New Iowa Law Restricts Abortion To Before Most Women Know They're Pregnant

[brewer]

I doubt this law stands the test. I see it as a political ploy to appease the christian right, nothing more. The gov gets to say "well at least I tried". 

If I'm correct, that makes this a really sad commentary on the  US political landscape.

[The Valkyrie]

That's ridiculous.  It really is.

Glad that we agree!

You agree that it's ridiculous to compare living, breathing people, to unborn foetuses?

You can be taught!

[The Industrial Atheist]

Fetuses (and Zygotes)are not babies. Christians are taught to call them that/think of them as that. I think this kind of obfuscates matters. I think it's hard to come to the conclusion that abortion is immoral without believing in things like predestination and god in general.

Thing is, if every fertilized egg cell is a baby, with a destiny, does that mean that god had a destiny for the fertilized egg cells that were lost during menstruation? Seems kind of wasteful for a perfect god. That also means he designed abortion into the natural functioning of women's bodies

I think that a pretty good case can be made for calling a fetus a baby.  There is nothing within the definition of "baby", that prohibits it, and it is quite common, even among doctors I have found, to call the growing fetus a baby.  So I don't see where that is obfuscating things at all;  and it sometimes seems, that proponents of abortion want to call it a fetus, to de-humanize it.  I'm will to compromise, and call it a separate and distinct human being, if you want to be technical.  We can even add fetus in there, if it makes you feel better.

As, to your comment about being unable to come to the conclusion that abortion is wrong without believing in God.   I would ask, how you come to such moral conclusions for an older child or an adult?   Some would say that you cannot have a basis for any objective morals without God. 

Your last paragraph seems to be, what they call over at the uncommon descent blog whataboutism (or whataboutery).  It's a varient of the tu quoque fallacy, where in place of an argument or reason, one tries to shift the subject to something else and try to show some kind of hypocrisy rather than refute the logic.     This one, I think is particularly bad, because with similar reasoning, it would also folllow, that because people die from disease and accidents, that it is also ok to murder people without justification.   I don't think anyone is arguing either (unless you are advocating it).
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Sure people that generally want babies might call a fetus a baby, but a fetus is not empirically an infant.

also:https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/fetal-development/fetal-brain-nervous-system/

Third trimester: Baby's brain grows

The third trimester is brimming with rapid development of neurons and wiring. Baby's brain roughly triples in weight during the last 13 weeks of gestation, growing from about 3.5 ounces at the end the second trimester to almost 10.6 ounces at term. And it's starting to look different, too: Its formerly once smooth surface is becoming increasingly grooved and indented (like the images of brains you're used to seeing).

At the same time, the cerebellum (motor control) is developing fast — faster now than any other area of the fetal brain (its surface area increases 30-fold in the last 16 weeks of pregnancy!).
All of this growth is big news for the cerebral cortex (thinking, remembering, feeling). Though this important area of the brain is developing rapidly during pregnancy, it really only starts to function around the time a full-term baby is born — and it steadily and gradually matures in the first few years of life, thanks to baby's enriching environment.



Being able to think and feel is what makes us human. If the fetus can only think and feel on an animal level, it isn't different from an animal. An older child or adult can think and reason as human can, because they aren't a fetus.

I'm sorry it's silly to equate a clump of cells that can't think any better than a dog or cat, with your 43 year old uncle Bob. It's not the same.

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Your idea of what differentiate a baby from  a cloud of tissue that can exorcised with nary a look  is based purely on an ignorant religious fiction concocted during the Bronze Age to overawe the ignorant, illiterate and gullible so that the priests, prophets and other hucksters can dominate and profit.

Nope... that must be your idea, because I said nothing of the sort!

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I doubt this law stands the test. I see it as a political ploy to appease the christian right, nothing more. The gov gets to say "well at least I tried". 

If I'm correct, that makes this a really sad commentary on the  US political landscape.

I hope you're right, but they may manage to force hundreds or thousands of unwanted births in the meantime!

[Angrboda]

When life is form is different to when acute sentience is formed. Is a 1 day old fetus capable of suffering?

