That article mixes up the moral and legal principles of the abortion law, and access in practice. In terms of moral and legal principles, Roe was indeed an outlier. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly declined to find a “right” to abortion, leaving it to member nations legislatures. Most European countries don’t recognize abortion as a “right” either. (Indeed, German law recognizes a right to life and abortion is technically only decriminalized there.) Abortion law in Europe thus reflects a range of legislative choices. In that sense, Dobbs is consistent with the law in the US.
Moreover, only a small minority of countries allow elective abortions in the second trimester. Most draw the line for elective abortions at the end of the first trimester (at which point the baby has a face and looks like a baby).
What's deceptive about this comment (whether you intended that or not) is that later-term abortions are rare, expensive, and almost exclusively performed because of grave health concerns, most often because of detected fetal abnormality.
The term "elective" is slippery: in ordinary medical usage, "elective" means "not time sensitive" (as we all learned during COVID, when a wide variety of surgeries nobody realized were "elective" turned out to be). In the context of abortion, the term often (but not always) means "when not required to save the life of the mother".
At any rate: it is not the case that mainstream European abortion limitations prevent later-term abortions in cases of fetal abnormality (or, for that matter, to protect maternal health). But that's exactly what many of the restrictions you're defending in the US do.
You once wrote a post about how neither pole of US politics trusts the other to resolve hot-button political questions; gun control can't happen because Republicans don't trust Democrats not to grab all the guns, and an abortion compromise can't happen because Democrats don't trust Republicans to force women to carry gravely abnormal fetuses to term. That was a problem for you then, and isn't now.
At any rate, it is not acceptable to call in bomb threats to my local library (as happened a week or two ago) because of your culture-war concerns about abortion.
I'll add to my excellent sibling comment that you just composed a rebuttal that ignored the substance of my comment. You say "we should be able to agree to ban them like they do in civilized countries". But the point of my comment is they don't ban those abortions. To support your argument, you composed another deceptive comparison, between Denmark and Canada. Both allow the abortions we're discussing. But several US states do not.
I think it’s fairly clear from my post I’m using “elective abortions” to refer to abortions performed for reasons other than medical reasons (health of mother, fetal abnormality). As you note, Denmark does allow abortions for both of those conditions after 12 weeks, but generally prohibits abortions after 12 weeks for other reasons. It has a second+ trimester abortion rate of 4%. By contrast, Canada allows abortions after 12 weeks for non-health reasons. It has a second+ trimester abortion rate of 17%. Since both countries allow second trimester abortions for health reasons, it stands to reason that a large fraction of later abortions in Canada are for other reasons that don’t justify an abortion in Denmark.
Guttmacher acknowledges that “data suggest that most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.“ (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1363/4521013). That is consistent with the Denmark-Canada statistics above.
I haven’t mentioned any specific US abortion laws, so I’m not sure how you can say I’m “defending” them. I’m talking about the moral principle that’s accepted in Denmark and Germany and France that a second trimester fetus is sufficiently developed that it cannot be killed simply because the woman does not wish to be pregnant. That’s a principle that (1) American liberals aren’t willing to accept; and (2) which does not depend on the frequency of that outcome.
My post is expressly about “Roe” being an “outlier” in terms of requiring that abortion be available for non-medical reasons into the second trimester.
I’m not sure how you could interpret my post as being about the official “GOP” policy plank, since that’s long been a total ban which is obviously more restrictive than the laws in Europe. It that doesn’t change the fact that the European laws embody a meaningfully different moral judgment than does Roe about when the fetus is sufficiently developed that you shouldn’t be able to kill it without a heightened showing.
I don't mean to bird dog you on this (well that's not true, I totally do) but you keep making these arguments and not engaging when the facts. I've lost count of the number of times I've pasted these stats to you. But hey, I'll do it again!
Providing elective abortion access is crucial as so many things can go wrong--especially in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters [3]--and you really can't enumerate them all.
> If the rate were driven by medical reasons, it should be similar in Denmark and Canada.
