Safe, Legal & Early -- A New Way of Thinking About Abortion

I find the gradations of life very helpful. Personally, I don't see how anyone can argue with "Life begins at conception". It obviously does, as a biological issue. (In fact, there is life before conception, too!) But it's life of a generic kind -- if you look at it, you can't distinguish it from life of many other species.

The trouble many "pro-life" people will have with this is that you are setting the issue up as a gray area. No one rings a bell when you become "human." Many people want to think in terms of black and white absolutes, and I fear you will never convince them.

I see many reasons to explore compromise here, but I fear that they will not get any traction in the greater political realm. Both parties have too much to lose if they give in towards the middle ground. The GOP sees the social conservatives as their base to activate every election cycle, and the Democrats see social liberals as their base to use in a similar way.

I have to wonder if an effective way of presenting this might be to confront conservatives with the concept via their general support of the death penalty. We know that there is a high probability that innocent people have been executed over the years, yet in spite of that support for the death penalty remains generally strong among social conservatives. In this issue they seem quite willing to sacrifice innocent life for what they see as a broader purpose.

Fetuses are live human persons, but if one is located inside my body, then I'm entitled to kill it anyway.

If all the people in the world--innocent and guilty, unborn and already-born, great and small, rich and poor, smart and stupid--were assembled somewhere inside my body, then I'd be entitled to holocaust 'em. That's part of the meaning of the word "my" in the phrase "my body".

Thank you, Mr. Waldman, for a sane and sensible essay. Your thoughts articulate and expand much of my own thinking on this difficult topic, and outline the beginnings of a third way.

Many fertilized eggs don't even implant in the uterine wall successfully and the vast majority of miscarriages occur in the first term. I have always had a gut feeling that abortion during this time frame is qualitatively different from a 2nd or 3rd term abortion.

Your thinking is very helpful to me--thank you.

One factor that will get in the way of your fantasy coming true is that for many people on both sides, the abortion debate isn't solely or even principally about "life." It is about women--what is their "true nature," what social roles should be open to them, how much control they should be able to exercise over their reproductive lives, how much they should be permitted to defy tradition and live as they choose.

I can't speak for others, but I know that I'm one of those people that the statistics describe. For me, I believe that it's a terrible evil that nonetheless must be legal for two reasons, mainly about rule-of-law. First, a restriction on it would be completely impossible to police in any meaningful sense; second, an attempt to seriously enforce such a restriction would lead to an extremely bad place for the country. To take one example, if a woman were to take a mild poison to kill a first-trimester child, how would anyone know? If you can't police a law, it's a bad law. On the second point, there's a list of foods to avoid during pregnancy that's two miles long. Do we start checking to see if someone is pregnant before we sell them a papaya? Do we start investigating reported miscarriages as potential Involuntary Manslaughter crime scenes? If we don't, we'll have the same sort of dynamic as during alcohol prohibition - a few doctors who are willing to look the other way (for a small fee) and sign the form saying it was a natural death. Do we really want that choice - treating grieving women as murderers, or enabling yet another illegal industry?

Mr. Waldman, I relish your reasonable tone, but take exception with your thought that the people of the extremes are not unreasonable or irrational. My former physician, Dr. Elizabeth Newhall, has received death threats and was on the kill-list of an organization that killed and attempted to kill abortion providers. I find that to be extremely unreasonable and irrational. I hope that you simply were not thinking of such cases when you made your statement.

Also, please consider: most folks do not think logically or rationally about important issues. They begin with gut feelings and cognitive biases, and deliberately seek out support for whatever they already feel. It's human nature, and one of the reasons good people disagree. We use language with a high emotion index that throws off our ability to reason.

