Abortion And The SCOTUS Viability Stipulation

Roe v. Wade and Webster v. Reproductive Health Services are SCOTUS decisions that have greatly contributed to legalizing abortion on demand prior to prenatal viability and legalizing abortion on special circumstances (to save the woman's life, prevent grave permanent health damage to the woman, rape/incest, and the like) after prenatal viability.

The viability stipulation, as the court specified, is that viability is the point where a prenatal can live outside the womb and the state has a vested interest in protecting the lives of prenatals once viability has been reached.

The viability stipulation includes that medical assistance (respirators, incubators, anything) can be used to determine the viability point.

The viability stipulation does not qualify in any way or when with regard to the type of medical assistance that can be used to determine viability. Thus the time span from conception to viability is variable depending on the medical technology assistance that is/will be in humanity's possession at the time of a specific medical case.

Currently, viability at 22 weeks has been reached with medical assistance, a little over five months from conception. Generally, many facilities are equipped to handle viability from 23 to 26+ weeks, between 5.3 and 6.0+ months from conception. Continuing advancements in medical science will, in time, most certainly lower the viability week demarcation, perhaps, one day, significantly.

No matter what the viability week demarcation eventually becomes, that demarcation will still satisfy the current SCOTUS viability stipulation.

Some people have no complaints about the SCOTUS viability stipulation.

Some people do have complaints about the SCOTUS viability stipulation.

Some of the people complaining about the SCOTUS viability stipulation say that there should be no viability limit for abortion on demand, that abortion should be allowed on demand (meaning for any reason) after viability, maybe all the way up to the end of gestation prior to birth.

Some of the people complaining about the SCOTUS viability stipulation say that there should be no minimum time or a much lower minimum time of prenatal development for the state to have a vested interest in protecting the lives of prenatals, that the viability stipulation in effect sets the minimum weeks for vested state interest in protecting prenatals too high.

So the viability stipulation of these SCOTUS laws is the subject of this thread and its poll.

Please answer the poll with the response that comes the closest to your opinion, and present your perspective about the viability stipulation, whether you like it or not, and if you'd like to make a change and what the change would be.

For general simplicity’s sake, “abortion” in the poll means terminating a prenatal by any deliberate means, surgical, chemical, whatever.

Option number three in the poll appears contradictory.

I ran afoul of the dreaded character limitation and edited too quickly.

Option three means that abortion on demand should be allowed some weeks after conception but not that near to viability.

You get the drift.

I can't really vote. My opinion is that abortion should not be allowed once implantation has occurred and that abortion should be legal if the life of the mother is compromised by pregnancy.

digsbe said:

I can't really vote. My opinion is that abortion should not be allowed once implantation has occurred and that abortion should be legal if the life of the mother is compromised by pregnancy.

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The poll question is about abortion on demand.

The answer that comes the closest for you as the OP requested, based on what you stipulate here, is poll option number 3, as implantation occurs one to two weeks after conception and thus is "a" number of weeks after conception: poll option number 3.

The life of the mother being threatened is a special circumstance that is always allowed at any time in gestation under SCOTUS law, and thus is not relevant to "on demand" per se as stated in the poll question.

I am against abortion being illegal at *any* stage of pregnancy. It is for doctors, NOT the government, to practice medicine. Here in Canada, we have no limits on it, yet you cannot find a doctor to do an "elective" termination much past 20-22 weeks.

Scrabaholic said:

I am against abortion being illegal at *any* stage of pregnancy. It is for doctors, NOT the government, to practice medicine. Here in Canada, we have no limits on it, yet you cannot find a doctor to do an "elective" termination much past 20-22 weeks.

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In Canada, how do doctors justify their reasoning not to do abortion on demand of an elective nature much past 20-22 weeks?

Ontologuy said:

In Canada, how do doctors justify their reasoning not to do abortion on demand of an elective nature much past 20-22 weeks?

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I have no idea, it's never really been disclosed in the media.

Abortion on demand up to 20 weeks gestation. Or I would be fine with up to viability IF it were legal for the mother to have it removed live and grown to term outside her body after viability, even if the chance of it living is very tiny.

