Abortion of a fully-fledged human life

[Mr Skeptic]

Mooeypoo:

I agree with your exceptions. I am completely against abortion, unless its for the reasons you stated above.

 

I can see that you dont view the fetus as human, and thus, not worhy of human rights. Lets ignore the fact that it will be human in nine months. The following argument I read in "Freakonomics" is quite a good one.

The author asks how many fetuses = a baby? Is a thousand fetuses a baby? a hundred? a million?

 

If we say that we all agree a million POTENTIAL human lives is worth one human life, and there have been approximately 49 million abortions since 1973, then that means 49 children have been killed...which is horrible.

 

Well, consider that there are about 60 million sperm per mL of semen, and 1-6.5 mL of semen per ejaculation. If you consider each sperm half a potential human life, and each potential human life worth one human life, than every time someone ejaculates that's like killing 100 children.

 

The argument Im anticipating is one that a fetus is not a viable organism, so no number of fetuses is equal to a single child.

I just wonder...if Nasa discovered a single celled organism frozen on mars, they would hail it as life and it would be such an achievement...but something as complex as a fetus, or hell, a zygote (relative to the single-cell), isnt as valuable since Earth produces life all the time...but thats just what I see the pro-"choice" people proclaiming.

 

For one thing, being more complex doesn't make you more viable, and for another, life is not the same as human life. Finding life on Mars would be about as exciting as finding a new Domain of life on Earth.

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Even worse is possible, after all the holocaust was based upon a belief that the Jews were inferior; what if you are determined to be genetically inferior?

 

Well, its one thing to be inferior, but quite another to be human. If I kill a moron, the court won't care whether I can prove he was inferior.

 

FYI, my wife and I have adopted babies; so you could say we are living our Pro-Life stance. Many of our friends (who are also pro life) have adopted as well. You should realize this is a very, very difficult thing to do the way we (at least in the US) have set it up...but I won't go into that at the moment.

 

And I'd like to add it doesn't have to be inconsistent for someone to be pro-life yet not adopt...this is a logical fallacy.

 

Good for you. Yes, I know that you can be against abortion and refuse to adopt a fetus to save its life and still be consistent, but it does take the wind out of the sails of some, eg those who say the fetus is an invaluable human life and we ought to do anything we can to save it. It also gets them to consider that its not as simple as not having an abortion; there's the pregnancy and then the raising the child for several years to consider. The adoption process may be hard, but I'm guessing it is easier than pregnancy and childbirth; of course raising them will be the hardest part.

[iNow]

If pro-life people really mean it, they wouldn't mind adopting these children, after all it is a priceless human life we are talking about.

 

I can't help but to agree with your sentiment, but I must say that the idea of pro-lifers doing a bunch of adoptions worries me. They tend too often to be the ones who send their kids to Jesus Camp and abuse the child with continuous indoctrination. Not all, mind you, but a very fair majority. They'd just be recruiting new ideological soldiers to fight old battles, as opposed to preparing the child to live in the world with a more enlightened experience.

 

Of course I recognize that I'm generalizing here, but I don't think any kid should be subjected to such child abuse, and the likelihood of it happening when a pro-lifer is the one doing the adoption is IMO much too high.

 

 

Since it's the "priceless human life" argument, I often ask why pro-lifers are not for full healthcare for all pregnant women and children under 10. That would seem to be the best way to protect this precious life about which they claim to care so much. The sorry truth is, that rarely tends to be the true motivation for their arguments. Not all, but quite a large number are simply trying to forcibly impose their morality on others, and remove rights from the woman as if the decision was theirs, and theirs alone.

[Pangloss]

Only if you consider a fetus life.

 

I only consider a fetus life at relatively advanced stages of the pregnancy, where abortion isn't really much of an option anyways because it's usually harmful to the mother as well.

 

In the initial stages, specifically the first month, I don't see a difference between a cyst and a fetus. If that's the case, then the fetus isn't life, and terminating it would not be considered termination of life.

 

I just wanted to acknowledge (and respect) your opinion on this. We may not agree but that seems like a perfectly valid point of view to me. People don't spend nearly enough time listening to one another on this issue, IMO.

