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republitarian - body
- I'm just wondering Shaun, would that be hell-hell or purgatory-hell?
- comment Ranger03
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- Hell hell. Unless she repents.
- comment Waldo Jaquith
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- I suspect that this will be unavoidable. Making abortions illegal will do nothing to reduce the demand for them.
Prohibition hardly limited demand for alcohol (my great grandfather used to make liquor in his bathtub), despite the surely well-intented attempt to legislate morality. Word recently came out that marijuana is one of the largest crash crops produced by Oregon -- again, illegal on the basis of morality, but that's done little to reduce demand.
In the coming years we'll see a spike in the rates of serious injury and death among young women in South Dakota and Mississippi as they turn to self-mutilation when the option of a safe, legal abortion is taken away.
- comment James E. Martin
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- I agree with Waldo. Having a state ban abortions does not reduce the number of abortions; it just takes them from the safety of a doctor’s office to the unhealthy environment that existed before roe v. wade.
If someone is against abortion, they should support the policies that actually reduce the number of abortions in this country; effective sex Ed in schools and an emphasis on birth control. The only times the numbers of abortions in this country have gone down are from 95-01 when those polices were implemented (15% reduction). After about a year of the GWB administration that number went back up to its pre-Clinton numbers.
We must change the social climate, eliminating safe access to abortion doesn’t change anything except cause many more mothers to die of infections.
On the other hand, I made myself read through that whole post that MollyBrown put up, I have never been so disgusted in my life. I personally oppose abortion (though I would call myself pro-choice lite) and its horrible effects can be seen in countries like Russia. In Russia for every 1 live-birth there are 2 abortions; something that has resulted in a horrible demographic shift in that country which is already cursed with a dictator for a leader a terrible economy.
- comment Ranger03
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- NovaDemocrat, to be blunt, you're wrong. As Dr. New points out here and another soon to be released paper, traditional state laws have a significant impact on lowering demand. And as factcheck.org shows, they have continued to fall under Bush, in fact never reaching pre-Clinton numbers.
- comment St. Joan of Arc
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- Amen. You rock, Shaun.
- comment Becky
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- I think it's important to remember that just because the number of abortions falls within a state that passes restrictions, that does not mean that women are not seeking out abortions in other states. Women who can afford to do so, will travel. It's working class women that end up carrying out their pregnancies and often suffering economically when they can't support another child or the medical care (a major reason why women seek out abortions). It's not a huge surprise that working class women are the ones that suffer the most with state bans or limitations on abortions.
- comment republitarian
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- Who cares? What other states do? We don't act like Nevada either. You don't sanction murder just so people won't go to another state to do it.
The mafia has a demand for hiring hit men, Waldo. Should we facilitate that too so they don't recruit them in another state?
When you commit murder and you die or get an infection as a result maybe God is a little upset with you for playing God.
(For those of you who don't believe in God please disregard that last staement.)
- comment Ranger03
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- Becky,
While there is evidence to suggest some women travel to other states, many do not. They either cannot afford it, or do not wish to kill their child that badly.
- comment art (kenney 3.0)
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- Is the procedure in this article any worse than what some states have right now?
I fail to see much difference between following these procedures and going to a clinic where someone who is not even a doctor will perform the procedure in an environment that need be no cleaner than the kitchen in a resturant.
- comment Waldo Jaquith
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- There's an important discrimination that's lacking here: demand is different than supply.
Reducing demand for abortion means teaching teenagers about sex and providing access to birth control emergency contraception.
Reducing the supply of abortion can be accomplished, in part, by making it impossible for medical professionals to legally perform abortions. That will not prevent a black market in abortions from appearing, nor will it reduce demand.
There is no doubt that the number of abortions can be reduced by reducing the supply. But that will not eliminate them -- it will only make the remaining demand more desperate and the supply of dangerously poor quality. This is as true of abortion as it is of alcohol, drugs, or any other banned and popular product or service.
- comment Virginia Centrist
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- I disagree here with everyone:
1. Banning abortions most certainly WOULD decrease abortions. Demand might remain steady, but the number of abortions performed would definitely go down. With time, even demand would go down after people were sent to prison or the dangers of backalley abortions became well known.
2. I don't see the difference between Molly's post and a post that says the following:
How to kill someone
Take a gun and shoot them in the head.
I do not advocate doing this. This is for information only.
- comment Ranger03
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- "Reducing the supply of abortion can be accomplished, in part, by making it impossible for medical professionals to legally perform abortions. That will not prevent a black market in abortions from appearing, nor will it reduce demand."
Yet it will reduce the demand. When the courts authorized abortion, it lent a degree of moral approval to the procedure. If, like me, you've had several experiences talking with post-abortive women (particularly from the early 70s) that's one theme that comes out.
In class now, but more later.
