I am pro-choice, but I disagree with this statement.
Whether terminating a zygote, zooid, embryo, fertilized egg, fetus, etc., is murder, is a legal issue. Laws are what we as citizens agree to (through our elected representatives).
You are making the claim that the only argument to draw the line at conception is a religious one. It’s definitely the most common reason, and I believe that most people who argue using other reasons have this reason as their prime motive. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only argument. Another argument is simplicity and avoiding a slippery slope issue. I’m more comfortable with the slippery slope, but that’s based on my values and choices, not some scientific fact. No doubt there are other good secular arguments (and I’d like to see them, but rarely do).
Murder is illegal because we as humans agree that it should be, and we pass laws to that effect. Murder isn’t illegal due to some scientific fact. The line we draw between “unprotected not-yet-a-human” and “human” could be drawn based on a scientific fact (e.g., conception, or survivability), or some other basis, or arbitarily. In a democracy, if it were not constitutional, it would be based on a political compromise.
I’ve watched and talked to the anti-abortion folks at our local PP, and they deserve to be demonized! I’ve seen them put their hands on women, chase after women on the street, shove pamphlets into women’s hands after being told NO in no uncertain terms (like a rapist!), surround cars so the women can’t get out, shove Bibles underneath women’s noses, etc. etc. If they want to stand there with their signs, fine, but back off!
Our local PP is located across the street from the library, the location of our local 9/11 moment. When 9/11 fell on a Saturday, the protestors screamed over the remembrance ceremony marking the event. If that isn’t demonic, I don’t know what is.
And more pro-choice folks (including clinic workers and doctors) have been killed by “pro-life” people than the other way around.
The whole pro-choice movement is demonized every time the word “pro-abortion” is used. They paint us as supporting “baby killing” and hating “motherhood.”
I don’t endorse that kind of behavior obviously–I’ve never taken part in a protest because it seems to me even doing so quietly probably adds to distress of the women and accomplishes little to nothing. However, the protesters I have seen in Chicago are quiet and orderly.
So my problem is not with decrying outrageous behavior of protesters, and I’m just as horrified by the violence as you are.
But there are plenty of people like me who simply believe it is wrong to routinely kill unborn children, but care about separation of church and state and supporting mothers and families in need and have no desire to punish anyone for having sex.
I suspect the reason you don’t know of many like me is that we have learned to keep quiet (I have generally avoided this topic on the internet where it is at least as bad as IRL) to avoid being told that we really are religious fanatics, hypocrites and/or hate women.
Does this then mean: If you were in a position to save either a born person or several frozen embryo’s you would grab the embryo’s, instead of the already born person? After all you would be saving more humans!
Why would it mean that? What has the question of whether it is ethical and moral to routinely kill unborn humans to do with what I would do in a ridiculous hypothetical?
I don’t mock the views of those who thoughtfully conclude that the rights of mothers to autonomy and the difficulties of unwanted children trump the rights of the unborn. I disagree strongly but assume that most who hold those ideas have carefully considered it.
But when you say silly things like this, or insist on referring to a living human as a clump of cells or a chicken egg (as if the only abortions performed are during the first 4 weeks of pregnancy), you make a mockery of the ideas you are espousing.
If what you are asking is–do I believe that women who may die or become seriously ill if they continue a pregnancy should be denied an abortion?–the answer is no. Under those circumstances and some other unusual ones where the mother’s mental health or other rights are at issue, I think abortion should be available.
It is the routine killing of unborn humans I believe to be unethical and morally insupportable. It fascinates me that most people on the left have so wholeheartedly and passionately embraced abortion on demand. I wonder why it is that folks who tend to stand up for the rights of people with little or no voice can so easily dismiss the rights of people not yet born.
I’d be on board with answering this question if an embryo was as sentient as a 1 yr old is.
It also fascinates me that most people that are on the right have so wholeheartedly and patio matey embraced trying to deny reproductive freedom for women. I wonder why it is that folks who tend to stand up for conventional values seem to care so little or easily dismiss the voices of the children that have already been born.
But, as I pointed out in my post that went completely ignored, it’s much easier to care about the “voices” of the unborn than to put the time, money, compassion and effort into solving the problems of dealing with actual children (and their families) that are already here. Funny that.
It is not yet a person or a human being, it contains human life and will become a human being, just as any fertile egg will BECOME what fertile egg it is from, a human egg (or ova) a chicken egg a chicken, or a pollenated apple blossom an apple.
You cannot know the woman’s circumstance and I feel, it is not up to me to decide what she is going through. How many miscarriages have burials? How many children are unwanted or cared for after they are born? How many starve to death in third world countries because lack of proper food or etc.? How many who live in poverty (like in Chicago and other cities) etc. kill others because of their own situations?
I didn’t mean to ignore you, I mostly agree with you.
But I’m not on the right. I do spend time and money trying to help mothers and families in crisis pregnancies (and other time and money trying to help feed needy families, keep them decently housed, and support the kids’ education). There are lots of people like me.
For me the only issue (politically speaking) is the bodily autonomy of the mother- any woman has the right to remove anything (or any person) from inside her body if she wants it out- at any time, and for any reason. If 1 year old babies routinely crawled back into women without their consent, then I would support a woman’s right to remove 1 year old babies from inside their bodies.
Ok, I would protest and strongly oppose killing 1 year old babies. I don’t think this has anything to do with abortion, though, unless those babies are inside people.
How about laws that would lay out how the removal has to be done? Would you have any problem with a law that required any woman who wants to remove anything from her body must do so in a certain way that protects the life of the thing being removed? Would that be acceptable?
I understand that we won’t agree on the amount of limits that a woman’s right to bodily autonomy could have in respect to any other rights involved, but is there a middle ground there?
If there were a new technology that made it just as easy, and the health danger to the mother was the same, to remove (and keep alive) a fetus from the mother, then I would consider such regulations. I might still oppose them, but it would be for different reasons (and I might not oppose it at all- it would require more thought and investigation). It doesn’t sound like such regulations, coupled with the fictional technology, would infringe on a woman’s right to remove something from her body that she doesn’t want inside. But there may be other things I haven’t considered.
Your first two sentences are basically correct. Your third sentence is correct in some cases, but by no means all. There are some people who oppose abortion, but who have no problem with women avoiding the consequences (or at least, that particular consequence) of having sex.
This statement is true only if fetuses are not persons (which is by no means justification for those killings by supposedly “pro-life” people, of course).
My statement is true even if fetuses are persons. A woman removing something (or someone) from inside her body is entirely different from someone killing someone they have never met because they don’t like the fact of this person performing a legal act.
And no, I would not support the killing of a one day old human being. Once the child out of the uterus, the woman has no legal right to kill it.