I've done my best here to lay out an argument against abortion without mention of religion.

Proof:
Constantly in this debate people claim that because the law states fetuses aren't people, they have no rights. While its true that the law does state this, it is not the law that makes a person a person. Remember, laws have stated that Jewish people weren't people in Hitler's Germany. They've also been a-ok with slavery. Acknowledgment that these things were wrong admits that no governing body has the ability to decide who is and who is not a person.

Proof:

This map (from Wikipedia) shows different areas of the world and different circumstances in which abortion is legal
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ionLawsMap.png

The following paragraph describes when different countries stop allowing abortion.

"As of 1998, among the 152 most populous countries, 54 either banned abortion entirely or permitted it only to save the life of the pregnant woman.In contrast, another 44 of the 152 most populous countries generally banned late-term abortions after a particular gestational age: 12 weeks (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Rep., Denmark, Estonia, France, Georgia, Greece, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Rep., Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Norway, Russian Fed., Slovak Rep., Slovenia, South Africa, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Yugoslavia), 13 weeks (Italy), 14 weeks (Austria, Belgium, Cambodia, Germany, Hungary, and Romania), 18 weeks (Sweden), viability (Netherlands and to some extent the United States), and 24 weeks (Singapore and the United Kingdom [Northern Ireland excluded])."
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2405698.pdf

The following presumes postulates 1 and 2 are correct, if you disagree with either of these postulates, explain why before going on to the rest of this argument.

Postulate 1 explains that people are people on their own, and that no law or government has the ability to make a person a person or not a person. People just are what they are.

Postulate 2 shows that governments around the world have their laws acknowledge fetuses as people when those governments feel fetuses have transformed into people.

So lets compare this to science. A scientist does his best to predict, say, the amount of reactant that will be produced by a chemical reaction, but his predictions, laws, theories, etc. only attempt to describe what is. Postulate 2 shows the manifestations of these "scientists" (scientists being governments) to describe postulate 1.

The problem comes in the issue that when a scientist describes the amount of a product produced in a reaction, almost indefinitely, that scientist will be wrong. Often times in experiments an 80% is phenomenal.

Back to these governments as scientists. Let's pretend that these scientists work for a company that wants to release a product. Scientist A says that this product will kill children who use it and are younger than 3. Scientist B disagrees, he says that this product would only kill children who are younger than 2. Scientist C says it will kill children under 5. How old would you wait for your child to be before giving him this product? Certainly, you wouldn't risk giving this product to a child under 2, but would you give it your child at 3 or 4? Probably not. Most mothers would hesitate at 5, given this information. Why? The science says it will be safe for children 5 years old. But Science only shows our best way of describing what is. So when using science we air to the side of caution.

Abortion presents a very similar situation to that described with the scientists and the product. We have different laws, as shown in Postulate 2, trying to describe when people are people, Postulate 1. We have some countries that say 24 weeks, others that say 13. We also have countries that have said everything in between. These are all guesses, just like those from the scientists in the example. When it was a corporation trying to release a product, we aired on the side of caution. We decided, it was better to keep that dangerous product out of the hands of 5 year-olds instead of risking their lives.

With abortion, even though we have some reputable guesses saying 13 weeks, some countries would rather play chicken with what could be the lives of babies and allow abortion up to 24 weeks. Only one answer can be correct, but we don't know which one is. So we have to employ risk management.

A given guess will be either correct or incorrect. So an aborted baby will be either a person or not a person, meaning each abortion will either be the murder of a person or a loss of something lifeless. Given the array of guesses, we need to pick one based on which outcome of this either or we as a society find desirable. If we are willing to accept murder, then there are no ramifications to going with the most lenient guess. However, most societies punish murder, meaning they discourage the act of killing a person. So it would seem reasonable to choose the most conservative guess, 13 weeks.

So which outcome is best? Maybe murdering some people, or Maybe inconveniencing some people for no reason?

__________________
Woodrow Wilson

The only argument against abortion is religious, resting on the religious belief that life begins at conception. It is specific to the Catholic religion and does not reflect biblical doctrine.

__________________
"I think the deregulation was probably helpful to the growth of our economy."
-Sen. John McCain 09/22/2008

Another arguement against abortion would be: we don't know if there is a God (even though I do, being a staunch Lutheran), but would you like risking your one and only soul over the precipice of eternal (*)(*)(*)(*)ation just so you can deny a sterile couple a healthy baby?

A practical solution to this issue would be to, instead of murdering your fetus/child/potential scientist or peacemaker in the making, you could send it to a foster/adoption family. That way, we do not risk eternal (*)(*)(*)(*)ation, and there is no baby to take care of for the dumbassed couple that made love without considering the consequences.

The only exception would be if someone's life was in direct danger, which is so unlikely it should be disregarded anyway.

__________________
Henry K.

"Let me introduce you to the next President...of the United States: Joe Biden!" -~-Barack Obama

Planning on getting shot?

__________________
The woman in my avatar is Cristina Scabbia and the woman in my profile picture is Tarja Turunen
Sun flames and moons glow, timeless the tides will flow, what will I face, what will be mine, fortune and fate the other side...

Post of the week:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inferno You just don't relate to my sense of humor. How about this. Gosh darn funny man living in a whale. doncha know that gawd could do that I betcha he could. wink wink.

__________________
The woman in my avatar is Cristina Scabbia and the woman in my profile picture is Tarja Turunen
Sun flames and moons glow, timeless the tides will flow, what will I face, what will be mine, fortune and fate the other side...

Post of the week:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inferno You just don't relate to my sense of humor. How about this. Gosh darn funny man living in a whale. doncha know that gawd could do that I betcha he could. wink wink.

Then show me in my post where I needed Religion to prove anything. If you are gonna lie to yourself, at least come up with something sort of believable.

No, personal opinion isn't what makes the person a person. The person just is. We have personal opinions on when this happens, but just because we have an opinion, doesn't mean that opinion is right.

Since we don't know, it makes more sense to air on the side of caution, something that very few countries are doing.

No I can't. I do know, however, that a fetus can't magically become a fetus the day the government tells it to. Such a notion is absurd.

__________________
Woodrow Wilson

__________________
The woman in my avatar is Cristina Scabbia and the woman in my profile picture is Tarja Turunen
Sun flames and moons glow, timeless the tides will flow, what will I face, what will be mine, fortune and fate the other side...

Post of the week:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inferno You just don't relate to my sense of humor. How about this. Gosh darn funny man living in a whale. doncha know that gawd could do that I betcha he could. wink wink.

We were discussing this same idea elsewhere and you never got back to me Dino.

People are defined differently everywhere. Government enforces laws set by its people. When the majority of the population of the country in which you reside decide what a person is, gynecologists will act appropriately because they must obey the law. It doesn't mean that you or your partner must have an abortion; it means that that culture has decided what it is that they believe and what is going to be normative within that culture. You can believe differently if you like, but your culture will allow what it will.

__________________
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
-Dr. Carl Sagan

That's wrong. I'm not a religious person, and my arguments against abortion aren't religious.

Everyone has an inalienable right to life, liberty, and property, that cannot rightfully be violated by individuals or by majority rule. The purpose of those rights is to ensure that those who cannot fend for themselves against the strong don't have their rights violated. When it comes to abortion, a person's right to life trumps a mother's right to liberty. When it comes to defining life, an unborn child is clearly alive, just like one celled amoebas are.

__________________
.

"It is extremely difficult for our contemporaries to conceive of the conditions of free banking because they take government interference with banking for granted and as necessary"

-- Ludwig von Mises

Democracy needs to be more than 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.

__________________
Woodrow Wilson