Discussing Abortion Without Reference to Religion

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karisma

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@ Karisma's post.

That seems to be a rather obtuse position, given that the foetus is not a random thing that has come along to steal the mother's blood etc. (technically the mother and the foetus' blood do not mix, but rather the placenta acts as an intermediary between the two).

The foetus is there because the mother (by having sex voluntarily - excluding rape here) put it there.

The foetuses' need for the mother was created by the mother (and the father). In this case I'd say that since it's her fault she bears the responsibility for it. She gave up her right to refuse her body when she created something that depends on it.

No, because as illustrated by my #2 example, after birth, the parents (who are under equal responsibility for the life of that child) are under no legal obligation to save it's life, if they retain their right to bodily integrity.

In the same way that a born child is legally entitled to financial support from its creators.

It's the same principle: it is considered that if you create a person then you're obligated to provide for it.

Once the child is born this is material provision.

Not if they choose to give it up for adoption.

But if we consider a foetus a person then it is biological provision.

No, because after birth the parents are under no legal biological provision to give blood/organs.

Really, your argument is just another formulation of "the mother has the right to abort because the foetus is dependent on her". I think its clear enough that dependence is not a good enough justification to allow abortion if we consider a foetus a person.

I wish I could claim this as my argument, but I'm paraphrasing what was written by a Harvard lawyer. If you're really interested I'll try to dig up that resource.

Dependence and the right to bodily integrity are not the same thing. As I already stated, a fetus may or may not be a "person" with a "right to life," but even if it is, is still cannot use that right to violate the rights of another, and as I already showed, ones right to bodily integrity supercedes another's right to life. This is the same right that keeps the government from harvesting organs from healthy people (living or dead) to save the dying.

I'd also argue that a person doesn't have the right to bodily integrity. Rather, they have freedom of will. If a person says "I don't want to give my organs away when I die" it's not the right to bodily integrity that is upheld, it's the right to self-determination.

A pregnant woman (unless raped or contraception has failed) has self-determinedly landed herself in that position.

Irrelevent. Even after birth, as noted by my #2 example, the parents are under no obligation to give blood/organs to save their dying infant. After birth, parents are under no legal obligation to save their children by giving blood or organs, even though it was their actions that created that child in the first place.
 
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Shane Roach

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I often think this issue is overcomplicated. Some percentage of people are always going to see the elective ending of pregnancy, no matter how early, as infanticide for much the same reason that people fawn over ultrasound's of a swishy little heartbeat -- it lies at the core of birth, death, family and what it means to be a human being.

The further along in the pregnancy, the less sympathetic the average person is to elective abortions.

I've seen photos of the babies at various stages of development. A person looking at a picture of a 9 week old and a 12 week old is unlikely to be much moved by claims that the nine week old doesn't have enough brain activity to count as a "person". When it gets right down to it though, the vast majority of people I believe do not have a lot of sympathy for the idea that a fertilized egg, or blastula, or several of the earliest stages of pregnancy really count as a "person".

The real problem here is the insistence of various professional communities that they alone are to be the arbiters of various moral issues without any recourse whatsoever to popular understanding.

This education thing sometimes backfires on them too. By most of what I have been able to gather, people had a tendency to look at birth as the moment the soul entered the body, even the moment the umbilical chord was cut, up until doctors began pointing out that the baby was every bit as human well before then.

By the time they realized they had argued away a lucrative business aborting children by pointing out such facts, it was too late, and the court had to interfere to return medical practitioners to primacy where the moral issues were concerned.

Admittedly cynical, but then I have no faith in the U.S. or many of its institutions any longer, much less "the West", "technology", or "the scientific community".
 
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lifeknowingjesus

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Is murder wrong?

Is it wrong to have an abortion, if (as *Planned Parenthood itself* said) "an abortion kills the life of the baby after it has begun"? If abortion takes/"kills...life" ? After all, if "death" is defined medically as the cessation of all body's vital functions including the heartbeat, brain activity, brain stem and breathing--than a fetus with a beating heart, brain waves, brain stem, breathing amniotic fluid in and out is, by medical definition, a "life".

