Abortion

Ahh quite the good retort my friend. Here is my response I am debating whether an abortion is wrong or not. No where in my opening statement did I use the word "law" because law, as you admit, does not always correspond to true reality. When something doesn't correspond with true reality (aka this law) it must, by necessity, be mistaken. However, I will include law in the debate. Now follow this: by saying, if a law does not correspond with true reality, yet it can hold legal legitimacy based on legality alone, then you are saying legality can create its own reality. Nothing can create its own reality. Either something is or it is not. Now this is difficult to grasp and is a complicated concept. I am directly referring to your first sentence, where you believe a law can be wrong and legitimate at the same time. That seems as if law would be pretty messed up then and might need some re-evaluation....just it had to be re evaluated before (aka laws that supported slavery). Next, a right goes beyond law. In fact, an inalienable right to life has existed before law was ever created. It preexists any constitution or government. According to your argument, then no human life was valuable before our Founding Fathers signed a document stating a belief in an inalienable right to life. In fact, then according to your own logic, if the inalienable right to life were merely a law invented on the Declaration of Independence, you would have to be ok with all the millions of human beings who have been brutally slaughtered prior to the Declaration of Independence since there was no inalienable right to life that preceded the Declaration of Independence. Obviously, I know this is not the case. And why do I know you are not ok with that? Because "we hold these truths to be self evident." AHHHHH! Sound familiar? Why yes, those are the words preceeding the statements about the inalienable right to life in THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. The creators of the Declaration of Independence themselves knew the right to live had existed before them just as you and I know. A document you just used to show inalienable right to life is merely a law actually disproves your argument within its own text. The founding fathers and their fathers and their fathers knew before us there is an intrisic value to life that must be protected. Another example: Say I am in Antarctica, and am not an American citizen, so there are no American laws to protect me. Someone decides to come up and shoot me in the head. I die. Well according to your law argument, legal legitimacy does not apply therefore I didn't have the right to live. And since Id hope you can admit that I have the right to live, then you also have to admit the right to life extends beyond any mere law. This is the same conclusion the founding fathers came to. They didn't create the inalienable right to life for a human being as a new law, it had always existed before the law. You state that "The inalienable right to life was given by the Declaration of Independence. A legal document." Well, Im sorry. you my be right that it is a legal document, but the inalienable right to life was not GIVEN or CREATED by us. Actually if I wanted to get technical, then Id say your word "give" implies that there had to a direct object aka something to give. And that something to give had to exist before the document was created, thus reaffirming that the inalienable right to life existed before the Declaration. Those were about your first three sentences....this might take a bit. But stay with me! Actually as Ive just shown, I'm not attempting to prove abortion is wrong due to legal legitimacy, rather something that supersedes legal legitimacy: The inalienable right to life. But i have already proven that. The law, in order to be in line with proper reality and not make its own (which is terrible...refer to first paragraphs), must be changed. I am now referring to your "Due Process Argument." Since I have already proven that the inalienable right to life supersedes any law (even due process), then yet again it applies here. Because you admit the fetus is living, and I can prove the fetus is a human being, therefore the fetus has the inalienable right to life which cannot be taken away...but watch how this does not refute the "Mother will die, fetus will die" argument. Stay tuned for that in a few. The Fetus has unique human DNA that is different from both the mother and the father, and the fetus has biological growth from biological simplicity to biological complexity. Because the human being has his or her full potential written in the human DNA/genetic code in those initial cells, and you've agreed that fetus is alive due to growth from biological simplicity to biological complexity, then you also admit you know the fetus is growing towards that complexity which is established by the fetus' potential (the potential being prefrontal cortex, ears etc). Now when I say the potential is written in the DNA, obviously the fetus, as i said before, is not created in its full potential, rather the fetus grows towards the biological complexity. So actually you have not concluded anything about the fetus not being a human being. And to be more simple about it, yes i would still consider a human being who doesn't have emotion, feeling, conscience, to be human. Biologically/logically I have proven the fetus to be a living human being. Also a newborn baby doesn't have a conscience, so does that make the baby not a human being? BUT MY MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION THAT MUST BE ANSWERED WITH A YES OR NO ANSWER IS THIS: Would you agree that a person who does not have arms or legs is equally as human as you and I? (Assuming you and I both have both arms and legs) I will expand upon this after you respond Here is it less bogged down with complicated rhetoric and argumentation: A being that is alive, growing towards biological complexity, and has unique human DNA on which biological print is written for the whole life of that being, must be a living human being. This is a scientific fact. The next argument is about age of viability, organs, tissue etc. So then a tissue cell is the same as a fetus because a tissue ceel is its own unique human DNA and a tissue cell has all the potential to grow into a male adult? Of course not. The tissue cell is made from a preexisting human being so the DNA in not unique. It has the same DNA as the human produced it. Therefore by the same logic, the fetus is indeed better defined as an organism due to biological complexity. The same arguments I have used prior. Once again, nothing is conceived IN its full potential. Rather, fetus is conceived WITH its full potential from which the being grows towards. You have already accepted that the fetus is living, and science irrefutably proves the fetus has human DNA and biological potential, thus making the fetus a living human being. I don't understand the confusion to be entirely honest. Now for the interesting part: Your situation where either the mother dies or the fetus dies is a very valid question that is brought up quite often. And here is where we have to weigh culpability. Both are innocent. Both have the right life. This is hard for some people to accept, but, fundamentally, both have the EQUAL right to life. Even the Catholic faith holds that saving the mother would be equally as noble but also inherently equally tragic as saving the child. So in fact, yes, this is the only circumstance where abortion is permissible because two equal innocent lives are at risk. Since their is an inalienable right to life, it would be better to save one innocent life than neither life. And furthermore, choosing either to save to mother or fetus does not make the person morally culpable for this reason: A good deed is always inherently above/better/higher than a bad deed of equal gravity (in this case killing). The good deed of saving the innocent mother is inherently above/better/higher than the bad deed of having to abort/kill the fetus. I am not contradicting anything I have stated because my overall theme, applied to any situation, is supporting the inalienable right to life. This debate happens to be on abortion. Therefore i should also add saving the fetus would be inherently better then the act of letting the mother die. The question of rape: Alright, most importantly, people fail to realize the fetus is not the woman's body. The are two distinctly, unique, living human beings. The DNA of the fetus is different from that of the mother which scientifically shows the body of the mother and the body of the fetus are not one in the same. Therefore, the woman is not only dealing with her body when getting an abortion, but is also dealing with the body of another individual who has a distinctly unique human body. Furthermore, now that I have shown there are two different human beings when dealing with abortion, it can be said that "The right to swing my fist ends where another mans nose begins." - Oliver Wendell Holmes. The rights of the mother do not extend to infringe on the inalienable rights of another human being. Therefore, abortion would be removing the fundamental right to life from the human being (the fetus). Also, rape is a terrible thing. But does that mean the child within the mother is guilty? No. The human being (the fetus) had no choice of an action to take, therefore, the fetus has no culpability in this situation. Because the fetus is wholly and completely innocent, then the fetus has the right to life as much as anyone else that cant be taken away. No one has the choice to freely end the life/kill another innocent human being. It is not the mothers choice to kill the innocent, living human being inside of her. Also, Fredrick Douglass was conceived of rape. If we recommend abortion to rape victims, then what? Where would society be without him? I will have to finish this deep and thorough debate in the comment section