Abortion Discussion

MrPudding

doctoremma wrote: »

There are the four conditions that define "murder": deliberate killing/of a human being/by a human being/with malice aforethought. Your position thus far has indicated that you think abortion fulfils each one of these criteria, so why the hesitation to label it "murder" (in your personal opinion)?

Being pedantic, which I think we are in the correct forum for, the term "murder" is a legal one. Its definitions, therefore, should be of a legal nature. Legally there is no human being until birth, so an abortion cannot be murder. The UK definition does not use human being, it uses the term "person in being" which excludes "anyone" that is not norn.

Further, rather than the deliberate killing, I think you will find unlawful killing work better, plenty of poeple are killed deliberatly without it being murder. Malice aforethought is also slightly misleading, this does not mean pre-meditation nor does it mean malice as we would see it in normal everyday usage, it simply means is intention.

The UK definition is actually pretty good, can't remeber it 100%, and not in a posiiton to look it up but it goes something like this:

"murder is the unlawful killing of a person in being where the intention was to cause death or really serious harm."

Jimi is quite correct to not consider abortion to be murder. It might be soemthing he really does not like, but it is very far from murder.

MrP

JimiTime

swampgas wrote: »

I think as humans we like to avoid ambiguity, unfortunately reality and biology are messy and there are lots of grey areas. Nature doesn't attribute any special attributes to fertilized eggs, but many people (like yourself) try to assign the same value to such an egg as they do to a child or adult.

I suspect that when you think of a fertilized egg you jump ahead in time and see one of your children, and want to protect the fertilized egg the same way you might a grown child. In reality though, there is no grown child - not yet, and maybe never. There is only potential, and a potential child is a very different thing and should not be equated with actual child.

I KIND OF agree with you. I don't actually assign the same value to a human at conception, as I do to a human toddling around the house. It reminds me of the whole 'fire in the building' dilemma which presents a room with 100 fertilised eggs, and the born child in the other room, and you can only save one room. I'd save the born child every time, but that does not mean I believe we should be allowed kill them. Similarly, one room with a guy who has the cure for cancer and will save millions, has been a charitable upstanding citizen, and another room a junkie who has been nothing but a drain on society, mugging etc. I'd save the guy with cure for cancer everytime. That does not mean its ok to kill Junkies. I think a new human life is more than just a potential child, just like a newborn is more than just a potential adult. They are all phases of human development. You can't, IMO, just ignore the fact that a human at the beginnings of lifes journey is a human at the beginning of lifes journey. When you look at your own child, and realise that they began their lives as a fertilised egg, I really can't see anyway back from that. It wasn't an it or a thing, it was Jimi junior, brought into existence at the very moment that sperm fused with the egg.

doctoremma

JimiTime wrote: »

Similarly, one room with a guy who has the cure for cancer and will save millions, has been a charitable upstanding citizen, and another room a junkie who has been nothing but a drain on society, mugging etc. I'd save the guy with cure for cancer everytime.

Is it weird that this isn't such an obvious choice for me?

Mark Hamill

MrPudding wrote: »

The UK definition is actually pretty good, can't remeber it 100%, and not in a posiiton to look it up but it goes something like this:

"murder is the unlawful killing of a person in being where the intention was to cause death or really serious harm."

Jimi is quite correct to not consider abortion to be murder. It might be soemthing he really does not like, but it is very far from murder.

MrP

But Jimi believes that you have a "person in being" from the point of conception:

JimiTime wrote: »

The fact is, that ones offspring is created when a child is conceived.

so, if he is being consistent, he should see abortion as murder.

Besides, I would imagine he is more likely to follow the religious definition of murder than the legal one (probably something along the lines of "killing someone without god telling you to").

Mark Hamill

JimiTime wrote: »

I don't actually assign the same value to a human at conception, as I do to a human toddling around the house.

But you do still see them as human. So why do see them as less human than post birth?

