After Birth Abortions

After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?

Abstract Having an abortion is up to the parents and their beliefs. All women have the right to have an abortion regardless of the fetuses’ health. In the article I chose, the author goes on to say that if you can abort a fetus, healthy or not, than you should be able to abort a baby after birth regardless of its state of health. Giving a child up for adoption is not always in the best interest of the parents. I am not for or against this. I put long thought into this and I could not decide if I agree or disagree. The thought is disturbing but the points made by this author sound valid. I wouldn’t know what I would choose unless I was actually put in this position. Fetuses and newborns have the same moral status as an actual person so what would be so different?

There are many reasons why a woman would choose to have an abortion. Their mental and physical state after they would have to care for a child that they were unable to or did not want to care for is one reason. Another reason could be if the fetus was known to have severe abnormalities found through testing and ultrasounds while the mother was pregnant. Some women however cannot handle having a child at all, regardless of the health condition of the fetus or baby. The author chose two different scenarios to give an example of why a woman might have an abortion. The first scenario was that if the fetus was going to be disabled when born it would be a risk to the mother’s mental health. The second scenario was if the mother lost her partner while pregnant and felt that she was not capable of caring for a child by herself. The author of this journal is trying to prove that killing a newborn should be allowed in all cases where abortion is allowed, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

When the conditions arise that justify having an abortion, it should be the same for after-birth abortion. If a disease or disability was found in a fetus while the mother was pregnant and she chose to have an abortion, then a mother should be able to have the same option of after-birth abortion if the disease or disability was not found out until after the baby was born. In the state of Illinois you are able to have an abortion up to 17 ½ weeks of gestation if there are or are not any complications, and in some places up to 20 weeks. A baby already has a beating heart at that point, so if you can have an abortion and kill a baby inside of you, what is the difference of killing the baby after birth? Yes, it is disgusting, and gruesome to think about, but when you look at the big picture what is the difference? Either way you are still stopping a beating heart whether it is in or out of a mother’s womb.

Most abnormalities cannot be found during prenatal testing. Even if a disease or abnormality is genetic and runs in the baby’s family it can still be unknown if the baby will have the defect until after birth. In Illinois woman are allowed to have an abortion any time after 20 weeks gestation if there is a valid health reason that would affect the mother or baby(reference 1) So if the “valid health reason” wasn’t known until after the baby is born than the mother should still have the option to have an after-birth abortion. I was able to go onto an abortion website where they wrote: “One of the main differences for third trimester patients having a pregnancy terminated for a fetal anomaly is that they may wish to have an intact fetus they can view and hold as part of the grieving process. Due to patients having bonded with the pregnancy, the loss is the same as losing a 4 or 5 year old child.” (Reference 2)

If a mother could terminate her pregnancy far enough along that she can hold the baby after they kill it inside of her and give her the baby to hold as part of the grieving process, then what would be the difference of having an after birth abortion? This is why I cannot decide if I am for or against this. I couldn’t imagine giving birth to a child and killing it after, but other women have had an abortion while the baby is still inside of them (up to full term pregnancy). So in my opinion it is the same thing as having an after-birth abortion. I do think a parent should get the choice to have an after-birth abortion if a severe birth defect was not known until after birth. Many women, or parents, are not able to mentally, physically, or financially care for a needy child. Depending on how severe the defects in the child are, the child may need full-time care and that can be very costly, which some families may not be able to afford. Also many families wanting to adopt would not adopt a child with any defects, diseases, mental problems, etc.

This author also believes that woman should be able to have an after-birth abortion even if there are no defects and the baby is healthy. I do not agree with that. He says that some woman are not mentally capable of giving a child up for adoption, even if they are not able to care for it, whether it may be mentally, physically, or financially. I believe that there is no valid reason to have an after-birth abortion on a healthy child. There are many families out there that are unable to have children that want to adopt. So if the mother had doubts about having a child she should have to have her abortion in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy as the law states.