To be specific: I know that I've had very late, heavy periods that were rejected pregnancies. It's a natural part of biology (my husband and I had incompatible blood types) and no cause for mourning. But I also know the difference between a zygote and a fetus, and I know the difference between differentiated tissue and a baby. To think that someone could take away my reproductive rights based on an ambiguous Bible verse, when abortions were legal as far back as the Levitical law codes (yet not mentioned, much less prohibited, in any Biblical canon) is frightening.

Emotional belief is each person's own, but when ambiguities require objective facts and logical discernment, reason, not emotional prejudice, must prevail. And I beg your pardon, but until men can become pregnant, I don't believe they should have a say in the matter.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to voice my feelings. I respect your attitudes, despite not sharing your beliefs.

In the interest of not dipping from the well of religious thought, I offer the following info cut and pasted from statutes contained in the Revised Code of Washington State, hardly a bastion of pro-life or right wing christian fanaticism.

This is not rocket science. See if you can connect the dots.

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RCW 9A.32.010 Homicide defined.

Homicide is the killing of a human being by the act, procurement, or omission of another, death occurring at any time, and is either (1) murder, (2) homicide by abuse, (3) manslaughter, (4) excusable homicide, or (5) justifiable homicide.

RCW 9.02.170
Definitions.
For purposes of this chapter:

(1) "Viability" means the point in the pregnancy when, in the judgment of the physician on the particular facts of the case before such physician, there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus's sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.

(2) "Abortion" means any medical treatment intended to induce the termination of a pregnancy

except

for the purpose of producing a live birth.

(3) "Pregnancy" means the reproductive process beginning with the implantation of an embryo.

RCW 70.58.150 "Fetal death," "evidence of life," defined.

A fetal death means any product of conception that shows no evidence of life after complete expulsion or extraction from its mother. The words "evidence of life" include

breathing,

beating of the heart,

pulsation of the umbilical cord,

or definite movement of voluntary muscles.

RCW 70.58.160 Certificate of death or fetal death required.

A certificate of every death or fetal death shall be filed with the local registrar of the district in which the death or fetal death occurred within three business days after the occurrence is known, or if the place of death or fetal death is not known, then with the local registrar of the district in which the

human remains

are found within one business day thereafter. In every instance a certificate shall be filed prior to the interment or other disposition of the

human remains.

However, a certificate of fetal death shall not be required if the period of gestation is less than twenty weeks.

RCW 70.58.170Certificate of death or fetal death — By whom filed.
The funeral director or person having the right to control the disposition of

the human remains

under RCW 68.50.160 shall file the certificate of death or fetal death.

RCW 18.71.240 Abortion — Right to medical treatment of infant born alive.

The right of medical treatment of an infant born alive in the course of an abortion procedure shall be the same as the right of an infant born prematurely of equal gestational age.

RCW 9.02.050 Concealing birth.

Every person who shall endeavor to conceal the birth of a child by any disposition of its dead body, whether the child died before or after its birth, shall be guilty of a gross misdemeanor.

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The following are excertps taken from the transcript of testimony given by partial birth abortionist specialist Leroy Carhart under oath in a court of law.

My comments are in [brackets]:

Question: Are there times when you don’t remove the [human] fetus intact?

Carhart: Yes, sir.

Question: What do you do then?

Carhart: My normal course would be to dismember that extremity and then go back and try to take the [human] fetus out either foot or skull first, whatever end I can get to first.

Question: How do you go about dismembering that extremity?

Carhart: Just traction and rotation, grasping the portion that you can get a hold of which would be usually somewhere up the shaft of the exposed portion of the [human] fetus, pulling down on it through the os, using the internal os as your counter-traction and rotating to dismember the shoulder or the hip or whatever it would be. Sometimes you will get one leg and you can’t get the other leg out.

Question: In that situation, are you, when you pull on the arm and remove it, is the [human] fetus still alive?

Carhart: Yes

Question: Do you consider an arm, for example, to be a substantial portion of the [human] fetus?

Carhart: In the way I read it, I think if I lost my arm, that would be a substantial loss to me. I think I would have to interpret it that way.

