In light of this thread , I would like to ask a more (I hope) well thought out version of the question. I’m sure it has been discussed ad naseum but:
At what point, if any, would you consider abortion murder?
Babies born as early as 23 to 26 weeks (towards the end of the second trimester) can survive with massive support. Yet this is still an acceptable gestational period for therapeutic abortions (I am using this term to distinguish from spontaneous abortion, or miscarriage).
According to Planned Parenthood there were 1.29 million abortions in the US in 2002. Of these, 1.4% occurred after the 20th week (over 18000).
I cannot find statistics for how many of these elections were done to save the mother’s life or how many were done just as a form of birth control (I’m sure someone out there can find the stats) but let’s suppose only 1% of the late term abortions were performed purely because the woman just did not want to be pregnant. That is 180 babies that were effectively murdered out of vanity.
My views on abortion are a little muddled. My wife and I had gone through fertility treatments, seeing ultrasounds at 8 weeks of a little bean shape with a heartbeat (60% of legal abortions occur by this point). We saw more ultrasounds at 12 weeks and could make out arms and legs (88.5% of legal abortions occur by this point).
We lost 6 babies, three of them in the second trimester. We were able to hold two of them and my son Tommy (22 weeks) died in my arms, having lived for only a half hour. The doctors said that if he had been able to stay in the womb for only 2 more weeks they would have attempted to help him but he was just too early for today’s technology. I held him as he gasped for breath in a world he wasn’t ready for. He is buried alongside two of his sisters. We have since adopted a beautiful girl.
I can understand abortion in the case of rape or incest (which, when it comes down to it, is another form of rape), or when the mother’s life is in jeopardy. I can understand the 14 year old who is scared to death of what her parents will think. I don’t like it, but I can understand it and would not do anything to interfere with their individual rights. But I think these cases are the minority. What I can’t understand is when a woman can claim to be responsible for her own body by having an abortion but can’t be responsible enough to not climb into bed with someone or even to make a stop at the local drug store (hell, she could get condoms at the gas station).
So, I will ask again: at what point does abortion become murder? Some people I have seen posting here consider the fetus a parasite until it comes out the birth canal. Some have stated that if it doesn’t have consciousness then it is not a human being (they extrapolate that to the other end of the life span as well).
I want to hear from you, enlightened people. No name calling. No insults. No red state/blue state. I would like to see people state their cases as logically as possible on this highly emotional issue. Thank you in advance.
First of all, let me extend my sympathy for your losses. I saw a lot of sick babies while we were in the hospital, and my heart goes out to you. That said, it’s sad that you little ones couldn’t be saved, but that has no bearing on the abortion debate that I can see.
I think abortion-on-demand should be available for any reason up to the point of viability. As that number changes with medical advances, then the law should reflect that.
An easy way to accomplish this is to do what Illinois has done - leave it on an individual basis. There is no cut off week or trimester. If a woman wants an abortion, two medical doctors must agree that her fetus is not viable. Obviously, for early abortions, this is easy. For later abortions, things like ultrasounds, estimated size, amniotic fluid levels and fetal movement are used to determine whether or not THAT FETUS is viable. I don’t know what percentage points are used by doctors to determine that. WhyBaby, at 23 weeks and 6 days gestation, 620 grams and 12 inches, was given a 50% chance. I wasn’t seeking an abortion, though, so I don’t know if I would have qualified for one or not.
This sort of arrangement, for me, brings the abortion decision back to where it belongs: a woman and her doctors.
The deliberate act of killing a viable fetus or born human being without their consent is murder, in The World According to Me. In the real word, it’s whatever your local juristiction says it is.
Leaving aside the irrelevant emotional guff as you requested, let’s address this
Never. Before the baby’s delivered, the foetus is not a person. Only people can be murdered. That’s my opinion, of course, based on my own views of what constitutes personhood, which are freely available in earlier abortion threads. But to answer your question - abortion can never be murder.
You claim to want an enlightened discussion with no name calling. You should have started one.
I want to see if I understand your view and please correct me if I’m wrong. A woman is pregnant with twins. At 30 weeks the amniotic sac ruptures on one twin and has to be delivered immediately to save it (this was the situation with my adopted daughter). The other is still safe in the womb for a few more weeks to better develop naturally. Therefore, according to your definition, the one that was delivered is now a person, with all the rights, priveleges and honors it is entitled to and the one that is still in the womb is not?
That’s correct.
The answer to your OP is never.
erie, thanks for sharing your story. I’m sorry for your losses. Congratulations on adopting your little girl; you’ve done a great thing.
It’s actually more than your opinion-- that is the definition of personhood in English and US common law. I’m not sure what the law is in South Africa, but I suspect it would be the same.
One problem with assigning personhood at the point of viability would be determining how to charge a person who caused the death of a fetus. I don’t think you can, after the fact, determine viability in all cases.
If the OP believes abortion is justifiable for rape and incest, and to protect the health of the mother, then the OP cannot self-consistently call abortion murder either. Neglecting the case where an abortion is required to save the life of the mother, killing is not murder (used loosely, including manslaughter) if it is in self-defense. But an abortion in these cases does not fall under self defense. Given that there is no harm to the mother that raises to the level which makes killing justified in these cases, either abortion is murder in the case of rape or incest or it is not at all.
