Abortion is Wrong

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Imperfect

Member
Every quality I value in people, compassion, intelligence, reason, etc., is present in greater quantities in a chimpanzee or pig than they are in a handful of cells. If I'm going to eat bacon, why do you think that the greater genetic resemblance of the cells is going to save them? Not that they're all that common at a BBQ, but still.
 
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bergerking42

New member
While I'm fully with you on being precise, such precision would be mis-placed in grass roots midwifery and pregnancy medicine I feel.
Medicine that's not done in a lab or academic capacity but done face to face with actual women and couples going through pregnancy.
It's hard enough to get a handle on the age of your baby when they add two weeks to it and date it from the last period.
Adding in extra terms and trying to split hairs is fine in an intellectual debate on abortion but wouldn't add anything to people dealing with impending parenthood.
Unless something occured that needed addressing and the stage the embryo/foetus/baby was at was important.
For most people, including non-religious people without any sort of agenda, the "start" of pregnancy is when sperm meets egg and fertilisation occurs.
Everything else comes after that event.
 
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strangelittlegirls

New member
First of all, you appear have some strong misconceptions about the efficacy and safety of midwifery if you believe lab work and diagnostic imaging shouldn't be performed along the stages of fetal development for consistent and safe results. I'm actually quite opposed to hospital births for a myriad of reasons, and very pro-midwife, but it still requires a lot of modern technology and lab work too, and any natural births (water, etc.) should be performed at facilities adjacent to hospitals, with a physician on-call, in case any unforeseen complications require emergency surgery.

That said, if someone chooses to have a Medieval pregnancy void of modern technology despite availability, that's their prerogative. However, that person is a moron.



Quite wrong I'm afraid. As I hope you're well aware, the embryo is at far greatest risk to environmental traumas the earlier in the pregnancy you go. Having accurate, concise information, lab work, and imaging is essential during early pregnancy. Changing your diets, your personal habits, reviewing prescriptions, reviewing medical histories, past pregnancies, unfavorable hereditary traits, etc. should be considered. Doing all of it while keeping the mom's stress low is essential. No small task, really.



I never disputed that. Science agrees that's the start of a pregnancy too. We were talking about the use of the nebulous and inaccurate term "conception," not pregnancy. And in "medicine" it refers to implantation. The MDs who intentionally mislabel it's use to identify "fertilization" as the starting point typically do so with a political agenda, and I would personally worry might be hesitant to suggest a medically necessary abortion to preserve the life of the mother.



I'm quite confident there is an identical trend in religiosity in medicine in the UK too.

Righty had a very accurate point. Yes, it might merely be used to speak in laymen's terms to a client. I'd be damned sure I found out though.
 
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LouiseR

Member
You've got the wrong end of the stick mate. I'm with you on all that.
Did you see my post in the thread where I said my wife is currently 15 weeks pregnant?
This isn't theoretical for me at the moment.
Everything medicine can offer we are all for.

And I can say that when a couple goes in for their 12 week scan they don't want the person doing the scan to start being that pedantic with terms and definitions (even if that pedantry is accurate).
I'm not saying those defitnitions don't have medical import (they obviously do).
Just that those medical terms need to be used in the real world in the best way with the actual people you are dealing with.

For example you don't want a patient/nurse dialogue to go like this...

Patient: So when did we conceive?
Nurse: That's a medieval word. Do you mean when did you get fertilised? Or when your blastocyst implanted?
Patient: My what? When did we get pregnant?
Nurse: When you were fertilised
Patient: And when was that?
Nurse: About a day after you ovulated
Patient: So when will our baby be born?
Nurse: You currently don't have a baby in you. It's an embryo
Patient: So when will my embryo be born?
Nurse: Embryos aren't born. They can't survive. It needs to become a foetus first
etc etc

What I'm saying is that even though "conception" may not be accurate medically it's what normal pergnant people use to describe getting pregnant, is used to describe when sperm meets egg, and so must be taken into account as a term and/or consideration.

I'm absolutely not dismissing a science based approach to pregnancy. That's not my style at all.
 
