicus]

Third trimester abortions are illegal in the US in the absence of serious medical complications.

 

[El_Machinae]

That fits within my moral framework ... but ... is it truly "pro-choice"? I find that most of the pro-choice movement's "catchphrases" don't apply to my viewpoint when pushed out to say ... 30 weeks.

 

[Lexicus]

Yes, I think it is perfectly pro-choice. Like I said, I think it's fair to say that if you're gonna make the choice, you have to make it sooner than the third trimester. It may impinge on choice in theory but according to this site ~90% of abortions happen before 13 weeks, and virtually no abortions occur after 25 weeks in the absence of serious medical complications.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/07/late-term-abortion-29-weeks-dana-weinstein

http://endingawantedpregnancy.com/dandy-walker-third-trimester-abortion/

These cases are typical of later-term abortions. I think it would be nothing short of monstrous to force women in cases like these to finish their pregnancies.

 

[El_Machinae]

How can it be 'perfectly pro choice' and 'impinge on choice in theory' at the same time? Anyway, I realize that I'm on the pro-choice side for the vast majority of cases, but not due to their mainstream arguments. I don't buy into them at all.

 

[rah]

I have no problem with "agreement with a doctor" still being considered choice.

 

[Dachs]

How can it be 'perfectly pro choice' and 'impinge on choice in theory' at the same time? Anyway, I realize that I'm on the pro-choice side for the vast majority of cases, but not due to their mainstream arguments. I don't buy into them at all.

you're such a hipster

 

[Lexicus]

How can it be 'perfectly pro choice' and 'impinge on choice in theory' at the same time?

Probably because the real world is a mess, not a realm of logical clarity.

 

[El_Machinae]

Then don't use the word 'perfect!'

 

[metalhead]

We need to distinguish between different stages of development. An abortion at five weeks can morally and ethically be distinguished from an abortion at twenty-five weeks. At this time in USA there is no legal distinction.

J

There is a huge legal distinction and I have no idea why you think otherwise. The decision in Roe v. Wade did exactly this. The rights that a woman has viz. the embryo/fetus growing inside of her depends on how far along in her pregnancy she is. Planned Parenthood v. Casey largely did away with the trimester framework of Roe, which held that the woman's rights diminish as her pregnancy progresses, but upheld the central tenet that prior to fetal viability, a woman has a constitutional right to privacy with regards to her decision on whether to continue or terminate her pregnancy.

One of the major fights now by anti-abortionists is to get it codified into law that 20 or 22 weeks is the dividing line of viability, as opposed to the 23-24 weeks that the SCOTUS set in Casey. Frankly I think the Court got it right in Roe, in making the right absolute in the first trimester, making some regulation acceptable in the second, and permitting outright bans except for rape or the health of the mother in the third.

But either way, the government has far, far more authority to act in preventing abortions on fetuses that are 25 weeks old, up to and including bans.

 

[Lexicus]

Substitute 'acceptably' or whatever suits you, then.

 

[El_Machinae]

Wait. Prolifers are trying to push below 22 weeks?!? That's horrifying

 

[Lexicus]

Wait. Prolifers are trying to push below 22 weeks?!? That's horrifying

Yep, something like 12 states have laws banning abortion based on the (false) belief that fetuses feel pain at 20 weeks.