Infanticide
The Arctic Patriot has stated the pro-life argument in the starkest of terms. I posted the following comment, which he will hopefully allow through.
Abortion discussions never go anywhere. Nobody ever budges an inch. But I'll state my considered opinion, which also is not likely to change.
There are two classes of living things on the planet, sentient beings and property. A sentient being is aware that it is alive. It fears death. It wants to remain alive. This desire is deeper, much deeper, than simple animal self preservation.
Intentionally killing a sentient being, other than in self defense, is murder. Property may be treated by the property owner in any way (s)he desires.
Human beings from the age of six months or so are usually sentient. There are exceptions, but they are rare. Dolphins and whales and apes may also be sentient. If flies were sentient, intentionally killing them, other than in self defense, would be murder.
A human sperm and egg are obviously not sentient. A three-year-old human child almost always is sentient. At some point between those two points, the developing human becomes sentient, and it becomes murder to intentionally kill it. The point at which killing that developing human becomes murder is a religious issue. Many people who self identify as Christian consider a human fetus to be sentient at conception. I consider it to happen sometime in the first year of life, but I'm willing to agree on birth as the point after which abortion becomes murder.
Personally, I don't see the difference between a human embryo shortly after conception and a separated egg and sperm. Both are potential sentient human beings, but neither will become sentient without a lot of work and commitment. If it is to be considered murder to abort a 1-week-old embryo, then I think it should be considered murder to NOT inseminate a fertile 20-something beauty. Both deny a potential human life.
Since I do not consider a fetus to be sentient until after birth, it is property. The mother is the obvious property owner, since the fetus is part of her body. Therefore, it is entirely her decision whether to bring the baby to term or to abort. It's nobody else's business.
After the baby is born, it becomes a sentient being with rights, it is no longer the mother's property, and she may not kill it.
I don't expect to change anyone's mind. Only to point out that this is a religious argument, hence not subject to rational discussion.
Unusual commentry over
Unusual commentry over there.
Or commenters-- Kent, IloIlo, &c-- but little
progress for a group edition.
Perhaps hey could start with Law.
After we all agree on Law, we can continue
to inspect the points of our very own
"Law on Human Abortion"
Some Perspective on Abortion
The idea that all abortion is murder make as much sense as calling every death a killing and then claiming that all killing is murder. There are distinctions to be made. The blatant hypocrisy abides with those in denial of the fact: any one living does so in windfall effect from aborted life.
What life is not aborted at some inevitability? Is it more justifiable if the fetal termination 15 months prior to my birth was natural rather than intentional? There is no name, no shrine, no mementos, no memorial counting nor ever a calendar mark. There was certainly never any life approaching the viability of a million dollar preemie that would suck up resources otherwise useful for sustaining thousands of those wretched starving and sickly sucklings that show up in news briefs and documentaries.
What society or culture does not minister absolution to some sense of self defense, collateral damage, natural order and hospice? And which group is entirely free of inconsistencies, even hypocrisies? Are those of the badge and gavel gang the only ones with impunity from stuff like a hail of bullets aborting the life of a nervous suspect reaching for a wallet? What comparable choice by any woman can not rightfully be classified as a matter of self defense? If perceived threat is sufficient for one, why not the other?
But is it entirely a religious argument? I guess it depends on your definition of religious ... Rationality and religion are not necessarily mutually exclusive -- if you allow for the concept of "religion" to encompass a spectrum that includes fraud, superstition and true faith. I submit that true faith and rational discussion are mutually inclusive. If sentience were a guarantor of rationality we would be done with our philosophies and discussions. I am sufficiently studied of scripture to note that abortive choice is just as easily supported by biblical inferences; perhaps more so than a strident pro life position. It is attributed to venerable wisdom that there is occasion where it might be better to not have been born. Were I a woman, should it not be my prerogative to consider if a child should suffer under oppression and miseries or be spared deprivations and impositions on limited resources? Give me a break. Where is there any life, "pro life", that is not subsidized by aborted life?