I find it too difficult to vote, because I think that abortion should be allowed postviability in certain cases other than just a medically diagnosed imminent threat to the life of the woman, namely, the following:

1)medically diagnosed serious permanent injury to the woman's health (think permanent paralysis from the neck down or permanent coma)
2)forced rape pregnancy (e.g., a 13 year old girl, kidnapped, raped and impregnated, confined so that she would have to continue the pregnancy, is rescued when six months' pregnant).
3)grossly deformed fetus with problems that sometimes fail to be diagnosed earlier than 22 weeks (including cases where the fetus will be in constant extreme pain that cannot be medically mitigated and is expected to die in the womb or within minutes of birth).
4)dead fetus

As I see it, the problem with anti-abortion laws that specify the exceptions in which abortion is allowed is that every such exception has to be worded to cover circumstances where a vast majority of people would allow it, but if too general, the exception could be abused. A fetus with elephantiasis is not grossly deformed, as corrective surgery on the born child can result in normal functioning (think skater Kristie Yamaguchi). But the rare anencephalic fetus that survives birth cannot get a brain implant and will never experience consciousness.

choiceone said:

I find it too difficult to vote, because I think that abortion should be allowed postviability in certain cases other than just a medically diagnosed imminent threat to the life of the woman, namely, the following:

1)medically diagnosed serious permanent injury to the woman's health (think permanent paralysis from the neck down or permanent coma)
2)forced rape pregnancy (e.g., a 13 year old girl, kidnapped, raped and impregnated, confined so that she would have to continue the pregnancy, is rescued when six months' pregnant).
3)grossly deformed fetus with problems that sometimes fail to be diagnosed earlier than 22 weeks (including cases where the fetus will be in constant extreme pain that cannot be medically mitigated and is expected to die in the womb or within minutes of birth).
4)dead fetus

As I see it, the problem with anti-abortion laws that specify the exceptions in which abortion is allowed is that every such exception has to be worded to cover circumstances where a vast majority of people would allow it, but if too general, the exception could be abused. A fetus with elephantiasis is not grossly deformed, as corrective surgery on the born child can result in normal functioning (think skater Kristie Yamaguchi). But the rare anencephalic fetus that survives birth cannot get a brain implant and will never experience consciousness.

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The question is about abortion on demand.

That means other than for the list of special circumstances already allowed post-viable under law.

Think birth control failure, convenience, economics, partner doesn't want to pay child support, all of these non-special circumstances reasons .. then vote with that in mind.

It's not really that difficult.

I find it interesting at this point that four people have voted that abortion on demand (meaning for non-special circumstances) should not ever be allowed (the leading poll answer at this point), but no one has voted either of the two options allowing abortion on demand past viability.

These four solid pro-lifers that have voted so far have simply come right out and declared their position.

But I've discussed abortion for many months here, and I've encountered quite a number of pro-choicers who would answer with option 2: allowing abortion on demand all the way up until birth.

Yet after 75 views, where the odds are that these pro-choicers would have been among the viewers, not one of the many poll option 1 and option 2 pro-choicers has stepped forward to be counted.

This jibes with my experience in discussion.

Pro-lifers will simply come right out there and tell you what they think, in general they don't attempt to hide or couch or hedge or obfuscate their position, they simply tell it like it is.

A number of pro-choicers on the other hand, those wingish+, are just the opposite: they obfuscate their position, hedge their perspective, couch it in ambiguous terms, and/or hide it completely .. and thus, as some have posted here in this thread, simply decline to participate in the poll.

I can't help but wonder why this major difference between the two sides, one among so many differences between the two: that one side doesn't mind having their name associated with their true perspective, in fact wants to be counted for where they truly are, whereas the other side wants to stay hidden, and doesn't want their name to be associated with their true position on this issue.

What's up with that?

Ontologuy said:

What's up with that?

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Seems like basic math to me. It is a small minority of pro-choicers who support abortion on demand past viability. They probably stick out in your mind due to confirmation bias. Pro-lifers greatly outnumber the post-viability pro-choicers. As of this post only 7 people have voted in your poll. Since the percentage of people out there who support abortion on demand after viability is likely in the single digits, it doesn’t surprise me those options haven’t received a vote.

