My views on abortion

No, I would say we take it to excess more often than not, however, other animals will too, when in a position to do so without effort. A dog, when left home with a huge bowl of food to tide him over for a week, will often eat the whole bowl in a day or so, quite probably become sick, throw it up (possibly eat it again) but by the end of the week, will be starving because they took their easy food to excess. There are some predatory animals, especially cats, that will kill indiscriminately. There were two lions called The Ghost and the Darkness in Africa that were man killers, and no one could figure out why. It seemed to be almost a sport to them, as they very reaely ended up eating the animal. Well, many of the nutrients and minerals we need are easiest found in meat. It is very expensive, extremely difficult, and downright boring to get all the nutrients you need through plants. My cousin (and roommate in college) was a vegan for a while, and his food had very little variation because of the beans and things he had to eat to find all the necessary nutrients for a well-rounded diet. (It wasn't exactly a pleasantly fragrant diet either.) Our bodies are made to be omnivorous. DO we eat more meat than we need to? Yes. Just as we eat more sugars and fats than we need to.As for the baby cow, are you saying that killing a baby cow is worse than killing an adult cow? After the centuries of cow domestication, the cows we have, at least around here in Wisconsin, are incapable of existing in the wild. They are extremely dumb and docile creatures. They've been bred to be food, or to produce food. Personally, I think killing the cow while it's young is a mercy. In most circumstances, if your life is threatened, you're well within your moral rights to defend your life, even if it involves killing the person threatening you. If someone threatens you and requires you to kill an innocent in order to live, the lines get murkier, but I wouldn't necessarily say you were a bad person for acceding to their wishes. You wouldn't be a good person either.If, you're on a desert island with another person, through no fault of either of you, and there's only enough food/water to keep one person alive, does your morality require both of you to die, rather than letting one person live while the other dies? As a species? Yes, it's excessive, but that gets to my point in my other post. Some people feel empathy toward other species, and will act accordingly, some don't. As a person, I like to think I don't go too far overboard in the death of other living creatures department.

Well the OP was for the "potential" for a life. That seemed to me to be an argument against abortion using morality as ones reason for not aborting.My point about sentience is against anyones moral reason for not wanting abortion to be legal. If we consider terminating a life morally wrong, which is a fair point, then that moral standard must extend to all life, not just one particular species. If it doesn't, it comes across as fake, hypocritical and self-centered.In my opinion, this makes the entire basis of a moral argument fall apart. How can ones moral compass be fundamentally fake, hypocritical and self-centered, yet still be considered a valid argument?But I agree with all of this... I guess it does come down to subjective values. Agreed. Hopefully if more people begin to see the fallacy and hypocricy in their moral position against abortion, maybe it will extend beyond just human life. There are many who challenge it, we're just ignored by the rest of the people. I think for the most part I can agree with that.- Oni

---

If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
~George Carlin

Yes it is, unless you think people are the sum of their parts. It's like saying that humans are teeth because they have teeth. I don't mean habeus corpus literally, mean it metaphorically in that everyone should be able to voice their opinion or have someone voice it for them... like an attorney acting on behalf of their client. A voice for the voiceless, if you will. But they weren't considered human, so how can you explain that if what you say is true? But these are your definitions. You are simply telling me your opinion on the matter. You, as well as the SS officer, or me for that matter, don't have authority to make subjective claims. They're just our opinions on the matter.That really is beside the point I was trying to make. People invent their own rules based off of their own reasoning. There is potential danger in that, just as we say in the holocaust. If anything it is simply a caveat, not a standing order. Again, you seem to think that humans are the sum of their parts, rather than recognizing the differences. For one thing, all living things have cells, so it's useless and counterproductive to mention that as somehow being able to determine anything reasonable. I could just as easily point out that embryos and adults have the same cells and are therefore the exact same thing. But that doesn't really get us from A to B with any effectiveness. I've seen ultra-sounds of a fetus being aborted by suction. The heart rate spiked and the fetus began moving wildly and eradicly. By all rights it's a reasonable assumption to assume it is fearful, in pain, or both. Based on what, though? Where are you getting what seems to be arbitrary opinions? You don't defer rights to anyone. You save who can be saved. That is the only thing a doctor is probably thinking about. But why then and only then? Explain to me your rationale, please. That hardly seems relevant to the point I was making. What I meant by finished product tied in to being able to see and feel and look upon a tangible baby as opposed to it being out-of-sight, out-of-mind. I object to the terms "Pro-Life," as if pro-abortionists don't value life, and the term "Pro-Choice," as if anti-abortionists object to choices. Lets just call it what it is, you either agree with abortion or you don't. I call that anti/pro abortion, for or against. You're the exact same clump of cells. And that's why reductionist arguments fall apart. My point is that people often make up their morality as they go. Eventually they get a considerable following and eventually, if it's popular enough, gets affixed in the concious of the majority population. You see and understand why it is immoral to discriminate against non-genetically engineered humans, but I guarantee there are people out there who, thinking benevolently, will all but cure every predisposition to disease from the beginning. That's a good thing, right? Yes and no, depending on what we are actually discussing. Sure, it's meant in good faith, but that doesn't mean it doesn't moral drawbacks. I feel the same about abortion. I get it. Nobody wants a woman to have to have a child who is not capable of raising the child. It may ruin her life. I understand why people want it. But for me, it's a question of "at what cost do we spare the mother at the expense of someone who did nothing to choose being procreated?"But I digress, as you don't think we're talking about a person and I do. Therein lies the crux of the matter. Your onlt real qualfier is that it has a higher brain function, otherwise we're all just a mass of cells, you, me, and a tadpole. Touche' good buddy!

