You equate the killing of an adult with the killing of a fetus? You equate the evoked terror, termination of a character, a personality, a creature with awareness of its mortality and the suffering and end it is to endure with the killing of a tabula rasa, unaware of its own suffering or even existence?
This is an argument for legalizing infanticide. Infants have not developed any character, they are essentially amoral beings, and to some extent they are not fully self-conscious, in that they do not yet have a well developed self image separate from their mother. This off course does not mean they are not conscious, which they surely are, as science and premature births have proven, third trimester fetuses are also conscious and experience pain. Parts of your argument can also apply to the legalization of the killing of the unconscious. Unconscious adults are not self aware, they are not moral beings while unconscious, they exhibit no character, they do not experience pain and they are completely unaware of their future whether positive or negative. Using your argument, should it not be legal to kill an unconscious person, who has a chance of regaining consciousness, simply beacuse they are at the moment unconscious? I think, not. Regarding the tabula rosa idea, it has been largely discredited by modern psychology. Much of who we are personality wise is determined by genetics. Yes we still make choices and are influenced by our environment, but a significant part of who a zygote will become is determined by its unigue genetics, which consequently have potential to add something very unique to society.
You value a creature who's innocence is a result lack of will, lack of ability to know, choose, or act, over an an adult who is somehow considered less valuable because its fallible experience and understanding has led it, invariably, to make some bad decisions and thus drop into the less valuable, defiled category of the sub-innocent?
I don't believe Remedy ever said any such thing. Why shouldn't a baby have the same right to make decisions and enjoy life, as an adult does? A murdered adult, has at least had the opportunity to enjoy life up until the point of the murder, whereas the aborted baby has not even been allowed to breathe his or her first breath. Why is it that we mourn more for the death of a child than we do for the death of an elderly person? It is simply beacuse the elderly person has had a chance to experience life, while the child hasn't. The same applies even more so to aborted babies.
You set up a value system whereby any human fetus is of greater value than than all adults because of relative innocence. Such a system would lead to situations where a mother would be sacrificed for the benefit of the more innocent fetus. It would mean the tragedy and terror of a vast worldwide deadly plague--worse than any the world has known--is less than the tragedy of the widespread spontaneous abortions that women who wish to get pregnant have always experienced--often without even knowing. It would mandate enormous resources to stopping the "scourge" of the spontaneous abortion.
Here you make a good point, but it does not forward your case. It is true from the pro-life perspective, that spontaneous abortions are a tragedy, and many women who experience them would agree they are tragic and traumatic. Should we spend milions of dollars, if not billions, trying to end miscarriages. Yes of course and we are already doing so with premature C-sections and operations on fetuses in the womb. But this has nothing to do with aborion, which is a decision to unnaturally end a fetus's life, making it a preventable death,simply by making the correct choice. This is obviously, the same distinction between a plague we are unable to stop and the choice of the Nazi's to kill Jews and others.
Such a system would lead to situations where a mother would be sacrificed for the benefit of the more innocent fetus.
This sentence deserves special attention. Parents often risk their life for their children, and sometimes voluntarily give up their own life to save a child. To some this seems unnatural, but other call it unselfish love.
Elective abortion is appalling. Perhaps it should be illegal. But it is sick to compare it to the Nazi holocaust.
I agree elective abortion is appalling. It should be made illegal. If we can agree, that 3rd trimester abortions are essentially wrong and equivalent to murdering an infant, then abortion since Roe vs Wade is comparable to the Holocaust. If only 5% of all abortions are in the 3rd trimester, then there have been 2.25 million 3rd trimester abortions in the US since Roe vs Wade. This is probably a fraction of the worldwide number of 3rd trimester abortions during the same period. Sadly, abortion is comparable to the Holocaust.
Just keep the reach of your bloody ideology away from my wife in case she should have a complicated pregnancy or delivery. I don't want your cult groupies crying for the sacrifice of, or increased risk to, my wife for the sake of the fetus. My wife means MORE to me than our unborn child.
