Abortion

[No Swansong]

It isn't. A miscarriage caused by trauma is non-spontaneous by definition.

Teddy you are indeed correct; I didn't proof my post I prefer "non-spontaneously abort"

 

[wanderingone]

I didn't communicate my point well I apologize for that. In the State of Ohio, at least as recently as 4 years ago, an act that caused a miscarriage was part of the definition of murder. In other words, if I punched you in the stomach and that punch caused you to miscarry (I personally think the term 'spontaneously abort' would be a better choice) I could be charged with battery upon your person, and the State could consider a charge of murder of the unborn child. I do know that a few have been charged and at least a couple convicted under this law. I believe in each case it was a matter of causing the death of the fetus while commiting a felony. I fully admit however it has been a while since I studied the issue and not only could my memory be faulty but the law could have changed since then.

Causing the death of a fetus is still not a murder charge. Like I said I'm asking the person who brought it up to provide me with some laws that allow for a murder charge when a miscarriage occurs as a result of an assault on the mother and the fetus was not yet viable. I'm not saying no such laws exist, I just don't feel like looking up the laws in every state myself. I believe allowing an actual charge of murder for the death of non viable fetus to be an inappropriate charge. The OP is looking for people to say "oh because there are laws in favor of murder charges in such cases then how can abortion not be murder" I would say it is not legal abortion that is wrong if such laws exist but the laws that allow a murder charge.

 

[wanderingone]

Brief recap of each state law HERE

Thanks for the link.

Personally I think the laws in the states that allow for a murder charge regardless of the age of the fetus are absurd. I would take no issue with a charge related to physical assault on the mother and causing an abortion. I simply don't believe a murder charge for a non viable fetus (for those who don't care for "fetus" go ahead and call it a baby) At least 10% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage (and that's the low end estimate with the higher being about 30%) In cases where the mother is assaulted but not murdered how does the law go about proving without a doubt that someone in the first trimester had a miscarriage because of the criminal act perpetrated against her?

I don't mean to sound as though I don't appreciate the emotional toll of losing a child, and if it occurs immediately after a traumatic assault.. it must be devastating, however I hate how many of our laws are based on feelings rather than on contributing to helping to prevent criminal action.

I work on domestic violence, women who are pregnant face a much higher chance of being asssaulted than non pregnant women.
I believe when someone assaults a pregnant woman, or inhibits her ability to obtain necessary medical care there should be charges related to that when charges are brought, however I think game playing with scientific facts in order to answer to emotional pleas and those who attempt to undermine access to reproductive health care is dangerous stuff.

 

[allhart]

Transgress , to violate a law, command, moral code, etc.; offend; sin.

Well, as a Christian we live to or by a higher authority. In the lateral in a Moral code and abortion is highly offensive. No way! is two ,so called wrongs will make it right. Also someone needs to speak for the innocent that have no voice nor do you give them the choice. This is society equality at its finest in their rational moral decay.
I don't see women line up to get pregnant to turn around to abort. No one calls it a pursuit of virtue. This is a form of rebellion at its best! At its finest or toughest moment... I hold babies in my arm and I can't imagine any reason why a parent would kill their own and I really don't see that they have that right or authority.

 

[HumbleServant94]

Transgress , to violate a law, command, moral code, etc.; offend; sin.

Well, as a Christian we live to or by a higher authority. In the lateral in a Moral code and abortion is highly offensive. No way! is two ,so called wrongs will make it right. Also someone needs to speak for the innocent that have no voice nor do you give them the choice. This is society equality at its finest in their rational moral decay.
I don't see women line up to get pregnant to turn around to abort. No one calls it a pursuit of virtue. This is a form of rebellion at its best! At its finest or toughest moment... I hold babies in my arm and I can't imagine any reason why a parent would kill their own and I really don't see that they have that right or authority.

 

[allhart]

More comments in the same train of thought. We don't own them, as well.( Kids) We are only loaned them for a short while any how. Just like Mary was loaned Jesus Christ. A lot parents think they own their children. Children have genuine individuality. Don't you think? Parents make comments like I brought you in this world I'll take you out and in abortion that's literal speaking the truth. God give us choices now shouldn't we give the innocent the same courtesy.

 

[HumbleServant94]

More comments in the same train of thought. We don't own them, as well.( Kids) We are only loaned them for a short while any how. Just like Mary was loaned Jesus Christ. A lot parents think they own their children. Children have genuine individuality. Don't you think? Parents make comments like I brought you in this world I'll take you out and in abortion that's literal speaking the truth. God give us choices now shouldn't we give the innocent the same courtesy.

 

[LouTheWicked]

A foetus is not a sentinent, self-aware being. Why protect it over the life of a woman who is already a living, breathing self-aware human being? God ordered a fair amount of infantide himself in the OT.

Don't ask me for pieces of scripture, you're the Christians and I assume you've read all of the bible, inculding the nasty and questionable bits. Or have you got a PC version with all the undesirable bits edited out?

What about women who have drug addictions and end up pregnant?

Women who suffer from drug or alcohol addictions should not be encouraged to go through the pregnancy if they know that they are likely to carry on taking the substances and potentially damage their offspring or even themselves in the process. It just sets that kid up for a bleak and miserable future in a wheelchair or an even worse ailment that they'll have to live with for the rest of their life.

Still disagree with abortion? Then how about YOU look after all the deformed and disabled children that have come into the world resenting their existance because their mother was a crack addict/alcoholic who was too weak to restrain herself and carried on shooting up while they were in her womb? So much for maternal instinct and motherly love.

You people are naive, thinking everything will be dandy if the mother keeps the kid or gives it up for adoption? Do you know how packed foster homes are?

They are miserable places where children sit and watch couples pick other children over them. Children of other ethnicities or have obvious disabilities are often overlooked because they're considered "undesirable". It's only natural I suppose, we instinctively pick prefer the fittest over what we consider the weakest. There's no denying it, it's in our nature.

 

[HumbleServant94]

A foetus is not a sentinent, self-aware being. Why protect it over the life of a woman who is already a living, breathing self-aware human being? God ordered a fair amount of infantide himself in the OT.

Don't ask me for pieces of scripture, you're the Christians and I assume you've read all of the bible, inculding the nasty and questionable bits. Or have you got a PC version with all the undesirable bits edited out?

What about women who have drug addictions and end up pregnant?

Women who suffer from drug or alcohol addictions should not be encouraged to go through the pregnancy if they know that they are likely to carry on taking the substances and potentially damage their offspring or even themselves in the process. It just sets that kid up for a bleak and miserable future in a wheelchair or an even worse ailment that they'll have to live with for the rest of their life.

Still disagree with abortion? Then how about YOU look after all the deformed and disabled children that have come into the world resenting their existance because their mother was a crack addict/alcoholic who was too weak to restrain herself and carried on shooting up while they were in her womb? So much for maternal instinct and motherly love.

You people are naive, thinking everything will be dandy if the mother keeps the kid or gives it up for adoption? Do you know how packed foster homes are?

They are miserable places where children sit and watch couples pick other children over them. Children of other ethnicities or have obvious disabilities are often overlooked because they're considered "undesirable". It's only natural I suppose, we instinctively pick prefer the fittest over what we consider the weakest. There's no denying it, it's in our nature.

Yeah it's called sin nature. And if the woman is on drugs and is pregnant then you let God do His work. Only God is allowed to take a life. As for an orphanage or foster home, I suggest taking the baby to another family member.

 

[WatersMoon110]

Yeah it's called sin nature. And if the woman is on drugs and is pregnant then you let God do His work. Only God is allowed to take a life.

You mean just like God is the only one allowed to Judge?

 

[gwenmead]

Only God is allowed to take a life.

So does that mean it's okay for God to kill a fetus by causing a woman to miscarry?

I'm not looking for a long answer here; a simple yes or no will do. However, if you do have Bible verses backing up your belief that it's okay for God to kill people (at whatever stage of life, but especially before birth), I am all for seeing them. Thanks.

 

[No Swansong]

Causing the death of a fetus is still not a murder charge. Like I said I'm asking the person who brought it up to provide me with some laws that allow for a murder charge when a miscarriage occurs as a result of an assault on the mother and the fetus was not yet viable. I'm not saying no such laws exist, I just don't feel like looking up the laws in every state myself. I believe allowing an actual charge of murder for the death of non viable fetus to be an inappropriate charge. The OP is looking for people to say "oh because there are laws in favor of murder charges in such cases then how can abortion not be murder" I would say it is not legal abortion that is wrong if such laws exist but the laws that allow a murder charge.

You may disagree that it should be a murder charge, but in Ohio it is. Below is a synopsis and I have checked with a common please court justice and she has informed me that indeed it is the law and it is often applied.


Ohio: At any stage of pre-natal development, if an "unborn member of the species homo sapiens, who is or was carried in the womb of another" is killed, it is aggravated murder, murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, negligent homicide, aggravated vehicular homicide, and vehicular homicide. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§ 2903.01 to 2903.07, 2903.09 (Anderson 1996 & Supp. 1998).

