Funny thing happened over the last couple days, I decided I no longer unequivocally favor abortion "rights" for women.

I got into a long thread in another forum, and found that the arguments in favor of abortion were decidely unsatisfactory. I wanted to give other people a chance to make better arguments than I was offered there. So here I am.

It has occured to me that abortion rights advocates have drawn a very small circle around the woman and say: its her body, period. This comes with a lot of baggage about the history of men's subjugation of women and other crap that means nothing to where I am coming from. Look, I do not want to control women, okay, so let it rest. "You would never let somone tell you what to do with your body" seems to be the money quote here. The problem is, I don't have a living being in my body. Women do.

And that is the problem for me. I cannot accept the core premise that the fetus is not a living being.

I cannot accept the other core premise either, that the father has absolutely no interest in the fetus. "What's his legal right?" kept coming up. The father participated in the creation of a living being. You tell me that comes with no rights or interests? Not satisfactory.

In fact, the argument kept veering into the law, and how complicated it would be, like say over the baby's nationality, if it had "personhood". Please. This is the best reason not to acknoweldge a living beating heart, because it makes for messy law?

So anyway, here's the challenge, make a moral case for abortion using MY premises.

My premises:

- Don't bother about what the law says or what is legally practical.

- Make room for the father and baby having moral rights along with the mother.

- Acknoweldge the living being.

- Don't mention misogyny.

I'm serious. Can anyone do it?

You will nto get a satisfactory answer without all the associated bullshit which you so wisely excluded from the argument.

When it all comes down to the truth....abortion is the murder of a living being...the weakest member of our society. A society that does not protect its weakest and most innocent elements is evil.

No matter how convenient it might be for those responsible, you can't get past the truth.

Jack

I suspect you believe that moral justifications can be reached for taking a life, even an innocent civilian life, such as with warfare, as well as justifying capital punishment. I assume you also accept economic cost benefit calculations for pollution whereby the real world impact is on the mortality and morbidity of innocent humans, including children.

It therefore may also be possible to construct a moral case to take a fetus's life.

But I do agree with you on the main point, I can no longer accede to pretending the fetus doesn't exist.

Well innocent, yeah, considering that it never had anything remotely similar to a thought, never felt anything, never had a brain (I am talking early term abortions here, mind you)

no heartbeat?

You’re joking, right? Do I have to pull out that dusty old link to the “Every Sperm is Sacred” song? Here’s your premise one – every sperm is a living thing. We don’t grant them rights either. Tapeworms don’t fare to well in the “right to life” debates either (though they certainly pass that "heartbeat" litmus test you referred to upthread).

So, a fetus is a living being. It is a living being without substantive rights. A fetus is not a person.

Demosthenes once wrote a dandy post about the daily genocide occurring when unimplanted blastocysts are flushed out of a woman’s body. What about them? Will no one think of the (potential) children?!?!?

As for the rest of your post – I call bullshit on 1) not wanting to control women, and 2) pretending this is not a misogynist position. Further, I’ll ask a question in return:

Do your religious beliefs impact your position on this issue at all?

you can't do it.

not without hyperbole and distraction and attack.

I have no desire to control women. It's the america-hater reply you guys seem to reach for though. yes, I am questioning abortion, I must be a woman hater for sure. maybe I should move to, what, cuba?

I am not concerned for the sperm that you eject onto your own belly when you whack off. nor am I concerned for unfertilized eggs. I am interested in eggs that have been fertilized and are developing into a human being and in about 42 weeks they take their first breath.

I am not religious.

I am liberal. very liberal as a matter of fact. voted for nader twice.

so go to hell.

I refuse to view fetuses like they are some sort of booger to be picked and flicked without regard. the more I talk to people like you, the more I realze that is exactly how you view it.

it's quite eye opening.

You are treating a potential person as though they are a person. Where are the absolutes you can base your position on?

You don't have any. Instead, you mock my sexual habits (which at least I am still capable of), and paint me as treating your theoretical, potential person with disdain.

This is the best you can do? Try again.

PS. I'll bet my liberal inclinations are longer and girthier than your liberal inclinations. Wanna compare?

Demosthenes' post was referring to fertilized eggs who do not implant - all the little potential people who, through no fault of their own, are deprived of a suitable host, who (willingly or unwillingly) will lend them the protection of her body, and the sustenance they require to reach a point of biological, independent viability. As he eloquently pointed out, there is daily genocide of unimplanted blastocysts. Strangely enough, no one seems to care about them.

Men's rights? Exercise judicious control of your sperm, or face the obligations that might result. Otherwise, men have no rights. Perhaps we can revisit this issue once those clever fertility specialists figure out how to successfully impregnate a man.

but I already got rid of this month's person at the Feminist Friday Fetus Cookout. If I'd known you were holding a contest, I woulda just sacrificed a chicken instead. Oh, wait—you're not a vegan are you? Oops.

believe in capital punishment because the bible sanctions and demands it, Genesis 9:6. I am however taking a close look at it, in light of so many people being vindicated by DNA evidence in the last few years. I think it is warranted if there is irrefutable proof of guilt.

I do not believe that Americans set out to purposely kill innocent people. Does it happen, of course, innocent people die in warfare. But does that fact mean that we should never defend ourselves under any circumstance. All that will accomplish is the deaths of more innocent people.

I don't fully understand your point about the economic cost benefit calculations for pollution. If society creates a world in which the air and water are so unsafe that people die because of it then society must bear the responsibility for that.

Jack

Sarvis may be a little too genteel to say this to you, but i am not burdened with such inhibition. You're a fucking idiot, and you have more than proved his point.

You demonstrate the exact twisted logic and mentality about which he was talking. The fetus is not a person argument which can be dismissed easily by simply looking at a sonogram in the early stages of pregnancy.

If it moves and has a heartbeat at 18 weeks how can it not be a person? If it is a person at 18 weeks how can it not be a person earlier because it certainly is a person at 9 months.

I ask you this.....why do you want to kill the unborn? Do you think you curry favor with women because you are so enlightened that you will pretend there is nothing wrong with it? So far all you have offered is bullshit, which is not allowed under the rules of the top post.

Jack

but I can make one for those living embryos that TK refers to up there.

(You'll never be able to wrap this one up, Sarvis - no one can ever argue about abortion and come out on a winning side. There is none.)

Misogyny? I don't see that as an argument for or against abortion. Women are the ones equipped biologically to have the babies, men aren't. Pregnancy is a force of nature, of biology. What separates us from the animals is that in most societies becoming pregnant can usually be our choice, but just as often it can happen without our wanting it to. In an ideal world, pregnancy would be a privilege with n responsibility attached. We can talk all we want about having control over our bodies but the simple fact is that our "control" is gone once we become pregnant and another life is within us. Yes, destroying that unborn child is exercising full control of our bodies. It is also taking a life.

That being said, I have nothing but complete and total empathy, compassion and understanding for any woman facing an unwanted pregnancy. My reasons are based on personal experience. I never had an abortion, but I had invitro-fertilization done, successful the very first time and resulting in triplets, 3 beautiful children now 17 years old. I have 5 living embryos "left over" from that procedure, frozen in never-never land for 17 years now. I wish I could link you to my post about them, but there's no access to past fray history, and I've written on this subject several times before.

My initial answer to what was a very real moral dilemma was to donate my embryos to another couple. I had adopted a child myself before the triplets were born so it fell right in with my way of thinking. Life doesn't work out that neatly, unfortunately. At this point there looks to be little chance of anyone taking up my offer, considering the advances of science in just the last decade - and so what do I do with these remaining embryos?

I don't know what to do with them. So they remain frozen in time, but is that just a kind of slow motion abortion, drawn out over decades? My belief that they are absolutely viable lives keeps me from bringing an end to their existence. Just one look at any of my 3 children who came from the same "batch" tells me clearly that any one of those remaining embryos have the same strikingly individual personalities, the same grace and loveliness to be another ballerina like my daughter, the natural athleticism to be another basketball player like both of my sons are now. That these embryos are my potential children, if only I would provide that potential womb. ("batch" is a horrible way to put it, I know - but its 5 am and I'm not feeling particularly eloquent)

Wonderful post, Topazz.

Jack

This is a well reasoned post pertaining to abortions. It is not ideolgical in nature. I suppose that anyone interested in protecting a woman's choice for aborting an unborn child could find all sorts of logical reasons for doing so; but that does not defer from the fact that the taking of a defenseless innocent life with no just reason; other than it is unwanted is morally reprehensible and wrong.

I do not base my premise of the morality issue pertaining to abortions on my religious beliefs. Even if I were an athiest, I would find it morally reprehensible to take the life of an innocent unborn child. I guess that I just love children (even when they are unborn ones).

Hawk