What do you think about abortion

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<what I think>

If it's dependent on my biological systems for sustaining its existence, it lives or dies at my discretion.

</what I think>

When you scrape your knee you kill numerous skin cells.

A newborn infant is also a bundle of cells. Hell, so are you. What kind of argument is that?

Until there is no brain stem it has no possibility of being considered alive but rather a collection of cells.

Past that however, its murder in my opinion.

Granted however, there may be exceptions to when an abortion would be acceptable. When the mother is in danger, certainty of horrible disease/crippling deformity of the fetus or rape/forced pregnancy of a minor (which basically qualifies of mother's life in danger).

If its none of the above then the woman who does not want the child has the perfectly legit option of giving the child up for adoption. This nonsense of 'its her body' ends when the brain stem forms. Its her body but not her life anymore.

So what? Make your point, please.

Brain stem development =/= consciousness. To me it's less like murder than killing a chicken or even a fish.

What you're saying would be fairer if you were willing to have the baby transplanted into you and if you could give birth to it. I wish it was possible to do that because then pro-life men would probably all rethink their position. Hopefully science will get to that point where we can say 'okay, fathers have equal say in this, if they volunteer to do the foetus-hosting.'

Until then, I think I need to get any male partner to sign a contract making explicit what his attitude towards my body is before I let them in it. If he thinks I'm obliged to carry a foetus to term because I found out I was pregnant a bit later than he'd like, then I'm not even going to touch him.

I like that answer.

HUMAN brain stem formed = the brain is there and it is no longer a collection of cells but a living, sentient being that is growing. There is life there. Its not about consciousness, its just the difference between a collection of cells vs cells that have specialized to form the core of what is to be a individual. Brain stem starts to develop on the 7th week.



If said transplant was possible and the male could carry it to term ('birth' would be impossible due to male pelvic bone anatomy so it'd be a c-section birth) you bet guys who dont want to see their children aborted would take the option. 9 months of inconvenience for the life of your child? Quite a deal.




That would be a very good item to add to any pre-nuptial agreement. I would not marry a woman who is willing to kill her own child (and mine) because having it is inconvenient. Again, brain stem formation is what I'd consider the 'cant do it' limit.

Also, even if one rejects the brain stem argument, once the fetus reaches the point of listening and learning from within the womb, one can no longer reasonably compare it to skin cells anyway.

I'm cool with abortion as long as my tax money isn't being used to pay for it. Having kids out of wedlock is considered really bad in my cultural / social milieu and when push comes to shove, abortion is seen as better than the alternative.

Contradiction? Sentience requires consciousness.


I would have thought that obvious.

An embryo is a collection of cells comparable to the collection of cells that die when you scrape your knee. Why should killing that collection of cells be "murder", but this collection of cells isn't?

Simple. One means killing a collection that is a PART of a human being and not the whole. The other means killing a WHOLE human being, not just part.

Incidentally, there are issues concerning the scraping of knees. If, say, you're sending a text message, trip, and fall on your own driveway and scrape your knee, you'll probably just go on with life without a second thought at best. At worst you'll clean the wound, apply anti-bacterial ointment, and bandage it.

Now, say you're at your workplace and trip over a tool or other piece of hardware, and scrape your knee on a bare concrete floor, you can now sue for liability. Generally speaking, there's workman's comp and liability insurance, etc., that will keep emergency room costs and so forth from ever making it to a courtroom. Nevertheless, you have certain rights that come from negligence in the workplace. As another example, parents are responsible for all kids on their property, not just their own. I'm "borrowing" property for a vegetable garden and it's not out of the ordinary for my kids to play on the plot past the garden. If there was, say, a bear trap out there and one of my kids lost a leg from getting caught in it AND my neighbor didn't tell us, we could sue him for personal injury and negligence. Just like if one of our kids was playing on someone's trampoline, fell, and ONLY scraped a knee, we could still hold that parent responsible for emergency room bills and so forth. Not only THAT, but if the wound got infected resulting in an amputation, we'd be within our rights to hold the other parent responsible for that as well.

What I'm getting at is this: A scraped knee isn't JUST a scraped knee in the eyes of biology or the law. If I trip and fall down on my own gravel driveway, scrape my knee, develop an infection, and get my leg amputated, I can't hold anyone responsible but myself. Serves me right for not being more careful. If someone else causes me an injury, whether trying to start a fight or negligence, it's no longer JUST a scraped knee, and that isn't something we can just let go.

Come to think of it, scraped knees have more recourse under the law than the unborn.

Now, let's change that and make it about killing a person. If someone invades my home at night, fails to identify themselves, and fails to clearly make any good intentions, I have every right to shoot first and ask questions later. If I decide to kill myself, that's MY problem. If I'm out hunting, fire a gun without identifying the target, and accidentally kill another hunter, then I'm guilty of manslaughter. If I break into someone's house with the intention of stealing their stuff and I kill the occupant, or if kill someone for any other reason than self-defense or defending someone in danger, I'm guilty of murder. Manslaughter isn't always prosecutable or punishable like murder, but it has to be dealt with in some way. Premeditated murder demands a higher degree of justice. The difference between that and scraping a knee is a PERSON dies while the one responsible for said person's death is held accountable. One kind of injury a person can usually bounce back from. The other a person cannot.

Any "collection" of cells that constitutes an entire human life form and not part must be dealt with as such. Destroying an entire human being, whether that human being is a single cell or a fully grown adult is either manslaughter or murder. Any "collection" of cells that constitutes only part of a human life is dealt with differently because personal injury is NOT THE SAME as death.

I think it's sad that a scraped knee has more rights than an unborn child.

One cell is only one cell. The problem arises when it comes to the point when a fetus can no longer be considered just a bunch of cells but something resembling a being that deserves to be born.

I would say abortion in the very early stages would be ok morally speaking, but late abortion is no different from murdering a newborn.

You are not correct. The brainstem regulates autonomic functions like breathing and heartrate; it has nothing to do with sentience, much less sapience. Anencephalic fetuses often have brainstems, despite lacking the rest of their brains.


Baka. Everything starts to develop as soon as gastrulation occurs; the question is when things (the brain in particular) are actually functional. Random neurons firing in isolation do not a consciousness make.

There's that "inconvenience" word again...
Let us all, then, look happily forward to the day when technology is sufficiently advanced that men can carry to term any zef that the woman does not want in her body.

Cremation of care. For those who are into that kind of thing.

Young girls could do with knowing a thing like that but nah, doubt it'll happen.

This.