Abortion: Your Views...

[SOLDIER #819]

I'd like to see how you'd be dead if I agree with the position of extending kindness to plants and animals.

We don't milk humans (often) or harvest parts of them. If I extend this right to plants and animals... then how am I going to eat?! =P

One, the fact that it's a "potential" of your own species, something that to various degrees involves facing your own moral and ethical standards......

Judging a potential life and how it will end up as a member of society is beyond our scope. If these potential human lives were to come into existence they would probably gravitate toward whatever the average in our population is with its regular anomalies, positive and negative, taking current trends into account. I'm sure there are people who would argue that this is an oversimplification as some of the women faced with the choice of abortion are also dealing with various issues that might impact the child physically, socially, or mentally. But, I don't see any reason to speculate about this matter very much. It just brings up too many things that neither of us really know or can't know.

If you do not believe in that, then consider to what do you respond, to whom you respond, and whether it is possible to bear the burden of such responsibility by merely assuming a position or not.

I don't see potential in itself as being human, which is what separates us. You may believe for your own reasons that it is destined to become living and breathing, but I don't believe in destiny in so far that it be preordained and that I am breaking some natural law. Responsibility here is also purely subjective and will vary based on beliefs. To me, if there is something I have to take responsibility for with making this sort of decision, it is not that I will have taken the life of a human being.

Third, and this may sound completely ironic, is the worth of that possibility, and how the human being as a being of abstract intellect is naturally driven to discrimination, as a method of defense and as part of its point of view......

Appending value to life is very difficult and I believe we do it much of the time as a means for survival. Then there are times where we do it simply for comfort, like with animals. But the reality is that, on some level, we destroy life and consume what's left in order to survive. If it isn't an animal then it is a plant, which is still living even if it doesn't walk like an animal or talk like a human. That's just how the world works, for good or for worse.

Potential is far removed from this equation. We can view living things directly, but we can't do that with the concept of potential life. We simply abstract its meaning and implications. Yet, how it is abstracted varies between people, but I don't expect that my view be "right" and your's be "wrong." I respect your opinion and believe they can coexist as long as you respect my boundaries and I respect your's.

What separates our stances is that I cannot force my views onto other people if abortion were to be kept legal. I cannot force you to abort what you feel is a living and breathing human being. But if abortion were to be banned, you would be forcing your views onto someone else by not allowing them to abort what they feel is not living as a human.

Imagine what would happen if vegetarians/vegans/Buddhists/etc. made up the majority and started pushing to ban the consumption of meat even if it had a negative impact on the livelihood of certain groups, beyond not being able to eat a juicy steak. Or maybe not being able to eat meat for the sake of it is enough for some. "Pro-choice" in this case would allow for the tolerance of both views and the ability for both parties to live their own lives to their liking. "Pro-life" would be forcing you to halt the activity of doing what you find acceptable, for whatever reason.

Granted, there is a key difference in that this example deals with protecting existing life while abortion seems to deal more with what something could potentially become. The effect of tolerance vs. restriction is the same, however. I don't want to go too far off-topic though, as this deals with implications of taking a certain stance as opposed to the stances themselves.

... there's a possibility that life begins at conception, and that we won't know it because of the limits of modern science. Not everything should be left only to science; there's a bit of room for philosophy as well. But it's a good base to work from.

That leads to the problems many philosophies are facing, however. People believe in their ideas, many of which they believe are innate and just, and claim that we simply have not found them yet without first giving substantial proof as to their existence. It is the same with abortion. No matter how far science goes without proving that life as a human begins at conception, people will continue to say otherwise until it is proven. Even if that time never comes.

Even with philosophy in play I am still an empiricist, which, fortunately or not, leads into a good deal of skepticism. I just don't find it fair to force people to wait for a conclusion that may never come. Even more so when the assumption made is not assumed by everyone.