“Pro-unborn rights,” as I suggested earlier?
Except I think the unborn can have the same rights as I do without changing my opinion about abortion.
To me, saying a fetus has the right to someone else’s body is giving it a special right, a right no other being has. It’s not equal, since I as an adult don’t have and can’t get the right to anyone’s body no matter what they do to me.
That’s true. I would be in that camp as well (for a different reason), so I agree it’s not perfect. But it’s arguably better than pro-life/pro-choice.
That’s why there’s no term that satsfies everyone. What I choose as a name implies the opposite (or something else) about what someone else chooses. That’s why my own preference is to call groups what they’d like to be called, out of courtesy.
So, you would be in favor of legal abortion up to the day of delivery? If not, then you’re in favor of special rights that no other being has.
If it’s safer for the mother than induced labor, yes.
I know of no pattern of action, or history of honest adherence to philosophy of any sort that characterizes either the entity referred to as “The State” or “The Law” that makes me desire to defer the question of abortion to either of them. I already lost my front door, and my bedroom to the the state, I am now fighting a rearguard to protect my body. I am not optimistic about the outcome.
Tris
I believe that the fundamental flaw of democracy, as a political system is its pernicious indulgence of the wide spread desire of human beings to order the lives of their fellows. Republics add to this failure, the winnowing of the common man according to the strength of that same desire, until only those who aspire to tyranny are given authority.
But if she just doesn’t want to go through labor or surgery, you would force her to have the baby? If so, you are giving the fetus rights no one else has.
As worded, that’s an incredibly stupid question, so I’m assuming you mistyped something.
I don’t think I mistyped anything. You said that disallowing abortion gives the fetus rights noone else has–that is, the right to use your body to survive. Then you said that you support abortion at 9 months gestation if it’s safer than induced labor. So, I concluded that you would NOT support abortion at 9 months gestation simply because the mother doesn’t wish to go through the labor or surgery necessary to get the fetus out alive. This seems to me to be giving rights to the fetus that no one else has…the right to be born at the expense of someone else having to go throught unwanted labor or surgery.
If you still think my question is stupid, I’m sorry, but your position here seems inconsistent.
Okay, she’s going to have to undergo labor or surgery no matter what, so when you said “surgery” I was including abortion. There are no other options but labor or surgery.
This is my last post in this thread, since it is wandering far afield with multiple gotcha attempts.
I wasn’t attempting a gotcha, I was trying to understand your position. I should have been more specific and said “full labor and delivery or cesarian section.”. Either of these would probably be considered more difficult/taxing than ppartial-birth abortion, so I’m curious to know why you think women should have to go through either if they don’t wish to, that’s all.
So, you’re OK with abortion (killing the fetus) on demand up to the time of delivery?
8 1/2 months pregnant, and a woman decides she doesn’t want to have the baby, and you’re OK with that. Am I getting that right?
If she’s not, I am. Of course, good luck finding a doctor willing to perform this procedure without a compelling medical reason, which is why I can afford to be so calm about it - it never happens in the manner you suggest.
What Bryan said.
I agree. The idea that human life begins at conception is debatable. I think everyone will agree that an embryo is not a viable human life without a womb. What about women who use in vitro fertilization and decide to dispose of the remaining, unwanted embryos? I know couples can donate unwanted embryos but some don’t and choose to have them destroyed. Is there any difference? There is also the entire cloning issue which is beyond this discussion but relevant to the definition of human life as personhood (Human embryos have been cloned).
Maybe the pro-choice and pro-life label should be changed to pro-liberation and anti-liberation because nothing has liberated women more than contraception and the legal right to privately terminate an unwanted pregnancy. When women have no reproductive control, they have few social choices. She can become a nun or raise children.
But why would that matter? When my sister was hospitalized for by-pass surgery, she was not a viable human life without all the crap she was hooked up to.
It matters because your sister still had a fully functioning brain. She needed post operative medical intervention, but she was alive and viable. I consider non viability as no chance of survival. A traumatic injury that results in brain death results in a non viable human being. Many people choose to take a loved on off life support because their is no chance of recovery or life. Life support is maintaining vital functions but with no brain activity, the person will never live without medical intervention or recover brain function.
You’re probably aware that advancements in ectogenesis are coming along fast and furious. Will you change your position when an artificial uterus is perfected? And more importantly, what will you label your position? Will it still incorporate the notion of liberation?
Debatable? Perhaps in the sense that people–especially laypeople–can disagree on any subject. In this case though, the overwhelming weight of expert medical testimony affirms that life does begin at conception.
If this were truly a matter of scientific debate, then we should find a great number of scientific experts who state so. Quite the contrary, though; they consistently affirm that life does begin at conception. I have yet to find a single textbook on embryology which says that this is debatable.
In 1981, a Senate judiciary subcommittee collected testimony from world-class experts on when life begins (Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, Report, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981). None of the experts testified that life begins at any point other than conception. Here are some samples of their testimonies:
Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth
Harvard University Medical School
“It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive…It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”
Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni
Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics, University of Pennsylvania
“I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.”
Dr. Jerome LeJeune
Professor of Genetics, University of Descartes
“After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being. [It] is no longer a matter of taste or opinion…it is plain experimental evidence. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”
Professor Hymie Gordon
Mayo Clinic
“By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”
Dr. Watson A. Bowes
University of Colorado Medical School
“The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter – the beginning is conception.”
The Senate then reported on its findings as follows:
Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being - a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.
Now, I’m sure that some people here would say, “But they’re wrong! They’re wrong! Who cares what these people say?” These are world-class experts though, and expert testimony carries extraordinary weight in a court of law. Moreover, this is not a situation where you have an equitable split between experts. Rather, the overwhelming testimony of experts within this field is that life does indeed begin at conception.
[QUOTE=unconventionalI think everyone will agree that an embryo is not a viable human life without a womb.[/QUOTE]
Neither is an 8.5-month old fetus. Does this mean that it’s not a human life?
Heck, a newborn child cannot survive on its own either. Nor can many people survive without a dialysis machine or a pacemaker. Does this make them less than human?