When the sperm fertilizes the egg, the genetic code for a human being has now been programmed and, from that moment on, continues to grow. There will never be another chance for that mass of cells/baby. You could wait to call it a baby until it has hands, a heart and eyes, but that would only be a month or 6 weeks. I'd have to say it's alive, otherwise you wouldn't have to kill it to get rid of it.
Oh no, you might be forced to carry a baby to term. *shudder* oh the humanity, how can anyone be expected to do such a thing. Wait a minute, females have been carrying babies to term for millions of years, maybe it is not such an unreasonable request to save the life of an innocent child.
It may be alive but not a human life. Once it meets the medical standards of human life, then I would argue abortion is killing a future human being. Conception is the initiation of life in so much that... Conception begins a division of cells that form an embryo, which eventually becomes a fetus. At some point the fetus shows signs of "life" which are heartbeat, brainwaves, and reaction to stimuli. I was only suggesting we define the moment life begins medically based on the opposite of the definition of death and apply that standard to abortion. Most people who care do have trouble with the issue, it is a difficult question to be sure. I love my 2 kids (2yo & 6month old) more than anything in the world. Best of luck to you. My discussion here is over, I'm going to kiss my kids.
Oct. 8, 2002 | AKRON, Ohio (AP) -- A man was sentenced to 20 years in prison Tuesday for impregnating his teenage stepdaughter with a syringe of his own sperm. John Goff, 41, quoted Bible verses and said he forgave the judge, police, prosecutors and his stepdaughter. Goff was found guilty Aug. 29 of rape and other charges. He was convicted of breaking the very laws he and his wife had campaigned for after a man accused of molesting his stepdaughter was acquitted. Lawmakers expanded the rape law in 1996 to include penetration with any object. Previously, only sexual intercourse was considered rape. Goff could have gotten 25 years in prison. Goff and his wife, Narda, artificially inseminated their daughter, then 16, in 1998. Narda Goff was unable to have children because she had had a hysterectomy. Narda Goff, 43, was convicted in March and sentenced to three years in prison. The daughter gave birth to a boy, who is now in foster care. Two people in prison, a young girl's life destroyed and yet another child in foster care. I'm looking really hard for the silver lining here ...
Clearly, we need StupidManiker to become pregnant. Anyone willing to start a fund for his sex change?
Hey, while we're at it, let's go ahead and kill all the invalids, elderly, blind, disabled, and mentally handicapped. Hard to see a silver lining for them...
Prior to having children - Pro-Choice Since my son - EXTREMELY Pro-Life. He was a suprise, we were very young and had to adjust our life's, but I would not trade him for anything in the world. To me, "most" abortions let people get out of the responsibilities that they should have. Adoption is great, some people just aren't parent material and there are plenty who can't have kids. I won't lie, I thought about an abortion when I found out we were pregnant. I was scared. But it was never an option. My wife (girlfriend at the time) would never have done it and I never even brought it up. I would never forgive myself if we would have done that. It was bad enough losing our first baby around 2 months into the pregnancy (the egg just quit growing, had to have a DNC). I had a friend who had an abortion, it really affected her emotionally. She has a baby now, I bet she thinks about her first pregnancy all the time. My boy is only 2, but I was thinking about how I would tell him about the birds and the bees. I don't think I will sugar coat it at all. I will lay everything out and let him know that if he wants to have sex prior to a commited relationship/marriage then he better be prepared for his actions. I hope that he will be a man like I am and take care of his business. Just my 2 cents.
