(06-24-2024, 07:55 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: I know abortion has been used for a political football by both sides for a very long time. Abortion is now a state issue, in my opinion as it should be. The more radical to the right will attempt (and hopefully fail to limit abortion to never or extreme term limits like 12 or 14 weeks. The far left will align with abortion is a women's right and her choice to abort up until birth for any reason.

Trump's stance is well documented, he wants states to handle abortion state by state and does not support a national ban. He supports term limits (states decide) with exceptions for rape, incest or health of mother or baby.

I know it is hard but let's try to remove politics and look at the human element. For years, I wanted only abortions for rape, incest or health of the mother/baby. In 2024, the morning after pills and all of the different types of contraception have changed dramatically for the better for a woman that does not want to get pregnant.

Is it unreasonable to feel a baby becomes a human from a fetus and as this happens, the baby needs protection also. I have changed my position even though I still believe any of actions requires responsibility. I also understand in most cases, women have a tough decision to make to abort a baby. That is why I feel 16-to-20-week term limits is a compromise. The baby enjoys rights in this scenario and so does the mother up until the time the baby can live outside the womb or feel pain.

Is Trump's stance as radical as many claim? What do you feel about term limits? Should there be term limits? Should the baby get rights also at some point?

(06-25-2024, 07:43 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: If there was a magical week of pregnancy where if you get by it the possibility of complications disappeared I would be ok with trying to slap a number on it. But as far as I know there is no such thing.

I occasionally see these types of stories. https://www.fox19.com/2024/06/25/worse-than-prisoners-war-clermont-county-parents-indicted-child-abuse/

And while I have no idea who the mother was or what she was thinking. This story to me looks like unwanted special needs kids that ended up getting tortured in foster care. Restrictive abortion policy will create more of these stories imo.

(06-24-2024, 08:06 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: If you're looking for personal opinions, mine would be 15 weeks on an elective aborting and no limit on a medically necessary abortion for the physical health of the mother.

(06-25-2024, 07:43 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: If there was a magical week of pregnancy where if you get by it the possibility of complications disappeared I would be ok with trying to slap a number on it. But as far as I know there is no such thing.

I occasionally see these types of stories. https://www.fox19.com/2024/06/25/worse-than-prisoners-war-clermont-county-parents-indicted-child-abuse/

And while I have no idea who the mother was or what she was thinking. This story to me looks like unwanted special needs kids that ended up getting tortured in foster care. Restrictive abortion policy will create more of these stories imo.

(06-25-2024, 08:10 PM)CJD Wrote: The issue is defining what is and is not medically necessary and how to verify that in a timely manner such that action can be taken.

If all it needed was any doctor's sign off, then that would be good, but the right would just cry about "radical left wing doctors" approving abortions as necessary when they really aren't because they hate babies.

The next option is to have a medical board that approves decisions. But what does that approval process look like? Can they respond in a matter of minutes? How does a doctor properly portray all the complicated and nuanced reasons or data points that makes them believe an abortion is necessary? Do you have time to wait for approval when lives are on the line?

The third option would be to allow doctors to act at their own discretion in the moment, but then review their actions in hind sight and potentially hold the doctors responsible if you determine they deemed an unnecessary abortion necessary. But then you'd start having doctors turn women away because they don't want to risk legal or financial issues if a faceless board does not agree with their assessments which can be complicated or judgment calls.

Or, we can just trust that if a woman is staying pregnant for 15 or 20 weeks, she wouldn't just have an abortion after that for fun.

According to the CDC, Only 6.9% of abortions in 2020 occurred after 13 weeks. the surveillance does not differentiate between necessary and unnecessary abortions within that 6.9%, but I imagine a vast majority of them were nearing the necessary side by most people's judgments. Why create an entire advisory board and approval process (or whatever other options there are to monitor necessary vs unnecessary) for something that could be as small as 1 to 2% of all abortions nationwide, especially when it could lead to deaths of the mothers in the other 5 to 6%?

(06-25-2024, 08:10 PM)CJD Wrote: The issue is defining what is and is not medically necessary and how to verify that in a timely manner such that action can be taken.

If all it needed was any doctor's sign off, then that would be good, but the right would just cry about "radical left wing doctors" approving abortions as necessary when they really aren't because they hate babies.

The next option is to have a medical board that approves decisions. But what does that approval process look like? Can they respond in a matter of minutes? How does a doctor properly portray all the complicated and nuanced reasons or data points that makes them believe an abortion is necessary? Do you have time to wait for approval when lives are on the line?

The third option would be to allow doctors to act at their own discretion in the moment, but then review their actions in hind sight and potentially hold the doctors responsible if you determine they deemed an unnecessary abortion necessary. But then you'd start having doctors turn women away because they don't want to risk legal or financial issues if a faceless board does not agree with their assessments which can be complicated or judgment calls.

Or, we can just trust that if a woman is staying pregnant for 15 or 20 weeks, she wouldn't just have an abortion after that for fun.

According to the CDC, Only 6.9% of abortions in 2020 occurred after 13 weeks. the surveillance does not differentiate between necessary and unnecessary abortions within that 6.9%, but I imagine a vast majority of them were nearing the necessary side by most people's judgments. Why create an entire advisory board and approval process (or whatever other options there are to monitor necessary vs unnecessary) for something that could be as small as 1 to 2% of all abortions nationwide, especially when it could lead to deaths of the mothers in the other 5 to 6%?

(06-25-2024, 09:31 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: I’m being as genuine as possible here - I have never seen someone advocate for no term limits on abortions. I am sure there are some people who do, but they are the fringe. Most people on each side of the aisle are going to be reasonable people. Complete bans and no term limits are not reasonable positions.

