Limits on Abortion

Somebody who agrees with you when you're wrong is more of an accomplice than a friend.Your true friends are the ones who try to help you overcome your flaws.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

It's not about whether a fetus has a soul or whether a fetus is a "human life".It's about whether or not it's a separate life.In my opinion, the dividing line "should" be when the fetus is capable of living on it's own, outside the host's mother's body. And that viability is determined by the medical personnel involved in each individual case - not by anecdotal evidence that "some premature babies can survive at x weeks old".Before it becomes individually viable, the fetus is a "mass of cells", no different from a tumour or a gangrenous limb.After it becomes individually viable, it becomes a candidate for adoption. Whether it's adopted by its biological mother or by somebody else is irrelevant.Edited by Ringo, : Changed "birth mother" to "biological mother".

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

I thought I was fairly clear that I was talking about biological viability, not social or economic viability. All of us have needs, but if those needs are met we can function as invividual organisms. My point was that there is a point when no fetus can survive as an individual organism. At that point, it has no individual rights. That sounds like something Rob would say. Do you have an English translation? No. Once again, I am talking about the difference between separate organisms and parts of the same organism. If a parent "wants" to throw his/her child away, society feels an obligation to step in and help that child. So where is the corresponding feeling of obligation on the part of anti-abortionists? Which is precisely why the decision should be up to the woman and her medical advisors. Why does some clod with an "Abortion is Murder!" sign have a corner on ethics? You asked "the folks around here", one of whom is me.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

I'm not big on immanence at the best of times. There's potential for a life of misery too.Every time we turn a corner, we miss out on the potential of the other direction. Isn't it more important to make the best decisions we can and once made, to make the best of those decisions? I'm sorta opposed to abortions in general - but that doesn't give me the right to make the decision for somebody else. (I'm sorta opposed to vanilla ice cream, but not to the point of banning it.)Wasn't the development of American democracy based on the idea that the people directly involved in a situation are best equiped to make the decisions? Religious teaching has nothing to do with it. Sometimes, you have to think for yourself.Instead of telling somebody not to have an abortion, tell her you want to adopt the baby. It's not about being opposed. It's about offering an alternative. You have no right to be opposed to abortion unless you're willing to adopt the babies yourself.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

We're not talking about institutions here, we're talking about individuals. Institutions don't adopt babies, individuals do.And the fact is that no matter what the Fransiscans say, there are already lots of babies that don't get adopted. If thousands or millions of abortions were prevented, there would be thousands or millions more babies who were not adopted.I'll say it again: no individual has a right to speak out against abortion unless he/she has already stretched his/her resources to the maximum helping to take care of all that "potential".

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

How do you tell the difference between a fetus and a tumour, DNA-wise? If DNA defines "human", then a tumour is human and should never be "killed". Much more independent than a fetus. An infant can be adopted by a different parent. A fetus can not be transplanted to a new host. Actually, it's much less than "evident", or you'd have some evidence to back up the claim. The two previous paragraphs show that a fetus is not a separate human.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Yeah. I wouldn't rule it out. In my lifetime, heart transplants have gone from unheard-of to (almost) routine.But it would only be one more option. You can't force a woman to have a transplant. (I would think that having a fetus transplanted in would be a more attractive option than having one transplanted out.)

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

I'd have to fall back on the "uninvited visitor" analogy: she would be expected to call the authorites and have the trespasser removed. If the trespasser presented a danger to somebody's life, the trespasser might be killed in the process of being removed. I don't think so. To me, a woman's control of her own body would be limited to parts of her body that can not be sustained as a separate body. As soon as the fetus can be (hypothetically) removed alive and sustained to birth, it is no longer (technically) a part of her body.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC