Roe in Roe vs. Wade repents

[_just me]

Oh, and by the way, abortion isn't murder. Look up the definition if you need to.

What about late term abortions???

When does a fetus obtain personhood?

[_beastie]

Personally, I do think that an abortion of a healthy, late-term fetus would be murder. I only support late-term abortion in extreme cases, when the fetus is going to die anyway and there is risk to the health of the mother.

I think that only religion could proclaim that a blastocyte or zygote is a "person". The idea that a multi-cell organism is a "person" cannot be sustained outside of religion, so foisting that on the rest of us is an inappropriate insertion of religion into state.

The second term of a pregnancy is trickier. Carl Sagan wrote an excellent essay on this topic in which he proposed the most reasonable standard I've seen yet, which has to do with brain waves. Characteristically "human" brain waves, according to him, start around the thirtieth week of pregnancy.

2think has a lengthy excerpt from his article, found in the book Billions and Billions.

http://2think.org/abortion.shtml

Contrary to what some imagine, Roe V Wade actually includes such a sliding scale.


http://womenshistory.about.com/od/abort ... v_wade.htm

Acceptable government regulation according to Roe v. Wade:

Different rules at different stages of pregnancy were considered appropriate:

In the first trimester, the state (that is, any government) could treat abortion only as a medical decision, leaving medical judgment to the woman's physician.

In the second trimester (before viability), the state's interest was seen as legitimate when it was protecting the health of the mother.

After viability of the fetus (the likely ability of the fetus to be able to survive outside and separated from the uterus), the potential of human life could be considered as a legitimate state interest, and the state could choose to "regulate, or even proscribe abortion" as long as the life and health of the mother was protected.

[_just me]

beastie, those rules make sense to me. My mantra is the earlier the better. I wish more women would make use of the emergency contraception pill.

I still think murder is a legal term and can only be applied to those crimes that fall within its scope.

Ironically, one of the reasons cited for late term abortions is having someone try to dissuade the woman. Fear and lack of information are big reasons.

[_subgenius]

Whenever there are medical surgery shows on they even have a longer warning that images may be disturbing, etc. etc. Parental discretion is advised.

somehow when a teenage girl is going in for an abortion i doubt that "parental discretion" is on the table anymore.
But if i understand you correctly, you think that a pregnant female should not be exposed to a medical video because it might be rated PG-13....got it!