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[Kazerei]

The good reasoning would be that it's a potential life.

No, that's not good reasoning. Why is potential life so sacred that it should trump the rights of the mother, who isn't just a potential life, but an actual life. I mean, there is an infinite supply of potential lives. If I decide to only have two kids, am I terrible for preventing many more potential lives? If I get pregnant after two and then have an abortion, then am I terrible?

The vast majority of people who are pro-life would say that there's an exception when the life of the mother is in danger.[/QUOTE]

A fetus will eventually be born without intervention.

... the mother does not count as intervention? I feel you're seriously minimizing the mother and her rights here. Being pregnant and having a child is a huge obligation. I wouldn't force that on anyone.

It would be incredibly unethical of me not to donate if I was the cause of the whole thing.

So do you think it should be a legal obligation? Perhaps we should make blood and organ donations mandatory. Think of all the lives that could be saved -- and not just potential lives, but real, actual lives. Besides, once you die, you're not a life anymore; might as well harvest your organs!

 

[Mass One]

Do you believe that it wouldn't be unethical to kill innocent people without reason if you thought that was ethical? Do you truly believe that morality does not actually exist and is merely a human construct? Why would I take any kind of ethical claims that you make seriously then?

I find that people resort to moral relativism only when it suits them.

What game are you playing?

• Do you believe that it wouldn't be unethical to kill innocent people without reason if you thought that was ethical? Why would I want to kill people? What's the purpose? What's the context? I live in the real world give me scenarios. Define Innocence.
  
• Do you truly believe that morality does not actually exist and is merely a human construct? I just said the morality exist and is a human construct.
  
• Why would I take any kind of ethical claims that you make seriously then?
  Why would I could care what you think? I'm not trying to change your mind.

 

[aeolist]

People can say life or "personhood" begins at birth if you like.

But a baby that is a live birth at 20 weeks will react to touch and sound.
If you did something simple like you pulled on a baby's finger it would pull it back and gather it's fingers into a fist again.

If at 20 weeks the baby can respond to those types of touches, I think it's reasonable that a baby would feel some pain or discomfort while it is getting "terminated" inside their mothers womb. These babies do not come out in one piece when they are aborted.

People need to do what is best for them. If abortion is the choice that needs to be made then that choice is available for that female.

But if all this report is saying is that the mother should be under anestitic so that the baby can be numbed to pain throughout the process I think that sounds reasonably humane.

Also: this.

again, general anesthesia is a complex and involved medical process with a risk of complications that medical doctors do not think is reasonable to require for most abortion procedures. the state is interjecting itself into this private and personal medical decision based on ideas that have no basis in current medical science.

 

[Mass One]

Not sure what this means.
I thought we were taking about 20 weeks and later.

Yeah that was my mistake.

 

[Trojita]

Ahh the old "some people are not against the death penalty therefore all pro-life people can't claim to be pro-life" and "they don't care about the child they just want to arbitrarily control this particular aspect of women lives for whatever reason"

That's the definition of pro-life. You can't call yourself pro life and be for capital punishment.

I am pro-choice, I don't particularly like the idea of third trimester abortions except for cases of health risk to the mother, and I am not averse to capitol punishment on a much smaller scale that only affects way beyond a reasonable doubt convictions. I also don't agree with the current way executions are performed.

 

[Truelize]

again, general anesthesia is a complex and involved medical process with a risk of complications that medical doctors do not think is reasonable to require for most abortion procedures. the state is interjecting itself into this private and personal medical decision based on ideas that have no basis in current medical science.

I went back and read the article. It never states general anesthetic at all.
Local anesthetic is used very successfully without life threatening complications.

 

[aeolist]

I went back and read the article. It never states general anesthetic at all.
Local anesthetic is used very successfully without life threatening complications.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/us/utah-to-require-anesthesia-in-some-abortions.html?_r=0

“You're telling women that they have to have something that's going to increase their risk based on a conclusion that is not true,” said Dr. Sean Esplin of Intermountain Healthcare in Utah. He said that anesthesia or an analgesic would need to go through the woman in order to reach the fetus. Doctors could give a woman general anesthesia, which would make her unconscious and probably require a breathing tube, or a heavy dose of narcotics.

the OP article doesn't have all of the details

 

[Truelize]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/us/utah-to-require-anesthesia-in-some-abortions.html?_r=0



the OP article doesn't have all of the details

Ok yeah. See it now.

I still don't disagree with possibility of a fetus feeling and responding to pain at twenty weeks.
I have first hand experience of holding a baby at that age and seeing them respond to stimulus.
But unless there is a very easy backdoor for patients (mothers) to choose against having general anesthetic then I do worry about what will happen when the first expected mother dies due to complications with the anesthetic.

And even then there is still a possibility that an expected mother feels guilt for getting this procedure and chooses the no-pain route for her fetus and winds up paying with her life.

 

[LudicrousSpeed]

I went back and read the article. It never states general anesthetic at all.
Local anesthetic is used very successfully without life threatening complications.

My understanding is that while there are local anesthetics you can use on a fetus, they're used in cases of fetal surgical operations where the surgery is serious enough that the woman has to be cut open to get at the fetus.

Since that's not the case with an abortion, your only real option is general anesthetic.

 

[aeolist]

Ok yeah. See it now.

I still don't disagree with possibility of a fetus feeling and responding to pain at twenty weeks.
I have first hand experience of holding a baby at that age and seeing them respond to stimulus.
But unless there is a very easy backdoor for patients (mothers) to choose against having general anesthetic then I do worry about what will happen when the first expected mother dies due to complications with the anesthetic.

And even then there is still a possibility that an expected mother feels guilt for getting this procedure and chooses the no-pain route for her fetus and winds up paying with her life.

well, responding to a stimulus isn't the same thing as registering pain

and an AMA metastudy of more than 300 papers concluded that fetuses most likely do not feel pain before 28 weeks: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=201429

 

[Truelize]

well, responding to a stimulus isn't the same thing as registering pain

and an AMA metastudy of more than 300 papers concluded that fetuses most likely do not feel pain before 28 weeks: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=201429

Can't these metastudies be easily disputed by countering with the possibility that a fetus between the ages of 20 and 27 weeks have not developed the response to pain that is shown in fetuses 28 weeks and older?

I don't want to get into a discussion about this though. I'm not out to change the world. I'm not going to post articles loaded with statistics from studies that some smart people did.

My appreciation for what life looks like at 20 weeks changed when I saw it first hand.

 

[aeolist]

Can't these metastudies be easily disputed by countering with the possibility that a fetus between the ages of 20 and 27 weeks have not developed the response to pain that is shown in fetuses 28 weeks and older?

Pain perception requires conscious recognition or awareness of a noxious stimulus. Neither withdrawal reflexes nor hormonal stress responses to invasive procedures prove the existence of fetal pain, because they can be elicited by nonpainful stimuli and occur without conscious cortical processing. Fetal awareness of noxious stimuli requires functional thalamocortical connections. Thalamocortical fibers begin appearing between 23 to 30 weeks' gestational age, while electroencephalography suggests the capacity for functional pain perception in preterm neonates probably does not exist before 29 or 30 weeks. For fetal surgery, women may receive general anesthesia and/or analgesics intended for placental transfer, and parenteral opioids may be administered to the fetus under direct or sonographic visualization. In these circumstances, administration of anesthesia and analgesia serves purposes unrelated to reduction of fetal pain, including inhibition of fetal movement, prevention of fetal hormonal stress responses, and induction of uterine atony.

basically pain stimulus produces the same kind of result in fetuses that other non-painful stimuli do, they do not develop the kind of nerve fibers necessary to do what we normally think of as pain processing until 29-30 weeks, and the administration of anesthesia does not change anything other than unrelated physiological responses.

I don't want to get into a discussion about this though. I'm not out to change the world. I'm not going to post articles loaded with statistics from studies that some smart people did.

My appreciation for what life looks like at 20 weeks changed when I saw it first hand.

looks can be deceiving. what you have seen with your eyes does not fully describe the underlying processes, which are what matter in this case.

 

[hockeypuck]

The only person who should be evaluating the appropriateness of an anesthetic is the actual treating medical provider, not some fucking politician. These bureaucrats are literally mandating malpractice.

I didn't know Utah lawmakers sat on the American Boards of Obstetrics/Gynecology, Pediatrics, and Anesthesia. Impressive résumé.