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.
I've thought of this another way--Abortion is the worst form of age discrimination.
Pictures can teach MORE than a thousand words.
Students can be shown two pictures like above. The teacher can simply explain that they are both of the same person; the first one was taken around New Years day, and the second around the following Christmas. Since it is a scientific fact that life begins at conception it is therefore obvious that the person had his or her start at conception.
I made NO effort to construct a strawman. I merely made an effort to understand what you were saying, by mirroring back to you what I heard.
Your anger doesn't concern me.
Fine. It's clear you have no desire to carry on a real and meaningful conversation, and you have zero concern about how you treat others who are doing you the honor of trying to understand what you are saying. My conversation with you is finished.
I think your posts are very important, and emotion and reasoning go hand in hand. It's not one or the other, it's both. Some people make decisions by thinking, others by emotion. Both approaches are required and are complementary.
I was thinking this morning that another way of stating my position is: it's time for pro-lifers to stop justifying late-term abortions by seeking to ban all abortion.
You've almost got it, but not exactly.
I'm not saying a complicated solution can't be the right one. I am saying that, very often, the simplest explanations are the right ones. Scientists love to find elegantly simple explanations. They search for them everywhere.
It just might be true that some people, who have a driving need to justify abortion, might be purposely complicating things in order to try obscure the reality that a fetus is a a small, helpless human person.
Pro-aborts turn science upside down, starting with a conclusion, digging up factoids to support their conclusion, ridiculing people who look at the situation with open eyes.
Pro-aborts' explanations are like most Rube Goldberg style inventions -- fun to devise, interesting to consider, but not very representative of the real world.
And the twin possibilities of thinking or emoting (in the future) are forever denied to human pre-borns who are arbitrarily selected for killing.
Maybe they should be allowed to live, so they can be able to make their own decisions about their own lives.
It is not legally permissible.... because of an arbitrary federal ruling based on bad law in a case which was brought by deceitful people who (mis)used a person to promote their own agenda.
(or ultimately, practically doable)......What if the majority in Roe v. Wade had gone the other way? If the Court had allowed the pre-1970's restrictions on abortion to stand, would those restrictions be doable today? They were doable back then.
Since there was such intense disagreement on the moment that humanness begins, perhaps the Supreme Court should not have gotten involved by making a divided and legally weird decision for the whole country.
How about state laws or community laws restricting abortion? Do you think they could be more doable? Some communities would rather not "host" an abortion clinic.
You and Palmer have put your fingers on a potential, stop-gap, solution by stressing the importance of the disagreement people have about the "moment" humanness begins.
Let's start by letting local communities decide whether abortion should be restricted in their jurisdictions.
That should be doable. (Wasn't it that way in the past?)
Instead of having disagreement seem like an insurmountable problem, let the disagreement be part of the solution.
But, I'm still not sure that "doability" should be a consideration....Lots of people used to say that defending the civil rights of minorities was "undoable."
Punishment is not always given to people who kill. For example, it might not be given in cases of murder in self-defense or justifiable homicide.
But even in instances of unpunished homicide, we don't twist the truth and try to justify the killing by saying the victim was not a human.
Don't you think we could start out by saying that an abortion kills a human, not a blob of undifferentiated tissue?
But, of course, pro-aborts, who were the originators of the "undifferentiated blob" theory, don't want anyone to say that a human dies. They don't want people to "feel guilty" about ending someone's life.
Abortion is one of the many, many policy issues that the Constitution leaves to the elected representatives of the people in the States to resolve. Overruling Roe would not make abortion illegal - it would simply put the decision back in the hands of the people the Constitution intended would make such decisions.
First, it is scientifically impossible to discover a precise point when the individual alive being transitions from 'only' embryonic to 'fully fetal in nature. Because that topic is deeply dependent on not so easily explained scientific facts, allow me to move to the next objection to such an arbitrary asignment of value.
It is generally because of the organs being present in the embryo that the arbitrary assignment of fetus is made. Prior to the 'fetal age' of the individual life, the organs necessary for survival as a 'fully functional human being' are not present but are being built by the embryo and looped into the primitive brain, the brain stem. If this is what will be chosen to define an alive individual human being (at the earliest fetal age), it is important to note that the first organ built by the newly conceived individual is cast off at birth! The placenta is the first organ necessary for the survival of the human organism. This organ is so important that even at in vitro fertilization clinics, the technician/physician will not seek to implant an embryo conceived in apetri dish until the organ is already surrounding and protecting the embryonic life. It is the organ of placenta that sends the chemical signals to the woman's uterine lining that initiate implantation and thus further life support from the woman's body. That is why the choice of fetal age is so arbitrary in the false assertion that fetuses should be protected while embryos should not (should not, based on the specious notion of an integrated whole organism functioning for survival and growth and development only when the fetal age, with the organ structures for future survival are in situ, is reached).
In science, it is most often the simplest solution that is the most elegant solution to a problem. Since the embryo builds its own survival capsule (the palcenta) to allow it to have shelter and nourishment, it is elegantly factual to assert that the embryo is an alive, integrated whole for that age of its lifetime begun at conception. The embryo is no less an individual human being with at least one functioning organ that allows the integrated whole to survive into the future ages of the lifetime already 'up and running'.
"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." ...[And I've addressed your incorrect assertion as to when 'we are dealing with a 'human being' with each post I've made. Yes, I do fathom your argument and have read your posts.]
"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.' ...[A completely false assertion on your part, completely unsubstantiated. I and others have called your attention to the fact of fetal homicide laws, which would not be homicide laws without a human being as the victim of the crime, so the fact of law recognizing the unborn as human beings counters your founding assertions. ] "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." ...[The most accurate assertion you make int he entire thread!]
"If a developing child is old enough to survive outside of the womb, even with medical assistance, then it's a human being. Obviously." ... [And just why do you make this comment when the child in the womb survives without medical assistance? We shall shortly see why ...]
"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." ...[With this assertion, you start to try and establish the higher brain function as the basis for your arbitrary assignment of 'human being'. The meaning of the death protocol used with organ harvesting of older individual embryonic human beings counters your underlying assertion of higher brain function establishing 'humanness'. ]
"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)." ...[Standing up the notion of 'humane' as a menas to ignore the humanity of the preborn is an amazing mental gymanstic. And you go on from that false assumption/assertion to defend dehumanizing any individual human prior to the arbitrary assignment of humanity. That is what I've addressed and what you get angry over. Try reading the science behind what many have offered to counter your arbitrary assignation of 'a human being.']
Good point....
Since the embryonic individual has a placenta, that individual doesn't require the organs which will eventually develop.
It just might be true that some people, who have a driving need to justify abortion, might be purposely complicating things in order to try obscure the reality that a fetus is a a small, helpless human person.
Pro-aborts turn science upside down, starting with a conclusion, digging up factoids to support their conclusion, ridiculing people who look at the situation with open eyes.
I really can't argue with any of that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.