unborn human at 4 months - a face (abortion pro-life pro-choice reproductive rights)

http://www.priestsforlife.org ^ | 2001 | Professor Andrzej Skawina,Dr. Antoni Marsinek, MD Zrodlo Foundation

[miltonim]

This is what we all look like at four months

[miltonim]

see also, human at seven weeks

[Khepera]

Beutiful pictures. Keep up the good work.

[susiemaggie]

Is that photo from the new 3d ultrasound sonography? It's wonderful!

[toenail]

We don't all look like that at four months. A good many of us are dead by then.

[Varnae]

From www.skeptic.com The pro-choice-pro-life debate, leaving aside religious and political foundations, should be able to be resolved through reason and science. First of all, we have to leave God and religion out of the equation since this is secular ethics. Second, we have to leave "rights" out of the equation because getting into a debate about the rights of the mother versus the rights of the fetus cannot be resolved. A right is a type of political contract between individuals and the group in which they live. Rights are conferred on individuals by political bodies. They are not discovered in nature. As Jeremy Bentham said (1843):

[Natural rights is] confusion, nonsense, and the nonsense, as usual, dangerous nonsense. The word can scarcely be said to have a meaning. Natural rights is simple nonsense. Natural and imprescriptible rights rhetorical nonsense. Nonsense upon stilts.

That leaves us with this basic question about abortion: Is it murder? If not, then abortion is moral. If so, then abortion is immoral. This is a relatively simple question that science may help us answer by answering this question: When does life begin? Now we're getting somewhere…sort of.

In the October 16, 1995 issue of The New Republic, feminist author Naomi Wolf shocked the pro-choice movement by claiming that the fetus at all stages is a human individual and therefore abortion is immoral (though she still supports free choice). The Los Angeles Times (Rivenburg, 1996) called this the most important article on abortion in years. In the 6,700 word essay, however, there is not a single scientific fact presented by Wolf in support of her claim for fetal human individuality. Instead we get references to "lapel pins with the little feet," "detailed drawings of the fetus" in What to Expect When You're Expecting, and "Mozart for your belly; framed sonogram photos; home fetal-heartbeat stethoscopes." With similar shortcomings, in a 1995 PBS Firing Line debate, Arianna Huffington claimed that scientists have proved that life begins at conception. Baloney.

The problem with such questions as "origins" is that with life, as with historical events, there is no single-point origin. Life is a continuum from sperm and egg, to zygote, to multicellular entity, to embryo, to fetus, to newborn infant. At no time did life "begin" because it never ended, and surely no one would call menstruation or male masturbation murder. (See Amici Curiae Brief, 1988.)

We might pose the question this way: when does a fetus become a human individual? Obviously neither egg nor sperm is a human individual, nor is the zygote, since it might split to become twins, or develop into less than one individual and naturally abort. Not after two weeks, since twinning can still occur. Nor by eight weeks-while there are recognizable human features such as the face, hands, and feet, neuronal synaptic connections are still being made. Only after eight weeks do embryos begin to show primitive response movements. Between eight and 24 weeks, however, the organism could not exist on its own (Pleasure, et al., 1984; Milner and Beard, 1984; Koops, et al., 1982).

There is provisional assent amongst most physicians and scientists-i.e., it is a "fact"-that fetus viability is 24 weeks of gestation. That is six months. It appears that it cannot be earlier because critical organs-lungs and kidneys-do not mature before that time. For example, air sac development sufficient for gas exchange does not occur until at least 23 weeks after gestation, and often later (Beddis, et al., 1979).

Additionally, not until after 28 weeks of gestation does the fetus develop sufficient neocortical complexity to exhibit some of the cognitive capacities typically found in full-term newborns. Fetus EEG recordings with the characteristics of an adult EEG appear at approximately 30 weeks. In other words, the capacity for human thought cannot exist until 28 to 30 weeks of gestation (Flower, 1989; Purpura, 1975; Molliver, et al., 1973). Of all the characteristics used to define what it means to be "human," the capacity to think is provisionally agreed upon by most scientists to be the most important (see Sagan and Druyan, 1992, for a good discussion of the terms of this debate).

Since virtually no abortions are performed after the 2nd trimester, and before the end of the 2nd trimester there is no scientific evidence that the fetus is a thinking human individual, by this definition abortion is not murder. If it is not murder, then it is not immoral, from a social point of view. That is, the state should not prevent women from choosing abortion. If a woman says she believes for personal reasons that abortion would be an immoral act for her, even though we might not agree on a scientific basis, we should have no qualms with her decision.

