I agree with the result of your conclusion but I disagree with your central premise. We do have laws to protect rights in the future. Those laws, though, don’t protect individual rights, they protect the rights of the society as a whole.
I the case of the fetus, it is arguable as to when the fetus gains rights of its own, but I don’t think that a newly fertilized egg immediately gains rights. Something like the morning after pill, abortion at 6 weeks, or even abortion at 12 or 20 weeks doesn’t constitute “murder in self defense” in my mind. I think there is a line to be drawn somewhere before that even becomes a consideration.
Once you do cross that line, though, we do get to your argument and your logic holds I think.
my body, my choice is all the logic we need. Don’t try to argue or draw debates. It will only divide it will only give them some sort of sense that their argument holds water. There is nothing but ‘my body, my choice.’
I don’t think that your argument is going to win back women’s right to choose. “My body my choice” in the way that you are using it, with no gray area or caveats, implies that abortion should be legal up to the time of birth. That’s going to be a tough idea to get agreement on, even from many people who are pro-choice.
I am pro-choice but, if we want women to be able to choose for themselves, we do need to argue I good faith and make some reasonable compromises I think.
Who do you think is carrying a baby for nearly 9 months then saying “Well, I better get that abortion in now before it’s too late!”
This doesn’t happen the way you’ve implied. People who are aborting with no fault don’t wait till near full term. And when an abortion does happens that late term, as rare as it is, it’s always because of an unviable fetus or an at risk of death mother. We absolutely should help people in those situations, and any restrictions on abortion, any ambiguity or vagueness in terminology, even directed only at late term abortions, can and will be used to prevent care to those who really need it.
It really doesn’t matter because doctors are not going to abort after viability because of their oath to do no harm. The only abortions at that time are a threat to the mother or the birth would be closely followed by death from a severe disease or defect.
Laws that require a second opinion are the only logical compromise because anything else will negatively impact many, many women with no positive outcome for the potential future person. Even that is a compromise and will have a negative impact, but at least it would still be limited to a medical decision and not some legal criteria written in a way that doesn’t fit each pregnancy.
Your stance is not incompatible with mine; my meta stance is solely that there is a discussion to have. As opposed to the person in this thread pretending like it’s an objective fact instead of a societal judgement.
I do not specifically carve out an exception for late term abortion because no one is actually waiting 6 months before deciding whether to carry to term. The people getting late term abortions are doing it because they must due to medical reasons.
I’m not sure how there’s a discussion when you’re pitting a real-life person against a hypothetical future person. Your other examples (eg climate change) affect society as a whole. There is no hypothetical about it.
If hypothetically speaking I bury a land mine in a field-- does it matter if the person who eventually dies because of my actions was born before or after I buried the mine? Is when they were born in relation to my actions relevant at all?
