I said nothing about “feeling” a loss. Rather I was addressing your question of whether people COSNIDER it to be a loss – and many people do. Read up on women mourning their miscarriages, for example. I happen to know several such women.
First of all, many people DO treat it as death. Not everyone, but many people do.
And second, there’s a good reason why we don’t just miscarriages “from a morality standpoint.” Miscarriages are NOT deliberately induced, whereas abortions are.
First of all, the body is often too small to be distinctly isolated, so that question becomes moot. Second, I distinctly recall reading about women who DID bury their miscarried babies. And third, just because we don’t dispose of the bodies in the same way doesn’t make it a real death. You’re confusing what is with what should be.
Once again, let me quote your exact words.
Your message said nothing about “both sides of the issue.” It also discussed early miscarriages, andfrom this drew conclusions about terminating pregnancies in general. Maybe your intent was not to justify abortion in general, and maybe not. Either way, the same fallacy applies.
About whether people treat miscarriage as a death…
As I already explained, many people DO treat miscarriage as a death. In fact, I know two women who went into serious depressions this year due to their miscarriages.
Still not convinced? Then I recommend that you look up the following books: Silent Grief: Miscarriage – Finding Your Way Through the Darkness, Forever Silent, Forever Changed: The Loss of a Baby in Miscarriage, Stillbirth, Early Infancy. A Mother’s Experience and Your Personal Journal, Miscarriage: Women Sharing from the Heart, * A Silent Sorrow: Pregnancy Loss - Guidance and Support for You and Your Family*, Unspeakable Losses : Healing from Miscarriage, Abortion and Other Pregnancy Loss and much more. These are all available from Amazon.com.
“you said that every family should decide when its ok to kill (terminate,abort,cleans,…)”
No, I never said any such thing, so don’t put words in my mouth. You imply clearly that you KNOW that life begins at conception. I don’t see it that way, and it is not a fact that is agreed upon by every American, or abortion would indeed be considered horrifying by all. I did not say it is okay to kill if the family decides it’s okay to kill. Do you imagine I think it’s okay to kill an annoying nephew if everyone agrees to it? :rolleyes:
The people who disagree with you are not suggesting that murder is cool. Murder is the taking of a human life. Now, define “human life” as it relates to a blastocyte. You consider that life? Fine, then you consider using the pill to be abortion and therefore murder. I don’t consider that to be human life yet, and so it is not murder.
O.K. JT, would you recommend to people that they watch a graphic video giving all the vivid details of a major operation before they submit to one? Do you think that this might dissuade some from getting the medical help they need, or do you think this would “help” them make an informed decision?
JThunder, I am certainly not saying that women should not be allowed to see videos. Give me a break. However, I do question why they are feeling the need to go to this woman for this service, as opposed to their own doctor. To me, that implies that she’s actively going out of her way to approach these women, so you’re protestations that she’s just sitting there providing a service that women would not recieve if not for her just makes me roll my eyes.
Also, I am not an “alleged pro-choicer” nor do I “claim” to be a developmental biologist. These things are facts. Intentionally being a pain in the ass does not strengthen your argument.
I was referring to the women who had already had abortions. Therefore, she can’t be showing them “LIVE” footage of their fetus, now can she? And you missed my point.
You’re kidding, right? Why not? Because the website claims that the fetus is “waving hello” and everybody knows that sheep don’t wave?
You find it odd that I object to this woman seeking out women who are still trying to recover emotionally from a difficult time in their lives, then broadsiding them with video footage that can’t do anything but inflict more damage, since the abortion has already occurred? Really?
And I didn’t feel any need to object when posters on this board referred to the embryo as a mass of tissue, since I am a reasonable person and I realized that since they said this when arguing against the idea that an embryo is a person *from the moment of conception *, they were talking about the embryo at the time soon after conception, at which point the embryo is, in fact, just a mass of tissue. Extremely primitive tissue at that.
That’s a rather silly position to take. If I lower your body temperature substantially, your body will age only very very slowly. You’ll probably last for centuries. Of course you won’t be conscious, but you’ll LIVE. Therefore I’m going to do this to you. In doing so, I may be depriving you of your free will, as it may not be what you want, but your right to LIFE outweighs your right to be free from coercion, so…
::opens freezer door::
Seriously, are you opposed to volitional euthanasia for people with chronic diseases who are in severe pain?
