Damn abortion protesters

The BBQ Pit
422

**eleanor ** and **Maureen ** nailed it. There’s no equality between the genders where this is concerned, and at present, I don’t see any way in which it could be enforced.

I also don’t like the idea of children as ‘punishment’ or ‘burdens’…‘expressions of love,’ yes…I’ll even settle for ‘happy accidents’…but when a woman does not want to bear the burden of carrying a child to term, no force should be allowed to compel her to do so. To allow it is invasive, and grants authority to my neighbors that I’d rather they not have.

As **jsgoddess ** points out, there’s no other sphere in which we accept forced donations of organs. Why should the uterus be any different?

The simple answer tends to be that some people just don’t like the idea of women fucking around, and will use any cudgel necessary to attempt to curtail it. I don’t buy the idea that “sex=baby, get over it”…simply because it’s not so. Never has been. Even when birth control was much less reliable, people took the risks to fuck around, and when it didn’t work, some of them availed themselves of perfectly natural herbs and berries to give abort their pregnancies.

423

Yes, but who would pay for the hospitalizaiton of the infant? The woman? that is an undue burden on a crime victim. The rapist? Catch him first, and garnish his wages(if any)?

Hey, I am not for late term abortions–but look at the alternative above. How is this conundrum solved?

IMO, the woman was most likely obese and not aware of the “symptoms” of pregnancy, but also she may have been in a deep denial.

According to my ER nurse friends, it happens at least once a year–girl comes in and delivers a baby–she and parents didn’t “know” she was pregnant…

424

I think we’re seriously going to muddy the waters by considering rape victims in this discussion. The biggest reason- how do we know they were raped?

If we’re discussing the rule of law here and not just our own moral opinions, rape should not make one bit of difference in the law. If you build the fabled ‘rape, incest, life of the mother’ exclusion into any restrictive laws, I will bet cash money that you’ll have a sharp increase in the number of women claiming that they were raped. What would you demand then, to prove they were not lying? Would they have to name the perp? get an indictment? A conviction? I think that’d go over like a lead balloon.

Bear in mind, in the event that such a stupid piece of legislation were to pass, I would fully support someone lying about being raped to avoid being forced to bear a child. That’s even given my strong feelings about those that fabricate rape allegations now.

425

Well, I’m in favor of socialized medicine, so if you’re asking me, expectant mothers shouldn’t have to pay for prenatal care.

It’s possible the woman in the example was obese; that hadn’t even occurred to me. Given her willingness to go to another state to abort the fetus at 28 weeks, it seems to me that she really didn’t want to be carrying the rapist’s fetus in her, and it seems pretty likely that she was in denial about it as long as she possibly could be. But the obesity theory makes sense.

I always wonder about those cases where women have babies not knowing they’re pregnant; I suspect that denial figures pretty heavily in those cases. I mean, I’ve never been pregnant myself, but the signs of pregnancy seem to me to be pretty obvious.

Daniel

426

You are confusing one life, for all of life. They are two very different things.

[quote]

But I guess you mean that a unique life begins at conception. Me, I thought the sperm was alive, the egg was alive, and both were unique.

[quote]

Yes, they are alive and unique, but they were not human. A fertilized cell, however, is alive, unique, and human.

That is what I wish to protect as well. But I see the fertilized egg as having the same status as a man in a coma or under deep anesthesia. Currently without those “hopes, dreams” etc. but is not lacking in a right to life because it will eventually awaken to that higher state of mind.

427

My friend Brian loves punk music. He hates The Man. He makes a mean lasagne and can eat a prodigious amount of it. One day, he hopes to own a record shop in downtown Manhattan. He sculpts industrial metal sculptures in his free time.

And then he’s hit by a car and collapses into a coma.

Quiz:

  1. If Brian wakes up, what type of music will probably give him pleasure?
  2. If Brian wakes up, who will he hate?
  3. If Brian wakes up, what will his favorite food be?
  4. If Brian wakes up, what will his dream job be?
  5. If Brian wakes up, how will he express his artistic leanings?

My friend Julia discovers that she’s four weeks pregnant.

Quiz:

  1. If Julia gives birth, what type of music will give the child pleasure?
  2. If Julia gives birth, who will the child hate?
  3. If Julia gives birth, what will the child’s favorite food be?
  4. If Julia gives birth, what will the child’s dream job be?
  5. If Julia gives birth, how will the child express its artistic leanings?

Bonus question:
What’s the difference between Brian and Julia’s potential child?