JimiTime wrote: »

It reminds me of the whole 'fire in the building' dilemma which presents a room with 100 fertilised eggs, and the born child in the other room, and you can only save one room. I'd save the born child every time, but that does not mean I believe we should be allowed kill them.

Why?

JimiTime wrote: »

Similarly, one room with a guy who has the cure for cancer and will save millions, has been a charitable upstanding citizen, and another room a junkie who has been nothing but a drain on society, mugging etc. I'd save the guy with cure for cancer everytime.

I don't actually see how this parallels to the baby vs fertilised eggs analogy of before.

aloyisious

@kylith: re your question (If the egg has been fertilised then the MAP will prevent it from implanting into the womb. No foetus is created, but a blastocyst might be. Where do you stand on blastocyst rights?) I'm assuming your question is for me, as it's responding to a post by me. My reading-up on the MAP is that it work's for up to 5 days after unprotected sex, and that a blastocyst is an embryo that has developed for 5 to 6 days after fertilization.

My reference to the MAP was in respect of an immediate morning-after use, not use of it several days later with the possibility of a blastocyst coming into existence. As with my stance on abortion, I'm in agreement with the woman making a decision on any blastocyst within her.

Googling on blastocysts informed me that there are differing points of view within christianity, (incl medics) as to the point of conception. Some that it occurs when the sperm enter's the ovum and fertilizes it, others that it only occurs when a blastocyst adheres to the woman and start's producing hormones signalling pregnancy. There can apparently be a time-gap of up to 12 days between both events.

@Obliq: Again. I'm not sure if your question (Yes, where? That might go some way towards answering where you stand on IVF too?) is for me, as it's attached to kylith's question responding to my post. Naturally I would have a different view on IVF, as that would seem to me to be a definite decision towards wanting and ensuring a planned pregnancy. Again, that would be a decision for the woman... period.

Sorry for my slow response. I wanted to get informed before i replied.

swampgas

JimiTime wrote: »

I KIND OF agree with you. I don't actually assign the same value to a human at conception, as I do to a human toddling around the house. It reminds me of the whole 'fire in the building' dilemma which presents a room with 100 fertilised eggs, and the born child in the other room, and you can only save one room. I'd save the born child every time, but that does not mean I believe we should be allowed kill them. Similarly, one room with a guy who has the cure for cancer and will save millions, has been a charitable upstanding citizen, and another room a junkie who has been nothing but a drain on society, mugging etc. I'd save the guy with cure for cancer everytime. That does not mean its ok to kill Junkies. I think a new human life is more than just a potential child, just like a newborn is more than just a potential adult. They are all phases of human development. You can't, IMO, just ignore the fact that a human at the beginnings of lifes journey is a human at the beginning of lifes journey. When you look at your own child, and realise that they began their lives as a fertilised egg, I really can't see anyway back from that. It wasn't an it or a thing, it was Jimi junior, brought into existence at the very moment that sperm fused with the egg.

Once you can see that there is a sliding scale of "human value" (for want of a better term) and agree that a tray of fertilized eggs is less valuable than a grown adult, then you can start to see that there will be a point where a fertilized egg is also less valuable than the health of a fully grown woman. And how a fertilized egg can be less important than a woman being forced to go through with a pregnancy she really doesn't want.

There are no absolutes here. How old should an embryo be before it's value exceeds that of a woman's autonomy? That's the question every society that has legalised abortion has had to struggle with, and a figure of 12-24 weeks seems to be the result.

kylith

aloyisious wrote: »

@Obliq: Again. I'm not sure if your question (Yes, where? That might go some way towards answering where you stand on IVF too?) is for me, as it's attached to kylith's question responding to my post. Naturally I would have a different view on IVF, as that would seem to me to be a definite decision towards wanting and ensuring a planned pregnancy. Again, that would be a decision for the woman... period.