But let's try! Why do people have second trimester abortions? Ironically, it's mostly an access issue [4], but there are other reasons [5] [6]:
- microcephaly and other fetal anomalies are typically only detectable in the 2nd trimester
- many people can't get the time off or can't get the funds (abortion is expensive for many people)
- waiting periods can force people into the 2nd trimester
- delayed recognition of pregnancy and delayed confirmation of pregnancy with a pregnancy test
- logistical delays occurred in arranging insurance to pay for the abortion
- problems locating a provider and time lost due to an inappropriate initial referral (abortion clinics are busy)
In truth, we already mostly have what Americans want [7]:
- 79.3% of abortions were performed at ≤9 weeks’ gestation
- nearly all (92.7%) were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation
And the other 7.3% aren't due to evil or cruelty, they're the result of the US' restrictive abortion regime and intense tragedy.
So we don't have to speculate about why people have 2nd trimester abortions; we know. And it turns out it's mostly just an access issue.
> There are over 60,000 abortions annually after the first trimester.
There are at least 3.5m pregnancies [8] annually in the US, plus between 650k-900k abortions [9], so this is < 2% of pregnancies. And again, there are lots of reasons for it.
Nothing you wrote addresses a “factual” disagreement between you and me. The distinction is a moral one: is a fetus that’s more than 12-14 weeks old sufficiently developed that it cannot be killed unless it has a developmental abnormality, or the pregnancy jeopardizes the health of the mother?
If you accept as true the premise that a healthy > 12 week fetus with a healthy mother is a human life that must be protected, it’s very difficult to say we should be able to kill it because the mother couldn’t afford the abortion earlier or couldn’t recognize the pregnancy earlier.
> If you accept as true the premise that a healthy > 12 week fetus with a healthy mother is a human life that must be protected
I'd be curious about your basis for that premise:
+ If the premise is axiomatic, then it seems to be purely a personal metaphysical- or religious belief, so it would seem hard to justify imposing that belief on others except from a might-makes-right worldview.
+ If the premise is based on the hypothesized mental capacity of such a fetus, do you hold the same belief about killing, say, already-born chimpanzees and other primates — whose mental capacity I would imagine is far superior to that of a >12-week fetus?
+ If the premise is based on the potential of a fetus, unlike a chimpanzee, to develop into a full-fledged human, then why not ban all abortions and post-fertilization contraceptives, e.g., Plan B and IUDs?
+ If (with a nod to Blackmun in Roe) the fetus's potential for further development must be balanced with the impact of pregnancy and motherhood on the mother, then why draw a one-size-fits-all line at 12 weeks, or for that matter any time before viability?
+ Finally: Before viability, it seems like the best idea to give the responsibility for making the decision to the mother who is "on the scene" — much as when a front-line squad leader in combat, not the general in the rear, must decide which of his- or her troops to send to attack a machine gun and likely be killed in the process. (I've long thought the "pro-choice" people should frame their arguments not as the woman's right to choose but as her terrible duty to choose.)
+ Relatedly, as a bad analogy that should strike a chord with you from your clerking stint: Appellate judges generally don't second-guess trial judges about how the latter run their cases except for abuse of discretion, on the theory that the trial judge is closest to the scene and in the best position to make judgment calls. Before viability, the same could be said about the mother.
> a healthy > 12 week fetus with a healthy mother is a human life that must be protected
I respect this position, though I don't myself hold it, because pregnancy is a huge risk and can change you forever, and it's not always your choice (assault, etc.)
> The distinction is a moral one: is a fetus that’s more than 12-14 weeks old sufficiently developed that it cannot be killed unless it has a developmental abnormality, or the pregnancy jeopardizes the health of the mother?
I think we do have a factual disagreement though, because this is really rare and is largely an access issue. Most people don't know how hard it is to get an abortion in the US, especially for girls or poor women. Here's some info from Planned Parenthood [0]:
- A 2005 survey of U.S. abortion providers found that among women who have non-hospital abortions, approximately 19 percent travel 50 to 100 miles for services, and an additional eight percent travel more than 100 miles
- As of 2011, 89 percent of U.S. counties had no known abortion provider; these counties are home to 38 percent of all women of reproductive age. (Jones and Jerman, 2014). Furthermore, in 2008, 97 percent of non-metropolitan counties have no abortion services, and 92 percent of non-metropolitan women live in these unserved counties.
