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Abortion Compromise?

molten_dragon said:
Originally Posted by Goshin
A 1 month old damn sure infringes on my money, time, sleep, bodily resources, and general sense of insanity.
I'm a parent, and I grew up with three sisters. Carrying the baby in the womb and getting up to infantile screams at 2 AM feeding time aren't all that different in terms of imposition!
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Isn't that sort of a matter of opinion though? You might think so, but the woman carrying the baby may feel very differently about it.
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I know I sure as hell feel differently about it. Speaking as one with considerable experience on both sides.
 
Goshin said:
A 1 month old damn sure infringes on my money, time, sleep, bodily resources, and general sense of insanity. :mrgreen:

I'm a parent, and I grew up with three sisters. Carrying the baby in the womb and getting up to infantile screams at 2 AM feeding time aren't all that different in terms of imposition! :)
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i am holding my one month old as i type. as far as sleep can be used as a metric, we were less imposed when he was still in the womb. :p
 
molten_dragon said:
Isn't that sort of a matter of opinion though? You might think so, but the woman carrying the baby may feel very differently about it.
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This is the crux of the debate, and it's not something the pro-life understand. They don't understand their moral relativism when they place values like personhood on fetuses. They think they have license to speak for everyone, even though the rational basis gets tossed out. There is nothing objective about their views that warrants laws being changed; it's not en par to murder because society can't even agree that a fetus is a person, especially before 22 weeks.

Even among the pro-life themselves, there are varying standards of what constitutes murder, and what is an acceptable abortion excuse. I don't see why we should give a morally inconsistent movement the time of day to determine the sovereignty a woman has over her own body. :shrug:
 
Orion said:
This is the crux of the debate, and it's not something the pro-life understand. They don't understand their moral relativism when they place values like personhood on fetuses. They think they have license to speak for everyone, even though the rational basis gets tossed out. There is nothing objective about their views that warrants laws being changed; it's not en par to murder because society can't even agree that a fetus is a person, especially before 22 weeks.

Even among the pro-life themselves, there are varying standards of what constitutes murder, and what is an acceptable abortion excuse. I don't see why we should give a morally inconsistent movement the time of day to determine the sovereignty a woman has over her own body. :shrug:
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As opposed to the oh-so-very logical sense of declaring a dividing line based on weeks of pregnancy (like the 20 week thing) or whether the unborn's head is in or out of the vaginal canal (as in partial-birth abortion)?

Any dividing line other than at-conception is necessarily arbitrary and lacking in sense. To accept, for instance, partial-birth abortion, you'd have to believe that if the baby's HEAD is inside the Momma, it's a "thing" that can be discarded, but if an instant later the head reaches open air then BANG, it's a "person". :roll:
 
Goshin said:
As opposed to the oh-so-very logical sense of declaring a dividing line based on weeks of pregnancy (like the 20 week thing) or whether the unborn's head is in or out of the vaginal canal (as in partial-birth abortion)?
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20 weeks makes sense given the development of the cerebral cortex. Without that portion of your brain, you are oblivious to all sensations, you have no individuality, you have no motor control, or any awareness of sensory input. The sounds you hear don't get associations tied to them (i.e. the woman's voice heard from within the womb, music, or language) because the CC also includes language processing. The cerebral cortex is everything when it comes to what defines us as being individuals and humans. Otherwise you are just an anatomaton. Aborting a fetus before the CC is formed is inconsequential since it is an empty shell.

Goshin said:
Any dividing line other than at-conception is necessarily arbitrary and lacking in sense. To accept, for instance, partial-birth abortion, you'd have to believe that if the baby's HEAD is inside the Momma, it's a "thing" that can be discarded, but if an instant later the head reaches open air then BANG, it's a "person". :roll:
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I'm not in favour of partial birth abortion unless we're talking a life and death situation. A woman should know by that stage whether or not she wants to have a baby, and I'm pretty sure that most courts even agree with that.

At-conception personhood is just foolish. It's not a person in any meaningful way. It's not even two cells yet. It's one cell. If I scratch my arm skin cells come off. We're talking single cellular existence here, and you want that to be given more rights than the woman carrying it? That makes zero sense.

Abortion laws are always about balancing the welfare of a fetus with the welfare and rights of the woman carrying it. I think banning elective partial birth abortion makes way more sense than banning the morning after pill because some extremists want a two-celled zygote to be called a human person.

