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Why isn't it like parenting? If you wanted to give a child up for adoption, and no agency in your state could take on the child for three weeks, you couldn't ju

Why isn't it like parenting? If you wanted to give a child up for adoption, and no agency in your state could take on the child for three weeks, you couldn't just stop taking care of it. Parents have a unique responsibility to their own offspring. Is it wrong to extend that to at least very-late-term pregnancies? Requiring a woman to carry a pregnancy from 32 weeks to 38 weeks rather than destroying the fetus is certainly a weightier responsibility than just requiring them to feed and shelter a child for a few weeks while a state adoption agency is waiting on resources, but the two requirements fit in the same moral framework of parental responsibility.

mikkergp 4y ago
> Why isn't it like parenting? If you wanted to give a child up for adoption, and no agency in your state could take on the child for three weeks, you couldn't just stop taking care of it. This is actually not entirely true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-haven_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-haven_law "Safe-haven laws (also known in some states as "Baby Moses laws", in reference to the religious scripture) are statutes in the United States that decriminalize the leaving of unharmed infants with statutorily designated private persons so that the child becomes a ward of the state. All fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have enacted such statutes.[1]" I assume these are meant to prevent infanticide among other reasons but yeah, you can just give up the baby. Apparently you can't just drop them off in most cases, as I thought you could, I think in the movies they show parents just leaving them on the steps. You have to find a responsible party to hand them too.
- rcoveson 4y ago
  That is indeed a very limited responsibility, but I think the salient point is that it's still a responsibility of the parent and that the law protects the child from harm and neglect even though it compels the parents to act at their own expense.
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    I kinda think that the salient point is that the law can and often does provide outs to respect the fact that life is complicated. Post 32 week abortions are debate within a debate because people aren't really talking about the same thing, much more than other parts of the abortion debates. Many on the pro-forced-birth side would have you believe that this is a common occurrence. The pro-choice side would say that abortion is a difficult decision in and of itself and if someone is choosing abortion after 32 weeks, it must be an exceptional case, and we should respect the parent-doctor relationship to make that decision. Being in a situation where I'm at the 32 week mark with my wife, I can't imagine many people choose to knowingly wait this long, and then just have an abortion for "funsies". Pew Research suggests it is less than 1% after 21 weeks (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/24/what-the-data-says-about-abortion-in-the-u-s-2/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/24/what-the-da...).
    - rcoveson 4y ago
      I agree with you about the debate within a debate thing. It's genuinely hard to have a conversation about late-term abortion law in the current US context, where the really important laws being made are criminalizing abortions at the very earliest stages, and even possibly some forms of pre-implantation birth control. But I also think it's helpful to cede some ground to the moderate pro-lifers. If we can acknowledge that 32 week fetuses are empathetically "infants in a difficult locale", to me it's clear that there is some legal burden there. I don't think the opinion of one woman and that of any one doctor she can find willing to agree with her are sufficient grounds for killing a fetus at that stage. Not all people make good choices, and thinking things deserve protection from bad choices. I'll also add that the criminalization of late-term abortions rests heavily on 1. Guaranteed access to early-term abortions regardless of circumstances 2. Mid-term abortions under specific circumstances. 