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Poll: 61% of voters disapprove of Supreme Court decision overturning Roe (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by to c/politics@kbin.social
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On the anniversary of the Dobbs decision, 53% say abortion access nationwide has become too difficult, a new NBC News poll finds.

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[–] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (5 children)

All medical procedures have to be signed off on by the doctor performing them.

This is very different to "medically necessary." What you are describing is a doctor assessing that the mother is physically capable of enduring the procedure without undue risks. What we are describing is assessing wether the procedure itself is medically necessary.

I generally support the premise that people should be able to do what they like with their bodies. Most people do. The issue is the ethical status of the fetus. Many people believe it to be alive and deserving of legal protections. There isn't a clear method for delineating that, so we make a moral judgement. For most Americans, that is after the first trimester.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 years ago* (4 children)

    And with that comes the responsibility of what to do if the mother's life is in danger late in a pregnancy but not in a way exactly as defined as "allowed" in the legislation written by non-medical experts? Even medical experts can't preemptively imagine every possible scenario and write down what should be included in the list.

    Here's something I'm sure you haven't thought of before when you formed your opinion on which abortions should be legal.

    The issue is extremely complicated to think of in terms of prohibitions.

    Read about all those recent incidences where women with clear danger to their lives couldn't receive necessary abortions because their clearly nonviable fetus had a heartbeat while they were bleeding internally.

    That's what tying the legality of abortion to the legally defined status of a fetus does, because it's quite impossible to legally define viability in a way which accounts for every possible detail where things can go wrong.

    When you leave it to doctors instead, they do the right thing for the vast majority of cases, because they actually do have morals, just like you and I.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    I understand that you're arguing late term elective abortions should be legal to ensure that medically necessary abortions are not impacted in any way. That's a reasonable argument, but I don't agree. I am willing to risk the latter to prevent the former. I believe ending a life without good cause is much more unethical than the potential risk for doctors to hesitate or make a bad call.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    So you're ok with potentially killing mothers, who have established lives, loved ones, people to take care of and share a life with, through scaring doctors away from administering necessary procedures to prevent the cases of some mother-doctor pairs from killing some hypothetical fetuses which can be counted on the fingers of one hand annually anyway.

    Again, you are missing the reality that most people, including pregnant women and doctors are human beings with compassion and morals, just like you and I.

    What you are proposing is a moral high ground from a position of complete incompetence on a matter unrelated to you in any shape of form outside of a vague philosophical connection through shared humanity.

    The worst part is, virtually nobody on the "fetal lives matter" side of the discussion, if it's fair to call it that, show the same amount of moral sensitivity when it comes to death penalty, sending 18 year olds to war and similar issues where governments take lethal action on the basis of our collective support through the same philosophical mechanism you propose as a means to control how doctors can use their means to administer healthcare.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    So you're ok with potentially killing mothers, who have established lives, loved ones, people to take care of and share a life with, through scaring doctors away from administering necessary procedures to prevent the cases of some mother-doctor pairs from killing some hypothetical fetuses which can be counted on the fingers of one hand annually anyway.

    This is a very poor steel man. If that's really what you think I support then I encourage you to read my comment again. I believe the risk to mothers is very low, and acceptable, relative to the certainty that people currently exercise the ability to electively abort late term fetuses.

    No one is claiming doctors and mothers aren't human beings. That's an absurd claim and you are being histrionic now.

    As for the death penalty and other policies, I can't speak for others. I oppose the death penalty and unnecessary wars. You'll have to take that up with the straw man you're trying to build.

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