In some cases the author believes that after-birth abortion may be in the best interest of the child. In the Netherlands, a protocol approved in 2002, allows to actively terminate a newborn’s life if it is known that the child will experience unbearable suffering. Even if you can predict that living with a severe condition is against the best interest of a child, there is no way to prove that their life is not worth living. But the author says that to bring up such children it may be an unbearable burden on the family, or society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.

The author justifies his opinions with two valid points. The first one being that the moral status of an infant is equivalent to the moral status of a fetus. Neither can be considered a person in a morally relevant sense. The second point being that it is not possible to damage a newborn by preventing it from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense.

He claims that the moral status of an infant compared to a fetus is the same in the sense that both lack the properties that justify the attribution of a right to life as an individual. When he says “persons” his meaning is that it is an individual who is capable of attributing to their own existence some basic value like being deprived of this life represents a loss to them. Non-human animals and mentally retarded humans are persons, but all individuals who are not in the condition of attributing any value to their own life/existence are not persons. There are many humans who are not considered people with a right to life. Such as spare embryos that are used for research, fetuses that were aborted, and criminals where capital punishment is legal.

I thought this article was very straight to the point and some may find this article very offensive but I found it intriguing. At the end of the article the author concluded that he does not have any opinion on how long an after-birth abortion should be permissible until it is considered too late to have that option. Also that it would take no more than a few days to find out if a newborn was going to have any abnormalities. He also said that he does not promote after-birth abortion on healthy fetuses’. The only time after-birth abortion should be acceptable is if the newborn was born with abnormalities that weren’t found before the baby was born. I agree with him on all of his points. If a disease was unknown during pregnancy, or if something went wrong during the delivery, or if economic, social, or psychological circumstances were to change, so that taking care of a baby was an unbearable burden on someone, then people should be given an option of after-birth abortion, and not forced to do something they cannot afford or handle.

There are two different methods for late term abortion. One method is by extracting the fetus feet first except for the head, and then collapsing the head inside the womb and vacuuming it out. The second method is by injecting a saline into the mother’s womb which will stop the baby’s heart beat and put the mother into labor and the mother will give birth to a dead baby. This is where the legal and ethical issues come into play. There is a possibility that if the mother has the saline solution late term abortion the baby can come out alive. If the baby comes out alive the doctor is legally responsible to try and save the baby’s life. Anti-abortionists believe it is unethical to have a late term abortion for that reason. Anti-abortionists also try to make this fact be known to women who are trying to have a late term abortion because when the mother knows the possibilities it may change their minds about following through with the procedure. (Reference 3)

There are my legal implications that could be the result of an abortion. The mother can die, the baby could be born alive and with severe abnormalities or disabilities. Doctors can perform the procedure incorrect and be sued. The main reason why abortions are not illegal is because if the government made abortions illegal it wouldn’t stop women from getting them. Before abortions became legal many women would have them done by people who didn’t know what they were doing causing thousands of deaths.

In conclusion I believe this was a very interesting topic. Many of my fellow classmates may be upset with me for discussing this topic. But considering we are all going into the healthcare field I don’t think they should judge me for choosing this topic because there may come a time where we have to deal with a patient who has had any kind of the abortions I have talked about. I wouldn’t pass judgment on anyone who has chosen any of the abortion options. I believe everyone is entitled to their own choices. The author made valid points about after birth abortion and I agree with him to an extent. It will be interesting to see if after birth abortion ever becomes legal.

References

(1.) http://realchoice.blogspot.com/2008/10/third-trimester-abortions-and-law.html
(2.) http://www.womenscenter.com/third_trimester_surgical.html
(3.) http://www.winmentalhealth.com/late_term_abortion_information.php

References: (1.) http://realchoice.blogspot.com/2008/10/third-trimester-abortions-and-law.html (2.) http://www.womenscenter.com/third_trimester_surgical.html (3.) http://www.winmentalhealth.com/late_term_abortion_information.php