Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by long winded fool
Harm comes from inducing guilt in young girls? What harm could possibly come from making a girl feel guilty about having an abortion that would outweigh the harm done to the aborted human?

Will making her feel guilty cause her to hop in a time machine and go back and not have the abortion?

If not then there shouldn't be a comparison. All you are doing is harming her or even wrecking her life to no gain.

"You have the right to be born in a loving family. Unfortunately you don't have the right to not be killed before you are born. Sorry." Has the AHA ever heard of the law of non-contradiction?

You have the right not to have been blocked by contraception.

You have the right not to have been blocked by abstinence.

Where do we draw the line??

Now, apply this analogy to killing a human being. Do you agree that it is wrong to kill a human being for motives other than self-defense or defense of another? Doesn't it follow that it is right to make young pregnant girls feel guilty about engaging in this activity, whatever it does psychologically to the girl?

Error: You are assuming your conclusion in your argument. First you must prove abortion is murder. Your dictionary definition doesn't cut it.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by long winded fool
But it is alive before it is born. How can it not be a life?

It's alive. So is the semen and egg.

Dr Rick

It allows everyone to see the irrationality and foolishness of most "pro-lifers." That they are so foolish is not the reason to be pro-choice, but it does make it easier to get our opinion across

There are actually some good arguements to be made for the pro-life position, but none of them are being posted here. They aren't commonly seen on these or many other fora because a dis-proportionate number of pro-lifers are fundies, or at least exhibit fundie-like thinking. If we had some rational pro-lifers posting, we might have a reasonable discussion instead of just laughing at and mocking the ridiculously incongruous references to everything from dictators to logic.

In the absence of articulate and thoughtful posts, the pathetic pro-life arguments we have seen here will have to suffice. Their value is in the way they discredit the pro-life position.

Rick

hezekiah jones

Originally posted by Loren Pechtel
It's alive. So is the semen and egg.

I think I had that at Bob Evans'™ the other morning.

P.S., Doc, c'est tres vrai.

Autonemesis

You have a sperm cell and a egg cell 10 microns apart. In a moment, they will combine. One second before they do, however, you use your hypodermic needle and suck the sperm and egg into a caustic solution, killing them.

Or not. Perhaps instead you wait one second longer, and suck the combined egg and sperm - not yet a zygote, because the genetic material has not mixed - into the caustic solution.

Or, you're a slow-poke, and it takes you three seconds to push the plunger on the hypo, and so you suck a newly formed zygote into the caustic solution.

If left alone, the separated egg and sperm would have combined to form a viable embryo.

If left alone, the egg penetrated by the sperm but not yet fertilized by it, would have formed a viable embryo.

If left alone, the fertilized egg would develop into a viable embryo.

Three acts, all destroying the same objects, the same combination of DNS and proteins, the same potential life, and yet - if I follow your logic - somehow the last act is morally different from the first two. How so?

Autonemesis

My point has been that it isn't any more or less arbitrary. Nature doesn't draw lines, humans do. Nature endows the male lion with the ability and desire to abort the offspring of other males post-natally. It is not the only example.

However, that the lines are arbitrary doesn't mean that they are drawn without any reason. As has been pointed out Catholics believe the person's soul enters the body at conception, so they draw the line there. Others like me think a embryo becomes a person when brain activity begins, and it can think and feel.

A friend of mine underwent a liver transplant two years ago. He has a deceased woman's liver. It is still alive, and if you were to test it, you could tell it was hers. So the woman it was taken from couldn't have been fully deceased, as her liver was still alive, right? The doctors must have murdered her, isn't that right?

Oh wait, she was brain-dead. Yeah, that makes it ok. Well guess what - a zygote has no brain.

Dominus Paradoxum

Thanks Autonemisis, that's the point I was trying to get at that yguy seemed to miss. And yes, yguy, it is debatable when conciousness appears, but this will always be after the development of the brain, not before. There is still no way that a zygote, which definately does not have the capacity to think or feel, could be considered a person.

You said:
Impress me, Doc - find the flaw in what I just said.

Betcha can't.

I think I can. If the right has been "granted" then it's not really a right. Not inherently. I hope you realize that this would also exclude God as a granter of rights: If killing an infant is wrong simply because God wills that it be so, then he could also will that very same act to be right. Which is why, in my opinion, the theistic 'account' of morality is just a trancendental form of subjectivism. If killing an infant is truly inherently wrong in itself, then it is wrong irrespective of what *anyone* thinks, including God. Omnipotence cannot include the "power" to do the impossible. But if things can be truly and objectively wrong regardless of what even God thinks, then the theistic calim that God is necessary for morality evaporates into thin air.

openeyes

Society seems to understand that early pregnancy is between a woman and her doctor and anyone she cares to inform. If a "spontaneous abortion" occurs, better known as a miscarriage, the woman may be set back a day or two, but not usually any longer. You're expected back at work shortly. We don't go into massive grieving, not usually anyway. We don't name a child or hold a funeral. We don't have a record of death. Most people in contact with the woman probably had no idea there was a pregnancy in the first place. No one has bonded to the mass of cells inside her--perhaps some "bonding" has occured to an idea of a baby down the road several months, but not to an actual human.

