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> immediate political debate in the U.S. isn't about zygotes It's not just debate – it's already in law. Oklahoma HB4327[0], signed into law in May, outlaws ab

> immediate political debate in the U.S. isn't about zygotes It's not just debate – it's already in law. Oklahoma HB4327[0], signed into law in May, outlaws abortions on "a human fetus or embryo in any stage of gestation from fertilization until birth." (It explicitly permits contraception, Plan B, etc) The National Right to Life Committee, the largest and most important anti-abortion group in the US, has created a model law that likewise classifies an "unborn child" to mean: > a living individual organism of the species homo sapiens throughout all stages of the unborn child’s development within a pregnant woman’s uterus from fertilization until birth [0] https://legiscan.com/OK/text/HB4327/2022 https://legiscan.com/OK/text/HB4327/2022 [1] https://www.nrlc.org/wp-content/uploads/NRLC-Post-Roe-Model-Abortion-Law-FINAL-1.pdf https://www.nrlc.org/wp-content/uploads/NRLC-Post-Roe-Model-...

rayiner 4y ago
Oklahoma has less than 4 million people and a bit over 1% of the U.S. population. Roe applied a radical viability standard to the whole country.
- lelandfe 4y ago
  Is a state passing a law, and the most influential anti-abortion group in America proposing the same nationwide, not enough to count as "debate?" A very odd counter. It's worth pointing out that the GOP is beginning to follow the NRLC's playbook on this in Texas: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/15/1111383520/texas-abortion-laws-prosecutors https://www.npr.org/2022/07/15/1111383520/texas-abortion-law...
  - rayiner 4y ago
    And there are six states without any term restrictions on abortion whatsoever, and prominent pro-abortion organizations are advocating those positions. But the fact remains that such extreme positions are unlikely to get nationwide traction. The central territory of the debate, and what the Dobbs case actually involved, is second trimester bans (12-15 weeks). I understand why folks want to focus on the radical position that some parties have advanced, and not the fact that the actual law in the US for the last 50 years was quite radical in the opposite direction.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - jandrese 4y ago
      This should not be a radical position. In fact it is the only moral position. This probably sounds strange, but it comes down to who is getting late term abortions. The people who need these abortions are the ones who have discovered later in the pregnancy that their child has some sort of medical issue so severe that it appears in a sonogram. It might be possible to deliver the child, but that child would suffer from poor quality of life and/or a short lifespan. These are not the people who had an "oops the condom broke" moment, they have a serious moral obligation to avoid personal tragedy, and we are writing laws demanding that no, that child with only one lung and no face must be carried to term and cared for until they die a few weeks later of complications from the constant extreme pain they are in after saddling the parents and their family with enormous unnecessary medical bills. You might be thinking "but this is one of those emergencies that has an exception right?" But that's not how the bans work. Even when the law allows for emergency procedures there are no doctors in the state qualified to perform them, nor any hospitals or clinics that will allow it due to the legal liabilities. Even with a fully justifiable reason the parents are forced to travel hundreds or thousands of miles on their own dime to get the necessary procedure. Even if the mother's health is on the line and she's not fit to travel you still need to get her across state lines, and if you are in the midwest or the bible belt she may just have to die, just to satisfy an overly simplistic "moral" position. If your moral position requires you to torture newborns until they die you need to re-evaluate it.
      - abduhl 4y ago
        I’ll preface this by saying I am militantly pro choice but, to the anti abortion side, abortion is also “torturing newborns until they die” because they believe the fetus is as much a person as a newborn. Your moral position is just as disturbing to them as theirs is to you.
        jandrese 4y ago
        A fetus is not a newborn by definition. When a baby is going to be in constant pain for its entire life due to medical complications it is really hard to justify bringing them into the world.
- Permit 4y ago
  Wait what made it radical? You said that the general consensus is that the cutoff should be 12-14 weeks and Roe made it 15 weeks (or am I misunderstanding?). It would seem radical to deviate from your chosen standard to set a limit at 0 weeks. It does not seem radical to enforce a standard that is only one week different from the one you’ve chosen.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    No, Roe set the limit for elective abortions at viability, which is 22-24 weeks. Only a single European country allows elective abortions that late, the Netherlands. And that difference isn't inconsequential. In the Netherlands, almost 20% of abortions occur after the first trimester. In Germany, which has a 12-week ban, only 3% do (which reflects exceptions for medical emergencies and fetal abnormalities that are typical in Europe). The Mississippi law at issue in Dobbs set a 15 week ban, with exceptions after that for medical emergencies and fetal abnormalities. That was consistent with both the consensus view in Europe, and American public opinion: https://www.wsj.com/articles/support-for-15-week-abortion-ban-outweighs-opposition-wsj-poll-finds-11648821601 https://www.wsj.com/articles/support-for-15-week-abortion-ba.... But under Roe, the Mississippi law was unconstitutional.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      In the US, pre-Dobbs, over 90% of abortions occur before the 13th week. I don't think there's a whole lot of evidence to be found that allowing later-term abortions shifts abortion timelines back. People who get abortions after 22 weeks are generally not doing so on a whim.
- epakai 4y ago
  Only to the states' interests. People were free to apply their own standards. Roe was only restrictive for people with extremely lax standards in the first place. I don't find these limitations on the state interest radical at all.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    It’s a radical view to think that people should be “free to apply their own standards” to when a human life is sufficiently developed to be worthy of protection. The vast majority of the developed world asserts society’s right to draw that line. Roe is an outgrowth of American libertarianism. In the 1970s, several high courts in developed countries heard abortion cases alongside Roe. The only one to find an affirmative “right” to an abortion was the US. Courts in France and Italy found it to be a matter for the legislature (except Italy found a right to exist when the woman’s life was threatened). Germany’s high court went further and found legalized abortion to violate the Basic Law’s right to life.

