Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
Regardless, this is one of those conundrums that go back to ancient times that has never been answered
I think you just inadvertently enlightened yourself. Especially when we go back to 'ancient times', it's easy to see that this issue has been debated, and policies have been set, for the most part, by people without wombs.

Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
I think that in the case of the mother's life in danger, the mother's life takes precedence. The logic here is somewhat practical, but also theoretical in that the mother is a more fully autonomous person than the fetus.
So that sounds like a nice compromise when you cite "the life of the mother". The problem is, that can be interpreted an infinite number of ways. Hillary's position was pretty much the same as yours. Decide early, but we'll allow a late one if it impacts the health of the mother.

The health of the mother could be anything. Maybe she broke up with her boyfriend at 8.5 months and now decides that raising his child would be an emotional burden, a source of depression, or some other touchy-feely thing that can't really be substantiated. It doesn't matter if 99 out of 100 doctors think that's crazy....she only needs one to perform the abortion.

So the solution here really has to come from the medical community and NOT the legislature. The government really has no dog in this fight, so I don't know why it's even a political issue. Those 99 doctors need to make sure that 1 doctor ends up with a severe competitive disadvantage if he chooses to do procedures that the majority of doctors would consider unethical, or even insane.

There are countless professional organizations that give accreditations, licenses, and ratings to Doctors. Those things can easily be used to justify varying rates of medical malpractice insurance. Those organizations could easily get together and use their expert knowledge to define what they consider ethical and non-ethical abortions. They could inform the public, and let the free market (the ultimate judge of right and wrong) take over.

Instead, the politicians have made this such a hot button issue, I don't blame the medical community for not wanting to touch it with a ten foot pole.