Ales

According to Catholics „abortion, unless it is necessary to save the life of the mother, is immoral, and should be illegal“ (See e.g. <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/andrew_chrucky/handmaid.html)" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/andrew_chrucky/handmaid.html)</a> Catholics, Christians and others who disagree with the legal abortions excuse abortion in this case by saying that abortion in this case is a killing in self defense. Consider a Christian couple wanting a child. They know that with certain probability the pregnancy would lead to this case. Imagine an analogy: They know, that with certain probability the woman will be placed in a boat together with an innocent human person, that is too heavy for the boat to carry them both to the land. How are they justified to kill the innocent human person to save her life?

alek0

Do you think that it is better that both die than to save one? However, your analogy is bad because fetus is not a person and cannot survive outside womb. So if there is a life threatening problem, you can't choose which to save: either you save a woman or they both die.

Ales

Christians want us to believe that foetus is an innocent human person. I want to show that their argument of “killing in self-defence“ is not consistent. N.B.: I agree with legal abortions. I am not an expert but I doubt that “…if there is a life threatening problem, you can't choose which to save: either you save a woman or they both die“. Imagine a woman, which develops malignant cancer just after becoming pregnant. She can choose either to take chemotherapeutics and so eliminate the foetus and save her life or not to take the chemotherapeutics, bring the child to pregnancy and die. I don’t know if this is plausible, but it seems to me that such cases must occur since your argument “do you think that it is better that both die than to save one?” would displace “killing in self-defence argument“.