Question: At what point is the [human] fetus...does the [human] fetus die during that process?

Carhart: I don’t really know. I know that the [human] fetus is alive during the process most of the time because I can see fetal heartbeat on the ultrasound.

The Court: Counsel, for what it’s worth, it still is unclear to me with regard to the intact D&E when [human] fetal demise occurs.

Question: Okay, I will try to clarify that. In the procedure of an intact D&E where you would start foot first, with the situation where the [human] fetus is presented feet first, tell me how you are able to get the feet out first.

Carhart: Under ultrasound, you can see the extremities. You know what is what. You know what the foot is, you know, what the arm is, you know, what the skull is. By grabbing the feet and pulling down on it or by grabbing a knee and pulling down on it, usually you can get one leg out, get the other leg out and bring the [human] fetus out. I don’t know where this...all the controversy about rotating the [human] fetus comes from. I don’t attempt to do that. I just attempt to bring out whatever is the proximal portion of the [human] fetus.

Question: At the time that you bring out the feet in this example, is the [human] fetus still alive?

Carhart: Yes.

Question: Then what’s the next step you do?

Carhart: I didn’t mention it. I should. I usually attempt to grasp the cord first and divide the cord, if I can do that.

Question: Let’s take the situation where you haven’t divided the cord because you couldn’t, and you have begun to remove a living [human] fetus feet first. What happens next after you have gotten the feet removed?

Carhart: We remove the feet and continue with traction on the feet until the abdomen and the thorax came through the cavity. At that point, I would try ... you have to bring the shoulders down, but you can get enough of them outside, you can do this with your finger outside of the uterus, and then at that point the [human] fetal ... the base of the [human] fetal skull is usually in the cervical canal.

Question: What do you do next?

Carhart: And you can reach that, and that’s where you would rupture the [human] fetal skull to some extent and aspirate the contents out.

[In laymens turns he uses a powerful vacuum to suck the brains out while in some cases the human fetus is still shows 'evidence of life']

Question: At what point in that process does [human] fetal demise occur between initial remove...removal of the feet or legs and the crushing of the skull, or I’m sorry, the decompressing of the skull?

Carhart: Well, you know, again, this is where I’m not sure what [human] fetal demise is. I mean, I honestly have to share your concern, your Honor. You can remove the cranial contents and the [human] fetus will still have a heartbeat for several seconds or several minutes, so is the [human] fetus alive? I would have to say probably, although I don’t think it has any brain function, so it’s brain dead at that point.

Question: So the brain death might occur when you begin suctioning out of the cranium?

Carhart: I think brain death would occur because the suctioning to remove contents is only two or three seconds, so somewhere in that period of time, obviously not when you penetrate the skull, because people get shot in the head and they don’t die immediately from that, if they are going to die at all, so that probably is not sufficient to kill the [human] fetus, but I think removing the brain contents eventually will.

Later, under cross examination from the Attorney General’s counsel, Carhart stated:

"My intent in every abortion I have ever done is to kill the [human] fetus and terminate the pregnancy."

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My editorial comments are in brackets. If you object to the word 'human' preceding 'fetus', then please tell me when and where in history a woman has conceived, gestated, or birthed any other species.

When your momma was pregant with you, what species of embryo/fetus was present in her uterus?

Elective abortion, where the embryo/fetus is still alive, is by definition 'homicide'. It may be legal, but it is none the less 'homicide'.

