A woman's right to control her body?

[John1956]

A so-called educated person, a U.S. Senator, and former college professor, apparently thinks that abortion involves only one body - the mother:

“This is an all-out effort to build support to take away a woman’s right to control her own body…” (emphasis added)
realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/03/elizabeth_warren_says_republicans_are_intentionally_coordinating_planned_parenthood_videos_senate_vote_fox_news_debate_schedule.html

Um, Senator, there are at least two persons involved when a woman is pregnant: mother and baby. Senator, stop being so stupid.

John

 

[mjs2001]

Agreed. But the Senator knows this and is simply lying, In my opinion.

 

[TK421]

“A woman’s right to control her body” is one of the more recent euphemisms to make abortion sound good. I first heard it in Battlestar Galactica from the character President Roslin, which was aired back in ~2004. (As expected, the pro-life opposition in the show was a caricature. Secular liberalism survives off of caricatures.)

It’s ‘smart’ politics. Dehumanize the child and define it as an organ of the woman, and you’re golden. Good luck getting a pro-choice senator or representative to describe abortion in a point A to point B manner.

 

[Murmurs]

As I have said many times, the abortion debate is about the largely philosophical question of when life begins.

For those who support abortion rights, the simple matter is either, that life does not begin at conception, or it doesn’t but until a certain point (eg viability) the autonomy of the mother matters more.

I don’t think most pro-choice folks are particularly heartless or evil (they might accept this evil but that’s not the same as being it themselves), it is just that they and we disagree about something fundamental.

To be honest, I don’t think calling people with that position stupid makes any progress toward reducing the number of abortions at all - although it might make one feel a bit better some times.

Instead, look for where everyone agrees; we are all in favour of abortion restrictions (the most pro-choice senator, media figure, etc, is probably not in favour of sex-selective abortions for instance) - the difference is just what those restrictions are and how they’re applied.

 

[meltzerboy]

As I have said many times, the abortion debate is about the largely philosophical question of when life begins.

For those who support abortion rights, the simple matter is either, that life does not begin at conception, or it doesn’t but until a certain point (eg viability) the autonomy of the mother matters more.

I don’t think most pro-choice folks are particularly heartless or evil (they might accept this evil but that’s not the same as being it themselves), it is just that they and we disagree about something fundamental.

To be honest, I don’t think calling people with that position stupid makes any progress toward reducing the number of abortions at all - although it might make one feel a bit better some times.

Instead, look for where everyone agrees; we are all in favour of abortion restrictions (the most pro-choice senator, media figure, etc, is probably not in favour of sex-selective abortions for instance) - the difference is just what those restrictions are and how they’re applied.

Good point. It might be better to begin with some common ground instead of confrontational differences, and work from there.

 

[josh987654321]

Those who say “a woman has the right to decide about her own body” are concealing the right to kill! which will never be a right!

A baby’s heartbeat begins at 18 days from conception. By 21 days, the baby’s heart is pumping her own blood type through a closed circulatory system. In most cases, this happens before a woman even knows she’s pregnant.

“But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”

• Mother Teresa

“Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection. And every elderly person…even if he is ill or at the end of his days, bears the face of Christ. They cannot be discarded, as the ‘culture of waste’ suggests!”

• Pope Francis

“Among the vulnerable for whom the church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this. …Precisely because this involves the internal consistency of our message about the value of the human person, the church cannot be expected to change her position on this question… It is not ‘progressive’ to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life…”

• Pope Francis

“All of us must care for life, cherish life, with tenderness, warmth…to give life is to open (our) heart, and to care for life is to (give oneself) in tenderness and warmth for others, to have concern in my heart for others. Caring for life from the beginning to the end. What a simple thing, what a beautiful thing…So, go forth and don’t be discouraged. Care for life. It’s worth it.”

• Pope Francis

p.s. I support every measure (except killing as two wrongs don’t make a right nor do the ends justify the means) to try and reduce abortion, how is that this is still not happening?

