Massachusett Bill Would Lift Time Limit on Abortion



Pregnancies take many unexpected turns and doctors with their patients need to figure out what to do is the case being made in Massachusetts by a legislator. She told of a woman whose fetus had a stroke and an abortion was needed after the legal limit. The patient had to leave her state to get the abortion. This logic that abortions, even late ones, are available somewhere in the U.S. undercuts the Bible thumpers and their one-cell human beings. "If abortions are available somewhere, why force our women to travel?" is a question for which anti-abortion has no political answer. 

State by state, country by country, the availability of abortions is increasing. There could be a few set backs from time to time but the resolve of women to get them will be the force that prevails.

The Roe decision which made abortions legal nation-wide set a time limit on when an abortion could happen. It is widely known this was at the point when the fetus was "viable" outside the mother. Readers know that as technology made it possible for some fetuses to survive earlier the case was made the allowable time should be reduced. Ultimately, it may be impossible to use this rule. For example, when the mother's life needs to be saved by an abortion, the "viable" date needs to be set aside. 

This, too, is filled with complications. When is the mother's life endangered and what does that mean? If the pregnancy is related to thoughts of suicide can that be entered into the decision?

I remember as a boy on the farm reading columnist Ann Landers who wrote about matters far from the rural life I had experienced at that time. She asked a doctor to answer the question of when a human life begins. His reply was that this has been wrestled with for centuries. What we know, he said, is that when a baby is born a human has started his/her life. That remains a powerful way to resolve the question.  

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