Lemme answer the bonus question for you: Brian has a personality, complete with desires, dreams, hopes, fears, an identity, and so forth. That personality is suspended, just as mine is suspended for a split-second every time I sneeze; however, it has existed and it will exist, and we know what it looked like and we know what it will look like. If we kill Brian, then we kill an existant (albeit suspended) personality.

Julia’s fetus has no personality–no desires, no dreams, no hopes, no fears, no identity, and no so forth. It’s not that there’s a suspended personality; the personality has never existed. Now, it may exist in the future, if Julia decides to carry the embryo to term and is lucky enough to be successful in doing so. But if Julia decides to abort the embryo, then no personality is destroyed: no desires, no dreams, no hopes, no fears, no identity is destroyed, because no has existed there.

That’s why I do not equate a person in a coma, or a person sneezing, with an embryo.

Daniel

428

Ok, what about an embryo that splits into two? Is each embryo unique? In what way?

What about when the embryos merge back together again? What happened to those two “unique” lives?

The person in a coma has a previously established identity of personhood. The lifetime of memories, hopes, dreams, etc is already programmed into their brain. The fact that it’s not currently active doesn’t stop the personality from being in there somewhere.

It’s the difference between destroying an empty canvass (which also had “potential”) and destryong a Picasso painting. The unborn is an empty canvass. Nothing has been painted on it yet.

429

And so long as you engage in behaviors that carry those risks you must be prepared to take responsibility for those risks.

430

You’re a virgin, aren’t you?

431

Although contreversial, I would tend to agree that a newborn has no desires, only needs. To desire something requires that you are able to form cancepts about that something. I do not believe that newborns are capable of forming concepts. I believe that newborns are tabula rasa and need to develop the ability to form concepts and desires.

432

Ad hominem attacks don’t help anyone.

433

Nor do sanctimonious judgemental pronouncements, and yet here we are.

434

I believe abortion is taking responsibility.

435

Infants aren’t tabula rasa. They have, and can, experience warmth and coldness, and hunger and satiety. There’s no reason to suspect that they cannot desire warmth and satiety.

As I’ve later said, however, I should’ve included the capacity to suffer–to experience pain–as one of the traits of an entity whose rights I’ll recognize. I’ll also include the capacity to experience emotions.

You may justly accuse me of wanting to extend stronger protection toward chimpanzees if you’d like; but accusing me of advocating infanticide is absurd.

Daniel

436

Yikes. This is an intimidating thread to jump into at this point, but…

First of all, I think this whole issue is a difficult and troubling one. Anyone who is 100% confident that they are exactly right about it, and happy with all the implications of that position, is either stupid or deluded.

Secondly, while I disagree strongly with Maud’Dib’s position, I have to say that I feel that he is being hilariously and unfairly piled on. He’s basically being polite and logical about things. He is NOT, himself, calling people murderers or waving grisly photos in their faces. But he’s being accused of a number of things, from circular arguments to misogyny, which are totally unfounded, and I have to say, I’m pretty impressed by the extent to which he’s sticking by his guns with basic good humor. In particular, if he says “I view that child in your belly as a full human being with a right to life, thus, I will not let you kill it”, that does NOT mean that he values its life more than yours. His position follows perfectly if he values both your life and the life of the fetus equally, and would rather have it alive and you inconvenienced than it dead and you alive. Now, there are plenty of other problems I have with his position, but claiming that he has somehow demonstrated that he doesn’t value the life of women, views them only as containers for men’s seed, is something that is NOT supported by anything he has posted in this thread.

Anyhow, as to the situation at hand, the reason I disagree with Maud’Dib’s position is that he is making everything black and white. In his view, something is either human or it isn’t. There’s a magic dividing line at which point things go from being meaningless collections of cells to Human Beings. And I don’t think such a line can be drawn. Of course, the current laws also draw such a line, albeit at a different place. And the “human life begins at viability outside the mother” folks, of whom I’m basically one, ALSO draw such a line.

But no such line can be perfect… as has been discussed several times in this thread, there are plenty of examples that challenge any such line… brain dead people, badly deformed babies, Terri Schiavo, and Fred Phelps just to name a few.

So there’s a good argument to be made that a 2-week-old-fetus is a human, and a good argument to be made that it isn’t. (Let’s not ignore the fact that both arguments are reasonable, by the way… Maud’Dib’s belief that a 2-week-old fetus is human is hardly some random piece of idiotic BS that he just pulled out of his ass. I mean, it’s not like he’s saying “all bricks of swiss cheese that weight more than 3 pounds are human beings with full rights and responsibilties thereto”. And in fact, the fact that so many people who are pro-choice also claim to be troubled by abortion, hope abortions are as rare as possible, etc., indicates to me that a lot of people, at some level, feel the attraction and solidity of that argument.) So, we’re in a bit of a quandary. As God didn’t leave us a notarized Is-It-A-Human-Being testing kit (well, at least, he didn’t leave it to us non-Catholics), we, as a society, have to figure out where/how to draw the line in the overall best manner possible.