What I find interesting is that with that number of views why haven’t more people voted at all. Maybe they don’t like the wording of the poll or maybe they don’t like the pollster’s agenda. I don’t know. I voted.

Sarcogito said:

Seems like basic math to me. It is a small minority of pro-choicers who support abortion on demand past viability. They probably stick out in your mind due to confirmation bias. Pro-lifers greatly outnumber the post-viability pro-choicers. As of this post only 7 people have voted in your poll. Since the percentage of people out there who support abortion on demand after viability is likely in the single digits, it doesn’t surprise me those options haven’t received a vote.

What I find interesting is that with that number of views why haven’t more people voted at all. Maybe they don’t like the wording of the poll or maybe they don’t like the pollster’s agenda. I don’t know. I voted.

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The question simply came up in other threads, so I wanted to see if what I was being told was true. My only "agenda" is getting at the facts and the meaningful truth they represent.

The number of people who posted support of options 2 or 1 here was such that I would expect about five or six 2 and 1 responses from frequent visitors.

My guess, as your post projects, there's a degree of unjustified paranoia, not to mention some silencing defense mechanisms, and guilt, that accounts for the lack of courageous forthcoming.

It's easy to throw words around when you don't think anyone would remember .. not so easy sometimes to be held to an easily referenced public account of them.

Ontologuy said:

The question is about abortion on demand.

That means other than for the list of special circumstances already allowed post-viable under law.

Think birth control failure, convenience, economics, partner doesn't want to pay child support, all of these non-special circumstances reasons .. then vote with that in mind.

It's not really that difficult.

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You do not get it. Post-viability, I have not heard of anyone seeking an abortion because of birth control failure, convenience, economics, partner does not want to pay child support, etc. But the SCOTUS decisions allow states to outlaw abortion after viability as long as options remain for saving the woman's life or health. They do not say options have to remain open in cases like those I described.

Back in 1996, there was in Michigan a particularly icky rape pregnancy case. An 11 year old girl was raped by her older brother and for whatever reason did not tell her parents. She was too innocent to know she was pregnant. When her tummy kept getting larger, her mother took her to a doctor too stupid to suspect pregnancy until, finally, it was discovered at six months.

Michigan did not allow abortion at that point. Because she was 11, one would think that the health exception might cover this case even there, but apparently not. Since this was also rape and incest, the girl and parents wanted her to have an abortion and were about to take her to NY when a local pro-life DA took the parents to court to sue for state custody of the fetus to prevent their taking the girl out of Michigan.

I have no idea how that court case ended, but it was perfectly okay under the SC decisions for a state government to punish a little 11 year old victim with forced incestuous rape childbirth against her wishes and those of her parents just because she was scared and naive and her doctor was unsurpassedly incompetent.

So even though I defend the SC decisions, I do think that its postviability exceptions are inadequate. Even though one can say, think of the postviable fetus, I cannot help that in this case of this little 11 year old, there should have been an exception to cover her. And the same with the cases I suggested in my earlier post.

choiceone said:

You do not get it. Post-viability, I have not heard of anyone seeking an abortion because of birth control failure, convenience, economics, partner does not want to pay child support, etc. But the SCOTUS decisions allow states to outlaw abortion after viability as long as options remain for saving the woman's life or health. They do not say options have to remain open in cases like those I described.

Back in 1996, there was in Michigan a particularly icky rape pregnancy case. An 11 year old girl was raped by her older brother and for whatever reason did not tell her parents. She was too innocent to know she was pregnant. When her tummy kept getting larger, her mother took her to a doctor too stupid to suspect pregnancy until, finally, it was discovered at six months.

Michigan did not allow abortion at that point. Because she was 11, one would think that the health exception might cover this case even there, but apparently not. Since this was also rape and incest, the girl and parents wanted her to have an abortion and were about to take her to NY when a local pro-life DA took the parents to court to sue for state custody of the fetus to prevent their taking the girl out of Michigan.

I have no idea how that court case ended, but it was perfectly okay under the SC decisions for a state government to punish a little 11 year old victim with forced incestuous rape childbirth against her wishes and those of her parents just because she was scared and naive and her doctor was unsurpassedly incompetent.

