This message has been edited by diusFrenzy on January 18, 2001 at 06:29 PM

If you look at it from the point of view of someone who believes that the fetus is a life (it is interesting to note that this is not a contention of morality it is a contention of fact -- your personal beliefs have nothing to do with this...rather, the argument is over the empirical truth, rather than the ethically best course of action) then your argument sounds like this:

quote:

---

You can't tell me what to do. You have no right to tell me who i may and may not brutally butcher. I have every right to slaughter an innocent, defenseless child. The decision is entirely up to me.

---

If it were the case, then you're basically saying murder should be legal (at least, after a determination of fact, not personal belief, that the fetus is a life).

Note: I'm not arguing against abortion. I'm merely stating that the reasons for abortion are not (at least, IMHO) that it has anything to do with a woman's right to privacy.

------------------
There may be blood on the tracks, but the trains are on time.

First, let's look at some classic defining principals. Some consider fetuses human because of DNA. In this case, there should be a funeral for every menstrual period, and the prisons would be overpopulated by teenage boys and prostitutes. DNA is obviously out. Next, let's look at heartbeat. No, many animals we eat have hearts. Breathing? Almost everything breathes, even plants. A soul? With all the different religions, who can say when ensoulment occurs, if at all? Humanoid forms? Monkeys, chimps, and orangutangs have similar qualities. What makes it not wrong to put a chimp to sleep, but wrong to kill a human?

Sentience. The ability to think, feel, and have emotions. Creativity. Individuality. All of the wonderful aspects of our minds that let us be self aware. THIS is what we hold sacred. This is what must not be destroyed.

Now we put forth the mortal question. When does a fetus achieve sentience? Our self awareness is a result of our developed brain. Fetuses in the third trimester have brains developed enough to survive, albeit in plastic cubicles. Some experiments have detected brainwaves in developed fetuses.

My view is based on the facts I have presented, facts that I took great pains to research for a project a while ago. Humanity is defined by our thought, and this cannot occur until the third trimester. Abortions before should be allowed, but not after.

(Many thanks to Carl Sagan for a lot of the info I used here)

The difference between an Embryo and sperm/eggs is that an Embryo is a set of non-differentiated stem cells that are rapidly dividing in order to build up a cell mass that can be formed into the basics of a multi-cellular organism (blastozome? my biology book is packed up). The Embryo has a complete set of DNA (all 23 pairs), whereas sperm/eggs have only 23 singlets.

From the sentience side, we've talked before about life seeming to start sometime in the first 5 years. Most thought up until around 9 months after it breaches the vaginal plane and is allowed to join our club of humans is based on instinct and growing muscles, bone mass, and brain mass. So, the birthing is just a transition between being fed through a tube attached to a belly button and being fed through vitamin enriched sweat from the nipples.

Nothing physiologically changes during the birth except the methods that the kid gets their nutrients and air... and they can be wrapped in a blankie.

------------------
There may be blood on the tracks, but the trains are on time.

just remove it.

make like it's a c-section or whatever, and yank it out. if it breathes, it's an independent life. if it doesn't, it's not an independent life.

my argument, to the asshole who suggested i slaughter babies, hinges on the belief that until a fetus can BREATHE AIR, it's not a person. if it can't eat (ok so by this i mean suck down some form of milk and digest it) adn breathe air, then it's not an independent life form.

it's actually not even a parasite, because a parasite actually /digests/ whatever it sucks out of another being, instead of the nutrients being absorbed directly into the blood.

the earliest i've heard of a premie being able to survive is around 12 weeks early.

3 months. so up to the third trimester, you have a fetus.

another point: before the third trimester a spontaneous abortion (that's the medical term for it) is called a miscarriage. somewhere around the 28th week, it becomes a premature delivery, and in the event that the baby is not alive, it's called a still birth.

that's where i get my opinion of where life begins. no, i don't think it's right to go pulling out a fully formed 35 week baby that could breathe and eat by his feet and jamming a pair of scissors into his brain.

i also don't think it's wrong for someone who's 8 or 12 weeks pregnant to decide to terminate that pregnancy.

after all, everyone who is in opposition to abortion of an embryo or fetus from the standpoint that 'life begins at conception' must then ALSO be against such things as invitro fertilization. because invitro involves the fertilization of up to 24 collected eggs with collected sperm, a period of gestation within a petri dish, and the eventual selection of the strongest of those embryos to implant. maybe 4 or 5 of them get implanted, the other 20 are terminated. out of the 4 or 5 that get implanted, in rare cases all of them reach maturity. in most cases, all but one will die, and in few instances, all of them will die.

so answer me this. what's worse: a woman who wants no kids and can take care of no kids terminating a single pregnancy, or a woman who does want a child and has paid a fortune to create them selectively terminating 23 embryos?

------------------
kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost

quote:

---

Originally posted by askheaves:
Nothing physiologically changes during the birth except the methods that the kid gets their nutrients and air... and they can be wrapped in a blankie.

---

Exactly. The physiological change happens when the brain develops. Before that, it is incapable of thought. Afterward, it is human.

quote:

---

Originally posted by kuru:
BLA BLA BLA

---

You go girl!!
/me claps

------------------
<P:\>erson\Guy.exe -PersonGuy *pERSONgUY.cfg
http://www.personguy.com