Evangelical Switch from Pro-choice to Anti-abortion

I should have said that the unborn child's being the property of the father has nothing to do with whether it is a living human being and it makes no sense that anyone ever used that as an argument for abortion.You say you aren't for abortion, but you also aren't against it so that's what I keep responding to.

The man's owning the child does not make it less than human, and those men often passionately loved their children. And their wives: Isn't it also true that a wife was considered to be her husband's property? Did that make her less than human?No, I regard the unborn child as human at every stage of development from conception to birth, as human as a three month old, a two year old, a fifteen year old or a ninety year old. I'm just not interested in the hairsplitting legal questions, but OK it's not LEGALLY "murder," it's more like manslaughter because the woman usually doesn't think she is killing a child.Amazing how people get called dishonest around here for having a different point of view or making an incomplete statement or saying something awkwardly.

Oh come ON! Surely you can see what's wrong with your own logic if you'd just stop and think about it for half a second. The brain dead are not coming back, the tiny living human being sucking its thumb is going to grow to be a living baby and adult human being under normal circumstances if we don't kill it.Far as I know the brain-dead aren't capable of a simple action like sucking their thumbs, but it's a sign that it is a real living human baby that does it at twelve weeks in the womb.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

People die of all kinds of causes all the time, including in the womb, but that is never a reason to intentionally kill a person at any stage of life, including in the womb.And to answer your other point, no if we aren't aware of it we have no responsibility for it, meaning the fertilized egg that fails to implant, and as Tangle said, we don't treat miscarriages as human beings because they don't have legal standing although parents may have enough feeling about it to do something to commemorate its short life.The meaningful category here is our KNOWLEDGE that we are dealing with a human life, such as that a recognized pregnancy implies a growing human being; that fact alone is what engages our conscience. All the other questions really don't change this fact. The word "conscience" means "with knowledge."Oh but now I can anticipate another logical trap: I think we KNOW when we are dealing with a living human being in the womb even when we rationalize it away, as I did when I had an abortion at age twenty. I dreamed about the child I'd aborted, which shows I did know though I didn't want to know.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I've been looking forward to Tangle's coming back to this thread but since he seems to be occupied elsewhere I'll give my understanding of his position which is similar to mine anyway. He can correct me.It isn't a potential human life until conception and, if it's healthy and we don't interfere with it, from conception it will continue to grow to become a fullfledged human being, so it is morally wrong to terminate it at any time from conception to birth. Once it's underway and developing it is a potential human life so that if we kill it we know we are killing a potential human being and we know at some level this is wrong.I would prefer to call it simply a human being at different stages of life because the term "potential" distances us from its inherent humanness. All the concern to label each stage separately is just a way to obscure the fact that it is a human being at some stage or other of life.Tangle is not arguing specifically against abortion, he's arguing that we shouldn't deceive ourselves that it is not a human life, but should be aware that if we choose abortion we are killing a potential human life, a life that is inexorable and inevitable if we don't kill it. I would argue against abortion myself except where the mother's life is threatened, and as Tangle pointed out, it would still be a "harm" even for that reason.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

