Some contraception forms work before conception and some work after. The ones we've used were the before kind. It is not me who is calling a fetus in utero a "potential" life. That's the other guys! And I see the necessity for abortion in the very rare circumstance, too. I've written about that here before. I strongly object to it as being motivated by family planning as in an unwanted child. People who adopt children love them dearly; I have several friends who have done this. Likewise I know several people who were adopted and they have ongoing loving family relationships. Not seeing the jeopardy that you do. Children in utero are living and breathing-- in the sense of receiving oxygen from the mother as they develop their lungs. In an ideal world, I would not force someone to have a child. However, it is not an ideal world and if the alternative is to kill off the unborn child, then the child needs to be birthed and given up for adoption if the bio parents don't want to raise it themselves. I am totally mystified how anyone can see that as a harsher outcome than aborting the unborn child. You have to marginalize the fetus in order to justify that decision. No rights. No life. No right to live. That is morally wrong.
That has nothing to do with whether it was or is human life but the sentiment of the individual. This is going to sound harsh but many also bury their cats and dogs lovingly but that doesn't make them human.
That is all nice and all but how do address that there are many children who aren't adopted particularly those who have birth defects. Given that we have legal abortion now do you really think that if abortion was outlawed that the wave of children born would all be adopted?
I bury most of my dead animals in my yard. I rarely visit or think about them though. I'd like to see someone try that or react that way with a dead child. My brother and his wife lost a daughter, Victoria (yeah.. she already had been given a name), in the 8th month of pregnancy when she was strangled in the womb by her umbilical chord. For years they remembered her annually with a cake; I was there one of those times. She would be about 23 now... The "sentiment" of an individual should not determine life or death for another being.
That is you. Many people think a lot about their dead pets. And I agree the sentiment of an individual shouldn't which is why saying that someone loving buries something isn't a definition for what is human life or not.
There are people who seek to adopt those kind of children. I know a couple who adopted an infant who was harshly damaged from shaken baby syndrome. He is now about ten and blind and mute; he only gets around in a wheeled walker. Admittedly there are few people capable of that and fortunately there are few of those unfortunate children. I cannot predict what would happen but almost any struggle is worth the price of not killing off those kids. Many are wanted. The other side of the coin is that we might find people acting more responsibly and that is absolutely desirable.
No, I wouldn't. It isn't my place (or yours) to define "life" for another person. It isn't your place to object at all.
You don't have the right to tell another person that they are required to maintain a pregnancy to term. That is you forcing your moral views on another person, and I will continue to maintain that you should have absolutely ZERO right to do so.
I don't think that is the essence of what I was saying but it is an indication that in utero deaths are more than just clumps of cells for most people. Just a suspicion but I reckon there are far more anecdotal stories about people being surprisingly moved by the loss of a pregnancy than surprisingly unmoved by the loss of a pregnancy.
Laws define things de facto. It's about a societal value that preserves life rather than extinguishes. Sadly I have to step in and define life for those who cannot speak for themselves... as they have hordes of people denying that they live.
How about if I tell them, instead, that they don't have the right to end an innocent life? Quit the hogwash. You are creeping toward hypocrisy. Virtually any law you support has a moral value underpinning it. In fact, if anything, a pro-Life law should be high on anyone's list because it is part of the very few laws that really deal with life/death issues. Laws are about morality.
I will agree that some laws are morally based because of universal sentiments such as death is wrong, stealing is wrong, rape is wrong, etc. However, laws are put in place secondly as a cost/benefit analysis to society. If we limited vehicles to a maximum of 50 mph on the freeway, there is no question that traffic fatalities would diminish rapidly. However, it benefits the economy if people are given the option to get to work or places to spend their earned money in a reasonably quick & efficient manner. How does this correspond to abortion? 1) abortion largely affects the lower class of society, I could pull up statistics but I think we're all in agreement. The lower class have less to rely on in terms of affordable birth control, free caregivers (supportive grandparents, etc.) and obviously a less economically viable means to support a child if brought to term in the first place. Long story short, unexpected pregnancies are more prevalent and more damaging to a lower-class family. Chances to improve one's rank in society through education, longer work hours, etc. are severely hampered by the birth of a child. Furthermore, on a basis of morality, who does the abortion really affect? That's right, the parents who made the decision in the first place. If a child is born and lives to any given age, he/she will have relatives or friends who will care deeply about the child's death based on memories with that person. Abortion is horrible, make no mistake. But a necessary evil nonetheless since we are thankfully able to limit it through contraception and sex education. Finally, the one argument that may sound a little morbid but is worth mentioning nonetheless. People say "aren't you thankful that you weren't aborted?" Well I wouldn't know the difference if I was!!! I wouldn't have been coherent of it happening. It's all on the parents if we're honest here. It's painful to lose a potential child, but it really only affects them. It would be akin to making cut your own foot off illegal....not much of a point.
Simply put, I am not content to be a citizen in a land that allows its citizens to extinguish young lives that are inconvenient or undesirable. We should be bigger than that. Ghandi's Seven Dangers to Human Virtue 1. Wealth without Work 2. Pleasure without Conscience 3. Knowledge without Character 4. Business without Ethics 5. Science without Humanity 6. Religion without Sacrifice 7. Politics without Principle To me, #s 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 fly in the face is this issue-- some more directly than others. YES, I quoted Ghandi rather than either the Old or New Testament...
In other words you can't say that adoption is really going to be a solution for all of the kids that might be born if there wasn't abortion.
That's what you're doing when you decide to end another person's life. Namely, an unborn child. It's not about imposing a view of private morality or religion. It's about protecting the rights of the individual. Specifically, the most important right, the right to our own existence.
Debatable but it's hard to argue that terminating an unwanted pregnancy is only beneficial to the parents and societal as a whole when you look at it from an economic, criminal, and quality of life standpoint. Again, it's disengenious to qualify that a life begins in the first few weeks of life but then be ok with blocking sperm from the egg with contraception.
Laws are about balancing individual rights and societal needs. Most laws do have a moral underpinning, but your position abridges a woman's right to decide what happens to her own body based on the religious beliefs of a minority of society. The individual rights of half the American population outweigh your moral concerns. It isn't your life to protect.
