Sklansky on Abortion

[lehighguy]

Who read Sklanskies post in the Science forum on abortion?

Your thoughts?

[DCopper04]

Looked through there quickly, did not find any thread on that topic. Link?

[lehighguy]

It was a month or two ago. May have been the psycology forum at the time.

We need a little more detail, bro. Is he for it? Against it? Does he believe life begins as soon as you squirt some semen into a girl's box?

[El Barto]

Maybe he means this one. Full text of the OP (author: David Sklansky):

I thought it was probably time to take a break from the controversial stuff. So I decided to explain to everybody what there is to know about abortion. Like whether its wrong, whether its murder, whether it should be illegal. Stuff like that. I don't expect any replies because there will be nothing to argue about when I'm done. But you might learn something.

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.

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.

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. 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.

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).

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.

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.

[The Dude]

[ QUOTE ]
Your thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree completely.

Fairly logical until the end. I would not presume to know why any particular woman chooses to have an abortion, much less the whole lot of them.

As for me, I'm pro-choice because I do not want to adopt any kids. If I were willing to adopt a potential abortee, I might consider being anti-choice. I would have much more respect for these so-called "pro-lifers" if they offered to adopt these unwanted babies.

[The Dude]

[ QUOTE ]
I would not presume to know why any particular woman chooses to have an abortion, much less the whole lot of them.

[/ QUOTE ]
You're thinking about it the wrong way. By generalizing, he's actually more correct than applying it to anyone specifically. He never claimed to why any particular woman would choose to have an abortion, only that in general, it's more likely that women get one for this reason than for that.

He doesn't claim to have any emperical evidence to support it, only supposition. In all reality, though, he's very likely correct in his supposition.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

killing not yet cognizent humans

The fact that *cognizant* is not the correct term not withstanding, he at least seems to understand the key issue.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

My guess is it's the one on Stem Cells