No, it’s a potential component of a human being, but not a potential human being itself. There’s a difference. The ovum (and for that matter, the spermatozoa) only contains half the genetic material required to build a human being. It can never grow into a human being itself without conception, even if it is kept in its natural environment.
If a fetus has not yet developed a brain and a central nervous system, I have a hard time seeing how it can be considered anything other than a potential human. To argue that the destruction of a potential human is the moral equivalent of destroying a human is, in my opinion, a religious argument. I can certainly understand anyone who, based on faith, believes that a potential human is as sacred as an actual human. I do not, however, believe that anyone has the right to impose their faith or beliefs on others.
Furthermore, one must consider the right of a person to control their own body. I think it is the height of arrogance and cruelty to believe it appropriate to impose one’s beliefs on another person when the issue involves a decision relating to the other person’s body. In my opinion, one’s right to regulate bodily functions ends where their own body ends. In the case of abortion, the fetus can surely be considered to be a part of a woman’s body until it becomes a separate, self-sustaining human.
You’re not talking about moral principles anymore, though. You’re talking about derived rules. It’s easy to come up with specifics that will always be wrong; it’s the general moral ideas that have to contend with challenging other ideas.
I didn’t mean to imply that no one felt a sense of loss or disappointment. I maintain that we don’t treat it as a death, from a morality standpoint. If we did, we wouldn’t dump the cells in the trash. There is a developmental point at which we would treat it as a death (buy a coffin, etc.)
It is not my intent to “justify” abortion in general. I intended to point out moral ambiguities that are common to both sides of the issue. If you accept that there are moral ambiguities - however limited - you must concede that there is no absolute secular morality here.
So, by “separate”, do you mean that you have no problem with abortion up until the umbilical cord is cut?
I’m also not aware of ANY baby that can self sustain itself…perhaps you could point me towards an example of this medical miracle that can survive completely self sustaining?
HairryPotter,
so you said “In the case of abortion, the fetus can surely be considered to be a part of a woman’s body until it becomes a separate, self-sustaining human”
then you believe in abortion the day before the birth?
too late for some?
I used the term killing to define the act of abortion in non political terms. but if that is too harsh a word then what is an acurate word for this act? whether at 1 week or 8.99 months.
I don’t consider “killing” a negative word anymore that “abortion”. I kill weeds, germs, a six-pack, squirrels in my backyard. when the neighbors and I debate the squirrel issue in our neighborhood we don’t talk about “harvesting” or “cleansing” or “removing” the squirrels. its whether we kill the squirrels or trap them and release them far away.
and for those who don’t think the right to life is the basis of morality then what is the basis?
JustinH, did you even read my reply? (Bottom of page one of this thread)
People don’t consider it murder if they don’t consider it a person yet.
People do consider it murder if they do consider it a person (newborn, for instance).
That’s why NOBODY supports killing a newborn baby.
I quoted Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who said that part of our freedom in this country is the freedom to have our own ideas regarding the mystery of life. (She said it better.)
I don’t think a week-old embryo is necessarily a person already, which is why I don’t think IUD’s or the pill are the same as abortion. But biologically, they are actually VERY early abortions. Are you going to fight to outlaw these forms of birth control? Why or why not?
Here’s my answer to your OP: YOU AND I DISAGREE ON WHEN HUMAN LIFE BEGINS.
Once life has officially begun, murder is horrible. We do agree on that.
OK?
Theobroma
I saw your reply but didn’t take it seriously. unless I am mistaken, you said that every family should decide when its ok to kill (terminate,abort,cleans,…).
I have an article in yesterdays paper from a dr that says we should kill deformed babies if the parents decide real quick (no time frame).
I haven’t given my opinion on when life begins so how can you disagree with it. (remember I think killing a baby is not necessarily wrong. if you read my earlier comment you would know this)
I would consider a fetus to be a self-sustaining human at that point where the nervous system is fully developed and the child can be sustained with the normal care that any infant requires.
Please read more carefully. Or are you not aware of what a developmental biologist does? I think it’s safe to assume that I’m much more informed here than you–not only can I tell you when various organs and tissues form, I can tell you exactly how they form, down to the molecular level.
