71 ms·

What I learned trying to classify abortion access across the rich world

240 points by phnofive 4y ago

mytailorisrich 4y ago
In the UK, certainly England (not sure if different in Northern Ireland), by law abortion is not 'on demand' and carrying one out as such (on demand without meeting legal criteria) is technically a criminal offense, though in practice this does not seem to be really enforced. I believe that the law states that abortion can be carried out for specific "health or social reasons". Edit, legal framework: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_Kingdom So it seems in general they are using a 'fudge' by invoking risk to "mother's mental health" but again legally there is no "on demand" abortion in the UK. Edit 2: I find it odd that people seem to be displeased by a statement of, I think, important facts. If anything, people in favour of "on demand" abortion should lobby for a law change in the UK because at it stands a woman can legally be denied an abortion and a doctor carrying an abortion can be charged with a criminal offense (in a country that prides itself of having the "rule of law".) I invite you to Google about decriminalisation of abortion in the UK to see that this is an active issue because, indeed it is not currently decriminalised.
- mbg721 4y ago
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    > Why is anybody happy with "de facto"? If something should be a legal right, enshrine it specifically in law. Exactly. At the moment everyone is effectively turning a blind eye to the law. If there is a concensus that abortion should be available on demand then the law should be amended to that effect. The UK is not on par with other European countries where "on demand" does exist in law, which is what I wanted to point out.
    - swores 4y ago
      It's not turning a blind eye, it's accurately interpreting that forcing a woman to give birth when she wants an abortion will be detrimental to her mental health, thus making her abortion legal. Sure it could have stronger wording in law, but it's not causing any problems as it current is. But you've misunderstood it from your first comment, where you wrongly said it is a "criminal offence" when done here in England which is just entirely wrong.
      - mytailorisrich 4y ago
        > But you've misunderstood it from your first comment, where you wrongly said it is a "criminal offence" when done here in England which is just entirely wrong. No, I never wrote that that abortion was always a criminal offence. I wrote: Abortion is not on demand and any abortion that does not satisfy the legal criteria can thus be a criminal offence. It is no more than a statement of fact. This the law. "Mental health" is a very fuzzy term and it is not enough to say it to make so. It's just that at the moment no-one wants to create trouble on this and are indeed turning a blind eye by taking the approach you mention. But if for some reason authorities want to create trouble then they could just use the law as it stands as well. And indeed there are calls to decriminalise abortion because it isn't in law.
      - mbg721 4y ago
        otikik 4y ago
        Maybe “disorder” is not the exact right word to use. Still, there should be a distinction in our words between “a regular, wanted pregnancy” and “a pregnancy which came as a consequence of a rape”, for example.
        mbg721 4y ago
        Those are few and far between; grasping at straws to get the outcome that we want is closer to the truth.
  - di4na 4y ago
    because noone is happy, and the law is a negotiation between a large body of people and different part of society. This please noone but also allows sufficient slack for the differences to not explode into unrest. This is a working compromise that for now is relatively stable on the social contract of that law. It will probably not stay that way, as the component of society evolve. We can hope for a different compromise ofc, but it is important to realise that the law is a compromise on a social contract, not something that exist in a vacuum
  - namdnay 4y ago
    > If something should be a legal right, enshrine it specifically in law I mean couldn't you turn that around? Normally things are legal by default, not illegal. Wouldn't the onus be on the law to explicitly make abortion illegal?
    - mbg721 4y ago
      How awfully libertarian of you to say so,
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- metadat 4y ago
  If this is true, TFA is presenting false / incorrect information. They listed "Great Britain" as "available on-demand except for fetal abnormalities or mental health issues". Edit: Thank you to all the child comments below for the clarifications.
  - swores 4y ago
    The law allows for abortions due to "risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family (up to a term limit of 24 weeks of gestation)" And to quote this (correct) wikipedia entry: "The third ground [the one I quoted above in this comment] is typically interpreted liberally with regards to mental health to create a de facto state of abortion on demand, and nearly all abortions—98% in 2019 and 2020—are performed to protect the woman's mental health". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_Kingdom Maybe it would be better to legally enshrine it as "on demand", but every woman I know in England who either has had an abortion or thought about the possibility of maybe needing one, currently considers it to be on demand.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - allturtles 4y ago
    There's no need to speculate, this is all very clearly addressed in TFA: > Technically, abortion is never available on-demand in Great Britain. (Northern Ireland is a bit different from England/Scotland/Wales.) However, the law allows abortions up to 24 weeks if there is a “grave risk to the mental health” of the woman and nowadays abortion providers—who make the determination—almost always view the fact that a woman wants an abortion as proof that such a risk exists. Thus, abortion is de-facto available on demand for 24 weeks.
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  Did you read down to the third paragraph of the article you're citing? The third ground is typically interpreted liberally with regards to mental health to create a de facto state of abortion on demand, and nearly all abortions—98% in 2019 and 2020—are performed to protect the woman's mental health.
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    I have commented on this and I maintain what I wrote. This is a topic periodically raised by health professional because, again, this is using the law at the limit and it would be much preferable to amend the law to make it on demand to protect everyone.
    - allturtles 4y ago
      Okay, but the whole point of the article is to address the nuances around the realities of abortion access. It's not an advocacy piece, and it's not specifically about UK law.
- judofyr 4y ago
  This is already covered in the article: > Technically, abortion is never available on-demand in Great Britain. (Northern Ireland is a bit different from England/Scotland/Wales.) However, the law allows abortions up to 24 weeks if there is a “grave risk to the mental health” of the woman and nowadays abortion providers—who make the determination—almost always view the fact that a woman wants an abortion as proof that such a risk exists. Thus, abortion is de-facto available on demand for 24 weeks.
- phphphphp 4y ago
  but “mental health” (i.e: well-being) is the reason someone would choose an abortion. If (hypothetically) water is legal to drink as long as you’re thirsty, is it a fudge to say “anybody is allowed to drink water”? You are thirsty by virtue of wanting to drink water, just like you want an abortion due to your well-being.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    It would be weird to have a law that says "drinking water is illegal unless you are thirsty or want to drink water for some other reason," right?
    - zaroth 4y ago
      Unless the act of drinking water was this hyper-politicized thing that required basically splitting the atom to try to please all your electoral interests. And so the end result is a law which negates itself, which might well have been the entire point? I have no idea if the drafters of the law actually intended it to nullify itself.
- astura 4y ago
  >I find it odd that people seem to be displeased by a statement of important facts The article mentions this and goes into more details. I'm not sure what else your comment adds other than to be snarky and downplay the seriousness of the topic by using scare quotes.
ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
Tl;dr: Florida still has more access than much of Europe
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ch4s3 4y ago
  More over, much of Europe had more restrictions only a few years ago.
  - ohgodplsno 4y ago
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      It was meant as extra context. While I don’t like the Supreme Court’s ruling, I hardly think the US is taking a “theocratic approach.” Even now most of the US population will live under a set of laws that are more permissive than those in Europe. Imagine if Poland, Malta, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands all had to have centralized set of laws across wide array of contentious issues. It would be a mess.
      - ohgodplsno 4y ago
        DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
        > with a terrible political system made 300 years ago by slavers ... a political system that was widely considered revolutionary and incredibly enlightened at the time, including (or especially) by Europeans, who lived under much less democratic forms of government. I'm on your side on the abortion issue, but bashing the American Revolution and blaming the founders isn't going to help your cause, and it's just bad history.
tschwimmer 4y ago
This is an excellent article that does what precious few "serious" online blogs do: it puts in the extensive research required and makes a conclusion based on that evidence.
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  Would that we had access to such thorough research and dispassionate discussion, on every other hot-button issue. If only there were an industry, whose job was to bring us information on things like this... But anyway, agreed, the article is excellent, and that is rare.
- fullshark 4y ago
  Ever since Roe was repealed I wanted to know that graph the writer creates to understand the current reality, but simply couldn't find it and mostly just got articles that were loaded with histronics.