 

In my view it's really the process that matters more than the result. How we go about resolving this issue matters quite a lot more to me than which result we end up picking. That's why I'm okay with abortion even though I consider it a taking of life.

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The plain fact is that there is no *real* definition - we, as a society, simply have to make one up that works for us, and that's going to mean compromise and picking the best of bad options.

 

Indeed -- an excellent point.

 

That's why moral relativists love the abortion debate. There's no ultimate authority, no good or evil, no right or wrong here, except that which we appoint to the issue ourselves.

[mooeypoo]

Mooeypoo:

I agree with your exceptions. I am completely against abortion, unless its for the reasons you stated above.

Fair enough. See, now we can go on to debate the "finer points" of this very complicated argument.

 

I can see that you dont view the fetus as human, and thus, not worhy of human rights. Lets ignore the fact that it will be human in nine months. The following argument I read in "Freakonomics" is quite a good one.

The author asks how many fetuses = a baby? Is a thousand fetuses a baby? a hundred? a million?

First, I want to clarify that don't consider a fetus as a life in its INITIAL STAGES.. at some point it is considered alive, and I am not waiting for it to be born... the discussion of percisely when is going to be tricky, I am not sure, but that's for later.

 

Regardless, I think that's a flawed question. If I don't consider a fetus a life, then no matter how many fetuses, they're ALL not a life. It's like asking how many baseballs make a life. If one is non living, then no matter how many you combine, all of them are still non living.

 

 

If we say that we all agree a million POTENTIAL human lives is worth one human life, and there have been approximately 49 million abortions since 1973, then that means 49 children have been killed...which is horrible.

The problem I have with the question of abortion is about choice and morality. In general, I think these discussions often go on to the extremes, and I don't quite support the extremes. For that matter, I don't support abortion under all circumstances and always. A woman, in my view, should have a right to choose, but her choice should also be regulated by medical decisions and morality. As we limit everything in an ordered society, it would probably have to be some sort of set of laws, which I would support, to limit that choice, but the choice in itself should exist.

 

I noticed that often these discussions talk about the extremes - that means that people are either "pro life" or "pro choice" and that they're either for killing potential life or they're for saving potential children. That's a really big generalization that I don't see myself fitting into. In *general* I am pro choice, but, again, not under all circumstances.

 

The argument Im anticipating is one that a fetus is not a viable organism, so no number of fetuses is equal to a single child.

You anticipated semi-correctly, I guess. Read up

 

I just wonder...if Nasa discovered a single celled organism frozen on mars, they would hail it as life and it would be such an achievement...but something as complex as a fetus, or hell, a zygote (relative to the single-cell), isnt as valuable since Earth produces life all the time...but thats just what I see the pro-"choice" people proclaiming.

Okay, fair enough, let me rephrase myself, then: I don't consider a fetus a viable life. Is that better? As I mentioned before, it all depends how you define life. The fetus is obviously not conscious in its initial stages (which are the stages I am talking about, by the way.. my argument changes COMPLETELY once the fetus is conscious). It's also not breathing, it has no metabolism (it relies on the metabolism of its mother), so even under the regular definitions of life this is problematic. Inserting the argument of ALIEN life here is unfair, because that's an argument all on its own without a clear cut answer.

 

If NASA would find such a life, we will have to redefine life, probably.

 

That said, and as I said before, my thought about abortion are not precisely about the definition of life or potential life of the fetus, but about the fact that in its early stages, a fetus is non distinguishable from a cyst, and as such it ISN'T alive, and there's nothing to kill. Saying that aborting such "cyst" as a potential child is like saying that when you jerk off you kill potential children. Where does the line go?

 

If the reasons for abortion are moral (and here will be an interesting debate of which such decisions are considered moral and which aren't), then I don't see a problem with abortion. If the child is going to be born malformed, I think the MORAL thing to do is abort (if it can't be fixed). If any of my three cases happens, the moral choice is to abort.

 

If a woman got pregnant by accident and believes she cannot support a child, cannot bear the child right now, or the child will bring more problems than good (and will be born to a harmful situation psychologically, too), then I see no MORAL HARM by stopping the pregnancy -- as long as the fetus is not yet conscious. In the beginning stages, it's no different than a cyst.

