What's your take on abortions?

[Bet51987]

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[Smotie1]

Bettina I would like to ask you how aborting an innocent baby (albeit conceived by rape) is protecting the mother?

On a side note I read an article in our paper which had a 19 year old girl who was raped and had a baby giving her story about it. She indicated that she loved her baby and wouldn't want to give her up for anything. Granted this is only one testimony but who's to say that just because a girl has a baby from rape it is casting on her some terrible crime?
I know the crime of rape is an horrendous one (which if it happened to my daughter I would be very upset about it) but the true innocent victim in all this I see is the baby. Why destroy the baby when it hasn't committed any crime?

Lothar, I would like to ask you a question. When do you believe a conceived baby is given a spirit?
You seem to have some room for abortion in your post earlier (I hope I haven't misread them) and knowing your belief system I am a bit confused/concerned if that is the case.

[Lothar]

assuming your daughter really does not want to go through childbirth....

Why do you assume my daughter would have that response? If I've raised her, I expect her to have far more respect for human life than that.

If I had to, I would "force" my beliefs on my daughter to protect my grandchild. I'd do the same 9 months later if she wanted to kill her newborn. That's what makes this so difficult -- she's my 13 year old daughter; it's my responsibility to care for her, and I'll do the best job I can. It's also my responsibility to care for my grandchild, and sometimes one will come at the expense of the other.

Nobody ever said life was easy or without compromise.

When do you believe a conceived baby is given a spirit?

I don't even know if the question is valid.

The Bible uses the word "spirit" nearly 600 times total, in these ways:
1) an outside or foreign presence (evil spirit, Holy Spirit, etc.) -- about 90% of the use of the word
2) a person's will, thoughts, or consciousness ("the spirit is willing", "my spirit rejoices", "in spirit and truth".)
3) purpose or attitude ("a spirit of friendship", "a gentle and quiet spirit")
4) some sort of life force ("her spirit returned", "receive my spirit".) This is only used maybe half a dozen times total, and every single time it's used, you could substitute "consciousness" and it'd still make sense.

Of note: there's never any indication of "spirit", in the sense of definition #4, being granted to anyone. We have no idea when a person begins to have a "spirit", or even what it means! Perhaps God grants a mystical life force called "spirit" at the moment of conception; perhaps He grants one at the moment brain waves start; perhaps the word means "consciousness" and it simply occurs at a particular developmental stage. I don't know, and I don't think there's enough information in the Bible for anyone else to know either (but poor hermeneutics sometimes make people THINK they know.)

In other words, I think the question "when is a baby given a spirit" assumes far more about "spirit" than we actually know.

Of course, as I said before, my preference is to err on the safe side, which is why I wouldn't allow my own daughter to abort after fertilization. But if we're going to draw a legal line defining "personhood", as Jeff250 is so fond of pointing out, we can't do so by appeals to poorly-understood religious theories. I can't make a case for drawing a legal line before there's at least some sort of brain activity.

[TIGERassault]

Since you have taken one of the extreme positions for yourself and assuming your daughter really does not want to go through childbirth would you then force your beliefs on her? Would you ignore her "please don't do this to me"?

Bet, just about everything in proper parenting is forcing your beliefs on your child. Whether the belief is based on religion or experience, or even just a hunch, it's still forcing your beliefs.

[Bet51987]

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[Bet51987]

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[Jeff250]

As I've said pretty much every time this debate has come up, I'd rather declare personhood prematurely than declare it too late.

At some point late in the pregnancy, once viability is achieved, we're dealing with a creature that can meet ANY reasonable definition of personhood that a newborn can. If we're going to draw a legal line based on personhood, it seems reasonable to me to draw the line early enough that we're not risking killing actual persons in marginal cases.

If we decide on brain function as a reasonable deciding factor, I'm not worried about animals with more sophisticated brain functions. We're not going to get measurement errors in telling the difference between a cow and a human, or cows growing into personhood between the time we decided to kill them and the time we finished making the burger.

OK, so as far as policy-making is concerned, you'd rather err on the side of caution. I'm still curious as to where you'd actually put the emergence of personhood during fetal development.

But as far as policy-making is concerned, as I've touched on in some of my other posts, I can't share your fear of accidentally killing "actual persons." It's not clear to me that talking about the "actual" definition of person makes any sense. Is this something we can scientifically discover? Is it written in the clouds? When, for example, deciding whether or not Pluto is a planet, do you think that there is an actual definition of planet, one more real than just what the scientists decide upon, that we should be consistent with? I would say that the idea of an actual planet makes about as much sense as talking about an actual person.