And would you deny me the option of killing you in self-defense if you were only intending to rape me and gouge out my eyes and slice off my feet and leave me living when you were done with me?
beagledave:
Sounds good to me. A ceremony at the hospital where the mother cuts a symbolic umbilical cord, and thereby pronounced the baby to be a live birth, after a chance to inspect fingers and toes and look at lab reports and so forth. And if she doesn’t, it ain’t. Her call. Legal civil life begins when the mom says so.
I’d go with that as a reasonable policy, but I don’t think it will fly in our society. Most people have a real problem with the idea that women should be authorized to make life or death decisions with regards to their pregnancy, therefore the euphemisms and double-talk about “it isn’t alive” or “it isn’t a person” or “it isn’t human yet”, and “it isn’t killing”.
All in all, I think Roe v. Wade is a reasonable compromise between people who think as I do and those who wish to deny women access to abortion.
Roe restricts unchallenged abortion access to the first trimester, allows abortion during the second trimester for compelling reasons, and allows abortion during the final trimester only to save the life or health of the mother.
Fair enough. (As long as abortion services are available and affordable everywhere, that is).
No, but you’re saying that it’s morally objectionable to show them these videos, which is pretty much the same thing.
Because she does it for free. Besides which, these women may not have a regular physician, and the abortionist certainly won’t show her the video!
Now you’re twisting my words. I never said that she wasn’t actively approaching these women. Quite the contrary. I said that she invited them to view their unborn charges on video.
My point is that there’s an inconsistency in claiming to be pro-choice, but objecting to the presentation of this pre-natal information. As for stating that you “claim” to be a developmental biologist, this is not the same as stating that your claim is a false one. I’m perfectly willing to believe that you are, but that makes your objection to the ultrasound footage all the more incongruous.
If post-abortal women want to view the footage, that’s their right. That’s their (ahem) choice, and it would allow them to make more fully informed choices in the future.
No, it’s because the footage clearly bears far more resemblance to a human being than to a sheep. In fact, many of the images depict distinct fingers and toes, which a sheep does not. Ergo, no rational human being would confuse these images with those of an unborn sheep.
If she were simplly blindsiding them, you might have a case… but she isn’t. She warns women of what they are about to see, and only proceeds with their permission. Moreover, while this footage can not undo their previous abortions, it can help them make future decisions in a more fully informed manner – something which pro-choice apologists obviously object to.
First of all, I wasn’t talking simply about posters in THIS thread. I was talking about pro-choice defense in general. On the Great Debates forum alone, pro-choicers have habitually claimed that abortion is justified because it only removes “a lump of tissue.”
Moreover, as I said earlier, the vast majority of abortions occur long after conception. Hence, if says that they’re only talking about extremely early abortions, that actually undermines the pro-choice argument.
And second, I already posted numerous reasons why the embryo is more than “just a mass of tissue.” Granted, it’s at a primitive stage in its development, but it is far more than that. It already has organs, for example, such as a beating heart, a rudimentary brain – and soon after that, a liver. It even has a circulatory system, for example. I know you say you’re a developmental biologist, and I’m sure that you’re a pretty darned good one, but in this case, your claim is demonstrably wrong.
One might argue about whether the embryo is truly human at that point, and that would make for some interesting conversation. However, the point remains: It is more than just “tissue.”
JThunder, the OP asked if a moral person could support abortion. The answer is yes. This is because abortion isn’t an absolutely immoral act. Would you argue that an anencephalic pregnancy should be carried to term? Regardless of how you answer, realize that many would think your answer immoral.
In my opinion, if you can’t tell the person from the mucus, it’s not a person. You could argue ad nauseam that it would eventually resemble a person, but removal of the potential for it to become a person isn’t immoral. Removal of the certainty of it becoming a person is still not immoral, in my moral framework - because we aren’t killing a person. To me, preventing a person from forming and killing a person are completely different things.
Those are all Catholic doctors/professors. As I said in my initial response to you, I realize there are Christian MD’s out there who say life begins at conception. That is a religious opinion (i.e. a matter of faith) disguised as a medical opinion due to an appeal to authority. Catholic.net - give me a break. They don’t have quotes from the non-catholic, non-pro-life doctors who blatantly disagree.