- comment Lucy Jones
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- Has it ever dawned on you that maybe, just maybe, there will come a day when a different religious right may become the majority and try to eliminate other safe medical procedures they consider immoral? What if they are female? What if it were to become the popular public opinion that men who get testicular cancer somehow deserved it and would not be treated. Or maybe the new and improved female religious right would decide that it is no longer moral to have any sex (even if married) unless you are going to certify that you intend to have a child and submit to being monitored? Divorced? Well, maybe the women decide you need to be castrated... Maybe male baldness will be considered a result of some sin and all bald men will be outcasted... You may think this all sounds ridiculous but women don't. We know how it feels to have males trying to make decisions for us when they will never even have to be the one affected. Abortion is a tragedy. No woman wants to have one. It's not something women do unless they can see no other alternative.
If you continue this crusade of using the government to push your particular morals on women, you stand the chance sharing their fate. Will you turn to a backalley amateur or will you take your own medicine and just pray it all works out? I'm beginning to believe government should be left out of this. Why not allow doctors the right to decide what safe medical procedures they will provide? The government doesn't decide whether or not Docs will treat AIDS, cancer or appendicitis. It doesn't decide if you want to pull the plug on Grandma and Grandpa either (which I think is disgusting). Why should it be used to decide on this medical procedure? Instead of wasting your millions electing innefficient politicians, spend it on real programs that can reduce the need for abortions? Promote charity, good will and safe sex!
Repub,
I don't know which God you serve but my God, The God, is not a vengeful soul. I hate to hear someone say that any woman who dies because they have an abortion deserved it.
- comment republitarian
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- Lucy, 75% of scripture deals with punishment for sin. It doesn't matter if you find God acceptable it only matters if he finds you acceptable; do not be decieved.
- comment art (kenney 3.0)
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- LJ- Your comparison is invalid and I suspect you know it. Male patern baldness is not a life. Nut cancer is not a life. You are comparing things to the taking of a life.
Protecting life is not a male or female issue. It is a human issue. We are merely trying to assert that the fetus, the unborn human being, has the right to live. I have heard no one say that they want to do this because women get pregnant because of a sin and they must suffer for it. Even if the act of procreation was a sin the child is a blessing.
- comment Lucy Jones
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- comparing things to the taking of a life
Without using the Bible or any other religious means, can you prove that the period between conception and viability outside the womb is life?
This is the whole center of the argument to me.
No, I don't want anyone to have an abortion BUT the Government can not rightfully determine that this medical procedure is murder without imposing religious beliefs. Murder only happens when a life is taken.
Without proving murder, abortion is simply another medical procedure...
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- From the moment of conception, the entity has all of the requisite DNA to be considered the species homo erectus.
Therefore, life begins at conception.
Back atcha: Without using religious, sentimentality, or other subjective interpretations, if life does not begin at conception, then when is a human being considered to be "human" and therefore worthy of life? Why?
This is a good conversation -- I hope we keep it this educated and civil! :)
- comment amiss
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- The viability argument is useless.
Viablility is that which is capable of living outside the uterus. A full term child delivered properly, while it is able to breathe and move on its own, is not capable of living outside the uterus. It cannot feed itself, nor take care of any other functions as such. It must receive its care from another source entirely for it to be able to properly sustain its own life outside the womb.
Furthermore, let's take the case of a child born prematurely, say 27-28 weeks. The child cannot sustain life on its own outside the womb without the entire support system of incubators, doctors, nurses, medicines, oxygen, food, etc. Yet to say say it was not a child would be wrong, and to kill it would be murder. However, the same child living inside the womb at 27-28 weeks, with the mother's support system of oxygen, food, etc is not a child (by abortion advocate's standards) and could be aborted, yet that would not be considered murder.
Absurd.
- comment republitarian
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- You're funny Lucy.
If your mother would have murdered you, would you have considered it just another medical procedure?
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- amiss,
You are 100% correct. In fact, I would go so far to say that most teenagers don't meet the definition of "viability" that most impose upon unborn children.
Let's not pick on Lucy now... she has the courtesy of commenting on a blog with a lot of pro-life readership, which we should all appreciate and respect (especially since she's done it in a very intelligent manner thus far).
That means you, Myron! :)
- comment too conservative
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- I read her post..
it was disturbing.
I do believe state bans on abortions would limit abortions. Even if they save one life a year, it's worth the ban.
Regarding this lady going to hell....it must be a catholic thing.
My church professes that anyone who accepts Christ will be forgiven, thus if this lady is a christian...she will be sitting beside us in heaven.
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- To Waldo's comment (which I believe is a very valid concern where an abortion ban would place the mother's life in danger), I would respond that I beleive the demand for abortion is artificially inflated by the very fact that it is so heavily subsidized.
Like most things the government subsidizes, an artificial market results.
Unfortunately, the entire issue of abortion tends to fall into the category of "issues which ought not to have been raised."
If society took the money we spend subsidizing abortion and instead focused on education initiatives, etc. that create opportunities and give people a sliver of hope, the world would be a far better place.
