quote:Sorry to throw your words back at you Dag, but I went to Catholic school myself, and I remember there being justifications for abortion. Namely, an impending threat to the life of the mother with no hope of the child's ultimate survival,
I believe you are wrong. The difference is between treatment which results in the death of the child and treatment intended to kill the child.
I am only drawing from what I learned of common practice, and I being a challenging person, did pursue the matter thorougly with the religion teachers I had, and my concluding impression after four years of history/morality and religious lit, was that this semantical "removal of a Felopian tube which causes an abortion," is an intentionally deceptive argument. The baby is killing you, the baby is killing itself, you remove it, its an abortion. Just because "abortion" also means what is done with vacuums and speculi in clinics for healthy mothers, doesn't mean that isn't what your doing with an ectopic pregnancy. To say it isn't, and to say that removing the falopian tube is "indirectly" causing the death of the child is rediculous IMO. That being said, having an abortion because of this kind of problem, or say, having an abortion in order to go on immuno supressive therapy in order to recieve a life-saving transplant seems justifiable. But calling it something else is denying the fact.
I am no med expert, I don't have time to research it, so my medical speculation is not of value, but I've been told that it might be necessary for certain people to abort pregnancies early in order to avoid life-threatening complications in pregancy, such as a blood pressure disorder that threatens stroke, or hemophelia.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm always a little confused when people talk about birth control not being readily available. Do other parts of the country not have county health departments?
I'm a bank teller. I make decent but not great money. Based on the sliding scale, I paid 45 bucks for my annual exam, blood test, Pap Smear, and a year's worth of pills.
How could we possibly design a system that was more efficient or affordable? When I was in high school and community college, I didn't pay anything. When I get a raise, I'll pay a little more. And the whole thing's subsidized by a county's worth of tax dollars.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:was that this semantical "removal of a Felopian tube which causes an abortion," is an intentionally deceptive argument.
I don't mind you disagreeing, but when you call me (or the argument being made by me) intentionally deceptive it seems we've left productive discussion behind. This isn't something I made up. It's not like there isn't a lot written on the subject. It's not like I haven't discussed some of it here. It would be nice, when calling someone's argument intentionally deceptive, to at least deal with the aspects of the issue they raised.
quote:But calling it something else is denying the fact.
Nonesense. It's not like people are pretending the baby will survive.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:For example, if someone jumps off a cliff and the government has the opportunity to put an air mattress to soften the fall, but chooses not to, then it becomes a sort of crime of omission. In this case, as with the case of pregnacy, the line between consequence and punishment is blurred with respect to government intervention.
Where this argument falls apart is the fact that not only is it almost universally the person's choice to jump over the cliff, but they could have installed their own air matress, as well as strapping on a parachute, going to a skydiving class, hooking up a bungee cord, and making sure their health insurance was paid up, before stepping off that cliff.
No one pushed them off the cliff. They didn't go to a respected and trusted skydiving supply store and buy a parachute and double-check to see if it was right but through an unforseen and miniscule chance it wasn't, etc. etc.
Frankly the "beast of burden" argument doesn't hold much weight with me, because a beast of burden never has a choice. Either pull this cart, or go in a bottle of glue, Wilbur! You're either gonna lay some eggs or be kentucky fried, chicken!
Frankly I find it curious that someone who endorses improved sex-education would also endorse a "beast of burden" argument for pro-choice. Because if you endorse improved education, why are you endorsing it? Usually the answer is so that people will make informed (and thus better) decisions.
But endorsing a beast of burden argument diminishes the need for these informed decisions. No, so long as it is cheap, legal, and easy for women to buy safe and effective birth control-and the man should too, obviously, unless they want children and are ready for them-it is not treating a woman as a "beast of burden" to refrain from "saving" her from the natural consequences of a stupid mistake.
See Irami, that's how we do treat beasts of burden-protecting them from many natural consequences because they're stupid. We put fences around our beasts of burden because if we don't, they wander into the forest and get eaten, or into the road and run over. We castrate our beasts of burden to keep us from having to deal with the natural consequences of having sex with other beasts of burden.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'm a bank teller. I make decent but not great money. Based on the sliding scale, I paid 45 bucks for my annual exam, blood test, Pap Smear, and a year's worth of pills.
o_O
Wow. That's half as much as I pay for my exam, pap smear, and one month of pills. And I'm a student.
