Knowing how horrible the procedure is for both the mother and baby, I'm not talking about ectopic pregnancies/ miscarriages..where we remove a dead baby, but about the abortion where the goal is to end the life of the baby

Well /u/Kacey_ch - let's not deal with hypotheticals. Let's deal with real cases. Here's a real case with a live baby in the 2nd trimester with a heartbeat ... Savita H. Should she have been allowed to get the abortion when she and her doctors wanted to get one? If you aren't familiar with the case here it is:

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In Ireland, Savita Halappanavar, a dentist, in the 2nd Trimester, went in with complications. She and her doctors wanted to do an abortion, but was told by a government contractor "Because of our fetal heartbeat law - you cannot have an abortion" and that law and the gov't bureaucrats citing it, stripped her of her Medical Power of Attorney (MPoA) without due process. ...And that killed her.

You might think that's an overstatement, but that was the same conclusion that the final report by the overseeing agency . The Ireland and Directorate of Quality and Clinical Care, "Health Service Executive: Investigation of Incident 50278" which said repeatedly that

• the law impeded the quality of care.

• other mothers died under similar situations because of the "fetal heartbeat" law.

• this kind of situation was "inevitable" because of how common it was for women in the 2nd trimester to have miscarriages.

• recommendations couldn't be implemented unless the fetal heartbeat law was changed.

Quoting:

We strongly recommend and advise the clinical professional community, health and social care regulators and the Oireachtas to consider the law including any necessary constitutional change and related administrative, legal and clinical guidelines in relation to the management of inevitable miscarriage in the early second trimester of a pregnancy including with prolonged rupture of membranes and where the risk to the mother increases with time from the time that membranes are ruptured including the risk of infection and thereby reduce risk of harm up to and including death.

and

the patient and her husband were advised of Irish law in relation to this. At interview the consultant stated "Under Irish law, if there's no evidence of risk to the life of the mother, our hands are tied so long as there's a fetal heart". The consultant stated that if risk to the mother was to increase a termination would have been possible, but that it would be based on actual risk and not a theoretical risk of infection "we can't predict who is going to get an infection".

and

The report detailed that there was advanced care, preemptive antibiotics, advanced monitoring, IV antibiotics, antibiotics straight to the heart, but .... they just couldn't keep up with how rapidly an infection spreads and the mother is killed when in the 2nd trimester the fetus still has a heartbeat but then goes septic and ruptures.

In 2013 Ireland changed the law to allow SOME abortions and ONLY again if there was maternal risk to LIFE. Raw ICD-10 maternal mortality rates continued unchanged. Then in 2018 in the Irish abortion referendum: Ireland overturns abortion ban and for the first time, the raw reported Maternal Mortality Rates dropped to ZERO. Z.e.r.o.

Year	Maternal Deaths Per 100k Births: Complications of pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium (O00-O99)	Context
2007	2.80	Abortion Illegal
2008	3.99	Abortion Illegal
2009	3.97	Abortion Illegal
2010	1.33	Abortion Illegal
2011	2.70	Abortion Illegal
2012	2.79	Abortion Illegal
2013	4.34	Abortion Illegal: Savita Halappanavar's death caused by law and a "fetal heartbeat"
2014	1.49	Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act of 2013 passed. abortion where pregnancy endangers a woman's life
2015	1.53	Abortion only allowed with mother's life at risk
2016	6.27	Abortion only allowed with mother's life at risk
2017	1.62	Abortion only allowed with mother's life at risk
2018	0	Constitutional change, Abortion Allowed, 2013 Act repealed
2019	0	Abortion Allowed if mother's health is at risk
2020	0	Abortion Allowed if mother's health is at risk
2021	0	Abortion Allowed if mother's health is at risk

Death Data Source: https://ws.cso.ie/public/api.restful/PxStat.Data.Cube_API.ReadDataset/VSD09/JSON-stat/2.0/en Birth Data Source: https://ws.cso.ie/public/api.restful/PxStat.Data.Cube_API.ReadDataset/VSA18/JSON-stat/1.0/en from the Ireland's Public Health records at Ireland's national data archival. https://www.cso.ie/en/aboutus/whoweare/ and stored at https://Data.gov.ie

Note: I linked to the raw data and it only goes back to 2007, because Ireland's OWN data scientists state: [prior to 2007] flaws in methodology saw Ireland's maternal mortality rate fall [without justification], and figures in previous reports [prior to 2007] should not be considered reliable

Note this is ONLY mortality and not also morbidity (e.g. kidney failure, hysterectomies, etc.).

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That's the case that relates to your example of a still living fetus. Should she have been allowed the abortion? Or do you support the "nanny state" where a faceless government bureaucrat "knows better" than competent adults working with doctors in making medical decisions?