---

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

Let me ask, why is there an animal in your home to begin with? I'd have to do some research on that. But cats, or any *domesticated* animal, it seems to me that any weird habit that they may have could be attributed to the forced evolvement that humans have put them through.(Note: "forced evolvement" may be the wroong term, but I hope you get what I mean.) My point wasn't against eating meat, it was just that you said slaughtering a calf, specifically, helped save lives. Didn't my use of the word *baby* make you shed at least one tear? I get your point, though. But it seems that the "mercy" you speak of is a human emotion. I don't think the cow itself cares one way or the other. We humans may see it as mercy because the cow, because we want it that way, is bread just for food, but the cow has no clue. Nor do I think it collects memories about it's youth or has friends that will miss him. Whether we kill it young or old its all the same. But my point was for the "potential" for life. Ok, now I get what you meant. And I agree. Fair enough. I like to think I don't either. But, since I live near the Everglades, every time I see developments getting closer and closer, and in some cases in there, to them and destroying all that natural habitate, it hurts me deeply. Even though I have no biological connection to panthers and turtles it still feels as though its wrong, very wrong. It would be like destrying peoples homes where they live to put a forrest.- Oni

---

If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
~George Carlin

We have other obstacles for this, as well. We're predators, remember - even I acknowledge that the pork tenderloin I intend to eat tonight came from a pig that was in all likelihood more intelligent and closer to sentience than my cat. I think there will always be a degree of hypocrisy regarding the value of life.Even sentience is a rather arbitrary factor to pin value on. I consider it valuable in other creatures because I consider it valuable in myself, and it's completely subjective. Others may value anything with a heartbeat. Perhaps someone values vertebrates. There's nothing that objectively makes sentience, or a backbone, or anything else more "valuable" than anything else. I can universally apply my personal ethical values, and I can even convince other people to agree with me, but when it comes down to it I'm still discriminating based on an arbitrary value.

You're right, I guess I'm not understanding. Allow me to try and convey what I think you are saying and feel free to correct me on any misunderstandings.You say that higher brain function makes for human beings with certain unalienable rights.If that is what you're saying, and you say that higher brain function can be found as early as the 2nd trimester, is there a specific line that you, personally draw the line in abortion?Do you think that after a certain amount of time that you shouldn't abort, because by that time in gestation they are human? Okay, nevermind what I asked you above as you answer it here.(Sorry, I'm a poster that reads and responds as I go, rather than reading all the way through and then responding. I should probably stop doing that. It would save a lot of time). Fair enough. I would give a similar description for what a "soul" means to me. The core of the very essence of a person. Well, yes, that much is obvious. The anti-abortion question is, should it only be concerned with her alone? Is this a dinner for one or a dinner for two? I don't think most anti-abortionists want to strip away a woman's right to do what she wants with her body, they just want someone to stop from having her daughters/sons rights stripped away in the process of not stripping hers. But again, therein lies the crux and so the age old debate rages on.