As for the fact that people respond emotionally to the different stages so that they would call it murder in the later stages but be less inclined to call it murder when it's just starting to grow, with a continuum in between, I think Tangle pointed this out himself. It's a subjective thing: the earlier its development the less emotional we are about it. But that doesn't change the objective fact that once conception has taken place it's in the process of growing and developing until we recognize it as a full term baby in nine months. It looks more and more like a baby as it grows (though surprisingly already fully formed at twelve weeks) so it engages our feelings and our conscience more and more as it grows. But again, objectively, as long as it is growing and developing normally, is following the human pattern laid down by its DNA, there is no reason to regard it as anything but a human life from conception. Unless you think defining it purely subjectively is the right thing to do.The abortion I had was at less than eight weeks and nevertheless I dreamed about losing an actual child.I agree with Tangle that despite our ability to rationalize it away more easily the earlier the stage, we must know it's a potential human being and that engages our conscience so that whether we admit it or not we know we are killing a human life.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Because all by itself it isn't going to grow up to be a baby. At conception all the ingredients are there to form a human being, a very particular human being defined by its genetic portrait, which will be formed in due time if nothing interferes. A sperm or egg alone isn't going to form a human being. Because from conception on it is a developing human being, inevitably a human being, if nothing interferes. As Tangle pointed out, subjectively we regard it as morally worse the further it has developed. But objectively it's already a human being from conception, just in an early stage of development. It engages our feelings and our conscience the farther along it is, but again that is a subjective standard of judgment. I meant at some level of our consciousness we know it is wrong to kill what we know is a developing human being. If it is a human being at different stanges of development, and not something else at any of those stages but always a human being, with all the genetic stuff of a human being, and growing inexorably moment by moment, then it is alive so killing is the right word. Calling a living human embryo or fetus a "process" is a sophistry intended to create emotional distance and rationalize killing it without moral implications. Because you are adjusting yours to turn a living human being into a "process" or other unhuman thing so you don't have to think of it in moral terms. Most women go ahead with abortions on the basis of having been told it's just a "piece of tissue" or some such emotionally neutral term, but I was told that and still dreamed of a living child; others are told that and still get deeply depressed; and if the pregnancy happens to be wanted it is regarded as a baby at every stage: nothing is different except whether it is wanted or not. How is that an objective standard for choosing whether it should live or die? Not as a synonym. The idea as I understood it was that killing it is a harm, abortion is a harm. He can correct me but that's how I understood him to be using the term: abortion under any circumstances is a harm. I believe he's been using it in the sense of the Hippocratic oath, "Do no harm" harm in the Hippocratic view including administering abortifacients. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

There's no point in discussing these things until there is more agreement on what abortion really is. But I already said that we'd have to emphasize helping women through unwanted pregnancies as is already done by many churches. We'd also have to do a major campaign to make it clear that abortion is the ending of a human life and stop the lies about how it's just "a piece of tissue" or a "process." Stopping the lies and promoting the truth would be a BIG start. That alone would probably eliminate a huge number of unwanted pregnancies.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What you need to do is stop the name calling and slander.

Truth is truth, it's not mine or yours or anybody's, it's just truth. So if you think it's not true then you need to argue with what I've already said above to demonstrate what the truth is.And since I haven't promoted anything of the sort you re accusing me of you can stop that too.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What is needed is for Planned Parenthood to stop lying to women about what pregnancy really is, allow them to understand that it really is a living child, let them see pictures of just how human it is at a very early stage, and offer them help to get through the pregnancy, help either for adoption or to keep it, and so on. Phasing out abortion in favor of emphasizing this kind ofhelp would be a place to start. And stop selling dead baby parts too.

I am not proposing going back to the way things used to be, but what we've been doing since then is totally unnecessary and involves lies and the casual killing of human life, and surely we are capable of coming up with better solutions now.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Too much of these discussions are merely semantic, manipulating words to deny that it is a human life that is being taken in abortion. I can avoid terms like "murder" if it doesn't further the argument, but we're still talking about taking a human life from conception to birth and that is still a moral problem for most of us whether we want to admit it or not.

We have to argue that it is a human life because it is hidden from view and that is the only reason. It is easy to rationalize it away because of that.I think the mere fact that we know if we don't interfere it will keep growintg into a recognizable human being is enough of a reason to know it's a human life from conception, but now we also know that it is genetically human from conception, and we can now also see on ultrasound that it is clearly human at twelve weeks, and that knowledge makes us morally responsible. I think Tangle was doing a good job on this point, I wish he'd come back and continue it.

So what if we think of it as "second class?" It's still a human life even if we give it a lower legal status. And emotionally it only depends onw ether it is wanted or not how highly it is valued, which is merely a subjective evaluation. Objectively it is a human life by all the standards I've been talking bout.And by the way it was Tangle who said it is a moral issue. But it's a good point, it is a moral issue and the reason it is a moral issue is that it is a human life. It would really help if you'd read through the last few dozen posts.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.