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pro-life[W:1119]

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Shmuel Wyckoff

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The only question up for debate when discussing abortion is whether a fetus is a human life. If a fetus is a human life then you have no right to kill it. The most consistent pro-life position is that life begins at conception. Once the child is conceived, it has different DNA from the mother, has a predetermined blood type that is separate from the mother, and is a completely separate being than the mother. What must first be established is that life begins at any time when the baby is in the womb rather than after it has exited the birth canal. If a baby has already been in the womb for nine months and is fully viable, but will be born overdue, what is the difference between that baby in the womb 5 minutes before it is born and 5 minutes after it is born? Obviously life can be established when the baby is still in the womb. If it is true that life begins at sometime during the pregnancy and not after birth, then the belief that life begins at conception is the most consistent position because anytime there is a line drawn during the pregnancy that rules the fetus as not a life, that line can be applied to adults. For example, if it is to be established that life begins at viability, then what would be the problem with killing people who are on life support? If the start of a heartbeat is established as the beginning of life, then what would be the problem with killing people who rely on artificial devices to keep up their heartbeat? The most consistent position is that life begins at conception.

The libertarian argument against abortion is compelling but flawed. The best pro-choice argument that I have heard is that even though a fetus is a human life the government should not be enforcing 'positive obligations' on women. The 'positive obligations' being the fact that the mother has to spend more money on different types of care and a different diet. This argument is flawed because the only way for the mother to relieve herself of these 'positive obligations' is to actively terminate a human life. Surely the government has the right to mandate that people not actively kill others even if there will be a 'positive obligation' enforced by the government.

A weaker pro-choice argument is that if the mother can't afford to raise a child she should be allowed to have an abortion. This is not valid because she can just transfer custody of the baby to adoptive parents or child protective services. Also the mother's right to not spend money does not trump the baby's right to life.

The only case in which an abortion would be ethical is when the baby is a direct threat to the mother's life. An abortion in this case is moral because the very existence of the baby threatens the mother's life and the baby should be legally viewed as potential murderer.
 
Re: pro-life

I would argue your premise that if it is a human life you have no right to kill it is flawed.

Nature isn't neat and tidy, and when it comes to pregnancy, there is a conflict because you have a fetus growing inside the body of another person. The fetus and mother just cannot have equal rights due to how mammals reproduce. We ultimately have to bodge together a compromise, and that compromise is that the mother's rights trump the fetus's rights up until the point of viability, and then the fetus's rights trump the mother's rights.
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
The only question up for debate when discussing abortion is whether a fetus is a human life.
Click to expand...
IGNORANTLY AND/OR STUPIDLY FALSE See the Constitution! It uses the word "person" throughout, and doesn't use the word "human" even once. Therefore "person rights" matter, not the Stupendously Idiotic Prejudice of "human rights" (which would automatically deny rights to all the non-human intelligent beings in the Universe, including these).

ALSO, you appear to be ignorant of what "human life" actually is. Here, educate yourself! And then look up "hydatidiform mole", which is 100% alive and 100% human and even originates in an ovum-fertilization event, just like an ordinary human fetus --except not even the most vehement of abortion opponents will insist that that entity deserves "human rights". Which therefore more means "human-ness" is totally irrlelvant to the Overall Abortion Debate.
 
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Re: pro-life

I did say that if the mother's life is in danger then an abortion would be appropriate. In every other case the only rights that the mother is losing due to pregnancy is convenience while the fetus could potentially lose its right to life. I don't see how the mother's right to convenience trumps the fetus's right to life.
 
Re: pro-life

I don't see the point in arguing over word choice because 'person' and 'human' are synonymous. All people are humans and all humans are people. Advocating for 'human rights doesn't mean that you believe that all non-humans don't have any rights at all. All you are advocating for are rights exclusive to humans. As to your link about how most cells in our body are bacterial in nature my question to you would be that if your rationale is that those cells are not human, then what would be wrong with me forcibly removing all those bacterial cells from your body and only leaving your 'human' cells? I would also really like to hear your position (with rationale behind that position) on abortion.
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
I did say that if the mother's life is in danger then an abortion would be appropriate. In every other case the only rights that the mother is losing due to pregnancy is convenience while the fetus could potentially lose its right to life. I don't see how the mother's right to convenience trumps the fetus's right to life.
Click to expand...