3. Affirmative defense for late-term abortion given even narrower circumstances, i.e. bodily risk to mother. With those guarantees, and only with those guarantees, I think the argument can be made that a mother with a late-term pregnancy has willingly undertaken the responsibility to carry that pregnancy to term, and therefor aborting that late-term pregnancy may be treated similarly to a parent harming an infant. But I'll reiterate: only with those guarnatees. And, of course, lots of places don't have those guarnatees right now, which is why this is a "debate within a debate", as you say. And this is the smaller and less impactful of the debates.
wizofaus 4y ago
Can you find a single example of an abortion being done at 32 weeks? As far as I know there's virtually no way of doing so (vs premature live delivery) that wouldn't result in life-threatening harm to the mother. Is abandoning a child under your guardianship really a criminal act in most jurisdictions in the US?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 4y ago
  Killing your child by depriving them of your support is absolutely a crime in every US jurisdiction.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    A sibling post to mine suggested that was not so. Some googling suggests it's a "felony". I'm not even 100% sure what the situation is in my own country - it's hard to imagine there's a significant number of mothers of sound mind who would deliberately abandon their child such that it has no chance of survival. Not that I believe it has significant relevance to the abortion criminalisation debate either way.
    - rcoveson 4y ago
      > Can you find a single example of an abortion being done at 32 weeks? > it's hard to imagine there's a significant number of mothers of sound mind who would deliberately abandon their child such that it has no chance of survival. I don't see how either of these quotes fit into a discussion about abortion/childcare law. Shouldn't the law make as clear as possible when it is illegal to abort a pregnancy or give up the care of an infant? The argument that "nobody will ever/has ever (that we can think of) do something so horrible as that" does nothing but muddy the water. Let's just assume that at least one person in the future wants to abort their healthy 39 week fetus, and at least one person in the future wants to abandon their infant. These would hardly be the most surprisingly immoral things ever done by human beings.
jandrese 4y ago
What adoption agency is going to take a Downs syndrome baby? Or maybe a Cystic Fibrosis baby? The state's horrendously underfunded system certainly is not. And if that mother is low income and already caring for a family she won't be able to support it either. There is literally nobody who can care for the special needs baby properly, what do you do? Since you've cut off the only other option available to her it is on you to come up with the solution that works nationwide for hundreds or thousands of mothers every year.
runamok 4y ago
I am not sure I am following but as stated this is a bit of a straw man. Even in California the latest you can have an abortion is at 23 weeks unless the life of the mother is at risk. https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/defense/laws/abortion-laws/ https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/defense/laws/abortion-laws/ By definition, a fetus becomes viable if it is likely to sustain survival outside of the uterus. It has to be able to survive without extraordinary medical measures. Doctors determine whether a given fetus is viable. They make this decision on a case-by-case basis. Typically, a fetus becomes viable around the 23rd week of the pregnancy. Doctors also consider a fetus to be viable once it weighs at least 500 grams. At the end of the day childbirth is dangerous and expensive and our US social safety net is terrible. If we truly respected life in this country there are better ways to show it than outlawing abortion.

