21 weeks 5 days. That's the current earliest baby to live. And it will get pushed earlier and earlier. Viability was considered 28 weeks a few decades ago. Allowing testing up to "viability" isnt nuanced, it's meaningless. One doesnt magically become human 1 day from the next. Viability changes.

Fetal experimentation is, at its very best, ending a life just beginning, in order to maybe possibly someday extend lives already lived. I find that selfish.

Abortion is either wrong or it isnt. The only 2 goalposts for rights are conception, or leaving the mother's body and being independent of her. I believe it's at conception. But I can at least respect the reasoning of people who are pro-choice right up until birth. They are at least logically consistent. People who try to wiffle-waffle around based on nebulous things like whether it has developed enough to "look like" a baby, or "feel pain" etc etc make no sense at all. Theres no difference in ripping off arm buds with a vacuhose, or in ripping off arms. Its ending the same life.

[Pregnancy] is a drastic infringement on women's bodily autonomy....

By that definition, so is a head cold.

To explain his argument, Gazzaniga uses an analogy: the embryo is like housing materials found at a Home Depot. Says Gazzaniga: "When a Home Depot burns down, the headline in the paper is not '30 Houses Burn Down.' It is 'Home Depot Burned Down.'" Similarly, to destroy a fetus is not to destroy a human life, but merely the "materials" of life.

That's a poorly thought out and self-serving analogy.

If he wants to use the construction industry as an analogy, the fetus is analogous to a framed layout. It's not a house yet, but it's clear that it's going to be one. Construction has begun.

A Home Depot burning down in an analogy to a fetus would be the equivalent of a guy masturbating. The raw materials go to waste, but no one worries about the house it might have been because the construction had not yet begun.

What human social problem do you think abortion solves?
Abortion is legal cheap and easy in Japan and the orphanages are still overflowing with kids.

I think the biggest mistakes the women’s movement and the same sex marriage movement and the sex change industry have made was framing freedom from your own biology as some sort of basic human right.

I think that it is life in the womb, but what kind of life? We don’t judge the life of a roach, the life of a frog, and the life of a human along the same continuum. At conception, I don’t consider human life very valuable. As many as 25% may spontaneously abort (miscarry).

Each day, the embryo becomes more developed, more human. Abortions should be done as soon as possible. The first few days after conception, I believe the female carrier’s life is much more important. As the days go by, it becomes more complicated. I would probably weight the importance with the mother’s life counting for 51% and the baby for 49% at the childbirth.

I think the quickening is a good cut-off for abortion for a healthy pregnancy. That is when the mother can feel the fetus’s fluttering movements. This occurs between 13-16 weeks along.

I gave birth in Texas. They let me know that they would not do anything to save my life that might harm the baby. I imagined that if it came to it, we would make that decision, me or the baby. They let me know that the babies life took precedence. Perhaps that is why Texas has some of the highest maternal mortality in the world.

I gave birth in Texas. They let me know that they would not do anything to save my life that might harm the baby. I imagined that if it came to it, we would make that decision, me or the baby. They let me know that the babies life took precedence. Perhaps that is why Texas has some of the highest maternal mortality in the world.

Jen at April 15, 2018 8:12 AM

This is complete bullshit, and I dont believe a word of it.

And The high Texas maternal mortality statisitcs have been completely debunked.

If we're going to try to cover every position here: I draw the line at about the 14th week, when the frontal lobe of the brain appears. With it you are intelligent, and thus a moral agent; before that point you are just a dumb animal.

As far as Jen's story -- there is a worse policy than that in actual practice, at Mercy, a Catholic run chain of hospitals. Their policy is not only never to do an abortion, but never even to let a patient find out if she needs one to save her life. Thus if an expecting mother is suffering from organ failure, and there is no possibility that the baby could be saved even by sacrificing the mother's life, Mercy will see to it that she dies rather than commit the (in their view) greater sin of referring her out for an abortion.

As far as Jen's story -- there is a worse policy than that in actual practice, at Mercy, a Catholic run chain of hospitals. Their policy is not only never to do an abortion, but never even to let a patient find out if she needs one to save her life. Thus if an expecting mother is suffering from organ failure, and there is no possibility that the baby could be saved even by sacrificing the mother's life, Mercy will see to it that she dies rather than commit the (in their view) greater sin of referring her out for an abortion.

jdgalt at April 15, 2018 8:28 AM

I call BS on this as well. Sounds like abortion industry agitprop to me.
Please list the medical condition you think they are referring to where an abortion would save the life of a dying mother at the expense of the life of a viable child opposed to a c section which would do both.

