Evidence for God from Science

jlay wrote: So, you suggest that the way to help a mother cope is to kill the unborn life inside her? How is that sane? Why should the unborn be punished for the crimes of the rapist father. Last I checked we punished the criminall.
Is it unfortunate for the woman? Absolutely. It is a tragedy. But I fail to see how compounding one wrong with another helps the situation.

Let's say that the woman took the pregnancy to term. Should she not love the child? Should she abandon the child? Should the child have any less rights than any other?

THAT'S UP TO THE MOTHER TO DECIDE! Not you or legislation. I'm not saying she has to, or even SHOULD get an abortion. Who are you to say the better way for the victim to cope is to go through the pregnancy? That's a personal matter and varies person to person.

jlay wrote:VIOLATNG??? That is how you see an unborn human. A violater? I don't like ad-hominems, but you need serious help, if you think that a child, unborn or otherwise is the equivalent to some virus or bacteria. You sir, are sick.

Are they not violating bodily autonomy? They are using part of another person's body in order to live. If there is a better way to word it, let me know. If you are trying to convince someone their argument is weak, provide a stronger argument. If you can show me a better argument or solution, I would gladly change my mind. Calling me names doesn't help your cause (and isn't very Christian of you ).

Of course the rapist is punished, I never proposed that they weren't. As far as taking the pregnancy to term, again that's for the mother to decide. I never said she shouldn't/wouldn't love the child or anything else you mentioned. The only thing I was saying, is that abortion should be a choice. If she wants to keep the child, that's her choice and I'm perfectly fine with it.

Byblos wrote: Such is the inevitability of a godless, morally bankrupt society that idolizes the self and reduces a defenseless life to mere bacteria. The Bible says from dust we came and to dust we shall return. Perhaps there's some wisdom in that after all, from bacteria we came and as bacteria we shall die.

Come now, me being an atheist has nothing to do with it. All that says is I do not believe any gods exist, that's it. It says nothing about my morality. Are you assuming there are no theists who are pro-choice, or no atheists who are pro-life?

Jac3510 wrote: Peirson's position is not only immoral, it is pooly thought out and absurd. That said, the fact that he is willing to admit that he endorses murder is good enough for me. If pro-choice advocates would say that plainly, most people still have enough moral sensibility that they would reject that argument out right, so in that one regard, I at least appreciate his candor. Why is he pro-choice? Because he thinks it is okay to murder childern if they are of a certain level of inconvenience.

1) This is an interesting concept, but my issue with it is it provides the woman with an unfair ultimatum. The woman is pregnant due to the sexual experience she had with the man. If the man says "You have the option of getting an abortion, but if you don't, I'm relinquishing my rights from this and you're getting no support from me." That is an ultimatum that I feel unfairly puts pressure on the person caring the child to take an action they would otherwise not take. Then failing that action puts them at a financial burden. This gives the man more power in the situation. There is no easy solution to this, I agree it's unfair to men to say the person carrying the child gets to make the decision that is going to affect him for the next 18 years of his life. On the other hand, he already made the decision and taken a risk (intercourse) that puts him in this position where he could be treated unfairly. Given the two, I think that the equal responsibility is the more just outcome.

I do not think this scenario and the abortion scenario are the same. This is not a bodily autonomy issue.

2) A physician can't operate on someone without their consent. The same argument could be said about a doctor discovering a patient has a tumor. It's up to the patient if they want it removed or not, not the physician. This scenario obviously has some flaws.

3) Home-invader analogy. I prefer this one:

The People-Seeds Example
There are people-seeds that drift around and periodically come into someone’s house through the window and take root in the carpet. They grow into people. Suppose you have taken every reasonable precaution to prevent them from coming into your house, but somehow one got in and took root in your carpet. Have you now given it the right to use your house?

You guys seem to really be running away with the whole "He said it's murder! End of story!" thing. I agreed, it's taking a life and making it dead, by definition: murder. BUT, like I pointed out several times, murder isn't objectively wrong. It's legal to commit murder under a great number of circumstances including war and self-defense. Why is this ok but it's always wrong to have an abortion? Why is murder subjectively moral and abortion is absolutely wrong?

