Quote:
Originally Posted by Fantasea
I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. (Your statement being: “Biological facts do not answer ethical questions.”)
Herein lies the crux.
The genesis is a well established biological fact, which is then bent, twisted, distorted, and otherwise tortured in an attempt to reshape it to conform to the requirements necessary to validate an opinion which has no otherwise factual underpinnings.
The well established biological fact is that the combining of sperm and the egg create a new, distinct, unique human life, separate from that of the mother, which, unless interrupted by a natural or deliberate event, will grow and develop seamlessly. In the fullness of time, the unborn child announces its readiness to leave the womb, does so, and takes its rightful place among us.
Right. We agree to this point. That's all fact.
I’ve included this exchange because it makes what follows easier to explain.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fantasea
One who does not differentiate between humans, animals, and fowl might, indeed, engage in such extrapolation, as might one who is addle pated. Great idea. Facts only. Just keep in mind what you wrote, "Biological facts do not answer ethical questions. The ethical answers are derived from facts and can be interpreted by the individual user."
Facts are in and "fluid" ethical answers are out.
Therein lies the problem and where opinion and personal feelings come in to play.
You stated and I agreed in the preceding exchanges that, with the question of abortion, there are facts, there are ethical opinions, and there are feelings.
It is a fact that the occupant of the womb is a distinct, unique human life, separate from that of the mother, which, unless interrupted by a natural or deliberate event, will grow and develop seamlessly, and in the fullness of time, the unborn child leaves the womb at birth to take its rightful place among us.
It is a fact is that prior to being aborted, the occupant of the womb is alive and after being aborted, the occupant of the womb is dead, thereby deprived of its life.
There are no other facts which bear on the question. Everything else falls into the category opinion based upon ethical pronouncements, feelings, emotion, or a combination of the three.
There are questions that gnaw at me.
Who, or what group is it that determined the principal that aborting an unborn child is ethical?
Bearing in mind that synonyms for the word “ethical” include correct, decent, elevated, equitable, fair, fitting, good, high-principled, honest, honorable, humane, just, moralistic, noble, principled, proper, respectable, right, virtuous, how can this word be reasonably applied to the aborting of an unborn child?
Doesn’t it destroy the credibility of those who, even if the light of modern scientific revelations, maintain that whether life begins at conception is unknowable with absolute certainty, to say, in effect, “What the hell, as long as there may be some doubt, kill the damned nuisance.”? Their error, or perhaps, hypocrisy is revealed quite clearly in the Merrian-Websters definition which uses the words “death of the embryo or fetus”. In order for anything to die, it must, first, have been alive.
Main Entry: abor•tion
Pronunciation: &-'bor-sh&n
Function: noun
1 : the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus; especially : the medical procedure of inducing expulsion of a human fetus to terminate a pregnancy
With rare exceptions, summed up, all of the reasons given for abortion really distill down to two; to avoid the embarrassment of an unwed pregnancy, or a pregnancy which has occurred at an inconvenient time. Are these not merely emotional responses to an unpleasant event? Is the only solution to kill the child involved?
Since modern advances in pre-natal care and in treatment of rape victims have effectively removed these as “excuses” for the need for abortions, why do the pro-choicers still trumpet these as indispensable reasons?
These are emotional arguments with the volume turned all the way up.
One is subjected to a constant barrage of “I think”, “I believe”, “I feel”, “I consider”, “I assume”, and the like, followed by a reason to abort an unborn child. There are no facts here. Are these not merely unfounded opinions?
Since we're arguing solely facts and not feelings, there should be no delineation in what value one life has over another. It's a very cold, hard look at life.
A fact is, as it were, the apple, and the opinion and personal feelings are the orange. And this is the point at which you are attempting to “mix” them.
Life, at least in the US, provided that one is not incarcerated, is what one decides to make of it. If you don’t believe that, just take a look at what most immigrants have made of their lives.
One could take the facts and use them to rationalize a war in Iraq, abortion, or eating a hamburger or, at the same time, using other facts to be a vegan hippy eating only raw foods and becoming a vessel of life to 20 offspring.
Rationalize? I’m glad you picked that word. I think it’s an excellent choice when one considers the second meaning in its definition:
ra•tion•al•ize (r sh -n -l z )
v. ra•tion•al•ized, ra•tion•al•iz•ing, ra•tion•al•iz•es
1. To make rational.
2. To devise self-satisfying but false or inconsistent reasons for one's behavior, especially as an unconscious defense mechanism through which irrational acts or feelings are made to appear rational to oneself.
Need I say more?
I think we both know that basing these arguments on life and death should be more than just cold, hard facts.
If that is what you think, then you have been misconstruing my posts. I shall try to write with more clarity and less ambiguity.
Making an argument for or against abortion based solely on facts doesn't answer the bigger questions.
You are correct.
Facts concern themselves with the smaller question; that of demonstrating that the occupant of the womb is a living, growing, developing unborn human child.
The bigger questions, which you do not enumerate, are simply rationalized, aren’t they?
You may wish to re-read the central portion of my post #18 in this thread.
:3oops:
