USA abortion rights

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#2913244 13-May-2022 09:05

At least you have the maturity to not look at life as a series of black-and-white events, as that's progress.

Here's something I should print on a T-shirt: "life, birth, death are messy."

Let's take an easier subject: death. When is someone dead?

When someone stops breathing? For thousands of years this would be enough.

When the heart stops? It's constantly starting and stopping. So if used this premise, you are forced to pick an artificial time that it's stopped. 30 seconds, one minute, five minutes ???

When the brain stops? Let's say someone's pupils don’t respond to light, and shows no reaction to pain, can't breathe when the ventilator is switched off. However electroencephalogram test shows some brain activity. Are they dead?

Unfortunately you've jumped over the part that only women can give birth (currently). Even if the idea is giving up the baby for adoption, it's expensive and inconvenient at best, and at worst deadly.

Lastly, if adoption rates matched current abortion rates, at least "pro-life" attitude would have some morality.

In New Zealand there are about 100 adoptions each year. There are about 13,000 abortions. It pains me there's a lot of about loving babies, without actually adopting unwanted babies.

While you may allow gray areas in life's development, most anti-abortion protestors adopt a light-switch sperm + egg = human attitude. Also women are considered baby producing drones.

There's a joke if men could get pregnant, more men would be pro-choice.

Technofreak

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#2913762 13-May-2022 21:55

gzt:
Technofreak: My logic says that if it’s not OK to kill a baby outside of the womb what makes it OK to terminate that life at some point prior to it being born? You may not see it the way I do, but hopefully this helps explain the reasoning behind my point of view.

A egg just fertilized is clearly not a baby. This part of your argument is not logical.

Did I say it was?

Since I have given my answer to this, you mind answering this question for me please?

When do you consider a life starts?

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#2913899 14-May-2022 11:02

I must say, in all your post, you seem more interested in gut-feelings than actual science. You haven't posted a single link, or reference to any outside source.

I know this is hard to believe, but more than a few people with advanced degrees have pondered these questions.

Life and a baby are two different things.

A cancer cell and zygotes are alive.

Life and death are messy as I mentioned; there's no light-switch moment where one millisecond you're in one state, and the next you're in a different state.

By about 24 weeks, the fetus has a chance of survival outside the uterus and almost all organs are completely formed.

If I was a lawmaker looking for a non-scientific compromise, that'd made nobody happy, I'd pick 24 weeks. I'd allow any anyone of any age low-cost access to birth-control and "morning after" pills.

This assumes no rape, incest, and a reasonable chance for healthy outcomes.

Again "gut feelings" by men don't help the debate.

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#2914023 14-May-2022 17:53

Washington Post: Your phone could reveal if you’ve had an abortion

When someone gets an abortion, they may decide not to share information with friends and family members. But chances are their smartphone knows.

The leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion proposing to overturn Roe v. Wade raises a data privacy flash point: If abortion becomes criminal in some states, might a person’s data trail be treated as evidence?

There is precedent for it, and privacy advocates say data collection could become a major liability for people seeking abortions in secret. Phones can record communications, search histories, body health data and other information. Just Tuesday, there was new evidence that commercial data brokers sell location information gathered from the phones of people who visit abortion clinics.

“It is absolutely something to be concerned about — and something to learn about, hopefully before being in a crisis mode, where learning on the fly might be more difficult,” said Cynthia Conti-Cook, a technology fellow at the Ford Foundation.

It is now common for law enforcement to make use of the contents of people’s phones, including location and browsing information. One case against an alleged Jan. 6 insurrectionist drew upon thousands of pages of data from the suspect’s phone as well as Facebook records, prosecutors said.

A major data source is our digital surveillance economy — Facebook, Google and apps galore — in which companies track consumers to figure out how to sell to them. The data may change hands several times or seep into a broader marketplace run by data brokers. Such brokers can amass huge collections of information.

That data is an easy target for subpoenas, or court orders, and many tech companies do not give straight answers about what information they would be willing to hand over. Google, for one, reports that it received more than 40,000 subpoenas and search warrants in the United States in the first half of 2021.

Police and private citizens alike could buy data and use it to investigate suspected abortions. Phone location information has been used by activist groups to target ads at people in abortion clinics to try to dissuade them.
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Technofreak

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#2914169 15-May-2022 11:00

@gzt Still wondering what your answer is to the question I asked in my previous post.

As I mentioned I have given my answer to when I think life starts. To help understand your point of view it would be helpful to know when you consider life starts?

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#2914201 15-May-2022 12:44

It seems like you're trying to set up a fallacy of division, or a Strawman argument

"What does life begin?" is the not the same as "when do we become human?"

A just fertilized egg, about the same as a strand of hair, is not human.

No rational person would look upon something as human that lacks fingers, toes, a brain, sex organs.