 

Personally, I see no way of rationally claiming against aborting such cyst *unless* I treat it as a potential child, and then there's no way out of opposing auto-ejaculation, either.

 

~moo

[Mr Skeptic]

Mooey, I'm going to have to disagree with you about fetuses being alive. They are definitely alive. They might not be "a life" but they are clearly alive. They have their own metabolism, though the mother provides food and oxygen. They make their own ATP. A zygote is metabolically even active before it implants on the uterus. A lot of cell divisions occur before it even has anything to implant through.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Is it wrong to end life because (a) life is good (b) it would suffer if we kill it © it doesn't want to die?

 

If (a) is your choice then pro-life would be the obvious viewpoint but you'd also have to be vegetarian. The other two options seem hardly applicable to a fetus before it develops a nervous system and any sort of sentience.

 

Is there another option I'm missing here?

[mooeypoo]

Mr Skeptic,

 

I see your point and I must reiterate that the definition of "Life" is, as it is, controversial. I do see what you're saying, though, and I accept - but since that's not quite what I meant, my points still stand, I am just no longer sure on how to phrase it. I'll have to think this through.

 

In any case, I'm also running a search on my sources -- I used to have a chart with fetal development from Zygote, to Embryo/Fetus (or is it fetus-embryo? i had it in Hebrew, so I'm not sure, I'll have to re-find this in english).

 

Give me a bit of time to find it again. Good point, though, Mr Skeptic, I do recognize them. I still have trouble defining a fetus as a life that should not be terminated (within the first trimester) under my previously stated terms. I am not sure which word to use for it, though, seeing as the words "Life" and "Alive" are (apparently) different, and yet not adequate enough to show what I want to say.

It might also be my personal problem with.. well... english. I'll try to come up with a better definition.

 

~moo

[Syntho-sis]

Mooey, I'm going to have to disagree with you about fetuses being alive. They are definitely alive. They might not be "a life" but they are clearly alive. They have their own metabolism, though the mother provides food and oxygen. They make their own ATP. A zygote is metabolically even active before it implants on the uterus. A lot of cell divisions occur before it even has anything to implant through.

 

So technically we are ending life?

 

I need to go through and read the posts after I left...

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I've never been real swayed by the "potential vs real" argument. Is there a chance it will turn into a Vienna Sausage instead of a human being? Not really. So it's kinda moot. It's GOING to turn into a human being regardless of any other action, so that's not at all like the situation prior to fertilization.

 

That having been said, I've never been real swayed by the "life uber alles" argument either. Life is not paramount. Not in my book at any rate. A great many things are quite a lot more important. This is a moral argument, not a strictly logic-based one.

 

One thing is for sure -- appeals to scorn and ridicule won't win this one, Syntho-sis. Making fun of me tends to make me walk out the door, not listen and discuss. And it's usually pretty clear that when people are waving their arms about and emoting that they're not really listening to what I might want to say, so what's the point?

 

 

At what point was I ever making fun of you??

[Mr Skeptic]

So technically we are ending life?

 

Yes. Is that a bad thing? No one complains that we are ending life when our immune system kills a bacterium, when we have a tumor removed, when the umbilical cord is cut off a newborn, or when certain cells in an fetus undergo apoptosis. Yet these are all ending life. I find life more significant when we are talking about the life of an entire species, or of a sentient individual.

[mooeypoo]

Yes. Is that a bad thing? No one complains that we are ending life when our immune system kills a bacterium, when we have a tumor removed, when the umbilical cord is cut off a newborn, or when certain cells in an fetus undergo apoptosis. Yet these are all ending life. I find life more significant when we are talking about the life of an entire species, or of a sentient individual.

That's an excellent way of putting it.

 

Maybe what I was missing is "Sentient" (I've used 'conscious' at some of my points, but I think sentient probably is closer to what I mean.. is there a difference, by the way?)

 

Good job, Mr Skeptic, thank you.

 

~moo

[Sisyphus]

Consciousness and sentience are both slippery and imprecise terms that mean different things in different contexts. Others to throw in the mix are "awareness" and "self-awareness."

 

I know, I know: I'm very helpful. You're welcome.

