You know, if a fetus has to die in the name of women's rights, well tough luck fetus!
It also provides a clue about the age-old question about how much jailtime women would get if they were prosecuted for criminal abortion.
Criminal abortion is still on the books, and in Idaho, you face a five-year jail term for it.
The columnists are crazy enough to say:
Rarely do women who have a miscarriage need medical attention; the same is true for women having a medication abortion.
Except you have to go get checked out to make sure there is nothing left in your uterus. This is standard procedure even for natural miscarriages. About five per cent of medical abortions fail. For some do-it-yourself chemical abortions the rate can be twenty per cent. From a statistical standpoint, that's a huge number of failures.
Besides, it doesn't take a genius to figure out why late-term self-abortions should definitely be criminalized, regardless of the issue of fetal rights. First off, an abortion that late produces a dead baby corpse, which is not exactly hygienic. Then there's the question of how to dispose of such a body. After labouring for many hours, you're not necessarily in the best frame of mind to dispose of your dead baby's body. You may very well take a shortcut and throw it in the trash. The next problem is that a late-term abortion is like giving birth. If you're alone, there's a definite chance of puerperal infection, not to mention the possibility of retained placenta.
And what if there's the dreaded complication of a live birth? You can see the next nut job court ruling from a mile away: if a woman self-aborts and the baby is born live, then you she can kill it. Wouldn't want to force motherhood on anyone now, would we? It would be very oppressive for her to have to take responsibility for that post-natal fetus.
Self-abortion is obviously a bad idea. It's the 21st century version of the back alley abortion.
In fact, I can foresee the possibility of abortion drug traffickers. Think about it. There are people who deal coke and heroin, why wouldn't they deal abortion drugs at a fraction of the cost, especially so much of the underworld deals with deviant sexuality? A surgical abortion may be safer, but it's also where people report sexual crimes (in theory).
To promote it as a responsible alternative is unethical. How is it serving women to respect this choice when it's so obviously a crappy choice?
Why is self-abortion a crime? The same reason drug possession is a crime. Because if it became a widespread phenomenon it would be extremely detrimental to large numbers of people.
