Abortion

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Personally, I look at abortion as the worst possible solution to a easily avoidable problem.

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I have never understood this position, so maybe you could elaborate on it. Why is abortion so bad?

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The first three are clearly less invasive and traumatic than abortion.

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If it's simply a matter of time and expense (and the possibility of complications), then I understand. A lot of people say that they don't like abortion even though they think it should remain legal, and that they want to provide the services that would make abortion rare -- I always get the impression from these people that they still have some sort of emotional/moral qualms about abortion.A first trimester abortion is less expensive and has less risk of medical complications than carrying a baby to term (not to mention far, far less "traumatic") -- I wonder why people are so concerned about the trauma and invasiveness of abortion but don't worry so much about pregnancy in general?Me, I don't see any problems whatsoever with someone having an abortion. I suppose that I would like to see all the various methods of contraception easily available as well as better education and promotion of their use; but I don't see any of the other methods as inherently superior to an abortion, except for expense and convenience, I guess.

Yes, I would also like to hear an answer to this. It appears to me that if a clump of cells is an innocent human being, then it is an innocent human being regardless of the circumstances of its conception.Personally, this position has always seemed to me to be an admission that the real intention is to regulate sex and reproduction.I may take some flack for this, but I have more respect for the Catholic position, which consistently advocates protecting all "humans", than these pseudo-pro-lifers who clearly want control over women's bodies for the sake of controlling morality.

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It sucks needing to have one....

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But I wonder how much of the suckage is due to the training of females, beginning at birth, that bearing children is a natural part of womanhood, to the point where we train some women to feel that terminating a pregnancy is necessarily an emotion and sometimes traumatic decision to make.I have a feeling that if we were to actually teach children growing up that their inherent worth is due to what kind of human beings they are, not their biology, then abortion would become no big deal.

Hello, Annafan.Currently, abortion is a medical procedure that is invasive and expensive. Also, requiring the patient to physically go to a doctor allows all sorts of legal barriers (like waiting periods, restrictions on clinics practicing abortion). So until an inexpensive and safe over-the-counter abortifacient becomes available, abortion will be, for practical reasons, the least attractive method of birth control.I certainly support the availability of (and education on the uses of) all means of birth control. Certainly if I had teenage children they would have whatever means of birth control that they feel the most confortable with, and I would keep a basket in the bathroom filled with condoms that I would periodically refill with no questions asked.However, a lot of people who believe that abortion should remain legal remain uncomfortable about it, and I have always wondered whence their discomfort. Suppose that an inexpensive and safe medicine were available over the counter that would terminate a first trimester pregnancy. No greater risk of complictations than bringing the pregnancy to term, say, no more expensive than a home pregnancy test, and easily available. Would these people still be uncomfortable about terminating a pregnancy?

When I read the Torah I was struck by a curious fact.If a person killed another person, even if by accident, there was a special procedure that was specified to determine whether the killer was a murderer or not. He was required to make his way to one of several cities designated as "sanctuary" cities. As long as he remained in one of these cities, he was safe from retribution from the relatives of the deceased; however, if he was found outside these cities he could be killed by the relatives. Either the elders of the cities or the Levites (I can't remember which off hand) would then hear the facts of the case and determine whether the person was innocent of murder; if declared innocent he could then go about his life without fear of retribution. However, if found guilty of murder, he would be delivered to the relatives of the deceased who would then exact retribution.(Num. 35:9-28)On the other hand, if a person accidently caused a woman to miscarry, there was no stipulation that he quickly run to a sanctuary city. Rather, he was simply required to pay a fine, as if he had killed another person's ox. (See Ex. 21:22 ff.)So the Old Testament clearly does not equate a fetus with a human being -- the Old Testament itself indicates that a fetus is more like a piece of property.Edited to add references. I made a few errors in details that I have not corrected.This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 27-Aug-2005 07:18 PM

