Murder is the unlawful killing of a person. Fertilized eggs are not people. Thus abortion is not murder. Q.E.D.
I don’t understand at all why people believe so strongly that abortion is murder. At conception we are talking about a single celled organism. How can such a thing have civil rights? I think religion leads people to this weird view: they think God must stuff a soul in there at the moment of conception.
Let me be clear: I hold human life to be “sacred”, in a secular sense. I think personhood is the very pinnacle of our civil rights. I think we should guard human life very carefully and make certain people are not unlawfully denied the right to life, from which all other rights follow.
That is why I can’t understand people who feel so strongly for human life that they use it as their sole criterion when electing a President and yet they ignore Darfur and Iraq, not to mention good ol’ poverty, which have taken the lives of millions of people.
If you think human life is sacred, why the fuck are you so willing to kill people?
lolife 
In terms of where we can agree, one reason I think this issue is so silly is because it IS very easy to agree on these things:
1. Let’s prevent unwanted pregnancies.
2. Let’s agree on when it is too late for an abortion and then close the book on it.
You say conception. I say birth. Should we say 4.5 months? 6 months? While I believe there should always be exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the mother, I am willing to compromise on the issue of legality. But then I want it done with. The pro-lifers feel they are commanded by God to not compromise on this issue and never shut up until they get their way. We’re never going to agree if we can’t compromise. I’m willing to, you might be willing to, the pro-life fanatics are not willing to. You might say that the pro-choice fanatics aren’t willing to either, and while correct to some extent, I think they are just fighting against the slippery slope given then unwillingness of the pro-lifers to compromise.
Oddly, the pro-lifers work against #1, too, something I’ll never understand.
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You say I want to “criminalize abortion” and I say yo want to “legalize murder.” Why is your opinion more valid? Aren’t you trying to impose your morality?
This is what I don’t get about you. You don’t see others views as just as valid as yours. I think pro-choicers have a point, I can sympathize. I only have my opinion and I can’t just change it because you think I’m wrong.
I think once you make the decision in your heart that you believe abortion to be killing a human, all other decisions on the matter flow from there. Do I think it’s OK for a woman to kill a fetus because she made a bad decision? NO. Do I think it’s OK to kill a fetus because it may grow up in poverty? NO.
I am willing to bend my view in cases of rape, incest, mother’s health, etc. but even in those cases (esp. rape/incest) it should be done very early ad it should be illegal past a certain point.
lolife fetus=living, lolife=living, old man lolife=living; so in that way I feel your right to life is the same all along that timeline.
And Michael, you don’t piss me off because I disagree with you, I recognize it as a difference of opinion. I believe abortion (esp. late term) is monstrous, that is my view. That does not mean I see you as a monster! I just don’t understand it and realize that you don’t view it as monstrous. C’est la vie. (no pun intended).
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And speaking of gruesome pictures, have you ever seen kids who have been starved to death? Or abused to death? Have you seen pictures of people who are tortured their entire lives by their horrible up-bringing?
I want people to love and cherish their children. People, like teens especially, should not ruin their lives or their children’s lives because of a birth control accident. Millions of fertilized eggs do not make it. Abortion is a rounding error compared to the natural termination of pregnancy. Women should be able to choose and they should have privacy in that decision.
And finally, I hope to be an old man someday. I’m not an old man. I’m a potential old man. To treat me as if I was already an old man would make no sense.
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‘Cause you piss me off. š
You can have your opinion but you said more than once that we should criminalize abortion. Is that not imposing your morality? And meanwhile you call my views “monstrous”. Then you post gruesome pictures, touted by religious fanatics, to further characterize my views as monstrous. Then you call us hypocrites because we think the horror of war should not be hidden from the American people?
If only I was as tolerant as you.
I understand your heart felt feelings. You and fishdweeb have fairly similar views on this. I just think you should reach the same conclusion he did: that you can be anti-abortion and pro-choice.
It never ceases to amaze me how you pretend to be a tolerant moderate and yet you always, without exception, adopt the view of the Right. Abortion, Iraq, Israel, gay marriage, taxes — you are a dyed in the wool Republican. That’s fine, just quit pretending you are an independent moderate.
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Please read my posts more carefully. I am not trying to impose my morality on anyone else. I am stating my opinion.
