Respectful debate about abortion, anyone? (March, ideologies, rating, leader)
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OB/GYN residents are allowed to opt out of learning to do abortions now, so there are OB/GYNs out there that haven't been trained to do them. Likewise, if they haven't had the training, they can't obtain malpractice coverage for them or hospital privileges to perform them.
Not true. See my anecdote about my OB/GYN refusing to take my drug-addicted SIL as a patient. A doctor has a choice of specialties. An ENT specialist or a podiatrist or an oncologist is not likely going to be asked to perform an abortion.
You just said it right there. They have a choice of specialties. If performing abortions' goes against your values, then go into a another specialty. Sounds simple right.
You just said it right there. They have a choice of specialties. If performing abortions goes against your values, then go into a another specialty. Sounds simple right.
This isn't correct at all. A standard ob/gyn practice, such as the one I go to, includes a number of things such as care of low-risk pregnant women, child delivery, routine screening for gynaecological problems, etc. But within the ob/gyn field there are a wide variety of specialties, such as high-risk pregnancy, infertility, oncology, etc.,
An ob/gyn who is not a fertility specialist will send a woman to a specialist for an in vitro procedure. An ob/gyn who is not an oncologist will send a woman with cervical cancer to a specialist. An ob/gyn who is not a high-risk pregnancy specialist will send a woman having quadruplets to a doctor who is.
These situations are not standard care. Providing abortion on demand is also not standard care and is not offered by most (>85%) ob/gyns; they are absolutely permitted to refuse to do so on moral and other grounds.
Sometimes a physician will select a profession and be fine, even happy with performing abortions because they are pro abortion rights and believe it’s the right thing to do but have a change of mind and heart somewhere along the way and start to see things differently. Dr Anthony Levatino comes to mind as one.
People’s views on abortion can change. I know mine have.
So have mine. When I was 16, a good friend became pregnant and after talking with her boyfriend's parents, decided to have an abortion. Another friend and I were horrified. We tried to talk her out of it, and the day we knew she went for the abortion, we were together hoping until the last minute that she would change her mind.
Meanwhile, another girl a grade ahead of us at school had shown us photos of women's bodies when they were found dead after illegal abortions, having bled out and died in the street or an alley, I guess while Roe v Wade was in the news. (That had to be a couple of years earlier, since I was 16 in 1974 when abortion was already legal.) At that time, my thought was "well, what did they expect to happen by doing that?"
Now I know life isn't always so black-and-white. My life and experience and knowledge isn't everyone else's. I was the teenager who read up on sex and reproduction and birth control and had all the facts to share with my friends, even though I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being asked on a date, let alone have sex at that age. But I realized that other people didn't have the same desire to learn as I did or believed totally stupid things, like the friend who had sex even though her BC pills had run out so took one of her friend's pills, a different prescription, the next day thinking that would prevent the pregnancy from occurring. It didn't.
I grew up in a nice, safe suburb with books and information everywhere, and I've read stories of clinic workers in poor ghettos who have young women come to them and swear they can't be pregnant because their boyfriend told them they couldn't get pregnant if they only have sex on Sunday. I know there are women who were molested their whole childhood and by their teenage years were addicted to drugs and selling their bodies to support their habits. Are we going to tell them with our self-righteous air that they should be forced to carry a child that was conceived by an encounter with a John while the pains of withdrawal wracked their bodies? And could we not go further and ask if it is not then a mercy to terminate a life created in such a moment?
So have mine. When I was 16, a good friend became pregnant and after talking with her boyfriend's parents, decided to have an abortion. Another friend and I were horrified. We tried to talk her out of it, and the day we knew she went for the abortion, we were together hoping until the last minute that she would change her mind.
Meanwhile, another girl a grade ahead of us at school had shown us photos of women's bodies when they were found dead after illegal abortions, having bled out and died in the street or an alley, I guess while Roe v Wade was in the news. (That had to be a couple of years earlier, since I was 16 in 1974 when abortion was already legal.) At that time, my thought was "well, what did they expect to happen by doing that?"
Now I know life isn't always so black-and-white. My life and experience and knowledge isn't everyone else's. I was the teenager who read up on sex and reproduction and birth control and had all the facts to share with my friends, even though I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being asked on a date, let alone have sex at that age. But I realized that other people didn't have the same desire to learn as I did or believed totally stupid things, like the friend who had sex even though her BC pills had run out so took one of her friend's pills, a different prescription, the next day thinking that would prevent the pregnancy from occurring. It didn't.
I grew up in a nice, safe suburb with books and information everywhere, and I've read stories of clinic workers in poor ghettos who have young women come to them and swear they can't be pregnant because their boyfriend told them they couldn't get pregnant if they only have sex on Sunday. I know there are women who were molested their whole childhood and by their teenage years were addicted to drugs and selling their bodies to support their habits. Are we going to tell them with our self-righteous air that they should be forced to carry a child that was conceived by an encounter with a John while the pains of withdrawal wracked their bodies? And could we not go further and ask if it is not then a mercy to terminate a life created in such a moment?
