Well, at what point do you think that a human being, with human rights, comes into existence? Is it at birth, or earlier?
I could ask the question more concretely of you yourself: you have human rights--did you acquire them only when you were born? Surely you must have had them earlier, since premature babies are human beings with human rights, and the only difference between, say, a baby who is born prematurely by two weeks, and one who is still in the womb two weeks before term, is that the one is inside its mother, and the other is not; and the one that is inside, if taken out, will live just as much as the one born prematurely.
It is at birth, this is a classic strawman argument, the baby born prematurely has human rights because it is not a parasite on the mother's body. The one inside the womb is still in such a state hence it is subject to the will of the mother. I can't believe Columbia lets people get away with such false logic. The premature baby may need other courses of medical treatment, but that is entirely separate from my stance, Which is that once the baby is outside the mother's body she may no longer terminate.
what keeps us from legalizing infanticide?
See I'm not even going to argue this question because the author is cleverly trying to use diction to frame his debate. He has used the word
infanticide separately from abortion, but with intent of connecting the two actions. My response would be that a fetus is no different than a cancer or parasite. I can connect two ideas with as much skill as the author can, and I know better than to be fooled by this sillyness. It's another slippery slope: the author goes on to talk about cultures that have condoned human sacrifice and slavery. It is important to note that in this section he avoids the question of the right to choose. Perhaps he implies the right to choose and concludes that the choice to terminate pregnancy is immoral or at least lacks morality.
Now let me go back to what I was saying before, that the point of no return is when the baby is outside of the mother's body. This second question is merely a slippery slope fallacy. What keeps us from legalizing infanticide is the idea that killing is wrong. A fetus is not a human, and I have no doubts that the author will fail to recognize this distinction because if he were to recognize it he would fall apart. The same principles that we use when we decide to remove cancers in are body are used to justify terminating a fetus.
Question 3 continues to ignore the woman's right to control her own body. But anyway :
What do you think about cases where the woman's conscience tells her that abortion is not a good thing--because she thinks she is killing her baby--but she wants an abortion anyway. Why should these abortions be allowed?
No one argues that a fetus (notice how the author continually uses the word baby' he is trying to frame the discourse in his favor) has the
potential to become a human being. Just as a sperm or an egg does. Again, the women has a choice about what happens in
Her body. If a woman is being tortured does she not have the right to strike out and kill her attacker? Personally if such a thing happened to me, I would experience great guilt from killing my torturer (probably only doing his job and couldn't help it anyway) just as some women who terminate their pregnancies feel. That does not make the decision immoral, it just means that it is acceptable to think "what if" or to imagine with guilt what could have been.
question 5 is reminiscent of a Deck Knight post. ignored.
question 6: he describes a scenario in which the right to choose has been taken away, either by a forceful boyfriend or violent attack. I am pro-choice if the right to choose has been taken away that is abhorrent to me. However the attacker should not be charged with murder, and a supreme court saying such is again failing to recognize that a fetus is not a human.
question 7:
Why is it only the female parent's opinion which determines the status of the child?
simple, because it's her fucking body. I'm sure that there are examples of rural christian families forcing their daughters to have children when they would prefer abortion, but the author would never dare mention that. perhaps the next thing the author will assert is that sperm donors should have custody rights. Abortion is an issue of control of one's body against invasion by parasite as I will continue to state. Hence it is the woman's choice of how to regulate her body. There are certainly health consequences to pregnancy, eventually the woman will make a full recovery, but our society doesn't forgive rapists if their victims make a full psychological recovery.
On everything about slavery:
1. A child born still has to wait 18 years to enjoy their full human rights, thus he is unequal still as the slave is. The author ignores this and it is an important response to the analogy. A child born is an indentured servant then I suppose. Waiting to be free of oppression. So logically if we are to ban abortion on these grounds we also should immediately emancipate all children as well. or maybe the analogy falls apart.
2. The analogy falls apart again: a fetus cannot be free. It literally cannot be free to pursue it's own wishes. By definition it cannot.
Now I am done with this at this point because it is so silly to me so let me state the crux of this:
In our society we constantly deny people rights. It is the basis of freedom and justice. We do this all the time when two sets of rights conflict with one another. Abortion is such an issue: the women has a right to regulate her body as she chooses, and the fetus is infringing on it. Remember that a fetus is a bunch of cells without a persona. The author mentions that he has never heard of anyone wanting to be aborted, the fetus has no 'I' or 'you' it cannot want anything.
