Texas abortion ban linked to increase in infant deaths, new study finds

You talking to me, or yourself?
love,
NO DAMNATION, DAMNIT

 

There are no "pro-life" people.

At least not for practical purposes, in modern America. Nearly all "pro-life" people in America support some combination of wars, death penalty, denial of health care, or some other death resultant policy. Then they just rationalize the death policies they support, strangely still claiming to be pro-life.

It's really no different than what pro-abortion-rights people do. But cloaked in hypocrisy.


Well, ok, maybe some Amish or Mennonites or such are legitimately "pro-life." But the average anti-abortion person is just festooning themselves with a deceptive label.

 

Rape sperm hit the egg so hard it splits and makes twins half the time. Science!

 

The irony!

 

Your life and development began at conception. Science and Medicine have proven this. It is fact. No dispute. And trust me. My wife understands the how real and serious it is to create a New Life!

So again...are you just going to spout red herrings or do you actually support ending abortion for convenience? The reason it is done 99% of the time when it is not about the mothers health but to kill the child only.

 

Who knew? We could have saved all of those people from dying of COVID, cancer, and heart disease with one simple treatment.

 

Your second question first since you keep repeating it: No, but only if you mean if a mother wants to terminate when the fetus is viable merely for convenience and for no other reason. There comes a point when we, as Homo sapiens, must ensure it's birth, unless an intervening event calls for us to abort, namely the mother's life is in danger, in which case DOCTORS must decide who to "murder" as you so dramatically like to say. I can envision another circumstance when an abortion should be allowed, namely when the baby is horribly deformed and either won't live long or is destined to a life of misery, but I suspect the religious Nazis would disapprove of that in all their presumed moral authority.

As to your first assertion, I don't care when you say life begins, which you assert is the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg. (Taken to its absurd extent, "murder" is committed if the mother has that egg removed the next day.) For me and most people, life begins when the fetus becomes viable. Then, and not before, it becomes a member of the species Homo sapiens and entitled to our protection. Up until that point, its freedom of choice. If you religious Nazis want to believe otherwise, you are also entitled to exercise the freedom of choice you think you are morally superior to deny others.

 

I imagine that both pro-life and pro-choice people can agree that it is murder if a woman were to intentionally kill her three-month-old baby, even if that baby was a product of rape. I like to think I'm an empathetic person, but that's still not something I can accept. I imagine you agree.

I know why I don't consider abortion murder. The question is, why don't pro-life people who support rape exceptions consider it murder in that case? If the answer is that they also don't consider elective abortions murder, well, we're at least on the same page and can debate the finer points of our disagreement.

 

I don’t think most pro lifers really think it is murder. They think it is wrong at some level and not what God wants, and that’s enough for them to oppose it and force their beliefs on everybody else.

 

Viability is not a hard fast line. It is a gradient. What percentage probability of survival do you believe marks the transition from unhuman to human?

Viability has also changed over time as technology and neonatal medical care has advanced. What is actually happening biologically to transition the fetus to human? How can humanness be tied to technology?

 

Maybe not, but I've personally read and
heard "murder" and "killing" almost exclusively. They think have have the moral high ground by using those terms. Those of us who are more moderate - pro choice with restrictions - are painted as immoral. That really sticks in my craw.

 

That's for the experts to determine on a case by vase basis. It seems you and too many others want to make hard and fast rules.

 

I think in theory we could grow embryos all the way to full gestation in an artificial womb, even create clones of humans or “design” babies to have specific traits. The theoretical technology is just about there, based on animal cloning. Even though as far as I know this has not been attempted on a human, and quick search suggests the earliest premature baby to survive was @21 weeks.

There may be ethical dilemmas around that, esp with cloning and genetic manipulation. But even if that technological advancement were taken all the way to its end it still wouldn’t equate the loss of an embryo to murder. Maybe to the individual with exigent circumstance, like a surviving spouse preserving embryos from a dead husband, I could see that feeling like a severe loss to them. To the typical person? Eh.

 

If you haven't already decided to, you should take a break from this.

 

Freedom of choice!

 

That’s not a bad idea because this topic can get very tiring. However, perhaps you also need the break. You’re the one going around slapping “dislike” on all my posts. Is this subject so sacrosanct to you that any pushback is heresy?

 

Not sacrosanct, but it hits too close to home. I'm happy to dip outta this topic now, too.

 

Thank you for your thoughtful post.

I believe that destroying the developing child is wrong, but typically have not referred to it as murder. Perhaps I should. I need to think on this. It seems more frequently that someone who murders a pregnant woman is charged with a double homicide.

But here’s something else to ponder. What makes a being human? Is it merely possessing certain genetic material? The developing child has that. Is it having a consciousness or self-awareness? I’m not sure how much that exists right after birth.

Looking at the scientific literature, there is no consensus on what exactly constitutes consciousness. Add to this the complexity of personhood.

Some people here have suggested viability somehow transforms the developing child into a human. That’s just something arbitrarily decided. Viability is the range of probabilities and varies by individual developing child. What percentage chance of survival transforms the developing fetus into a human being?

Furthermore, viability has been drifting earlier and earlier as medical science advances. So the transition to humanness would not be determined by a biological or metaphysical process, but merely by the quality and sophistication of the medical treatment.

I know women who have miscarried at less than viability. They don’t regard it as a mere loss of a fetus. They mourn the loss of their child and it is devastating.

No biological process has been proposed for the transformation from not human to human. It appears that if the developing child is wanted, then it is human and should be protected. If it is not wanted, then it is not human and eligible for destruction.

What about when technological advances give us artificial uteruses? The argument of a woman’s body would disappear. Would it still be OK to destroy the developing child if there’s no woman attached?

It is a complex subject. Pro-life people argue from the viewpoint that life begins at conception. We know that from the earliest stages the entity is alive because it not only develops and grows, but also replaces dead cells. These are characteristics of life.

It seems to me that pro abortion people argue that it might be an alive, but it’s not human until some later, socially acceptable point.

 

There is no way to settle the personhood debate with science. Science can answer questions about what is real in the physical world, but personhood is a question that goes beyond the domain of science because it is about creating categories that define moral and ethical actions. It sits more at the intersection of philosophy and religion. At the root of the personhood debate, are two opposing ideas:

1. Human beings have the authority to decide what attributes constitute personhood.​

2. God alone possesses the authority to determine who is a person and who is not.
​

Who is God? Who sits on the throne? Is it God? Or is it man? That is the question.

When most of the modern academy is steeped in inconsistently applied philosophies of ultra-skepticism towards all objective truth claims there are no answers to these questions other than to viciously critique those who would put forward any answer. Since all answers are epistemological arrogance, there is no universal moral truth. There is only moral nihilism. If you don't accept the status quo of the moral anarchy produced by this moral nihilism, then you are an arrogant fascist trying to establish a theocracy and a Hand Maid's Tale society. When one looks in the mirror, and they see themselves sitting on God's throne with a scepter of authority to decide what is right in their own eyes, answering to no one but themself, that is where people end up in these debates.

 

So you are not concerned with reality and what Science and Medicine has shown us. Forget the fact that Science and Medicine really does define "creation". It flat shows that your life began at conception. Separate from your mother and father. At that point you had different DNA. Different Chromosomes. So for you to not care about this reality makes the debate meaningless. As you refuse to acknowledge basic Science and Medicine.

When were you viable? When you could breathe? When you could live without help? Reality is you were not "viable" until being multiple years old based on your definition.

Now I will concede there are real moral and ethical issues that are real as well.

Your life began at conception. Separate from your mother. Do you acknowledge this?