Abortion at 24 weeks-right or wrong as some babies have lived at 22 weeks?-Is it the ultimate in selfishness?

Question

Please-serious answers to a serious question!!

Answer 1

I can see both sides of the equation. I personally am pro choice, I couldn't think of anything worse than having to give birth when it was a mistake (and we don't yet have a 100% contraceptive). But then, I think 24 weeks is too long.

I personally don't agree with the person that said 12 weeks, because what if you didn't know you were pregnant then, it would be terrible. But at 24 weeks you would know you were pregnant.

Answer 2

my personal belief is 12 weeks.

Answer 3

As the sane people above have said, it is rare to have an abortion at 22 weeks and this is mainly due to medical reasons or the woman’s life was endangered. I personally am not bothered about the 22 weeks as I believe the medical profession will know more about this than us.

Answer 4

I think that it is personal choice at the end of the day.  I personally would never consider an abortion.  If a woman didnt want the baby, rather than having an abortion there is adoption (I am part way through the process of adopring a child).  There are plenty of people out there who CANT have children who would love to have them.   That is just one alternative.  

However, if they couldnt bring themselves do that I think they should have an abortion much earlier than 24 weeks.  I say this having had one baby born at 26weeks, just 2 weeks after the abortion limit!

I dont think its a question of right or wrong and some might argue that they are doing the right thing by NOT bringing an unwanted/unplanned baby into this world.  I, myself am not sure about that argument, but thought it important to give some balanced views.

Answer 5

i believe its up to all the people involved to decide! but i do agree that it is very late to decide unless they just found out!

dont bring a kid on to this earth if you cant love and care for them!

Answer 6

Doctors say a person is dead when there are no detectable brainwaves. (People who have a heart beat but no brainwaves are "vegetative" and many people would rather be switched off than kept alive in that state.)

So to me a fetus really becomes alive in a meaningful sense once it starts generating brainwaves. According to Wikipedia that typically occurs at some point between 13.5 weeks (as a minority of experts believe) and 26 weeks (as most experts believe).

Answer 7

Personally, I beieve terminating a childs life is wrong. I think terminations should only be options for women who are rape victims and are pregnant to a rapist, or for woman or her unborn childs life would be in jeopardy if the pregnancy continued.

My sister is 23 weeks pregnant, and can feel her baby kicking and moving. Her baby is alive, well and loved. Yet, other people would murder their child if they were in the same position?

Many women seem to use terminations as a form of late contrception. Unprotected s*x causes pregnancy, it`s easily prevented.

I feel so much pity for anyone who has so little self respect that they do this to an unborn child. I don`t know how they live with themselves, and dread to think of the psychiatric difficulties caused to these "mothers".

Answer 8

Abortion kills human life. It's murder, full stop.

Answer 9

i know this isn't what you want to hear, but abortions are hardly ever carried out at such a late stage. when they are, there are very very good reasons. do you seriously think a woman would carry an embryo/foetus around for 6 months and then decide to abort, rather than do so as soon as possible? i really don't think it's our place to judge here

cynical - there is a very big difference between a 12 week old and a 24 week old foetus. just going by 'what looks like a baby' is quite simplistic and doesn't take into account all the developmental changes that are occurring

Answer 10

in most places it is not allowed except for serious medical complicaitons, and at that point i think they'd most likely induce labor, rather than perform an abortion.

imo, after the first trimester is a bit too late.

Answer 11

99% of abortions occur before 20 weeks gestation, with 89% occurring before 12 weeks. Only 1% occur after 20 weeks gestation, and the majority of those are performed because of medical reasons such as the pregnancy being a threat to the woman's life, so I don't even know why your question is an issue.

Answer 12

I feel that termination is personal choice, however, I think 24 weeks is much to far into a pregnancy to terminate. AS YOu say, babies born earlier than that can survive, therefore, it's wrong to go that far. 12 weeks is the maximum it should be, the very maximum.

I lost a baby at 20 weeks and had to give birth to him, he was fully formed and breathing, unfortunately he didn't survive but it made me realise that 20 plus week abortions should be stopped♥

Answer 13

I don't believe women should abort their babies at all, but if your question is about viability, this is such an atrocity. A good friend of mine had a baby at 22 weeks after her water broke at 21 weeks. He had a 10% chance of survival. He is now six year old, and a beautiful, sweet child.