What the mother loses after the legal abortion limit is not just convenience; it's health, bodily autonomy, future financial constraints, and the rest of her life is fundamentally altered. Her rights trump the 'rights' of a fetus that is not capable of self-survival. Once the fetus is capable of surviving outside the body, it's rights trump the mother's.

You need to explain why a group of 2 cells - a zygote with no brain, conciousness, blood or heart has more rights than an adult woman.

A fetus doesn't have a right to life (legally) before the legal cut-off period.
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
I don't see the point in arguing over word choice because 'person' and 'human' are synonymous.
Click to expand...
ONLY IN THE MINDS OF STUPIDLY PREJUDICED ABORTION OPPONENTS. The world's population has been getting educated for decades, per science fiction novels and movies, that the two concepts have nothing to do with each other. And one consequence is, India has formally recognized dolphins as being "non human persons". Humans have been imagining non-human person-class entities for thousands of years, from angels to elves to extraterrestrial alien intelligent beings.

FOR MORE PROOF that the concepts of "human" and "person" have nothing to do with each other, I already mentioned hydatidiform moles. There is no abortion opponent anywhere who will insist that those 100% human and 100% alive entities are also persons.

FOR EVEN MORE PROOF, you should study brain-dead adult humans on full life-support. When brain-death is verified, no mistake possible, at that time a Formal Death Certificate is filled out. Keep in mind that all the rest of that adult human body is still alive, only the brain is dead. Nevertheless, the doctors and the scientists and even the lawyers agree that the person is dead, despite almost all of the adult human body still being alive.

FOR FINAL PROOF, just Answer this simple Question: "If you were visiting a modern well-equipped medical laboratory, and some madman with a machete cut your head off in an attempt to murder you, but rescuers arrived in time, would you want them to save your headless human body, or save your severed head, to save YOU-the-person?" See? A person is a mind, not a body! And that's why the two concepts, "human" and "person" have absolutely nothing to do with each other. That's why non-humans can qualify as persons (including future True Artificial Intelligences). And that's why hydatidiform moles and various other 100% human entities, like our unborn, totally fail to qualify as persons.

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
All people are humans and all humans are people.
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STUPIDLY FALSE. As explained in detail above.

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
Advocating for 'human rights" doesn't mean that you believe that all non-humans don't have any rights at all.
Click to expand...
IT MEANS YOU HAVE TO GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT VARIOUS NON-HUMANS MIGHT DESERVE RIGHTS. A focus on "personhood" however, means that so long as an entity can qualify as a person, the type of body it has doesn't matter in the slightest. Very generic! Very inclusive. And not at all as Stupidly Prejudiced as abortion opponents.

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
All you are advocating for are rights exclusive to humans.
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AN OUTRIGHT LIE. It is abortion opponents advocating rights exclusive to humans, because they they are the ones often insisting that only humans can be persons --mostly because of Religious idiocy (I bet if we ever encountered betentacled aliens claiming to be "made in God's image", a holy war would get started, by Stupidly Prejudiced humans).

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
As to your link about how most cells in our body are bacterial in nature
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90% OF YOUR CELLS ARE ACTUALLY BACTERIA. They are not human. The rest of your body's cells are human, however, but are also not quite the same as "similar to bacteria". Bacteria are "prokaryote" organisms, while human cells are "eukaryote" organisms, rather more complex than bacterial cells. Please keep the Facts straight!

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
my question to you would be that if your rationale is that those cells are not human,
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SEE ABOVE. 90% of your body's cells are indeed totally non-human. Only 10% or so are human, mostly co-existing in symbiosis with the non-human cells (can't survive without them).

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
then what would be wrong with me forcibly removing all those bacterial cells from your body and only leaving your 'human' cells?
Click to expand...
SEE ABOVE. You cannot survive without your complement of nonhuman bacterial cells. They are a major part of your body's immune system, for one thing.

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
I would also really like to hear your position (with rationale behind that position) on abortion.
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THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ABORTION IN THIS DAY-AND-AGE. Simple! In a different day-and-age, in which the total human population was so small as to be threatened with extinction from a too-small gene pool, under those circumstances it could be Objectively sensible to ban abortion. But no such circumstance applies, in this day-and-age.
 