Some folks have other priorities though...
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- My church professes that anyone who accepts Christ will be forgiven, thus if this lady is a christian...she will be sitting beside us in heaven.
"Go forth and sin, and sin boldly! For nothing can separate you from your salvation."
Paraphrasing Martin Luther, I think?
- comment too conservative
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- Shaun-
You hit it on the head(seriously).
Martin Luther's the man.
- comment too conservative
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- This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
- comment too conservative
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- For if all sinners could not achieve salvation, none would enter the kingdom of heaven.
Here's an entire website on the sin boldly quote...it picks the entire letter to pieces, and goes into biblical detail..
http://www.ntrmin.org/Be%20a%20sinner%20and%20sin%20boldly%20web.htm#a1
- comment Lucy Jones
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- Just for the record, I do not personally condone abortion. I don't want anyone to ever have another one. I am just not altogether excited about taking away legal choices from women because of my personal religious beliefs. In turn, I would expect that if there comes a day when satan worshipers lead our country, they would also not be allowed to use the government to force me to observe their religious beliefs.
Consider me your grasshopper. I'm here to learn. I have no problem changing my mind when I can see a good argument. If I can see a way the government can intervene without imposing religious beliefs, and without forcing women to kill themselves, then I could be enticed to re-consider my opinion. Also, as a side note, I'm very strong on educating/reducing the demand for abortion first, before making it illegal.
Now, back to when life begins... I agree with the statement "from the moment of conception, the entity has all of the requisite DNA to be considered the species homo erectus" BUT that does not, to me, validate "living" without getting into the religious aspect.
I consider "viable" or "living" to mean to be able to live outside the womb (with or without assistance). I understand that in all cases a human infant needs another human to survive once it can be successfully removed from the womb. But from the time of conception to some point in the second or third trimester, the fetus can not be removed from the womb and survive. Is this because we just haven't figured it out yet? Probably... I'm not sure I want scientists to be able to figure that out. I don't want designer babies. Maybe God doesn't either. But for whatever reason, there is a period of time when a fetus is not "viable". To me, this is the only acceptable period when an abortion is not murderous - this time when the fetus cannot live outside of the womb. (And of course, when the mother's life is in danger) I do not in any way support late abortion (or partial birth, whatever you want to call it). An infant can live outside the womb at this time and to me, is a human life no matter how you look at it.
Now, for some questions...
How about cases where twins are born conjoined. Do you also consider it unethical to separate the two knowing that one will die?
Do you consider it ethical to remove life support from a person who is "brain dead" or otherwise incapacitated?
Death penalty legal or murderous?
If it is your opinion that having the correct DNA means you "live", then why would you condone killing someone who just happens to be incapacitated to some degree?
- comment republitarian
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- Shaun I wasn't picking on anyone, especially Lucy. I first complimented her and then asked a serious question that would put it on a personal level.
- comment art (kenney 3.0)
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- LJ: Answers, just to help the understanding...
"How about cases where twins are born conjoined. Do you also consider it unethical to separate the two knowing that one will die?"
That is unethical. the doctor should refuse to do the opperation. It should never be legal to kill a child, no matter the birth defect.
"Do you consider it ethical to remove life support from a person who is "brain dead" or otherwise incapacitated?"
No. They are still alive.
"Death penalty legal or murderous?"
It can be both; legal and murderous are not opposites. The death penalty is legal and should remain so. I would like to see it go away but it is the most effect punishment we have in the US. No one who is found guilty, sentenced, and put to death has ever killed again.
"If it is your opinion that having the correct DNA means you "live", then why would you condone killing someone who just happens to be incapacitated to some degree?"
I don't, and no good person should. I doubt many people that read this blog would suppor the idea of killing people for being "defective" in some way.
- comment Lucy Jones
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- So, if a 90 year old relative is involved in a car accident or has a stroke or something, suffers brain damage that the doctors say can never be cured, is on full life support (breathing machines and all), you would not remove life support?
I don't understand your opinion on the death penalty. Killing is killing... whether in the name of the state or not, no?
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- I think I've already stated my opinions on "viability", so I'll leave this one alone for the moment; agreeing to disagree.
Allow me to take a different track than Kenney v 3.0 on you're questions:
How about cases where twins are born conjoined. Do you also consider it unethical to separate the two knowing that one will die?
Law of Unintended Effect. The procedure should be undertaken with the intent to save both lives, otherwise you get into a version of lifeboat ethics, and that's not good.
Do you consider it ethical to remove life support from a person who is "brain dead" or otherwise incapacitated?
Two kinds of life support, necessary and unnecessary. Life support that unnecessarily prolongs death should be ended. Life support that sustains life should be applied.
Death penalty legal or murderous?
Not sure what you're trying to ask here... are you asking if the death penalty is legal, moral, ethical?
As for Art's answer on the death penalty, St. Thomas More would have something to say about the
If it is your opinion that having the correct DNA means you "live", then why would you condone killing someone who just happens to be incapacitated to some degree?
