The whole matter can be sticky. Looking at Canada, we have no laws against abortion at all. You can have an abortion right up to the very end of term if you wish - the difficulty comes in finding a doctor willing to do it. But you can do it and from what I have read over the years, it's very rare to be done late-term but it does still happen (though the stats do not seem to differentiate between choice and for medical reasons). I know two women that had terminations in the 5th month due to severe medical reasons. But I don't know anyone who did it by choice, so I have no idea where they would have to go to find a doctor willing to do it.
What we have been going through for several years is a Bill that was attempting to make it possible to charge someone with murder if they killed a pregnant woman and the fetus also died. So far it has been blocked. In Canada, a person is not a person until they have 'exited the birth canal alive'. In the past few years, 5 pregnant women have been murdered (heavily pregnant) and their families expressed concern that the death of the babies could not receive justice - only the deaths of the mothers. This bill was an attempt to change that. However I read endless media accounts of how this would put abortion back on the table for being a criminal act. I do not understand that! Why would it be difficult to ensure that the Bill states if the woman did not wish harm to come to her fetus (as in did not book an abortion) and the fetus died as a result of an attack on the mother (such as in the cases where the woman's stomach was stabbed repeatedly on purpose to kill the fetus), then that would be a second murder charge?? I don't get that. But the bill kept getting stalled. That bothers me. In other words, I could be in labour, heading to the hospital only minutes away from giving birth, but someone could kill me and my baby would not be considered a human, and therefore only one murder charge. Yuck. My family would be berserk.
I can understand if there are problems such as determining how far along the woman was, if the killer knew she was pregnant, etc etc but perhaps they could add something, if needed, that the pregnancy would have to be past the point of viability (ie 20 weeks or later). Who knows. All I DO know is that the bill passes some readings and fails others.
On another note, I have seen people mention that doctors take an oath to protect life - however, the Hippocratic oath also says that they should renounce self-interest when dealing with their patients. If the law currently stands that life is not a 'life' until it has taken a breath, then the doctor would be working on their own self-interest, their own belief of when life begins, and that wars with the oath. Hence, RP's wish to define life once and for all.
But honestly, I feel that if that were done and in response, abortion would be considered the taking of a life in legal terms, a whole set of problems is going to develop. Women have been taking herbal tinctures to end a pregnancy for thousands of years. It has always been there and always will be. I do not like it, I wish we did not have to deal with this issue, but we do. Having a baby is a huge decision and while most of the time it IS a decision in the way that you can't get pregnant if you do not have sex, I am an example of how it can happen anyway. I am a responsible adult, I take my pills on time and do everything I can to stop a pregnancy before it starts, but while using TWO different forms of birth control at the same time (both over 90% efficiency), I got pregnant with my last child. I was shocked. I did not even consider abortion because that is just not part of my decision making plan at all, but I was still shocked. I was in a long term relationship, we are raising the child along with my older two kiddos, but I was seriously floored that two different kinds of birth control used properly and together could still fail like that. I'm sure the instances are rare, but it happened to me lol. Another woman might not make the same choice I did. Because I then had three kids and with each pregnancy I was becoming sicker and it ended up affecting my last child (born at 33 weeks, weighing 3lbs), I decided to get my tubes tied. But even that is not 100% effective. It's a bit silly to suggest that I go the rest of my life not having intercourse with my partner just to avoid a possible pregnancy (I personally know one woman who was pregnant after a tubal ligation, and 2 women pregnant after their husbands were deemed to have successful vasectomies).
however, saying all that, I do not believe that the number of women asking for abortions is high due to failure of birth control. I would hazzard a guess that most did not use any form of BC at all. Still though - that is their choice. I hate the choice of abortion because it makes me ill. I have given speeches about it in high school 20+ years ago, and I did not know that a girl in my class had just found out she was pregnant and my speech helped her make the decision NOT to abort (she named her child after me!!!!!!!!!! what an amazing story!!) - but it was still her choice either way. I am pro-choice in the way that I understand we cannot tell people what to do with their individual personhood, but I hope deep down that they do not choose abortion. I have friends who are unable to have children and it hurts them to know that millions of babies are killed in the womb while they would have gladly raised the child themselves. It's a sad state of affairs. But I fear forcing women to carry a child as well. It reminds me of my former mother in law telling us that she did not want her third child because she was planning to leave her husband and she drank a 26oz bottle of vodka one evening, had a super hot bath, and threw herself down the stairs - but the baby survived. Imagine how her only daughter feels to know her mother tried all that stuff to get rid of her because she was not allowed an abortion after 12 weeks. It's all a huge mess and I don't envy anyone trying to make these decisions. (On another note, I cannot believe her mother told her that, but whatever!)
I admire RP for attempting to get life defined as starting at conception and have an across-the-board agreement on that. However, I don't know that it will happen. We can't even get a crime bill passed in our majority govt because of the slight possibility it could cause trouble for those seeking an abortion. Setting life at conception seems like an even harder task to complete.