These natural abortions happen every day. It's not a pleasant experience, but it's not like losing a child.

Carrying a pregnancy to term and delivering a baby induces major hormonal and psychological changes. Giving away a newborn to allow someone else to raise would wreck havoc on many more women's psyches than a first trimester abortion, spontaneous or otherwise, IMO.

In addition, IMO, bringing a child into the world that you're woefully underprepared to nurture properly and understandably reluctant to give up is a larger moral wrong than having an abortion of a non-viable fetus. (I haven't been brain-washed.)

Find something else to spend your energy "correcting".

yguy

You don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Hundreds of years ago, there was no way that a ship could sail over the horizon without falling off the edge of the earth.

Isn't that what I said?

Not at all. "Inalienable rights" are those which cannot be taken away by man. God gives life, and He can take it away. We can do neither.

They can't.

long winded fool

Good point. A murderer ought to feel guilty, but good might not necessarily come from intentionally making him feel guilty. It might even cause his quality of life to decline. Only if his guilt will prevent future murders will good come of it. So making a girl feel guilty about an abortion she has already had might not necessarily do any good, and it might cause harm. Making a girl feel guilty about contemplating having an abortion might save the life of the human she is thinking about killing. In this respect, as unpleasant as guilt is to experience, it is necessary to experience it when one does something wrong and will help prevent this wrong thing from being done in the future.

I'm making an assumption than killing a human being is wrong because all human beings have the right to life. If one believes that killing a given human being is wrong only if it causes emotional harm to the murderer, and that killing anything that doesn’t cause emotional harm to he murderer is not wrong, then we have two different opinions on right and wrong. Since my opinion appears to be shared by the majority and is reflected in the laws of this country, mine ought to be assumed when discussing whether or not abortion should be a legal activity in this country.

LWF"You have the right to be born in a loving family. Unfortunately you don't have the right to not be killed before you are born. Sorry." Has the AHA ever heard of the law of non-contradiction?

LPYou have the right not to have been blocked by contraception.

You have the right not to have been blocked by abstinence.

Where do we draw the line??

There is no line to be drawn. I cannot have the right not to be blocked by contraception or abstinence. Only sperm and egg cells can have those rights. Humans cannot be physically blocked by contraception or abstinence. Human rights only apply to humans by definition.

It's alive. So is the semen and egg.

Are you saying that the semen and egg are human beings, or that the fetus is not a human being? It is quite easy prove both wrong. All alive things are not protected by human rights. All alive humans are.

LWFNow, apply this analogy to killing a human being. Do you agree that it is wrong to kill a human being for motives other than self-defense or defense of another? Doesn't it follow that it is right to make young pregnant girls feel guilty about engaging in this activity, whatever it does psychologically to the girl?

LPError: You are assuming your conclusion in your argument. First you must prove abortion is murder. Your dictionary definition doesn't cut it.

The definition of human being doesn't cut it for you? Why not? Does the definition of apple cut it for you? Why? My conclusion is not that a fetus is a human being. That is my premise. If you disagree that a fetus is a human being, then you are unfamiliar with the definition of the word human being. If pro-choicers believe that rights should not apply to all humans, but they should apply to all people, then I suggest they move to a country where this is still the case and not undermine the laws of a country founded on equal human rights.

I cannot prove that abortion is murder because it is not. There was a time when killing an African for refusing to be owned was not murder either. Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being. Abortion is the lawful killing of a human being, because a fetus is a human being and abortion kills it and abortion is a legal activity according to law. Any biologist can absolutely prove that any fetus conceived by two humans is a human being. Any biologist can also absolutely prove that abortion terminates the life of said human being. Any lawyer can absolutely prove that abortion is legal. Any logician can absolutely prove that it ought not to be lawful to kill a fetal human being for the sake of convenience/privacy/financial security/freedom from pain/protecting a woman's right to choose what to do with her body etc., because these motives, which are the motives for most abortions, deny a human being who ought to have the right to life it's life, if all human beings have equal human rights. If not all human beings have human rights, then the laws that declare they do are wrong, and the majority of humans can discriminate against any human beings they wish. (Might makes right.) This prevents the label of democracy from applying to a government that legalizes abortion. If any human beings are not granted any rights by the powerful majority, (necessarily excluding them from the right to become a member of the powerful majority) then it is not a democracy. It is fascism.

Abortion to save the life of the mother ought to be lawful, since her right to life can only be protected by destroying the life of the human who is threatening her. Abortion to protect the quality of life of the mother ought not be lawful if the laws guaranteeing human rights still apply and laws subject to this foundation follow logically.