The only side of the abortion debate I don't understand.
By junecleaver - Posted on May 18th, 2006
Personally, I am pro-life. I can understand and even somewhat respect the beliefs of someone who is entirely pro-choice. I think that life starts at or soon after conception, therefore I am pro-life. Someone who is pro-abortion believes that life does not begin until the third trimester or perhaps even until the baby takes it's first breath. At this point we are at a stalemate. How can we or science prove a value judgment like the moment life begins? Science can't make value judgments and how do we choose which set of human values to follow? Blah blah blah. You know, I dislike the feminist hype around abortion. Abortion is not really about women's rights. The core issue of the abortion debate is how do we define life. When is a baby a baby? I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but rape and medical issues really have nothing to do with this debate. So I don't understand the people who only want to allow abortion in cases of rape, incest, or medical emergencies. They are basically saying, "Well yeah it is a human being but it's okay to murder it because...." At least pick a side of the fence, people.
life starts at the moment of conception. thats it. as soon as the sperm and the egg meet, the baby is alive. there have been heartbeats and other movements recorded as early as 18 days or even earlier. i dont remember the exact number but it is something close to that.
Creepy.
Either way, a beating heart and being conscious are two totally different sides of the spectrum. One can have a beating heart and be completely--and literally--braindead. In which case, they'e more or less a human shell.
Medically, life begins at implantation. The concept that life begins at conception is a religious idea. An embryo cannot survive without being implanted (hence the reason that ectopic pregnancies fail), and therefore no heartbeats or other activity can be recorded until the embryo is implanted.
me personally, i think abortion is taking a life away whether it is a fetus or an embryo. we are taking away its chance to survive and live. they may not be the best people when they grow up, but its whether or not we give it the chance to become that person.
that's kind of my point...how can you believe that a fetus is a life in one situation but then decide that another situation warrants enough merit for an abortion?
For the sake of the pro-choicers that don't want to associate with my point of view, I consider myself pro-death. I have no problem with murder, because there will always be consequences.
Also, some things to know: until about the middle of the second trimester, the embryo is as small (if not smaller) than your thumb. The Abortion procedure at this stage is usually inserting a tube through the cervix and vacuuming the embryo out. The fetus also doesn't feel pain until around the 8th week of pregnancy.
What constitutes life is still very subjective however. I mean, what's to say that each sperm, being a potential for life shouldn't be considered life? Until the child is born, the fetus is a part of the mother. Would you call it murder if you were to amputate a limb?
--Mike
I believe that is why the Catholic church is against masturbation. I disagree with them.
If I cut my limb off, it wouldn't grow into a different being with the ability to learn, feel, and create its own ideas. It never had the possiblity to do so.
I have honestly tried to open my mind to the pro-choice ideas and reasoning, but none of these analogies work for me and none of them ease my conscience. All I see are inadequate comparisons and sob stories to fill in the gaps between.
Well, what about the "greater good" argument? If a woman has no means to provide for the child, what then? The foster care/adoption system is far from perfect, so would it be justified then? Probably not, now that I think about it. What if the mother has some sort of drug habit or STD which would transfer to the child? Should the child be kept then if the mother doesn't want it? It's difficult to make the argument that I want to make, because I know (or at least I think I know) that you are against the idea of murder. I don't see anything wrong with killing another human being as long as the person is willing to suffer the consequences.
--Mike
I think murder is wrong. I believe that life starts at or very shortly after conception. So that scenario still doesn't justify abortion. I think it's a little odd (and scary) you think killing another human being is okay. You're probably in the minority there. What doesn't work for me about your opinion is murder does not only affect the person willing to suffer the consequences. It affects others--family members, even the mothers who chose to abort their babies experience guilt.
I would much prefer my hypothetical mother had an abortion, rather than growing up with the knowledge that I was a mistake and completely unwanted.
I don't find myself particularly concerned about genocide in Darfur. Stuff like this has been happening for millenniums. It is part of the human condition for one group of human beings to slaughter other groups. It has only been in the Western civilization ( a tiny slice of humanity) and only in the last century or two where people have payed much interest in human life and have elevated to its current ridiculous pinnacle on our value system. In most of the world, life remains cheap. I reject the moral argument that human life is any more valuable then the life of any other creature. I care a lot about my own life and the lives of my family members. I care a lot about the lives of my friends. I am only concerned about the lives of my countrymen to the extent that it is part of the social contract. If they help protect me and make my life better, I feel strongly about protecting them.
Personally I think there is entirely too much humanity on earth. Our population has exploded to almost 7 billion and will reach 9 billion within the next 100 years. Along with that growth will come untold misery. Charity aimed at preventing nature from bringing this out of control growth into check is in my mind profoundly immoral. It guarantees far worse suffering in the future. Anything that slows this growth is in my mind healthy and good. That includes abortion. It also includes the death penalty which we should use much more liberally.
I think there is little doubt that separate human life begins very early. Genetically, it begins at conception. I can also buy into the concept of life beginning at implantation. I can even except the concept of life beginning when the fetus would be viable outside the womb (somewhere around the end of second trimester). If the measure of whether or not abortion should be allowed is whether or not it is the killing of a human life, then the pro-life group in my mind wins the argument.,
But I reject their moral argument about killing entirely. I think there is nothing wrong with taking a human life in an orderly lawful manner. I am entirely in favor of the death penalty. I rather like the idea of sterilizing welfare mothers as a condition of being given taxpayer funded handouts and I have no problem with people self-selecting for the practice of eugenics (abortion). The world is better off without these explicitly unwanted babies and therefore abortion is a good thing. I would favor eugenics outright if I had any confidence in our ability to practice it without massive corruption and abuse of power. But alas, I am the only one I trust to properly wield this power and unfortunately I doubt the rest of you would trust me. In many ways abortion is the next best thing and serves to accomplish many of the goals of eugenics without giving this ultimate authority to anybody but pregnant women.
You know, I dislike the feminist hype around abortion. Abortion is not really about women's rights. The core issue of the abortion debate is how do we define life.
The feminist argument has to deal with the actual vs the potential. The real question here is if you think a fetus is considered a citizen of the United States. If so, then I can see why you would disagree with the feminist argument. If not, I'm not sure why you wouldn't be pro-choice.