Question for Pro-choicers
- Thread starter Brent
- Start date
If she was born, she was no longer a fetus.
OrnotBitwise
Watermelon
Very late second trimester then. That's what I thought. Premies born before the third trimester almost never survive. You are very fortunate.
As always, I am talking about first trimester abortions, primarily. Those and only those are protected constitutionally. Something like 90% of all abortions in the United States are done before the end of the 12th week, so I'm concerned with the overwhelming majority of all abortions, not some arbitrary sample.
A first trimester fetus is not a person, in the estimation of most people. Not yet a person, any more than an acorn is an oak tree. It just isn't. It's almost impossible to look at one and say "hey, that's a person." Some people can and I respect that -- I honestly do -- but most people can't.
Immanuel
Junior Member
Yet, in everything you say, you make it sound as if you approve of killing the child thirty seconds before it would naturally leave the birth canal.
Also, where do you come up with this, "Most people"?
Immie
OrnotBitwise
Watermelon
"Designed?" I don't believe in design, intelligent or otherwise.
The entire anti-abortion argument hinges on the idea that aborting a fetus is morally equivalent to murder -- killing an innocent baby, more explicitly. Without that equivalence they have no case.
Quite honestly, all I'm saying is that neither you nor I nor anyone else has either the wisdom or the moral authority to decide for everyone -- every woman -- in all cases that a fetus she is carrying at any given moment is a human person or not. I want that decision left in her hands and up to her conscience. It's not a decision any woman makes easily: I don't believe most women need the paternal omniscience to make it for her.
Now, one *can* make compelling arguments for restricting third trimester abortions. You know what? Most abortion rights activists whom I know would be quite willing to compromise on that point. The fact is, though, that the American anti-abortion movement, as a movement, has been traditionally unwilling to work within the guidelines of Roe. I did some quick digging last night and each and every statute overturned in the last 20 years I could find was obviously and deliberately crafted to challenge Roe, not work within it.
It doesn't in my opinion. I don't believe you should end any life for the convenience of another. Necessity should drive such a choice. It isn't necessary to be "murder" for something to be morally wrong.
And by "design" I meant as it's DNA gives it a design. As any life is "designed" to do, live. Each thing of life, whether created or evolved is designed specifically by either some Higher Being or by Natural Selection to continue its existence and to work toward perpetuation.... I didn't mean to suggest that "God" had a hand in this. I think you know my beliefs better than that anyway.
Once again, I don't believe that it being a "person" changes the fact that killing anything at all just for the convenience of another isn't "moral".
I have not argued that this is a decision made easily by another. Just wrongly by many.
I would be ecstatic if we limited third trimester abortions to "life only" decisions....
I would also continue working to limit all abortion to the same standard and to replace abortion with a new choice and direction.
It has never been my contention that women should be forced to continue a pregnancy, only that we shouldn't work to kill the fetus when ending the pregnancy.
OrnotBitwise
Watermelon
I come up with "most people" based, I admit, on personal experience and that common sense I so often denigrate. Even so, I believe it's quite true. Show a hundred people a photograph or sonogram of a 10 or 11 week fetus and I doubt more than seven or eight will see a person in it.
As I sort of said before, this particular fight is very hard to compromise on. Both sides tend to cling to absolute positions because each sees the other as duplicitous and, frankly, evil.
One thing I do believe quite firmly is that the American anti-abortion movement -- as a movement in general, not speaking of any individuals in particular -- is totally and absolutely unwilling to compromise. They are only interested in overturning Roe v. Wade, not regulating second and third trimester abortions within its framework. That perception is quite general on my side of the divide and is in turn the reason why so many pro-choice advocates fight any abortion regulation with such ferocity.
We've gotten into a self-sustaining cycle of emotional violence over this issue. This is true, and both sides are contributing to it. What I don't see, however, is a straightforward way out of it.
Immanuel
Junior Member
You cannot honestly believe that Pro-abortion (ie NOW, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, Emily's List etc.) forces will give one damned inch to limit one single abortion. Tell me you are not that foolish. They fight tooth and nail and lie through their teeth about abortion from claiming it is not human to lies about pro-life individuals. It is big business for them and they are not willing to give up one damned dime of it.
Immie
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Wow, at work here they bring the sonogram pictures to work and everybody gathers to coo and drool over the "cuteness"...
Very true, hence the physical compromise I have put forward....
