The abortion issue is not about whether or not the fetus is alive, everyone knows that technically the fetus is alive. Cows are alive too though, as are plants, gorillas etc. The difference is whether we recognize personhood in them. Personhood is when the state deems a given agent with rights that the state is willing to protect.
There is no hard,solid scientific way to determine personhood. The matter is that of a value-judgement. Something we more or less guess at based on the overall traits of a given creature and/or consequences of such entitlement. I do not believe a fetus is a person based on its overall traits and its need for a body to live in. Also because the fetus if unwanted will suffer a horrible life, cause the mother to suffer etc. Some people just are not ready to have kids yet.
It's a very odd question and I just draw the line at birth as pre-birth and post-birth lines tend to become very blurry. Do we start at conception, preconception...a specific stage of conception? If after birth....how many months after birth? It's just much easier to draw the line at birth and the US constitution supports this, as to become a citizen you have to register, be born of US citizens or be born on US soil.
Secondly, like I said some people are not ready to become mothers. These ladies will try to give themselves abortion if the practice is outlawed, which is very dangerous. Such things are for more difficult to keep track of, due to miscarrriage and any effective way to do so would equire a violation of much of our privacy. Then is the issue of a woman's right to her own body, theoretically if you could force a woman to carry a fetus in her body you can force her to do other things to her body. Newborns on the other hand do not require a body.
Also bear in mind if a fetus is considered a person: the death of a fetus is a potential case of murder. Even in cases of natural miscarriage. Meaning the woman has to be interrogated, her house can be searched, etc. What if they decide you killed the fetus through neglect, even if you didn't know it was there? You just killed a person. You are guilty of negligent manslaughter. Imagine what it will cost to investigate any suspect miscarriage; or how this will impact woman's rights.
They did this sort of thing when abortion was illegal. Rich woman could afford abortion doctors. But poor woman had to get them from dubious sources or try it themselves.
Militant anti-abortion group that thinks its ok to kill abortion doctors:
www.armyofgod.com/
Also some important information on so-called PAS i.e. the idea that woman get "depressed" after having an abortion.
www.religioustolerance.org/abo_post.htm
- In 1995, Dr. Paul Sachdef, professor of social work at Memorial University (Newfoundland, Canada), conducted 70 in-depth interviews of women who had elective abortions during the previous 6 to 12 months. 2 They are typical of women seeking abortions: aged 18 to 25, single, white females. All had terminated their first pregnancy during the first trimester giving mental health as their reason for seeking an abortion. He concluded: 3
-Two-thirds of the woman had used contraceptives rarely or not at all.
- Three-fourths of the woman thought they would not become pregnant.
-Almost 80% "felt relief and satisfaction" soon after the abortion.
- Long term guilt or depression were rare.
- Elective abortion is less traumatic than giving a child up for adoption.
-Women do not lightly decide to have an elective abortion
As for partial-birth abortions, there really is no such thing. The concept of it is made entirely by pro-life groups which are most likely reffering to D&X operations. It should be noted that about 1 percent of all abortions happen in the third-trimester and its usually done:
-
To save the life or health of a women experiencing a deteriorating health problem. This problem can rapidly grow worse with every day in late pregnancy. It is most often caused by diabetes or heart disease.
-In rare cases, the delivery of the fetus can go terribly wrong, threatening the life of the woman.
(This is why they collapse the skull in fact, to make it easier to get the fetus out because otherwise the results may be fatal for the woman.)
90 percent of abortions are done in the first-trimester:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_pba1.htm
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
Lastly it seems many here are against abortion simply because they see pre-marital sex as "immoral" to quote
Why exactly is getting pregnant "immoral"? If you say "because they got pregant" or "because they will kill the fetus" then that is circular reasoning. If you say "because they aren't ready to have children" well abortion fixes that. In any case that really isn't an argument and you fail to give a convincing reason of how it is the girl "messed up."
To claim sex is just or primarily for reporduction is utterly false. Read Jared Diamond's "The Third Chimpanzee" for more on this. If sex was just for reproduction, then why do human females have hidden ovulation? Why do we have sex in pairs constantly, even when we don't want to get anyone pregnant? Why is human fertitlity so low compared to cows and such(humans is like 28 percent at peak, cows are like 78 percent during ovulation)? In nature animals that only have sex to reproduce have sex only when necessary and when the female is ovulating. Sex is a very costly act in terms of time and energy, so animals rarely do it "for fun".
Gorilla males for example who only mate for reproduction, have an entire harem to themselves and mate only a few times a year. Human being even with one wife will mate regularly, far more then a gorilla. Obviously if sex is only for reproduction, human beings are very poorly designed.
In any event I am for freedom and women's rights. I call them as I see them and a fetus is no more a person then an acorn is a tree. Preventing abortion even under "partial birth" pretenses is both invasion and a big step backwards in terms of human rights, in a world already too full of unwanted kids. To turn the clock back on this issue is folly.
