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[MetalSlimeHunt]

People are completely ignorant and/or in denial over the reality of the medical practice, especially when it comes to death. This is exactly the same reflexive and delusional reaction that gave us the Baker Act and that causes terminally ill people across this country to die in torturous agony every day.

The people protesting these laws would freeze in their fucking seats if they were ever asked to choose between one life or another, but they have infinite energy to lie and disparage the people who have to do that having legal protections? Someone that hypocritical doesn't have a right to their opinion.

[smjjames]

Theres a massive difference between someone at the end of their life and one which has just begun, but that doesn't make the ethics any less complicated. Actually, it'd make the ethics even more complicated, but it's definetly a discussion worth having as a society.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The situations are different, but the bad social instinct underpins all of them. "Keep grandma alive", anti-abortion, and mental health imprisonment all carry a single root in the wish to preserve the unrealistic lifestyle Americans have impressed upon us from a young age. Not a problem unique to the US, but it's certainly more pronounced here, and it has immense consequences.

[Dunamisdeos]

Not sure if this is what you meant, but it looks like a number of medical professionals have come out against it. I don't think this is the usual moralizing-from-a-safe-distance stuff that people often use to deal with abortion that you're referencing. We're not dealing with crackpots on the other side of this one.

I can also speak somewhat as to being in the position of having a baby with severe disability and keeping them. My brother had a truly ridiculous volume of disabilities at birth, due to some pre-existing problems but mostly due to extreme complication at birth. We had to use an extra blank sheet to fill in his medical history when taking him to a new doctor. He was not supposed to live past a week, but made it to 11 before unfortunately passing away in an unrelated accident some 20 years ago. I feel like if you had let him know that maybe it would have been better for society to let him die at birth he would not have been in favor of the idea. I can even say that a number of currently used techniques were pioneered with him as a test subject and are successfully in use today, without children like him there are undoubtedly some people alive today who either wouldn't be or would be a vegetable.

That's why I feel like terminating a viable baby due to disability is so remarkably ignorant as a society. They don't have to grow up to be doctors, lawyers, and senators to have real contributions to humanity.

[Max™]

skub justice warriors

Fuck off my skub corals!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

-snip-

That's not what I'm talking about, no. Not even remotely.

What I'm talking about is that shit happens and people die. That doctors and patients are often faced with impossible choices like a late-term abortion or a slow and painful death, and the whole time we have an entire country worth of cheerleaders who refuse to accept that sometimes people die calling them murderers for taking on a burden that they don't have to. Or in this case, being provided hypothetical legal coverage so that they will not be prosecuted as murderers for being the one to take on that burden. The same could be said for those who are terminally ill and suffering, who themselves or by proxy often have to play a cat-and-mouse game of metaphor to receive effective palliative care when that care verges on the tripline of "suicide" that will bring out the cheerleaders. And outside of the states that permit medically-assisted suicide, that's the best case scenario. The worst is the patient stripped of the right to direct the end of their life, being subjected to the full force of medical science by an emotionally insolvent family and their lawyers.

It is good that your brother had a chance to live. As many people should have that chance as possible, which does not conflict with my position, that being that the law should not entrap people who are already facing great hardship.

[Dunamisdeos]

Gotcha, then we are in full agreement on that point. The part I was trying to clarify about what you said was where you said that "The people protesting these laws would freeze in their fucking seats if they were ever asked to choose between one life or another". I think there is an unprecedented number of demonstrably experienced people who are in opposition to these bills, from what other people have posted.

I don't think we have a situation where people are being prosecuted for having that procedure, though. Remember we're talking about infants in regards to this bill, not grown adults with the capacity to make their own choice, and we aren't talking about rolling back existing abortion laws. I think that unless the infant is very clearly not viable for life in any capacity, termination of their life should not be a thing we endorse as a society. I understand your position on assisted suicide/self termination, but I don't think that intersects with the question in regards to infants.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I find the intersection in the social sphere. The outrage about those seeking medical suicide comes from a similar place to the outrage about those seeking abortion (in general, not just this law) and the frantic support to essentially imprison mentally ill people. That is to say, American culture is profoundly ignorant about death and dying, and will do anything to ward off confronting the reality of it.

In this specific case, I can't say with certainty that the experts in opposition to the law are a strike against it. We've certainly seen in other fields how entire bases of "expert" support can be drawn up from the void, including for abortion ("doctors proved the baby can feel pain at five weeks"). At this point in time, I have a heuristic to assume anything Republicans oppose in the realm of abortion law is both correct and necessary. It would be a dramatic change for this one to be different.

