A very brief history of Human Life

That would be why it is a very difficult, emotional decision for most people.

Yes. For many, if not most, it's probably something never forgotten.

I've always found that to be a very strange attitude, that you can know you are killing a child, so it is a very difficult decision that is hard to forget. I don't see how you could even do it at all if you really face the fact that it is a human being. I had an abortion at age twenty, then had a dream about a small child riding off in a hearse waving to me. I'd told myself it was just a bit of tissue, the standard rationalization then and now, and then I had that dream. It is hard to think about it now without crying.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Our attitude to the 'sanctity' of life has always been contradictory and flexible. There's no point pretending otherwise.We die attempting to save the life a stranger whilst carpet bombing a village in another country. We calculate the cost/benefit of collateral damage in war, whilst providing aid programmes. You say that abortion is murder yet support the death penalty. I say the reverse.People are awash with moral contradiction.

There is no moral contradiction in saving the life of an innocent unborn while approving of legally prescribed death for a criminal. Right to life can be forfeited after all, but the unborn baby has done nothing to forfeit it. The moral confusion exists on the side that would kill the innocent but preserve the life of the guilty. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Laws are made by people Faith, and the USA is the last modern democracy to murder its criminals. To its shame.Like I say, we all rationalise our beliefs. It's just that some of us understand that that is what we're doing.

When that fertilized egg (zygote) never implants in the uterus it can never become a living breathing human.When that fertilized egg (blastula) only develops into an empty sac it can never become a living breathing human.At the other extreme, a fetus that is still-born can never become a living breathing human.And the question is then what is a human. It is not a cell, or our bodies would be filled to overflowing with humans.Enjoy

So you are not pro-life, just pro-fetus.And I have always found this opinion to be bizarre. At one end you object to socially sanctioned termination of a potential human and at the other you approve of the socially sanctioned murder of a fully developed human. So you don't believe in even the possibility of rehabilitation or the possibility an innocent person is wrongly convicted. Sad.Back in the 70's iirc it was shown that educating convicts reduce recidivism dramatically, letting people return to society in a constructive way, prepared to work with a GED or more. Conservatives objected to them getting free education instead of being punished and scrapped the programs.Likewise education has show dramatic reduction in teen pregnancies, but conservatives object and want to keep children ignorant of how their own bodies work.Curiously I find such conservative ideas against educating people to improve their lives morally objectionable.Other countries do better than the US imho, and not just in banning capital punishment:

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Prison is not for punishment in Sweden. We get people into better shape

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Our role is not to punish. The punishment is the prison sentence: they have been deprived of their freedom. The punishment is that they are with us, says Nils berg, director-general of Sweden’s prison and probation service.

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Since 2004, Swedish prisoner numbers have fallen from 5,722 to 4,500 out of a population of 9.5 million, and last year four of the country’s 56 prisons were closed and parts of other jails mothballed. In contrast, the prison population in England and Wales is 85,000 out of a population of 57 million.

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With reoffending rates at about 40% — less than half of those in the UK and most other European countries — does he attribute this success to the country’s effective policies on prisoner rehabilitation? We obviously believe that it is part of the explanation; we hope we are doing something right. But it’s going to be very difficult to prove that scientifically. We are increasing our efforts all the time, he says.

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Unlike England and Wales, where since 2004 anyone convicted by the courts is categorised as an offender, the implication in the Swedish model is that sentenced individuals are still primarily regarded as people with needs, to be assisted and helped. As well as having rehabilitation at the heart of its penal policy, the other huge difference between the Swedish and UK approaches is the role of politicians.

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He adds, however, that the country’s well-educated population appreciates that almost all prisoners will return to society. So when you go into a political dialogue, there is a fair amount of understanding that the more we can do during this small window of opportunity when people are deprived of their liberty, the better it will be in the long run.