PeterisP 4y ago
I would explain the repeated observation about lack of clear information on specific criteria as explicit policy choice that matches the explicit policy choice on many other complicated healthcare aspects in those countries - essentially, that you will get all kinds of weird edge cases that should get evaluated individually case-by-case; and that this determination should be done by a doctor (or a panel of doctors) and the patient, not be prescribed and enforced by the legal system.
- daenz 4y ago
  Weird edge cases are very rare by definition. If they're not very rare, then they're not weird edge cases. And allowing them to exist and be handled in a bespoke way is not the same as handling all cases in a bespoke way. The law can help isolate those weird edge cases by handling the broad cases up front. That way the truly unique cases can get the resources/attention that they need.
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    My point is that the policy in those countries intentionally does not try to define what exactly is "the broad case" (because, frankly, any definition will have its flaws in some unforeseen and unforeseeable cases) but instead devolves that decision to the doctors, so that every case can be treated as a "weird case" if and only if the doctors say so, because the policy in these societies is that they trust the doctors to make the proper ethical choice more than their ability to prescribe exact criteria in a legal act. In essence, allowing these cases to exist at all means that the law acknowledges that it can't explicitly state in legislation beforehand which cases will need bespoke review and which will not; and that it in such cases the law does not prescribe the final decision but devolves it to the medical specialists who see the individual case. An alternative that I've read about from recent events in USA with hospital lawyers being present in emergency room to make a decision when a certain intervention (deemed necessary by the doctors beforehand) becomes "permissible" seems literally incomprehensible and insane at least to me, as from all the people in that room they are the least appropriate, least qualified, and with least moral rights to make a decision about what should be done or not - if you don't trust these particular doctors with doing what's right, you shouldn't let them perform operations on people at all.
bobobob420 4y ago
In America the goal is to distract people from corporations not paying taxes so the media ponies up with other big companies to make abortion a pressing issue when in reality I doubt any man could care less about what a woman hes not involved with is doing to their body. Furthermore abortion should be legal and it should be handled between the man and woman with the clause that if they both agree to the baby, both will be held financial responsible. If the man wants the baby and the woman doesn't she has the right to abort. If the woman wants the baby and the man doesn't, she does not have to abort but the man is not responsible. If there is no man involved than the woman is free to do as she pleases. Extraordinarily simple yet it is one of the most pressing issues in our country....not poverty...not pollution...not coporations not paying taxes...not the justice and prison system....abortions. America is speedrunning to becomming a failed society. Personally I will make as much money as I can here and then leave.
- DontchaKnowit 4y ago
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    > although this may be important but public dialogue on this is 4th grade level Well, public dialog on everything is at the 4th grade level - gun control, racism, trans rights, abortion, UBI, January 6, global warming, Covid... it's all at 4th grade level, sometimes below. I can't think of one issue where there's actually a mature, nuanced public discussion.
  - bobobob420 4y ago
    If a man does not want the baby but the woman does why would the man be responsible? He does not want the child and makes it clear, the woman will choose to have the baby and then force the man to pay money and raise the kid.. that doesn’t make sense at all. As for your opinion, “ In my opinion the choice to have a child (or to roll the dice on having a child) is made at the time of conception and once an embryo has been implanted it is the responsibility of both parents to provide support to the child.” It is your opinion but it is a dumb one that should not be respected in any modern society. 1. Read a history book. 2. Learn about realism 3. Put yourselves in the shoes of the many circumstances in which pregnancy occur.
dudus 4y ago
What is astounding is how hard it is to find what the law says in some places. The article suggest that's the case in Israel where the situation is quite confusing. For another example Brazil is quite confusing where even the phisicians don't know when it can or can't be done.
- daenz 4y ago
  It's not surprising to me. It is an extremely complex topic that touches on so many aspects of rights, norms, safety, poverty, individual vs collective, etc etc. I don't think it will ever be settled, and the best we'll see is the laws vaguely reflecting different trends, but in the end they will rarely have teeth.
  - otikik 4y ago
    But there’s some cases where it should be crystal clear and still isn’t. If the pregnancy isn’t viable (e g the egg is fertilised but hasn’t traveled to the right place on the womb before “taking hold”), then abortion should be legal. If the phoetus has died, then abortion should be legal. There’s some clear-cut cases like that where it’s clear it should be legal and yet in some places the law is still “vague”.
    - jandrese 4y ago
      The laws are not even vague, it's outright illegal. These people are pushing to make abortion in the case of ectopic pregnancy illegal, and in at least one case have succeeded.
User23 4y ago
charlescearl 4y ago
Global status of abortion access as of 2021 https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/WALM_2021update_V1-1.pdf https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/WA...
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Almost the entire point of the post is the situation cannot be conveyed by a categorical cartogram.
- 0xcafecafe 4y ago
  Am I reading the chart wrong or is IV less restrictive than V?
Fnoord 4y ago
Amniocentesis can only be performed after week 15, which means you can only test for e.g. Down Syndrome after that. Not allowed to abort then, in Ireland or Florida.
- disgruntledphd2 4y ago
  Indeed. When we were having our first child, we brought this up and the consultant shrugged and told us to go to England.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  Even noninvasive prenatal screening (maternal blood tests; possible because genetic information crosses into the mother's system), which is less conclusive than amnio but safer and can be done earlier, usually can't be done before about week 10.
ivraatiems 4y ago
> I, uhh, I guess that’s quite close to de-facto abortion on demand? Not sure what political dynamics led Israel to leave abortion “illegal” but also add multiple redundant layers of extremely broad exceptions. Maybe the country has other priorities. Someone isn't familiar with Israeli politics. Since this is HN and a snarky comment won't suffice, let me elaborate: Israel is a cultural mishmosh of so many different varietals of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and every other thing that literally every view on every given issue exists. The country doesn't have a constitution because it can't agree on one.[1] The current government, which is falling apart, is a right-wing-left-wing coalition government that includes ultranationalists, Arab anti-Zionists, the left wing who was out of government for a decade, and vaguely centrist "yeah whatever Zionism" parties.[2] The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is administered by no fewer than six (!) different churches who all share the space and have to carefully coordinate the timing of their rites and services.[3] And don't even get me started on gay marriage.[4] This topic is something that people who are blindly anti-Israel (as opposed to anti-Zionist philosophically, anti-the current Israeli government, anti-occupation, etc.) just do not understand. Israel is a melting pot that boiled over onto the stove and made the fire stronger instead of snuffing it out. It is a very strange place to have a government. So "we theoretically ban abortion because traditional sects of various groups don't like it but in practice we allow it for everyone because lots of people want it and we don't really want to make them angry either" is a typical Israeli policy position on something like this. It is just the nth example. This way, Israel can plausibly claim to take every position on this issue, all at once, and thereby appease a coalition of about a zillion different views. Now try to get the country to agree on an approach to Palestine and you see why the current situation is so messed up. [1] https://theconversation.com/how-israels-missing-constitution-deepens-divisions-between-jews-and-with-arabs-162200 https://theconversation.com/how-israels-missing-constitution... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-sixth_government_of_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-sixth_government_of_Isr... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre [4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-of-weddings-israel-same-sex-couples-find-legal-loophole-to-recognize-marriages/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-of-weddings-israel-same-s...
- grasshopperpurp 4y ago
fabian2k 4y ago
The article describes a really important point, that the actual access can be very different from what the law says. I think the article might still underestimate this issue, especially political polarization around the topic. It's a very different situation in a country where protests near clinics that perform abortions are common and doctors are at times named and vilified for this. There are a lot of ways to add barriers within the legal rules, and that is not easy to compare. I think the focus on the specific time limit is a bit misleading. I'm not sure about the exact statistics, but the vast majority of abortions are performed early. There are some laws like the "heartbeat" laws that set impossibly short time limits, but a time limit does not have to be an unreasonable limitation as long as it provides very robust exceptions for cases like health complications. That part is tricky of course, physicians do need to feel safe to make reasonable medical decisions here without having to fear legal consequences from overly vague or restrictive laws.