Still, one might object to this, saying that even if there is no actually correct definition of personhood, there are still real ethical obligations that arise because of the properties attributed to personhood, and we would want to err on the side of caution insofar as we respect these obligations. This is true. But the properties like capacity for emotion, the capacity for pleasure and pain, self-awareness, and so on, do not arise instantaneously and not all at the same time. I don't see any reason to think why our ethical obligations shouldn't either. We respect this, and I think rightfully so, in the rest of the animal kingdom. We kill cockroaches without ethical reserve, yet a dog would be a different story. Some animals we can kill, but only in ways that don't exceed a certain standard of pain. Some of the higher animals, like chimpanzees, we grant many of the more "human" liberties.

I see no reason why it wouldn't be appropriate to take this approach to fetal development as well. There are some advantages to this. This analog approach will open up the possibility to not being either completely right or completely wrong in performing an abortion. We wouldn't have a bizarre demarcation where if you perform an abortion two minutes early you're completely good but if you perform it two minutes late you've committed murder. Instead, you might be wrong only in some small ethical aspect, like that, for example, the abortion should have been performed more painlessly but was otherwise OK.

You say that we don't have to worry about being consistent with animals, because we're only being extra-cautious with humans since we can potentially murder them. This line of thought seems to require some sort of assumption like, "One can only murder humans." Why aren't you worried about society committing an equally heinous offense as murder against some animals when we kill them? If you're cautious to kill a human fetus with a given amount of capacity for emotion, capacity for pleasure and pain, brain functionality, and so on, why not extend that same cautiousness to animals with equal or greater amounts of these qualities?

[Smotie1]

So then Lothatr if man doesn't receive a spirit at conception, the what does the Bible mean when it says \"to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord\"

Also why does Jesus indicate that a person must be \"born again of the spirit\"

You see this is the whole argument about abortion in my opinion. When is the foetus a spirit being. At conception? Then we have no right aborting it because only God has the right when we die and step into eternity. If not at conception then the foetus is nothing more than an organism that is living inside the womans body and attached to her.

God's words to Jeremiah were \"Before I formed you in the belly I knew you\"
God specfically states that BEFORE he formed him he knew him. What did he know? If Jeremiah wasn't given a spirit at conception then what did he know?

Also in what way then did Adam and Eve die when they took of the forbidden fruit? If not a spritual death as well as a physical one later on. All of scripture is filled with the fact that man is a spirit being and the body only a \"shell\"

Can you clarify why you are are questioning whether man even has a spirit?

[Kilarin]

I think that anyone who assigns personhood to a fetus that's less developmentally advanced than some adult animals needs to explain why those animals aren't persons too (or concede that they are) without appealing to metaphysical rubbish.

If we decide on brain function as a reasonable deciding factor, I'm not worried about animals with more sophisticated brain functions. We're not going to get measurement errors in telling the difference between a cow and a human, or cows growing into personhood between the time we decided to kill them and the time we finished making the burger.

Lothar hit the nail on the head. Using brainwave function to determine personhood is not an attempt to say that even an infant has the mental capacity of an adult human. But we obviously (at least I hope it's obviously) do not want to eliminate the personhood of anyone who isn't at full mental capacity.

The POINT is to define the capacity to THINK as what makes us legally persons, and then to set the legal beginning of personhood at the beginning of that capacity. Yes, a mature horse has much more mental capacity then a newborn infant, but that's not the point. We aren't measuring current intelligence, we are finding the beginning point of what makes a legal person.

You seem to find it "reasonable" for "other parents" but not for your own daughter? I see no compromise here. You are plainly taking the extreme position where she is doomed while the rape is taking place.
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Why destroy the childhood of a 13 year old to save a few forming cells.

You see, the point here is that you don't think those cells are an innocent person. THAT is the only difference. Lothar's "Extreme position" of protecting his grandchild at the expense of his child is the exact SAME position that you take, you just take it at a different point, 8 weeks instead of conception. The poor raped child has nothing to do with the argument, the only difference is when we believe the new life to be an innocent person worthy of protection.

Oh, and there is nothing inconsistent about saying that the "legal" limit should be X, but in my family, we stop at Y. I don't think the government should put people in jail who let their kids watch lots of TV, but it's not happening at my house.

Some animals we can kill, but only in ways that don't exceed a certain standard of pain. Some of the higher animals, like chimpanzees, we grant many of the more "human" liberties.
I see no reason why it wouldn't be appropriate to take this approach to fetal development as well.

Actually, to a certain degree I agree here. I think if we set the legal definition of personhood at first brainwave, we should still accord some special protections to a conceptus.
BUT, our LEGAL definition of when personhood begins needs to be a hard line. The law doesn't deal with "fuzzy" very well.