yor bro ken

Reading the article and the comments, I see numerous false statements. I will not comment on the moral premises except to say that those who value all human life are appalled at the suggestion to kill more children [the English word for “offspring” which applies both before and after birth] in order to prevent a few of them from being killed at a later gestational age.
“Safe” abortion is a fallacy. In ignorance, abortion was promoted as “safer than childbirth” for several decades, but in this century good prospective epidemiologic studies from both Finland and from California have proven that maternal mortality after abortion is significantly higher than after childbirth both in the year following the event and up to 6 years later.
Comments state that teen pregnancy and abortion rates have not fallen with pro-life initiatives. This is not accurate. Actually teen pregnancy rates have dropped significantly, particularly in states with parental notification laws. While “abstinence only” sex ed programs (which do discuss contraception but emphasize its limitations) have received some Federal funding in recent years (and teen pregnancy rates have dropped in those same years), “comprehensive” sex ed programs continue to receive many, many times the Federal funding of abstinence programs. When they were the only programs receiving funding, teen pregnancy and STI rates rose. In addition “comprehensive” programs are not very comprehensive; though proponents claim that they also promote abstinence, the ones I have seen spend over 90% of the time promoting contraception and less than 10% on abstinence. Abortion rates have dropped significantly from their peak in 1990 by at least 25%. They have dropped by an even larger percentage among teens.
Social evangelicals are divided on the death penalty. It does seem ironic that social liberals are so concerned for a few hundred men and women guilty of the most heinous crimes killed through the death penalty since 1970 while caring nothing for the thousands of humans killed daily through abortion. As the comment says, sometimes innocent men are killed by the death penalty, and that is (or where it is not, it should be) a concern for pro-lifers. I cannot speak for others, but I have only so much time and energy, and while the innocent man killed by the death penalty is just as important as the innocent child killed by abortion, given the frequency of each occurrence, I have chosen to concentrate my efforts on the children.
The argument that it is “my body” is so patently selfish, that it hardly needs refutation. We don’t own other people as slaves, and we don’t own our children – before or after birth. Your child is not your body and you have no more moral right to kill it than you have to swing your own arm and crash it into a one-year-old’s head.
Your moral rights end when they interfere with another human’s rights to life and protection from bodily harm.
One commenter argued against laws against abortion because they cannot be adequately policed. Our laws against post-natal murder are not adequately policed, either. Should they be repealed?
I saw the usual comments about imposing religious views. Two responses: first, all laws reflect religious points of view including those criminalizing post-natal murder, theft, assault and battery, child abuse, speeding (wrong because it endangers other people), and even tax laws have a moral basis (or immoral in some cases!) Second, while the pro-life position has one of its bases in religion (especially for Catholics and Protestant evangelicals), it also has a basis in the US Declaration of Independence which declares that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and lists first of all the right to life. [Before you try to claim that this is patriarchal because it says “all men”, look up the definition of “man” in the dictionary. While one definition refers to male gender, the second definition is “human being”, and it is in that sense that it is used in the Declaration.] So the Declaration of Independence lists “life” as the first inalienable [that means cannot be taken away] right, the US Constitution in the Ninth Amendment states that “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”, and thus there is a clear secular political argument that the right to life cannot be denied.

Dr. J,

Frankly, after reading all the support your side of this argument has given to the torturers, I am having enormous trouble believing for even one nanosecond that you actually care two cents about the baby. I am more inclined to believe that your only interest is in forcing women to accept your will.

Rather in the same manner as you conservative Christians force American homosexuals to accept non-human status in your country.

Prove to me first that you reject torture and then and only then am I willing to grant you an assumption of good will. Until then, you and all the other conservative Christians around here have have completely devalued every single argument you wage on the "sanctity of life".

Speaking as a gay Christian, I can not think of any single thing you conservative Christians could have done which better shows your real beliefs. It is not about honoring God for you, it is only about imposing your will on the weaker members of society.

that should read: "undifferentiated cells."

I'm interested in Mr. Waldman's point that those who want to recriminalize abortion would be very appreciative of this safe, legal & early formulation because it would establish that pro choicers see a "moral" aspect to abortion. I remember Obama at the Saddleback Forum saying that abortion is a "moral" issue and I thought that was a clever way of appealing to the recriminalizers while actually saying nothing. Everything has a moral component. How many lives could I have saved for a month with the money I spent on new chairs last year when the old couch was still a comfortable place to sit and watch TV? The octo-mom NOT aborting several fetuses is a moral issue. Forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term is a moral issue. Giving a child up for adoption is a moral issue.

