Since it is a known “side effect”, and you go ahead anyway, you have to take responsibility for the human life it produces when it happens, instead of snuffing it out.
In fact, even if you don’t know of that “side effect”. It is a human life. You don’t kill a human being because of inconvenience. Or your “needs” other than danger to life.
…Remind me again why you’re wasting my time with “The woman agreed to get pregnant” if it obviously doesn’t matter one whit for your argumentation? Look, you’re wrong, and I’m not going to explain it to you again. That it’s a known side-effect does nothing to support your idea that it’s something we agreed to. Nothing.
That would be upon birth, in which case of course it would be illegal. When the organ is still inside one’s body, one has control over it.
For the same reason that you (plural) are wasting time with “in the case of rape” when it obviously doesn’t matter one whit for your argumentation. Or why you’re wasting time with “unplanned” argument when it obviously doesn’t matter one whit for your argumentation. Are you willing to forbid abortions for “planned” pregnancies?
Wait, so someone who got pregnant by rape also “granted” the access to her body? How? Because “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down”?
No she didn’t. And it is still human life and it still should not be snuffed out.
Here’s a return “gotcha” for you. If someone has a “planned” pregnancy and then decides to have an abortion, should it be allowed? After all, she definitely “granted” the access.
I suspect it doesn’t matter for you whether it was planned or unplanned. Then why are you asking?
Yes. Now prove that any given pregnancy was planned.
Prove it.
Now prove it was unplanned.
Thanks for clearing that up. Imagine a world in which someone can attack you and in the process force to be a firefighter (less deadly than carrying a pregnancy to term by the way) for 10 months, without pay. You stand a good chance of suffering the loss of some bodily functions permanently. How would you like to live there?
If someone consents to sex, can she still yell “stop!”? Or is she obligated to comply until he is done?
We’re asking to figure out how much the woman matters to you. The answer is not at all.
Not at all, and I never suggested I did. I’m just pointing out that abortion-rights opponents seem quite comfortable with accepting the traditional societal perspective that an embryo/fetus isn’t an individual person equal in rights or value to an actual born human—unless somebody chooses to abort one.
This, to me, makes abortion bans seem less like laws against murder and more like laws against poaching. The lord of the manor doesn’t think of his pheasants or his deer or his trout as having personhood or rights to life, and it doesn’t bother him that lots of them will be killed before maturity by natural causes, but unauthorized people aren’t allowed to kill them deliberately. It’s not about protecting life so much as about asserting authority.
Mind you, I certainly don’t think that most anti-abortion conservatives consciously subscribe to any such analogy. I accept that most of them genuinely believe that they think an embryo/fetus is a person with full human rights. But I think their lack of consistency in the societal assumptions they’re apparently willing to accept about embryos/fetuses outside the area of abortion rights suggests that they may be maintaining that belief by means of some considerable unconscious cognitive dissonance.
But I’m not talking about mobilizing political action, I’m talking about fundamental attitudes. Anti-abortion conservatives don’t seem to give a hoot about so-called fetal personhood in any circumstances unless somebody’s trying to kill one. This is the cognitive dissonance I spoke of in my previous post: they’re perfectly fine in most circumstances with society treating embryos/fetuses as not fully human persons, and only if they think somebody might kill one do they switch into their “but it’s a BAAAAAAABYYYY” mode.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Maybe conservatives don’t approve of government sponsored research the way that liberals do.
[/QUOTE]
:dubious: Pretty weaksauce, John, as bldysabba noted. Anti-abortion conservatives who really believe that every fertilized egg is a BAAAAAABYYY could be setting up private research foundations all over the place to combat the number-one destroyer of pre-born life: namely, natural causes. Just as conservatives with little faith in “government sponsored research” can and do sponsor the work of private organizations to combat, say, infant mortality.
The fact that few or no anti-abortion conservatives appear to give any non-negligible fraction of a rat’s ass about the massive mortality rates of fertilized eggs in general—but are expending so much outrage on the statistically much less significant impact of induced abortion—suggests that on some level they don’t really believe (or haven’t really thought through the implications of the belief) that every human ovum at the moment of fertilization immediately acquires all the rights and moral standing of a fully human person and is just as important as any other person.
Oh good grief. I have locks on my doors and an alarm system. But if a family of homeless people somehow overcomes or avoids my protections and gains entry then sets up housekeeping in my den, by your standards I’ve “granted” them access. After all, burglars are a “known side effect” of home ownership. By owning a home I’ve invited this consequence, so I should just hand them a key and full kitchen privileges. And hope that they don’t destroy my house or kick me out of it. They are human, they have life, and they have needs to maintain that life. The fact that it’s against all my reasonable precautions doesn’t matter to you.
You’re certainly entitled to hold your own opinions. But not only do I heartily disagree with you, I cannot see any logical justification for yours. Clearly, YM does V.
Eh. I never really found the argument that “if you really cared about X, you would do Y” to be compelling. The constitution of US was re-interpreted to find a right to an abortion. Anti-abortion folks know exactly how to change that-- overturn Roe v Wade. How one would go about saving more “unborn babies” is about on par with how one would go about saving more automobile deaths. I’m not seeing any mad scramble by conservatives to do much of anything about the latter, so I’m not seeing why they have to prove their anti-abortion bona fides by doing something about the former.
However, I certainly agree that most people on both sides have not fully thought through their positions. We see anti-abortion folks wiling to make exceptions for rape and/or incest, and we see pro-abortion folks saying no one can tell a woman what she can do with her body!!! while at the same time putting limits on exactly when abortions are no longer allowed.
Odd how the idea “every fertilized egg is a baby” doesn’t have the “pro-life” crowd picketting frozen egg fertility clinics. Most eggs don’t survive the freezing and implantation processes. Why aren’t they be prosecuted for “murder”?
Cause harassing women who choose to have an abortion is much more fun.
Oh good grief, what is it with pro-abortionists and faulty analogies?
How about - you live in complete wilderness. 100 miles to nearest civilized place. The winter just started. It’s -40 degrees outside. Someone sneaks into your house, past your locks, to find warmth. You know that if you kick them out, they will freeze to death. 100% certainty. Or you can allow them to stay for a few months until the thaw and then have them leave. For the sake of the analogy, you cannot communicate to the outside, so you can’t ask someone to come pick them up.
In that case, if you kick them out, I believe it’s homicide. What do you think?
And after staying for two months, the person says “I like this cabin. You have to let me stay here forever.” Or “I like this cabin. I’m going to kill you and take ownership.” What then?
Where did you get the idea that I, for example, think that “every fertilized egg is a baby”?
When the egg has implanted, and without intervention will eventually be born - yes, it’s a baby.
Someone upthread tried to give a faulty analogy that a bunch of lumber is not a house. That’s correct, a bunch of lumber is not a house. But if you have some kind of self-assembling automaton sitting there with a bunch of lumber, pipes, glass, and other materials, and if you leave it alone it will build a house within months, then yes - that’s a house. And if you destroy it it is equivalent to destroying a house.
Again, for the sake of argument, let’s say you have 100% guarantee that that will not happen. 'Cuz you know, no one has ever documented a year-long pregnancy (though it may seem much longer).
So - In that case, if you kick them out, I believe it’s homicide. What do you think?
How did you come to the conclusion that “implantation” is the time after which there is human life that needs to be protected? The reason I ask is that I haven’t heard anyone choose that point before.
The point of time at which, without intervention or someone preventing it from happening on purpose, there will be a baby born (barring some natural event) is the point.