What I find distasteful in what she is doing is this–whether she went to them or invited them to come to her, showing emotionally vulnerable women these pictures is nothing more than a kind of emotional terrorism. She invites these women to come look at these pictures because limb buds somehow make their decision worse? Hell, at that point in gestation she could be showing them pics of a sheep fetus, and they wouldn’t know the difference. Limb buds don’t make it more human than it was before they developed. But by god, they’re dramatic to the uninformed, and really handy if you’re trying to manipulate people.
Limerick, I found your use of the phrase “emotional terrorism” to be astute and accurate. Pro-Lifers so often portray women who choose to have an abortion as ignorant, heartless, or unfeeling. I believe that these adjectives more accurately describe the emotional, faith-based reasoning applied by the Pro-Life crowd to justify human life as beginning at the point of conception.
I simply don’t see that there is any evidence of this whatsoever. You are welcome to choose it a a guiding principle, however. I just won’t agree.
no question in my mind there. I think the construct you have set up demands that rights are in conflict; hence the moral dilemma.
If ~(intrude) then ~(molested). // premise
~(If ~(intrude) then ~(molested)) // opposite
If (intrude) then (molested). // simplified opposite
Why isn’t the opposite always true? What sort of criteria do you have which determines when retaliation is appropriate, then?
[czarcasm]Wonderful idea, JT! Why don’t we go just a little bit farther and force anyone who opts for an operation to watch a video showing an operation in full detail. Blood, guts, sweat, cutting, ripping, cracking bones to get to vital organs etc. Let’s give them an “informed” choice![/czarcasm]
You still have not answered the first question. Do you have any problem with abortions being performed all the way until the umbilical cord is cut…prior to that, it is not “separate” from the host.
BTW, the nervous system, and brain function in particular is NOT “fully developed” at birth. If a “fully developed nervous system” is your criterium for abortion…then you have a bit of a conflict at hand.
In response to your first question, I believe that abortions should not be performed beyond that point in the development in the fetus where the fetus could be removed from the womb and expected to survive with the normal care required by any infant. Regarding your statement regarding a fully-developed nervous system, I concede that I was vague and inacurate. I was thinking in terms of a nervous system developed to the point where infant human consciousness commences to exist (realizing that one can split hairs from here to eternity in defining exactly when that point in development occurs).
HairyPotter and Czarcasm, let’s do lunch 
I was hoping I wouldn’t be the only person to be offended by that.
I will post a medical perspective. Not without bias, but my medical perspective on the whole abortion issue.
- The medical establishment has very set criteria for definition of human life (at least in my state). This is defined by the apnea test – if a comatose patient is ventilator dependent, and you turn off the ventilator, if the person makes no attempt to breathe for a set amount of time (I believe it is 2 minutes), then that person is dead. At that point, after failure of the apnea test, all medical intervention is stopped. The ventilator assistance is discontinued and the person is taken to the morgue. No arguments about “pulling the plug”, etc. The patient is dead.
The lowest, most primitve part of the brainstem controls breathing, and if it is unable to trigger a breathing response, then the brain is dead and the person is dead.
I believe we could use similar criteria for defining human life with respect to abortion. At some point, the medulla becomes developed enough to trigger a breath – if I were to hazard a guess, this would only happen near the end of gestation as the breathing response doesn’t really serve any purpose until that point. At very least, a fetus is nonviable outside of the womb until the middle of the second trimester – around week 22 or 23 IIRC. IMHO there is no argument that the fetus is “alive” until after that point. My strike one against anti-abortionists.
-
No person on the planet is “pro-abortion,” just like nobody is “pro-appendectomy.” An abortion is a medically traumatic procedure. Nobody wants abortion to be an alternative to birth control. Nobody that I am aware (in this country) is running around advocating abortions for pregnant women who wish to bear children, just like nobody is advocating appendectomies for people without appendicitis. It is just that sometimes the BC fails or sometimes there are uncontrollable circumstances – namely rape. For these times, abortion is medically and socially necessary. If your gripe is against abortion used as birth control, then what you should be focusing your energy on is getting more sex education and birth control out there (get it into middle schools and high schools especially), not on outlawing abortion. Abortion is a last-ditch thing. Because of that, no laws will get rid of abortion, just make it less safe. I will have no part in laws that serve only to increase deaths of otherwise healthy, fertile women, and tie my hands medically in terms of my options for saving a life. Strike two against anti-abortion.
