A very thought provoking statement. Either way, an unwanted fetus/baby is an awful trajedy.
I don’t see the disconnect. Wanted pregnancy leads to baby, unwanted pregnancy leads to abortion.
The essential humanity doesn’t matter, except that attributing or denying it makes some people feel better.
This supposes that abortions are easily obtainable everywhere which they are not.
Dr. Tiller was one of only three doctors in the US who would perform late term abortions. Now there are only two…in the whole US.
North Dakota, South Dakota and Mississippi have a grand total of one abortion clinic each. Missouri has a whopping two abortion clinics.
So, out of 3,140 counties in the US 2,732 do not have an abortion provider.
Hardly one on every corner I’d say.
Couldn’t someone be pro-life without wanting to criminalize abortion? Maybe they agree with you that simply putting abortion providers and seekers in jail isn’t going to solve the problem? Maybe they think convincing women not to have abortions would work better than putting them in prison? If putting abortion seekers in prison would work that might be one thing, but we know it didn’t work very well back when abortion was against the law.
Like, say, maybe someone is against taking heroin and wants to help addicts stop using heroin, but doesn’t think criminalization of heroin is the best way to stop heroin use? Even if they thought heroin killed people, and people who sold heroin were pretty much murderers?
Do you believe that a person who was conceived of through rape and then carried to term is somehow less human than any other person? If so, why?
Slee
Side note, I really don’t have a dog in this fight. I am torn about abortion. I do think the goal ought to be to get the number of abortions as low as possible.
First, preparing for it’s arrival when you intend to have it isn’t inconsistent; it’s rational planning. Are you saying they should make preparations for having a child when they intend to abort it ?
As for the rest, so what ? They intend to keep it so they don’t need to be rational about it. They can get all emotional and gushy over what is really just a bit of tissue at that point. However, unlike the anti-abortionists, THEY aren’t hurting people, so it doesn’t matter.
No, and if you could make babies by disassembling me and building babies out of the resulting tissue, they would still be just as human. That wouldn’t make ripping me apart ethical however. You have no right to use other people’s bodies against their will.
So the people who call their fetus a “baby” are irrational?
Look, I know that to be consistent you have to believe that until the second the fetus leaves the womb it is an inconsequential lump of tissue and not a baby, but just because you need to believe that to be consistent doesn’t make it true.
An unborn baby is still a baby. I’m not talking about a fertilized zygote or an embryo.
Let’s put it in personal terms. My wife miscarried at five months. Are you saying that our baby didn’t die? That there was no baby, and we’re irrational for pretending that the lump of tissue that stopped metabolizing was our child?
At some point, the fetus really is a baby. Pretending it isn’t a baby is irrational. There is no magic moment where fairy dust is sprinkled on the lump of tissue and it is transformed into an baby in a sparkle of rainbows. But at some point it’s fucking perverse to refuse to admit that we’re finally looking at a real baby that just happens to be inside a lady’s tummy. Being pushed out of a vagina doesn’t sprinkle the baby with rainbows either.
It’s just as irrational to claim that birth is the magic moment that invests a lump of tissue with personhood as it is to claim that conception is that magic moment.
Fine but those people probably would not call abortion murder. If they actually think it is murder how could it not be criminalized?
As for the heroin thing you have two people there you are referring to. The user and the dealer. Is the dealer but not the user criminal in that view? And if heroin dealers are also murderers that is two things. A criminal for dealing heroin and a criminal for being a murderer.
If anything, given the probably public backlash that would occur, such actions would most likely cause more long-term harm than short-term good.
I believe there are members of this board who are pro-life but who do not want to criminalize abortion. I do not believe that Stratocaster is one of those members.
Well, by definition murder is unlawful killing, if it’s lawful then it can’t be murder.
But you could think unborn babies are people without thinking that criminalizing abortion is a good way to stop abortion.
How so?
Public backlash is all well and good but that would not change certain realities such as fewer doctors willing to risk their life to perform abortions or insurance rates for abortion clinics going up because of the higher risk associated with it making abortions more expensive and thus more difficult to obtain.
If you think they are people then how can killing them not be murder?
Seems logically inconsistent.
No it isn’t inconsistent. If a police officer kills a person in the line of duty that’s not murder. If a soldier kills an enemy soldier person, that’s not murder. If a person defends themselves against a violent person, that’s not murder.
There are many circumstances under our legal system where it is legal for a person to kill another person. We don’t declare that the violent criminal who had to be shot in self-defense wasn’t really a human being. We recognize that he was a human being, but that killing a human being was justified in that case.
Strawman. What if robbing a bank would make her feel better? Do we let her rob a bank?
We’re talking about letting her decide to abort the unwanted pregnancy, and fairly early at that. Let’s say first trimester. This is not murder. This isn’t a homicide of any description.
When does an embryo become a baby?
This is why there are different criteria for deciding when to permit abortions. In the very early stages, the simple fact that the woman doesn’t want to have a baby is all the justification that’s needed. Later in the pregnancy, we place more restrictions on the choice. I don’t think anyone is advocating anything beyond that. At 8 1/2 months, you don’t get to say, “Oh, I’ve decided I just don’t want to have a baby interfering with my nightlife, so I want an abortion.”
Who said that? Who even *implied *that?
A woman who has been impregnated by a rapist should be allowed to terminate the pregnancy quickly. Forcing her to do otherwise is cruel and unnecessary. She doesn’t want to bear the rapist’s child, the rapist doesn’t have any say in the matter, and we’re not facing some critical population shortage.
If the woman decides to let the pregnancy proceed to term, no one is advocating that the child should be executed at birth, or kept in a cage somewhere.
Side note: do the pro-lifers maintain that an embryo produced by a violent rape is “a precious gift from God?” Interesting interpretation of events…
Of course they can. Someone can be against abortion even though they don’t believe a human is created at conception. {or they admit they don’t know} That’s not the subject of the thread though. We’re talking about people who claim a fertilized egg is a human being and needs protection.
I think the question is about philosophical and logical consistency. If the idea was , we realized pursuing baby killers as criminals didn’t work well so we decided to stop pursuing them, would it seem logical to you? It occurs to me that what has happened is pro-lifers have conceded the point that a fertilized egg is not really a human being. They have conceded that a potential person is not the same as a person. Furthermore, I don’t see any way that conceding this point will actually help eventually make abortions illegal. I’d like to see them recognize this and find realistic ways to reduce the number of abortions by offering realistic choices and support to women and newborns.
If a pusher gave someone a lethal dose of heroin would you support letting him go free as long as he promised not to sell heroin again and meant it? If a heroin user unknowingly gave someone the lethal dose and killed them do we excuse them completely because we believe they didn’t know?
See the logical inconsistency there?
I think it’s completely possible for a woman to truly love and nurture a fetus and a baby conceived in rape. I think it’s cruel to think the woman raped shouldn’t be allowed to make that choice.
Interesting point. Do you think the decision to abort a pregnancy is taken lightly? You’ve read some of the accounts posted on SDMB haven’t you? I think after the decision is made to carry or abort a pregnancy people have to make the mental and emotional adjustment for their choice.
I think a lot of pro choice people understand and feel the idea of a potential life, a *potential *baby and person.