Is it wrong to violently destroy with our own hands a baby that has a heart beat, brain waves, all major organs, its own unique set of DNA (which contains a blueprint for the whole genetic being) and fingerprint, breathes amniotic fluid in and out, dreams, learns, remembers, reacts to loud noises and to mom's laughter, distinguishes between voices, responds to a familiar story, moves, stretches, yawns, sucks, swallows, smells, tastes, hears, sees, hiccups, and can feel pain-- perhaps (with such a raw and unmodified pain system) even more than we can? A life, that from the moment of conception is growing and changing?

Is it wrong to rip babies from their mother's wombs with a suction device, while you watch as the baby pre-dodges the suction instrument time after time, while its heartbeat doubles in rate and when finally caught, its body being dismembered, the baby's mouth clearly open wide in a silent scream? (see The Silent Scream and a see description of the different abortion methods here: http://www.prolife.com/ABORMETH.html )

Is it wrong to pierce a baby's beating heart with a needle, injecting poison to kill?

Is it wrong to, as Luhra Tivis describes--who worked for an abortionist who "specializes in third trimester killings"--throw fetuses into a gleaming, metal, full-sized crematorium, "just like the one's used in funeral homes”, fire up the gas oven and a few minutes later, smell burning human flesh? Is this anything more noble than committing an "act of prenatal infanticide" and "cold blooded murder"? (Luhra Tivis, now a member of Operation Rescue, on her experience in the abortion business Quoted in Celebrate Life Sept/Oct 1994 "Where is the Real Violence?")

(For other quotes by former abortionists exposing abortion, go here: http://www.prolife.com/EVERETT.html, including Eric Harrah, who was part owner of one of the nation's largest chains of abortion clinics: http://www.abortionfacts.com/dr_willke/connector_july_98.asp and quotes by celebrities on abortion: http://www.prolife.com/celeb.htm )

Is it wrong, to--as Mother Theresa says--pit mothers against their children and women against men, sow violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships, aggravate the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society, portray the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience, nominally accord mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters and, in granting this unconscionable power, expose many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners? Is it wrong to have the right to life depend on/be declared to be contingent on the pleasure of someone else?

Is it wrong to coldly "remove the products of conception" (Dr. Thomas Dillon & Colleagues, 1974), "empty" and "evacuate" the uteris? (All of this sounds strikingly similiar to the Nazi doctors and Hitler's subhumanity of the victims, ie: “ "It had nothing to do with humanity — it was a mass. I rarely saw them as individuals. It was always a huge mass." (Franz Stangl, former commandant of Treblinka, 1971); "The Baron de Hirsch ghetto would have to be emptied." (Max Merten, 1943); "If it is now pointed out that the Jew is human, I then reject that totally." (Antisemitic speech, Reichstag, 1895))

Is it wrong to treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit?

Is it wrong "to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish"? (Mother Theresa)

Is it wrong to take an unborn child’s life?

Is it wrong to commit an act of murder?

Take a good look at this picture and then tell me if abortion is wrong. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2SW6_mohlmk/Sazq-ufDUaI/AAAAAAAAA9M/0Q5ChKl4wDM/s200/silent+scream3.jpg

But there is a much deeper matter at hand.

The truth is, you cannot divorce religion (or God, rather) from abortion (which is trying to separate the Creator from his creation), because an unborn baby is a sacred life created in the image of God to live forever.

