Post Roe - abortions increase

My poorly worded point has little to do with abortions. I understand the nature of what normally constitutes a third trimester abortion. My point was, if in my judgment, the rational argument that life begins somewhere between conception and birth, I have empathy for those that say conception, even though I disagree. And basically have none for anyone who would say birth (even though no-one really says that.)

 

Fun Fact: historian Ken Burns once remarked that slaveholders were the pro-choicers of their time.

 

Life, strictly speaking begins at conception. But life by itself is a pretty low bar.

 

We here today seem to all agree that babies that are already born deserve the protection of personhood, but not even this value has been shared by all human societies. I think we rightly find such norms barbaric, but that they existed shows that the bounds of personhood are not innately self-evident.

 

Though short-lived, sperm and egg are also considered living by virtually all definitions. There is no necessity to be diploid to be alive. In fact, whenever one sees a green moss, that green plant is actually the haploid (one chromosome copy) part of their lifecycle. The part they spend as diploid organisms with both maternal and paternal chromosomes is actually a just a fraction of their lives represented by temporary stalks that grow from the middle of the green plant bodies.

 

That is sad and way too restrictive.

 

Even that isn't a scientific consensus.

 

FAKE NEWS.... Abortions actually decreased by over 20,000

 

More evidence abortions are up

 

How SCOTUS ignored precedent and politicized the issue is one of the most disgusting decisions in its history.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/19/abortion-medication-mifepristone-63-percent/

The number of yearly abortions in the United States rose by 10 percent between 2020 and 2023, while medication abortions became more common than ever, according to a report published Tuesday by a research and advocacy group that favors abortion rights.

The Guttmacher Institute found that there were more than 1 million U.S. abortions last year, the first time since 2012 that the tally crossed that threshold. The group also reported that medication abortions made up 63 percent of those performed during that time, or about 642,700 procedures, up from 53 percent in 2020.


The rise in both numbers in the first full year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade comes as more than a dozen states have largely banned abortion, and as the Supreme Court weighs whether it will restrict mifepristone, a key pill that is part of the two-drug regimen used in medication abortions. Oral arguments in that case are scheduled for March 26, further elevating the issue of abortion, which Democrats have seized on ahead of the 2024 election.



“This increase demonstrates that people continue to seek and obtain abortion care despite the drastic reduction in abortion access in many states,” wrote the report’s authors. They noted the estimates are likely an undercount since the numbers do not include abortions that took place outside the “formal health care system” or abortion pills mailed to people in states with total bans. The report said the abortion rate for women and girls ages 15 to 44 increased to 15.7 abortions per 1,000 women, up from 14.4 per 1,000 in 2020.

 

I guess those “freedom states” are going to have to start screening people’s mail. Just in case.