[DCopper04]

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I don't expect any replies because there will be nothing to argue about when I'm done. But you might learn something.

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This made me chuckle....

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First of all as to whether abortion is "wrong". Well of course it is. And everybody knows it. The only reason it is not always stated explicitly is because when people argue they often hate to concede even obvious points. But when you stop and think about it you realize that absolutely everybody feels bad about an abortion. Those who argue it should be legal, do to. They simply feel that the arguments for making abortions legal override any other arguments for making it illegal. They realize that at least some of the opposing arguments have merit even if they don't say it.

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I agree with all that. Abortion is wrong, however, the alternative to it is far worse. Forcing a pregnant woman to gestate against her will is about as close to slavery as one can come in this society. Regardless of the reason a woman desires an abortion, she should not be forced to donate her bodily resources to an unwanted child inside of her.

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Before telling you whether abortion is murder I would like to first discuss the "morning after pill". If my understanding of biology is correct, I believe that using this pill is different from lets say an abortion of a two month old embryo. The reason has to do with the creation of twins, triplets etc. It is my understanding that during the first several days in the life of an embryo it is capable of splitting (or BEING SPLIT BY OTHERS, an important point) and becoming more than one person.

That being the case, you can make a strong argument that at this point there is no specific person that mass of cells was destined to be. If you believe God injects a soul, he hasn't done it yet. So terminating the pregnancy at this point is different than terminating it later. That doesn't mean that it could not be considered some sort of sin. You have prevented some future human life from forming. But if it is a sin it would be more along the lines of wearing a condom. And while some religions believe that wearing a condom is a sin, I don't believe that any religions think the government should make it a crime. The same should hold true for the morning after pill.

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I would also agree with this, although "sin" can be a tricky word. It's subjective at best. And some people have no concept of what a sin is, exactly. For these reasons, it is very difficult to use sin (or any other religious or ethical reasoning) as an argument against abortion.

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But what about regular abortions. The ones that happen to six week old or older embryos? Is that murder? Well OF COURSE IT IS. To think otherwise is ridiculous. To see this, one need only to admit that there will come a time that we will have the technology to keep tiny embryos alive outside the womb. A womb is simply a well design incubator.

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So let me see if I have this right... Abortion is murder because sometime in the future, we will be able to keep premature fetuses alive after they are removed from the womb? I don't see how that makes it murder.

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The child's physical destiny is determined at the time of conception. (And his consciousness, self, or soul, is determined a few days later.) Everyone agrees that delivering a six week premature baby and then killing it is murder (possibly homicide would be the better word). Likewise for killing it in the womb to avoid delivering it alive. Because we now can save that baby with an incubator. But there is no real difference between a six week and a six month premature baby except present day lack of technology to save the latter. I could go on here to elaborate on these points but I don't think I need to.

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I don't understand. The previous paragraph talks about how we MAY have the technology to save these babies sometime in the future. And here it says that we have this technology now? I'm confused, maybe I'm misreading something?

At any rate, I agree that if a baby can be saved by being put in an incubator, then he/she certainly should. But if the technology does not exist, then this should not prevent a woman from receiving an abortion. I do not like the fact that fetuses are being killed, but as I already stated, it beats the alternative.

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But we are not done. Because I have not said that all homicides should be illegal. And of course they are not. It is possible that the reasons to commit the homicide outweigh the reasons not to. Both from a legal and moral point of view. Plus we have another factor that is rarely mentioned. Namely whether it is somewhat less bad to kill a human that does not "know" it exists (or does not yet know) than to kill one that does. If that is the case than you could argue that the legitimate reasons TO kill a non cognizant person did not have to be quite as strong as they would be if you were killing a cognizant person.

Now the age at which a person becomes cognizant is not clear cut. Most would probably estimate about 15 months after conception. But since few are willing to suggest that killing a two month old baby is anything different than anybody else, it is enough to agree that you have to be within eight months of conception or so, to be surely non cognizant. Keep in mind that the majority of right to lifers do in fact make this distinction. Because they are willing to accept an abortion in the case of incest, rape or even more so, to save the mothers life. But none of these reasons would be strong enough to accept killing the child two weeks after he was born. (I don't know why this would be necessary to save the mothers life. But the rape and incest concepts would still apply).

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I agree.

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Pro choice advocates, of course say that a woman's right to do what she wants with her body outweighs the child's right to live. It is not as strong an argument as the rape and incest one but it is not trivial. Though they try to argue that an abortion is not homicide, if forced to admit it they would still say that there right to their body should allow them, legally to do it. Are they right? Sorry but I can't answer that one. I believe I can make a good analogy though. Suppose a child can only survive if its mother gives it a series of direct transfusions. Should the government force her to? If the blood provider was a stranger or even a sister the answer is clearly no. But a mother has a legal obligation to her child. Does that extend to something as uncomfortable as giving blood several times? I believe your answer to that question perhaps dictates the answer to the abortion question.

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The answer to this question is obvious. No. How could the government force anyone to donate any bodily resources to another independent person? Such an idea is preposterous. The government can't force a mother to breast feed her child, much less give blood. Does anyone here think that mothers should be forced to breast feed?

I would like to think that mothers would be willing to donate blood in order to save their child, but by no means can the government demand it.

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Except for one thing. As I once mentioned before, I am very skeptical of the reason women give for allowing abortions. I think that many women use the rights to their body as an excuse. Imagine that tomorrow all doctors had the ability to terminate pregnancies in either of two ways. The way it is done now. Or by delivering the baby alive, regardless of its prematurity and keeping it alive with technology. What percentage of woman would opt for the second choice? If doing what they want to with their bodies was their real reason for keeping abortions legal they all should make that second choice. But if their real reason is that they don't want that kid to exist, they have a problem. Because that reason, which I believe is the actual one for the majority of women, no way justifies murder.

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I disagree with the idea that most women have abortions simply because they don't want the child to exist. In my opinion, when a woman is stuck with an unwanted pregnancy, it is very emotionally taxing on her. She has a thousand different feelings swirling through her head at any given time. She doesn't always know what to do. She is worried about her health, her future, what people will think of her, etc. Her mind is restless. She is often very desperate for an escape from this awful situation. And when she finally makes the decision to go through with the abortion, she doesn't care what happens to the fetus. All she knows is that she wants it out of her body. Whether or not it dies is immaterial to her. Therefore, if we had the technology to keep alive ALL aborted fetuses, and the government enacted legislation to require this technology to be used in ALL cases, I don't think it would have any effect on the number of abortions in this country. If anything, the number would increase, because mothers would feel less guilty about having one.

In conclusion: I don't pretend to know everything; therefore, I suspect that there will be some replies to this post, and there will be some who argue against my points. But I sure hope everybody learned something!