(06-25-2024, 11:54 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Yes, you have.  They just don't use that wording.  Numerous times politicians have dodged the elective abortion in the third trimester question with the canned response, "that's a discussion between a woman and her doctor."  If you're against third trimester elective abortions then you should be able to say exactly that.  I am very pro-choice, but I also have zero issue saying that an elective abortion of a viable fetus should not be permissible.

(06-26-2024, 01:21 AM)pally Wrote: So are you for the original protections provided In the Roe vs Wade decision?  That is what the position of the Democratic Party

(06-26-2024, 01:53 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I've explained this before.  Absolutely not.  First, the idea that abortion was a constitutional right under the 14th's right to privacy was insanely tenuous.  A more unkind way of putting it would be judicial activism.  Secondly, making it a constitutional right meant it had absolutely no restrictions (unlike the 2nd amendment for some reason).  The US was a far, far outlier in terms of abortion access, being far more permissive than any other Western style democracy.  It's only real equivalent was China.  A 12 week elective abortion limit would be completely in line with most of Europe.

https://www.epfweb.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/ABORT%20Atlas_EN%202021-v5.pdf

Be mad all you like, but Roe was a very radical decision on several levels.  Safe, legal abortion access should be a cornerstone of a modern society.  But near unfettered elective abortion is absolutely not in line with much of the Western world.  You guys relied on a flawed decision for decades without codifying anything into law, blame Obama for that btw.  

(06-25-2024, 08:34 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: You make a lot of interesting points. The question that comes to mind is why those who want no term limits fight so hard for the 1 to 2 percent. Are you saying only 1 to 2% get an abortion after 13 weeks? If so, how many of those were for medical emergency?

(06-26-2024, 04:56 AM)pally Wrote: Didn’t ask if you supported the decision.  You said you believed abortion should be legal up until viability outside the womb and after that for maternal or infant health.  That is essentially the Roe level of protection. Democrats want to codify that.

Quote:And yeah, hindsight being 20-20, they should have already done that but they naively didn’t think it would be overturned by the same court that rendered the original decision.  Having learned that lesson, that is why they want to pass laws covering same sex marriage and contraception

(06-26-2024, 10:58 AM)CJD Wrote: The surveillance makes no distinction between medically necessary vs elective abortions because, as of now, that distinction is irrelevant. 6.9% is the percentage after 13 weeks. The 1 to 2% is my estimate of how many abortions are past 13 weeks and elective (because, logically speaking, if someone is willing to remain pregnant for 13 weeks, which is over 3 months, then the odds that they would suddenly have a change of heart and electively abort are fairly low, in my opinion. I gave it a 25% chance that they'd be elective vs 75% that they were medically necessary, which is a conservatively high estimate for the electives, in my opinion). 

As for why those who want no term limits fight so hard for the 1 to 2 percent, the answer is because in an attempt to capture that 1 to 2% of "unnecessary abortions" by the right's definition, we'd be impacting 6.9% of those trying to get abortions. So the majority of those abortions are likely medically necessary and then we'd be putting road blocks up that could negatively affect, and potentially harm or kill, the other 5 to 6% of mothers who need that 2nd trimester abortion. In an attempt to halt 1 to 2% of national abortions, are we causing 5% of mothers to die because they had to wait for an approval board to green light her medically necessary abortion? That's a net negative on society by nearly any estimation.

Not to mention, potential danger to a mother is always an estimate by doctors. What if a doctor believes that, if a woman stays pregnant, she has a 50% chance of dying. Is that good enough for this medical board? What if it's only 30%? Where's the line for determining if an abortion is necessary? What if an abortion with a 25% chance of harming the mother is denied because the chance isn't high enough, and then she dies?

It's just an awful lot of risk and effort to prevent a very small percentage of "unnecessary abortions" that could end up harming a lot more people.

With all that said, I think you have the question backwards. In order to outlaw that 1 to 2%, a new law would need to be passed. That is the action. Trying to stop that is the reaction. So the question should be, why are those who want term limits fighting so hard for that 1 to 2%?

The later an abortion is, the more likely that it is critically required and yet those are the ones that the right is targeting with these term limits. It's extremely counter intuitive to ban the ones that are more necessary.

(06-26-2024, 11:40 AM)Luvnit2 Wrote: You lost me when you mentioned put mother's life in jeopardy. I can't speak for others, but if a mother's life is in danger in month 8, it should be her and her partner if they have one to choose to abort the baby to save the mom's life.

My OP was it is radical to ask for term limits on abortion other than the health of the mother. In an earlier post you mentioned who determines need. The doctor who signs an oath has to be trusted with the decision, but after a term limit is surpassed, it should be eligible for POSSIBLE REVIEW IMHO only if there may be a case of impropriety by the doctor and those nurses attending to to the pregnant mothers.

(06-26-2024, 11:48 AM)CJD Wrote: Which was one of my original options.

The problem with it, as I said, is that could lead to doctors simply turning away women in need because they don't care for the scrutiny and potential financial or legal issues if this review board thinks their judgment was not in line with whatever standards they hold.

Like I said, what is the line? Is 25% chance that the mother dies enough to justify an abortion? What about 15%? 10%? At what point is the mother's life worth protecting at the expense of the unborn child? If you put restrictions on this, the likelihood that it causes harm is much higher than the likelihood that it prevents it.

At the end of the day, the medical board is just a group of people, just like the doctor, so why is their judgment held above a doctor's who, as you said, has signed an oath to protect his patients from harm?

Creating a system where doctors have the potential to be prosecuted if a medical board does not agree with their judgment calls that are unverifiable in hindsight is very risky and the gains are extraordinarily small, if existent at all.