 

[Murmurs]

Those who say “a woman has the right to decide about her own body” are concealing the right to kill! which will never be a right!

While I agree with you - I also refer you to my above statement. The issue is, not everyone see a 6-week old embryo as alive (as potential life, certainly), and therefore, it’s not actually killing anything, to someone who supports abortion rights.

And actually, we do have an established right to kill (or at least a justification for it which everyone accepts, in war, and which many people accept, in the death penalty for particularly severe crimes). It’s just that the state has a legal monopoly on death, and on the arbitration of when it is acceptable.

 

[josh987654321]

While I agree with you - I also refer you to my above statement. The issue is, not everyone see a 6-week old embryo as alive (as potential life, certainly), and therefore, it’s not actually killing anything, to someone who supports abortion rights.

I don’t believe it’s an issue at all, they are wrong. I believe it’s simply a façade to try and conceal the truth to themselves or others.

A baby’s heartbeat begins at 18 days from conception. By 21 days, the baby’s heart is pumping her own blood type through a closed circulatory system. In most cases, this happens before a woman even knows she’s pregnant.

"Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights – for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture – is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination . . . " St Pope John Paul II

God Bless you & God have mercy on us.

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[mountee]

As I have said many times, the abortion debate is about the largely philosophical question of when life begins.

For those who support abortion rights, the simple matter is either, that life does not begin at conception, or it doesn’t but until a certain point (eg viability) the autonomy of the mother matters more.

I don’t think most pro-choice folks are particularly heartless or evil (they might accept this evil but that’s not the same as being it themselves), it is just that they and we disagree about something fundamental.

To be honest, I don’t think calling people with that position stupid makes any progress toward reducing the number of abortions at all - although it might make one feel a bit better some times.

Instead, look for where everyone agrees; we are all in favour of abortion restrictions (the most pro-choice senator, media figure, etc, is probably not in favour of sex-selective abortions for instance) - the difference is just what those restrictions are and how they’re applied.

I completely agree. It is important for all of us to try to show respect in our conversations even with people holding different points of view.

 

[Murmurs]

I don’t believe it’s an issue at all, they are wrong. I believe it’s simply a façade to try and conceal the truth to themselves or others.

A baby’s heartbeat begins at 18 days from conception. By 21 days, the baby’s heart is pumping her own blood type through a closed circulatory system. In most cases, this happens before a woman even knows she’s pregnant.

"Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights – for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture – is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination . . . " St Pope John Paul II

God Bless you & God have mercy on us.

Thank you for reading
Josh

Again, not to disagree with the sentiment at all - but I think to be honest a heartbeat doesn’t mean very much. If you took an 18-day old baby (or fetus to be more correct), away from his/her mother, it wouldn’t last. Now a 24-week old embryo is a totally different matter.

I am not someone who agrees with the “abortion is ok until viability” idea, because it’s always wrong (in a tiny fraction of circumstances eg medical emergencies I’d readily concede it is the least bad option, though). However, I completely understand that argument. And if one is willing to concede that abortion is ok, it is a totally rational one. Doesn’t life have to be self-sustaining to some degree? A newly-born baby, long as it’s got food and warmth around, will survive by itself, autonomously. Three weeks out from conception, it’s a different story. Now in neither case can there be a reason to kill that baby, but the quality of life (I mean, what that life constitutes) at each stage is very different.

For someone who supports “a woman’s right to control her body”, at 3 weeks, that baby is, heartbreaking as it might be, truly in biological terms basically a parasite as much as her offspring. Therefore, if a woman has a right to flush a nefarious bacteria from her system (which is equally alive) she has similarly a right to decide to remove this nearly-human being from her body.

To repeat, I don’t agree with this, but that is the argument in essence and I don’t think of itself it is actually flawed. Both the pro-life and pro-choice sides rest on an (differing) assumption of what life is.