You seem to be saying that since it is not clear where to draw the line, then no line should be drawn and we must have an either all or none situation. I disagree with that; even if there is no clear division between state A and state B, even if a completely state A gradually becomes completely state B, one can nonetheless draw a line so that either more-or-less state A is on one side of the line or more-or-less state B is on the other side. Which one chooses depends on what are the choices of state A and state B that are relevant to the decision to be made.To me, the relevant criteria are those that make a entity an actual person, a human being. To me, a person is someone who is conscious, aware of herself as a person distinct from other people, recognize others as people, and, importantly, are capapble of being conscious of fears and hopes, of feeling disappointment or emotional pain and feeling joy and happiness.To me, it is clear, to pick a definite example, a five year old child meets these criteria for being a person. Just as clear to me is that a single cell zygote is simply not a person in any essential way. So, the question is where to draw the line between a conscious, self-aware person and a non-conscious biological entity.The goal is to draw the line in such a way that all people are protected. As you point out, the line between definite person and definite non-person is not clear; however there are obvious lines where all people are definitely on one side, and all of those on the other side are definitely non-people for whom I feel very little concern.Definitely, the end of the first trimester is one candidate for the dividing line. No embryo less than three months old is a person in any significant sense. That a four-month old embryo may not be a person does not concern me as much; I am willing for a few non-people to be protected in the interests of making sure that no definite-person is killed. Allowing complete freedom for abortion during the first trimester while completely outlawing it afterwards would have the desired effect; no person will be killed, while it allows a woman the freedom to terminate her pregnancy, at least during a portion of it.My personal view, though, is that this first trimester dividing line is too strict. I believe (and I am willing to be corrected if necessary) that interactive experience with the world is necessary to develop the type of consciousness that is necessary to be designated a person. So, I believe that birth itself is probably a good enough dividing line. I do not believe that any fetus before birth has the consciousness that would lead me to view it as a person with rights to protection; on the other hand, I do not know how long it takes after birth to develop this consciousness, so I accept birth as a safe dividing line, even though, as I suspect, some non-persons may be given unnecessary protection. Better than some non-persons are protected than actual people are unnecessarily killed.

The central nervous system is not complete or functioning until in the second trimester. Consciousness and all its attributes are definitely functions of the brain -- without a functioning brain it is a very safe bet that there is no consciousness. Therefore, a first trimester abortion does not kill anything that is human in any significant way. That is why I chose this dividing line as one of my examples -- I meant to include this information and inadvertently left it out -- sorry about that. This has nothing to do with the limitations of instrumentation -- it is a fact from developmental biology that the brain of a first trimester embryo does not have a brain sufficient for the existence of anything we would recognize as consciousness -- at least not unless you believe that consciousness is somehow independent of the physical brain. But I don't see how such a belief can be justified, knowing a little something about neurobiology, heuropsychology, and neuropharmacology.Now I do admit that things may become a little more uncertain as the brain develops and becomes fully functional. However, I am content with the belief before birth the fetus does not have a human consciousness. I may be wrong; it may very well be that during the last trimester, say, consciousness is fully developed and the fetus becomes a person, and if so I will reconsider my opinions as to the ethics of abortion during the last trimester.It shouldn't be too hard to determine roughly when consciousness arises. We have a good indication what areas of the brain are important to various higher mental activities, and how the activity of these areas appear, and this sort of knowledge will get better as our intruments get better, and our knowledge of this science increases. It shouldn't be too difficult to obtain enough knowledge as the the development of a fully functioning person to determine a point before which there is definitely no person, and so no entity whose rights can be violated.

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Until such time as we know that the mind is a function of the brain we cannot assume it to be so.

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But since we do know that the mind is a function of the brain, there is no need for assumptions.We know that various specific regions of the brain are necessary for certain cognitive functions. We can observe the activity of these regions as the subjects engage in these specific cognitive tasks. We know that damage to these regions impair the subjects' ability to perform these strictly mental tasks.We also know that certain specific regions of the brain are important to the emotional state of the subjects, and that damage to these regions have very profound effects on the emotional state of the subjects.I really don't know why anyone believes in an immaterial soul; intellectual tasks and personality traits are known to be so tied into the brain that I don't see what is left of a "soul" to do. But whatever the soul is supposed to do, it's effects are so heavily mediated by the brain that it is a safe bet that without a functioning central nervous system there is no soul connected to the biological entity. You can believe whatever you want in this regard, however some of us don't have the option of making important decisions that affect actual, real, existing people just because you have some sort of inexplicable beliefs that have no basis in physical evidence.-

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The foetus, should be presumed to be a person (innocent) until proven not to be (guilty).

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We are not talking about innocence or guilt. We are talking about whether an actual existing person, a mentally competent adult woman, has the right to make important decisions that affect her physical health, her emotional well being, and her ability to live a fullfilled life. What is on the other side of the scale? A few people, vocal as they are, politically connected as they are, but nonetheless few in number, who have beliefs that cannot be substantiated in any real manner beyond saying, "I cannot understand the world without these beliefs."You may believe what you will, but as long as your beliefs make no logical sense you cannot expect us to run our lives according to them; as long as you cannot produce clear unambiguous evidence to confirm your beliefs, or even cast even the shadow of doubt on ours, you have no right to expect us to organize our society based on them.We all have our own lives to live, and we have to share this world with each other. We have to make some important decisions that will occassionally have great effects on our well-being and the well-being of others; these decisions are too important to be based on the ephemeral reasoning based on ancient fairy tales; remote, improbable possibilities cannot compare to actual real life consequences that can be seen.I assume that you are sincere in your beliefs, and you may feel strongly about them. But you are but a single person among over 6 billion in the world; the world does not revolve around you or your beliefs, and as long as you cannot produce significant reasons to accept your beliefs as even reasonable possibilities you simply cannot expect the rest of us to take them seriously when we have important decisions to make.

Hello, iano.Everything that makes me who I am, the personality that feels and hopes and gets fustrated, is contained in my skull. I am the result of all the activity that occurs in my brain.-

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...it is worth noting that the overwhelming majority of the millions of abortions carried out each year involve people who are making lifestyle choices....

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I don't have a problem with this.

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Except that we should all realise that our philosophies are prone to error as we do not know.

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This sounds like a prescription of paralysis in all aspects of life. But in real life we must weigh the likelihood of these "unknown" consequences against the consequences that are definitely known, and go on with our lives. I just don't see much of a possibility that an abortion kills an actual person; therefore, the well being of the woman takes precedence.-

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Woman getting an ultrasound scan: "Whaddya mean its a girl, I wanted a boy. Book me in for an abortion"

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Just so that I know what I'm supposed to argue against, what is the problem here?

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Should the woman who really wants a boy instead of a girl as a lifestyle choice, be permitted to allow her welfare to supercede the small (your philosophy) chances that it's a person she is killing?

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Since the chances that the fetus is a person are so small as to be almost zero, I would say the answer is "yes".I was told in college that everytime you turn off your stereo in the middle of a song, an angel dies. Well, I think that the chances of that being true are so small that my convenience in not waiting for a song to end outweigh the very, very miniscule chance that an angel will die.

Hello, iano.

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By what do you gauge with ANY degree of probability "I AM" to be the sole function of the brain?

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Here is the answer I have already answered: Someone else said it even better: This is not made up. It is clear that intellectual capabilities reside in the physical brain; it is clear that emotional states reside in the physical brain. This is the result of actual scientific investigations where we can see the brain function during intellectual tasks and emotional states; we can see how specific damage to the brain has a definite effect on the intellectual abilities and emotional states of the subject. This isn't a question of "philosophy" -- it is simple fact.

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I also consider "unmarried women (81%)" a perfectly valid reason for an early abortion....

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Me, I consider "I don't want to be pregnant" to be a perfectly valid reason an abortion.

Hello, RAZD.

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If one gets beyond this point I have to wonder, if that is the reason then why wasn't it done earlier?

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As for me, I don't care. The reason might be because the woman lives in a rural midwestern state with the nearest abortion provider being rather far away and she doesn't have a reliable means of travelling that far, and the state has some sort of onerous waiting period requirement. Or the reason might be the woman simply changed her mind -- she decided to have the kid, but later she decided that she didn't want a child after all. Hell, maybe she wants to "fit into her prom dress", as some of the pro-lifers put it. In any case, it's all the same to me. She's pregnant, she doesn't want to be pregnant, so, as far as I'm concerned, she has the right to be not pregnant.