I believe it is not murder ever. I could be persuaded about abortion when a fetus is viable, but those cases are rare to nonexistent. (I’d suspect most doctors would insist on trying to deliver the baby.) If those opposed to very late term abortions would support early term abortion rights, there would be little controversy.
This type of argument always sounds to me like a failure to comprehend the concept of object permanence..
I have nothing more to add.
The difference between a one month old fetus, say, and an already born baby is rather more than the inability to see the fetus.
erie774 define murder please.
The way I see it is abortion is the premeditated termination of human life. This does not equal murder however.
erie774, in making the argument that proper use of birth control should obviate the need for abortion, should be aware of failure rates for various means of contraception. Condoms, which you mention, have an approximate 10% failure rate in the first year of use. Cite
For another perspective on the “selfish” women seeking abortion, I recommend this article recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It should be eye-opening for you.
Second trimester abortions, while still considerably safer than carrying a pregnancy to term, are not undertaken lightly. A variety of circumstances, including medical conditions and roadblocks to finding abortion providers, are involved in delaying abortion until the second trimester. As recently as 1975, two years after Roe v. Wade, Kenneth Edelin M.D. was found guilty of fetal manslaughter for performing a second trimester abortion.
“Once I was indicted, hospitals up and down both coasts stopped performing second-trimester abortions,” recalled Edelin. “Many hospital administrators stopped permitting residents to take part in abortion at all.” But there was also an outpouring of support from women who had undergone pregnancy terminations before Roe v. Wade. “I received thousands of letters describing women’s experiences — lying on a kitchen table on a sheet of newspaper with a single light bulb overhead, undergoing an abortion alone without anesthesia, antiseptic, or anyone to support her,” said Edelin. “Many women were raped as a part of the process. It’s amazing the indignities — the risk to life and future fertility — these women faced when they were alone and frightened.” Edelin appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, and eventually the verdict was reversed."
My sympathies for your family’s losses. Please do not take others’ often desperate situations lightly.
erie774, like DianaG, I’m not entirely convinced you do indeed want a rational, dispassionate discussion. Some of your phrasing seems suspiciously weighted to me.
I realize you are hurt form your losses- and please accept my sincerest sympathies-, but your losses don’t allow you to tell others how to live their lives (not that you were doing that…yet).
Anyway, I think the best time to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy is a decision best left between and individual woman and her Doctor. I also think the best time to try to save a preemie is also a decision best left between a woman and her Doctor.
If one does not approve of elective abortion, one should not get one.
I’ll have to echo the request of others that you define “murder”. It’s certainly possible to calmly kill people and not be prosecuted for it, thus not falling under the legal definition of the term, which itself varies from venue to venue. If you want to define your ideal legal standard where a pregnancy is far enough along that murder could apply (for some it’s the instant of fertilization; for others, birth), please do so and we’ll go from there.
If instead you meant “at what point does abortion become morally unacceptable”, that will vary from person to person and I wouldn’t expect a resolution any century soon.
A longer thread than the one linked in the OP, asking virtually the same question as this one.
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Condoms and other birth control methods are at their peak efficacy when used by people who have been educated about them. There are a lot of people out there who got inadequate, inaccurate or even no education in birth control methods, such as those subjected to the abysmally stupid “Abstinence Only” sex-ed programs.
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Many women don’t want to carry birth control around with them if they’re not in a committed relationship because preparing for possible sexual encounters makes them feel like a slut. They’re more comfortable with the notion that sex “just happened.” Immature, yes, but some women have that hesitation.
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Even birth control used properly can fail.
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Some people just shouldn’t be parents, and maybe they know that. We condemn women who have children when they have no way of supporting them, or they’re addicted to drugs or in other bad situations. Should we condemn them equally when they realize that they shouldn’t bring a child into that situation?
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It may be easy to find a home for a healthy white baby, but there aren’t a lot of waiting lists for black babies, or babies with health problems.
I’ve never understood those who oppose abortion “except in the case of rape or incest.” If it’s all about the sanctity of life, shouldn’t that life be equally valued, no matter how it came about?
This notion has always struck me as reducing the abortion debate to one of controlling women’s sexuality. It seems more motivated towards making a sexually active woman bear the “consequences of her actions” than the much-vaunted importance of human life. The raped or molested woman is innocent of willful sexual conduct and thus gets a pass on not having to have the baby.
A bit circular, ain’t it?
No, it would be circular to say, for instance, “An fetus can’t be a person, because a person can be murdered, whereas a fetus can’t be murdered since it’s not a person.”
Saying “A fetus isn’t a person, and thus can’t be murdered,” isn’t circular. It is, of course, a matter of opinion, since there’s no universally agreed-upon standard for personhood.
Exactly. And there’s no universal standard because there is no clearly defined point when a person comes into being-- it’s a process, not an event. Even the most die-hard of pro-life advocates is going to have troube defining the precise moment this happens, since there isn’t any precise moment that an ovum becomes fertilized.
Here’s the problem, though…I DON’T agree that having been raped makes abortion morally justified, for the reason you state. A life is a life, IMO. This is such a sensitive area when it comes to rape though, that it tends to inflame debate beyond…well, being able to debate.