From a Provisional Ethics perspective it would be reasonable for us to offer our provisional agreement that abortions within the first two trimesters are not immoral because the evidence confirms that during this time the fetus is not a human individual and thus the action of aborting the fetus is justified if so desired by the mother.

[toenail]

When Do Human Beings Begin? "Scientific" Myths and Scientific Facts

[NC_Libertarian]

You know how all the anti-capital punishment people want a televised execution - I wonder how they'd feel about a televised abortion?

[Sloth]

Obviously neither egg nor sperm is a human individual, nor is the zygote, since it might split to become twins, or develop into less than one individual and naturally abort.

Bad logic.

[Campion]

A right is a type of political contract between individuals and the group in which they live. Rights are conferred on individuals by political bodies. They are not discovered in nature.

A prescription for tyranny. No, better: a manifesto for tyranny. The inevitable philosophical underpinning of dictatorship.

Compare:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...

One way is the way of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. It inevitably leads to mass murder, when the "political body" which views the right to life as something it "grants" decides to rescind that "grant" for some large subgroup of the population.

The other way is the way of Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and Adams. It leads to freedom, prosperity, and pluralism.

Which do you prefer ... Auschwitz, or Philadelphia?

[hopespringseternal]

Second, we have to leave "rights" out of the equation because getting into a debate about the rights of the mother versus the rights of the fetus cannot be resolved.

Wrong. Someone else's right to life supercedes my right to take an action that violates that right.

[hopespringseternal]

A right is a type of political contract between individuals and the group in which they live. Rights are conferred on individuals by political bodies. They are not discovered in nature. As Jeremy Bentham said (1843):

[Natural rights is] confusion, nonsense, and the nonsense, as usual, dangerous nonsense. The word can scarcely be said to have a meaning. Natural rights is simple nonsense. Natural and imprescriptible rights rhetorical nonsense. Nonsense upon stilts.

Wrong again. If rights exist only as a political expression, then you have no intrinsic right to life and your right to life is bound up in the punishment of a person who takes your life.

And anyone who prescribes the same rights for man found in nature among animals will always find an argument with me. I consider such an opinion ignorant and foolish.

[MHGinTN]

Since virtually no abortions are performed after the 2nd trimester, and before the end of the 2nd trimester there is no scientific evidence that the fetus is a thinking human individual, by this definition abortion is not murder. Hey, there arte only roughly 15,000 partial birth abortions performed each year now. What's 15,000 individual human beings weighed against billions? No problem if the numbers are virtually zilch among billions, right? By the way, your miserable individual life began at conception. I don't think you'd like being retroactively terminated under the argument that you're just one among billions, eh? Abortion is killing an individual human being already in existence, going through the normal human developmental cycles that include toddlerhood, puberty, etc. Where are you along the miraculous journey? Is it your sick position that YOU have gotten far enough along the cycle that you are valuable but some lesser beings are of no value? Ghoul!

[Incidentally, the following statement made by you is so wrong that the British medical community is instituting anesthesia protocols for fetuses to be terminated after the sixteenth week.Additionally, not until after 28 weeks of gestation does the fetus develop sufficient neocortical complexity to exhibit some of the cognitive capacities typically found in full-term newborns. You death cultists will tell any lie to protect your ritual of serial killing, eh?]

[Brett66]

First of all, we have to leave God and religion out of the equation since this is secular ethics.

Okay, but you have to leave humanistic thought out of it first.

[davidosborne]

well stated.. I concur..

David

[Maceman]

Rights are conferred on individuals by political bodies.

I appreciate that Jeremy Bentham would disagree, but the fact is that the founding doctrine of the United States -- the most important political idea of the last 2 million years -- is based on exactly the opposite premise.

"Rights" that are conferred by political bodies can be taken away in the same manner, and therefore are not rights in any meaningful sense. Moreover, if we do not start from the idea that human beings have sovereign individual rights by the fact of their nature as human beings, then from where do these 'political bodies" derive their legitimate power to confer these "rights"?

In fact, political bodies may or may not choose to recognize and secure individual human rights, but they merely have the power to grant entitlements, not rights. There is a difference. Rights can never be taken away legitimately. That's what makes them rights in the first place.

[jwalsh07]

I was gonna take you on but you have everything wrong, everything, from where rights come from to the notion that a human being isn't a human bring until you say so.

But I will ask you a question. What determines whether or not you are a human being?

[Salvation]

Pro-lifie bump.

[PetiteMericco]

Since virtually no abortions are performed after the 2nd trimester...

Really? Then what is this guy doing???