The thing is, the expectation that they would simply give up and be satisfied is unrealistic. Look at it from a different perspective. If you truly believed that abortion was the same as killing a child would there be any way you could support it? Be honest. If it was the same to you as killing an infant where would you compromise?
Or even their special exemptions... My child can't get a bandaid at school without my permission but internal surgery that may damage their psyche can be given without even knowledge.
OrnotBitwise
Watermelon
Where does "convenience" end and necessity begin, though? That's the real question. I think that question can only be answered for an individual case, not by a general rule. That is why I oppose imposing a standard by law.
Given the historical overtones -- if you'll pardon the cliche -- of this debate, "designed" is a very poor choice of expression in this context. "Designed" tends to imply intent and that's exactly where we start getting our purposes crossed. Evolution by natural selection is devoid of intent, as you know.
Rightly or wrongly, we kill things for what you might see as convenience all the time. Remember that there is no absolute standard, in my view, by which we can decide where convenience fades into necessity.
I'm willing to posit that if Buddhism or Jaynism ever became the nation's dominant philosophy, we'd probably all be better off. I am, however, totally unwilling to impose that philosophy by statute. As I suspect you are too.
I'm sure that you haven't. Many have, however. The myth of the serial slut, aborting baby after baby as easily as she changes her underwear, is rampant among the more voiciferous of the anti-abortion folk.
While I won't claim that I'd be ecstatic, I'd probably applaud it. I certainly wouldn't oppose it.
<*sigh*> Nasty can of worms there, doc. Who's going to pay for extra-utero gestation? The cost is likely to be astronomical, at least in the early days.
OrnotBitwise
Watermelon
I do indeed believe it. In fact, I know it, having spoken of it often with people in reasonably high positions within those organizations.
If one is not going to die then there is no necessity. Necessity is clear. Each reason other than the life of the mother is a convenience issue and life is taken because either it will be convenient to society to feed and clothe them, or inconvenient to the mother in some way or another.
I believe that you are wrong. Necessity is very clear. You need to eat, we kill things to eat. You need shelter, we kill to create shelter.
I'm willing to posit that if Buddhism or Jaynism ever became the nation's dominant philosophy, we'd probably all be better off. I am, however, totally unwilling to impose that philosophy by statute. As I suspect you are too.
I'm sure that you haven't. Many have, however. The myth of the serial slut, aborting baby after baby as easily as she changes her underwear, is rampant among the more voiciferous of the anti-abortion folk.
While I won't claim that I'd be ecstatic, I'd probably applaud it. I certainly wouldn't oppose it.
<*sigh*> Nasty can of worms there, doc. Who's going to pay for extra-utero gestation? The cost is likely to be astronomical, at least in the early days.
I don't believe that consideration of cost should be the determining factor in doing the right thing.
Immanuel
Junior Member
When you believe that all life is sacred you cannot and should not compromise and allow the taking of some of that life. The vast majority of abortions (per Planned Parenthood's own polling company Alan Guttmacher Inst.) says that 95% of all abortions are performed for birth control reasons. Mommy has no compelling reason beyond "I just don't want this baby". That is sad and quite frankly immoral.
There really is no straight forward way out. My side won't compromise because we see killing a human being for selfish purposes to be morally wrong. Your side sees forcing a woman to undergo the difficult situation of an unwanted pregnancy to be morally wrong. Neither side is willing to budge an inch.
We could reduce abortions IF we would teach sex education, including but not limited to abstinence, and birth control methods were readily available. Some on the right are unwilling to compromise on this issue. They should be slapped silly!
There will be no compromise on this ever. Instead we will fight each other steadily while 1.4 million children die in America every single year. Both sides claiming the moral high ground and neither side deserving of that claim.
Immie
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Immanuel
Junior Member
Actions speak louder than lies. They make no, zero, zilch, nada efforts at all. They are proven liars, greedy individuals who make a hell of a lot of money for just a few minutes worth of effort. Then they leave the woman to a life time of problems that may come back and haunt her.
Immie
IHateGovernment
Is this your homework?
Children as early as 22 weaks have survived which is smack in the center of the second trimester.
OrnotBitwise
Watermelon
<*sigh*> This is why I hate abortion threads. I can't let 'em alone -- which is my own failing -- but they never, ever get anywhere.
Enough. You believe whatever you want. You're not listening and, like all anti-abortion fanatics, you never will.
OrnotBitwise
Watermelon
And how many first trimester premies have ever survived?
And in which trimester is a woman's right to an abortion constitutionally protected?