It is heart-warming to see so many pro-Life responses here. <b>StupidMoniker</b>: I love your sterling observation about the different ways that pro-Lifers and pro-Choosers argue this matter. That says it all. Pro-choicers will derail the argument to serve their purposes; the sovereignty of the child goes unaddressed or worse, denied. I get chided for failing to get off that spot, too, and what do I say: never forget the fundamentals. As ballers, we should be able to appreciate that. <b>Mrs.JB</b>: The silver lining is best viewed from the child's point of view. The daughter's life was not "ruined." What her parent's did to her was horrible, no doubt. The parents got what they deserved. <b>VooDooPope</b>: Your argument is one of the most reasonable ones I've heard from the pro-Choice crowd, but it still leaves me empty. Medicine has been wrong before and your analogy is way too imperfect. By experience, we must know that brain waves seemingly "never" return once they are gone. Likewise, by experience, we know that brrain waves are coming from the day of conception. That life is distinctly human by DNA (as <b>right1</b> pointed out so well) standards and is simply developing. Who are we to decide that the process is too slow? Who are we to arbitrarily determine these hurdles which must be met to ensure existence? <b>Mrs. Valdez</b>: Thanks for putting a humanizing touch on that "mass of cells." I would encourage you to fold the option of adoption into your argument. Having abortions is too often NOT about the health of the mother. It's a choice about convenience and/or shame-- avoiding it. What about the sovereign life of the chld? |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| I am the father of four between the ages of 1 and 18. The last thing I want is another child. If we conceived one, though, it would be <b>irresistible</b> to love, adore, and protect it when it gets down to brass tacks. Right now I'm exhausted and over-extended with the family I have, but terminating a pregnancy is not something I would consider. It's my responsibility not my choice. Oh, I know I'm "only" the father. Well, from my experience after the first 9 months, the rest of that child's life is just as much my responsibility as the mother's. I just don't respect this pro-Choice argument that we don't have a right to tell a woman what to do with her own body. That's exactly what she is doing to the child with it's own body;That is such a disingenuous and hypocritical argument. We are not ending the lives of pregnant women, we are just saying that they don't have the right to end the life of the baby.
Great, if it isn't you its someone else. I don't care who is killing the babies, because I don't want anyone to do it. I have just never understood why so many consider adoption not an option. Having a baby is a natural act. Many who have abortions later even have babies themselves. Sure pregnancy is uncomfortable, but it rarely causes permanent damage. It isn't like I want to cut off a womans legs or something, I just want her to let the baby live. Mrs. Jeff, The silver lining is that a child gets to live. That baby has all of the potential given to every human being. Maybe one day he will cure cancer, or save a persons life, or have children of his own. Should that all be taken from him because he was conceived under unfortunate and horrible circumstances? giddyup said it well, the silver lining is often from the perspective of the child. The mother was also given the chance to love and care for her baby. In this case she did not, and the baby went into foster care. Why is this not at least as good a solution as abortion?
Would you pro-lifers abort Hitler if you had some magic time machine type thingy? What about John Stockton? (j/k on that last part, serious on the first one)
OK, wanna play a game? This is just for fun and not an argument against you, as I am not interested. Let us suppose that there are a decent amount of abortions each year. Now, let's pretend that instead of aborting all mothers put their kids up for adoption. Now, knowing that there currently exists a huge divide between supply and demand (supply being much greater than demand - although white baby demand is probably pretty high), what happens when all those kids go into the system? So, since there are a lot of kids who never get adopted, they remain wards of the state (care and drugs provided via taxpayers) until 18, then are released. So, more unwanted non-valued children into the system, more 18 year stays, more money coming from taxpayers. Here is the game part - will the animosity/reaction against paying for all of these unwanted (and probably mostly minority since the whities get gobbled up) kids, added to the kosmic (intentionally with a "K") devaluing of life (when you add unwanteds to the already extant unwanted pool, decreasing demand, etc.) be greater or less than the current anti-abortion animosity/reaction in a JS Mill utilitarian way? Part II: Can you devalue living life to such an extent that living life is no longer valued to be life? Part III: Ignoring all else, will family values be helped or hurt through an increase in the number of people that are coming out of childhood in which "family" did not exist? Part IV: Consider this post and make a value judgement as to wether it was pointless. Write a brief essay being sure to incorporate the words "goat" and "plasticity."
Regarding abortion, the plasticity with which the hawkish, unfeeling right morphs into loving, caring protectors of the unborn and the sensitive, do-gooding left morphs into baby murderers is enough to make a goat laugh.
Let's say that you did abort Hitler, do you think that there would have been another Hitler type person to rise to power? I think there were a lot of people under Hitler that were just as evil and crazy as him or worse. Who's to say that someone wouldn't have replaced him and been even worse, maybe not so crazy and a better military planner. Maybe Europe is called Germania now?
The DNC procedure is just one type of abortion. I am not critical of the decision, just happy you had the choice.
I - I don't think life will be more devalued by having more wards of the state than by allowing the elimination of life indesciminately before the second or third trimester, whatever time limit the proof of life crowd wants to throw out there. II - III - At worst family values should remain the same, as there cannot be too much value placed on family if one of the key ingredients (children) can be eliminated at the will of the mother. IV - I will respond with a poem, in honor of you: Rimbaud a post did write using all his intellectual might not abortion he wrote rather adoption's the goat that contributes to mankinds plight plasticity
You misunderstand, the baby stopped growing. There is a name for it, the pregnancy terminated itself. We did not do it. The DNC was necessary to remove the dead fetus(zygot?)?
