If a fertilized ovum is human life, then everyone who has ever sprayed a can of lysol is a genocidal monster.
The argument that ‘life’ begins at conception is an argument that ‘life’ is some magical property beyond the systems that it’s composed of. Other common single-celled organisms are just as complex as a zygote, but programmed differently.
To reject the ‘magic’ argument and to say that the programming is the difference is to accept that we’re machines.
I’m still of the camp that all humans should be made sterile at birth and only rendered fertile if couples complete a rigorous course together to prove income, health and competency. There wouldn’t be any ‘crack babies’ or ‘unwanted’ children to neglect. People who were too stupid and lazy to get an education and hold a decent job just wouldn’t be able to breed. There would be no need for abortion, because people couldn’t accidentally get pregnant.
Reversible sterilization is the ultimate answer to most of society’s ailments. Pour all your efforts into making it real instead of punishing little girls who get raped or screw up because your imaginary friends tell you so.
I don’t think, because of our menstrual cycles, you could come up with a meaningful per-sex-act chance of pregnancy. But maybe a math whiz could help me out: 23 days of the month, my chances of getting pregnant are exactly zero, because there’s no ovum present to be fertilized. In other words, all condom failures, all diaphragm failures, all abstinence failures, etc., happen on one of 5 days a month when a woman is actually fertile. If a condom breaks on a non-fertile day and lets all the sperm up into the woman, then there’s no “failure” causing pregnancy, and it’s not counted in the failure rate of condoms. Do you know what I mean? All those statistics are really only valid for days when she *could *get pregnant. (Which gives me vapors when I think about how high the condom failure rate must be if you only count fertile days.)
So we’ve got 23 days when the chances are 0%, and 5 days when the chances are…well, whatever they are, but it’s gotta be awfully high if all those zeros average in to reach 85% for the year, right? I don’t know enough math to figure out what that means the real chances of getting pregnant are averaged to each sex act.
Are we sure some people don’t display the former? There are options besides abortion. Just because a baby is not the desired outcome, does not mean willy-nilly abortions for all.
You aren’t. That’s the beauty of not defining terms. Equally I might say; if the end result of conception is a cell, then it only makes sense that the result is equal to all other cells. Or; if the end result of conception is the death of thousands of sperm, then it only makes sense to say life ends at conception.
Now, I personally would not call it a human being. Is it human? Most certainly, it’s got all the human genetic information in there. Is it a being? We don’t have any trouble calling single-celled life beings in their own right, but I would argue there is a difference in that what we have here is not a complete being, though it constitutes semantically the same parts. It’s a being by the same definition that a sperm or egg alone are; if we could hook up, say, an arm to some machine that kept it alive, likewise it would be equally a being, in my opinion not at all.
Does life begin there? For that you’d need to define life, which seems to be more troubel than its worth, but i’d be willing to say life begins there, at conception. But life begins all the time. We (in general) have no problems, morally speaking, with ending quite a bit of life. It’s not enough simply to say that life exists, therefore abortion should be illegal; the life must have some other quality that elevates it above all the other kinds of life we don’t feel the need to give rights to. Now, you might feel it’s a soul, as many people do, or simply that the humanity of it means we need to give it rights, and i’d probably disagree with you on whatever it is, but irregardless of all that the important thing is that you need to give a reason. You’re right in what you say, to an extent; but what you’ve said isn’t enough alone to back up one side of the debate or the other.
While I probably wouldn’t argue with you the point that if you have sex, pregnancy is a distinct possibility - why is it you feel that abortion is not accounting for your actions?
I like your thoughts that there must be something more that makes a human a person. I’m just not sure what that is. I also believe in the potentiality of a human being. If my wife and I initiated a human life, I don’t feel comfortable at all in terminating it, simply because I regard it as human. If I let nature run its course, the chances of it developing into a person are good. I can’t get that out of my head. I wish I had something more concrete to offer you than that, but I don’t.
So, yeh, when I hear people talk about abortion as being a responsible act, it kinda makes me raise an eyebrow. As if that’s the only viable option for being a responsible human in such a scenario. Granted, there are times when it might be the only option, but no where near always. As for me, I choose not to take part in said “responsibility”.
Yes! They must all die like the fetuses they are sucking out!
Gotchya ya!
I have no idea, nor am I the one to tell someone how to live. For me though, I’m staying away from such actions with a ten foot pole. So far, so good. Does that make me evil? good? Does it matter?
(emphasis added)
I think this is the second time you’ve said this, and I’m not any more sure what it means this time around.
