Well, for me I wouldn’t really define it as “viability” as such; more sentience or sapience or consciousness. Personhood.
Well, she would have been a remarkable fetus if she had.
If a woman conceives–i.e., one of her eggs is fertilized by a man’s sperm–and she takes a “morning-after pill” and aborts the developing new organism while it’s still a single cell, or perhaps a few dozen cells, is she morally equivalent to a woman who dumps her newborn baby in a dumpster? What do you think should be done to the woman who takes a morning-after pill, legally speaking? The same thing as should be done to someone guilty of infanticide; i.e., a lengthly prison term at the very least?
I seriously doubt it, too, because at that point I was unable to think or talk, plus being aborted wouldn’t have mattered to me one way or the other because I wouldn’t have been able to comprehend it or care about it. Looking back now, I think she should have aborted if that’s what she felt was the right thing to do.
no one has the right to use his/her morals to dictate the actions of others.
no one is forced into getting an abortion in this country. if a woman decides to, it is her decision to make. if abortion were outlawed, it would send the message that women do not have the sense to make difficult choices for themselves.
i don’t make moral decisions for other, and they shouldn’t be able to make them for me.
You’re right, jmullaney. We don’t want to start on a slippery slope here. If we don’t afford full rights to babies the day before birth, then next thing you know, we’ll be sanctioning infancticide of newborns–or of toddlers–or euthanasia of layabout, ne’er-do-well teenagers. And I agree with that, actually. I’m not comfortable with making the moment of birth a “bright line”. I don’t think we should make a huge moral distinction between a baby a few hours or days before birth versus a few hours or days after birth.
But then, we’ve got to afford full legal protection to all fetuses, right? Even mid-term, not fully developed ones. 'Cause we don’t want to get on the slippery slope to the Holocaust. And all embryoes, too, because embryoes are just less-developed fetuses. And zygotes, because zygotes turn into embryoes, which turn into fetuses, which turn into babies.
But, with the appropriate technology, my body contains trillions of cells which could develop into people. Every single one of those cells is alive, and they’re obviously human life–I’m not talking about the E. coli in my gut after all–so, doctors who order liver biopsies are no better than Mengele–wantonly destroying human life. And I guess that every time I cut myself and bleed a little on the floor, it’s a massive tragedy that makes airplane crashes look minor by comparison–all that human life, gone forever.
Of course, some Eastern religions believe that this distinction between human and non-human life is uncalled for. If you swat a fly, it’s tantamount to murderer. I guess we could argue that flies aren’t persons, that they aren’t sapient or conscious or even sentient, but that would put us on the road to Auschwitz, so there you go. Nope, we can’t make any moral distinctions regarding the taking of life at all.
Why am I pro-choice. Wow. What a question. I know I am never going to remember all of my reasons but let’s see how many I can remember while writing this.
(I suppose I better point out now that none of the reasons are jokes. I strongly believe in each of these points)
Up until the point of birth, the baby is a parasite sucking nutrients from the mother. As with any other type of parasite, the mother should have the lone decision in deciding whether or not it lives. Is it murder to kill the baby? Of course. But it is also murder to wash the bacteria off your hands or to cook food before you eat it for the purpose of killing germs.
Human life is not sacred. I am one of the only people I know that considers all life to be equal. The only system for assessing the quality of a life that I use is the number of individuals of that species on the planet and the odds that it will go extinct. Following that criteria, you can kill all the bacteria you want and you can kill up to 6 billion people before I will join in the movement to save human lives (since the latest numbers I heard put the world population far enough over 6 billion to avoid a genetic bottleneck). Humans are in no danger of extinction, thus I am not against killing of full grown adults under many situations, much less unborn babies.
World over population will be a problem very soon if the human population continues to grow. To solve the problem we must either kill those that are already born, kill those that are not yet born, or just make fewer zygotes. The last possibility alone is not likely to solve our problem since many people do not follow it. Thus, one of the first two must be used. Both are fine with me, but at the moment, only the second one is legal so that seems to be the one to support.
All humans are better off dead than alive (remember, this is just my opinion). When I look at people, I see suffering. Most people spend much of their time doing things they would rather not be doing and worrying about things that make them miserable. It is my opinion that over 99% of all people have more “bad” in their lives than “good.” Obviously these are very general terms, but I consider “dreamless sleep” to be neutral. You are not concious, are not tossing or turning, are neither happy nor sad, and do not remember a thing—this is how I define my state of “dreamless sleep”. Anything that is worse than the above defined “dreamless sleep” falls into the “bad” category, while anything better than “dreamless sleep” falls into the good category. As I said, I consider the bad to outweigh the good in most people’s lives and thus conclude that they are better off dead. I believe death to be exactly like a dreamless sleep. No afterlife. No thoughts. No nothing. You cease to exist. Even if I am wrong and most people have more good than bad in their lives, no one suffers from death. Dead people cannot feel regret (because they cannot feel anything), thus they do not care that they are dead. The people around them may care, but they have no opinion because they are dead. Thus the only person’s opinion that does not matter when you are deciding whether or not to kill someone is the opinion of the person you are going to kill.
