First let me promise that this will be my last thread on this topic for the foreseeable future; I don't intend to make this the all-consuming topic of this sub-forum. However, some of the responses in my
previous thread made it clear that the choices were unnecessarily restrictive. This thread is meant to rectify that.
Rather than proposing a specific hypothetical measure related to abortion in the US for people to simply say yay or nay on, I've come up with four categories which (I think) more-or-less cover the positions of people in the other thread. They are:
1) Abortion should be legal, without any specific restrictions. Meaning that abortion should be/remain legal in all forms, without any restrictions based on fetal-development, method of abortion, nature of pregnancy...etc.
2) Abortion should be legal, but subject to some restriction(s). Meaning that abortion should be/remain legal, but be restricted in some way. This could include restrictions on term of pregnancy (e.g. ban on late-term abortions), on stage-of-fetal development, on method used in abortion (e.g. ban on "partial-birth" abortion)...etc. If you select this catagory, please specify what restrictions you have in mind, as well as any exceptions to those restrictions (e.g. restriction of late-term abortions except to save the mother's life).
3) Abortion should be banned, but subject to exceptions. Similar to option (2), but somewhat inverted. This would include general bans on abortion that made exceptions for the health of the mother, for rape/incest, for the age of the mother, for fetal deformity...etc. Again, please specify which exceptions you have in mind.
4) Abortion should be banned, with the sole exception of when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. I think Steve's poll has conclusively demonstrated that this one exception is almost universally recognized as valid.
I'm not sure why my interest in people's take on this issue has suddenly peaked, but I do appreciate the level of participation and the lack of open hostility in the earlier thread and hope that any discussion here will be similarly respectful. And, again, sorry to create such clutter over one issue.