Abortion

I find it interesting that Con has created a situation where, as his opponent, I must both make a case for abortion and rebut his position at the same time. I will do my best. Rebuttal: Con begins by asking readers to research topics completely but at least 7 of his 10 references all come from either pro-choice or conservative Christian sources and the three that aren't really don't support his position. His first anecdote, for example, is about the Canadian baby on life support. If you read his reference carefully you'll notice that the baby is a baby not a fetus, that it is in a vegetative state that it will not recover from, and the only question left to be decided is whether it will die at home, at his father's convenience, or in a hospital, which will save money that can be spent on saving the lives of babies who aren't terminal. The ironic part of this story is that, if this baby, who will never wake up, were aborted in it's first trimester, this whole situation would have been avoided. Con then goes on to quote Cathy Sparks, John Ankerburg, and Gregg Jackson, and – big surprise – they all think that abortion is bad and that people who provide abortions are even worse. They tell us that abortion providers are evil and deceptive people who want to force everyone to have abortions whether they want one or not. What they don't mention, though, is, if this much unethical behavior was going on, why aren't there hundreds of lawsuits being filed daily against these people. This is the problem with anecdotal evidence – it rarely resembles reality. Con also gives us a quote from the American Life League on the sanctity of life – which is about as useful and informative as a quote from the American Bar Association on the sanctity of law firms. But what I found most amusing was when Con trotted out Ron Fitzsimmons' admission that he had told a lie about abortions. Who was Ron Fitzsimmons? He was a lobbyist (A lobbyist told a lie? What is the world coming to?) Where did he tell it? On a television news show. How was this lie discovered? He went on another news show to correct his earlier statement because he felt it was wrong not to tell the whole truth. When did this all take place? In 1997! And 13 years later propagandists are still trying to blow it out of proportion. Con concludes by expressing his personal and theological views on the subject which I feel are really the basis for his whole argument. It really doesn't matter to Con whether abortions are safe or if women are given complete and concise information; Con simply doesn't want women to have this option. The Case for Abortion: Pro life advocates are always quick to try and push the issue of life and when it begins as if this were the only question that needs to be addressed. And while it isn't as clear cut as Con's anonymous source from Princeton would have us believe, I am willing to concede that life begins at conception and that aborting a fetus equates to ending a human life. So what? There are plenty of examples of ways that human lives can be ended that aren't perceived as acts of murder. Killing someone in self defense, for example, or accidental death. In some places euthanasia, crimes of passion, seppuku and even stoning family members for adultery are not considered to be murder. Acts of war and capital punishment aren't even considered to be crimes. To say that abortion is wrong you need to do more than demonstrate that a human life has ended, you need to show that it is ended unjustly. And to do that, you have to first grant fetuses the right to live independent of their mother in the first place. This would solve everything if fetuses could live independently from their mothers. But they can't. So, upon what basis should the right to live be granted to a fetus? It's genetically separate? Monkeys and cows are genetically separate and they don't have a right to life. Fetuses are human? Traitors and murders are human and they don't have a right to life either. Because it's a person? Here is the real issue at the center of the debate. Are fetuses people? And the problem here is that there is no biological or scientific definition for what makes a person a person. It can't just be the presence of brain activity or motor skills because dogs and cats would qualify as people. And that child in Canada that Con mentioned would not. You could say that just being human makes a person a person, but that is just as arbitrary as saying being a person is more than just being human. You could say that having a soul is what makes a person a person, but then you're just replacing facts with dogma. This is a question for philosophers and theologians not doctors and legislators. And now for some facts: Even when abortion was illegal women still had them. In 1972 (before Roe v Wade) there were 586760 reported abortions and this number rose less than 5% in 1973 (after Roe v Wade). http://en.wikipedia.org... The "less than 1%" of abortions due to rape that Con mentioned represent 14000 instances of rape that led to an unwanted pregnancy. www.epm.org/.../abortion-right-when-pregnancy-due-rape-or-incest Fewer than 0.3% of abortions have complications that lead to hospitalization and abortions pose virtually no long term risks to the women who have them. http://www.guttmacher.org... Informed consent, in general, is the law in all 50 states so, by law, all abortion providers must provide patients with complete and accurate information about the procedures they provide. 32 states have special informed consent laws that deal specifically with abortion most of which provide inaccurate and/or misleading information. http://www.abortionusa.com... http://www.guttmacher.org... Conclusion: If the fetus isn't a person then aborting it isn't murder and the question of whether or not a fetus is a person is one of personal belief not scientific fact. Thus, there is no justification for those who hold this belief to usurp a woman's actual right to privacy and liberty by forcing her to give birth against her will. And killing a fetus is only wrong to those who think it's wrong.