Suppose a woman chooses, because of her reduced circumstance, to live in a high crime neighborhood, and chooses to leave the doors open while cleaning house, and is subesquently raped. Does that make the rape and subsequent issue her fault? Or does it put the unwanted child in exactly the same situation as the person in my thought-experiment who was attached by his relatives to me?
...and, assuming you think rape victims are entitled to abort...how does that situation play against the idea that the fetus being related to you gives it the rights of a citizen to be defended against murder? I assert it does not. A fetus may be "human" or "aware" or "viable" or "natural" or anything else you care to conjure up in the rights game, but it is clearly NOT a full citizen, and not necessarily entitled to a citizen's full gamut of rights, unlike the mother. When was the last time a fetus was issued a driver's license?
When was the last time a fetus was issued a driver's license?When was the last time a four-year-old was issued a driver's license?
A telling statement. Governments grant citizenship in the context you present, so you seem to be saying that the "full gamut of rights", including, presumably, the right to live, is granted by government.
Evidently there is a fundamental disagreement here, the crux of which is the notion of inalienable rights. The founders of our country recognized the importance of acknowledging the existence of these, and the government's proper role in safeguarding them, not granting them. Our laws recognize that non-citizens have fundamental protections under the law. Their citizen status is not relevant to the consideration that they should not be subject to acts of murder.
For abortion to be defensible, you have to argue from a position of denying that the unborn child is not human life, or, if it is, there is a class of human beings that are exempt from the basic protection that we afford in the vast majority of cases: the right to be left alone and not killed by another. Our society, and others, make a case for some conditions under which the life of another human being may be taken, but, in their essence, these are based, in one way or another, on the notion of self-defense. Other than in very limited cases wherein the mother's life is 100% at risk of death from the pregnancy, it is difficult to see that abortion on demand meets the criteria established for the cases wherein taking of human life is justified from an ethical viewpoint.
You seem to be saying the fetus is not a living thing, not a "citizen" as you described it. I say you are wrong. The fetus is a living thing; all it needs is time and noursihment to grow, just as a newborn does, outside of the womb.
It has a heart beat, tiny fingers and toes, and can feel both the comfort of the womb and the pain of being smashed in the skull and vacuumed out of it, if the so called "mother" decides to abort it.
Less than 1% of all rape victims ever get pregnant as a result of their horrific experience. My heart goes out to anyone who has been raped, and especially those very rare few who are impreganated in the process.
However, studies have consistently shown how abortion harms not only the living fetus in the womb, but the psyche of the woman who choses this particular "choice". I personally know women who have had abortions who are among the most troubled, conflicted women I know.
Any way, the bottom line in my response to you is that the fetus IS a living thing ('citizen or not'), and that being the case, we should not be legally permitted to kill it via abortion.
I've not read the whole thread, and am jumping in with this rant. Comment. Using this so called theory of yours, it's OK to kill an over-grown fetus up till the time they get a driver's license? Wow. My mom didn't get hers till she was in her early 70's. 'Spose she was eligible for your abortion?????
You people don't have a leg to stand on, know it, and have to use these statements disguised as an argument.