@maxdancona,
maxdancona wrote:
Quote:There is no such thing as third semester abortions.
It is funny how similar Neptuneblue and Livinglava are. They represent different ends of the political spectrum, but they will argue their political talking points to ridiculous ends even when they fly in the face of facts.
There is no question that abortions happen in the third trimester. Most of them are for medical complications. Not all of them are, there are documented third term abortions that are not medically necessary. But Neptune isn't arguing that third trimester abortions are justified...
she is arguing that third trimester abortions don't exist.
Both sides deny facts to make political points.
The relevance of third-trimester abortions are as follows:
With Roe v. Wade, abortion is blocked against regulation. If abortion was regulated, a situation the medically warrants a third-trimester abortion would be considered within the context of a criminal investigation/trial, the same way justifiable homicide is considered as part of judicial procedures where someone got killed.
Now there are stand your ground laws that exempt people from arrest and trial if it is clear that they felt reasonably threatened and chose to defend themselves with force rather than retreating.
So you could say that Roe v. Wade creates a kind of stand-your-ground law situation for abortion where everyone involved in an abortion is blocked from arrest/trial. So just as there was a situation where someone shot a guy in front of his 5-year old son because of an argument over a parking spot and was released with impunity because of stand-your-ground, there are situations where the right of abortion is abused and the culprits go free because of Roe v. Wade.
So the issue isn't whether some particular third-trimester abortion couldn't qualify as justifiable homicide because someone chose to save the life of their wife against the merits of protecting the life of a baby who was unlikely to survive anyway; but such a homicide can only be ruled 'justifiable' by closely examining the specific details of a situation.
It is wrong to use the fact that some rare cases might occur that justify third-trimester abortion to legitimate all abortion according to whatever prerogative is behind the decision in whatever situation it occurs. Each situation is unique, but that doesn't mean that all situations are equally justifiable.
The important thing is to shift the assumption of legitimacy away from total liberalization of abortion in order to allow governments to regulate sexual culture and steer people away from harmful lifestyle choices. Once upon a time, abstinence was the norm and people waited for marriage to have intercourse. The clearer the laws are about consequences of sex like unintended pregnancy and abortion, the easier it will be for people to resist the sexual culture and peer pressures that lead young people to make bad decisions.
In other words, abortion laws help young people abstain from sex and focus on other things. As long as abortion is legal, they can continue to tease each other about virginity and boast about sexual conquest, etc. without taking the bigger picture into consideration, which involves risk-taking with pregnancy, disease, and mental health of themselves and others. Instead of encouraging young people to play with fire regarding their emerging sexuality, the law should send a clear warning about the consequences of intercourse so that they are deterred from getting themselves and others into trouble.