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by parkingrift 1459 days ago
You're trying to make a scientific or analytical response to what I've just said is a moral issue. You can surely disagree, but many people find late term abortions repugnant. Some people find any abortion at any term repugnant. You can have these feelings without associating them with religious views. I'm not religious, as I've said. However, my broader point here is that people are making a mistake directly associating views on abortion with religiosity or conservative political views. It's not that black and white.

I live in New York. Abortion is legal for any reason up to 24 weeks, and then legal for any medical reason beyond 24 weeks.

Nationally, about 1.3% of all abortions are after 20 weeks. I don't have further data as to what percentage of that 1.3% were due to medical reasons. Big round numbers here 1.3% is roughly 8,500 20+ week abortions in the US per year.

> Why 20 weeks?

With current technology it is roughly where viability starts to climb from 0%. Possibility of feeling pain and/or terminating a living, viable, being. At 24 weeks the viability can be as high as 70%. It is okay that you do not find this disturbing, but I do find it disturbing. It's disturbing to me to think about voluntarily terminating a pregnancy after 20 weeks with no medical issues for the child or mother.

If given an option this is how I would vote. Unfortunately, there is no nuance in most American political issues. I don't have a choice to vote on allowing abortions for any reason up to 20 weeks, or for any medical reason afterward. I typically get to choose between "ban all abortions" and "allow almost all abortions."