God himself "shaped [his/her] life"/"knit [her] together" "in [her] mother's womb." He "knew all about" her “before” that. He "knows [her] inside and out", "every bone in [her] body", "exactly how [she] was made, bit by bit." He "watched" her “grow from conception to birth”, "all the stages of [her] life were spread out before [him]." He had "holy plans for" her "before [she] saw the light of day"; "when [she] was still in [her] mother's womb he chose and called [her]." The unborn child was "uniquelly", "wonderfully" and "marvelously" made by the Creator, designed for a glorious life in Christ and an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ. "Children are God's best gift." (Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139, Isaiah 44:24, Psalm 127:3, Galatians 1:15, Psalm 127:3)

"The Bible tells us that human life is sacred; God gave it to us, and only God can take it away. You and I aren't simply a higher form of animal; we were created in the image of God. God gave us a spirit or soul that will live forever—and this makes all the difference. The Bible says, 'God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them' (Genesis 1:27). This is why we must never destroy any life casually (from the unborn to the old). Life is precious, even when it nears its end on this earth. It is so precious that God sent His only Son into the world to open heaven's door for us by His death on the cross. The Bible says, 'For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Romans 6:23)." ~Billy Graham
 
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LightHorseman

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The Bible also tells us killing an unborn child is not equivalent to murder, and there are several passages where the Bible literally commands the killing of unborn children. So, you know, maybe as a right to lifer you should go easy on "Bible SEZ!" rhetoric.
 
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jayem

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The foetus is there because the mother (by having sex voluntarily - excluding rape here) put it there.


A pregnant woman (unless raped or contraception has failed) has self-determinedly landed herself in that position.

Are you implying that if a pregnancy results involuntarily--from rape, or from a failure of intended contraception--that this would justify termination?
 
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Shane Roach

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The Bible also tells us killing an unborn child is not equivalent to murder, and there are several passages where the Bible literally commands the killing of unborn children. So, you know, maybe as a right to lifer you should go easy on "Bible SEZ!" rhetoric.

Don't you see how lifeknowingjesus' post strikes at the heart of the issue though, and how you finding verses meant to display God's indignation and evil civilizations really just serves to emphasize how horrible His anger was, to order such wanton destruction?

You don't seem to be capable of comparing issues directly with related issues. You are always seeking out something shocking, seeming to think that just because it makes you angry that others should likewise abandon all context and just be angry along with you.

Sure, some of the verses in the Bible shock the conscience. They do. I was uncomfortable reading them, especially when, after about 10 years as a near utter novice concerning the Bible despite being a professed Christian, I decided to read the whole thing through.

The difference is I did not allow myself the luxury of simply getting angry. I already had too much experience of Jesus in my heart to simply dismiss them as senseless. I looked at context. I looked at history. I looked at similar passages, such as the ones that guide the practice of warfare in general with the specific nations God commanded to be destroyed in such fashion.

I just see no sense of you even really caring whether the context is there to support your claims or not. You just find random things and toss them out there for shock value, then claim people are "making excuses" when they give you the explanation. In one case, you even patted yourself on the back for predicting that someone was going to answer in a way you have already heard.

So what? Seriously... So what? You want to be morally repulsed at any hint of compromise on the issue of slavery? Fine. I expect you on the next boat to China where you will personally organize military resistance to the slave labor we use there now.

I haven't seen a single post by you on modern trade issues, or the global stranglehold on labor by the wealthy. What exactly is it that you believe is substantively changed?

Nothing, as far as I'm concerned. We shipped slavery overseas. Modern culture is as black as any ancient culture ever was, with the added condemnation that we know so much more now about how we could do things if only the will to care was in us, as a nation, culture, or world -- indeed as a species.

People really are evil. That, more than anything else, seems to support my faith. So much of what people do is actually self destructive in its wickedness, and yet we all do it anyway.

Anyhow... I don't know. Disagree with her all day long. I imagine I do on some of the finer points. But dismiss? With just another one liner?

I don't know what you really believe you proved with that.
 
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CCGirl

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Whether or not a fetus is a person with rights or not is irrelevent. Even if we assume that it is a full person with full rights, all people have the right to bodily integrity. No born person has the right to another's blood or organs as it violates their right to bodily integrity. This applies even if it means saving that person's life.

