Stopping abortion

livingproofGM said:

What they should do is carry the baby to full term and then put them up for adoption.

Click to expand...

And then for some reason they don't. Maybe they face pressure from their families; maybe the adoption process is excessively laborious.

I see no justification to take away a legitimate option based on what we think they should do.

Sycophant said:

No, most zygotes never become embryos.

Click to expand...

If it is of natural cause, it's not an abortion. Am I incorrect in saying that at an early stage such as that, we have no control?

TeddyKGB said:

And then for some reason they don't. Maybe they face pressure from their families; maybe the adoption process is excessively laborious.

I see no justification to take away a legitimate option based on what we think they should do.

Click to expand...

Economical problems give us no right to kill the child.

livingproofGM said:

If it is of natural cause, it's not an abortion.

Click to expand...

Sure it is, just not of the deliberate variety.

Am I incorrect in saying that at an early stage such as that, we have no control?

Click to expand...

No. It might be the case that a woman who is a few days pregnant goes to a party and gets drunk, poisoning the zygote/blastocyst in the process.

In any case, this all goes to contravene your claim that a zygote is fully human. Else, God does not seem to think all that much of the recently conceived after all.

livingproofGM said:

Economical problems give us no right to kill the child.

Click to expand...

Non sequitur: I did not attempt to derive the right to abort from economics.

Wow. I have written a post which almost accuses anti-abortion folks of being indifferent to the quality of life of born children, and as yet received no response to it. Should I assume that this lack of response means that it's true?

Since I'd rather not make such an assumption I'll ask the question again: anti-abortion folks, what are you doing, as individuals, in the here and now, to make childrens' lives better?

Or does your position apply only from conception until birth?

livingproofGM said:

If it is of natural cause, it's not an abortion. Am I incorrect in saying that at an early stage such as that, we have no control?

Click to expand...

Well yes and no. We have control of it - we can stop allow zygotes to 'die' by not fertilising the oocyte.

By having sex and allowing the fertilisation, we are creating zygotes which most likely will fail to implant and be 'killed'. To have one sucessful implantation could represent the 'death' of many zygotes.

No. It might be the case that a woman who is a few days pregnant goes to a party and gets drunk, poisoning the zygote/blastocyst in the process.

Click to expand...

I was gonna add that...I meant that there is no way to perform a clinical abortion that early.

In any case, this all goes to contravene your claim that a zygote is fully human. Else, God does not seem to think all that much of the recently conceived after all.

Click to expand...

Just because a child does not form doesn't mean that God doesn't care about children...If a child does not form, that's the natural process. A miscarriage is not an abortion, not an intentional killing.

TeddyKGB said:

Does God agree? One of the more oft-cited studies suggested that up to 78% of all conceptions - humans all by your standard - will spontaneously abort (even the most conservative numbers are still around 40%).

How do you reconcile those two positions?

Click to expand...

Prove it.
It's all a guess. Those kinds of numbers are speculation becasue they assume a greater number of pregnancies fail before the first two weeks are up than in the rest of the first tri. The problem is that it's an assumption because very few women take a pregnacy test after every sexual encounter. The most conservative numbers are far less than 40% and even if it was 78% that doesn't justify the killing of the child. There are the pregancies we can control and the ones we can't.

DieHappy said:

Prove it.
It's all a guess. Those kinds of numbers are speculation becasue they assume a greater number of pregnancies fail before the first two weeks are up than in the rest of the first tri. The problem is that it's an assumption because very few women take a pregnacy test after every sexual encounter. The most conservative numbers are far less than 40% and even if it was 78% that doesn't justify the killing of the child. There are the pregancies we can control and the ones we can't.

Click to expand...

The studies are what they are. If you have a problem with the numbers, take it up with the authors.

If you can show me where I have used spontaneous abortion rates to directly justify abortion, I will retract. What you will find instead is that I have used spontaneous abortion rates to show that the Christian position on conception is vacuous.

livingproofGM said:

TeddyKGB said:

Does God agree? One of the more oft-cited studies suggested that up to 78% of all conceptions - humans all by your standard - will spontaneously abort (even the most conservative numbers are still around 40%).

