Sincere request to help me understand why you feel abortion is not murder.

Because....A ZEF is not a person and thus Murder does not apply.

 

Didn't go look at the videos, did you?

 

God considers feticide nothing more than a property crime. The guilty parties were only required to pay a fine (for destruction of the father's "property). If the mother were killed however, the penalty was death. So, which life - mother or child - did God show favor toward? In fact, infants under one month old weren't even counted in a census, indicating even newborns weren't considered "people" in God's eyes. Might have more than a little to do with the staggering infant mortality rate at the time, but just because society and technology have grown, His opinion on the matter hasn't been updated, has it?

 

I am not a progressive (with or without quotation marks), nor am I butt-hurt (although I will be not be surprised if you to say I am).

I understand you feel passionately about this topic, but that does not mean that there is something morally wrong with people who disagree with you. There are a great many who "believe a fetus is nothing but a blob of cells, and so as a society, we owe them no protection." Many people who believe that the mother's choice matters more than the biological requirements of the fetus are not bigots, but rather quite the opposite. Many of us came to our conclusions after doing the following:

• Gathering evidence
• Considering alternate viewpoints
• Weighing and analyzing what we found
• Considering the practical and ethical ramifications of various conclusions.

Many of those you disagree with also remain open to think about other people's viewpoints, and do not denigrate those whose conclusions are different than ours.

An overview of my reasoning is outlined in post #193 on page 20 of this thread. I am not a zombie, but I engage in serious thought not guided primarily by emotion or social pressures. I conclude that a fetus is a parasitic outgrowth of the mother's biological processes. I was able to develop my conclusions the way I did precisely because I am not a zombie.
Also,

• Certainly you are right that a fetus is not a "blob of cells", but rather a complex organization of cells.
• Alternately, an embryo is a simple organization of cells that becomes increasingly complex.
• A zygote, however IS a blob of cells.

None of these distinctions makes any difference in my conclusion that it is neither practically nor ethically necessary or beneficial to bestow personhood on the unborn.

Your hostile attitude and use of insulting language is an unfortunate tactic if you hope to convince thinking people to agree with you. It merely exemplifies a stereotype that most people who believe abortion is morally wrong are anti-social, unthinking ideologues. Supporting that stereotype hurts your cause more than it helps it.

Try engaging with ideas instead of hurling insults.

 

Furthermore, if a woman has been unfaithful, God does not care if His punishment of the woman also causes her to miscarry this unborn fetus and every fetus she gestates after that point. Obviously, God does not consider the fetus to be a moral agent of its own, which is consistent with the view (which you already presented) that God considers the unborn as nothing more than property.

 

LOL, nice fallacy .. Godwins law.

 

There are few if any here that adhere to the idea that a fetus is "a blob of cells", though until differentiation that is exactly what it is.

When protection comes at the price of another persons rights then it is not such a black and white decision, would you accept your rights being violated in order to protect another person?

The pictures you linked to are suspect to say the least, no source data detailing how and why the abortion took place .. I expect that by far the majority of them are from medically necessary abortions, ones done to save the females life or because the fetus had a disability incompatible with life .. if I'm wrong then please post the relative data for every one of the pictures you linked to.

Talking about ignorant, you do know that partial-birth abortions do not exist, if you mean intact dilation and extraction then they have been illegal since 2003, and late term abortions are done only for life threats to the female, fetal disability incompatible with life, rape and incest. To say otherwise only proves how ignorant and brainwashed you are.

Yep true, because people like you advocate greater and greater restrictions on abortions meaning those in poverty have to take longer to save the money, thus pushing the abortion into the 2nd trimester, pro-life policies actually increase the number of second term abortions thus giving pro-lifers the ammunition to say greater restriction is required ... it is a self-fulfilling ideology.

What complete and utter BS, you'll be citing PAS next .. which is a fully debunked piece of crap, and abortion has absolutely zero "trauma and sorrow" effect on society as a whole.

I'd rather be a zombie than a sanctimonious, preaching control freak.

 

Where did I say I wanted to deny you a choice? It's you conscience.

 

I don't know the science, either, but probably shortly after the first organized brain waves. Maybe sometime around the first trimester. I don't know that there is any science vis-a-vis beginning of consciousness.

 

No need to get huffy. If you choose to define a "person" as three years AFTER being born, be my guest. Thought you and the SCOTUS might want to include a little rationalism in your decisions.

 

Interesting idea .. however, there are no organized brain waves during the 1st trimester, brain waves do not become bilaterally synchronous (organized) until 26 to 27 weeks.

Just like to add that the argument as to when personhood starts is irrelevant anyway, the mental capacity or lack of doesn't change the right of one person to stop, by any means necessary, injuries being inflicted by another person without their consent .. so even if the unborn were to be deemed as persons from conception it would not change the legality of abortion .. in fact it would make it easier to obtain one for what ever reason, or no reason at all, at any time and the state paying for it.

 

I think that if you sincerely look in your heart you will observe that you have an adamantly fixed opinion on this issue. You have no interest in ".understanding why " others have a different opinion on this matter.

while I do not accept that you have a sincere question, I do have a sincere question to ask you. Why do you care to force others to live by your opinions. You must understand that we who disagree with you are not trying to change the way you live your life. No one is going to attack you on the street and give you an unwanted abortion. We who disagree on this issue want the freedom to make our own moral choices.... and do not propose to remove that freedom from you. Why is this idea so abhorrent to you

 

Even a sea slug has a measurable EEG reading, but we would never consider a sea slug to be a person (no matter how old it becomes). There is science that tells us when the cerebrum has not yet completed certain steps (like global neuronal integration) which would be a precursor for consciousness or meaningful experience and thought... but you will not find that kind of information on any pro-life website.