God bless you

Murmurs x

 

[MacBP]

Speaking purely scientifically, it is factually incorrect to say that a zygote, embryo, or fetus isn’t alive is just wrong. Even at at the zygote stage, one’s cells are involved in an incredibly complex biological processes needed to establish future development. It would also be wrong to say that a zygote, embryo or fetus is part of a woman’s body since it it is a genetically distinct individual with its own developmental trajectory.

However, when pro-abortion arguments say that restricting abortion denies a woman’s right to their body, they aren’t completely wrong. As has been posted elsewhere, a developing zygote, embryo or fetus derives all of its resources from its mothers body. Without access to an abortion they have no choice but to provide these resources.

So I guess it comes down to this: is our right to bodily autonomy so powerful than it outweighs or responsibility towards our fellow human beings? Can the law compel us to sacrifice in order to help another person? Does the answer fall at either extreme, or is there some sort of middle ground?

 

[Murmurs]

Speaking purely scientifically, it is factually incorrect to say that a zygote, embryo, or fetus isn’t alive is just wrong. Even at at the zygote stage, one’s cells are involved in an incredibly complex biological processes needed to establish future development. It would also be wrong to say that a zygote, embryo or fetus is part of a woman’s body since it it is a genetically distinct individual with its own developmental trajectory.

However, when pro-abortion arguments say that restricting abortion denies a woman’s right to their body, they aren’t completely wrong. As has been posted elsewhere, a developing zygote, embryo or fetus derives all of its resources from its mothers body. Without access to an abortion they have no choice but to provide these resources.

So I guess it comes down to this: is our right to bodily autonomy so powerful than it outweighs or responsibility towards our fellow human beings? Can the law compel us to sacrifice in order to help another person? Does the answer fall at either extreme, or is there some sort of middle ground?

Exactly.

 

[Peter_Plato]

For someone who supports “a woman’s right to control her body”, at 3 weeks, that baby is, heartbreaking as it might be, truly in biological terms basically a parasite as much as her offspring. Therefore, if a woman has a right to flush a nefarious bacteria from her system (which is equally alive) she has similarly a right to decide to remove this nearly-human being from her body.

To repeat, I don’t agree with this, but that is the argument in essence and I don’t think of itself it is actually flawed. Both the pro-life and pro-choice sides rest on an (differing) assumption of what life is.

God bless you

Murmurs x

It isn’t clear to me that a 3 week old fetus is any more or less dependent than a 3 week old baby. The only difference seems to be place of residence - one is inside the mother’s womb, the other is outside.

The fact that a 3 week old baby is outside means that killing and disposing of its body is more obvious and less amenable to coverup, either by the words used to describe the reality or the technologies used to do the dirty work.

What the recently released videos have shown is that the fetus at 20 weeks is determinably a human baby and not a glob of tissue. In fact, it is abundantly clear that the PP doctors involved are very aware of that fact - which makes their callousness towards the unborn even more disturbing. They know these are baby human beings they are dismembering and cannibalizing for parts but simply could care less.

On that level, we have to ask ourselves whether those involved in these heinous actions are, themselves, human persons since what they do every day with callous intent makes it abundantly clear that they are NOT human “persons” in any acceptable sense of “caring moral agent.”

Explain, if you can how a 3 week old baby is less dependent on someone to “mother” it than a 3 week old fetus and why it would be morally wrong to dismember and dispose of a three week old baby if it is not morally wrong to do so to a 20 week old fetus, given that all its “baby parts” are present - which is why it is being cannibalized for those exact parts by PP?

 

[Horton]

With rights come responsibilities. A woman does have the “right” to control her body, therefore she has the responsibility to control her sexual urges to avoid pregnancy in the first place.

If we had a society that valued moral behavior we probably would be in this debate in the first place.

 

[TyburnTreeHuggr]

A newly-born baby, long as it’s got food and warmth around, will survive by itself, autonomously.

Hold the phone.

How is this different than a fetus? A newborn is fed by his/her mother (or a stand-in for the mother). Does the newborn supply the warmth around it? Does the newborn forage for its own food? A fetus doesn’t need any action on the mother’s part to keep him/her alive; just time, food, and warmth (each supplied inactively).

