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this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Can anyone explain why fetal cardiac activity is an appropriate delimiter?
It's not. It's a disingenuous way to enact early abortion bans that targets people's emotions, but is meaningless from a healthcare perspective. We don't treat heartbeat as the ultimate arbiter of "life" in fully grown adults; we use brain function.
If we want to apply a similar standard for determining the cutoff for elective abortions, it's more complicated because the fetal brain assembles itself slowly. Hearing starts to become intact some time in the late second trimester, but the capacity to experience pain doesn't develop until after viability (the point in development when a fetus can be sustained medically outside the womb.)
https://www.acog.org/advocacy/facts-are-important/gestational-development-capacity-for-pain
Even using those potential physiological markers can't be relied on to enact a full permanent ban without exceptions because a fetus can develop defects that are incompatible with life, such as severe hydrocephalus or anencephaly, which complicate the process of gestation and birth in such a way that a late term abortion may be medically appropriate considering the fetus will not develop the ability to live independently outside the womb anyway.
And the real kicker here: Doctors are already very good at making these kinds of nuanced distinctions and making decisions in consultation with their pregnant patients and their families. We do not need legal regulation to do what medical ethics regulations already do very well.
Also, determining viability isn't so cut and dry.