- In 2000, the average cost of a first-trimester, in-clinic, non-hospital abortion with local anesthesia was $372 (Henshaw & Finer, 2003). In 2009 this cost was $451. The median cost of medication abortion, which can be done in the first 63 days of pregnancy, was $490 (Jones and Kooistra, 2011). For low-income and younger women, gathering the necessary funds for the procedure often causes delays. A recent study found that women at or under 100 percent of the federal poverty level were more likely than women at higher income levels to have second-trimester abortions (Jones and Finer, 2012). Compounding the problem is the fact that the cost of abortion rises with gestational age: in 2009, non- hospital facilities charged an average of $1,500 for abortion at 20 weeks (Jones and Kooistra, 2011). Most women are forced to pay for abortions out-of-pocket.
- Causing additional delays are state laws that mandate parental consent, notification, or court-authorized bypass for minors, and laws that impose required waiting periods. For example, after Mississippi passed a parental consent requirement, the ratio of minors to adults obtaining abortions after 12 weeks increased by 19 percent.
- Adolescents are more likely than older women to obtain abortions later in pregnancy... [c]ommon reasons why adolescents delay abortion until after the first trimester include fear of parents’ reaction, denial of pregnancy, and prolonged fantasies that having a baby will result in a stable relationship with their partners (Paul et al., 2009). In addition, adolescents may have irregular periods (Friedman et al., 1998), making it difficult for them to detect pregnancy.
This is why women's health organizations are pushing so hard for telemedicine and medication abortions, because various pro-life policies have tragically upped the rate of abortions after the 1st trimester. If the pro-life community really wanted to push down that last 7.3%, they should campaign for more funding for abortion clinics, medicaid coverage of abortions, repeal of parental consent and waiting period laws, more access to mifepristone, and so on.
Whenever I find myself in conversation with members of the pro-life community I'm just depressed by the amount of misinformation they labor under, in particular the prevailing belief that there are significant numbers of women having abortions in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters "for no good reason". You're even trying to show here that it is the case by pointing out a discrepancy between Canada and Denmark and inferring, but we have clear evidence it isn't. It just isn't true. This is our factual disagreement.
IME there are two major parts of the pro-life community: those who are fine w/ 1st trimester abortions and those who aren't. The 2nd group is thrilled with Dobbs and is actively pushing for state and national abortion bans. The 1st group is having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that we actually had the regime we wanted pre-Dobbs: 92.7% of abortions occur in the 1st trimester, and the overwhelming majority of those that don't are for "good" reasons. They hear these bonkers stories of teen girls forced to give birth or receiving jail time for trying to get mifepristone, or women forced to go septic before they're allowed to have an abortion, and they can't square it with what they were told by the pro-life movement. My hope is that they realize they were led down the garden path by a craven political party's compulsive demagoguery, and they continue to make the GOP pay at the ballot box.
> I think we do have a factual disagreement though, because this is really rare and is largely an access issue.
No, it’s a moral dispute because the factual issue is immaterial under the other side’s moral view. The fact that it’s hard or expensive to get an abortion doesn’t justify killing a fetus that has a face and can feel pain. Likewise, it doesn’t matter how rare it is. Infanticide in general is rare, that’s not a reason to legalize it at the discretion of the mother.
When it comes to ending human life, we just don’t entertain the kinds of arguments you’re making about “access.” It doesn’t matter. So the crux of the dispute is what you think about the act of killing a fetus at different stages of development. The weight of any reasons for doing so looks completely different depending on that starting point.
> Whenever I find myself in conversation with members of the pro-life community I'm just depressed by the amount of misinformation they labor under
I find myself in the same position when talking with pro-abortion people who think a fetus is a “clump of cells.” I was floored when my wife got pregnant with our first child and I realized how many weeks there were between when the fetus looks human and when Roe allowed states to stop doctors from killing it. Growing up in a pro-abortion area I had never been taught that information.