Woog,
That is a valid point.

Unfortunately, human children become sexually mature long before their ability to understand the consequences arising from prematurely having sex are clear to them.

This is why, here in Western Europe, we make effective contraception available without age restrictions.

Immoral secularists as all of us Christians over here are, we feel it is better to prevent conception than to see an abortion.

Of course, we also don't run around advocating torture like you conservative Christians do in the US, so I daresay you have no problem with pushing the completely failed approach you American conservative Christians so delight in: No contraception, no aid to the pregnant child, instead, as Rod advocates, ostracism and social punishment.

What wonderful people you are. Not.

"Satanic distortion"

Oh you, sir or madam, win a shiny new internet. I haven't laughed that hard in days.

The arguments here that state women are selfish for their choice because while their body is their own, the "baby's" body is their own as well...and the woman's rights end where the baby's rights begin because you can't harm someone else just because you feel like it.

Women are harmed in pregnancy. Bodily changes, organ compression, higher blood pressure, hyperemesis, gestational diabetes, risk of major abdominal surgery to remove the resulting fetus, hours of intense trauma during child birth, torn genitals.. and that's just BEFORE or during birth. PPD and PPP are common afterwards as well.

Does the fetus have the right to inflict bodily and psychological harm on the woman carrying it simply because two gametes came together unintentionally? Is a woman to be FORCED to submit her body to the will of the "child" because of an accident?

..that said. If someone is in a coma, has no higher mental capacity and no ability to interact for nine months..and to live, they MUST be attached to you to share your nutrition, oxygen and blood flow. Everywhere you go, you must have them carried by your person...is it THEIR RIGHT to require you to do that? To force you to keep them alive even at the detriment to your person?

Most Pro-Lifers I know would say no, but then immediately say "but it's a BABY!" The moment there are no more hungry, uneducated, abused or unwanted children in this country is the moment you can tell the world "OK women, MAKE MORE OR ELSE!" But as it is, there are children living in squalor, children who have no families at all, children being abused in the foster systems and children living on streets because they have no one that will take them in. "Pro-Life" is an amusing term because most I've met aren't pro-life, they're pro-gestation. Once the resulting infant is born, they couldn't care less what happens to it as long as they don't have to deal with it.

Your Name, April 30, 2009 11:45 AM
quote:
The primary victims of abortion are the women who buy into the lie that their bodies belong to themselves alone,
end quote

Guess what? Slavery was abolished in the United States sometime ago.

A woman's body does belong to her, and to her alone.

OK, so not only do the majority of conservative Christians think torturing people is a good idea, now they are starting to admit that women aren't masters of their own bodies.

Goodness, it just gets worse and worse.

Very impressive and thought provoking article. My only hope is that this article not become yet another forum (as if one is needed) for the two opposing sides to banter once again as to why they are right and the other is wrong but instead people actually respond to the article. Unfortunately what I am seeing is exactly what the article is referencing and quite frankly it's old. There is nothing that either side can say to make more absolute their point. We've heard it before. Spend some time, not long, just the few minutes it would take to respond outside of and off of your soapbox and respond to the article. For someone still solidifying their opinion I find more truth in this article than in other argument voicing why they are right and someone else is wrong.

Great article.

The article and the comments are sadly shallow, theoretical and conveniently abstract when the topic is the most concrete, deep and high stakes topic of all. Everyone reading these words has already been born. They acknowledge that they are human and alive. They probably believe they deserve to be alive. I wonder -- exactly how many days, prior to the day each reader was born, would they say they were a valuable human being? One day? 60 days? 150 days? 200 days? And how many days will they, in their high(?) position, determine that the next human being has been around enough days to become valuable? Any answer you give, other than the day you were conceived, reveals only one conclusion...you are willing to end the life of another human being. Just face it. Just admit it. Stop trying to dress it up. Just say your opinion is more important than the life of another human being. And then be thankful your mother didn't share your opinion. If she had, you wouldn't have one.