As I pointed out before, it was agreed that having an abortion to save the mother's life was permissible. I asked, would this mother be considered a murderer? Of course not. If you accept this argument, then you already acknowledge that it is not a matter of black and white morality, but a matter of taking the impact of an action into account when judging it. From a medical standpoint, all pregnancies have an impact to the health of the mother, and there are many negatives to the long term health of the mother which arise from carrying a fetus to term and delivery. It is far safer to get a first trimester abortion than to go through with the pregnancy, so depending on how you weigh your values, all abortion could be justified as a form of self-preservation on the account of the mother.

Echoside wrote: So let's just make it simple. Do you agree that in many of the scenario's you provided, the right thing to do is to give up your "right"(this is a legal term, not moral) to your body for the good of others? Not that it should be the forced thing to do but is actually the correct thing?

Personally, yes, I would. Would the rest of the population agree? No. I actually had a similar discussion with my girlfriend about organ donation. I didn't see it as a personal choice, but as a moral obligation to society. It literally takes nothing but a signature from you to potentially save lives. I asked for her reasons why, which were all the product of misinformation. She got her facts wrong. It all boiled down to it's her personal choice. Some people are uncomfortable thinking about their mortality, some people have different religious views and choose not to donate. From a moral standpoint I would disagree with these people. But would I press for legislation to tell them their bodily autonomy doesn't matter and they have to do what the government deems morally correct? I would not.

If I were ever in a burning building, and standing before me was a crying five-year-old girl and a canister of 100 frozen, viable embryos, and I could only save one, I would save the girl. And so would you. So would anybody with a modicum of decency.

The question of abortion's morality comes down to where one draws the line that makes the difference whether or not the life of a fetus is worth as much as that of a person.

Jac3510 wrote: The abortion/organ-donation argument comparison fails in multiple ways. First, it assumes that the child's conception is unrelated to the mother's choice of sexual activity. That is, if I die and I choose not to have my organs donated, my choice not to donate my organs had nothing to do with causing another person's illness that required them to need a new organ (particularly mine).

So, again, for these four reasons (and others--this is just more than sufficient), the analogy fails miserably.

The organ donation analogy wasn't meant to be an end-all comparison to abortion. It was simply to demonstrate the respect we, as a society, have for individual's bodily autonomy. This discussion is on the topic of abortion, let's not stray away from the issue.

Have you ever read Justice Blackmun's opinion in Roe v. Wade? If you haven't, I would highly recommend it because it's actually one of the most intelligent discussions of the history of how society has viewed abortion I've read. It's not just a legal rationale. It's very long and does go into religion, philosophy, etc. Even Rehnquist's dissent begins with high praise of its extensive historical research and analysis.

You can find it here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/h ... 13_ZO.html

To paraphrase Bill Clinton (try to refrain from the ad-hominem attacks please ), I believe abortions should be safe, legal, and rare. The ideal scenario would be to better educate people, especially teens, on the various methods of birth control, so that most women would never have to be in the position to choose in the first place. But ironically, it is the Christian right that leads the charge in stopping this from happening, based on the incredibly deluded belief that we can just stop people from having sex outside of a very narrow set of circumstances. Thus it is no surprise that areas where abstinence-only sex education is most promoted have the highest instances of teen pregnancy.

Pierson5 wrote:Are you assuming there are no theists who are pro-choice, or no atheists who are pro-life?

Pro-Choice Christian here. As it has to do with secular society and civil rights therein, I am pro-choice.

THAT'S UP TO THE MOTHER TO DECIDE! Not you or legislation. I'm not saying she has to, or even SHOULD get an abortion. Who are you to say the better way for the victim to cope is to go through the pregnancy? That's a personal matter and varies person to person.

If abortion is murder(and you have already admitted it is), then why should that be any different than laws against murder of born humans?
The better way is always to try to save an innocent life. The life of a human being should always take precedence over the "inconvenience" of the mother to bring the baby to term.

Of course the rapist is punished, I never proposed that they weren't. As far as taking the pregnancy to term, again that's for the mother to decide. I never said she shouldn't/wouldn't love the child or anything else you mentioned. The only thing I was saying, is that abortion should be a choice. If she wants to keep the child, that's her choice and I'm perfectly fine with it.