But IVF results in several embryos being created, only a small number of these are used and the rest are destroyed. What are your feelings on this?

gaynorvader

MrPudding wrote: »

Being pedantic, which I think we are in the correct forum for, the term "murder" is a legal one. Its definitions, therefore, should be of a legal nature. Legally there is no human being until birth, so an abortion cannot be murder. The UK definition does not use human being, it uses the term "person in being" which excludes "anyone" that is not norn.

Further, rather than the deliberate killing, I think you will find unlawful killing work better, plenty of poeple are killed deliberatly without it being murder. Malice aforethought is also slightly misleading, this does not mean pre-meditation nor does it mean malice as we would see it in normal everyday usage, it simply means is intention.

The UK definition is actually pretty good, can't remeber it 100%, and not in a posiiton to look it up but it goes something like this:

"murder is the unlawful killing of a person in being where the intention was to cause death or really serious harm."

Jimi is quite correct to not consider abortion to be murder. It might be soemthing he really does not like, but it is very far from murder.

MrP

I have been working off the assumption that it was passed into law that a fertilised egg/foetus/etc is a person and it was illegal to have an abortion. If that is the case, what should the punishment be for a woman having an abortion?

Obliq

aloyisious wrote: »

@Obliq: Again. I'm not sure if your question (Yes, where? That might go some way towards answering where you stand on IVF too?) is for me, as it's attached to kylith's question responding to my post. Naturally I would have a different view on IVF, as that would seem to me to be a definite decision towards wanting and ensuring a planned pregnancy. Again, that would be a decision for the woman... period.

Sorry for my slow response. I wanted to get informed before i replied.

Thanks for your response. Actually, am sorry I put the IVF question to you as if I had asked you before, which I hadn't. I hadn't read Kylith's post properly and assumed it was for jimitime! Still though, thanks for your answer which shows less hypocrisy of opinion than certain people's fluctuations on a moral scale

aloyisious

kylith wrote: »

But IVF results in several embryos being created, only a small number of these are used and the rest are destroyed. What are your feelings on this?

I had never given human IVF any thought til now. Having googled for data on IVF implants, I'm not sure at which stage or level of growth they would be "implanted" into a woman, but i have to assume it's at or just past the zygote level. As for any remaining "embryos" not used for IVF after a successful implantation; in line with what I've already posted, I would leave that decision to the woman. EDIT: IT WOULDN'T BE FOR ME TO DICTATE TO HER.

Googling "wikipedia" tells me that IVF embryos can be from 2-cell structure (the zygote-level) up to an eight-week growth level: Wikipedia-excerpt.... An embryo is a multicellular diploid eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of first cell division until birth, hatching, or germination. In humans, it is called an embryo until about eight weeks after fertilization (i.e. ten weeks after the last menstrual period or LMP), and from then it is instead called a fetus. The development of the embryo is called embryogenesis. In organisms that reproduce sexually, once a sperm fertilizes an egg cell, the result is a cell called the zygote, which possesses half the DNA of each of its two parents. In plants, animals, and some protists, the zygote will begin to divide by mitosis to produce a multicellular organism. The result of this process is an embryo.

I have included the above "wikipedia" data as there can be misinterpretation of words, embryo included, particularly in reference to human-kind. It defines "embryo" as being separate from "feotus", two completely different levels of growth. EDIT... It seem's that embryos can be dealt with by use of both the MAP and (at a later stage) by abortion.

Brown Bomber

Meet Lucas, the healthy baby recently born in the UK at 23 weeks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-23671645



Lucas could've had this done to him legally instead.

[IMAGE DELETED]

robindch

BB - FYI:

robindch wrote: »

Folks -

Please cut out the foetus/abortion/period/haemoglobic images on all sides - they don't make for a peaceful debate.

Thanking youse.

Delirium

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Meet Lucas, the healthy baby recently born in the UK at 23 weeks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-23671645



Lucas could've had this done to him legally instead.

