We allow? We meaning who exactly? Who the hell are we to make decisions like that?
This is what you don't seem to get fulhamish. Women's bodies are not yours to impose your will upon. I don't know what WE should allow or disallow, and for what reasons we should choose to do so. I just don't think we're in a position to make decisions like that for other people.

@Mafia. I am pleased you raised the question of ''the law'', free will and choice. Of course the law lies at the heart of the matter. Or is that all necessarily subjective too?

Fulham is the Commandant in Charge of Women's Ovaries and he can't see why anybody has any issue with this.

So abortions at term minus one week should be solely at the discretion of the woman, is that you view?

So you're basically asking me, what reasons do I think are valid reasons for women to have an abortion? I want to know why we know what their reasons are at all. Why are asking women why they want abortions in the first place? I think the only question we have any right to ask is "Do you want an abortion? Yes/no."

"that absolute rather than subjective right and wrong behaviour is real, now where I have I heard that before? Maybe we should reach for that big black book on our shelves?"

And women's health, privacy and autonomy are of no concern according to your absolutist sense of right and wrong, an absolutism which you have not justified in the least bit?

@fulhamish - The law? What law? There are number of laws, and a number of different systems of law. You're going to have to be more specific. Do I think law is subjective? Ummm, well it's certainly not infallible. Laws change and reflect the standards and social norms of the time, so in that regard of course laws are subjective.

And yes, it is my view that abortions should be at the discretion of the woman in question. There's not some magical point in a pregnancy after a certain amount of months or something where a woman's uterus becomes public property. It's still a part of her body.

Mafia, did you get my last question?

"So abortions at term minus one week should be solely at the discretion of the woman, is that you view? "

Is it your view that as soon as a zygote resides within a woman's bodies she forfeits her right to control her own person and is now a ward of the state which you can compel to carry fetuses to term like livestock?

Anything inside a woman's body is under her jurisdiction. Not yours. Period. Are you willing to give up your body to control of MafiaAlligator? Or the State? I ask again, what have you done to help women with pre-natal care? With making contraception available? How have you contributed to alleviating this horror of abortion other than by demanding women forfeit control of their bodies and their own health decisions to you, Dr. Fulham?

OK so who is going to perform these abortions at term minus 1 week? Have you thought about the affects on the medical staff involved in delivering/terminating live viable babies. What exactly do we do with these births, euthanasia, maybe? Hippocratic oath anyone?
Your position is now clear and, in my view, absolutely wrong.

"Mafia, did you get my last question? "

He answered it.

I believe I answered your last question. I said I believe abortions are up to the discretion of the woman getting the abortion. It was my intent that all abortions be included and read into that statement. Because of my approach to the issue, I do not think it is useful to draw a distinction between late term and early term abortions, because I do not believe there is a point in pregnancy at which a woman's body stops belonging to her.

"Have you thought about the affects on the medical staff involved in delivering/terminating live viable babies."

Since when have pro-lifers cared about the well-being of healthcare providers involved in abortion services? Was the blockade of the Kansas clinic and ultimate assassination of George Tiller supposed to be a metaphorical love note to these people? You people are always willing use others feelings who you have no concern about as pawns in your little game.

Late term abortions are only done in the rarest of cases when the health of the mother is at risk. This fact you continually ignore because it's easier to behave hysterically like Operation Rescue than address the facts.

"Your position is now clear and, in my view, absolutely wrong. "

Oh well, since you declared it to be so. It must be true.

So she owns the incubator. Does that mean she has a right to evict a baby who has been there for more than 8 months? There has to be a point where we say "you had enough time to decide to abort, now you are contractually obligated to finish what you started". I'm not saying she can't get an abortion, but the moment the child becomes viable outside of the womb, it most certainly has a right to life that superceeds her right to choice. Can you honestly say that she hasn't had plenty of opportunity up to that point to decide to terminate? I mean 8 months worth of time? 35 weeks? That isn't enough for her to decide ":Hey, I don't want to be a mommy."

Mafia did you get my last question, did someone else say something?

"Mafia did you get my last question, did someone else say something? "

Stop muting people and maybe you wouldn't come off as a buffoon who keeps repeating questions that are answered a gazillion times.

"OK so who is going to perform these abortions at term minus 1 week? Have you thought about the affects on the medical staff involved in delivering/terminating live viable babies." - Naturally doctors would not be forced to perform medical procedures. That would be very unsafe for the patients.

And they're not births, they're abortions. I'm so tired of you constantly trying to redefine everything in this debate to suit your needs. "They're not aborted fetuses, they're just preterm births that nobody loved!"

Look, what sort of woman is going to put herself through nearly 9 months of pregnancy, and then just abort the fetus a week before birth on a whim? Leaving aside the possibility of severe mental illness, that's not a decision someone is going to make lightly, and it's not the kind of decision you could possibly understand without going through it yourself. Throughout this debate you have never once tried to think what it must be like to be a pregnant woman.