I disagree. The issue is:
1. Does the state have the right to decide that a baby in utero is “human enough” to have human rights?
2. How do you propose that be measured in law? Is it gestational age, viability, implanted or not?

a "debate" on this is not happening at:
http://www.topix.com/forum/news/abortion/
specifically
http://www.topix.com/forum/news/abortion/TFQP2A7JORFA3VCDF
and
http://www.topix.com/forum/news/abortion/T1OH28R0517P1KHI1

I would also prefer that most abortions be made early, safe and legal. Having said that I do see one inconsistancy in what you have written. You assume that those having third tri-mester abortions because of the their health or the health and viability of the fetus are women who would have abortions anyway. It seems to me that late abortions are frequently occuring when a pregnancy that was for a wanted child has severe health or viability problems. It seems to me that parents should have the right to decide to terminate a pregnancy that would result in lifelong health and quality of life problems. Frequently these problems are not able to diagnosised earlier in the pregnancy. Adoption in this type of situation is rare so the parents have to face condeming their child to a short life of pain or a long life in an institution with little or no quality of life and increasing difficultes for the family both emotionally or financially.

Additionally I see other difficulties with our society's inconsistancy about the viability of life. For instance if life begins at conception which is why we have this disagreement regarding abortion. But what about laws that limit the fetus's rights in terms of say an auto accident that causes an abortion. Should the driver causing the accident be held responsible for murder and prosecuted accordingly. States have different statues regarding when a fetus can be considered a human being with right to life when it relates to these types of pregnancy terminations and it is rarely in the first tri-mester much less at the moment of conception. In fact if it is murder as the anti-abortionists contend then why do they consider that there would logically be a judicial penalty for this type of murder. Ask a those who have protested against abortion for years if they believe that abortion is murder and should be illegal and they will all say yes. Then ask them what the penalty for a woman that decides to have an abortion should be and watch the bewilderment come over their faces. After all don't we send murderers to prison, shouldn't murderers do life in prison at the very least. Until we can deal with the type of inconsistancies in the law then we can not call it murder and a parent should be able to make decisions about the quality of life or death their child will have to deal with.

I agree with almost everything Stephen says in this article, and have myself made many of the same points in various posts on the Abortion debate here on Beliefnet.

The only real disagreement I have is with his assertion that early abortion will reduce the number of late-term abortions done because of significant defects with the baby. Many critical and life-threatening conditions cannot be diagnosed until relatively late in pregnancy; and some parents do wait for a final diagnosis, even when problems are detected earlier, until hope is lost.

In these tragic cases of major defects that will lead to severe disability and/or death, I firmly believe that the parents of the child are the proper persons to decide how best to proceed.

Thanks for helping to define the middle ground on the abortion issue. Abortion has become a divisive issue in the debate on health care reform and some middle ground is needed. Health care reform is too important to those on both sides of the abortion issue to let it become a battlefield for ideological differences. The Health-care Reform Bill does not provide public funds for abortions nor does it even mention abortion. There are those who wish to insure that public funds are not used for abortion and their wishes should be respected. There are those who think providing health care to women who are now uninsured would surely reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and they are right. There are methods of birth control acceptable to every religious faith. Certainly, providing health counseling to women, good prenatal care for expectant mothers, and excellent health care for babies is a goal that everyone can share.

This is completely ridiculous. We want to reduce the number of abortions (technically, the ratio of abortions to live births - abortions resulting from the use of abortifacient contraceptives included). Are you opposed to abortion because you think it's "icky", and that early abortions are less "icky" than late ones? That's absurd, to say the least. I swear, you'd think this site is run by pro-choicers.