[Pangloss]

At what point was I ever making fun of you??

 

I didn't say that you made fun of me personally, I said that appeals to ridicule and emotion do not persuade me.

 

You've used appeals to ridicule and emotion several times in this thread. Here are some examples:

 

^ Oh yea that makes perfect sense....Not

 

For what reason? Because they are inconvenient?

 

And I suppose mentally retarded people are inconvenient as well?

[Mr Skeptic]

Maybe what I was missing is "Sentient" (I've used 'conscious' at some of my points, but I think sentient probably is closer to what I mean.. is there a difference, by the way?)

 

Sentience seems to imply consciousness (depending on the definition) and in general seems a better word (since, for example, you are unconscious when asleep). At the very least, sentience is enough to distinguish a living, higher organism from, say, a tumor. Unfortunately all the most desirable words for this are extremely vague. I'd say "person" is the best, as it excludes animals but includes aliens or whatever humans will become in the future. For me, one's personhood is where they derive their inalienable rights, not simply being alive, having human DNA, being conscious or sentient. Unfortunately, "person" is even more vague than sentient.

[Syntho-sis]

I didn't say that you made fun of me personally, I said that appeals to ridicule and emotion do not persuade me.

 

You've used appeals to ridicule and emotion several times in this thread. Here are some examples:

 

Is this not a thread for the question as to whether or not abortion is morally acceptable or not? Thats seems to be where the debate was the entire time, long before I posted.

 

But like several of you have said, I am not the one to make that decision for other individuals. Whether I am offended or disagree with it has nothing to do with it.

 

It is your choice if you are willing to let science supersede your morals.

 

^ That is not to say that science should be ignored for the sake of morality based off of human emotions.

 

But since science is a continuous process of understanding, why should we allow ourselves to make shallow decisions and discard our principles at the first sight of some study or w/e, when new evidence could come along and make us look like fools?

 

Without out the foundation our inquiries into the observable world are pointless...

 

Morality could be thought of as what we all agree on to be right or wrong.

 

Like mooeypoo said there are certain times when it may be necessary to abort. But only in extreme situations. Where the baby is more likely to die anyway and cannot be saved.

 

To answer another question once a sperm cell has been fertilized I would say that is the beginning of life. (In my opinion only)

 

To say that we should attempt to stop auto-aborts and common biological processes if we are not going to allow abortion, is utter nonsense.

 

It would be as if I said that since lions sometimes attack humans and eat them, that it makes it okay for me to do the same.

 

to be continued....

[GutZ]

Is it wrong to end life because (a) life is good (b) it would suffer if we kill it © it doesn't want to die?

 

If (a) is your choice then pro-life would be the obvious viewpoint but you'd also have to be vegetarian. The other two options seem hardly applicable to a fetus before it develops a nervous system and any sort of sentience.

 

Is there another option I'm missing here?

 

Ithink you got it.

 

I think to be logically constant you'd have to like...not consume anything...that's how I see it anyway. If pain was the central arguement around not allowing abortion yeah, they would have to be vegetarian, but this is about "life". Then it becomes "complex life", then it becomes "human life". If complexity is the issue than laws should be created based on the damage you do to which body part... you stab someone in the eye should be life, but if you slice a few layers of skin than...maybe some probation with a side of community service.

 

The only thing can be reduced to is not follow any logic and just decide. Does it feel pain, does it know it exist, does it actually have potential before it leave the womb. Environment plays a large role does it not? How do you access worth when that stage doesn't get recognized till way later. You have genetics but you don't know how that plays out. If I would of know I'd get all those lovely mental illinesses from my mother, i'd tell ya to flush me down. crude but true. Now I have no choice, I am out already....got to make best of my life. Would I feel bad towards my mother if she did abort me even if I was perfectly normal? It's pointless to even argue. Me is not that thing in the womb. Me is a collorboration of change over time.

 

If she tried to kill me now...yeah I would have an issue with it but...

 

really...I find it all silly and to force someone to give birth because you have a hunch all life is special (sorry all human life is special) is a bit much...but yeah I respect the opinion...somewhat...just dont expect me to support it.

