Reply #109: At the risk of getting horribly flamed [View All]

[snot]

I don't feel I hear the arguments on this subject that seem most reasonable to me. Maybe y'all can help critique them.

(1) It matters how old the embryo is.

I'm not sure what the cut-off points are, but an early embryo probably has the I.Q./conscioiusness/emotional sensitivity of a carrot. This may or may not be a potential human being, but it is NOT a human being.

Possibly by half-way through a pregnancy the foetus has the I.Q./conscioiusness/emotional sensitivity of a chimp -- I'm guessing wildly here and so is everyone else. Maybe this is life worth some level of protection; I'm not sure. But if so, I don't see how we can fail to require that ALL life at that level should receive the same protection; i.e., chimps, gorillas, dolphins, whales, etc.

(2) It matters that women are enslaved as involuntary incubators.

Even if the embryo were a "person" rather than merely a potential, why is it not a violation of the Constitutional prohibition against "involuntary servitude" to force women against their will to incubate another creature within their bodies, at much greater medical risk to themselves than posed by any abortion? What if a man could save someone else's life by subjecting himself to nine months of physical danger as well as inconvenience, permanent alteration of his body, possibly permanent detriment to his career -- would we REQUIRE men to subject themselves to that? (Well, there's warfare; but I happen to think that's wrong, too; and in any case we've abandoned the draft; so let's stick to the medical context.)

If anti-abortionists were mainly concerned with life, they would focus their efforts and funding on research on ways to incubate foetuses in other incubators -- machines, willing women, or whatever.