Originally posted by Blackhawk
I disagree. I think that ones who believe in abortion are wrong. I think capital punishment is much more gray. Some things are not so gray and I think abortion is one of those things.
In my mind, the defining characteristic of a gray area is that people can study the issue together for years and not come to an agreement.
There is a big difference between one whose brain will not form again and one who is forming in the womb.
I agree that there's a difference - I'm just not sure how it affects the story.
But how does abortion save another except in very rare cases? And most of those times we are really mostly guessing that the abortion has to be done in order to save the woman's life. So if you say that you are anti-choice except for the very rare cases in which a mother's life is truly in danger then I can live with that.
In the case of an ectopic pregnancy, it's no more likely that the baby will come to term than it is that, after the baby is aborted, God will just poof it into a healthy baby, IMHO. Neither is recorded to have happened, ever.
In other cases... Yes, we have to guess. A lot of medical science involves trying to decide which of two substantial chances of killing someone you'd rather take. I don't think that means we can't choose; in general, "not choosing" means "taking the path where we don't do anything", and that's often *more* dangerous.
As to other cases... In other cases, I think abortion is probably wrong, but I recognize that people often disagree with me on moral issues, and I am not comfortable asserting any authority over them in this issue.
My point was that not only are we not qualified to make the judgement calls that most of the time they are not ours to make. Instead I think we sin by making them instead of letting God be in control.
God speaks through people, not governments; the only way I see to put God in control is to leave the question up to individual conscience, which is the one level at which He interacts with us regularly.
I do not think you have to be all or none like you are saying. A ban would be for most cases. It would not include the very rare cases. I think that is certain.
I don't; I've seen people say that terminating an ectopic pregnancy is every bit as bad as terminating a healthy pregnancy with some chance of survival. I've seen them say this to the faces of women whose only other option was to die a truly horrifying death - resulting in the death of the fetus, too, and this when the fetus is perhaps almost as big as a pencil eraser.
Okay this scares me because if an infant is not a person then we are not required to give them the rights of a person. Scary.
Gradual acquisition of rights is nothing new.
Consider the progression of my legal rights:
Birth: "No one has the right to kill me".
Age 5 or so: Legal right to "own property", but only through inheritance, and it must be administered for me.
Age 14: Marriage, but only with parental consent.
Age 15: Driving, but only with a guardian near me.
Age 16: Driving, marriage without parental consent. Leave school with parental consent.
Age 18: Have sex with an adult other than my spouse (if I happen to have gotten married earlier). Vote. Go to war. Own a gun. Own property normally. Nominally a "full adult".
Age 21: Drink alcohol.
Age 35: Become president.
(I believe we still have that last law.)
So... I don't have any problem with someone saying that "personhood comes with the ability to speak in sentences", but that it shall be unlawful to kill a human which is not a person.
Basically, I don't see that "personhood" needs to be the same as "right to life". I personally suspect that your presumptive right to life starts at conception, but that personhood comes much later; the right to life before that is not *yours*, because you don't exist yet, but rather, is a recognition that we *wish* people to come into being. We *like* people.
But see I can ask you why not since the baby is not a person. But anyways I am happy you are against them.
See above; I think "potential person" may have some weight. Personally, I have no problem at all with birth control, and only a very small problem with day-after pills in cases where someone made a reasonable effort to avoid pregnancy... I'm not sure why I draw the line there; that's just how I feel. By three months or so, I'm starting to think that the fetus is enough like "people" that the window of opportunity to kill it for convenience is *definitely* past.
I think you are assuming more than what the Bible tells us. The Bible tells us that God knew us while we were in the womb. not foreknowledge but he knew us because we were us in the womb.
Well, it doesn't really *say*. It just says "before I formed you in the womb"; we don't know how *much* before. I'm assuming that omniscience implies a fair amount of look-ahead. I do not personally believe that, in the womb, we are aware enough to interact with or perceive Him.
You are right at least I can't find a specific verse that says directly what you said above. However many verses speak about God knowing us in the womb or that God knit us together in the womb. So I see the Bible being pretty clear about it and there being very little guess work.
I see a lot of range there, partially because it's not very specific about *when* in the womb, and there's a lot of time there.
What else do you have? This is rather flimsy evidence for the Bible supporting a pro Choice position. I believe you are really stretching it with this evidence.
I think it's enough to show that the idea of "gradual personhood" is present. In other words, at conception, you are not yet as "valuable" as you will be later; this suggests that *something* changes that matters.
I do not think you meant to say this but it sounds like you think inconvience is a reason for abortion. I can understand being pregnant is hard but to kill a child becausse of it? I can't understand that at all.
Well, keep in mind, I am not convinced that a 3-day-old fetus is a "child" yet. In my mind, "child" implies "older than infant".
That said... "inconvenience" is a relative term. Texas Lynn gave a great example; if your parents have made it clear they would disown you and possibly beat you senseless if you got pregnant, that might be seen as a bit beyond "inconvenient".
First I agree with part of what you said. When things are uncertain we can leave it up to an individual but I do not see this as an unceratin topic. However I do not see how us letting others decide leaves all moral culpability on an indivdual basis. If abortion is wrong then I play a part in it all if I allow the mother to choose.
Well, where do we draw the line on that? I think lying is wrong; should we ban lying? How would we enforce it? What we've done, instead, is define "fraud", and say "when you're damaged by a lie, you are entitled to compensation". The reason this is a tough case is that it's not clear who has been harmed in an abortion, so who would be entitled to the compensation? No legal person...
Basically, I'd rather be responsible for allowing someone to make an informed moral choice, than for making it *hard* to make an adequately informed moral choice. Part of this is simply because, empirically, many women will do unsafe things to try to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy... This is much harder for society to cope with, and is a problem for my sense that I should be compassionate towards people, even when I think they're wrong.
