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Title: Bodies of Law II
Randy23649 wrote:
<<< allen, in some of your recent posts
you allude to my question about the point at which the fetus/baby attains
full rights.
yes, u are correct, allen, i could have been
more accurate in my question.
let's try it this way:
to those on this forum who consider
themselves pro-choice (vs. pro-life) and would like to reply: at what point
do you believe the fetus/baby attains the right to not be aborted/killed?
i'm just curious as to the exact point in the fetus/baby's existence when
this right begins, per the pro-choice person. possibly at the first breath?
maybe when the umbilical cord is cut? >>>
Remember in my June 7, 2005 post in this thread, when I explained
that I believe the full rights of personhood don't come at
birth but, instead, young children are totally under the control
of their parents/guardians when it comes to almost all the rights of
personhood? In the case of human sexual reproduction, that means you
need to go back to before conception to find the parents who start out
holding the rights of what will become a
zygote/embryo/fetus/infant/kid/adult.
Assuming these parents are rational beings, each one is a person with
a right to control his or her own body including his or her own gametes
(i.e., sperm for men and eggs for women) and all the other cells from his
or her body. Of course, any rational being is free to decide
to treat his or her own gametes or other cells with some higher
level of protection. People can decide not to undergo blood transfusions.
People can decide not to use birth control. People can even decide not to
throw away the mucosa cells they sneeze out onto tissues. They cannot,
however, impose those beliefs on others.
People continue to have a right to control their own bodies
including their own gametes and other cells even, to some extent,
after those cells leave their bodies. So, for example, if you give
a blood sample to a doctor who develops a life saving drug from your
antibodies without your consent, I believe you should have a claim against
the doctor. Similarly, people who give their gametes to a fertility clinic
continue to have a right to control the disposition of their own
cells. When fertilization occurs in vitro (i.e., in a "test
tube"), I believe the parents who provided the gametes should have
exactly equal control over the disposition of the resulting zygote/embryo,
meaning its disposition cannot be changed without their mutual consent.
When that zygote/embryo is implanted into a pregnant women (or when
fertilization occurs the regular way inside the pregnant woman's body), the
right to control the disposition of the zygote/embryo transfers to the
pregnant woman because, as a rational being, she has a right to
personal autonomy including a constitutionally protected privacy right to
control her own body and make the most intimate personal decisions about
matters of marriage, family, and reproduction. I do not believe, however,
that the pregnant woman's right to control the disposition of the
zygote/embryo/fetus should necessarily remain absolute throughout
pregnancy. I believe the woman's right to control her own body should
be balanced against the chance of the zygote/embryo/fetus surviving outside
the woman's body, considering the relative risks to the pregnant woman of
abortion and childbirth.
In other words, I believe the woman always retains the right to control
her body, including the right to remove the zygote/embryo/fetus from her
body, but whether the protection of the zygote/embryo/fetus during its
removal should even be considered depends on whether the
zygote/embryo/fetus can perform the basic bodily
functions necessary to survive outside the woman's body. After
all, before a zygote/embryo/fetus is viable, it doesn't matter whether it
is removed by induction, C-section, or abortion because, by
definition, it wont survive outside the woman's body. Notice, by
the way, that by using the word "viable," I am not
referring to the ability of someone to feed, clothe, or shelter themselves.
For some fairly good definitions of "viable" pretty close to
mine, see this link: Stedman's Medical Dictionary definition of
"viable". And, this link: Merriam-Webster's Online definition of
"viable". And, this link: Webster's 1913 definition of
"viable".
Also notice that, while the point of viability has remained stable at about
23 or 24 weeks for many years, at least theoretically, technology could
progress enough to make earlier survival possible.
Even after the fetus is viable, however, I believe a pregnant woman
should be able to remove it through an abortion if such a procedure
significantly reduces her chance of death or serious bodily injury.
The fact is, however, that with current medical technology, abortion
significantly decreases a pregnant woman's chance of death throughout her
pregnancy. See, for example, this link, Abortion, stating "At every gestational
age, elective abortion is safer for the mother than carrying a pregnancy to
term." Or, for
more detailed info, see this link, Abortion: Medical and Social Aspects, stating
"By
the early 1990s, the risk of death in early abortion was fewer than 1 death
per 1 million procedures, and for later abortion, about 1 death per 100,000
procedures (Koonin et al. 1992). The overall risk of death in abortion was
about 0.4 per 100,000 procedures, compared with a maternal mortality rate
(exclusive of abortion) of about 9.1 deaths per 100,000 live births (Koonin
et al. 1991a, 1991b)."
