I must contend that these additions to the essay serve only the purpose to invoke sympathy for the fetus, as if to give it attributes of consciousness. Although these responses to various stimuli to indicate the presence of life. I do not see a presence of sentience, which is my test to validate the worth of an organism.
That part of the essay serves to show that the fetus is alive. Whether something is living or not has nothing to do with how much you value it. I do not value bacteria, yet it lives. I do not value ants, yet they live. And neither is sentient, yet they live. You may not think a fetus is a person with value, but it does live. Life is what distinguishes animate organisms from dead ones and inanimate matter. A fetus is neither an inanimate object nor a dead organism; it is a living, animate organism which grows and starts to respond to stimuli early in its development. Whether it is a human being deserving of rights is a separate issue, but there is no question that the fetus is a living organism.
You should value a fetus’ life, but even if you don’t, it still has rights. Your personal judgment that the worth of a certain human being (a fetus) is low doesn’t give you the right to kill it. Or should I be allowed to kill anyone whose life I don’t value?
Sentience is usually defined as having sense perception. Physicians disagree when exactly a fetus is able to feel pain, but they generally agree that fetus’s do develop that ability at some point. Some estimates place the time which it starts to develop at 7 weeks, others up to 26 weeks. The fetus does develop pain receptors at 7 weeks, but there is disagreement over whether that is enough for a fetus to feel pain. According to Dr. Paul Ranalli, a neurologist at the University of Toronto, a fetus can feel pain starting at 12 to 14 weeks after conception. He believes that the spino-thalamic system is fully developed at this point, and his case is supported by the fact that the fetus will withdraw from painful stimulation at this stage. Also, two types of stress hormones which are present in adults who feel pain are also present in the fetus when painful stimulation is applied. In any case, some sort of sensation is possible when the fetus’ nervous system starts to develop at 6 weeks. Thus, it has at least some sentience from that point on.
However, we should not use sentience as a basis to deny a human being its right to life. Does an adult lose his right to life if he is knocked unconscious?
http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_pain.htmI do not find the individual nature of the fetus to be a good reason to value its life when faced the possible negative financial, social, and mental consequences of the birth on the mother. Distinct DNA means only that the specimen is not the mother, but an argument using this neglects the fact the non-sentient organism will greatly affect the life of the mother.
Would the pro-choice team endorse killing newborn babies if it would prevent negative financial, social, and mental consequences for the mother? Or will they admit that the newborn’s right to life trumps those consequences? If a fetus has the right to life, that right also trumps any inconvenience to the mother.
The right to life of human beings should not be conditional on whether their existence causes others hardship. Newborns also cause much hardship for their mothers, yet they have the right to life.
Genetically, the fetus is a human. But in terms of mental faculties, it is not. I disagree with the statement that personhood is an entirely separate issue, for it is an important aspect of a sentient human. But a fetus only has properties which ascribe to but one of these two features of a human being, therefore I must conclude it is exempt from the normal laws which apply to us.
You are confusing the issue by applying philosophy to a concept which does not need it. The concept of human is an inherently scientific one, rather than philosophical. Science defines what humans, cats, dogs, rocks, and trees are, not philosophy. If science says a fetus is a human being, it is a human being.
But how can you ascribe to an organism which cannot comprehend its own self being with rights which supersede those of the mother?
Which rights of the mother are being superceded?
As I have outlined in my previous arguments, the fetus's rights should not supercede those of the mother for reasons of lack of a consciousness. With you reasoning, I would not be able to disinfect my wound that I acquired when I fell in the woods, and kill thousands of bacteria on my skin.
I don’t mean to imply that people should not be able to try to relieve the severity of natural consequences, only that they have to accept personal responsibility for them. If you slip and injure yourself in the forest, by all means treat your wound. But acknowledge that no one is responsible for that but you, since you chose to set foot in the forest.
Sex is a very unique case. However, we do know that women who choose to engage in sex are personally responsible for the natural consequence of conceiving a human being with rights. Trying to do away with the consequences simply should not be an option for her, since she was responsible for its creation in the first place. Killing a human being not the same as killing bacteria.
These are not my opinions. But I wish to add onto that so they do resemble my opinions. If the mother is insecure regarding the future of herself and the a child (if she were to have one), it is most likely due to financial hardship she will endure. She may also have no mate to assist her in the raising of a child. These possible conditions placed upon a child - if it is born - will contribute the likelihood the child becoming a delinquent, thus a parasite to society.
So it is okay to kill a human being because it might be a parasite to society?
