I’ll admit that pregnancy is a temporary suspension of the mother’s bodily autonomy if pro-choice people admit that abortion kills a human organism.
I'll bite. Yes, actual abortion (terminating an implanted pregnancy in a way that is incompatible with life, not alleged "mini-abortions" because 4/5 blastocysts fail to implant even in women not on hormonal birth control) kills a human organism.
You might find me rather disappointing when it comes to debate, though. If pro-life and pro-choice people can come together on a Constitutional framework regarding acceptable methods and reasons to terminate potentially viable pregnancies, I'd support such efforts. To be Constitutional, serious mental and physical health concerns must be a reason to allow at least an attempt at early live delivery. If the health risk is so great that arrangements to attempt a live birth would be impossible without putting her life in grave imminent danger, then women should be allowed to choose to save herself regardless of the baby's viability potential.
I'd also prefer "fatal fetal abnormalities" be a reason as well vs using "my kid will die 12 hours after birth and that will drive me nuts to watch" as a "serious mental health condition". I'm not talking Down Syndrome or things that could be fixed -- I'm talking no kidneys, no brain, etc. Sadly I think there are enough people only wanting to adopt newborns that would be more willing to adopt disabled preemies than non-disabled older children.
For "serious mental health condition", I'm particularly thinking of bipolar women who have to change medication regimens for the benefit of the baby (ones previously on Depakote or Lithium) and end up in manic psychosis or psychotic depression. If they can't be brought out of it without medication damaging to the child, there at least has to be an allowance for them to give steroids and deliver as soon as lungs are mature. I don't know if that makes much sense, but I just can't countenance unwillingly locking up insane pregnant women until they pop vs until the baby could live.
I do think that looking at the very factual and (for some) graphic material regarding human embryology helps people see the truth of the process by which that "clump of cells" forms itself into the placenta, amniotic membrane, and the embryo/fetus. Using that information, they can decide at which point they themselves would have qualms about potential pain, etc. And also at which points they could say it was unlikely that the human organism could perceive pain. Personally, I think if someone is going to abort, the earlier the better because of that potential risk.
Also, it shows the extremely fast growth rate of that human organism and why even if they could scientifically prove no ability to feel pain in the early half of the second trimester, the longer a pregnancy continues the more risk is inherent in any abortion procedure. After viability, the risk is essentially the same as birth, and post-24 weeks the only options are the same as for birth -- labor induction or abdominal incision. Hence why I feel it perfectly rational to suggest if a woman must terminate so late and it's not because they're circling the drain right this second or will be before they can get the NICU team together, that they make an effort to save the child.
Aside from concerns of life and autonomy, I truly believe that it's impossible to effectively criminalize first trimester abortions, primarily because of enforcement difficulties. Do we investigate every miscarriage to make sure they didn't import drugs? If, God forbid, a woman miscarries whilst on the toilet (not that uncommon due to similar muscles used for straining if a spontaneous first-trimester miscarriage is nearly complete), should she be legally required to fish out any remains to avoid being investigated for a potential abortion?
I probably pissed off both pro-choice and pro-life people here, but that's my opinion. I don't think a fetus has the right to live inside its mother without her continued consent simply because she "spread her legs" -- nor do I think ones that can live outside the womb should simply die with no efforts made to save them because the mother revokes consent so late.
But hey. If we all agreed on everything, it'd be a boring world.