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Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
I did say that if the mother's life is in danger then an abortion would be appropriate. In every other case the only rights that the mother is losing due to pregnancy is convenience while the fetus could potentially lose its right to life. I don't see how the mother's right to convenience trumps the fetus's right to life.
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YOU ARE MAKING AN ERRONEOUS ASSUMPTION. Why do you think a human fetus deserves a right to live? "just because it is human" Is Stupid Prejudice. You wouldn't say "a bear deserves to live just because it is a bear", would you? It is because you wouldn't say such a thing, that you exhibit Stupid Prejudice when you say something similar about human entities. DO remember that a hydatidiform mole is 100% human, but not even you would insist it must survive. And therefore "human" is not the decisive factor! Only personhood matters, as I've previously pointed out.
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
The only question up for debate when discussing abortion is whether a fetus is a human life.
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If it was really that simple, the issue would have been resolve years ago. For the people actually involved, that is far from the only question.

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
If a fetus is a human life then you have no right to kill it.
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What is your position on execution, suicide (assisted and not), turning off life support or killing in warfare? Are you really asserting that no human should ever be killed unless it’s in direct defence of another human life?

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
The most consistent pro-life position is that life begins at conception.
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What about abortion in the time between conception and foetus coming in to being?

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
The libertarian argument against abortion is compelling but flawed.
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Are you making the all too common assumption that this is a binary question, whith only two possible answers of no abortion (other than to save the mother’s life) or completely free choice?

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
The only case in which an abortion would be ethical is when the baby is a direct threat to the mother's life. An abortion in this case is moral because the very existence of the baby threatens the mother's life and the baby should be legally viewed as potential murderer.
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What if the threat to the mother is permanent injury short of death? What if there is a significant risk of the mother’s death but no guarantee or if abortion doesn’t guarantee the mother would be saved? What if real life wasn’t as clean and simple as we’d all like to imagine it to be?
 
Re: pro-life

I would seriously suggest you reflect on if you are spending your time wisely if you are learning about science through movies and fantasy books. Just because the Indian government recognized dolphins as 'people' doesn't mean that non-humans can be people. And to your claim about hydatidiforms (I didn't bother clicking on that link), that doesn't negate the humanity of the fetus. I asked you why I can't forcibly remove the bacterial cells from your body. Your answer: I can't survive without them. Then why is it ok to do that to a fetus? why should you be allowed to kill a fetus if it has LEGITIMATE HUMAN CELLS?
 
Re: pro-life

I understand that abortion is very complicated and complicates the lives of those involved. I'm just making the moral argument. And yes it is binary because if a fetus is a human life you have no right to kill it, and if it is just a random cluster of cells with no moral value then a woman should be able to do whatever she wants with it.
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
The only question up for debate when discussing abortion is whether a fetus is a human life. If a fetus is a human life then you have no right to kill it. The most consistent pro-life position is that life begins at conception. Once the child is conceived, it has different DNA from the mother, has a predetermined blood type that is separate from the mother, and is a completely separate being than the mother. What must first be established is that life begins at any time when the baby is in the womb rather than after it has exited the birth canal. If a baby has already been in the womb for nine months and is fully viable, but will be born overdue, what is the difference between that baby in the womb 5 minutes before it is born and 5 minutes after it is born? Obviously life can be established when the baby is still in the womb. If it is true that life begins at sometime during the pregnancy and not after birth, then the belief that life begins at conception is the most consistent position because anytime there is a line drawn during the pregnancy that rules the fetus as not a life, that line can be applied to adults. For example, if it is to be established that life begins at viability, then what would be the problem with killing people who are on life support? If the start of a heartbeat is established as the beginning of life, then what would be the problem with killing people who rely on artificial devices to keep up their heartbeat? The most consistent position is that life begins at conception.

The libertarian argument against abortion is compelling but flawed. The best pro-choice argument that I have heard is that even though a fetus is a human life the government should not be enforcing 'positive obligations' on women. The 'positive obligations' being the fact that the mother has to spend more money on different types of care and a different diet. This argument is flawed because the only way for the mother to relieve herself of these 'positive obligations' is to actively terminate a human life. Surely the government has the right to mandate that people not actively kill others even if there will be a 'positive obligation' enforced by the government.