Correct, I do value my future experiences. But a fetus has not the mental capacity to formulate such a desire or opinion. You are giving it abilities it does not have. You are envisioning its opinion on its own abortion if it were a fully grown human, which it never was.
The fetus does not value its future life at the moment, yet its future life has value. What if the fetus grew up to be a scientist who discovered a cure for cancer? Even if the accomplishments of the fetus in his future life are not so great, surely they will at least have some value to him and others.
You are basing this argument on a future event, that you cannot know with any certainty will happen, therefore, the union of your sperm an a woman’s egg may occur, just as an individual longing for their future events may occur.
You can’t know with certainty that my computer will still function tomorrow, but the act of stealing it is still wrong. Isn’t depriving me of the future use of my computer, which is rightfully mine, still wrong even though there is a chance that it will stop functioning anyway?
We Believe Abortion to be a right that should be left up to the mother whether or not she wishes to keep her baby. She is carrying that baby for 9 months and while in her body it is technically hers, so who is to tell her what she has to do with this baby. If she feels that she is not ready (Financially, Emotionally or if her life is in danger if she has this baby.)
to have this baby then why be forced if this baby might not live a productive nurturing life. Times are changing, and they are changing fast. History has thought us that even the most fundamental morals can be changed drastically. Today we live in a world were science is out main teacher, and science has thought us that abortion is not the least wrong.
Why should the mother own her child just because it happens to be inside her? Would it be okay for her to kill her child the second before it is born, just because it is inside her?
The fact that morals are changing is irrelevant to the debate. Newer morals are not necessarily better morals.
Or, it would be, an outcome in a love relationship, which is unwanted and unbearable by the couple? Maybe financially the mother can’t even uphold this future child, what should have to be done? To endure all those sacrifices mentioned above and produce, a puppet that is unwanted even by its own mother is unbearable for child itself. The child would live all his life with a genetically *A foster parent?* parent instead of a loving and caring mother.
Isn’t it better to live and be unwanted in your childhood than not exist at all? Even the most unwanted children can still find happiness from other sources, such as friends, school, and enjoying the simple pleasures of life.
Not at all. That is why abortion has saved countless of relationships, countless of future children from hatred and disgust, and countless of children being from transmitted diseases by the pregnant mother. I personally would rather die, than to have the most fundamental people in my life, which are my parents to hate me, and it is obvious.
I am sure that you are in a very small minority of people who would rather not have ever existed than have unloving parents.
But is this group of cells a living organism? Does life starts with fusion? Or after birth? What is fusion? When a sperm cell enters the ovum of course. Everybody knows this. But let us go a step further. Is a group of scattered info, into the forms of chromosomes, a life? Life is something emotional. Love and hatred is involved in it. Does this group of chromosomes have the ability to love and hate? No, but it will develop into a living organism which in the future would be able to love and hate and thus the chromosomes result in a life afterwards the process and not a life at that point. Life is not something abstract which has many forms of it. Life is something, which is defined with consciousness and emotion. A group of cells in a laboratory or in the woman’s uterus is not a life; it is a group of cells.
I seriously doubt a newborn has the capacity to hate. Are newborns not living then? What about people in comas or the severely mentally impaired? Those humans (as well as fetuses) do live; they just don’t fit your ideal of what life should be. Life is a biological concept, not philosophical.
The life of a human being begins at conception. This is a simple concept. The zygote is human, and it is a being separate from the mother. It is alive because it is a growing organism. Thus, it is a living human being.
In Europe the only countries which legally are against abortion are Malta and the Vatican. This is due to Church dominance over the government, and the people. The Catholic Church is against anything progressive, against anything scientifically to keep its dogma at guard and alive. As abortion was a breakthrough in the science scenario, the Church lunched its cannons against it thus many followers poorly think that they will go to hell if they abort and so abortion gets a pace back in Church dominated countries like Malta. But as already said, times are changing, science is revealing more truths about life and our existence, and the Church is withering away bit by bit. In time all countries will apply a pro-abortion stance in their constitutions.
This is irrelevant. Our team is not arguing from a religious point of view. And the fact that the pro-life view happens to coincide with the views of people who are not progressive does not make the pro-life view non-progressive. It could be that years from now we view abortion with the same horror that we view the practice of abandoning newborns to die, which was common in Ancient Rome.
A few questions:
It seems to us that you are advocating the view that the more dependent a being is, the more okay it is to kill it. If this is your view, could you explain the reasoning for it? If it isn’t your view, why do you use the fetus’ dependence as a justification for abortion?
You say the mother has the right to abort because the child may not lead a “productive nurturing†life. Is production then the goal of human life? Are non-productive members of society to be disposed of?