Abortion

[magekillr]

Yeah I know you're not concerned yourself, but it was a question to those other people out there. A fetus cannot feel pain, that's my point. There's scant evidence that it can feel pain at all, even beyond 24-26 weeks, as the fetus is both sedated and anesthetized in the womb. It's dumb to cede ground on an issue that doesn't exist but in the minds of the sexists.

[obfuscator]

Whether a fetus feels pain or not is irrelevant in terms of my pro-life stance.

 

Not all pro-life people are sexists, also.

[magekillr]

Whether a fetus feels pain or not is irrelevant in terms of my pro-life stance.

 

Not all pro-life people are sexists, also.

 

If you force a woman to give birth against her will, that is by definition taking away her rights. That is sexism. And even if you don't want to cede that, there's no question that the leaders of the pro-life movement are sexist. They don't like it that women control their own sexual reproduction, and want to control it themselves (it's why the leaders are also opposed to contraception).

 

Plus, overwhelming evidence shows that poverty is correlated (and yes, causative) with women controlling their reproduction.

[obfuscator]

Whether a fetus feels pain or not is irrelevant in terms of my pro-life stance.

 

Not all pro-life people are sexists, also.

 

If you force a woman to give birth against her will, that is by definition taking away her rights. That is sexism. And even if you don't want to cede that, there's no question that the leaders of the pro-life movement are sexist. They don't like it that women control their own sexual reproduction, and want to control it themselves (it's why the leaders are also opposed to contraception).

 

Plus, overwhelming evidence shows that poverty is correlated (and yes, causative) with women controlling their reproduction.

 

You're stating something that is inherently a matter of opinion and not a "fact by definition". The label of "sexist" is something applied by the pro-abortion movement to anyone pro-life in order to discredit them.

 

It seems unfathomable to basically every pro-choice person I've ever met that pro-life people actually mean what they say - and oppose abortion simply because they believe it to be murder. I could go one step further, for instance, and say that abortion supporters are sexist because they're taking away the right of a man to decide what happens to his child.

 

But I won't go there, because that would be a cheap attempt to discredit someone based on a parody of their actual argument. I doubt you'll show me the same courtesy.

[aspeeder]

Whether a fetus feels pain or not is irrelevant in terms of my pro-life stance.

 

Not all pro-life people are sexists, also.

 

If you force a woman to give birth against her will, that is by definition taking away her rights. That is sexism. And even if you don't want to cede that, there's no question that the leaders of the pro-life movement are sexist. They don't like it that women control their own sexual reproduction, and want to control it themselves (it's why the leaders are also opposed to contraception).

 

Plus, overwhelming evidence shows that poverty is correlated (and yes, causative) with women controlling their reproduction.

 

You're stating something that is inherently a matter of opinion and not a "fact by definition". The label of "sexist" is something applied by the pro-abortion movement to anyone pro-life in order to discredit them.

 

It seems unfathomable to basically every pro-choice person I've ever met that pro-life people actually mean what they say - and oppose abortion simply because they believe it to be murder. I could go one step further, for instance, and say that abortion supporters are sexist because they're taking away the right of a man to decide what happens to his child.

 

But I won't go there, because that would be a cheap attempt to discredit someone based on a parody of their actual argument. I doubt you'll show me the same courtesy.

No, forcing someone to give up their bodily freedom for another parasitic (And yes, a fetus is biologically parasitic as it is completely physically dependent on the mother, rather than just socially dependent after birth) lifeform is, by definition, taking away her rights. According to Article 3 from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

 

And before you use that to try and extend those rights to a fetus: everyone is defined as every person, person being defined as a human being regarded as an individual. That's what I've been trying to argue for a page here, that a fetus/fertilized egg isn't an individual because it lacks characteristics of personhood. One more thing, if you're going to argue that the fetus's unique DNA makes it an individual, consider that identical twins have the exact same DNA yet are separate individuals.

 

That security of person extends to bodily security, which if not given willingly by the female is a violation of her Human Rights. That's why I'm arguing that a fetus is not a person, because it doesn't have the same rights. Furthermore, if you're arguing that it's murder from a biblical standpoint you might want to read through your bible again.

 

[spoiler=Long Quote]Clearly there is a quality of life issue being put forth in the Scriptures. And in this case, Solomon makes the point that it is sometimes better to end a pregnancy prematurely than to allow it to continue into a miserable life. This is made even more clear in these following verses:

 

"Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them. So I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil activity that is done under the sun."

 

Ecclesiastes 4:1-3

 

Here we have an argument for both euthanasia and abortion. When quality of life is at stake, Solomon seems to make the argument that ending a painful life or ending what will be a painful existence is preferable. Now remember, we're not talking about David's songs here. We're reading the words of the man to whom God gave the world's greatest wisdom.

 

And Solomon was not alone in this argument. Consider the words of Job, a man of great faith and wealth, when his life fell upon the hardest of times:

 

"And Job said, 'Let the day perish on which I was to be born, and the night which said, "a boy is conceived." May that day be darkness; let not God above care for it, nor light shine on it.'"

 

"Why did I not die at birth, come forth from my womb and expire? Why did the knees receive me, and why the breasts, that I should suck? For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept then, I would have been at rest, with kings and with counselors of the earth, who rebuilt ruins for themselves; or with princes who had gold, who were filling their houses with silver,. Or like the miscarriage which is discarded, I would not be, as infants that never saw light. There the wicked cease from raging, and there the weary are at rest. The prisoners are at ease together; they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master."

 

Job 3:2-4,11-19

 

And again a few chapters later Job reiterates the greater grace he would have known if his life had been terminated as a fetus:

 

"Why then hast Thou brought me out of the womb? Would that I had died and no eye had seen me! I should have been as though I had not been, carried from womb to tomb."

 

Job 10:18-19

 

Clearly there is a strong argument here that the quality of a life is as important if not more important than the act of being born. Indeed, we could claim that the Bible supports ending a pregnancy in the face of a life without quality. And, if I wanted to be bold, I could claim that this interpretation is in fact a biblical mandate to support the use of abortion as a way to improve our quality of life. And taking these verses to their extreme, I could claim that abortion is not just a good idea, it is a sacrament.

 

Actually, I will stop short of making that claim. In fact, I will stop short of making the claim that the Bible condemns or supports abortion at all. It does neither. The condemning and supporting comes not from the words of the Bible but from leaders within our Culture of Christianity who use verses out of context -- the same way I just did to support abortion -- to support their views against abortion. The condemning and the supporting comes not from the Scriptures but from average Christians who take the easy way out, accepting one or two verses of the Bible as proof that their leaders are speaking the gospel truth. The condemning and supporting comes not from God but from those who do not take the time to read the Bible, in its own context, and decide for themselves the meanings therein.

 

For indeed, there is one passage in the Bible that deals specifically with the act of causing a woman to abort a pregnancy. And the penalty for causing the abortion is not what many would lead us to believe:

 

"And if men struggle and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

 

Exodus 21:22-25

 

This is a very illuminating passage. In it we find a woman losing her child by being stuck by men who are fighting. Rather than it being a capital offense, however, it is relegated to a civil matter, with the father-to-be taking the participants to court for a settlement. But, as we read on, if the woman is killed, a "life for a life," then the men who killed her shall be killed. Some have claimed that the life for a life part is talking about the baby. But from reading the context we can see this is not true. It also states a tooth for a tooth and a burn for a burn. Babies don't have teeth when they are born, and it is highly unlikely a baby will be burned during birth. It is pretty clear that this part refers to the mother. Thus we can see that if the baby is lost, it does not require a death sentence -- it is not considered murder. But if the woman is lost, it is considered murder and is punished by death.

 

It's important to note that some anti-abortion lobbyists want to convince us the baby in this passage survived the miscarriage. They point to the more "politically-correct" translation they find in the New International Version of the Bible. There it translates the term "miscarriage" into "gives birth prematurely" (the actual words in Hebrew translate "she lose her offspring"). While this may give them the warm and fuzzy notion that this verse might actually support their cause if maybe the child survived, it is wishful thinking at best. In our modern era of miracle medicine only 60% of all premature births survive. Three thousand years ago, when this passage was written, they did not have modern technology to keep a preemie alive. In fact, at that time, more than half of all live births died before their first birthday. In a world like that, a premature birth was a death sentence.

 

Others have looked to the actual Hebrew words, themselves, to try and refute these verses. They note that the word "yalad" is used in verse 22 to describe the untimely birth, and that yalad is also used in other places to describe a live birth. They then go on to say other places in the Bible use the words "nefel" and "shakol" to describe a miscarriage. Therefore, the argument goes, the baby in Exodus 21:22 must have been born alive. It's easy to see how a novice might make this mistake, but a closer look at the words in question reveal the flaw in this argument.

 

The word yalad is a verb that describes the process of something coming out - the departing of the fetus. Since it is describing the process, and not the result, it could be used to describe either a live birth or a miscarriage. Shakol which shows up in Hosea 9:14, is also a verb, but its meaning is to make a woman barren. Now a barren woman certainly might miscarry, but with this understanding of the word, it's clear why the writer of Exodus would not have used it since this miscarriage was caused by an accident, not by barrenness. And the word nefel is not even a verb. It's a noun. True, as a noun it is the term for a miscarried fetus, but the writer wasn't using a noun. He was using a verb to describe the coming out of the fetus. Thus, if I were describing a man falling to his death, I would use the verb "to fall" which can be used for both those who die and those who survive a fall, but to describe the man himself I would use the word the "fatality." So we can see that while a novice might mistake a verb for a noun and come to the wrong conclusions about the original Hebrew words used in the Exodus passage, a more careful look proves that the words only describe the action of losing the fetus, not the fetus itself. And that being the case, we can't use the Hebrew translations to determine if the fetus was alive or not when it came out - so we are forced to accept that in all certainly, considering the medical knowledge at the time, the preemie died. This makes it even more clear that the "tooth for a tooth" passage refers only to the mother, not to the miscarried fetus.

 

What has been so clearly demonstrated by the passage in Exodus - the fact that God does not consider a fetus a human person - can also be seen in a variety of other Bible verses. In Leviticus 27:6 a monetary value was placed on children, but not until they reached one month old (any younger had no value). Likewise, in Numbers 3:15 a census was commanded, but the Jews were told only to count those one month old and above - anything less, particularly a fetus, was not counted as a human person. In Ezekiel 37:8-10 we watch as God re-animates dead bones into living soldiers, but the passage makes the interesting note that they were not alive as persons until their first breath. Likewise, in Genesis 2:7, Adam had a human form and a vibrant new body but he only becomes a fully-alive human person after God makes him breathe. And in the same book, in Genesis 38:24, we read about a pregnant woman condemned to death by burning. Though the leaders of Israel knew the woman was carrying a fetus, this was not taken into consideration. If indeed the Jews, and the God who instructed them, believed the fetus to be an equal human person to the mother, then why would they let the fetus die for the mother's crimes? The truth is simple. A fetus is not a human person, and its destruction is not a murder. Period.

 

 

But since we're discussing what does make something/one a person in a philosophical and moral sense personhood is the more appropriate term to be debating (The wikipedia entry I referenced initially is basically defining this term). I get what you're saying, but you're using common vernacular and I'm afraid at this level of discussion it can often times be inaccurate or inappropriate.

 

I'm not debating in a "philosophical" sense because the characteristics that make something human are very real. Furthermore, seeing as in the philosophical sense there hasn't been a universal definition established there's no point trying to argue anything else, but in a scientific sense there is a very real definition that's perfectly reasonable.

 

What you're trying to do is change common language to divorce two words that have the same inherent meaning and connotation so you can legally create a subclass of human beings that aren't quite "persons," and therefore marginalize their rights while telling half truths to others to convince them that what they're doing isn't wrong.

 

A clear example of this happened in the 1960's... The definition of pregnancy was changed. In common terms, pregnancy meant (and still means) being "with child." The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists changed the definition of the start of pregnancy from the moment of conception (when truly a unique individual is formed inside the woman), to implantation. This allowed them to avoid having to label the pill as an abortifacient, because technically it didn't terminate a pregnancy (they changed the very definition), it only just prevented implantation.

We are debating this in a philosophical sense, or at least I am, because we're debating what characteristics are needed to give a human full rights. Anyway I've stated what I said is needed to make something a full person, what's your scientific definition?

 

I'm trying to make the language more clear and accurate, common understandings aren't always correct. And yes I am creating another class of humans, because I think many of us can agree that this shouldn't be given priority over this. And as to your example, I applaud what the scientists did. Watch that Carlin video and he addresses that point about implantation vs. conception. And I think in the common sense most people wouldn't say someone's pregnant a day after having sex that resulted in a later pregnancy, people usually only say a woman's pregnant if she identifies herself as such or if there is clear evidence (I.e. a swollen belly).

[Zierro]

Whether a fetus feels pain or not is irrelevant in terms of my pro-life stance.

 

Not all pro-life people are sexists, also.