Not sure about this one either (unless there was a train of thought I completely missed or sidestepped).
- comment Lucy Jones
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- Oops Sorry!! Good thing I didn't give up my day job to become a writer, huh? :)
Incapacitated was part of the "brain dead" question. Incapacitated because they are in a coma...
Death penalty - I'm asking if you consider it moral.
- comment Waldo Jaquith
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- From the moment of conception, the entity has all of the requisite DNA to be considered the species homo erectus.
Therefore, life begins at conception.
But, Shaun, a freshly-dead body has "all of the requisite DNA to be considered the species homo erectus" (homo sapiens, actually), but it's clearly not alive. Likewise, if I severed my big toe and preserved it on ice, nobody would fret if I decided to toss it in the trash. If my brain were removed from my body and my body continued to exist for some period, using machines to maintain my bloodflow, I can't imagine that anybody would believe that I were alive.
The possession of Homo sapiens DNA is not proof of life. If that were so, it would make life nothing more than a happy collision of proteins, and I suspect that you don't believe that to be so. There is some ineffable, irreducible element that defines life. Religion calls it the soul. Science hasn't defined it, and perhaps will never be able to. It cheapens life, I think, to chalk that up to DNA.
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- This much is true - genetic coding might be a starting point, but in and of itself is not "life". Prerequisite perhaps, but not life.
Souls are mentioned, consciousness (which we are on the brink of discovering when this occurs as a quantum phenomenon I think, within 10 years or so) but there is even there something missing in "consciences not fully developed" being as worthy of life.
Of course, what separates a toe, a dead man, a brain, and an embryo are two items (1) requisite parts - i.e. the first three are parts of the whole, while an embryo has all the requisite parts of a human being, and (2) the dinge-an-sich, being (dasein?), potentiality, or whatever one might call the "will to live".
This, I believe, separates one's toe, brain, or dead body from an embryo, and awards it the status of life that should be protected.
Schweitzer (a favorite philosopher of mine) summed it up:
I am life which wills to live, in the midst of life which wills to live. As in my own will-to-live there is a longing for wider life and pleasure, with dread of annihilation and pain; so is it also in the will-to-live all around me, whether it can express itself before me or remains dumb. The will-to-live is everywhere present, even as in me. If I am a thinking being, I must regard life other than my own with equal reverence, for I shall know that it longs for fullness and development as deeply as I do myself. Therefore, I see that evil is what annihilates, hampers, or hinders life. And this holds true whether I regard it physically or spiritually. Goodness, by the same token, is the saving or helping of life, the enabling of whatever life I can to attain its highest development.
http://www.schweitzer.org/english/ase/aseref.htm
He wrote this in the 1930's long before abortion was an issue, but it's a wonderful, neatly tied ethic that - I believe - applies to the embryonic human being.
Of course, this has natural extensions towards the death penalty, animal rights, education, human rights universally, and so forth.
Short answer: The will-to-live separates the embryo from your toe (genetic structure might identify the object as human, but not necessarily "life").
- comment Lucy Jones
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- Wow, I like that. Thanks!!!
- comment Waldo Jaquith
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- Shaun, I hope you'll understand, then, that I cannot believe that a newly-fertilized egg possesses a will to live, or even at will at all. It is my belief that, at this early phase, it is nothing more than a chemical reaction.
I cannot pretend to know at what point this chemical reaction develops a will to live. One day? One week? One month? Three months? Who knows? I imagine that it must be quite helpful to really know that it begins instantly, or at any particular point, but I don't claim to possess that knowledge.
- comment Lucy Jones
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- Good article today on Roe.
- comment Mike
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- Waldo,
When discussing the nature of life, and more specifically human life, one must make the distinction between that which is alive and that which is not alive, and then one has to determine that which is human and that which is either not human, or simply a part of a human (such as a toe).
Life.
The determination between that which is alive and that which is not alive is fairly simple. Things which are alive possess certain powers that things which are not alive do not. For instance, that which is alive possesses the ability to take in nutrients, grow, and reproduce while things which are not alive can do none of those things. The most basic elements, of course, and the abilities to take in nutrients, and to grow under its own power (not being constructed by external powers, in other words), but those break down to the very simple notion of self-movement.
When I say "self-movement", I am not speaking necessarily about locomotion, as with animals, but motion from within. The movement of cells in unison for the greater purpose of the whole through the creation of new cells, directed to a specific form is called growth. This growth is motion, since it takes the movement of nutrients to feed existing cells, and allow those cells to create new cells. This motion, since it is specifically set towards the purpose of growth into a larger being is self-perpetuated ... it is not perpetrated upon from an outside force (though it may be sustained by one), but is an action inherent within itself alone. This cannot happen without life. more specifically, this cannot happen without INDEPENDANT life.
As such, a fertalized egg, necessarily is an individual, independant life which is not being created from without by the mother's body, but from within a power unto itself.
