Thousands of vegetarians have proven that, in this country at least, you needn't be an omnivore. With such a grand opportunity to follow your morals, why wouldn't you jump at the chance?
If only fetuses were granted the same rights as animals in our society.
So abortion would be okay if fetuses were "killed with the minimal of suffering as possible"?
If it is morally allowable to take the life of a fetus, because it has not yet acquired these higher qualities, then it should also be morally allowable to kill infants and children, since they have not yet developed those traits.
Apparently you haven't met any children. My position on infanticide is that it is immoral. That is my position on elective abortion as well. This doesn't change the fact that for all the reasons I have in other posts, the killing of an adult is worse than the killing of a fetus. The suffering of an adult holocaust victim is infinitely greater than the suffering of an aborted fetus.
Once again, even if you are correct, defending the practise of abortion by saying, "Well it isn't the Holocaust", is not much of an argument.
You have the order all wrong. Someone in this thread initiated the comparision between elective abortions and the holocaust. I was responding to them, and surely by now you realize that my argument was not "Well it isn't the Holocaust".
What does the direction of the arrow of time have to do with the intrinsic value of a human being? A fetus if allowed to be born, will surely in the future have a will to live. Why does a will to live have to proceed any right to live? Seems artificial to me.
Seems artificial to me to. You should take it up with whoever made such an argument. MY argument on the other hand had to do with why we value other people, the human capacity for suffering, and most of all valuing those UNIQUELY human qualities over those that are shared by all vertebrates.
As our medical technology increases it will be possible to push this back to the 2nd and 1st trimester.
Even if so, it will still pale in comparison to the spontaneously aborted early (embryonic) products of conception. You are right about fertility research, but a woman trying to get pregnant is likely to have multiple, even unnoticed, spontaneous abortions. They wouldn't consider themselves to have fertility problem, and wouldn't qualify for therapy, until many consecutive attempts had failed. There has been a small amount of research done just to come to the conclusion that fertile women frequently abort spontaneously. There hasn't been any research to stop this from happening. I suppose no one cares about all these human deaths as long as women get pregnant within a reasonable time frame.
all abortions except when the life of the mother is at stake
What does the life of the mother have to do with it? We are talking about an innocent baby. Mom had her chance at life.
To you it seems perverse that I would argue such a relatively unimportant point. To me it is vitally important because it gets to the heart of dehumanization. The good people on this thread that I have argued with have stated their value for "human" life but have attributed it to the animal qualities of consciousness and pain response. None have cared to describe just what qualities makes humans unique and special. Surely those qualities are what would make a human more valuable than an animal. It scares me that people are afraid to recognize those qualities because in so doing they think that somehow they must also accept abortion or infanticide. They effectively deny the existence of humanness. That is a universal dehumanization at the conceptual level. That is dangerous.
Good points all. Thanks.
My love of meat, and my value for life in general complells me not to consume animal fetuses. I prefer meat from fully grown adult animals. My position on this matter is logically consistent. Do you kill or torture animals for sport or fun and leave their carcasses to rot? Do you condemn those who do such a thing? If you do condemn them, on what grounds do you condemn them, since animals are no different than fetuses in your mind and you can't quite come to the point where you condemn the killing of fetuses?
So abortion would be okay if fetuses were "killed with the minimal of suffering as possible"?
Cute, but hardly a honest debating point. Surely you understoodd my meaning. If you didn't then I have wasted my time debating you and if you did, then you are merely playing rhetorical games, uninterested in honest debate. Nonetheless, I will answer your question. No it would not be okay, but it would be better if they were killed without pain. Tell me which is worse, murdering a person with a gunshoot to the temple or by slowly torturing them? Both are evil, but the gunshoot to the head is less evil. Animals are treated far better in our society, than aborted fetuses, since animals are allowed to live and enjoy life, a joy that the aborted fetus is deprived of.
Apparently you haven't met any children. My position on infanticide is that it is immoral. That is my position on elective abortion as well. This doesn't change the fact that for all the reasons I have in other posts, the killing of an adult is worse than the killing of a fetus. The suffering of an adult holocaust victim is infinitely greater than the suffering of an aborted fetus.
I have raised two boys. My addition of children to the definition of infanticide, was for your benefit, since I wasn't sure you thought children were sufficiently developed to be of value, except maybe for their parents' enjoyment. I'm glad to hear you are against infanticide and elective abortion, but I have no idea why, since your arguments points in the opposite direction. Some explanation on your part is necessary to why you think infanticide and elective abortions are immoral.
What does the life of the mother have to do with it? We are talking about an innocent baby. Mom had her chance at life.
Wasn't it you that was arguing earlier, that your wife should be able to terminate a pregnancy if her life was at stake. I was just trying to find some common ground on which we could agree so we could work together to stop as many abortions as possible. But you would rather argue fine points than lift a finger to reduce the suffering caused by abortion.
To you it seems perverse that I would argue such a relatively unimportant point. To me it is vitally important because it gets to the heart of dehumanization. The good people on this thread that I have argued with have stated their value for "human" life but have attributed it to the animal qualities of consciousness and pain response. None have cared to describe just what qualities makes humans unique and special. Surely those qualities are what would make a human more valuable than an animal. It scares me that people are afraid to recognize those qualities because in so doing they think that somehow they must also accept abortion or infanticide. They effectively deny the existence of humanness. That is a universal dehumanization at the conceptual level. That is dangerous.
Yes I do find it perverse, because millions of babies are aborted every year and many of them are developed enough to feel pain. You assume that those on this thread who have argued against abortion do so simply from the pain and suffering of the fetus standpoint. Did it ever occur to you that they do so as a lowest common denominator argument? Yours is the dehumanizing philosophy. You demand that fetuses have fully developed personality traits, that they understand their mortality, that they have the potential to suffer as an adult, to be fully human, but that argument clearly fails with all the counterexamples, such as infants, mentally handicapped, the unconscious, those with Alzheimers. You refuse to acknowledge that a zygote contains the blueprint, not only for a physical body, but also for a mind and a personality. Check out Steven Pinker's (MIT psychologist) recent review of the nature vs nurture debate. He clearly states, that modern psychology has proven that much of what we call personality is hardwired by genetics. Ever wonder why children share personality traits with their grandparents, even though they may be raised thousands of miles from their grandparents? It's genetics. You are correct that humans are more valuable than animals, because we possess qualities that greatly exceed animals. Human fetuses do not exhibit those qualities, but they have the potential to. An animal fetus will never achieve these qualities that we all agree make humans more valuable than animals. What is the difference between animal fetuses and human fetuses? DNA and time. That's why human fetuses are valuable and should be protected.