There are other options, and by and large the other option to abortion is parenting. That adoption exists, and that it’s presented as a viable option to women facing an unintended pregnancy isn’t in dispute, but over many years of pregnancy options counseling, I had conversations with less than a tiny handful of women who were even remotely considering it. I almost never even have someone express interest in adoption before I broached the topic. Maybe once or twice?
For many, it’s not simply the existence of the baby in their care in the end that matters, but the pregnancy itself.
And yet, if I knew that the insect next to me would one day have the capability of sentience, laughing, telling jokes, empathy, making friendships, etc - I would be very hesitant to squash the thing just so I could live more comfortably.
No, I get that, but I don’t understand the concept of “willy-nilly abortions for all.” Are you suggesting the default position would be forcibly aborting all pregnancies except those stated cases where pregnancy was desired and sought? I’m trying to wrap my brain around the “willy-nilly” point.
I think where you’re mistaken is that plenty of women do choose “parenting” instead of abortion when presented with an unintended pregnancy. I think our rates at the clinic were close to 50/50 with a small fraction undecided. The number who opted for adoption was statistically insignificant.
Abortion is absolutely the responsible decision for someone who can’t support a healthy pregnancy physically, financially, or emotionally. If you’re able to sustain a pregnancy, but not a child, you have adoption as a choice. The fact is, most people who cannot support a child also cannot support a pregnancy.
Well, willy-nilly means to do something without putting the required amount of thought behind it. If you were of the mind that fetuses are nothing more than sawdust, I can see someone deciding, willy-nilly, to have an abortion. You can buy a pack of condoms willy-nilly, and even go on the pill willy-nilly, but I feel deciding to have an abortion should always be submerged in heavy thought. Perhaps this is always the case… but if having an abortion were as acceptable as throwing on a condom, willy-nilly would ensue. No?
No, I don’t think so. It sounds like you’re assuming that the “human value” of the zygote is the only consideration, and if we collectively decided that fetuses aren’t “human” until, say, 21 weeks, then people would be casually having abortions as a method of birth control. That’s just not true.
It’s not merely the level of social acceptability that keeps the rate of abortions where it is.
Nope. Well, yes, but you’ve missed a step. If having an abortion were as acceptable as throwing on a condom, then people would probably tend to rely more on them than on preventatives, us humans being as able to ignore immediate consequences as we are. But the state of a fetus isn’t the only thing that goes into making an abortion a reasonable possibility. If we posit a situation where everyone thinks that it’s perfectly fine to abort a fetus, we’re still left with the fact that the mother has to undergo a pretty damn unpleasant operation in a not exactly public area.
Think of it like this; we’re all generally of the opinion that appendixes are fine to remove and dispose of. Taking out an appendix is morally neutral to us. Yet, people aren’t out getting them removed willy-nilly, despite that we consider it nothing more than sawdust and even considering that it would stop us getting appendicitis (or from having to spell appendicitis, which frankly is just as good ;)); why? Because it’s still an operation. It’s still a bad situation to go through. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think a situation where abortion was considered absolutley a-ok wouldn’t mean some people wouldn’t think of it simply as just another preventative, not enough to bother throwing a condom on but willing to take the risk of pregnancy; but I think most people are going to weigh condoms + the pill + whatever else against a reasonably major operation and not consider it something to be done willy-nilly.
But what if! (what if)… what. if.* we were to invent a pill that kills the fetus, that would then be either re-absorbed, or sloughed-off with the mother’s next menstruation (and involves less risk than an invasive operation). Then, perhaps willy-nilly would ensue?
What’s the sufficient amount of thought you would require, and how heavy would it have to be? Is a day enough? Does she have to supply her reasoning in writing? You’re asking her to to jump through a pretty vague hoop, there.
(Sorry I had to do some chemistry homework. I only have a minute, then I gotta jet, so I didn’t read all the replies fully, but want to answer this.)
I meant it to mean: one of the ways in which a person can be responsible for her reproduction is by having an abortion. Other ways are by being abstinent, using birth control, seeking adoption or timing her intercourse so as to get pregnant when she wants to. It’s one tool, not the only tool.
And yes, even if someone has been monstrously devil-may-care and never considered using contraception to prevent a pregnancy, then getting an abortion (or getting an adoption) is a responsible way to deal with her unwanted pregnancy. The irresponsible ones are those who have unwanted, uncared for children and then leave them with their mothers and sisters while they go smoke dope and hang out with their friends and disappear for days on end (see: the Pit.)
Pregnancy doesn’t occur until the fertilized embryo is implanted into the uterus - which isn’t a 100% proposition. So no, “conceptions result in pregnancy” is not a absolute true statement.