Before you ask a question like this, you also have to consider the procedures used and the development of the baby. At 6 weeks, the baby's neural pathways are developed enough for him or her to respond to touch and fel pain. A late term abortion is either done by partial birth (which most people know the definition of), saline injection (where a saline solution is injected into the uterus and it burns the baby to death, a very painful process which can take up to 24 hours before the woman gives birth to a dead or dying baby, or dismemerment D&E (the abortionist forcibly dilates the womans cervix, then inserts instruments which are used to literally tear the baby apart, the baby doesn't always die immediately when they begin tearing his or her arms and legs off). Babies who were aborted at this stage are delivered with expressions on their little faces that make it undeniable that they died in agony.

Check out the links below and tell me if you think it's wrong or not.

Answer 14

abortions aren't performed because the baby might not live but because they are unwanted or for medical complications

1,2,16,30 weeks what does it matter in fact I would prefer if they scrapped the age limit alltogether I'm never going to have one so i don't care what other people do

Answer 15

late term abortions are performed for medical reasons.

Answer 16

Abortion is just wrong. Anyway you look at it is the taking of human life and it ends a beating heart (starts at 22 days of conception). Why do people think is right to abort a 12-week fetus but they cringe at the abortion of a 15-week or 24-week fetus? If you look at 3-D ultrasounds there isn't much difference between those fetuses. An 8-week embryo already looks like a baby. Yet, it's completely legal to abort it and in some states second-trimester abortions are still performed for no medical reasons. This shocks me as we are developing more knowledge of embryos and how human they are.

Answer 17

Are you aware that a diagnostic test called amniocentesis is conducted around 18-20 weeks, and by the time the results are interpreted, it can be 24 weeks or so.... ?

Can you imagine the agony a woman endures when she was hoping for a healthy baby and at that stage discovers a catastrophic condition in her womb?

Puts a different slant on the late term abortion discussion, doesn't it?

>>Thanks for the stats Spuddy.

Answer 18

Abortion that late is generally only done in the direst of circumstances...because the mother's life is in danger or the fetus is extremely damaged or unhealthy in some way and unlikely to live.

Answer 19

its right.

unless you want to make abortion illegal altogether (and i think we all realise what sort of mess that would cause) then you have to agree that  a line has to be drawn somewhere.

in some cases a girl may not realise (or may be in denial) that she is pregnant til 16 or 18 weeks into the pregnancy. add the time that it takes to meet a doctor, and plan an abortion.

also, although a baby may live at 22 weeks it is very rare... practically impossible without intensive care.

you have to make laws that work for the weak and vulnerable in our society, you cant make laws based on the sensibilities of  middle-class christian virgins

Answer 20

I personally believe that unless there is a medical complication with the baby or the mother then abortion should only be available up to 12 weeks.

All too often these days people are relying on abortion as a fall back contraception, rather than being responsible in the first place. I realise that nobody wants the world to be full of unwanted babies but people aren't considering wether or not they want a baby before having unprotected s*x, they just think about it when faced with the consequences of their actions. Surely the decision wether you want to become a parent should be made before you find yourself pregnant.

Having read what the foetus has to go through in order for an abortion to take place at 24 weeks i have never felt stronger about how wrong this is.

It sounds extreme but it seems to me as just another example of the throwaway society that we are living in today, if something doesnt work for us then we simply throw it out.

Answer 21

Six or so weeks is late enough. With the morning after pill, and all the other forms of birth control I would think abortion should be becoming pretty much obsolete.

Answer 22

I don't subscribe to making personal judgments especially for something so private as families unless they are harming me or my family.

Answer 23

Its none of your business.  If you don't like abortion then don't have one.  If you are male then make sure you don't knock somebody up and put them in this unenviable position.  The overwhelming majority of abortions are performed under 8 weeks.  Canada has absolutely not a single law regulating abortion and you don't see a flood of women having them during the later stages.  Odd, huh? You'd think women would be breaking the doors down to have the procedure done (*sarcasm*).    Why are late-term abortions performed anyway?  Serious, dire medical problems.

Answer 24

Just remember, when people say that babies have lived at younger ages.

These premature babies are on ITU, and ventilators. Its simple natural selection, many premature babies cannot survive without medical intervention.

Saying that I dont know what the right answer is