SpoilsOfAWastedLife
November 20, 2004

Abortion: The Epitome Of Arrogance And Ignorance

A rather strange thing happened to me today. First of all, I was really bored and found myself talking to some people in a Christian chatroom (crosswalk.com). Even stranger, I ran across some woman who was adamantly pro-choice.

There have been a few times in different entries that I’ve voiced my take on the whole abortion issue, but being as how I really have nothing else to say right now, I’ll spill it.

I can’t really say that I’m undecided on the issue. True, I don’t currently fall into either the pro-life or pro-choice camps. The thing with me is that I don’t think that humanity currently knows enough to be able to accurately decide on this issue.

Pro-lifers say that life begins at conception and that abortion is always murder. Yet if that’s truly what they think, some of them show just how weak their convictions are when the ones in charge of policy decide that even if it’s murder, it’s still acceptable in cases of rape and incest.

Pro-choicers have no such concerns. The only argument that I’ve ever heard from them, which it seems is usually shouted by “women’s rights” advocates that are spitting mad, is that “it’s a woman’s choice.”

Before any person can make an informed decision about the morality of abortions, there is one all-important question that needs to be answered. It can’t be argued that somewhere between the moment of conception and birth, life is formed. Anyone who tries to deny that is either ignorant or is willing to ignore truth and fact if it conflicts with their agenda.

The one real question that needs to be answered is “When does life begin?” The next most important question is, “What defines life?”

The official pro-life stance is that life begins at conception. That means that as soon as the egg splits into two cells, that the little coupling of cells is worthy of just as much protection and is just as valuable as any citizen walking down the street.

What I wonder though is, can what we consider human life and human existence be present in something so small? After birth, we humans lose thousands of cells from our bodies every day. Yet we don’t exist in limbo in between life and death because our bodies are constantly dying and being rebuilt.

The pro-choice stance is that it’s a woman’s right to chose. It doesn’t matter what her reasoning is but if she wants and abortion at any time, she should have the opportunity to have one.

As I said before, unless you are stupid or have some ulterior agenda, you can’t say that life doesn’t begin somewhere between conception and birth. Until it can be found exactly when life begins, if that will ever even be possible, you are shooting in the dark.

You can argue all you want that it’s just “a collection of cells,” or “a fetus,” or “an embryo,” or “a zygote,” or anything else to try and detach it from being seen as a child. Yet it cannot be proven that life doesn’t begin at conception any more than it can be proven that it does. Until we know for sure, allowing abortions to continue runs the risk of being guilty of murdering millions.

A little over a week ago, a jury found Scott Peterson guilty of second degree murder for the “death” of his unborn son who was “killed” as an effect of Peterson murdering his wife Lacy. Does anyone else see the double standards here? A judge allowed a jury to convict a man for murdering his unborn son in the same country who allows doctors to legally abort thousands of “fetuses” each year.

It really makes me wonder, what made Connor (as he was to be named) Peterson any different than any of the fetuses which are aborted legally? What made him worthy of the protection of the laws of our country, yet so many like him are not? Are we Americans really so arrogant and ignorant and stupid to think that whether or not a pregnancy is wanted or not determines whether or not it should be protected and considered a “life?”

Pro-choicers whom I have talked to say that pro-lifers only think that life begins at conception because they think God said so. Although that seems to be a fairly accurate observation, I have yet to have a single pro-choice advocate (and yes, I’ve asked them about this) give me any idea of when “life” begins. The only thing I hear them say over and over whenever the topic of the beginning of life is brought up is “It’s a woman’s choice.” Just like the little child who thinks that by repeating something enough it will make it real, they have avoided my question on that point every time I’ve asked any of them (including the one I talked to today).

Until it can be proven when life begins, if it ever can, I think abortions should be outlawed. Although we possess the technology and ability to carry out the action of abortions, we lack the knowledge that should have come before that ability.

Maybe someday it will life will be defined and the starting point will be found and it will occur after most abortions are performed. If that’s the case, I will stand and fight alongside all the pro-choice people out there.

Although I’m a heathen and I don’t consider myself a “moral” person (since I really don’t care about right and wrong, but really only about what best suits me) I still believe that it’s better to err on the side of caution when trying to decide something that is this important. Would it be better to not allow abortions and someday discover that life begins at the moment of birth, and simply have more children in the social service system to find parents for? Or would it be better to allow abortions to continue and someday possibly find out that life DOES begin before birth and that a good number of fetuses that were aborted were aborted after life began?

