People’s opinion do not matter. What matters are a baby’s and woman’s civil rights. The courts have established that every person has the right to self defense and this position is true of pregnant women where their lives are threatened because of complications arising during pregnancy. There are two situations where an abortion would be necessary to save a woman’s life.
Emergency abortions
An emergency arising out of some unexpected event. That would involve the woman going through an emergency room where an emergency room physician would make the assessment that the woman’s life is in danger. She would then be given the information and she would have the choice, because it is her life at risk.
That assessment would be confirmed by the doctor doing the actual procedure, since they must detail what they see and why they are going to do the procedure. The medical notes of the emergency, ob/gyn, and nursing staff would all be available after the event and subject to legal review if any argument existed on the necessity of the abortion. Since the emergency room physician and in many cases the ob/gyn on duty at the hospital have no pre-existing relationship with the patient the courts are unlikely to dispute their medical judgement.
Back Door Ideological Arguments
Those arguing that a woman never needs to have an abortion and those who believe a woman should always have the right to an abortion even when it is medically unnecessary and the baby is viable are making ideological arguments not legal ones. Pro-choice and pro-life ideologues make horrible representatives of humanity and citizens since both are prepared to dismiss the human rights of one person in favor of their ideology in one instance the mother and in the other the baby.
Once we as a society establish different people have different rights, we are on a slippery slope. Resolving the conflict in civil rights was what the Roe v Wade decision was all about. It acknowledged both baby and mother had rights and then set forth the criterion for balancing the civil rights of the mother and baby. But ideologues often pursue “back door” ideological arguments that really have no place in the debate because they do not understand the “civil rights” aspect of the decision.
The medical necessity argument has been abused by women and their physicians to justify late term abortions, but the reality is that it rarely does.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/most-women-dont-seek-late-term-abortions-for-medical-reasons
When it is justified, a woman has the right to an abortion regardless of what legislation might be passed as it will be unconstitutional, but declaring something a medical emergency when it is not, does not make it so. Are there “grey” areas, sure, but I do not see the courts ruling against a woman where the potential for “death” was real even if the odds relatively low.
Any law passed by a state allowing abortions on demand on a viable unborn baby is unconstitutional unless the mother’s life is in danger. Any law passed on the premise that a mother’s life is never at risk is first wrong and therefore unconstitutional because every human has a right to defend their life. So while the ideologues are constantly sniping at one another with out of the box rare situations or even worse medically untrue statements, none of those arguments will prevail in court which will evaluate cases under the “civil rights” standards established by Roe v Wade. This is one reason why so few state laws have survived appeal.
Non Emergency Life Threatening Abortions
Non emergency life threatening situations are far more common then people realize and many are not even thought of as abortions. One of the common reasons for aborting a baby or babies, that people seldom know about is when a woman seeking fertility treatments ends up pregnant with multiples as many as seven. Since it is increasingly common for women to seek fertility treatments when they are older and having difficulty conceiving, the risk of multiples poses a serious life risk. If the woman attempts to carry all of the babies to term, it poses a threat to the mother and the babies and so it is common to do abortions early on to insure the remaining babies and mother have a high likelihood of surviving the pregnancy. Again while there are women who have survived delivering seven babies, it represents a high enough risk that I have never seen it challenged.
The important thing in the debate is not to think you can change the rules based on obtuse arguments, Roe v Wade has said the basis of the argument must be over civil rights and a woman’s argument to have an abortion is grounded in two areas: is her life at risk, if yes, she is constitutionally in her rights to have an abortion (medicine not opinion can determine this) and secondly, is the baby viable, if not, then the baby’s right to life is subordinate to the mother’s rights. It is on this second area that successful challenges to the current standards are likely to occur and those outcomes are like to put greater restrictions on the “window” in which women can have abortions that are not life threatening.
