Thursday, June 21, 2007

I had something else planned for today, but I'm not done with the prior topic. I expected some fairly moronic comments in support of abortion, but I had no idea how bad it could be until I read the comment from "anonymous":

"I believe that guns and gun owner's are responsible for more death than abortion is. I believe that a fetus is as much a living, breathing human as an egg is a chicken. I know that hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos are thrown into a dumpster every year at invitro fertilization clinics all across the country. I guess it's OK to let them die of heat stroke than to use these cells or pre-embryos to help cure the diseases of those of us who have been through the womb - unlike a frozen fetus. Bush's "adoption option" will be as useless as FEMA, as life saving as the NRA, and somewhere someone will be making a pretty penny on this so-called plan."

OK, first, if anonymous truly felt that a fetus was not alive, then abortion would not be responsible for any death. So, in a way, anonymous is right about guns being more dangerous. Next, comparing a human fetus to a chicken egg is simply wrong. We, as a society, treat our supermarket eggs much better than we do the fetus, with those cozy crates and all. I think a better metaphor would be comparing a fetus to, say, a hangnail. It's just lifeless tissue that we remove and discard. But, for argument sake, we'll stay with the chicken egg metaphor. More to come later.

What amazes me about the pro-abortionists is that they can't come up with a sound argument supporting their position. For a crowd that's so passionate about what they believe, you'd think they'd be able to mount a formidable defense of that position but they don't, and I know why.

You see, to defend the right to abort a fetus, you must be able to definitively define the moment that human life begins. That way, anything before that can be killed, anything after cannot. This is were the pro-abortionists get bogged down. Advances in science and medicine make it tricky to set a definitive "life starts now" moment. Human rights activists like myself believe that life begins at conception. That's firm and unchanging. Man can't change it. The law can't change it. The Supreme Court can't change it. No advance in science can change it. You can't have human life without conception.

However, the pro-abortionists can't agree to this because that means that abortion would indeed be killing human life. So they need a different definition of human life, and they avoid this like a contraceptive. But, I'll take a look at a few.

A fetus is a human life once it can survive outside the womb. Human babies have survived premature delivery as early as 24 weeks gestation. Immediately, this argument is blown away because the pro-abortionists want to be able to kill a baby at any time during their pregnancy, and if we decide that 24 weeks gestation is the moment a fetus becomes a human life, then that will limit their "choice" way too much. This is an example of medical advances throwing a wrench in the abortionists plan. A few decades ago, babies couldn't survive prior to 30 weeks gestation. Now, it is becoming more and more common. Plus, if we agree on the 24 week mark, then we must also agree to deny women access to prenatal care, especially any government funded care, until they reach this point in their pregnancy. And all neonatal rescucitation efforts must stop. If that baby can't survive outside the womb, it's not a human life. Why waste medical resources on something that's not human?

A fetus is not a life until the moment of "birth". I don't get this one. First, define birth. Is it the moment the head crowns? Or when the chin clears the birth canal? Or when the entire body is out? Or after the cord is cut? What about a C-section? Is that actually a birth? Are C-section babies alive? You could make the exact same argument for each of these, which basically means the definition is artificial. And the C-section issue becomes interesting. If we decide that life isn't life until birth occurs, then we must agree that all emergency C-sections must stop. After all, that isn't a human life in there, why are we taking emergency measures to save it? Again, why spend valuable money and resources to save a non-life? Why do all of this for a chicken egg, or a hangnail?

The mother should have the freedom to decide when her baby is a human life. So now we don't establish any concrete definition, we just allow it to be a matter of opinion. For one person, life begins at conception. For another, at 20 weeks. For yet another, once the head is out. But, wait a minute, what about the mother who feels her child is not alive until they reach age 2? Or not until they can talk, or smile, or have their first poop? What about the mom who feels only true humans have blue eyes? Will we allow her to kill her brown-eyed baby? Obviously, making life a matter of opinion, at the discretion of the beholder, is a dangerous concept that should never be entertained. None of us would be safe in that kind of world.

So the arguments of the pro-abortionists just don't hold. Did I miss any? When you can't establish a definitive moment of when life begins, and defend that with a solid argument, then it would appear that a fetus is most definitely a human life. And it would appear that killing that fetus would constitute murder, which we all agree is wrong.

So when the abortionists can't agree on when life begins, and can't defend their position, why do they insist on the right to an abortion? Why the smokescreen? I'd prefer it if they came clean and basically said they don't care when life begins, as long as they have the right to end it whenever convenient. Why not simply admit that what they want is the right to have sex with someone they wouldn't marry without using contraception, and still be able to kill any baby that results from that sex. They seem so hesitant to admit that. Why? Because it's harsh or inhumane? Don't be ridiculous. If a fetus isn't human, then how on earth could it be inhumane to kill one?

I believe that human life is a sequence of events. A human being grows from a single cell, to an embryo, a fetus, an infant, a child, a teenager, etc...until life ends. This is a process that moves through many phases, but that process ALWAYS begins with fertilization. There is no other way for life to exist. Any 'boundaries' that are placed within that process are man-made, and thus can change. For example, if we place a boundary and say that life begins at birth, then who's to say that one day that boundary can't be moved to another age? Perhaps when the child is self-dependent, or capable of working or voting? Obviously, this is dangerous thinking. So the answer is to look at nature, and nature shows that the process of life has a beginning...and that beginning is ALWAYS at fertilization.

And by the way, last year alone there were nearly 1.5 million abortions in the US. From 1999-2004 (a SIX-YEAR period), there were 177,057 gun-related deaths in the US. That took all of about 2 seconds on an internet search.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love guns and hate abortion, so I would agree with all that, good analysis and excellent post.