Hypothetical scenario 1: a hemophiliac infant with a rare blood type is born and needs an emergency blood transfusion to survive. Neither parent is required by law to donate blood to save the infant. That baby can bleed to death right in front of the parents and it's perfectly legal, as forcing people to give blood or organs is considered a violation of the right to bodily integrity. No born child has any right to a parent's blood or organs, and in the interest of equal rights, neither can a fetus.

Hypothetical scenario two: an otherwise healthy 18 year old is killed in a tragic accident. This person is not an organ donor. Even though this person's perfectly healthy kidneys, heart, and other organs could be used to save many other lives, it is against the law to take that person's organs, as it would violate their right to bodily integrity. A needy person can lie dying in a hospital bed while those organs get buried with the person.

As you can see, one individual's right to bodily integrity supercedes another's right to life, even when that violation will save another's life. This right to bodily integrity even applies to the deceased. A person (or the unborn) may have a right to life, but they do not have the right to violate another's right to bodily integrity.


This post for the win!!:thumbsup:
 
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yasic

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Is murder wrong?
Yes, yes it is.

Is it wrong to have an abortion, if (as *Planned Parenthood itself* said) "an abortion kills the life of the baby after it has begun"? If abortion takes/"kills...life" ? After all, if "death" is defined medically as the cessation of all body's vital functions including the heartbeat, brain activity, brain stem and breathing--than a fetus with a beating heart, brain waves, brain stem, breathing amniotic fluid in and out is, by medical definition, a "life".
First off all... I failed to get the memo that us pro-choicers look upon planned parenthood as a representative for ourselves, so whatever planned parenthood did or did not say would have 0 impact on most of us.

Secondly, I would say that no, it is not wrong to have an abortion.

Thirdly, just because something is 'life' does not make it valuable. I would have 0 issues with killing worms for any reason at all.

Is it wrong to violently destroy with our own hands a baby that has a heart beat, brain waves, all major organs, its own unique set of DNA (which contains a blueprint for the whole genetic being) and fingerprint, breathes amniotic fluid in and out, dreams, learns, remembers, reacts to loud noises and to mom's laughter, distinguishes between voices, responds to a familiar story, moves, stretches, yawns, sucks, swallows, smells, tastes, hears, sees, hiccups, and can feel pain-- perhaps (with such a raw and unmodified pain system) even more than we can? A life, that from the moment of conception is growing and changing?
Is it wrong to kill a baby? Yes
Is it wrong to kill a fetus? No

Is it wrong to rip babies from their mother's wombs with a suction device, while you watch as the baby pre-dodges the suction instrument time after time, while its heartbeat doubles in rate and when finally caught, its body being dismembered, the baby's mouth clearly open wide in a silent scream? (see The Silent Scream and a see description of the different abortion methods here: http://www.prolife.com/ABORMETH.html )
Have you ever seen a fish-hook removed from a persons eye? Perhaps that would be gory enough for you to ban medical practices too?

Is it wrong to pierce a baby's beating heart with a needle, injecting poison to kill?
Yes, of course it is... though I thought we were talking about fetuses, not babies?

Is it wrong to, as Luhra Tivis describes--who worked for an abortionist who "specializes in third trimester killings"--throw fetuses into a gleaming, metal, full-sized crematorium, "just like the one's used in funeral homes”, fire up the gas oven and a few minutes later, smell burning human flesh? Is this anything more noble than committing an "act of prenatal infanticide" and "cold blooded murder"? (Luhra Tivis, now a member of Operation Rescue, on her experience in the abortion business Quoted in Celebrate Life Sept/Oct 1994 "Where is the Real Violence?")
No, I see nothing wrong with sanitary disposal of fetuses.

