• René Descartes
    544
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/2966/personhood-and-abortion-/p1

    This is following on from the discussion started by @LostThomist about whether abortion is right or wrong. Just state your opinion below and if you want to read the whole discussion just look at the link above. If you want to explain your choice please do so.
    1. What are your views on Abortion? (27 votes)
        Abortion should be illegal. (No matter what)
        11%
        Abortion should be legal. (No matter what)
        22%
        Abortion should be legal. (Only under certain circumstances)
        67%
        Other (Specify)
          0%
  • Sydasis
    44
    So just to be clear, a women starts to go into labor, however she gets last minute cold feet and decides she wants to abort -- that's included in the "no matter what" option, right?
  • charleton
    1.2k
    Abortion should be legal. (Only under certain circumstances)René Descartes

    I answered for this reason. Though abortion should be the decision of the woman carry the foetus, as the body should be inviolable, abortion is less desirable the longer the pregnancy continues. It is the role of law makers to encourage wise and sensible decisions by those that the law are designed to impose upon. Thus timely abortions that do less hard to both the foetus and the woman need to be encouraged. What needs to be discouraged is abortion as a thoughtless means of contraception.
    In the UK where all health care is free the law; best practice; and provision have to agree. It is the duty of the democratic government to reflect the requirements of society. At the moment we seem to have things about right, though I think a reduction in the cut off date might be coming down the pipeline as care of premature children continues to improve it becomes less justifiable to abort what is a viable foetus.

    It is not fair on medical staff to expect them to destroy a 24 week old foetus when they know that such a 'child' could survive with the right care.

    I think 24 weeks is too long, and needs to drop to 20. The only exception to allowing it beyond 20 weeks would be to protect the life of the woman, and in cases where the foetus would be severely disabled.
  • tim wood
    9.2k
    Legal, with some constraints. Roe v. Wade actually does a pretty good job of reasoning it out and isn't too hard to read. The phrase in that ruling that stays with me is that unborn children have (nearly) always had rights, but that required live birth to perfect. It's easy to rant either way on this topic but the challenge is to write good law about it. An essential task and challenge in writing that law is to make good sense of all the aspects under its purview. E.g., make the fetus a person? That makes abortion first-degree murder. It also muddies the understanding of the legal relationship between mother and unborn child (and father, other relatives, other people, one supposes). Rule it a new class of person? Then which rights does it have, which not? Can this person have rights in property or inheritance? When does it have them?

    Where is the boundary between person and society?

    What, exactly, is the definition of life?

    And what if any exceptions? If the unborn is a person, then what exceptions could there be?

    The answers matter. No good progress can be made without good answers. For now, then, I'd argue that most abortion is a natural right of the mother.
  • BC
    13.5k
    Abortion should first be legal, then we can limit it.

    If labor has begun, it's just too late, no matter what.

    1.3% of abortions are performed past 21 weeks, and most of these are performed because there is something seriously wrong with the fetus. There are a few -- a handful -- of very late term abortions performed. These would typically be a teenager who had been raped but was not believed earlier, or someone who was seriously mentally ill and the pregnancy had become psychologically intolerable.
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