And naturally no complications or health issues ever occur beyond 12 weeks. Glad Dr. Fulham here can decide for women what an "ample enough margin" is for their own medical health decisions.

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

Humans have special abilities. Bacteria have special abilities. Plants have special abilities. Whether this "specialness" means higher intrinsic worth as life forms is another matter.

What is alive. Lets go with Mrs Gren - Movement Respiration (sensu lato) Sensitivity Growth Reproduction Excretion Nutrition. So just as with foetus', prepubiscant children are not on grounds of reproduction, let's give mothers the option over them as well.

How is a late-term foetus terminated? Sucking out from the womb perhaps? Or maybe induced labour? Which would the supporters of the right to choose advocate? I stagger to think of these procedures being available to the term minus 1 week pregnancy, it's obscene.

If you want to see a lifeform with special abilities, look at Tardigrades. You can burn them, freeze them, irradiate them, shoot them into space, and they can still come back to life. They're virtually impossible to kill. And yet somehow no one seems to feel that microscopic water bears are made in God's image.

"I stagger to think of these procedures being available to the term minus 1 week pregnancy, it's obscene." Then don't have them performed on yourself whenever it happens that you end up getting pregnant.

"I stagger to think of these procedures being available to the term minus 1 week pregnancy, it's obscene. "

Keep repeating yourself and ignoring all counterpoints, with the excuse of "tone" and "rudeness" of course. You're never rude.

"So just as with foetus', prepubiscant children are not on grounds of reproduction, let's give mothers the option over them as well."

Was this supposed to make sense?

On live birth abortion, here is an example of one who got caught.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/doctor-loses-license-live-birth-abortion-article-1.392630
Apparently the practice is common -
http://www.beretta-online.com/wordpress/2011/jill-stanek-on-live-birth-abortion/

In my view it is absolutely wrong.

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

That's a matter of dispute.

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0212095

I'm trying to avoid quoting fulham so that I don't' have to put (sic) everywhere.

I'm sorry, did you just try to equate abortion with murdering prepubescent children? I suppose this absolutely ridiculous, and frankly, out of left field argument isn't an appeal to emotion however. It's a perfectly rational argument right? Saying "I know, lets murder 8 year olds", is totally reason based and not at all supposed to get my back up or something. There is a difference between a fetus and an 8 year old. If you are not aware of this fact, then you are operating at a level of intelligence and mental health so low, that debate with you is completely pointless.

Mafia in all seriousness do you say that live birth/vacuum evacuation on a 35/36/37/38 perhaps even 39 week foetus is something which you would leave entirely at the discretion of the mother. Would you wrap the live births in a blanket to suffocate them, what do you think is best? I apologise if I am repeating the question, I am just increasingly incredulous at your answer.

Ah yes Jill Stanek, the woman trying to incite violence on the few late-term abortion providerd, thinks Chinese people eat fetuses, and wants to ban contraception. The woman who is responsible for a cockamemie "born alive" bill that bans dilation & extraction, a procedure that is not limited to late-term abortions. Aces on the credibility of your star witness there, Dr. Fulham.

Well I am sorry that you do not want to discuss the definition of live, I would have thought that this lies at the heart of the matter.

I believe the choice to have an abortion is at the discretion of the woman having the abortion.
I believe the decision about the safest and best way to go about the actual mechanics of the procedure is definitely something a doctor should have input on, as they're actually the ones doing it. Obviously if this doctor feels there would be no way to perform the procedure safely, and that any attempt to abort the fetus would endanger the mother's health, that is a consideration to be taken into account as well.
But ultimately this is my stance, and it remains unchanged by your emotionally charged language, and I will repeat it as often as necessary. The choice to have an abortion is at the discretion of the woman having the abortion.

More information on the great Jill Stanek.

http://mediamatters.org/research/200808210078

I guess bigots, opponents of condom use, and defenders of domestic violence are heroes so long as they are useful in the effort to control women's bodies.

You will notice that in my statement of my stance on abortion, that I do not offer qualifications, or restrictions of any kind. You are therefore to interpret any and all kinds of abortion as included in the term "abortion" there. Because you seem to be unclear on this point.

Well there is always the alternative of the partial birth abortion I suppose. Here are the steps involved:
Specific steps in the most commonly used partial-birth abortion procedure, Dilation and Extraction, are:
1. A medical professional induces a breech (feet first) delivery with forceps.
2. Legs, arms and torso of the fetus are delivered (i.e. expelled from the mother).
3. The back of the fetus' skull is punctured with a scissors-like instrument.
4. A suction device is inserted into the skull.
5. The device sunctions out the contents of the fetus' skull, causing the skull to collapse.
6. The lifeless fetus is delivered.

http://usliberals.about.com/od/healthcare/i/PBAbortion.htm

There is no such thing as "live birth abortion" and every state on the books has laws requiring medical professionals to care for born babies. All Fulham does is appeal to emotion and make up nonsense questions, while absolving himself of any accountability on his own position.

