The Great "Social Issues" Abortion Debate!

I concur with your viewpoint seagull.

Just for the record, I personally think a fetus becomes a human being at the point where it first achieves consciousness and not before that.

Two Steps Forward

Thanks for that post, actually I spend the night thinking that morality in America would make a very nice social issue but not to be link to only one topic like abortion but rather and overall look into what is going on with moral issues as a whole in society.

You are welcome to bring it on

Of course abstinence is the only way to avoid pregnancy, but it goes against human nature for most people. Males and females should understand how to use birth control methods and use them to avoid unwanted pregnancies. That said, even chemical birth control is not 100%, there are instances of rape, incest, life of mother, and unintended pregnancies. Using abortion solely as a form of birth control cannot be the best method for a female, as any medical procedure overused can have complications. OTOH forcing females to bear children out of anger, vindictiveness, punishment, or fear that abortions will reduce a certain group's population is not good.

Making abortions illegal again will not make abortions stop. Illegal abortions would continue, with females dying from botched abortions once again. Keep abortions safe, but continue to work on reducing pregnancies.

Ok well I have a decent point I think, I really dont think you can argue for abortion from a strictly womens choice stance, or a "its my body I can do what I want with it" because this point fails if you judge the unborn fetus to be a person. If the fetus is judged to be a person than abortion is murder. I cannot do whatever I want with my body if I want to murder someone. So a womens choice will not stand in this debate I dont think. The only defense I can see from the pro-choice side is the argument over wether or not the fetus is a person. So can we agree on this so we can focus our debate?

Project Chaos:

You'll probably get some disagreement from others, but I will concur. Yes, the debate does (or should) center around whether -- or rather, when, i.e. at what stage of development -- a fetus should be called a "human being."

As noted above, this is NOT the same as asking whether it is "human life." THAT question is trivial and easily answered, and does not end the debate.

A woman has a right to control her body and make her own medical decisions. However, this right does not extend to the point that it allows her to kill another human being.

We agree that a newborn baby is a human being, and that its mother may not kill it. We agree that an unfertilized ovum is NOT a human being, and that its mother may kill one once a month. (Even those who disapprove of artificial birth control have no problem with sexual abstinence, which also kills ova.) At some point in development, a fertilized ovum or embryo takes on enough of the characteristics of a newborn baby that we will say that it IS a human being, and must be protected like the baby, and may not be killed like the unfertilized ovum.

Here is a feeder question. What qualities does a newborn baby have, that make us call it a human being, which an unfertilized ovum does not have?

Good question. Now here I'm going to give you too different responses. I think one of my personal stengths is being able to seperate reason and logic from my feeling and beleifs, so I'll give to seperate answers. From my feelings and beleifs, from my heart so to speak I truly beleive that all fertalized eggs are people, I am a Catholic and I do think a person is truly a mix of the two spirits combined through our sperm and eggs there fore when the two spirits mix to create one at conception it is a person. Now I will give you my answer from pure reasoning my heart and beleifs seperate, I beleive it is a human being when it can feel pain and pleasure. I feel that the ability for a body to understand what is going on as in pain and pleasure is what defines us as human beings. I await your responses guys, glad to see we can have a civil debate about this once in a while.

Originally posted by ProjectChaos
From my feelings and beleifs, from my heart so to speak I truly beleive that all fertalized eggs are people, I am a Catholic and I do think a person is truly a mix of the two spirits combined through our sperm and eggs there fore when the two spirits mix to create one at conception it is a person.

All I can say in answer to that, is that since an embryo at conception displays no person-ality, what you are saying here implies a different definition of the word "person" than the usual. In effect, you're giving us a theological definition rather than a common-language one.

Now I will give you my answer from pure reasoning my heart and beleifs seperate, I beleive it is a human being when it can feel pain and pleasure. I feel that the ability for a body to understand what is going on as in pain and pleasure is what defines us as human beings.

I would amend this as follows. It's not when the body can feel and react to pain or pleasure, but when the brain can facilitate the consciousness of them.

Have you ever put your hand on a hot stove, and jerked it back by reflex before you ever felt the heat? Sometimes that happens so fast you never get burned and never feel any pain at all. Our bodies are capable of sensing and reacting to pain that never reaches our brains and so never actually hurts.

The more basic parts of the nervous system develop before the ones that generate (or manifest, if you prefer) the personality. A fetus has a reflex-generating pain response before it develops a cerebral cortex, but without the cortex there is no way for it to "feel" these sensations as you and I do.

A human being is a living being that has been born that legally has a birth certificate and that has taken the first breath of life. . .

I don't think anything is going to change this facts unless somebody decides to take upon he or herself to become a God pro life advocate and influence the law makers into passing a law that would give a birth Right to any fertilize egg in the uterus even if the egg will never make it.

Then it will be double standards when that diseases egg has to get a certificate of death.

Talking about what is alive or death inside a body well . . . so far everything that is inside the body can be describe as alive . . .

So when drawing the line about a fetus been a human being . . . yes is alive and yes if the development is not interrupted It could become a potential human being.

But taken all this into consideration then making laws to keep fetuses alive while inside a womb will relegate the carrier of that womb or woman an incubator with not rights and a prisoner of what she carry inside.

Well . . . it does get complicated right? well . . . when politicians with agenda and religious rights get into law making yes It can become very complicated.

That is why so many step are taken to say what is allow or not by law but nobody will dare to take abortion rights away or giving rights to fetuses because that will take away the rights of the mother.

[edit on 27-7-2006 by marg6043]

to have a productive conversation about this you need to be able to look at it from both sides. Pro-Choice I can see how you can view not being able to have abortions as slavery of a sort. But how about you give it a look from our perspective where we see abortion as nothing short of the murder of children. Also as a side question do any of you endorse partial birth abortion? and if you do how much do you know about what actually happens?

As a women I fight for the rights of my body, abortion is just an issue to be use in the taking and controling of those rights.

Women rights is not about having or no having abortions is about the rights of privacy that a women has and deserve.

This is not about killing FETUSES is about trying to control through laws what a women can do or not with what grows inside her womb and what she can do with her body.

People can be so smart and still can no see the real issue behind abortion control in America.

What a shame.

I understand for pro-choicers it is not about wether abortion is right or not but just that a women does have the choice and control over her body, thus being pro-"choice". Perfect example being my mother she is pro-choice but she does think abortion is wrong, but that a women should have a choice. But with that said that is your reason for being in the argument it is not that of a Pro-Life, in fact it is the exact opposite for us it has nothing to do with taking control away from you and has everything to do with saving what we beleive to be a life. Can you see that point? Also I know women can have fertalized eggs transfered to another women, I would be interested to know if there are any rulings reguarding that as opposed to abortions?

Marg:

I understand your concern here, but let me point out to you that the overwhelming majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester. Under any reasonable criterion, we are not going to determine that an embryo in the first trimester of pregnancy is a human being.

Current federal law as expressed in the Roe v. Wade decision allows states to restrict or outlaw abortion only in the third trimester. For the sake of argument, let's use that standard, and consider the implications.

Suppose that you found yourself pregnant one month after you got that way. Under the standard of Roe, you would have at least 5 months to get an abortion before any restrictions could apply. Would you agree that 5 months is an acceptable window of time in which to take responsible action?

Originally posted by Two Steps Forward
Marg:

I understand your concern here, but let me point out to you that the overwhelming majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester.

I am beyond childbearing my friend due to medical reasons . . . but with a daughter single and in her twenties I want her and any other young woman to have the same choices I grew with in my teens to decided for myself about my body. . .

I remember the struggles that women has been through out before it was any rules to privacy . . . as I was growing up.

I also remember the accidents of illegal abortions.

The world has change and abortion is not something is to be hidden in a back street anymore . . .

I believe that a woman rights is hers and hers alone . . .

The privacy of our bodies is the only thing we still have that is ours . . .

In other words what we are discussing right now . . . should no even be matter of discussion if woman rights were respected . . .

With that I will let you keep debating if a fetus has a mouth, a toe or has the right to be inside a woman's body. . .

Remember the whole ideal is to ban abortion and take the women right to her body with not choices at all or to give that right to the husband . . .



[edit on 27-7-2006 by marg6043]

Whether or not a mass of tissue is a human being should, in this day and age, be determined by DNA. If the mass is something else, then it is a matter not covered by this debate. The argument that woman can do with a fetus as she sees fit differs from say a mass of cancer cells in that the DNA of the fetus is human and it is DNA that differs from that of the mother. Therefore, it is a human being regardless of its stage of development.

The idea that in order to be a human being a birth certificate must be issued is, well, novel.

Originally posted by marg6043
Remember the whole ideal is to ban abortion and take the women right to her body with not choices at all or to give that right to the husband . . .

Remember to whom you are speaking. I have no such ideal, and while I recognize that some people do, there is no particular reason to be so paranoid about them that we adopt an unreasonable stance.

Any position can be taken to an extreme that becomes unacceptable, however reasonable it may have been in more moderate form. Moreover, extreme reactions to social injustice, while they may have a temporary usefulness in shocking the chains loose, are not useful as final positions.

We are moving from a situation in the past when women were denied any control over their reproductive behavior, and subordinated, in this as in other ways, to the rule of men. It is understandable -- in roughly the same way that a two-year-old's temper-tantrum is understandable -- when some react to any suggestion that a woman's right to control her own pregnancy may not be absolute, as if it were an attempt to reimpose that old sexual tyranny. It is especially understandable coming from women who are old enough to have lived under some aspects of that tyranny. But while it is understandable, it is not sensible nor rational.

It is an undeniable fact that when a woman is carrying a child, she is no longer strictly an individual, but has become responsible for two lives rather than one. (Actually, that's also true -- and even more true -- after the child is born, as I'm sure you know.) What we have is not a simple set of one person's rights that trump all others, but two sets of rights, the mother's right to self-determination versus -- at some point -- the fetus' right to life, that must be reconciled when they conflict.

And it seems to me that there are two equally irrational extreme positions that may be taken.

