It's not about a woman's right to do what she wants with her body.
It's about the baby's right to do do what it wants with its body.
If we could find a good way to reach an broad understanding about when a fetus becomes a person with the same rights the mother has, maybe we could satisfy a large percentage of the population with a set of laws protecting a fetus when, or if, it becomes a person.
We'd all agree this is sometime between conception and birth as that's the definition of the word fetus.
Now, I'd say if we had a machine that told us when the "soul" enters the fetus, we could satisfy the religious arguments pretty easily.
Such machines may actually exist but it's doubtful consensus between religious authorites, scientists, doctors and legislators could be reached :)
Doctors with a minor in philosophy might come to some agreement that a fetus is a person based upon certain characteristics like heart beat, EKG ability to feel pain etc. Like her, she looks philosophical
Some people rely on just the word definitions, if it's a fetus, it's not a person.
How many people have actually read Roe v Wade? From https://en.wikipedia.org The opinion of the court is very short and very sensible.
*The Court settled on the three trimesters of pregnancy as the framework to resolve the problem. During the first trimester, when it was believed that the procedure was safer than childbirth, the Court ruled that the government could place no restriction on a woman's ability to choose to abort a pregnancy other than minimal medical safeguards such as requiring a licensed physician to perform the procedure.[5] From the second trimester on, the Court ruled that evidence of increasing risks to the mother's health gave the state a compelling interest, and that it could enact medical regulations on the procedure so long as they were reasonable and "narrowly tailored" to protecting mothers' health.[5] Since the beginning of the third trimester was normally considered to be the point at which a fetus became viable under the level of medical science available in the early 1970s, the Court ruled that during the third trimester the state had a compelling interest in protecting prenatal life, and could legally prohibit all abortions except where necessary to protect the mother's life or health.[5] *
This thing about 3rd trimester abortions and having to kill live babies because the abortion was botched were not legalized by the Supreme Court. To me it's like felony murder, you know, you didn't intend to kill anyone but you were robbing a bank and if someone "accidentally" dies while you are doing it, you can be charged with murder. You know, you shouldn't be doing something so nasty, dangerous and distasteful. And we shouldn't change the law to make murder of actual LIVE NEWBORN BABIES LEGAL just to let you clean up your felony murder. That's like saying if you get caught trying to murder grandma for her money, then it's ok. She's half dead anyway (half a person) so it should be ok.
If a women doesn't want the child she needs to decide in the first trimester. If it was rape or incest uh, she would know by then. That should settle the issue of "a woman's right to decide".
If the baby is going to be born a mutation or whatever, the woman and the doctor both have to agree during the second trimester. That's sensible.
During the 3rd trimester it appears the Supreme Court is concerned with the child's life, implying at that point they consider the baby a person.
I think this is a reasonable balance between giving a woman control over her body and considering that the baby might be a person also who has the right to life. Women should not let the fetus develop into a person if they don't want it. Honestly, is it really that hard? And the longer she waits, the more traumatic the procedure is going to be for her.
And don't say I have no right to have an opinion on this because I'm not involved. If that were the standard to judge everyone's opinions or actions then none of us could say anything about injustice of any kind we see, unless it's happening to us personally.
Any questions?