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.
I actually thought about saying exactly what you’re saying but didn’t want to muddy my argument. My point is, even if it should be a choice between a mother and her doctor, that argument isn’t going to win the day. Too many people will point to later term abortions as an argument against full-on “my body my choice”. It is too easy to convince people that is allowing murder…
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.
Doctors do no take an oath not to do harm. That’s a myth:
That is a little nitpicky. The article you linked says medical schools do have doctors take the hippocratic or similar oath. The relevant part from the hippocratic oath is pretty much what people think of when they think “do no harm”:
“I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.”
That said, very few doctors actually perform late term abortions anyways (even though these are almost universally due to complicating medical scenarios and not for funsies).