AR, if that service is readily available anywhere where I've been, it's been ridiculously poorly publicized. If it were publicized more, I think that would be a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: [QUOTE] We castrate our beasts of burden to keep us from having to deal with the natural consequences of having sex with other beasts of burden.
THAT'S IT!!!
*picture Charlie Brown rolling head over heels backwards from Lucy's booming voice*
Sorry - couldn't help it.
Also thought a wee bit of humor might be valuable at this point.
quote:See Irami, that's how we do treat beasts of burden-protecting them from many natural consequences because they're stupid. We put fences around our beasts of burden because if we don't, they wander into the forest and get eaten, or into the road and run over. We castrate our beasts of burden to keep us from having to deal with the natural consequences of having sex with other beasts of burden.
I like being caught when I fall. If that means avoiding the natural consequences of my actions, so be it.
quote: It's human, it's alive, it's got a unique genetic makeup, and in 20 years, it'll probably be able to kick your ass.
In twenty years, I'd consider it a person. It's human in a degraded sense of the term human. It's alive, but so are fish. The Avian flu has a unique genetic make up.
posted
Then you admit your stance has nothing to do with not treating women like beasts of burden, but permitting them to remain safe from the consequences of their own voluntary actions.
Maybe if that consequence weren't tied to a behavior you benefited from, you wouldn't be so interested in protecting people from such consequences?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:It's human in a degraded sense of the term human.
What exactly makes it human in a degraded sense? And at what point does this sub-human (an appropriate word, despite its nasty connotations) upgrade?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh, and incidentally Irami, it's pretty damn easy not to fall at all. Cheap, reliable, and widespread, no less.
It's not like there are swarms of covered pit-traps abounding for a hapless woman to be thrust into by a man. Your stance-"I don't want to treat women like beasts of burden"-turns adult women into victims. It does so because even if you do believe that pregnancy as a result of unprotected sex is something a woman should be "protected" from, a host of reliable and inexpensive protections exist already.
Maybe what's called for isn't a white knight in shining armor. Maybe that damsel isn't in quite the kind of distress you think she is. Maybe her distress isn't quite worth destroying a possible true human life.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
It doesn't understand itself as a person in the world. At least, I don't think it does. I can't remember being in the womb. I thought I made this clear on the last page.
quote:It's worth pointing out that a social mechanism that does not kill other living beings exist for women who fall into pregnancy.
You know-- adoption.
Still, that involves the business of the government forcing women to give birth, and I just don't like that. There is nothing easy about unwanted pregnancy. It involves issues of metaphysics that can't be publically and demonstrably shown and are rightly quarrelsome. And I think that the pro-life side is arrogating political authority that doesn't belong. There is nothing simple about the entire ordeal, and all options are going to cause anguish to the mother and father. Let them decide. Mostly, I'm asking the religous people to suffer the indignity of living in a society with legal abortions. I'm asking them to do it out of humility and tolerance, and out of a deep respect for individuals in a religiously plural society. You don't have to like it. You don't have to say it is good. You certainly don't have to have one yourself. But I am asking that you live in a society where they are legal.
quote:Second, the symbolism here is critically important. If abortion is not criminalized, then a particular class of human being is being dehumanized.
I'm sorry, but I find symbols to be less important than real physical harm. Before abortion was legal, woman were commonly allowed to bleed to death when their lives could have been saved by abortions. Hospitals in major cities, like Chicago, had entire wards for women who had been mutilated in illegal abortions. Those real and substantial harms to women are far more important in my mind than a symbolic gesture to a class of humans who can not even perceive the gesture.
If you criminalize abortion in all circumstances, then you dehumanize pregnant woman, declaring by law that their lives and bodies are less valuable than those of their unborn children.
If you allow legal abortion in any circumstances, then someone must choose those circumstances. It is dehumanizing to woman, if they are not permitted a key role in this choice which dramatically affects their lives.