The anti-choice folks take one when they make the fetus' rights, even at the earliest stages, trump all considerations of the woman's right to self-determination, and want to outlaw abortion either entirely or except in cases where the mother's life is in danger.

But it is just as extreme and irrational to insist that the mother has all the rights and the fetus has none, even in the latest stages of pregnancy when it is, for all intents and purposes, a newborn baby.

Compromise and reason are not dirty words.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Whether or not a mass of tissue is a human being should, in this day and age, be determined by DNA.

Not possible, because there exists no medical or biological definition of "human being." All we can determine without agreeing on such a definition is whether the mass of tissue is biologically human, not whether it is a human being.

The DNA of the fetus is human and it is DNA that differs from that of the mother. Therefore, it is a human being regardless of its stage of development.

Here, you are offering your own statement of what constitutes a "human being," one based entirely in DNA. That is your own choice, and not anything self-evident or obvious. In a very real sense, DNA is not a biological reality but a blueprint for a biological reality, and in that sense an embryo at conception does not have the status of a human being but only the information on how to become one.

The idea that in order to be a human being a birth certificate must be issued is, well, novel.

True. But the idea that in order to be a human being one must have human feelings and a human mind, is not.

In the context, Grady, we're talking about whether something should have the RIGHTS of a human being. The following examples will show how using DNA for the purpose of determining that is problematical.

Suppose that aliens come to earth, defecting from their home civilization, and live among us on earth. These creatures would be highly intelligent, and derived from a high civilization, yet their DNA would be quite different from ours. Should they have the same rights as human beings do, or not?

Suppose that genetic engineering was performed on, say, Chimpanzees, to create a new species as intelligent and civilized as ours. While their DNA would be much closer to ours than the hypothetical aliens', chimpanzees being our close cousins already, still it would be discernably non-human. Should these intelligent, civilized chimps have the same rights as human beings do, or not?

Suppose that massive breakthroughs in artificial intelligence result in the creation of a "race" of robots with genuine intelligence and self-will. These beings would have no DNA whatsoever, but still they would be as intelligent and civilized as we are. Should they have the same rights as human beings do, or not?

What I'm trying to illustrate here is that we agree to recognize rights of our fellow man on bases other than their possession of human DNA. As things stand, we know of no life forms without human DNA that have these characteristics in sufficient abundance that we grant them the full range of human rights. Yet it is these resultant characteristics, and not the DNA that serves as their blueprint, which move us to recognize those rights.

An embryo in the early stages of development, on the other hand, does NOT have those characteristics, it merely has the blueprints for them and thus the potential to develop them. Should we recognize full human rights in such an organism purely on the basis of potential? And if so, then why not extend it a bit further and recognize the same rights for unfertilized ova, which also have the potential to become human beings, requiring only one additional step?

Originally posted by Two Steps Forward

Not possible, because there exists no medical or biological definition of "human being." All we can determine without agreeing on such a definition is whether the mass of tissue is biologically human, not whether it is a human being.

Ahem!

This definition will do.

I'm not going to get into the alien and chimpanzee debate. About the only right that advocate for a fetus is a right to be nurtured and to thrive. That's not a heck of a lot.

Gametes have no potential to become human without the act of fertilization. My sperm are mine. Their DNA is mine and contain no one else's. From the moment of conception, there exists a developing human being, huh, human.

[edit on 2006/7/27 by GradyPhilpott]

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

Originally posted by Two Steps Forward

Not possible, because there exists no medical or biological definition of "human being." All we can determine without agreeing on such a definition is whether the mass of tissue is biologically human, not whether it is a human being.

Ahem!

This definition will do.

No, it won't, because "biologically human" is not the same as "human being." As I pointed out earlier, the blood that flows when I cut myself shaving is biologically human, but it is NOT a human being. In cutting myself shaving, I do destroy human life, but I do not commit suicide, even accidentally.

About the only right that advocate for a fetus is a right to be nurtured and to thrive. That's not a heck of a lot.

It's more than we recognize for my blood, though, isn't it?

It's not a heck of a lot if we're talking about a human being. It is a heck of a lot, though, if we're talking about something that's not a human being but merely biologically human, and if its nurture and thriving conflicts with other people's rights, such as the right to make their own medical decisions and control their own reproduction.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
I'm not going to get into the alien and chimpanzee debate.

What alien and chimpanzee debate?

"The" alien debate is about whether aliens actually are among us. All I'm saying is that our understanding of what makes a person a human being is not based in DNA. It is based in other characteristics, such as intelligence and feelings, and so to use DNA to determine whether we should regard someone as "one of us" is wrong.

The hypothetical examples of aliens, uplifted chimps, and AI were mere illustrations of that fact. Deny that there are any aliens, uplifted chimps, or true AI, and I won't say boo, but I will point out that you are side-stepping the real point I was making, not answering it.

If you equate blood with a fertilized egg and it's future stages of development, then there really is not much we can discuss. I admire your passion for debate and all, but my purpose in life is not really to change the world or anyone in it. People can take or leave anything I say, so don't think I'm sidestepping anything. There are plenty of folks who will take up the argument where I left off.

Grady