How do you reconcile those two positions?

Click to expand...

Do you mean that the woman will miscarry?

Click to expand...

No, that is NOT what Teddy means. To miscarry means that a pregnancy has been established. However, most conceptions/early zygotes don't manage to establish a pregnancy and are simply washed away with the other menstruation detritus (conservative estimate is that +65% of conceptions FAIL to every result in a live birth). IOW, just because a woman has conceived, i.e., a egg is fertilized (in the Fallopian tube), starts dividing (now a zygote), doesn't mean that she is pregnant.

• That zygote still has to migrate from the Fallopian tube to the uterus and implant itself in the uterine lining (provided there is one).
• The fact is that most zygotes don't manage this instead end up on a sanitary napkin/tampon or swirling down the toilet upon urination during the woman's period.
• She may have conceived, but never actually gotten pregnant (that zygote failed to establish a pregnancy or the uterus wasn't ready...any number of reasons
  for failure).

Does life really begin at conception? Is there any kind of scientific basis for that assertion? Why your notion of fertilized egg = human being is bogus.....

WHAT BIOLOGISTS MEAN WHEN THEY DEFINE "LIFE"...

Actually the egg and sperm are "alive", as is every functioning cell in the body of the woman in whom a conception may occur. All cells are BIOLOGICALLY alive in that they meet the 7 criteria biologists associate with life:

1. presence of carbon-All living things contain carbon. With few exceptions, carbon is found exclusively in association with living things.
2. organization & complexity-All living things exhibit remarkable organization in their body plans and when compared to non-living things are extremely complex.
3. metabolism-All living things absorb, convert, store, use and release energy in a variety of complex chemical reactions.
4. homeostasis-Living organisms regulate metabolic processes to maintain a "steady state".
5. response to stimuli-Living things respond to a variety of stimuli (Ex. temperature, moisture, concentration of chemicals, light, scent, etc.)
6. growth-An organism continues to increase in size (even bacteria do this) til maturity is reached.
7. reproduction-Living organisms produce generations of like organisms.

This is what scientists mean when they say something is "alive", so

• Is the sperm and egg alive? Yes, so the contention that "life begins at conception" is falsified, because "life", i.e., biological "life" begins earlier. This implies that antichoicers must mean something "more" than biological "life"
• Is a fertilized egg "alive"?===>Yes
• Is a zygote(3-7 day old pre-implantation) "alive"?===>Yes
• Is an embryo (before 8 wks., post-implantation) "alive"?===>Yes
• Is a fetus[older than 8 wks] "alive"?===>Yes

The real question is not is a conception/zygote/embryo/fetus "alive" and "human'", but when is it a human being. or a "person".

When I consider a fetus to be a person can be found HERE

Here are some portraits of your "baby", livingprooGM: (~~Drum roll!~~)
1. THE FERTILIZED EGG!

Male and female genetic material (DNA) is contained in the 2 pronuclei seen in the center (two smaller circles in the center). The 2 pronuclei will fuse into one and cell division will begin. The cells do no remain the same size, but get smaller and smaller. The irony here is that just before implantation in the endometrium, the blastocyst will contain many more cells, but NOT be any bigger than the fertilized egg, which is smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.

2. A day-3 human embryo at the 8-cell stage.

After this point the cells are can no longer result in separate, but identical individuals.

3. Here is where you get stem cells (another anti-choicer "baby" portrait):

KEY:
1.The "ICM" (inner cell mass) are the source of stem cells. The ICM develops into an embryo IF blastocyst or zygote implants. In 8 weeks, post-implantation, the embryo is known as a fetus.
2. The blastocoel cavity in the center is marked as "C"
3. The trophectoderm cells that will form the placenta surround the cavity - one is marked with a "T"
4. The blastocyst (stage of the zygote) is smaller that the dot of this "i".' (stage that usually implants in the uterine lining)

Also realize that the vast majority of conceptions (~65%) DO NOT result in a successful pregnancy. (NOTE: A pregnancy is defined as the successful implantation of a zygote in the endometrium or uterine lining---it takes 3 to 7 days after fertilization for the dividing egg to reach the uterus). They are simply washed out as part of the endometrial detritus when a woman has her period (many women have conceived, but the zygote never manages to establish itself in the endometrium).