> in particular the prevailing belief that there are significant numbers of women having abortions in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters "for no good reason".
No, the fundamental issue is that we disagree about what constitutes a “good reason” for a killing a fetus at an advanced stage of development.
> You're even trying to show here that it is the case by pointing out a discrepancy between Canada and Denmark and inferring, but we have clear evidence it isn't.
If you think that the only “good reason” to kill a fetus in the second or third trimester is that the mother’s health is in jeopardy, or that the baby will not live, then the comparison of Denmark and Canada is extremely illuminating. Both countries have widespread abortion access in the first trimester, and both countries allow abortions after 12 weeks for medical reasons. But Canada allows abortions after the first trimester because the woman no longer wishes to be pregnant, while Denmark does not. Canada this has 17% of abortions occurring after the first trimester, while in Denmark it’s just 4%. From the perspective of Danish law, most of the second and third trimester abortions in Canada are not happening for “good reasons” (assuming the probability of later stage medical issues is similar in both countries).
And the “compulsive demagoguery” comment is just bizarre. The scientific fact is that each human individual starts out as a cell that has a good chance of being spontaneously aborted, and develops into a baby that everyone agrees is entitled to all the protections of any other human. Drawing a line where it’s okay to kill an alive, biologically human organism is fraught and is the subject of disputes all over the world. Even countries that have legal abortion don’t agree on the reasons (individual rights in the west, population control in Asia). In my home country it’s illegal except to save the life of the mother. But it’s tacitly accepted as population control for poor people up to 10 weeks. An effort to legalize it for population control reasons failed in 1976. It’s not something the GOP ginned up to get votes FFS.
> It’s not something the GOP ginned up to get votes FFS.
You're wrong on this one. The GOP is unbelievably craven and corrupt. Paul Weyrich (founder of the super successful conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation) explicitly demagogued the abortion issue to activate evangelical voters and create a large conservative voting bloc (with the ultimate end of creating segregated Christian schools) [0]. He wrote about it himself; he's proud of it.
You're saying it's immoral to abort a fetus after the 1st trimester outside of the typical exceptions (assault, life of the birthing person, etc.). I'm saying that almost never happens, and you're saying even so it should still be illegal.
I think what you're missing is that it's probably impossible to craft such a prohibition bill that still protects the birthing person, because again the cases where abortions occur after the 1st trimester are innumerable. You can say you don't care, or that you value the fetus more than the birthing person, but I don't think it's useful to equate it with "infanticide... at the discretion of the mother". That's wildly out of bounds here. It's an extremely high stakes, complex issue and both sides deserve respect.
I think you need to think through exactly what that regime would look like because, and I'll say it again, we already had it. For some reason you really want there to be a law, but that law wouldn't change the numbers, and it wouldn't have many important exceptions. As a result, women would still seek abortions in unexempted cases (both "good" and "bad"), the same number of overall abortions would happen, all that would change is that more desperate women/girls and caregivers would go to prison, and more desperate women/girls would hurt themselves seeking unsafe abortions.
> When it comes to ending human life, we just don’t entertain the kinds of arguments you’re making about “access.”
You're missing my point. If you're serious about your position ("we want as many abortions as possible to happen only in the 1st trimester") then you need to dramatically increase the access to abortion in the 1st trimester. That's what you should be all over HN posting about. A draconian abortion ban won't do what you want.
> From the perspective of Danish law, most of the second and third trimester abortions in Canada are not happening for “good reasons”
Again you're not responding to the facts I've laid out for you. There are lots of other potential reasons for this (access, primarily), and your only evidence for this is your inference, which is no evidence at all. This is a classic post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which you're stubbornly making even in the face of other more parsimonious explanations. I don't know why you insist on believing there's a significant population of women out there that are doing this, but you've yet to show any evidence for it.
Moreover, only a small minority of countries allow elective abortions in the second trimester. Most draw the line for elective abortions at the end of the first trimester (at which point the baby has a face and looks like a baby).