In your argument, the rapist, as well as the unborn child should be punished for his crime? Let's see...Maybe according to you, for now on, whenever a man rapes a woman,the rape victim should have the right to go to the rapist's house and drag off his children and kill them too. After all, punishing the rapist's child, by killing him, is what you say we should be able to choose to do.

Come now, me being an atheist has nothing to do with it. All that says is I do not believe any gods exist, that's it. It says nothing about my morality. Are you assuming there are no theists who are pro-choice, or no atheists who are pro-life?

Being an atheist, you have no basis for objective morality.

2) A physician can't operate on someone without their consent. The same argument could be said about a doctor discovering a patient has a tumor. It's up to the patient if they want it removed or not, not the physician. This scenario obviously has some flaws.

Are you comparing an unborn human with a tumor?

3) Home-invader analogy. I prefer this one:

The People-Seeds Example
There are people-seeds that drift around and periodically come into someone’s house through the window and take root in the carpet. They grow into people. Suppose you have taken every reasonable precaution to prevent them from coming into your house, but somehow one got in and took root in your carpet. Have you now given it the right to use your house?

Is this really an argument you want to use? We are dealing with reality, not seeds that produce humans. Why don't you just use this analogy, because it makes as much sense: Human feces meeting water is how humans are conceived. Some guy just took a dump in your toilet. Now you have a human being in your toilet. He's uninvited. Do you have the right to flush?

You guys seem to really be running away with the whole "He said it's murder! End of story!" thing. I agreed, it's taking a life and making it dead, by definition: murder. BUT, like I pointed out several times, murder isn't objectively wrong. It's legal to commit murder under a great number of circumstances including war and self-defense. Why is this ok but it's always wrong to have an abortion? Why is murder subjectively moral and abortion is absolutely wrong?

I'm glad you admit that abortion is murder. The problem is that murder is a specific kind of killing, and is objectively wrong. Killing someone in self-defense is not murder. Your arguments are hanging on by a thread.

As I pointed out before, it was agreed that having an abortion to save the mother's life was permissible. I asked, would this mother be considered a murderer? Of course not. If you accept this argument, then you already acknowledge that it is not a matter of black and white morality, but a matter of taking the impact of an action into account when judging it. From a medical standpoint, all pregnancies have an impact to the health of the mother, and there are many negatives to the long term health of the mother which arise from carrying a fetus to term and delivery. It is far safer to get a first trimester abortion than to go through with the pregnancy, so depending on how you weigh your values, all abortion could be justified as a form of self-preservation on the account of the mother.

Sounds like a last ditch effort, when all other arguments have failed.

If I were ever in a burning building, and standing before me was a crying five-year-old girl and a canister of 100 frozen, viable embryos, and I could only save one, I would save the girl. And so would you. So would anybody with a modicum of decency.

Another non realistic, hypothetical, ridiculous argument, on par with your carpet seeds argument.

To paraphrase Bill Clinton (try to refrain from the ad-hominem attacks please ), I believe abortions should be safe, legal, and rare.

We have already established that a successful abortion, is murder. So, with that being said, how is any successful abortion, safe? During abortions, on average over 50% of the people directly involved with the procedure, die. Seems pretty unsafe to me.
Pierson, you seem like an intelligent person, who can understand reason. Why don't you see it now?

BavarianWheels wrote:

Pierson5 wrote:Are you assuming there are no theists who are pro-choice, or no atheists who are pro-life?

Pro-Choice Christian here. As it has to do with secular society and civil rights therein, I am pro-choice.

Bav, I seem to remember a discussion back in September 2010, where you and Kurieuo were discussing this subject. I also seem to recall how weak your arguments were. Here's the thread, for reference:http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... 542#p87542

RickD wrote:

BavarianWheels wrote:

Pierson5 wrote:Are you assuming there are no theists who are pro-choice, or no atheists who are pro-life?

Pro-Choice Christian here. As it has to do with secular society and civil rights therein, I am pro-choice.

