Questions for Certain Pro-Choicers

Donut Hole said:

I addressed all this in earlier posts in this thread. I suggest you go back and read them if you have not already done so.

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Yeah, and i responded to your posts in post 39 which apparently you did not read. For that reason I readdressed my concerns.

ptgd1st said:

Yeah, and i responded to your posts in post 39 which apparently you did not read. For that reason I readdressed my concerns.

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Oh, ok. Well, my answer is that I do not value biological human life. Nor do I think you do. My hair is biologically human life, but I have no compunction in cutting it. Instead, I value human-level consciousness.

no, your hair is a component of a biologically human life. But you answered my question. The reason you believe what you do is becasue you do not value a human life with no self awareness.

The problem with this is that all human life at all different stages has value. Just ask Schiavo's parents. If her life had no value then why would they have made such a big deal about her being put to death. Consciousness as defined by you and its subsequent devaluing of human life is obviously not a constant. So on that note, how can we as a society err on the side of murder when there is so much disidence. Would you agree that the majority of humans value life? Abortion is contradictory to this statement. If someone had a gun to your head, you wouldnt just sit there and say go ahead, its your choice?

ptgd1st said:

The problem with this is that all human life at all different stages has value. Just ask Schiavo's parents. If her life had no value then why would they have made such a big deal about her being put to death.

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For the same reason I fought my sister when she took away my Barbie Doll.
I valued it, it didn't have inherent value of it's own.

ptgd1st said:

no, your hair is a component of a biologically human life.

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Hair is both biologically human and alive. What are you adding to make "a" human life; a "person"? If some"one" were born without any sort of central nervous system - just a body and a bunch of organs, but no nerves and no brain, would that be like human hair or like a person?

Would you agree that the majority of humans value life?

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Not in the sense of biological life. Otherwise they wouldn't get haircuts and step on ants. And a great many of them wouldn't have supported allowing Terri Schiavo to die.

Abortion is contradictory to this statement. If someone had a gun to your head, you wouldnt just sit there and say go ahead, its your choice?

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No, because in that case there is a conscious person who is being killed.

Some people have said that abortion is right in some cases, like rape, etc, etc. On a practical level, this would be virtually impossible because so many mothers who want an abortion done legally will claim they were raped or were victims of sexual abuse, and it would be very hard to prove they weren't.

Just an idea.

Romany

Romany said:

On a practical level, this would be virtually impossible because so many mothers who want an abortion done legally will claim they were raped or were victims of sexual abuse, and it would be very hard to prove they weren't.

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I agree. Which is why motive shouldn't enter into the legislation. If the person wants or needs an abortion, they should have the procedure available to them.

Romany said:

Some people have said that abortion is right in some cases, like rape, etc, etc. On a practical level, this would be virtually impossible because so many mothers who want an abortion done legally will claim they were raped or were victims of sexual abuse, and it would be very hard to prove they weren't.

Just an idea.

Romany

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It would inevitable happen because it already happened in a previous era when the laws were different than they presently are in the U.S.

Marek said:

I understand those who feel that abortion should be morally acceptable in all cases and those who feel that it should be unacceptable in all cases, but it is the people that lie somewhere in between that confuse me. I have a few questions for them so that I can further understand their views.

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Those who feel abortion should only be legal before a certain point in the pregnancy, but illegal afterwards (example: legal in 1st trimester, illegal in 2nd and 3rd trimester):
What are your reasons for this division?
Why should a 6 month old fetus have more value than a 2 month old fetus? (and don't just say because a 6 month old fetus has brainwaves or a human form, etc. Please explain why these features make the life of the fetus more valuable)

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As one of those people, I feel obliged to answer...

Ultimately, it comes down to what makes a being a person. If I were to chop the head off a human, destroy the head, but still be able to keep the body fully alive through modern science, do we still have a "person?" If so, does that "person" have all the rights you or might have, despite absolutely no brain whatsoever? I kinda don't think so. What you have is part of person, or even the potential for being a person if the head could somehow be re-attached. But you don't have a person.

Similarly, the single cell, fertilized egg fails to resemble anything we would consider a "person," except for having a unique human DNA. But DNA alone cannot reasonably determine the existence of a "person." (Remember the headless body?) I'm not going to pretend I have the answer to the point at which a developing fetus attains person-hood, but I know it is not at the stage of a single cell, or 8 cells, or even 128 cells. It is somewhere more developed than that. Even at 3 around months development, the cerebral cortex isn't there yet. You basically have a brain stem at best.

As such, a safe "morning after pill" that prevents a fertilized egg from omplanting into the wall of the uterus is perfectly ok to me.

As the fetus develops, I become more uncomfortable with termination, especially late in the pregnancy *(which is extremely rare, by the way - the overwhelming majority of abortions are in the first 3 months). I become more uncomfortable because the fetus is developing into a person. Again, I don't have any bright lines for you as I don't think they exist on this. But I'm not going to adopt an artificial bright line just because it's easy. This issue is too difficult and important for that.

As such, I remain pro-choice, but would love for there to never be a desire to have another abortion in the world. But I am too pragmatic for that. Terminating a very early pregnancy when one is really not prepared to have a child is acceptable to me. Not as a form of birth-control, but as a reasonable response to a difficult circumstance. I don't think 14 year olds should be having sex, but I also don't think they should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term, either.

I would prefer abortions to be safe, legal, accessable, and extremely rare, if done at all.