If I have a vote, I would vote to make it illegal except in certain cases (health of mother, rape, incest, etc.). Other people would vote for a different law. We are a society of laws and I wold abide by the rule of the land. Right now the law is Roe. I accept that. I’m not gonna bomb any abortion clinics or protest any doctors. I am however, going to state my opinion which is heart felt. I think it’s better to have a woman be “forced” to carry a baby to term then it is to kill the baby. The baby could be adopted.
Why do you get so angry when people have views different then you?
I didn’t call anybody murderers or sinners. I believe it to be murder but it’s my opinion. Intelligent folks such as yourself can have another opinion. I can only state my morality, I don’t impose it or force it on others.
Why are you so intolerant?
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Yes, Micadelic, I see a shit load of hypocrisy in your position. A man and a woman struggling with their own, private decisions and having people like yourself call them murderers and sinners. A trillion dollar war, started under false pretenses by the richest of the rich that kills at least 100,000 civilians, 5000 US soldiers and wounds tens of thousands, all of it put on a credit card to preserve the inane “no new taxes” rhetoric. Life is sacred, right? It just depends whose life you are talking about. Photos of coffins is bad for business.
An embryo is 5mm long after 60 days, about the size of your fingernail on your little finger.
Women should not be forced to carry children they don’t want.
The government should not invade the privacy of couples struggling with their own decisions on reproduction.
It’s NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS and it is utterly bizarre how people try to impose their morality on everyone else.
I wish there weren’t abortions. We can all agree on that. Criminalizing abortions is completely insane.
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The vast, vast, vast majority of abortions are not performed upon 14 year-olds who were raped by their uncles. I think a situation as you describe is very debatable as far as whether an abortion should be legal. Clearly there are situations such as this where some common sense and compassion needs to be applied.
However, I find Michael’s description of an abortion as being of a “microscopic clump of cells” to be equally as offensive as those photos and it needed to be rebutted.
The left wants to show photos of blown up marines, and caskets coming home from the war, etc. yet they recoil at the photos of aborted fetuses? Anybody else see any hypocrisy in that?
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and for the record…I really question someone who would post images such as those….or worse yet….decide that those pictures should have been taken….I find them completely obscene……
I suppose those are used to show the 14 year old girl who has been raped by her uncle that she should have the child???…..
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I agree that those are horrible images. Abortion is a horrible thing.
In my opinion it is a private matter and something that the individual has to decide and live with…..but it needs to remain legal so that it is safe.
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Really sorry to link to those awful images but I just have to rebut the notion that abortions are of “microscopic clumps of cells.” These images are all over the Internet and quite readily available.
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This is what 2nd trimester abortion looks like:
http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/dc/index.htm
This does not look like “clumps of cells” to me.
Pictures of first trimester abortions are in a way, even more gruesome because of the way the body gets hacked apart. The first trimester baortions don’t look like “clumps of cells either.”
You all be the judge on what is a “clump of cells” and what is a human being.
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My point with the birth certificate, which I’ve written about elsewhere, is: that is when the state is informed that there is a new person. Prior to that, the state has no direct knowledge of the person-to-be. I think that is as it should be. I don’t think the state should be forcing women to have babies nor do I think it makes logical or legal sense for embryos to have rights. I think until a baby is living on its own, outside of the womb, it should not have rights. I think this because giving it rights makes the mother’s rights subservient, in a sense, to the fetus and puts the state between the fetus and the mother. The state should stay out of it until the baby is born.
I realize this is not a mainstream view. In my opinion, the mainstream view is completely irrational. They like babies so they think abortion is murder. I like babies, too but microscopic clumps of cells are not babies, they are not people, they are not aware and in cases where the mother does not want to have a child, it is not murder nor a sin for her to end the pregnancy. It’s really none of our business at all.
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In case I’m not being clear, I do think Roe should be overturned because it is bad law. My OPINION is that I feel any abortion is murder and I would support laws that make it illegal.
Having said that, I realize my opinion is just that, and I understand that reasonable people can disagree on when life begins. It is my firm belief that in the very least, there should be a point at which it would be absolutely illegal to terminate a fetus. Again, reasonable people can disagree when that point is. But Michael’s view that infanticide is OK as long as there is not yet a birth certificate is truly shocking.