Bav, I seem to remember a discussion back in September 2010, where you and Kurieuo were discussing this subject. I also seem to recall how weak your arguments were. Here's the thread, for reference:http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... 542#p87542

Weak or not, it is my stance not an argument.

BavarianWheels wrote:

RickD wrote:

BavarianWheels wrote:

Pierson5 wrote:Are you assuming there are no theists who are pro-choice, or no atheists who are pro-life?

Pro-Choice Christian here. As it has to do with secular society and civil rights therein, I am pro-choice.

Bav, I seem to remember a discussion back in September 2010, where you and Kurieuo were discussing this subject. I also seem to recall how weak your arguments were. Here's the thread, for reference:http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... 542#p87542

Weak or not, it is my stance not an argument.

Sorry. I should have said that your stance doesn't have a leg to stand on.

RickD wrote:

BavarianWheels wrote:

RickD wrote:

BavarianWheels wrote:

Pierson5 wrote:Are you assuming there are no theists who are pro-choice, or no atheists who are pro-life?

Pro-Choice Christian here. As it has to do with secular society and civil rights therein, I am pro-choice.

Bav, I seem to remember a discussion back in September 2010, where you and Kurieuo were discussing this subject. I also seem to recall how weak your arguments were. Here's the thread, for reference:http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... 542#p87542

Weak or not, it is my stance not an argument.

Sorry. I should have said that your stance doesn't have a leg to stand on.

It stands, sits, lays, rolls, scoots...whatever it does, it is a stance.

It stands, sits, lays, rolls, scoots...whatever it does, it is a stance.

I bet it rolls in a BMW.

RickD wrote: In your argument, the rapist, as well as the unborn child should be punished for his crime? Let's see...Maybe according to you, for now on, whenever a man rapes a woman,the rape victim should have the right to go to the rapist's house and drag off his children and kill them too. After all, punishing the rapist's child, by killing him, is what you say we should be able to choose to do.

etc... etc.. etc....

You are picking apart small pieces of my examples and missing the big picture.

1. Why is it different than murdering born humans? We've been over this, many, many times. Born babies aren't violating a person's autonomy. Every time you decide to quote me on something, you leave that out of the argument. I agree, we should try to save life, which is why I am against outlawing abortion. I feel like I'm a broken record here...

2. Rapists children.... The rapist's children already being born don't have any effect on the victims bodily autonomy, they aren't even in the equation. How could this possibly be a convincing argument?

3. No basis for morality. We can discuss that later in the thread I have in "God and Science." Red herring, etc..

4. Comparing unborn baby to a tumor. NO! You missed the entire point. It was an argument in regards to the consenting patient. (i.e. Mother consenting for abortion, patient consenting to removing a tumor). Do I really need to spell these things out?

5. We are dealing with reality. Fair enough. I thought it was a decent analogy, as it takes into consideration birth control and violating autonomy, it's very cut and dry. But feel free not to use it, I feel my other arguments are plenty strong.

6. Killing someone in self defense is not murder. Killing someone in self defense is taking a life and making it dead. If you say it is not murder, than I retract my previous statement where I said that abortion was, by definition, murder. We are getting into semantics here and it's irrelevant. Self defense/abortion/murder etc.. I was using them in the sense of taking a life, and ending it.

7. Last ditch effort. Or not. It's simply another argument on top of my other ones in response to what the previous poster said. But good job dodging it

8. Point still stands. If you were in a burning building with viable embryos (say in a lab) and a 5 year old girl, which you could only save one. It's obvious which you would save. It is possible. Again, it's an analogy to address a point, feel free to leave it at that.

9. Bringing up "murder" again. I've addressed this before. It's not black and white as you are making it out to be. You can say 50% of people die from it. Well, like I pointed out before, making it illegal brings that number up. Is that really what you want? Feel free to address the rest of that paragraph.

RickD you seem like an intelligent person, who can understand reason. Why don't you see your solution only causes more harm, where mine saves lives?

1. Why is it different than murdering born humans? We've been over this, many, many times. Born babies aren't violating a person's autonomy

Pierson, here's an article about how the autonomy argument fails. Please see if it makes any sense to you.

http://journal.equip.org/articles/suffe ... nomy-fails

2. Rapists children.... The rapist's children already being born don't have any effect on the victims bodily autonomy, they aren't even in the equation. How could this possibly be a convincing argument?

As for the autonomy issue, see above. The argument is made because the unborn baby is being punished by death, for the father's crime(pregnancy by rape). The only difference, is that the person being killed is in a different location.(in utero, or ex utero)

3. No basis for morality. We can discuss that later in the thread I have in "God and Science." Red herring, etc..

No basis for objective morality. Not subjective.

4. Comparing unborn baby to a tumor. NO! You missed the entire point. It was an argument in regards to the consenting patient.

This sounds like a baby/tumor comparison, by the way you worded it:

A physician can't operate on someone without their consent. The same argument could be said about a doctor discovering a patient has a tumor. It's up to the patient if they want it removed or not, not the physician. This scenario obviously has some flaws.

5. We are dealing with reality. Fair enough. I thought it was a decent analogy, as it takes into consideration birth control and violating autonomy, it's very cut and dry. But feel free not to use it, I feel my other arguments are plenty strong.

Good, we'll throw away the carpet seeds analogy.

6. Killing someone in self defense is not murder. Killing someone in self defense is taking a life and making it dead. If you say it is not murder, than I retract my previous statement where I said that abortion was, by definition, murder. We are getting into semantics here and it's irrelevant. Self defense/abortion/murder etc.. I was using them in the sense of taking a life, and ending it.

I thought we were making progress. You really fail to see the difference between murder and self defense?

7. Last ditch effort. Or not. It's simply another argument on top of my other ones in response to what the previous poster said. But good job dodging it

I wasn't dodging it. Do a little research, and see how many abortions are performed to save the life of the mother. It's such a small number, that it's really almost irrelevant to even mention it.

8. Point still stands. If you were in a burning building with viable embryos (say in a lab) and a 5 year old girl, which you could only save one. It's obvious which you would save. It is possible. Again, it's an analogy to address a point, feel free to leave it at that.

Another non realistic situation, like the carpet seeds analogy. So, we'll leave it alone.

9. Bringing up "murder" again. I've addressed this before. It's not black and white as you are making it out to be. You can say 50% of people die from it. Well, like I pointed out before, making it illegal brings that number up. Is that really what you want? Feel free to address the rest of that paragraph.

You have not proven that making abortion illegal will mean more abortions. I disagree.

RickD you seem like an intelligent person, who can understand reason. Why don't you see your solution only causes more harm, where mine saves lives?

"Making abortion illegal will lead to more abortions, so lets keep abortion legal, to save lives."
I think you have a winner there, Pierson. Why don't you go with that, and perhaps make a bumper sticker with that. Just read that, and tell me if you honestly think that is logical. Actually, you don't even need to tell me. Just be honest with yourself.

RickD wrote:
http://journal.equip.org/articles/suffe ... nomy-fails

I'll take a look at it later (I'm off to class). But if it's just on the violinist argument, I didn't use it because I know it has some flaws.

As I mentioned when I first defined (loosely I'll admit) murder, I said "it is taking a life and making it dead." I did that so we wouldn't have to get into the whole semantics thing (obviously that failed )

Even though the number of abortions done in order to save lives is a small number, I've said before just because it's a minority, doesn't mean we should ignore this group (just like rape victims).

I never said making it illegal would increase the number of abortions performed. I gave you the data. The numbers stay consistent. The other lives at risk I was referring to was that of the mother's, which seem to get ignored for some reason. Keeping it legal wasn't the only part of my solution. Read it again. I strongly emphasize sexual education. (look back at the Clinton paraphrase).

Pierson, I'll leave you with one thing to think about. If abortion was made illegal, in the U.S., with the threat of prosecution, or revoking the doctors license, most doctors would cease performing abortions. Would you agree? That alone would decrease the number of abortions, thereby decreasing the number of deaths. With abortion being illegal, and more education(sex education, and education showing the living human being inside), more women would probably opt for adoption, or better yet, raising the child herself.

I love this picture. There's not much cuter than baby's feet.