But thanks for pointing out the lengths the abortion industry will go to, to demonize Catholic hospitals.

Very simply, women are not above the lives of their sons (who are 50% women, by the way). The fact that, by nature, women are "incubators" for children is not the children's fault. Unless (perhaps) those women were raped, it's a matter of basic morality that a human being life's is more important than the possible inconvenience a mother - and his father - have to endure. The "merely cells" argument is also invalid: you and me - or Mozart, or Leonardo da Vinci - were merely cells at one point, and without that point we wouldn't be here; nobody can decide a human being does not deserve to live, at any point.

For Gazzaniga, neuroscience tells us that "life begins with a sentient being," around week twenty-three... it is at this point, and not until then, that the fetus becomes "one of us," with all "the moral and legal rights of a human being."

Oh horse shit. Neuroscience never "told" anybody any such thing. Neuroscience doesn't philosophize about abortion, though a grandiose neuroscientist might. What was he doing when neuroscience told him this? Pondering MRI's while tweaking on meth? I wonder when cardiology "tells" us life begins (first heartbeat?) or gastroenterology (first shit?)

I think the biggest mistakes the women’s movement and the same sex marriage movement and the sex change industry have made was framing freedom from your own biology as some sort of basic human right. ~ Isab at April 15, 2018 7:39 AM

Freedom from your own biology as some sort of basic human right? I like that.

And dead on. Modern feminism has equated pregnancy with the enslavement of women.

I came across an analogy different from the Home Depot one. It addressed the problem that we may not know for certain when human life begins, and ran like this:
Two friends went hunting together. One stayed back to shoot, while the other went into the bushes to flush out the game. The one with the rifle saw some movement in the bushes. Should he shoot, because it might be some game, or hold off, because it might be his friend?

Likewise, can we abort, because we feel it's needed, or should we hold off, because it might be a person?

Thanks for the discussion on this issue, and everyone's rational tones. It's so refreshing, compared to what is usually out there on the web. I appreciate hearing what Amy and everyone else thinks about this.

Likewise, can we abort, because we feel it's needed, or should we hold off, because it might be a person? ~ P.M.Boylan at April 15, 2018 12:23 PM

So, a fetus is a metaphorical Schrödinger's Cat? Not both alive and dead, because we know it's alive, but human and not-human at the same time.

I love abortion debates, there is no quicker way to determine if someone is a hypocrite or not.

Ask if they think there should be an exception for the life of the mother - those that say no prove its not about anything other than punishing women who have sex, why else would you demand a mother and child both die when you could save one

Ask if there should be an exception for rape and incest - those that say yes prove it is once again about punishing women for having sex. After all if all life is sacred why should it matter that is started in a rape? If all life is sacred why should those who willingly engage in incest get to abort over the fear of chromosomal damage get a pass when those who arent related but whos children have a higher possibility of mental or physical handicaps dont?

21 weeks 5 days. That's the current earliest baby to live.

Define live, is it still alive today? What defects does it suffer from for being deprived of half its gestational support and all the hormones the mothers womb pumps into it of a fairly reliable and documented schedule?

Human gestation is 40 weeks, 280 days, 9 months.

I think 20 weeks is a good cut off, that is 140 days almost 5 months.

I think those opposed to abortion should have to sign up for a national lottery, and every time a woman is denied an abortion for what ever reason that one of those people should be randomly selected, all of their property and bank accounts seized, liquidated, and put in a trust for that child.

Well see real quick who is really opposed to abortion or not.

“Ask if they think there should be an exception for the life of the mother - those that say no prove its not about anything other than punishing women who have sex, why else would you demand a mother and child both die when you could save one”

I love these straw man hypotheticals. Should an abortion be perfomed to save the life of the mother? Of course, in every instance, it should, unless the mother herself decides differently, and prioritizes the baby’s life over hers. But these situations are so rare as to not be a fit subject for debate or any kind of general policy.

The situations that the leftsits have tried to twist to muddy the moral high ground have always been those situations where a mother was carrying a baby already dead or so damaged that it would either be in horrible pain or die shortly after birth.
They want to use these unfortunate people to get the camels nose under the tent and allow unrestricted late term abortions in the name of access for these unfortunate people.
This is dishonest and despicable.

While I agree with lujlp that the anti abortion right has a poor argument for allowing abortion in the case of rape and incest, they are falling into their own logical trap. Either all human life is sacred or it is not. I tend to think not, but understand those who do.