I can’t buy into that line of thinking.

 

[JimG]

There’s really not any doubt about when a new and distinct individual of the human species has its beginning. It begins at conception. That new human being continues to grow and develop, but it remains the same genetically distinct individual that it was at conception. Of course it depends on its mother, for at least nine months, more likely for 18 to 24 years! The only question is at what point do we recognize a human being’s right not to be arbitrarily killed.

A quote from a recent article:

“To conceive a child is to be changed. You are now a mother or a father. The only escape is so unnatural we give it names like “terminate” or “abortion.” It is the murder we cannot ignore and cannot name, though we want to do both. We cannot name it because it threatens the sham we’ve been living. Yet we cannot ignore it because it happened. A child was conceived. And his or her body was ripped apart and thrown away so that things wouldn’t have to change.”

 

[edwest2]

A so-called educated person, a U.S. Senator, and former college professor, apparently thinks that abortion involves only one body - the mother:

“This is an all-out effort to build support to take away a woman’s right to control her own body…” (emphasis added)
realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/03/elizabeth_warren_says_republicans_are_intentionally_coordinating_planned_parenthood_videos_senate_vote_fox_news_debate_schedule.html

Um, Senator, there are at least two persons involved when a woman is pregnant: mother and baby. Senator, stop being so stupid.

John

What about the father? Was he in another room when the woman got pregnant?

Ed

 

[Murmurs]

It isn’t clear to me that a 3 week old fetus is any more or less dependent than a 3 week old baby. The only difference seems to be place of residence - one is inside the mother’s womb, the other is outside.

The fact that a 3 week old baby is outside means that killing and disposing of its body is more obvious and less amenable to coverup, either by the words used to describe the reality or the technologies used to do the dirty work.

What the recently released videos have shown is that the fetus at 20 weeks is determinably a human baby and not a glob of tissue. In fact, it is abundantly clear that the PP doctors involved are very aware of that fact - which makes their callousness towards the unborn even more disturbing. They know these are baby human beings they are dismembering and cannibalizing for parts but simply could care less.

To be fair, once the life has been extinguished, it is just a blob of matter that just happens to look more or less like a baby (depending on how developed). After an adult dies, it is equally just a (bigger) blob of matter. With all my heart I can wish and hope and pray and work that the number of abortions reduces and reduces…but once one has happened no amount of anguish can undo it (like capital punishment, IMO). In that circumstance, it would be the crowning act of depravity to then not at least find some way to profit from the evil act already and irrevocably committed.

(To presage Godwin’s Law: when the US “rescued” Nazi scientists in 1945, among them a number of people involved with the American space programme, weren’t they directly profiting from research funded by Nazis? It’s the same principle, in my view, and if one is justified so is the other. But in both cases I’d rather abortions and the Nazis didn’t exist).

Explain, if you can how a 3 week old baby is less dependent on someone to “mother” it than a 3 week old fetus and why it would be morally wrong to dismember and dispose of a three week old baby if it is not morally wrong to do so to a 20 week old fetus, given that all its “baby parts” are present - which is why it is being cannibalized for those exact parts by PP?

I know I maybe sound callous (forgive me!) but once the 3 week old baby is dead anyway, if the parents are willing, what IS wrong with dismembering it or ‘cannibalising for parts’? Remember that PP wasn’t stealing foetuses (foeti?) from the bins at the back of the office and selling them (sorry, “providing them”). Mothers of aborted babies gave their consent that they be used in this way. If a (born) baby were to tragically die, it’s quite possible someone would ask the parents if they could similarly donate the body (and adults choose to donate their own all the time). Abortion is wrong (and this doesn’t justify it), but learning from the dead, once they are dead, is laudable IMO.

Hold the phone.

How is this different than a fetus? A newborn is fed by his/her mother (or a stand-in for the mother). Does the newborn supply the warmth around it? Does the newborn forage for its own food? A fetus doesn’t need any action on the mother’s part to keep him/her alive; just time, food, and warmth (each supplied inactively).

