It does? Really? Does biology tell you that this fertilized egg is a sentient human being, with consciousness, intelligence, feelings, and a will to live? No? Then stop calling it a “kid” or assigning it the rights of an actual human being.
As mentioned before, the vast majority of abortions in the US are done in the first trimester, which is also the stage at which they are unconditionally legal in most of the civilized world. Yet these are the ones that the extremists want to include in a universal abortion ban. You can’t pretend that there is an objective basis for that in biology or any other science.
In my view, the most dangerous kind of narrowmindedness is theocracy – the idea that matters of personal faith must become the law of the land, and those who don’t conform to that faith must be severely punished.
What this thread has shown is that there is vast a gulf between the two sides of this issue that won’t be resolved by reasoned discussion, any more than if we were arguing about the existence of God. But only one side advocates rule by theocracy; the other side is satisfied to leave such moral and medical decisions to individuals, families, and their doctors.
I’d like to see that too, but the first step is to stop people from thinking they can kill an innocent child because it’s too much of an inconvenience.
I’d hope most mothers would have the wisdom and courage to see this for themselves, but in case they don’t, yes, I’m fine with the law ‘forcing’ them to do their duty by their child. Perhaps that ‘stuns’ you, it certainly doesn’t ‘stun’ me. I find killing a baby a much bigger deal than sayng ‘no’ to a mother who wants to kill her baby.
On the contrary, it’s the choice of society, if society chooses to pass a law against it, as many countries (and hopefully more in future) have in fact done.
Doesn’t matter whether or not it’s associated with a formal religion (though it usually is – cf.- the position of most Catholics and evangelicals on abortion). What matters is that your opinion (thank you) that a fertilized egg or some other early stage of gestation is “a kid” is a matter of personal faith since it has no objective or scientific basis, which is why these laws have such a hard time when they hit the courts. And, harsh though it may sound, believing that a matter of personal faith must be law is the essence of theocracy.
How many pro-lifers do you know who object to abortion but understand that there is another point of view and aren’t pushing for draconian laws to prohibit it? There might be some, but not very many. Most are driven by an evangelical pitchfork-brandishing certainty that their opinion is the only correct one. Which tells me that this pro-life thing is largely a political theocratic movement more than a moral one, all the more so when one observes that these factions seem to have no concern for the welfare of those exact same babies after they’re born. Whether these babies get proper care and nutrition and a proper upbringing is immediately dismissed as “a different issue” that they have no interest in. Indeed, pro-life extremists consider it their job to make sure that a clump of cells must be allowed to develop into a baby even when when the circumstances pretty much guarantee that it won’t be properly cared for, or might emotionally, physically, or otherwise endanger the mother, too.
Neither does your opinion that it is not “a kid” have any objective or scientific basis. It is a philosophical question, not a scientific one. But you keep pretending that you are “objective” or “scientific” when you arbitrarily decide that it is not a kid.
The anti-abortion people see a women as nothing more that a vessel. No life of her own. No choice of her own. Don’t start that the zygot has no choice. It does not work.
And Hector
That speaks volumes.
What do you do in biology Hector? You said that that is your vocation. I’m very curious.
How many pro-abortionists do you know who want abortion legal but understand that there is another point of view that sees it as murder and aren’t pushing for laws that allow such murder to occur?
Two things wrong with that. First, science is a source of objective factual information about the stages of fetal development, such as the fact that the beginning of synaptic activity and the earliest suggestion of anything even remotely resembling a human brain doesn’t occur until well into the third trimester.
Second, to the extent that there are indeed subjective philosophical questions around this issue, I’m not the one advocating for punitive laws to govern them, the pro-lifers are.
So the pro-lifers are not only objectively wrong about how they define “life” if they include early stages of gestation, they also seek to impose those views on everyone else. The label of “theocracy” in the generic sense of “using law to impose faith” is really quite appropriate.
And what does that have to do with whether it is “a kid” or not?
If the philosophical question is resolved in the favor of “yes, it is a kid” then it is a moral imperative to have laws punishing killing kids. In fact you ARE advocating punitive laws - the ones that impose death sentences on kids.
The absence of a law doesn’t “impose” anything. It’s allows freedom to make a choice, not a prohibition against choice. In the absence of a law, pro-lifers can follow their conscience to their hearts’ content within their own lives and families. In the presence of laws of the kind the prohibitionists advocate, what are pro-choice women supposed to do?
The answer to that last question, of course, is “too bad for the pro-choice women, because they’re wrong”. It always comes down to that pitchfork-brandishing theocratic righteousness of the pro-lifers.
Because the whole question centers on when an embryo can be regarded as “human life”. Read the article (seriously – it’s well written and illuminating) – this question of bioethicism is what the article is about! You just choose to have your own definition of what a “kid” is – including the stage of gestation when the brain doesn’t even exist – then you take this nonsense as indisputable fact, and build the rest of your case on it, including the case for legislating that nonsense into law.
Is it human? Yes. Is it alive? Yes. There - “human life”. Glad I could clear it up for you.
You just choose to have your own definition of what a “kid” is - excluding the time in the womb or when the brain doesn’t even (yet) exist - then you take this nonsense as indisputable fact, and build the rest of your case on it, including the case for legislating that nonsense into law.
Speaking of which - my “nonsense” is already legislated into law. As in the law that puts people in jail for murder when they kill the “kid” - even at the stage of gestation when the brain doesn’t even exist.
Simple answers to complex questions, especially when they’re wrong, is a perilous basis on which to make law. Fortunately it doesn’t usually fly in the civilized world, not in legislation and not in jurisprudence.
You seem to have forgotten that Roe v. Wade overturned the worst of the nonsense. Some right-wing states, however, showing a stunning disregard for the principles behind the ruling, have been trying end-runs around it via all kinds of loopholes – the idea being that if abortion can’t be illegal, they can at least make it damned inconvenient. Meanwhile most of the civilized world permits abortions on request up until at least the 12th to 16th week, sometimes longer, and in some jurisdictions without limit. Many of these developments are relatively recent. The trend is clear: in an increasingly secular world guided by evidence-based policy, your side is losing.
That’s a complete non-sequitur to what I said. Let me repeat:
Speaking of which - my “nonsense” is already legislated into law. As in the law that puts people in jail for murder when they kill the “kid” - even at the stage of gestation when the brain doesn’t even exist.
If you kill a fetus that the mother intends to gestate, then it deserves a punishment. If you kill a fetus that the mother intends to not gestate, then you don’t.
And calling it a *kid *is utter ignorant nonsense. You might ask yourself why you resort to it.
