Playing Gawd's Advocate On Abortion

[Asimov]

I have the feeling you're hitting your head agin belief masquerading as 'reason'...

 

Really? Do you think I'm being unreasonable or irrational?

[SilentLoner]

Like has been stated before, the term "partial-birth abortion" is pure propaganda. Abortions aren't preformed at such a late stage for no reason. Birth defects and serious threats to the life of the mother need to be involved. To not have an exception for these cases will be its downfall. It may be law now, but trust me it will be overturned sooner or later.

[Grandpa Harley]

Like has been stated before, the term "partial-birth abortion" is pure propaganda. Abortions aren't preformed at such a late stage for no reason. Birth defects and serious threats to the life of the mother need to be involved. To not have an exception for these cases will be its downfall. It may be law now, but trust me it will be overturned sooner or later.

I'd agree... however, one can get late second trimester convenience abortions. With medical science moving on, why should a foetus that, is miscarried could be saved be eligible for an abortion? The Pro-Choice movements in the UK are considering this one... to the degree that they maintain a 24 week cut off is too late. When the Abortion lobby is in favour of a reduction, then there is probably a significant reason...

[Grandpa Harley]

and in the Americas I'd agree that abortions are not done for 'no reason'... money seems to help in the timing... but then, as I said before, the right to bear arms is more important than the right to good medical treatment if one can't afford it.

[Asimov]

Like has been stated before, the term "partial-birth abortion" is pure propaganda. Abortions aren't preformed at such a late stage for no reason. Birth defects and serious threats to the life of the mother need to be involved. To not have an exception for these cases will be its downfall. It may be law now, but trust me it will be overturned sooner or later.

 

Yea, I don't understand the abhorrence of such a practice. Not only does it count for something on the order of .1% of abortions performed, but the complete lack of context surprises me.

 

Why is an action being violent make the action wrong?

[Grandpa Harley]

I have the feeling you're hitting your head agin belief masquerading as 'reason'...

 

Really? Do you think I'm being unreasonable or irrational?

 

Since you won't give an unequivocal view of when a foetus becomes a viable human (with or without medical care) I'd say both... after all you seem to exhibit not even rudimentary medical knowledge yet rattle on about ephemera like 'rights' like they have an extrinsic value... So... what are the selection criteria? when is someone born and when are they 'not' a human? you seem long on questions yet almost impossible to draw on answers... thus I say again, it's a pretence at logic... The emperor is naked since, really, there is only emotion to the stance you choose. State your case, if you have one... I don't see any evidence you do... in fact on this thread you almost fail the Turing test... I've had more meaningful interactions with AIs than I have asking you for reasoning... I'm approaching the conclusion you have none...

[Dhampir]

Consider the fact that--

No. I'm not asking whether or not a baby at 5 or six months can be kept alive. I'm asking whether a developing life is a person, at any given stage, for whom rights could justifiably be considered. Consider that one day we will have machines every bit as alive as any other life form, living entities unto themselves that people will call persons, and rightly so. Would it be murder to terminate the creation of such a life in it's early stages, before it takes on all the necessary characteristics of personhood? Will you be able to consider a zygote in the same way as a 5-6 month old fetus if one day it can be kept alive outside the body? Will you, as I asked before, be able to love or cherish a bunch of basic genetic flotsam in a petri dish? Is it a person? I'm guessing the answer is no to all these questions, and no offense, I'm guessing you might not think that you know that.

 

Perhaps a re-evaluation of life itself is in order. There are some who maintain that their pet cat or dog is a person. Is there a scientific distinction between a lifeform and a person, and if so, what is it?

I'm not currently aware of the exact distinction. As far as the abortion debate is concerned, I think it's safe to say there's no real scientific consensus, either that, or it hasn't been revealed to the public. But to bring that idea up is to grant equal value, not only to 4 day old zygotes and 4 day old infants, but also to 4 year old toddlers and 3 day old fruit flies. Would you object to a 1st trimester pit bull abortion if someone deemed it necessary for other than immediate life threatening danger?