But then one questions the humanity of such a life. For one, it is not a "part" of the mother for it is acting upon its own independant set of "blueprints". Furthermore, it does not even share the same blood. While nutrients are exchanged in the mother's body, the baby growing in the mother's body does not share the same blood-stream. Even more compelling is the fact that the fertalized egg will NEVER become anything other than a zygote, then fetus, then baby, then toddler, then teenager, then adult. It will not form into some part of the mother's body ... it is DESIGNED, from the outset, as its own being.
As such, there can be no question as to the living nature of a fertalized egg, nor can there be any question as to the individuality nor the humanity of it, either.
- comment xspaansx
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- just a question. If you do believe that men should not intervene in the giving or taking of life..
How about all the life saving procedures that occur each day in hospital? If God had his way, all these people would die, right? Heart transplants, chemo therapy, saving premies? If left alone, and let Gods will prevail, these people, children would die. Why is it allright to interfere with Gods will in those cases? Please enlighten me!
- comment Staywiththepoint
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- This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
- comment Staywiththepoint
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- Mike's posting makes an excellent case for the unborn fetus becoming an independent entity early on in gestation, though he does not focus on the necessary environmental circumstances that allow it to be so: The blood streams may not be shared, though without the carrier's sustained vitality the unborn fetus will share the same fate as its carrier. So if viability is a matter of self-sufficience, then the fetus is not completely independent until the umbilical cord is severed.
Mike's point about self-perpetuating growth is also apt, thought it is overly broad in that any scruples derived from that attribute cannot be universally applied; imagine denouncing an oncologist for his destruction of a malignant cell in a human brain, even though its existence would perpetually prosper w/out intervention.
And with Waldo, I see his point of equating the illegality of abortion with prohibition and the war on drugs, though he has cherrypicked his history to advance his cause. There are actions in american history that do to there prohibition/regulation were alleviated over a period of time: lynching, segregation, nyquil. The first two involving mistreatment of others and the last containing a drug making ingredient, which by being regulated significantly diminished the practice of cooking crystal meth.
Ultimately, the abortion opponents aren't only opposing the act of abortion but the women's right to decide what she will do with her own body, within which a fetus may be developing. And what right, as an equal, does another have to tell anyone how to decide their own fate, notwithstanding the fate of the unborn fetus. Considering the fate of the fetus, what doctrine grants the right of myriad others to decide its fate, while negating the right of the one most directly affected by it?
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- Considering the fate of the fetus, what doctrine grants the right of myriad others to decide its fate, while negating the right of the one most directly affected by it?
You're absolutely correct. Such reasoning could be used to translate the eradication of any unwanted creature that imposed upon a person or group of people.
Frankly, that is not a world I care to live in.
- comment Staywiththepoint
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- Shaun, this reasoning cannot be applied beyond this model because in no other circumstance is one entity (the fetus) fully dependent upond the vitality of the other (the carrier). Even in cases of parents taking care of their progeny from birth to young adulthood, the dependent entity always has the capacity to severe relations w/ its parent, whether through individual will or as ordained by society.
I don't see how one person's decision on what to do with their own body can translate into groupthink. Unless its a matter of how a person's self-affecting actions influence the group through persuasive example. Is that the case.
44 Comments:
Prohibition hardly limited demand for alcohol (my great grandfather used to make liquor in his bathtub), despite the surely well-intented attempt to legislate morality. Word recently came out that marijuana is one of the largest crash crops produced by Oregon -- again, illegal on the basis of morality, but that's done little to reduce demand.
In the coming years we'll see a spike in the rates of serious injury and death among young women in South Dakota and Mississippi as they turn to self-mutilation when the option of a safe, legal abortion is taken away.
If someone is against abortion, they should support the policies that actually reduce the number of abortions in this country; effective sex Ed in schools and an emphasis on birth control. The only times the numbers of abortions in this country have gone down are from 95-01 when those polices were implemented (15% reduction). After about a year of the GWB administration that number went back up to its pre-Clinton numbers.
We must change the social climate, eliminating safe access to abortion doesn’t change anything except cause many more mothers to die of infections.
On the other hand, I made myself read through that whole post that MollyBrown put up, I have never been so disgusted in my life. I personally oppose abortion (though I would call myself pro-choice lite) and its horrible effects can be seen in countries like Russia. In Russia for every 1 live-birth there are 2 abortions; something that has resulted in a horrible demographic shift in that country which is already cursed with a dictator for a leader a terrible economy.
The mafia has a demand for hiring hit men, Waldo. Should we facilitate that too so they don't recruit them in another state?
When you commit murder and you die or get an infection as a result maybe God is a little upset with you for playing God.
(For those of you who don't believe in God please disregard that last staement.)
While there is evidence to suggest some women travel to other states, many do not. They either cannot afford it, or do not wish to kill their child that badly.