---

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

No, but if I have a pile of teeth, I'm not going to say there's anything more there than teeth until you can show me how these teeth are something more than the sum of their parts.People are more than the sum of their parts because they have emergent properties, like consciousness. The blastocyst, at that point, has nothing more than the cells it is made of. Except for the specific DNA strands, the blastocyst is no different from any other cluster of cells. Unless you can show me some reason to believe there is an emergent property in the blastocyst itself, there is no reason to consider it anything more than what it is. But having someone act in the best intrest of a child may be the exact opposite of what the child wants. Therefore, the desires of a child are not granted the same weight as the desires of an adult. The adult has more rights than the child does as far as self-determination go. All I'm saying is that rights are not granted, full package, to a human being. They are gained as development continues, and I don't think a blastocyst has reached the development necessary to have acheived anything. Because the definition the Nazis were using weren't objective. They were ased on an emotional response rather than a rational look at the evidence. The same type of emotional response without rationally looking at the evidence that you would rather have me use. But frontal lobe activity is an objective thing to look at. Also, it gets to the crux of why a human gets rights that, say, a mouse does not. It's because we have more consciousness. My definition is a rational one in that it includes everything I want to include (all human beings) and doesn't allow in anything I don't want to include, using an objective way of measuring the difference. Your definition either includes things you don't want to include (skin cells, sperm, etc) or requires some subjective, "I know it when I see it," type of definition. This, too, is just my opinion, but I think my definition is more robust and applicable than yours, thus making it a better
definition. Just having cells isn't a reason to grant anything human rights. Humans have human rights because they have transcended being merely multi-celled. They have a consciousness. A blastocyst has not transcended being just a sum of its parts. I see nothing there besides it's parts, so I don't try to force it into a group that requires something more. Not necessarily. And, since you're talking about something that obviously has a developed circulatory system, we've moved beyond the point where I say it doesn't have any rights. That's one of the problems with a lot of anti-abortion people, they conflate the status of a new born with that of a fetus with that of a blastocyst with that of a fertilized egg. They are not all the same. A blastocyst has no heart rate to spike and can't move voluntarily. A fetus, with a circulatory system and higher brain function does deserve some human rights, at this point, the argument changes to one about the rights of the fetus versus the rights of the mother. It's not arbitrary, it's what separates us from other animals and thus gives us more rights. Humans have consciousness, a newborn baby obviously has it, a baby shortly before it is born has it. A fetus without higher brain function can't, so that's not an arbitrary line, its a lower limit. Rights get deferred all the time. People defer the right of travel when they join the military. People can give up some of their rights completely by committing crimes.But, in the example you quoted, I was talking about the case where two entities have the right to life, but the life of one demands the loss of the other's. Conjoined twins who are using the same heart, but have well developed brains. They are individuals, but the heart can't sustain two bodies. One has to die so the other can live, but both have the right to life. This decision is made quite frequently. Rights come in conflict all the time, and someone has to give up their right, or be forced to, for a short time. At that point, they have stopped requiring the mother to defer some of her rights in order to continue existing. It has become a fully independant life form in that it can exist without the existence of the mother as a prerequisite. It's a developmental milestone, much like becoming mentally developed enough to understand the ramifications of entering into a legal contract. Exactly, but a finished baby that you can see and feel is different from an unfinished baby, whether you can see it or not. But again, I'm not FOR abortion, I'm FOR the CHOICE to make an abortion. I am FOR self-determination. It's like, I'm not procommunism, but I'm definitely for the right of a person to decide he likes communism, and within the bounds of the law, to work toward instituting a communist party in this country. Saying I'm pro-Communism carries an implicit agreement with the choice when I'm merely upholding the right to make the choice. No I'm not. I have a whole differentiated group of cells, all performing different functions. Plus, I have an emergent property that a blastocyst doesn't have, that emergent property, consciousness, is what makes me human. It's what makes me different from the corpse I'll be when I die. A minute before a person dies and the minute after a person dies, there is very little different in the physical make-up, it's the consciousness that has gone that makes the entity human or corpse. But you're anthropomorphizing, much like I did with my stuffed animals. They looked alive enough to me that I afforded them "rights" they didn't have. The blastocyst has no consciousness, and thus has no ability to choose, so we can't make any discussions about its choice or not. It's not a person yet. You're right. The higher brain functions are an indicator of the emergent property of consciousness that differentiates us from other animals, from corpses, from each other, and from a blastocyst. That's what makes us different, what makes us human, and what gives us human rights.