 

Ah, here's a better question: Say you're presented with a zygote, a puppy, a 6 week fetus, and a baby. You are told that you must take at least one life, or all four die. If you terminate the zygote, the puppy or the fetus, you must also kill one other, or all four die. Terminating the zygote or the fetus will be a painless procedure, however killing the baby or the puppy will not be. Additionally, if you decline to do any of these things, you can get out of it by cutting your own penis off with a dull, rusty knife and no anesthesia, however all four will feel the same pain you went through in so doing periodically throughout the remainder of their lives, the fetus and cell-blob of course feeling these things when they become able to, AND the lives of all four become dramatically shortened, proportional to their life expectancies.

 

What will you do?

[Asimov]

I have the feeling you're hitting your head agin belief masquerading as 'reason'...

 

Really? Do you think I'm being unreasonable or irrational?

 

Since you won't give an unequivocal view of when a foetus becomes a viable human (with or without medical care) I'd say both... after all you seem to exhibit not even rudimentary medical knowledge yet rattle on about ephemera like 'rights' like they have an extrinsic value... So... what are the selection criteria? when is someone born and when are they 'not' a human? you seem long on questions yet almost impossible to draw on answers... thus I say again, it's a pretence at logic... The emperor is naked since, really, there is only emotion to the stance you choose. State your case, if you have one... I don't see any evidence you do... in fact on this thread you almost fail the Turing test... I've had more meaningful interactions with AIs than I have asking you for reasoning... I'm approaching the conclusion you have none...

 

 

Strawman. What does the humanity of a fetus have anything to do with my stance on abortion? I've never make the case that a fetus is not a human.

 

I've given my reasoning, you seem to be lacking in any rebuttals.

[ShackledNoMore]

I personally think this is one area where at one point in time, cool heads did a pretty reasonable job of deciding when an abortion is OK and when it isn't.

 

When is an abortion OK? You mentioned the last day of the first trimester earlier in your post. Is that the reasonable decision that you refer to, or are you referring to something else?

I had thought so until I realized my math was wrong!

 

Actually, the reasonable decision I was referring to was the viability standard from the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. I think that's considered 24 weeks here in the U.S. The first trimester is only 13 weeks, and I think that's too early for either a cut-off law or guideline. Oh well, that was still as good an example as any, my point having been that there is no clear and obvious cutoff.

 

Now that Gramps has described the UK model, I think I like that better. It seems to take circumstances into account. I believe it is possible to have circumstances where a third trimester could be the most humane thing to do and not reflect bad judgement. In fact, I can appreciate this personally. My son only weighed 2 pounds when he was born. The pregnancy was a risk ridden, disastrous nightmare, and he was very tenuous for awhile after he was born. We considered aborting him VERY seriously. We were given until the 24th week to decide. It just so happened to be enough, but there could equally have been a situation where the probability of a good or bad outcome comes to light later. I would NOT want the choice taken away from the mother/parents as to what is in their best interest or the best interest of their fetus.

 

I'm not sure I'd buy into your nervous system criteria for a couple of reasons. The existence of a nervous system doesn't mean that much in and of itself, even an earthworm has a nervous system. I did a quick google on when the nervous system forms and took the following excerpt from http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_09/d_0..._09_cr_dev.html

 

The human nervous system starts to form very early in the embryo’s development. At the end of the gastrulation phase, an elongated structure, the notochord, is laid down. The embryo thereby changes from a circular organization to an axial one—a critical step in the development of its nervous system.

 

Next, the notochord sends out a signal to the layer of cells just above it (the ectoderm), which causes certain of these cells to form the first structure from which the nervous system originates: the neural plate. This is the start of the development of the human nervous system, a process also known as neurulation.

 

In the next step of neurulation, the edges of the neural plate begin to fold inward, forming the neural groove. This groove soon closes completely to form the neural tube, from which the entire brain and spinal cord will develop.

 

Defects in the closing of the neural tube at this stage can have dramatic consequences for the baby once it is born.

 

The cells that form the interior of the neural tube, in addition to being the origin of the brain and spinal cord, will also give rise to the neural crest, another structure that is important for the ensuing stages in laying down all the components of the nervous system.

 

Inside the neural tube, the cells continue to proliferate at a rate that varies along the length of the tube, depending on what future brain structure is forming at any particular point; the cortex, for example, develops later than some other structures.

 

Even putting a finger on when the nervous system forms seems to be kind of gray.

