Considering that not many of the recent topics have been that controversial (no offense), Sylvia and I decided to jump right in. Abortion. I can already hear the groans associated with this topic. *chuckle* Luckily, Sylvia and I are both pro-life. We believe that, abortion should never happen. It is essentially the killing of an innocent baby. It is a simple question, “Should someone be allowed to choose whether someone else lives or not?” It is crazy to think that abortion has become such a controversial issue. Someone shouldn’t be able to end an innocent life just because it is inconvenient to her.
Yes, yes we know, to all those people who say, “Well what if the mother is going to be physically harmed by a pregnancy.” We understand that there are special circumstances where abortion could be used. But in all actuality, a pregnancy being physically harmful to the mother only happens a small percent of the time. We are focusing more on the “irresponsible” pregnancies that are terminated because of one bad night, or some reckless mistake.
How would you feel if your mother, because of one stupid night, decided that she just could not handle a baby?
How would you feel if you had never been born? *scratches head* You know what I mean…There are other alternatives a mother could take besides abortion. There are millions of people in this world who are not able to have a baby. We’re positive they would love the chance to adopt any baby. The scary thought is, “How many doctors…lawyers…or maybe even future presidents have been killed due to abortion?” It is downright despicable.
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19 comments:
I do think it is interesting that some consider a fetus in the womb not to be a child, and that life somehow only begins after it leaves the mother.
I don't like abortion, which is maybe as easy as saying that I don't like torture and that I do like chocolate cake, but I wonder if outlawing abortion would only draw the practice into a dangerous and unregulated underground.
In any case, adoption is always an option. Except in cases of rape and such the mother is fully responsible for having conceived that child, and abortion is a shirking of that responsibility that also kills a would-be-baby or baby in the process.
And here it is: a comment from a pro-choice liberal.
Let me begin by saying that I dislike abortion. Obviously killing another human being to "poof" away a mother's own problems is not a morally sound answer. However, that doesn't change the fact that many women would seek out that solution whether it was legal and safe or not. Making abortion illegal would not prevent it, just make "back alley abortions" more common. This practice endangers the mothers themselves and often results in their deaths as well as the babies.
Also, lets consider the quality of life that the babies whose mothers would rather not have had. If the mother chooses to keep the baby she didn't want, she will obviously hold it in comtempt and treat it poorly. It will not recieve the care or quality of life that it deserves. So lets say the mother decides to put it up for adoption. As the Marcus Fisel case (http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060903/NEWS01/609030358) clearly demonstrated, the nation's foster care and adoption system is a mess. Is it better to let a kid live for four miserable years and wind up as a pile of ashes or to prevent him from having to live his horrible life?
Finally, what about the twelve year old girl who gets raped or the woman who will die if she gives birth? I think there are clearly cases where abortion can be the morally right thing to do.
Laura, you bring up a good point for debate regarding "back alley" abortions. First, you said that "making abortion illegal would not prevent it, just make "back alley abortions" more common." The best thing that I can compare this to from my point of view is drugs. Should we make cocaine, heroine, or any other harmful drugs legal? If we were to use the same logic as above, we should, because we wouldn't want people going to dark alleys or unsafe places to get the drugs if they are going to try and get them anyway. I see no difference in the theory of both.
In the book Freakanomics, the authors make the argument that the legalization of abortion lead to the decline of violent crime in America. They justify this by saying that less children were born, who were not wanted, who whould have grown up angry and more likely to commit violent crime. This may sound horrible but I think it is an interesting point.
Sylvia, I think that the drug debate is a totally different topic, so I'm going to avoid completely diving into that debate. However, I think you made my poitn for me when you said, "we wouldn't want people going to dark alleys or unsafe places to get the drugs if they are going to try and get them anyway." Making drugs legal, as with abortion, would allow the government to regulate them and might thereby make them safer, just as legalized abortions have made them safer. Also, as Elizabeth pointed out, legalized abortion has reduced violent crimes. If drugs were legal, there might not be as many drug-related homicides because people wouldn't be getting them from sketchy drug dealers. I agree the logic is the same and favors legal drugs and abortions.
