Reply #84: Let's take this point a little farther

[Nobody]

"I've heard no abortion unless the life of the mother is in danger, rape, incest, or the child is deformed etc. as a compromise from some republican friends"

I agree with you that your friends' opinion comes up short. Here's my take on it. Again, the following comments are not directed at you in particular but toward these exceptions.

All of these involve allowing abortion under certain conditions. This constitutes a choice being made by somebody. Who is that somebody?

Is that somebody the woman? Or is that somebody the state, or a group of certified abortion approvers without whose notarized forms filled out in triplicate you can't abort? That last one is a bit facetious, but some people would actually want to go that far to prevent just one irresponsible woman from aborting.

Let's look at the exceptions one at a time:

Life in danger: This is subjective. A doctor may tell you, don't get pregnant again, you probably won't make it through delivery. A doctor might say, your fetus died and if we don't remove it now, there a good chance you might not survive. Or a doctor might say, due to your physical condition you've got an x percent chance of dying during delivery.

Where is the line drawn? I don't suppose anyone would want someone else to make a decision like that for them. Would we trust the woman enough to make her own decision without input or approval from strangers?

Rape and Incest: Both of these are horribly traumatic experiences. Not even abstinence will protect you from the diseases you might get, the physical and mental scarring. How would an exception in these cases work? Rape victims should never be required to make public any medical or police records, whether to society at large or to some board of abortion approvers. The exception sounds compassionate on the surface, but rape is a difficult subject for a survivor to discuss with strangers. And she shouldn't have to.

Deformed child: How much deformity would constitute an allowable exception? Again, is it the woman who decides or is it someone else who gives her permission? Again, her medical records shouldn't be public information.

Enforcement: How would society make sure that abortions are being done for the right reasons? Would we assume that they are and leave the women alone? Or would there be uterus police checking up on pregnancies? Who would pay for this?

What would happen if a woman wanted an exception for life of mother and was denied and she died while giving birth? Now we're entering lawsuit territory. Who gets sued? The doctor? The board of abortion approvers? Both?

How do we enforce the exceptions clause WITHOUT implying that women are just incubators with community property uteri and no sovereignty over their own bodies?

These are some of the questions I'd like to see addressed by those who oppose abortions but who do allow for exceptions.

Your post did have the best lead in to these kinds of questions and I'm curious to see how they'd be answered by people like your friends.