 

So I'm probably more lenient in my opinion of when an abortion is OK than you, and I might be a little slower and more guarded in applying the label "murder," but we definitely agree that it's bad to wait too long. Yes, there are two major camps here: those who think that abortion at any stage is wrong, usually influenced by their religion, and those who think it is OK the first day of pregnancy, not OK at full term, and transitions somewhere in between (which includes us). I don't think most pro-choicers take the "all" of the all-or-nothing approach. And then there's Asimov, but I suspect his is a minority opinion, even here.

 

As for Asimov, agree or not, I think his reasoning is consistent (I'm also drawing from vague recollections of a thread a few months ago). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the impression that Asimov would also generally consider killing a one day old baby an amoral act, just as he would aborting a baby the day before it reached term. I am curious, though, Asimov: Under what circumstances would you consider an abortion a moral, as opposed to an amoral act?

[Kurari]

As for "murder," taking human life is not always deemd "murder."

 

I don't see a distinction between ending another life. Sure, circumstances can be different, but why label one thing as a "murder", something else as a "killing", and a third thing as "putting to sleep". Aren't they all basically the same thing?

 

Well it's quite true the end result is the same, but no. This is because the intents are different and have different impacts on society.

 

Laws are often created out of emotion and executed and judged on technicality. Taking another human's life is not often a pleasant thought, but sometimes it happens and sometimes it's necessary, and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it's a gross cruelty, sometimes it's out of love, sometimes it's just an emotional mess then you have to figure out if it was a necessary action or not. All killings are not equal, and they should not be judged equally.

[XtianChris]

Ah, here's a better question: Say you're presented with a zygote, a puppy, a 6 week fetus, and a baby. You are told that you must take at least one life, or all four die. If you terminate the zygote, the puppy or the fetus, you must also kill one other, or all four die. Terminating the zygote or the fetus will be a painless procedure, however killing the baby or the puppy will not be. Additionally, if you decline to do any of these things, you can get out of it by cutting your own penis off with a dull, rusty knife and no anesthesia, however all four will feel the same pain you went through in so doing periodically throughout the remainder of their lives, the fetus and cell-blob of course feeling these things when they become able to, AND the lives of all four become dramatically shortened, proportional to their life expectancies.

 

What will you do?

 

I'd ask how I ended up in the Twilight Zone version of Choose Your Own Adventure, first of all. Secondly, I'd ask why I'm being told to kill something and/or mutilate my genitals. Then I suppose I would choose the least of all evils in terminating the zygote and the fetus, but I would not feel right about it at all.

[Ramen666]

Being an atheist I still see it kind of wrong in a way. This does not have to have religion behind it to make it bad. By the way on the poll I put " I don't know and I am an atheist. I don't have the answers for it but it is in a way a form of murder.

 

Say it is fetial tissue, fetus whatever but it is still a living thing just like a dog that is pregant....would you kill puppies. This is an issue where I am in the shades of gray on the issue but the system is fucked. If a parent does not want a child give them to foster care/adpoption.

 

I know I will be totally against on this issue but for some reason I still see it kind of wrong, it is either way killing something living.

 

I totally understand the point of this thread it does get you thinking about this and maybe this is not just a black and white issue and it needs to be looked at from a moral standpoint. Just because you are atheist does not make you pro abortion by default same with the Christian version.

 

Now for the famous argument I will mention:

 

The right to do whatever to do with my body is what the typical thing is from the women, however it is NOT just their body it is another persons,childs, the fetus is a living organism it is not just trash....

[Ramen666]

Sorry double post....

[XtianChris]

I'm asking whether a developing life is a person, at any given stage, for whom rights could justifiably be considered. Consider that one day we will have machines every bit as alive as any other life form, living entities unto themselves that people will call persons, and rightly so. Would it be murder to terminate the creation of such a life in it's early stages, before it takes on all the necessary characteristics of personhood?

 

Hmmm...I am not sure. Never gave it a thought, but I will think about it now and let you know later.

 

Will you be able to consider a zygote in the same way as a 5-6 month old fetus if one day it can be kept alive outside the body? Will you, as I asked before, be able to love or cherish a bunch of basic genetic flotsam in a petri dish? Is it a person? I'm guessing the answer is no to all these questions, and no offense, I'm guessing you might not think that you know that.

 

In a way I could love the zygote, because I know that given proper care and nurturing it will become a human being. At the beginning stages my love for it may not be much more than the love that I would give to a seed of my favorite type of plant, but yes, I could and probably would love it.

 

Would you object to a 1st trimester pit bull abortion if someone deemed it necessary for other than immediate life threatening danger?

 

I would not consider terminating a pitbull any different than terminating a human. That's another topic though, as pitbull abortions are not commonplace (so far as I've heard), and we humans believe that we are somehow more important than animals and all other life forms. I would not gain much respect in our current culture, if any at all, if I were to suggest that we are not more important and deserve better treatment than all other life forms. Therefore, I choose to address human abortions only at this time.

[Dhampir]

This might seem a little rambling, but bear with me.

In a way I could love the zygote, because I know that given proper care and nurturing it will become a human being. At the beginning stages my love for it may not be much more than the love that I would give to a seed of my favorite type of plant, but yes, I could and probably would love it.

Meh. Forgive me, but I'm unconvinced. "In a way"? " Not much more than the seed of a favorite plant"? Quite wishy-washy; I don't think I've seen that type of hesitancy in writing before. If I terminated your externally gestating zygote, would you kill me? Would you be much angrier than just losing a favorite plant seed? Just say no.

 

I would not consider terminating a pitbull any different than terminating a human. That's another topic though, as pitbull abortions are not commonplace (so far as I've heard), and we humans believe that we are somehow more important than animals and all other life forms. I would not gain much respect in our current culture, if any at all, if I were to suggest that we are not more important and deserve better treatment than all other life forms. Therefore, I choose to address human abortions only at this time.

My point with the pit bull was... was... well, I forget what my point was exactly, but I'll remember it eventually.

 

Then I suppose I would choose the least of all evils in terminating the zygote and the fetus, but I would not feel right about it at all.

Now your opening argument is that abortions after a certain term is murder, however you then argued this:

I would say so, but there's more to consider than one body. There are two.

In response to this:

Does a person have a right to control what happens to their own body?

And this argument continued in our exchanges. At which point I asked you to chose to take one life, two lives or mutilate yourself. You chose as I expected, and killed the fetus and zygote, calling it the lesser evil. However, you didn't consider killing the puppy, and perhaps the zygote, as that would have save two human lives ultimately (if the fetus made it to term), or killing the baby, as that would have had the same result. And you call what you'd have done the lesser evil?

 

Additionally, that was a trick question, because choosing to do anything shows that you (like everyone else whether they want to admit it or not) assign value determined by what you deem to be a human person. I left the option for you to do nothing in my question, and in truth, that would have been the lesser evil, because if you believed them to be equal, you'd not have been responsible for the death of anything; you have no control over unseen, unconscious agents tampering with life. Not only that, but whether you feel bad or not, you didn't consider it murder under the circumstances, did you?

 

You see, the zygote and the fetus are not the same as a decidedly conscious fetus, no matter how it comes about (in a body or a test tube), and by killing them, you admitted not only that, but that it is not murder. They are NOT persons; I wasn't asking for your opinion on that really, I was stating the fact in question form. Personhood is a province of consciousness, and intelligence to a lesser degree. Specifically, we use the term to describe humans, but generally we can ascribe it to animals. Ah, now I remember the point about the pit bull. Is a pit bull's fetus worthy of the same considerations as the pit bull?

 

Anyway, back to people. As personhood is specific to consciousness, it cannot be said to be murder to abort any fetus that has not demonstrated that it is decidedly "awake" as it were if it can at any point be so demonstrated, and, as you demonstrated, it can't even be said to be the taking of a human life.

[Asimov]

As for Asimov, agree or not, I think his reasoning is consistent (I'm also drawing from vague recollections of a thread a few months ago). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the impression that Asimov would also generally consider killing a one day old baby an amoral act, just as he would aborting a baby the day before it reached term. I am curious, though, Asimov: Under what circumstances would you consider an abortion a moral, as opposed to an amoral act?

 

I don't think a one day old baby being killed would be amoral.

 

Abortion would be a moral act when it threatens the life of the mother.

[ShackledNoMore]

I don't think a one day old baby being killed would be amoral.

In that case, I would ask you what the difference is between killing a one day old baby and performing an abortion just before the due date is, when healthy babies are routinely induced for reasons as trivial as convenience?

 

If it is the parasitical nature of the fetus and that it should be the mother's choice to have it removed, do you consider it amoral to remove it and let it live, but not amoral (I assume immoral) to remove and sacrifice it?