If you want to get Biblical, in Exodus 21:22 it states that if a man causes a woman to have a miscarriage, he shall be fined.

However, if the woman dies then he will be put to death.

There you have it: fetus not equal human.

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#2916484 20-May-2022 12:54

The Louisiana law would charged women with murder, and had no exception even if the mother's life was in danger.

Reuters: Louisiana lawmakers withdraw bill declaring abortion homicide

A bill in the Louisiana legislature aiming to charge women and their doctors with murder for obtaining or providing abortion services was withdrawn from consideration on Thursday amid outrage and a successful effort to amend it.

The measure by state Representative Danny McCormick would have would have abolished abortion in the state, granted constitutional rights to "all unborn children from the moment of fertilization" and classified abortion as a homicide crime.
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#2916486 20-May-2022 13:03

LA Times: California judge overturns 11-year prison term for woman whose baby was stillborn

A California woman’s 11-year prison sentence was overturned this week after a judge ruled that her plea agreement for voluntary manslaughter was unlawful.

Adora Perez was originally charged with murder after delivering a stillborn baby in 2017. Tests revealed that her son, Hades, had methamphetamine in his system, and a doctor told investigators he believed the drug was responsible for the death, court records show.

Fearful that she could be facing a possible life sentence, Perez pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced in June 2018 to 11 years in prison.

The case opened up a years-long legal battle that continues even after a County Superior Court Judge signed an order Wednesday overturning Perez’s plea and sentence.

“All parties admit that voluntary manslaughter of a fetus is not a crime in California. Faced with [her] illegal plea bargain based upon a factual or legal impossibility … the trial court should have withheld its approval of the same.”

Perez was released from state prison to Kings County Jail, according to the order. The murder charge was reinstated, and she was ordered to appear in court April 6.

Adora Perez was imprisoned for delivering a stillborn baby after using drugs. Her case largely went unnoticed until another woman was charged.
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Technofreak

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#2922485 3-Jun-2022 22:50

kingdragonfly: It seems like you're trying to set up a fallacy of division, or a Strawman argument

"What does life begin?" is the not the same as "when do we become human?"

A just fertilized egg, about the same as a strand of hair, is not human.

No rational person would look upon something as human that lacks fingers, toes, a brain, sex organs.

If you want to get Biblical, in Exodus 21:22 it states that if a man causes a woman to have a miscarriage, he shall be fined.

However, if the woman dies then he will be put to death.

There you have it: fetus not equal human.

I've been trying to understand your logic.

It seems you don't want to acknowledge where life starts as you keep putting up smoke screens like comparing a fertilised egg with a strand of hair. A strand of hair will only ever be a strand of hair. A fertilised egg will eventually grow into an adult, with many stages of development along the way.

Here's a couple of questions for you to ponder. You dont have to answer on this thread but I ask you to at least give them some thought.

Where does life for that adult human being start?

Once that life has begun what is the moral justification to terminate that life? I'm talking in general terms, as always there are what ifs, I'm not talking about those.

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JayADee

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#2922586 4-Jun-2022 13:05

I don't care if it's alive or not. If some being attaches itself to me and I don't want it there, it's getting detached pronto. Kills it or not I don't care. Adult or foetus I don't care. My body is mine. It certainly isn't for any male to decide. Margaret Atwood your dystopia is closer than ever.

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#2923091 5-Jun-2022 21:09

Stuff: How the horrifying reality of America’s fight for abortion rights could affect Kiwi women

From the team at Capsule.

With abortion rights being curtailed in the US, how might this affect New Zealand women – and how can we stand with the sisterhood?

OPINION: Women’s sovereignty over our own bodies: it’s a right that our feminist forebears fought fiercely for and that we’ll fight for if the need arises – though it bloody better not. Does anyone else want to simultaneously throw up and kick the wall when we think about what’s happening in the United States?
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Shockingly, some states are preparing to take this further. Louisiana is looking at classifying abortions as homicides. Idaho may prohibit the morning-after pill and IUDs (intra-uterine devices used as contraception). Missouri may ban ‘abortions’ for ectopic pregnancies, which are life-threatening and won’t lead to babies. It’s even possible that miscarriages could be considered crimes. Miscarriages. Has The Handmaid’s Tale become real life? Excuse us while we scream into a pillow.
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Tracy says what’s happening in the US should definitely concern New Zealand women. “We’ve seen the recent rolling back of abortion rights in other countries, like Poland and El Salvador. However, having the US following this conservative trend is worrying because it’s a very influential country, not just formally in the policy space, as with the Global Gag Rule [a dangerous anti-abortion policy that risks the health and lives of women around the world], but in shaping values and views across the globe.”

