Abortion: Your Views...

[Jeordam]

**snip**

EDIT: And just to add, im quoting Descartes to give an idea of how my frame of mind is when it comes to how i perceive when a human entity becomes conscious. Digest that how you will, i know full well the question he poses is one that is directed to one self.

**snip**

I think that it would be....troublesome...to use Descartes philosophy that an individual becomes a human entity upon consciousness. Why? Because there are many circumstances when a person looses their consciousness (a coma), yet they are still given all the rights of a "regular" human.

And then one comes across the difficulty of ascribing exactly when a person develops consciousness. We know that newborns certainly are not conscious of their environment, but instead are running on almost pure instinct. For that matter, toddlers are hardly conscious in the full "philosophical" mindset, as they are not able to...well...understand the world around them. Yet when it comes to matters of law, order, and society, newborns & toddlers are given all the rights of a "regular" human.

This then brings up the question on how do we regard those with different degrees of mental retardation. Anything from severely handicapped to highly functional Down's Syndrome...they would not necessarily be considered conscious, for the simple reason that they just aren't equipped to be...yet they are gien all the rights of a "regular" human.

It is very difficult to base public policy (such as abortion) upon philosophy, religion, or matters of faith. Why? Because they function in realms which are not easily quantifiable, measured, or observed....those are attributed which laws must be based upon (at least in America). As such, the debate surrounding Abortion should be based upon something scientific...a definable difference between what was and what is.

~Jeordam

[Locke4God]

Agreed with Jeordam here. There is only one way to treat all fairly in this matter without prejudice and that's to define life as beginning at conception. Every other definition is dealing in arbitrary shades of gray.

And I'm not an ardent pro-lifer. It's just logical. This isn't even a top issue for me.

As I mentioned in a completely different political topic, you're talking here about what a person has the right to do. You have a right to own a gun, & drive a car, but as you'll note in those two examples, all of your rights bare with them an amount of responsibility. In the case of abortion, you do have the right to have sex, but again that comes with responsibility to yourself and to the person you conceive, if in fact you do. But getting an abortion does not bare with it any responsibility. It relieves you of responsibility, and therefore by a pretty simple definition, it is not a right.

For those who may not be aware, the Roe vs. Wade decision did not establish abortion as being legal. It merely states that a woman's right to privacy prevents others from knowing she had one. By that definition I should be allowed to murder people so long as I do it in private. That's simply what the opinions in that case state.

Now I do make exceptions. If you were raped, then you were put under the responsibility of carrying a baby under no will of your own and I personally don't hold you responsible for carrying the child to term. If the baby threatens the mothers life, I place higher value on the mother. If your baby has severe deformities, I honestly think it's acceptable to abort, but in all of those cases I feel it must be done within the first tri-mester.