 

If you would not consider it amoral to remove a fully developed, robust baby and not let it live, then wouldn't you agree that abortion eventually transitions from amoral to immoral at some point during pregnancy, when the baby can survive without special medical care as with an ordinary delivery?

 

Or would you simply not consider it an abortion if it was that late in pregnancy and the baby could thrive without special intervention like any other baby, and expect that in such a case the baby would not be sacrificed? Admittedly it's a logical extreme.

 

In either of these last two cases, what if the baby was developed enough to survive with the same care as a full-term baby, but immature enough to risk lasting consequences that could impact his/her ultimate health/intelligence/life expectancy? Would it not be immoral to remove a baby from the womb at this juncture, without a medical reason or some good logical justification, either risking harm to the baby or sacrificing what should have been a viable infant?

[Kurari]

Other human acts of the past have been reality, but are today considered immoral. Slavery was a reality for many prior to the US Civil War. Stating that a certain act is a reality is only ignoring the issue; it does not provide a conclusion as to whether or not the act is right.

 

This is not about slavery. This is about abortion. My statement is definitely not ignoring the issue. When you talk about abortion you need to focus on abortion because it's a situation that is not comparable to slavery, or people on a respirator, or brain dead people in a coma. If you're saying a fetus is a person, then you have a person inside another person. One person of which has an established life, health, and wellbeing to look after and by nature is in charge of the same things for the other "person" inside of her. This is reality, and why YOUR morality is not applicable unless it's about you and your pregnancy.

 

When you are pregnant, you don't get the luxury of time. Fetuses develop rapidly and a 7 week fetus is rather different from an 8 week one. A 5 week old fetus is RADICALLY different from a 20 week old one. "Right" or not depends on the personal situation of the individuals involved.

 

Can you say that abortions are unintentional, accidental acts? If not, then they have to be intentional.

 

Yes. Though typically accidental abortions are termed "miscarriages."

 

The world will never be rid of poverty, yet we fight against it. The world will never be rid of disease, but we work to find cures. The world will never be rid of illiteracy, but we try to teach everyone we can. The world will never be rid of pain and suffering, but we look for ways to reduce pain.

 

Exactly. No argument here. Reducing abortions would be really great, but as history has proved, legal restriction didn't work.

 

Agreed. In this case why not err on the side of always doing what is best by making certain abortions illegal, but then allow it to be done in such circumstances?

 

Why would you want to wait around while a bunch of lawyers and judges pick through paperwork before they decide what is "best" for you, your health, and your family? If you were going into multiple organ failure because your body can't support a pregnancy, would you really want to sit around a hospital bed until the government figures out whether or not it has enough data to grant you life saving procedures? This is totally unnecessary.

 

An excellent example of this happened within the last month in Ireland. Ireland bans abortion except in cases where the mother's life is in danger. A 17 year old who had a wanted pregnancy discovered that the child she was carrying was anacephalic (WARNING: Graphic and disturbing picture ahead). Anacephalic babies develop without brains or with their brains exposed. They cannot live outside the womb. They might live for a few minutes or a couple of days, but they're deformations are so terrible there is no way they can survive. They suffer until they die. The Irish courts battled over whether the mother should be allowed to exit the country to go to England which does allow abortions termiate it at five months gestation. They finally recently ruled in favor of letting her do it, after forcing her to wait around while they figured it out. Had they not allowed it, imagine being forced to carry around an essentially dead baby inside of you for four more months.

 

It's so very, very easy to say "Well, we could just ban it except in certain cases!" but the truth is, health and law don't work that way. Health doesn't wait for laws, and laws are cold and impersonal to "certain cases." Personally, I'd rather have my health care providers decide what's ethical and best for me. They are perfectly within their rights to give or deny care for any reason, and knowledgable enough to make those sorts of decisions without legal red tape. They do it every day.

 

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/abortion/2003s3.html

 

"Partial Birth Abortion" defined by law is:

an abortion in which a physician delivers an unborn child's body until only the head remains inside the womb, punctures the back of the child's skull with a Sharp instrument, and sucks the child's brains out before completing delivery of the dead infant.

 

This practice, to me, is a violent act of murder, and the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act is law whether or not we like it.

