It’s an analogy to illustrate the illogicality of your stance, I know historic buildings are actually destroyed.
But again, you claim that because there is the potential for human life, we should not destroy the fetus, right? It’s an understandable position to some extent. However, you are both contradicting your original point and drawing a line where it doesn’t belong. I’ll explain.
The original point equates abortion with murder, or at least killing, of a human being. However, I argue, and you almost seem inclined to agree, that a fetus is not a person, only a potential human being. A human being is defined by their cognitive capacity, and in a Christian sense, their spirit (which is a completely arbitrary subject. I think that if the spirit enters the body any earlier than the first breath then it degrades the value of the spirit to something meaningless). Just the same, an egg is not a chicken. Therefore, killing a zygote/fetus/whatever is not even remotely on the same plane as murder.
Also, you draw the line at the point where the potential can be met without any further intervention (even though this ignores the mother’s 9-month responsibility to care for the to-be-baby, which kind of renders the idea wrong). What about something like the theoretical possibility of parthenogenesis? Is killing an egg murder now? You are making oversimplifications without considering all the factors.
My actual position is that I only want the death penalty used on mass murderers/spree killers, and those who torture their victims before murdering them, and that I’d like to see a lot more restrictions on abortion; while I wouldn’t want a complete ban, I think the only moral reason to have an abortion is to spare an incurably diseased or malformed child a short lifetime of agony.
I feel more strongly about aborting healthy babies carried by healthy mothers than imprisoning a few psychos for life, so I vote for banning both.
Shows how much you know. He could be the next Hitler.
(But really, isn’t there a Godwin-style name for this bunk, this ‘What if you had been aborted?’ question?)
Perhaps the OP should stop beating around the bush and finally ask a question about what I suspect is a concern for pro-lifers like him – who has more valuable, a pregnant woman or a virginal child? Or maybe just, as he seems to be concerned with old school feminism, Are Women Human?
No, killing an egg is not murder. When the egg and sperm combine the fetus is made and that is when I draw the line. Also as a Christian I do believe ensoulment happens at the moment of conception.
If it’s the life of a pregnant woman or a fetus I will support the woman’s right to abort. However for all abortions not so the woman will not die (especially due to modern medical technology).
An arbitrary line; it’s still just a cell. As for souls; America is not yet a theocracy, and there’s no evidence whatsoever that they are even possible, much less real. They are not the proper basis for law, and belief in the soul is outright destructive to morality.
But suffering permanent injury is just fine. And all the pain involved in pregnancy and childbirth. And the humiliation of being reduced to the level of a cow. And if you guess wrong and she does die; well she was only a woman. Not a real human being.
The fetal stage of development begins at around 11 weeks after conception. Like the other person before me, I’d say that the line is arbitrary, that is once religious principles are disregarded, and in legal matters such as this, they must be.
Seems to me the personal and financial repercussions for people who commit drunk driving aren’t nearly as heavy as for those whose birth control fails, which suggests a rather blatant unfairness.
Clearly, drunk drivers should be forcibly impregnated and then given a years-long financial obligation so they achieve parity with those awful criminals who chose a less-than-perfect contraceptive.
Hey, if you present a ridiculous argument, you’ll get a ridiculing rebuttal. Your latest (which is actually just the millionth retread of a vapid position) plays the same definitional stop-thought game in which applying a label to something presumably renders moot any further analysis of the issue because people who disagree are evil:
Round 1: Call abortion “killing a baby”. Baby-killers deserve no consideration. [stopthought]
Round 2: If you get pregnant, call it “responsible” to see the pregnancy through and raise the child. Therefore, not seeing the pregnancy through is irresponsible. Irresponsible people deserve no consideration. [stopthought]
I don’t see why anyone with an unwanted pregnancy (or anyone at all, really) must be influenced by someone else’s use of labels. As far as I can tell, a woman with an unwanted pregnancy is indeed taking “responsibility” when she has an abortion in as safe and timely a manner as the situation permits and then paying her medical bill in full and on time. Being irresponsible, I figure, would be living in denial about the pregnancy, delivering the baby, and then abandoning it to die in some dumpster (or, for that matter, having an abortion and paying the doctor with a bad check).
