Quote from your post:
“I think that embryos are alive and human and I am OK with describing abortion as “killing”. I don’t feel the need for euphemisms.”
So don’t eumphemize. If you don’t think mothers should have a right to infanticide, then abortion should not be a right. Since it is infanticide.
Random thoughts here, but I hope to give a different perspective -
I could have ended up an abortion statistic, but I was born pre- R. v. W so I was adopted. I got lucky because I was born white, healthy, physically normal and (I suspect though I’m not 100% sure on this), to someone my adoptive parents knew, at least peripherally. I was adopted into a nice middle class family, and have led a good happy life overall.
That said, had abortion been an option for the woman that bore me I might not exist today.** That thought does not bother me one bit.** If she’d chosen to abort I would have known nothing, missed nothing, felt no regret that I wasn’t being given a chance. How could I? I might have been in pain? Well, yeah, maybe. But I bet birth is no picnic, and pain IS part of life and death, like it or not.
Death is not an enemy, and there are far worse things than a quick death, especially (IMO, of course) if it comes before one has really lived. I got lucky in the people that adopted me. I’ve had a good life but certainly not one without pain or trials or grief. Many children are not that lucky. Wouldn’t it be better to focus on the ones who are already here and learning, feeling, knowing than to worry about those who have no real “life” yet?
I feel far sorrier for kids born because the mother felt she HAD to than for any aborted fetus.
The OP says that the woman should have to carry to term and would be given financial assistance if necessary to see that the child is born safely and then it could be put up for adoption. That may work for cute healthy white boy-babies, but what about babies born with fetal-alcohol syndrome? Or spina bifida? What if the woman is guilted into keeping the child and then spends the next 18 years making that child miserable? Don’t say it doesn’t happen, it sure as hell does but few people will admit they made a mistake having kids.
From my perspective, death-before-awareness can absolutely be a better thing than a life unloved, unfed, abused, and struggling. It’s really easy to focus on “OMG the poor little baybeees” thing, and forget about the next 60+ years.
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Are we clear here that you are offering an opinion and not a fact? As far as I have been able to determine the equation “abortion = infanticide” is pretty much exclusive to the hardcore pro-life camp.
It is a fact stipulated to by the poster (AHunter3) to whom I was responding.
I agree with most of your post, but insulting someone’s sex life is the flip side of the slut-shaming coin, and you shouldn’t do it.
I think that carrots are alive and I am okay with describing harvest as “killing.” I don’t feel the need for euphemisms.
So don’t euphemize. If you don’t think that farmers should have a right to infanticide, then harvesting carrots should not be a right. Since it is infanticide.
Oh, wait a second. Infanticide is only killing infants, right? And carrots aren’t infants. Never mind!
“alive and human”.
Where has AHunter3 written such a thing? I found one post where (s)he referred to abortion as “killing”, never as “infanticide”. World of a difference.
You can call abortion infanticide if you can demonstrate that an embryo in every stage of development is the same thing as a born child. As long as you cannot do that your “fact” assertion is unsubstantiated and remains an opinion.
Not entirely true; the issue doesn’t exist in a tautological closed loop. It is possible to consider the real-world effects of abortion freedom and abortion restriction and come to the conclusion that the former is less negative.
I’ll cheerfully proclaim that the fetus is a human life, but even if it wasn’t, the topic certainly DOES involve a human life - the human life of the pregnant woman. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I cannot or will not recognize the characteristics of the fetus and if only I could, my views would adjust accordingly.
THAT’S a tautology. People who agree with me will recognize the validity of my comnents; true, but meaningless.
Well, obviously.
Well, my position is that the specific aspect has no relevance until such time as relevance is demonstrated, and I believe I have described why this is unlikely. In the meantime, I don’t feel compelled to adopt some kind of compromise position just to satisfy some vague requirement of “honesty.”
Your acceptance or lack thereof was always your choice, as is the extent, if any, to which the issue informs your voting decisions. My decisions are similarly informed by what I decide is important to me.
Killing an “alive and human” embryo. It is not an adult, is it?
You are right. It is not an adult. It is not even a child yet.
No, it is a “human life” (Brian Ekers), “alive and human” (AHunter3), that is being terminated. In other words, infanticide. If you don’t want to euphemize, of course.
Yep, that’s pretty much how I see it. I think that the man’s wishes are a moral issue between and man and the woman who conceived. But ultimately, the decision to go forward or not with a pregnancy resides solely with the woman. The man can’t die if the pregnancy goes haywire. The man’s not having the nutrients sucked out of his body. Basically, at the end of the day, the man doesn’t really have a piece of piss to say about it.
And I’m saying that as a guy.
It’s only infanticide if it’s an infant. A fetus is not an infant. Two very different things.
The term infanticide implies the killing of a child. If what is being killed is not a child, the killing does not represent an infanticide.
If you abort a fertilized egg, you are killing it. If the egg is human, you are killing human life. But if you are having an appendicitis you are also removing living cells from your body and thus killing them. That does not make an appendicitis infanticide, right?
The difference of course is that the appendix will never grow into a child, while the fertilized egg could. Because of that *potential *you object to the killing of the egg. There is a difference between what the egg currently is and what it may one day become.
Yeah, let’s call it something else. “Alive and human life” but we name it something different, then it is easier to kill it.
Is your appendix a “human life”?
Is it alive? Yes. It can die.
Is it human? Yes, of course.
Yes, I would say the appendix represents human life.
I am of course aware that it cannot exist independently from the rest of the body. But neither can the fertilized egg. So where exactly do you draw the distinction?
Don’t weasel.
I asked if your appendix is a “human life”.
No. I don’t think it is.
See, I did not weasel. Now it is your turn. Will you answer my last question?
So if you don’t think it is, why did you give it as an analogy to abortion?
Where I draw the distinction? At terminating a “human life” - for any reason other than extreme. Such as saving the mother’s life.