A weaker pro-choice argument is that if the mother can't afford to raise a child she should be allowed to have an abortion. This is not valid because she can just transfer custody of the baby to adoptive parents or child protective services. Also the mother's right to not spend money does not trump the baby's right to life.

The only case in which an abortion would be ethical is when the baby is a direct threat to the mother's life. An abortion in this case is moral because the very existence of the baby threatens the mother's life and the baby should be legally viewed as potential murderer.
Click to expand...

Wrong.

The only question is if the unborn have rights under our Constitution and SCOTUS has answered that question. The unborn have no rights.
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
I understand that abortion is very complicated and complicates the lives of those involved. I'm just making the moral argument. And yes it is binary because if a fetus is a human life you have no right to kill it, and if it is just a random cluster of cells with no moral value then a woman should be able to do whatever she wants with it.
Click to expand...

It's not binary, which is why the mother's rights take priority at the beginning of the pregnancy, and the fetus's rights take priority at the end of the pregnancy. It's a compromise to try and get round the fact that the mother and fetus cannot have be equal due to nature.
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
The only question up for debate when discussing abortion is whether a fetus is a human life.
Click to expand...

Too long, didnt read. THis is all I needed to see ^^^

Basic human development...biology...tells us that the unborn is human, Homo sapiens, with human DNA.

And is alive. So that is not up for debate.

Your opinions on when 'it's ethical' are just that.

And btw, in the US there are over 100,000 kids awaiting adoption now. And millions in foster homes.

How ethical is it to add more kids unnecessarily and thus take away further the chances those kids will get homes?
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
I understand that abortion is very complicated and complicates the lives of those involved. I'm just making the moral argument. And yes it is binary because if a fetus is a human life you have no right to kill it, and if it is just a random cluster of cells with no moral value then a woman should be able to do whatever she wants with it.
Click to expand...

If you think the mother's will should be overcome to give birth, you do not value both equally. You are valuing the unborn over women.

How is that moral? How is valuing the unborn more than women moral?

(And they cannot be treated equally under the law. Nor morally)
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
I did say that if the mother's life is in danger then an abortion would be appropriate. In every other case the only rights that the mother is losing due to pregnancy is convenience while the fetus could potentially lose its right to life. I don't see how the mother's right to convenience trumps the fetus's right to life.
Click to expand...

Hmm. Are you claiming that the entirety of a person's life is nothing more than a string of conveniences?

Is that what you taught your kids or will teach them? THat finishing school is just a 'convenience?' THat not going to college or developing a trade is just a 'convenience?' That never getting beyond a subsistence job instead of developing a career is just a 'convenience?' Is going on public assistance when you cant afford to have a kid, taking taxpayers' $$, just a 'convenience?' Is not being able to afford safe housing for your family, or to care for ALL your dependents, just a 'convenience?' How about this: is not reaching your potential and contributing less to society, just a 'convenience?'

Well, if you hold your own life so cheaply, that's your choice. I value mine more.

But if you do believe that life is nothing more than just a bunch of conveniences strung together...why would it be more important for the unborn to achieve it than women?
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
I would seriously suggest you reflect on if you are spending your time wisely
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ALREADY DONE, FOR THE MOST PART. I've been studying anti-abortion arguments for years, and none of them hold water. Here's a list I put together.


Shmuel Wyckoff said:
if you are learning about science through movies and fantasy books.
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NOPE. But movies and books are great at popularizing science. At telling millions of folks Basic Facts. Like pointing out it is Stupid Prejudice to think only humans can be persons. TRY THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX: Will an alien civilization have a concept equivalent to "person"? What if they think only their kind can qualify, eh? Here's one likely result of that! That is, if you think it is OK to be Stupidly Prejudiced in favor of humans, they can think it is exactly as OK for them to be Stupidly Prejudiced in favor of themselves. (Thereby proving Stupid Prejudice is always, always Total Idiocy.)

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
Just because the Indian government recognized dolphins as 'people' doesn't mean that non-humans can be people.
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STUPIDLY AND PREJUDICIALLY FALSE. There is absolutely nothing about the concept of "person" that requires limiting its membership to humans. And so the United Nations, not just India, is quite willing to negotiate with any non-human persons that might happen to visit our world.