I’m against routine government subsidized abortion. I find it low class and socially destabilizing. Pregnancy isnt a punishment. It is the natural consequence of sexual intimacy, and however you slice it, no one has a right to have every natural consequence of their every pleasurable act remediated at public expense, whether it be fucking or eating a box of jelly donuts for breakfast every morning.

There are others who should have a say in the public policy and laws on abortion as a matter of principle.

Unforunately feminist arguments on this subject always turn into a bunch of self serving twaddle. It is not enough that I have the freedom in a free country to get an abortion once or twice at a very early stage of pregnancy. No, women have to be allowed to do it, anytime, anywhere, preferably picked up by a government bus to their door, and at tax payer expense, or else you are denying women *their rights*

I for one am sick of the fucking slipperly slope of what passes for liberal argument on this subject.

I love these straw man hypotheticals.

Its not a hypothetical, I've seen people argue that no woman should be allowed an abortion under any circumstance

Luj, currently in kindergarten with mild learning delays. Per google, anyway.

My cousin of youngest-to-survive back in 1978 fame is a teacher now. Very short, no other lasting issues.

I dont believe in exemptions for rape/incest, either, for precisely the arguments above. Its not the kids fault.

Isab: I think the biggest mistakes the women’s movement and the same sex marriage movement and the sex change industry have made was framing freedom from your own biology as some sort of basic human right.

There's a fundamental difference between abortion and, on the other hand, same-sex marriage and sex changes.

Abortion is the act of harming another living human being (even if that being is not what most people would consider a "person") without their consent.

Same-sex marriage and sex-changes do not have that. With the first, two people who love each other consent to get married. With the second, the only person being affected is the one making the choice to have surgery.

Abortion is either wrong or it isnt. The only 2 goalposts for rights are conception, or leaving the mother's body and being independent of her. I believe it's at conception. But I can at least respect the reasoning of people who are pro-choice right up until birth. They are at least logically consistent.

I don't respect the reasoning of a person who would feel it's wrong to take the life a newborn infant, but would feel it's OK to take that life just one day earlier, simply because it has not yet passed out into the open air.

That "pre-birth baby" is essentially the same being as the newborn it will be one day later. The only difference is that it's still inside the mother.

In contrast, that "pre-birth baby" is FAR different from the zygote it was nine months earlier.

Same-sex marriage and sex-changes do not have that. With the first, two people who love each other consent to get married. With the second, the only person being affected is the one making the choice to have surgery.

JD at April 15, 2018 4:29 PM

Gender confirmation surgery by its very definition, is medical malpractice. treating a psychiatric condtion with a surgeons knife is the same as all those frontal lobotomies they did in the 40’s and fifties to treat nervous or unhappy women.

My husband’s aunt was lobotomized as a teenager because she kept running away from home. She spent the rest of her miserable life in an Institution as did Rose Kennedy.

In this century gender affirmation surgery will be rejected for the same barbaric act it is. No insurance should cover this Procedure.

Same sex marriage should not receive government sanction and benefits. No marriage should, same sex or otherwise. They are too easy to commit to and too easy to dissolve.

The veritable cascade of federal programs destroyed the reason for marriage in the 1960’s and we shouldn't be in the business of legally recognizing someone’s temporary fuck buddy whatever their sex or sexual identity.
Do like Europe and register civil unions. Marriage is a religious concept.

Apparently you didn't understand my initial comparison. The reason the libs are on the same sex marriage badwagon, is because they want to shove their personal sexual preferences down everyone else's throats by getting a governmet mandate for same sex marriage.( And marriage historically has never been about who you like to bang. )
Plenty of that outside of marriage or without getting married at all.
The big government socialists want to do the same thing with late term abortion. Create a right where none exists.

I love these straw man hypotheticals.

Its not a hypothetical, I've seen people argue that no woman should be allowed an abortion under any circumstance

lujlp at April 15, 2018 4:09 PM

Well, they’re wrong. But they arent even entering the debate are they?

I agree with Gazzaniga's boundary (viability outside the womb). Not because I think that the fetus wasn't a human being with full human rights prior to that, but because full human rights do not include the right to live inside another person's body without her consent.

Pregnancy is not in and of itself enslavement, but forcing a woman to carry a child she doesn't want, is.

treating a psychiatric condtion with a surgeons knife is the same as all those frontal lobotomies they did in the 40’s and fifties to treat nervous or unhappy women.

