As conservatives we are all against abortion. But a friend of mine posed the question: is taking Plan B similar to an abortion?
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Plan B causes a woman to shed the lining in her uterus, which expels any zygotes that successfully formed.
If you think life begins at conception, then yes, it's an abortion.
That being said, I personally don't compare it to a full-on abortion because surgery is not performed. Plan B is a drug, and I dislike drugs being restricted on the off chance that if a drug like Plan B ends up being the cure for cancer, then we just restricted the population from being able to treat itself because a few bad eggs wanna kill their babies in the womb.
We should outlaw the act, not the means to perform said act. People should be held accountable, not drugs or property.
Do you not consider medication abortion (abortion pills: mifepristone & misoprostol) to be "full-on abortion"? Same result, different methods.
A cup of tea can induce an abortion, especially in the first trimester. The issue to me is doctors who perform the procedure, it used to be in the Hippocratic oath not to do so. Medical pros should be charged with murder, but you can't stop a mom from drinking certain teas. The issue with banning drugs it that it is inappropriate in a free society.
If you drink too much and lose the baby, is that an abortion?
If you eat too much of a foreign dinner with exotic spices and lose the baby, is that an abortion?
If you do too many squats when pregnant and lose the baby, is that an abortion?
Tearing pieces of a baby out of the womb is in a different class than a forced miscarriage.
What matters is intent. Did you intentionally lose the child?
Then that's murder. No different than if you kill people your rented a house out to because they take nine months to evict. If you can't wait the nine months then you shouldn't have rented out your property. It doesn't matter how you killed them, with a coat hanger to the throat or by hiring a hitman, your actions led to the death of a living thing.
Personally, I believe an abortion is anything that intentionally terminates a pregnancy.
Why I have to draw distinctions is because of the difficulty in legally classifying the act. Intent is hard to prove. If a woman just exercises too much when pregnant, it's hard to prove she knew it would kill the baby. Accidents DO happen, so throwing an innocent woman who was stupid and did squats during pregnancy in jail is wrong. How can you tell she didn't have intent? Ultimately, it's better that a criminal go free than an innocent rot in prison, and that's a hard pill to swallow outside the pages of a law book.
If they take a drug that says "will terminate pregnancy", however, then that proves intent, but that doesn't mean the drug should be taken off the market. If it helps in some other way, it shouldn't be regulated because of what it CAN do.
Mifepristone & Misoprostol can do more than abort babies, it just so happens that's what they're "best" at. They might have properties that cure IBMS for all we know, but we might never find that out if they are over-regulated, which would be a shame for everyone with IBMS.
If someone intentionally uses Mifepristone and Misoprostol for an abortion, then sure, lock 'em up.
The process you just described is that of RU-486, the “abortion pill” — not Plan B which only attempts to prevent the release of eggs from the uterus using the same hormones that oral contraceptives use.
So even if you believe that restricting the development of a fertilized egg is an abortion, Plan B is not.
If I remembe right, eggs get fertilized in the fallopian tubes and then migrates to the uterus where it then implants itself into the uterus.
I'm not sure where Plan B would fit in otherwise. Once an egg is in the uterus, it's either destined to be expelled during the next period or it's already a viable zygote.