stuckinhell 4y ago
I'm shocked how different Abortion in Europe and the United States is. It might as well be apples and oranges.
- happyopossum 4y ago
  The article kinda points out that there is no single Abortion In Europe standard - it's all over the map (figuratively speaking).
  - rory 4y ago
    There's no single Abortion in post-Roe USA standard either-- in fact it's more internally variant than Europe. So I guess it's kind of like comparing a basket of apples, oranges and bananas to a different basket of apples, oranges, and bananas (and maybe a couple grapefruits).
- spacedcowboy 4y ago
  Yeah, as a Brit, the absence of abortion as a mother's right is ... just wrong. But, as a Brit, I'm used to being disappointed in American "healthcare".
  - 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
    When you become a citizen we give you the right to bear arms because you may have to commit crime to survive here.
  - stuckinhell 4y ago
    I think you missed the point, abortion as a right means many different things in different countries. Florida a red state has more abortion rights that most of Europe. It also looks like the majority of Europe would not approve of American Style Abortion either, which is the most radically surprising thing to me by far.
    - spacedcowboy 4y ago
rob_c 4y ago
The lesson should probably have been how most of the developed world doesn't care. In most "developed" countries it's a healthcare issue mostly now, except after the "land of the free" has an episodic meltdown all over global media and rakes it up... Again... Thanks again for the nonsense endless articles explaining how none of you colonialists can get along with each other.
- claytongulick 4y ago
  Or looked at another way, a healthy functioning democracy that actively debates extremely contentious issues and settles them via legal process instead of violence. So, you're welcome.
  - spacedcowboy 4y ago
    I disagree that there is not going to be violence over the most recent SC decision. There are now places where women are going to die as a result. Those places are generally the 'red' states where lots of people have lots of guns. Guns and insufferable grief are not a great mix.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    The US is a ‘healthy, functioning democracy?’ It’s currently debating whether there was a coup attempt.
    - spacedcowboy 4y ago
      Technically the US is a "flawed democracy" [1] and if the SC go ahead as expected with their 'states rights' crusade [2], then it's going to possibly lose the 'democracy' part of that... [1]: https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/Leveraging-big-ideas/flawed-democracy https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/Leveraging-big-ideas/flawe... [2]: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/01/1109275691/the-supreme-court-could-radically-reshape-elections-for-president-and-congress https://www.npr.org/2022/07/01/1109275691/the-supreme-court-...
    - claytongulick 4y ago
dayvid 4y ago
- Anunayj 4y ago
  I don't think he does however I think I'll post a quick analysis by me here: 1. India: Pretty much on-demand All women can terminate pregnancy (for a valid* reason) on advice of one doctor upto 20 weeks. Note: Valid reason can be as simple as failure of contraceptive, economic difficulty, or risk of death In special cases (rape, incest, women being a minor*, change in marital status, mental illness, or fetal anomalies) it can be done upto 24 weeks. Moreover a pregnancy can be terminated anytime in case fetal anomalies are found later in pregnancy, however it requires approval from a board (which consists of a gynecologist, radiologist/sonologist, pediatrician, and other members decided by the state) India (and China) had a rampant problem with sex selective termination, this has been combated by making it illegal to reveal the child's sex before birth. In practice, till 2021 failure of contraceptive was not recognized as a valid reason for termination of pregnancy in unmarried women. Furthermore high abortion costs, lack of awareness, and societal stigma, make unsafe (and illegal) abortions rampant (accounting for 56% of abortions) * Consent of minor's guardian is needed to perform a termination 2. China: on-demand China's one child policy made abortions a "remedial" measure to fight overpopulation. So in some way it was encouraged. Abortions seem to have little oversight, however some regions do ban non-medically necessary abortions after 14 weeks of pregnancy. Sex selective abortions (and pre-natal sex determination) are illegal. 3. South Korea: on-demand It used to be be legal only for reason like genetic disorders, rape, incest or threatens the life of the women. However in 2019, the Constitutional court declared the law unconstitutional, now it's legal for upto 14 weeks. (Upto 24 weeks in case of previously specified reasons) 4. Singapore: on-demand Upto 16 weeks: Must be done by a authorized medical practitioner. 16-24 weeks: Must be done by a authorized medical practitioner with surgical or obstetric qualifications. After 24 weeks: Can be done if life of women is in danger Only consent of pregnant women is needed for termination, even in case of minors. Side note: You need to be a citizen of Singapore or hold a work visa and have been in Singapore for > 4 months to get a abortion, this means you can't travel to Singapore for a abortion. 5. Thailand: on-demand Can be terminated on demand (upto 12th week!), can be done anything in case of rape, risk to women's life or fetal impairment. Minors need permission from guardian. In practice: Majority of population follows Buddhism, and often regard abortion as a taboo, this puts Adolescents at risk whose parents might not support a abortion. Not to mention a large number of physicians are unwilling to perform abortions because of their beliefs. 6. Japan: Legal only in case of rape, endangerment to health or economic difficulty. (upto 22 weeks) In Practice: Exceptions are broad enough that it is widely accepted and practiced, effectively being quasi on-demand.
ohgodplsno 4y ago
Congratulations on making one more partly wrong map and contributing to the list, therefore proving that doing so it indeed hard! Florida is shown as having more access than say France, because France has the limit at 14 weeks, right ? Eeeep, wrong, because you can't read the law. Firstly, it is 14 weeks _from the start of the pregnancy_, as opposed to the US who counts as as since the last period. And magically, when you convert, 14 weeks in France is 16 in the US (https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1551 https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1551). But that's not all. This is for abortion that is 100% at the choice of the mother. Except that abortion is legal up to 9 months, provided the health of the baby would be endangered _or_ the life of the mother would be endangered. And, would you look at this, "psychosocial risks" are a valid reason to ask for an abortion since 1974, or, in more simple to understand terms, "mental health bad if child born, or extreme poverty, etc". Making cases like Andorra, Monaco and Liechtenstein take up so much space in the article overinflates their importance, considering they're about 100 000 people total and that crossing the border to any country is done in an hour. Sure, impractical, but also, insignificant. "Extremely minor leftover city state that is either a monarchy or just known for being a tax haven" isn't really useful on a map.
csours 4y ago
When I think about why this is a political wedge issue, I think about how righteous people feel about their chosen point of view. I think about how that feeling of righteousness can drive people to vote and donate money. I don't think that people are wrong to feel this sense of righteousness, but I do find it disgusting when politicians cynically exploit it. I was raised in a Christian faith that condemns abortion as one of the most serious sins. I understand that point of view. I still feel it to some extent. What I no longer have is the feeling of certainty that personhood begins at conception. Even saying that "life" begins at conception is tenuous. Gametes (sperm and egg cells) are "alive" in that they carry out the same cellular functions that other living cells carry out. Is a zygote more alive than the gametes that came together to form it? If your faith leads you to believe that a zygote is a person, I won't tell you that you are wrong. I would ask that you consider if another person's sincerely held beliefs may be valid when they contradict this point of view.
- x3n0ph3n3 4y ago
  - anon291 4y ago
    Given that the largest global pro life organization, the Catholic church, engaged in pointed efforts to outreach prisoners, immigrants, the ill, widows and orphans, this criticism falls flat. In fact, I'd venture the church spends more money on these things individually than abortion prevention.
    - the_only_law 4y ago
      Yes I'm sure a Methodist pastor was preaching that to the Pope.
      - anon291 4y ago
        I mean... he's preaching to anyone claiming to be pro-life in general.
lettergram 4y ago
This is a complex topic that I really enjoy an analysis being done on. Effectively, the question is when does the state or society have the right to protect a human (whether that’s human fetus, embryo, baby, person). In addition what rights can be removed / protected from the mother. As the analysis points out it’s wildly different throughout the world and even in Europe and United States. The US Supreme Court ruled that prior US rulings overstepped and now it’s a 10th amendment and 4th amendment issue amongst the states - meaning it’ll become more diverse in the US. To frame the US arguments differently — most people are uniformed about when a heart beat is detectable; when a fetus responds to pain, etc As a general rule, when people are fully informed the consensus is “let’s avoid abortion, if we can”. The question is then, where is that line for “it’s too far”. Largely, and the article touches on this, that’s a hyper local issue. Which personally, I don’t see an issue with, we’re typically all for self-governance. That implies freedom of movement, association, and defense. If people of an area choose a certain law so-be-it, just don’t impose your will on others. As long as you can move, if the issue is that troubling to you, associate differently or convince others to change the laws. I view abortion much like the slavery issue historically in the US. The rights of the defenseless will ultimately be expanded. It used to be slaves had severely limited rights, but we saw the err in our ways. I believe we will do the same ultimately here, though it may take many years. The alternative is setting an arbitrary line in the sand “birth” or “20 weeks”, it doesn’t make much sense. Why not “1yr old” or “12 weeks” they have much of the same traits. Barring harm to the mother (which ultimately is dangerous to baby), I see little argument to allow abortion in a logical sense. Morally, I think limiting medical intervention is wrong. And that is ultimately what it boils down to — what morally is correct to limit; which boils down to locale.
- shafoshaf 4y ago
  >>>Barring harm to the mother (which ultimately is dangerous to baby), I see little argument to allow abortion in a logical sense. Does that harm extend to psychological harm, such as incest and/or rape?
  - lettergram 4y ago
    Just because harm is done, doesn’t mean you should do more? Abortion poses risks to the mother psychological and physical. While there’s some mental risk to the mother related to carrying a baby. Ultimately, you can give it up for adoption. I haven’t seen studies on the exact damage carrying a baby to term is, but I expect it’s relatively low when compared to abortion. That said, I think we should follow the evidence. Luckily, those cases are extremely rare. Further, the question is still when do you take the life of the human the woman is carrying? I think that’s a complex issue, as even if someone was born of rape or incest, we don’t discuss killing them at 1yr old.
maweki 4y ago
It's really nuanced and difficult for outsiders to grasp fully. The author says "In Germany, abortion is always illegal (sort of) but simply not punished in the first 12 weeks." which is not true. You also have to have a "Schwangerschaftskonfliktberatung" (Pregnancy Conflict Counseling, gotta love German). This counseling session is mandatory for abortion not being punished. The thing is, in rural areas this counseling is often only available through church-based institutions (which often try to discourage abortions) and during the pandemic many state-based agencies that provide this counseling were used for contact tracing. So there are many small hurdles which are difficult to put into numbers. I don't try to detract from the author. It's a good effort at classification. The devil's in the detail. Edit: I do understand that the counseling itself is mentioned in the article. The intricacies of it are condensed to "tricky". Which is true, but really difficult to classify.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  > "Schwangerschaftskonfliktberatung" (Pregnancy Conflict Counseling, gotta love German). Just a linguistic note: German and English are almost exactly the same in how they make large compound words. The only difference is that when you write English, you put spaces between the different words that make up the compound, but when you write German, you leave out the spaces. But when spoken, they're exactly the same. Germans could theoretically change their orthographic rules to write, "Schwangerschafts Konflikt Beratung," but they don't.
  - zaroth 4y ago
    Thanks for explaining this! So which is more likely, Germans adding proper whitespace in their written language, or Germans codifying legal abortion before 12 weeks?
    - kayyay 4y ago
      Well, now that the Conservative parties are in the opposition they did do away with 218a, there's hope 219 will follow at some point
smsm42 4y ago
It is interesting that in many countries in Europe the situation have settled in some kind of middle ground, but in the US the sides seem to push for the extreme outcomes - either a total lack of restrictions (including some advocating for "after-birth abortions") or a total ban. Moreover, the propaganda seems to often conflate non-extreme proposals with extreme ones - such as calling restricting abortions after 15 weeks "abortion ban" without qualifications. I wonder if there's a place to arrive to some reasonable compromise here or the only solution is to oscillate between the extremes, geographically and temporally, depending on which tribe has more power at the moment.
- anon291 4y ago
  Because roe made the compromises impossible.
  - gedy 4y ago
    I think it was more that it bypassed the political discussion needed to come to compromise (in written law). Which is unfortunate, as the 70s and 80s were a much easier time to have US political parties work together and compromise.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    So what did the Roe ruling do that made compromise impossible?
    - scarmig 4y ago
      It short circuited the political process and substituted it with legal doctrine, which lends itself to absolutist, logically consistent moral positions as opposed to the messy and incoherent compromises that come out of politics.
      - ModernMech 4y ago
        And yet what we're seeing post Roe, are absolutist, logically consistent moral positions in places like Idaho, where 1 party rule has resulted in a political platform that allows no exceptions whatsoever, even for the life of the mother.
DebtDeflation 4y ago
>Late-term abortion on-demand is nonexistent outside the US By the stats he provides right below that statement, it's nonexistent in the US as well. 92.7% of abortions take place in the first trimester (13 weeks). All but 1% of abortions take place by week 20. People just aren't having abortions after that point unless something has gone horribly wrong with the pregnancy (the antithesis of "on-demand").
- whiddershins 4y ago
  A few thousand or even a few hundred a year would not be the same as nonexistent, even if it represents a small percentage of some other number.
  - DebtDeflation 4y ago
    There's probably the same number relatively speaking in the other countries where the author describes the situation as "non-existent".
- jandrese 4y ago
  If something has gone horribly wrong with the pregnancy it doesn't make sense to force the woman to continue with it, yet that's exactly what the laws are doing. It's barbaric and inhumane. These blanket bans on late term abortions make very little sense when you actually think them through. It's legally enforced cruelty that helps nobody.
  - DebtDeflation 4y ago
    Right. The point is that something along the lines of "abortion for any reason up to 15 weeks, abortion only for the life/health of the mother or severe fetal abnormalities after that" is something that would cover 99.9% of abortions that actually occur today and that non-extremists on both sides of the issue could probably agree to. Unfortunately, pragmatism and compromise are no longer possible in US politics.
    - 4y ago
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
> Not sure what political dynamics led Israel to leave abortion “illegal” but also add multiple redundant layers of extremely broad exceptions. Maybe the country has other priorities. Those would be the political dynamics of pretending to be conservative while actually being liberal in order to jerk off both sides at once. Being paternalistic/nanny state gives the illusion of control, whereas "anyone can get an abortion anytime for any reason" sounds like immoral anarchy. When in reality half the abortions are illegal anyway, because unnecessary controls create more bugs.
AdamH12113 4y ago
The article talks about the difference between legality and access but doesn't mention two key differences between the US and European countries. The first is funding. Healthcare in America is expensive to begin with, and there are no federal subsidies for abortions allowed (e.g. via Medicaid) due to the Hyde Amendment. The second is that even before the Dobbs decision Republican-controlled states in the US went to great lengths to harass clinics and abortion-seekers by imposing extreme and medically-unnecessary requirements for things like the size of the clinic building, mandatory waiting periods, and forced transvaginal ultrasounds. On top of that, clinics that provide abortion are usually surrounded by a crowd of screaming anti-abortion activists who yell at patients and providers. To my understanding, that sort of stuff doesn't generally happen in most European countries. I suspect their sex ed classes and contraceptive access are much better than ours, too. There's also a long history of stochastic terrorism toward doctors who perform abortions, but I don't know how European countries compare on that front.
cryptonector 4y ago
> Late-term abortion on-demand is nonexistent outside the US TIL.
- stuckinhell 4y ago
  Still find that shocking.
topgun77 4y ago
norwalkbear 4y ago
It's freaking crazy to me how unliberal Europe's abortion laws are.
- fleddr 4y ago
  How so? Almost every European country is in the 15-25 weeks zone. Many extend that significantly based on case-by-case consultancy between doctor and patient. In high-income countries 90% of all abortions are done BEFORE 12 weeks.
- TrackerFF 4y ago
  Unfortunately, many European countries have laws (not just regarding abortion) which almost directly reflect the religious establishment of the country.¨ In general, the more catholic a country is, the more heavy handed the (abortion) laws seem to be. Even seemingly progressive countries have various quirky laws, which are nothing more than the ghosts of a religious past. Still a hot topic in countries with multi party systems, where small niche (and often highly religious) parties can have a say on a small number of issues.
orwin 4y ago
In France, after 14 weeks, you have to pass in front of a 'commitee' of i think 2 doctors and a judge (or someone that represents the government judicial power, i had this conversation a while ago and don't remember the details). The doctor give their thoughts and the judge decide. In practice, before viability, the judge will always accord the right. The doctors will only state facts and cannot influence the patient in any way or form (else they won't be on committees anymore). The judge will always defer to the doctors after viability. The doctor who told me that also told me that they pushed 20 years ago for social assistants to be present too, to interview the family (sometimes, the expecting triggers stuff in the family that push the women to ask for an abortion a bit late), but the lack of personal prevented that.