[mooeypoo]

Sentience seems to imply consciousness (depending on the definition) and in general seems a better word (since, for example, you are unconscious when asleep). At the very least, sentience is enough to distinguish a living, higher organism from, say, a tumor. Unfortunately all the most desirable words for this are extremely vague. I'd say "person" is the best, as it excludes animals but includes aliens or whatever humans will become in the future. For me, one's personhood is where they derive their inalienable rights, not simply being alive, having human DNA, being conscious or sentient. Unfortunately, "person" is even more vague than sentient.

Right, well, I guess this works, then. As you could see (I hope) I was comparing the zygote and INITIAL stages of the fetus to a cyst/tumor, which - as I understand from you - is "alive" (I can accept that) but is far from being sentient.

 

The biggest problem in these issues is the definition of life and alive and what life we should and shouldn't terminate.

 

Cap'n made a good piont I was trying to lead to in my argument (he put it much better).

 

Rationally, I can't see how anyone would claim a fetus should not be terminated without claiming that flowers should not be crushed or picked, or without claiming that (as Cap'n pointed out) we should not use antibiotics. These are the same type of "life", and they're non santient.

 

So, being brutally honest to state my position in this: I don't see a difference between saying you are "killing a baby" when you abort a fetus in its early stages and saying you are "killing an animal" when you disinfect your toilet.

 

And when the price is a woman's right over her own body, I see a moral obligation to allow her to make that choice.

 

~moo

 

P.S: Please be aware of the *time frame* I'm talking about. I'm not talking about killing an embryo that is 8 months in development. I'm talking about the early stages, which is where legal abortion is an option. Later time the abortion isn't even supported by medicine for various reasons other than the sentient existence of the potential baby, which is why I consider it - at the moment - irrelevant for this discussion.

[Mr Skeptic]

Ok I shall do that....

 

But first, why don't you define exactly what is not a human being?

 

OK, have a look at post 72. Now it's your turn. Can you define a human being in such a way as includes both fetuses and adults but excludes things you don't mind killing?

[Syntho-sis]

OK, have a look at post 72. Now it's your turn. Can you define a human being in such a way as includes both fetuses and adults but excludes things you don't mind killing?

 

Most certainly, I think that life begins once the cell has been fertilized in the womb..and the actual process of development begins.

 

If you disagree that is your choice. There is no scientific proof thats classifies differently, and any definition that you might find in a biological textbook would be ambiguous on such matters.

 

It is up to us as humans to distinguish these types of things. There will be no point of a human being's development that we can say "here you are, this is life!"

 

tbc

[mooeypoo]

Most certainly, I think that life begins once the cell has been fertilized in the womb..and the actual process of development begins.

 

If you disagree that is your choice. There is no scientific proof thats classifies differently, and any definition that you might find in a biological textbook would be ambiguous on such matters.

 

It is up to us as humans to distinguish these types of things. There will be no point of a human being's development that we can say "here you are, this is life!"

 

tbc

You didn't answer the question, though. If you consider life to begin the moment the cell is fertilized, then you should stop taking antibiotics (because those kill bacteria, which fits your definition of life that should not be terminated), and you should not eat meat, of course, nor should you eat vegetables (how do you think they're developing?) and you should avoid disinfecting anything, and quite a lot of other things we normally do that normally kill quite a lot of cells that are splitting or are after the process of splitting, or are in a more advanced stage of life than your definition.

 

So. Either you agree with the above, and, well, good luck, or you're being inconsistent.

 

Which is it?

 

At the very LEAST, this issue needs to be addressed by you.

 

Also, I'll be very happy if you could answer my question about the three exceptions (abbridged: rape, deadly pregnancy, malformed baby) and whether or not you would agree these are exceptions to the rule of denying abortion.

 

Please try to take this debate seriously. As you may or may not see (are you even reading?) we all have differing opinions, and yet we manage to debate with one another by listening and participating in a MUTUAL debate, not just one-sided "HAAA!" posts.

 

 

~moo

[Mr Skeptic]

Most certainly, I think that life begins once the cell has been fertilized in the womb..and the actual process of development begins.

 

If you disagree that is your choice. There is no scientific proof thats classifies differently, and any definition that you might find in a biological textbook would be ambiguous on such matters.