So even though I defend the SC decisions, I do think that its postviability exceptions are inadequate. Even though one can say, think of the postviable fetus, I cannot help that in this case of this little 11 year old, there should have been an exception to cover her. And the same with the cases I suggested in my earlier post.

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Are you saying that the post-viability exception you list here -- rape/incest -- isn't covered by the post-viability special circumstances in the SCOTUS laws?

I thought it was.

As to your statement "Post-viability, I have not heard of anyone seeking an abortion because of birth control failure, convenience, economics, partner does not want to pay child support, etc.", the poll didn't ask if you've heard of these happening post-viable or not, or what you think of them or would prefer to think of them or prefer to remain in denial about them. The poll just asked where you'd prefer the cutoff was set for them.

It's really pretty easy.

Ontologuy said:

Are you saying that the post-viability exception you list here -- rape/incest -- isn't covered by the post-viability special circumstances in the SCOTUS laws?

I thought it was.

As to your statement "Post-viability, I have not heard of anyone seeking an abortion because of birth control failure, convenience, economics, partner does not want to pay child support, etc.", the poll didn't ask if you've heard of these happening post-viable or not, or what you think of them or would prefer to think of them or prefer to remain in denial about them. The poll just asked where you'd prefer the cutoff was set for them.

It's really pretty easy.

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Rape/incest are not covered by the SCOTUS laws. If you wait too long, the only way these circumstances can be covered is if medical professionals make a diagnosis that the pregnancy will threaten the mother's life/health.

Remember when pro-life people made state laws that only covered major threats to the mother's physical health and specifically excluded major threats to the mother's mental health, like permanent psychosis? They thought when it was challenged they could get the SC to agree but the SC said mental health had to also be an exception. Pro-lifers were very upset.

I'm saying that I would prefer the cutoff at viability, but wouldn't care if it were 20 weeks of pregnancy, as long as gross fetal abnormality, etc. (my posted late-term exceptions), were actual, adequately worded exceptions for post-viability that could cover cases like that poor little 11 year old, etc. As long as my posted late-term exceptions are not covered for post-viability, I'm not saying a cutoff is okay at 20 weeks of pregnancy.

I'm guessing that, if we started dealing with specific issues related to specific cases that were not covered by the SC exceptions, we would find a much smaller group of "abortion on demand throughout pregnancy" people. Some of them have probably just experienced or learned of cases where the law with exceptions was not flexible enough to deal with horrible tragedy and got so outraged that they over-asserted their view. That, in essence, is the problem of restrictions with exceptions in an area of law where medical diagnosis and great variation in actual situations are complicating factors.

I still remember that case and that stupid doctor. Unf--ingbelievable!

choiceone said:

Rape/incest are not covered by the SCOTUS laws. If you wait too long, the only way these circumstances can be covered is if medical professionals make a diagnosis that the pregnancy will threaten the mother's life/health.

Remember when pro-life people made state laws that only covered major threats to the mother's physical health and specifically excluded major threats to the mother's mental health, like permanent psychosis? They thought when it was challenged they could get the SC to agree but the SC said mental health had to also be an exception. Pro-lifers were very upset.

I'm saying that I would prefer the cutoff at viability, but wouldn't care if it were 20 weeks of pregnancy, as long as gross fetal abnormality, etc. (my posted late-term exceptions), were actual, adequately worded exceptions for post-viability that could cover cases like that poor little 11 year old, etc. As long as my posted late-term exceptions are not covered for post-viability, I'm not saying a cutoff is okay at 20 weeks of pregnancy.

I'm guessing that, if we started dealing with specific issues related to specific cases that were not covered by the SC exceptions, we would find a much smaller group of "abortion on demand throughout pregnancy" people. Some of them have probably just experienced or learned of cases where the law with exceptions was not flexible enough to deal with horrible tragedy and got so outraged that they over-asserted their view. That, in essence, is the problem of restrictions with exceptions in an area of law where medical diagnosis and great variation in actual situations are complicating factors.

I still remember that case and that stupid doctor. Unf--ingbelievable!

