What is a person. Is an unborn baby not a person?
I don't have a binary view on abortion.
I think abortion as convenient birth control is well nigh unacceptable, especially with the easy availability of all kinds of contraception.
However, it should be noted that a great many on the pro-life side also want contraception and any other birth control banned as well. They don't intend to stop at outlawing abortion, and they admit it.
What is an unborn baby? It depends, if a baby is a person, that means that they are an INDIVIDUAL.
An individual is, at the very least, someone whose life processes can function on their own without being physically connected to the body of the mother. That would mean that they are viable outside the uterus, the womb.
Obviously some newborns still require certain medical interventions to thrive or even survive however they are still nevertheless NOT any longer connected to the body of the mother, thus they ARE still "viable" and if otherwise healthy, growing more viable every day.
Therefore, an unborn baby is a person if they are the least bit viable outside the womb, because they are an individual, a person. A NONVIABLE baby which absolutely MUST remain physically inside the mother and physically attached via the umbilical
is NOT an individual yet, they are a fetus.
This is where a great many abortion decisions get made.
A doctor informs the mother that the fetus has profound medical issues and probably will not survive, or they may be endangering the life of the mother, or their quality of life due to profound birth defects will consist of a few hours or days of intense, agonizing pain and suffering, and eventually a slow and incredibly cruel death.
Many people decide to abort instead, to forego the cruelty of forcing the baby to term where it is in extreme agony for a short and pain filled life with no hope of survival, or to save the life or health of the mother, some of whom often try again to have another baby.
Unborn babies might also be the product of rape or incest, and there is no way that the mother can manage to carry their rapist's baby to term.
This ALSO is where abortion decisions sometimes get made. Perhaps if there was a way to magically and instantly implant the fetus into the abdomen of the rapist without killing the baby, a woman might opt to go that route instead.
Let the RAPIST be forced to carry and give birth to his baby instead of his victim.
But alas, that is not real life, such a thing is pure fantasy.
I am against late term abortions except in cases or rape or incest or where the life of the mother is in jeopardy, or where profound pain, suffering and agonizingly short quality of life is guaranteed.
I am against abortions as mere alternatives to birth control.
Binary dogma and sound bite philosophizing cheapens the issue, which is serious, and also unavoidably complex.
Your stupid pro-life signs will never change that fact.
The best way to be pro-life is to support ideas which reduce the number of abortions as much as possible, while still making it available in cases where it is clearly the necessary option.
Terminating a pregnancy is not always a cruel and selfish act and it is not always murder either, and it isn't even always a sin.
Terminating a pregnancy is a serious decision and from personal experience, I know it is not taken lightly by any but the barest and slimmest minority of fringe persons.
But as life proves, sometimes there ARE NO HAPPY or GOOD options, and sometimes in those cases, abortion is the only realistic one. Best approach is to work hard at making that the rarest of situations whenever possible, because outlawing it altogether will NEVER decrease the number of abortions, and will in fact INCREASE the number of ILLEGAL and dangerous abortions.
opcorn2:
