After birth abortion?

[Seraphina]

The arguments for oppressing womens right to choose do not really hold water when you look at what happens when they can't.

They still try to abort the fetus, just in really unsafe ways.

Have a look at the history, I'll wait while you bring yourself up to speed.

Oh, I have. Have you?...JUST FACTS

Let’s start with the central premise: every woman (and man) should be the ultimate authority over the integrity and treatment of their own body.

Now What?

Is a fetus part of a woman's body or is it a distinct organism? I think it is hard to argue that fetuses serve any necessary biological function of a woman, similar to the way spleens or lungs do. As such, fetuses are not in fact parts of pregnant women's bodies. Therefore the argument that a right abortion is grounded in the woman's ownership of her body is a complete non sequitor.

One could then argue that since fetuses are physically dependent upon their mothers that gives mothers certain rights over her children that includes killing them. But dependency alone is not a sufficient condition for granting life and death authority over another human being. Infants and toddlers are also physically dependent on adult care. Some qualification is necessary to distinguish between pre- and post-birth physical dependency.

Could viability serve as such a qualifier? That too is problematic. Healthy fetuses naturally develop into infants in the same way that infants naturally develop into mature adults provided the necessary and sufficient conditions are present to meet their needs. It seems strange to say that a human being isn't viable simply because it will wither and die for lack of basic necessities. What makes it right to fatally withhold the basic life necessities of a very young human being but not right to do the same to an infant or an adult?

Maybe one could say that parents have the right to make health care decisions for their children? In the case of abortion, that would include actively ending the life of one's very young child. But does anyone truly believe that parents have such all-encompassing authority? On what basis do we justify limiting that authority later after baby has simply changed its physical location from inside the womb to out in the world?

Making a utilitarian argument with suffering as the sole criteria is problematic. If you apply that reasoning to cases other than abortion the flaw becomes immediately apparent. If suffering is the only criteria then it would be morally permissible for one person to benefit from causing the quick and painless death of another, regardless of age or circumstances. Secondly you have applied a double standard. For the fetus, you define suffering only in terms of physical pain and not loss of potential goods. But for the mother, you define suffering in terms of lost opportunities and/or incurring future obligations.

Then there is the argument from practicality. If abortion were illegal, then women will die from underground abortions. This raises the question: how many women would die for criminal abortions. According to the CDC report, “Abortion Surveillance—United States, 1996.” By Lisa M. Koonin and others, in the year before Roe v. Wade 36 women died from complications caused by an illegal abortion. Of course, even a single death is a tragedy, yet compared to the year after Roe v. Wade, the number of deaths from legal abortions was 26. The notion that making abortion illegal will dramatically increase abortion related fatalities is not borne out by the facts.

Bold is mine.
I can't buy this, especially the last word of your post, without a complete citation.
A quick google search brought up the article you mention but the words Roe v. Wade don't even appear in it. I'm inclined to think the exhaustive data compiled by LM Koonin et al has been twisted around to suit the anti-choice crowd.

That reminds me - I need to donate to Planned Parenthood.

-Teresa