Abortion

Originally posted by leekim:
[B][QUOTE]Originally posted by bretheweb:
[B]Howdy Lee,
//The key question to the debate on abortion is when one feels life begins.//
Not for me.
The key issue in this debate is about the governments attempted removal of a womans reproductive rights.
-----But one never gets to the issue of a woman's "reproductive rights" if you determine that life begins at the time of conception. Any rights a woman has are trumped by the "life" inside of her (the only time a woman should have a "choice" are in those very limited circumstances where a mother's life is at significant risk). If one determines that a "life" is truly inside her corpus at the moment of conception, than "reproductive rights" becomes a moot issue.You are a man, aren't you?
Since when is any human in the US EVER required to set aside their rights in favor of another's rights??----My gender is irrelevant (ad hominum attack). People, yourself included, seem to have some notion (incorrectly) that rights, as endowed by the Constitution / Ammendments and as interpreted through the Supreme Court, are absolute. That is simply not the case as the law requires everyone to "set aside their rights" if they could have a detrimental effect on another individuals more compelling rights. The classic example is your right to free speech. Although free speech is a right given by the Constitution, one cannot exercise their right to falsely yell "Fire" in a crowded theatere. Why? Because the right to free speech, in that circumstance, is not as compelling as the rights of fellow citizens not to trample one another in an effort to escape from the theater. Defemation / slander is another classic example whereby we limit the right of speech. In the same vein, a woman's reproductive rights are not absolute and can be limited, and are currnetly limited, under the proper set of circumstances.
_____________________________________________________________________I understand that this is a relatively new concept when applied to women. After all, the term "marital rape" hasn't been in existence for very long. That doesn't mean that women weren't being raped by their husbands for thousands of years before this affront to their rights was recognized as such.
----Your obsession and /or feelings of rape are not germane to the topic. Please stay focused and avoid tangents.
_____________________________________________________________________It is more than compelling if you determine that a human life is within that mother. You allude here to the standard of strict scrutiny (compelling), and the governemnt certainly has a compelling governemntal interest in protecting the lives of its citizens (again assuming you accept my position that at conception life begins) even against the interests of their own mother.
The constitution also mentions "liberty" as well as "life". How is the state promoting "liberty" if it forces all women to carry all pregnancies to term?
-----Again, (and not to be redundant), no right is absolute and when rights conflcit the Court does a balancing whereby they weigh the issues involved. If you accept my premise that life begins at conception, than the interest of the life (in my scenario) would outweigh the woman's reproductive rights.
_____________________________________________________________________Any constitutional scholar who is intellectually honest will concede that Roe v. Wade is an extremely weak decision and the Court refused to answer the very question that began my post "when does life begin?", (read the case) the critical issue to this debate.We will not go back to coathanger abortions. Making abortion illegal will not end abortion. It will only increase the number of unwanted children, abused and uneducated and underfed children (at risk for engaging in criminal behavior). It wall also increase the number of women who suffer and die from backalley procedures. It will also increase the number of infanticides.
I wonder if you have considered coming at this problem from another direction. Have you ever considered working to make it less necessary? Educating children about sex and reproduction, and the many kinds of birth control which exist and responsibility, teaching boys to respect girls and girls to respect themselves, etc.?
Safe, legal abortion is a sign of a society which treats women as full and equal citizens.
I have to tell you that reading your posts makes me want to go write checks to NARAL and NOW.
We will not go back.
-----I think the education of children is critical and I don't have time to delve into the details (I do have to actually do some "work" at my job) but suffice it to say that I agree. I think it is sad and unfortunate that you interpret a woman's ability to terminate a life within her as a "sign of a society which treats women as full and equal citizens" but that is a topic for another post / issue. What form of support you decide to foolishly send to NARAL and /or NOW is your own matter. "We will not go back"...I hope you don't presume to speak for ALL women when you make the comment "we" because, unfortunately, the aforementioned organizations you cited (NOW, NARAL) have a tendency to do so. "I" would probably work better in that situation.
_____________________________________________________________________//Although it is a difficult point to determine for some, once one determines when "life begins" the other factors surrounding the "abortion debate" become trivial to me.//
It is unfortunate that you dont want to recognize the importance of the individual liberties of women intrinsic to this issue.
