Unborn children cannot survive without their mothers.
A two month old child cannot survive without an adult either.
Same for a 1 year old, for a 2 year old, the same.
Abortion pretty much has no excuse regarding counciousness and dependence of others.
Either (1) we arbitrarily grant the right to life beginning at conception, or (2) we grant the right to life beginning at conception for a non-arbitrary reason, or (3) we arbitrarily draw a line sometime after conception as to when life is protected, or (4) we draw a line sometime after conception as to when life is protected on the basis of some non-arbitrary reason.
Can we at least agree to do neither (1) nor (3)?
Unborn children cannot survive without their mothers.
A two month old child cannot survive without an adult either.
Same for a 1 year old, for a 2 year old, the same.
Abortion pretty much has no excuse regarding counciousness and dependence of others.
Often the biggest reason for defending it, they bring up cases of incest or rape, but when the actual discussion begins, they are okay with pretty much any reason for abortion, at least up to a certain time frame, and in some instances, they are totally pro-life.
I (at the least) try to discuss the concept of frivolous abortions - having one because you want to lose weight...no joke. Posting pictures of what actual abortions look like, and being told I am lying. Fun conversations.
It is hard for people sometimes to come to terms with murder, if they are the ones condoning it, especially if they are trying to approach being pro-choice from a benevolent standpoint.
They say we have cognitive dissonance, and then struggle with this (when I say they, it is used generically, and is not used to imply all people who are pro-choice). I feel there is a time to educate someone about what abortion truly is, but if they close their hearts off from having compassion on the unborn, then what can you do?
The question is, is compassion for the unborn like compassion for an adult human being, or like compassion for an eight-year-old, or like compassion for a housecat, or like compassion for a frog, or like compassion for a mosquito, or like compassion for a rock? In other words, what sort of thing is it that one is thinking of aborting?
Are we stating that human life is anywhere equivalent to a rock? This is exactly my point - that we even have to drag the conversation down to that level.
Ask yourself - a woman is sleeping around and gets pregnant. She doesn't want to give up her party lifestyle, so she opts for an abortion.
Isn't this negligent?
Are we stating that human life is anywhere equivalent to a rock? No. We're asking what sort of thing an embryo or fetus is morally equivalent to. This may vary from stage to stage of the pregnancy. A single-celled conceptus is awfully close to the moral equivalent of a rock. An eight-month-old fetus is closer to a frog. This is exactly my point - that we even have to drag the conversation down to that level.
Ask yourself - a woman is sleeping around and gets pregnant. She doesn't want to give up her party lifestyle, so she opts for an abortion. Or, she doesn't think she can take good care of a child; or, she doesn't think it's a good idea to bring a child into the world.
Isn't this negligent? Why? Because she deals responsibly with the situation she finds herself in as the result of her activity? Or because you don't think having an abortion *is* dealing responsibly with the situation she finds herself in?
I think that justifying murder on the thought of being irresponsible is totally unacceptable. At the least, people need to give the child up for adoption. If someone is that irresponsible that they can sacrifice the life of a child so selfishly, they don't need to be able to conceive later anyway, imo.
As far as saying an 8-month child is equivalent to a frog...yes, that is a big problem here. They are nowhere near the same thing.
The problem is that you are justifying murder. I would have more respect for your position if you were discussing that a woman who got raped immediately went in for an exam and a cleaning to prevent pregnancy. BUT if we are talking about someone waiting 8 months and then stating that they should have the right to abort that child because they feel they are irresponsible? Yes, we can tell they are irresponsible.
Why are you okay with a woman sleeping around, rather than condemning such actions? Why are you okay with irresponsible pregnancy, but won't condemn child murder?
These are my issues with this conversation. An eight-month old child in the womb is nowhere near the same thing as a frog, never was, never will be.
Let's be real about it - how many people have early deliveries, delivering a child at 8 months? That's not a frog that pops out - that is a living child.
I think that it's thinking, feeling beings that should be treated as having moral worth. Having human DNA isn't enough. It's mental states that matter. An embryo has no mental state. A fetus whose cerebral cortex has not yet developed has no mental state. That takes care of the first twenty or so weeks of development.
Even at eight months, it seems unlikely to me that a fetus has any kind of mental state worthy of moral protection. Neither does a newborn, for that matter; when we decide to start offering moral protection is essentially arbitrary. I don't see what justifies outrage at abortion even at eight months except the fetus's *looking* like a baby. And appearance doesn't determine moral value. A doll could be made to look like a baby, but it wouldn't have moral value.
At least a frog takes in sensory input and reacts to its environment. An embryo doesn't do that, and a fetus doesn't do much of it.
You characterize the woman's choice to have an abortion--presumably long before eight months--as "murder." Murder is the unjustified taking of a person's life (so, we don't usually count killing in the course of an announced war as murder, and we certainly don't count killing in self-defense as murder). What do you think makes abortion murder?
Mindwalk, according to your statement, a man who goes into a coma is not deserving of moral worth. I am sorry, this is SO unfair, and so biased, towards that child.
I am not sure you have ever had a child before...when my baby was in my wife's womb, she commented that he was able to kick to the beat when she was playing drums. Imagine a child within your body kicking to the beat - you have to have good rhythm...and only at 5 months in the womb? How is that not solid mental activity?
He was bouncing around in the womb during concerts SPECIFICALLY when I would sing. This was recognizing my voice. How is that not mental activity? I suppose you consider all of this just muscle reflex.
You have a scary outlook on abortion (and you would say the same about me), but I fear for a child in your care, because you would treat them as an arbitrary thing, rather than the child of a human being. This is very calloused, and I know you don't see it as such. I wouldn't be surprised if you are actually okay with aborting a child even when they are born...heck, let's see.
At what point does mental state come into the picture? Two years? Five years? At what point is it suddenly morally bankrupt to kill that child?
You spend more time defending the rights of irresponsible women than you do of innocent children, and that is the issue. If you only defended cases of rape and incest, and asked that a woman be responsible and get an examination immediately (if possible)...but you are perfectly fine with a woman who uses selfish reasoning for abortion. You know, let's apply this logic when the child is 6 months old...suddenly a job opportunity pops up. The job requires that the woman (a single mother) be available 24 hours a day on call, and the only option is to get rid of the child...so she drives down to the local abortion clinic. Let's pretend there are new laws that allow for your interpretation of "mental state" (since this is SO arbitrary, aborting that child who has been outside of the womb for 6 months is a right of the mother, correct?) - she stops in, they perform a basic operation (hopefully they don't dismember the 6-month-old outside the womb, that might look like a Saw movie - it is only okay to do that if they are inside the womb, right?) and then BAM, she is free to go, without responsibility over that child.
If a drunk driver hits and kills a pregnant woman, he is charged with double homicide. It IS murder. The issue here is STRICTLY if the mother has rights to extinguish that life, and we live in a society with ideology like yours, that equates children to rocks and frogs, but defends the rights of a selfish woman who desires to party. The morality is skewed.
It is the unjustified taking of a person's life. Tell me, can I use this same logic if my parents get old? I can't take care of them anymore - I will opt for an abortion on them. Their mental state is lackluster, they are constantly on medication (this is all hypothetical, this is not my actual state of life) - so why not? I must be justified in aborting their lives, because I can no longer take care of them...despite if they could take care of me when I was growing up.
I am going to hit one more note - you have equated a living child to a rock...to a mosquito...to a frog...to a play toy. This speaks volumes for itself, in a sad way. We should have more respect for human life than strictly when the brain kicks into an area we deem acceptable.
On a Biblical sense, we are instructed that there is value in life - that God has a plan for us even before we were ever conceived on this Earth.
