When does a human become "human / sentient / get a soul"?
I had a long exchange of views with a Pro-Choice person who was adamant that abortions should be totally at the discretion of the Mother right up to full term. To do otherwise was apparently a slippery slope towards the Handsmaid Tale. I disagree with her.
I agree with the majority of Americans who think first trimester abortions are acceptable, and second trimesters are not.
Personally, I would prefer to make birth control free and readily available so abortions would not be needed at all.
She kept trying to get me to explain why I believe ~15 weeks is human and 14.9 is not. I acknowledged that I do not know the magic number and said that in a democracy, society gets to solve this. That apparently was not a reasonable answer.
So I asked her the question noted above... She was unwilling to answer me.
Why do the Left and Right have to be so inflexible / crazy? Thoughts?
8 comments:
I trust people to make this decision, but maybe I am wrong. Maybe state legislators should make this decision. And I see a certain logic in this. I think the ability to pound lawn signs in the ground well, gives our state senators and representatives a special moral insight denied to the rest of us who don't even know their names.
--Hiram
I may trust most moms to make the correct decision...
Unfortunately there are mom's that make bad decisions due to addiction, mental illness, selfishness / immaturity, passion, etc.
I think society needs to provide some guard rails.
I mean we make it illegal to kill other people.
And I think we all know that murder is not a good choice...
Laws against abortion are hard to defend. That's why people shift to talking about laws relating to other things like "guard rails". I think guard rail, is exactly the sort of thing that the legislature should deal with, broadly speaking.
--Hiram
I think laws against some abortions are easy to defend...
Or do think we should get rid of child abuse laws also?
Late term abortions seem to be unpopular but as I understand it, late term abortions are performed because of catastrophic issues with the pregnancy. As a practical matter, if we actually did ban late term abortions, the procedure would be redefined in such a way that at least arguably the term "abortion" would not apply to it. In other words the change would be defintional, not substantive.
Byt pretending that abortion is a matter of semantics rather than health care, we are simply erecting arbitrary barriers to the practice of medicine. I don't see who gains by that. In the meantime, I don't see why these decisions should be made by lawyers and legsislators rather than the people actually involved.
--Hiram
Because societal norms and laws determine when a fetus attains rights as an individual human.
Not individual women and doctors.
Have you ever met a societal norm? Can you point to a case where a societal norm has had a crisis pregnancy?
--Hiram
So when do you think a fetues becomes a child?
Do you believe in the social norm and law that Parents must feed, care for and not harm their children?
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