Pro-Life

Guttermouth · Dec 13, 2007

chaz345 said:
Ok provide examples of medical conditions where the mother can survive delivering all but the last few inches of the baby's head?

I'm not saying that they don't exist, but I've never heard of any.

How about a fetus with an undeveloped brain and a macrocephalic head?

But why do yo need me to provide that example? Why can't a doctor decide if such a procedure is warranted? If a fetus in inviable, and this is the best way to terminate, why is it an issue?

I repeat, I am not talking about using this technique on a viable fetus.

Asimov · Dec 13, 2007

GeoMetro said:
I have 0.

So you have no kids, yet you claim to support potential lives being able to have the opportunity to do good works.

So why aren't you taking care of these potential lives, nurturing them and allowing them to do good works?

GeoMetro · Dec 14, 2007

"potential lives"

After the sperm fertilizes the egg, it is life.

Guttermouth · Dec 14, 2007

GeoMetro said:
"potential lives"

After the sperm fertilizes the egg, it is life.

Eggs and sperm are both living human tissue.

The only thing keeping them from being people is humans failing to properly make the introduction.

GeoMetro · Dec 14, 2007

What is your point?

jayem · Dec 14, 2007

I have no problem with the states restricting abortion after a fetus is naturally viable, i.e., 24 weeks. There still has to be an exception for maternal health reasons. Any decent law has to be flexible enough to allow for bona fide medical judgement. Medical situations are hardly ever clear-cut, black and white.

What troubles me is that criminalization seems to be the only legislative approach pro-lifers take. There are other ways to reduce abortion. ALL means of birth control, not only abstinence, should be promoted. Oral contraceptives should be OTC, as they are in many other countries. Europe is a good example. Most all Western European countries have 1/3 to 1/2 the abortion rate in the US, without having restrictive laws. If they can do it, why can't we?

chaz345 · Dec 14, 2007

jayem said:
ALL means of birth control, not only abstinence, should be promoted.

I essentially agree.
I just think that abstinence needs to be portrayed, very strongly, as the best choice, because it is for a whole variety of physical and emotional health reasons. Teaching that, and the effective use of birth control can certainly be done at the same time can't it? The problem is that abstinence is portrayed as a nice ideal that's almost impossible to actually live up to. Kids (and everyone) have an incredible ability to live up(or down) to the expectations that the perceive as being placed on them. If abstinence were taught with more of an expectation that that is what they would do, more would.

poohgirl · Dec 14, 2007

KomissarSteve said:
Not to mention the two thirds of pregnancies that spontaneously abort within the first couple weeks after fertilization.

We need to start prosecuting uteruses!!!!!!1

People die naturally everyday as well. These examples both happen on their own, but abortion is about someone making an outright choice to terminate a life. Big difference.

Asimov · Dec 14, 2007

GeoMetro said:
"potential lives"

After the sperm fertilizes the egg, it is life.

Red herring, both are living before they come into union.

The point is, why are you not adopting as many children as you can, if you care so much about them?

Asimov · Dec 14, 2007

poohgirl said:
People die naturally everyday as well. These examples both happen on their own, but abortion is about someone making an outright choice to terminate a life. Big difference.

It's a difference yes, but that's not the issue. The issue is "is it wrong to terminate a pregnancy?"

GeoMetro · Dec 14, 2007

"Red herring, both are living before they come into union."

Living, but not yet a human life.

"The point is, why are you not adopting as many children as you can, if you care so much about them?"

I may adopt one day.

chaz345 · Dec 14, 2007

Asimov said:
It's a difference yes, but that's not the issue. The issue is "is it wrong to terminate a pregnancy?"

That depends on what you define a pregnancy to be. And that definition is very difficult because as the pregnancy progresses the answer changes.

At the instant of conception you have, by all scientific definitions, life. The question is when does it become human or more precisely when does it become a person with legal rights.

The answer right now is "it depends on who you ask". In many states a person murdering a woman who they know to be pregnant can be charged with two deaths, but at the same time the woman can decide to end the life within her and there's no problem. So depending on who is doing the killing the fetus is either a person with legal protections or merely an inconvienent lump of tissue. Sorry but IMO, no human has the knowledge,wisdom or right to decide the humanity of another living being.