Is it wrong, to--as Mother Theresa says--pit mothers against their children and women against men, sow violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships, aggravate the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society, portray the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience, nominally accord mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters and, in granting this unconscionable power, expose many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners? Is it wrong to have the right to life depend on/be declared to be contingent on the pleasure of someone else?
One thing you should note is that many people on this forum have actually studied the actions of Mother Theresa, and like myself, find her to be a despicable person who should have been locked up in a mental institution for the protection of herself and all the poor people she caused to suffer over the years... soo a quote from her holds absolutly no weight.

Is it wrong to coldly "remove the products of conception" (Dr. Thomas Dillon & Colleagues, 1974), "empty" and "evacuate" the uteris? (All of this sounds strikingly similiar to the Nazi doctors and Hitler's subhumanity of the victims, ie: “ "It had nothing to do with humanity — it was a mass. I rarely saw them as individuals. It was always a huge mass." (Franz Stangl, former commandant of Treblinka, 1971); "The Baron de Hirsch ghetto would have to be emptied." (Max Merten, 1943); "If it is now pointed out that the Jew is human, I then reject that totally." (Antisemitic speech, Reichstag, 1895))
If you observe the way meat is produced, you will find nazi references much stronger than any from an abortion. Am I safe to assume you are a vegan?

Is it wrong to treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit?
Yes, luckly were not talking about children

Is it wrong "to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish"? (Mother Theresa)
This depends on the situation... and there you go again with that evil mother theresa.

Is it wrong to take an unborn child’s life?
Nope.

Is it wrong to commit an act of murder?
Yes... (well in most cases anyways)

I looked at the picture.
No abortion is not wrong.

But there is a much deeper matter at hand.
Oh?

The truth is, you cannot divorce religion (or God, rather) from abortion (which is trying to separate the Creator from his creation), because an unborn baby is a sacred life created in the image of God to live forever. God himself "knit together" the baby in its mother's womb and had "holy plans for" her "before [he/she] saw the light of day." He “knew all about” her before he even shaped her in her mother’s womb and watched her “grow from conception to birth”. The unborn baby was truly, "uniquelly", "wonderfully" and "marvelously" made by the Creator, designed for a glorious life in Christ and an eternal relationship with Jesus.
All of this rests on the existance of the said God, which many of us do not accept.

"The Bible tells us that human life is sacred; God gave it to us, and only God can take it away. You and I aren't simply a higher form of animal; we were created in the image of God. God gave us a spirit or soul that will live forever—and this makes all the difference. The Bible says, 'God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them' (Genesis 1:27). This is why we must never destroy any life casually (from the unborn to the old). Life is precious, even when it nears its end on this earth. It is so precious that God sent His only Son into the world to open heaven's door for us by His death on the cross. The Bible says, 'For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Romans 6:23)." ~Billy Graham
Many of us do not find the bible as a good source of ethics or morality... a very primitive one at best.
 
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Taure

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Are you implying that if a pregnancy results involuntarily--from rape, or from a failure of intended contraception--that this would justify termination?

Under that argument (which was working under the assumption of a foetus being a person), yes.

lifeknowingjesus: I get the feeling that you've rather missed the point of this thread...
 
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Silent Bob

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I left work yesterday thinking of this question and I was about to write a response much like Karisma's. Although in my response I would use self-determination. Self-determination has the problem that the mother (except for rape cases) has willingly accepted the possibility of becoming pregnant. But then again millions of people willingly accept the possibility of heart disease by consuming junk food and all types of cancers from choices as clean cut as smoking up to vegeterianism. Should all of them pay? In that case aren't we all responsible for many of our health problems in some form or another? E.g. rode a bike in the rain, be refused antibiotics to die of pneumonia. Self-determination does apply because the mother did not become pregnant on purpose in order to kill a fetus. It was an accident and as long as you provide medical attention to careless drivers (we have all been a bit absent minded while driving so take the plank out of your own eyes) who may have killed others by mistake you cannot judge a woman who got careless one night in bed.

