Do you think there are good reasons to deny a woman an abortion? Should these reasons be applied case-by-case or as a rule?
I tend to the view that there should be a time limit determined by the point at which the foetus is able to survive outside of a pregnant woman. I remain undecided on the amount of medical support that may be factored in, but if it's non-zero the time limit would have to be reviewed periodically as medical technology changes.
The down-side to this view is the question of how an exact time limit of this kind is determined.
My opinion is that before the 4th month, abortions should be unrestricted - ...
Agreed, except that I see nothing special about the 4th month.
The 4th month is supposedly a rough guess at when the nervous system and brain connect, so it could possibly feel pain at that point. There's too much 'I don't know' for a better guess, so I'm going the conservative route with that.
... but after that, there are two considerations: Firstly, that as the fetus grows, the procedure becomes more traumatizing and dangerous.
True, but I would guess that if it's done properly it's always less traumatic and less dangerous than carrying the foetus to term or undergoing an uncontrolled late-term miscarriage.
I'd have to see the studies on that, as I'm under the impression that a mid-late term abortion is more dangerous than carrying. At this point I think it'd be a case-by-case situation to see if the person in question would be better off aborting or carrying, and then they'd have to be informed, and their wishes taken into consideration.
And secondly, I do not think anyone is totally sure when the fetus starts thinking and feeling things like a baby does.
Also true. But do we know even that a newborn is sentient?
I don't know, but I believe they are at least as aware as, say, a dog. People can form memories as newborns, they feel emotions, and I see them as human beings.
... But there's no doubt in my mind that an infant starts feeling and reacting to stimulus while in the womb. It has brain activity and responds to its mother before it is born. And if we know that it has those traits, killing it would be like killing a newborn infant. Which is to say, still justifiable if the mother's life is endangered and she cannot continue carrying the pregnancy, but not considered anything less than terminating a budding sentience.
I don't see how this follows. Perhaps you're conflating "feelings" meaning sophisticated emotions with "feelings" meaning tactile sensation? All animals and maybe in some sense all living things experience the former, but we do not call them all sentient - budding or otherwise.
I meant feeling as in tactile stimulation. But it also responds to the mother's mood, what she eats, the music she listens to, the tone of her voice, and other things going on around her.
I don't know for certain when an infant or a fetus becomes sentient, but I think, much like 'innocent until proven guilty', as empathic beings, we should err on the side of caution and assume that an infant that shows signs of awareness could have at least some hint of sentience.
I have no problem with comparing an unborn 6 month old fetus to a cat or a guinea pig. But consider the outrage sparked when someone has their pet put to death because they don't want it anymore. How is killing a dog because it's a burden any different than killing a fetus with the mental capacity of a dog for the same reason?
All that being said, if a woman is in her 5th or later month of pregnancy, and however it happens, a decision not to abort is reached, we as a society should provide her with guilt-free surrender options, counseling, financial aid and postpartum medical care. And we need to provide the child with the best chance of going to an adoptive family. Most importantly, we need to provide our children and teens with better reproductive health care, non-celebacy-based sexual education, contraceptives, guilt-free and shame-free counseling, and access to early testing and termination so that the question about late-term abortion is ALMOST NEVER ASKED in the first place.