 

If you force a woman to give birth against her will, that is by definition taking away her rights. That is sexism. And even if you don't want to cede that, there's no question that the leaders of the pro-life movement are sexist. They don't like it that women control their own sexual reproduction, and want to control it themselves (it's why the leaders are also opposed to contraception).

 

Plus, overwhelming evidence shows that poverty is correlated (and yes, causative) with women controlling their reproduction.

 

You're stating something that is inherently a matter of opinion and not a "fact by definition". The label of "sexist" is something applied by the pro-abortion movement to anyone pro-life in order to discredit them.

 

It seems unfathomable to basically every pro-choice person I've ever met that pro-life people actually mean what they say - and oppose abortion simply because they believe it to be murder. I could go one step further, for instance, and say that abortion supporters are sexist because they're taking away the right of a man to decide what happens to his child.

 

But I won't go there, because that would be a cheap attempt to discredit someone based on a parody of their actual argument. I doubt you'll show me the same courtesy.

 

Even though I'm mainly pro-choice (depending on context)... OWNED.

 

One more thing, if you're going to argue that the fetus's unique DNA makes it an individual, consider that identical twins have the exact same DNA yet are separate individuals.

 

Huh?

 

Not that I think having a unique DNA sequence is a good argument for what it takes to be considered a 'person'. I just have an uncontrollable desire to clear any discrepancies amongst debates.

[aspeeder]

One more thing, if you're going to argue that the fetus's unique DNA makes it an individual, consider that identical twins have the exact same DNA yet are separate individuals.

 

Huh?

 

Not that I think having a unique DNA sequence is a good argument for what it takes to be considered a 'person'. I just have an uncontrollable desire to clear any discrepancies amongst debates.

"Not known, however, is whether these changes in identical twins occur at the embryonic level, as the twins age or both." I must admit I didn't know about that study, doesn't surprise me though that it could change as time goes on. I appreciate the fact-checking, I was just anticipating other pro-life arguments.

[sees_all1]

We are debating this in a philosophical sense, or at least I am, because we're debating what characteristics are needed to give a human full rights. Anyway I've stated what I said is needed to make something a full person, what's your scientific definition?

A person, by definition, is a human being. Once a being is characterized as human (scientifically speaking and under normal circumstances, when a human sperm cell fertilizes a human egg cell), it deserves all the respect and all the rights that every person should have.

 

 

I'm trying to make the language more clear and accurate, common understandings aren't always correct.

No, you're trying to rationalize the killing of hundreds of millions of human beings.

 

And yes I am creating another class of humans, because I think many of us can agree that this shouldn't be given priority over this.

When you come up with your precise definition of the instant someone gains human rights, let me know so I can question what is different about them the second before.

 

And as to your example, I applaud what the scientists did. Watch that Carlin video and he addresses that point about implantation vs. conception. And I think in the common sense most people wouldn't say someone's pregnant a day after having sex that resulted in a later pregnancy, people usually only say a woman's pregnant if she identifies herself as such or if there is clear evidence (I.e. a swollen belly).

A person has sex and becomes infected with HIV. Does this mean that until they've tested positive that they can't spread their disease? Of course not. Even though they might have no outward symptoms of being sick, not knowing doesn't make them any less infected..

[Nomrombom]

2. Is it human?

 

Yes. Again, Pro Choice defenders stick their feet in their mouths when they defend abortion by claiming the zygote-embryo-fetus isn't human. It is human. Its DNA is that of a human. Left to grow, it will become a full human person.

 

And again, anti-abortion activists often mistakenly use this fact to support their cause. They are fond of saying, "an acorn is an oak tree in an early stage of development; likewise, the zygote is a human being in an early stage of development." And they would be right. But having a full set of human DNA does not give the zygote full human rights - including the right not to be aborted during its gestation.

 

Don't believe me? Here, try this: reach up to your head, grab one strand of hair, and yank it out. Look at the base of the hair. That little blob of tissue at the end is a hair follicle. It also contains a full set of human DNA. Granted it's the same DNA pattern found in every other cell in your body, but in reality the uniqueness of the DNA is not what makes it a different person. Identical twins share the exact same DNA, and yet we don't say that one is less human than the other, nor are two twins the exact same person. It's not the configuration of the DNA that makes a zygote human; it's simply that it has human DNA. Your hair follicle shares everything in common with a human zygote except that it is a little bit bigger and it is not a potential person. (These days even that's not an absolute considering our new-found ability to clone humans from existing DNA, even the DNA from a hair follicle.)

 

Your hair follicle is just as human as the zygote, but we would never defend its human rights based solely on that fact.

 

http://www.elroy.net/ehr/abortionanswers.html#human

[sees_all1]

Your hair follicle is just as human as the zygote, but we would never defend its human rights based solely on that fact.

My hair follicle won't grow into another of me if left alone...

[Zierro]

Why is it inherently more cruel to kill a human than other organisms, plants, and even other animals? On one hand, maybe it's embedded into our species so that our normal human response is to feel revolted when a fellow member of our race dies. Although, I'd think it's because we are of a higher level of cognitive thinking and awareness than the other species, and thus have a greater capacity to "feel" pain than the organisms with more limited senses (not even babies possess the ability to feel humiliated), are a greater asset to the future of society than an animal, and because they will be "missed" by all the people they've established bonds and memories with.

 

If this is the science behind why we strongly feel that murder is immoral, it would be awfully hard to argue that causing the death of a fetus is equally immoral.

[aspeeder]

Your hair follicle is just as human as the zygote, but we would never defend its human rights based solely on that fact.

My hair follicle won't grow into another of me if left alone...

[spoiler=The rest of that article, fully articulates all these arguments.]3. Is it a person?

 

No. It's merely a potential person.

 

Webster's Dictionary lists a person as "being an individual or existing as an indivisible whole; existing as a distinct entity." Anti-abortionists claim that each new fertilized zygote is already a new person because its DNA is uniquely different than anyone else's. In other words, if you're human, you must be a person.

 

Of course we've already seen that a simple hair follicle is just as human as a single-cell zygote, and, that unique DNA doesn't make the difference since two twins are not one person. It's quite obvious, then, that something else must occur to make one human being different from another. There must be something else that happens to change a DNA-patterned body into a distinct person. (Or in the case of twins, two identically DNA-patterned bodies into two distinct persons.)

 

There is, and most people inherently know it, but they have trouble verbalizing it for one very specific reason.