240 points by phnofive 4y ago

In the UK, certainly England (not sure if different in Northern Ireland), by law abortion is not 'on demand' and carrying one out as such (on demand without meeting legal criteria) is technically a criminal offense, though in practice this does not seem to be really enforced. I believe that the law states that abortion can be carried out for specific "health or social reasons". Edit, legal framework: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_Kingdom So it seems in general they are using a 'fudge' by invoking risk to "mother's mental health" but again legally there is no "on demand" abortion in the UK. Edit 2: I find it odd that people seem to be displeased by a statement of, I think, important facts. If anything, people in favour of "on demand" abortion should lobby for a law change in the UK because at it stands a woman can legally be denied an abortion and a doctor carrying an abortion can be charged with a criminal offense (in a country that prides itself of having the "rule of law".) I invite you to Google about decriminalisation of abortion in the UK to see that this is an active issue because, indeed it is not currently decriminalised.

mbg721 4y ago
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  > Why is anybody happy with "de facto"? If something should be a legal right, enshrine it specifically in law. Exactly. At the moment everyone is effectively turning a blind eye to the law. If there is a concensus that abortion should be available on demand then the law should be amended to that effect. The UK is not on par with other European countries where "on demand" does exist in law, which is what I wanted to point out.
  - swores 4y ago
    It's not turning a blind eye, it's accurately interpreting that forcing a woman to give birth when she wants an abortion will be detrimental to her mental health, thus making her abortion legal. Sure it could have stronger wording in law, but it's not causing any problems as it current is. But you've misunderstood it from your first comment, where you wrongly said it is a "criminal offence" when done here in England which is just entirely wrong.
    - mytailorisrich 4y ago
      > But you've misunderstood it from your first comment, where you wrongly said it is a "criminal offence" when done here in England which is just entirely wrong. No, I never wrote that that abortion was always a criminal offence. I wrote: Abortion is not on demand and any abortion that does not satisfy the legal criteria can thus be a criminal offence. It is no more than a statement of fact. This the law. "Mental health" is a very fuzzy term and it is not enough to say it to make so. It's just that at the moment no-one wants to create trouble on this and are indeed turning a blind eye by taking the approach you mention. But if for some reason authorities want to create trouble then they could just use the law as it stands as well. And indeed there are calls to decriminalise abortion because it isn't in law.
    - mbg721 4y ago
      - otikik 4y ago
        Maybe “disorder” is not the exact right word to use. Still, there should be a distinction in our words between “a regular, wanted pregnancy” and “a pregnancy which came as a consequence of a rape”, for example.
        mbg721 4y ago
        Those are few and far between; grasping at straws to get the outcome that we want is closer to the truth.
- di4na 4y ago
  because noone is happy, and the law is a negotiation between a large body of people and different part of society. This please noone but also allows sufficient slack for the differences to not explode into unrest. This is a working compromise that for now is relatively stable on the social contract of that law. It will probably not stay that way, as the component of society evolve. We can hope for a different compromise ofc, but it is important to realise that the law is a compromise on a social contract, not something that exist in a vacuum
- namdnay 4y ago
  > If something should be a legal right, enshrine it specifically in law I mean couldn't you turn that around? Normally things are legal by default, not illegal. Wouldn't the onus be on the law to explicitly make abortion illegal?
  - mbg721 4y ago
    How awfully libertarian of you to say so,
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
metadat 4y ago
If this is true, TFA is presenting false / incorrect information. They listed "Great Britain" as "available on-demand except for fetal abnormalities or mental health issues". Edit: Thank you to all the child comments below for the clarifications.
- swores 4y ago
  The law allows for abortions due to "risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family (up to a term limit of 24 weeks of gestation)" And to quote this (correct) wikipedia entry: "The third ground [the one I quoted above in this comment] is typically interpreted liberally with regards to mental health to create a de facto state of abortion on demand, and nearly all abortions—98% in 2019 and 2020—are performed to protect the woman's mental health". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_Kingdom Maybe it would be better to legally enshrine it as "on demand", but every woman I know in England who either has had an abortion or thought about the possibility of maybe needing one, currently considers it to be on demand.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- allturtles 4y ago
  There's no need to speculate, this is all very clearly addressed in TFA: > Technically, abortion is never available on-demand in Great Britain. (Northern Ireland is a bit different from England/Scotland/Wales.) However, the law allows abortions up to 24 weeks if there is a “grave risk to the mental health” of the woman and nowadays abortion providers—who make the determination—almost always view the fact that a woman wants an abortion as proof that such a risk exists. Thus, abortion is de-facto available on demand for 24 weeks.
NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
Did you read down to the third paragraph of the article you're citing? The third ground is typically interpreted liberally with regards to mental health to create a de facto state of abortion on demand, and nearly all abortions—98% in 2019 and 2020—are performed to protect the woman's mental health.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  I have commented on this and I maintain what I wrote. This is a topic periodically raised by health professional because, again, this is using the law at the limit and it would be much preferable to amend the law to make it on demand to protect everyone.
  - allturtles 4y ago
    Okay, but the whole point of the article is to address the nuances around the realities of abortion access. It's not an advocacy piece, and it's not specifically about UK law.
judofyr 4y ago
This is already covered in the article: > Technically, abortion is never available on-demand in Great Britain. (Northern Ireland is a bit different from England/Scotland/Wales.) However, the law allows abortions up to 24 weeks if there is a “grave risk to the mental health” of the woman and nowadays abortion providers—who make the determination—almost always view the fact that a woman wants an abortion as proof that such a risk exists. Thus, abortion is de-facto available on demand for 24 weeks.
phphphphp 4y ago
but “mental health” (i.e: well-being) is the reason someone would choose an abortion. If (hypothetically) water is legal to drink as long as you’re thirsty, is it a fudge to say “anybody is allowed to drink water”? You are thirsty by virtue of wanting to drink water, just like you want an abortion due to your well-being.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  It would be weird to have a law that says "drinking water is illegal unless you are thirsty or want to drink water for some other reason," right?
  - zaroth 4y ago
    Unless the act of drinking water was this hyper-politicized thing that required basically splitting the atom to try to please all your electoral interests. And so the end result is a law which negates itself, which might well have been the entire point? I have no idea if the drafters of the law actually intended it to nullify itself.
astura 4y ago
>I find it odd that people seem to be displeased by a statement of important facts The article mentions this and goes into more details. I'm not sure what else your comment adds other than to be snarky and downplay the seriousness of the topic by using scare quotes.

ThrowawayTestr 4y ago

Tl;dr: Florida still has more access than much of Europe

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ch4s3 4y ago
More over, much of Europe had more restrictions only a few years ago.
- ohgodplsno 4y ago
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    It was meant as extra context. While I don’t like the Supreme Court’s ruling, I hardly think the US is taking a “theocratic approach.” Even now most of the US population will live under a set of laws that are more permissive than those in Europe. Imagine if Poland, Malta, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands all had to have centralized set of laws across wide array of contentious issues. It would be a mess.
    - ohgodplsno 4y ago
      - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
        > with a terrible political system made 300 years ago by slavers ... a political system that was widely considered revolutionary and incredibly enlightened at the time, including (or especially) by Europeans, who lived under much less democratic forms of government. I'm on your side on the abortion issue, but bashing the American Revolution and blaming the founders isn't going to help your cause, and it's just bad history.

tschwimmer 4y ago

This is an excellent article that does what precious few "serious" online blogs do: it puts in the extensive research required and makes a conclusion based on that evidence.

rossdavidh 4y ago
Would that we had access to such thorough research and dispassionate discussion, on every other hot-button issue. If only there were an industry, whose job was to bring us information on things like this... But anyway, agreed, the article is excellent, and that is rare.
fullshark 4y ago
Ever since Roe was repealed I wanted to know that graph the writer creates to understand the current reality, but simply couldn't find it and mostly just got articles that were loaded with histronics.