Excellent questions. However, I fear that the people who run the most conservative states in this country are going to do exactly what you are describing. The Supreme Court is going to rule that abortion is a decision that will be left to the states rather than individual women. That will allow states to enact virtually absolute bans on abortion if they desire. We are about to descend into a very dark night that I did not think was possible just a few years ago.
The discussion here has actually been excellent and has not degenerated into name-calling or such. The vast majority of opinions on this subject are reasonable ones. Even those who believe in limits have stated their case well. Unfortunately, the mood in some places in this country is to move towards an absolute or near absolute ban on abortion. These are people who don't believe in compromise or discussion. They want their way and they have the votes to get it in some places. They will do much harm and reasonable people will be powerless to stop them.
This isn't correct at all. A standard ob/gyn practice, such as the one I go to, includes a number of things such as care of low-risk pregnant women, child delivery, routine screening for gynaecological problems, etc. But within the ob/gyn field there are a wide variety of specialties, such as high-risk pregnancy, infertility, oncology, etc.,
An ob/gyn who is not a fertility specialist will send a woman to a specialist for an in vitro procedure. An ob/gyn who is not an oncologist will send a woman with cervical cancer to a specialist. An ob/gyn who is not a high-risk pregnancy specialist will send a woman having quadruplets to a doctor who is.
These situations are not standard care. Providing abortion on demand is also not standard care and is not offered by most (>85%) ob/gyns; they are absolutely permitted to refuse to do so on moral and other grounds.
This is no different than other fields like pain management where a doctor may choose to provide opioid pain medications or elects to provide other non-opioid options only. There is nothing that requires a pain management provider to prescribe those substances if s/he doesn’t feel comfortable with it.
I am pro-life, and we also adopted a 4 week old infant with Down syndrome (I'm saying this as if the subject of aborting those with DS comes up, I'll be back.)
We saw a photo of an 8 week pre-born human, but I would like to bring some "life" to the pre-born:
"At 8 weeks pregnant, your baby is growing at a rate of a millimeter a day and the lips, nose and eyelids are forming."
"Your little one's heart is beating at the incredible rate of about 150 to 170 times per minute — roughly twice as fast as yours."
If allowed, it should go back to the states to decide as it is a state issue. As far as abortion for rape, incest and children under 15, that accounts for about 1% of the abortions. As far as who will care for the babies if born, thousands of couples in the US and Europe are eager to adopt a baby, even costing $20,000 to $40,000+ because of "supply and demand". If adoption wasn't so costly, and requiring years of waiting, I believe many more singles/couples would be eager to adopt, even minority and babies with special needs. In 2018, 658 women in the USA died because of maternal problems, but I'm not sure how many opted to carry a baby with a possibility of problems, since some want a baby so badly, they would litereally do anything: https://www.vox.com/2020/1/30/211137...mortality-rate
So, that is why I will continue to be pro-life, and vote against all candidates that are not. I don't see a middle ground, and think many others do not. If a "medical" decision needs to be made where the life of the mother is in danger, that would be the only time I would be negotiable on abortion. (I am a female with two children.)
"As far as abortion for rape, incest and children under 15, that accounts for about 1% of the abortions"
As you say this about the 1% I have to ask what you would want to do about them. Just saying there are not too many pregnancies resulting from rape or incest doesn't tell me how you would handle those situations. Would you want to force them to go through 9 months of pregnancy and give birth?
Since I am opposed IN EVERY CASE to the death penalty, yes. A person who commits murder, such a serial killer, should be sequestered for the rest of their lives by society, yet treated kindly.
The DP, with all it's planning and meditation, is abhorrent.
Late term abortion is not planned. It happens when something goes terribly wrong and the doctors must make a CHOICE BETWEEN an FETUS and a fully developed WOMAN. It is very tragic. For the woman and her husband.
However, it is less tragic that letting the woman die in favor for the fetus. This is why fewer women die in childbirth since the post WWII period.
Additionally, I will give the Roman Catholic Church an "A" for consistency. They are and as far as I have known, always been opposed to capital punishment and termination of pregnancy at any time.
I think individual Catholics who I have spoken to, are quite in favor of the DP.
Let's keep things in perspective. The majority of anti-abortion activists in the United States are in fact women. This may come as a shock for a lot of people, but this has been the case for decades.
Restricting abortion is not primarily about men limiting the rights of women.
I also disagree with the idea that men should not have a part in the debate. A woman can only get pregnant by a man. The unborn child inside of a woman is also a man's child. So, of course his opinion on whether to abort the unborn child should carry weight.
Do you have any statistics that "The majority of anti-abortion activists in the United States are in fact women" ?
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