The point you raise just proves that the pro-life will never rest until reproductive choices are completely stripped away until people don't even have the right to birth control since it infringes upon the so-called autonomous right of a zygote to flourish. The only thing people have left then is abstinence, which we know doesn't work on the policy level. Women must always have the right to choose at least during the period when the fetus is not suffering, and we can accurately gauge suffering based on the neural physiology which is objectively known.
 
Goshin said:
Any dividing line other than at-conception is necessarily arbitrary and lacking in sense.
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Let's be honest here Goshin. You are declaring a dividing line as well, you're just putting it in a different place, and putting it at conception is just as arbitrary as any other place you would choose to put it. All definitions of when personhood begins are abitrary. The best we can do is try to provide support for them.
 
i've read through all the posts so far and i STILL stand by MY definition of "life" or "personhood" or "unborn child" or what ever you want to call it. that definition is based on when we as a society have already determined when someone can be considered "dead". which legally is "brain death" so life should be "brain life" imo.
 
majora$$hole said:
i've read through all the posts so far and i STILL stand by MY definition of "life" or "personhood" or "unborn child" or what ever you want to call it. that definition is based on when we as a society have already determined when someone can be considered "dead". which legally is "brain death" so life should be "brain life" imo.
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In death, such a thing is easy to measure. There's brain activity, and then it stops. Of course, sometimes even that isn't enough, someone with a severe head injury can be biologicaly alive with a beating heart but have no brain activity, kept alive only by life support equipment. Is that dead or alive?

In fetal development, it's far less clear. First of all, we can't exactly attach equipment to the fetus to measure its brain activity. Next, the brain's development is a gradual process. In early stages of pregnancy, a rudimentary brain network may have developed, but where is the line between just being a cluster of nerve cells and a functioning brain?
 
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Deuce said:
In death, such a thing is easy to measure. There's brain activity, and then it stops. Of course, sometimes even that isn't enough, someone with a severe head injury can be biologicaly alive with a beating heart but have no brain activity, kept alive only by life support equipment. Is that dead or alive?

In fetal development, it's far less clear. First of all, we can't exactly attach equipment to the fetus to measure its brain activity. Next, the brain's development is a gradual process. In early stages of pregnancy, a rudimentary brain network may have developed, but where is the line between just being a cluster of nerve cells and a functioning brain?
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That's why we need to just pick a point in the fetal development and stick to it. It's going to be arbitrary regardless.
 
Missed AB said:
1. Generally, why does abortion tend to follow party lines?
2. Why is there a separation of church and state?
3. Do you support the right to all people to live, or just those from conception to 9 months later? Are you against war, death penalty, rage killing, "pulling the plug", a husband giving his life for his wife...
4. Do you disagree with human interference with Divine plans such as CPR, antibiotics, surgery...
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1. Because republicans cannot keep their religious beliefs out of politics.
2. Because when chruch and state are one people get burned at the stake... or stoned to death. Example: IRAN
3. From conception to 13 weeks it's a mass of cells... it is NOT human and it have NO RIGHTs.
4. Providing medical care is not interference... to say otherwise is not sane or normal.
 
Vader said:
1. Because republicans cannot keep their religious beliefs out of politics.
2. Because when chruch and state are one people get burned at the stake... or stoned to death. Example: IRAN
3. From conception to 13 weeks it's a mass of cells... it is NOT human and it have NO RIGHTs.
4. Providing medical care is not interference... to say otherwise is not sane or normal.
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1. Not Republicans.. Conservatives.. and Religion has a lot to do with politics.
2. Wtf? Christains don't do that no more since we have a great legal system.
3. mmk.. A mass of cells.. so its not human. So it has no RIGHT! But what its forming is human.. so it should have rights..
4. No comment.
 
actually it's worth pointing out here that you are "a mass of cells"
 
cpwill said:
actually it's worth pointing out here that you are "a mass of cells"
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I think he means "a mass of undifferentiated cells. (Just my interpretation, could be wrong.)
 
Deuce said:
In death, such a thing is easy to measure. There's brain activity, and then it stops. Of course, sometimes even that isn't enough, someone with a severe head injury can be biologicaly alive with a beating heart but have no brain activity, kept alive only by life support equipment. Is that dead or alive?

In fetal development, it's far less clear. First of all, we can't exactly attach equipment to the fetus to measure its brain activity. Next, the brain's development is a gradual process. In early stages of pregnancy, a rudimentary brain network may have developed, but where is the line between just being a cluster of nerve cells and a functioning brain?
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there are only 2 states where heart and lung activity constitute life the other 48 legally say "brain death" and not a "vegitative state" is what we as a society call dead. okay, if you can't directly measure brain function in a fetus then it should be the point after which conditions allow for it to happen.
 
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