If the zygote manages to establish itself, the lucky resident (the embryo) is still not out of the woods because 30-40% of these 1st trimester pregnancies are spontaneously ABORTED (70% show gross chromosomal abnormalities incompatible with life). The bottom-line is that +65% of all conceptions fail (a conception does not a successful pregnancy make!)


Anti-choicers are always saying that "life" begins at conception??? What do they really mean by that? Most of them are theists, who really mean God implants a "soul", but most will hesitate to admit that this is what they mean. They know good and well there is no evidence for a soul nor can they prove when such an "endowment" takes place (provided one could prove that such a thing as a soul exists).

Christians just get hoist on their own petard with the soul argument. A soul is important to Christians because that is the medium through which they claim to experience eternal life. It is supposed to be our "badge" of superiority over the rest of creation. This notion that it's okay to kill, eat, and experiment on animals is supposed to be because they don't have souls. What is really funny here is that many other religions believe that not only do animals have souls, but so do "inanimate" objects like rocks, fire, or trees. Without some kind of empirical evidence, how does one decide which if, any religious viewpoint, is correct?

The question of just when a fetus gets this all-important soul arises. What many anti-choicers are ignorant of is that according to the early Church fathers, life did NOT "begin at conception". Aquinas and Augustine, following Aristotle's lead, declared that a male embryo acquired a soul at 40 days and the female embryo did so at 90 days. The "ensoulment" argument leads to one big philosophical problem, namely the logical impossibility of precisely defining the "ensoulment line" (the "bald-hairy" distinction problem). For instance, how can one PRECISELY draw a line between day and night? The "hairy-bald" problem with the fetus, is how could one draw the line as to when the fetus gets a soul (not to mention the FACT that there is no evidence that such a thing as a soul exists)? Such a determination is impossible because the fetus is continually growing.

Anti-choicers often quote Psalm 139:"Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb. Remember that conception takes place in the Fallopian tube and the zygote takes up to 7 days to reach the uterus. There is NO justification for claiming that ensoulment occurs at conception (where does it say so?). If one is aware of early Christain history, there is no theological basis for making such a declaration (remember Aquinas and Augustines' definition). There is also no reason to ban birth control devices that interfere with ovulation AND implantation of the zygote (trophoblastic stage). This is especially true when one considers that God seems to considers 65% of these 7 day old "humans" to be expendable at some point before the end of the first trimester (either don't implant in the lining or are spontaneously aborted) You also have an additional problem in that the Bible actually doesn't address the issue of abortion and if I wanted to use the Bible to support it, I can play what I call the Bible Justification Game, too.

Why abortion is Biblical

If God really endows each and every conception (fertilized egg) with a soul (what theists REALLY mean when they say the conceptus is "alive" and a "person", not merely biologically alive), that makes GOD AN ABORTIONIST, and the biggest mass murderer of all time. (If one believes that personhood begins at fertilization)....

If you want to go with the "life begins at conception" route, then realize that this comes as big news to most eminent biologists and embryologists such as Dr. Charles Gardner (research at the University of Michigan Medical School's Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology):

The 'biological' argument that a human being is created at conception...comes as a surprise to most embryologists...for it contradicts all that we have learned in the past decades.

In humans when two sibling fertilized embryos combine into one (as sometimes happens) the resultant person may be completely normal. It the two original {fertalized} embryos were determined to become particular individuals, such a thing could not happen. The embryos would recognize themselves to be different...and would not unite. But here the cells seem unaware of any distinction between themselves...The only explanation is that the indivdual is not fixed or determined at this stage (fertilization).

