Question

What are the legal issues of the late term abortion? Please, analyze the new bill of late term abortion.

Answer 1

Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, said that abortion should be allowed until the time a fetus could survive outside the womb, a point (known as viability) that medical science generally considers to be at about 24 weeks of pregnancy. The Court has also specified that abortion should be legal after viability in certain cases — if continuing the pregnancy would seriously threaten the woman’s life or health.

Late-term abortion is a phrase used by abortion opponents to refer to abortions performed after about 21 weeks of pregnancy. It is not the same as the medical definition obstetricians use for “late-term,” which refers to pregnancies that extend past a woman’s due date, meaning about 41 or 42 weeks. Contrary to Mr. Trump’s claim, late-term abortions do not allow “a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.

President Trump on Tuesday evening asked Congress to ban a type of abortion often referred to as “late-term abortion.”

He said he wanted to protect “children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb.” He scorned New York’s recently passed Reproductive Health Act, saying that lawmakers had “cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.” It was an image he has used before, including in a campaign debate with Hillary Clinton.

That description made no mention about the rare circumstances that would lead to an abortion happening later in a pregnancy -- which includes spinal and genetic anomalies that would prevent a viable life, rather than just a decision by the mother that she does not want the child -- and the misconception has caused outrage and misunderstanding that doctors have tried to clear up.