-
Give point one, in that we can’t medically define a fetus as truly “alive,” another aspect of point two comes into respect. We can’t force a woman to bear a pregnancy to term if she doesn’t want to. We can’t lock her up and force her to get proper prenatal care. We don’t arrest pregnant women who continue to smoke or drink. Also, bearing a fetus to term is always more medically risky than abortion. Even normal vaginal delivery or Caesarean section is more risky than abortion. If I were to advise a woman to bear a pregnancy to term against her will would basically be forcing a woman into a more medically risky procedure. This derives from the fact that I can’t absolutely medically state that the fetus is a human life with full human rights. This is against most medical ethics in my book – informed consent, respect of the patient’s will, primum pro nocere (above all do no harm). A weak argument, perhaps, but a medically relevant one.
A further justification in my book is that my responsibility as a physician is to respect my patient’s ethics and worldview while still protecting the public health. It is more responsible for me to advise a fourteen year old who admits to having sex on the uses of birth control rather than giving her a lecture on abstinence without mentioning birth control. This is not to say that I would ignore abstinence as an option. Along similar lines, it is not my job as a physician to impose my value system on a patient with regard to abortion. I should present it as an unbiased option, and let my patient make up her own mind. This is the role I will take with drug abusers and sex addicts. As long as the behavior is not a crime and is not reportable to the CDC (for instance a known STD positive individual having unprotected sex), then I should not let my non-medical value system make decisions for the patient. I should let the medicine speak for itself. I therefore cannot speak against abortion. Strike three.
False analogy. Nobody is FORCING pregnant women to view pictures of the unborn. Rather, people like Shari Richard are simply giving them the OPTION (i.e. the “choice”) of doing so. They are helping these women make an informed choice.
In contrast, it is obvious that many so-called “pro-choicers” don’t want women to have that option.
Only if she were FORCING them to watch the videos – which she isn’t. That’s why I find it odd that someone would object to giving women this OPTION. It is certainly an odd stance for an alleged “pro-choicer” to take, especially someone who claims to be a developmental biologist.
If she were actively engaging in deception, you would have a case there – but she isn’t. She’s showing them LIVE, high-resolution ultrasound footage of what their babies really look like – thereby proving that they’re not just “lumps of tissue” or “a collection of cells.”
Besides, can any intelligent person honestly look at http://www.unborn.com/window/womb3.htm and confuse it for a “sheep fetus”? Not a chance.
I find it extremely odd that pro-choicers can get so agitated over showing women ACTUAL pictures of the unborn, yet they don’t voice the same objections whenever someone falsely claims that the unborn is just a wad of unwanted tissue. Absolutely incredible.
Edwino, the difference here, of course is that if a comatose patient fails the apnea test the chances of his recovery are small indeed (although presumably still there to a tiny degree, I don’t know for sure). On the other hand, a fetus will, without a shadow of a doubt (barring accidents and abortions) become sentient to pass the apnea test with flying colours.
Remember that most pro-lifers argue along the lines of potential for life. The fact that the fetus couldn’t pass the apnea test a week after conception is irrelevant. Give it some time and it certainly will. The same can’t be said for your coma victim.
Why is it medically and socially necessary? Society doesn’t suffer if a womans birth control fails her and she gives birth. Why should it? How can her consequences be so farreaching so as to warrent the supposition that society as a whole will suffer as a result of her giving birth?
Also, how is it medically necessary? I don’t know about you but I use necessary as a synonym for essential. A machine can’t function without one of its necessary components. If it weren’t necessary it wouldn’t be deemed to be such. By saying it’s medically necessary you are saying that the woman needs this abortion if her birth control fails her - as in she would die without one.
I think the word you were looking for was “medically and socially desirable”. It would make more sense, IMO. If that is the case I must ask you how strong society’s desires need to be to overrule the life (albeit undeveloped life) of another?
Re. The rape thing, I frankly don’t have an answer for that. That’s one of the biggest grey areas about the whole issue, IMO.
AS I’ve said above, it seems to me that your methodology for identifying this is flawed if you apply it to fetuses.
Well frankly that depends on whose position you are considering it from. It’s certainly a lot less risky for a gestating fetus.