The fertilized egg is not a prepackaged human being...Our genes give us the propensity for certain characteristics, but it is the ennactment of the complex process of development that gives us our individual characteristics. So how can an embryo be a human being?.... The information required to make an eye or a finger does not exist in the fertilized egg. It exists in the positions and interactions of cells and molecules that will be formed at a later time

Fertilization, the injection of sperm DNA into the egg, is just one of the many small steps toward full human potential. It seems arbitrary to invest this particular event with any special moral significance...It would be a great tragedy if, in ignorance that the embryo, state legislatures pass laws restricting individual freedom of choice and press them on the people. The embryo is not a child. It is not a baby. It is not yet a human being

Click to expand...

Robert Francoeur,a Catholic embryologist trained also in Roman Catholic theology, has observed:

Those who claim a person is present at fertilization and thus denounce all abortion as murder. If every human egg is immediately a 'fetus', 'baby' and 'person' then God and nature play a big trick on us, Scientists estimate that in the five-six days following union and sperm, between 1/3 and 1/2 of all 'persons' spontaneously degenerate and are reabsorbed or expelled. In the second week, 42% of the implanted 'persons' abort. Thus out of every 1000 'persons' conceived, only 120-160 survive to be reborn! How do the anti-abortionists and theologians who denouce abortion as murder account for the prodigious waste of human life on the divine plan?

Moreover if the 'right to lifers insist on their idea of personhood in a fertalized egg it is unenforceable in law. Legal pronouncements about personhood from the moment of conception could be translated into a Brave New World with pregnancy police to make certain that all fertile women have their monthly pregnancy test, and all pregnancies are monitored to assure the Constitutional, God-given inalienable right of every fertalized egg to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

Click to expand...

The National Academy of Sciences has stated:

The proposal that the term 'person' shall include 'all human life' has no basis within out scientific understanding. Defining the time at which the developing embryo becomes a person must remain a moral or religoius value

Click to expand...

The point is that "fertilized egg = human being" is a very flawed argument.

• As of now, I haven't seen any fertilized eggs functioning as CEOs of companies, driving Junior to band practice, watching television, or even taking a breath.
• The fact is that we don't celebrate "conception day", we celebrate the BIRTHday.
  • This is a good thing too when you consider that the vast majority of conceptions (+65%) never result in a birth.
• Obviously to both God (is there really any supernatural entity involved at all?) and nature(the only obvious thing is that natural processes are at work), these conceptions (human beings?) are highly expendable commodities.....
  

Yes, it does. If it's legal, it's NOT murder. That's what the word means. The state executing someone isn't murder; killing in war isn't murder; aborting a fetus isn't murder. As morally bad as you might find any or all of these actions, none of them are murder, and calling them such just shows that you are less concerned about honesty in your arguments than in using inflammatory terminology.

Click to expand...

Why is it not murder in your eyes? The law of the government is not the law of God. Many things have been made legal in this world that are not morally correct. The fetus is a person, a human, a life. Just because the law doesn't acknowledge that doesn't give us the right to kill (To put to death. , To deprive of life ) anyone. Once again, there is more than the one definition of murder, which is to kill in a brutal fashion. Nothing about the law. To kill brutally or inhumanly...Just because it's not murder in the eyes of the authority of this country does not make it so.

livingproofGM said:

What they should do is carry the baby to full term and then put them up for adoption.

Click to expand...

Then you've got a real problem because the number of couples wanting to adopt is no where near sufficient (too many babies, too few parents).

This is a post by brighid on another forum which shows just why adoption is no solution...

brighid said:

Adoption versus abortion is one area where we can work with some actual statistics and numbers. Please indulge me, as this is a bit off the top of my head math wise.

Okay, if abortion were suddenly illegal, it is the assertion of some that all or most of those babies that would have been aborted will now be adopted, citing “shortages” of adoptable babies. I do not think this is the case at all if you look at the numbers.

According to the Guttmacher Institute , there are approximately 1.1-1.4 million abortions in the US per year
According the 1988 National Survey on Family Growth, about 2 million women had ever sought to adopt a child. Of these, 1.3 million did not adopt and are no longer seeking. 620,000 have adopted one or more children. 204,000 are currently seeking to adopt.

Adoption.com states that about 500,000 people are currently interested in adopting and half of that take concrete steps toward adoption. This is not per year, this is TOTAL.