Did those women want those frontal lobotomies?

Same sex marriage should not receive government sanction and benefits. No marriage should, same sex or otherwise.

I'd be perfectly fine with that. But not with allowing oppposite-sex couples to receive government sanction and benefits, while forbidding same-sex couples from having them (which, of course, is what religious conservatives want.)

The reason the libs are on the same sex marriage badwagon, is because they want to shove their personal sexual preferences down everyone else's throats by getting a governmet mandate for same sex marriage.

"Libs" -- and libertarians -- support same sex marriage because they don't believe the Bible (or any other "holy" book) should dictate who a person is allowed to marry.

You seem to have a serious lack of understanding of just who's doing the "shoving down the throat" thing. Same-sex marriage opponents want to prevent same-sex couples from getting married. That's "throat-shoving." That's forcing your beliefs on others.

Same-sex marriage proponents aren't trying to prevent oppposite-sex couples from getting married.

“Did those women want those frontal lobotomies?”

How would they know? A seriously mentally ill person is often by law incapable of informed consent.

Doctors aren’t required to give patients what they want including prescribing pain killers for addicts who really really feel that they need them. They are required to do what is in your medical best interest, and wacking off arms legs and dicks or breasts because you think you would feel better about yourself without them is a train that should have never left the station.

You seem to have a serious lack of understanding of just who's doing the "shoving down the throat" thing. Same-sex marriage opponents want to prevent same-sex couples from getting married. That's "throat-shoving." That's forcing your beliefs on others.

Same-sex marriage proponents aren't trying to prevent oppposite-sex couples from getting married.

JD at April 15, 2018 5:41 PM

No, the end goal was to create a legally protected class of people who could make a mockery out of religious freedom by forcing Christians to not only recognize same sex marriage, but to be forced legally to celebrate it, by doing stuff like oh, photographing and catering their weddings under the guise of anti discrimination laws.

I know what Godwin's law is — but there ought to be a analogous term when it comes to same-sex issues and someone mentions shoving something down someone else's throat.

If you are talking about when life begins then there is a simple answer we use for all species, conception. Talk with any scientist and life begins with conception (unless you are discussing humans). The right to life is a separate thing. And even after you are born you don't always have a right to life. Hence the death penalty.

When you want to put the right to life for those who haven't been born is a murky subject. Honestly this should be left up to each state to decide how they want to do things. The target of viability is a constantly moving goal post. Specific fetal development stages are arbitrary. And usually picked with shoddy reasoning (claims about pain response or sentience and such). I'm fine with things being arbitrary. For comparison when someone becomes a full citizen is also arbitrary here in the US. When you gain the right to drink alcohol, when you gain the right to fight for your nation, when you gain the right to stop school, .... all of these are arbitrary dates and some vary from state to state. We just need to recognize that they are arbitrary and if you can convince enough people that they should be moved then you move them.

Of course a zygote is alive.

Of course a frozen embryo isn't the same as a newborn.

I do believe in the bodily autonomy argument. Forcing women to complete pregnancy is similar to saying they need to donate a kidney to their adult child to keep them from dying. Yes, I would negatively judge the healthy person who didn't donate a kidney to save their kid. No, I wouldn't make it legally obligatory.

THAT SAID I do think we should be looking at the ways we can reduce abortions to almost zero, without outlawing it.

We know that economics plays a role.

We know birth control and sex ed play a role.

We know that a womans' healthiest childbearing years overlap with the years needed to study and establish a career.

There's a lot we know about the why of abortions, and if we really are serious about reducing this social evil (and I do believe it is a social evil, no I'm not talking about severely deformed fetuses and life threatening pregnancies) then we need to look at the causes and deal with them.

I'm wondering why nobody seems to present this logically. This dilemma is fueled, but not entirely, by the convenience of modern medicine. Yet...

• Health care is NOT universally provided, and so, neither are abortion OR pediatric services. If you mandate a law covering an area, please don't pick something that cannot be obeyed. On that note...
• IF a fetus is declared a "person" at any time, and exceptions are not made to murder statues, you will not only declare an abortion a murder, you will require state monitoring of every female of childbearing age from menarche until they have a Certificate of Menopause. You can then forget quibbling about arguments about when the fetus is viable, etc. - you didn't want to do that, anyway, because some people have robust kids in dire circumstances and others just can't. You can't pretend that 22 weeks is enough for all kids. So don't.

