Abortion Rates by Countries of the World

[Ken]

Could you go ahead and make your moral case for third trimester abortions?

Again, why are you obsessed with trimesters? What does it matter when the abortion happens if in your mind it is exactly the same act whether we are talking about aborting an undivided egg cell moments after fertilization, or a third trimester fetus?

Are you trying to make some sort of moral relativism argument where a 3rd trimester abortion is worse than using a morning after pill? Isn't that inconsistent with your entire moral construct about abortion?

Most people and most countries support restrictions or bans on second and third trimester abortions.

This seems like a reasonable political compromise. I am asking why making third trimester abortion on demand legal is so important.

I favour a gradual approach: over time, I would like to see abortion made more and more illegal until it is utterly banned. So I’m happy to start with restrictions on the third trimester and go from there.

I have no problems with restrictions on third trimester abortions and even prohibiting medically unnecessary third trimester abortions. They are rare to begin with anyway. But you are just arguing strategy not ethics or morality. There are FAR FAR more fertilized embryos discarded by the IVF industry than there are "on-demand" third trimester abortions. If you actually had the courage of your convictions you would advocate banning the IVF industry which kills hundreds of thousands of embryos before outlawing medically necessary third trimester abortions, which are already rare.

[ken_sylvania]

I have no problems with restrictions on third trimester abortions and even prohibiting medically unnecessary third trimester abortions. They are rare to begin with anyway. But you are just arguing strategy not ethics or morality. There are FAR FAR more fertilized embryos discarded by the IVF industry than there are "on-demand" third trimester abortions. If you actually had the courage of your convictions you would advocate banning the IVF industry which kills hundreds of thousands of embryos before outlawing medically necessary third trimester abortions, which are already rare.

I think IVF for humans is immoral and ought to be illegal.

[Josh]

Again, why are you obsessed with trimesters? What does it matter when the abortion happens if in your mind it is exactly the same act whether we are talking about aborting an undivided egg cell moments after fertilization, or a third trimester fetus?

Are you trying to make some sort of moral relativism argument where a 3rd trimester abortion is worse than using a morning after pill? Isn't that inconsistent with your entire moral construct about abortion?

Most people and most countries support restrictions or bans on second and third trimester abortions.

This seems like a reasonable political compromise. I am asking why making third trimester abortion on demand legal is so important.

I favour a gradual approach: over time, I would like to see abortion made more and more illegal until it is utterly banned. So I’m happy to start with restrictions on the third trimester and go from there.

I have no problems with restrictions on third trimester abortions and even prohibiting medically unnecessary third trimester abortions. They are rare to begin with anyway. But you are just arguing strategy not ethics or morality. There are FAR FAR more fertilized embryos discarded by the IVF industry than there are "on-demand" third trimester abortions. If you actually had the courage of your convictions you would advocate banning the IVF industry which kills hundreds of thousands of embryos before outlawing medically necessary third trimester abortions, which are already rare.

I am opposed to IVF to the degree of telling infertile couples face to face it is immoral and they shouldn’t do it. And yes, it should be illegal, along with other things like surrogates.

[steve-in-kville]

I am opposed to IVF to the degree of telling infertile couples face to face it is immoral and they shouldn’t do it. And yes, it should be illegal, along with other things like surrogates.

What about AI in humans?

[Josh]

I am opposed to IVF to the degree of telling infertile couples face to face it is immoral and they shouldn’t do it. And yes, it should be illegal, along with other things like surrogates.

What about AI in humans?

If you mean IUI, it is unnecessary and ineffective, but I would have difficulty claiming it is immoral. IVF results in lots of tiny babies stored in a freezer.

[steve-in-kville]

I am opposed to IVF to the degree of telling infertile couples face to face it is immoral and they shouldn’t do it. And yes, it should be illegal, along with other things like surrogates.

What about AI in humans?

If you mean IUI, it is unnecessary and ineffective, but I would have difficulty claiming it is immoral. IVF results in lots of tiny babies stored in a freezer.

Oh, yeah, thats what I meant. I knew there was a better term but couldn't think of it immediately.

