(Insert Title Here)
Seagypsy said:
This debate (late term personhood vs personhood at birth) is off topic but since it keeps getting addressed. The statistics that Neverfly and I found indicate that late term abortion is mostly elective and only rarely for the preservation of the life of the mother or for sake compassionate euthanasia for a diseased or deformed fetus.
I referred to a specific, politically controversial method; D&X was at the heart of the Supreme Court cases for which the previously-cited
amicus brief was crafted. Intact Dilation and Extraction (D&X) is what is referred to as “partial birth abortion”.
Thus—
If purely elective D&X (partial birth abortion) was more common, it is possible I would try to figure another line.
—something about your point doesn't quite add up for me here.
But that doesn't specifically dismiss the question.
I would like address your point, though, in a slightly roundabout manner.
I asked a female friend of mine, earlier this week:
Barring mental illness, why would a woman put herself through thirty weeks of a pregnancy and then decide she doesn't want it?
I explained that I asked because the idea that a woman, two-thirds or more through a pregnancy, would decide to abort on a lark is something that, to the one, I can't comprehend, and to the other, is a stock myth of the anti-abortion canon. I don't think she would mind my relating that the question is as confounding to her as it seems to me.
Thus I would put the same question to you.
Because while
Neverfly noted, “
Even more figures- the highest figure was: Birth Control!” it isn't a complete point.
Of course, neither was mine, although the “twisted fantasies” I noted earlier are, well, pretty twisted. I have even heard before the suggestion that a woman would abort minutes before delivery as an act of revenge against the father. I should mention that it was in fact
one of your posts, when you asked, “
Tell me something, if a woman doesn't want a pregnancy, does she not figure that out before the third trimester?”
But, in the end, you've answered your own question better than I did. These are not decisions made on a lark, and, as it turns out, there are some difficult issues leading to late-term abortions.
In the question of methods, my understanding is that late-term elective abortions did not generally use D&X when it was more widely available. These used D&E or EASI induction, which procedures are not as restricted today in the United States as D&X.
I would also note, as you mentioned relevancy to the thread topic, that the actual purpose of this thread is to discuss the
implications of LACP, not, as has developed, the justifications for the principle. Naturally, in the face of the implications, the justifications become important.
But LACP does not simply affect the question of abortion; it affects all pregnancies.
One may argue, "oh but they didn't know, they were pressured, etc"... but it still denotes electively choosing late in term. There are plenty of times I chose a particular action only to find out after the fact, information that may have led me to choose something different. It does not negate that I chose. And not knowing abortion is available is a cop out.
It's a fine argument in the abstract, but what are the practical,
living realities? They can be pretty brutal; as
Rose Aguilar reported in 2010:
Starting from the beginning means revisiting the case of a 17-year-old girl from Vernal, Utah, who was seven months pregnant last May, when she paid 21-year-old Aaron Harrison $150 to beat her up after her boyfriend threatened to leave her if she didn’t terminate the pregnancy.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Harrison brought the girl to the basement of his parent’s house and attacked and kicked her, leaving bruises on her stomach and a bite mark on her neck. The baby survived the assault, was born in August, and has since been adopted.
Harrison, who faced 15 years in prison, pleaded guilty to second-degree felony attempted murder, but instead got up to five years, after District Judge A. Lynn Payne sentenced him under Utah’s anti-abortion statute, saying a charge of third-degree “attempted killing of an unborn child” better fit the facts of the case, according to the Tribune.
In June, the 17-year-old girl, whose name has not been released because of her age, pleaded no contest to a second-degree felony count of criminal solicitation to commit murder. Juvenile Court Judge Larry Steele ordered that she be placed in the custody of Utah Juvenile Justice Services until she turns 21, but she was released in October after the judge said that, under state law, “a woman who solicits or seeks to have another cause an abortion of her own unborn child cannot be criminally liable."
Perhaps that whole sad situation could have been avoided if the girl didn't need to travel over 170 miles to the nearest medical facility that provides abortion services. As it is, Utah's response was to tighten their anti-abortion laws.
And maybe the Vernal case is extreme, but Utah is a place where people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, in 2007, were statistically more likely to contract chlamydia than the flu. That's a whole state that lends to the point; the fine argument in the abstract becomes incredibly complicated. And, of course, something goes here about issues not being simple.
There are no definitive answers to the abortion question, but I think the point you raise oversimplifies the considerations of deciding to terminate a pregnancy. Which, of course, is one of the big problems I have with the absurd, fanatical anti-abortion arguments.
____________________
Notes:
Aguilar, Rose. "Utah Governor Signs Controversial Law Charging Women and Girls With Murder for Miscarriages". AlterNet. March 9, 2010. AlterNet.org. November 7, 2012. http://www.alternet.org/rights/1459...women_and_girls_with_murder_for_miscarriages_