[IMAGE DELETED]

Or his mother could have had the abortion at an earlier stage in the pregnancy, like the majority of pregnant women. Which would mean that a D&E wouldn't happen.

eviltwin

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Meet Lucas, the healthy baby recently born in the UK at 23 weeks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-23671645



Lucas could've had this done to him legally instead.

[IMAGE DELETED]

Nice outcome but he's newsworthy because he is the exception rather than the norm. How many babies that gestation die shortly after birth or are left with life long problems as a result?

m4smith

eviltwin wrote: »

Nice outcome but he's newsworthy because he is the exception rather than the norm. How many babies that gestation die shortly after birth or are left with life long problems as a result?

And.. does that make them any less human?

Turtwig

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Meet Lucas, the healthy baby recently born in the UK at 23 weeks.

Can't see any indication in that article that the mother didn't want the pregnancy. As far as I can tell she very much wanted the pregnancy and the child. So more power to her. I'm delighted for her.

Brown Bomber

eviltwin wrote: »

Nice outcome but he's newsworthy because he is the exception rather than the norm. How many babies that gestation die shortly after birth or are left with life long problems as a result?

What argument exists for the killing of the unborn at 23 weeks that doesn't exist for killing off the terminally ill?

28064212

Brown Bomber wrote: »

What argument exists for the killing of the unborn at 23 weeks that doesn't exist for killing off the terminally ill?

The terminally ill aren't using somebody else's body to live

eviltwin

Brown Bomber wrote: »

What argument exists for the killing of the unborn at 23 weeks that doesn't exist for killing off the terminally ill?

I'm not suggesting we kill off the unborn at 23 weeks, just pointing out that the happy ending in this case is rare.

swampgas

Brown Bomber wrote: »

What argument exists for the killing of the unborn at 23 weeks that doesn't exist for killing off the terminally ill?

So if you think 23 weeks is too late, where do you want to draw the line?

Fertilization?
Implantation?
Some number of weeks? (Please be specific.)

eviltwin

m4smith wrote: »

And.. does that make them any less human?

now that's not what I said at all, is it ?

shruikan2553

Not dependent on 1 persons body?

Delirium

Brown Bomber wrote: »

What argument exists for the killing of the unborn at 23 weeks that doesn't exist for killing off the terminally ill?

How many terminally ill people are reliant on a physical attachment to a woman?

Brown Bomber

robindch wrote: »

BB - FYI:

It's an accurate scientific diagram but fair enough. I'll allow a former abortionist to describe the procedure that the kid in that photo, Lucas, could've legally had happen to him in the very same building on the day that he was born.

<Description given in link.>

Bannasidhe

Brown Bomber wrote: »

It's an accurate scientific diagram but fair enough. I'll allow a former abortionist to describe the procedure that the kid in that Lucas could've legally had happen to him in the very same building on the day that he was born.

Joe Walsh - is that you?

swampgas

Brown Bomber wrote: »

It's an accurate scientific diagram but fair enough. I'll allow a former abortionist to describe the procedure that the kid in that Lucas could've legally had happen to him in the very same building on the day that he was born.

Are you really going back to emotive descriptions of medical procedures? I thought we'd already been through all that? Seriously?

Brown Bomber

swampgas wrote: »

Are you really going back to emotive descriptions of medical procedures? I thought we'd already been through all that? Seriously?

Could you point out any errors in the description?

The reality is gruesome therefore the description is gruesome.

28064212

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Could you point out any errors in the description?

The reality is gruesome therefore the description is gruesome.

What do you think the description of, say, an appendectomy would be like? Sunshine and lollipops?

Brown Bomber

swampgas wrote: »

So if you think 23 weeks is too late, where do you want to draw the line?

Fertilization?
Implantation?
Some number of weeks? (Please be specific.)

I have done before.

Any point at which the foetus MAY feel pain, which according to the expert I quoted previously is anywhere from 16weeks is horrendous and inexcusable except in cases of extreme circumstances.