D & E also decreases scarring, bleeding, and pain inside of a woman's uterus and vagina and allows the woman closure by being able to hold the in tact fetus. Partial Birth Abortion is a nonsense propaganda term that has no medical meaning.

D & X is dilation & extraction rather, D & E is dilation & evacuation. BTW the proper name for the procedure is "in tact dilation & extraction", a point conveniently left out of anti-choice rants.

Yes fulham. That is another way to perform a late term abortion. Why is this relevant to the discussion. Is one way of performing the procedure worse than any other? Or is this yet another attempt to elicit a response of revulsion. Because I'm sorry but whether or not people actually feel squeamish about the actual processes involved in a medical procedure is not an argument against a principled stand on an important issue.

Hell if you want to get into it, I don't think I'd make it through performing an open heart surgery without being grossed out by the contents of someone's chest cavity. Is this an argument against performing open heart surgery on people suffering from heart disease? I should certainly hope not.

On sex selection and abortion:
Lianyungang, a booming port city, has Chinas most extreme gender ratio for children under four: 163 boys for every 100 girls. These numbers dont seem terribly grim, but in ten years, the skewed sex ratio will pose a colossal challenge. By the time those children reach adulthood, their generation will have twenty-four million more men than women. The prognosis for Chinas neighbors is no less bleak: Asia now has 163 million females missing from its population. Gender imbalance reaches far beyond Asia, affecting Georgia, Eastern Europe, and cities in the U. S. where there are significant immigrant populations. The world, therefore, is becoming increasingly male, and this mismatch is likely to create profound social upheaval. Historically, eras in which there have been an excess of men have produced periods of violent conflict and instability. Mara Hvistendahl has written a stunning, impeccably-researched book that does not flinch from examining not only the consequences of the misbegotten policies of sex selection but Western complicity with them.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Unnatural-Selection-Mara-Hvistendahl/dp/1586488503/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323470892&sr=8-1

I should modify my previous post. My meaning was clear to me obviously, but I want to make my meaning clear to other people. It should read:
"Is one way of performing the procedure worse than any other (assuming you believe abortion is wrong)?"

"Can that somebody make a choice that contradicts what god knew beforehand? If not then it's not autonomy."

Sure it is. Think about what you had for breakfast yesterday. You know with complete certainty what it was. Does the fact that somebody at another point in time (you) knows what you did in any way compromise your freedom at that time? No.

Well, God can know the future as well as the past, but that does not change the analysis. What matters is who gets to decide something, not who knows it when.

"http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0212095 "

It's true, 't Hooft has his theory (filled with "may" all over the place, note), but it's widely regarded as crazy. Moreover, the room for non-deterministic theories of QM gets continually smaller. See e.g.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0604/0604079v1.pdf (especially 2.1, The Free State Theorem)
and
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1111.3328

"If you want to see a lifeform with special abilities, look at Tardigrades. You can burn them, freeze them, irradiate them, shoot them into space, and they can still come back to life. They're virtually impossible to kill. And yet somehow no one seems to feel that microscopic water bears are made in God's image."

First of all, the "God's image" thing was religiously based. What is and isn't in God's image is a matter of interpretation of text.

Second -- why so horrified at killing 8 year olds, then? I assume you wouldn't have the same problem killing these, if we could. Are 8 year olds more special or valuable than Tardigrades?

@ mafia, perhaps the revulsion you describe is more to do with the extinguishing of live, rather than the saving of it. I am sure that this is the basis of most thinking people's revulsion.

Anyway, moving on, you haven't given me your preference yet for dealing with that 39 month live birth. At the convicted doctor's practice which I referenced earlier, the preference seemed to be suffocation by wrapping in a blanket. That, however, was for 28 weeks apparently, maybe it wouldn't be so easy on the larger example?

8 year olds are sentient, sapient and self aware, and considerably more fragile than Tardigrades. That is why I think we should not irradiate them.

@ fulham - Yes, sex selection like that is a problem. Something that should not be happening. The most effective way to prevent sex selection is through the promotion of feminist ideals (including reproductive freedom) both in the western world and elsewhere in the world. If you follow what I've just said you'll realize I'm arguing that making abortion available is part of the process to PREVENT sex selection. Crazy! Except... perhaps if you look at it, you might understand how promoting the status of women as people with agency, rather than as walking, talking incubators for babies, might lead to greater respect for women.

fulhamish - Perhaps the blanket is a better approach for a 28 week aborted fetus than one aborted at 39 weeks. I really wouldn't know. I'm not so good with medical science. I believe I addressed this point however when I said that the method for carrying out medical procedures was best left up to the doctors who actually perform them.

So remind me, how is this relevant?

Foetus' certainly fulfill six of the seven characteristics of live I gave earlier. They undoubtedly respond to aural stimuli (music, mother's voice etc.) and have the sense of touch. They also most likely have a sense of smell and taste too. I guess it all depends what you mean by the term sentient. However, to my mind these make them feeling perceiving and conscious. Maybe you differ?