I think our beliefs are similar (that an individual person begins when the physical organism has the ability to start learning and experiencing its environment). I refer to that as the point when the mind is activated and starts incorporating experience. If you get your information about that from pro-life websites they will try to convince you it happens as soon as nerve endings appear, or a biological rhythm appears in the EEG, or a reflex movement happens.

 

Okay, that's a good enough definition of 'consciousness' for me. I don't read pro-life websites because I find that, in general and in other instances, the pro-lifers are really dead set against life.

- - - Updated - - -

Do you mean organized between the two hemispheres????

 

I read them, but I view them much as I view commercials on TV (i.e. I wonder which facts they might be trying to withhold).

I am guessing that Fugazi was talking about the point when the two cerebral hemispheres make the transition from independent patterns to synchronous patterns. That, by the way, is a clue to the onset of global neuronal integration.
Reference: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise/

 

I think you are assuming an attitude not in evidence in Left of Genghis' post. A strong emotional reaction to something ugly, combined with a request for people to explain how they can believe such an ugly thing is okay does not automatically imply any intent to deny anyone their own choices.

 

Nothing in the Bible supports that contention.

Yes, but they had no intention to induce an abortion.

Then you conclude erroneously, and I don't give a damn what your reasoning is.

Of course it isn't, because such bestowal is an accomplished fact, independent of any human agency.

 

'Cause usually when someone says, "consider abortion as the most diabolical, tortuous, evil form of murder of innocents that has ever been conceived in the dark hearts of man?""


it's a pretty good indication that they would like it to be against the law...but I could be wrong...maybe he says it's all that but doesn't care

 

Phyxius just pointed out one part of Old Testament law that supports that contention, and I pointed out another. I observe that you have no logical support for your weak assertion.

And what about God's explicit instructions to the priests to give a woman a potion that would (1) intentionally cause a miscarriage if she had been unfaithful, and (2) intentionally cause the miscarriage of every pregnancy she has after that. Obviously, God does not consider the unborn, developing, human body to be a person or a moral agent with its own value. It is just property until it breaths that first "breath of life."

Perhaps you don't want to discuss reasoning because you have no support for your position.

Wrong... we are persons because of the nature of our minds. As somebody pointed out earlier... not every human body is inhabited by a person and not every person is human (e.g. Koko the gorilla may be more of a person than some humans).

 

Well you have been proven wrong on that already.

Numbers 5:11-31

I call this the Ostrich fallacy - burying ones head in the sand and hoping reality passes by.

Rubbish, all rights are the product of human agency .. unless you want to have a go at proving that god exists or at least did exist at some point?

 

Lets attempt to apply a minimum amount of common sense to the question of abortion

Lets leave aside the assertion that abortion is vile murder of an innocent
I assume we all understand that no one gets an abortion for the sheer pleasure of the experience
And, in fact we know that in the best circumstance an abortion is a physically unpleasant experience, an experience that anyone would typically avoid. And further, we know that for many people is an emotionally unpleasant experience. Possibly an experience filled with profound moral misgivings, regret, sadness, guilt and so forth.

all of that begs an answer to the question of why so many people would make a decision filled with so many downside considerations beyond consideration of the question of wheather it is the murder of an innocent person

Imo, it is common sense that peope must have a good personal reason to overcome the many well known downsides of having an abortion. So if these downsides are inadequate to stop abortion... then the murder of innocents is the sole remaining bulwark. And, unsurprisingly, it is an argument that inexorably can only be effectively be enforced through the legal system.. since that argument by itself has long proven inadequate by itself to stop abortion

So then, the legal argument of "murder of the innocent . " becomes crucial


So let us struggle to find an answer
First.... abortion is not now legally considered to be the murder of an innocent person
And while many people disagree, their disagreement is based upon ethical rather than legal arguments

Historically and socially we have not conferred personhood onto humans until they are born
And so it is unsurprising that many of us would continue to feel that personhood begins at birth

Next, there is no distinct marker of personhood.... which therefore means that this is a legal and or personal judgement.... a judgement wherein different people make different judgements. And on this basis many people simply do no agree that a fetus or a zygot or a fertilized egg is co-equivalent with personhood.

So for these sorts of reasons, people disagree about the premise of the original post
About abortion being a vile murder of an innocent.


But that raises a further question
Was the original poster unfamiliar with any of the above?
Certainly I presume that he has a different opinion...
But would anyone propose to be so ignorant of these considerations so that they need to express the feigned curiousity of the original post?

The facts and arguements around this issue are exhaustively well known
And to pretend otherwise is insincere gamesmanship and personally dishonest
You may have a different opinion, but at this point you are abundantly aware of how others feel and why they feel that way.

 

What you say is undoubtedly true, but you seem to have completely ignored the point I was making.

It is possible to be against abortion, without wanting to remove legal access to abortion, and without wanting to remove other people's freedom to choose.

 

My take on it is that the mother has sole responsibility for the baby until it's born, therefore her decision should be predominant above all others.

 

And that is pretty much the position of the majority of people.

Personally I am against abortion .. however my personal objections should have absolutely zero relevance to abortions legal position and to other peoples choices.

 

Even if it means the child will one day be institutionalised for the rest of its life? Or that the mother is mentally disturbed and considered to be a threat to the baby after the birth?