There isn't. I want to get a dog, but I don't currently have the time it takes to properly care for one. Perhpas when I get the ability to work form home... I don't mean domesticated animals. Lions have been known to kill for sport or fun, not bothering to eat the dead animal. But yes, domesticated cats "play" with mice, catching it, letting it go, catching it again, eventually killing it and leaving it on the dorrstep as a present for the homeowners. Too true. I live in farmland country, but because we have so much land, and because the fmaily farms can't compete with mega farms, the farms get sold to become subdivisions. The Fox River Valley in Wisconsin is urban sprawl run wild, and it sucks. At one point, I wanted to run for city council to try and create incentives for business to stay within the city limits and build up rather than out.

I often do the same thing, no worries I just hate using the term becasue it typically connotates something separate from the body, a supernatural self that persists after death. I believe in no such thing. But so long as the point is communicated... Indeed. The emotional reactions and religious beliefs of individuals dictate this far more than any sort of rational discussion, I'm afraid. But regardless of anyone's personal beliefs, I shudder at the thought of a forced medical procedure, which is what anti-abortion legislation amounts to.Then we have the additional consideration that abortion, quite literally, saves lives. Women who wish to terminate their pregnancy have always tried to find means to do so, legal or otherwise. Coat-hangar abortions and "doctors" with steak knives in back alleys are not myths. Even if you believe that a fetus is deserving of full rights, pragmatically such an idealistic stand causes more net harm by forcing women to seek out dangerous, underground means of terminating pregnancies rather than sterile, professional medical procedures.From Wiki:

quote:

---

A study concluded in 1968[11] determined that over 1.2 million illegal abortions were performed every year in the United States, a portion of which were performed by women acting alone. The study suggested that the number of women dying as a result of self-induced abortions exceeded those resulting from abortions performed by another person. Due to estimated underreporting of illegal procedures, these numbers may not be accurate.[citation needed] A 1979 study noted that many women who required hospitalization following self-induced abortion attempts were admitted under the pretext of having had a miscarriage or spontaneous abortion.[12]

---

And here:

quote:

---

According to a global study collaboratively conducted by the World Health Organization and the Guttmacher Institute, most unsafe abortions occur where abortion is illegal [1]. Unsafe abortion is a significant cause of maternal mortality and morbidity in the world...

​

According to WHO and Guttmacher, approximately 68,000 women die annually as a result of complications of unsafe abortion; and between two million and seven million women each year survive unsafe abortion but sustain long-term damage or disease (incomplete abortion, infection (sepsis), haemorrhage, and injury to the internal organs, such as puncturing or tearing of the uterus).(IPAS) According to WHO statistics, the risk rate for unsafe abortion is 1/270; according to other sources, unsafe abortion is responsible for one in eight maternal deaths...

​

In 2005, the Detroit News reported that a 16-year-old boy beat his pregnant, under-age girlfriend with a bat at her request to abort a fetus. The young couple live in Michigan, where parental consent is required to receive an abortion.[12] [13][14] In Indiana, where there are also parental consent laws, a young woman by the name of Becky Bell died from a back-alley abortion rather than discuss her pregnancy and wish for an abortion with her parents.

---

Our sisters, mothers, daughters, wives and friends get to die along with the unwanted fetus when abortion is illegal.The most effective method to combat abortion (and even those of us who are pro-choice are not pro-abortion - nobody likes abortion, including those who choose to have them) is education and contraception. If you really want to save lives, those of the fetus and those of the mother, the best option is education and easy availability of a variety of contraceptives. Condoms, morning-after pills, The Pill, spermicides, etc. Teach kids how to use them, make them easily available and promote their use, and you'll see teen pregnancy drop, sexually transmitted disease rates drop...and abortions decrease. After all, if you don't get pregnant, you don't need an abortion. Abortion is just the natural result of unwanted pregnancy, and combating it directly is counterproductive. Fight the cause of unwanted pregnancy (lack of use of contraception, due to "dislike," cost, or ignorance), and the result will be fewer abortions without forcing women to seek out unsafe methods for terminating pregnancies. The problem is that you can't do one without doing the other as well. I understand the dilemma from those who sincerely believe that a fetus is worthy of protection immediately after conception, and I also fully understand that I'll never convince any of them to change by bringing up brain activity, or the arbitrary nature of determining what should and should not be protected. We're talking about beliefs that don't depend in any way on objective fact, and so objective facts will not change their minds.But forcing someone to go through pregnancy, or even a forced Cesarian birth, with all of the risks and pain that they entail, is utterly monstrous. Do you really want to support a policy that results in a woman being forced against her will to carry a pregnancy to term, before being strapped down to an operating table and cut open to remove the baby, when she wanted to terminate the pregnancy when the fetus didn't even have distinct organs yet, let alone a brain capable of feeling, caring, or even realizing that it's alive? Do you really want to support a policy that results in thousands of deaths as women seek out illegal abortions that injure or even maim or kill them along with the fetus?Do you even really want to force your own purely subjective and arbitrary value of life at conception onto others who do not share that same arbitrary opinion through force of law? What if we made liking the color blue mandatory, or outlawed garlic because someone else thinks it tastes bad? What if we made circumcision medically mandatory because of the beliefs of some? Or female circumcision? What if the people who wanted to require female circumcision believed that uncircumcised women cannot enter the afterlife and have no soul? Do the beliefs of others somehow trump your own right to determine the fate of your own body?If you have a problem with abortion, just don't get one. Don't try to force your own personal arbitrary beliefs onto others who don't share those beliefs through the force of law.