This issue of abortion isn’t an issue of “religion”. It isn’t an issue of “a woman’s right to chose” (which is really just something that was made up to throw at people and avoid having to answer the question of when life begins). The real core of the abortion issue has to do with defining life and finding when it really begins.

Until we as a species can do that, we have no right and no place to be considering ourselves “moral” and still allow abortions to continue while we sit in the darkness of our ignorance.

*
”Well I’m a black rainbow
And I’m an ape of God
I’ve got a face that’s made for violence upon
And I’m a teen distortion
Survived abortion
A rebel from the waist down
*
I wanna thank you mom
I wanna thank you dad
For bringing this fucking world to a bitter end
I never really hated the one true God
But the God of all the people I hated
*
You said you wanted evolution
The ape was a great big hit
You say you want a revolution, man
And I say that you’re full of shit
*
We’re disposable teens
We’re disposable teens
We’re disposable.”
*
Marilyn Manson

Log in to write a note

I like to say I’m pro-choice but I don’t agree that women should use just because they feel like, I would that there was good reason’s behind it. Perhaps the worst like you mentioned, rape or incest. Or I think if one is truly at a point in there life where they could not care for a child it is okay as long as they attempted at protection….

“The one real question that needs to be answered is “When does life begin?” The next most important question is, “What defines life?”” Those questions have no meaning from a scientific perspective. It’s purely a matter of opinion. If, on the other hand, you feel that a person has the right of ownership over his or her own body, then abortion is a property right.

“If abortion is a property right issue, when does a person take ownership of themself?” If a mother’s property right over her own body and her offspring’s property right over its own body are not to contradict each other, then birth is the only place you can draw that line.

“By that I mean that, if a woman has a child, when is that child no longer the “property” of the mother?” This is not a question of when it *is* immoral to kill a fetus, but at what arbitrary point we should use. If you’re going to assign rights to a fetus, they are going to contradict the idea that a mother owns her own body. So there’s no way to delineate a non-contradictory system of morals.

“I must say though, talking about pregnancies as “property” sounds as ridiculous to me as hearing about slave owners calling their slaves their “property”.” Or as normal as suggesting that you own your arm, or leg, or pancreas. Do you at least accept that concept, or no?

And if anyone’s being “immoral” here, consider the fact that the pro-lifers are the only people sitting by and doing nothing while things they consider people are being murdered. If they really believed fetuses were human beings, that would make the United States several orders of magnitude worse than Hitler’s Germany.

So either all this noise about the immorality of abortions is being exaggerated, or the pro-lifers honestly are sitting back and doing nothing while a Holocaust rages on. Which sounds more logical to you?

“why doesn’t that same fact also make the mother the property of the fetus? Why do the property rights only flow one way?” Would you rather it did work that way? Imagine how screwed up the legal code would be then.

.::.Face Down.::.
November 21, 2004

I dunno, I think if you wanna have an abortion even if it is murder, go ahead and have one. It’s not like I’d be the one doing it. I won’t be having the same problems you are.

“I accept that my arm, leg, liver, and pancreas are mine, yet those are different than a fetus. Those are all organs which have reached their full development.” Well that’s just nonsense. You’re reaching for anything that will make a fetus seem different from the rest of the human organs.

“A fetus is not an organ, but something that if allowed to develop will become a person.” Fine, if you don’t want to call a fetus an organ, there’s no point in arguing semantics. However, by your reasoning, sperm are also *not* parts of the human body, deserve rights, and shouldn’t be spilled on the bathroom floor.

So once again, your reasoning has led us into a ridiculous place.

wow! i do not think an un-cared for child is worthless at all! i do not want there to be any and if someone can’t do it i think abortion should be an option at least. anyway…when do i think life begins? is someone alive if they’re heart is beating? if so, then that’s the answer.

“But since it’s legal, what CAN they do? Do two wrongs make a right? Should they kill abortion doctors and be labeled as kooks and religious radical (as some have)? Or should they keep trying to change the legal status of abortion laws?” If people can get all huffy and support the invasion of Iraq because of Saddam killing a few thousand people a year,

Then why aren’t they similarly eager to overthrow our government and commit widespread killing in order to save millions of fetuses? See what I mean?

“As I said, I don’t consider myself a moral person. I don’t get outraged when I hear about people being killed, nor am I even the slightest bit angered by abortions.” Well that’s nonsense. Everyone’s got some kind of mental sense of right and wrong. If you didn’t, your body wouldn’t be able to operate. At the very least, you believe it’s better to be alive than dead,

and proof of that is the fact that you’re still alive and talking to me. “My whole take on the issue is that people are making decisions on an issue that I’m not sure we know enough about yet to be able to decide on.” What exactly do you think we still need to know?

