Word: fetuses
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...medical eyes, a fetus is usually incapable of independent life before 20 weeks, thus presenting no murder issue in abortion. In contrast to Catholic doctrine, most other Western religions now view the mother's life as primary. Many Jews accept abortion because they regard a fetus as an organic part of the mother and not as a living soul until its birth. The National Council of Churches has approved hospital abortions "when the health or life of the mother is at stake," and many clergymen broadly define health to mean social as well as physical wellbeing. Last month...
...central problem of abortion in the U. S. is that it is governed by criminal law rather than medical knowledge. Following English common law, the early U. S. regarded abortion as no crime before the fetus quickens in the womb (about five months); a miscarriage before 20 weeks still generally requires no death certificate or interment. But starting in 1860, many states outlawed abortion before as well as after quickening. New Hampshire, for example, bans hospital abortion before quickening, even to save a dying woman. The legal maze is extraordinary. In 17 states, unjustified abortion is a felony that carries...
...state-approved eugenics, never before established in U.S. law. To abort a rubella (German measles) victim, they say, is to rely on the purely statistical chance (average odds: 50-50) that her child may be defective-and to doom a possibly perfect baby in the process. To abort a fetus produced by rape or incest, they say, is to execute the most innocent partv in the trianele purely for the mother's social convenience. Even the rapist is guaranteed a trial based on all of law's due-process standards. Why no due process for the fetus...
Beyond these profound moral questions, however, lies the stubborn reality that women denied legal abortions go on getting illegal ones-and that those unborn babies get even less due process than would a rape-fetus in Colorado. This leads to the argument that the real immorality is the retention or enactment of laws that drive women to illegal abortion. In empirical terms, the debaters are mired in side issues. Vital as fetal rights unquestionably are, the bedrock problem is not whether the fetus is inchoate and hence expendable, as law reformers claim, or whether it is human and inviolable...
...conference, she led pickets outside the Hilton Hotel and gave public lectures on self-abortion. It was her startling opinion that no law held the woman responsible for ridding herself of an unwanted child. Therefore, she argued, the police can take no action "even if you take your fetus into the police station and tell them you just did your own abortion...