Oy. This post birth thing I think has to do with doctors having to kill a fetus before any part of it is outside of the woman for it to qualify as a legal abortion. If you get rid of that rule, then I’m guessing medically it might be easier in some cases to abort, I don’t know. I think most people want to reduce any possible suffering of the pregnant woman or baby, and to reduce any medical risk to the pregnant woman, not only reduce risk to her life, but also reduce risk of physical injury from a pregnancy or terminating the pregnancy.
The whole “late term
abortion” thing is less and less an issue, because we know much earlier when something is very wrong, compared to 25 years ago. Pro-life people who say and believe they would never abort, usually want to abort when they find out the growing baby has no brain or has very severe abnormalities.
So, if I understand correctly, in MO, a woman who was thrilled to be pregnant after trying with her husband for 6 months, if she finds out at 14 weeks she has a baby that could never live outside of the womb, she has to wait for the baby to come to term, deliver the baby, wait to recover, and then can start trying to get pregnant again.
On a related topic, my pro-life friend who is a nurse who works taking care of premies at a large hospital says she would never put her own child through what some of these very very early term babies are put through. If the baby makes it, they have severe problems their whole life. Many don’t even make it, but the family wanted to try everything.