So, even if every woman/couple hoping to adopt at the present time, adopted every baby born to a woman who would have had an abortion, there would be approximately 900,000 unadopted babies in the first year alone.
If you take into account the number of those babies that would be undesirable for adoption due to various special needs such as birth defects and illness, you have what, over a million? Who is going to pay to care for them? Where will the additional adoptive parents come from for next year, and the year after, and the year after that?

Click to expand...

Now that's a short-fall in the parents department! A question to anti-choicers: Any recommendations on what to do with all the tens of millions of unadopted infants you plan on enslaving women to produce? Remember a "life" means more than just getting born, there are at least 72-79 years of AFTER the birth bit (education, food, health care, a job, and last but not least LOVE that goes with that 3 score and ten!!)

Do tell us, livingproofGM, what plans do you have for providing for all these babies you are so hellbent on forcing women to have? Now consider this:

As of today, this year, ~9,500,000 people (one person every 2.43 seconds) will have died of starvation, 75% of them under the age of 5. This is one reason that I think abortion should be legal and that the "adoption" argument put forth by anti-choicers is a canard. As long as one LIVING child starves to death, I have absolutely no sympathy for adoptive parents whose only problem really appears to be that they can't find a perfectly formed, white (usually) baby to play the game of "Parenthood" with.

Let's not forget the hundreds of thousands adoptable childen in the US foster care system. What is their "problem"? Most of them are too "old" (older than 2 years) or not "white". Pressing other womens's wombs into service so that some upper-middle class yuppie couple can have their dream-baby is nothing more than slavery, catering to the gross, self-involved selfishness of those who won't play "house" UNLESS they can have the "perfect" little white (usually) baby. The point here is that if we can't care for those already LIVING, it makes no sense to create more of them.

Any ideas here? Most antichoicers I know just don't give a rat's patootie once they've gotten their buzz of forcing a woman to have the baby, indulging in self-righteous snickering and condemnation of her and her little( "sin-fruit", as one referred to such a child in my hearing), messaging their egos with delusion of charity when they donate their worn baby clothes, etc. and just find some excuse to walk away (most are fiscal conservatives who are against any and all programs for supporting people in need).

Now that's a short-fall in the parents department! A question to anti-choicers: Any recommendations on what to do with all the tens of millions of unadopted infants you plan on enslaving women to produce?

Click to expand...

I had nothing to do with their production. Babies are produced all the time. And they are not "enslaved" to a child. How can you be so negative about a human life?

Remember a "life" means more than just getting born, there are at least 72-79 years of AFTER the birth bit (education, food, health care, a job, and last but not least LOVE that goes with that 3 score and ten!!)

Click to expand...

You have no idea what's going to happen! How can you sit here and predict the future for these kids? You think we live in some slummy, under-educated society, when, in reality, there are plenty of people that would love to have children and raise them properly. You're pointing out the obvious that, yes, a a child is a responsibility, but that gives us no excuse to murder.

Do tell us, livingproofGM, what plans do you have for providing for all these babies you are so hellbent on forcing women to have? Now consider this:

Click to expand...

I have no control over the decision of that woman. God will provide for all His children. You cannot use possible poverty as a reason to kill the baby. Nothing justifies murder.

You are agaisnt abortion yet you don't believe in birth control and you are not willing to help out a poor pregnant woman or adopt one of the unwanted children. Supporting education on birth control and financial and emotional support for those who need help is the better choice then wagging your finger with a smirk on your face and saying you will not help. If you are so passionate about abortion then why don't you put your money where you mouth is and help out those who feel they have no other choice? If god provides for all his children then why are there so many homeless and starving people?

livingproofGM said:

God will provide for all His children

Click to expand...

evidence?

livingproofGM said:

You cannot use possible poverty as a reason to kill the baby.

Click to expand...

why not?

livingproofGM said:

Nothing justifies murder.

Click to expand...

except in self defense.

Nothing justifies murder.

Click to expand...

I disagree. If some guy is holding a knife to my wife's throat and I have a gun, I am damn well going to put a slug in his brain. Same goes if he's comming at me with a knife and I have a gun. THAT is justifiable homicide, both legally and morally