 

Because a bunch of lawyers really understand what it means to practice medicine? No. This term DOES NOT EXIST in the medical community. Late term abortions are called Dialation and Extractions, Intact D&X, or "Intracranial Decompression Procedures." The non-medical term Partial-birth Abortion was coined in 1995 by pro-life congressman Charles Canady (R-Fla) and is primarily used in political discourse. Usually regarding the legality of abortion in the United States.

 

Semantics? No. The term is specifically used for sucking in the gullible and ignorant on emotional appeal so the facts can be glossed over. Obviously the idea of jamming scissors into the skull of an infant is a very gruesome and infuriating idea that fuels the imagination, but let's examine the facts of what this procedure entails:

 

D&X takes THREE DAYS to complete. It requires slow dialation of the cervix with shunts that absorb fluid and painkillers are perscibed to deal with it. Imagine somebody shoving sticks into your rectum to slowly pull it open (this is the only male comparison I can think of of what this would be like, so please excuse me if there is a better analogy I've missed) .

 

Pulling a fetus/infant into a breech position is VERY risky. It's easy to tear the vagina, cervix, or womb and a woman can bleed to death in 10 minutes because of that.

 

Stabbing scissors into your sensitive insides...for any reason, this isn't something to be taken lightly.

 

Seriously, this is not a simple procedure. Why would any reputable doctor (Note: REPUTABLE) bother doing this for a healthy woman on a healthy fetus? This procedure is rare because most of the time it's completely unnecessary and pointless to require it.

We're talking extreme dire consequences like the fetus is dead or severely deformed, or the mother herself is in danger of death or extremely sick. Example of where this would be actually necessary is in a case of severe hydrocephalus. The head of the fetus may swell so much it could contain around two gallons of fluid, making it impossible for it to pass through the cervix. A severely hydrocephalic baby will not live or even regain consciousness.

 

Tricky, isn't it? This is why I say it's about reality, not morality. Often women who carry to late term and end up needing to abort it WANTED to have a baby. Most women who have unwanted pregnancies would not bother going through the hell of pregnancy to simply change her mind at the last minute (Though I HAVE seen that happen and they were sent for mental/social care.)

 

I really don't see any evidence suggesting that D&X abortions are common enough or being used frivolously enough for it to warrant legislation. It's just a wonderful propaganda tool used by the ignorant and self-righteous to impose their beliefs on others. The current "Partial Birth Abortion Ban" is heavily flawed and pointless legislation enacted to destroy the rights of others. It didn't work the first time it came around, and it should be repealed now.

[Grandpa Harley]

Damn fine post...

 

At the risk of playing Jesuit to Rev Jun... I think he was saying that 'morality' is largely fashion, rather than an extrinsic quality. At any time, the pendulum of 'popular opinion' could swing toward anything.

[Taphophilia]

I'm not sure why people think that a woman in the advanced stages of pregnancy can just walk into an abortion clinic in the US and have an abortion on demand. Before believing all the Pro-Life propaganda, I would suggest that people go read Roe V. Wade. Until viability, it's abortion on demand, (depending on the state, 24-26 weeks) after viability there has to be a medically sound reason and it's subjected to medical ethics boards.

 

Second term abortions before viability are extremly expensive, more dangerous for the woman, and require a lot more specialized training. There are not a lot of doctors who will perfrom them.

 

If you are concerned about later term abortions, then I would think it's important is to have early abortion access widely available and affordable to all women. Abortion clinics, in this country, are becoming scarce. The few that exist often have to serve too large of an area to do most women any good.

[XtianChris]

If I terminated your externally gestating zygote, would you kill me? Would you be much angrier than just losing a favorite plant seed? Just say no.

 

No and no.

 

At which point I asked you to chose to take one life, two lives or mutilate yourself. You chose as I expected, and killed the fetus and zygote, calling it the lesser evil. However, you didn't consider killing the puppy, and perhaps the zygote, as that would have save two human lives ultimately (if the fetus made it to term), or killing the baby, as that would have had the same result. And you call what you'd have done the lesser evil?

 

Yes, I do. The puppy and the baby both can undeniably feel pain. Killing either would be more than a simple termination, it would be inflicting pain. I believe the scenario you set up has more than one dimension to it. That's my reasoning.