[Gentlefish]

When it comes to voluntary euthanasia we will have to deal with people under the age of minority with terminal illnesses as well. Whatever that terminal illness is.

Legally, parents have full medical decision making up to the age of 14, where the child can then make decisions necessary to their health. Will those 14 to 17 be able to choose euthanasia if they're diagnosed with a terminal illness?

And what about any child under the age of 14 with a painful terminal disease where their parents refuse their wishes?

I'm happy your brother lived for so long, and I understand it's a decision you would likely never make and I respect that. But some people would rather terminate a third-trimester pregnancy than wrestle with an extremely costly "maybe" and they should not have that choice made for them.

[smjjames]

Plus LW posted an article saying that late term (as in third trimester or possibly post viability) abortions are so rare as to be just about nonexistent and are delivered by emergency c-section if it was neccesary, so, while I get your point about representing those that have to actually make the decisions and do it, third term abortions are all but nonexistent.

Gotcha, then we are in full agreement on that point. The part I was trying to clarify about what you said was where you said that "The people protesting these laws would freeze in their fucking seats if they were ever asked to choose between one life or another". I think there is an unprecedented number of demonstrably experienced people who are in opposition to these bills, from what other people have posted.

I don't think we have a situation where people are being prosecuted for having that procedure, though. Remember we're talking about infants in regards to this bill, not grown adults with the capacity to make their own choice, and we aren't talking about rolling back existing abortion laws. I think that unless the infant is very clearly not viable for life in any capacity, termination of their life should not be a thing we endorse as a society. I understand your position on assisted suicide/self termination, but I don't think that intersects with the question in regards to infants.

The problem with defining 'very clearly not viable for life in any capacity' is that medicine has advanced so much that babies 100 or even 200 years ago who might be defined as 'clearly not viable for life in any capacity' could be treated and thrive today. In another 100 years, who knows where 'very clearly not viable for life in any capacity' would be.

And sometimes they just beat expectations as you gave in the example of your brother.

[Gentlefish]

These days it's about 20 weeks since we've successfully had a child survive after 21 weeks. Beyond this will probably require synthetic wombs.

[smjjames]

Well yeah, theres not viable in the sense of 'not developed enough to survive outside the womb even if the baby is otherwise totally healthy' and theres not viable in the sense of 'has so many disabilities or the deformities are so severe that they wouldn't survive long outside the life support of the womb'.

[smjjames]

In a segue back to politics, for all the 'unity' the WH is touting over the speech, Trump is apparently complaining that the speech is too soft on Democrats.

[Baffler]

I find the intersection in the social sphere. The outrage about those seeking medical suicide comes from a similar place to the outrage about those seeking abortion (in general, not just this law) and the frantic support to essentially imprison mentally ill people. That is to say, American culture is profoundly ignorant about death and dying, and will do anything to ward off confronting the reality of it.

In this specific case, I can't say with certainty that the experts in opposition to the law are a strike against it. We've certainly seen in other fields how entire bases of "expert" support can be drawn up from the void, including for abortion ("doctors proved the baby can feel pain at five weeks"). At this point in time, I have a heuristic to assume anything Republicans oppose in the realm of abortion law is both correct and necessary. It would be a dramatic change for this one to be different.

What it sounds like is you're choosing to pathologize the opposition instead of addressing the very serious marks against this policy. Others have already pointed out that medically necessary late-term abortions are both extraordinarily rare and more importantly already protected by New York law, and that a cesarean section is often the safer option anyway, so I won't bother to reiterate that; but it doesn't look like anyone has mentioned that NY (and Virginia's proposed parallel) are in violation of established case law and lawsuits against NY's have already been filed on those grounds. Both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey establish a viability standard, which the latter (and more recent) defines as "potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid" and defines it at ~23-24 weeks. Technology has improved since then, but that doesn't even matter because the third trimester is defined as 28 weeks to birth. It will most likely be struck down as a violation of the 14th amendment, and rightly so.

[Dunamisdeos]

Thanks for having a great discussion guys!!!
 
I guess Trump is worried that he doesn't get to shout enough? That seems to be part he's most into. Maybe someone is making him talk about the state of things in his state of the union address instead of just bashing Democrats straight through for for the duration.