“If a fetus is an organ, why does it take the introduction of sperm from a male to create?” Did I miss the part of your argument where you explained why that disqualifies something from being an organ?

“What other “organ” in the human body requires an outside source to make it grow?” Um, all of them. They all require nutrients from outside the body. They all require DNA code from two parents to develop.

“What other “organ” in the human body waits until adulthood to begin to develop?” The brain doesn’t fully develop until puberty, when the neurons become myelinated. Sex organs take a while to develop. Glands develop around puberty. When you say “we” don’t know enough to judge yet, did you mean “you”?

“I wouldn’t consider sperm worth protecting any more than eggs because if left to themselves, that’s all they will ever be.” All of your organs would die if they were “left to themselves”. And a fetus would, too. So what’s your point?

“Just curious, and I’m only asking for an opinion, when do you think life begins?” That’s a meaningless question, and I say this as someone who trains pre-meds before they apply to medical school. “Life” is not a rigidly defined medical term. It’s just a general term with no commonly accepted definition.

If you look in a biology book, rather than define what “life” is, it will describe certain features which could signify life. Some of these are “consists of cells” and “is able to reproduce” and “is mobile”. But many of the things we consider “alive” only show some of these features, like seeds, viruses, and bacteria. And some things we don’t consider “alive” have most of them, like fire.

Since there isn’t some “essence” that one can associate with being “alive”, what we choose to call “life” is really kind of arbitary. It’s pointless to ruminate on “when life begins”, because at the level of fetushood, that question ceases to mean anything.

The real abortion question is, at what point should we extend the legal right of self-ownership to someone? Whatever point you choose for that, it should be non-contradictory, i.e. it shouldn’t violate other rights of self-ownership, otherwise the process of “granting” rights is simultaneously “depriving” someone of their rights.

If a mother has the right of self-ownership over her body, then the fetus cannot have that right, because then it would be ambiguous as to who “owns” it. If a mother cannot own what is in her body, then how can you say that a fetus owns what’s in its body? See, the reason we choose birth is because it allows us to consider rights of self-ownership unambiguously.

If you try to push those rights back, you run into major problems as to how the law should be applied. There is, quite simply, no easier way to consider this.

“If life is just a “general term” then how does someone know when a person is dead? Doesn’t death occur when life ceases?” That’s up to debate, too. A person’s brain can be inactive, but their body is still working. Do you consider that alive or dead? It can go either way, depending on your point of view.

I’ve heard more argumunts from pro-choicers than simply ‘it’s a woman’s right to choose’, as you claim.

IMO, abortion should not be legal for basic birth control methods. For some woman who can’t keep her legs closed or doesn’t use any form of birth control, it’s her own damn fault she got pregnant. Abortion should not be used because you failed to be responsible. However, in the case of incest, rape, or some sort of life-threatening issue, I believe it should be something that is left up…..

…to the conscience of the woman or couple that is dealing with the issue. Really, it’s not truly an issue of when the life is a life. It is more an issue of responsibility and conscience. If a woman finds out she is pregnant because she couldn’t keep her legs closed or use BC or condoms, it’s not fair for her to be able to use abortion because of her irresponsibility. Just MO.

angelflower
November 21, 2004

Woh…mad people. ha. LOL. You’re a brave one for speaking of this subject. Hugs to you. Astrid

TheNameOfTheGame
November 21, 2004

This was a good entry. You know what I think on this whole thing. A life is a life. But you made some excellent points

~daydreamer~
November 21, 2004

Well, the conner baby (in lacy’s stomach) was 9 months old… no one allows abortions at that length, legally anyway.

Connor’s mother didn’t seek an abortion. She was very near the delivery date of her much wanted child, and she was murdered. I haven’t read all your entry because I’m too sleepy to concentrate, but I don’t see a parallel to what he did and an abortion. Not taking sides on the issue at this writing, but that thought jumped into my head.

Soliloquy
November 21, 2004

I was just coming by to thank you for your note on my entry and apparently stepped into the middle of a debate. I do wonder, if you are a person who supposedly does not operate on morals but instead on the predicted utility to yourself, then why do you care about something that you will never have to do? Unless you get someone pregnant, I see no reason why a hedonist such as yourself…

Soliloquy
November 21, 2004

…would even find abortion relevant. There is no utility to you if other people do it or don’t do it, unless it conflicts with your morals, and then you are indeed a moral being.

DarkRen
November 22, 2004

“When life begins” is something you’ll never find out, because by its very nature it’s an subject of opinion. There is no single factor that people can point to as signifying the start of life. Unless you can define what bodily function we’re looking for in this regard. Or, like some, do you mean when the soul enters the body? When there is consciousness? Where to do we start looking?

