I’m down with federal action guaranteeing the rights of women and their docs to govern their decisions. I never thought roe was good law, but the result was ok with me. I didn’t go ballistic when it was overturned.

Because women don’t get pregnant so that they can wait until past the point of viability and then abort, just to stick it to the pro-life crowd. Women love the life growing inside them more than their own. That’s how human nature works. They can be trusted to put their docs’ advice first, and abort late in a pregnancy only in a crisis.

I don’t think there’s a single point of “viability”. I think there’s a range and every pregnancy is its own individual thing. Health exceptions at any point in a pregnancy do not work in practice. As we’ve seen, most recently in Texas. No health exception language can definitively cover all contingencies. Lawyers will always tell docs to err on the side of legal caution in an emergency. And action may well be required in an instant to preserve life and health of a woman. Courts don’t move at that pace.

If there were a federal ban in that Texas woman’s case, she would have no where to go for critical care when docs were told the law was “unclear” on her health exception (she was fortunate in that she could travel). The risk of women aborting in the ninth month just “cuz they want” is next to 0. I’m sure it can and has happened with disturbed women, but that’s far less of a risk than a pregnant woman in crisis bleeding out while courts run through an appeals process.

So, imo, the right answer is libertarian -trust the nature of pregnant moms and docs to have the best interests of the unborn child at heart, because that’s the nature of pregnant moms. The courts can’t be trusted. They don’t move fast enough. So I favor no restrictions. I also favor letting states decide, and I’d love to see it put to a vote in every state in the country - I think it would yield my desired result in almost every state. Maybe every state. Faith in mom, not the govt, to do the right thing in each individual circumstance.

[Post edited by hoolstoptheheels at 02/18/2024 2:03PM]