 

It is up to us as humans to distinguish these types of things. There will be no point of a human being's development that we can say "here you are, this is life!"

 

tbc

 

I find your definition to be both too broad and too narrow. Your definition is too narrow as it would exclude cloned people (no fertilization) as well as millions of actual people (IVF, not fertilized in the womb). It is to broad because it would include most animals (they too have sperm fertilize eggs), which IMO are not humans nor persons. I dare say that this is more than opinion, since the entire judicial system would agree.

 

In any case, what I asked was what is a human, not when does life begin. As to life itself, I think that it begins a few billion years ago and never ended. Go ahead and try to make a baby with a dead sperm/egg and you will see what I mean.

[Pangloss]

At what point was I ever making fun of you??

I didn't say that you made fun of me personally' date=' I said that appeals to ridicule and emotion do not persuade me.

 

You've used appeals to ridicule and emotion several times in this thread. Here are some examples:

 

^ Oh yea that makes perfect sense....Not

Is this not a thread for the question as to whether or not abortion is morally acceptable or not?

 

An appeal to ridicule is not questioning whether abortion is morally acceptable. It is merely a logical fallacy in which success is based on whether you can render your opponent embarrassed and mute. If you've modified your approach since, I'm glad to hear it. But you asked me a question, and I've answered it, and I've already moved on from this thread. Feel free to storm the castle with some of these other folks if you like.

[Syntho-sis]

I've moved on as well, I wasn't attacking anyone directly either.

[iNow]

Try to realize, Syntho-sis, that most people aren't attacking you, but are instead attacking any faulty logic, poorly defined words, or ungrounded premises which you may be sharing. It's sometimes hard to tell the difference, but the difference is huge.

[Lan(r)12]

Mr Skeptic,

 

I see your point and I must reiterate that the definition of "Life" is, as it is, controversial. I do see what you're saying, though, and I accept - but since that's not quite what I meant, my points still stand, I am just no longer sure on how to phrase it. I'll have to think this through.

 

In any case, I'm also running a search on my sources -- I used to have a chart with fetal development from Zygote, to Embryo/Fetus (or is it fetus-embryo? i had it in Hebrew, so I'm not sure, I'll have to re-find this in english).

 

Give me a bit of time to find it again. Good point, though, Mr Skeptic, I do recognize them. I still have trouble defining a fetus as a life that should not be terminated (within the first trimester) under my previously stated terms. I am not sure which word to use for it, though, seeing as the words "Life" and "Alive" are (apparently) different, and yet not adequate enough to show what I want to say.

It might also be my personal problem with.. well... english. I'll try to come up with a better definition.

 

~moo

 

I don't know why people keep saying its the religious that are against abortion. My religion has no bearing on what I consider non-killable.

 

For me mooeypoo, the simlpe fact is that in nine months, it will be a human being, and it is terribly tyrannical to say that they do not deserve to live to that day because they will be an "inconvenience". Notice Im addressing abortions that are for the reasons that would be selfish, not the ones I agree with.

 

If I had been aborted...I never would have lived...I would ahve had no opinion on my death. Someone else would ahve decided for me. That is why I cannot, in good conscience, declare a simple zygote non-sentient. A zygote has absolute POTENTIAL to become human, which is enough for me to be against its termination due to selfish reasons.

[Sisyphus]

 

If I had been aborted...I never would have lived...I would ahve had no opinion on my death. Someone else would ahve decided for me.

 

I hear this a lot, and I've always found it to be fallacious. If you don't exist "yet," there's no "you" to have harm done to. If any of a trillion tiny things had gone differently in either of your parents lives, one of billions of other people would exist instead of you, or no one at all. These "potential people" were not "killed," and it would be silly to mourn their deaths or accuse your parents of mass genocide. (Even if it's an active decision on their part, like saying "we don't want to have children yet.") They simply were not given the opportunity to live, which is NOT even remotely the same thing.

 

So something which has the POTENTIAL to become human is not the same thing as BEING human. Nor, even what it would become if left alone. Humans have rights and moral significance while they're living human beings. Before they exist, or after they've died, the situation is certainly different.