I can’t buy into that line of thinking.

I can’t either! It’s when my devil’s-advocacy collapses. I was struggling already!

What about the father? Was he in another room when the woman got pregnant?

Ed

How many fathers would probably be glad to not have that responsibility? (Particularly if the pregnancy was from an extra-martial or even extra-relationship encounter?). But you’re right, the opprobrium shown towards women who have an abortion should be directed equally at those who support her (eg husbands, boyfriends, family members, etc). Of course I think the opprobrium isn’t helpful anyway, but if it’s there it should be equal in its use…

 

[Peter_Plato]

To be fair, once the life has been extinguished, it is just a blob of matter that just happens to look more or less like a baby (depending on how developed). After an adult dies, it is equally just a (bigger) blob of matter. With all my heart I can wish and hope and pray and work that the number of abortions reduces and reduces…but once one has happened no amount of anguish can undo it (like capital punishment, IMO). In that circumstance, it would be the crowning act of depravity to then not at least find some way to profit from the evil act already and irrevocably committed.

(To presage Godwin’s Law: when the US “rescued” Nazi scientists in 1945, among them a number of people involved with the American space programme, weren’t they directly profiting from research funded by Nazis? It’s the same principle, in my view, and if one is justified so is the other. But in both cases I’d rather abortions and the Nazis didn’t exist).

I know I maybe sound callous (forgive me!) but once the 3 week old baby is dead anyway, if the parents are willing, what IS wrong with dismembering it or ‘cannibalising for parts’? Remember that PP wasn’t stealing foetuses (foeti?) from the bins at the back of the office and selling them (sorry, “providing them”). Mothers of aborted babies gave their consent that they be used in this way. If a (born) baby were to tragically die, it’s quite possible someone would ask the parents if they could similarly donate the body (and adults choose to donate their own all the time). Abortion is wrong (and this doesn’t justify it), but learning from the dead, once they are dead, is laudable IMO.

The cases are not equal because the harvesting of fetal organs is not done “after the fact,” but, rather, to abet the fact of dismembering and killing live human beings. It isn’t that the practice has ended, as in the activities funded by the Nazis. Rather, the “good” of cannibalizing babies and passing it off as parents “donating” the body is a shallow attempt at legitimating and profiting from the practice of dismembering and killing the baby to begin with.

“Oh, look! Our baby happened to have died by dismemberment so let’s make the best of this tragic situation and use its parts for medical research.”

You seem to miss the fact that the baby was turned into a “blob of matter” by the decision of those who had no right to make the call to begin with. In addition to the fact that the so-called ”good" that came of it is being used to legitimize more of the same.

Under your view PP begins to look like a group dedicated to make the best of a bad situation, when, in reality, they have and continue to be the orchestrators of that reality.
If the entire medical profession held that view, terminal and, merely, inconvenient patients could be killed and their parts harvested by the same ideology - just making the best of an awfully bad situation, even when we, ourselves, created the situation to begin with

The real problem is that the practice of PP is turning our entire society into the walking embodiment of Josef Mengele, but also providing what passes for the moral legitimacy for having done so.

You don’t find this problematic?

I do.

 

[Kenny_Kamel]

A so-called educated person, a U.S. Senator, and former college professor, apparently thinks that abortion involves only one body - the mother:

“This is an all-out effort to build support to take away a woman’s right to control her own body…” (emphasis added)
realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/03/elizabeth_warren_says_republicans_are_intentionally_coordinating_planned_parenthood_videos_senate_vote_fox_news_debate_schedule.html

Um, Senator, there are at least two persons involved when a woman is pregnant: mother and baby. Senator, stop being so stupid.

John

When people say this kind of stuff to me I ask things like, “Does a woman’s body have four legs/arms/eyes/ears/etc or two heads/hearts/etc.”. Anything to illustrate that the baby is separate from the mother as another living person. And if they doubt beyond that fact it is a good bridge into talking about sonograms.