I'm going to keep this post short because this post is a lot like a merry-go-round... Sure, its real fun but we're not actually getting anywhere. It's not arbitrary though. There is a legitimate reason and interest that some people want to see it outlawed. It's not a matter of taste, it is a matter of principle. To anti-abortionists it looks like cold-blooded murder of an innocent baby all because some careless couple screwed up but doesn't want to own up to responsibility.But again, it comes down to a matter of what different people think constitutes life in the first place. You and Perdition see only a mass of forming and dividing, undifferentiated cells on their way to differentiating in to specific body parts.You likely see the blastocyst or fetus as no more consequential than I would a spermatazoa cell or an ovum. For me, these are just terms of gestation, not something that delineates between human and non-human. To me the second sperm and ovum unite, a brand new life comes in to existence.Also, it is something that I caution society with, not only for the life of the baby, but for society itself. You may think it is a non-sequitor or a valid comparison, the choice is yours, but I think that humans have the ability to harden their hearts. As I said earlier, in order to assassinate anyone, the assassin first has to assassinate his own conscious and try to ease his mind before and after he makes his kill.I mean you look at ethnic cleansing and you really have to wonder how you can get to that point, where you no longer see human beings, you only see a despised enemy that needs to die. I'm not saying that is comparative to abortion and please don't think that I am insinuating it. But I do think that the more predisposed we are to things like abortion, where we reduce human life to merely the sum of its parts, we run a risk of degrading as a compassionate society.And you likely think the same, only in reverse. You may think that it is misogynistic for me to take away the right of a woman to choose what goes on in her body. You make that it is callous of me. I respect it, but for me it really isn't about taking away her right to do anything, nor is it making her responsible for her actions. It just comes down to advocating for those who can't advocate themselves yet. But couldn't I just respond, don't get pregnant if you don't want to get pregnant?To a die-hard Pro-Lifer that's like saying to them, "Look if you don't want to kill your own kids, that's cool. But I want to kill mine, goddamn it! So leave me alone."Obviously I'm not ever going to take it to an extreme like that, but that is what it sounds like to them. Well, in fairness to your position I've tried to wonder what it would be like if abortion were illegal. And honestly I don't see how it could be enforced reasonably. If a mother miscarried, would the police be involved and run an invasive investigation? Suppose she wanted the baby and her baby died. Obviously she would be distraught. Imagine some asshole detective insinuating that she's a murderer while she's still grieving. Could make for a nasty lawsuit.This brings me to another question that I think would add a fun twist to the current debate.If a doctor is anti-abortion, should s/he be allowed to legally deny giving them for ethic reasons or should they have to once they took their hippocratic oath? This scenario has actually come up before in legal cases. What do you think?

---

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

I'm telling you I expected your reply to be connected to the post you replied to when, in fact, it was not. It's irrelevant. She has complete control over her body. That the fetus dies is merely a side effect. 1. In my country, you're not charged with a double murder for killing a pregnant women, anymore than you require a death certificate for a miscarriage.2. I've never argued they're the same person, only that the woman has rights over her body.

Mice can manage that. Cockroaches can manage that. Nematodes can manage that. Hell, even freakin' amoeba can manage that.Reading emotional response into basic nervous system reactions is bull.