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
And to your claim about hydatidiforms (I didn't bother clicking on that link), that doesn't negate the humanity of the fetus.
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TOTALLY NOT THE POINT. The point is that human-ness is irrelevant, and you have absolutely no way of proving that human-ness is relevant. Remember the Constitution? Which uses the word "person" throughout, and doesn't use the word "human" even once?

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
I asked you why I can't forcibly remove the bacterial cells from your body. Your answer: I can't survive without them.
Click to expand...
YOU WOULD BE COMMITTING MURDER, the deliberate killing of a person, even though the means would be indirect.

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
Then why is it ok to do that to a fetus?
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DON'T MIX APPLES AND ORANGES. All the cells of a human fetus are 100% human. Bacterial symbiosis only starts happening after birth, and takes a while for bacteria to constitute 90% of all the cells in an average human body.

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
why should you be allowed to kill a fetus if it has LEGITIMATE HUMAN CELLS?
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BECAUSE IT IS IN NO SENSE A PERSON. Human-ness is still totally irrelevant! As I pointed out in another message, a person is a mind, not a body. The mind of an unborn human, even minutes before birth, is purely animal-level. If you insist that that level of mentality qualifies for personhood, you would also have to grant personhood to a whole lot of other ordinary animals, including cats and dogs and pigs and goats and horses and lots more.
 
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Re: pro-life

FutureIncoming said:
ONLY IN THE MINDS OF STUPIDLY PREJUDICED ABORTION OPPONENTS. The world's population has been getting educated for decades, per science fiction novels and movies, that the two concepts have nothing to do with each other. And one consequence is, India has formally recognized dolphins as being "non human persons". Humans have been imagining non-human person-class entities for thousands of years, from angels to elves to extraterrestrial alien intelligent beings.

FOR MORE PROOF that the concepts of "human" and "person" have nothing to do with each other, I already mentioned hydatidiform moles. There is no abortion opponent anywhere who will insist that those 100% human and 100% alive entities are also persons.

FOR EVEN MORE PROOF, you should study brain-dead adult humans on full life-support. When brain-death is verified, no mistake possible, at that time a Formal Death Certificate is filled out. Keep in mind that all the rest of that adult human body is still alive, only the brain is dead. Nevertheless, the doctors and the scientists and even the lawyers agree that the person is dead, despite almost all of the adult human body still being alive.

FOR FINAL PROOF, just Answer this simple Question: "If you were visiting a modern well-equipped medical laboratory, and some madman with a machete cut your head off in an attempt to murder you, but rescuers arrived in time, would you want them to save your headless human body, or save your severed head, to save YOU-the-person?" See? A person is a mind, not a body! And that's why the two concepts, "human" and "person" have absolutely nothing to do with each other. That's why non-humans can qualify as persons (including future True Artificial Intelligences). And that's why hydatidiform moles and various other 100% human entities, like our unborn, totally fail to qualify as persons.


STUPIDLY FALSE. As explained in detail above.


IT MEANS YOU HAVE TO GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT VARIOUS NON-HUMANS MIGHT DESERVE RIGHTS. A focus on "personhood" however, means that so long as an entity can qualify as a person, the type of body it has doesn't matter in the slightest. Very generic! Very inclusive. And not at all as Stupidly Prejudiced as abortion opponents.


AN OUTRIGHT LIE. It is abortion opponents advocating rights exclusive to humans, because they they are the ones often insisting that only humans can be persons --mostly because of Religious idiocy (I bet if we ever encountered betentacled aliens claiming to be "made in God's image", a holy war would get started, by Stupidly Prejudiced humans).


90% OF YOUR CELLS ARE ACTUALLY BACTERIA. They are not human. The rest of your body's cells are human, however, but are also not quite the same as "similar to bacteria". Bacteria are "prokaryote" organisms, while human cells are "eukaryote" organisms, rather more complex than bacterial cells. Please keep the Facts straight!


SEE ABOVE. 90% of your body's cells are indeed totally non-human. Only 10% or so are human, mostly co-existing in symbiosis with the non-human cells (can't survive without them).


SEE ABOVE. You cannot survive without your complement of nonhuman bacterial cells. They are a major part of your body's immune system, for one thing.


THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ABORTION IN THIS DAY-AND-AGE. Simple! In a different day-and-age, in which the total human population was so small as to be threatened with extinction from a too-small gene pool, under those circumstances it could be Objectively sensible to ban abortion. But no such circumstance applies, in this day-and-age.
Click to expand...

You are killing it. I feel like, with you around, I almost don't even need to say anything...which....makes abortion threads much easier, lol.
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
I understand that abortion is very complicated and complicates the lives of those involved.
Click to expand...
TRUE.

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
I'm just making the moral argument.
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NOPE; YOU ARE BLATHERING MORE IDIOCY. Because "morals" are Provably Arbitrary, and therefore are Objectively Worthless. Every single thing ever called "moral" or "immoral" was Arbitrarily declared to be such, with no explanation as to why. You can prove this to yourself just by visiting a bunch of different cultures, and asking whether or not drinking alcohol is moral, or eating pork, or if it is OK for a woman's head to be uncovered. (And therefore cannibals went around thinking that what they did was just fine.)

NOW CONSIDER ETHICS. It has a chance of being Objectively Valid, and, better, Universally Applicable. And it's not going to accommodate idiocy. If something is wrong with abortion, there will be an Objective rationale, not worthless/unsupported say-so. Except The Fact Is, there isn't anything wrong with abortion in this day-and-age. Period.

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
And yes it is binary because if a fetus is a human life you have no right to kill it,
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STUPIDLY FALSE. A human fetus is indeed human life, every time, but its owner (the mother) always has the right to kill it, as a matter of self-defense from no less than 4 kinds of assault. Only personhood matters, remember?

FURTHERMORE, remember the living adult human body on life-support after brain-death? According to you there is no right to kill it, but because You Have Blathered Idiocy, you are wrong. When brain death is verified, it is perfectly OK to kill that living adult human body.

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
and if it is just a random cluster of cells with no moral value then a woman should be able to do whatever she wants with it.
Click to expand...
IRRELEVANT. As explained in detail above.
 
Re: pro-life

KevinKohler said:
You are killing it. I feel like, with you around, I almost don't even need to say anything...which....makes abortion threads much easier, lol.
Click to expand...
THANK YOU. Feel free to use anything that I've posted as Public Domain material, in a number of different postings, at this site.
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
The only question up for debate when discussing abortion is whether a fetus is a human life. If a fetus is a human life then you have no right to kill it.
Click to expand...
False. Killing a trespasser is perfectly legal in the United States and always has been. There's even a poll thread on the very subject on this forum right now where the right to shoot an intruder is winning handly.

Whether you consider the fetus a life or not(which it's not), you still have to establish what right it has to invade a woman's body against her will. If you can shoot someone for trespassing on your land then you can certainly kill someone for trespassing inside your body. No person is allowed to cause another person pain, make them sick every day, use their body for their own survival... If a person tried to do any of those things to you, then you would have a right to make them stop, and if all else fails you would have a right to use violence to stop them.

The fact that you think the fetus looks like a cute wittle baby is irrelevant. When something the size of a watermelon is growing inside your body it is harmful and potentially dangerous.
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
The only question up for debate when discussing abortion is whether a fetus is a human life. If a fetus is a human life then you have no right to kill it. The most consistent pro-life position is that life begins at conception. Once the child is conceived, it has different DNA from the mother, has a predetermined blood type that is separate from the mother, and is a completely separate being than the mother. What must first be established is that life begins at any time when the baby is in the womb rather than after it has exited the birth canal. If a baby has already been in the womb for nine months and is fully viable, but will be born overdue, what is the difference between that baby in the womb 5 minutes before it is born and 5 minutes after it is born? Obviously life can be established when the baby is still in the womb. If it is true that life begins at sometime during the pregnancy and not after birth, then the belief that life begins at conception is the most consistent position because anytime there is a line drawn during the pregnancy that rules the fetus as not a life, that line can be applied to adults. For example, if it is to be established that life begins at viability, then what would be the problem with killing people who are on life support? If the start of a heartbeat is established as the beginning of life, then what would be the problem with killing people who rely on artificial devices to keep up their heartbeat? The most consistent position is that life begins at conception.

