Sincere request to help me understand why you feel abortion is not murder.

Said very nicely, Shiva!

And you are right on the button.

 

To my way of thinking, abortion could be considered murder WHEN the fetus develops consciousness. Without consciousness, the fetus is not a "person" and cannot therefore be murdered. I don't know when a fetus becomes a "person". Do you?

 

Legally, when it's born.

 

When it is born.

 

I'll add what several of us have said many times:

When it is born!

 

So, at birth, consciousness automatically descends upon the fetus??? The 'legal' definition doesn't exactly work, does it? We can do better. Abortion is a necessary evil in some cases, but I'd want to error on the side of conservatism. Gotta tackle a definition of 'consciousness'.

 

You are the one who asserts that a fetus becomes a person when consciousness is present.

Most of us assert that a fetus becomes a person when it is born.

The IRS agrees with us.

What makes you say that???

It works fine as far as I can see.

So you claim! Okay...let's hear your arguments.

Fine. Next time you are contemplating getting an abortion...err on the side of conservatism. That is your choice.

Some people want to make a different choice.

You should allow them to do so. In any case, the Supreme Court is going to allow it whether you do or not.

Okay. But you also have to tackle the question of why the question of "consciousness" should play a part in this.

 

Pretty arbitrary, don't you think? But it is easy.

One day a person, the previous day an equally viable fetus is NOT a person. Think of how many women have their deliveries induced on December 31 so they can claim the baby as a tax deduction for the year.

Consciousness should play a part in this ONLY because without consciousness you do not have a person. Consciousness defines 'personhood' for me.

 

At birth a fetus becomes detached from the host and can live on it's own....then it becomes a person.

If you think it's a person before birth then it has no right to use another's body to sustain it's life. I don't have that right, you don't have that right, no person does.

 

Okay...so next time you are contemplating an abortion...take that into consideration.

THAT IS YOUR CHOICE.

Allow others to make a different choice.

Or don't.

It doesn't matter...because the law allows them to make choices for themselves...rather than allow you to make the choice for them.

 

Prior to birth two significant things are happening:
(1) About 4-6 weeks before actual birth, one of the final measurable steps in the cerebrum takes place: the onset of global neuronal integration. Before that, sensory nerve signals may reach the primitive brain stem and reflex signals may reach the muscles, but any movement you see is reflex. The cerebrum cannot possibly "think" about anything that is happening.
(2) Until actual birth, the fetal blood supply contains chemicals that would keep the brain sedated (even if neuronal integrated was complete) and the low oxygen levels in the blood would keep the brain sedated until the moment of birth, when the umbilical cord is cut and the lungs begin providing oxygen directly into the newborn's blood.

That is the first moment the mind can possibly be activated, so there is science to justify the belief that the mind of the newborn (at the moment of birth) is significantly different from the mind of the unborn. When the mind is activated, it is able to begin incorporating experience into its mind.

 

Oddly enough, even without knowing the science, most cultures recognized actual birth as the threshold. In some cultures it was thought that the soul entered the body with that first "breath of life" and in some cultures you would be forbidden to mourn after a miscarriage (because the unborn did not have souls yet). When do you believe consciousness begins, and why?

 

Yeah, I get it: the only thing Hitler did wrong was lose...

...and murder ought to be punishable by a $6 fine.

 

There's no need to be brainless. I am addressing the bigots who believe a fetus is nothing but a blob of cells, and so as a society, we owe them no protection. It's a great irony that a population that likes to self describe as "progressive", and can get so butt-hurt over tiny slights can turn around and be so completely brutish when it comes to the most innocent and helpless among us! These are the same people who will not eat veal -- but are completely unfeeling towards a baby.

I'm sure you know very little about miscarriages. A miscarriage, which is also referred to as a spontaneous abortion, is the loss of pregnancy usually before 24 weeks. The majority of miscarriage occur within the first 12 weeks of fetal gestation, and do not resemble the pictures I linked.

After the 12th week, the chances of a miscarriage drop to below 10% of all known pregnancies. Trying to compare late term abortions or partial birth abortions with a miscarriage only proves how ignorant you are.

According to the CDC, teens, black women and Hispanic women are more likely than older adults or other races to get second-trimester abortions. These women were more likely to be less educated and living in poverty than women who had earlier abortions. They were also more likely to have experienced violence at the hands of the man who got them pregnant and to have dealt with at least three serious life events in the last year. A very small percentage are due to tests showing deformities or serious abnormalities of some kind.

Because of the above facts, there may be many who are in favor of legal abortions on a humane basis.

If, however you try to trivialize the collective trauma and sorrow abortions inflict not only on the mothers but on the society a whole; if you try to justify your position by arguing that a fetus is not a person -- then you are nothing but a zombie.

That's all I have to say.

 

Good for you. Others define "person" as a human who has been born, including the SCOTUS. Don't like that? Well, the next time you are pregnant, you can choose to complete the pregnancy. Others may choose differently and neither you or I have any say in what they decide. Freedom of choice.

- - - Updated - - -

You have the ability and right to choose to complete your own pregnancy. What else could you want?

 

There's no need to be rude. As a society, we cannot protect a fetuses. We cannot. Only a pregnant woman can protect a fetus.

These women are also likely to have difficulty raising the money to pay for the abortion and as a result having the abortion later than they would have liked. Abortions do not inflict "collective trauma and sorrow", the principle emotion women report feeling is relief. And how do you think abortion inflicts trauma and sorrow on society as a whole? Society as a whole is unaware of any individual abortion, they are private, you know. We do not have to justify our position, but a fetus is not a person anyway.

Zombie Grannie

 

There's a new one, ..no progressive eats veal !!! OH , of course not , that's in the Secret Progressive Pledge, doncha know...and here ya said there was no need to be brainless and there ya go....tsk, tsk...

He didn't compare miscarriages with late term abortions and anyone who concluded that would have to be ignorant.

The rest is insulting trash....

 

For the answer to your question to make sense, I must first explain what I think about what life is.

I am philosophically a materialist, meaning that I believe the universe is made of matter and energy, and that there is no evidence to indicate that deities or souls actually exist. In fact, I do not see any reason to think anyone actually knows with any specificity what they even mean when they use the terms soul or god.

I think human beings are self-aware physical processes, and I think life is basically no more than the movement of matter and energy.

Moreover, I think that the whole concept of death is based on people ignoring how obviously integrated the universe is.

The following explanation is based on the laws of conservation of mass and energy. It should provide an over-simplified understanding of what I mean.

Death and the separation between different organisms are just an illusions.

• Grass uses sunlight, water and CO2 to make glucose through photosynthesis, and to grow (make more grass cells).
• The grass exhales oxygen as a byproducts of the photo synthesis.
• A cow eats the grass. The grass is not dead; it simply is integrated into the living cow.
• A person eats a hamburger made of the cow. The cow is not dead; it simply is integrated into the person's living cells. The person "dies" and is digested by bacteria, and so on.
• Both the cow and the person inhale the oxygen that the grass exhaled.
• Both the grass and the cow are alive in the person, and all three are alive in the bacteria that digest the human corpse.

This basic process happens within living beings, too. For example, even though I think about myself as if I am a static being with a constant identity, the cells I was composed of seven years ago are "dead", but I am not dead because those cells were replaced by other cells made from cows I ate, etc.. The cells that "died" were reabsorbed into other living cells, or broken down and eliminated from my body to become part of other living things.
As we grow we add cells through mitosis, just as we replace cells by mitosis.

Here is where this all connects to your abortion question.

The fertilized egg undergoes mitosis in the uterus. The new cells are made of molecules that were part of the mother. The resulting embryo is part of the mother, a self-made growth in the uterus. An abortion is removing part of the mother, or if you prefer, a parasite.