My bottom line is that yes abortion is a form of murder. But the mother's right to self-determination trumps the fetus' right to live. Medically, unfortunately, the fetus is a parasite. Wanted or not by the host it acts as a parasite it is therefore up to the host to have it removed or not. If the fetus could live outside the mother's body (in a jar or transplanted to another host) then we could start talking unborn rights untill then it has as many rights as any individual mother gives it.

This of course does not really take personal morality into account. Religion, education and other factors form a person's morality and whether abortion is moral or not in a personal level is up to each individual. Personal morality is just that tho personal, nobody has the right to impose it on others. On a side note I had an argument with two friends about the morality of adoption, their point is that the stigma associated with adoption (in Greece) makes it a bad choice, amusingly one (male) was anti-abortion and argued that the only option is to bring up the baby the other (female) was pro-abortion and argued that at this stage of their life abortion is the only humane choice.
 
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Chesterton

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Except legal definitions are not always properly philosophical, as the example you omitted demonstrates.

Maybe I'm missing your point, but I don't see how atheism being classified a religion is an exception to what I said. Do you just mean you disagree with that particular idea? That's a different matter.
 
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jayem

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Under that argument (which was working under the assumption of a foetus being a person), yes.

It seems to me that allowing abortion in cases of rape is implicitly acknowledging that a fetus has only a limited kind of personhood. We certainly wouldn't think it to acceptable to kill a newborn baby that was conceived by rape. In fact, the medical situations where abortion is permitted contradict the idea of a fetus being a person with the same human rights as anyone else. In the moral sense, these really aren't self-defense scenarios. In medical cases, the fetus is just an innocent bystander. The mother develops a serious illness which can be worsened by pregnancy. Or, ectopic pregnancy. The embryo didn't willfully implant in the wrong place. It's not intentionally threatening its mother's life. In the world outside the womb, would it ever be permissible to sacrifce an innocent child to save its mother's life? (Even in the extreme lifeboat, or concentration camp hypotheticals?) It is intuitive, and a matter of basic common sense that embryonic life just doesn't have quite the same status as post-natal life. You may think a fetus is a "person," but it's a person with an asterisk. It doesn't have the rights as persons who've been born.
 
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Jade Margery

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@ Karisma's post.

That seems to be a rather obtuse position, given that the foetus is not a random thing that has come along to steal the mother's blood etc. (technically the mother and the foetus' blood do not mix, but rather the placenta acts as an intermediary between the two).

The foetus is there because the mother (by having sex voluntarily - excluding rape here) put it there.

The foetuses' need for the mother was created by the mother (and the father). In this case I'd say that since it's her fault she bears the responsibility for it. She gave up her right to refuse her body when she created something that depends on it.

In the same way that a born child is legally entitled to financial support from its creators.

It's the same principle: it is considered that if you create a person then you're obligated to provide for it.

Once the child is born this is material provision.

But if we consider a foetus a person then it is biological provision.

Really, your argument is just another formulation of "the mother has the right to abort because the foetus is dependent on her". I think its clear enough that dependence is not a good enough justification to allow abortion if we consider a foetus a person.

I'd also argue that a person doesn't have the right to bodily integrity. Rather, they have freedom of will. If a person says "I don't want to give my organs away when I die" it's not the right to bodily integrity that is upheld, it's the right to self-determination.

A pregnant woman (unless raped or contraception has failed) has self-determinedly landed herself in that position.

Interestingly, not for long. Opt-out laws are on their way in.

A feel this post was rather rambling, but oh well.

Fault or self-determination do not mean a person loses their rights to their own body. For example, if you decided you wanted to give a kidney to a dying child, you could go through all the preparations and all they procedures and even be on your way to the operating room, but one 'NO, I changed my mind' from you would be enough to cancel the transfer. Never mind the kid might, or even will, die without the transfer. It's your body, it's your right to decide what happens to the parts of it.