Ok, I don’t have the time or inclination to argue with you any more, although I disagree with most of what you say in the post. However, I have to disagree with the above in spite of my lack of time and inclination. Yes, at some point, the embryo has the organs you mention. But not for a while. The embryo doesn’t implant into the uterus for weeks after conception. Then, once implantation occurs, gastrulation starts (the formation of the basic germ layers). Then, a very rudiumentary spinal column starts to form… This all takes time. You are talking about one point in time of gestation. I’m talking about another. Therefore, my claim is not remotely wrong.
As has been covered, it all depends on one’s definition of when life begins. Some say conception, some even say before conception, others say at birth, etc. I personally think it starts when the brain develops.
Let’s take this for a sci-fi ride… Imagine a future of cloning. You are sixty years old and sign up for a cloning project. Your DNA is grown in a lab and a new human begins to form. At an early stage in development, the development of a brain is inhibited. The body continues to develop and grows into a healthy human. The result is a body that ixs nothing more than the sum of its parts. You could either part it out, or transplant your old geezer 80 year old brain into your 20 year old body and make it human, or more than the sum of its parts. That’s when that life “begins.” If someone extinguished that body before you inhabited it, it would merely be destruction of property.
[new thought]
If you think any kind of abortion is murder, then yes, supporting abortion would be immoral, it would make you an accessory to murder by your own definition. I doubt anyone says that its okay to *kill in order to save a woman from going through childbirth. But IMHO, I do think that people who support abortion later in development are trying to look for justification, and I guess all we can do is try to forgive them, for they know not what they do.
[yet another new thought]
Except in case of rape, a woman gets pregnant by her own actions. Only for medical/health reasons could someone require an abortion. If a woman gets pregnant, she has made that decision already. To have an abortion later is to back out of a decision she already made, that decision to have sexual intercourse. Yes, sometimes a condom breaks, but that’s why sex is a calculated risk. If you can’t live with the possiblity of getting pregnant, you should’nt be playing house. It’s part of the responsibility. Every time you go for a drive, you are taking the chance that you may get into an accident, so you are taking that chance. If you don’t want to get pregnant, then don’t create the possiblity. If you reduce the possibility and feel its worth the risk, then go for it, but don’t back down if you got the short end of the odds.
[disclaimer]
These are my opinions deriving from the moral code that was formed in my fetal mind during development (or later). If you disagree with them, please politely ask for clarification or further explanation. I should know better than to throw my thoughts into the lion cage of dopers, but I’m taking that calculated risk. I am hoping that there is enough maturity left to acknowledge and politely disagree with me. We are fighting ignorance so, if I’m being ignorant please enlighten me, but you won’t succeed by being an ass, thank you.
*that is if they define a fetus as a life and an abortion as “killing.”
Your statement was that “the embryo” was just a lump of tissue. There was no qualifying statement regarding time frames.
Moreover, while it DOES take time for the organs to develop, this still happens very early on. Implantation typically occurs within about a week of conception. The unborn’s heart is usually beating by the 21st day – long, LONG before the mother is likely to know that she’s pregnant. Of course, this implies that the heart itself is being formed even sooner than that, and that the unborn already has a functioning (albeit rudimentary) nervous system.
So even if we grant that there’s a phase in which the embryo is “just tissue,” it doesn’t last very long, and it ends long before the woman would even discover that she’s pregnant. That’s why it is intellectually dishonest to say that abortion merely removes a lump of tissue. It doesn’t. Not even close.
Not true. They were quoted on a Catholic web page, but that does not make them Catholic themselves.
Besides which, these scientists weren’t talking directly to a Catholic audience. Rather, they provided their testimonies to the United States Senate. They were asked to provide expert testimony in their capacity as scientific authorities. Moreover, even if they were all Catholic, that would not mean that their statements are automatically “matters of faith.”
Also, the Senate report specifically cited thirteen medical textbooks, testifying that human life begins at conception. Not religious opinions, mind you. Medical textbooks!
Once again, they were simply quoting a U.S. Senate report – a decidedly secular source. There is absolutely zero indication that the scientists and physicians were Catholic, or that their claims were rooted in any sort of theology.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by AHunter3 *
**JThunder:
Hmm… that last sentence doesn’t exactly fit with my read of Roe v Wade…It seems that most pro choice folks continually remind us that Roe v Wade is the law of the land…and yet here is a pro choice position that says screw Roe v Wade. Or is infanticide a permissable right of the birth mother as well?
If you’d read the entire post before you hit the “reply” button, you would note that I view Roe v Wade as a reasonable compromise between my position and that of people who don’t believe abortion should be available to women at all.