As I said, You should try reading more than one post at a time before you respond.
I don’t know about that. I am a pretty bad Catholic in a lot of ways, and I formed this pro-life attitude when I would hardly call myself Catholic in any but the most superficial way.
I do consider a fetus to be a human life.
As far as the soul is concerned, IMO the fetus has one as much as I do or you do. That is, if there is a such thing as a soul, then I believe the fetus has one. Whether or not humans have souls is not central to my argument.
My emotional reasons for being pro-life probably have more to do with the fact that I am adopted than my Catholicism. I mention that I am adopted from time to time in these discussions, if adoption comes up or if it is relevant somehow. But, I don’t really consider this to be a good logical argument for the pro-life side, as much as it is simple gratitude that my birth mother didn’t want or couldn’t get an abortion.
Count me also in the category of people who avoid religious arguments.
I was talking about biological destiny. I grant you that the power the lab scientists and parents of the blastocytes have over them means that in reality, they are destined to be nothing but what they are. My point was that biologically speaking, a blastocyte does not exist as a blastocyte for its own sake…it is designed by evolution to develop into a baby. A skin cell or hair cell has no such biological destiny.
Thanks, man…you are OK, too. 
How about pragmatic arguments, as requested in post #291?
I gave my logical argument, and I have a general distaste for “pragmatic” arguments when it comes to human life, but if I have to answer this question, I will give it a try. You said:
First of all, I am not necessarily for denying her an abortion. My goal in life is more to try to change people’s minds about abortion than to make it illegal. But, if you want to put words in my mouth and say that I am trying to “deny” her an abortion rather than change her mind about having one, then fine. I would say that it is not a good thing to put a child where he is not wanted. On the other hand, if the mother was that positive that she doesn’t want the child once it is born, then she should not have any problem with giving that child up for adoption. And, maybe to you it is not enough to say “life is precious,” but the fact that it IS means that maybe the point is to let people live, and try to solve some of the social problems that force a lot of women to make these tough choices.
I think the concept of using abortion to keep the crime rate down is a pretty sick one. I do not believe that this is a responsible way for society to solve its social problems.
Thanks for answeing, JThunder, Sarahfeena. I’ll no longer assert that pro-lifers neccesarily have a undisclosed religious motivation.
Sarahfeena, I think “biological destiny” is the wrong term to use. It’s rather loaded and implies a certain inevitability that just isn’t there. Blastocytes get spontaneously ejected all the time (I’m tempted to say “more often than not”, if my recollection of antenatal classes is right).
There’s no design in evolution, no intent. If we were a species that practiced r-selection, for instance, there’d be a lot less of an abortion debate. It’s just one of those things, that we’re K-strategists.
Would it be far to say that though you have moral qualms about abortion, you don’t object to its availability? I’m just trying to get past the qualifiers:
The one time you speak definitively is to assert that life IS precious, but you’ve built nothing firm on top of that foundation.
That’s okay, though. Each of us builds their own moral framework. If you want to campaign against abortion laws using free speech, the petition and the vote, I’ve no objection. I’ll be doing the same on the other side. Right now, I’m pretty comfortable with the laws as they are, so my goal is relatively easy; maintenance, not change.
Incidentally, lower crime rates is not the goal of abortion, but it’s irresponsible to refuse to recognize that higher crime rates may be one result of banning abortion.
I see what you are saying, but I can’t think of a better way to phrase it. Blastocytes & embroys are compared to other clumps of cells all the time, but there are inherent differences. I believe someone earlier in the thread compared it to a “loogie” he spits up on the street. Well, if these were the same things in reality, then the scientists would use the loogie instead of the blastocytes. Loogies are much, much easier to come by, and probably wouldn’t cause all this controversy. In addition, if you implanted loogie cells into a uterus (gross, I know, but it WAS the example given), you would not end up delivering a baby in 9 months. The “biological destiny” I am speaking of is not so much that each and every blastocyte is destined to become a baby, as in some kind of cosmic destiny, but more that a blastocyte is just one phase of development.
The subject of this discussion wasn’t the legalities of abortion, and I haven’t mentioned its legality once until you brought it up. The “qualifiers” as you call them are my attempt to try to see more than one side of the issue. I could easily come in here and say, “Abortion is murder. It must be banned immediately.” But that wouldn’t be very productive, now, would it? I can’t imagine what you would have thought about me if I did that. Right-wing nutcase, perhaps? So, I try to be diplomatic, and I get critcized for that as well. Just can’t win with some people, I guess. :rolleyes:
I think it is too complicated an issue to just declare abortion should ALWAYS be available under ANY circumstances, or to just declare it should NEVER be available under ANY circumstances. I believe in compromise, I believe in trying to get my POV out there to try to change other people’s minds, and I believe in helping women who want to keep their babies but don’t feel they can.
Glad to know you have put the stamp of approval on my participation in the political process. But, it’s not really my goal to change the laws.
Spare me. I’ve also expressed the need for compromises in forming laws that are tolerable to most of the population. I just don’t pepper my argument with weasel words.
And I’m glad you are so pleased with yourself as a result.
No, I get the point, I think, but it doesn’t sway me. You think the potential of a human life is wasted, I say that potential gets wasted all the time. Nature does it all the time.
What’s different about abortion over spontaneous miscarriage is the element of choice, of wilful action, is that it? Pro-lifers want to take that choice away from the women who would use it. That’s ultimately where the argument lies, despite what the OP might think (And what happened to the OP, anyway?).
Labels are a very convenient way to “win” an argument without having to actually debate or prove anything. If I label myself “pro-choice” because I support a woman’s right to have an abortion, that implies that anybody who disagrees with me must therefore be “anti-choice.” If, on the otehr hand, I label myself “pro-life” because I do not support a woman’s right to have an abortion, that implies that anybody who disagrees with me must therefore be “anti-life.”
Basically, whoever gets to define the terms, wins the argument.
Once you strip away the labels and the desire to win the argument, I think it becomes crystal clear that yes, a fetus (at least at some stage in its development) is just as much a human being (leaving aside the legal definition of “person”) as a newborn baby. Neither can survive on their own for any significant length of time, and the only real difference is one of location. And a fetus, just like a baby, has a right to life.
At the same time, it is crystal clear that a woman (or a man, for that matter), should have the right to control what happens to her own body.
The only real question is which of these two potentially conflicting rights should take precedence. It’s not whether a fetus is a person with the right to live, or whether a woman has the right to control what happens to her body – it’s which of these two rights we feel is most important.
And, unfortunately, the answer to this question is wholly subjective and will never in a million years be resolved to anybody’s satisfaction.
Regards,
Barry
Just to correct myself, it turns out that the rate of spontaneous abortion is more like 25% for early pregnancy.
But it is stimulating to argue, though.
That’s how I look at it as well. If every egg were supposed to develop into a full-fledged baby, we’d be in deep shit. Deep baby shit! We’re supposed to lose most of them.
That is the statistic I have heard, as well.
Because killing unwanted children is NOT an acceptable solution.