Most of the arguments I see are about the offense of the spectator. Can YOU possibly be harmed more than the woman who chooses an abortion?
You claim that {number in the millions} of abortions are performed? What do you want to do with {number in the millions} of unwanted children if you get your wish: to force those women to have babies? Do you understand that you will pay for a big fraction of them because their "parents" cannot?

Many of you have seen this.
I get that some of you consider abortion murder. Now: what do you want to happen to women who get one?
Say what you mean.

Isab: No, the end goal was to create a legally protected class of people who could make a mockery out of religious freedom by forcing Christians to not only recognize same sex marriage, but to be forced legally to celebrate it, by doing stuff like oh, photographing and catering their weddings under the guise of anti discrimination laws.

For decades, centuries, religious people -- especially religious conservatives -- have had their jackboot on the neck (or crotch) of gays and lesbians. They weren't just preventing them from marrying. No, they had same-sex sex itself criminalized (and, after all, why shouldn't it be when the "Holy" Bible itself decrees that homos should be "put to death".)

And now, when same-sex couples finally have the right to marry -- oh the horror! the horrible horrible horrible horror!!! -- God-fearing religious conservatives have to "recognize" same-sex marriage. Unbelievably horrible. It's just not fair.

Isab: No, the end goal was to create a legally protected class of people who could make a mockery out of religious freedom by forcing Christians to not only recognize same sex marriage, but to be forced legally to celebrate it, by doing stuff like oh, photographing and catering their weddings under the guise of anti discrimination laws.

For decades, centuries, religious people -- especially religious conservatives -- have had their jackboot on the neck (or crotch) of gays and lesbians. They weren't just preventing them from marrying. No, they had same-sex sex itself criminalized (and, after all, why shouldn't it be when the "Holy" Bible itself decrees that homos should be "put to death".)

And now, when same-sex couples finally have the right to marry -- oh the horror! the horrible horrible horrible horror!!! -- God-fearing religious conservatives have to "recognize" same-sex marriage. Unbelievably horrible. It's just not fair.

Nicole: THAT SAID I do think we should be looking at the ways we can reduce abortions to almost zero, without outlawing it.

That would be ideal, wouldn't it? Eliminate (or greatly reduce) abortions so we can essentially eliminate the debate about having it be legal or illegal. You'd think both sides could join forces in order to try to achieve this goal.

Problem is, the "pro-choice" side also believes in contraception while many on the "pro-life" side do not. Some -- and perhaps most -- religious conservatives believe that preventing sperm from fertilizing an egg is almost as bad as abortion; it's "against God's will/plan." They believe that abstinence is the only solution.

Now, as someone who was with my first girlfriend for four years (final two years of high school & first two years of college) while having absolutely no "PIV" sex (but LOTS of touching and oral sex), I can attest that abstinence works. But, cynically, I don't think that most teenagers (or young people in general) have the willpower* that we had so teaching abstinence-only is still going to result in a lot of unwanted pregnancies...and consequent desires for abortion.

* One of the reasons we had that willpower is that our parents would've killed us if we had gotten my girlfriend pregnant out of wedlock. How many kids today have that kind of fear of their parents? How many parents today have that kind of antipathy for an out-of-wedlock pregnancy?

Well, let's revisit that whole 'consensual' thing, shall we?

A bungee jumper is clearly informed that if she takes a header off that bridge, there is a small but fatal chance that things go wobbly. It is a risk she is willing to take to get her endorphins on!

Every woman not raised in a Medieval Nunnery knows that sex causes kids. In the VAST majority of instances, she also is well informed that all birth control has a very small but striking ability to fail and cause pregnancy.

So like Bungee Princess, Future Single Moms of America know the risks...they wrote their consent loudly and clearly with a pink (or brown) pen in white ink. "I Britany/Shatiqua/Lupita want sex and I don't care if I am taking a risk."

Which is why luljp is full of shit with his analogy: in rape or incest (which is statutory rape in most cases in most cases) the woman has NOT had an ability to consent to those risks.

Every other girl has said yes to the risks. Owning their choices isn't the same as punishment. It is not a punishment if Bungee Princess dies...it is not a punishment if FSMoA gets knocked up by accident. It is a imminently foreseeable consequence.

So...how is it that the government has full rights to order men to put their bodies into harm's way to save the nation...but has zero right to tell women that they need to have a time limit on an abortion...which the majority of people actually support and Europe has zero problem with?

Actually, places like Japan, using the draft analogy, could forbid abortions to try to gin up their population numbers, which is ANOTHER threat to a nation.

Just playing with ideas here.