“We saw an extreme version of this [influence] during the anti-vax protests here in New Zealand [in Parliament grounds] as some people sported Trump slogans, flew the US flag, and shared extremist right-wing content produced in the US. So, the worry is that restricting abortion rights would embolden conservatives here in New Zealand, and in other countries.”
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#2923093 5-Jun-2022 21:14

National Institutes of Health NIH is one of the world's foremost medical research centers. A part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, NIH is the largest biomedical research agency in the world.

NHI: Emotions and decision rightness over five years following an abortion: An examination of decision difficulty and abortion stigma
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We found no evidence of emerging negative emotions or abortion decision regret; both positive and negative emotions declined over the first two years and plateaued thereafter, and decision rightness remained high and steady (predicted percent: 97.5% at baseline, 99.0% at five years).

At five years postabortion, relief remained the most commonly felt emotion among all women (predicted mean on 0-4 scale: 1.0; 0.6 for sadness and guilt; 0.4 for regret, anger and happiness).

Despite converging levels of emotions by decision difficulty and stigma level over time, these two factors remained most important for predicting negative emotions and decision non-rightness years later.

Conclusions: These results add to the scientific evidence that emotions about an abortion are associated with personal and social context, and are not a product of the abortion procedure itself.

Findings challenge the rationale for policies regulating access to abortion that are premised on emotional harm claims.
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Technofreak

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#2923099 5-Jun-2022 22:25

JayADee:

I don't care if it's alive or not. If some being attaches itself to me and I don't want it there, it's getting detached pronto. Kills it or not I don't care. Adult or foetus I don't care. My body is mine. It certainly isn't for any male to decide. Margaret Atwood your dystopia is closer than ever.

Just like with another poster on this thread I'm struggling to follow your logic.

I presume you understand that "some being" as you describe it didn't just mysteriously attach itself to you. It got there by you deciding to take part in an activity that is designed to put it there. You chose to take part in an activity that will quite possibly result in you becoming pregnant. This outcome should not be a surprise. I'm not talking about any male making a decision for you.

All these protestations about women's rights, women's choice etc miss the point in my opinion. Women have every right to decide whether or not they wish to become pregnant. Once they have become pregnant there's now another life at stake and the " it's my body, my choice" argument is no longer as straightforward as it was beforehand.

If you think this is just the opinion of a male then you need to hear the opinion of some of the women I know. Their opinion is stronger on this issue than mine.

As for what's happening or being reported as happening in the US with the changes to the abortion laws. I think it is disgusting that some want to relitigate cases that have were decided years ago with respect to homicide or murder charges just because the laws as it might stand now makes what happened in the past illegal. I don't agree with abortion (as it is generally being used as a means of birth control), but also I see no benefit whatsoever to dredge up old cases like is being reported as happening. Let bygones be bygones and get on with life.

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#2923132 6-Jun-2022 08:03

Technofreak:

All these protestations about women's rights, women's choice etc miss the point in my opinion. Women have every right to decide whether or not they wish to become pregnant. Once they have become pregnant there's now another life at stake and the " it's my body, my choice" argument is no longer as straightforward as it was beforehand.

I find it hard to fathom how someone as obviously intelligent and educated as you are, can seriously put up an argument built across such a gaping moral sinkhole. Have you ever met a frightened 15 year-old girl? Or even one as young as 12? Human females are capable of conception as soon as they hit puberty and the biological imperative doesn’t give a damn about ‘choice’ or family values or personal responsibility or the bible or any other moralistic crap. A child can be the victim of rape or incest and many are. A child can also engage in sexual activity without fully understanding the possible consequences. So can many adults, for that matter. Yet you seem to be saying that any female who becomes pregnant under any circumstance must be made to carry the foetus to term, regardless of the damage this does her. How can you possibly believe this?

Children who become pregnant are not that exceptional, but let’s pretend for a moment they are. You say the foetus ‘got there by you deciding to take part in an activity that will quite possibly result in you becoming pregnant. This outcome should not be a surprise. I'm not talking about any male making a decision for you.’

Actually, you are talking about an act that cannot occur without male participation. And just like all the other Moses males who feel they have some kind of special moral authority to make decisions for women, you gloss over that fact and make it all the woman’s problem. In any case, her ‘decision’, if that is what it was, is none of your damned business. If you really have such a huge need to appoint yourself guardian of the galaxy, why not start with all the underfed children already on the planet, instead of obsessing over those not yet born?

Please think about this some more. You seem to assume every unwanted pregnancy is the result of female carelessness during a moment of pleasure-seeking abandon. This is so far from the reality that it makes one wonder if you actually even know any women.

If you want to talk about responsibility, how about the responsibility to not bring another unwanted and unloved child into the world? How about the responsibility to not drive frightened and desperate girls to back-alley knitting needle abortionists? I don’t know how old you are, but I well remember the time when this was the only ‘choice’ for many. That is why safe medical abortion was made legal.

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#2923143 6-Jun-2022 09:20

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