I know this was a reply to Rahvin, but I liked the last question... Very true, and as we've been surprisingly civil, I think this has been a worthwhile debate, despite neither side really changing their minds. This is a very interesting question. Perhaps not surprisingly, I come down on the side of the patient. The doctor, throughout medical school, and as they were deciding on which part of medicine to focus on, was aware that abortion is a medical procedure that is performed by a particular type of doctor. I'm not sure which...OB/GYN?Letting a doctor decide, on personal ethical grounds, not to perform an abortion, you're opening a whole new can of worms. If a doctor can refuse to do a medical procedure that is part of their speciality, what's to stop other doctors from refusing to do things they find objectionable? Can a Chrisitan Scientist become a doctor, then refuse to do any medical work at all because they feel that prayer is the only good way to cure an illness? Could a doctor refuse to perform an appendectomy because they fell, for whatever reason, that it's sacrilegious to remove a part of your body from yourself?Why should doctor's get this ability and not other jobs? If I apply for a job at Wal-Mart, should I be allowed to stand at the dorr and tell all the customers coming in that they're evil people and are going to burn in Hell for shopping here because I feel that Wal-Mart is a morally bankrupt company? If Wal-Mart fired me, could I sue them over discrimination of my ethical code?If a doctor doesn't like abortions, there are other medical fields they can go into that won't compromise their ethics. Just as with any job, there are a list of requirements to be hired for that job, if at any time you are no longer able to fulfill those requirements, you can be removed form your position.Another point to make, though, is that sometimes, medical care of the kind needed for an abortion is prohibitively far away if the local doctor decides not to perform the abortion on ethical grounds. It amounts to forcing the patient to take a long trip, or have the child anyway, it amounts to forcing the patient not to have an abortion, despite abortion being legal.

Minus my Mom-joke.... Sorry, dude... *hangs head in shame* Well, doctors are people too who are allowed to have their own opinions. The way I see it is that there is no shortage of willing doctors to perform the surgery so that it is uneccessary to force them to do something they feel is unethical.OB/GYN is a rather large field. It is not in any way exclusive to abortions. It's simply a specialty in female reproduction.Consider this: Suppose that you are a doctor working for the military. You took a hippocratic oath to always help the ill and you took an oath to faithfully obey the Constitution of the United States (or wherever, if someone else is reading this and are not American).Being in the military you have to obey lawful orders of those appointed over you, like it or not, for reasons of continuity and order.In Japan during WWII there was a medical unit named Unit 731 which performed ghastly and depraved procedures in the name of "medical science." They're doctors in the military. They have to follow orders, right?Well, if someone finds it immoral to perform a procedure, why should they be forced to perform it, again, when there is no shortage of willing participants? Obviously the Imperial Army of Japan didn't have that choice, but shouldn't free societies have that right? Well, yeah, if a doctor works for Planned Parenthood, his ass needs to find a new job since that's basically all they do, as far as medical procedures are concerned. But I don't think a doctor can't be an OB/GYN just because s/he doesn't want to perform an abortion. As with anything else in life, there are always extenuating circumstances that need to be evaluated on a case by case basis. If this came up in a civil trial, that couldn't be introduced by the prosecution.

---

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

Really, I found it humorous. I couldn't have asked it to go that well. I know my mom, she probably wasn't offended either, she probably found it just as funny as I did. No worries. Not always. In many rural areas, there is only one medical clinic within a large distance, and perhaps only one surgical doctor on staff. Forcing the patient to make a trip of hundreds of miles is tantamount to forcing them to just have the baby. Besides, what's to stop the next closest doctor from not doing it on ethical grounds, too. In a very religious area, I would bet it could be difficult to find a doctor willing to do it. No, they don't. Nuremburg pretty much confirmed that.
{ABE} But even if they did, joining the military requires a certian level of rights deferral. You essentially turn yourself over to the Government for the term of your service. That's not the same as a civilian doctor refusing the treat a patient because they didn't want to do their job. But if someone is unwilling to perform all the requirements of a job, why did they go into that field? If I'm scared of heights, I'm not going to go into highrise construction, ya know? Should a mailman be able to refuse to deliver mail to a house if he finds it ethically egregious that the man and woman living together aren't married? There are other ways to get mail, they could pay for a PO Box, etc. I'm just saying, whenever you apply for a job, there is a list of requirements, including a list of job duties. If you don't like one of the duties, then find another job. Don't lie and say you wil perform all the duties, and then once you're on the payroll, tell your boss that you object to doing one of the jobs. Actually, I think it could. If you provide a necessary service, such as health care, you can't refuse someone service if you're the only local option. If the prosecution could prove that forcing the mother to go to another doctor imposed an unacceptable level of hardship, it could very easily win.Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.