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Who would have thought that improving the prisoners ends up improving the whole society. What an offensive socialist program that is [/sarcasm]Have you ever heard about the "Birdman of Alcatraz"? It shows that an inmate sentenced to life can still make positive contributions to society. It is not that simple, the people involved in the decision do so because of several factors, often it is the severely deformed fetus with no chance of a normal life. Recently the news was all about the zika virus causing birth defects resulting in extremely tiny brains and babies with constant pain and short lives. So I can understand that some may consider abortion mercy in such a case while others don't and proceed to birth. That is their choice as far as I am concerned.We also have instances where the mother will survive but be permanently disabled and they have a right to make a quality of life decision about their life.Or the parents are impoverished barely able to feed and house themselves to say nothing of the care of a child, one that would be sentenced to a life of malnutrition and poor health, a very low quality of life for the child.Or the mother is a drug addict and the fetus has been affected by the drugs and can never become a normal person, another low quality of life for the child born mentally challenged.Or the father has disappeared or been killed and the mother knows she won't be able to provide a good life on her own, a decreased quality of life for parent and child.Such decisions are not made lightly. I've known women that remember the day, how old the child would be, but still would have made that decision again. And that is HER choice.Enjoy

But that is not what Faith and the forces birthers argue. That unimplanted zygote is as much a person as you and I.

And mothers I know that had late miscarriages have similar feelings. One couple was trying to have a child had several miscarriages until they could no longer bear it, even though they went through extreme measures to keep the fetus (staying in bed, special diet, some medications, all to no avail). It would be abnormal to not morn the loss.But that doesn't solve the problem of unwanted pregnancies.In my opinion a fully pro-life position would be about the quality of life for all people:

• sex education to teach children about how their bodies function
• free contraceptives so that sex experimentation and enjoyment doesn't create a pregnancy that isn't wanted - we are evolved to enjoy sex
• counseling on how to improve\maximize the chances of having a healthy baby
• including effects of alcohol, drugs and malnutrition and programs to solve those problems before pregnancies
• free pre-natal care for wanted pregnancies (one of the things Planned Parenthood offers)
• nutritional supplements if needed for healthy mother and healthy baby
• safe birthing location
• post natal care and continued nutritional provision to ensure healthy growth from baby to toddler, toddler to child, child to teenager and teenager to adult
• universal healthcare for parents and children to ensure a healthy life as much as possible
• education of the child so that they are enriched and optimizing their chances for a quality life

If you don't meet that standard, imho, you are not pro-life.The goal would be for every pregnancy to be a wanted pregnancy in a healthy, happy environment.And it would be about rehabilitation and education and counseling guidance of lawbreakers rather than punishment and murder, treating drug use as a medical condition instead of a crime.It would be about emptying the factory prisons of the mass incarceration pogrom of people convicted of minor crimes because they are poor uneducated and colored. Three strikes and you're in for life, even if you are 14. These prisons do more damage to society than abortions.Enjoy

It's got all the stuff for making a human being already present. There's no need to get into all the definitional nitpicking, it WILL BE a human being if it develops naturally without interference. And of course it may not develop naturally, it may fail at many stages and never develop into a child. That's up to nature, and none of those possibilities justify killing it. It doesn't matter what you call it at any stage, it's got all the stuff for developing into a human being, so if you kill it at any stage you are ending the life of that human being. I think this is instinctively understood by everybody but it's suppressed by all this rationalization and nitpicking that propagandizes women into killing their children. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't suppose you'd care to require that marriage be emphasized as the healthy happy envionrment that children should grow up in, and put a lot of energy into the cultural critique of free sex and fatherless children and solutions to it. That's a direction I think we should go, not just for the sake of the mother and child, but for the sake of society.Beyond that, pro-life counseling is often denounced and prevented by the pro-abortion people. What it does, however, is counsel women with unwanted pregnancies about how it really is a human being, and encourages them to bring it to term, and offers all kinds of helps to make it easier on them, including free medical help and housing in the many living situations provided by churches for those who need it. There they may get help with the pregnancy and yes general health information and aid, with completing their education, with getting a job, with getting funding, with making the decision about keeping the child or putting it up for adoption, sometimes with reconciling the woman with the baby's father if that's at all possible. These ministries are all over the country. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oh nonsense. Nobody is saying that. For instance, wherever the mother's life is threatened by the pregnancy her life is put above the fetus' life. That is a very rare occurrence but the priority is clear that the developing child is not the same thing as a living person.What I'm arguing is that it will become that if you leave it alone. There is no legal status involved, it's just the recognition that killing it will end a human life that inevitably would have been under normal circumstances. You all take this simple point to straw man extremes. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Then you're in favour of executing women who have abortions?

No.Duh.Read it all.Duh.