24 weeks is not even an issue, as far as I am concerned. Abortions at that stage are so rare, it's not even worth squabbling over except on behalf of victims of extreme misfortune. Otherwise, if it takes a woman that long to realize she was pregnant, I have to wonder how many times she has unwittingly given birth in public toilets. On that note, it's a frightening thought that the pro-lifers think it's so important for such women to be mothers. The reason that pro-lifers love to focus on the final weeks of pregnancy is that they have found it to be invaluable as a premise on which to sell the remainder of their rubbish. What most pro-lifers will not tell you is that the pro-choice movement's highest concern is protecting womens' right to abort during the earliest weeks of pregnancy. They don't tell you this because, typically of conservatives, they don't mind bending the truth if it helps them get their way.
There is something that I say about those who participate in philosophical debates: win or lose, you're still out of touch with reality. It's a little spin on that crass "Special Olympics" joke. Frankly, I think that the original joke is just a way for ignorant, small-minded people to get a chuckle at the expense of the less fortunate. Now, unfortunately, many of those whom we deem "less fortunate" are a product of their own mistakes. For example, the reason my room-mate's life is in the gutter is that he got into trouble with the law a few years ago. Because of his record and several assorted problems, he's having to work with temp agencies just to give his unborn child, who presently looks a great deal like a little fish, a fair shot at life.
Unfortunately, there are people in this world who think that this man's past wrongs must mean that he doesn't warrant a third chance to make something of his life. They would put him down, and the person who ultimately suffered would be a child who hasn't even seen the face of its mother yet. Some people, unfortunately, do not know the difference between justice and recrimination. In my eyes, though, he is redeemed by the mere fact of his change of heart, and, for his eagerness to live a just life, I can see him as a just man.
Having some knowledge of living things is helpful, when we're discussing abortion. It is true that a blastula is not just a bunch of cells. In fact, a blastula is actually a hollow sphere of cells. Nothing is required to direct this growth. It is something that animal cells do by nature. Before there was such a thing as gastrulation or germ layers, the benefit of this strategy was that it allowed our ancestors to create a cavity unto which diverse uses could be put, such as storing nutrients that are not readily consumable or keeping harmful microbes from vulnerable parts of the cell. Of course, nature is more imaginative than Man, so the list of uses to which this may have been put is virtually endless. Obviously, it was a reasonably successful strategy for early animal cells, given that we're here. What gastrulation allowed them to do, though, was take in nutrients from their environment. It's relatively easy to envision. Gastrulation allowed early animal cells to aemebically surround their prey, cutting off any possible route of escape. Even a developing blastosphere would have been consumed. In today's animals, however, this proceeds into a seperation into germ layers, and each germ layer has its own specialized set of functions. In a way, the germ layers can be regarded almost as seperate species that live in a sort of symbiosis with one another, you see? It works similarly to segmentation in annelids: each segment has its own genetic identity and is capable of producing its own specialized functions. For our overall survival, each of our germ layers--our ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm--must all work in concert. That's what makes any kind of system work. That's what makes a team work. Although each individual member of a team is special and unique, they each assert themselves toward a unified purpose. We can learn a lot by examining life.
Have you ever seen a well-marshalled police force bring a mob under control? The police don't need one police officer for every member of the mob. The police are well-coordinated, and they work cojointly toward a united purpose. This is why the police win vs. a mob every single time. By the same token, a teenaged girl wins vs. a freshly gastrulated blastula every single time. Whether its conception were due to an act of rape or her own ill-thought decisions, there is no possible justification for trashing this young woman's education, family life, or career in the name of an entity that is still trying to sort out what goes inside of its blastocoel besides its own ass. I would like to think that my sister's ambitions and dreams are worth more than an organism that has one orifice on its entire body, whether it was her fault, her boyfriend's fault, the manufacturer's fault or the beverage's fault!
The pro-lifers have been very skillful in manipulating this issue, but remember: on the day of reckoning, the serpent's food will be dust. Their dirty politics will catch up to them. In the meantime, let's try to get the focus on what this issue is really all about, so perhaps one more person's hopes and dreams can be spared.
25 Mar 2008, 6:32 pm
I don't mean to offend you, but that word cracks me up. I've never seen it before.