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Well then we truly dissagree. I think this is bizarre:
I especially think that abortion passed the point of viability, is actually monstrous. But that’s just my opinion. I think your view is extreme and way outside of mainstream thought. No wonder you support Obama!
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I think this view is utterly bizarre. Women have always been able to decide whether to bring a pregnancy to term or not. The notion that the government has a compelling interested to protect the unborn hasn’t been shown at all. The privacy of a woman in her reproductive decisions alone should rule out government interference. The further implication of introducing an abortion black market or forcing women to raise unwanted children makes no sense. As fishdweeb said, you can be anti-abortion and still be pro-choice.
I love my children. I wouldn’t trade them for anything and I wish that sort of blessing on all people that wish it. But until they were born their life was, and should have been, solely at the discretion of my wife and I. I abhor the notion that the government plays a privileged role in that decision.
The birth certificate should be the point when you gain rights under the state.
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Didn’t GW run on the “i’ll make abortion illegal” platform?
Didn’t the Republicans have a complete ‘lock’ on the power structure for about six years? What did they do concerning abortion? (did they make third trimester abortion illegal??……which, by the way, I actually agree with….if you are going to terminate a pregnancy….do it before the 3rd trimester)
We are also, as a country, not for using the “morning after pill”?……was there a reason behind that decision?
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Personally I don’t think Roe will ever be overturned. It needs to remain legal.
I do not think abortion is right. I do believe you can be pro-choice without being Pro- abortion…(maybe that is because I am??)
and while we are on these “hot-button” issues….
get stem cell research on the fast track please!!!
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I think Roe should be overturned. I think abortion should be illegal EXCEPT when the physical health of the mother is in jeopardy.
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Abortion is a horrible thing. I don’t really care where you decide if it is murder or where the fetus is ‘viable’. Abortion is a wrong action. It is a poor choice.
That being said it must remain a choice. It must remain safe and legal.
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This is a tough issue. There are probably several moments starting at conception through various stages of development where you could say that a fetus becomes a person. I am still not sure where the best place to draw that line is, but my thought is, figure out where best to draw that line, then move it back a little, just to be safe.
However, I doubt there will ever be a consensus on where that line should be, at least, not in my lifetime.
In the mean time it is best to treat abortion as a symptom, of bigger, more complicated, harder to talk about problems. However, those are the things we should be working on.
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PS – I know women who made a different choice and then later in life became mothers. I do not know of any of them who made that choice that, in their heart of hearts, don’t regret that decision.
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At the moment of conception, that “single cell” has all the genetic information needed to be a person. At the moment I was conceived, that embryo had my Mom’s DNA and my Dad’s DNA and it combined in a unique way to become the person that is now micadelic. That was the one, defining instance that created the person that is me. It could only have happened once. Any unnatural interruption in that process would have killed me, I would have never been. My brothers are not me, my sister is not me.
I and my ex (before we were married) had to make this very personal choice and I was steadfast against abortion even 18 years ago. Not because of any religious test, just because of my own common sense test.
This weekend I am taking that former embryo to move into his dorm room and I can’t imagine any other outcome and I am 100% confident that we made the correct choice. To have terminated that pregnancy would have been to terminate the life of a very, very unique human.
I cannot be persuaded that life begins at any other time then the moment that genetic spark is ignited.
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PS – I applaud you for not being a single issue voter. I am utterly confused by your position on abortion, given that you are non-religious. I think the notion that a single-cell is a person is indefensible.
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I personally would consider it murder after birth when the child is breathing on its own. For example, a baby born without the capacity to keep itself alive, if the doctors “pull the plug”, I do not consider that murder. I think legally and logically, the bright line is birth. I do not think late term abortion is murder.
And to be clear, as I’ve written in the past, abortions should absolutely be avoided. I am not pro-frivolous abortion. I am not pro-abortion at all. But I think it should without question be legal until a child is able to survive independently of the mother.
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PS – I am not religious and I do not use this issue as my sole criteria for choosing who to vote for. I’ve voted for both “pro-choice” and “pro-life” candidates.
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Please define for me the precise moment when you would consider the terminaation of the life of a human embryo/fetus/baby as murder. Would you not agree that it is murder at some point? When is that point?
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