"Can you honestly say that she hasn't had plenty of opportunity up to that point to decide to terminate? I mean 8 months worth of time? 35 weeks? That isn't enough for her to decide ""

The situations which lead to late-term abortions are not as you depict. As has been said multiple times, late-term abortions are rare and highly regulated. The situations are usually very grave indeed, and it's not just women capriciously changing their mind about carrying to term. For example in Kansas where the assassinated George Tiller worked, he performed late-term abortions in cases where fetuses either had fatal birth defects or where giving birth would cause irreparable harm to the woman giving birth. Why can't anti-abortionists acknowledge this for once?

Furthermore the causes of harm to the mother required two unaffiliated doctors to sign off saying that birth would indeed cause serious harm. The late-term issue is just a ruse, because it's not as if Fulham & co approve of any-term abortions.

Actually as of last night fulhamish was gracious enough to allow abortions up to 12 weeks. Anything beyond that though and there's apparently no difference between an abortion and killing a premature baby.

Well what is missing is the answer to the question what do we do with live babies produced as a result of abortions.

Putin I haven't muted you, I just don't care to respond to you, because of your rudeness and arrogance. Have a nice day.

Yes I did think 12 weeks a reasonable compromise this morning, that's correct. I still feel the same this evening.

"This is what you don't seem to get fulhamish. Women's bodies are not yours to impose your will upon. I don't know what WE should allow or disallow, and for what reasons we should choose to do so. I just don't think we're in a position to make decisions like that for other people."

*long sigh* Unless fetuses are humans, and then, THEIR bodies aren't for women to make a decision over. And yes, I know we disagree about this, but why keep ignoring the fact that it's the controlling, relevant thing (and that we probably can't come to agreement over it given our differences)?

"Essentially what I'm trying to say is, I find it curious that when humans sit down and try to decide what species have value and which ones do not, we always come up with ways of measuring this that conclude that humans are better than everything else. In most cases we'd call that a conflict of interests, and yet somehow with this question, the same rules don't seem to apply."

Well, there aren't any other species who can discuss it with us. One of those differences. We're also the only species that can sit and worry and discuss whether we're mistreating other species. The possibility exists that we really are the most special, under what people mean when they say that word.

"How do humans escape the determinism of the state of the universe and the past & present? And I thought Christians believed that all outcomes were predetermined and controlled by the omniscient deity, or is the deity not omniscient and all-powerful? I've never understand this weird combination of an omnipotent & omniscient deity + supposedly fully autonomous individuals in control of their own actions. It's like a square circle. "

The universe is not fully deterministic. Welcome to 20th century physics.

As for the latter question, there is no inconsistency between God knowing something and His allowing somebody else to freely determine that thing. Nor is there any contradiction between His autonomously choosing to put certain decisions in the hands of another.

"Well you wouldn't explain what in god's image meant, so you were spoken for by your colleague there."

Actually, nobody had asked me that by the time I went to bed.

If there were a simple test, I would have given it instead. I specifically pointed out I was using a theological concept that most here would not agree with. That said, it's something that comprehends morality, free will, knowledge, language, yet is more than those and more unified. Something that we can easily recognize but not easily describe.

"There is no force that can keep us in check and in balance except ourselves."

And we're the only species of which that's true. How is that not special?

In any case as you advocate no time limits at all there is no compromise to be had.

"Unless fetuses are humans, and then, THEIR bodies aren't for women to make a decision over." - They are biologically speaking human life forms of course. They are not however, people in any meaningful sense of the term. If you feel, in spite of all logic and evidence to the contrary, that they are, fine, don't have an abortion next time you get pregnant.

"I just don't care to respond to you, because of your rudeness and arrogance."

Nor, evidently, to MafiaAlligator, who responded to your question three different times and yet you continued to act as if you had a hearing aid in a text conversation. I guess it's ok for *you* to be rude and arrogant.

"Well what is missing is the answer to the question what do we do with live babies produced as a result of abortions. "

No it's not missing because the born alive tales are myths propagated by professional liars.

"Yes I did think 12 weeks a reasonable compromise this morning, that's correct. I still feel the same this evening. "

And I'm you have the medical license to make these arbitrary determinations regardless of circumstance, complications or health problems, right? And all these anti-choice laws which require waiting periods and run-arounds, I suppose if women are subjected to delays that cause them to overstep this arbitrary deadline they're SOL right?

I'm sorry, I do advocate no time limits, but even then, 12 weeks is ridiculous. That's still a full 9 weeks away from the earliest preterm baby ever to survive, who was born at 21 weeks. That's exactly half the actual limit of viability, the point at which a preterm baby has a 50% chance of survival when given the most aggressive treatment humanly possible. By any reasonable, non faith based metric, 12 weeks is an absurd time limit.

I propose the 12 week limit because, in terms of pregnancies produced by rape, it is ample enough margin.