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posted by janrinok on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the how-many-women-voted? dept.

Iowa approves one of strictest abortion bills in US

The US state of Iowa has approved one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, banning most abortions once a foetal heartbeat is detected. Republican lawmakers, who control both chambers, passed the bill in back-to-back votes, sending it to the governor's desk to sign into law.

If [signed], the bill would ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Critics argue the bill makes having an abortion illegal before most women even realise they are pregnant.

[...] If [Governor Kim] Reynolds signs the bill into law, it will likely be challenged in court for possibly violating Roe v Wade, the US Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in 1973. [...] Some Republican lawmakers welcomed the challenge. "I would love for the United States Supreme Court to look at this bill and have this as a vehicle to overturn Roe v. Wade," Republican Senator Jake Chapman said.

Also at NPR, Reuters, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, and The Hill:

Nineteen states adopted a total of 63 restrictions to the procedure in 2017, which is the highest number of state laws on the issue since 2013, according to the Guttmacher Institute. State legislatures have proposed 15 bills that would ban abortions after 20 weeks and 11 bills that would ban abortions if the sole reason is a genetic anomaly like Down syndrome.

Related: Ohio Bill Would Ban Abortion when a Prenatal Test is Positive for Down Syndrome
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  • (Score: 3, Disagree) by fyngyrz on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:43PM (2 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:43PM (#675374) Journal

    You're tying survivability to personhood

    Yes, that's basically what Roe v. Wade does.

    Personally, I think the metric — the line in the sand — is probably best set as to when the fetus develops a nervous system with a brain. Not a heartbeat. It's our brain that (eventually) makes us people.

    I laugh (sadly) at the "life begins at conception" advocates. A blade of grass is alive. It's not life that is, or should be, cherished, it's life with potential. You, a child, a fetus that's well on the way: sure. The grass, an apple seed, a human seed, a barely-differentiated clump of cells, no.

    And quite aside from that:

    • Don't conceive unwanted children. Condoms aren't good enough, certainly not by themselves.
    • Don't drink and park. Accidents cause babies.
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @11:00PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @11:00PM (#675382)

    Nope. Development of a neural crest/tissue may seem reasonable to someone not well versed in human anatomy/embryology, but no. Also we can and do easily keep neurons alive in a petri dish for study, so I guess you'd also want to shut down all of those avenues of inquiry?

    The actual neural development that happens in utero is really not very significant. Babies are born with a mostly undeveloped brain much smoother than their adult, actually functional brains. Also, the vast majority of the neurons aren't myelinated, nor have proper connections. Babies suck, sleep, pee, and poop. Newborns aren't just missing language, they're missing tremendous structural components crucial to becoming actual functional people. What I'm saying here, is that a brain doesn't make a person.

    The key, though, is that they have the potential for all of this - and that they no longer require extreme measures of support from exactly one individual. You can hand a newborn to a different person for their care, and it will continue to develop.

    You cannot transplant a fetus into another womb. The owner of that womb has innate agency over it.

    • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday May 05 2018, @10:18AM

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Saturday May 05 2018, @10:18AM (#676031) Journal

      I agree the owner of the womb has (okay, should have) innate agency over it. Always.

      However, I go from "yeah, so what" to "oh, that's a damned shame" when you have a developing brain. That's what would stop me — assuming I had the choice — from going for an abortion.

      I didn't mean to imply that anyone but the woman should be the one making that choice. I can see that it very much looks like I did. My bad. Tired writing.