----Again this not a debate about "woman's rights" and I am not trying to negate them.Um, yes it is, and you just said that a women's rights are automatically negated at the moment a fertilized egg exists inside her.
----As I have indicated numerous times, the women's rights are not negated. Rather, the rights of the life within her to survive supercedes or "trumps" the mother's "reproductive rights" as a more compelling interest (see my discussion earlier whereby I indicate that no rights are absolute and where rights conflict, there must be a balancing of the rights involved).
____________________________________________________________________But, once one determines that an individual human life exists at the time a fertilized egg is within that mother, her rights become subjected to that other human life.Why? Why are the rights of the sperm + egg so much more valuable than a woman's rights that her rights are negated? You have not justified this statement; you have simply asserted it.
This sounds like fetus worship to me.
-----This is a good end point because it brings me back to me original premise. What you see as a "sperm + egg", I see as a human life. I have most certainly "justified" my statement because if one deems that life begins at the moment of conception, than there are rights inherent in said life. I am not familiar with the term "fetus worship" nor have I ever worshipped a fetus. A lame attempt at humor I guess.It has been an enjoyable debate but this will be my last post on this topic. I thank all of "you" for your input and /or responses.

As one who opposes abortion I thought I might add a few thoughts to the discussion. Let's first discuss choice but in connection with responsibility. Is an individual responsibe for the consequences of their actions? Of course they are. A possible consequence of the choice to have sex is pregnancy. And since no birth control is 100% effective, it is always a possible consequence. If a pregnancy occurs it is the consequence of choices made. Since 99% of abortions do not involve, rape, incest or the life of the mother, 99% of abortions are methods of birth control. Even the National Organization of Women has stated that abortion should not be a form of birth control but that's exactly what the vast majority of abortions are. This is horribly irresponsible and selfish. Why should anyone be allowed to escape the responsibility of their choices?Next, let's discuss rights. Rights are bestowed by a superior authority and can be taken away if one acts irresponsibly such as jail. In the United States the Declaration of Independence states that we are 'endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' One of the legitimate functions of government is to defend those who cannot defend themselves. At any stage of life, a baby cannot defend itself. Nor is it a fully actualized, independent, self sufficient person. Mark is right when he points out the slippery slope of this argumentLet's define terms. Fetus is just latin for baby and the term 'zef' is an emotional dodge of reponsibility. Let's be intellectually honest and not try to redefine terms. If the proper term is used it makes the discussion much more honest and harder for those in favor of abortion to discuss killing the baby, in the womb, at any stage. Also it has been a historically universal definition that a pregnant woman was carrying a baby. Who gave anyone the right to redefine terms?As well who say's the baby is the mother's body? This is part of the significance of the DNA argument. Sperm has the father's DNA and the ovum has the mother's. At conception, the baby has it's own unique DNA, not the mother's or the father's. The baby forms it's body from instructions carried out by transcription RNA and messenger RNA instructions as the baby grows and forms more cells. Does the number of cells or lack of have anything to do with personhood? If so how? By what logic? At conception the baby has it's own life and metabolism. The baby does not implant itself in wall of the uterus for three weeks. The umbilical cord and placenta are formed by the baby not the mother. The placenta and umbilical cord actually help screen out unwanted materials so the baby can protect itself. A baby can have a different blood type than the mother. If it were the mother's body it would have the same blood type. All the medical evidence conclusively identifies the baby as it's own unique human life. It is not the mother's body. Additionally, we even protect those who choose to mutilate their own body from themselves. We label them as a danger to themselves, recognize that they have mental instability. The 'it's a woman's body therefore it's her choice' argument is not only false but irrational.Someone claimed that at birth the baby was fully actualized and self sufficient. Another said that before birth the baby was dependent on the mother and after birth if was not dependent on the mother. Yeah so? If the logic is that the mother can kill the baby because it is dependent on her prior to birth then wouldn't it be logical to say that after birth since it is still dependent, but now on anyone then anyone could kill the baby? The dependency argument is irrelevant. A baby is totally dependent before and after birth. This is another slippery slope. Closely linked to this is the proximity argument. A mother can kill a baby because it is inside her? But once outside her she can't? What does proximity have to do with murder? So the baby is inside her and dependent, how does that translate into the right to kill? How does one measure self-actualization? If most adults do not feel self actualized then how could a newborn be? These are vagueries the avoid the real questions. As well they are unreasonable burdens for one who differs to have to prove or disprove.By the way, the fourteenth amendment gave constitutional rights to persons in the U.S. The legal question is personhood, not species or anything else. The quesion is when does personhood start? Most of the posts related to this are repugnant. The psychiatrist Piaget noticed that live is always changing and noticed seven stages. From conception to the grave the person is constantly changing and any argument to differentiate when personhood starts is on the slippery slope that Mark already identified.In argumentation, we have developed the logical concepts of presumption and burden of proof. A presumption is the position presumed to be true based on the least amount of risk. In the United States it was decided that it was less risky to let a guilty go free rather than put an innocent man to punishment. The burden of proof is the opposite of presumption. The riskier position is assigned this burden. Notice that these tools of logic are assigned before the evidence is evaluated and are methods used to evaluate the evidence. In science, it was decided that it is risky to accept a new unproven hypothesis therefore the status quo enjoyed the presumption as there had to be some reason it came to exist. Therefore we assign a new hypothesis the burden of proof. This is called the hypothesis testing model, part of the scientific method.
