M
Murmurs
Guest
Well I disagree (while agreeing that abortion isn’t itself to be countenanced).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.
Apart from anything else, (and this may be my fault for not being clear!), I very much reject the assertion that I’ve “missed the fact” that our baby has been killed by those who had no right to make the call.
It is ludicrous as well as egregiously offensive to suggest that women choose to have abortions so that the aborted foetus can be used for (beneficial) research. How utterly ridiculous. So no, foetal or embryonic research (stem cells or anything else) isn’t a legitimator or enabler of abortion. If we were medically and scientifically incapable of doing anything more than burning or cremating the remains, each of these abortions would still take place. Because the mother in each case has decided that is what she wants to do (and do remember that abortions in the US didn’t only start happening in 1973).
Now we can argue (and here I am of course with you), that while I am all for the right of women (and men) to have bodily as well as every other kind of autonomy, this can’t extend to other people’s bodies - but this doesn’t alter the fact that right now, abortion is legal, and scientifically benefitting from the result, is not only also legal but frankly morally obligated if we are going to get any good out of this morass.
I do not think that PP is, as you suggest I suggested, “a group dedicated to make the best of a bad situation”. Their business is providing medical services, primarily centred around reproduction and reproductive health (and which in their terms of course includes the entirely legal provision of abortion to women who request it). It is society as a whole which perhaps “makes the best of a bad situation”.
Yet again someone misses the point about the abortion debate. I highly doubt (as I’m sure you do too) that the “entire medical profession” believes or realistically could believe that “inconvenient patients” should be killed and their bodies harvested. No one is going to argue (accusations of Mengele-ism which I find highly distasteful aside) that such people are not alive. This is the crux of the issue. For supporters of abortion, embryos and foetuses are not considered alive, even while they do certainly display some characteristics of “life”. (And for those who do hold the view that unborn babies are equally as alive, one can believe that until late on in pregnancy, often at viability around 23-24 weeks, the life and choices of the adult human being may trump those of the undeveloped one in her womb).
I find it problematic that people continue to portray abortion providers and their supporters as twisted and evil, and then further that by saying that the human race does not as a whole have the right to at least find some good amid the bad to benefit the rest of humanity. And I would say the same thing (and did) before or if I had not developed a vested interest in such research (I have MS, though early stage and in remission atm).
While I have little patience with advocates of abortion per se, to my mind a woman’s decision to donate her aborted fetus to medical research, and PP’s willingness to transfer that material, is both wonderful and commendable. So no - it’s not problematic. No woman on earth wants to have an unwanted pregnancy, by its very definition. But if she does decide to terminate it, we are able as a society to turn her misfortune into a boon.
