When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it claimed to be removing the judiciary from the abortion debate. In reality, it simply gave the courts a macabre new task: deciding how far states can push a patient toward death before allowing her to undergo an emergency abortion.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit offered its own answer, declaring that Texas may prohibit hospitals from providing “stabilizing treatment” to pregnant patients by performing an abortion—withholding the procedure until their condition deteriorates to the point of grievous injury or near-certain death.
The ruling proves what we already know: Roe’s demise has transformed the judiciary into a kind of death panel that holds the power to elevate the potential life of a fetus over the actual life of a patient.
I like your reasoning here and I will keep it in mind if I get sucked into another one of these conversations, since I don’t have a uterus and don’t think I should ever have any say in what people who do, choose to do with them. The only thing I’m uncertain about is:
I’ve always felt the opposite. Maybe I’m just a contrarian or a misanthrope, but deciding to be a parent always seems selfish to me. It may just be my limited experience, but for all their good intentions, even looking past minor character flaws, I’ve never seen a parent raise a child in a truly flourishing environment. It always feels like they’re trying to relive their youth vicariously through their kids and I see so many negative traits and fears reinforced until they become personality flaws. I’ll have to think about this more.
Well, that’s a little sad, that you’ve only seen the bad side. Personally, I’ve seen good parents that let their kids be themselves, and bad parents that try to relive their childhood through their kids or turn them into mindless copies.
I think they’re right that the action itself is selfless. But just like a person can donate to a charity just to make themselves look good, one can carry a child for the attention.