Also notice that if the evaluation of the evidence comes out to be balanced, the side assigned the presumption wins the argument. The burden of proof has not been satisfied.In this issue, it is obviously less risky to assign the presumption to the pro-life position and the burden of proof to the pro-death of babies side. If the pro-life side is wrong then mothers take the consequences of their actions. If the pro-death of babies position is wrong then we have murdered over 30 million babies since Roe v. Wade.The self-conciousness argument is absurdio reductom (sp?) as well. It is an unreasonable burden to prove if one differs. But if one saw the movie 'silent scream' one could clearly see a baby trying to defend itself against an abortion. The tautological criteria advocated in some of the posts of personhood based on self-awareness, self actualization etc... is self serving, incredibly ambiguous, unreasonable and is a good example of begging the question.The back-alley abortion argument argument is repugnant as well. If a woman knows the risks and makes her choice then that is her responsibility. What happened to the my body my choice argument? Here is a more responsible application. Hypothetically if abortion were illegal and a woman made choice to have a back alley abortion then that was her choice.It is also repugnant that we have a five year waiting list for adoptions and women aborting wanted babies. It is also a false argument that all people want is white babies. I personally know multiple couples who have adopted non-white babies from other countries because they wanted a baby so badly and all one has to do is inquire about this from any adoption attorney.Presumption dictates that we presume personhood from conception. All the medical evidence we have demonstrates that a baby is it's own unique person. A baby is not the mother's body therefore it is not her choice to kill it. A legitimate function of government is to protect those who cannot protect themselves. The pro-death of babies position cannot fulfill it's burden of proof to legitimize killing babies. The evidence is not balanced or in favor of the pro-death position, it is in favor the pro-life position. Even though the pro-life position does not have the burden of proof, if they did, they could easily fulfill it.The pro-death of babies position is based on false, superficial, irresponsible argumentation and selfishness. A baby is not the woman's body so it is not her choice to kill it and the government should step in and protect the baby------------------
theo

Did you know that the vast majority of pregnancies in underage girls are fathered by men 21 or older?Your message talked a lot about women and their responsibilities, but mention of men and their responsibilities was oddly missing.Not surprising...Making abortion illegal will not end abortion. It will just mean that only rich people will be able to obtain them, just like before abortion was legal in this country.Are you willing to send doctors, nurses and women to jail for life sentences? Are you willing to force women to carry pregnancies to term? What kind of reproductive descisions are you willing to let the government make concerning your body and your life?If we had excellent sex education in this country and provided safe, reliable contraception for free to anyone who asked for it, then your charge of girls and women being irresposible might have some merit. We only recently began collecting child support from deadbeat fathers in any meaningful way, too. You make the gravely incorrect assumption that everyone learns severything they need to about avoiding unwanted pregnancy before they are of sexual maturity. Most do not have anywhere near that kind of education or parental and community support.We do very little to realistically prevent unwanted pregnancies.I want there to never be another abortion, ever. We will get there by education and by dropping this punitive attitude towards women and girls and by education from a very early age, and by making contraception easily-obtainable and free to everyone.The Bible-thumpers who have this country by the balls want to impose their Puritain mores on everyone instead of doing what is practical and realistic and smart.