Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The notion that life begins at conception is a profoundly persuasive one. The notion that all life is sacred is another one. The idea that all individuals are entitled to protection under the law, particularly when they can't protect themselves is too.
It seems, therefore, profoundly logical that abortion should not be done.
There are, however, some other problems. A fetus in not conceived volitionally and can be the product of incest or rape. Becoming pregnant could violate the conscious will of any fertile female. Only 50 plus a bit % of the population is female. No male has to face this issue so 49+% of the population are not at issue. It is a random event as to whether you are male or female. Any prohibition that applies only to women who had no choice in being women is, therefore, unfair.
Additionally, the notion that life begins at conception, for all its obviousness, has meaning only in the notion that life is valuable. There is no less real value in a sperm and egg just before fertilization as after. This is an effect of the mind. Abstractly and in reality we are talking about chemicals that have the property of life. Every day we probably do in millions of organisms at the same level of development. The human being there we impute via the imagination, via a capacity to empathize and imagine ourselves in a cell. But a cell hasn't a shred of consciousness and is not, by the remotest streach of the imagination, consciously human.
The woman who cannot abort but wants to, then, would be made prisoner to a cell that has no consciousness via the abstraction in the imagination of others. It would sort of be like telling men they will be killed if they masturbate, not that that wouldn't be a good idea. Think of all those potential babies.
Therefore, only men who have never masturbated have a right to vote in this matter.
No wait! Maybe that is too extreme. How about we let individual women make their own decisions. If sexual satisfaction is wanted but not the fertile fetus that sometimes, unbidden, implants itself because of the accident of sexual reproduction that, also accidentally, got introduced some billions of years ago, perhaps the reality that having that baby, unwillingly, while fabulous in the imagination, isn't so good an idea in the real world. Perhaps at a minimum it should be a woman's choice.
The real problem, I think, is that people, and men here in particularly, care more about their intellectual abstractions, as wonderful as they are, over the ill effects they would have on the lives of others in the real world. Such people, while having high ideals, are arrogant and lack compassion and a truly liberal comprehension. And when the irrational teachings of religion are added to the mix, the ideals shift from idealistic to fanatical.