Broken down, that means, according to these statistics, forcing a
woman to continue with her pregnancy rather than have an early term
abortion multiplies her risk of death more than 90 times. Also,
according to these statistics, forcing a woman to continue with her
pregnancy rather than have a late term abortion still multiplies her
risk of death more than 9 times. These statistics contradict, for
example, the inaccurate claim of one recent poster that "Most abortions are not performed because a woman's life is at
stake." In
fact, every abortion decreases the risk of death to the pregnant woman by
about one or two orders of magnitude.
Notice again, like "viability," the pregnant woman's lower
chance of death from having an abortion rather than continuing her
pregnancy is based on available technology. If a pregnant woman could
exercise her right to remove a zygote/embryo/fetus from her body in a way
that protected the zygote/embryo/fetus without significantly
increasing her own risk of death or serious bodily
injury, I believe in that circumstance the pregnant woman should
choose the removal procedure safer for the zygote/embryo/fetus.
It's also important to note that the general statistics of the risks of
abortion and childbirth do not apply equally in every case with certain
factors greatly increasing the risks of death or serious bodily injury
for some women. Also, measures of mortality may vary, with my numbers being
somewhat on the conservative side (see, for example, this link, CDC's Pregnancy-related mortality surveillance,
stating "The overall pregnancy-related mortality ratio was 11.8 deaths
per 100,000 live births and ranged from 10.3 in 1991 to 13.2 in 1999.")
And, it's finally important to note that by giving this choice to
pregnant women, we really recognize the sacrifice that pregnant women
make in order to nurture new life. I've never understood why
anti-choice people are so afraid to give this choice to pregnant women who,
after all, are genetically programmed with the hormones that make them very
protective of the zygote/embryo/fetus. The great majority
of pregnant women willingly choose to brave the increased risk of
death and injury to bring children into the world. To turn that
loving choice into a requirement denigrates the beauty of the gift.
So, to summarize my answer to your question, Randy,
about "at what point do you believe the
fetus/baby attains the right to not be aborted/killed," I believe a pregnant woman
has the right to remove the zygote/embryo/fetus from her body all the
way up to the moment the zygote/embryo/fetus is no longer inside her body. The
moment the fetus is no longer inside the pregnant woman's body is also
the technical "time of birth" that the obstetrician will
officially record. I also believe a pregnant woman should choose
the removal procedure safer for a viable fetus if choosing that
procedure does not significantly increase her own risk of
death or serious bodily injury. It is morally admirable for women
to choose to assume an increased risk of death to try to protect a
zygote/embryo/fetus, but I do not believe it is a moral duty, nor should it
be legally required. In addition, given current technology, the period when
a woman can choose whether to significantly
increase her own risk of death extends to
somewhere around the time the head of the fetus clears her pubic bone
(not that there's any real data to use to determine that turning
point), though there aren't any abortion procedures performed after
labor begins anyway.
To the extent there are gray areas, I believe we should err on the side of
trusting the pregnant woman to make the decision. And, there are gray
areas. Determining the viability of each particular zygote/embryo/fetus
and determining each specific pregnant woman's risk of death or
serious bodily injury, for example, both involve making predictions about
the future that are only guesses. When making such judgments, we should err
on the side of trusting the pregnant woman to make the
decisions because, among other reasons, since we all agree
that a pregnant women is a person, she should be able to use
her right to autonomy to make the decision about the
endlessly debatable topic of the personhood of
a zygote/embryo/fetus rather than giving that decision to a bunch
of politicians much more removed from each individual case.
Is that more the kind of answer for which you were looking, Randy?
Allen
-------------------------
Why is the Bush Administration the biggest threat to the US Constitution since
Nixon left office?
See the posts under the following title at this link: Bush Breaks Promise Not To Subject Citizens To Unconstitutional
Military Detention
Edited: Wednesday 20,
July, 2005 at 10:29 AM by A
Asch
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