 

[No Swansong]

Thanks for the link.

Personally I think the laws in the states that allow for a murder charge regardless of the age of the fetus are absurd. I would take no issue with a charge related to physical assault on the mother and causing an abortion. I simply don't believe a murder charge for a non viable fetus (for those who don't care for "fetus" go ahead and call it a baby) At least 10% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage (and that's the low end estimate with the higher being about 30%) In cases where the mother is assaulted but not murdered how does the law go about proving without a doubt that someone in the first trimester had a miscarriage because of the criminal act perpetrated against her?

I don't mean to sound as though I don't appreciate the emotional toll of losing a child, and if it occurs immediately after a traumatic assault.. it must be devastating, however I hate how many of our laws are based on feelings rather than on contributing to helping to prevent criminal action.

I work on domestic violence, women who are pregnant face a much higher chance of being asssaulted than non pregnant women.
I believe when someone assaults a pregnant woman, or inhibits her ability to obtain necessary medical care there should be charges related to that when charges are brought, however I think game playing with scientific facts in order to answer to emotional pleas and those who attempt to undermine access to reproductive health care is dangerous stuff.

Scientific facts? Do you contend that the child 5 minutes before birth is scientifically any less human than the child 5 minutes after birth?

 

[Rauffenburg]

Yeah it's called sin nature. And if the woman is on drugs and is pregnant then you let God do His work. Only God is allowed to take a life.

I did not know that all Christians oppose the death penalty. Do you? Moreover, this sin-nature thing is one of the most immoral excuses I've ever heard. And it already was back in the old days of Augustine.

Also someone needs to speak for the innocent that have no voice nor do you give them the choice. This is society equality at its finest in their rational moral decay.

Just to make that clear. Anyone who will argue for a right to abortion will also assume that a fetus is not a person in a morally relevant sense. If that is true, the fetus has no moral rights and therefore isn't "innocent" in a sense that anyone needs to speak for it.

In fact the whole discussion is not very fruitful, as long as different world-views just clash against each other. The central question is: Is the fetus a person or is it not? If so why, and if not, why not. Implicitly many people already presuppose one or the other option in their argument. Two examples from two earlier posts may show this

a) It's still a human baby. It's still a life not just some thing you can pop like a pimple.

b) A foetus is not a sentient, self-aware being. Why protect it over the life of a woman who is already a living, breathing self-aware human being?

If you go the a) road you assume that every entity that is human is also a person, and necessarily so because otherwise there could be humans which are not persons. You could also put it this way: Being human is an essentially morally dignifying property. Along this way you will finally end up somewhere in the Christian camp.

If you go the b) road instead, you will find yourself among the preference-utilitarians which have a different idea of a person. Humans, according to this idea are only persons insofar as they are sentient, self-aware beings. In this sense, there is no necessary conncetion between being human and being a person - they are two distinct properties which may be instantiated by one and the same entity (such as grown-up human males or females) but only by chance. Under this conception the status of being human per se has no moral consequences.

Which is the road to go and why? In my eyes, this is the important question.

 

[Nathan45]

Scientific facts? Do you contend that the child 5 minutes before birth is scientifically any less human than the child 5 minutes after birth?

and this argument cuts both ways.

is a sperm and an egg scientifically different than a sperm inside of an egg after conception?

 

[HumbleServant94]

So does that mean it's okay for God to kill a fetus by causing a woman to miscarry?

I'm not looking for a long answer here; a simple yes or no will do. However, if you do have Bible verses backing up your belief that it's okay for God to kill people (at whatever stage of life, but especially before birth), I am all for seeing them. Thanks.

Yes. He gives life and can take it away.

 

[Nathan45]

b) A foetus is not a sentient, self-aware being. Why protect it over the life of a woman who is already a living, breathing self-aware human being?

If you go the a) road you assume that every entity that is human is also a person, and necessarily so because otherwise there could be humans which are not persons. You could also put it this way: Being human is an essentially morally dignifying property. Along this way you will finally end up somewhere in the Christian camp.

If you go the b) road instead, you will find yourself among the preference-utilitarians which have a different idea of a person. Humans, according to this idea are only persons insofar as they are sentient, self-aware beings. In this sense, there is no necessary conncetion between being human and being a person - they are two distinct properties which may be instantiated by one and the same entity (such as grown-up human males or females) but only by chance. Under this conception the status of being human per se has no moral consequences.