[HondurasKeiser]

Jay Nordlinger has a really thoughtful reflection on the complexities of the issue at National Review today:

A baby had been born — John Francis McKay. He was born with a cleft palate, a harelip, and a heart condition. His father, Daniel, told the doctor not to do anything “heroic.” Then, when John was 25 minutes old, his father took him to a corner of the delivery room and bashed his head against the floor. Twice. That finished the baby.

And the father was charged with murder.

The Tribune columnist said something like, “Is what he did so different from abortion? If the baby had been aborted some days or weeks before, everyone would have understood and applauded. And now, a murder charge?”

In 2015, a student at Muskingum University, in Ohio, killed her baby, immediately after she (the baby) was born. The mother, the murderer, Emile Weaver, was sentenced to life in prison. In a piece about the case, I wrote,

Judge Fleegle told Emile that her baby had been “an inconvenience, and you took care of it.” Could not the same be said about millions and millions of abortions? To be sure, there are very hard cases, and some pregnant women make a desperate, anguished decision. But aren’t other abortions simply a matter of . . . you know, taking care of it?

And how did Emile Weaver take care of it? “With her own hands,” I wrote.

That is, she killed her baby herself. Other women — her sorority sisters, perhaps — have others do the killing, in clinics. Emile could have too. It is neater, and it is of course lawful. But is it different, really and truly?

In my final paragraph — a summing up — I wrote,

Emile did a very bad thing. A monstrous and evil thing. But is she worse — all that much worse — than her counterparts who dispose of their babies earlier and more neatly? I have a hard time buying it. And I think we are a deeply hypocritical society.

I really do.

I knew a lot of people — a lot of good people — who were pro-choice: people I admired, even loved. As I think about it, almost all of my nearest and dearest have been pro-choice. What am I to make of that? I think a lot of people have never really considered the issue — not in any sustained, probing way. I also think that people have blind spots, to all sorts of things. Maybe I do too.

Many years ago, I walked past three women of my acquaintance. One of them was pregnant, and they were oohing and aahing over the sonograms. All of them were pro-choice. I said, “Remember, that’s just a meaningless blob of protoplasm.”

They were so mad — hopping mad. I shouldn’t have said it. I was immature, rambunctious. Still, I don’t see how you can get googly over a sonogram while denying that a fetus is a human being deserving of life.

Another time, I was talking with a pro-choice friend of mine about abortion. She was a wonderful woman: humane, warm, loving. She had recently had a son, whom she adored. Because I could talk to her, I asked whether the experience of having a child affected her pro-choice position. She said no. I wondered why this was so. She said she couldn’t explain it.

Fine. A lot of things can’t be explained.

Whenever I think about abortion, or am challenged to think about it, I come back to one question: What is it? I’m not talking about abortion now — I’m talking about the object inside the mother’s womb. What is it? Is it a human life, a baby — even a very tiny baby? And if it’s not, what is it? What is it instead? This is the question I can’t get around. This is the question I have never been able to get around. You cannot nuance abortion, in my opinion. Ultimately, you have to face the question: What is it?

[temporal1]

Thanks, HK. ^^^

i try to designate, the big brouhaha is specifically about PROTECTING+PROMOTING ABORTION CORPORATE PROFITS.
once recognized, it’s not at all complicated.

beyond horrible. not at all complicated.

it’s not about the act. it’s about territorial corporations ensuring “NO DIY.” $$$$

- - - - - - -

there are “no material differences” in whether an infant is killed by a distraught parent, or left to die on a jungle floor by remote tribes in S.A. or Africa, or in gov sanctioned sterile clinics/labs in Manhatten.

i seriously doubt the sacrificed infants could discern one fate as superior to others.
brutally murdered is brutally murdered.

“gov sanctions” do not sanitize the acts. they cause puzzling blindness of witnesses. and voters.

[temporal1]

HK,
Just above, you shared an article questioning legalities of DIY abortion versus gov sanctioned for-profit corporate abortion.
A good question.

This video asks a similar question, to paraphrse, “How are gov sanctioned assasins different from mafia hit men?”
Another good question.



i feel sorry for the young medical student. in time, she’s likely to regret this interview, as she experiences more, learns more, and changes her mind. i feel sorry for young people today, literally growing up on the world’s stage, no privacy to make stupid mistakes.
i doubt this is a net gain for healthy human development. humans need time to grow up. unrecorded.