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Questions for pro-lifers

Fengirl said:
Can you explain why? What criteria are you using to equate a 2-yr old child with a fetus? In what ways are they alike?
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There has been no reply to this yet.

Besides having human DNA, in what ways are they alike?

And before anyone rushes to try to make an analogy by saying,
"Then, in what ways are a two-year-old and a seventy-year-old alike?":
the maximum dendritic growth begins during the birth process, then slows a bit through age four, then slows even more as we age.

A born organism with human DNA has developed (because of the sudden change from little intra-uterine stimuli to incredibly bountiful extra-uterine environmental stimuli) a huge dendritic growth.

A comparison between dendritic connections in a seventy-year old and a two-year old is insignificant compared to those between a fetus and a born-baby.
 
TragicMonkey said:
It makes me think of "pro-football", which only confuses the issue. Sometimes a stream of consciousness is easily diverted into a creek of whatthehell.
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I'm still in the college abortion league, but my coaches all say I have what it takes to go pro!
 
Czarzy said:
A comparison between dendritic connections in a seventy-year old and a two-year old is insignificant compared to those between a fetus and a born-baby.
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The problem, of course, is that those who favor banning abortion pretty much universally reject any biological criteria for personhood.

Jeremy
 
toddjh said:
Luke, would you mind weighing in? Do you really believe "pro-abortion" is an accurate label for those who wish to keep it legal?

Jeremy
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I feel a person who is "pro-choice" is at the very least condoning the practice of abortion. And if you condone it, how is that any different than being in favor of it?
 
toddjh said:
The problem, of course, is that those who favor banning abortion pretty much universally reject any biological criteria for personhood.

Jeremy
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Which is why I said El Greco's desire to keep morality out of this topic was wishful thinking.
 
If there are "pro-choice" people who are against abortion, what is their explanation for being against it? Does it have to do with biology?
 
Anti_Hypeman said:
Nobody gets exectuted by mistake, they dont get sent to the gas chamber on accident. Executions are not the same things as surgery you cant be serious.
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People are executed by accident. You are arguing semantics.

Would you give up the lives of your loved ones to kill a murderer or are you just offering up other peoples families for justice?
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Neither. I would, however, apply the statistical risk to the entire population, which happens to include you and me.

(That is, coincidentally, what soldiers are paid to do - take risks. Nobody is paid to "fight and die" as claimed by many.)
 
toddjh said:
This is part of the problem with the debate. A "pro-choice" person would most likely argue that it is about choice: a woman's choice to make decisions regarding her own body. To many, the issue isn't about abortion in particular. Really. It's about what they perceive as religious busybodies trying to exert bodily control over their private decisions, and abortion is simply the most high-profile example.
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There are plenty of laws which restrict what you can do with/to your body. So if it really is about your body, and not the body being killed, then a pro-choice person must be either a Libertarian or a hypocrite.

Likewise, most would say that "pro-abortion" is highly inaccurate, since I don't think anybody wants there to be more abortions in the world.
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Oh, I bet there are people who want more abortions. Negative population growth environmentalist types.

It's a propaganda war. Perception is everything.
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Yes. Perception. Which can be greatly overcome with education. Such as the numbers about contraception and the failure of, and failure to use properly, and failure to use at all.
 
Luke T. said:
Sure. Pro-choice-regarding-abortion. :)
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No.
Not at all.
Can you not comprehend the possibility that a person might decide against abortion for themselves, on the basis of their own personal morality...whilst having absolutely NO desire to impose that morality on others? THAT'S being pro-choice...accepting that each person has the right to decide differently.

(Clearly, this is a difficult concept for some people to grasp...the idea that one's own moral choices should not be imposed on others). :confused:

Pro choice is NOT pro-abortion.
 
Luke T. said:
There are plenty of laws which restrict what you can do with/to your body. So if it really is about your body, and not the body being killed, then a pro-choice person must be either a Libertarian or a hypocrite.
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Actually, that might be interesting. How many pro-choice people also support legalizing any/some/most/all drugs? If we get the polls working, that might be an interesting topic to see whether there is correlation in the issues. It could indeed suggest a unified idea of the body as property of the person, who would have all the rights to do whatever he or she wanted to do to it.


Oh, I bet there are people who want more abortions. Negative population growth environmentalist types.
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Well, it might be more productive to confine the discussion to sane people. Not that I mean anything other than that population growth people tend to be crazy.


Yes. Perception. Which can be greatly overcome with education. Such as the numbers about contraception and the failure of, and failure to use properly, and failure to use at all.
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I wouldn't have thought anyone would be against education, particular in the matter of safe sex, but there you have it. Some are. Surely both sides of the abortion debate ought to be championing contraception...yet they don't seem to be.
 
Luke T. said:
They are both human beings.
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This is the issue -- the only issue, as far as I can tell -- in the abortion debate: the humanity of the fetus, and at what point that humanity begins.

I hope nobody's expecting the issue to be settled in this thread. :)

Jeremy
 
Luke T. said:
I feel a person who is "pro-choice" is at the very least condoning the practice of abortion. And if you condone it, how is that any different than being in favor of it?
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Are you not "pro-choice" yourself? You said you don't want to overturn Roe v. Wade, didn't you? Are you condoning the practice of abortion?

One can believe that abortion is an evil, but that allowing the state to make medical decisions against a person's own wishes is a greater evil. Or you might believe that attempts to ban abortion are simply doomed to failure and will compound the problem. Thus, anti-abortion and yet pro-choice. This naturally requires a certain view of the personhood (or lack thereof) of a fetus, but it's still a consistent position.

I have a similar attitude about the "war on drugs." I'd like to get heroin and crack off the streets, but at the same time I can see that our attempts to do so by force have failed utterly and should be abandoned.

Jeremy
 
toddjh said:
Are you not "pro-choice" yourself? You said you don't want to overturn Roe v. Wade, didn't you? Are you condoning the practice of abortion?
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Actually, I said that I think overturning Roe v. Wade would have nearly no effect on the number of abortions in America, but that I favor overturning it out of principle.
 
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