While the Roe v. Wade decision is not without flaw, I consider it fairly well reasoned. The court was, of course, corralled within legal frameworks notwithstanding popular debate that was and subsists all over the emotive map. One of the issues the court grappled with was jurisdiction and where the line between personal and state interests would be drawn. I vaguely recall discussion from the 70s & 80s that referred to a woman's body, including the womb, as a matter of "jurisdiction". How or why the terms "personal jurisdiction" or "jurisdiction over the uterus" fell out of favor or just faded from discursive vocabulary is a scholastic matter beyond my purview. Maybe "privacy" "controlling her own body" proved more digestible in news market parlance.
Whatever one believes about contraception or sentience or the beginning of life or the ethics of early or late term abortion, I can't see how the uterus is under any jurisdiction other than the bearer of such and anyone with contractual investment, i.e. a husband/father as paternal stakeholder. Any state stakeholder interests are removed or at best remotely insinuated rather than vested.
And why shouldn't a woman have primary jurisdiction over the uterus and product thereof. We are not that far removed from a time (or even other present cultures) when women were considered chattel and nature held greater jurisdiction over mortality percentages. That medical science and modern institutions have divested numerous jurisdictional components from the natural order has only served to shift burdens of mortality jurisdictions to more sentient qualities in nature.
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So, killing babies until
So, killing babies until they are six months of age is okay, then?
After all, 'sentience' begins around 6 mos, you said, right?
What about someone in a vegetative state, or coma, regardless of age? Sentience is the determining factor now, right? So if grandma has a stroke and goes into a coma, she becomes the property of... who? The heirs? The nursing home or hospice? The doctor? The State? And because grandma has no sentience anymore, she is property and can be disposed of at the whim of the owners, right?
And what exactly is sentience? Are there people who 'appear sentient' but who cannot make meaningful. rational decisions for themselves? 'Feeble-mindedness', anyone? Are they property, too? Can they be disposed of as well?
Nice slippery slope we have here, eh?
Oh, and about a religious issue being beyond rational discussion. That's irrational. Either something makes sense, is consistent and logically valid, or it isn't, religious or not. The whole 'faith vs reason' dichotomy is a false dichotomy invented by those who want to make sure nobody thinks rationally about religion, imo.
I'm not comfortable with
I'm not comfortable with killing human infants after birth, hence my willingness to accept birth as the dividing line, but yes, it makes sense to be able to abort up to around 6 months after birth. But sentience develops gradually, and at different rates in different individuals, so it's not possible to ascertain when a being is sentient "enough" to have a right to life. Some consider the killing of non-human animals to be murder. I've realized that we live on a planet where we eat each other. Absurd idea, but there it is. I don't eat sentient beings.
Obviously we need to define "religion" in order to agree on whether religious arguments can be rational. I'm defining religion as unfounded faith in a supernatural being of some sort whose edicts can somehow be discovered and which must be followed. Natural law, e.g. gravity, enforces itself without need of help from us humans. But some postulate religious law, proclaimed by a creator, and enforced by humans. No rational argument accepted. I don't believe in that. So I don't consider as rational abortion arguments based on that kind of unfounded belief.
I believe there is a spiritual plane of existence, the source of life, and I believe that it is possible to learn about it, but it also needs no enforcement by we humans, though it can be a source of our purpose and our sense of right and wrong. But anybody who claims to have authority over others coming from the spiritual plane is a charlatan or a tyrant. If your spiritual experience helps your life, bravo. If you try to use it to control me, sic semper tyrannis.
My prohibition of murder comes from a very selfish base. Would I consider myself to be justified in defending myself should somebody try to do that to me? Then I must consider others to also be so justified. I've already been born. Abortion can no longer happen to me. Hence, I don't consider it my business or my problem.
Yep
I agree with you, even though I had never thought of it in exactly that way. Thanks.
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