I fail to see much difference between following these procedures and going to a clinic where someone who is not even a doctor will perform the procedure in an environment that need be no cleaner than the kitchen in a resturant.
Reducing demand for abortion means teaching teenagers about sex and providing access to birth control emergency contraception.
Reducing the supply of abortion can be accomplished, in part, by making it impossible for medical professionals to legally perform abortions. That will not prevent a black market in abortions from appearing, nor will it reduce demand.
There is no doubt that the number of abortions can be reduced by reducing the supply. But that will not eliminate them -- it will only make the remaining demand more desperate and the supply of dangerously poor quality. This is as true of abortion as it is of alcohol, drugs, or any other banned and popular product or service.
1. Banning abortions most certainly WOULD decrease abortions. Demand might remain steady, but the number of abortions performed would definitely go down. With time, even demand would go down after people were sent to prison or the dangers of backalley abortions became well known.
2. I don't see the difference between Molly's post and a post that says the following:
How to kill someone
Take a gun and shoot them in the head.
I do not advocate doing this. This is for information only.
Yet it will reduce the demand. When the courts authorized abortion, it lent a degree of moral approval to the procedure. If, like me, you've had several experiences talking with post-abortive women (particularly from the early 70s) that's one theme that comes out.
In class now, but more later.
If you continue this crusade of using the government to push your particular morals on women, you stand the chance sharing their fate. Will you turn to a backalley amateur or will you take your own medicine and just pray it all works out? I'm beginning to believe government should be left out of this. Why not allow doctors the right to decide what safe medical procedures they will provide? The government doesn't decide whether or not Docs will treat AIDS, cancer or appendicitis. It doesn't decide if you want to pull the plug on Grandma and Grandpa either (which I think is disgusting). Why should it be used to decide on this medical procedure? Instead of wasting your millions electing innefficient politicians, spend it on real programs that can reduce the need for abortions? Promote charity, good will and safe sex!
Repub,
I don't know which God you serve but my God, The God, is not a vengeful soul. I hate to hear someone say that any woman who dies because they have an abortion deserved it.
Protecting life is not a male or female issue. It is a human issue. We are merely trying to assert that the fetus, the unborn human being, has the right to live. I have heard no one say that they want to do this because women get pregnant because of a sin and they must suffer for it. Even if the act of procreation was a sin the child is a blessing.
Without using the Bible or any other religious means, can you prove that the period between conception and viability outside the womb is life?
This is the whole center of the argument to me.
No, I don't want anyone to have an abortion BUT the Government can not rightfully determine that this medical procedure is murder without imposing religious beliefs. Murder only happens when a life is taken.
Without proving murder, abortion is simply another medical procedure...
Therefore, life begins at conception.
Back atcha: Without using religious, sentimentality, or other subjective interpretations, if life does not begin at conception, then when is a human being considered to be "human" and therefore worthy of life? Why?
This is a good conversation -- I hope we keep it this educated and civil! :)
Viablility is that which is capable of living outside the uterus. A full term child delivered properly, while it is able to breathe and move on its own, is not capable of living outside the uterus. It cannot feed itself, nor take care of any other functions as such. It must receive its care from another source entirely for it to be able to properly sustain its own life outside the womb.
Furthermore, let's take the case of a child born prematurely, say 27-28 weeks. The child cannot sustain life on its own outside the womb without the entire support system of incubators, doctors, nurses, medicines, oxygen, food, etc. Yet to say say it was not a child would be wrong, and to kill it would be murder. However, the same child living inside the womb at 27-28 weeks, with the mother's support system of oxygen, food, etc is not a child (by abortion advocate's standards) and could be aborted, yet that would not be considered murder.
Absurd.
If your mother would have murdered you, would you have considered it just another medical procedure?
You are 100% correct. In fact, I would go so far to say that most teenagers don't meet the definition of "viability" that most impose upon unborn children.
Let's not pick on Lucy now... she has the courtesy of commenting on a blog with a lot of pro-life readership, which we should all appreciate and respect (especially since she's done it in a very intelligent manner thus far).
That means you, Myron! :)
it was disturbing.
I do believe state bans on abortions would limit abortions. Even if they save one life a year, it's worth the ban.
Regarding this lady going to hell....it must be a catholic thing.
My church professes that anyone who accepts Christ will be forgiven, thus if this lady is a christian...she will be sitting beside us in heaven.
Like most things the government subsidizes, an artificial market results.
Unfortunately, the entire issue of abortion tends to fall into the category of "issues which ought not to have been raised."
If society took the money we spend subsidizing abortion and instead focused on education initiatives, etc. that create opportunities and give people a sliver of hope, the world would be a far better place.
Some folks have other priorities though...
"Go forth and sin, and sin boldly! For nothing can separate you from your salvation."
Paraphrasing Martin Luther, I think?
You hit it on the head(seriously).
Martin Luther's the man.