Having been in this position at a very young age (and yes, I was using birth control)- I have to say I made a “decision” that haunts me to this day. If there is a beating heart- there is life- simple as that. Taking another life is against the law.

Mangocitrus
November 22, 2004

I am pro-choice. But not because of womans rights. I don’t think it has anything to do with woman’s rights. Just because it’s women who carry babies, doesn’t make it a woman’s rights issue! *shakes head* Anyway…. I do not condone abortion as a form of birth control. that pisses me off to extremes. however, if an abortion is necessary…. then there needs to be laws in place allowing that..

Mangocitrus
November 22, 2004

…. otherwise we lose 2 lives. the woman and the baby. Yes, it’s unfair that the baby should have to die, but the woman shouldn’t have to either you know? I also believe that if a woman is raped, and does not want to keep the baby she should not have to. And carrying the child for 9 months and then giving it up for adoption is hard to do wether you were raped or not, but if you were raped….

Mangocitrus
November 22, 2004

…. you should not have to carry that child if you don’t want to. Anyhow just my 2 cents.

Chiquita Banana
November 22, 2004

You can’t compare the case of Scott Peterson to abortion. Scott Peterson deliberately killed a pregnant woman. Being murdered and choosing to abort a child are two completely different things. I agree that once a woman is pregnant, that what’s inside of her is considered life. But I don’t think that anyone has the right to tell a human being what they can or can’t do with their body. How are

Chiquita Banana
November 22, 2004

we a free country if we start telling people what they can and can’t do. I don’t think it’s right. It doesn’t mean that I think abortion is necessarily a good thing, but I do know that forcing a woman to have a child she doesn’t want is a terrible thing. Just my thoughts…

BlessedDarkness
November 22, 2004

The only good pro-choice argument I’ve heard is that “the unborn aren’t citizens of any nation so they have no protection” which seems silly being that in America the only thing you have to do to become a citezen is be born and they aren’t even given the chance.

JimBoDude
November 22, 2004

To chickita…..the government also says we cannot kill another human being…..should that be legalized also since you don’t want the government to tell you what to do?

Breastfeeding Mom
November 23, 2004

what I dont understand is ok ya woman say its their body but just because the baby is developing in them doesnt mean its physically a part of them because its not.a baby is a seperate being altogether.the baby just happens to be concieved and carried till the baby is able to live in the world in the mother.so no saying its MY body isnt correct.what about the babys rights? I know why they dont. . .

Breastfeeding Mom
November 23, 2004

answer tho they dont answer because they dont have a logical answer.they want to get one because their selfish pure and simple and babys are expendable because their helpless and cant speak up for themselves so its easy to kill them without a problem.it truely is sad what this country has turned into.I just really pray someday that America will realise abortion is murder.oh did I also mention. . .

Breastfeeding Mom
November 23, 2004

alot of ppl that get abortions regret it I knew someone who had 3!! and she regrets every one of em.

TheNameOfTheGame
November 23, 2004

Hey…I get to see you in a few more hours. Which means I don’t have to miss you anymore Love Me

b money
November 24, 2004

smart boy! i see the issue from a whole new point of view now. i don’t think abortion is right. and i would never have one. but i do think that a woman has a choice. if abortion counts as a sin, the woman has sinned. not the government. and the woman’s sin shouldn’t be a choice of the government. should it?

Okay, this is all just semantics. People need to view it this way: ONCE you have sex, and the egg is fertilized, then no matter what, you’ve caused a baby to be born. So, if you GET an abortion, you HAVE STOPPED a life from happening. Let me rephrase it…. once you have sex, you’ve started a life… like, you’ve opened the door for a new person — if there’s no abortion, the baby WILL be born

because duh, that’s what happens when the egg gets fertilized and all that diddly. So, it’s all semantics. This is where morals come in. If you are PREVENTING A LIFE FROM HAPPENING, is that wrong? For religious people, probably (I’m not religious so I don’t know) because God wanted that life to happen, right? But for those who are nonreligious… I’ll even go as far to say those

who are nihilists… would they consider it “bad” to prevent a life from happening? Is “preventing a life from happening” the same as “killing someone”? But then this leads into another discussion of whether killing someone is wrong or not. I’m sure most people think it is, but a nihilist in particular might not agree, and who is really to judge which one is “right”? By the way…

I’m thinking of this definition of nihilist: “1a: a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless. b:a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths” Okay, this leads into too many other conversations that I don’t want to get into because I have already and they mangle my brain!

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