Technology is improving the premie survival rate all the time. If we can pull an embryo and bring it to term after a week, should abortion be restricted similarly?
I think in the last like 15 years we have gone from 22 weeks to like, 21 weeks and 3 days as the record.
A week is silly. Most women don’t even know they are pregnant until they miss their period. Give that a week to be sure they missed it at that’s already technically 5 weeks along.
If technology gets as good as you suggest, then we will have to reconsider everything. Governments would have to be willing to take all of them as wards of the state. Before that, we would have to make sure it was just as safe as an abortion. After that, we would have to consider if this mother has a right to not allow this lump or cells to not grow into a full grown human who has to grow up as a ward of the state.
Very complicated ethical mess. But I don’t think technology will be there for 50+ years. I’m not sure America will even be here that long these days.
Sorry, yeah, I realize I was proposing a reductio ad absurdum as a thought experiment. And yes, I do think that eventually they will get to that point, but my real point was that “time since conception” is not a great metric for a legal line to draw, it’s merely a convenient one.
I think personally, as a cis white dude with no stake in the matter, if we had to draw a line for terminations without a specific reason, we should put it somewhere around 6 months with medical exceptions. Developmental problems often don’t show up until fairly late, and I think that things like Down syndrome, major uncorrectable development abnormalities or genetic diseases or other quality-of-life issues are perfectly valid reasons for a pregnancy termination. But that’s a huge mire to get sunk into and each additional rule would require debates.
Governments would have to be willing to take all of them as wards of the state. Before that, we would have to make sure it was just as safe as an abortion. After that, we would have to consider if this mother has a right to not allow this lump or cells to not grow into a full grown human who has to grow up as a ward of the state.
All of these questions apply at 6 months or whatever arbitrary date you set. Birth is a more dangerous and damaging procedure than abortion. If forcing the test tube baby extraction could be disallowed for danger, why isn’t forced birth?
Technology is improving the premie survival rate all the time. If we can pull an embryo and bring it to term after a week, should abortion be restricted similarly?
Some other criteria is necessary.
I think in the last like 15 years we have gone from 22 weeks to like, 21 weeks and 3 days as the record.
A week is silly. Most women don’t even know they are pregnant until they miss their period. Give that a week to be sure they missed it at that’s already technically 5 weeks along.
If technology gets as good as you suggest, then we will have to reconsider everything. Governments would have to be willing to take all of them as wards of the state. Before that, we would have to make sure it was just as safe as an abortion. After that, we would have to consider if this mother has a right to not allow this lump or cells to not grow into a full grown human who has to grow up as a ward of the state.
Very complicated ethical mess. But I don’t think technology will be there for 50+ years. I’m not sure America will even be here that long these days.
Sorry, yeah, I realize I was proposing a reductio ad absurdum as a thought experiment. And yes, I do think that eventually they will get to that point, but my real point was that “time since conception” is not a great metric for a legal line to draw, it’s merely a convenient one.
I think personally, as a cis white dude with no stake in the matter, if we had to draw a line for terminations without a specific reason, we should put it somewhere around 6 months with medical exceptions. Developmental problems often don’t show up until fairly late, and I think that things like Down syndrome, major uncorrectable development abnormalities or genetic diseases or other quality-of-life issues are perfectly valid reasons for a pregnancy termination. But that’s a huge mire to get sunk into and each additional rule would require debates.
All of these questions apply at 6 months or whatever arbitrary date you set. Birth is a more dangerous and damaging procedure than abortion. If forcing the test tube baby extraction could be disallowed for danger, why isn’t forced birth?