The libertarian argument against abortion is compelling but flawed. The best pro-choice argument that I have heard is that even though a fetus is a human life the government should not be enforcing 'positive obligations' on women. The 'positive obligations' being the fact that the mother has to spend more money on different types of care and a different diet. This argument is flawed because the only way for the mother to relieve herself of these 'positive obligations' is to actively terminate a human life. Surely the government has the right to mandate that people not actively kill others even if there will be a 'positive obligation' enforced by the government.

A weaker pro-choice argument is that if the mother can't afford to raise a child she should be allowed to have an abortion. This is not valid because she can just transfer custody of the baby to adoptive parents or child protective services. Also the mother's right to not spend money does not trump the baby's right to life.

The only case in which an abortion would be ethical is when the baby is a direct threat to the mother's life. An abortion in this case is moral because the very existence of the baby threatens the mother's life and the baby should be legally viewed as potential murderer.
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I think you are mistaken -horribly.

You will likely find no pro-choicer that thinks a fetus is NOT human life. The fetus is human. Check. The fetus has life. Check.

I am here to tell you a pregnancy is always a potential threat to a woman's life.

I was the right age, good health, with perfect childbearing hips. I thought I was going to have an easy pregnancy. I am here now alive and with functioning kidneys because I had great insurance that allowed me to see an obstetrician who saw what should have been an inconsequential change. If I was in a county clinic, it would have been missed and I would have been told "see you in 4 weeks". I had a doctor that asked for additional testing and found some bad things. When all was said and done.....I had several major complications and surgery to boot.

Think about this. Most women who choose abortion have crappy access to health care. Medicaid will frequently give you a massively overburdened clinic that is difficult to access.

I may not personally believe in abortion....but hell if I am going to make that choice for another woman.
 
Re: pro-life

Shmuel Wyckoff said:
The only question up for debate when discussing abortion is whether a fetus is a human life. If a fetus is a human life then you have no right to kill it. The most consistent pro-life position is that life begins at conception. Once the child is conceived, it has different DNA from the mother, has a predetermined blood type that is separate from the mother, and is a completely separate being than the mother. What must first be established is that life begins at any time when the baby is in the womb rather than after it has exited the birth canal. If a baby has already been in the womb for nine months and is fully viable, but will be born overdue, what is the difference between that baby in the womb 5 minutes before it is born and 5 minutes after it is born? Obviously life can be established when the baby is still in the womb. If it is true that life begins at sometime during the pregnancy and not after birth, then the belief that life begins at conception is the most consistent position because anytime there is a line drawn during the pregnancy that rules the fetus as not a life, that line can be applied to adults. For example, if it is to be established that life begins at viability, then what would be the problem with killing people who are on life support? If the start of a heartbeat is established as the beginning of life, then what would be the problem with killing people who rely on artificial devices to keep up their heartbeat? The most consistent position is that life begins at conception.

The libertarian argument against abortion is compelling but flawed. The best pro-choice argument that I have heard is that even though a fetus is a human life the government should not be enforcing 'positive obligations' on women. The 'positive obligations' being the fact that the mother has to spend more money on different types of care and a different diet. This argument is flawed because the only way for the mother to relieve herself of these 'positive obligations' is to actively terminate a human life. Surely the government has the right to mandate that people not actively kill others even if there will be a 'positive obligation' enforced by the government.

A weaker pro-choice argument is that if the mother can't afford to raise a child she should be allowed to have an abortion. This is not valid because she can just transfer custody of the baby to adoptive parents or child protective services. Also the mother's right to not spend money does not trump the baby's right to life.

The only case in which an abortion would be ethical is when the baby is a direct threat to the mother's life. An abortion in this case is moral because the very existence of the baby threatens the mother's life and the baby should be legally viewed as potential murderer.
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Who or What gives the yet to be born “human life” equality or superiority over born human life? To give equal rights to the yet to be born would wreak havoc on the born in so many ways. It’s impossible to grant the yet to be born with rights without infringing in the rights of the born.

There is zero evidence that Abortion impacts humanity in any negative manner. Humans are far from being extinct.

A zygote, blastocyst, embryo, and fetus “isn’t a child”. “Child” is a legal term.

There are 10s of thousands of children in the system who will never be adopted.

There are millions of children under the age of 5 who die EACH YEAR from PREVENTABLE causes. When humanity can take care of these “born children” then the topic about abortion might have more debatable issues to bring to the social table.
 
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