No, we are not. In my part of the world, abortion is for the woman to be decided until week 12. That line is drawn because it’s about that time all organs are drafted and formed, and what happens after that is basically growth (in size and, for the brain, neural complexity). I don’t think any competent physician would be willing to draw a line and tell you that “after this date, the fetus has self-awareness”, but I’m pretty damn sure that a 12 week old fetus does not possess anything remotely like consciousness or self-awareness. Even if I generally consider abortion an action that should be avoided if possible, I don’t have any big problems with an abortion before week 12.
OTOH, a premature child born around week 22 can actually survive outside the womb. It’s not very likely without serious medical intervention, but today that’s actually more likely than not and medical personnel may be in the paradoxical situation of trying desperately to save the life of a premature child born in week 21, and in the next room a woman is aborting a 19-week old fetus. So it seems logical that late abortions after approximately week 20 (minus a margin of some size) should be avoided unless the child will be stillborn anyway, or if the mother’s life is in grave danger. Allowing abortions through the 2nd trimester seems very wrong to me for just those reasons.
And, FTR, even being strongly pro choice, I’m not comfortable with some womens’ apparently unconditional claims about “sovereignty over my own body”. At some time during pregnancy, the fetus has transformed from a poorly differentiated clump of cells into an individual of the species Homo sapiens, able to survive outside the womb. That’s when the sovereign right over one’s own body ceases to be recognized by me and is replaced by the responsibility for a helpless person. If not, we should, logically, allow abortions up to the time of birth.
I’m very sorry, lady, but your sovereignty over your own body frankly doesn’t concern me much. However, given the medical consequences of outlawing abortions, I am strongly convinced that pro-choice is the lesser of two evils.
But your sovereignty over your own body? Not a factor in my calculations even if I’m more than willing to stand up for your right to choose an abortion during the first trimester.
Are you a fan of rape then? Forced abortions? Involuntary surgery or forced organ donation? Forced sterilization? Sovereignty over your own body is what all those things are violations of; if you don’t care about that then you should logically be indifferent towards or approve of all of those.
There are of course differing opinions (yours and mine) on whether or not my position is defensible. However, just to elaborate slightly: If I were to use your style of argumentation, I’d ask you if you really mean that getting pregnant due to consensual sex is comparable to rape, forced abortions or involuntary surgery. Which it, in my opinion, is not. From then on, any discussion would go to hell in a fast car with a definite risk of degrading to something more appropriate for the Pit.
As I said: I won’t bite.
But to try to clarify (and I’m not sure that I will get my meaning through, since English is my second language and nuances are difficult to express in a non-native language): Irrespective of “the woman’s right to her own body”, pro choice is the only sensible alternative because of the consequences of the opposite. In that context, the woman’s right to her own body is irrelevant for the argumentation. On the other hand, at some time (in my belief sometime during pregnancy) the fetus/baby will develop self-awareness and should be considered a living person with basic human rights. If that were not the case, abortion through the third trimester should be perfectly defendable. Which I believe that very few here are willing to claim. Thus: Logically, we have to draw a more or less arbitrary line where the woman’s rights over her own body have to be weighed against the fetus’/child’s right to life. Since this is a can of worms which I don’t want to open, I am perfectly comfortable with defending pro choice (within fairly safe limits as to the fetus’ ability to sustain life outside the womb) as very clearly being the lesser of two evils.
And from that reasoning, I am still willing to stand up to defend any woman’s right to make her own informed decision about whether she chooses to carry the fetus to birth, or to end the pregnancy in the early stage.
Except that’s just playing word games to create a false comparison. Getting pregnant due to consensual sex isn’t what I was comparing rape and such to; I was comparing those things to being forced to go through pregnancy and give birth. The common factor in all of them being someone else forcing themselves upon the body of someone else.
I’m glad to hear that, assuming you’re speaking philosophically, and not referring specifically to MY bodily sovereignty. After all, someday I may need an organ, and now I’ll know where to go.
