> We cannot rely on the current level of medical knowledge to define life.

We rely on the best definition available, which is brain waves. The alternative is to ignore the best definition available, and just choose whatever makes you happy.

> If something is not dead, it is alive.

Dead means something used to be alive, and isn’t any more. A rock is not dead, but not alive either.

> You cannot say an embryo is dead – it is growing. You don’t grow while you are dead.

Tissue can be grown in Petri dishes, and yes, it’s alive in some sense. So’s my skin. But I don’t hold funerals for my dandruff. When we talk about “alive” for a person, it doesn’t just mean cellular function, it means a mind too. If someone’s decapitated, but the remainder of their body can be kept “alive” on life support, they’re still dead.

> You cannot say it is inhuman – it is genetically a human. If it is both alive and human, then killing it is murder.

If that is so, then removing tonsils is murder.

> people will come up with all sorts of other definitions to justify what they want to believe…

Indeed they will.

> Human life starts when a fetus has distinct DNA.

That would make identical/Siamese twins one person. Also, some people, due to errors in DNA copying, have different DNA in part of their body, so they would be two people.

> Who knows what is going on in the fetuses head as medical science advances we might find all sorts of activity

Maybe my tonsils think too, but current knowledge suggests otherwise.

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Mr Dennis says:

Human life starts when a fetus has distinct DNA. At that point the fetus is a human life. It is wrong to kill a human. The fetus is human, therefore it is wrong to kill a fetus.
“You don’t solve problems by killing people.”

Who knows what is going on in the fetuses head as medical science advances we might find all sorts of activity …. and the same for fetuses of other species. Carl Sagan in Shadow of Forgotten Ancestors asks: What is Human? and the disticntion isn’t as obvious as we think…..

One way of looking at it is to say that we shouldn’t have everyone at once (ie) we should spread the population out and those souls who are aborted come back in the future. [From the Inspired Wiki (make your own religion].

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james_g:
The definition of life changes as our medical knowledge improves. In the past life would have been defined by the heartbeat. Now we can detect brain function, so people decide to define life by this. Who knows what will be measured in future that people will choose to define life by. We cannot rely on the current level of medical knowledge to define life.

If something is not dead, it is alive. You cannot say an embryo is dead – it is growing. You don’t grow while you are dead. You cannot say it is inhuman – it is genetically a human. If it is both alive and human, then killing it is murder.

Clear and simple. But as it isn’t what everyone wants people will come up with all sorts of other definitions to justify what they want to believe…

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Life does not begin at conception. We would not consider someone to immediately be dead if half the chromosomes mysteriously vanished from their body, so long as their mind continued to function (although it probably wouldn’t be good for their life expectancy).

Life does not begin when a heart starts beating. We would not consider someone to be dead if their heart stopped beating, but their mind continued to function (again, probably not good for their life expectancy though).

Life is all about mind. That’s why we refer to a two-headed human as “Siamese twins”. That’s why we wouldn’t consider trying to revive a decapitated human, even if we could, and it wouldn’t be for quality-of-life issues, but rather because there wouldn’t be a life there to save, no matter how many of the remaining organs were functional.

Life begins when mind begins, as evidenced by brain waves, at around 20 weeks.

I support a right to life when there exists a life to claim that right.

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Oh, I forgot to add the link
http://www.stats.govt.nz/products-and-services/hot-off-the-press/abortion-statistics/abortions-yedec06-hotp.htm

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Ok maybe I didn’t quite say it right.

Instead of arguing about the rights and wrongs of abortion (which seems to be a neverending argument) why don’t you try to figure out why the abortion rate has increased by around 50% over a 10 year period.

I’m sure even the pro choice people see such a high rise in abortions to be a concern, and would be keen to see that rate go down.

Anyway I can’t be bothered with this any more. Have fun with your arguments guys.

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My thoughts have been taken in a new direction with these recent comments. I have expanded my ideas on the essence of this debate, and created a post back on my blog, which explores this further.

