Religion Discussion

[Vaelahr]

I believe human life begins at conception. To assert otherwise shows a grave ignorance of science. A look at human biology really makes it quite clear. The question is - when do we consider human life to be of value?

Well, roughly 80% of all pregnancies self terminate prior to implantation, so if a human life starts at conception, the vast majority of human beings get flushed down the toilet. Something to consider.

Not all the baby turtles make it back to the ocean.

Such self-termination is a part of the natural cycle. It's out of our hands.

People die. Sometimes young, sometimes really young, sometimes old, sometimes - you get the picture. Human life is human life. The unborn are innocent, thus particularly valuable. When their life is in our hands, then we should be judicious.

Viability is the more practical bright line, though even there you are regulating the uterus at bit, as you would force a woman to induce or carry to term once the fetus was viable. That's an awful lot of government coercion, being pushed by folk who scream out against having to vaccinate their children or send them to school....

Roe vs. Wade defined viability as that stage of fetal development when the baby is "potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb [that is, can survive], albeit with artificial help." But we can't use that as a measure of when the baby is human and therefore has the right to live. Over the past fifty years or so, viability has gone from 30 weeks down to 20 weeks. Unborn babies haven't changed. Mothers are making the same kind of babies they always did. They're just surviving earlier thanks to science and medicine.

So viability should be defined as a measure of the sophistication of the external life support systems around the baby, not a measure of her humanness or of her right to live.

[danielmn]

"What right does a mother and her abortionist have to cram their morality down her unborn child's throat....fatally?"

When the deaths in the world from starvation go to 0 a year, I will feel comfortable asking that question.

"Wow, dan you've changed. So much more vocal and fiesty than I remember you around here"

Yeah, I usually don't bother expressing my veiws, especially in these forums. I beleive in what I beleive in, and I am comfortable with that. I find no need to convince anyone else to see things my way, and I can respect other's veiws enough not to make it a big deal if they're not my own.

[oldgrayrogue]

I am a father of three and my wife and I are staunchly pro-choice. As a personal matter we probably would never choose to abort a pregnancy, even an unwanted one, but that is a matter of personal choice, that is the point.

As a father of two daughters, I don't ever want decisions they have to make about their own bodies on such a personal level be something that could submit them to criminal prosecution or worse. Illegalizing abortion doesn't stop them. Its just ends up killing or mangling women and then criminalizing women and doctors.

Being pro-choice does not mean you disrespect life, or a child's life. As a parent, who knows what it takes to go through three pregnancies with my wife, with all of their various risks and complications, loves all three of my children dearly, and knows and appreciates full well what it takes to try to be a good parent, that is my perspective.

[danielmn]

OGR - perfectly said, and exactly how I veiw it.

[fluffmonster]

I vote that we put the effort arguing abortion into preventing unwanted pregnancies. Surely we can all agree on that.

[danielmn]

PREVENTION!!!!

HOWS DARZ JOO SIR!

THARE WILL BEE NOE PREVENTION HEAR!

*claps hands on ears, turns up tv and music really loud, prays to the Lord that his children don't have sex until they know they are responsible enough to handle its consequences*

[NickD]

Um, doesn't it then become a ABSTINENCE ONLY vs SEX EDUMACATIONS argument?

[Mayhem]

This coming week, my wife will be going to the funeral of a baby girl, barely over a year, who was born with a genetic condition that meant she was never going to survive much longer than this.

This baby has spent much of its short life with needles in its arms and legs, and tubes down its throat. Her short life has been 99% suffering. Her parents have lived with the knowledge that she could die from a seizure at any moment in her short life.

The medical intervention meant nothing, and could affect no improvement, something that we have all known from day 1. Despite the best care available, this little girl literally starved to death, and died in her mothers arms.

One day, it will be possible to test for this condition in the womb. An abortion at that stage would mean the baby would not have to endure a year of pain and suffering.

[zicada]

Very good arguments oldgrayrogue and mayhem.

What is so interesting here, is that the people who are otherwise very passionate about saying they do not 'cram their beliefs down other peoples throats', and that, everyone has the right to chose,- in this case set out to do the exact opposite.

[danielmn]

Yes, my apologies for posting my own veiwpoint. I usually don't, and really shouldn't have this time. I merely sought to counterbalance the discussion...I should have let it continue on it's coarse. As stated previously, the abortion/antiabortion thing really doesn't ring a bell with me all that much, so take my own veiwpoint as you will...not here to try and enlighten anyone or change anyones mind, or do the I'm right, you're wrong, you're a hypocryte dance that is all the rage amongst 6 year olds these days.

As stated before, for the discussion, I guess it all depends on when you begin to value a life.

*bows out*

[zicada]

Yes, my apologies for posting my own veiwpoint. I usually don't, and really shouldn't have this time. I merely sought to counterbalance the discussion...I should have let it continue on it's coarse. As stated previously, the abortion/antiabortion thing really doesn't ring a bell with me all that much, so take my own veiwpoint as you will...not here to try and enlighten anyone or change anyones mind, or do the I'm right, you're wrong, you're a hypocryte dance that is all the rage amongst 6 year olds these days.

*bows out*

I feel like the issue here isn't whether abortion is right or wrong, or coming up with a definition for the start of life. It's about one group who is against abortion wanting to take away the freedom of choice from the ones that are not by law, based solely on their own moralistic outlook. Some, myself included, feel entitled to strongly disagree with that stance, since we feel taking away fellow human beings freedom of choice is necessarily worse than the original issue itself.

[danielmn]

Yes, it is a case of taking choice away on either side...taking away the parents choice to decide, or taking away the yet born childs right to live.

