Hi Tatum! How would you respond to someone who suggests that abortions are unethical at a certain point (like near the end of gestation) of a pregnancy? I’m really new to learning about feminist perspectives on abortion and I’m not knowledgeable enough yet to even know where to begin talking with someone about it.
Hi! There are a couple of different arguments you can make; I’ll outline the big ones briefly and if you have any questions on them, just let me know! I’m more than happy to detail them a little further. Thanks for reaching out!
Late term abortions aren’t common- This is an extremely popular talking point but in my opinion the weakest of any you could choose. Imo, feminists have ceded FAR too much ideological ground on abortion in recent decades. Modern medical abortion is not a “necessary evil,” it is not something I’m squeamish or unsure or morally conflicted about, it is an objective good that allows women to exert control over their bodies, their health, their lives and their futures more safely and securely than ever before. Men and women can ONLY be equal in society when women can choose abortion whenever and for whatever reason they want. THAT SAID, it is worth mentioning that something like 92% of abortions are done prior to 14 weeks gestation, and another 5+% are done before 20 weeks. Late term abortion, approaching what is often referred to as viability (and make no mistake: almost no abortions done past twenty weeks are done on fetuses that would be really, functionally “viable”) is a vanishingly small portion of the procedures done in the United States.
Women are legally entitled to bodily autonomy- The internet has recently picked up this one and I’m glad it has. Self-governance over your own body, free of coercion, is a human and legal right. You cannot be compelled to donate your blood, organs, soft tissue to anyone and that is a right you retain even into death- if you have not consented to being an organ donor, no one is permitted to take your tissue from your body, even to save someone’s life. So, a mother cannot be forced to donate blood to her own dying child, but somehow CAN be forced to share her organs, circulatory system, antibodies, nutrition with a fetus for MONTHS and then be split open to let the thing out? At what point after a pregnancy does a woman regain her inalienable right to autonomy over her own body? Alternatively, at what point does a fetus LOSE transcendental entitlement to use a woman’s body? Judith Jarvis Thompson wrote about this argument in the 70s.
Women are not conniving, wantonly baby-murdering evil sluts- There’s a reason those Planned Parenthood bumper stickers say Trust Women. Women are not la-di-da’ing their way through seven and a half months of pregnancy and then popping over to the abortion clinic on a lark for shits and giggles. Most late term abortions are done after the discovery of severe, typically fatal, fetal abnormalities, usually with tests that can’t even be done until very late in a pregnancy. A small handful are sought by women and girls who were too poor to obtain an abortion earlier (too poor to travel out of state, too poor to get routine pre-natal care that would have caught abnormalities early, too poor to pay the $600 fee at 10 weeks period) or didn’t know they were pregnant. The image of a “partial birth abortion,” a is a complete fabrication, an ingenious, evil magic trick that plastered ultrasound images over the real lives of women making rational decisions about their individual bodies, lives and pregnancies that no one else will ever know better than themselves.
You have to actually draw up the legislation that outlaws late term abortion- Logistically, where do you draw an arbitrary line for “late term” or “viability” “personhood”? Logistically, who crafts the medical and legal definitions that draws these lines? Logistically, are women also responsible for late term miscarriages if they behave “irresponsibly” during their pregnancies? Logistically, are exceptions allowed for fetal abnormalities or risk to the woman’s life; logistically, who can determine when these risks exceed the burden for an exception? Logistically, are women who couldn’t get an abortion earlier just fucked? Logistically, how many casualties are we willing to accept of women who do meet these moral, circumstantial requirements to “deserve” an abortion, but for whom the particular language of the bill does not allow them to access one? Logistically, how many women are we willing to accept will induce an abortion at home and kill themselves in the process?
izzy806
2087
germansingergirl
stormborns
prguitarman
romaincrisis
annaxmalina
titsay