Which is the road to go and why? In my eyes, this is the important question.

I went over this in another thread and I think B is the better outlook.

I don't feel like repeating myself and rehashing the same arguments on every abortion thread so i'll just link what i posted here:

http://christianforums.com/showthread.php?t=7311977

essentially, in a nutshell, i feel that simply having "human DNA" does not in and of itself make one a person. An embryo has nothing in common with a human except human DNA. Any random combination of sperm and egg has a full set of DNA also. Essentially i don't see why an embryo is owed anything yet the sperm or egg isn't.

 

[Rauffenburg]

essentially, in a nutshell, i feel that simply having "human DNA" does not in and of itself make one a person. An embryo has nothing in common with a human except human DNA. Any random combination of sperm and egg has a full set of DNA also. Essentially i don't see why an embryo is owed anything yet the sperm or egg isn't.

I do not quite agree that this is the point. You could turn your argument the other way around. You asked:

Is one cell with a complete set of DNA anything like a living, breathing, thinking, feeling, talking, person... a person with years of experiences under his or her belt, with friends, family, a complete body and complete consciousness, really the equivalent to one cell with a complete set of DNA?

I should say yes: it is even identical with some zygote with that very set of DNA. The person with years of experiences once was a zygote. Of course it is only identical with one speicific zygote, and it "nothing like" any other zygote. But precisely this the idea of individuality upon which we base our individual rights, isn't it? And I believe that arguments from potentiality have some impact precisely because of this temporal-identity thing. The potentiality of a zygote to become a person is something different from a potentiality of a blueprint to become a house. In fact, on its own the blueprint will do nothing. A zygote on the other hand is an ongoing living process, which is neither a human artifact with a preformed purpose (like the blueprint), nor simply a static thing.

Moreover it has to be noticed that the argument from potentiality makes weaker claims than any argument on the identity of humanity and personhood. And by that potentiality idea, we can distinguish, at least in principle, between eggs, sperms and embryos.

 

[Nathan45]

I do not quite agree that this is the point. You could turn your argument the other way around. You asked:

Is one cell with a complete set of DNA anything like a living, breathing, thinking, feeling, talking, person... a person with years of experiences under his or her belt, with friends, family, a complete body and complete consciousness, really the equivalent to one cell with a complete set of DNA?

I should say yes: it is even identical with some zygote with that very set of DNA. The person with years of experiences once was a zygote.

The person, was also, billions of years ago was a bunch of random hydrogen atoms floating around space. Before the zygote was formed, it was a sperm and egg, which were constructed from proteins, possibly the same ones as the chickens people buy at the grocery store.

Furthermore, 99.9% of that person wasn't the zygote, it was from other raw material added to the zygote later.

Of course it is only identical with one speicific zygote, and it "nothing like" any other zygote. But precisely this the idea of individuality upon which we base our individual rights, isn't it?

really, no, individuality has nothing to do with individual rights. Do identical twins not have individual rights?

You are correct that one zygote is different from another zygote, as stated it has a unique set of human DNA. However, from a probabilistic perspective, that unique set is no likely to be better or worse than any other set. Any sperm + any egg has a unique set of DNA, same as the zygote. I disagree that because a zygote is unique that in and of itself makes it valuable.

And I believe that arguments from potentiality have some impact precisely because of this temporal-identity thing. The potentiality of a zygote to become a person is something different from a potentiality of a blueprint to become a house.

I disagree. A zygote is just DNA in a cell. I think that conservation of matter/energy should tell you for sure that all of the materials used to form the zygote do not come from that one original cell. 99.99+% of the raw materials used to make the person do not come from the orginal zygote. I think comparing it to a blueprint is an apt comparison.

In fact, on its own the blueprint will do nothing. A zygote on the other hand is an ongoing living process, which is neither a human artifact with a preformed purpose (like the blueprint), nor simply a static thing.

a zygote on it's own won't do much either, the only difference is that to the zygote becomming a person is in the womb is something that your body does without your input, wheras someone building a house out of a blueprint is a deliberate effort.

Moreover it has to be noticed that the argument from potentiality makes weaker claims than any argument on the identity of humanity and personhood. And by that potentiality idea, we can distinguish, at least in principle, between eggs, sperms and embryos.

I don't see why the argument from potentiality, if such a thing exists, should apply to zygotes but not to sperms and eggs.

 

[Nathan45]

The person, was also, billions of years ago was a bunch of random hydrogen atoms floating around space.

or, if you're a creationist... random water molecules floating in the ocean ...thousands ... of years ago, plus other raw materials