PeterisP 4y ago

I would explain the repeated observation about lack of clear information on specific criteria as explicit policy choice that matches the explicit policy choice on many other complicated healthcare aspects in those countries - essentially, that you will get all kinds of weird edge cases that should get evaluated individually case-by-case; and that this determination should be done by a doctor (or a panel of doctors) and the patient, not be prescribed and enforced by the legal system.

daenz 4y ago
Weird edge cases are very rare by definition. If they're not very rare, then they're not weird edge cases. And allowing them to exist and be handled in a bespoke way is not the same as handling all cases in a bespoke way. The law can help isolate those weird edge cases by handling the broad cases up front. That way the truly unique cases can get the resources/attention that they need.
- PeterisP 4y ago
  My point is that the policy in those countries intentionally does not try to define what exactly is "the broad case" (because, frankly, any definition will have its flaws in some unforeseen and unforeseeable cases) but instead devolves that decision to the doctors, so that every case can be treated as a "weird case" if and only if the doctors say so, because the policy in these societies is that they trust the doctors to make the proper ethical choice more than their ability to prescribe exact criteria in a legal act. In essence, allowing these cases to exist at all means that the law acknowledges that it can't explicitly state in legislation beforehand which cases will need bespoke review and which will not; and that it in such cases the law does not prescribe the final decision but devolves it to the medical specialists who see the individual case. An alternative that I've read about from recent events in USA with hospital lawyers being present in emergency room to make a decision when a certain intervention (deemed necessary by the doctors beforehand) becomes "permissible" seems literally incomprehensible and insane at least to me, as from all the people in that room they are the least appropriate, least qualified, and with least moral rights to make a decision about what should be done or not - if you don't trust these particular doctors with doing what's right, you shouldn't let them perform operations on people at all.

bobobob420 4y ago

In America the goal is to distract people from corporations not paying taxes so the media ponies up with other big companies to make abortion a pressing issue when in reality I doubt any man could care less about what a woman hes not involved with is doing to their body. Furthermore abortion should be legal and it should be handled between the man and woman with the clause that if they both agree to the baby, both will be held financial responsible. If the man wants the baby and the woman doesn't she has the right to abort. If the woman wants the baby and the man doesn't, she does not have to abort but the man is not responsible. If there is no man involved than the woman is free to do as she pleases. Extraordinarily simple yet it is one of the most pressing issues in our country....not poverty...not pollution...not coporations not paying taxes...not the justice and prison system....abortions. America is speedrunning to becomming a failed society. Personally I will make as much money as I can here and then leave.

DontchaKnowit 4y ago
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  > although this may be important but public dialogue on this is 4th grade level Well, public dialog on everything is at the 4th grade level - gun control, racism, trans rights, abortion, UBI, January 6, global warming, Covid... it's all at 4th grade level, sometimes below. I can't think of one issue where there's actually a mature, nuanced public discussion.
- bobobob420 4y ago
  If a man does not want the baby but the woman does why would the man be responsible? He does not want the child and makes it clear, the woman will choose to have the baby and then force the man to pay money and raise the kid.. that doesn’t make sense at all. As for your opinion, “ In my opinion the choice to have a child (or to roll the dice on having a child) is made at the time of conception and once an embryo has been implanted it is the responsibility of both parents to provide support to the child.” It is your opinion but it is a dumb one that should not be respected in any modern society. 1. Read a history book. 2. Learn about realism 3. Put yourselves in the shoes of the many circumstances in which pregnancy occur.

dudus 4y ago

What is astounding is how hard it is to find what the law says in some places. The article suggest that's the case in Israel where the situation is quite confusing. For another example Brazil is quite confusing where even the phisicians don't know when it can or can't be done.

daenz 4y ago
It's not surprising to me. It is an extremely complex topic that touches on so many aspects of rights, norms, safety, poverty, individual vs collective, etc etc. I don't think it will ever be settled, and the best we'll see is the laws vaguely reflecting different trends, but in the end they will rarely have teeth.
- otikik 4y ago
  But there’s some cases where it should be crystal clear and still isn’t. If the pregnancy isn’t viable (e g the egg is fertilised but hasn’t traveled to the right place on the womb before “taking hold”), then abortion should be legal. If the phoetus has died, then abortion should be legal. There’s some clear-cut cases like that where it’s clear it should be legal and yet in some places the law is still “vague”.
  - jandrese 4y ago
    The laws are not even vague, it's outright illegal. These people are pushing to make abortion in the case of ectopic pregnancy illegal, and in at least one case have succeeded.

User23 4y ago

charlescearl 4y ago

Global status of abortion access as of 2021 https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/WALM_2021update_V1-1.pdf https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/WA...

jeffbee 4y ago
Almost the entire point of the post is the situation cannot be conveyed by a categorical cartogram.
0xcafecafe 4y ago
Am I reading the chart wrong or is IV less restrictive than V?

Fnoord 4y ago

Amniocentesis can only be performed after week 15, which means you can only test for e.g. Down Syndrome after that. Not allowed to abort then, in Ireland or Florida.

disgruntledphd2 4y ago
Indeed. When we were having our first child, we brought this up and the consultant shrugged and told us to go to England.
dragonwriter 4y ago
Even noninvasive prenatal screening (maternal blood tests; possible because genetic information crosses into the mother's system), which is less conclusive than amnio but safer and can be done earlier, usually can't be done before about week 10.

ivraatiems 4y ago

> I, uhh, I guess that’s quite close to de-facto abortion on demand? Not sure what political dynamics led Israel to leave abortion “illegal” but also add multiple redundant layers of extremely broad exceptions. Maybe the country has other priorities. Someone isn't familiar with Israeli politics. Since this is HN and a snarky comment won't suffice, let me elaborate: Israel is a cultural mishmosh of so many different varietals of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and every other thing that literally every view on every given issue exists. The country doesn't have a constitution because it can't agree on one.[1] The current government, which is falling apart, is a right-wing-left-wing coalition government that includes ultranationalists, Arab anti-Zionists, the left wing who was out of government for a decade, and vaguely centrist "yeah whatever Zionism" parties.[2] The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is administered by no fewer than six (!) different churches who all share the space and have to carefully coordinate the timing of their rites and services.[3] And don't even get me started on gay marriage.[4] This topic is something that people who are blindly anti-Israel (as opposed to anti-Zionist philosophically, anti-the current Israeli government, anti-occupation, etc.) just do not understand. Israel is a melting pot that boiled over onto the stove and made the fire stronger instead of snuffing it out. It is a very strange place to have a government. So "we theoretically ban abortion because traditional sects of various groups don't like it but in practice we allow it for everyone because lots of people want it and we don't really want to make them angry either" is a typical Israeli policy position on something like this. It is just the nth example. This way, Israel can plausibly claim to take every position on this issue, all at once, and thereby appease a coalition of about a zillion different views. Now try to get the country to agree on an approach to Palestine and you see why the current situation is so messed up. [1] https://theconversation.com/how-israels-missing-constitution-deepens-divisions-between-jews-and-with-arabs-162200 https://theconversation.com/how-israels-missing-constitution... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-sixth_government_of_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-sixth_government_of_Isr... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre [4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-of-weddings-israel-same-sex-couples-find-legal-loophole-to-recognize-marriages/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-of-weddings-israel-same-s...

grasshopperpurp 4y ago

fabian2k 4y ago

The article describes a really important point, that the actual access can be very different from what the law says. I think the article might still underestimate this issue, especially political polarization around the topic. It's a very different situation in a country where protests near clinics that perform abortions are common and doctors are at times named and vilified for this. There are a lot of ways to add barriers within the legal rules, and that is not easy to compare. I think the focus on the specific time limit is a bit misleading. I'm not sure about the exact statistics, but the vast majority of abortions are performed early. There are some laws like the "heartbeat" laws that set impossibly short time limits, but a time limit does not have to be an unreasonable limitation as long as it provides very robust exceptions for cases like health complications. That part is tricky of course, physicians do need to feel safe to make reasonable medical decisions here without having to fear legal consequences from overly vague or restrictive laws.

stuckinhell 4y ago

I'm shocked how different Abortion in Europe and the United States is. It might as well be apples and oranges.