In the middle of the last century, educated scientific men told us the insane, disabled and Jews were “not worthy of life.” Many people believed it, after all it was the zeitgeist, everyone knew it to be true. Beside it was easier and profitable to kill these people, so it was all for the good.
If there is any possibility that an abortion involves killing a person, we ought to consult our own moral compasses and consider the situation very, very carefully.
Suppose we have consulted and considered and concluded that just as it should be permissible to kill in one’s own self-defense, one should be able to abort a pregnancy. Do we have to analyze the issue further than that?
As I said, we ought to decide after much consideration. There are many good arguments on both sides. It would be a Bad Thing to let others do our thinking for us.
That doesn’t answer my question, though. It doesn’t really answer any question, it’s just a request for endless debate without drawing any conclusions, which is rather un-useful on a time-sensitive matter like pregnancy.
A fertile egg is not a person. an embryo is not a person, nor is a sperm the contains human life a person! LIfe began many eon’s ago and is a passed on thing. There is a big difference between a embryo and a fully developed person, by the time a fertile egg or embryo can be recognized as a person, then the law is that it can only be aborted to save a woman’s life. War is killing another and so is self defense, Only a woman and her doctor can tell if the fetus is causing the woman harm, and if so if is self defense. If a woman knows ahead of time she doesn’t want a child then she should be allowed to have the morning after pill available,now many do not want her to have that, only because of their religious belief that there "Maybe a egg that was fertilized!!! The so called Pro- lifer doesn’t give a red cent about what happens after the birth, so in reality they are just pro-birthers. or they would be more then happy to pay all the expences of the child once born by taxes or giving their time and make financial sacrifices to help support the child they forced to be born. Strange, but many pro-lifers vote for lower taxes and complain about welfare mothers!!
Oh, so that’s what you mean. Well, your line of thinking would be just fine if abortion (and war, and self-defense, and capital punishment and any other situation where the taking of human life was considered) were purely academic matters existing in some rarified environment, free from the intrusions of messy icky reality.
But… they don’t.
It’s interesting how many posters objected to my claim that there is no scientifically objective point at which personhood is realized in a developing embryo/fetus, but when I ask everyone what that point is, I get no responses.
I’m a scientist. If I attack this problem solely as a scientist, I can easily see a justifiable stance that would allow the killing of children up to a certain age (maybe around 9 months, or even 18 months). As a human being, and a member of society, I find that result unacceptable. And so I look at a moral solution, advised by science, and I recognize that science doesn’t give us any one answer.
There has never been a case where a frozen embryo was implanted without the consent of both genetic donors. Junior v. Junior was overtured on appeal because the husband didn’t want to have children after he divorced the wife.
The anti-abortion people did not harass him about this decision.
Saying a woman deserves to carry a fetus for nin months because she chose to have sex is similar to saying a woman deserves to be raped because she was wearing tight fitting clothes.
Please remind me what the consequences for for the killer of, say, a disabled person (unrelated to them) would be if they didn’t carry out the killing? 9 months of travails followed by 20+ years of personally caring for the invalid? When you can cite for this, you can claim equivalence.
There is no such possibility, so there’s no reason to worry about it. Not that the anti-abortion side actually cares in the slightest about protecting anyone.
No, there aren’t. The good arguments are all on the pro-choice side. The anti-abortion side uses ridiculous and dishonest arguments.
I gave you a response, you apparently just weren’t interested. There is no such “point” as far as anyone can tell; but again, just because there’s a grey area doesn’t mean there’s no black and white. Just because we can’t tick off a probably nonexistent definite point where mindless cells become a person doesn’t mean we can’t point to that blob and say that it is nowhere near being a person.
A completely different issue since after being born they aren’t inside anyone else’s body. And besides that, after being born they are well into that grey area and largely out the other side. A baby is not a lump of cells without a working brain, nor is it latched onto anyone else’s circulatory system.