What the decision in Morgentaler means is that technically a woman can walk into a clinic at 35 weeks and abort. Legally, there is nothing stopping her. Practically speaking, even if a woman were to ask to terminate a healthy fetus at 35 weeks, chances are next to zero that a doctor would do it.
But wait a minute….what about Trust Women? (See below). Shouldn’t the medical system acquiesce to ALL abortion requests, regardless of the motivation and gestational stage? Doesn’t the medical system exist to service every woman’s reproductive choice no matter what the case?
Abortionist Warren Hern reported in an interview with Esquire magazine that he once refused to do an abortion on a victim of rape who was 35 weeks pregnant. Granted, he refused on the grounds that he could have lost his medical license. But he also said that he didn’t have a lot of sympathy for her as she had not gotten around to doing anything about it.
Is a woman sovereign over her body or not?
Realistically, and most importantly, women don’t do that.
Abortionist Warren Hern says otherwise. So does ethicist Margaret Somerville, who reports she was consulted on a case of a woman who wanted to abort her child for a cleft palate in the late third trimester.
The latest abortion I have ever seen is for a baby at 36 weeks gestation. In Quebec.
This is where the “trust women” phrase comes into play. You, me, the government, everybody, needs to trust that women will do the right thing.
Yeah because women are infallible in their judgement. They would never do anything to harm themselves, their family or anyone else. You can’t trust a woman to get silicone breast implants; nor can you trust a woman to know whether her five-year-old needs to be in a car seat.
But by God, when it comes to killing her unborn child, a woman’s judgement should NEVER be questioned because she cannot possibly be wrong. And if you dare suggest that women are WRONG when it comes to the killing of preborn human beings, well that makes you a misogynist.
Question women’s judgement when it comes to any other issue.
NEVER when it comes to abortion.
