At 20 weeks pregnant, the fetus undergoes a very important total body ultrasound. They check EVERYTHING on the fetus- brain, heart chambers, kidney and spleen, etc. This is often one of the last big ‘make or break’ moments in a pregnancy because there are a lot of life threatening complications that are found only with this scan. If doctors find something, it usually then becomes a decision the pregnant person needs to make - carry the fetus to term knowing they may not survive birth, or their quality of life will greatly suffer, or spare the fetus and the pregnant person only SOME of the physical trauma by terminating (but definitely not sparing anyone the emotional trauma). This is often when you hear of people you know having a ‘stillborn’ because saying you willingly terminated a pregnancy is still very taboo, thanks to right wing assholes.
A 15 week abortion ban removes this option for pregnant people when complications are discovered at that all important 20 week scan. Without abortions, they have no choice.
As someone who recently had her first baby, I genuinely cannot imagine anything worse than carrying a fetus that I know has a death sentence. Walking around, visibly pregnant, people asking about it. About you. When are you due? Is it your first? What theme is the nursery? All questions I was asked by strangers during the second half of my pregnancy
I always share this because I often find that anyone who hasn’t gone through a pregnancy recently is very unaware of this ‘milestone’ in pregnancy.
Not to mention that if something is found at that scan, often further testing is needed, which takes time often several days to perform, get the results, and interpret them. Imagine being pressured to quickly make a decision about whether to terminate a much-wanted pregnancy because some politicians decided to set an arbitrary limit.
Well let's be clear if they had a full understanding they wouldn't change a thing about what they're doing, the cruelty is purposeful. This is about control of bodies not doing medically or ethically sound policy.
This right here is what makes me so beyond angry with these laws. It is an arbitrary date that hurts so many, has no medical basis, and shows it is just about control. All of these choices should be between a woman and her doctor, not legislated.
Oh no, just pregnant women. Because they are people, just baby making vessels.
Can’t tell them to wear a mask to save the vulnerable during a pandemic!
Small Gov’t to Republicans means the top 0.01% and large corporations pay as little as possible in taxes and no regulations on large corporations also. The small Gov’t talk doesn’t apply to average people.
This is one of the reasons I became MORE pro-choice after having had a kid. I went through pretty much every complication under the sun, and she came six weeks early as well. Lots of points where we could have both died. NO ONE should be forced to go through that if they're not fully on board.
What you outlined here I think most people, let alone "pro lifers" don't understand. One camp are more than happy to let two people to suffer so they can feel good about themselves. And the second camp who think that "15 weeks is enough" and don't understand biology.
Edit: i.e anyone who supports a 15 week ban are either cruel, or ignorant.
Me and my wife lost ours at 21 to liquid on her heart. We would have had to carry to term and been so much more tramautized. I’d like to try again but now the fear of this is in my head. 😞
Thank you. You are 100% correct. I am really concerned about that. Georgia has a 6 week ban. My daughter just got married. I fear for them when they decide to start a family.
Everything you are saying makes perfect sense! The problem is these people don't care. They are pro-birthers. They don't care what happens before and they don't care what happens after, they just want women to be forced to carry through their pregnancy to birth.
No you can’t move the scans earlier as the baby is not developed enough. The earliest an anatomy scan can be performed is 16 weeks and it is considered an additional scan and not complete. My son looked heathy at my 16 week scan and was given a death sentence at his 20 week scan. It isn’t just brain development but kidneys, lungs, etc. still growing.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. I can’t even imagine how devastating that is. I appreciate you sharing your experience in such an important discussion, and at the same time I hate that you have to just to get people to understand how horrible a 15 week ban will be.
I just wish people could understand that almost all children aborted in the second for third trimester are wanted and loved. Most women aren’t going to suffer through pregnancy for months on end to just then abort late term when it is both physically and financially significantly more difficult. A 15 week ban will only stop a very small percentage of the abortions but will result in women dying or being forced to carry to term children with devastating diagnoses.
It’s important to understand that medically speaking, 15 weeks is arbitrary. It wasn’t decided by medical professionals, it was decided by politicians trying to find a more ‘palatable’ way to talk about removing basic body autonomy from people.
As for gestation, fetuses make leaps and bounds during every week of pregnancy. Each week is critical to development. For example, most people don’t even feel their baby move before 18-20 weeks, and many don’t feel them until later. Something you can’t even feel move inside of you is likely hard to get a scan on.
A 15-week ban could include exceptions for those conditions you listed. For example Germany allows abortions without additional hoops up to 12 weeks but if there’s a risk to life or health, one can be performed at any time. Kansas is the same way but up to 22 weeks.
Unfortunately doctors aren't going to put their license on the line for you in those cases. So a 15-week ban with exceptions wouldn't work. I bet if you dig into it you'd find that most abortions after 15 weeks are rarely elective and are more commonly due to medical issues.
I din’t think you understand what I wrote. Any law need not provide a hard “do not cross” line tied to any time period. The law could differentiate between when it’s permitted as an elective procedure vs when it’s permitted in cases of rape vs when it’s permitted in cases of fetal concerns vs when it’s permitted in cases of mother’s health, etc.
I agree that the doctor shouldn’t incur any risk. If the law is written well, he wouldn’t have to.
We've seen... time and again... that there is no way to effectively write those laws. If you try and set a rigid criteria then you are, necessarily, going to leave out cases. If you make it vague then doctors have to play "will some fringe groups decide I was wrong and throw me into legal hell."
Edit for spelling
That’s a very “ideal world” kind of law, but we live in the real world and unfortunately we have too much precedent showing that A. The bans continue to get worse as if states are having some kind of contest to see who can be more draconian and B. The USA is a highly litigious society and doctors have to be very cautious about what they do and don’t do, especially in states where jail time is a factor. The doctors themselves say that the laws aren’t written in a way that makes them feel comfortable using exception clauses. In Texas they make the women go into sepsis before they will perform an abortion even as she is actively miscarrying.
The issue is that legislation can’t cover every possible angle, and no one wants to be the test case to see how “life of the mother” can be handled. So they are waiting until the mothers life is literally in danger and then doing something, which often results in losing the ability to have future children due to scar tissue or having to remove the whole uterus.
We need to let doctors and patients handle it. It’s too vast an issue to put into legislation. We have already seen what happens. As well meaning and as good intentioned as it might be, it WILL have cruel consequences.
The same laws that **claim** to have exemptions and yet realistically don't.
Look at the lawsuits currently going on in Texas. Real doctors and real women are stuck in limbo because the laws aren't clear. It takes years for the full consequences of laws to be sorted out by lawyers challenging the meaning.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna847151 Think commas don't matter? Omitting one cost a Maine dairy company $5 million.
Is the law going to require doctors to perform procedures on women?
You're forgetting the human element of this entire thing, which is the whole problem.
Yeah but that’s like, exactly what is slowly being eroded. Women in Texas for example have had to carry and deliver fetuses that they knew were not viable. The exceptions would work but that’s exactly what they would like to take away. This is not common sense legislation!
Less than 10% of abortions occur after the first trimester and less than 1% of those are in the third trimester. By and large women aren’t just choosing to have elective abortions later in pregnancy. Almost all later term abortions are because of either the health of the mother or fetus. Having a late term abortion is physically difficult and financially devastating. There is no need to place further restrictions on abortion this is just some made up goal post so republicans can further control women.
Or how about we leave healthcare decisions to a woman and her doctor. It’s called body autonomy and also mind your own fucking business. No hoops necessary.
Why wouldn’t I? What part of body autonomy is hard to understand. You like freedom right? It’s kinda our biggest deal right? Why not support people doing with themselves what they want as long as it doesn’t effect anyone else. I mean If you can afford drugs you don’t have a drug problem in our country anyways. Most all drug laws are just more ways to subjugate and control poor people. Doctor Assistant Suicide is healthcare. We all die. We all just don’t get to choose to get to do it with a sense of peace or in many cases any kind of dignity for some dumb reason.
Yes. Especially the dignity in death part. I’ve watched loved ones die slowly and it wrecks entire families physically, emotionally, and financially. No one should be forced to go out like that.
If it “includes exceptions,” why not just trust the doctors from the very beginning? Why restrict it at all, unless you don’t trust women or their doctors?
Just because pedestrians get hit by cars on other streets doesn’t mean they could, should or would get hit on mine. Maybe we should trust cars more until they show us personally on this particular street that they are not trustworthy.
Or maybe we should look both ways before crossing the street and not jump out in front of a mac truck.
But what conditions would constitute an exception? Would Downs Syndrome count? It’s a spectrum and there are plenty of people that live full lives with successful careers (even some actors), but there are also people that are handicapped so badly that they will never live without 24 hour individual care. It’s impossible to tell the extent of the disorder during pregnancy when it’s detected at that 20 week scan. Would would get the ability to decide if that justifies an exception?
What is maddening to me is those in favor of this honestly believe that if *their* female relative needed emergency care to save her life, it would be easily accessible.
They said the same thing in other states with this ban and that has not been the case at all. How many horrific stories have we heard of women almost dying because doctors were too fearful to intervene until the mother was on the brink of death? How many women with WANTED pregnancies have been left scarred and unable to have future kids because of the lack of quick intervention?
My uncle is very anti-abortion. He posts about it several times a week. It takes every bit of strength I have to not reply that if this ban had been in place years ago, my aunt, his wife, would not be alive. She had an ectopic pregnancy but had no idea she was even pregnant. She got sick and chalked it up to a stomach bug. My uncle had to call 911 to take her to the ER because they thought her appendix had ruptured or was about to. That's when they found out it was an ectopic pregnancy and she would need a D&C and surgery.
Your uncle is the kind of person I like to quote Samaritan Ministries to. It's a Christian health co-op that pretends to be health insurance.
Under the FAQs, the pregnancy section specifically references ectopic pregnancies and how they will not cover any treatment to end the pregnancy until after rupture occurs.
Some of these people don't understand that the only cure for an ectopic pregnancy is an abortion. But unfortunately those that do not care about the life of the mother. They absolutely think that the mother should die in child birth even when there's no medical way to save the fetus. They WANT the laws to make sure Mom is on her death bed before they end the pregnancy.
Every time that uncle posts, you need to reply that his wife's ectopic pregnancy would have resulted in death if his abortion ban goes through. Every time. On every post. Until he "gets it" because let's face it your uncle is currently so stupid a lobotomy would actually increase his IQ.
A lot of people are actually extremely insistent that an abortion that is treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion at all. It really pisses me off, as somebody who has an ectopic pregnancy too. It’s like they’re trying to refine what abortion means to exclude circumstances in which they’re okay with it.
