> The issue that I'm raising is that sometime after conception and before
> full term, a foetus is viable outside the mother's body. Given that this
> is the case, does a woman have the right to end a life that could
> continue outside her body? Or is that possibly a space in which society
> has a voice.
>
> I'm not arguing for a particular resolution to this issue; I'm just
> saying that at the point where a foetus is viable without the mother, we
> enter an area where it's not a hangnail or a polyp.
>
> I am also not arguing that God wants eight month old foetuses to be
> aborted -- though the Sacrifice of Isaac comes close to that -- I'm just
> saying that at the point where the foetus is viable, can a woman for any
> reason whatsoever, choose to have it killed.
>
> I understand that this covers a very, very small percentage of cases,
> but I was irritated by the blanket statement (not coincidentally made by
> males) that a foetus can be killed whenever and for the hell of it.
>
> I can follow the logic of an idea as well as anyone. But a foetus is not
> an idea.
>
> Joanna
Since the time frame you write of where the fetus could be viable
outside the womb varies from one fetus to the next it seems an easier
proposition to define "birth" than set a time frame within the womb. Not
that defining birth is necessarily easy.
I'm not certain why you object to the idea of "for the hell of it".
Surely you don't imagine you should have any say in another womans
decision to have an abortion? If you have no say then if her reason is
"for the hell of it" then that will suffice. In order to protect
abortion rights they must be absolute otherwise you will have what we
currently have. A slow erosion of those rights over time as the
legitimacy of some reasons are called into question..
The reality is the chances of a woman deciding to abort for the hell of
it are so exceedingly slim it makes little sense to object to it unless
your objective is to open the door for addition restrictions based on
the legitimacy of a womans reasoning.
John Thornton