Of course, no-one should feel obliged to accept my definition of “responsible”, either. It’s just as arbitrary as yours. My position, however, has the advantage of having better observable results, namely that American society is better off by several objective benchmarks with abortion rights than it was without them, and American society has not tended toward a state where bringing in abortion restrictions would produce enough benefits to overcome the resultant harm. There may come a time when this changes, I’m prepared to admit, but I doubt it’ll be anytime soon.
Here are some facts against your guesses. It seems that the number of abortions per 1000 women is approaching the mark it held just after Roe vs. Wade passed.
If you accept that premise (there’s about the same percentage of abortions now that were before 1973), there’s a substantial difference: A far higher percentage of women who had abortions back then would have died because they had to use illegal services to have the abortion.
Thus, before 1973 more women would have died because of abortions.
About the same amount of babies would have survived.
Far more women would have been subject to harassment (legal or corrupt).
BTW, Curtis, technically a pregnancy does NOT begin until a fertilized egg attaches itself to the wall of the uterus. Thus, your argument that life begins at conception is itself flawed.
I was explaining to the other person about my views on soul not using it as a reason to ban abortion. Also is not birth just an arbitary line? For a newborn can not survive without immediate care.
I’ve had enough of your bullshit about me being some sort of a sadistic misogynist who enjoys seeing women suffer. But anyways the pain suffered in pregnancy and childbirth is temporary compared to death.
I’m just talking about personal responsibility. Having sex is not something like “Should I have hamburger or a chicken sandwich?”, it’s a very important decision of your life.
If abortion had continued to be restricted than rates would have dropped in the general downward trend in all crime and with more enligtened programs far lower than in 1973.
That is only a little bit after conception and it’s usually quite certain that will happen.
Not the same level of care as before birth; blankets and milk aren’t the same as being plugged into someone’s bloodstream. Nor did I claim that it wasn’t fairly arbitrary.
The morally important point is when the baby develops a human level mind; which would be sometime after the six month point in pregnancy at the very earliest; probably much later. And certainly NOT at conception.
If you aren’t, then you shouldn’t push for making women suffer.
Pregnancy and childbirth can cause permanent damage. And the death in question is the death of a thing, not a person.
According to YOU. You have no right to declare your ownership of women’s bodies.
And your evidence of that is? And a “more enlightened” program is one that allows abortion; outlawing abortion is barbaric, misogynistic and tyrannical, not enlightened.
Yeah – six of one, half dozen of the other…It doesn’t really make a difference, does it? Forget that the woman may have other children at home depending on her, maybe a husband, parents to take care of, brothers and sisters who love her, a grandmother who adores her, a job that depends on her, a history, a life behind her, plans for the future, an education.
Do you think you understand much about women, Curtis? I have two adult granddaughters. You haven’t indicated that you would think more of one of them than you would a flake of dendruff.
That depends on the definition of a “full mind”, and on how certain we are that it lacks one. We can be certain that a fetus lacks one; it is simply far to undeveloped. The grey area of uncertainty only comes up later.
But yes; if a “baby” is essentially brain dead - and that is the level of disability we are talking about here - then there is no one there to save and never will be.
Abortion is not murder. And if you label it such, all you’ve done is create a category of murder that it is just to commit.
Irrelevant.
But you demand that she serve as life support for it, suffer the risks and damage involved.
A place not known for treating women well, unsurprisingly. Opposition to abortion ALWAYS turns out to be about the abuse of women, in the end. Despite all the noble sounding rhetoric. And Ireland is a place where the women who can afford to get abortions anyway outside the borders. Do you want to close the borders to women as well?