 

The defining mark between something that is human and someone who is a person is 'consciousness.' It is the self-aware quality of consciousness that makes us uniquely different from others. This self-awareness, this sentient consciousness is also what separates us from every other animal life form on the planet. We think about ourselves. We use language to describe ourselves. We are aware of ourselves as a part of the greater whole.

 

The problem is that consciousness normally doesn't occur until months, even years, after a baby is born. This creates a moral dilemma for the defender of abortion rights. Indeed, they inherently know what makes a human into a person, but they are also aware such individual personhood doesn't occur until well after birth. To use personhood as an argument for abortion rights, therefore, also leads to the argument that it should be okay to kill a 3-month-old baby since it hasn't obtained consciousness either.

 

Anti-abortionists use this perceived problem in an attempt to prove their point. In a debate, a Pro Choice defender will rightly state that the difference between a fetus and a full-term human being is that the fetus isn't a person. The anti-abortion activist, being quite sly, will reply by asking his opponent to define what makes someone into a person. Suddenly the Pro Choice defender is at a loss for words to describe what he or she knows innately. We know it because we lived it. We know we have no memory of self-awareness before our first birthday, or even before our second. But we also quickly become aware of the "problem" we create if we say a human doesn't become a person until well after its birth. And we end up saying nothing. The anti-abortionist then takes this inability to verbalize the nature of personhood as proof of their claim that a human is a person at conception.

 

But they are wrong. Their "logic" is greatly flawed. Just because someone is afraid to speak the truth doesn't make it any less true.

 

And in reality, the Pro Choice defender's fear is unfounded. They are right, and they can state it without hesitation. A human indeed does not become a full person until consciousness. And consciousness doesn't occur until well after the birth of the child. But that does not automatically lend credence to the anti-abortionist's argument that it should, therefore, be acceptable to kill a three-month-old baby because it is not yet a person.

 

It is still a potential person. And after birth it is an independent potential person whose existence no longer poses a threat to the physical wellbeing of another. To understand this better, we need to look at the next question.

 

4. Is it physically independent?

 

No. It is absolutely dependent on another human being for its continued existence. Without the mother's life-giving nutrients and oxygen it would die. Throughout gestation the zygote-embryo-fetus and the mother's body are symbiotically linked, existing in the same physical space and sharing the same risks. What the mother does affects the fetus. And when things go wrong with the fetus, it affects the mother.

 

Anti-abortionists claim fetal dependence cannot be used as an issue in the abortion debate. They make the point that even after birth, and for years to come, a child is still dependent on its mother, its father, and those around it. And since no one would claim its okay to kill a child because of its dependency on others, we can't, if we follow their logic, claim it's okay to abort a fetus because of its dependence.

 

What the anti-abortionist fails to do, however, is differentiate between physical dependence and social dependence. Physical dependence does not refer to meeting the physical needs of the child - such as in the anti-abortionist's argument above. That's social dependence; that's where the child depends on society - on other people - to feed it, clothe it, and love it. Physical dependence occurs when one life form depends solely on the physical body of another life form for its existence.

 

Physical dependence was cleverly illustrated back in 1971 by philosopher Judith Jarvis Thompson. She created a scenario in which a woman is kidnapped and wakes up to find she's been surgically attached to a world-famous violinist who, for nine months, needs her body to survive. After those nine months, the violinist can survive just fine on his own, but he must have this particular woman in order to survive until then.

 

Thompson then asks if the woman is morally obliged to stay connected to the violinist who is living off her body. It might be a very good thing if she did - the world could have the beauty that would come from such a violinist - but is she morally obliged to let another being use her body to survive?

 

This very situation is already conceded by anti-abortionists. They claim RU-486 should be illegal for a mother to take because it causes her uterus to flush its nutrient-rich lining, thus removing a zygote from its necessary support system and, therefore, ending its short existence as a life form. Thus the anti-abortionist's own rhetoric only proves the point of absolute physical dependence.

 

This question becomes even more profound when we consider a scenario where it's not an existing person who is living off the woman's body, but simply a potential person, or better yet, a single-cell zygote with human DNA that is no different than the DNA in a simple hair follicle.

 

To complicate it even further, we need to realize that physical dependence also means a physical threat to the life of the mother. The World Health Organization reports that nearly 670,000 women die from pregnancy-related complications each year (this number does not include abortions). That's 1,800 women per day. We also read that in developed countries, such as the United States and Canada, a woman is 13 times more likely to die bringing a pregnancy to term than by having an abortion.

 

Therefore, not only is pregnancy the prospect of having a potential person physically dependent on the body of one particular women, it also includes the women putting herself into a life-threatening situation for that potential person.

 

Unlike social dependence, where the mother can choose to put her child up for adoption or make it a ward of the state or hire someone else to take care of it, during pregnancy the fetus is absolutely physically dependent on the body of one woman. Unlike social dependence, where a woman's physical life is not threatened by the existence of another person, during pregnancy, a woman places herself in the path of bodily harm for the benefit of a DNA life form that is only a potential person - even exposing herself to the threat of death.

 

This brings us to the next question: do the rights of a potential person supercede the rights of the mother to control her body and protect herself from potential life-threatening danger?

 

5. Does it have human rights?

 

Yes and No.

 

A potential person must always be given full human rights unless its existence interferes with the rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness of an already existing conscious human being. Thus, a gestating fetus has no rights before birth and full rights after birth.

 

If a fetus comes to term and is born, it is because the mother chooses to forgo her own rights and her own bodily security in order to allow that future person to gestate inside her body. If the mother chooses to exercise control over her own body and to protect herself from the potential dangers of childbearing, then she has the full right to terminate the pregnancy.

 

Anti-abortion activists are fond of saying "The only difference between a fetus and a baby is a trip down the birth canal." This flippant phrase may make for catchy rhetoric, but it doesn't belie the fact that indeed "location" makes all the difference in the world.

 

It's actually quite simple. You cannot have two entities with equal rights occupying one body. One will automatically have veto power over the other - and thus they don't have equal rights. In the case of a pregnant woman, giving a "right to life" to the potential person in the womb automatically cancels out the mother's right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

 

After birth, on the other hand, the potential person no longer occupies the same body as the mother, and thus, giving it full human rights causes no interference with another's right to control her body. Therefore, even though a full-term human baby may still not be a person, after birth it enjoys the full support of the law in protecting its rights. After birth its independence begs that it be protected as if it were equal to a fully-conscience human being. But before birth its lack of personhood and its threat to the women in which it resides makes abortion a completely logical and moral choice.

 

Which brings us to our last question, which is the real crux of the issue....

 

6. Is abortion murder?

 

No. Absolutely not.