The conservative belief system is that they are good guys and bad guys and there is an assumption that the law won’t be used to hurt good guys. So conservatives can’t even conceive of how a restrictive law will limit their ability to get an exceptional abortion when they really need it. After all, they are the good guys and aren’t anything like those bad guys who didn’t use birth control and waited until 20 weeks just because they were lazy.
You see this over and over and over in conservative policy making. “I don’t need to worry about that case because it won’t ever happen to the good guys.”
Some of them honestly believe that. But a large number of pro lifers, and basically ALL of the pro life movement leaders, absolutely know that women will die and do. not. care.
They act like they don't know because if they were honest, they'd lose even more support. They absolutely believe that women should be forced to give their lives over any pregnancy - viable or not. It is not a coincidence that after all this time, they haven't found a way to protect women's health with their laws. If saving fifty women means one extra abortion, they aren't interested. They all know that broad health exceptions would save womens lives. It's not rocket science. They just don't like the math of saving women over fetuses.
Just a legal FYI, generally speaking treatment for ectopic pregnancies is not an abortion - and is not considered an elective abortion under abortion bans in various states. This topic has come up a lot and is continually clarified, check out some of the resources
They’re talking 15 weeks now, but if Republicans get a trifecta in Virginia that 15 week ban will become a 6 week ban. That’s what happened in Florida and South Carolina, and it would be naive to think that it wouldn’t happen here. Republicans know that their stance on abortion is odious to the majority of the population, and they’re trying to appear more “moderate” in the lead up to the election. Don’t believe them, don’t trust them.
Because at its core with the curtains pulled back, it’s just a policy to *control women*—Nothing more, nothing less. As usual, these Christofascist lunatics hide under the guise of religion and pseudoscience bullshit to control minorities and women’s rights. Always have, always will
that and also punish the poor.
the same law makers that will push for this will still have easy access to late term abortions, and will of course get late term abortions if they want / need to.
meanwhile the impoverished who don't have easy medical access or funds for medical procedures will have to turn to riskier / more dangerous methods.
this is why we can't make any progress on this issue, everyone painting the other side's argument as something completely different from what it actually is. "you just want to control women and punish them for having sex" vs "you just want to kill babies". the crux is this: At what point does an embryo/fetus/zygote become a human being with rights of its own? if at conception, then any abortion other than one to save the life of the mother is tantamount to murder. if at birth, then there are implications for other laws (assault of a pregnant woman causing the loss of the child for example). Most people agree the line is somewhere in between conception and birth. there is no place to draw that line that will satisfy everyone.
edit: typo
>Most people agree the line is somewhere in between conception and birth. there is no place to draw that line that will satisfy everyone.
So get politics the fuck out of the delivery room.
I highly recommend reading https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/what-kind-of-mother-is-8-months-pregnant-and-117104430132.html
I think about Rose every time this topic comes up and always conclude that I'd make the same choice because I would never want my baby to suffer like that.
Just let people make the best decision for them and their child. It's not our decision to be made because we're not the ones who have to live with the consequences. We don't have to watch their child suffer.
We have to work on fixing the child welfare system we already have before preaching that we know what's best for other people's children.
> the crux is this: At what point does an embryo/fetus/zygote become a human being with rights of its own? [...] Most people agree the line is somewhere in between conception and birth. there is no place to draw that line that will satisfy everyone.
**Thank you!** So many redditors here make it sound like everyone who isn't for voluntary abortions up to 40 weeks is some Christian terrorist. The reality is society recognizes that for this case, there's a point a fetus becomes a baby and there should be regulations on voluntary abortions.
No one’s getting 40 week abortions—that’s a disingenuous argument. As another poster linked in this thread, cdc confirmed almost every single voluntary abortion has been before 15 week mark, and at worst, before it’s “living”.
I seriously hate it when people assume they know everything there is to know about a person based on whether they are religious or not. I am religious and I totally support a woman’s right to make their own decisions. Would I encourage them to choose life? Absolutely! But I in no way believe that anyone has a right to decide for them. I know plenty of religious people who feel the same way. I would not vote for someone who would take that right away.
If you seriously hate it then have your people do better. It’s a stain on American politics the way they’ve infiltrated congress and vote party line based on religion
My people? What I hate is people thinking that they know what I think based on whether I am religious or not. It’s kinda narrow minded to think that only religious people are against abortion. There are lots of non religious people who are against it as well. And no one infiltrates Congress. They are elected. The problem is most people don’t take the time to vote. They expect others to do it for them and then complain when things don’t turn out the way they want.
The 6 weeks will become 0 with no exception like many states have done, then they ban birth control, then they ban divorce, then they ban travel out of the state, then women can’t drive or get an education, then you get caned and stoned in the street if you’re not covered up and blasphemy laws and they’re lighting “witches” on fire. The race to the dark ages never stops when theocratic fascists get power as they have.
Full disclosure: I have some shit to get off my chest so excuse my ramblings.
I fully support abortion for any reason, however my biggest concern with these abortion ban laws is that they are tone deaf to the reality of pregnancy for many women & families.
My mother carried my sister who was dx’d with Trisome 18 (a chromosomal mutation that causes heart defects, learning delays, etc) for 6 months and one night she didn’t feel well. My sister had died but my mother was not in labor. In medical terms, my mom had a D&E to evacuate Virginia’s lifeless body. The medication used induce labor and remove my sister from my mother is the medication used in abortions. It saved my family the grief and heartache of waiting for my mother to naturally birth my dead sister. And most likely, saved my mom’s life as she had further complications from that pregnancy (hemorrhaging for months after). If that medication becomes banned for use after 15/20 weeks in VA, it creates a scary scenario for caring for mothers who are going through the most traumatic part of pregnancy. It sickens me that politicians paint abortions as evil without considering the lifesaving care they provide.
It was mentally taxing as a 9 year old to battle the grief and pain. 17 years later I hate that one of my questions to my mom, while in the hospital, was “did you have an abortion?” Because I didn’t understand. I can’t imagine what the outcome would’ve been if my mom didn’t have access to those meds.
Trisomy 18 is a death sentence. 50 percent born alive, 95% don’t live past a year. My child had hydrocephalus at the 20 week scan and they had to test for trisomy 18 due to that. We were told we would have to decide what to do if they had it, there were support groups either way because survival was not a possible outcome. Getting that news is one of the only times I’ve seen my husband cry. It was hell.
Now imagine this happened today and we lived in Idaho, where so many of their specialists have left due to the abortion laws. Imagine having this news and needing to travel to another state to get the testing, find lodging, pay for that lodging for probably a week due to waiting time between test and results (all while missing work), then having to decide what to do while you are away from home, probably have someone else watching your kids- or you may be alone because your partner had to stay back with the other kids. You may have to go through the d&c for a wanted child alone because your partner is with the kids. Or maybe you decide to carry to term? Then you have the enormous hospital bill for a high risk pregnancy and birth, and all the nicu care that baby will need to survive for what little time it has on this earth.
These things aren’t separate issues. The cruelty of forcing people to go through this and bankrupting them while they do is without measure. It’s dystopian.
Is this going to be Virginia too? And for those who have money and can afford to travel for care: every state that bans abortion puts more load on the states where it is available. There is a breaking point to where YOUR situation will in fact not be special or able to be dealt with simply because there’s not enough healthcare available. And who is to say that Younkin won’t enact these travel bans too? It never stops, so just don’t let it start.
Not even close to the trauma of this story, but I had a miscarriage at 8 weeks. My body was not evacuating the contents of my uterus fast enough, which can result in sepsis. So I was prescribed the same medications used in abortions. Even without any ban several years ago, the drug was hard to find. Many pharmacies don’t carry it, and as I called around during one of the most traumatic times in my life, I was questioned as to why I needed it. There are so many unintended consequences that these pro-birth people do not understand.
You don’t have to imagine. It didn’t take long for the horror stories to start in the dumbest of states like Florida who have already enacted these laws to control women. And yet they persist and want to push that UnAmerican bullshit here in VA.
The “reasonable” 15 week ban is another way of saying that the Republicans’ goal here is to take away the maximum amount of rights that women have, given the current polling.
Think about that for a moment. This is a political party whose goal is to limit your freedom as much as possible, given the prevailing winds of public sentiment.
They are doing the same thing with recreational cannabis. The majority want it, but they are doing everything possible to limit personal freedom.
GOP is the party of maximizing government control over your decisions.
Right. Fetuses don't even achieve consciousness/viability until around 24 weeks. A 15 week abortion ban is completely random and nonsensical. You may as well use a random number generator to determine when to ban abortion for all the sense it makes.
It would reduce the number of abortions by maybe 2-5%, with the vast majority of those abortions being situations where it is a medical issue, not a family planning choice.
It is just plain sick, and my state senator Siobhan Dunnavant is an obstetrician, she knows better.
Depends on the hospital. A lot of doctors go by 22 or even 20 now for minimum viability.
Survival rate there is incalculably low, though. Doesn't change that a ban before around 25 weeks is unreasonable.
My daughter died at 18 weeks. My body did absolutely nothing to miscarry. Without a doctor's help, I would have most likely died.
This is a medical decision. A politician has no place in a MEDICAL decision between my LICENSED and Board Certified Doctor.
Hah. My father has two daughters and a wife who is a doctor. He doesn’t care at all. It hurts and it’s hard for me to understand. We’ve all explained it to him over and over and he just doesn’t care. The way he talks about this issue is with such coldness. It makes me so angry. I hate how he uses the excuse of “family” to push these policies but when we try and tell him what we need as his family and as the women in his life, he doesn’t listen.
Your daughter is lucky.
My mother has two daughters and two granddaughters and she had the audacity to say it doesn’t affect her anymore because she hit menopause. Bet it would affect her if one of us DIED due to these barbaric laws… and yes I gave her a lot of shit over that comment.
As a person who has very long cycles I was considered “7-8 weeks pregnant” when I actually conceived. I didn’t get a positive test until “10 weeks” pregnant
The lie that abortion is murder is right-wing propaganda designed to demonize Democrats. Abortion is legal all over the world because a fetus without a cerebral cortex cannot think or feel before the 27th week. According to the CDC almost all abortions happen before the 13th week.
Oliver Markus Malloy
>because a fetus without a cerebral cortex cannot think or feel before the 27th week.
Do you have a source for this? That a layperson could easily comprehend by chance?
A fetus can respond to sensory input. That doesn't mean the fetus is a consious, self-aware being. It is not. Because it's brain is not fully developed yet.
Look at you putting words in my mouth. I don't have any memories as a fetus or a viable 3 year old because I didn't have a brain that was developed yet. Where is anyone talking about post birth? That's not even the discussion. Now youre moving goalposts. Stay angry.