So then Lothatr if man doesn't receive a spirit at conception, the what does the Bible mean when it says "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord"

This would be a REALLY great discussion, but I think it should be split from the abortion debate.

[Jeff250]

Lothar hit the nail on the head. Using brainwave function to determine personhood is not an attempt to say that even an infant has the mental capacity of an adult human. But we obviously (at least I hope it's obviously) do not want to eliminate the personhood of anyone who isn't at full mental capacity.

The POINT is to define the capacity to THINK as what makes us legally persons, and then to set the legal beginning of personhood at the beginning of that capacity. Yes, a mature horse has much more mental capacity then a newborn infant, but that's not the point. We aren't measuring current intelligence, we are finding the beginning point of what makes a legal person.

I think you're highlighting a different concern than Lothar. Lothar seemed more concerned with accidentally killing "actual persons." You seem to be arguing something along the lines that we should extend the legal rights of personhood to a human fetus for the same, presumably good, reasons that we do to other humans that wouldn't otherwise make the cut, which we do even if these humans are less close to actually obtaining properties like self-awareness than some animals.

There might be some merit to this, but it's unclear at this point. We need to first examine why we have an ethical obligation to extend rights of personhood to humans who would otherwise not qualify, or even if we do. If, for example, the obligation arises out of humans being members of a society, then it would be unclear why human fetuses would be members of a society in the same relevant ways.

[Bet51987]

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[TIGERassault]

Kilarin.. Lothar, like some others, have chosen zero time which is a universe away from my position. Its fruitless to continue debate with differences that vast.

Well, uh, that's kinda the whole point on debating; to change those differences.

[Kilarin]

And your wrong. The "poor raped child" has everything to do with this. At least to me.

Sometimes I have difficulty communicating an idea clearly. I seem to be failing on this point quite spectacularly. So, I'm going to give it one more go, then give it up and hope someone with a clearer mind than mine might be able to say it better.

At 8 weeks, YOU would tell your raped daughter that she could not have an abortion, even if she said "Mommy PLEASE don't do this to me!"
At conception Lothar, Foil, myself, and several others in this forum have said that WE would tell our raped daughters that they could not have an abortion, even if she said, "PLEASE don't do this to me!"

EVERYONE mentioned above agrees that at some point, they would choose to protect their grandchild, even at the expense of trials and hardships to their child. A child who is, beyond doubt, an innocent victim and being made to suffer against her will.

So this is NOT a debate about who is the inhuman monster who would abuse their child by making them carry a baby to term against their will. EACH of the people mentioned, including yourself, would do so. The ONLY disagreement is on WHEN. And that when is based ENTIRELY on when each individual thinks the unborn child is a person.

And yes, that WHEN is important. BUT, the particular decision, to protect your grandchild at the expense of your child, is the SAME in every case. To someone who believes that personhood begins at the start of the third trimester, you are the one who is forcing that poor child to carry a clump of cells to term.

We all agree on WHAT to do, we disagree on WHEN to do it. And that's why I was saying that the WHAT is not actually critical to this debate, we agree on the what. The WHEN is what matters.

I was NOT attempting to say that a victim of rape is unimportant, only that it is not actually relevant to this question.

[Bet51987]

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[Bet51987]

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[Kilarin]

Kilarin... In one thread you told me that your 40 days was close to my 8 weeks and I made the assumption that you were flexible. Now you indicate that your taking the extreme position like the others who will not even consider anything that may stop the impending process that may or may not be taking place in my 13 year old subject.

I'm sorry, I thought I was clear. Too many posts to keep track of. Allow me to restate my position:

I feel that the LEGAL limit should be 40 days. After 40 days the law should actually step in and protect the grandchild with whatever power it has available.

My wife and my PERSONAL limit however, the limit that would be applied within our household, would be conception. I just don't feel that the conception definition is easy to defend from a legal point of view. Going with the 40 day brainwave limit would be more likely to create a law that could gain wide spread support, could pass, and could stand firm over time as it was challenged.

I was wrong about you...

I'm sorry I've offended you. As I said before, I don't think you'd think much of me if I refused to stand up for what I believe was necessary to protect the innocent. Especially my own grandchild.

nothing except a religious conviction that some supernatural being will hold them in contempt.

I would like to clarify this point. My position (and I would assume that of most of the other pro-life people here) has nothing to do with fear of punishment. You want to protect the 13 year old victim because you think the innocent should be protected. I feel the same way about the unborn victim, and for the same reason.

See you at the voting booth.

I applaud you voting your convictions! Although, I can't help but point out that the Libertarians are officially pro-choice.