Here's an entire website on the sin boldly quote...it picks the entire letter to pieces, and goes into biblical detail..
http://www.ntrmin.org/Be%20a%20sinner%20and%20sin%20boldly%20web.htm#a1
Consider me your grasshopper. I'm here to learn. I have no problem changing my mind when I can see a good argument. If I can see a way the government can intervene without imposing religious beliefs, and without forcing women to kill themselves, then I could be enticed to re-consider my opinion. Also, as a side note, I'm very strong on educating/reducing the demand for abortion first, before making it illegal.
Now, back to when life begins... I agree with the statement "from the moment of conception, the entity has all of the requisite DNA to be considered the species homo erectus" BUT that does not, to me, validate "living" without getting into the religious aspect.
I consider "viable" or "living" to mean to be able to live outside the womb (with or without assistance). I understand that in all cases a human infant needs another human to survive once it can be successfully removed from the womb. But from the time of conception to some point in the second or third trimester, the fetus can not be removed from the womb and survive. Is this because we just haven't figured it out yet? Probably... I'm not sure I want scientists to be able to figure that out. I don't want designer babies. Maybe God doesn't either. But for whatever reason, there is a period of time when a fetus is not "viable". To me, this is the only acceptable period when an abortion is not murderous - this time when the fetus cannot live outside of the womb. (And of course, when the mother's life is in danger) I do not in any way support late abortion (or partial birth, whatever you want to call it). An infant can live outside the womb at this time and to me, is a human life no matter how you look at it.
Now, for some questions...
How about cases where twins are born conjoined. Do you also consider it unethical to separate the two knowing that one will die?
Do you consider it ethical to remove life support from a person who is "brain dead" or otherwise incapacitated?
Death penalty legal or murderous?
If it is your opinion that having the correct DNA means you "live", then why would you condone killing someone who just happens to be incapacitated to some degree?
"How about cases where twins are born conjoined. Do you also consider it unethical to separate the two knowing that one will die?"
That is unethical. the doctor should refuse to do the opperation. It should never be legal to kill a child, no matter the birth defect.
"Do you consider it ethical to remove life support from a person who is "brain dead" or otherwise incapacitated?"
No. They are still alive.
"Death penalty legal or murderous?"
It can be both; legal and murderous are not opposites. The death penalty is legal and should remain so. I would like to see it go away but it is the most effect punishment we have in the US. No one who is found guilty, sentenced, and put to death has ever killed again.
"If it is your opinion that having the correct DNA means you "live", then why would you condone killing someone who just happens to be incapacitated to some degree?"
I don't, and no good person should. I doubt many people that read this blog would suppor the idea of killing people for being "defective" in some way.
I don't understand your opinion on the death penalty. Killing is killing... whether in the name of the state or not, no?
Allow me to take a different track than Kenney v 3.0 on you're questions:
How about cases where twins are born conjoined. Do you also consider it unethical to separate the two knowing that one will die?
Law of Unintended Effect. The procedure should be undertaken with the intent to save both lives, otherwise you get into a version of lifeboat ethics, and that's not good.
Do you consider it ethical to remove life support from a person who is "brain dead" or otherwise incapacitated?
Two kinds of life support, necessary and unnecessary. Life support that unnecessarily prolongs death should be ended. Life support that sustains life should be applied.
Death penalty legal or murderous?
Not sure what you're trying to ask here... are you asking if the death penalty is legal, moral, ethical?
As for Art's answer on the death penalty, St. Thomas More would have something to say about the
If it is your opinion that having the correct DNA means you "live", then why would you condone killing someone who just happens to be incapacitated to some degree?
Not sure about this one either (unless there was a train of thought I completely missed or sidestepped).
Incapacitated was part of the "brain dead" question. Incapacitated because they are in a coma...
Death penalty - I'm asking if you consider it moral.
Therefore, life begins at conception.
But, Shaun, a freshly-dead body has "all of the requisite DNA to be considered the species homo erectus" (homo sapiens, actually), but it's clearly not alive. Likewise, if I severed my big toe and preserved it on ice, nobody would fret if I decided to toss it in the trash. If my brain were removed from my body and my body continued to exist for some period, using machines to maintain my bloodflow, I can't imagine that anybody would believe that I were alive.
The possession of Homo sapiens DNA is not proof of life. If that were so, it would make life nothing more than a happy collision of proteins, and I suspect that you don't believe that to be so. There is some ineffable, irreducible element that defines life. Religion calls it the soul. Science hasn't defined it, and perhaps will never be able to. It cheapens life, I think, to chalk that up to DNA.
Souls are mentioned, consciousness (which we are on the brink of discovering when this occurs as a quantum phenomenon I think, within 10 years or so) but there is even there something missing in "consciences not fully developed" being as worthy of life.
Of course, what separates a toe, a dead man, a brain, and an embryo are two items (1) requisite parts - i.e. the first three are parts of the whole, while an embryo has all the requisite parts of a human being, and (2) the dinge-an-sich, being (dasein?), potentiality, or whatever one might call the "will to live".