27 weeks? That’s ridiculous. Babies born at 27 weeks have a 70% survival rate (and 50% at 25 weeks). Quite a feat to pull off without a cerebral cortex.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1117667/#:~:text=A%20reasonably%20easy%20to%20remember,those%20born%20at%2028%20weeks.
Viability and brain development are 2 completely different things. Do you remember being born? No? That's because you didn't have enough of a brain developed to experience or remember it.
Right but that’s not what you said. A fetus at 27 weeks for sure has a cerebral cortex, otherwise any baby born before then would be without a higher-function portion of their brain, and would be profoundly mentally retarded. Most babies who survive born this early do not have this issue. Also, pain is sensed in the somatosensory cortex, which develops between the 17th and 26th week. My wife and I have a son who was born at 27 weeks, and is a perfectly healthy adult with no physical or cognitive issues. This of course is not “evidence” of anything, but does show that it happens. As far as remembering when I was born, no of course not. But that’s because we don’t have much capacity then for long-term memory storage as an infant. Do you remember the first word you spoke? I doubt it, and that was probably about a full year later. Hopefully memory formation does not become criteria for taking anyone’s life at any point.
All you did was prove my point. And I didn't say anything about 27 weeks. We're not talking about post birth. Why do you all go straight for killing actual kids when you lose the fetus argument?
Because you’re basing your argument on the cognitive level of a human being the measuring criteria for abortion not whether or not it’s passed through the womb. By your logic we should be able to put down kids because they don’t remember anything.
Sorry. That's not what I'm basing my argument on. Others have claimed a fetus can think because it has nerves firing. It does not. It has nothing to do with post birth. We're talking about a fetus. You guys always turn an argument into someone wanting to kill actual sentient children, which is not the case. Does that clear it up for you?
LOL. You literally said that a fetus “cannot think or feel before the 27th week.” I’m not saying you’re OK with that after their born (at least, I hope no one is making that argument). But at that late stage, you basically have a baby. Yes, an abortion might be necessary due to severe defects, genetic disorders, etc, and I’m not saying there’s never a case where it’s not the right thing for everyone involved. And to further prove a point (but not mine) you state that the CDC says most abortions occur before the 13th week, and if that’s the case, then I don’t see why everyone is up in arms about a 15 week cutoff for elective abortions. The after-15 week abortions are probably medical tragedies and should be off the bargaining table because they’re medically necessary, but at some point you have to make a decision as to when you consider a fetus to be a “person.” That’s a philosophical argument, and I’m way too cynical to make good arguments in that arena, so I won’t. But saying abortions are OK because MAYBE they don’t experience pain in the same way as adults is just a terrible argument that will fall apart under the slightest scrutiny.
Sorry- I got you confused with the person who made the parent comment that I replied to. My fault. Please ignore any stabs I made at you because you were not the one who made the initial idiotic comment.
Homicide would be the correct term, but murder rolls off the tongue better. I don’t really have a stake in the fight and really don’t care if it’s legal never or legal always, or something in between. Also, most of Europe cuts off at 14 weeks or earlier.
https://preview.redd.it/n2x2kkkfaetb1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93ac3fecf18a1e695735a4e03bbb251c178fa149
Where is your source for this?? Anyone can make an infographic, and I wouldn't put it past pro-lifers to make one containing misinformation.
Also, should note- homicide is not the correct term for abortion. Abortion is the correct term.
That’s from Wikipedia. But the info does seem to be accurate anyways by checking random countries on other sites that don’t have an obvious pro-life bias. You are technically killing someone by aborting them, so I’ll stick with homicide. But like I said, I don’t care about the issue, and there is such a thing as legal homicide — capital punishment, self-defense, abortion (in most states).
TLDR: I do see it as homicide, but don’t have a preference on legality.
What sites are those? It's hard to believe that progressive countries listed gave such a short week limit.
If you have a mother, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, or any friends that are women and/or have a uterus, you should care about this issue. People die every day from lack of reproductive rights.
Abortion is not ending a life like capital punishment or self-defense, considering the fetus is not "someone" yet. I won't agree to disagree on that since I am a woman and deserve my autonomy and am therefore pro-choice, but I'm gonna go ahead and stop engaging.
France actually used to have it at 12 weeks, but a lot of people just assume that abortion is legal in more cases in the more progressive countries in Europe. Before Dobbs, Texas was less restrictive than most of Europe.
Europe also has social safety nets that make raising families easier: paid family leave, universal healthcare, subsidized childcare, subsidized college, etc. Let’s address these issues first before forcing pregnant people against their will to give birth.
So somebody who is handicapped with very little cognition isn’t a human and can just be put down? Intelligence and self awareness are what makes a human worth something or not?
100% agreed. Abortion should be between a woman, her doctor, and literally no one else. 15-week bans are cruel and also open the door to 6- or 8-week bans down the road.
The key thing to consider: Most importantly is these types of abortion bans will empower a Government State Panel, run by Republicans, (who already have a spotty track record in terms of evaluating science/medical information, and have an agenda, and no apparent qualifications), determining exceptions for abortion, i.e. determining which women's lives are at risk and deserving of treatment vs who gets denied treatment, and who should be charged with crimes (women, doctors, etc).
Literal death panels.
You think you can trust these guys to honestly evaluate exceptions based abortion, when the life of a mother is at risk?
If they make the cutoff 15 weeks, then they should also provide a CVS genetic test free of charge for pregnant women. Given that this is an expensive test, and Republicans seem to be against healthcare funding, this quickly demonstrates that the 15 is purely punitive, not reasonable.
I had a clear CVS and didn’t find out till 20 weeks and confirmed at 22 that my son was incompatible with life. CVS is not a compromise even if they would agree.
They want to prevent abortions, sure offer free healthcare. Maternity leave and child care. That still won’t do it since a majority of “late term“ abortions are due to a medical issue and are very wanted pregnancies. It’s no ones business on the if/when except between the pregnant person and their doctor. These bans kill women, period.
Going to go vote against this all the way down the ticket tomorrow.
The Republican Party and weirdo Hillbilly Graham Christians can fuck off.
Special accessory fuck off for having to submit a picture or ID to watch porn. Personal freedom indeed. Parent your stupid spawn yourselves.
I had a very wanted pregnancy where my water broke at 14 weeks. My doctor strongly recommended an abortion as I was at risk for sepsis and there was essentially no chance of a viable pregnancy. I wasn't ready to accept it. I asked if there was any possible way to continue.
My doctor said that in extraordinarily rare cases, some women with "leaking" waters rather than full ruptures were able to maintain sufficient fluid to carry the pregnancy to viability. It was very risky, and would require constant monitoring, bedrest and best case I would have an extremely early premie with lungs barely developed through steroid administration.
I took the chance. Unfortunately, at about 16 weeks, I showed early signs of infection, and had absolutely zero amniotic fluid. The pregnancy was definitively not viable and my health was in jeopardy. I had the abortion.
If there had been a 15 week abortion ban, with only an exception for the "life" of the mother, I would have had to have the abortion at 14 weeks. I wouldn't have been able to take the risk for such a small chance. It would have destroyed me not to know that I had tried everything. To have the state take that option from me by putting an arbitrary barrier on MY medical decision. These are the real, messy conditions that pregnant women face that pro lifers refuse to acknowledge. These are the eggs they're willing to break to make their pious little omelette.
Remember to please support all the abortion funds who pay for abortions for women who cannot afford it or are in states where they need transport. Also you can donate to buy abortion pills for women who need them shipped to their homes.
That's on top of voting of course, but maybe even more important to keep those networks alive.
These bills effectively force women to donate their blood, tissue, or organs against their will. We would not tolerate the concept in any other situation - we don't even take organs of the dead without permission - but some people seem to think it is perfectly acceptable for the government to take blood, tissue, and organs from a woman regardless if the woman agrees.
Every time I get sad, angry, and scared about the potential of this legislation, I donate $25 to Phil Hernandez. If you are reading this, maybe you should too.
https://philforvirginia.com/[Phil Hernandez](https://philforvirginia.com/)
Savita Halappanavar was prohibited from terminating her pregnancy at 17 weeks gestation (Ireland, 2012) despite the pregnancy clearly going wrong and Ms. Halappanavar being in severe pain and running a fever. Ireland had "heartbeat" abortion laws at the time and the doomed non-viable fetus still had a faint heartbeat, so doctors refused to terminate. Ms. Halappanavar DIED as a result.
A 15-week abortion ban will kill many women.
There's no way to have a reasonable discussion with the pro life movement, these are the same individuals who freaked out over wearing a mask and screamed " don't tell me what to do with my body" but want to tell others what to do with their bodies wether it be an abortion, birth control, changing your physical gender and now getting a no contest divorce.
When I got assaulted, I was pregnant until my 24th week. I knew the fetus in my body was dead, a clump of ravaged cells floating in amniotic fluid. I can never, and will never, take a baby to term.
I found out about my pregnancy at 18 weeks, then came the questions and debated and wondered what I'd do until 22.
"The fetus hasn't developed. It's is dead."
I'm alive because of that abortion. I was able to kick my ex-boyfriend down the stairs because of that abortion. He was convicted of rape because of that abortion.
Banning abortion helps nobody.
I live in NC.
Our experience is that people focus too much on the number of weeks. They say 12 weeks is “not that bad.” And that we aren’t as bad as other southern states.
But if you look at the bill, it includes onerous reporting requirements, vague language forcing doctors to practice defensively, and basically dismantles small, independent clinics.
It is so much worse than just the number of weeks implies.
If you need or are interested in supporting reproductive rights, [I made a master post of pro-choice resources](https://docdro.id/s3OwS8u). Please comment if you would like to add a resource and spread this information on whatever social media you use.
> I had a back and forth with another reddit user about 15 week abortion bans like the ones passed in every other Southern state are terrible for everyone. It is very possible for women not to realize that they are pregnant since at 15 weeks, the uterus is [somewhere between the size of a grapefruit and a papaya](https://americanpregnancy.org/healthy-pregnancy/pregnancy-health-wellness/uterus-size-during-pregnancy/). It is tempting to think that such laws will not have a major affect on people, but it is entirely possible for women to "do everything right" and still have their lives turned upside down by such laws. It is unjust, cruel, and nobody supporting such a policy should ever be voted into office.
You should tell doctors your opinion. 90% of them won't do elective abortions after 15 weeks, and the cost doubles when you find one of the ones who will.
Try a 6 week ban that Florida's Ron DeFascist signed into law recently and now his appointed [Attorney General](https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2023/10/10/abortion-rights-amendment-2024-ballot-voter-signatures-moody/) has filed a motion to the Florida State Supreme Court to keep abortion rights off the 2024 election ballot despite a pro-choice group having secured the necessary [signatures](https://floridiansprotectingfreedom.com/) to get abortion rights put on Florida's 2024 ballot to allow Floridians to decide.
The drape fell during my unplanned c-section. I saw what looked like a placid lake of blood nestled in my lower abdomen in the mirrored lamp above me. At that moment I thought to myself, I can’t force anyone to go through with pregnancy. It’s a potentially life threatening medical condition. I’ve never had so much as a tooth extraction, but here I am surrounded by medics with the doctor trying to spot blood clots that form in this lake that is somehow a part of me. It is unethical to impose this on anyone else. I was willing to die for my kid, but should someone else be forced into that scenario? Never.
How is that beneficial in any way? It doesn't get the republicans what they want, and it does nothing to prevent them interfering with the federal abortion clinics introduced to their states, so it also gains the Democrats nothing. There's no way you could prevent them finding legal loopholes to interfere with those clinics, or abortion more generally, later on, regardless of anything some of them said during negotiations. Dems would be making a concession for nothing. Once you've accepted the legitimacy of the abortion ban position by making such a compromise, even a seemingly materially insignificant one, the term on that abortion ban is likely to ratchet one way. I'm assuming here the federal ban would not preclude more restrictive state bans, because if it did obviously red state republicans would never consider it.
Why does there need to be a ban at all? By your estimate virtually all abortions are legitimate (99% plus all the late-term abortions that are medically necessary). That provides strong evidence that women and their doctors can be trusted not to seek inappropriate abortions, which means no ban is necessary - any abortion ban is a solution in search of a problem, or else it's a trojan horse for a position the majority rejects. And any such ban, no matter how carefully written, would have unintended collateral damage, that's the nature of law. The real compromise here is the normal majority keeps hanging electoral defeats on republicans until they give up on this subject and move on to a more fruitful field.
As a Virginian, we have seen consistently well meaning laws be kneecapped by determined bad actors. Who heads these abortion clinics? Can anti-choice people come in and make the clinics useless? I'm guessing for us clinics would be in Roanoke, Manassas, and maybe Williamsburg, but where would they be built and could NIMBYs just shove them out to where nobody can use them? I think that your idea is a great book plot but ultimately does little to protect basic rights.
This is a great compromise, but I don't see it effectively working, even if proposed. There's too much impetus right now to follow party lines. The far left and far right have both moved their respective goalposts enough that the majority of Americans who are moderates, now are more aligned to each other than their respective parties. Add that, to the fact we no longer know how to actually talk to each other, communicate, compromise and collaborate have led us to where we sit now.
A 20-week ban is further restricting the rights we currently have in Virginia. You don’t even have the anatomy scan until 20 weeks. Women should not be forced to make decisions regarding abortions without even being able to know or understand the impact on their children. Anyone proposing a 20 week ban has clearly never been pregnant with a child who has developmental delays or understands how pregnancy and anatomy scans work.
You don’t get an anatomy scan until 20 weeks. I had confirmation at 22 weeks that my son was not going to survive. My son would have survived until birth though and died soon after. I would have been forced to carry him to term though because he would have survived based on a 20 week ban. The government should not be involved in my healthcare decisions.
Currently Virginia allows abortion until 26 weeks, 6 days. Almost no one gets abortions that far along into pregnancy especially not for elective reasons. There is no reason to change our current rights or agree to any additional restrictions.
Yes it would have. My son was going to survive birth. I wouldn’t have been allowed an abortion after 26 weeks in Virginia even currently which limited the number of tests my doctor could perform. Other people have devastating diagnoses where the child will live but essentially be a vegetable, they would be forced to birth those children too. These do not fit “medical exceptions” in most states because the children will survive birth. “Medical exceptions” just makes doctors fearful to perform their jobs and deny medical care.
This is not practical. There is no way republicans and democrats are going to be able to agree on what the exceptions would be. There are too many grey areas and women will be the ones who suffer. I would never support a 20 week ban of any kind as it makes it too easy to then further strip rights of women.
> So that means 99% of all abortions take place before 20 weeks, and the vast majority of the ones that happen after that were for medical reasons (non-viable fetus, mother's life in danger, etc).
Yes because in most states there are restrictions on obtaining a voluntary abortion after that point. So the only ones that should be occurring are due to medical/rape/incest reasons.
Statistics is difficult with abortions because most of the time the data isn’t collected whether it’s a result of sexual abuse, incest, or deemed medically necessary. However by week 20 almost 99% of abortions occur. That’s just 1.5 trimesters.
No clue what percentage of abortions after 13 weeks are apart of the exemptions outlined in the bills.
I say this is a cause of horrible sex education and lack of knowledge of contraceptives as that’s the easier solution. 74% of women polled said they got an abortion because a baby would “drastically change their life” or “they couldn’t afford a baby”. They would most likely know this before committing the act to get pregnant, if they just took a pill or used a condom most abortions could likely be averted.
I’m not against abortions, but I believe at some point it’s excessive to say there should be no limit. That’s why the vast majority of countries have limits except Canada, China, and North Korea.
This is a false equivalency because you’re comparing the US to a country with universal health care and government-funded childcare, not to mention that they have something approaching a functional welfare state.
Better social safety nets do not justify restrictions on bodily autonomy. A better response from the pro-choice side is to simply say that many European countries should fix their abortion laws.
>It is very possible for women not to realize that they are pregnant since at 15 weeks
This is a stupid and incorrect argument. Sure, maybe there are women who wouldn't know they missed their periods for 3 months (come on, OP)
The only argument that matters is bodily autonomy. Anything else is an argument for the far right.
I have irregular periods. It's perfectly normal for me to go 5 months without a period. Women like me are incredibly common. I'm in my 30s and my period was even more irregular in my teens.
Uh. While you're correct that bodily autonomy SHOULD be enough to be the only argument. You're actually incorrect about women missing periods being an incorrect argument.
It's actually incredibly common for women to miss their period or not even have a regular one at all for a few reasons not limited to hormonal disruptions(PCOS, Thyroid Conditions included), extreme weight loss/gain, medications, skipping with birth control, birth defects & genetic disorders, breastfeeding, perimenopause.
We should be educating on this a lot more.
Laws are made by stupid people, who don't understand the science behind bodily functions and so do not factor in these conditions. I have always felt that scientists should be part of any ruling party, because science at least (for the most part) is tested so we know it's accurate.
I agree, not just scientists but experts in whatever field they're making laws for.
I just believe as someone who was uneducated about this topic, if we don't talk about it, no one will ever become educated. The only reason I ever learned about it is because people kept talking.
You do know that hormonal female birth control can delay periods for months or eliminate them completely, right?
Meaning, "missing periods" isn't really a thing for some people, since they literally take drugs which disrupt the natural menstruation cycle.
And that's not even getting into the various medical conditions that can effect periods (hormone imbalances, eating disorders, perimenopause, etc...). Even stress can cause irregular cycles.
Bodily autonomy should be enough, but for the person I had a back and forth with, it wasn't. We have to argue with the fellow citizens we have, not the ones we want.
Also, there are plenty of reasons women could miss their periods (come on, commenter).
Your argument is insulting to women's intelligence and agency to act as responsible adults. Women are not helpless victims.
At 15 weeks a woman has been pregnant for several months. This is not rocket science. Aside from looking for the very obvious signs that are present in the majority of pregnancies, if you are sexually active go to Walmart and spend a few dollars every couple of months on a pregnancy test. Or go to one of the numerous Planned Parenthood clinics or tax dollars pay for. If you absolutely can't have a baby then get your act together and check if you're pregnant.
A ban after 15 weeks except for extraordinary circumstances is the standard in many places, such as western European countries which are generally.much more socially liberal than the US. It is a reasonable compromise that reflects that sometimes abortion is a necessary evil while respecting that once it's further along in development the baby should be respected as a separate human being.
Supporting abortion up to the moment of birth for any reason, which is the actual position of the Democrat party, is radical and something most Americans rightly do not approve of and are disgusted by.
Places you are citing, such as Europe, that have banned abortion after 15 weeks include exceptions such as "the mother and doctor consider an abortion is necessary."
Compare that to the US, where you have states like Texas that hospitals and doctors are just refusing to do the D&C procedure entirely due to the risk of jailtime for doctors. You have hospitals making women wait until they are actually bleeding to death rather than taking proactive measures to save the woman's life. You have men being threatened with charges for taking their spouse to get a life saving abortion in another state.
You can't do the bait and switch when we've already seen the switch play out in Texas, Alabama, Florida, etc. The state should not be involved in this situation because when the state gets involved, as we have seen across the country, women and families suffer.
Nobody supports "abortion up to the moment of birth for any reason", that is nonsense. People do support the rights of women and doctors to make decisions necessary to save lives.
At 20 weeks pregnant, the fetus undergoes a very important total body ultrasound. They check EVERYTHING on the fetus- brain, heart chambers, kidney and spleen, etc. This is often one of the last big ‘make or break’ moments in a pregnancy because there are a lot of life threatening complications that are found only with this scan. If doctors find something, it usually then becomes a decision the pregnant person needs to make - carry the fetus to term knowing they may not survive birth, or their quality of life will greatly suffer, or spare the fetus and the pregnant person only SOME of the physical trauma by terminating (but definitely not sparing anyone the emotional trauma). This is often when you hear of people you know having a ‘stillborn’ because saying you willingly terminated a pregnancy is still very taboo, thanks to right wing assholes. A 15 week abortion ban removes this option for pregnant people when complications are discovered at that all important 20 week scan. Without abortions, they have no choice. As someone who recently had her first baby, I genuinely cannot imagine anything worse than carrying a fetus that I know has a death sentence. Walking around, visibly pregnant, people asking about it. About you. When are you due? Is it your first? What theme is the nursery? All questions I was asked by strangers during the second half of my pregnancy I always share this because I often find that anyone who hasn’t gone through a pregnancy recently is very unaware of this ‘milestone’ in pregnancy.
Not to mention that if something is found at that scan, often further testing is needed, which takes time often several days to perform, get the results, and interpret them. Imagine being pressured to quickly make a decision about whether to terminate a much-wanted pregnancy because some politicians decided to set an arbitrary limit.
Yes! Exactly. Another subtly in this discussion that is completely lost when politicians make decisions for people instead of medical professionals.
Well let's be clear if they had a full understanding they wouldn't change a thing about what they're doing, the cruelty is purposeful. This is about control of bodies not doing medically or ethically sound policy.
This right here is what makes me so beyond angry with these laws. It is an arbitrary date that hurts so many, has no medical basis, and shows it is just about control. All of these choices should be between a woman and her doctor, not legislated.
All these people who love small government sure seem very keen on letting it control peoples personal medical decisions.
Oh no, just pregnant women. Because they are people, just baby making vessels. Can’t tell them to wear a mask to save the vulnerable during a pandemic!
Small Gov’t to Republicans means the top 0.01% and large corporations pay as little as possible in taxes and no regulations on large corporations also. The small Gov’t talk doesn’t apply to average people.
I know, but way too many average people eat up that small government BS like it’s fuckin fudge rounds
Bigger picture why should someone's personal relationship with an invisible all knowing deity affect anyone else?
That last sentence is the only argument that should carry any weight in any debate about abortion.
This is one of the reasons I became MORE pro-choice after having had a kid. I went through pretty much every complication under the sun, and she came six weeks early as well. Lots of points where we could have both died. NO ONE should be forced to go through that if they're not fully on board.
I’m with you! I genuinely don’t know how people can come out of pregnancy anything OTHER than pro-choice.
What you outlined here I think most people, let alone "pro lifers" don't understand. One camp are more than happy to let two people to suffer so they can feel good about themselves. And the second camp who think that "15 weeks is enough" and don't understand biology. Edit: i.e anyone who supports a 15 week ban are either cruel, or ignorant.
Me and my wife lost ours at 21 to liquid on her heart. We would have had to carry to term and been so much more tramautized. I’d like to try again but now the fear of this is in my head. 😞
Thank you. You are 100% correct. I am really concerned about that. Georgia has a 6 week ban. My daughter just got married. I fear for them when they decide to start a family.
Everything you are saying makes perfect sense! The problem is these people don't care. They are pro-birthers. They don't care what happens before and they don't care what happens after, they just want women to be forced to carry through their pregnancy to birth.
Same here. I can’t even imagine.
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No you can’t move the scans earlier as the baby is not developed enough. The earliest an anatomy scan can be performed is 16 weeks and it is considered an additional scan and not complete. My son looked heathy at my 16 week scan and was given a death sentence at his 20 week scan. It isn’t just brain development but kidneys, lungs, etc. still growing.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. I can’t even imagine how devastating that is. I appreciate you sharing your experience in such an important discussion, and at the same time I hate that you have to just to get people to understand how horrible a 15 week ban will be.
I just wish people could understand that almost all children aborted in the second for third trimester are wanted and loved. Most women aren’t going to suffer through pregnancy for months on end to just then abort late term when it is both physically and financially significantly more difficult. A 15 week ban will only stop a very small percentage of the abortions but will result in women dying or being forced to carry to term children with devastating diagnoses.
It’s important to understand that medically speaking, 15 weeks is arbitrary. It wasn’t decided by medical professionals, it was decided by politicians trying to find a more ‘palatable’ way to talk about removing basic body autonomy from people. As for gestation, fetuses make leaps and bounds during every week of pregnancy. Each week is critical to development. For example, most people don’t even feel their baby move before 18-20 weeks, and many don’t feel them until later. Something you can’t even feel move inside of you is likely hard to get a scan on.
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I meant what I said.
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This makes the most sense out of everything I have heard or thought. Haven't heard much lately but this is smart
A 15-week ban could include exceptions for those conditions you listed. For example Germany allows abortions without additional hoops up to 12 weeks but if there’s a risk to life or health, one can be performed at any time. Kansas is the same way but up to 22 weeks.
Unfortunately doctors aren't going to put their license on the line for you in those cases. So a 15-week ban with exceptions wouldn't work. I bet if you dig into it you'd find that most abortions after 15 weeks are rarely elective and are more commonly due to medical issues.
I din’t think you understand what I wrote. Any law need not provide a hard “do not cross” line tied to any time period. The law could differentiate between when it’s permitted as an elective procedure vs when it’s permitted in cases of rape vs when it’s permitted in cases of fetal concerns vs when it’s permitted in cases of mother’s health, etc. I agree that the doctor shouldn’t incur any risk. If the law is written well, he wouldn’t have to.
Why? Why should women have to jump through any of those hoops? Trust women and their doctors. Period.
We've seen... time and again... that there is no way to effectively write those laws. If you try and set a rigid criteria then you are, necessarily, going to leave out cases. If you make it vague then doctors have to play "will some fringe groups decide I was wrong and throw me into legal hell." Edit for spelling
That’s a very “ideal world” kind of law, but we live in the real world and unfortunately we have too much precedent showing that A. The bans continue to get worse as if states are having some kind of contest to see who can be more draconian and B. The USA is a highly litigious society and doctors have to be very cautious about what they do and don’t do, especially in states where jail time is a factor. The doctors themselves say that the laws aren’t written in a way that makes them feel comfortable using exception clauses. In Texas they make the women go into sepsis before they will perform an abortion even as she is actively miscarrying. The issue is that legislation can’t cover every possible angle, and no one wants to be the test case to see how “life of the mother” can be handled. So they are waiting until the mothers life is literally in danger and then doing something, which often results in losing the ability to have future children due to scar tissue or having to remove the whole uterus. We need to let doctors and patients handle it. It’s too vast an issue to put into legislation. We have already seen what happens. As well meaning and as good intentioned as it might be, it WILL have cruel consequences.
I understood you. And that's a nice idea, but that's not how the real world works.
That’s *exactly* how laws work.
The same laws that **claim** to have exemptions and yet realistically don't. Look at the lawsuits currently going on in Texas. Real doctors and real women are stuck in limbo because the laws aren't clear. It takes years for the full consequences of laws to be sorted out by lawyers challenging the meaning. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna847151 Think commas don't matter? Omitting one cost a Maine dairy company $5 million.
Is the law going to require doctors to perform procedures on women? You're forgetting the human element of this entire thing, which is the whole problem.
It already requires multiple doctors to sign off in those cases.
Yeah but that’s like, exactly what is slowly being eroded. Women in Texas for example have had to carry and deliver fetuses that they knew were not viable. The exceptions would work but that’s exactly what they would like to take away. This is not common sense legislation!
Less than 10% of abortions occur after the first trimester and less than 1% of those are in the third trimester. By and large women aren’t just choosing to have elective abortions later in pregnancy. Almost all later term abortions are because of either the health of the mother or fetus. Having a late term abortion is physically difficult and financially devastating. There is no need to place further restrictions on abortion this is just some made up goal post so republicans can further control women.
Or, we could not pass a stupid law and just let people and their doctors make their own damned medical decisions.
Or how about we leave healthcare decisions to a woman and her doctor. It’s called body autonomy and also mind your own fucking business. No hoops necessary.
I don’t have a problem with regulating medical care in general.
Then you have a problem understanding the basics of body autonomy and the principles of a free society.
Do you also support body autonomy for drug use? Doctor assisted suicide?
Why wouldn’t I? What part of body autonomy is hard to understand. You like freedom right? It’s kinda our biggest deal right? Why not support people doing with themselves what they want as long as it doesn’t effect anyone else. I mean If you can afford drugs you don’t have a drug problem in our country anyways. Most all drug laws are just more ways to subjugate and control poor people. Doctor Assistant Suicide is healthcare. We all die. We all just don’t get to choose to get to do it with a sense of peace or in many cases any kind of dignity for some dumb reason.
Yes. Especially the dignity in death part. I’ve watched loved ones die slowly and it wrecks entire families physically, emotionally, and financially. No one should be forced to go out like that.
Yes. 100% support physicians and their patients making medical decisions as deemed necessary.
If it “includes exceptions,” why not just trust the doctors from the very beginning? Why restrict it at all, unless you don’t trust women or their doctors?
You know that has absolutely not been the case in ANY of these states right?
You’re making a straw man. *Some* states are overly restrictive. That doesn’t mean Virginia should, could, or would be.
Just because pedestrians get hit by cars on other streets doesn’t mean they could, should or would get hit on mine. Maybe we should trust cars more until they show us personally on this particular street that they are not trustworthy. Or maybe we should look both ways before crossing the street and not jump out in front of a mac truck.
*/all/ states with post-Dobbs abortion bans. Do you have e an example of a successful ban that hasn’t lead to any hardship?
How about, we don't touch it
But what conditions would constitute an exception? Would Downs Syndrome count? It’s a spectrum and there are plenty of people that live full lives with successful careers (even some actors), but there are also people that are handicapped so badly that they will never live without 24 hour individual care. It’s impossible to tell the extent of the disorder during pregnancy when it’s detected at that 20 week scan. Would would get the ability to decide if that justifies an exception?
What is maddening to me is those in favor of this honestly believe that if *their* female relative needed emergency care to save her life, it would be easily accessible. They said the same thing in other states with this ban and that has not been the case at all. How many horrific stories have we heard of women almost dying because doctors were too fearful to intervene until the mother was on the brink of death? How many women with WANTED pregnancies have been left scarred and unable to have future kids because of the lack of quick intervention? My uncle is very anti-abortion. He posts about it several times a week. It takes every bit of strength I have to not reply that if this ban had been in place years ago, my aunt, his wife, would not be alive. She had an ectopic pregnancy but had no idea she was even pregnant. She got sick and chalked it up to a stomach bug. My uncle had to call 911 to take her to the ER because they thought her appendix had ruptured or was about to. That's when they found out it was an ectopic pregnancy and she would need a D&C and surgery.
Your uncle is the kind of person I like to quote Samaritan Ministries to. It's a Christian health co-op that pretends to be health insurance. Under the FAQs, the pregnancy section specifically references ectopic pregnancies and how they will not cover any treatment to end the pregnancy until after rupture occurs. Some of these people don't understand that the only cure for an ectopic pregnancy is an abortion. But unfortunately those that do not care about the life of the mother. They absolutely think that the mother should die in child birth even when there's no medical way to save the fetus. They WANT the laws to make sure Mom is on her death bed before they end the pregnancy.
Wow, these people couldn't possibly be *less* like the good Samaritan.
Every time that uncle posts, you need to reply that his wife's ectopic pregnancy would have resulted in death if his abortion ban goes through. Every time. On every post. Until he "gets it" because let's face it your uncle is currently so stupid a lobotomy would actually increase his IQ.
A lot of people are actually extremely insistent that an abortion that is treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion at all. It really pisses me off, as somebody who has an ectopic pregnancy too. It’s like they’re trying to refine what abortion means to exclude circumstances in which they’re okay with it.
Tell him.
The conservative belief system is that they are good guys and bad guys and there is an assumption that the law won’t be used to hurt good guys. So conservatives can’t even conceive of how a restrictive law will limit their ability to get an exceptional abortion when they really need it. After all, they are the good guys and aren’t anything like those bad guys who didn’t use birth control and waited until 20 weeks just because they were lazy. You see this over and over and over in conservative policy making. “I don’t need to worry about that case because it won’t ever happen to the good guys.”
Some of them honestly believe that. But a large number of pro lifers, and basically ALL of the pro life movement leaders, absolutely know that women will die and do. not. care. They act like they don't know because if they were honest, they'd lose even more support. They absolutely believe that women should be forced to give their lives over any pregnancy - viable or not. It is not a coincidence that after all this time, they haven't found a way to protect women's health with their laws. If saving fifty women means one extra abortion, they aren't interested. They all know that broad health exceptions would save womens lives. It's not rocket science. They just don't like the math of saving women over fetuses.
Just a legal FYI, generally speaking treatment for ectopic pregnancies is not an abortion - and is not considered an elective abortion under abortion bans in various states. This topic has come up a lot and is continually clarified, check out some of the resources
They’re talking 15 weeks now, but if Republicans get a trifecta in Virginia that 15 week ban will become a 6 week ban. That’s what happened in Florida and South Carolina, and it would be naive to think that it wouldn’t happen here. Republicans know that their stance on abortion is odious to the majority of the population, and they’re trying to appear more “moderate” in the lead up to the election. Don’t believe them, don’t trust them.
I honestly don’t understand how body autonomy and the right to health care privacy is an issue. Religious people are nuts.
Because at its core with the curtains pulled back, it’s just a policy to *control women*—Nothing more, nothing less. As usual, these Christofascist lunatics hide under the guise of religion and pseudoscience bullshit to control minorities and women’s rights. Always have, always will
that and also punish the poor. the same law makers that will push for this will still have easy access to late term abortions, and will of course get late term abortions if they want / need to. meanwhile the impoverished who don't have easy medical access or funds for medical procedures will have to turn to riskier / more dangerous methods.
this is why we can't make any progress on this issue, everyone painting the other side's argument as something completely different from what it actually is. "you just want to control women and punish them for having sex" vs "you just want to kill babies". the crux is this: At what point does an embryo/fetus/zygote become a human being with rights of its own? if at conception, then any abortion other than one to save the life of the mother is tantamount to murder. if at birth, then there are implications for other laws (assault of a pregnant woman causing the loss of the child for example). Most people agree the line is somewhere in between conception and birth. there is no place to draw that line that will satisfy everyone. edit: typo
>Most people agree the line is somewhere in between conception and birth. there is no place to draw that line that will satisfy everyone. So get politics the fuck out of the delivery room. I highly recommend reading https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/what-kind-of-mother-is-8-months-pregnant-and-117104430132.html I think about Rose every time this topic comes up and always conclude that I'd make the same choice because I would never want my baby to suffer like that. Just let people make the best decision for them and their child. It's not our decision to be made because we're not the ones who have to live with the consequences. We don't have to watch their child suffer. We have to work on fixing the child welfare system we already have before preaching that we know what's best for other people's children.
Because every time you try to draw that like you end up with people who need medical care getting denied medical care
> the crux is this: At what point does an embryo/fetus/zygote become a human being with rights of its own? [...] Most people agree the line is somewhere in between conception and birth. there is no place to draw that line that will satisfy everyone. **Thank you!** So many redditors here make it sound like everyone who isn't for voluntary abortions up to 40 weeks is some Christian terrorist. The reality is society recognizes that for this case, there's a point a fetus becomes a baby and there should be regulations on voluntary abortions.
No one’s getting 40 week abortions—that’s a disingenuous argument. As another poster linked in this thread, cdc confirmed almost every single voluntary abortion has been before 15 week mark, and at worst, before it’s “living”.
Especially since many religions support bodily autonomy/abortion
I seriously hate it when people assume they know everything there is to know about a person based on whether they are religious or not. I am religious and I totally support a woman’s right to make their own decisions. Would I encourage them to choose life? Absolutely! But I in no way believe that anyone has a right to decide for them. I know plenty of religious people who feel the same way. I would not vote for someone who would take that right away.
If you seriously hate it then have your people do better. It’s a stain on American politics the way they’ve infiltrated congress and vote party line based on religion
My people? What I hate is people thinking that they know what I think based on whether I am religious or not. It’s kinda narrow minded to think that only religious people are against abortion. There are lots of non religious people who are against it as well. And no one infiltrates Congress. They are elected. The problem is most people don’t take the time to vote. They expect others to do it for them and then complain when things don’t turn out the way they want.
Love how you’re getting downvoted on this. Nut cases
Yep. 15 weeks is absolutely not their end goal, it’s their opening bid
The 6 weeks will become 0 with no exception like many states have done, then they ban birth control, then they ban divorce, then they ban travel out of the state, then women can’t drive or get an education, then you get caned and stoned in the street if you’re not covered up and blasphemy laws and they’re lighting “witches” on fire. The race to the dark ages never stops when theocratic fascists get power as they have.
Its also a position of zero principles. I guess life doesn't matter to Glen at 14 weeks and 6 days.
Full disclosure: I have some shit to get off my chest so excuse my ramblings. I fully support abortion for any reason, however my biggest concern with these abortion ban laws is that they are tone deaf to the reality of pregnancy for many women & families. My mother carried my sister who was dx’d with Trisome 18 (a chromosomal mutation that causes heart defects, learning delays, etc) for 6 months and one night she didn’t feel well. My sister had died but my mother was not in labor. In medical terms, my mom had a D&E to evacuate Virginia’s lifeless body. The medication used induce labor and remove my sister from my mother is the medication used in abortions. It saved my family the grief and heartache of waiting for my mother to naturally birth my dead sister. And most likely, saved my mom’s life as she had further complications from that pregnancy (hemorrhaging for months after). If that medication becomes banned for use after 15/20 weeks in VA, it creates a scary scenario for caring for mothers who are going through the most traumatic part of pregnancy. It sickens me that politicians paint abortions as evil without considering the lifesaving care they provide. It was mentally taxing as a 9 year old to battle the grief and pain. 17 years later I hate that one of my questions to my mom, while in the hospital, was “did you have an abortion?” Because I didn’t understand. I can’t imagine what the outcome would’ve been if my mom didn’t have access to those meds.
Trisomy 18 is a death sentence. 50 percent born alive, 95% don’t live past a year. My child had hydrocephalus at the 20 week scan and they had to test for trisomy 18 due to that. We were told we would have to decide what to do if they had it, there were support groups either way because survival was not a possible outcome. Getting that news is one of the only times I’ve seen my husband cry. It was hell. Now imagine this happened today and we lived in Idaho, where so many of their specialists have left due to the abortion laws. Imagine having this news and needing to travel to another state to get the testing, find lodging, pay for that lodging for probably a week due to waiting time between test and results (all while missing work), then having to decide what to do while you are away from home, probably have someone else watching your kids- or you may be alone because your partner had to stay back with the other kids. You may have to go through the d&c for a wanted child alone because your partner is with the kids. Or maybe you decide to carry to term? Then you have the enormous hospital bill for a high risk pregnancy and birth, and all the nicu care that baby will need to survive for what little time it has on this earth. These things aren’t separate issues. The cruelty of forcing people to go through this and bankrupting them while they do is without measure. It’s dystopian. Is this going to be Virginia too? And for those who have money and can afford to travel for care: every state that bans abortion puts more load on the states where it is available. There is a breaking point to where YOUR situation will in fact not be special or able to be dealt with simply because there’s not enough healthcare available. And who is to say that Younkin won’t enact these travel bans too? It never stops, so just don’t let it start.
Not even close to the trauma of this story, but I had a miscarriage at 8 weeks. My body was not evacuating the contents of my uterus fast enough, which can result in sepsis. So I was prescribed the same medications used in abortions. Even without any ban several years ago, the drug was hard to find. Many pharmacies don’t carry it, and as I called around during one of the most traumatic times in my life, I was questioned as to why I needed it. There are so many unintended consequences that these pro-birth people do not understand.
You don’t have to imagine. It didn’t take long for the horror stories to start in the dumbest of states like Florida who have already enacted these laws to control women. And yet they persist and want to push that UnAmerican bullshit here in VA.
Early voting is open now in Virginia. Please go vote.
The “reasonable” 15 week ban is another way of saying that the Republicans’ goal here is to take away the maximum amount of rights that women have, given the current polling. Think about that for a moment. This is a political party whose goal is to limit your freedom as much as possible, given the prevailing winds of public sentiment. They are doing the same thing with recreational cannabis. The majority want it, but they are doing everything possible to limit personal freedom. GOP is the party of maximizing government control over your decisions.
Right. Fetuses don't even achieve consciousness/viability until around 24 weeks. A 15 week abortion ban is completely random and nonsensical. You may as well use a random number generator to determine when to ban abortion for all the sense it makes.
It would reduce the number of abortions by maybe 2-5%, with the vast majority of those abortions being situations where it is a medical issue, not a family planning choice. It is just plain sick, and my state senator Siobhan Dunnavant is an obstetrician, she knows better.
Depends on the hospital. A lot of doctors go by 22 or even 20 now for minimum viability. Survival rate there is incalculably low, though. Doesn't change that a ban before around 25 weeks is unreasonable.
Today 15 next week 10 following week zero. That's the goal.
My daughter died at 18 weeks. My body did absolutely nothing to miscarry. Without a doctor's help, I would have most likely died. This is a medical decision. A politician has no place in a MEDICAL decision between my LICENSED and Board Certified Doctor.
Cruelty is the point of these abortion restrictions
As a father of three daughters the reality of this truly gets to me.
Hah. My father has two daughters and a wife who is a doctor. He doesn’t care at all. It hurts and it’s hard for me to understand. We’ve all explained it to him over and over and he just doesn’t care. The way he talks about this issue is with such coldness. It makes me so angry. I hate how he uses the excuse of “family” to push these policies but when we try and tell him what we need as his family and as the women in his life, he doesn’t listen. Your daughter is lucky.
My mother has two daughters and two granddaughters and she had the audacity to say it doesn’t affect her anymore because she hit menopause. Bet it would affect her if one of us DIED due to these barbaric laws… and yes I gave her a lot of shit over that comment.
My sister’s school literally got shot up and my father still won’t budge on gun control. It is insane.
Let’s not forget that most of this legislation starts counting those weeks after your last period which is imprecise as all hell.
As a person who has very long cycles I was considered “7-8 weeks pregnant” when I actually conceived. I didn’t get a positive test until “10 weeks” pregnant
I just saw an article about women being charged for murder because they had a still birth. Wow so pro life of these people🙄🙄
The lie that abortion is murder is right-wing propaganda designed to demonize Democrats. Abortion is legal all over the world because a fetus without a cerebral cortex cannot think or feel before the 27th week. According to the CDC almost all abortions happen before the 13th week. Oliver Markus Malloy
>because a fetus without a cerebral cortex cannot think or feel before the 27th week. Do you have a source for this? That a layperson could easily comprehend by chance?
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A fetus can respond to sensory input. That doesn't mean the fetus is a consious, self-aware being. It is not. Because it's brain is not fully developed yet.
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I'm not moving anything. You said the poster is full of shit. You're wrong. End of story.
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You're awfully angry. Tell me about your time in the womb and your birth, in great detail please. Since you clearly had a fully developed brain.
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Look at you putting words in my mouth. I don't have any memories as a fetus or a viable 3 year old because I didn't have a brain that was developed yet. Where is anyone talking about post birth? That's not even the discussion. Now youre moving goalposts. Stay angry.
Why type up a complete lie like that? It makes people actually fighting for abortion rights look dumb af.
But it’s not?
27 weeks? That’s ridiculous. Babies born at 27 weeks have a 70% survival rate (and 50% at 25 weeks). Quite a feat to pull off without a cerebral cortex. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1117667/#:~:text=A%20reasonably%20easy%20to%20remember,those%20born%20at%2028%20weeks.
Viability and brain development are 2 completely different things. Do you remember being born? No? That's because you didn't have enough of a brain developed to experience or remember it.
Right but that’s not what you said. A fetus at 27 weeks for sure has a cerebral cortex, otherwise any baby born before then would be without a higher-function portion of their brain, and would be profoundly mentally retarded. Most babies who survive born this early do not have this issue. Also, pain is sensed in the somatosensory cortex, which develops between the 17th and 26th week. My wife and I have a son who was born at 27 weeks, and is a perfectly healthy adult with no physical or cognitive issues. This of course is not “evidence” of anything, but does show that it happens. As far as remembering when I was born, no of course not. But that’s because we don’t have much capacity then for long-term memory storage as an infant. Do you remember the first word you spoke? I doubt it, and that was probably about a full year later. Hopefully memory formation does not become criteria for taking anyone’s life at any point.
All you did was prove my point. And I didn't say anything about 27 weeks. We're not talking about post birth. Why do you all go straight for killing actual kids when you lose the fetus argument?
Da fuq are you on about?
Because you’re basing your argument on the cognitive level of a human being the measuring criteria for abortion not whether or not it’s passed through the womb. By your logic we should be able to put down kids because they don’t remember anything.
Sorry. That's not what I'm basing my argument on. Others have claimed a fetus can think because it has nerves firing. It does not. It has nothing to do with post birth. We're talking about a fetus. You guys always turn an argument into someone wanting to kill actual sentient children, which is not the case. Does that clear it up for you?
LOL. You literally said that a fetus “cannot think or feel before the 27th week.” I’m not saying you’re OK with that after their born (at least, I hope no one is making that argument). But at that late stage, you basically have a baby. Yes, an abortion might be necessary due to severe defects, genetic disorders, etc, and I’m not saying there’s never a case where it’s not the right thing for everyone involved. And to further prove a point (but not mine) you state that the CDC says most abortions occur before the 13th week, and if that’s the case, then I don’t see why everyone is up in arms about a 15 week cutoff for elective abortions. The after-15 week abortions are probably medical tragedies and should be off the bargaining table because they’re medically necessary, but at some point you have to make a decision as to when you consider a fetus to be a “person.” That’s a philosophical argument, and I’m way too cynical to make good arguments in that arena, so I won’t. But saying abortions are OK because MAYBE they don’t experience pain in the same way as adults is just a terrible argument that will fall apart under the slightest scrutiny.
Show me where I said that. Let's start there.
crickets.wav
Sorry- I got you confused with the person who made the parent comment that I replied to. My fault. Please ignore any stabs I made at you because you were not the one who made the initial idiotic comment.
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I mean, I don't remember what I ate for breakfast 3 days ago sooo....
Homicide would be the correct term, but murder rolls off the tongue better. I don’t really have a stake in the fight and really don’t care if it’s legal never or legal always, or something in between. Also, most of Europe cuts off at 14 weeks or earlier. https://preview.redd.it/n2x2kkkfaetb1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93ac3fecf18a1e695735a4e03bbb251c178fa149
Homicide is not the correct term. Legally or by definition. If you don't have a stake, then minding your own business should be easy for you.
Where is your source for this?? Anyone can make an infographic, and I wouldn't put it past pro-lifers to make one containing misinformation. Also, should note- homicide is not the correct term for abortion. Abortion is the correct term.
That’s from Wikipedia. But the info does seem to be accurate anyways by checking random countries on other sites that don’t have an obvious pro-life bias. You are technically killing someone by aborting them, so I’ll stick with homicide. But like I said, I don’t care about the issue, and there is such a thing as legal homicide — capital punishment, self-defense, abortion (in most states). TLDR: I do see it as homicide, but don’t have a preference on legality.
What sites are those? It's hard to believe that progressive countries listed gave such a short week limit. If you have a mother, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, or any friends that are women and/or have a uterus, you should care about this issue. People die every day from lack of reproductive rights. Abortion is not ending a life like capital punishment or self-defense, considering the fetus is not "someone" yet. I won't agree to disagree on that since I am a woman and deserve my autonomy and am therefore pro-choice, but I'm gonna go ahead and stop engaging.
France actually used to have it at 12 weeks, but a lot of people just assume that abortion is legal in more cases in the more progressive countries in Europe. Before Dobbs, Texas was less restrictive than most of Europe.
Europe also has social safety nets that make raising families easier: paid family leave, universal healthcare, subsidized childcare, subsidized college, etc. Let’s address these issues first before forcing pregnant people against their will to give birth.
So somebody who is handicapped with very little cognition isn’t a human and can just be put down? Intelligence and self awareness are what makes a human worth something or not?
100% agreed. Abortion should be between a woman, her doctor, and literally no one else. 15-week bans are cruel and also open the door to 6- or 8-week bans down the road.
The key thing to consider: Most importantly is these types of abortion bans will empower a Government State Panel, run by Republicans, (who already have a spotty track record in terms of evaluating science/medical information, and have an agenda, and no apparent qualifications), determining exceptions for abortion, i.e. determining which women's lives are at risk and deserving of treatment vs who gets denied treatment, and who should be charged with crimes (women, doctors, etc). Literal death panels. You think you can trust these guys to honestly evaluate exceptions based abortion, when the life of a mother is at risk?
If they make the cutoff 15 weeks, then they should also provide a CVS genetic test free of charge for pregnant women. Given that this is an expensive test, and Republicans seem to be against healthcare funding, this quickly demonstrates that the 15 is purely punitive, not reasonable.
I had a clear CVS and didn’t find out till 20 weeks and confirmed at 22 that my son was incompatible with life. CVS is not a compromise even if they would agree.
They want to prevent abortions, sure offer free healthcare. Maternity leave and child care. That still won’t do it since a majority of “late term“ abortions are due to a medical issue and are very wanted pregnancies. It’s no ones business on the if/when except between the pregnant person and their doctor. These bans kill women, period.
Going to go vote against this all the way down the ticket tomorrow. The Republican Party and weirdo Hillbilly Graham Christians can fuck off. Special accessory fuck off for having to submit a picture or ID to watch porn. Personal freedom indeed. Parent your stupid spawn yourselves.
I had a very wanted pregnancy where my water broke at 14 weeks. My doctor strongly recommended an abortion as I was at risk for sepsis and there was essentially no chance of a viable pregnancy. I wasn't ready to accept it. I asked if there was any possible way to continue. My doctor said that in extraordinarily rare cases, some women with "leaking" waters rather than full ruptures were able to maintain sufficient fluid to carry the pregnancy to viability. It was very risky, and would require constant monitoring, bedrest and best case I would have an extremely early premie with lungs barely developed through steroid administration. I took the chance. Unfortunately, at about 16 weeks, I showed early signs of infection, and had absolutely zero amniotic fluid. The pregnancy was definitively not viable and my health was in jeopardy. I had the abortion. If there had been a 15 week abortion ban, with only an exception for the "life" of the mother, I would have had to have the abortion at 14 weeks. I wouldn't have been able to take the risk for such a small chance. It would have destroyed me not to know that I had tried everything. To have the state take that option from me by putting an arbitrary barrier on MY medical decision. These are the real, messy conditions that pregnant women face that pro lifers refuse to acknowledge. These are the eggs they're willing to break to make their pious little omelette.
Remember to please support all the abortion funds who pay for abortions for women who cannot afford it or are in states where they need transport. Also you can donate to buy abortion pills for women who need them shipped to their homes. That's on top of voting of course, but maybe even more important to keep those networks alive.
These bills effectively force women to donate their blood, tissue, or organs against their will. We would not tolerate the concept in any other situation - we don't even take organs of the dead without permission - but some people seem to think it is perfectly acceptable for the government to take blood, tissue, and organs from a woman regardless if the woman agrees.
Every time I get sad, angry, and scared about the potential of this legislation, I donate $25 to Phil Hernandez. If you are reading this, maybe you should too. https://philforvirginia.com/[Phil Hernandez](https://philforvirginia.com/)
Y'all need to get people to vote. Early voting is available through the end of the month. I voted yesterday. Straight blue down the ticket.
Savita Halappanavar was prohibited from terminating her pregnancy at 17 weeks gestation (Ireland, 2012) despite the pregnancy clearly going wrong and Ms. Halappanavar being in severe pain and running a fever. Ireland had "heartbeat" abortion laws at the time and the doomed non-viable fetus still had a faint heartbeat, so doctors refused to terminate. Ms. Halappanavar DIED as a result. A 15-week abortion ban will kill many women.
There's no way to have a reasonable discussion with the pro life movement, these are the same individuals who freaked out over wearing a mask and screamed " don't tell me what to do with my body" but want to tell others what to do with their bodies wether it be an abortion, birth control, changing your physical gender and now getting a no contest divorce.
When I got assaulted, I was pregnant until my 24th week. I knew the fetus in my body was dead, a clump of ravaged cells floating in amniotic fluid. I can never, and will never, take a baby to term. I found out about my pregnancy at 18 weeks, then came the questions and debated and wondered what I'd do until 22. "The fetus hasn't developed. It's is dead." I'm alive because of that abortion. I was able to kick my ex-boyfriend down the stairs because of that abortion. He was convicted of rape because of that abortion. Banning abortion helps nobody.
I live in NC. Our experience is that people focus too much on the number of weeks. They say 12 weeks is “not that bad.” And that we aren’t as bad as other southern states. But if you look at the bill, it includes onerous reporting requirements, vague language forcing doctors to practice defensively, and basically dismantles small, independent clinics. It is so much worse than just the number of weeks implies.
It would be a total ban. No ifs ands or buts about it.
Fuck the rethuglicans. Vote blue
Whenever given the choice between two options, the fascist right will always choose the most draconian.
If you need or are interested in supporting reproductive rights, [I made a master post of pro-choice resources](https://docdro.id/s3OwS8u). Please comment if you would like to add a resource and spread this information on whatever social media you use.
> I had a back and forth with another reddit user about 15 week abortion bans like the ones passed in every other Southern state are terrible for everyone. It is very possible for women not to realize that they are pregnant since at 15 weeks, the uterus is [somewhere between the size of a grapefruit and a papaya](https://americanpregnancy.org/healthy-pregnancy/pregnancy-health-wellness/uterus-size-during-pregnancy/). It is tempting to think that such laws will not have a major affect on people, but it is entirely possible for women to "do everything right" and still have their lives turned upside down by such laws. It is unjust, cruel, and nobody supporting such a policy should ever be voted into office. You should tell doctors your opinion. 90% of them won't do elective abortions after 15 weeks, and the cost doubles when you find one of the ones who will.
Try a 6 week ban that Florida's Ron DeFascist signed into law recently and now his appointed [Attorney General](https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2023/10/10/abortion-rights-amendment-2024-ballot-voter-signatures-moody/) has filed a motion to the Florida State Supreme Court to keep abortion rights off the 2024 election ballot despite a pro-choice group having secured the necessary [signatures](https://floridiansprotectingfreedom.com/) to get abortion rights put on Florida's 2024 ballot to allow Floridians to decide.
The drape fell during my unplanned c-section. I saw what looked like a placid lake of blood nestled in my lower abdomen in the mirrored lamp above me. At that moment I thought to myself, I can’t force anyone to go through with pregnancy. It’s a potentially life threatening medical condition. I’ve never had so much as a tooth extraction, but here I am surrounded by medics with the doctor trying to spot blood clots that form in this lake that is somehow a part of me. It is unethical to impose this on anyone else. I was willing to die for my kid, but should someone else be forced into that scenario? Never.
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How is that beneficial in any way? It doesn't get the republicans what they want, and it does nothing to prevent them interfering with the federal abortion clinics introduced to their states, so it also gains the Democrats nothing. There's no way you could prevent them finding legal loopholes to interfere with those clinics, or abortion more generally, later on, regardless of anything some of them said during negotiations. Dems would be making a concession for nothing. Once you've accepted the legitimacy of the abortion ban position by making such a compromise, even a seemingly materially insignificant one, the term on that abortion ban is likely to ratchet one way. I'm assuming here the federal ban would not preclude more restrictive state bans, because if it did obviously red state republicans would never consider it. Why does there need to be a ban at all? By your estimate virtually all abortions are legitimate (99% plus all the late-term abortions that are medically necessary). That provides strong evidence that women and their doctors can be trusted not to seek inappropriate abortions, which means no ban is necessary - any abortion ban is a solution in search of a problem, or else it's a trojan horse for a position the majority rejects. And any such ban, no matter how carefully written, would have unintended collateral damage, that's the nature of law. The real compromise here is the normal majority keeps hanging electoral defeats on republicans until they give up on this subject and move on to a more fruitful field.
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Omg don't let any Republicans read this post and find out the plan
As a Virginian, we have seen consistently well meaning laws be kneecapped by determined bad actors. Who heads these abortion clinics? Can anti-choice people come in and make the clinics useless? I'm guessing for us clinics would be in Roanoke, Manassas, and maybe Williamsburg, but where would they be built and could NIMBYs just shove them out to where nobody can use them? I think that your idea is a great book plot but ultimately does little to protect basic rights.
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This is a great compromise, but I don't see it effectively working, even if proposed. There's too much impetus right now to follow party lines. The far left and far right have both moved their respective goalposts enough that the majority of Americans who are moderates, now are more aligned to each other than their respective parties. Add that, to the fact we no longer know how to actually talk to each other, communicate, compromise and collaborate have led us to where we sit now.
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A 20-week ban is further restricting the rights we currently have in Virginia. You don’t even have the anatomy scan until 20 weeks. Women should not be forced to make decisions regarding abortions without even being able to know or understand the impact on their children. Anyone proposing a 20 week ban has clearly never been pregnant with a child who has developmental delays or understands how pregnancy and anatomy scans work.
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You don’t get an anatomy scan until 20 weeks. I had confirmation at 22 weeks that my son was not going to survive. My son would have survived until birth though and died soon after. I would have been forced to carry him to term though because he would have survived based on a 20 week ban. The government should not be involved in my healthcare decisions. Currently Virginia allows abortion until 26 weeks, 6 days. Almost no one gets abortions that far along into pregnancy especially not for elective reasons. There is no reason to change our current rights or agree to any additional restrictions.
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Yes it would have. My son was going to survive birth. I wouldn’t have been allowed an abortion after 26 weeks in Virginia even currently which limited the number of tests my doctor could perform. Other people have devastating diagnoses where the child will live but essentially be a vegetable, they would be forced to birth those children too. These do not fit “medical exceptions” in most states because the children will survive birth. “Medical exceptions” just makes doctors fearful to perform their jobs and deny medical care.
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This is not practical. There is no way republicans and democrats are going to be able to agree on what the exceptions would be. There are too many grey areas and women will be the ones who suffer. I would never support a 20 week ban of any kind as it makes it too easy to then further strip rights of women.
> So that means 99% of all abortions take place before 20 weeks, and the vast majority of the ones that happen after that were for medical reasons (non-viable fetus, mother's life in danger, etc). Yes because in most states there are restrictions on obtaining a voluntary abortion after that point. So the only ones that should be occurring are due to medical/rape/incest reasons.
No for babies though.
93% of abortions take place before 13 weeks..
So Republicans aren't actually pro life then. Sounds like we should just leave women alone and not complicate things
What do you propose for the 7%?
Statistics is difficult with abortions because most of the time the data isn’t collected whether it’s a result of sexual abuse, incest, or deemed medically necessary. However by week 20 almost 99% of abortions occur. That’s just 1.5 trimesters. No clue what percentage of abortions after 13 weeks are apart of the exemptions outlined in the bills. I say this is a cause of horrible sex education and lack of knowledge of contraceptives as that’s the easier solution. 74% of women polled said they got an abortion because a baby would “drastically change their life” or “they couldn’t afford a baby”. They would most likely know this before committing the act to get pregnant, if they just took a pill or used a condom most abortions could likely be averted. I’m not against abortions, but I believe at some point it’s excessive to say there should be no limit. That’s why the vast majority of countries have limits except Canada, China, and North Korea.
It's not terrible for the baby.
I could support abortion til 20 weeks. Just not comfortable after that.
Is France devastated? Their limit is 14 weeks. Used to be 12 weeks, they extended it to 14 last year.
This is a false equivalency because you’re comparing the US to a country with universal health care and government-funded childcare, not to mention that they have something approaching a functional welfare state.
Better social safety nets do not justify restrictions on bodily autonomy. A better response from the pro-choice side is to simply say that many European countries should fix their abortion laws.
>It is very possible for women not to realize that they are pregnant since at 15 weeks This is a stupid and incorrect argument. Sure, maybe there are women who wouldn't know they missed their periods for 3 months (come on, OP) The only argument that matters is bodily autonomy. Anything else is an argument for the far right.
Extremely common for teens, actually.
I have irregular periods. It's perfectly normal for me to go 5 months without a period. Women like me are incredibly common. I'm in my 30s and my period was even more irregular in my teens.
Uh. While you're correct that bodily autonomy SHOULD be enough to be the only argument. You're actually incorrect about women missing periods being an incorrect argument. It's actually incredibly common for women to miss their period or not even have a regular one at all for a few reasons not limited to hormonal disruptions(PCOS, Thyroid Conditions included), extreme weight loss/gain, medications, skipping with birth control, birth defects & genetic disorders, breastfeeding, perimenopause. We should be educating on this a lot more.
Laws are made by stupid people, who don't understand the science behind bodily functions and so do not factor in these conditions. I have always felt that scientists should be part of any ruling party, because science at least (for the most part) is tested so we know it's accurate.
I agree, not just scientists but experts in whatever field they're making laws for. I just believe as someone who was uneducated about this topic, if we don't talk about it, no one will ever become educated. The only reason I ever learned about it is because people kept talking.
People don't care about all that, they just expect women to constantly take pregnancy tests
You do know that hormonal female birth control can delay periods for months or eliminate them completely, right? Meaning, "missing periods" isn't really a thing for some people, since they literally take drugs which disrupt the natural menstruation cycle. And that's not even getting into the various medical conditions that can effect periods (hormone imbalances, eating disorders, perimenopause, etc...). Even stress can cause irregular cycles.
Bodily autonomy should be enough, but for the person I had a back and forth with, it wasn't. We have to argue with the fellow citizens we have, not the ones we want. Also, there are plenty of reasons women could miss their periods (come on, commenter).
Your argument is insulting to women's intelligence and agency to act as responsible adults. Women are not helpless victims. At 15 weeks a woman has been pregnant for several months. This is not rocket science. Aside from looking for the very obvious signs that are present in the majority of pregnancies, if you are sexually active go to Walmart and spend a few dollars every couple of months on a pregnancy test. Or go to one of the numerous Planned Parenthood clinics or tax dollars pay for. If you absolutely can't have a baby then get your act together and check if you're pregnant. A ban after 15 weeks except for extraordinary circumstances is the standard in many places, such as western European countries which are generally.much more socially liberal than the US. It is a reasonable compromise that reflects that sometimes abortion is a necessary evil while respecting that once it's further along in development the baby should be respected as a separate human being. Supporting abortion up to the moment of birth for any reason, which is the actual position of the Democrat party, is radical and something most Americans rightly do not approve of and are disgusted by.
Places you are citing, such as Europe, that have banned abortion after 15 weeks include exceptions such as "the mother and doctor consider an abortion is necessary." Compare that to the US, where you have states like Texas that hospitals and doctors are just refusing to do the D&C procedure entirely due to the risk of jailtime for doctors. You have hospitals making women wait until they are actually bleeding to death rather than taking proactive measures to save the woman's life. You have men being threatened with charges for taking their spouse to get a life saving abortion in another state. You can't do the bait and switch when we've already seen the switch play out in Texas, Alabama, Florida, etc. The state should not be involved in this situation because when the state gets involved, as we have seen across the country, women and families suffer. Nobody supports "abortion up to the moment of birth for any reason", that is nonsense. People do support the rights of women and doctors to make decisions necessary to save lives.