A is for Abortion in America

When it can't be saved,
not even on life support,
no gov'ment decides.

If the baby can not live,
not even on life support,
then, as with end of life care,
the government does not decide.

My solution divides pregnancy into two parts, and pregnant people into two types.

At about day 165, a baby might live if it receives professional, perhaps even expert, hospital care. It might live without significant brain damage. The two halves of pregnancy are before and after this date12. The two types of pregnant people include the regular type, and the type where the pregnancy might either threaten the life of the mother, or have originated in rape or incest34.

Law and tradition clearly indicate an interest in the status of living human beings. Those same two, when concerning themselves with people at the end of their lives, state that if a person can survive without machines they can not be killed. However, after a certain point, we all recognize that keeping a person alive does nothing to help them, or others5, live.

I would prefer that laws only be passed about pregnancies after 165 days, and no Federal law should restrict abortions for the second type of pregnant woman. For pregnancies of less than 165 days, have no Federal restriction, recognize the State's right to exercise their discretion.

footnotes

1. If we wanted to go back in time, we English speakers can call it "the quickening," after its common name before the last century. It referred to the time after the baby first kicks, which might be between 100 and 120 days. The goal appears, to me, to be to try to determine when it was alive. back


2. I expect religious-minded people to fund research to reduce the days from 165.  I know that if laws as I propose were enacted, only new laws could change this number.back


3. If, ten thousand years in the future, in a plot resembling an outlandish science-fiction movie, the world can only be saved if the genes of two close relatives are combined, I'll vote for the combination. It's real basic, though, and nothing that most every human society, separated by 1000s of miles and 1000s of years, didn't figure out for themselves.wiki back


4. Life and rape/incest are really in a different class from each other, however, they are not that far apart. None of the above have ever been generally accepted practice in a culture. Please check the link in footnote 3 to wikipedia, which seemed sufficient when I linked to it this day, 2007-11-25.back


5.    Again, totally sci-fi, I'm wondering how a person could help other people live, but can't help themselves live.  Despite the suggestion of a popular movie, humans are not an efficient way to create heat energy.back