RickD wrote:Pierson, I'll leave you with one thing to think about. If abortion was made illegal, in the U.S., with the threat of prosecution, or revoking the doctors license, most doctors would cease performing abortions. Would you agree? That alone would decrease the number of abortions, thereby decreasing the number of deaths. With abortion being illegal, and more education(sex education, and education showing the living human being inside), more women would probably opt for adoption, or better yet, raising the child herself.

It sounds like a solid hypothesis, unfortunately when we take a look at other countries, it just isn't so. I will agree with you that babies are adorable, I held my newborn baby brother for the first time yesterday

Are they not violating bodily autonomy? They are using part of another person's body in order to live. If there is a better way to word it, let me know. If you are trying to convince someone their argument is weak, provide a stronger argument. If you can show me a better argument or solution, I would gladly change my mind. Calling me names doesn't help your cause (and isn't very Christian of you ).

Of course the rapist is punished, I never proposed that they weren't. As far as taking the pregnancy to term, again that's for the mother to decide. I never said she shouldn't/wouldn't love the child or anything else you mentioned. The only thing I was saying, is that abortion should be a choice. If she wants to keep the child, that's her choice and I'm perfectly fine with it

Violating? No. That is a ridiculous assesment. I challenge you to survey mothers and ask how many felt pregnancy was an invasion. I don't know, maybe you weren't held enough as a child.
I don't see how you've establised that abortion should be a choice. That the autonomy of the mother privleges her to destroy an unborn person. Unless perhaps you could provide a stronger argument that the being inside her is not a person at some stage of development. Of course you would be fighting a losing battle as all science and evidence shows us that the being inside is always a person. All you need to prove me wrong is one example where an embryo resulted in the birth of non-human. Good luck.

8. Point still stands. If you were in a burning building with viable embryos (say in a lab) and a 5 year old girl, which you could only save one. It's obvious which you would save. It is possible. Again, it's an analogy to address a point, feel free to leave it at that.

Again, a dilema. Dilema's don't prove anything. I guess we could ask, what if it was a 2 month old child, or a pre-term newborn baby that was delivered two months early, or an elderly person with only 6 months to live. Which one???? The fact that saving either child over the nearly dead adult might be an easier decision doesn't really prove anything. Only that sometimes there is no good or perfect outcome.

Regarding murder. You are right, at least in one sense, that it is a matter of semantics. As i think few women abort their unborn child thinking it's murder. I don't think they are being malicious. Ignorant? Perhaps. Some I think are culpable because they know in their heart that what is in them is a life, and they simply are taking an easy way out. Now, when we look at the evidence, as you have, you still say, "It's a choice." I can only assume that you see the foot, and the child it beongs toyou see in that picture is an invader. And you think that a doctor should be able to "invade" (literally) the womb of the mother, partially deliver the child, rip open the back of the head, suck out the brains, collaspe the skull, and finish delivery of the now dead child.

Just as I don't think a person who kills someone in self-defense is being malicious. However self-defense is probably not a good analogy, because justifiable homicide has to do with the intent of the attacker. The person killed's intent was to harm or kill. An unborn person is perfectly innocent, not to mention totally helpless. I think one of the greatest virtues is to defend the helpless and innocent? How about you? Children do not enjoy full privelges of citizenship until they are 18 years old. But do they enhoy equal protection under the law? (At least in the USA) So, it really is an issue of personhood. We know that an embryo, fetus, etc. is a human at some stage of development.

The fact is that abortions aren't rare. Why? Because many if not the majority do not recognize the personhood of the unborn. Out of sight, out of mind. Partial birth abortion is indefensible, yet remains legal because people value choice (whatever the hell that means) over life.

jlay wrote: Violating? No. That is a ridiculous assesment. I challenge you to survey mothers and ask how many felt pregnancy was an invasion.

I never said anything about invasion, and don't think the 2 words are synonymous. If you are using someone else's body to live, be it an adult, child, or fetus, and the individual doesn't want you there, are you not violating their bodily autonomy?

jlay wrote:I don't know, maybe you weren't held enough as a child.