 

It's not murder if it's not an independent person. One might argue, then, that it's not murder to end the life of any child before she reaches consciousness, but we don't know how long after birth personhood arrives for each new child, so it's completely logical to use their independence as the dividing line for when full rights are given to a new human being.

 

Using independence also solves the problem of dealing with premature babies. Although a preemie is obviously still only a potential person, by virtue of its independence from the mother, we give it the full rights of a conscious person. This saves us from setting some other arbitrary date of when we consider a new human being a full person. Older cultures used to set it at two years of age, or even older. Modern religious cultures want to set it at conception, which is simply wishful thinking on their part. As we've clearly demonstrated, a single-cell zygote is no more a person that a human hair follicle.

 

But that doesn't stop religious fanatics from dumping their judgements and their anger on top of women who choose to exercise the right to control their bodies. It's the ultimate irony that people who claim to represent a loving God resort to scare tactics and fear to support their mistaken beliefs.

 

It's even worse when you consider that most women who have an abortion have just made the most difficult decision of their life. No one thinks abortion is a wonderful thing. No one tries to get pregnant just so they can terminate it. Even though it's not murder, it still eliminates a potential person, a potential daughter, a potential son. It's hard enough as it is. Women certainly don't need others telling them it's a murder.

 

It's not. On the contrary, abortion is an absolutely moral choice for any woman wishing to control her body.

 

[sees_all1]

Your hair follicle is just as human as the zygote, but we would never defend its human rights based solely on that fact.

My hair follicle won't grow into another of me if left alone...

[spoiler=The rest of that article, fully articulates all these arguments.]3. Is it a person?

 

No. It's merely a potential person.

 

Webster's Dictionary lists a person as "being an individual or existing as an indivisible whole; existing as a distinct entity." Anti-abortionists claim that each new fertilized zygote is already a new person because its DNA is uniquely different than anyone else's. In other words, if you're human, you must be a person.

 

Of course we've already seen that a simple hair follicle is just as human as a single-cell zygote, and, that unique DNA doesn't make the difference since two twins are not one person. It's quite obvious, then, that something else must occur to make one human being different from another. There must be something else that happens to change a DNA-patterned body into a distinct person. (Or in the case of twins, two identically DNA-patterned bodies into two distinct persons.)

 

There is, and most people inherently know it, but they have trouble verbalizing it for one very specific reason.

 

The defining mark between something that is human and someone who is a person is 'consciousness.' It is the self-aware quality of consciousness that makes us uniquely different from others. This self-awareness, this sentient consciousness is also what separates us from every other animal life form on the planet. We think about ourselves. We use language to describe ourselves. We are aware of ourselves as a part of the greater whole.

 

The problem is that consciousness normally doesn't occur until months, even years, after a baby is born. This creates a moral dilemma for the defender of abortion rights. Indeed, they inherently know what makes a human into a person, but they are also aware such individual personhood doesn't occur until well after birth. To use personhood as an argument for abortion rights, therefore, also leads to the argument that it should be okay to kill a 3-month-old baby since it hasn't obtained consciousness either.

 

Anti-abortionists use this perceived problem in an attempt to prove their point. In a debate, a Pro Choice defender will rightly state that the difference between a fetus and a full-term human being is that the fetus isn't a person. The anti-abortion activist, being quite sly, will reply by asking his opponent to define what makes someone into a person. Suddenly the Pro Choice defender is at a loss for words to describe what he or she knows innately. We know it because we lived it. We know we have no memory of self-awareness before our first birthday, or even before our second. But we also quickly become aware of the "problem" we create if we say a human doesn't become a person until well after its birth. And we end up saying nothing. The anti-abortionist then takes this inability to verbalize the nature of personhood as proof of their claim that a human is a person at conception.

 

But they are wrong. Their "logic" is greatly flawed. Just because someone is afraid to speak the truth doesn't make it any less true.

 

And in reality, the Pro Choice defender's fear is unfounded. They are right, and they can state it without hesitation. A human indeed does not become a full person until consciousness. And consciousness doesn't occur until well after the birth of the child. But that does not automatically lend credence to the anti-abortionist's argument that it should, therefore, be acceptable to kill a three-month-old baby because it is not yet a person.

 

It is still a potential person. And after birth it is an independent potential person whose existence no longer poses a threat to the physical wellbeing of another. To understand this better, we need to look at the next question.

 

4. Is it physically independent?

 

No. It is absolutely dependent on another human being for its continued existence. Without the mother's life-giving nutrients and oxygen it would die. Throughout gestation the zygote-embryo-fetus and the mother's body are symbiotically linked, existing in the same physical space and sharing the same risks. What the mother does affects the fetus. And when things go wrong with the fetus, it affects the mother.

 

Anti-abortionists claim fetal dependence cannot be used as an issue in the abortion debate. They make the point that even after birth, and for years to come, a child is still dependent on its mother, its father, and those around it. And since no one would claim its okay to kill a child because of its dependency on others, we can't, if we follow their logic, claim it's okay to abort a fetus because of its dependence.

 

What the anti-abortionist fails to do, however, is differentiate between physical dependence and social dependence. Physical dependence does not refer to meeting the physical needs of the child - such as in the anti-abortionist's argument above. That's social dependence; that's where the child depends on society - on other people - to feed it, clothe it, and love it. Physical dependence occurs when one life form depends solely on the physical body of another life form for its existence.

 

Physical dependence was cleverly illustrated back in 1971 by philosopher Judith Jarvis Thompson. She created a scenario in which a woman is kidnapped and wakes up to find she's been surgically attached to a world-famous violinist who, for nine months, needs her body to survive. After those nine months, the violinist can survive just fine on his own, but he must have this particular woman in order to survive until then.

 

Thompson then asks if the woman is morally obliged to stay connected to the violinist who is living off her body. It might be a very good thing if she did - the world could have the beauty that would come from such a violinist - but is she morally obliged to let another being use her body to survive?

 

This very situation is already conceded by anti-abortionists. They claim RU-486 should be illegal for a mother to take because it causes her uterus to flush its nutrient-rich lining, thus removing a zygote from its necessary support system and, therefore, ending its short existence as a life form. Thus the anti-abortionist's own rhetoric only proves the point of absolute physical dependence.

 

This question becomes even more profound when we consider a scenario where it's not an existing person who is living off the woman's body, but simply a potential person, or better yet, a single-cell zygote with human DNA that is no different than the DNA in a simple hair follicle.