Additionally Dag, I'm rather insulted that after I put enormous effort in to trying to explain my stand, you completely ignored my efforts in favor of your memories of a statement I made ages ago.
Furthermore, I never tried to state your position. I quoted you, I offered examples and asked if this is what was meant by your quote. This is quite different than you gross misrepresentation of my position.
[ January 24, 2006, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:It seems to be a punishment by ommission. For example, if someone jumps off a cliff and the government has the opportunity to put an air mattress to soften the fall, but chooses not to, then it becomes a sort of crime of omission. In this case, as with the case of pregnacy, the line between consequence and punishment is blurred with respect to government intervention.
We could make this a better analogy by saying,
quote:If you jump off a cliff and break your leg, this is a natural consequence not a punishment. But if society then refuses to allow you access to medical treatment for the broken leg because you broke it by willfully jumping off a cliff -- that is a punishment.
[ January 24, 2006, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Again, I'll accept that as a friendly amendment to my analogy.
quote:Maybe what's called for isn't a white knight in shining armor. Maybe that damsel isn't in quite the kind of distress you think she is. Maybe her distress isn't quite worth destroying a possible true human life.
I have a low threshold for damsels in distress. Apparently, it's higher than my respect for fetuses.
quote:Additionally Dag, I'm rather insulted that after I put enormous effort in to trying to explain my stand, you completely ignored my efforts in favor of your memories of a statement I made ages ago.
Considering what you did to my statement - a statement that had been put into enormous context by aspects of this discussion in which you participated - I'm surprised you'd still be insulted. I put at least as much effort as you into trying to explain my stand throughout this thread, and you seized on one sentence of a two sentence post that provided the distinction and pointed to the part of discussion that explained it - more than enough information to realize that your example was abolutely inapplicable.
Also, I was not relying solely on things from another thread. For example, you said:
quote:Rakeesh, You are ignoring the obvious. There are no other situations in which a persons failure to provide for another human being is considered murder by our society. In the the case of a pregnancy, the child cannot live without its connection to the mother. Does this mean that the mother's failure to maintain that connection is equivalent to murder? The fact of the matter is that two lives (at a minimum) are entertwined here. To say that the fetus's life always trumps the life of the mother denegrates the mother. This is not to say that I believe abortion is a moral choice. In most cases, I believe it is not.
A position with some valid points, but one which seems to imply that you accept that a fetus is a living human being - especially when coupled with the comment I remember from another thread. I did not see a clearer statement about your beliefs as to whether or not an unborn child was a human being until after the post which insulted you.
But it is not a gross mistatement of the position you seemed to have advocated in this thread: You have definitely stated that you think the mother should decide (i.e., abortion should be legal) and you strongly implied in the above quotation that an unborn child was a human being.
You have now explained that you don't think an unborn child is fully human. Fine. But it was certainly reasonable for me to think so based on your posts. Having been corrected, I apologized.
If that's not good enough for you, there's nothing else I can do.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Dag, You still haven't read my post where I explain the full rational behind by stance. Read it, respond to it or shut up.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wow, I would've expected the first "shut up" in this thread to have come from me.
Irami,
quote:Let them decide. Mostly, I'm asking the religous people to suffer the indignity of living in a society with legal abortions. I'm asking them to do it out of humility and tolerance, and out of a deep respect for individuals in a religiously plural society. You don't have to like it. You don't have to say it is good. You certainly don't have to have one yourself. But I am asking that you live in a society where they are legal.
None of these requests, individually or together, trump the primary problem pro-life people have with abortion. That problem is that pro-lifers believe it is a human baby being destroyed, or like myself they don't know when it truly is a human life and prefer to err on the side of caution.
It is not, to them, a mere "indignity". You want the government to save an adult woman from her own choices. Pro-lifers want to save the lives of innocents. The worst that happens from your perspective is that a woman-the vast majority of whom chose the pregnancy-is "forced" to endure pregnancy and labor and birth. The worst that happens from the other perspective is a human life is snuffed out for convenience.
Asking people to grin and bear it is absurd. It's not going to happen, and appealing to religion in your request is beyond absurd.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I note that Rabbit STILL hasn't responded to the ongoing explanations about why her example was inapplicable.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Could both of you calm down, please? I'm enjoying this thread quite a bit and learning many things I didn't know, and I'd hate to see it locked down.