happyopossum 4y ago
The article kinda points out that there is no single Abortion In Europe standard - it's all over the map (figuratively speaking).
- rory 4y ago
  There's no single Abortion in post-Roe USA standard either-- in fact it's more internally variant than Europe. So I guess it's kind of like comparing a basket of apples, oranges and bananas to a different basket of apples, oranges, and bananas (and maybe a couple grapefruits).
spacedcowboy 4y ago
Yeah, as a Brit, the absence of abortion as a mother's right is ... just wrong. But, as a Brit, I'm used to being disappointed in American "healthcare".
- 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
  When you become a citizen we give you the right to bear arms because you may have to commit crime to survive here.
- stuckinhell 4y ago
  I think you missed the point, abortion as a right means many different things in different countries. Florida a red state has more abortion rights that most of Europe. It also looks like the majority of Europe would not approve of American Style Abortion either, which is the most radically surprising thing to me by far.
  - spacedcowboy 4y ago

rob_c 4y ago

The lesson should probably have been how most of the developed world doesn't care. In most "developed" countries it's a healthcare issue mostly now, except after the "land of the free" has an episodic meltdown all over global media and rakes it up... Again... Thanks again for the nonsense endless articles explaining how none of you colonialists can get along with each other.

claytongulick 4y ago
Or looked at another way, a healthy functioning democracy that actively debates extremely contentious issues and settles them via legal process instead of violence. So, you're welcome.
- spacedcowboy 4y ago
  I disagree that there is not going to be violence over the most recent SC decision. There are now places where women are going to die as a result. Those places are generally the 'red' states where lots of people have lots of guns. Guns and insufferable grief are not a great mix.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  The US is a ‘healthy, functioning democracy?’ It’s currently debating whether there was a coup attempt.
  - spacedcowboy 4y ago
    Technically the US is a "flawed democracy" [1] and if the SC go ahead as expected with their 'states rights' crusade [2], then it's going to possibly lose the 'democracy' part of that... [1]: https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/Leveraging-big-ideas/flawed-democracy https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/Leveraging-big-ideas/flawe... [2]: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/01/1109275691/the-supreme-court-could-radically-reshape-elections-for-president-and-congress https://www.npr.org/2022/07/01/1109275691/the-supreme-court-...
  - claytongulick 4y ago

dayvid 4y ago

Anunayj 4y ago
I don't think he does however I think I'll post a quick analysis by me here: 1. India: Pretty much on-demand All women can terminate pregnancy (for a valid* reason) on advice of one doctor upto 20 weeks. Note: Valid reason can be as simple as failure of contraceptive, economic difficulty, or risk of death In special cases (rape, incest, women being a minor*, change in marital status, mental illness, or fetal anomalies) it can be done upto 24 weeks. Moreover a pregnancy can be terminated anytime in case fetal anomalies are found later in pregnancy, however it requires approval from a board (which consists of a gynecologist, radiologist/sonologist, pediatrician, and other members decided by the state) India (and China) had a rampant problem with sex selective termination, this has been combated by making it illegal to reveal the child's sex before birth. In practice, till 2021 failure of contraceptive was not recognized as a valid reason for termination of pregnancy in unmarried women. Furthermore high abortion costs, lack of awareness, and societal stigma, make unsafe (and illegal) abortions rampant (accounting for 56% of abortions) * Consent of minor's guardian is needed to perform a termination 2. China: on-demand China's one child policy made abortions a "remedial" measure to fight overpopulation. So in some way it was encouraged. Abortions seem to have little oversight, however some regions do ban non-medically necessary abortions after 14 weeks of pregnancy. Sex selective abortions (and pre-natal sex determination) are illegal. 3. South Korea: on-demand It used to be be legal only for reason like genetic disorders, rape, incest or threatens the life of the women. However in 2019, the Constitutional court declared the law unconstitutional, now it's legal for upto 14 weeks. (Upto 24 weeks in case of previously specified reasons) 4. Singapore: on-demand Upto 16 weeks: Must be done by a authorized medical practitioner. 16-24 weeks: Must be done by a authorized medical practitioner with surgical or obstetric qualifications. After 24 weeks: Can be done if life of women is in danger Only consent of pregnant women is needed for termination, even in case of minors. Side note: You need to be a citizen of Singapore or hold a work visa and have been in Singapore for > 4 months to get a abortion, this means you can't travel to Singapore for a abortion. 5. Thailand: on-demand Can be terminated on demand (upto 12th week!), can be done anything in case of rape, risk to women's life or fetal impairment. Minors need permission from guardian. In practice: Majority of population follows Buddhism, and often regard abortion as a taboo, this puts Adolescents at risk whose parents might not support a abortion. Not to mention a large number of physicians are unwilling to perform abortions because of their beliefs. 6. Japan: Legal only in case of rape, endangerment to health or economic difficulty. (upto 22 weeks) In Practice: Exceptions are broad enough that it is widely accepted and practiced, effectively being quasi on-demand.

ohgodplsno 4y ago

Congratulations on making one more partly wrong map and contributing to the list, therefore proving that doing so it indeed hard! Florida is shown as having more access than say France, because France has the limit at 14 weeks, right ? Eeeep, wrong, because you can't read the law. Firstly, it is 14 weeks _from the start of the pregnancy_, as opposed to the US who counts as as since the last period. And magically, when you convert, 14 weeks in France is 16 in the US (https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1551 https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1551). But that's not all. This is for abortion that is 100% at the choice of the mother. Except that abortion is legal up to 9 months, provided the health of the baby would be endangered _or_ the life of the mother would be endangered. And, would you look at this, "psychosocial risks" are a valid reason to ask for an abortion since 1974, or, in more simple to understand terms, "mental health bad if child born, or extreme poverty, etc". Making cases like Andorra, Monaco and Liechtenstein take up so much space in the article overinflates their importance, considering they're about 100 000 people total and that crossing the border to any country is done in an hour. Sure, impractical, but also, insignificant. "Extremely minor leftover city state that is either a monarchy or just known for being a tax haven" isn't really useful on a map.

csours 4y ago

When I think about why this is a political wedge issue, I think about how righteous people feel about their chosen point of view. I think about how that feeling of righteousness can drive people to vote and donate money. I don't think that people are wrong to feel this sense of righteousness, but I do find it disgusting when politicians cynically exploit it. I was raised in a Christian faith that condemns abortion as one of the most serious sins. I understand that point of view. I still feel it to some extent. What I no longer have is the feeling of certainty that personhood begins at conception. Even saying that "life" begins at conception is tenuous. Gametes (sperm and egg cells) are "alive" in that they carry out the same cellular functions that other living cells carry out. Is a zygote more alive than the gametes that came together to form it? If your faith leads you to believe that a zygote is a person, I won't tell you that you are wrong. I would ask that you consider if another person's sincerely held beliefs may be valid when they contradict this point of view.

x3n0ph3n3 4y ago
- anon291 4y ago
  Given that the largest global pro life organization, the Catholic church, engaged in pointed efforts to outreach prisoners, immigrants, the ill, widows and orphans, this criticism falls flat. In fact, I'd venture the church spends more money on these things individually than abortion prevention.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    Yes I'm sure a Methodist pastor was preaching that to the Pope.
    - anon291 4y ago
      I mean... he's preaching to anyone claiming to be pro-life in general.

lettergram 4y ago

This is a complex topic that I really enjoy an analysis being done on. Effectively, the question is when does the state or society have the right to protect a human (whether that’s human fetus, embryo, baby, person). In addition what rights can be removed / protected from the mother. As the analysis points out it’s wildly different throughout the world and even in Europe and United States. The US Supreme Court ruled that prior US rulings overstepped and now it’s a 10th amendment and 4th amendment issue amongst the states - meaning it’ll become more diverse in the US. To frame the US arguments differently — most people are uniformed about when a heart beat is detectable; when a fetus responds to pain, etc As a general rule, when people are fully informed the consensus is “let’s avoid abortion, if we can”. The question is then, where is that line for “it’s too far”. Largely, and the article touches on this, that’s a hyper local issue. Which personally, I don’t see an issue with, we’re typically all for self-governance. That implies freedom of movement, association, and defense. If people of an area choose a certain law so-be-it, just don’t impose your will on others. As long as you can move, if the issue is that troubling to you, associate differently or convince others to change the laws. I view abortion much like the slavery issue historically in the US. The rights of the defenseless will ultimately be expanded. It used to be slaves had severely limited rights, but we saw the err in our ways. I believe we will do the same ultimately here, though it may take many years. The alternative is setting an arbitrary line in the sand “birth” or “20 weeks”, it doesn’t make much sense. Why not “1yr old” or “12 weeks” they have much of the same traits. Barring harm to the mother (which ultimately is dangerous to baby), I see little argument to allow abortion in a logical sense. Morally, I think limiting medical intervention is wrong. And that is ultimately what it boils down to — what morally is correct to limit; which boils down to locale.