 

To complicate it even further, we need to realize that physical dependence also means a physical threat to the life of the mother. The World Health Organization reports that nearly 670,000 women die from pregnancy-related complications each year (this number does not include abortions). That's 1,800 women per day. We also read that in developed countries, such as the United States and Canada, a woman is 13 times more likely to die bringing a pregnancy to term than by having an abortion.

 

Therefore, not only is pregnancy the prospect of having a potential person physically dependent on the body of one particular women, it also includes the women putting herself into a life-threatening situation for that potential person.

 

Unlike social dependence, where the mother can choose to put her child up for adoption or make it a ward of the state or hire someone else to take care of it, during pregnancy the fetus is absolutely physically dependent on the body of one woman. Unlike social dependence, where a woman's physical life is not threatened by the existence of another person, during pregnancy, a woman places herself in the path of bodily harm for the benefit of a DNA life form that is only a potential person - even exposing herself to the threat of death.

 

This brings us to the next question: do the rights of a potential person supercede the rights of the mother to control her body and protect herself from potential life-threatening danger?

 

5. Does it have human rights?

 

Yes and No.

 

A potential person must always be given full human rights unless its existence interferes with the rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness of an already existing conscious human being. Thus, a gestating fetus has no rights before birth and full rights after birth.

 

If a fetus comes to term and is born, it is because the mother chooses to forgo her own rights and her own bodily security in order to allow that future person to gestate inside her body. If the mother chooses to exercise control over her own body and to protect herself from the potential dangers of childbearing, then she has the full right to terminate the pregnancy.

 

Anti-abortion activists are fond of saying "The only difference between a fetus and a baby is a trip down the birth canal." This flippant phrase may make for catchy rhetoric, but it doesn't belie the fact that indeed "location" makes all the difference in the world.

 

It's actually quite simple. You cannot have two entities with equal rights occupying one body. One will automatically have veto power over the other - and thus they don't have equal rights. In the case of a pregnant woman, giving a "right to life" to the potential person in the womb automatically cancels out the mother's right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

 

After birth, on the other hand, the potential person no longer occupies the same body as the mother, and thus, giving it full human rights causes no interference with another's right to control her body. Therefore, even though a full-term human baby may still not be a person, after birth it enjoys the full support of the law in protecting its rights. After birth its independence begs that it be protected as if it were equal to a fully-conscience human being. But before birth its lack of personhood and its threat to the women in which it resides makes abortion a completely logical and moral choice.

 

Which brings us to our last question, which is the real crux of the issue....

 

6. Is abortion murder?

 

No. Absolutely not.

 

It's not murder if it's not an independent person. One might argue, then, that it's not murder to end the life of any child before she reaches consciousness, but we don't know how long after birth personhood arrives for each new child, so it's completely logical to use their independence as the dividing line for when full rights are given to a new human being.

 

Using independence also solves the problem of dealing with premature babies. Although a preemie is obviously still only a potential person, by virtue of its independence from the mother, we give it the full rights of a conscious person. This saves us from setting some other arbitrary date of when we consider a new human being a full person. Older cultures used to set it at two years of age, or even older. Modern religious cultures want to set it at conception, which is simply wishful thinking on their part. As we've clearly demonstrated, a single-cell zygote is no more a person that a human hair follicle.

 

But that doesn't stop religious fanatics from dumping their judgements and their anger on top of women who choose to exercise the right to control their bodies. It's the ultimate irony that people who claim to represent a loving God resort to scare tactics and fear to support their mistaken beliefs.

 

It's even worse when you consider that most women who have an abortion have just made the most difficult decision of their life. No one thinks abortion is a wonderful thing. No one tries to get pregnant just so they can terminate it. Even though it's not murder, it still eliminates a potential person, a potential daughter, a potential son. It's hard enough as it is. Women certainly don't need others telling them it's a murder.

 

It's not. On the contrary, abortion is an absolutely moral choice for any woman wishing to control her body.

 

I get it. But you haven't shown to us why consciousness is the only characteristic we should care about when determining if something is a person or not, and repeatedly posting the arguments of someone else is a poor way to debate.

Why does being unconscious make you less of a person? If you get black out drunk, does that mean you lose your right to live?

 

Being physically attached to someone else doesn't make you any less of an individual. Conjoined twins, for instance, are two people physically attached. We still look at them and view them as two individual human beings. Also, fertilization occurs before the egg implants and cell division is well under way, so the argument that an unborn baby isn't an individual because it isn't separate from another being is just plain wrong.

[Orpheus]

I'm going to shift this topic a smidge, seeing how all I really see happening is semantics being argued. I'm not going to even jump in on this because I can barely tell where we're even at.

 

In any case, it seems that you guys are arguing about the definition of human life from a natural point of view, when the civil definition (which isn't even set in stone) is the one that's determining laws on whether or not abortion should be legal. I'm not sure where to begin adding in arguments otherwise.

[aspeeder]

I get it. Repeatedly posting the arguments of someone else is a poor way to debate.

I was posting my own arguments using evidence to back it up, but since you ignored the link beforehand I figured I should post the whole thing anyway. It's also the way you debate on the debate team, and lack of credible evidence is seen as a poor argument, but that could just be my style. Idk, I guess since it's so easy to reference things on the internet I'd rather show my sources of info rather than paraphrase them.

 

Why does being unconscious make you less of a person? If you get black out drunk, does that mean you lose your right to live?

He wasn't using consciousness in the "passing out or going to sleep and then waking back up" sense. He was using it in the sense of being aware of yourself as an individual separate from your environment, which zygotes, fetuses, and even babies lack. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consciousness?show=0&t=1317870820

 

1a : the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself

b : the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact

c : awareness; especially : concern for some social or political cause

2: the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought : mind

3: the totality of conscious states of an individual

4: the normal state of conscious life <regained consciousness>

5: the upper level of mental life of which the person is aware as contrasted with unconscious processes

 

Being physically attached to someone else doesn't make you any less of an individual. Conjoined twins, for instance, are two people physically attached. We still look at them and view them as two individual human beings.

Yes, we view them as individuals for 2 reasons: 1. They are self aware persons with distinct and differing personalities.

2. Their relationship is (Generally) symbiotic in nature, they have both help each other to live or else they'd die. A fetus on the other hand is a parasitic organism.

 

Also, fertilization occurs before the egg implants and cell division is well under way, so the argument that an unborn baby isn't an individual because it isn't separate from another being is just plain wrong.

The article never made the argument that it wasn't alive or seperate genetically from the mother, it was just making the point that it is, in fact, within the body of another person and two entities existing within the same body cannot both retain full rights (And that doesn't apply to the conjoined twins argument, the bodies are shared but I believe each individual twin controls certain parts of the whole, rather than 2 entities existing fully within the same body); the article we posted addressed this.

