MJ_
New member
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2007
- Messages
- 72
- MBTI Type
- INFj
You've never been a parent, have you. I hesitate to recommend it to you.
It isn't for everyone.
You've never been a parent, have you. I hesitate to recommend it to you.
It isn't for everyone.
This upsetting of the applecart thing works both ways, BTW. Most opponents of abortion clearly do not think of embryos as completely equal to born babies or they would not make exceptions for rape and incest.
What a weird thought: what you were supposed to do
What do you mean by that? Supposed to? Supposed to?
The decision whether to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision, a matter of conscience. I do not think there is or can be any dispute about that. The question is: whose conscience? Is the conscience of the woman to be paramount or the conscience of the state? I believe, for the reasons I gave in discussing the right to liberty, that in a free and democratic society it must be the conscience of the individual.
Oberon has stated that he believes that abortion is essentially capital punishment/murder. (Correct me if I'm wrong here). I expect that he believes that abortion is wrong in many situations. Carrying a child to term may be what one is 'supposed to do' in Oberon's eyes, or in the viewpoint of many people.
I think I've contributed to a lot of thread drift (as well as delving into Oberon's personal life, which I should not have. My apologies go to Oberon, if he will accept them).
A human being is defined as an "individual of the genus Homo". Since the fetus is connected to and relies on the mothers body, are they an individual? I wouldn't say so.
A dependent individual is still an individual. Some people are mentally or physically disabled to the point that they cannot survive without constant assistance from someone else. Those people are still individuals.
Those people aren't physically connected to and living inside someone else.
They're not living inside someone else, but I bet many of them would say they are 'physically connected to' someone else.
Personally, every time I hear "pro-choice" arguments, they seem to require dehumanizing someone in order to make sense. You have to make yourself heartless and make it about detached examinations. That's not something I've ever had the ability to do. From a very young age, my instinct was to protect the helpless, not advocate their worthlessness due to dependency. It's a view I simply can't fathom. I can't make my brain see it that way, no matter how hard I try to empathize with that position.
Humans enjoy convenience. Humans have desires. For both these reasons, they warp the environment physically and subjectively. To answer your question, yes.Does there have to be a "point" at which this occurs?
It is interesting how relentlessly human beings create dividing lines and categories. This is especially true in Western European thought. Whether it is dividing the lines of property into square mile fields, dividing pitch into equidistant half steps, rhythm into pulses, religion into denominations, politics into parties, the light spectrum into specific "colors", or personality into 16 types, the process is the same. We create a lower resolution of reality so that we can more easily deal with complexity. In reality these points of division are artificial.
Do you have a better approach?The limitation of this approach to processing information comes to the foreground when asking the most important questions like "when does human life begin?".
It seems reasonable enough to me to attempt to understand each moment of development of a fetus without forcing it into an arbitrary category of being human or not. Questions like when a fetus feels pain, or when they are viable outside the womb, should not be ways of defining if the fetus is "human". A preconceived notion of category can too easily distort perception of information. Even a newborn is not understood as being "self aware". Development is ongoing as a continuum. Why can't a six week fetus be exactly that? Why does it have to either be human or not? All or nothing thinking doesn't fit the model of human development imo. Using spermicide and having a third trimester abortion both destroy a potential, viable human being, but it would seem that the former is less of a violation of a life. Perhaps the question of abortion can be one of gradually coming closer to killing. Destroying a two-week fetus is less of an act of killing than destroying a two-month fetus because of where it falls on the continuum of development. Just like using spermicide is less of an act of killing than destroying a two-week fetus. With this approach there is no dividing line between guilt or innocence because it is all relative. Everything is tainted to varying degrees. What do you think?Do you have a better approach?
Personally, every time I hear "pro-choice" arguments, they seem to require dehumanizing someone in order to make sense. You have to make yourself heartless and make it about detached examinations.
It seems reasonable enough to me to attempt to understand each moment of development of a fetus without forcing it into an arbitrary category of being human or not. Questions like when a fetus feels pain, or when they are viable outside the womb, should not be ways of defining if the fetus is "human". A preconceived notion of category can too easily distort perception of information. Even a newborn is not understood as being "self aware". Development is ongoing as a continuum. Why can't a six week fetus be exactly that? Why does it have to either be human or not? All or nothing thinking doesn't fit the model of human development imo. Using spermicide and having a third trimester abortion both destroy a potential, viable human being, but it would seem that the former is less of a violation of a life. Perhaps the question of abortion can be one of gradually coming closer to killing. Destroying a two-week fetus is less of an act of killing than destroying a two-month fetus because of where it falls on the continuum of development. Just like using spermicide is less of an act of killing than destroying a two-week fetus. With this approach there is no dividing line between guilt or innocence because it is all relative. Everything is tainted to varying degrees. What do you think?
Individual life begins with conception by the union of the couple's sex cells or gametes. The 23 chromosomes of the paternal sperm (male pronucleus) fuses with the 23 chromosomes of the maternal oocyte (egg or female pronucleus) at fertilization to create a single cell embryo or zygote containing 46 chromosomes. The fertilization process takes about 24 hours.
The new human zygote has the inherent capacity or potential to become a fully rational and cognizant person!
Each one represents a unique, irreplaceable, never-to-be-reduplicated human being!