Afghan women are immiserated to the degree that the child mortality rate is the highest in the world. Nothing expresses the sanctity of life and the love of children like the highest child mortality rate on the globe. — praxis
Gosh that's terrible. Imagine if the US was running the place for the last twenty years.
Oh wait. — StreetlightX
From what I read the primary driving forces were poverty and lack of education. Women are still intentionally educated at a fraction of the rate that men are. The gains in child mortality are primarily due to government midwife programs. — praxis
The Justices of the Supreme Court of our Great Republic ("the Supremes") have decided on a 5-4 vote not to grant an injunction staying enforcement of the law. — Ciceronianus
The fact that my country, and Sweden and Norway and Iceland and Denmark are in fact are legally tougher at women getting an abortion than the US — ssu
This thread reminds me of it again.
The fact that my country, and Sweden and Norway and Iceland and Denmark are in fact are legally tougher at women getting an abortion than the US as abortion laws in the US are actually more lax than in the Nordic countries. — ssu
The big problem is there isn't much in the way of federal law regarding abortion, so much of what the supreme court decides on this matter is more of an opinion, from my view. — Derrick Huestis
Uh, no.Is this something that can be laid out in a few sentences? And what are the consequences of the laws? — tim wood
For some reason this isn't a hot topic in any Nordic country (I could be wrong, but I haven't heard about abortion clinics set on fire or the thing...)
Sweden:
Women can freely opt for abortion before 18th week. After that they have to have permission from the authorities and after 22nd week it isn't allowed.
Finland:
Abortion requires the signature of at least one physician (and in some cases, two), and in some cases additional permission from Valvira (the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health). One doctor's signature is enough in the case of terminations 0-12 weeks when the applicant is under 17 years old or has passed her 40th birthday. Above 20 weeks, a threat to the physical life of the mother is the only valid reason for terminating a pregnancy.
Denmark:
Women can also freely opt for abortion before 12 weeks. An abortion can be performed after 12 weeks if the woman's life is in danger and even in cases where the woman has mental health problems. A woman may also be granted an authorization to abort after 12 weeks if certain circumstances are proved to be present (such as poor socioeconomic condition of the woman; risk of birth defects to baby; the pregnancy being the result of rape; mental health risk to mother)
Norway:
Women can have abortion on before 12 weeks, by application up to the 18th week, and thereafter only under special circumstances until the fetus is viable, which is usually presumed at 21 weeks and 6 days.
Abortion on request is legal until the end of the 22nd week of pregnancy
Iceland:
Abortion on request is legal until the end of the 22nd week of pregnancy. The request can be done for many reasons. Medically, an abortion is lawful if a pregnancy threatens a woman's physical or mental health, if the fetus has a serious congenital defect, or if the woman is deemed incapable of caring for a child because of her age or mental disability. Social grounds for allowing abortion include: if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest; if the woman has had several children already with only brief periods between pregnancies; if the woman lives in a particularly difficult family situation; or if the woman's or her partner's ill health prevents them from being able to care for a child.
And if people don't know it, abortion laws in the US are actually more lax than in the Nordic countries. Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont don’t limit abortion by gestational age at all. I think Roe vs Wade puts the limit to 28 weeks. It can be argued that state by state, a nearly uniform consensus has emerged in America: After roughly two dozen weeks, women should not be able to get an abortion for non-medical reasons.
There you have it. It's not all about the existing laws, but how they are implemented. And how the society works.Yet the abortion rate is about the same as in the US, at least in more recent years. — praxis
Well, there's Roe v. Wade, which (broadly speaking) holds that a woman has a qualified right to terminate a pregnancy, — Ciceronianus
My own view on abortion is that is a terminally grey area and unresolvable - which is one reason I like Roe v Wade: it seems to equitably and reasonably split the difference. — tim wood
There is nothing reasonable about it and it is clearly inequitable. The state can regulate the practice of medicine however it wants (so long as it can fabricate some claim about “health of the woman”) and the women has no right to choose after “viability”. — Ennui Elucidator
My claim of reasonable stands. With your "nothing reasonable about it," your claim is impossible to demonstrate. Similarly with "clearly inequitable."You might want to spare me your summary of how you think law in the US works and actually get to the analysis of the language in the case that you are claiming is reasonable. — Ennui Elucidator
“ The change in viability statistics over time highlights one of the unfor- tunate consequences of using viability, a concept developed for medical purposes, as the basis for determining an individual's legal status under the Constitution. Compare a healthy 26-week-old fetus in utero in 1973 with an identical fetus similarly situated in 2009. Under the viability rule, a state likely could not adopt abortion regulations protecting the life of such a fetus at the time of Roe but could protect an identical fetus today.5 3 "According to the logic of Roe v. Wade, then, a whole class of unborn human beings would now merit legal protection but would not have merited it then."54
This difference in legal status between the 1973 fetus and the 2009 fe- tus seems impossible to explain in a principled fashion. No distinction be- tween the two fetuses justifies the disparate treatment.5 Nor is there any difference in the burden the two fetuses place on their respective mothers. 6 . . .
. . .changes in
a woman's location during pregnancy could cause a fetus to move in and out of viability. He illustrates the point with an example:
A woman is 25 weeks pregnant, and is visiting a doctor at the Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne. Since the Monash Medical Centre has one of the most advanced Neonatal Intensive Care Units in the world, the developing human inside her would be considered viable. Now suppose that the woman leaves Melbourne, and flies to Papua New Guinea. Once she arrives in Papua New Guinea, she walks up into the highlands, where she remains until the birth. Since sophisticated medical assistance is not available in the Papua New Guinea highlands, when she arrives in the highlands her developing human would not be considered viable, and in fact would not be considered viable for almost three months. In fact, if this woman was to continue to travel regularly between Papua New Guinea and a major centre in Australia, then her unborn developing human could reach the 'point' of viability several times, becoming viable whenever she was near sophisticated medical facilities, and not viable whenever she returned to the remote Papua New Guinea highlands.58” — “Easily Found Random Article on the Problem with Viability if You Cared to Look”
That brings us, of course, to the point where much criticism has been directed at Roe, a criticism that always inheres when the Court draws a specific rule from what in the Constitution is but a general standard. We conclude, however, that the urgent claims of the woman to retain the ultimate control over her destiny and her body, claims implicit in the meaning of liberty, require us to perform that function. Liberty must not be extinguished for want of a line that is clear. And it falls to us to give some real substance to the woman's liberty to determine whether to carry her pregnancy to full term.
94
We conclude the line should be drawn at viability, so that before that time the woman has a right to choose to terminate her pregnancy. We adhere to this principle for two reasons. First, as we have said, is the doctrine of stare decisis. Any judicial act of line-drawing may seem somewhat arbitrary, but Roe was a reasoned statement, elaborated with great care. We have twice reaffirmed it in the face of great opposition. See Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, 476 U.S., at 759, 106 S.Ct., at 2178; Akron I, 462 U.S., at 419-420, 103 S.Ct., at 2487-2488. Although we must overrule those parts of Thornburgh and Akron I which, in our view, are inconsistent with Roe's statement that the State has a legitimate interest in promoting the life or potential life of the unborn, see infra, at ----, the central premise of those cases represents an unbroken commitment by this Court to the essential holding of Roe. It is that premise which we reaffirm today.
95
The second reason is that the concept of viability, as we noted in Roe, is the time at which there is a realistic possibility of maintaining and nourishing a life outside the womb, so that the independent existence of the second life can in reason and all fairness be the object of state protection that now overrides the rights of the woman. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S., at 163, 93 S.Ct., at 731. Consistent with other constitutional norms, legislatures may draw lines which appear arbitrary without the necessity of offering a justification. But courts may not. We must justify the lines we draw. And there is no line other than viability which is more workable. To be sure, as we have said, there may be some medical developments that affect the precise point of viability, see supra, at ----, but this is an imprecision within tolerable limits given that the medical community and all those who must apply its discoveries will continue to explore the matter. The viability line also has, as a practical matter, an element of fairness. In some broad sense it might be said that a woman who fails to act before viability has consented to the State's intervention on behalf of the developing child.
96
The woman's right to terminate her pregnancy before viability is the most central principle of Roe v. Wade. It is a rule of law and a component of liberty we cannot renounce.
— “Supreme’s Plurality in Casey”
So much for your "nothing reasonable about it"!but Roe was a reasoned statement, elaborated with great care. — Ennui Elucidator
In some broad sense it might be said that a woman who fails to act before viability has consented to the State's intervention on behalf of the developing child. — Ennui Elucidator
Only if she knows she is pregnant. — tim wood
I look forward to your lesson on how I am “stupid or worse” and your demonstration of how I “don’t know what I am talking about.” — Ennui Elucidator
Then you produce this:There is nothing reasonable about it and it is clearly inequitable. — Ennui Elucidator
QED. Advice, when you're in a hole, stop digging.but Roe was a reasoned statement, elaborated with great care. — Ennui Elucidator
Then how can she be inferred to have consented?Not the mother’s knowledge or anything else. — Ennui Elucidator
In some broad sense it might be said that a woman who fails to act before viability has consented to the State's intervention on behalf of the developing child. — Ennui Elucidator
The court claiming that Roe was well considered is like you claiming that you understood the decision - self-serving and meaningless for purposes of analysis. — Ennui Elucidator
The right to abortion generally (as performed by doctors) hinges on birth having a worse medical outcome than pregnancy/birth. — Ennui Elucidator
74
We have seen how time has overtaken some of Roe's factual assumptions: advances in maternal health care allow for abortions safe to the mother later in pregnancy than was true in 1973, see Akron I, supra, 462 U.S., at 429, n. 11, 103 S.Ct., at 2492, n. 11, and advances in neonatal care have advanced viability to a point somewhat earlier. Compare Roe, 410 U.S., at 160, 93 S.Ct., at 730, with Webster, supra, 492 U.S., at 515-516, 109 S.Ct., at 3055 (opinion of REHNQUIST, C.J.); see Akron I, supra, 462 U.S., at 457, and n. 5, 103 S.Ct., at 2489, and n. 5 (O'CONNOR, J., dissenting). But these facts go only to the scheme of time limits on the realization of competing interests, and the divergences from the factual premises of 1973 have no bearing on the validity of Roe's central holding, that viability marks the earliest point at which the State's interest in fetal life is constitutionally adequate to justify a legislative ban on nontherapeutic abortions. The soundness or unsoundness of that constitutional judgment in no sense turns on whether viability occurs at approximately 28 weeks, as was usual at the time of Roe, at 23 to 24 weeks, as it sometimes does today, or at some moment even slightly earlier in pregnancy, as it may if fetal respiratory capacity can somehow be enhanced in the future. Whenever it may occur, the attainment of viability may continue to serve as the critical fact, just as it has done since Roe was decided; which is to say that no change in Roe's factual underpinning has left its central holding obsolete, and none supports an argument for overruling it. — “Casey”
Why don't you propose a good rule and never mind the rest. I will too, it happens to be Roe. I do not suppose that I can improve on that. What do you got? — tim wood
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