The evidence seems to keep moving back, for where a fetus seems to be able to feel sensations.  I think that it is around the beginning time in development, that the little human is a fetus that they do feel pain and other sensations.  Would you say, that it is permissible  murder another human being, as long as they do not feel the pain in doing so?   I can understand the moral implications, if someone is killing and specifically, increasing the suffering, but I don't think that it is only  wrong to kill other humans, only if they suffer in doing so.  Do you?

Do you believe that it is moral to force someone to put their life at risk if not doing so means that someone else will die? At what limit are you not willing to put that morality into practice? Is it moral for me to force you to give up a kidney if it will save someone else's life? Can we force you to give up a lung to save another person? It's not like you don't have two of them.

[RoadRunner79]

Glad that we agree!

You agree that it's ridiculous to compare living, breathing people, to unborn foetuses?

You can be taught!

No, I think the same reasoning follows on each case (child, adult, or fetus). And that these reasons for justification are rediculous are not being given to kill a human in any of these stages of life.

Now, you add the criteria of breathing. Does this apply in the other circumstances as well. I am assuming that we can agree the the feral baby is alive?

[Minimalist]

I don’t see where I have anything to do with it.

You are one of these jerks who thinks that an old book of bullshit enables you to tell other people how to live their lives.

That's a pretty solid definition of a xtian in my book.

[brewer]

The point is that this is nonviable life. Only a potential. You can't/don't get to enforce your beliefs/morality on another human based on potential.

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I hope you're right, but they may manage to force hundreds or thousands of unwanted births in the meantime!

The last I read the law was going to be challenged prior to the July enactment(?) date. They won't be able to do anything until the challenge is resolved.

[RoadRunner79]

The evidence seems to keep moving back, for where a fetus seems to be able to feel sensations.  I think that it is around the beginning time in development, that the little human is a fetus that they do feel pain and other sensations.  Would you say, that it is permissible  murder another human being, as long as they do not feel the pain in doing so?   I can understand the moral implications, if someone is killing and specifically, increasing the suffering, but I don't think that it is only  wrong to kill other humans, only if they suffer in doing so.  Do you?

Do you believe that it is moral to force someone to put their life at risk if not doing so means that someone else will die? At what limit are you not willing to put that morality into practice? Is it moral for me to force you to give up a kidney if it will save someone else's life? Can we force you to give up a lung to save another person? It's not like you don't have two of them.

The trolley problem is never easy. However it does point out the distinction between not saving another human, and actively causing them violence resulting in death. I would say that your bodily autonomy ends with your body, and when you start talking about killing another. This would be the difference between a lack of saving, vs killing. For instance, if someone instead of not saving the dying man, shoots them, it is still murder.

[Rev. Rye]

I’d be lying my ass off if I said abortion wasn’t an unpleasant thing. The thing is, if you really want to make it stop being a thing, here’s a little spiel by a former social worker about how to make that a reality (and I’ll give you a hint, it’s not by making laws like the one in the OP.)

Let me tell you some things.

I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world.

First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty. Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child. Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it?

Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that?

End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening? I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either?

You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count?

And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.)

In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born!

Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle. You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours. Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage?

“Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.

And if you want to see how a law like the one in Iowa is going to end up if it gets passed, just look up Gerri Santoro. Her Wikipedia page has a photo of exactly what happens to a depressingly high number of women when they can’t have an abortion done by someone who knows what they’re doing. And just be glad I can’t find any high quality versions of that photo online.

[vorlon13]

I doubt this law stands the test. I see it as a political ploy to appease the christian right, nothing more. The gov gets to say "well at least I tried". 

If I'm correct, that makes this a really sad commentary on the  US political landscape.

Welfare for lawyers.

State is throwing their favorite constituency some work. Sounds good to the Christians they pander to also. I can assure you personally there are damn few Iowa state legislators that would meet any reasonable (from his viewpoint) Mr. Vander Plaatz's Christian piety standards he might care to test them on.

(he's the one that tried to shame Newt Gingrich on his open and notorious adultery, back in the day a few years ago when there were still a few Christians holding a rear guard action on that all too soon to be acceptable sin)