I am not looking for a debate. I’m looking for answers to points made by a friend/acquaintance of mine regarding abortion.
“Men can have opinions on abortion when one gets pregnant.”
My response to which is, “Then women can have opinions on any man’s choice to do stuff when one acquires a set on functioning testicles.” That, needless to say, doesn’t work. I’ve tried to think of things that only affect men . . . the draft, impotence, etc. All seem to relate, somehow, to women. Thing is, I can’t see how abortion could solely be a woman’s issue. Firstly, she cannot get pregnant (naturally) without a man. Any child she makes (naturally) is half his. So I see this as a man’s issue as well.
“It is a woman’s body.” I counter with “No, it’s the baby’s body.” That doesn’t seem to work as well as I’d initially hoped. I can see where someone would be defensive about someone trying to tell them what they can and can’t do to THEIR OWN body. But in this case we’re talking about someone killing a human being.
Also . . . for those who are pro-choice (and anyone in general, really): how do you define a human?
In case it wasn’t blatantly obvious, yes I’m prolife.
And on a somewhat unrelated note, how many of y’all are both female and prolife? This girl I was talking to also thinks the notion of a woman being prolife is absurd and thinks that maybe 5 percent of American woman are such (prolife, not absurd).
Lastly: anyone have more compelling arguments for/against abortion? Again, I’m not trying to argue that abortion is or isn’t right here, thus why I put this in GQ, not GD. I suspect it will probably get to the point where it becomes a debate. If it does, I’ll certainly be able to learn a lot. Anyway. Help is much appreciated with this. Thanks.
Until this gets moved to GD (tick…tick…tick…), I’ll answer one of the questions posted.
Although I am male, the vast majority of females I know more than casually are pro-life. This includes every female member of my family, at least through the cousins. It also includes most of the people I know from church, and several co-workers.
There have been a fair amount of abortion threads in GD within the last three months.
I must come from a different word. I am female and prochoice. Everyone I know is prochoice. That’s ProCHOICE, not proabortion. The choice issue is frequently covered up by prolife folks assuming that every prochoice person is in favor of abortion. I remain in favor of everyones right to make choices about themselves. I don’t like lots things that other people do, but I’m not willing to give up MY rights to make choices in order to control the behaviors of others.
I can see that, dragonlady. I like having choices myself, I just don’t like the idea of having a choice to kill someone. That doesn’t strike me as particularly fair to the person in question or the person making the decision.
But I’m a bit biased, as I lost a cousin to someone who (in my opinion) made the wrong choice.
As this is in GQ, not GD, and I’m asking questions, not saying “abortion is wrong and here’s why” I felt justified in saying that, here, it’s not a debate. Other places it has been. It probably will turn into one, which is fine by me. I just didn’t intend the OP to turn out a debate.
It’s a very difficult topic. I figure there are some intelligent/enlightened/whatever posters here. I figure the stronger an argument I can make (and by argument I don’t mean “the louder I can shout” but “the more convincing a point I can make”) and the more I can educate myself on this in general, the better off I am.
You are saying abortion is wrong, you’re just not saying why you think it is. By using phrases like, “killing a human being,” you are saying that it is wrong without offering any evidence to support your assertion that it is essentially murder. Your OP did more than ask a few questions. If you’d left out the “killing” part perhaps this thread wouldn’t seem like GD material.
This really pissed me off. I think if someone tried to say something like this to me, my response would be “Then women can have an opinion about wife-beating when they get some balls.” Not really what I believe, just giving them a taste of their own medicine.
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No shit. If it’s the woman’s body, why does “it” have “it’s” own functioning heart, lungs, brain, muscles, eyes, skin, hair, and a different blood type (more often than not) than the mother?
As for defining human and compelling arguments for/against abortion, it’s hard to say. I think both questions are problematic. The best argument for defining human is the point of conception, since a human being is an inevitability only after that has taken place. (I never could understand the Catholic Churche’s stand on birth control. What’s the harm in using it? To use their logic, we shouldn’t use medicine either, we should just let “the will of God” dictate our fate.) Some people say “it’s” human if it can survive on it’s own outside the womb, but then you get into a semantic minefield. Survive how? With/without machines? Some children can survive at different ages-there is no standard “cut-off” point, although there is a general range.
And some say “it’s” only human after birth, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense either. There is no material difference between a baby five minutes before it’s born and the same child five minutes after it’s born.
Now for the compelling arguments for/against abortion…I think the only arguments to be had are moral ones. It depends entirely on which morality you believe in. From a pragmatic, humanistic standpoint, there are no arguments either for or against. On the other hand, if you cleave to the Christian ethic that all human life is sacred, then abortion is an immoral act tantamount to murder. (Note: I didn’t say you actually have to be a Christian to believe this, just that its part of that value system, and maybe some others.) It’s not surprising then that virtually all groups in the U.S. that are opposed to abortion are religious in nature.
It kind of makes the whole thing sound like another political exercise, doesn’t it? Welcome to America.
I’m operating under the assumption that it is wrong, yes. I’m not really opening this up to debate as in “I have a problem with what you think” which I’ll admit is selfish of me. However, I’m looking for the thoughts of others here.
So I’ll define human for you: someone whose body operates under the organic presence of a human . . . someone whose body is human flesh.
I tried to operate under the premise that a human is someone with a soul (or who once had one), but for those who aren’t Christian this is pretty useless.
