Is abortion considered murder?

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I had to sign a permission form so my husband could get a vasectomy.

He most certainly did require artificial support during his first months of life--but I categorically refuse the notion that he was any less alive during that period than an infant born at term who survived independent of artificial support. Does a person cease to be alive when that person is conntected to a ventilator? Does a person cease to be alive with a cardiac pacemaker? Then why do we suppose that an infant fails to start to live until the baby is removed from the incubator?

The young man in question is a healthy, typical young adult. (Fond of playing rugby if memory serves, I can't check it out on wikipedia today )

I agree. Better some should live rather than all should die.

ruveyn

Artificial life support does not make you not human. However, there is no life support that will sustain the babies who are aborted before about 22 or 23 weeks. At that stage, the mother is just starting to show, and she really can hide it until then. If a baby is born at that gestational age at a hospital, it can be put on life support and put in NICU for the remaining weeks. There is also a very good chance that such prematurity will cause many problems and disabilities for the child though, so no doctor would induce labor at that gestational age.

It seems to be more of a mindset of "It's better to kill them now at 15 weeks than it is to wait ten more weeks, induce and then have them in a wheelchair or mentally deficient or blind all their lives".

However, even though I would only abort if it were a choice between my life and the baby's life, I am for abortion remaining legal for the simple reason that the baby is in the mothers body.

Once a mother sees and loves her baby, she will do anything for it. Usually. Unless she's nuts or something. If I were to get pregnant now (I have a prolapsed uterus and could hemmhorage and die easily) I would abort. Probably. However, if I were to go back in time, knowing my kids as I do now, and be in the situation of first being pregnant with any of them, and having a life threatening circumstance thrown at me for myself, I'd still carry them as long as I could.

Maybe my feelings about abortion are because I've always been completely ambivilant about the baby my entire pregnancy, but once I'm in labor I have a real investment and as soon as I see the baby I become a mother bear. It's really wierd too. With my youngest son, I remember being my usual ambivilant self during pregnancy, and my midwife told me his heart tones were dropping during pushing. I beared down really hard for a few times and got him out, ripping myself wide open in the process but I didn't care. She had him and was wrapping him up and washing him off. They had cut the cord. I was still on my bed on my hands and knees (homebirth). I said "Gimme my baby" she said "Ok, hold on" as she was putting his hat on him and I actually growled and came to the foot of the bed on my hands and knees, cord hanging out of me, naked, placenta still inside, and snatched him from her, went back up to the head of the bed and laid back on the pillows, put him to the breast and then was as sweet as pie. Instinct I guess.

Do you deny peoples right to get rid of tapeworms?

Same thing. It is a parasite inside the woman's body. What right do YOU have to say that she can't get rid of the parasite if she so chooses?

What right do you have at all to try and tell people what they can and can't do when it will never matter in your life?

When you see babies, do you see tapeworms?

When I see a child that has already been born I see a baby.

When I see a pregnant woman, I see a parasite.

I don't say parasite in a negative sense, by the way. It can't survive without it's mother, that is it is a parasite.

Even though it's fits the definition of a parasite, you do know that a fetus isn't really a parasite, right?

no its a
BEP
biological entity with parasitic traits.

nuff with the definition bashing.

I've seen pictures from China that suggest that fetuses are actually food.

Technicalities aside, what's the difference? A baby at the fetal stage can't survive outside of the womb (or a simulation of such).

I don't think babies were meant to survive outside of the womb or a simulation of such. It's just a fragile part of being human. What about people that live on life support? Are they parasitic tapeworms too?

Calling babies parasites not in a negative manner is like calling someone an imbecile because that is what they scored on an IQ test.

People on life support is a whole different issue.

Personally I think they should be removed. If they can't survive without life support, they are already dead and taking up space in a hospital that the living could use.

I guess neither a person on life support or a premature fetus is a parasite, because neither lives off a host.



Some people come out. Some report that they were conscious the whole time.

Remove the fetus from the mother (the host) and what happens? It dies.

I'm not talking about a baby that's 8.5 months developed, I'm talking... say the first 20 weeks.



I'd love to see percentages on that.

Also, brain scans would be able to pick up awareness, whether or not they could hear or see.

Someone who is completely brain dead is not going to wake up, they are already dead.