Poll: Abortion, Roe v. Wade

[dowie]

There was a bit of chat about this in the Elon Musk thread so figured I'd start a new thread here as it's rather off-topic to that one.

There is a bit of hysteria in the US at the moment as some landmark supreme court judgment that, until now, has severely limited the ability of states to impose limits on abortion looks set to be overturned or at least greatly diminished. The reason for this is Mississippi has proposed a 15-week limit on abortions.

Now the ruling being overturned doesn't seem to be all that unreasonable, there does seem to be a reasonable argument that it was a stretch, that the constitution doesn't protect this and that this should be down to legislators. There are however some potential bad consequences, at least in the short term, in some states (this has also been overhyped a bit I think) however the majority of the population in the US is in favour of abortions up to a point at least just as most Europeans are.

I'm personally pro-choice/pro-abortion on demand up to some arbitrary pre-viability limit like say 15 weeks then only special exceptions after that point much as the liberal person described by the woman on Bill Maher is here:

I wonder what the general opinion of GD is - perhaps a poll?

options:

fully pro-life including embryos
pro-life but exceptions for morning-after pill and IUDs
pro-choice only up to heartbeat limit <6 weeks
pro-choice up to some pre-viability limit, say 15, 18 weeks etc..
fully pro-choice until birth

****edit - to be clear - the above is re: elective abortions for any reason, abortions for medical issues etc.. are a separate thing/dimension that people might have differing views on/different tolerances beyond general limits.****

 

[dowie]

I'm assuming he means up to some viability limit + exemptions for medical conditions etc.. beyond that?

(The poll is really about abortion by choice, I guess exemptions for rape, medical issues etc.. is a separate thing and another dimension to the question rather than another choice/poll option as it's possible to be fully pro-life say including embryos but still be reluctantly approving of abortions in the case of medical emergencies etc..)

 

[dowie]

I've added an additional otion for pro life unless danger to mother

However this did reset the votes, can people please vote again if possible?

Apologies for breaking it @dowie

Ah, that's a separate issue though, the poll is supposed to be about elective abortions. You could be for or against a medical exemption for any of the 4 options with limits to them including the 6-week limit, the 15-week/pre-viability limit etc..

 

[dowie]

Yup indeed, The UK standard of 24 weeks is option number 4, just as the Swedish standard of 18 weeks or the Spanish limit of 14 weeks is too - as in that option is for some limit just before the foetus becomes viable. This is what most European countries have albeit with some variation in where they draw that line.

I'm personally of the opinion viability is based on weight / development of the baby, rather than picking a date. Again coming from a family where we've had a very early birth (24 weeks), niece was only 407g and barely survived. The hospital just 3 days before birth started talking about an abortion as her mum was starting to have serious blood pressure issues.

Had she been born at 15 weeks, or even up to 20 - she would have died without a doubt.

Yup for sure, viability is going to vary a bit based on both the foetus and medical facilities available, generally, some arbitrary limit is imposed at some point before viability - I guess the UK and Germany are rather more liberal with that limit than most and pretty much draw the line very close...

 

[dowie]

I suspect @montymint may have had a problem just specifying a viability limit criteria not based on mothers medical condition as they are still two seperate considerations and the viability limit is not normally 15 weeks but dependant on the country or state legislation.

15 weeks 18 weeks were just meant as rough examples - it was just meant as *some* set pre-viability limit, obviously, most European countries have this sort of law in place but these pre-viability limits do vary a bit.

 

[dowie]

I've never really been 'comfortable' with the idea of abortions full stop, especially when the bundle of cells starts to become fetus-like. Just feels a bit too close to infanticide - potential for a full human life in that body if only it can be allowed to develop for another 7 months or however long it is when the decision is taken.
[...]
I think I've changed my mind over the years, but would have to go for abortions being legal up to the viability limit. Just seems to have a lot of benefits

I used to think like that - not really comfortable with abortions at all but in favour of a pro-choice position because it's practical but I think, I'm a bit more at ease re: the abortion aspect too now, and still have the same general view re: what the law should be - some pre-viability limit (perhaps actually slightly lower than the UK's current limit even).

The heartbeat thing at 6 weeks is sometimes touted by people but I think thats gets a bit silly, it's not really a proper heart at that time and frankly, there are a fair few more weeks where the life/foetus is still not really aware of anything.

On one hand for a mother who wants a baby then having a miscarriage at any point is super traumatic, that life form was a potential child they wanted, while abortions can be tragic too there is at least some comfort that, at least during the first several weeks, it's just a larger lifeform that doesn't really have any awareness at all. Later on of course, when it becomes, essentially, a premature baby, then that is highly dubious ethically IMO.

I'd kind of look at it in the way some (more sane) vegans look at muscles and oysters - you have the hardcore vegans who won't eat any meat, seafood or dairy but then you have other vegans who recognise that muscles aren't really sentient beings either... if you can eat a plant then why can't you eat some muscles?

If you can chuck away an embryo then why not a small foetus? If you're happy to undergo IVF and dispose of some embryos or if you're happy to have an IUD fitted or to take a morning-after pill then you're technically disposing of some lifeform that might have become a baby... leaving it a few more weeks just means there is a bit more genetic material to get rid of, it still isn't necessarily aware of anything.

 

[dowie]

I'm not sure which box to tick, so I'll tell you what I think and you can tell me which box it is:
- I support termination without knowledge that the embryo exists, via the morning after pill. I believe this can't be referred to as murder because the couple lack the knowledge that the embryo exists (you can't murder nobody).
- I support the murder of an embryo as soon as the parents become aware of the pregnancy.

Sounds like the best poll option for you is pro-life with exceptions for the morning-after pill. I.e. option 2 on the poll.

The other stuff is additional issues unrelated to general elective abortions. Any of the limits on the poll might have exceptions for say medical issues for example.

 

[dowie]

This is nonsense, if you leave a baby to it’s own devices post birth it will die. It can’t feed itself or look after itself.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree, I don't like the idea of terminating a viable baby unless there is some additional issue like medical complications for the mother etc..

I mean does the womb/vagina act as a magical philosophical gateway in that case - say you cut up/kill a premature baby within the womb that's fine but an identical premature baby that has passed through the womb can't be cut up/killed. Or perhaps some would go so far as to say infanticide should be legal.

It just seems iffy to me to have doctors trying hard to save the lives of premature babies on one hand and potentially killing premature babies of the same "age"/stage of development on the other hand.

There needs to be a limit IMO, where to set that limit is a bit of a grey area but I feel like it should be set at some cut-off pre-viability.

 

[dowie]

What I find odd is its mostly men making the decision. The majority if not all of the decision has to be the Female carrying with little **** monster. Its very simple all this hubris over some twisted views and ideology.

Why is that odd? We don’t segregate the drafting of legislation by gender or sex in modern democracies. Only female MPs or state representatives or congress members allowed to vote on issue X only makes on issue Y.
Bad luck if your elected representative is the wrong gender/sex to vote on the issue you care about.

I mean how ridiculous would that be?

 

[dowie]

fair enough..... but presumably it was the people qualified to do so who already came up with 24 weeks?

I don't think this default to some imagined position where the current law should be the cut off because experts must have been consulted is a particularly good argument, for a start it ignores that other European democracies all have "experts" too and the limits for elective abortions vary a bit across the continent.

You don't need to be an "expert" to have an opinion on this subject, if someone is going to argue basic facts then referring to experts etc... is warranted but subjective opinions on ethics is a bit different, ultimately the elected representatives voting on matters like this are not experts, they'll take guidance of course but there is plenty of room here for subjectivity when it comes to opinions of what is right and wrong.

 

[dowie]

Because its not an issue for the state in any shape or form its down the woman 100% on what she believes is best for her and her alone. Not congress bought by religious group to bolster their numbers.

How is it not an issue for the state? Regardless of what you believe the law should permit it’s still ultimately the state that makes those laws.

Should infanticide be an issue for the state for example? Or is it only not an issue for the state so long as say a viable baby hasn’t passed through the cervix?

 

[dowie]

From memory what tends to happen when abortion is banned is the number of successful, to term pregnancies doesn't go up to the same level that the number of abortions has theoretically dropped, but what does happen is the number of people who are of "child bearing ages" and die or need urgent medical care does go up.

Kinda the wrong way around, abortions started to become legal/decriminalised. When Roe v. Wade was decided the birth rate (unsurprisingly) dropped.

 

[dowie]

US birth rates were dropping since 1950 at least. Correlation is not equal to causation.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/birth-rate

That doesn't negate anything here, referring to some general drop just obfuscates it.

Roe v Wade and American fertility.

OBJECTIVES: This article examines the effect of abortion legalization on fertility rates in the United States. METHODS: Fertility rates were compared over time between states that varied in the timing of abortion legalization. RESULTS: States legalizing ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

OBJECTIVES: This article examines the effect of abortion legalization on fertility rates in the United States. METHODS: Fertility rates were compared over time between states that varied in the timing of abortion legalization. RESULTS: States legalizing abortion experienced a 4% decline in fertility relative to states where the legal status of abortion was unchanged. The relative reductions in births to teens, women more than 35 years of age, non-White women, and unmarried women were considerably larger. If women did not travel between states to obtain an abortion, the estimated impact of abortion legalization on birth rates would be about 11%. CONCLUSIONS: A complete recriminalization of abortion nationwide could result in 440,000 additional births per year. A reversal of the Roe v Wade decision leaving abortion legal in some states would substantially limit this impact because of the extent of travel between states.

If you actually look at some subsets of women, like say African Americans, then you get a much bigger drop too.

edit

And then 20 years after Roe v. Wade there was a huge drop in crime across America… coincidence?

That gets into dodgy territory tho...

 

[dowie]

It’s pretty interesting — anyone who’s read/listened to Freakonomics should be familiar with it:

New Study Claims Abortion is Behind Decrease in Crime

Informing a Smarter World

www.prb.org

Levit and Donohue suggest that abortions could account for anything up to 50% of the drop in crime seen around the mid-1990s. That, and the removal of lead from petrol appears to correlates with a reduction in violent crime…

Yup, though when this sort of thing gets into "do you know how many abortions black women have, legal abortion is good because we have way fewer black babies" territory then it gets rather dodgy.

To be fair to RBG it's not clear if she's simply referring to the views of the court at that time rather than her personal views but legal abortions being seen as a means to ensure slower population growth in some populations is seemingly a factor in some people's views:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1522728837297094657

 

[dowie]

*Edit* In fact quite honestly I feel like a topic such as this, Any legislation being made in regards to pregnancy / abortion should *only* be voted on by bona-fide "XX-chromosome's". Who are we (as men) to think we should have ANY say at all on this topic, much less dictate legislation and laws surrounding it?

That’s like something you’d see on an Instagram story being shared by multiple celebs. It’s not like the pro life camp is dominated by men, plenty of women have those views.

It’s fundamentally silly though in terms of how legislation is created in western democracies; there aren’t separate MPs or congress members for men and women.

 

[dowie]

You are quite correct, the pro life camp is not just men, there are indeed women there also. However if *only* women were allowed to vote on legislation surrounding abortion, it would indeed have the effect of giving women the power to decide, without interference of people whom are not affected by said legislation.
Very few issues in the world effect only a singular group of individuals with no effect on anyone else, as such this is a pretty unique situation which is unlikely to be replicated in any other such manner.
If the situation were reversed and it was deemed that all males should be forced to undergo reversible vasectomy, how many men would be willing to let women have a say on the matter?

Just because something is "the way it is now" does not mean it is the way it *should* be, that it is *fair* or even humane... Do not forget it is really not that long ago when "legislation" claimed that those of coloured skin were property and women were not worthy of voting so had no say over their lives. Times change, things evolve.

That last part is vague and doesn’t really address the obvious issues. Again it’s not like women only live in constituencies with female MPs nor is it the case that there are separate male and female MPs for each constituency. At what point do you even decide something is a male only or woman only issue? How is a woman living in an area with a male elected representative able to be represented on this? Likewise suppose some female MP is elected who can vote on this issue but most women constituents supported another candidate…

What other dividing lines should be drawn - only elderly MPs permitted to vote on some elderly issues? Only Jewish and Muslim MPs allowed to vote on religious circumcision? Or perhaps only male MPs?

It doesn’t seem to be particularly feasible or even particularly useful.

 

[dowie]

This fact check although about the fake news that plan b was made illegal in some states gives a pretty good explanation of why plan b won't be made illegal. https://www.factcheck.org/2022/05/p...and-missouri-contrary-to-social-media-claims/

Additionally I believe the governor quoted in the article you linked clarified his comments. As I said, it's just scaremongering and speculation

Yup, there certainly has been a fair bit of scaremongering over this, while there are obviously potentially serious consequences in some states I don't think hyping up the impact is particularly constructive either, this was seen in another thread where this topic came up and some articles were posted re: some silly amount of states supposedly making abortion illegal... upon closer inspection some were looking at harsh restrictions, others have some existing laws on the books however the assumption that there wouldn't be new legislation in some of these states in response to a ruling as indicated in the SC leak is highly dubious.

 

[dowie]

IIRC the claim in the other thread was as many as 26 states will “ban” abortion yet upon closer inspection that was a shaky claim.

When there are statements from local Republican politicians in favour of similar European limits and only a slight majority of republicans in power then the assumption that some old trigger law stay in place and new legislation won’t be brought in seems rather a bad one.

 

[dowie]

I suspect driving/getting transport to another state for a pill (or indeed getting it online) would be an easier option than filing a false rape accusation! (not that it won't happen in some rare scenarios but I don't think it's the main worry here).

 

[dowie]

I guess we'll see what happens now with individual states, it looks like the supreme court has overturned it.

Legally it does seem to be the right decision (that, constitutionally, abortion laws should, currently, be a matter for states to legislate on) obviously the consequences aren't necessarily too great in some states given that some wish to practically outlaw or heavily restrict it.

Some comments re: the constitution actually banning abortion, Kavanaugh dismisses that idea + doesn't think bans on traveling to other states for an abortion would be constitutional either:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1540341454865850376