Piano World Home Page Forums Restricted and Archives The Coffee Room Just some pictures of "uterine contents"

It seems to me there are two different issues that too often we link together.

The first is the issue of the extent, if any, one supports abortion or is against it.

The second is whether legally a women should maintain the right to choose.

Too often, I think, we fail to recognize that someone may be completely against abortion, or accept it in very limited circumstances, and still believe that abortion should remain a legal option for women.

Maybe abortion should be allowed legally. We should severely limit it's availability.
It seems however that as a race we could communicate life, nobility of purpose, kindness, forethought and responsibility to our young ones rather than the easy out.

I fully agree, apple.

To me, however, this goes far beyond in utero development. If we are to be prolife, it must also include the quality of life from birth until death.

Too many feel being prolife is only for those before birth or during the very final stages of life. During the time in between, though, they see life as more dog eat dog, we're all on our own.

It also must include all human beings, including those in third world countries, those afflicted with disease or disabled in some way, and even those convicted of capital offenses.

To me, if one is to be prolife, it must entail ALL of life, not just two short periods of that life. It also must include every person's life with no exception.

it's so simple to think to protect the weak.....

But people can be weak in many ways.

apple: "Maybe abortion should be allowed legally. We should severely limit it's availability.
It seems however that as a race we could communicate life, nobility of purpose, kindness, forethought and responsibility to our young ones rather than the easy out."

But then people who need abortions can't get them. Makes a mockery of abortion being legal. And fetus's are not "young ones," nor is abortion the "easy way out". It is a rational choice of a woman for whom it is not the right time to raise a child to the best of her abilities.

Again, the Taliban and the Nazi Party were both totally against abortion. Try to figure out why. (Hint: it had to do with the status of women in their societies.) It had nothing to do with their "culture of life."

Allow me to list the heinous regimes that have also outlawed murder and thievery. Are we in good company there, too, Jeffrey? You are too good for that idiotic argument.

Gryphon - My point is that banning abortion usually goes with restricting women's social freedoms more generally. Perhaps I phrased my point to flippantly, just to make my post quick and short.

Fetuses are not people, but potential people. Women who have abortions are not anti-kid, they usually have the number of kids they want, just at a better time in their lives to provide for them. Even the Catholic church wasn't totally against abortion until very recently.

Jeffrey, is it your concern that some of us believe life begins at conception? Or is your concern about those who would deny a woman the right to terminate a pregnancy if she believes she is justified?

BTW, you are correct about the Catholic Church's shift in its view of the beginning of life. But I think it is more recent than you have said -- occuring in the 1920's, not the 1800's, as I understand it.

It is disingenuous to suggest that the Catholic Church only changed her position recently. Prior to the 19th century the mechanism of conception was not understood. Once it was, the Church stayed with the times and understanding now that life does begin at conception stated her ancient position even more clearly. Show me evidence to contradict this.

For your information, the Catholic Church has been opposed to abortion since the first century (Barnabas 19.5, Apocalypse of Peter 25; Didache, chap 2, etc.).

Athanagoras (Plea, 35), and Tertullian (Apologia 9.8) are two other important second century sources condemning abortion.

Throughout the late classical and early medieval periods many councils and popes (notably, Mainz in 874, Stephen V, and the Decretals of Gratian) positively taught that abortion was gravely sinful and murder. Thomas Aquinas also condemned abortion as a grave sin in Commentary on Sentences of Peter Lombard, 31,2,iii,Expositio.

As someone with advanced degrees in philosophy, you *should* know that Aquinas was following the Aristotelian understanding that the intellectual soul was only developed at "quickening" around 40 days, that prior the nutritive and sentient soul existed. This was based on the medicine of the day that thought that the semen organized menstrual blood to create the human being -- part of the "male as actualizing principle" part of classical and medieval metaphysics. Regardless, Aquinas considered the foetus to be a human being (Summa Theologiae Ia, 118, 2,2)


Wrong Jeff. You might also consider that your buddy Hitler only disallowed abortion for the Aryan Race, but encouraged and promoted it for inferiors. CF. "Trials of War Criminals," Nuremberg Military Tribunal, Washington, DC; USGPO, vol. IV, p. 610 for the Nazis indicted for abortion as "a crime against humanity".

Lastly, show me your argument as to why the foetus is not a human being (an animated being of human nature). The baby is clearly NOT a part of the mother -- after all it has his or her own genetic make up -- what other "part of the mother" has a separately identifiable DNA? The foetus has self animation -- it does not derive animation from the mother host as would her kidneys or heart which are governed by the mother's nervous system.

Your acorn parallel is just bad. The acorn is not yet germinated and can stay in stasis until it either germinates or decomposes. Neither the sperm nor egg nor zygote can do this. Furthermore, only about 1 in 10,000 acorns develop naturally into oak trees, whereas virtually all human embryos continue to mature into born babies unless tampered with.

Lastly, the fertilized egg has its own power of animation -- the very meaning of "life" -- had Augustine or Aquinas understood this they would have certainly concurred that it is a unique being of a human nature -- therefore what in common parlance is called a "human being".

I'd be interested to see your evidence for this claim, unless it simply has to do with the discovery of how conception actually occurs.

Oops.

I caught that!!! :p

Ivory, you never replied to my post regarding both the unviable fetus and the morality behind endorsing back-alley abortions. I'm curious to know what you think.

Elena
http://www.pianofourhands.com

Actually, I'm surprised that the pro-abortion position claims that the fetus isn't alive, or is part of the mother. Science and technology demonstrate exactly the opposite, thousands of times a day all over this country to expectant mothers.

Face it, the fetus is alive, and it is not part of the mother. But you know what, we can still continue to argue our "right" to abortion -- but we must say we're for retaining the right to rid ourselves of unwanted children, instead of stupidly claiming we're not killing anything by performing abortion.

Why is that so hard? We acknowledge it's alive, but we're for abortion anyway?

None of us have said a fetus is not alive. At least I never claimed such a thing.

Explain how science and technology shows that a 6 week old embryo can survive outside the womb? As long as it needs the womb for survival I consider it part of the mother's body and encompassed within the rights of the mother.

If it is not in any way part of the mother then lets extricate all embryos and fetuses from the womb and see how they fare on their own...

And yes abortion does terminate future children, no one denies that either. Why don't you actually read what we are discussing instead of putting words in people's mouths?

sheesh!


Elena
http://www.pianofourhands.com

So let me get this straight -- you think it's ok to abort as long as it can't survive outside the mother? So we're talking about a moving standard here, right? Years ago a baby needed to be practically full-term to survive on its own. Now the incubation technology is good enough for children to survive when they're what, less than half the full-term age? Soon technology will probably be capable of sustaining a fertilized egg all the way to 9 months. I guess I don't understand where you draw the line.

Mothers who abort don't want their babies, don't want to be pregnant. It's that simple. If technology makes it so that these babies can be carried to full term outside the womb without needing the mother's bodies, I see no problem with that. I would even possibly consider illegalizing abortion completely if this were possible from the very early stages.

In fact I would think this would be the perfect solution as more babies would be given up for adoption and the mothers could carry on with their lives without the physical and emotional consequences of a pregnancy.

I have no problem moving the marker as our technology gets better. But we are still a ways from achieving that. In the mean time, if the embryo or fetus requires the womb to develop and survive then I think the mother has the prerogative, not the child.

Elena
http://www.pianofourhands.com