The biggest reason I didn’t post this in GD is that I didn’t really open the OP to the possibility that abortion isn’t wrong. As is the case with a lot of GQ OPs, I’m operating under the assumption that what I believe is right. If you disagree, feel free to open a GD thread on it, or revive an old one. I’m not promising I’ll post to it or that I’ll be able to offer a convincing argument as to why abortion is wrong . . . that’s one reason for the OP: I want to know how others argue for its being wrong or right.
As I understand it, it depends on how the birth control works. Some work by preventing the zygote from being able to implant itself in the uterus, thereby cutting off its food source, effectively killing it.
As for medicine . . . “appropriate means” or whatever Dom Paschal taught me include some forms of medicine. So trying to give a new heart to someone whose body is ridden with cancer to the point where s/he will die any day and the surgery involved in a new heart might kill the person is not “appropriate means”. Giving someone medicine for an ear infection is “appropriate means”.
Thanks so much for the link. Truly interesting site, with the exception of:
"GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Cesarean Section - The surgical incision of the walls of the abdomen (and uterus in normal cases) for the delivery of offspring. Julius Caesar was believed to have been born by this procedure."
It seems to me that where a person stands on abortion depends almost entirely on their ideas as to when life actually begins. In other words, if you believe that life begins at the moment of conception, you would probably be prolife. But if you believe that life begins at some other point in the pregnancy, you would probably be prochoice.
I am one of those people that believes that abortion is wrong, however I still support the womans right to choose. She is the one that has to live with the decision.
Two main questions come to mind where abortion is concerned. First, What part of the decision to abort did the baby play? Answer: None. Second, If a person is pro abortion, where would they be if their mother had aborted them? Answer: non existent.
So the fetus is nowhere near being viable on its own. It lacks a functioning nervous system and is an inch long. Hardly a human.
The third month (end of first trimester):
So the fetus is 110 grams and is three inches long. It could in no way survive outside the mother. Again, not a human.
The fifth month (the site does not seperate fifth and sixth months):
The fetus has developed, but, as the quote says, it is nowhere near viable yet. Not a human.
As you can see, first and second trimester abortions do not entail killing a human. Third trimester abortions engender controversy even within the pro-choice side. I am for them, myself.
I agree. Derleth, your post completely avoided the issue. You just posted a bunch of medical facts. We’re talking about an issue here. Whoever wrote what you posted did not attempt to argue (at least in the parts you posted) that a developing fetus’ lack of viability outside the mother made it more or less human
Oop, I just saw your last post. But that definition doesn’t work either. A newborn baby can’t “survive” on it’s own either. Without a parent to take care of it, it would die too. And at what point does a “undeveloped mass of cells” become capable of surviving on its own? Can you say with complete certainty? Is it something you really want to leave to guesswork? I sort of addressed this in my last post.
This is weird. I don’t even care that much about abortion.
If this is your definition, then I have a cousin who was born a few years ago and isn’t human. Interesting definition.
There are millions of humans (beings possessing human DNA, not for the purpose of making hormones) not developed well enough that they can live on their own.
Lizard, you’re working toward the pursuit of knowledge, which is a noble endeavor. Whether or not you care about abortion isn’t so important here as the quest for knowledge.
Is it alive?
Yes. There is no reputable biologist in the world who proposes that a fetus is produced through spontaneous generation. Sperm cells are alive, egg cells are alive. They do not die upon fertilization and then mystically spring back to life at some arbitrarily defined later point. So a zygote is, in the biological sense, a living entity.
Is it human?
There are various religious and moral definitions of “human” that people always invoke at this point to justify the conclusion they want to reach, so I’m going to avoid all that and stick to the scientific sense of the word. A human zygote belongs to the species Homo sapiens. Any other assertion is ludicrous. We have a genome here that is demonstrably NOT that of a horse, wombat, or chimpanzee. In the modern biological sense, based on the molecular understanding of life, a human zygote is clearly HUMAN in that it belongs to our species and no other.
[A lot of argument surrounds this point, as various parties insist that they have the one, true, definition of humanity. I won’t argue with them, since it is invariably unproductive. But there is no reputable biologist in the world who would seriously argue with the notion that if a tissue posesses the genome of a particular species, it belongs to THAT species.]
Is it an extension of the mother, or an individual in it’s own right?
The fetus is clearly physiologically dependent on its mother. There is simply no denying this. The fetus is also a new individual, again in the biological sense, because it has it’s own unique individual genome. There is no reputable biologist in the world who would assert that two different genomes do not imply two different individuals*. In fact, this is also a well-established legal principle, used to convict and acquit thousands and thousands of people over many years now.
So the biological view leaves no alternative but that a fetus is a new, unique, living, individual, member of the species Homo sapiens who is still physiologically dependent on its mother.
NOW comes the question of whether abortion is okay. Biology has nothing to say about this; it’s a moral issue. I won’t say anything about it either (after the above, my views may surprise you). But those who want to argue that abortion IS okay are faced with justifying the killing of a living, individual, human, and that’s hard to do. So there is a strong tendency to go back and interpret the facts in some acrobatic way to make a fetus into something else. No matter what your views on abortion, this should be objectionable as a kind of muddled thinking.
*The converse may not be true: two different individuals may have the same genome, as in identical twins, but that is not the issue here.