> a healthy > 12 week fetus with a healthy mother is a human life that must be protected

I respect this position, though I don't myself hold it, because pregnancy is a huge risk and can change you forever, and it's not always your choice (assault, etc.)

> The distinction is a moral one: is a fetus that’s more than 12-14 weeks old sufficiently developed that it cannot be killed unless it has a developmental abnormality, or the pregnancy jeopardizes the health of the mother?

I think we do have a factual disagreement though, because this is really rare and is largely an access issue. Most people don't know how hard it is to get an abortion in the US, especially for girls or poor women. Here's some info from Planned Parenthood [0]:

- A 2005 survey of U.S. abortion providers found that among women who have non-hospital abortions, approximately 19 percent travel 50 to 100 miles for services, and an additional eight percent travel more than 100 miles

- As of 2011, 89 percent of U.S. counties had no known abortion provider; these counties are home to 38 percent of all women of reproductive age. (Jones and Jerman, 2014). Furthermore, in 2008, 97 percent of non-metropolitan counties have no abortion services, and 92 percent of non-metropolitan women live in these unserved counties.

- In 2000, the average cost of a first-trimester, in-clinic, non-hospital abortion with local anesthesia was $372 (Henshaw & Finer, 2003). In 2009 this cost was $451. The median cost of medication abortion, which can be done in the first 63 days of pregnancy, was $490 (Jones and Kooistra, 2011). For low-income and younger women, gathering the necessary funds for the procedure often causes delays. A recent study found that women at or under 100 percent of the federal poverty level were more likely than women at higher income levels to have second-trimester abortions (Jones and Finer, 2012). Compounding the problem is the fact that the cost of abortion rises with gestational age: in 2009, non- hospital facilities charged an average of $1,500 for abortion at 20 weeks (Jones and Kooistra, 2011). Most women are forced to pay for abortions out-of-pocket.

- Causing additional delays are state laws that mandate parental consent, notification, or court-authorized bypass for minors, and laws that impose required waiting periods. For example, after Mississippi passed a parental consent requirement, the ratio of minors to adults obtaining abortions after 12 weeks increased by 19 percent.

- Adolescents are more likely than older women to obtain abortions later in pregnancy... [c]ommon reasons why adolescents delay abortion until after the first trimester include fear of parents’ reaction, denial of pregnancy, and prolonged fantasies that having a baby will result in a stable relationship with their partners (Paul et al., 2009). In addition, adolescents may have irregular periods (Friedman et al., 1998), making it difficult for them to detect pregnancy.

This is why women's health organizations are pushing so hard for telemedicine and medication abortions, because various pro-life policies have tragically upped the rate of abortions after the 1st trimester. If the pro-life community really wanted to push down that last 7.3%, they should campaign for more funding for abortion clinics, medicaid coverage of abortions, repeal of parental consent and waiting period laws, more access to mifepristone, and so on.

Whenever I find myself in conversation with members of the pro-life community I'm just depressed by the amount of misinformation they labor under, in particular the prevailing belief that there are significant numbers of women having abortions in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters "for no good reason". You're even trying to show here that it is the case by pointing out a discrepancy between Canada and Denmark and inferring, but we have clear evidence it isn't. It just isn't true. This is our factual disagreement.

IME there are two major parts of the pro-life community: those who are fine w/ 1st trimester abortions and those who aren't. The 2nd group is thrilled with Dobbs and is actively pushing for state and national abortion bans. The 1st group is having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that we actually had the regime we wanted pre-Dobbs: 92.7% of abortions occur in the 1st trimester, and the overwhelming majority of those that don't are for "good" reasons. They hear these bonkers stories of teen girls forced to give birth or receiving jail time for trying to get mifepristone, or women forced to go septic before they're allowed to have an abortion, and they can't square it with what they were told by the pro-life movement. My hope is that they realize they were led down the garden path by a craven political party's compulsive demagoguery, and they continue to make the GOP pay at the ballot box.

[0]: https://cdn.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/99/41...