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I just checked the SCOTUS decisions, and you are right -- I thought for sure abortion on demand was covered for rape/incest up thru the last day of predicted gestation.

Therefore depending on the state, that state laws may automatically qualify rape/incest as a threat to the woman's life.

Nevertheless, if rape/incest occurs, the woman has 22 weeks (beginning of current technology medical assistance variable viability) to get an abortion anywhere.

Isn't that enough time in these cases?

In 2004 1.0% of abortion requests were because of rape and less than 0.5% of abortion requests were because of incest (that statistically, I guess, was not considered "rape"). That's less than 1.5% of all abortion requests.

Shouldn't 22 weeks be sufficient time to make the decision on these?

Abortion in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A 2004 study by the Guttmacher Institute reported that women listed the following amongst their reasons for choosing to have an abortion: [44]
74% Having a baby would dramatically change my life
73% Can’t afford a baby now
48% Don’t want to be a single mother or having relationship problems
38% Have completed my childbearing
32% Not ready for a(nother) child
25% Don’t want people to know I had sex or got pregnant
22% Don’t feel mature enough to raise a(nother) child
14% Husband or partner wants me to have an abortion
13% Possible problems affecting the health of the fetus
12% Concerns about my health
6% Parents want me to have an abortion
1% Was a victim of rape
less than 0.5% Became pregnant as a result of incest

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Interesting also, only 12% of abortions were requested for health reasons, and Roe v. Wade qualifying life-threatening health reasons were likely only a small percentage of that.

Ontologuy said:

I just checked the SCOTUS decisions, and you are right -- I thought for sure abortion on demand was covered for rape/incest up thru the last day of predicted gestation.

Therefore depending on the state, that state laws may automatically qualify rape/incest as a threat to the woman's life.

Nevertheless, if rape/incest occurs, the woman has 22 weeks (beginning of current technology medical assistance variable viability) to get an abortion anywhere.

Isn't that enough time in these cases?

In 2004 1.0% of abortion requests were because of rape and less than 0.5% of abortion requests were because of incest (that statistically, I guess, was not considered "rape"). That's less than 1.5% of all abortion requests.

Shouldn't 22 weeks be sufficient time to make the decision on these?

Abortion in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Interesting also, only 12% of abortions were requested for health reasons, and Roe v. Wade qualifying life-threatening health reasons were likely only a small percentage of that.

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No one has super-late abortions. A doctor is just not going to do an abortion at eight months unless there is an imminent life threat that completely precludes the possibility of ordinary childbirth or a caesarian. But for a little girl like the one whose case I cited, it would be far safer to have an abortion at six months and one week than to have her give birth or have a caesarian, as mortality in childbirth, including by caesarian, is far higher for such young girls and rape victims (rape pregnancies involve more stress and therefore more physical problems).

I agree with your information but cannot answer yes to your question. Almost no abortions occur later than 22 weeks, and those that do are almost all for health/life threat reasons. But as I tried to explain in my posts, there are a tiny number of cases in which genuine victims or people facing real tragedy do not get covered by exceptions. It is this tiny group I am concerned about. Statistically they may be insignificant, but the laws themselves victimize individual persons and families in such cases. I cannot care as much about a fetus as I do about an 11-year-old victim of older people, sorry.

This tiny group of cases seems to be the basis for most protests against late-term abortion laws. They occur because of state laws made by lawmakers who want to end all abortion and have not considered the particular cases that the laws might victiize. The laws may try to prevent abortion even if there is an imminent threat to a woman's life, to force women to go out of state for such abortions because they do not want their state to have such abortions available, or to prevent people from going out of state to get late-term abortions even when warranted, as when there is a need for an experienced surgeon in case of a grossly deformed fetus incompatible with life.

Most cases of elective abortion are, in fact, the kind pro-lifers emphasize (like having a baby would dramatically change my life), and I certainly agree that we need to lower the statistics on them by better bc. But these kinds of cases usually involve abortion in the first trimester or well before 20 weeks. Nobody asks for an abortion in the sixth month because they can't afford a baby or don't want people to know they had sex.

