4th Trimester Abortions?

[anitram]

So those of you who make the sad smiley faces, are you sad if a woman has an amniocentesis, finds out she is having a Down's baby (or some other genetic disease or deformity), and decides to abort it? Or is it only when a human is killed *after* it is born that it is sad?

I'll be the minority and say that it depends on the genetic disease. If I was pregnant with a child who was so severely disabled that they would live no longer than 2 years, live and die in absolute agony without any chance of developing language and so on, or a child who was diagnosed with anencephaly and will die in a matter of hours or days after birth, yes, I would absolutely have an abortion. I don't see a point in prolonging the agony for someone who will life 48 hours or the agony for the rest of the family either. It's a personal choice, not everyone would agree.

 

[Irvine511]

^ agreed with the above.

however, deciding to abort upon the presence of severe disabilities becomes a bit of a slippery slope -- while i fully agree with the cases you've laid out, where could this take us? the example that comes to mind, and this is purely hypothetical, is let's suppose we find evidence of a "gay gene" -- might some parents determine that this warrants an abortion?

of course, we could argue that such people shouldn't be parents, but i would imagine there are more than a few people out there who'd rather have a child with Tay Sachs, for example, than a gay child.

i remain strongly pro-choice, but i do think that there are murky moral waters ahead as genetic science advances.

 

[anitram]

But you don't need to justify your choice to have an abortion. If you have an unwanted pregnancy and want to abort, you can, and while you may receive some free counselling along with the procedure, nobody will interrogate you as to why you're choosing this. In many places, they won't even ask. So we've never restricted abortion based on the reasoning of the mother - how is it "worse" to abort a child because it may be gay than to abort it because you don't think it fits in with your partying lifestyle or to abort it because of cultural reasons or to abort it because of underlying poverty or to abort it because you cheated on your husband or because you are simply not ready. You either allow abortion, or you do not, who is to say that one woman's abortion is based on "better" reasons than another. For me, it's either yes or no, and it's all a matter of personal choice there.

I think it would be incredibly sad that some people may choose to abort a child with a gay gene. But they routinely abort female fetuses all over the world, so it isn't as if there isn't precedent for this. Either allow women to have a choice, completely (within the first trimester, IMO), or take the choice away. But don't tell them that some of them have the right reasoning behind their abortion and some have the wrong reasoning. It's up to them to make that choice, as difficult as it may be for you.

 

[coemgen]

It's sad thing when the value of life isn't placed on the life lived, but the physical condition the person lives it in, which they had no choice in having.

I also don't understand how people can kill a baby just before it's born and say it's OK, but after the baby's born it's a horrible thing.

Out-of-site, out-of-mind shouldn't be considered when dealing with a human life.

"Where you live should not decide whether you live, or whether you die."

That's just me though.

 

[financeguy]

But you don't need to justify your choice to have an abortion. If you have an unwanted pregnancy and want to abort, you can, and while you may receive some free counselling along with the procedure, nobody will interrogate you as to why you're choosing this. In many places, they won't even ask. So we've never restricted abortion based on the reasoning of the mother - how is it "worse" to abort a child because it may be gay than to abort it because you don't think it fits in with your partying lifestyle or to abort it because of cultural reasons or to abort it because of underlying poverty or to abort it because you cheated on your husband or because you are simply not ready. You either allow abortion, or you do not, who is to say that one woman's abortion is based on "better" reasons than another. For me, it's either yes or no, and it's all a matter of personal choice there.

Well, if that's the way the argument is to be couched, then the answer for a moral society has to be, quite simply: no.

 

[yolland]

Indian doctor jailed after offering to abort girl baby

By Philippe Naughton
timesonline.co.uk, March 29, 2006

An Indian court has sentenced a doctor to two years in prison for using ultrasound tests to determine the sex of unborn babies, a practice that has led to the abortion of millions of female foetuses.

It is the first time any doctor has been convicted under a 1994 law banning sex-determination tests. Campaigners against selective abortion said they hoped it would send a message to doctors across India, where many clinics also treat British Asian women who want terminations.

Anil Sabsani, a radiologist, was caught in a sting operation in 2001, telling an undercover investigator that she was carrying a female foetus but that her pregnancy could be "taken care of". Sabsani and his assistant, Kartar Singh, were sentenced yesterday to two years in prison and fined 5,000 rupees each. They were tried in Palwal, a city in Haryana state, where Sabsani had his practice.

Hundreds of thousands of female foetuses are believed to be aborted every year in India after sex-determination tests. A study published in The Lancet in January suggested that as many as 10 million female foetuses had been aborted in the past 20 years. Comparing the data with the natural gender ratio from other countries, they estimated that 13.6 million to 13.8 million girls should have been born in 1997 in India. However, only 13.1 million were reported, the study said, meaning that at least 500,000 girls were "missing" annually. India’s census in part backs up the finding. The number of girls per 1,000 boys declined in the country from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001.

In 2001, authorities responsible for monitoring doctors sent an undercover team to Sabsani’s office to see if he would reveal the gender of a foetus. Sabsani told the undercover team he would reveal the sex if he was paid an additional 1500 rupees.

Haryana's Chief Medical Officer RC Aggarwal, who was part of the team monitoring the doctors, said there were cases pending against three other doctors on similar charges in Haryana courts. But he was not certain when those cases would go to trial because of India's overburdened judicial system.

There has long been a preference for boys among parents in India, where a bride’s family traditionally gives cash and gifts as a dowry to the groom’s relatives. Poor parents prefer boys as they do not have to save for what can amount to crippling wedding dowries for daughters, while male children also offer the chance of greater income in later life. [This is because in most areas of India, it's traditional for at least the oldest son to remain in the family home, marrying and starting his family there, so as to support his parents in their old age. Whereas a daughter moves into her husband's family home and supports him in doing the same for his parents. Incidentally, the tradition of demanding "crippling wedding dowries" is *not* an ancient one; historically it emerged following the massive economic upheaval, and downgrading of women's economic status, wrought by colonial-era land reforms introducing the notion of land as privately owned commodity.--yolland] Indeed, ultrasound clinics used to advertise with the slogan: "Pay 1000 rupees now for a test, rather than 100,000 rupees later."

 

[nathan1977]

Charming.

 

[Angela Harlem]

So those of you who make the sad smiley faces, are you sad if a woman has an amniocentesis, finds out she is having a Down's baby (or some other genetic disease or deformity), and decides to abort it? Or is it only when a human is killed *after* it is born that it is sad?

Where on earth did the sanctimoniousness come from? A woman with amniocentesis should get a 'sad smiley face' from anyone. A woman who chooses an abortion should get the 'sad smiley face' as well. Infact, women and couples who make this decision should be afforded absolute compassion and support. This 4th trimester caper is bullshit because it is clear and outright murder. THIS is not debatable on religious or medical or scientific grounds, unlike the abortion debate. This is murder. To equate them as equal is preposterous. To insinuate those who find this practice abhorrent would not necessarily feel for those who have abortions during pregnancy for a litany of reasons is just plain rude. Absolutely rude. And presumptuous. You might find that many, if not all, who believe that abortion needs to be an option, are very familiar with compassion and sympathy and caring, and they extend this quite significantly to those who choose this option. Unlike, it seems, some.

 

[nbcrusader]

It is only presumptuous if you see the clear line between life and not life as occuring at birth.