I hate this sort of ethical uncertainty. Honestly, I don't really care whether women have abortions or not; I'm only trying to be objective. I don't really think a fetus at any stage of development has much in the way of cognition going on, anyway. I just feel that it is callous to destroy what may be defined as a person.
The unborn are unique. All else being equal, they
will become human beings, with protection under the law. But they are not yet to that point--loony legal rulings and religious dogma notwithstanding. Nevertheless, we recognize the unborn as distinct from the mother from the moment they are conceived. It's only too easy to draw the anti-abortion conclusion...and so that's what many people do, to the detriment of all women, and the entire human civilization. Your concern is different, a sort of consternation that follows from focusing on the unborn child rather than the mother. I said when I opened this thread that, were it just the unborn child, the inception of cognition is a good point to draw the line. There is no murkiness here beyond a range of a couple of weeks. However, it
isn't just the unborn child. The mother has rights too, which religious doctrine has denied them on grounds of their gender from ancient times on into the modern era. Her rights in this conundrum are perfectly clear. Thus, there is no conundrum...no uncertainty. Regardless of the plight of the unborn, the freedom of any mentally competent person to control her own body and direct the course of her own health is, in my opinion, among the most fundamental human rights. The pseudo-human unborn child, unfortunately for the child, is on the losing side of Justice's scale. Your consternation stems from the fact that in this case, justice carries a price. I'm here to tell you that, in an imperfect society, among a mortal people, justice usually will.
That is why I desire a technological solution. The human condition, as it stands, is completely unacceptable to me.
Yes, I can agree with you completely on that point. Preventing conception entirely is the ultimate solution to this problem, one that will eliminate the conflict and thus obviate the conflict that causes you such discomfort. (Although I would expect to see, shortly thereafter, yet another religious assault on women's freedom of sexuality, in some other form.)
It's one thing to take responsibility for your actions, and it is a comendable thing, it is the right thing to do. But to hold another person responsible for your actions, which you are doing if you are having a child you do not want and/or lack the resources to raise, is reprehensible and cowardly.
This raises an important point. Abortion isn't about finding a place to put the baby. If it were, then obviously we would want to put the baby safe and sound into a doctor's arms at nine months' gestation. No. Abortion is about women's rights. More essentially, it is about
human rights concerning pregnant women. Abortion is about a woman retaining control of her own body. We each have one body in this world that is ours alone to rule. If a woman wants to gratify her sexual desire, that is her choice--and an understandable choice at that. If a woman wants to avoid the onus of a pregnancy, or childbirth, or child, for whatever reason, then that is her choice as well. It really is that simple. Everything else, every other detail, is extraneous to this core.
Don't listen to the religious diversionary arguments that carry us away from this point. Don't buy into their emotionally loaded jargon. This isn't about "viability." The viability of a fetus to prosper outside its mother is irrelevant. And this isn't about chosing adoption over abortion. Adoption is
not an alternative to abortion, because when treated as such it necessarily revokes a woman's right to control her own body. Abortion is about women's rights. Deep down, any opposition to abortion is logically based upon an institutionalized fear of, or contempt for, women. Just look at the corner into which we have backed the religious camp during the course of this thread. They're treading right on the edge of connecting the dots and realizing for themselves--whilst admitting to the rest of us that which we already knew--that the strength of their religion's opposition to abortion lies not in the sanctity of unborn life, but in the subjugation of the female sex.
Having said that, your point is well-taken Radical_Dreamer...but it is incorrect. It is a very appealing line of thought to say that we mustn't hold the
child accountable for the mother's decision to exercise "responsibility" and
not abort, and then go on to expose that child to a world that does not want it and will not provide for it. However, whereas we may exempt individual parents from the responsibility to raise their unwanted children, we may
not exempt society itself from the same, and, to the extent that we lack the social infrastructure to accommodate unwanted children properly, this is the fault solely of the society as a whole. As such, it has no weight in the abortion debate other than to provide an impetus for concluding the debate soon with the appropriate legislation expanding abortion rights and improving upon the aforementioned infrastructure.
Just for a different point of view, what about the fact that the mother is NOT a clean book, and that the child never had a chance at life s/he couldve had? And that the child has never commited evil?
This is prejudice on your part--or, more literally, pre-judgment. As such, it is logically unfounded. We cannot ascertain an unborn child's right to exist based on a life it has not lived. Sure, the child might become the next Einstein. It might also become the next Hitler. It doesn't matter.
It hasn't happened yet. Meanwhile, the woman is right here, alive and very real, asking ever so kindly for you not to strip her of one of her most basic rights...and you're saying you would tell her that you, Burning Zeppelin, are more deserving to control her body than she is, because your values are more important than her values, and that if she doesn't like being turned into a slave at your whim, then she should not have exercised
another of her fundamental rights, which is to have sex at her leisure, in the first place.
That's the very crux of prejudice, and that's why prejudice has no place in justice.
Plus, I think that, me talking from a pro abortionist view, that if a woman wants to have an abortion a second time, and both times were just because then that is horrendously wrong.
A woman has the
sovereign right to control her own body. This is not a right that can only be used once, like some free pass, and must then be forfeited thereafter. It is a right that continues uninterrupted throughout her life. If that means she has an abortion at some point, fine. Two abortions; fine. Ten thousand abortions; fine. Each abortion is decided on its own merits; there is no cumulative score being kept.
In your world, it may be irresponsible of a woman to be responsible for herself. In the real world, that's absurd.
Okay, I've been lurking here for a while, hoping someone would get to this point, but no one has (possibly because of the lack of actual women here). The fact is, Abortion is not easy. Even if you put aside pricing concerns, it's something unnatural being done to the body, and it causes a fair bit of its own suffering. Mystik, if you're insistant that women take responsibility for becoming pregnant, going through an abortion is enough (ironically, I don't see you proposing that men go through the same pain in order to ensure equality).
I think you've bought in to a religionist talking point. And, like most such talking points, I can recognize the source with my handy-dandy Bullshitometer 7000. The fact of the matter is that a professionally administered abortion is safer even than pregnancy itself, and much safer than full-term childbirth. As far as medical procedures go, it's a pretty benign one. To call abortion "unnatural" is to play semantics; the "natural" counterpart of abortion is miscarriage, many of which are handled in much the same way. But more to the point, "unnatural" doesn't mean a whit. I can name any number of "unnatural" things we do to our bodies every day, which improve our health and bolster our quality of life.
Here's my quick opinion on abortion:
It's morally wrong, but having a law against it makes no sense in society.
If abortion were "morally wrong," as you say, then it would make all the sense in the world to have a law against it. The fact of the matter is that it
isn't morally wrong. There's something in your belief system that's keeping you from saying that society has the obligation to outlaw abortions, and whatever that is, even by your own standards it outranks your "moral indignation" at the act of abortion itself. I suspect you are invoking people's right to choice. That's a much more "moral" right than you give it credit for.
So...The people that say a fetus isnt alive, are also saying a plant...isnt alive?
What the hell are you talking about?
Z, listen up. Rhetorical maneuvers are supposed to be invisible. Yours stands out like the broadside of the Titanic in front of a big fat iceberg, and it's going to meet with about the same level of success. Plants are alive. Fetuses are alive. That isn't the point. It has nothing to do with this discussion. Indeed, if the unborn were not alive at all, this controversy would not even exist. Whatever razzle-dazzle point you were trying to make, you might want to try making it a different way.
Poll