In the interests of not throwing up a huge comment, here’s the link to those that might be interested. Abortion as an issue of Rationalism over Morals

A thank you to people on this thread – whilst others have not got anything new out of this debate, I have been fortunate to feel like another piece of the puzzle falls into place. And don’t forget the silent readers, who cannot speak for themselves

Both sides are speaking from concern for others – the effects on the Mother; the horror of potentially “unwanted” babies potentially living hard lives and those also that have an over-riding concern for the unborn – that with a degree of faith and optimism, like to think we as a society can value all life, even when it is hard. I turn to the wise words of the elephant, Horton: “A person is a person, no matter how small”.

Regards, Zen.

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Sapient:
Although I disagree with your views on abortion, I must heartily agree with the craziness of opinions shown by many feminists. In my mind, both parents have an equal responsibility for their child. The father should have as much say as the mother, and as much responsibility to raise the child if they choose not to have an abortion. The current situation where a woman can decide to have an abortion against the will of the father (killing his child) is ridiculous, as is the fact that the father can run off and leave the mother to raise the child without any support from him.

ZenTiger:
“Exactly, so once the baby is born and can speak, we ask them what their choice would be”
Hear, hear. It is fine to argue freedom of choice about someone’s own live, but stupid when you are talking about killing another human (or terminating the potential for another human if anyone doesn’t agree that abortion is killing). It makes as much sense as saying “the terrorist has the freedom of choice as to whether he blows up the bus or not”.

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At least you focused on the cause of abortions rather than the morality. I’m sure thats the only way to make progress.

One thing modern society doesn’t want, is to have to deal with morality. It is a new society based on rationalism. Rationalism without moral constraint leads us in a destructive direction.

By not continuing to debate morality and ethics, they seemingly become less and less important. Certainly, a big part of this debate for some people (and I’m not necessarily talking about people here) is to play with semantics to convince themselves that killing a pre-born is not really ending a life. If it were seen as that we might collectively try much harder to work on prevention and on expanding post-birth support options.

The cause of abortions is having sex for reasons where a baby is an unacceptable possible outcome. We need to debate morality and ethics. These are not things to be discarded like an unwanted baby.

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Something that astonishes me about this topic is that there is absolutely no way that anyone here is going to influence anyone else to change their mind about their views on abortion.

Yeah, yeah, look, if you don’t want a slave then don’t own one.

You anti-abolitionists aren’t going to change are you? Had slavery since, like forever and I can see it is pointless to try to talk you out of it.

Oh, hang on, we aren’t talking about anti-abolitionists then?

Gee, do I feel silly.

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eredwen, If it really was that simple we wouldn’t have more abortions than car crashes injured. Sure, the “seatbelts save lives” message has been a key part of bringing down the road toll but only as part of a trifecta that also targets alcohol and speed (haste). I’m not sure that there is an equivalent of crumple zones unless it is vasectomies.

At least you focused on the cause of abortions rather than the morality. I’m sure thats the only way to make progress.

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Doug T

It’s called politics – and politics is about values/ethics/morality/concepts of the social contract etc. There have been more passionate debates in Enzed about the Treaty, Maori seats, etc and Labour vs National society good economics vs Green sustainable economy etc and will be again.

Abortion law affects our social inter-personal relationship culture. As does divorce law and property settlement law, availablility of contraception.

People have opinions and will express them when an issue is part of our current events – see Trotter’s column in the Dom Post today?

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…though i dont expect to be able to change anyones views

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Zen,
the survival part was only half serious, in all truth no human can survive without the environment regardless of if they are born or not.
As for letting the baby speak, thats already surpassed a point where-by society has been disadvantaged, so ultimatly not producing the largist net benifit. think of it in terms of return on investment

DougT,
Im a utilitarian, its easy to convince me, i mearly need a rational arguement that shows stongly that the net benifits to society of taking away choice and increasing the number of unwanted pregnancies which reach completion surpasses the net benifits of allowing choice in completing the pregnancy.

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Something that astonishes me about this topic is that there is absolutely no way that anyone here is going to influence anyone else to change their mind about their views on abortion.

And yet there are over 140 responses here.