I'll avoid the temptation to name call and simply say this. In this day and age, the chance of any woman, having a life threatening pregnancy is miniscule, with the exception of a tubal pregnancy, in which case the baby has no chance of living, without further advances in medicine. So you are willing to look the other way while millions of babies are murdered mostly for convenience, simply to keep open the abortion option in the highly unlikely case that your wife happens to have a life threatening pregnancy, where an abortion is the only way to spare her life. Since you like hypotheticals so much, here's one. Your wife has an incurable liver disease, and the only way to save her is a liver transplant. She is far down on the waiting list, so she decides to get pregnant so she can bear a child that will be a liver donor to her. Is it moral? Surely her life is more valuable than the baby's, at least in your reasoning.
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I would hope that your value for the fetus is not a mere product of consciousness or response to pain. Not unless you are a vegetarian. Humans are different from other animals in many ways, but in those two regards, they are the same.
This is an argument for legalizing infanticide...legalization of the killing of the unconscious.
My point was simple. The murder of an adult human is worse than the murder of a fetus. Perhaps this could, with a few additional assumptions, be construed to mean that an adult with no hope of future consciousness has less value than a conscious adult. In fact, this latter argument appears to be a societal norm. 'Pulling-the-plug' is often legal. My points did not stop at the primitive animal traits of consciousness or response to pain. I would not degrade humans by reducing them to the level of a swamp rat. My points did have to do with those qualities that cause me to value another creature as human--not to ignore those traits that make rights relevant. A creature with the ability to make judgements and act upon them is directly relevent to rights. A creature with the knowledge of its own existence can suffer with the anticipation of ending its existence--a suffering that perhaps no other animal can grasp. And a personality and history of choices allows me a personal valuation for another human.
All of these things a fetus never had. It has yet to define a character. It is not worthless. It is not okay to destroy them. However, they cannot be equated with a living adult that brings with him his whole character-defining history and the awareness of his mortality.
You may consider me tasteless for ranking the relative tragedy of elective abortion and adult murder, but those who *equate* the two are engageing in the same unpalatable practice.
Unconscious adults are not self aware, they are not moral beings while unconscious, they exhibit no character, they do not experience pain and they are completely unaware of their future whether positive or negative.
Of course a person's history of choices, his waking desire to remain alive and agreement to not violate other's rights do not go away because of any temporary sleep state.
Regarding the tabula rosa idea, it has been largely discredited by modern psychology. Much of who we are personality wise is determined by genetics. Yes we still make choices and are influenced by our environment, but a significant part of who a zygote will become is determined by its unigue genetics, which consequently have potential to add something very unique to society.
Tabula rasa has not been discredited. Furthermore, DNA molecules do not have personality. The result of mental development and capacities are *affected* by genetics, not implanted by them.
This is obviously, the same distinction between a plague we are unable to stop
Most spontaneous abortions, particularly of embryos, go unnoticed. You say we are unable to stop this? Show me how we have even tried. Look at all the money spent on cancer and HIV research. Aside perhaps from fertility treatments in the developed world (the motive for which is not to save lives, merely to induce pregnancy), I don't know of any ongoing reseach to stop the death of the hundreds of millions of embryos each year. No one is trying despite it being one of the leading causes of human death. I assume that is because no one cares.
Parents often risk their life for their children, and sometimes voluntarily give up their own life to save a child. To some this seems unnatural, but other call it unselfish love.
The LAW is not about people making these decisions for themselves. The law would force this decision on the unwilling. It would *require* the mother rather than the fetus die in those cases where a choice is available.
If we can agree, that 3rd trimester abortions are essentially wrong and equivalent to murdering an infant, then abortion since Roe vs Wade is comparable to the Holocaust.
We cannot agree. It denigrates not only the infinitely greater suffering of the holocaust but also all those qualities that distinguish humans from other creatures.
Your wife has an incurable liver disease...so she decides to get pregnant so she can bear a child that will be a liver donor to her. Is it moral? Surely her life is more valuable than the baby's, at least in your reasoning.
You are right about the small frequency of life-of-the-mother situations in the developed world. But hypotheticals, that are possible, are extremely important in understanding an idea.
Your hypothetical goes beyond my point. Yes, my wife means more to me. It is a worse tragedy for my wife to die than for her newborn to die. Now, you ask if I would *intentionally create* a lesser tragedy to alleviate a greater one. The act of creating a tragedy adds to the tragedy itself. The combination of the two would create a personally paralizing situation for me. However, I would not stand in the way of my wife choosing to save her own life.