Children that grow up in homes where they are not wanted have an even higher bad to good ratio than normal people and thus are much, much, much better off dead than alive.
The number of children most families have is not limited by the number of children they are capable of creating. Most people have a rough idea of the number of children they want to have. After they have that number they take extreme steps to make sure they don’t have any more (the number of people that get themselves “fixed” is actually quite high, especially for men {although I confess I found that quite hard to believe}). I will admit that most people that take permenant measures to prevent future pregnancy do so after they have one or more children that they did not want, but still, the number of children they had is largely their own choice and not limited by biological constraints. If someone wants to have 2 children, it does not matter whether those two kids are born in 2001 and 2003, or if they are born in 2011 and 2013. There will still be only two children alive. If the pregnancies in 2001 and 2003 are aborted then that means that 2 other people get to live in their place. If the first two children are kept, then the ones that would have been born in 2011 and 2013 are denied the right to live because the parents already have all the children they want and have taken steps to make sure that those other children are either never produced or do not survive. The total amount of “sacred human lives” is the exact same, but the sperm and eggs involved in making those lives happen to be different.
Humans are a great bane upon the earth. The fewer there are, the better off most other species will be.
And this is a piece of Anti-abortion pap fit for a bumper sticker, not a debate board.
I suggest that some facts, actually substantiated by an empirical research study or two would go much farther in making your point, whatever that is.
So far it seems like your point is “People who disagree with me are stupid, and I’ve had a tragedy in my family so if you disagree with me, you’re moral suspect as well.”
However, I digress.
A woman’s body is her own, regardless of your opinion, and therefore, she has the right to choose. Why? Because the pesky ol’ supreme court says so.
Who said anything about legal protection? I’m talking about moral protection. We agree regarding the problems of the law.
Yes, but not of their own unimpeded volition. Surely you see a moral differnce between killing one cell in your body and killing them all. We’re talking about making a living being completely inviable.
Well, you can wait as long as you want, but a fly won’t become sapient or conscious or even sentient over any given period of time, of if they are we can’t know it. Ignorance of law isn’t an excuse, but ignorance of morality is another matter entire.
But, with the appropriate technology, my body contains trillions of cells which could develop into people.
Response from jmullaney
Yes, but not of their own unimpeded volition. Surely you see a moral differnce between killing one cell in your body and killing them all. We’re talking about making a living being completely inviable.
Granted the cells do grow into a child on their own, but they must parasitize the mother to do so. Do you have a moral obligation to provide nutrients in order to save the life of another (giving blood for one example). How much blood should you give? Enough to barely not kill you? Are you morally obligated to carry yourself in a constantly weakened state because the blood you are giving every couple of days is saving lives?
P.S. How do you people quote others? Some of you have “fancy” ways of quoting that are better than just cutting and pasting. How is it done?
I would not tell a woman who had just labored to deliver her fetus that what she carried in her body for months was not or never would be a person. That this was not the son she had hoped for and loved. This would be as painfully insensitive as it would be painfully the truth. Your aunt would have the right to be furious with me. Even though what she delivered was not a person, she believed it was and her grief should be respected. I miscarried a child myself and I wanted my grief to be respected when I was grieving. Now, I want my choices respected. I am pro-choice because I would rather have the right to choose than not have the right to choose. I can’t control anyone else’s choice. I believe in free-will. Some people’s choices impact others’ lives. Some people choose to do illegal things. I chose, since I was not a good baby-maker, with my OB/GYNs relieved support, to have a tubal ligation. I will never have to choose to abort a fetus. But I fully support anyone else’s right to choose what is best for themselves. Some people choose to believe God gifted Adam and Eve with free will. I think God wants people to have a choice and deal with the consequences,be it life in a paradise or life in general.
Oh alloran - hope you didn’t arrive at the board with an agenda and hope to pursue it until you are driven off out of your own frustration.
I’ve had several miscarriages and have had a profound senss of loss with each. What I don’t want is the government snooping around to determine whether these were miscarriages or abortions. This is my business and no one else’s. Why is this so difficult to understand?
If my life were in jeopardy if I carried a child to term would I seek an abortion? Yup, I would. I am the known, the loved, the wife and mother, the one upon whom others depend. On the anniversaries of my miscarriages no one mentions them, no one cares. Most years I forget them myself.
No one loves abortion and those of us who are pro-choice wish that some of the patients would wise up and consider methods of birth control other than abortion; however, I could not fathom questioning every reason for an abortion. The reasons are myriad and private and quite simply not a matter for government intervention.
As an aside alloran, don’t throw out unsubstantiated ‘facts’ and then expect other posters to prove you wrong. Spin the IQ up a few notches and then do your posting.
