(11-26-2018, 09:52 PM)HandsomeRob86 Wrote: (11-24-2018, 09:29 AM)TJBender Wrote: At risk of starting something, I believe that adoption should always be the default option unless there's a risk to the life of the mother, or if the child is a product of rape, incest, domestic abuse or another violent crime and the mother doesn't want that child brought into the world. In all other cases, I would rather see adoption used as the default, and I don't have a problem with requiring a doctor to discuss adoption first, or to put a two-day waiting period on abortions (outside of the examples above) to force the prospective mother to really weigh out what she's about to do before she legally does so. Ultimately, though, I don't have the right to tell a woman--or anyone, for that matter--what she can and can't do with a part of her own body. I also don't know exactly when it stops becoming a part of her own body and when it becomes another human, and I'm damn sure a panel of justices isn't the right group of experts to make that determination. I do think Roe v. Wade needs to be tested, and my preferred outcome would be that the Supreme Court does what it should have done in the first place: refer the matter back to the states for them to resolve individually. In that scenario, everyone's a little pissed off, and that's how you know you've done something fairly.
While an infant does depend on the mother for nourishment and development it is as much a 'part of her body' as a leech is. Thats a rather crass way of putting it, but I believe the perspective is correct. The only question in abortion is what 'rights' are you respecting? The right of a mother to terminate her own offspring or the right of a baby to life? Whether you think either of those things is a 'right' in the first place is very dependent on your moral belief system.
Just to indulge myself, if you believe that an infant has a right to life (or at least, a right to whatever life it is able to achieve in the womb) where is the line where that right ends? If the infant has a congenital defect where viability without extensive support is impossible, does the infant have the right to that too? Most people would say yes once he is born.
But take that same scenario and apply it to the elderly with many comorbidities who are unable to support basic life functions without extensive support and most people agree that its better to 'let them go.' Of course these are passive processes vs the active process of abortion. As a healthcare provider I want no part of actively trying to end life, but I have little trouble with letting nature take its course. That is the principle that governs me personally (i.e. the old 'thou shalt not kill'), but it is an interesting thought.
In a very broad sense, I agree with the concept behind Roe. There is a point at which a fetus goes from a symbiont (for lack of a better word) to a human being. When is that? When the heart start beating? When the head emerges? Conception? I don't know, and I don't pretend to, and I don't think any pregnancy, outside of the exceptions I laid out above, should be terminated without the mother having to think about it. That's why I favor waiting periods between the first visit and the actual procedure. Let the prospective mother think through what she's about to do, and come to peace with her decision, whatever that decision is. If held to a wall and forced to answer, I would say that the rights of the mother prevail over those of the embryo. That's pretty much where I'm going to leave it, because we both know that someone's going to come in here and take the conversation to a ban place if we go any further.
To your elderly scenario, I'm actually all in favor of physician-assisted suicide if there's a very good reason for it. If I were left in a coma with minimal to no chance of recovery, or the odds that I came out of it into a vegetative state were very high, I'd just as soon pull the plug on myself than stick my loved ones with God knows how long worth of medical bills only for me to suddenly die in my coma after two years of costing a couple grand a day to keep around.
