The abortion issue is almost pointless to debate since no one ever changes their minds and it becomes too emotionally charged. So, asking this question feels like I’m running across a no mans land. I would like to make it clear also that I do not mean to offend anyone or their beliefs.
Pro-choice essentially means that the female has the choice to continue or terminate the gestation within a certain time window. Aside from situations where the mother or the fetus’ life is in peril, doesn’t choosing abortion mean choosing the easy way out?
Carrying a child to term is very difficult on the body. Delivery is painful. Raising a child, especially with an absent father, is very difficult. Having to confront your family with news of a teenage pregnancy is difficult. Women who choose abortion are choosing to avoid these things; essentially, taking the easy way out. The reverse is true; women who choose to continue the gestation, especially under such difficult circumstances, are choosing the hard road.
Again, I am talking about abortions that are unnecessary–where the woman also has the option of raising the child or putting the child up for adoption, and the woman’s life is not in peril.
An interesting fact I recall from “Mind and Nature” by Gregory Bateson: The spermatazoidal[sp?] chromosone complement is not necessary for a conception to occur. It is the puncturing of the egg that triggers cellular division. When the egg is punctured it divides at the point of puncture and that point becomes the central point of our bilateral symmetry, somewhere right around the solar plexus. Of course, without the sperm, the zygote will be a haploid with only half the chromosonal makeup. Obviously it will be female. But it is possible for this creature to grow to adulthood and lead a full normal life, although she would be incapable of reproducing do to her genetic make up. Nonetheless, this “conception” can be triggered by puncture with a hair or a fine wire rather than a sperm as has been demonstrated in labs with animals.
So does this mean that if a woman allows herself to menstrate she has killed a viable life? Okay, so maybe I’m being a bit sarcastic. The point is, why is so much importance placed on conception? If pro-choice and pro-lifers both feel that late term abortion is icky and undesirable, then why not join in a chorus to demand ready over the counter access to morning after pills? We have the technology to make pregnancy avoidance safe, quick and simple. What is the moral dilemma here?
I’m not necessarily doubting you frithrah, but I’d be interested on seeing a cite on this. I mean, if it’s possible, then why hasn’t anyone used it for artificial reproductive purposes? Women could have children without having to bother with a sperm donor. Even with the sterility problem, if people could have viable offspring like this, then how come some crazy scientist hasn’t tried to create their own little virgin birth? Why waste time with cloning?
First they harp on how abortion kills a living person and stills a beating heart, etc. Then they say women who opt for it are taking the easy way out.
Is there no room in your conceptual headspace for women making difficult life-or-death decisions and being the “buck-stops-here” person and having to live with the repercussions either way, etc."?
… and leaves the woman suffering a lifetime of psychological trauma not to mention harming her reproductive system and possibly giving her breast cancer as well.
Whew! This was a tough search. Primarily because I didn’t know what to call what I was looking for and Bateson’s book did not reference any of the studies. Bateson maintains it is, or should be applicable to all vertebrates. I don’t know how many life forms have been studied. Also, Bateson misrepresented the haploid aspect, and my assumption of female by neccesity was therefor incorrect. This cite should at least provide enough information. ie names of researchers, for those interested to do a little more digging. (in case you decide you want to start your own virgin birth lab)
“In 1916, Jacques Loeb induced several thousand frog eggs to divide by pricking them with a fine needle. The vast majority of the embryos proved to be haploid and never completed larval development, but twenty were successfully raised to maturity and were shown to be diploid, undoubtedly due either to the occasional failure of the second meiotic division to take place or to the reentry into the egg of the second polar body nucleus (Wilson 1925). Thus these frogs were produced semi-meiotically. Of the 20 frogs, 15 were males, 3 were females and 2 were of uncertain sex. The preponderance of males is to be expected in light of Hertwig’s observations on delayed activation.”
I take issue with the idea that abortion is an “easy way”. It may be less damaging on the physical systems of the body compared to childbirth, but emotionally it is seldom “easy” for a woman to end a pregnancy no matter how pro-choice she is. I think that women who use it casually as a contraception are a bit callous, and I also think those kind of women are in the minority.
If avoiding pregnacy were the easy way out it would make more sense to adopt a child who needed a home than to get pregnant yourself. Most women have their own children because it’s “easier” emotionally, or socially, or something like that.
For someone who posted in another thread about the differences in pro choice philosophies… (that you were not a “it’s tissue not an issue” pro choice person)…who exactly are you referring to by the use of an unqualified they?
I never mentioned the issue of life and death in the OP.
In many cases, abortion has become a simple method of responsibility avoidance. Since when has this been something that American’s valued or even condoned?
It doesn’t count as a responsibility if it is one that is legal and ethical to avoid. For example, if I sell my car because I’m sick of washing it, it’s not avoiding responsibility. There is nothing about responsibility that says you need to do things you don’t have to do. Only that you need to do the things you need to do.
It’s anything but easy. And it’s rather presumptuous to assume that a woman who chooses to have an abortion is irresponsible; given the number of unfit parents I see everyday, I think it’s fair to say that irresponsibility cuts both ways.
Well black455 stole my thunder. But to it I’ll add Tom Sawyer ignoring the Widow douglas’ chores to go play on the river.
The American Spirit has always been about Yankee Doodle Dandy, “to hell with your ideas of what my responsibilty” thumbing his nose at authority and deciding to think for yourself instead. So when Mambo, do you think it became something Americans havent valued or condoned?