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Veldon15

Member
Actually it's not that imprecise.
The VAST majority of people, I think, use the word "conception" as an alternative to "fertilization" and take it to mean exactly the same thing.
I grant you all the other things about it but that's how it's used today.
 
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CadetGirl

New member
The conversation wouldn't go like that with me, either. I have several very non-MAP-friendly phrases I might use to discuss the act with my physician. And yes, I'm aware. Congrats again to you and your wife.
 
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oddie

New member
Some of this brings us to the question of how much less value should be placed on potential life vs. random cells etc. vs. recognisable life as we choose to define it.

Personally I choose not to value potential life less than some other definition of human life. It is after all just a matter of time no ? This is not a choice between one or other, only if it was you might choose to place more value on the more developed life, which I find understandable.

A bunch of other cells, be it beer or animals or what have you hardly amount to potential of a human life; they don't have that obviously so it's really not comparable whatsoever, in my opinion.
 
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squeedmayor

New member
no, because sperm (or eggs) on their own don't have the potential to become human life. fertilization, conception etc - whatever term you want to use; that is what I was describing as having the potential for human life. Contraception stops this 'potential' from coming about in the first place; a different thing entirely.

cheers
 
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td321123

Member
As was mentioned earlier in this thread I think there is a hierarchy of consideration whereby some sperm don't require the same consideration as a zygote, a zygote doesn't require the same consideration as an embryo, etc etc.
At each stage the decision to end the process should involve more consideration and more criteria for it to be allowed.
I think to deny that it to needlessly divide the issue where no division needs to be.
 
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JulieJ

Member
Actually a fetus does not have the ability to become human life on its own as well.

Without the support system of the mother the fetus has no chance of becoming human life. The same for sperm and eggs, without the actions of others they have no chance of becoming human life.

I don't believe there are any clear cut answers here. The point where human life begins is arbitrary. At what point is there the transition from being alive as a cell or group of cells to being human?

There was a really good "Through the Worm Hole" last night discussing this and depending on which scientific expert and which standard you prefer it was conception, 25 weeks and some where around 4 or 5 years old. The standards were conception, awareness in the cortex and development of human consciousness.
 
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Pancake

Member
But without the support system of a mother/father/carer a new born baby will quickly cease to be a human life too.
IMHO independent viability is one consideration to take into account and clearly shows how the "entity" changes with time and so requires more consideration as time passes.
 
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HaniE

Member
but that's a biological given, surely; I mean it's expected, and it's there. of course things can go wrong, but we generally expect things to work out most of the time.

I agree on there being no clear cut answers in moral terms or perhaps if you're looking for an objective dividing line that dictates when 'potential' turns into "life" there's no clear cut answer everyone might agree to. I just don't personally place much value on the relevance of that.

However we can each only give our view, and from where I sit I think it's "just a matter of time", hence the diminishment of it's relevance. For me personally if I had this decision to make it is not a convincing enough basis to have some sort of cut off point or argue about when 'potential' becomes an accepted definition of "life".
 
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conny

New member
This argument is getting confused.

I would consider a sperm cell to be alive, I don't see what support systems have got to do with it as an adult human cannot survive independently without myriad "support systems".

If I bleach my kitchen surfaces, I am "killing" bacteria, so I'm confused why we are squeamish about referring to abortion as killing the foetus.
 
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ILY34

New member
Yea.. Not sure, if this is directed at some of what I said but anyway, I would also consider it alive. But that's really different from cells that 'as they are' will develop into a human life.
Sorry if that had nothing to do with my comments.

You know I don't really have any problem with stepping on ants for example, and that would probably bother me more than knocking one out and letting my boys die..

Now I'm confused!!
 
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amo45

Member
No, not directed at you Cloudz

It just seems that some of the pro-choice lot try to use philosophical loopholes to feel better about killing foetuses.

I am totally pro-choice, but I don't see why we have to dress-up the fact we are killing human life (in the same way that a tadpole is part of a frog's life cycle).
 
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