-Sentience.
-Person.
-Personhood.
-Human being.
-Unborn human.
-Baby.
-Child.
-Life.
I'm going to start by attempting a definition of some of these terms. I'm not attempting to give a definition for all of them, I'm not taking them in order, and I'm not pretending that a perfect definition is possible in each case.
For example, "life." Life is the property that separates humans, cats, geckos, poison ivy, jellyfish, mushrooms, and bacteria (to name a few) ... from rocks. For the purposes of this debate, I'm not sure it needs to get more complicated than that. Everyone has some concept of this. It isn't hard.
However, I also want to point out that "sentience" is frequently confused with "personhood." A friend of mine once complained about some environmentalists using a stacked test to show that dolphins were a better candidate for sentience than, like, a 1-year-old human (or something like that). I then complained that either the environmentalists or whoever reported the story to him had used the wrong word. Dolphins are sentient. So are dogs, and even slugs. We didn't need a test to determine it, and it doesn't prove that they need rights (or some similar nonsense). According to
this definition here, responsiveness or consciousness of sense input is sentience. But being responsive to stimuli is frequently given as part of the definition of "life," which makes sense of why that page listed "alive" as a synonym. They don't mean exactly the same thing, and in fact, sentience seems to presuppose life (maybe it's possible to find an
I also wish to define "human," "child," and "unborn child" for the purposes of this debate. A human is a member of the species
homo sapiens. A child is any member of this species that has not reached the age of majority under the laws of the country/state/province (around 18 in some places), though it could also be defined as "offspring [of the mother]." The only difference in defining "unborn child" is that it has not yet been born. I do not consider the terms "baby" and "human being" necessary for this debate.
Further, I point out that "person" is often used in laws to mean "human." This should prompt people not to read into debaters' words a meaning that makes them look like they are claiming too much, makes them look dumb, etc. They may not be making a philosophical claim.
- Ultimately, my view is this. Abortions should not be allowed EXCEPT if the mother is at risk of dying.
I find myself in basic agreement with this. I only want to point out three things:
(1) To some degree this challenges your argument about Chaos Theory, which was very good for countering some of the more flimsy "quality of life" arguments. Some predictions are virtually certain. (Yes, I gotta be a stickler like that.)
(2) Some pro-life groups believe in doing something like that to save the mother's life, but they just don't call it abortion. It also reminds me of the time I read a pro-life writer say that pro-life people (at least those who are thinking clearly, I guess) would have no problem with an abortion method that saves the life of the child so it could be put up for adoption. This seems to indicate some debate about whether "abort" means "end the life of the unborn" or simply "end the pregnancy [which in most cases ends the life of the unborn]."
(3) In cases where the unborn child has no or virtually no chance at surviving to be born you might want to make allowance for preserving the mother from, not just death, but also massive bodily harm.
First of all, there is no such thing as "personhood". The GOP can debate that all they want, but they'll never make it true.
You really haven't looked at some of the old debates, have you? I have seen quite a few pro-choice debaters argue that personhood is something that born humans (as well as some late-term unborn ones) have, with the lack of this quality meaning abortion is fine.
Not to mention, your flat denial that personhood exists is not evidence.
Second, abortion should be allowed as defined by Roe v Wade.
Your post completely fails to address the question of whether Roe v. Wade is correct,
as many of us here know you dispute other Supreme Court rulings. Or what would happen if it were overturned, for that matter.
I'm pro-choice. I may not always agree with it, but it's not my job to tell a woman what to do with her body.
...
Hey, JDavidC, how about including a requirement that people define "her [the mother's] body"?
The baby is used as a punishment for percieved(or maybe even actual) irresponsibility.(Which is especially horrible considering that if the baby's life is so sacred, then why is it being used as a punishment.)
The baby is not a punishment. But producing a baby is one possible, perfectly natural consequence of sex. That goes for the responsible and irresponsible alike. However, forgetting this is a mark of irresponsibility.
4)These same people who so adamantly want you to not abort the baby don't want to adopt children themselves
I would appreciate you not stereotyping and making assumptions. I have heard of plenty of pro-life people being willing to adopt.
5) These same people who are so pro-life, don't really want to help the mother access health-care and hate government welfare programs such as WIC (considering that economic status might be part of the reason these women are getting abortions.)
My mom is pro-life. She has no problem with WIC, and, in fact, got some amount of help from WIC years ago. I am pro-life and I have no problem with WIC. Your argument employs a caricature of conservatives as bigoted against lower classes, ignoring the fact that plenty of conservatives come from lower classes.
I think we can all agree on this:
Abortion for No Reason; Bad
Abortion for Good Reason; Okay
Can't we just leave it here? -_-
Unfortunately, no, people don't all agree on this. Some people think no reason is necessary, since women always need the right to "control what's going in in their body." This presupposes that the unborn has no rights, but many pro-choice debaters don't see that.
I'm pretty sure there was more I wanted to respond to, but I forgot what it was.