 

A potential person must always be given full human rights unless its existence interferes with the rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness of an already existing conscious human being. Thus, a gestating fetus has no rights before birth and full rights after birth.

 

If a fetus comes to term and is born, it is because the mother chooses to forgo her own rights and her own bodily security in order to allow that future person to gestate inside her body. If the mother chooses to exercise control over her own body and to protect herself from the potential dangers of childbearing, then she has the full right to terminate the pregnancy.

 

Anti-abortion activists are fond of saying "The only difference between a fetus and a baby is a trip down the birth canal." This flippant phrase may make for catchy rhetoric, but it doesn't belie the fact that indeed "location" makes all the difference in the world.

 

It's actually quite simple. You cannot have two entities with equal rights occupying one body. One will automatically have veto power over the other - and thus they don't have equal rights. In the case of a pregnant woman, giving a "right to life" to the potential person in the womb automatically cancels out the mother's right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

 

After birth, on the other hand, the potential person no longer occupies the same body as the mother, and thus, giving it full human rights causes no interference with another's right to control her body. Therefore, even though a full-term human baby may still not be a person, after birth it enjoys the full support of the law in protecting its rights. After birth its independence begs that it be protected as if it were equal to a fully-conscience human being. But before birth its lack of personhood and its threat to the women in which it resides makes abortion a completely logical and moral choice.

[Randox]

Just a couple of thoughts.

 

First off, you aren't going to convince anyone of anything by throwing the Webster dictionary at Wiki definitions, and please don't insult our species ability to debate by trying.

 

In a debate it is standard practice for EACH side to define any terms where the definition of the term may be called into question, or maybe be used differently by each side. If you are going to use the definitions of 'human' and 'person' in your argument, it is up to EACH party to define the term for their own usage, and you need to respect and work with the other parties definition as well to understand what they are saying. Saying that someone's definition is wrong really has no place here.

 

You have the right to define the terms you use, for how you use them, however, definitions are NOT arguments (at least not the ones in dictionaries. Legal definitions are something else).

 

 

 

Second, I would put forward that in general, killing a lower form of life is either acceptable, or at least, more acceptable than murder (using the definition of a human killing another human). I would propose this is justified because a developed human has superior cognitive abilities compared to any other species we have yet encountered. If you ignore potential for a second (I'll get back to it in a second), then this could easily be applied to the justification of killing various stage of fetus. Pretty much up to the point where the developing life form (naturally talking about humans here) is self aware, or wherever you want to the draw the line (currently third trimester).

 

note: I am not actually justifying the killing of other creatures. That's another debate alltogether, and this isn't representative of my views. I am mearly trying to discuss a social quirk of the masses.

 

However, the above really isn't valid, because I am totally ignoring potential.

 

And potential I think is a very serious issue for the pro-choice side, because yes, to are totally denying a life form any chance at leading any kind of life at all. I'm not going to get drawn into the debate about whether a fetus is human or not. I figure if its not, its close enough. As such, no, I don't think killing a fetus can ever be called 'righ' in so far as it is a "good thing to do". However, as far as calling it murder, that is up to the law, not us. There are states right there in the USA in which you have the death sentance. In the case of these state sactioned killings, they are not, so far as I know, considered to be murder. If they were, I imagine every executioner would be immediatly charged with first degree murder. So clearly murder can be legal (and therefore, not murder, just humans killing other humans). Whether it is Ethical is another mater, and we are not here to discuss the eithics of capital punishment.

 

However, even though an abortion does deny the baby a future, I think can still be the best choice of a selection of bad ones (the lesser of many evils). Sometimes the circumstances of the people involved mean that the baby will never have a chance to lead a full life. This can vary from preventing the baby being born into extreme poverty, being born into an exceptionally abusive household (though it is doubtful someone in such circumstances would be able to have an abortion), or because having a child will destroy the future of the mother. If the circumstances to the baby, or the effect on those involved is serious enough, then I think that abortion can be considered the best solution to a terrible situation. Again, I don't think it is ethical really, but it can be the best of the bad choices.

 

I feel very strongly that it is the mothers choice. You can disagree with it till you are blue in the face, but until such a time as the law prohibits it, you can [bleep] off if you think to interfere with that choice by any means, including trying to put social pressure on them. While I think the father should certainly have a weigh in, and the parents too if they are involved (the situations where I am most pro abortion would be those where the parents don't know), it is still the mother of the child who gets to make the call. They are solely responsible for the well being of the fetus, and for making the best choices for it, until that child is born (at which point it should be a joint responsibility between mother and father).

 

Second to last thought. And this is something I thought up a lot later (hence the weird edit time). There is another reason to have an abortion. There are people like me who carry very sever defects in their genetic code. In my case, the genetic error hasn't impacted my mind, to the best of my knowledge. I'm certainly not stupid. The defect affects internal physical development. To all apperances I am a perfectly normal human being. I was even fortunate enough to avoid all the common complications of my condition. I am very fortunate.

 

That hasn't stopped my condition from making a number of attempts on my life, most of them as a baby. I was lucky that a certain doctor intervened and discovered what was wrong with me, and that I happen to live near one of the best children's hospitals in the world. These things saved my life many times over, but I have still easily spent more than a year of my life in a hospital, and you can't do that without being affected. Even better, once my body had finished exceeding everyone's expectations, and then taking a steaming [cabbage] on them by going a step further to make internal changes to compensate for my condition, a second condition manifested, and this one is also likely a genetic based (and environmentally triggered). And this one almost managed to kill me too by manifesting itself for the first time as one of the most extreme cases the hospital has seen.

 

My point here, is that I would never wish my life on anyone, and if I produce offspring, especially with anyone who's family has a history of either condition, then it is very possible that I would be putting my children through my life, and quite frankly, I'd have to be a monster to do that. I am still wrestling with the thought of can I ever have a child of my own, or will I be forced to adopt. A lot of it is going to come down to medical advances in the relevant fields. But until then, I am not going to go totally abstinent. I did live, so I get to live life, and my conditions don't get to take that away from me too. That said, I obviously take every precaution that I can to make sure I don't have a child, and its not been an issue thus far. But it is something I had to come to terms with first.

 

Finally, one last point. You can be pro choice and anti-abortion at the same time. I don't feel that abortions are the right choice in the vast majority of cases where it might be considered (using the statistics posted earlier on when people have them as a means to guess how many people get them for what reason). In that, I am anti-abortion. However, I highly value choice, and in that, I think that it is up to each party to decide on their own what is right. Everyone has their own beliefs and values, and I respect that. Therefore, I am also pro-choice.

