Posted on 10/15/2004 5:33:37 PM PDT by RogueIsland
This is a serious question. I am posting it because I have come to the conclusion that I quite literally do not have the neural wiring to even conceive of the pro-choice point of view and I need it explained to me. I know many intelligent, otherwise decent people who are passionate about the "right" to abortion. Some of them will even concede that the fetus is a human being and they still favor abortion-on-demand.
I simply can't grasp this. Not all of these people are simply selfish. Some of them seem deeply committed to this on a philosophical level and even a Constitutional level (although the ludicrous Roe aside, how the Constitution can be construed in this fashion is simply beyond me -- at best all you can say is it is silent on the subject of anything but state-sponsored execution).
So what's the deal here? What "nuance" am I missing that these seemingly intelligent people appear to grasp? I can usually at least intellectually understand those I disagree with on political issues -- this one utterly eludes me however.
This is the logic used to pass Roe V Wade. Since then abortions have increased dramatically and apparently these alternatives haven;t had an effect.
Even if we only count women deaths and not the deaths of the unborn, the number of dead women from back alley abortions is far less then the number of dead women from complications of abortions.
I do not know where you learned your embryology, but you simply don't know what your are talking about. By the end of the 12th week of gestation all organ systems are formed. In particular the nervous system is one of the earliest systems to develope. After this, the baby is simply growing and maturing, ....just like a 2year old baby. When do you cease allowing yourself the luxurey of slaughtering them. Let a 2 year old try to raise himself without a parent to provide. He'd be dead inside one week. If you capriciously make such illinformed statements and decisions on disinformation this blight will never be resolved
First, the evidence that outlawing abortion will decrease the frequency of this procedure is the relative frequency before and after RvW. Second, you apparently discount the number of women who will be harmed spiritually and psychologically by the act of murdering their children. Third, you also must take into account the corruption of the healing professions (and I am a physician) when doctors and nurses are involved in the taking of lives. We may all come to regret this when we are relegated to nursing homes. Finally what are your "alternatives" and why are they impossible to pursue at the same time as we outlaw abortion?
So did Hitler.
>>> I can't grasp that argument.
I can grasp it but I don't like it. The people who make that argument are the ones who say that hookers should be legal because then they will be tested for VD and won't spread AIDS.
Personally, I have no sympathy for "Johns" with AIDS or for women who want to kill their child so badly they risk their own health.
Why ? Why, if you think it saves lives having it legal is it wrong ?
I agree with the whole of your post. .....with the exception of your premature accusation.
I note that I said no such thing.
I merely pointed out that the point of conception is not as clear-cut as many believe.
An individual sperm or egg only contains 23 chromosomes. The fertilised egg contains 46,
So do the individual sperm and egg considered together.
and if not destroyed will otherwise grow into fully-formed human-being.
Surely you realize that you're leaving out a huge number of requirements for successful maturation over and above mere "not being destroyed"... Such rhetorical sleight-of-hand is cheap sophistry.
How about a fertilized egg in a petri dish? Will it become a "fully-formed human being" if it is "not destroyed"? No? Then by your standard I take it human life doesn't actually begin at conception, but upon implantation?
The same cannot be said of the egg or sperm.
Sure it can -- an egg and sperm sitting in two separate test tubes in the same rack on a lab counter are just as potentially able to make a "fully-formed human" as is a fertilized egg sitting in a lone test tube on the same counter.
Your argument of people choosing not to make love on a particular night being comparable to abortion is ridiculous.
I did not say it was comparable to abortion. Please try again.
Does that mean a murderer in the dock can say that if their victims had not made love on a particular night then they would not exist anyway, so who cares. This is not belief, but scientific fact.
Um, what?
You criminalize the medical provider who performs the act for money or whatever their reason.
Egg + Spermatozoa = zygote
Egg cannot become human being any more than skin cell. Same for sperm cell. The zygote has a compliment of 23 pairs of chromosomes and is therefore a human being that begins to grow. But then so does a 6 month old child grow. You have a right to your opinion, but not your facts. Get them straight.
You need a math course. Assuming the death rate is .6 percent, the larger the population the larger the number of deaths. Your .6 percent times 40 million equates to 240,000 deaths in the world each year. Your advocating a routine that kills 240,000 women per year as well as the deaths of the innocent unborn. In the US, the abortion rate is aboit 1.3 million.
That means about 7 thousand needless deaths or around 20 dead women per day in the US. I don't recall reading about 20 dead women per day from back alley abortions before Roe V. Wade.
You dodged the question. Why is abortion wrong ? Simple question.
No, they are not. They are observing a change in status, but this is no more related to "the legal definition of humanity" than is the passage from "minor" to "adult" at age 18 (or 21) any attempt to "define humanity" either.
Or worse yet, your clarification of this argument advocates an even more untenable position - namely that we should recognize that viability has nothing to do with the question at hand of humanity,
Correct, except that it's not "untenable". Again, in a similar manner we should recognize that "achieving adulthood" has "nothing to do with the question of humanity" as such.
but still use the 1973 standard of viability as a completely arbitrary basis for us to make our law from.
Again, it's hardly "completely arbitrary" -- it's based on an objective reality, and it's quite obviously one of the key issues in this debate. It's not just pulled out of thin air; viability *does* matter.
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