But we are talking about persons here - we should not be making laws that result in genuine harm to people faced with serious injury to health or etc. In the example I gave, it was an 11 year old victim of rape, incest, and medical incompetence whose parents both agreed the girl should have an abortion. If the abortion had been done immediately, it would have been at six months. The parents were okay with going to NY and not bothering Michigan's more restrictive laws, but even that was not enough - the parents and their child were prevented from leaving the state even though they had not committed a crime! Does that sound like America to you?

FYI, this sort of thing adds to NY's abortion rate. If a woman with a serious medical problem calling for an abortion after 20 weeks has the money, she's not going to choose surgery at a local hospital in an avidly anti-abortion state with no qualified surgeons for the procedure - she's going to go to a state with liberal abortion laws for adequate quality treatment.

Ontologuy said:

I find it interesting at this point that four people have voted that abortion on demand (meaning for non-special circumstances) should not ever be allowed (the leading poll answer at this point), but no one has voted either of the two options allowing abortion on demand past viability.

These four solid pro-lifers that have voted so far have simply come right out and declared their position.

But I've discussed abortion for many months here, and I've encountered quite a number of pro-choicers who would answer with option 2: allowing abortion on demand all the way up until birth.

Yet after 75 views, where the odds are that these pro-choicers would have been among the viewers, not one of the many poll option 1 and option 2 pro-choicers has stepped forward to be counted.

This jibes with my experience in discussion.

Pro-lifers will simply come right out there and tell you what they think, in general they don't attempt to hide or couch or hedge or obfuscate their position, they simply tell it like it is.

A number of pro-choicers on the other hand, those wingish+, are just the opposite: they obfuscate their position, hedge their perspective, couch it in ambiguous terms, and/or hide it completely .. and thus, as some have posted here in this thread, simply decline to participate in the poll.

I can't help but wonder why this major difference between the two sides, one among so many differences between the two: that one side doesn't mind having their name associated with their true perspective, in fact wants to be counted for where they truly are, whereas the other side wants to stay hidden, and doesn't want their name to be associated with their true position on this issue.

What's up with that?

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some people only have an hour a day to reply to these things which may or may not be expediant.

Most abortions are preformed during the same time period that natural miscarriages occur.

Miscarriges happen naturaly during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.
80 percent of miscaariges happen during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
90 percent of abortions take place during the 12 weeks of pregnacy..
the majority take place in the first 9 weeks of pregnancy.
Very few abortions are done after 16 weeks of pregnancy.

Thankfully less than 1 percent of abortions are done after the fetus is 21 weeks gestation
These are the cases where the woman's life is in danger, the
fetus has died in the womb,
or because the fetus is so malformed that if carried until later they will be stillborn or will only live a few minutes or hours.

Ontologuy said:

But I've discussed abortion for many months here, and I've encountered quite a number of pro-choicers who would answer with option 2: allowing abortion on demand all the way up until birth.

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I do not think "abortion on demand" should be allowed after viability.

I do however , believe that in cases like the 11 year rape victim that choiceone described, the cases where the woman's life is danger, the cases where the fetus has died in the womb and the cases where the fetus is so malformed that it will be stillborn or only live a few or hours should have an exception and be allowed past the 20 week gestation mark.

Ontologuy said:

Nevertheless, if rape/incest occurs, the woman has 22 weeks (beginning of current technology medical assistance variable viability) to get an abortion anywhere.



In 2004 1.0% of abortion requests were because of rape and less than 0.5% of abortion requests were because of incest (that statistically, I guess, was not considered "rape"). That's less than 1.5% of all abortion requests.

Shouldn't 22 weeks be sufficient time to make the decision on these?

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Just a FYI 6 states ban abortions after 20 weeks.

http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_PLTA.pdf

The reson a lot of us do not want a cut off of 20 or 22 weeks for abortions is because of the etreme cases such as the fetus who died in the womb or who is so deformed it will be still born or only live for a few minutes or hours.

Fetal genetic defects, fetal abnormalities and maternal complications may not be noted until late in a pregnancy.
Some of the diagnosis regarding the fetus will be incompatible with life,
and there may be medical problems where the patients life and or health is threatened.
It is at this time that late term abortions may be necessary.

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Pregnancy Complications That May Result In Late Term Abortion