"Memorial for unborn children"

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No no no. This will not do. A woman who has had actual first-hand experience with the subject matter has no business in weighing in on this discussion. I demand that a moderator delete Silvery's post immediately.

 

No matter how many times I hear it, that (body rights) defense seems incredibly convulted. We're supposed to make this stark distinction between basic rights and the ability to be killed for any reason- because semantically speaking, a fetus is not a child, and because it happens to live inside someone else for a very temporary period of time. The question is why. If it is just hyperbolic nonsense, what huge fundamental change in that being has happened to make it so, where it could be killed because it was an inconvienence, it now has every single legal protection enjoyed by everyone here to argue that others shouldn't have them. Dependency which is the usual excuse is usually not a justifiable reason for murder, and infants aren't indpendant anyways. I don't see how "mind your business" has any merit in light of any action that has a victim.

Untimely pregnancies can cause a lot of disruption, stress, financial problems, etc. etc. Of course. I know well how hard it can be for young people to build better lives for themselves when suddenly they have to devote massive amounts of time and energy into caring for someone else. Some people may simply not be mentally ready for such a burden. But such a problem, or any problem for that matter, does not making harming an innocent an acceptable solution. There are some who absolutely refuse to recognize a developing human as anything other than a group of cells (as if any living thing isn't) that we have no responsibilities to. I question how that makes sense when we all know that "group of cells" is on it's way into becoming what is undeniably a person, which it already is genetically, and when we usually accept that denying another person their future is generally immoral.

 

But there is no victim in the eyes of the law, damedog. Until that changes there really is no argument to be made. It cannot be murder since the fetus was "never alive" according to the law. Those laws were founded in religious beliefs that the soul does not enter the body until the first breath.

That is quite an understatement. The financial aspects of the pregnancy and birth are huge. Five years ago it was over $20,000 for my youngest in a perfect delivery. Very few young people have maternity insurance so they end up footing the bill or going to very cut rate clinics for care (doesn't that sound fun). Child care for the young, single parent with no marketable skills is nearly impossible -- I was paying $1,000 per month per child. You can find lower costs options but again cut rate child care? Really? By forcing the woman to have the baby you are forcing her (and her child) to a lifetime of poverty (statistically speaking).

You also fail to mention the humiliation and isolation many young women are put through as single mothers. We're getting better as a country, but only in some geographical areas. The areas with the strongest anti-abortion influences have (in general) the worst record at accepting and helping single mothers. Girls are thrown out of their homes, denied health care (although hopefully the ACA will help there), shunned from their churches, and too often have nowhere to turn. It takes a court order to get the boy to shoulder any responsibility -- even then they often do not have the means (or desire) to get involved in any way. There are some exceptions there but the scenario I described happens all the time and has for decades.

Why would someone want to go through that? Why would anyone want to force someone to go through that? The whole "but you could always carry the child to birth and give it up for adoption" argument is equally ludicrous. It's an incredibly painful things to go through (on many levels) -- again how can any compassionate person force a girl through that?

Nobody "likes" abortion but there aren't any good alternatives either. I personally believe that is where we should focus our attentions, not on abolishing abortion, but giving good and reasonable alternatives to abortion. That would include helping single mothers succeed in life by providing good child care and career training programs (including scholarships).

 

It's a matter of using correct definitions in order to debate in good faith instead of inventing your own. Whether or not there's a real difference is a completely different matter and should be addressed separately.

 

T2Bruno Brings up some good points of just how bad services and help can be.

And while acknowledging most people don't want abortions (there are a few that do but I'm not convinced they are even close to a majority) when figuring which is the least bad/most good option I'm not convinced abortion comes out on top, pain vs death.

Also the law is important but not the only thing to consider when making decisions. If there were no morality outside the law either violating it or prodding it to change then black people may still be openly sold in many states and, before such practices were banned, fewer would have escaped.

 

I'm glad that this thread grew into something more than a little argument at the top of the page, I will however not weigh into the abortion issue because I believe there should be equal rights for both the man and the woman in the issue, something that the law doesn't.

 

I will agree that setting the legal limit for abortion at birth or at some predetermined time into the pregnancy (in the Netherlands it's 26 weeks, if I recall correctly) is pretty random and conception does seem like a much more defined moment in time at which a life starts.

However, if you put the legal limit (or moral limit) at conception, that would make an after-the-fact anti-conception measure, such as for instance a morning-after-pill illegal (or immoral, as you would have it) by consequence. And how would you then rate the apparently not uncommon occurrence when an egg is fertilized but fails to settle properly in the womb and so is either re-absorbed into the womb or excreted in some manner. Just because we generally don't notice and don't know wouldn't obviate the moral implications, now would it? It's still a potential life lost.

I'd like to turn the reasoning around too. You say (or seem to imply to me) that it's still killing/murder even if the fetus is only a day old. At that point in time it's not a lot more than a clump of cells, as you say. Argueably we're nothing more than a clump of cells either.

But then again, so is a cow, a sheep, or to bring it closer to home (for most people) a dog or a cat. If there's, as you argue, no moral difference between killing a day old fetus and a newly born baby, what is then the difference between killing a day old fetus and a cat, or a sheep, or a cow. You might say that it's a different species and that that's the difference, which makes a lot of sense from the perspective of evolution.

Except evolution is not moral in any way.

To me, being consistent is to put as much value in the life as your fellow man as that of the living beings around you. I'm not saying that I manage to be completely consistent, mind you. It's difficult to keep that in mind as you step on gras, or get a new wooden table. But I do consider that there's essentially little difference between a human and cow or a dog.