Moreover, the aborted fetus is not actually dead (refer to the explanation about cows and grass).

While I think abortion is a waste that results from carelessness and poor planning, it does not qualify as murder any more than getting rid of a tapeworm.

As far as the unnecessary cruelty, I will put a traditional pig slaughterhouse up against an abortion clinic any day. Very often the pigs were still alive when they were hung on hooks by their hamstrings, and run past gas jets that burned the hair off and crisped the skin.

As a side note, I am not at all a liberal. I am so conservative that I think Republicans are liberal wussies. I am a true conservative in that I do not think that it is the place of the government to solve people's problems or tell them how to live.

I hope the explanation helps.

 

That was an uncalled for comment...and does more to increase the division between the sides than to lessen it.

No you're not. You are pretending you are standing on higher moral grounds than those of us who assert that a woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy occurring in her own body...without interference from people like you.

Yeah...you do think you are standing on higher moral ground...and you want to pontificate from there.

Sad!

I doubt that!

 

Why the need to throw insults?

I am conservative. I do not call the zef a 'blob of cells' but I believe we do not owe it protection. I do not eat veal. There's a huge difference between born and unborn.

The vast majority of women who abort do not regret it.

http://time.com/3956781/women-abortion-regret-reproductive-health/


There is no "collective trauma and sorrow" on society either. Society is not harmed by having legal abortion.

 

Actually, they are rendered insensate first. Look up the videos by Temple Grandin on YouTube. They are very informative about slaughter practices.

 

The pigs are supposed to be insensate, but that does not always work out. I was not suggesting the cruelty was by design, or even due to carelessness.

There may be new methods in slaughterhouses that reduce the incidents of the Lazarus problem, but the traditional sledgehammer to the head, slit the throat, then hang them method did not guarantee that death came quickly..

If you have ever killed a pig (or tried to) you know that they can be unbelievably durable, and sometimes when you think you have killed them, they "wake up", even with multiple gunshots to the head and/or slit throats. I have seen pigs regain consciousness/mobility after being apparently dead of gunshots and bleeding out through cut jugulars.

It would be reasonable to name all pigs Rasputin.

 

As a male, I do not have direct experience with miscarriage but I know a little bit about it because I would have had an older brother had he not died in the womb just a few weeks before he should have been born. He was more important than a blob of cells to my parents, but he was of no consequences to himself (because he did not yet have the ability to think of such matters) and he was only of peripheral consequence to the few people who were even aware that a body was developing for him in the womb.

In her case, the fetus stopped moving or kicking about a month before the due date so she became concerned. After the doctors removed it, it would have looked a lot like the pictures you in the pro-life camp are so fond of displaying (as if they represent typical aborted pregnancies). If you really care about statistics then you must realize that the vast majority of abortions (like the vast majority of miscarriages) take place long before that level of development.

If you think it is a person because it looks like a person (two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, two arms, two legs) then what does that rule say about a newborn with no legs, a genetic disorder that makes it look more like hairy wolf or something with the skin of an elephant? Do you really think looks are that important, or is it the mind that makes us persons?

 

You consider calling people who support abortion, "the most diabolical, tortuous, evil form of murder of innocents that has ever been conceived in the dark hearts of man" something that is NOT offensive?

Any person that supports abortion... according to you, is guilty of supporting murder. How is that not offensive?

First... it is not murder. It is killing. Murder is a legal construct. According to the definition of murder abortion does not qualify.

Second... until that little thing has a fighting chance of living without the support of the mother it doesn't have any rights what so ever, nor should it.

 

The same people not eating veal are also not eating fetus's so I don't see what your complaint is.

I guess that if you try to trivialize the trauma and sorrow of forced pregnancy on mothers and society by arguing that mothers should be forced to conceive then you are nothing but a supporter of indentured servitude and a form of slavery.