Asimov · Dec 14, 2007

GeoMetro said:
Living, but not yet a human life.

Of course they are. They contain human DNA, as do human livers and human brains, and human muscles. To deny that human reproductive cells are human is a little odd.

"The point is, why are you not adopting as many children as you can, if you care so much about them?"

I may adopt one day.

You MAY? Don't you care about all those unwanted children put up for adoption? You should be the crazy kid person who has a million of em running around the house!

Asimov · Dec 14, 2007

chaz345 said:
At the instant of conception you have, by all scientific definitions, life. The question is when does it become human or more precisely when does it become a person with legal rights.

That question has already been legally answered. A human person is born. A human fetus is not born, therefore it is not a person.

The answer right now is "it depends on who you ask". In many states a person murdering a woman who they know to be pregnant can be charged with two deaths, but at the same time the woman can decide to end the life within her and there's no problem.

That's not because the fetus has rights, it's because the state has determined that only the mother has the right to determine what happens to her body.

Sorry but IMO, no human has the knowledge,wisdom or right to decide the humanity of another living being.

Exactly, that's why foxes should be considered human.

GeoMetro · Dec 14, 2007

chaz345 said:
At the instant of conception you have, by all scientific definitions, life. The question is when does it become human or more precisely when does it become a person with legal rights.

The answer right now is "it depends on who you ask". In many states a person murdering a woman who they know to be pregnant can be charged with two deaths, but at the same time the woman can decide to end the life within her and there's no problem. So depending on who is doing the killing the fetus is either a person with legal protections or merely an inconvienent lump of tissue. Sorry but IMO, no human has the knowledge,wisdom or right to decide the humanity of another living being.

This.

chaz345 · Dec 14, 2007

Asimov said:
That's not because the fetus has rights, it's because the state has determined that only the mother has the right to determine what happens to her body.

In order to have a murder you have to have an entity that is legally considered a person be killed. Hence the fetus, in that case, is legally a person.

Asimov · Dec 14, 2007

chaz345 said:
In order to have a murder you have to have an entity that is legally considered a person be killed. Hence the fetus, in that case, is legally a person.

Then you need to read up on your law.

jayem · Dec 14, 2007

chaz345 said:
Sorry but IMO, no human has the knowledge,wisdom or right to decide the humanity of another living being.

Even if we would grant that, all humans don't have an unqualified right to life. I could justifiably take the life of someone trying to kill me. We allow killing in war, and executing criminals convicted of capital offenses. No one's right to life is absolute.

"Personhood" has a legal as well as a philosophic meaning. We can disagree forever about philosophy, but legal determinations have to be made for very practical reasons. And ultimately, legal distinctions are arbitrary, and decided by societal consensus. I've posted before that we shouldn't be afraid to do this. Our laws make arbitrary distinctions all the time. For example-- "adulthood" begins at age 21. Why not 19, or 20? We must certainly be careful HOW we define personhood for legal purposes, but we shouldn't be so fearful that we don't do it at all.

chaz345 · Dec 14, 2007

Asimov said:
Then you need to read up on your law.

I'm not understanding how you have have a murder if you don't have a person as the victim. Can you explain that please?

chaz345 · Dec 14, 2007

jayem said:
Even if we would grant that, all humans don't have an unqualified right to life. I could justifiably take the life of someone trying to kill me. We allow killing in war, and executing criminals convicted of capital offenses. No one's right to life is absolute.

"Personhood" has a legal as well as a philosophic meaning. We can disagree forever about philosophy, but legal determinations have to be made for very practical reasons. And ultimately, legal distinctions are arbitrary, and decided by societal consensus. I've posted before that we shouldn't be afraid to do this. Our laws make arbitrary distinctions all the time. For example-- "adulthood" begins at age 21. Why not 19, or 20? We must certainly be careful HOW we define personhood for legal purposes, but we shouldn't be so fearful that we don't do it at all.

I don't really disagree with much of that. But shouldn't the definition of personhood remain constant no matter the circumstances? Like I said, if someone murders a woman whom they know to be pregnant two people die and two murders are charged(in some states), but if the mother kills the fetus, no person has died. Seems to me that we can find a somewhat more objective definition than that, can't we?

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