 

Additionally, that was a trick question, because choosing to do anything shows that you (like everyone else whether they want to admit it or not) assign value determined by what you deem to be a human person. I left the option for you to do nothing in my question, and in truth, that would have been the lesser evil, because if you believed them to be equal, you'd not have been responsible for the death of anything; you have no control over unseen, unconscious agents tampering with life.

 

I'm not sure I understand all of this exactly in the way that you meant it, but from my perspective the option to "do nothing" was not clearly presented. However, I will say that I considered doing nothing anyway, but after re-reading the scenario several times I got the sense that if I do nothing, then whatever power that is demanding I make such a choice is a cruel enough entity that it would likely take matters into its own hands anyway, possibly choosing to inflict terrible pain upon all of us for the rest of our natural lives and/or brutally murder us. All-in-all, the scenario presented is very difficult to imagine and unlikely to take place, and as such I don't believe it is as useful as arguing real situations and circumstances.

 

Not only that, but whether you feel bad or not, you didn't consider it murder under the circumstances, did you?

 

I would not feel right about terminating any of the lives nor causing pain to any of them. However, given the scenario, I clearly made an intentional choice to kill two of the lives, which yes, I do consider murder. If placed on trial for such an action, I would argue and hope that the murder would be excused, seeing that there was no good and right solution.

[Grandpa Harley]

My morality may be skewed by being an enthusiastic nose to tail carnivore.

[XtianChris]

Damn fine post...

 

I second that. Kurari, I do understand what you meant by reality now. I will agree with you that our laws are flawed, and the slothness of legal action is a poor vehicle for justice in many cases. I will also agree that health care physicians are better suited to make judgment calls on the health and life of both the mother and the child, so long as they have presented the facts in a non-biased way to the mother (and if possible the father too), and she has given consent to their proposed actions. Afterall, we do trust doctors to make other decisions that affect the health and life of their patients. As for the government, perhaps they should be kept out of the equation for the most part, and only brought in when there is evidence or suspicion of malpractice.

 

However, I don't believe that the mother should be allowed to demand an abortion unless there is sufficient proof or suspicion presented by the doctor that the child's life is in danger. Let's not forget that the child exists because of the mother's actions in most cases, and that she is responsible (whether or not she wants to be) to care for the child.

 

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Now, before I get hammered for being wishy-washy or inconsistent, I take it upon myself to state the obvious: my viewpoint in this matter has changed. It has changed, in large part due to Kurari's and Taphophilia's latest posts, but also due to other points addressed here.

 

I now think that the legality of abortions should not be based just on the stage of development, but more importantly on the cause of the abortion and the circumstances surrounding it. The stage of development should still be a factor, but not as important as other factors.

 

As Kurari put it, this is tricky.

[Kurari]

Now for the famous argument I will mention:

 

The right to do whatever to do with my body is what the typical thing is from the women, however it is NOT just their body it is another persons,childs, the fetus is a living organism it is not just trash....

 

A "typical" thing from women...

 

Ramen, please do not sit there and implicate that women do not consider what pregnancy means or what exactly is growing inside of us when we get pregnant. We've been doing this for thousands of years, and giving birth, having abortions, and infanticide has always been a part of our history. Thankfully in modern life we are being given means to make the best decisions for our familys in far more humane ways, and we can avoid much more pain and sorrow than in the past, but we cannot eradicate it.

 

We can, and DO consider the implications of what an abortion means, but life isn't fair. We are the ones in charge, it IS our bodies, we HAVE to be the ones to make the decisions. Honestly, the women stand a lot more to lose than a fetus does. You could say "How can you lose more than your life?!" but there are many ways to sacrifice your life in detrimental ways and grown women have established lives they need to protect FIRST before they can reasonably decide that having and raising baby is a good idea.

 

Our bodies come first. If you want to carry a baby to term, you get the same rights.

[Kurari]

ComputerGuyCJ, your position to be as kind to life as possible is extremely admirable.

 

However, I don't believe that the mother should be allowed to demand an abortion unless there is sufficient proof or suspicion presented by the doctor that the child's life is in danger. Let's not forget that the child exists because of the mother's actions in most cases, and that she is responsible (whether or not she wants to be) to care for the child.

 

Let's not forget that the child exists because of the mother's actions in most cases, and that she is responsible (whether or not she wants to be) to care for the child.

 

Do you mean all abortions or just late term ones?