It should be Murder?

SteveB28 said:

Learn to live with being wrong.

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And the Freudian Slip of the Year, goes to: SteveB28!

You have been saying that in spite of whether something turns out to be right or wrong, the consensus is "right" regardless...i.e. learn to live with being wrong. (RIGHT!)

I have been saying that, in spite of what the consensus is, "right" is right, and people are often wrong. ... Which does mean that your advice of learning to live with being wrong, fits...but not because I will, but because people definitely are often wrong...but NEVER, I will never learn to live with being wrong (with the consensus)...never!

SteveB28 said:

Wrong again. You may think this, but it is an opinion unsupported in law and in common acceptance.

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so what do you think a human fetus is then a young kitten ?

jenny1972 said:

so what do you think a human fetus is then a young kitten ?

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A human fetus is a potential human person.

JackRT said:

A human fetus is a potential human person.

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yes a human fetus has the potential to be classified as a person but of course they are already classified as people by those who consider all human beings as people . so some do and some do not classify a young human as a person .

jenny1972 said:

yes a human fetus has the potential to be classified as a person but of course they are already classified as people by those who consider all human beings as people . so some do and some do not classify a young human as a person .

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It is obvious that both the female egg and the male sperm have a form of life but no one would call either a person. When they unite to form a zygote it certainly is alive. There is a potential person there and a great many people would claim that it actually is a person. Let us grant for a moment that the zygote is a person and let us call that person Mary. I choose a female name since all embryos are female until about the sixth or seventh week.

Now, we all know that a zygote develops into an embryo through the process of cell division. Every now and again the first cell division does not produce a two celled embryo but rather a second zygote --- identical twins. Did Mary suddenly become two persons? Was Mary two persons to begin with? Was Mary even a person to begin with? Let us set those questions aside for the moment and grant that the second zygote is also a person whom we shall call Margaret. It is entirely possible that one or both of these zygotes could divide again to result in triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets etc. The same question applies as to whether one person can became two, three or more persons. When does a person become a person?

These questions might be difficult enough but now it becomes even more complex. Sometimes two eggs are fertilized to form non-identical twins. Once again, let us call them Mary and Margaret. Rarely the two zygotes merge together again to form a two celled embryo. This is called a chimera. Who is this new embryo? Is it Mary or is it Margaret? This new embryo, this chimera, let us call it Mary, develops to term and is born. There is now no question at all that Mary is indeed a person. But here is the odd thing, some of the organs of Mary carry her genes but other organs carry the genes of her twin sister Margaret. So Margaret continues to exist within Mary or perhaps it is Mary within Margaret. Do we have two persons within a single body?

These very serious questions of person-hood arise only if we assume that the soul is infused at conception and that the brand new zygote is fully a person. Is there a more reasonable understanding? I believe there is. Personally I believe that the developing fetus becomes a person only when it is able to survive outside the womb. Sentience occurs at about the same point in the pregnancy very late in the second trimester. For this reason I am against abortion beyond the twentieth week except in very rare extreme circumstances.. Otherwise I believe that abortion should be legal, it should be safe, it should be available and it should be the woman’s informed choice but most important of all --- it should be rare. In conclusion, we should always keep in mind that there is no more powerful abortifacient in the world than poverty.

SteveB28 said:

And you are a member of the minority that thinks this way.

Good for you. Most people don't. Most people never have. This is why there has always been strong public support for the right of a woman to make the requisite decisions about her reproduction.

And you don't like this. We understand. You want to be able to tell all women what they should and should not do.

It isn't going to happen. As I said to Scott, learn to live with the fact that you are on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of this issue.

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"The law does not provide that the act of abortion pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation..."--St Augustine

"The intellective soul i.e., true person is created by God at the completion of man's coming into being." -- St Thomas Aquinas

"Many modern philosophers and theologians return to St. Thomas' view."--Fr Joseph F. Donceel, S.J.

"To admit that the human fetus receives the intellectual soul from the moment of its conception, when matter is in no way ready for it, sounds to me like a philosophical absurdity. It is as absurd as to call a fertilized ovum a baby." --Jacques Maritain

"In the rabbinic tradition...abortion remains a non-capital crime at worst."--Rabbi David Feldman

The Scriptures are silent in defining when one becomes a person.

SteveB28 said:

I see many here who would wish to deny a woman the right to terminate a pregnancy, by declaring that it would be an act of murder.

And yet I also see those same people running away from this question:

How would such a law be enforced?

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You realize that abortion actually was illegal up to 1972, and that law enforcement and courts did deal with it.

So all you actually have to do is read a bit of history.

SteveB28 said:

And you are a member of the minority that thinks this way.

Good for you. Most people don't. Most people never have. This is why there has always been strong public support for the right of a woman to make the requisite decisions about her reproduction.

And you don't like this. We understand. You want to be able to tell all women what they should and should not do.

It isn't going to happen. As I said to Scott, learn to live with the fact that you are on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of this issue.

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history typical does not look back kindly on those who dehumanize and kill others and there are as many people who are pro-life as there are who are pro-choice in the US http://www.gallup.com/poll/170249/split-abortion-pro-choice-pro-life.aspx

SteveB28 said:

I see many here who would wish to deny a woman the right to terminate a pregnancy, by declaring that it would be an act of murder.

And yet I also see those same people running away from this question:

How would such a law be enforced?

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1. It is murder, by any logical standard.
2. How or whether to punish it is an entirely separate matter.

SteveB28 said:

You mention 'history' then fail to observe the history evident in your own graphs! Whilst it has been closer in the last five years, HISTORY would show that the public has always clearly supported the right of a woman to make her own decisions about her reproduction.

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Not entirely true, but you are referring to earlier centuries in which people didn't know that the unborn child was anything but a clump of flesh, completely incapable feeling, etc., like a tumor. WE NOW KNOW BETTER, just as we no longer allow workers to paint radium on watch faces with brushes moistened by their own lips.

SteveB28 said:

1. In your mind only. The courts and public opinion disagree with your 'logic'.

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You are speaking here only of what the status of the act is in law. The question, however, was whether or not it should be considered murder.

2. Unless a crime has been committed, discussion of punishment becomes irrelevant.

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That's irrelevant to the point #2 as I made it.