What is it - I don’t mean to pick on you alone - that’s so important about conception? The result of conception doesn’t even start to resemble a person, or have ability to sense anything, for quite some time. And as I recall, a large number of conceptions don’t ‘take’ in the first place.
You keep returning to the theme that once conceived, the fetus is entitled to live and is deprived of that right if aborted. I don’t see how someone can be harmed by not being born in the first place. It doesn’t lose anything, it just doesn’t gain something it wouldn’t be aware of to begin with.
I’m still trying to figure this out from the perspective of the unborn child, and I guess the message (for some) is “Sorry kid, but you didn’t get a contract.”
The most amazing thing I’ve learned from this debate is just how many people out there who use the term pro-life, when they really have no stake in the life or death debate as much as they do in the pro-parenting or anti-sexforpleasure debate. Pregnancy/parenting should NOT be used as a punishment, PERIOD. Choosing to get pregnant and become a parent should be a decision made with joy, and in the 0.5% chance that a reliable method of birth control fails, nobody should be forced to follow through an unwanted conception. It sounds to me like it’s just more popular to call for abortion laws than it is to call for birth control laws, which is what it sounds like these “exception for rape/incest” people REALLY want.
Ha ha. I meant that instinctively, I think most people would rather save a child than an adult.
So Kanicbird doesn’t feel picked on alone, I will try my hand at this one. (Not speaking for Kanicbird in any way here, though…have no idea if we agree on this issue.)
The reason that, for me, conception is important is because it seems to be the single defining point where you have something that you didn’t have before. You have a sperm and and egg, but once they join, they become one distinct entity, different and many times more complex than either was on its own. If you work backwards from birth, I don’t see another point where there is another distinct dividing line where the developing fetus is suddenly “different” than it was before. It’s a gradual, rather lengthy process, and it me, what it is doing in terms of development in week 38 is no different from what it’s doing in week 2…it’s all just cell division.
Probably because a child is more helpless. It would be more meaningful to compare a quadriplegic 40 year-old and a 2 year old, to a xygote and a 2-year old, since everyone in this scenario is equally vunerable.
Actually, there are many points in the process that are “milestones”.
The first cell division (we now have a multicellular instead of single cellular organism).
The formation of the blastocyst, when there are now two cell types in the organism instead of just one.
Implantation in the womb.
Gastrulation and the formation of the primitive streak (the begining of bilateral symmetry).
The first heart beat.
etc…
Like fertilization, none of those events are clearly demarked at a specific point in time, but do happen over a short enough time period that they can be considered unique events.
I think even with a quadraplegic 40 year-old, most people would still want to save the child. We have a natural instinct to protect children, which is basically my point. Despite the fact that we have medical science that can allow zygotes to live outside the womb, it doesn’t mean that our instinct, which is evolution-based, has caught up with that. We simply haven’t evolved it yet. But just because we haven’t evolved to instinctively protect something, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have value.
Except for implantaion, though, I see those things as just being cell division, as I said. It’s basically the same event, happening over and over at breakneck speed…each point you have given is just another stage of development (which continues to happen after birth, as well). The fertilization is the only point I see where an entirely new entity exists that didn’t before.
I remember when abortion was only legal in Texas for health reasons. This could include psychological health–& bearing the child of a rapist would certainly strain the sanity of many women.
So “rape” could be a good excuse, as well. The nice girl was attacked by a brutal stranger & was so shattered that she didn’t report it to the police! So, after the pregnancy was detected, understanding officials would have no problem with a discreet D&C. Even if the real problem was an OOPS–when marriage would wreck the educational plans of a sterling young couple.
Anyone truly believing that every zygote is a child would not hold with the rape/incest excuse for abortion.
(No, I don’t look back with fondness on The Good Old Days.)
Ok once we get into turkey baster territory we might as well close the thread, what is your next example going to be a woman filming a bukkake scene that starts fingering herself?
**Kanicbird ** you’ve also failed to explain how you can give consent to a zygote or fetus, at that point it would not be self-aware so can how can you reach an agreement with it? Not to mention the fact that at the point of consent it doesn’t exist so how can you have an agreement with it?
I agree that there is something unique about a thing coming into being that has its own distinctive DNA. However, to expand on Marley23’s point, *after *that time, half of this entity becomes the placenta, which is usually disposed of as medical waste; also, two unique people can grow from this one group of cells, and, of course, much of the time no person, not even a fetus, grows from that group of cells. So it’s a little weird to declare definitively that this group of cells is a person, or even that it will inevitably become a person.
I for one would be interested in the answer to a question posed several times: since the risk of being injured in a car accident seems to be at least as high as the risk of getting pregnant while using the pill properly, does anyone who drives consent to be injured? Presumably consenting to injury would prevent one from recovering any compensation, even if the other driver was 100% responsible for the crash.
For me, I just don’t see how car crash injuries or pregnancy are proximate enough results of driving or sex (especially protected sex) to be seen as something consented to.
The same thing with the term it, but if you notice in my posts a lot of time I do use the pronoun he/she for a fetus.
You can deny it, but in doing so you are denying the truth that your actions may bring about a life. Sorry this is as far as your going to get with this one.
Tubal ligations are a form of birth control or contraception, and are not 100% effective at preventing pregnancy. You are still playing with that quantum black box which, though the chance is much smaller, you could still end up with a human life in it when you open it. So even in this case if a baby appears she is obligated to take case of it for the pregnancy as she activated that quantum baby black box.
I haven’t really looked into this, but at first glance I’d say yes, I don’t see how it applies to murdering your child.
As above the chance of having a viable baby is not eliminated (again it is nonzero - the chance is still there), if she is willing to accept that I see nothing wrong with here actions.
Not if you wanted to make any sense, I am talking about willingly acting in a way that has the potential of creating life and the moral obligation you have to that life, you are talking about death of a 3rd person that you had no part of creating.
What good would punishment do? Isn’t the situation bad enough without inflicting unnecessary harshness against a person that has no benefit? Don’t you think helping the family would be far more beneficial. You show a mindset I can’t relate to.
She gave consent to the fetus during the act she engaged in that she knew might create life, there is IMHO a moral contract she entered into.
A human is formed as a result of the combination of part of a male and part of a female merged together, conception is that process.
If you want to push this to late term abortions the fetus certainally feels pain before he’s born. There is controversy about using ultrasound as this may causes distress to the unborn.
You asked me this before, what I would say to the fetus as to why he couldn’t develop, but it is not my place to answer this, the mother is the one to answer to her child, as she is the only one with the power to grant that permission or deny it. Her right her responsibility.
Are not parents authorized into entering into legal contracts on behalf of their children, when the children are not legal to enter into those contracts on their own?
You are confused. I never said I would deny what the risks of my actions would be. I do most explicitly deny that I am giving consent to a figment of your imagination. I can’t give consent to something that doesn’t exist.
I risk pregnancy. Because I have no moral qualm about abortion, I don’t risk parenthood. I do not, will not, cannot agree that my actions are “giving consent” to a creation of your fertile mind–a nonexistent being.
I meant that instinctively, I think most people would rather save a child than an adult.