<p>Are you “forcing” people to not molest small children by taking that “choice” away from them when you make it illegal? Instead, should you try to convince people to not molest children because making it illegal infringes upon their rights? Please, substitute any recognized crime into your statement and see how it sounds. Civilisation falls apart when you start to say that we really shouldn’t have crime, we should all just try to tell each other what is right and wrong. </p>
<p>P.S. Please name ONE law that prosecutes a woman for having an abortion. Oh, wait… abortion laws don’t result in the jailing of women, just the abortionsists. Whoops! Time for a new argument!</p>
<p>To re-state something above - substitute “10-year-old child” or the like for “fetus,” because, in the minds of about half the country, they are morally equivalent. You can quibble with that belief, just not the logical conclusions from it.</p>
<p>SJMom - I got the tongue-in-cheek part. I prefer to call it social Darwinism, though. ;)</p>
Ariesathena, I sincerely thought you were more intellectually honest than that.</p>
<p>I also thought that you could distinguish between a person’s right to control what happens inside their own body from what they do to other people who they have the option of simply ignoring.</p>
<p>I respect your belief in the moral equivalence between a fetus in utero and a 10 year old. I don’t respect your obviously phony justifications for attacking those who disagree with it.</p>
This is where I really differ with pro-abortion people. I don’t view pregnancy as only an issue of what’s happening to a woman’s body. And, AM, I don’t view women as vessels for reproduction. Many pro-life women are strongly feminist, as I think Aries would agree.</p>
<p>In a nutshell – I think it’s wrong to end a human life. (I’m also opposed to the death penalty.) So the pro abortion argument is that a woman should choose what happens to her own body. I agree with that – but I don’t view the fetus as part of the woman’s body. That’s the big difference between pro abortion and pro life people. Just as it isn’t O.K. to kill dinner guests you don’t like, it’s not O.K. to kill the baby who is using your body as a place to stay for nine months. Just as I would feel compelled to intervene if I saw someone trying to kill someone else, I can’t say it’s O.K. for someone else to have an abortion, even if they don’t think it’s wrong. It’s infanticide.</p>
<p>A fetus has unique DNA, which is not identical to that of the mother, so we’re not just talking about the mother’s body. The lack of logic in our laws, which allows abortion at seven months if the mother so chooses, but will prosecute a drunk driver who causes the death of a fetus, is bizarre.</p>
<p>“I sincerely thought you were more intellectually honest than that.” Like you are, kluge?
Maybe you can explain for us what male-male sex means again when you get a chance (a la Mr. Gregory Herek, Ph.D.). Or maybe you have some new research to share with us on married, heterosexual women who on occasion assault teenage girls (this would come under the heading of a heterosexual assault, wouldn’t it, in your and Mr. Herek’s world?).</p>
<p>I know the Joe Lieberman issues but his story does undermine the “big tent” theory.</p>
<p>Opie,</p>
<p>I know Joe Lieberman lost. The people of Connecticut have every right to vote for Lamont and that’s fine with me. The problem for Democrats is that it’s hard to make a convincing case that they have a big tent when a recent Vice Presidential nominee is rejected because of one issue.</p>
<p>Convince those in need of a different way. Have you offered up your home to any teen mothers who would abort their babies? If you did, you’d make a real difference, since abortion has existed as long as pregnancy has.</p>
<p>I do have some objections to stell cell research. From a practical standpoint, we have had some health issues in our extended family that may benefit us in the future. But I always come back to the “life” issue. </p>
<p>I think it’s such an arbitrary decision about when it’s O.K. to end life. It’s not O.K. at seven months gestation if you want the baby and are the victim of a crime, but it is O.K. if you do. How does that make sense? So, where do you draw the line? It used to be that preterm babies didn’t make it at seven months or something like that. But we have posters who have had babies born quite early who have survived. I think we are now able to save babies born at 24 weeks.</p>
<p>So is it O.K. to end the babies life at 23 weeks? What if the dates are wrong?
What happens when technology allows more babies born even earlier to survive? If your criteria is the ability to survive outside the womb, then how do you justify any abortion after about 22 weeks, since the dates could be incorrect? </p>
<p>It’s just easier to say all life is precious than it is to determine that one moment in time when it is human and worth saving vs just a collection of functional organs, with a brain and heart.</p>
<p>Sjmom, I respect your opinion in the matter. It’s not an unreasonable or irrational way of looking at the situation. But again, it is unreasonable to twist what I said into:
It’s not “only” that issue. But it’s also not “only” an issue of “ending a human life”, even if that’s the only way you choose to look at it. My dismay regarding the abortion “debate” is that people tend to grossly oversimplfy the issue and then villify those who disagree with them.
Abortion is sui generis. It isn’t “just about” the woman. It isn’t “just about” the fetus. It’s “about” all of that, and more.</p>
<p>Kluge, I agree with you that it’s not simple. So, I think it’s safer to err on the side of caution, which is to protect all life as much as possible.</p>
<p>Just so you know, I wasn’t always this opinionated about abortion. I used to think it was O.K. in the first three months, or if the child had a serious defect or if the pregnancy was the result of rape. </p>
<p>But I came to believe that this rationalization is even worse. If the fetus is a unique life form, then it shouldn’t matter how it got started. With all of the early interventions for disorders like Down’s syndrome, I can’t believe that that’s a reason to abort. I found myself in a situation where I had to conclude that if it’s wrong to end a life, then it’s wrong no matter what else is going on.</p>