A commonly quoted pro-life scripture is Jeremiah 1:5 - "5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." God not only has a plan for our lives, but also a desire to have a relationship with us. The Bible instills a value for human life within us, and it begins at the womb.
Unborn children cannot survive without their mothers.
A two month old child cannot survive without an adult either.
Same for a 1 year old, for a 2 year old, the same.
Abortion pretty much has no excuse regarding counciousness and dependence of others.
This coincides with Mindwalk's argument...so let's go to the other side, to the elderly. If an elderly person comes to an age where they depend on the help of, let's say, their children...should they be allowed to abort that person? Mindwalk would likely rebutt with the "mental state" argument, but let's discuss an individual who is coming into Alzheimer's. At what stage are they deemed appropriate to abort, and to be put on the operating table and cut to shreds? That is how we destroy the child in the womb - we cut, we crush, we dismember...so it should be humanely acceptable for our elderly too, right?
This is why I am sorry when I enter these conversations, because they are sad reminders that there are many who don't care about the value of a life in the womb, but then again, if I say nothing, who will?
BirdBrain, I do not think you understand what I am saying.
I am saying that in order to evaluate whether or not abortion is murder, we first have to determine which sorts of entities merit which rights, underwhat circumstances, and why. We do not grant moral rights to housecats, except the right not to be treated cruelly. But we can take housecats to the vet for euthanization. We require a certain degree of mental development before we grant the right to life.
Well, what is the degree of mental development of a two-week-old embryo? Of a four-month-old fetus? Of an eight-month-old fetus? We have to try to determine these things. And we also have to ask whether there are reasons other than degree of mental development that are relevant to our assigning of rights to beings.
(In the case of the person in a coma, his brain has already developed the capacity for thought and feeling; his exercise of it has merely been interrupted--or so we hope. If we reach the point at which we think that it has not merely been interrupted but has ended--if we reach the point at which we think that he will no longer be able to think or feel--then we treat him as a vegetable and "pull the plug." Similarly, when someone is asleep, his brain has the capacity to think and feel, and we understand that his thinking and feeling have merely been interrupted. It is not the same in the case of an embryo or fetus, which has not yet developed such capacities.)
You may or may not think that the ability to respond to a musical beat is a sufficiently great degree of mental development as to grant the right to life to a being. I am not sure that that is a sufficiently great degree of mental development, but I am not claiming that I know where the cutoff really should be drawn. I am inclined to agree with Carl Sagan's cutoff--the point at which the cerebral cortex develops, which is around 20-24 weeks (so, your five-month-old might well count as morally protected on the Sagan criterion).
Too, I have been trying to make the more general point that there is a certain arbitrariness to our drawing of the line at which we agree that lives have sufficiently much moral worth as to count as protected. It depends on what you think gives a life sufficiently much moral worth that we should be prevented from killing it. Some people would say that we should not kill anything with a face and therefore should not kill cattle, pigs, or chickens. I hope most would agree that we should not needlessly inflict pain upon beings that can feel pain--so, if you do take a cat to the vet to be euthanized, you don't have it killed in a painful manner, and if you do have an abortion, you don't have it performed in a way that causes the fetus pain.
A one-celled conceptus surely is morally equivalent to a rock, *if* we use the capacity to think and feel as our measure of moral worth. But we might use some other measure. Do you have another to suggest?
BirdBrain, I do not think you understand what I am saying.
I am saying that in order to evaluate whether or not abortion is murder, we first have to determine which sorts of entities merit which rights, underwhat circumstances, and why. We do not grant moral rights to housecats, except the right not to be treated cruelly. But we can take housecats to the vet for euthanization. We require a certain degree of mental development before we grant the right to life.
Well, what is the degree of mental development of a two-week-old embryo? Of a four-month-old fetus? Of an eight-month-old fetus? We have to try to determine these things. And we also have to ask whether there are reasons other than degree of mental development that are relevant to our assigning of rights to beings.
(In the case of the person in a coma, his brain has already developed the capacity for thought and feeling; his exercise of it has merely been interrupted--or so we hope. If we reach the point at which we think that it has not merely been interrupted but has ended--if we reach the point at which we think that he will no longer be able to think or feel--then we treat him as a vegetable and "pull the plug." Similarly, when someone is asleep, his brain has the capacity to think and feel, and we understand that his thinking and feeling have merely been interrupted. It is not the same in the case of an embryo or fetus, which has not yet developed such capacities.)
You may or may not think that the ability to respond to a musical beat is a sufficiently great degree of mental development as to grant the right to life to a being. I am not sure that that is a sufficiently great degree of mental development, but I am not claiming that I know where the cutoff really should be drawn. I am inclined to agree with Carl Sagan's cutoff--the point at which the cerebral cortex develops, which is around 20-24 weeks (so, your five-month-old might well count as morally protected on the Sagan criterion).
Too, I have been trying to make the more general point that there is a certain arbitrariness to our drawing of the line at which we agree that lives have sufficiently much moral worth as to count as protected. It depends on what you think gives a life sufficiently much moral worth that we should be prevented from killing it. Some people would say that we should not kill anything with a face and therefore should not kill cattle, pigs, or chickens. I hope most would agree that we should not needlessly inflict pain upon beings that can feel pain--so, if you do take a cat to the vet to be euthanized, you don't have it killed in a painful manner, and if you do have an abortion, you don't have it performed in a way that causes the fetus pain.
A one-celled conceptus surely is morally equivalent to a rock, *if* we use the capacity to think and feel as our measure of moral worth. But we might use some other measure. Do you have another to suggest?
Prior to 1978, abortion was not so loosely considered...the definition for murder (per some individuals) had changed based on legal circumstances. Yet, for others, they deem those laws immoral in the vast majority of cases, and what the law might deem as acceptable, other individuals still deem it as murder. This is not the case for every abortion - some are of unfortunate necessity. However, many are not necessary.
Regardless of the gestational age, we ought to give more precedence and support to a child that is growing in the womb. A two-week gestational period VERY quickly evolves into a child that is full formed and born within the year, and within a matter of years becomes an adult. It is that potential of life that should be respected - we should not based our morality on the current state of growth. This is highly unfair to that child. Rather, we ought to put more responsibility on people to treat pregnancy as something to be respected, revered, and as a matter of personal responsibility, for the potential to conceive is important.
As for abortions not causing pain, they offer no sedation to the child, and rip it limb from limb. It is a very VERY painful procedure. This is not the instance in all cases, but if we are making a case for humane abortion, what is the deal with sedating a child and putting them to sleep humanely, rather than dismembering them, or burning them alive in saline solution for instance? It lacks humanity.
Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, not 1978.
I do not see why it matters whether someone wants to get an abortion because she finds being pregnant inconvenient, or because she was raped, or because she doesn't want a girl, or because she thinks she'd be a bad mother, or because she doesn't want to bring a child into the world. If it's murder, it's murder, and if it's not, it's not. And if it's murder, then sorry, the rape victim has to carry her child to term, and if it's not murder, then the woman who merely finds pregnancy inconvenient should be allowed to have an abortion. The question is: Is it murder? (The case in which the life of the mother is threatened is different, since then it's a question of self-defense.)
I agree that abortions should not be performed in ways that cause the fetus pain. If they are, then that is wrong.
It isn't entirely clear what your other arguments are. Are you arguing that an embryo has the potential to become an adult person, so that the embryo should not be aborted? You may so argue--but I don't see how abortion can be unfair to a child unless there *is* a child, a being to whom it is possible to be fair or unfair, and the argument for permitting abortion is that the fetus *isn't* a child--that it *isn't* a being to whom it is possible to be fair or unfair.