Thus, while it’s obviously dangerous and troubling to be making life or death decisions based on how convenient we find the outcome to be, well, this is a dangerous and troubling topic, and I see no reason not to try to establish a policy which does as much good for people in general, both born and unborn, and families, and society as a whole, as possible.
Another thought: One of the troubling aspects of this whole topic is that thinking too much about whether fetuses are human can lead one to question whether babies are human, as has, in fact, happened several times in this thread. But is that such a horrible thing? There have been plenty of human societies in which a baby wasn’t considered to be “real” in some sense until it was a year old, or learned to talk, or learned to walk, or had undergone a spiritual journey, or what have you. That seems pretty weird to us now, but there’s nothing inherently inhuman or inhumane about it. And I’m sure that even if 10-month-old babies weren’t considered truly human, it was generally not acceptable to randomly kill them for fun.

To look at it in a slightly grim fashion, I’m friends with a married couple who have twins who are almost a year old. If one of those twins had died during childbirth, it would have been difficult and horrible for the parents, but only a fraction of as bad as it would be if it happened now. Part of what makes us human is our interactions with other people and their knowledge of, and love of, us. And yes, there are all sorts of troubling implications of this line of thought…

437

Good post, Max.
I suppose what has me most bent out of shape (to the point that I am actively trying to ignore him) is his attitude that sex is for making babies and making babies only, if you have sex, you should be prepared to have a baby. Such is factually not the case.
Also the attitude that, once a woman becomes pregnant, all other plans for her life cease to matter. School, career, travel, whatever; makes no difference.
It also seems there’s a tendency by most pro-life people to disregard what happens after the pregnancy, as was alluded to earlier. There’s a prevalant attitude of “you should have thought of that before you had sex.” Considering that child is supposedly their concern, they have astonishingly little regard for said child as soon as it takes its first breath. Do they care if that child is born to someone completely ill equipped to care for it? No. That’s her problem, “She should have thought of that before she had sex.” Do they care if she’s so overwrought emotionally that the child ends up neglected or abused? No. “She should have thought of that before she had sex.” Do they care if that child is malnourished? Three guesses on the answer. And it’s a pat answer, isn’t it? Truly, how do you respond to something like that? How do you defend yourself against it, even though it’s a huge pile of steaming horse shit?
It’s the mother’s problem, but it’s the child that suffers. Not that they care. At least the child was born, and that’s the main thing, after all. Suffering is good for the soul, right?

438

I’ve noticed that as well; that a few pro-choicers in this thread are seeming eager to let themselves get all frothed, as well an engage in spectacular feats of linguistic microsurgery and try to find ways to define a fetus as something other than a “person”, “human”, “alive”, whatever.

Personally, I don’t care if a fetus is human, alive, a person, sentient, Republican, socialist, ill-tempered, or mechanically inclined. While it’s inside a woman’s body, she can decide its fate becuase I value her rights more than its.

439

I think I’m generally in agreement with you about this issue as a whole, but I think your use of the word “factually” is overreaching. It’s hard to argue that the reason sex exists, and the reason it’s so enjoyable, is to make babies. It’s also hard to argue that there are all sorts of non-baby-related things that are associated with sex these days in our society. Like many things related to this issue, it’s not black and white.

I tend to agree. I do not, however, necessarily know if Maud’Dib shares that tendency. Nor does that tendency necessarily make his position wrong. Someone in the 1850’s could have been an abolitionist who never gave a fig’s thought to what happened to all the former slaves who, upon being freed, were still dirt poor, uneducated, and on the bottom rung of society. That may or may not make that person hypocritical (that’s arguable), but it certainly doesn’t make their abolitionist views incorrect.
As this discussion is just begging for yet another Wacky Hypothetical, suppose that a dear friend of yours was, through a freak accident, implanted into some innocent person’s body, and will remain there for 9 months. So this innocent person suddenly is being parasitized by your friend. But your friend didn’t ask for it. What should happen?

440

The same thing that happens if my dear friend’s kidneys fail. He lives or he dies based on the sacrifice of someone else.

441

What if he was implanted into this person’s body for one month? One week? One day? One hour?

What if the sole extent to which his presence there discomfited this person was a minor aching in the left pinky?
Again, I’m not trying to say I have all (or any) of the answers, just that almost every issue involved here is a murky one with lots of shades of grey.