The point isn't "what's the best way to do a bad thing?" The point is that abortion is wrong in the first place. Laura, you seem to be arguing along a trend now: if something is bad, we should just leaglize it and let the government regulate it. That is simply not the correct solution. Morality comes into play here. Life begins at conception and abortion is wrong (except in VERY rare circumstances, such as unless both mother and child are guaranteed to die if the birth happens). Every conceived child has a basic human right- the right to life. It is morally reprehensible to kill this child through abortion. Thus, we the people should demand that our congresspeople pass a law limiting abortion (or an amendment taking it away from the Supreme Court) and reducing abortion to a very small level.
Oh, and by the way, I refuse to presume that it's my job to determine if a baby is going to have a good enough life or not later on to warrant its death in the womb. Life is a RIGHT not a cultural convention.
Ryan, the government does not impose morals on the people. It makes laws to keep its people safe and to have a healthy community. In fact, I think it would be wrong for the government to impose its morals on the people: morals are something that come from parents and churches. Just because something is legal, does not mean that people have to do it. Just because abortion is legal doesn't mean that if I get pregnant I have to have an abortion. It means that I have to appeal to my own morals to determine what to do with the baby.
Also, if one assumes that life begins at conception, then abortion would be a violation of human rights. However, not everyone defines the begininng of life from that moment. A fetus in his mother's womb is still very much a part of its mother and therefore hers to decide what to do with.
On the point of when life begins:
I was speaking with my two South Korean ESL conversation partners on Monday, and they mentioned that in Korea one's age is counted from the date of conception. It makes sense to me that a fetus is alive and a human while in the mother.
Laura, I think the distinction you make between law and morality is helpful for understanding the argument, but why do laws so often conform to conventional Judeo-Christian morality (and other cultures' morality, I am sure,) such as in cases of theft, murder, dishonesty, etc? Why is abortion a choice that is made without punishment from the law, as it still affects another person/fetus subject to that law?
Perhaps current law does not protect fetuses. This I do not know.
John, a fetus is not protected under US law because it is not a "citizen." One way of becoming a US citizen is to be born in the United States and since a fetus obviously hasn't been born yet, it cannot be a citizen. Unlike the eastern cultures that you referenced, in America, we celebrate our lives on our birthdays, not our days of conception, a pretty clear sign that our culture thinks of the beginning of life as after birth.
Since when does "culture" decide when life begins? The beginning of life is an objective reality, not an idea subject to human caprice.
And, like John alluded to, of course government legislates morality. Laws against stealing and assault are imposing a view of morality that these things are bad and should not be done within a society.
Laura, are you advocating that a baby 8 months in the womb has no rights? That it's not until the moment of birth that a baby should be legally protected. To assume that as long as the baby is inside the womb it is not human is ludicrous.
I'd say laws against stealing are there to enforce private property. Who'd buy a pizza if anyone could just come over and grab a slice?
Whether we want to call a fetus a human or not, government shouldn't be able to tell you you can't have an abortion. I don't think that their power should extend that far. It's a personal issue, not a national.
If you want to say that the government has the power to punish murder, as Laura mentioned, an unborn baby isn't a U.S. citizen. So our government can't regulate it on a murder charge.
Carl and Laura, you said that an unborn child is not a citizen, and the government cannot regulate murder charges against it.
How is it then, that murderers can be convicted with double-homicide for killing a woman while she is pregnant? Isn't this regulating murder against a fetus?
The government can and does regulate murder against a fetus, and I hope that it is only a matter of time before a mother can also be held responsible for killing her child.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115825,00.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4183/is_20080327/ai_n24975503
Ryan's post raises an interesting question. Where does the statement "life begins at conception" fall in the Toulmin schema? Is it a claim (and if so, what kind)? Support? A warrant?
