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common era wrote: She was seven months pregnant when the baby was aborted apparently, so yes, very nearly full time and could certainly have survived if born premature.
This particular story is extremely grim and I'm clearly not trying to justify "forced" abortion. That's just as much a denial of a woman's right to choose as denial of an abortion.
BUT...
The story does raise some more general issues.
common era, your post seems to imply that an abortion is wrong - perhaps even "murder" - if the foetus could have survived outside the womb. So where does that leave a woman's right to choose in general? I don't think any one can deny that advances in medical technology are steadily reducing the length of time a foetus must remain in the womb in order to stand a chance of survival. Even 20 or 30 years ago, there was little or no chance of a foetus surviving if 3 months premature. Now however, given the right medical support, it's not unusual for that foetus to survive and become a baby/person.
What happens when we eventually invent an artificial womb that gives a 5 month, or even 7 month "premature" foetus to survive. At that point do you outlaw abortion altogether?
The other issue this horrible story raises is the Chinese one-child policy. Clearly it's being implemented dreadfully. The punishment essentially allows the wealthy to have more children by virtue of being able to afford the fine. So it's clearly unjust in that respect. Also, the forced-abortion option - as I said previously - robs the woman of her right to choose. So something clearly needs to change.
On the other hand though, our planet has a finite carrying capacity when it comes to any species - and given the massive levels of consumption that we humans engage in, that goes double for us. So what's to be done about that? Setting limits on the number of children a person may have seems like a pretty sensible idea given our clear inability to regulate ourselves voluntarily. Not saying I have the answers, but the questions aren't quite as simple as our natural revulsion at the forced-abortion might make us think.
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