The 'Safe, Legal and Rare' Lie

[TitanTiger 21,064]

We know that women have legal rights when it comes to their bodies. It seems to me that unless we give the unborn legal rights THAT TAKE PRECEDENT over a woman's right to control her own body, then you cannot really protect the unborn. The point of protecting animals even though they don't have legal rights is a good one, but protecting an animal doesn't infringe on another person's legal rights, as far as I can tell.

We all have rights that under normal circumstances can't be abrogated...unless the exercising of those rights unjustly harms another. It's not that the unborn child's rights take precedent OVER a woman's rights regarding her body, it's that her rights do have limits when the exercise of those rights harm the other human being in the equation. This is normal across the board, not just in the reproductive realm.

[au2004ece 30]

We know that women have legal rights when it comes to their bodies. It seems to me that unless we give the unborn legal rights THAT TAKE PRECEDENT over a woman's right to control her own body, then you cannot really protect the unborn. The point of protecting animals even though they don't have legal rights is a good one, but protecting an animal doesn't infringe on another person's legal rights, as far as I can tell.

Regarding physicians, the way I see it is that a physician's responsibility is to his/her patient, first and foremost. If a physician competently performs an approved, legal procedure on his/her patient then I do not see how that physician should be subject to any disciplinary action, even if the result of the procedure is death to a fetus. Once again, this is a legal matter. Whether the physician has any guilt related to performing the procedure seems irrelevant. If abortions are outlawed then physicians who perform them should be prosecuted.

Women don't have rights to take any drugs they choose without a doctors prescription, so we already limit peoples rights to "control their bodies". I was outlining how I would change the law to attack the abortion issue (de-license doctors that perform them for non-medical reasons). I understand that it is legal now and without a law change then there would be no disciplinary action.

You said "a physician's responsibility is to his/her patient, first and foremost". I would argue that opting to kill your unborn child, without an emergency need, is not a logical medical decision. Therefore, the doctor should reject the request and care for the patient in a manner that is consistent with logical behavior; just like a doctor would reject a request for something as little as antibiotics when I don't have an infection or something as serious as a request to be turned into a quadriplegic (I saw a lady on National Geographic that wanted to become a quadriplegic but no doctor would perform the surgery to make her one)...when a patient is insane or incapable of being logical, they are not allowed to make decision consenting to surgery. I see choosing to kill your unborn child in the same light.