[Nomrombom]

The potential person part doesn't even matter, I think. As a fetus has no consciousness, it does not know that you denied it a life. It is not "itself" yet. Not to mention another one of the exact same thing can be made at effectively any time people please. I would say it is accurate to call a fetus a "blank" human - like a blank object used in manufacturing, it is physically the same type of thing, but it is not completely finished. Think a blank bullet.

[Randox]

The potential person part doesn't even matter, I think. As a fetus has no consciousness, it does not know that you denied it a life. It is not "itself" yet. Not to mention another one of the exact same thing can be made at effectively any time people please. I would say it is accurate to call a fetus a "blank" human - like a blank object used in manufacturing, it is physically the same type of thing, but it is not completely finished. Think a blank bullet.

And now I get to argue for the other side :thumbsup:

 

I guess my problem with this view is that who the hell are we to determine who gets a chance and who doesn't? I'll consider abortion in cases where the chance doesn't truly exist in any case, but just arbitrarily deciding who gets a chance at life and who doesn't sits badly with me. Your view just seems a bit cold.

 

I guess there are two ways at looking at this, and I'll call them emotional and logical.

 

Emotionally, a fetus has a chance of being a bona fide human being one day, and denying the chance is pretty much as good as killing a human. Either way, your ending the possibility of living the rest of the life.

 

Logically, I'd have to agree with you. It's not yet a true being, so what you do with it is totally trivial and inconsequential (I think that would be the logical conclusion. Its not a being, so it doesn't matter).

 

While I often favour my logical arguments over my emotional ones (I love looking at things from multiple angles, its a fun mental exercise), since I consider emotions to generally be quite irrational (I'd make a good Vulcan). However, that logic is just to cold for me. It totally disregards the value of what might be, and the right to have a chance, that I think everyone should have. A further extension, and maybe I am engaging in reductio ad absurdum here, is that your line of reasoning makes abortion so inconsequential that you could justify a situation where people repeatedly have unprotected sex (because it feels better), and just continually abort the babies, because that would be perfectly okay.

 

I think some value does need to be placed on potential human life, else you can take this thing to some very dark places.

[h3art]

I think some value does need to be placed on potential human life, else you can take this thing to some very dark places.

 

Certainly, but one justifies a pro-abortion stance by placing a higher value on present human life.

[sees_all1]

I think some value does need to be placed on potential human life, else you can take this thing to some very dark places.

 

Certainly, but one justifies a pro-abortion stance by placing a higher value on present human life the convenience of a woman over the life of her child.

[Randox]

I think some value does need to be placed on potential human life, else you can take this thing to some very dark places.

 

Certainly, but one justifies a pro-abortion stance by placing a higher value on present human life.

 

That's a very elegant way of putting it (at least to me).

 

I suppose my stance here would be that just because the unborn has less value, as you put it, it does not mean it has no value, which is where this topic goes places that make me a little ill. I'm not against it when it provides the greatest good to the most people, but just because the present life is more important, doesn't mean that no consideration should be paid to the unborn, if there are other choices.

 

I don't feel it should be taken lightly, is what I am trying to say.

[aspeeder]

I think some value does need to be placed on potential human life, else you can take this thing to some very dark places.

 

Certainly, but one justifies a pro-abortion stance by placing a higher value on present human life the convenience of a woman over the life of her child.

"But I do not believe that reaching my 16 year dream is a mere “convenience.” It’s my dream and I have worked exceedingly hard for it. I am entitled to enjoy the rewards of my hard work. Suggesting that women have abortions for “convenience” diminishes the hard work of women and is beyond insulting. Living my dream is my right. Not having my body hijacked, especially when I am doing everything possible to prevent pregnancy, is my right. I refuse to be told that my dreams are inconvenient and should be sacrificed.

 

To all the women out there with inconvenient dreams, never stop dreaming and never stop fighting. It is just as much a tragedy when a woman is forbidden from reaching her dream as it is when a man is forbidden. You are entitled to every dream you can dream — dreams are never inconvenient."

 

http://abortiongang.org/2011/03/inconvenient-dreams/

 

How. Dare. You.

 

EDIT: @Nomrombom, it was directed at sees_all1, he was the one who edited in the bit about abortions being for the convenience of the female.

[Nomrombom]

Who is the "how dare you" directed at?

[sees_all1]

"But I do not believe that reaching my 16 year dream is a mere “convenience.” It’s my dream and I have worked exceedingly hard for it. I am entitled to enjoy the rewards of my hard work. Suggesting that women have abortions for “convenience” diminishes the hard work of women and is beyond insulting. Living my dream is my right. Not having my body hijacked, especially when I am doing everything possible to prevent pregnancy, is my right. I refuse to be told that my dreams are inconvenient and should be sacrificed.

 

To all the women out there with inconvenient dreams, never stop dreaming and never stop fighting. It is just as much a tragedy when a woman is forbidden from reaching her dream as it is when a man is forbidden. You are entitled to every dream you can dream — dreams are never inconvenient."

 

http://abortiongang.org/2011/03/inconvenient-dreams/

 

How. Dare. You.

"Suggesting that women have abortions for 'convenience' diminishes the hard work of women and is beyond insulting."

Are you arguing that being pregnant isn't inconvenient? Are you arguing that being pregnant is easy? Are you arguing that women that terminate their pregnancies are doing it because it's more difficult than being pregnant, or having a child?

Woman have abortions because it is decidedly more convenient than birthing a child. If carrying a child to term for 9 months was a cake walk, there would be no need for abortion. You, and whoever you're quoting have completely missed the point.

 

"Living my dream is my right."

And it's all about me me me. Abortion is a selfish decision.

 

"especially when I am doing everything possible to prevent pregnancy"

You know, like not having sex or something...

[Assume Nothing]

It's a little difficult to judge as a man though, sees. A woman has to become a vessel for 9 months and experience some of the most painful things in order to carry and deliver the child. People assume adoption is some miracle cure - it's really not.

 

It seems like we're dipping into the fallacies again - you're oversimplifying it by labeling it as 'convenience'. It's far more than that - having a child is a lifechanging decision that involves spending an extortionate amount of money for proper upbringing and could be considered a time investment. Childbirth is considered one of the most painful things a woman could experience too - we're talking about completely giving up the mother's rights here.

 

The main problem we have now is a society which promotes having unsafe sex but doesn't want the associated consequences - that's what needs to change, not abortion laws.