This, I believe, separates one's toe, brain, or dead body from an embryo, and awards it the status of life that should be protected.
Schweitzer (a favorite philosopher of mine) summed it up:
I am life which wills to live, in the midst of life which wills to live. As in my own will-to-live there is a longing for wider life and pleasure, with dread of annihilation and pain; so is it also in the will-to-live all around me, whether it can express itself before me or remains dumb. The will-to-live is everywhere present, even as in me. If I am a thinking being, I must regard life other than my own with equal reverence, for I shall know that it longs for fullness and development as deeply as I do myself. Therefore, I see that evil is what annihilates, hampers, or hinders life. And this holds true whether I regard it physically or spiritually. Goodness, by the same token, is the saving or helping of life, the enabling of whatever life I can to attain its highest development.
http://www.schweitzer.org/english/ase/aseref.htm
He wrote this in the 1930's long before abortion was an issue, but it's a wonderful, neatly tied ethic that - I believe - applies to the embryonic human being.
Of course, this has natural extensions towards the death penalty, animal rights, education, human rights universally, and so forth.
Short answer: The will-to-live separates the embryo from your toe (genetic structure might identify the object as human, but not necessarily "life").
I cannot pretend to know at what point this chemical reaction develops a will to live. One day? One week? One month? Three months? Who knows? I imagine that it must be quite helpful to really know that it begins instantly, or at any particular point, but I don't claim to possess that knowledge.
When discussing the nature of life, and more specifically human life, one must make the distinction between that which is alive and that which is not alive, and then one has to determine that which is human and that which is either not human, or simply a part of a human (such as a toe).
Life.
The determination between that which is alive and that which is not alive is fairly simple. Things which are alive possess certain powers that things which are not alive do not. For instance, that which is alive possesses the ability to take in nutrients, grow, and reproduce while things which are not alive can do none of those things. The most basic elements, of course, and the abilities to take in nutrients, and to grow under its own power (not being constructed by external powers, in other words), but those break down to the very simple notion of self-movement.
When I say "self-movement", I am not speaking necessarily about locomotion, as with animals, but motion from within. The movement of cells in unison for the greater purpose of the whole through the creation of new cells, directed to a specific form is called growth. This growth is motion, since it takes the movement of nutrients to feed existing cells, and allow those cells to create new cells. This motion, since it is specifically set towards the purpose of growth into a larger being is self-perpetuated ... it is not perpetrated upon from an outside force (though it may be sustained by one), but is an action inherent within itself alone. This cannot happen without life. more specifically, this cannot happen without INDEPENDANT life.
As such, a fertalized egg, necessarily is an individual, independant life which is not being created from without by the mother's body, but from within a power unto itself.
But then one questions the humanity of such a life. For one, it is not a "part" of the mother for it is acting upon its own independant set of "blueprints". Furthermore, it does not even share the same blood. While nutrients are exchanged in the mother's body, the baby growing in the mother's body does not share the same blood-stream. Even more compelling is the fact that the fertalized egg will NEVER become anything other than a zygote, then fetus, then baby, then toddler, then teenager, then adult. It will not form into some part of the mother's body ... it is DESIGNED, from the outset, as its own being.
As such, there can be no question as to the living nature of a fertalized egg, nor can there be any question as to the individuality nor the humanity of it, either.
How about all the life saving procedures that occur each day in hospital? If God had his way, all these people would die, right? Heart transplants, chemo therapy, saving premies? If left alone, and let Gods will prevail, these people, children would die. Why is it allright to interfere with Gods will in those cases? Please enlighten me!
Mike's point about self-perpetuating growth is also apt, thought it is overly broad in that any scruples derived from that attribute cannot be universally applied; imagine denouncing an oncologist for his destruction of a malignant cell in a human brain, even though its existence would perpetually prosper w/out intervention.
And with Waldo, I see his point of equating the illegality of abortion with prohibition and the war on drugs, though he has cherrypicked his history to advance his cause. There are actions in american history that do to there prohibition/regulation were alleviated over a period of time: lynching, segregation, nyquil. The first two involving mistreatment of others and the last containing a drug making ingredient, which by being regulated significantly diminished the practice of cooking crystal meth.
Ultimately, the abortion opponents aren't only opposing the act of abortion but the women's right to decide what she will do with her own body, within which a fetus may be developing. And what right, as an equal, does another have to tell anyone how to decide their own fate, notwithstanding the fate of the unborn fetus. Considering the fate of the fetus, what doctrine grants the right of myriad others to decide its fate, while negating the right of the one most directly affected by it?
You're absolutely correct. Such reasoning could be used to translate the eradication of any unwanted creature that imposed upon a person or group of people.
Frankly, that is not a world I care to live in.
I don't see how one person's decision on what to do with their own body can translate into groupthink. Unless its a matter of how a person's self-affecting actions influence the group through persuasive example. Is that the case.
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