It was a slip of the date, I assume you know what I was referencing based on your first post.
You are lumping rape abortions and casual abortions in the same area. This does not imply the MO of "safe, legal and rare". You are actually very liberal in your interpretation of allowing for murdering the child in the womb. Why such a lack of compassion on a child?
If we are discussing rape, then the victim should immediately get checked out to prevent a pregnancy taking place - not just for the sake of the pregnancy, but also to make sure she did not get physically damaged, or to make sure she did not incur any STDs. Why should a woman who is raped have the right to allow a child to form, and wait an indeterminate time period (let's say eight months) and suddenly have a moment of grief and decide to destroy that child? In the case of rape (and incest, etc), women should take responsibility for their own health and get an exam (if possible).
My statement about the embryo is that it is a legitimate life form, a real human being. You and I see conception in a totally different light. You have a very abstract attitude towards the life, bordering on being callously indifferent to their existence. Me, on the other hand - I see that the child will soon be fully formed, and ready to start its Earthly existence.
I fail to find good reason to justify having an abortion for any reason, at any time. This, to me, is lack of a moral compass.
From a Christian stance (since this is a Christian group), most of the people here are going to be some form of pro-life. I don't think we have the business to try and state that at, let's say, 5 months should be a cut-off. I think there needs to be a greater level of responsibility on the part of those who get pregnant - it needs to be treated with responsibility. To simply sleep around, and get pregnant, and then act like it is simply okay to wash away the evidence is sad. To wait until a child is 5 months and then try to wash away the evidence is brutally sad.
If it is murder, then it is murder regardless of the reasons for which it is done.
If it is not murder, then it is not murder regardless of the reasons for which it is done.
The question is: Is it murder?
Also: Your condemnation of a woman's having sex whenever she wants to, with whomever she wants to, has no consequence when evaluating the morality of abortion. The question is: is it murder?
Intentionally destroying a human for selfish reasons is murder. This DOES go with having loose sex, which produces children. You know this.
"Human" is an ambiguous term. "Person" is the morally relevant term. Mr. Spock would count as a person without counting as being human. A baby born anencephalic (i.e., without a brain) would count as human but not as a person. The question is just what does count as a person, and why?
Let me see...they are conceived by two humans? That human is a person. This is pure semantics. BTW, human is NOT ambiguous. We are not talking about frogs and rocks...we are talking about a human body, human DNA, human chromosomes, etc.
Let's be real about this. Let's not beat around the bush any longer. Based on your discussion here (which differs somewhat from the discussions in the atheist groups, which has shocked me), you are perfectly okay with an individual sleeping around with whoever, knowing that this can get them pregnant, and you are okay with them having an abortion at any gestational age (and allude that you are okay with aborting even after physical labor has taken place). You are not okay with someone interfering with this.
Why are you okay with these things? Furthermore, why are you in a Christian group, if you don't believe in Christian practices? Perhaps to discuss from an atheistic standpoint? I don't understand it. Your entire discussion is lacking in morality, from a Christian stance. From your stance, you might presume that you are being an open-minded champion, but there is no way I would allow my child to be overseen by you, with your current outlook on children. I would be afraid that when they were a mere baby, you would have allowed them to choke, because you don't invest the same effort in their lives until a certain mental state is apparent.
Why are no other Christians commenting on this portion of the discussion?
I don't see a reason to continue this further, MindWalk. You have proven my point - you are more apt to defend the rights of those who willingly murder children for selfish reasons, but are easily able to consider a child in the womb as able to be destroyed because it doesn't meet up to the criteria you require. I cannot continue back and forth on this, MW, and I won't.
Anastasios. there is so much technology in our era, is a good thing. People use rationality, it is a good home. However, the wisdom of the heart does not matter anymore. From the Bible we know that only a pure heart can know the love of God. Of course, the heart of the children, of those to be not born .... is immensely pure! Peace and Good in the Lord Jesus Christ.