I miss phrased. Don't stick Laura with what I said either. I didn't mean to say that our government cannot regulate it (the government is able to do a whole lot of things, despite what the people want). I meant that it should not have that type of power. Laws are made for your citizens and they should only be protecting the the citizens (using our current definition of citizen). By making a law that gives unborn children "life" then they're just contradicting themselves to allow abortion. But I still think that is straying into forbidden territory, especially for the federal government.
I don't think there should be double-homicide though either, just stick them with the charge of murder, and then put them on death row. (Or for the nicer states, stick them in jail for a pre-paid life)
"How would you feel if you had never been born? *scratches head* You know what I mean…"
I wouldn't feel anything because I'd be dead. If heaven is real and God is a merciful kinda guy, then I'd be in heaven, right?
I'm just sayin'.
That was a snarky and morally reprehensible comment, I know. But I couldn't resist! The untouchable sacredness of human life is a purely religious (or spiritual) value that doesn't exist in the mind of every single American.
In the Toulmin model, this is a debate of definition: what is life? If you stick strictly to the scientific definition as Ryan does, then technically you would have to express the same moral outrage at the death of zygotes - clusters of developing, living human cells that eventually become fetuses. Should the morning-after pill be banned as well, then? And what of condoms? So the moment the zygote is formed, then that amorphous blob of cells, which certainly has the potential to overcome poverty and become a professional baseball player, astronaut, or President, is a sacred entity?
I myself am a relativist atheist, and I'm not too sure where I stand on the issue, but the abrasiveness with which some people attack this issue seems to show that they don't know exactly how many complex and nuanced and infinitely debatable aspects there are to this discussion. There's nothing wrong with taking a stance and defending it, but you have to fully understand the rebuttals that stand against your claim and understand why people might disagree in order to truly understand the full spectrum of the argument.
Also, regarding the "how many doctors might have been born?!!?" argument, the exact same thing could be said of how many criminals, murderers, and rapists have been prevented from entering this world by abortion. I know those are extreme examples, but you were using pretty extreme examples as well.
I suppose that my comment was a claim, Dr. Sitter, but I'm not sure what kind. It seems to relate to fact. Allow me to explain: a human being still in the womb is both alive and human. It has the eight characteristics that scientists use to define if something is "living" or not, and it is clearly human.
Mike, I know not every American agrees with me that life begins at conception, but those who disagree fail to see the potential of that life within the womb. As soon as sperm meets egg, you are guaranteed to have a human being 9 months or so later (barring tragedy)- it just takes times and growth. And yes, I would be morally outraged as to the killing of a zygote, or "amorphous blob of cells," as you prefer, because that is a human life you are destroying. The idea that "just because it does not look like a baby means we can do whatever we want with it" is absolutely ridiculous. If it ends up like any other person/baby 9 months later, why is it not human just because it's a zygote/embryo? Why does a person in these initial stages of development lack rights?
Okay, so I'm going to be one of those "everything happens for a reason" optimists on this topic.:-D
I've had a personal experience with a family member who had a miscarriage and I personally had to watch her suffer through months of unhappiness and the constant question of "What did I do wrong?" I am most definitely pro-life.
However, I'm not saying I don't sympathize with the girls who are raped or even the girls who make that big mistake. These girls have huge decisions to make and who can say they haven't wanted take back something they did and pretend it never happened? This is what abortion provides. But this is a matter of life and death. Conception is creating a life form, not just carrying a lifeless specimen that doesn't have value until it exits the womb.
It's rediculous. Many children need good homes and deserve love and life. Just like you and me, they appreciate life.
I do not agree with abortion at all. I hate everything about it. It is a disgusting think about a person murdering a baby because it is inconvenient. My friend on the other hand is pro choice. He read this and pointed out that babies that could be born "really messed up" should be aborted. He gave the example of a baby that is mentally retarded, and the doctors know about it. He said the doctor should abort the baby and let the parents have a second chance. I think this is one of the worst things I have ever heard. It is horrible to kill people for not being "perfect."
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