shafoshaf 4y ago
>>>Barring harm to the mother (which ultimately is dangerous to baby), I see little argument to allow abortion in a logical sense. Does that harm extend to psychological harm, such as incest and/or rape?
- lettergram 4y ago
  Just because harm is done, doesn’t mean you should do more? Abortion poses risks to the mother psychological and physical. While there’s some mental risk to the mother related to carrying a baby. Ultimately, you can give it up for adoption. I haven’t seen studies on the exact damage carrying a baby to term is, but I expect it’s relatively low when compared to abortion. That said, I think we should follow the evidence. Luckily, those cases are extremely rare. Further, the question is still when do you take the life of the human the woman is carrying? I think that’s a complex issue, as even if someone was born of rape or incest, we don’t discuss killing them at 1yr old.

maweki 4y ago

It's really nuanced and difficult for outsiders to grasp fully. The author says "In Germany, abortion is always illegal (sort of) but simply not punished in the first 12 weeks." which is not true. You also have to have a "Schwangerschaftskonfliktberatung" (Pregnancy Conflict Counseling, gotta love German). This counseling session is mandatory for abortion not being punished. The thing is, in rural areas this counseling is often only available through church-based institutions (which often try to discourage abortions) and during the pandemic many state-based agencies that provide this counseling were used for contact tracing. So there are many small hurdles which are difficult to put into numbers. I don't try to detract from the author. It's a good effort at classification. The devil's in the detail. Edit: I do understand that the counseling itself is mentioned in the article. The intricacies of it are condensed to "tricky". Which is true, but really difficult to classify.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
> "Schwangerschaftskonfliktberatung" (Pregnancy Conflict Counseling, gotta love German). Just a linguistic note: German and English are almost exactly the same in how they make large compound words. The only difference is that when you write English, you put spaces between the different words that make up the compound, but when you write German, you leave out the spaces. But when spoken, they're exactly the same. Germans could theoretically change their orthographic rules to write, "Schwangerschafts Konflikt Beratung," but they don't.
- zaroth 4y ago
  Thanks for explaining this! So which is more likely, Germans adding proper whitespace in their written language, or Germans codifying legal abortion before 12 weeks?
  - kayyay 4y ago
    Well, now that the Conservative parties are in the opposition they did do away with 218a, there's hope 219 will follow at some point

smsm42 4y ago

It is interesting that in many countries in Europe the situation have settled in some kind of middle ground, but in the US the sides seem to push for the extreme outcomes - either a total lack of restrictions (including some advocating for "after-birth abortions") or a total ban. Moreover, the propaganda seems to often conflate non-extreme proposals with extreme ones - such as calling restricting abortions after 15 weeks "abortion ban" without qualifications. I wonder if there's a place to arrive to some reasonable compromise here or the only solution is to oscillate between the extremes, geographically and temporally, depending on which tribe has more power at the moment.

anon291 4y ago
Because roe made the compromises impossible.
- gedy 4y ago
  I think it was more that it bypassed the political discussion needed to come to compromise (in written law). Which is unfortunate, as the 70s and 80s were a much easier time to have US political parties work together and compromise.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  So what did the Roe ruling do that made compromise impossible?
  - scarmig 4y ago
    It short circuited the political process and substituted it with legal doctrine, which lends itself to absolutist, logically consistent moral positions as opposed to the messy and incoherent compromises that come out of politics.
    - ModernMech 4y ago
      And yet what we're seeing post Roe, are absolutist, logically consistent moral positions in places like Idaho, where 1 party rule has resulted in a political platform that allows no exceptions whatsoever, even for the life of the mother.

DebtDeflation 4y ago

>Late-term abortion on-demand is nonexistent outside the US By the stats he provides right below that statement, it's nonexistent in the US as well. 92.7% of abortions take place in the first trimester (13 weeks). All but 1% of abortions take place by week 20. People just aren't having abortions after that point unless something has gone horribly wrong with the pregnancy (the antithesis of "on-demand").

whiddershins 4y ago
A few thousand or even a few hundred a year would not be the same as nonexistent, even if it represents a small percentage of some other number.
- DebtDeflation 4y ago
  There's probably the same number relatively speaking in the other countries where the author describes the situation as "non-existent".
jandrese 4y ago
If something has gone horribly wrong with the pregnancy it doesn't make sense to force the woman to continue with it, yet that's exactly what the laws are doing. It's barbaric and inhumane. These blanket bans on late term abortions make very little sense when you actually think them through. It's legally enforced cruelty that helps nobody.
- DebtDeflation 4y ago
  Right. The point is that something along the lines of "abortion for any reason up to 15 weeks, abortion only for the life/health of the mother or severe fetal abnormalities after that" is something that would cover 99.9% of abortions that actually occur today and that non-extremists on both sides of the issue could probably agree to. Unfortunately, pragmatism and compromise are no longer possible in US politics.
  - 4y ago

0xbadcafebee 4y ago

> Not sure what political dynamics led Israel to leave abortion “illegal” but also add multiple redundant layers of extremely broad exceptions. Maybe the country has other priorities. Those would be the political dynamics of pretending to be conservative while actually being liberal in order to jerk off both sides at once. Being paternalistic/nanny state gives the illusion of control, whereas "anyone can get an abortion anytime for any reason" sounds like immoral anarchy. When in reality half the abortions are illegal anyway, because unnecessary controls create more bugs.

AdamH12113 4y ago

The article talks about the difference between legality and access but doesn't mention two key differences between the US and European countries. The first is funding. Healthcare in America is expensive to begin with, and there are no federal subsidies for abortions allowed (e.g. via Medicaid) due to the Hyde Amendment. The second is that even before the Dobbs decision Republican-controlled states in the US went to great lengths to harass clinics and abortion-seekers by imposing extreme and medically-unnecessary requirements for things like the size of the clinic building, mandatory waiting periods, and forced transvaginal ultrasounds. On top of that, clinics that provide abortion are usually surrounded by a crowd of screaming anti-abortion activists who yell at patients and providers. To my understanding, that sort of stuff doesn't generally happen in most European countries. I suspect their sex ed classes and contraceptive access are much better than ours, too. There's also a long history of stochastic terrorism toward doctors who perform abortions, but I don't know how European countries compare on that front.

cryptonector 4y ago

> Late-term abortion on-demand is nonexistent outside the US TIL.

stuckinhell 4y ago
Still find that shocking.

topgun77 4y ago

norwalkbear 4y ago

It's freaking crazy to me how unliberal Europe's abortion laws are.

fleddr 4y ago
How so? Almost every European country is in the 15-25 weeks zone. Many extend that significantly based on case-by-case consultancy between doctor and patient. In high-income countries 90% of all abortions are done BEFORE 12 weeks.
TrackerFF 4y ago
Unfortunately, many European countries have laws (not just regarding abortion) which almost directly reflect the religious establishment of the country.¨ In general, the more catholic a country is, the more heavy handed the (abortion) laws seem to be. Even seemingly progressive countries have various quirky laws, which are nothing more than the ghosts of a religious past. Still a hot topic in countries with multi party systems, where small niche (and often highly religious) parties can have a say on a small number of issues.

orwin 4y ago

In France, after 14 weeks, you have to pass in front of a 'commitee' of i think 2 doctors and a judge (or someone that represents the government judicial power, i had this conversation a while ago and don't remember the details). The doctor give their thoughts and the judge decide. In practice, before viability, the judge will always accord the right. The doctors will only state facts and cannot influence the patient in any way or form (else they won't be on committees anymore). The judge will always defer to the doctors after viability. The doctor who told me that also told me that they pushed 20 years ago for social assistants to be present too, to interview the family (sometimes, the expecting triggers stuff in the family that push the women to ask for an abortion a bit late), but the lack of personal prevented that.