rayiner 4y ago

Oklahoma has less than 4 million people and a bit over 1% of the U.S. population. Roe applied a radical viability standard to the whole country.

lelandfe 4y ago
Is a state passing a law, and the most influential anti-abortion group in America proposing the same nationwide, not enough to count as "debate?" A very odd counter. It's worth pointing out that the GOP is beginning to follow the NRLC's playbook on this in Texas: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/15/1111383520/texas-abortion-laws-prosecutors https://www.npr.org/2022/07/15/1111383520/texas-abortion-law...
- rayiner 4y ago
  And there are six states without any term restrictions on abortion whatsoever, and prominent pro-abortion organizations are advocating those positions. But the fact remains that such extreme positions are unlikely to get nationwide traction. The central territory of the debate, and what the Dobbs case actually involved, is second trimester bans (12-15 weeks). I understand why folks want to focus on the radical position that some parties have advanced, and not the fact that the actual law in the US for the last 50 years was quite radical in the opposite direction.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - jandrese 4y ago
    This should not be a radical position. In fact it is the only moral position. This probably sounds strange, but it comes down to who is getting late term abortions. The people who need these abortions are the ones who have discovered later in the pregnancy that their child has some sort of medical issue so severe that it appears in a sonogram. It might be possible to deliver the child, but that child would suffer from poor quality of life and/or a short lifespan. These are not the people who had an "oops the condom broke" moment, they have a serious moral obligation to avoid personal tragedy, and we are writing laws demanding that no, that child with only one lung and no face must be carried to term and cared for until they die a few weeks later of complications from the constant extreme pain they are in after saddling the parents and their family with enormous unnecessary medical bills. You might be thinking "but this is one of those emergencies that has an exception right?" But that's not how the bans work. Even when the law allows for emergency procedures there are no doctors in the state qualified to perform them, nor any hospitals or clinics that will allow it due to the legal liabilities. Even with a fully justifiable reason the parents are forced to travel hundreds or thousands of miles on their own dime to get the necessary procedure. Even if the mother's health is on the line and she's not fit to travel you still need to get her across state lines, and if you are in the midwest or the bible belt she may just have to die, just to satisfy an overly simplistic "moral" position. If your moral position requires you to torture newborns until they die you need to re-evaluate it.
    - abduhl 4y ago
      I’ll preface this by saying I am militantly pro choice but, to the anti abortion side, abortion is also “torturing newborns until they die” because they believe the fetus is as much a person as a newborn. Your moral position is just as disturbing to them as theirs is to you.
      - jandrese 4y ago
        A fetus is not a newborn by definition. When a baby is going to be in constant pain for its entire life due to medical complications it is really hard to justify bringing them into the world.
Permit 4y ago
Wait what made it radical? You said that the general consensus is that the cutoff should be 12-14 weeks and Roe made it 15 weeks (or am I misunderstanding?). It would seem radical to deviate from your chosen standard to set a limit at 0 weeks. It does not seem radical to enforce a standard that is only one week different from the one you’ve chosen.
- rayiner 4y ago
  No, Roe set the limit for elective abortions at viability, which is 22-24 weeks. Only a single European country allows elective abortions that late, the Netherlands. And that difference isn't inconsequential. In the Netherlands, almost 20% of abortions occur after the first trimester. In Germany, which has a 12-week ban, only 3% do (which reflects exceptions for medical emergencies and fetal abnormalities that are typical in Europe). The Mississippi law at issue in Dobbs set a 15 week ban, with exceptions after that for medical emergencies and fetal abnormalities. That was consistent with both the consensus view in Europe, and American public opinion: https://www.wsj.com/articles/support-for-15-week-abortion-ban-outweighs-opposition-wsj-poll-finds-11648821601 https://www.wsj.com/articles/support-for-15-week-abortion-ba.... But under Roe, the Mississippi law was unconstitutional.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    In the US, pre-Dobbs, over 90% of abortions occur before the 13th week. I don't think there's a whole lot of evidence to be found that allowing later-term abortions shifts abortion timelines back. People who get abortions after 22 weeks are generally not doing so on a whim.
epakai 4y ago
Only to the states' interests. People were free to apply their own standards. Roe was only restrictive for people with extremely lax standards in the first place. I don't find these limitations on the state interest radical at all.
- rayiner 4y ago
  It’s a radical view to think that people should be “free to apply their own standards” to when a human life is sufficiently developed to be worthy of protection. The vast majority of the developed world asserts society’s right to draw that line. Roe is an outgrowth of American libertarianism. In the 1970s, several high courts in developed countries heard abortion cases alongside Roe. The only one to find an affirmative “right” to an abortion was the US. Courts in France and Italy found it to be a matter for the legislature (except Italy found a right to exist when the woman’s life was threatened). Germany’s high court went further and found legalized abortion to violate the Basic Law’s right to life.