In either scenario, you take away freedoms from someone. I suppose you just have to fall one way or another with it... and I fall on the side of the parent, for they have the better scope and frame of mind to determine weather the child can be raised properly, if there are health problems if it is viable to conceive, if there is rape to let the mother rid herself of what must only be shame and anger.

I suppose adoption is a viable alternative in some cases...I hope those opposed to abortions are in favor of federal taxation and the federal government taking care of people...cause that's who's paying in those cases.

Anywho...

*NOW bows out*

[Mulu]

So viability should be defined as a measure of the sophistication of the external life support systems around the baby, not a measure of her humanness or of her right to live.

Well, if you're not viable, are you really human yet? The fact that people can disagree about it means you can't claim abortion is murder since different people have different definitions depending on their beliefs.

A zygote is clearly not a human, any more than a stem cell is. After all, it won't be long before we can clone humans using stem cells, so potentiality is the wrong bright line. A newborn baby clearly is a human. At some point in development, the fetus crossed a line where it becomes a human. Where is that point? Reasonable minds differ. So you use a practical definition that has a good social outcome, as the justices did in Roe v Wade.

Another thing to consider, the planet is currently horribly overpopulated. We are using up resources far faster than they are being naturally replenished, a situation that will lead to rather obvious results. Granted most of that overpopulation is in the 3rd and 4th world, but this is still not an environment where claiming "every sperm is sacred" is a wise choice.

[Mayhem]

Very good arguments oldgrayrogue and mayhem.

What is so interesting here, is that the people who are otherwise very passionate about saying they do not 'cram their beliefs down other peoples throats', and that, everyone has the right to chose,- in this case set out to do the exact opposite.

Abortion being legal does not take away your right to choose not to have one, if that is what you believe.

So I don't really see where your argument is coming from.

[Vaelahr]

This coming week, my wife will be going to the funeral of a baby girl, barely over a year, who was born with a genetic condition that meant she was never going to survive much longer than this.

This baby has spent much of its short life with needles in its arms and legs, and tubes down its throat. Her short life has been 99% suffering. Her parents have lived with the knowledge that she could die from a seizure at any moment in her short life.

The medical intervention meant nothing, and could affect no improvement, something that we have all known from day 1. Despite the best care available, this little girl literally starved to death, and died in her mothers arms.

One day, it will be possible to test for this condition in the womb. An abortion at that stage would mean the baby would not have to endure a year of pain and suffering.

Better to kill than care for?

That's a very sad story. I look at it as an abortion would mean the baby girl wouldn't have had a year of being loved by her parents. A year without the parents being able to pour their love into their daughter.

Another thing to consider, the planet is currently horribly overpopulated. We are using up resources far faster than they are being naturally replenished, a situation that will lead to rather obvious results. Granted most of that overpopulation is in the 3rd and 4th world, but this is still not an environment where claiming "every sperm is sacred" is a wise choice.

I don't know of anyone claiming sperm are sacred. Don't be silly.

The Overpopulation Lie

Abortion & Overpopulation

Women don't get abortions out of concern for planetary population.

Well, if you're not viable, are you really human yet? The fact that people can disagree about it means you can't claim abortion is murder since different people have different definitions depending on their beliefs.

A zygote is clearly not a human, any more than a stem cell is.

Come on Mulu, you're smarter than that. A zygote clearly is a human, far more than a stem cell. Let's look at scientific fact...human biology...Day One/Conception: Of the 200 million sperm that try to penetrate the mother’s egg cell, only one succeeds. At that very moment, a new and unique individual is formed. All of the inherited features of this new person are already set – whether it’s a boy or girl, the color of the eyes, the color of the hair, specific facial features. She's smaller than a grain of sugar, but the genetic instructions are present for all that this tiny woman will ever become.

1. Is this being alive? Yes. She has the characteristics of life. That is, she can reproduce her own cells and develop them into a specific pattern of maturity and function. Or more simply, she's not dead.

2. Is this being human? Yep. This is a unique being, distinguishable totally from any other living organism, completely human in all of her characteristics, including the 46 human chromosomes, and can develop only into a fully mature human.

3. Is this being complete? Indeed she is. Nothing new will be added from the time of union of sperm and egg until the death of the old woman except growth and development of what is already there at the beginning. All she needs is time to develop and mature.

Even if one is truly doubtful of the life in the womb being human, why not give life the benefit? How do we always treat other human life when there has been doubt that it exists? We don't bury the doubtfully dead, we work frantically to save entombed miners, exhaustively search for one lost to the sea, etc.

I feel like the issue here isn't whether abortion is right or wrong, or coming up with a definition for the start of life. It's about one group who is against abortion wanting to take away the freedom of choice from the ones that are not by law, based solely on their own moralistic outlook.

I don't think anyone can deny that abortion is the killing of human life. But we can't have it both ways. If abortion is wrong, then both the mother and child's right to life should be protected.

Let's take a peek at history for a moment: In 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Dred Scott Decision. By a 7-2 vote it ruled that black people were not "legal persons," that they were the property of the slave owner, who was granted the basic constitutional right to own a slave. Abolitionists protested, to be met with this answer: "We understand you oppose slavery and find it morally offensive. That is your privilege. You don’t have to own a slave if you don’t want to. But, don’t impose your morality on the slave owner. He has the constitutionally protected right to choose to own a slave."

Today the conflict is abortion, and the very same argument is used. In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 7-2 decision, ruled that unborn humans were not "legal persons," that they were the property of the owner (the mother) who was given the basic constitutional right to choose to kill her unborn offspring. Pro-lifers have protested, to be met with the same answer: "We understand that you oppose abortion and find it morally offensive. That is your privilege. You don’t have to have an abortion if you don’t want to. But don’t impose your morality on the owner, the mother, for she has the constitutional right to choose to kill, if she wishes."

A single ethic always applies: "No one has the right to choose to do what is wrong." - President Abraham Lincoln