mikkergp 4y ago

> Why isn't it like parenting? If you wanted to give a child up for adoption, and no agency in your state could take on the child for three weeks, you couldn't just stop taking care of it. This is actually not entirely true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-haven_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-haven_law "Safe-haven laws (also known in some states as "Baby Moses laws", in reference to the religious scripture) are statutes in the United States that decriminalize the leaving of unharmed infants with statutorily designated private persons so that the child becomes a ward of the state. All fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have enacted such statutes.[1]" I assume these are meant to prevent infanticide among other reasons but yeah, you can just give up the baby. Apparently you can't just drop them off in most cases, as I thought you could, I think in the movies they show parents just leaving them on the steps. You have to find a responsible party to hand them too.

rcoveson 4y ago
That is indeed a very limited responsibility, but I think the salient point is that it's still a responsibility of the parent and that the law protects the child from harm and neglect even though it compels the parents to act at their own expense.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  I kinda think that the salient point is that the law can and often does provide outs to respect the fact that life is complicated. Post 32 week abortions are debate within a debate because people aren't really talking about the same thing, much more than other parts of the abortion debates. Many on the pro-forced-birth side would have you believe that this is a common occurrence. The pro-choice side would say that abortion is a difficult decision in and of itself and if someone is choosing abortion after 32 weeks, it must be an exceptional case, and we should respect the parent-doctor relationship to make that decision. Being in a situation where I'm at the 32 week mark with my wife, I can't imagine many people choose to knowingly wait this long, and then just have an abortion for "funsies". Pew Research suggests it is less than 1% after 21 weeks (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/24/what-the-data-says-about-abortion-in-the-u-s-2/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/24/what-the-da...).
  - rcoveson 4y ago
    I agree with you about the debate within a debate thing. It's genuinely hard to have a conversation about late-term abortion law in the current US context, where the really important laws being made are criminalizing abortions at the very earliest stages, and even possibly some forms of pre-implantation birth control. But I also think it's helpful to cede some ground to the moderate pro-lifers. If we can acknowledge that 32 week fetuses are empathetically "infants in a difficult locale", to me it's clear that there is some legal burden there. I don't think the opinion of one woman and that of any one doctor she can find willing to agree with her are sufficient grounds for killing a fetus at that stage. Not all people make good choices, and thinking things deserve protection from bad choices. I'll also add that the criminalization of late-term abortions rests heavily on 1. Guaranteed access to early-term abortions regardless of circumstances 2. Mid-term abortions under specific circumstances. 3. Affirmative defense for late-term abortion given even narrower circumstances, i.e. bodily risk to mother. With those guarantees, and only with those guarantees, I think the argument can be made that a mother with a late-term pregnancy has willingly undertaken the responsibility to carry that pregnancy to term, and therefor aborting that late-term pregnancy may be treated similarly to a parent harming an infant. But I'll reiterate: only with those guarnatees. And, of course, lots of places don't have those guarnatees right now, which is why this is a "debate within a debate", as you say. And this is the smaller and less impactful of the debates.

wizofaus 4y ago

Can you find a single example of an abortion being done at 32 weeks? As far as I know there's virtually no way of doing so (vs premature live delivery) that wouldn't result in life-threatening harm to the mother. Is abandoning a child under your guardianship really a criminal act in most jurisdictions in the US?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 4y ago
Killing your child by depriving them of your support is absolutely a crime in every US jurisdiction.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  A sibling post to mine suggested that was not so. Some googling suggests it's a "felony". I'm not even 100% sure what the situation is in my own country - it's hard to imagine there's a significant number of mothers of sound mind who would deliberately abandon their child such that it has no chance of survival. Not that I believe it has significant relevance to the abortion criminalisation debate either way.
  - rcoveson 4y ago
    > Can you find a single example of an abortion being done at 32 weeks? > it's hard to imagine there's a significant number of mothers of sound mind who would deliberately abandon their child such that it has no chance of survival. I don't see how either of these quotes fit into a discussion about abortion/childcare law. Shouldn't the law make as clear as possible when it is illegal to abort a pregnancy or give up the care of an infant? The argument that "nobody will ever/has ever (that we can think of) do something so horrible as that" does nothing but muddy the water. Let's just assume that at least one person in the future wants to abort their healthy 39 week fetus, and at least one person in the future wants to abandon their infant. These would hardly be the most surprisingly immoral things ever done by human beings.

jandrese 4y ago

What adoption agency is going to take a Downs syndrome baby? Or maybe a Cystic Fibrosis baby? The state's horrendously underfunded system certainly is not. And if that mother is low income and already caring for a family she won't be able to support it either. There is literally nobody who can care for the special needs baby properly, what do you do? Since you've cut off the only other option available to her it is on you to come up with the solution that works nationwide for hundreds or thousands of mothers every year.

runamok 4y ago

I am not sure I am following but as stated this is a bit of a straw man. Even in California the latest you can have an abortion is at 23 weeks unless the life of the mother is at risk. https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/defense/laws/abortion-laws/ https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/defense/laws/abortion-laws/ By definition, a fetus becomes viable if it is likely to sustain survival outside of the uterus. It has to be able to survive without extraordinary medical measures. Doctors determine whether a given fetus is viable. They make this decision on a case-by-case basis. Typically, a fetus becomes viable around the 23rd week of the pregnancy. Doctors also consider a fetus to be viable once it weighs at least 500 grams. At the end of the day childbirth is dangerous and expensive and our US social safety net is terrible. If we truly respected life in this country there are better ways to show it than outlawing abortion.