The fact that so much emotion and effort has been put in by people on both sides of an argument that EVERYONE should realise is nothing more than a cat fight about individual views on moral ethics really amazes me.

If anyone thinks they can change the views of “the other side”, tell everyone what it would take to change YOUR mind on the subject.

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If the net benifits of giving people the option to make a choice exceed the net benifits of not allowing them to make a choice then they should be given the choice,

Exactly, so once the baby is born and can speak, we ask them what their choice would be

the argument as to if the body of cells is alive or not is irrelivant as killing is not, in itself, a moral or immoral act. but if you must define the start of its life, the point at which it can survive independant of the womb and/or medical machinary – that is when it is no longer a paracite – seems as good of a point as any.

Why must you define it in terms of survival outside the womb? Only because that makes sense to you. The pre-born is not a parasite though. A parasite is of another species. The baby cannot survive once born either, unless people directly intervene to keep it alive. Ironically, they have to directly intervene to kill it whilst it is “safe” inside the womb. Refer to my point about a man surviving in the Antarctic way up the thread too, it’s somewhat relevant again.

You were brave for going with the last point.

To some extent I agree – the women had a choice to safeguard against pregnancy using a number of options. She didn’t. (Same applies to the man too) Guess what, she (and he) doesn’t get the right to kill after the baby is born too, even though the baby is dependent upon her for sustenance.

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Hi STC

Brain dead, no heart beat, and baby survives

Zach makes it back

There was a case recently in the UK too, but I cannot remember where I saw it.

Slightly different topic:
Baby Survives Abortion

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heh, what an emotional thread. people are entitled to their opinions though i suppose.
policy however, should be informed not by personal emotions and opinions about what is moral but instead about what is in the best interests of society itself.
If the net benifits of giving people the option to make a choice exceed the net benifits of not allowing them to make a choice then they should be given the choice, and it seems quite clear that the social benifits from choice far outweigh those from non-choice. thought of course there should as always be limits and safeguards, but they are relativly small details (thouh terribly fun to discuss).
the argument as to if the body of cells is alive or not is irrelivant as killing is not, in itself, a moral or immoral act. but if you must define the start of its life, the point at which it can survive independant of the womb and/or medical machinary – that is when it is no longer a paracite – seems as good of a point as any.
and another thing, to the hypocrits who call themselves feminists (feminisim is ment to be about equality and ending opression of women is it not?): Why is it that you argue for the rights of women over their own bodies but at the same time deminish them by making women not resonsible for their own actions and what happens to their body? if an individual takes part in a sexual act and does not utilise protection, with full knowledge of the potential consequences of not doing so, and falls ill of those consequences, is it not thier own fault? if she ends up pregnant and with an ex-partner who refuses to support her, is it not her fault for failing to succesfully gauge her partner? you cant just blame men for everything. in this case i am of course discounting rape, and i do beleive child support has a place as the male makes the same decisions as the female, just doesint have the consequences, in the case of pregnancy atleast.
Feminisim, in most forms, is admirable is its idolisation of equality, i myself beleive that all should be equal before the law. however, many of the practioners of feminism seem to be more about female superiority and extra entitlement, a situation just as bad as that they claim to fight. in my experiance many ‘feminists’ also seem to adopt the ‘victim’ identity that so plauges the left.
Thats me for today, i try to limit the volume of critique for which people can (illegitimatly) claim me to be chauvinist or biggot.

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Mr Dennis said: (initially quoting eredwen): …take responsibility for ensuring that your sperm is NEVER part of an unwanted conception.â€?

Done. Now go tell it to the fathers of the 18,000 babies aborted each year.

Yep, I’ve done it too Mr Dennis – got the snip over 10 years ago and before that was a responsible condom user from my teenage years.

But it is not eredwen’s responsibility as a woman to tell it to all the men who father unwanted conceptions. It is yours, and mine, and that of all sexually responsible men to educate our gender on this issue.

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zen tiger

It is not possible to debate, a conflict of rights to body sovereignty or to life, if any termination is defined as not killing but “murder”.

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