You are proposing a solution which has shown not to work, and arguing against the one that saves lives. How is this rational? I don't know, maybe you weren't held enough as a child...
As you can see, these comments are not necessary. I'm not sure, are trying to invoke an emotional response or are you naturally this disrespectful? Again, these types of comments add nothing to the discussion. If you want to persuade me to change my mind, you are going to have to do better than personal insults.

jlay wrote:I don't see how you've establised that abortion should be a choice. That the autonomy of the mother privleges her to destroy an unborn person. Unless perhaps you could provide a stronger argument that the being inside her is not a person at some stage of development. Of course you would be fighting a losing battle as all science and evidence shows us that the being inside is always a person. All you need to prove me wrong is one example where an embryo resulted in the birth of non-human. Good luck.

Irrelevant. I've been making my arguments from the very beginning (giving you the benefit of the doubt) assuming it was a person so we wouldn't have to get into this.

jlay wrote:Again, a dilema. Dilema's don't prove anything. I guess we could ask, what if it was a 2 month old child, or a pre-term newborn baby that was delivered two months early, or an elderly person with only 6 months to live. Which one???? The fact that saving either child over the nearly dead adult might be an easier decision doesn't really prove anything. Only that sometimes there is no good or perfect outcome.

This example was merely to address a moral issue. The "dilema" clearly shows that we value the life of the living person over that of a fetus. This is also apparent in problem pregnancies.

jlay wrote:Regarding murder. You are right, at least in one sense, that it is a matter of semantics. As i think few women abort their unborn child thinking it's murder. I don't think they are being malicious. Ignorant? Perhaps. Some I think are culpable because they know in their heart that what is in them is a life, and they simply are taking an easy way out. Now, when we look at the evidence, as you have, you still say, "It's a choice." I can only assume that you see the foot, and the child it beongs toyou see in that picture is an invader. And you think that a doctor should be able to "invade" (literally) the womb of the mother, partially deliver the child, rip open the back of the head, suck out the brains, collaspe the skull, and finish delivery of the now dead child.

Just as I don't think a person who kills someone in self-defense is being malicious. However self-defense is probably not a good analogy, because justifiable homicide has to do with the intent of the attacker. The person killed's intent was to harm or kill. An unborn person is perfectly innocent, not to mention totally helpless. I think one of the greatest virtues is to defend the helpless and innocent? How about you? Children do not enjoy full privelges of citizenship until they are 18 years old. But do they enhoy equal protection under the law? (At least in the USA) So, it really is an issue of personhood. We know that an embryo, fetus, etc. is a human at some stage of development.

If someone is intending to do harm to someone else or not, is not the issue. If that person is harming the other, the other has the right to defend themselves (problem pregnancy is a prime example of this).

You mention children protected under the law and compare the same reasoning to a fetus. Again, I strongly encourage you to read Roe vs. Wade, this has been settled. (For this specific issue, scroll down to IX - A, a little further down they mention the issue of when life begins and person-hood, to address your issues above)

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/h ... 13_ZO.html

jlay wrote:The fact is that abortions aren't rare. Why? Because many if not the majority do not recognize the personhood of the unborn. Out of sight, out of mind. Partial birth abortion is indefensible, yet remains legal because people value choice (whatever the hell that means) over life.

Abortions aren't rare, why? I don't agree with your answer. Sex education and contraception is the answer, as has been shown, when these are introduced into the equation, abortion rates go down. A major supplier of these services is Planned Parenthood.

I do think abortion should be a choice, do I morally agree with it? No.
I think organ donation should be a choice. When people refuse to be an organ donor, do I morally agree with it? No.

Abortion remains legal for a variety of reasons. It's not just choice vs. life. It's not that simple (again, see Roe vs. Wade). I value life, which is why I'm so adamant about getting my point across. If you want to prevent abortions, you make sure everyone has health care, a high school education, sex education, birth control, counseling and genuine efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies and support child-rearing. We need to work toward safe and affordable day care and health care for children and toward generous workplace policies, including adequate family leave, so that parenthood is not an onerous and difficult prospect in America. Working on real issues that actually support the family values "pro-lifers" say they hold so dear is one way to stop abortions. There are many ways to reduce the number of abortions performed. Criminalization isn't one of them. Instead of focusing on punishment, pick any of these other solutions and focus on them.