Even if another person's predicament is your fault, this does not change. Suppose you are driving and talking on your cellphone at the same time and you hit someone by accident. You're fine, but they are in the hospital in critical condition. There is no law that says you must give them any organs you can live without, or that you must donate blood if you are the same blood type. You're welcome to do so if you like, but accidents do not mean you lose the right to your body. See?

I like this line of argument especially because if we consider the fetus a person, but one that the mother has the right to remove due to body integrity, then in all other cases the fetus has rights and anyone else who would violate them would be punished accordingly. I think killing a pregnant woman should be considered a double homicide, and hurting a woman until she involuntarily miscarries should count as murder as well as assault.

Lifeknowingjesus' post is very emotionally charged but also full of hyperbole. Of course abortion is a gruesome process, and no one is denying that you're killing the fetus. Wrong? Not if the mother doesn't want it and it can't survive as a premie. Third trimester abortions are a bit confusing though; I cannot imagine why a woman without health problems would wait six or more months to get it removed, and can't it survive on its own by then? I have a feeling that those kinds of abortions are very, very rare, especially since partial birth abortion is currently illegal.

It is also important to consider that making abortions illegal will not stop abortions in the least. Women who really don't want to have babies will find ways not to have babies, often in very dangerous and unhealthy fashions. Drinking poison, undergoing physical harm, sticking coat hangers in unmentionable places... there are many ways to induce a misccarriage, none of them safe. And even if they have the kid, they could easily just leave it in an alley or in a dumpster. Garbage crews find a lot of dead, unwanted children as it is, imagine what would happen if most unwanted kids were born and then left to die as the mother felt she had no other options? Is that a less cruel fate than killing them before they have a brain with which to feel pain? I don't think so.
 
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DieHappy

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There is an example often used. You go to sleep one night and wake up the next morning attached to someone through tubs in each others arms. You are told if the tube is disconnected the other person will die.

Is it murder if you disconnect the tube?

The usual answer is no. Now here is the followup. If instead you cut the other person into quarters is it murder?

Anyone see the tie to abortion? Might it be that the method does in fact make a difference?

What if you had previously signed a legal document saying that you accept the possibility that you may in fact one day wake up connected to someone else in this exact manner?

Going back to the personhood idea. Might it not be that personhood in fact develops over time and that a mere fertilized egg is not a person, but a feotus just before birth is. And the one thing no one wants to deal with is that there is no nice clear line as to when it really is a person? To me the sad part of that is it means the field is left to extreemists on either end of the question.
Of course there's no clear line, that why the argument shifts. It used to be whether the fetus was alive. The abortionists lost that one, so they started arguing "personhood." They've lost that one too, now they're on to the rights of the mother to be saved against a parasite. Which is the stupidest argument ever on any subject because the mother explicitly accepted the possibility of giving life to that parasite by having sex.

It is also important to consider that making abortions illegal will not stop abortions in the least. Women who really don't want to have babies will find ways not to have babies, often in very dangerous and unhealthy fashions. Drinking poison, undergoing physical harm, sticking coat hangers in unmentionable places... there are many ways to induce a misccarriage, none of them safe. And even if they have the kid, they could easily just leave it in an alley or in a dumpster. Garbage crews find a lot of dead, unwanted children as it is, imagine what would happen if most unwanted kids were born and then left to die as the mother felt she had no other options? Is that a less cruel fate than killing them before they have a brain with which to feel pain? I don't think so.
So because humanity is cruel and prone to do evil, we should, rather than show them a more excellent way, accept it and make it easier to sweep away?
 
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TeddyKGB

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Maybe I'm missing your point, but I don't see how atheism being classified a religion is an exception to what I said. Do you just mean you disagree with that particular idea? That's a different matter.
I mean that legal definitions and philosophical definitions are not always in perfect harmony. Atheism is not philosophically defined as a religion.
 
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No, according to philosophers. Y'know, those guys that do philosophy for a living?

Alright, if it's not a religious belief, then what type of belief does your favorite philosopher say it is?
 
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