Agreed.
What the....?
This is not at all what you have been saying all thread!!!
Posted on 06/06/2003 9:46:51 AM PDT by Luke Skyfreeper
Years go by, and the abortion struggle rages on.
I would like to suggest that the following doctrine is a basis for an uneasy resolution to the political conflict; one that may eventually come to be accepted by all.
Abortion should be legal, but only up to a certain date. We need to define, as best as we can, when we are dealing with a human being.
The current definition of the law afford NO recognition that a developing child is a human being until the moment that child leaves his or her mother's womb. Anyone who pays the faintest attention to what we know through medical science can readily recognize that, at full term, this is far, far too late.
If a developing child is old enough to survive outside of the womb, even with medical assistance, then it's a human being. Obviously.
If the developing child is old enough to feel pain, regardless of whether or not an anesthetic is administered, then it is developed enough to be a human being, and destroying the said developing child must be illegal.
Practically, this means that for humane reasons, all abortions after a certain date (somewhere between 8 and 24 weeks) should be made illegal. This is only humane, and even 8 weeks would allow more than a month for decision making and getting an abortion appointment (although I suspect that a medical consensus would put the development of pain later than that).
The vast majority of abortions already take place before 24 weeks now. However, it is currently legal to destroy developing children at any stage of development, as long as at least part of the child is still inside the mother's body.
I believe this is the basis of the solution to the abortion problem. Part B is that accurate information must be provided to women considering an abortion. Potential adverse effects must be covered, and other options, including adoption, must be adequately presented. A waiting period may also be appropriate.
None of these takes away choice. The choice is still there whether to have a baby or have an abortion.
One can therefore be pro-choice and pro-life at the same time.
I also argue for use of the term "developing child" (which is intuitive, completely accurate and fully descriptive) rather than use of the term "fetus."
Political wars are won and lost on the choice of words.
God already did.
You can't force, nor can there be a law, but it is a moral obligation for the mother. Only she will have to face the consequences for her actions!
Nor have I added 4 more children to the crowded competition for responsible parents.
Sorry to hear that, haveing children is a blessing...And What crowded competition for responsible parents?
Each one you have is one that you can't adopt that gets left in the system.
Sorry, you seemed to have drifted on a point, can you clarify?
You just said that, because half the country is in favor of abortion, that it therefore has justification for being legal. So you are advocating the rule of the mob.
Then I take it that you are content with allowing abortion to continue through all 40 weeks of pregnancy...
Nice try but no stogie. I don't care to play your word games with the humanity of the fetus. I instead support working to make abortion both illegal and unneeded, the first by ending the definition of a fetus as something less than human, as you are doing, and secondly by supporting methods so that women do not feel compelled to abort their children.
Thus, according to Purpura and others,151 since the requisite nerve cell circuitry is morphologically present to allow for "consciousness and self-awareness", he dates the beginning of "brain life" to the period immediately following; namely 28-32 weeks.152
So you'd have her make another mistake by killing her own child. Two wrongs make a right?
"A teenager becomes pregant because she's stupid. I don't think someone with her whole life ahead of her should throw it away because she made a dumb mistake with a boy who probably already realizes he made a dumb mistake."
How about adoption? She won't be 'throwing her life' away by simply carrying the child to term and then giving it up to a family who will care for and love it.
"A poor woman with children becomes pregnant for the upteenth time. I don't think her other children should do with less just because she's an idiot. I also don't think that the rest of society should have to pay for her being an idiot."
Adoption again. And with private adoption, the future parents often pay expenses such as medical care.
So you see, there are other options. Maybe not selfish ones, but since when did we begin believing that selfish desire should win out over the life of another?
I already addressed this in post #91, as to the difference betweeen a brain-dead adult on life support and a fetus in the womb:
First, prior to modern medicine, that person would be dead at that point. They are kept alive only by human intervention. Abortion, however, accomplishes the opposite, and takes a fetus that will live without human intervention and kills it.
Second, a person who is brain dead has no further life potential. A fetus is the opposite - left to itself, it will continue to develop to a cognizant human being.
Thanks for the info from Nature, which is both interesting and relevant. I do think, though, that our growing understanding of the complexity of human life at the early stages will not ultimately force major changes on the point at which most people would see the developing child as having fully become a human being. Minor changes, very possibly.
But who knows... it might.
Thank you! :-)
However, there comes a point where you are undeniably dealing with a separate, viable human being. It is unacceptable to kill a viable human being (except in cases of self-defense, capital punishment, yada-yada). Unacceptable. Period.
Yes.
We cannot (as a civilized society) continue condoning the killing of what are obviously our children.
Agreed.
There are 2 million couples waiting to adopt. As has been stated elsewhere in this thread, kids end up getting passed around in foster homes, etc. because biological parents play games and will not surrender their parental rights.
Adoption (meaning the parent surrenders parental rights) would solve the issues, as I suggested.
Uh, dude, he provided the sperm. What ever happened to the notion of personal responsibility for one's actions? Isn't that a core premise of libertarianism?
I think that what's fair for the goose is fair for the gander.
But you'd be willing to kill the gosling to avoid the problem alltogether.
That has nothing to do with my position on abortion, though. I don't like it, but can understand why it happens. I am willing to compromise on when it can legally take place, because I know it will happen anyway.
I do not consider the right to kill a fetus to be a compromise of any sort, but instead a capitulation.
Essentially, I am proposing combining the second and third into one.
If the child were just part of the mother like a hand or foot, then the child would have the exact DNA the mother has. The child does not. You are wrong.
Agreed.
What the....?
This is not at all what you have been saying all thread!!!
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