Rabbit, telling Dagonee to shut up was way out of line, uncalled for, and in my experience way out of character for you. Dagonee, I can see why you're upset, but could you please not send blistering profanities back at her for telling you to shut up?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
Irami, I'm asking all people to practice discipline and restraint and reverence. You can see where this is going.
Etcetera. Etcetera.
So in a word: No. I refuse to stand by, voiceless, accepting, while the unborn are willfully killed. Especially when, with today's technology and society, so many of them can be given secure, safe lives.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Dag, Your post which offended me was posted nearly an hour after my full explanation. In that post, I explained a number of things which I consider highly personal and which are highly emotional charged for me. This is something I rarely do on hatrack. Your following post completely ignored these statements (although you refer to other aspects of the same post) and instead made reference to a post you recall me making years ago. That was the point at which I took offense.
When I pointed out that I was offended, you repeated the offense by once again pulling another of my quotes out of context.
I'm sorry, but I don't think telling you to shut up until you acknowledged in a respectful manner the very sensitive personal nature of the things I had written was at all out of line.
You are simply reinforcing my belief that your opposition to abortion without exception dehumanizes women.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Dag, Your post which offended my was posted nearly an hour after my full explanation. In that post, I explained a number of things which I consider highly personal and which are highly emotional charge for me. This is something I rarely do on hatrack. Your following post completely ignored this statements (although you refer to other aspects of the same post) and instead made reference to a post you recall me making years ago. That was the point at which I took offense.
My follow up post was not aimed at refuting your post or saying that my criticism still applied - as is obvious from the post itself. I was explaining what I was thinking when I made the post which motivated your long explanation - to explain what I was thinking when I made what you called a gross misrepresentation.
It insulted you that I explained why I made a prior post? That's irrational.
had I said, "No, you don't really believe what you said in your long post" you might have rational reason to be insulted. But I said, "I'm sorry if I oversimplified. Here's why I thought what I did."
So I didn't say anything about your long post, except to apologize for my misunderstanding which the long post cleared up.
quote:I'm sorry, but I don't think telling you to shut up until you acknowledged in a respectful manner the very sensitive personal nature of the things I had written was at all out of line.
Yes, you were out of line. In a big way.
AND DON'T EVER TELL ME TO SHUT UP AGAIN!
quote:You are simply reinforcing my belief that your opposition to abortion without exception dehumanizes women.
Right now, for what should be fairly obvious reasons, you fail to make the list of people whose opinions I care about.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Dagonee doesn't oppose abortion without exception. One exception he has listed was specifically medical treatments to save the life of the mother which would kill the fetus.
It seems to me that both of you are saying, "You're misrepresenting me!" to each other. Perhaps a more productive method of dealing with this disagreement would be for each of you to review what you've said to each other as well as the times in which they were said.
It's certainly got to be more productive than telling each other to shut up or swearing at each other.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Dagonee doesn't oppose abortion without exception. One exception he has listed was specifically medical treatments to save the life of the mother which would kill the fetus.
To be fair, I don't oppose making those legal, but I do oppose them morally - with all the distinctions I've spent a couple pages making as to the difference between medical treatments that result in fetal death and abortion to protect the life of the mother.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
The idea that access to abortions guarentees women's rights in current day America is laughable. In light of the number of parents waiting to adopt infants, the technology available to ease the discomfort of pregnancies, the laws and social programs put in place to protect and assist mothers, it's a dinosaur of an idea.
In Africa, you might have a point; but in America, not a chance.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote: Mostly, I'm asking the religous people to suffer the indignity of living in a society with legal abortions. I'm asking them to do it out of humility and tolerance, and out of a deep respect for individuals in a religiously plural society. You don't have to like it. You don't have to say it is good. You certainly don't have to have one yourself. But I am asking that you live in a society where they are legal.
What abortion boils down to for me is killing an innocent for the sake of convenience...and I'm supposed to say, "Well, to each his own."?
Why don't you change then. Let's make it illegal for women not to carry babies to term. You don't have to like it. You don't have to say it is good. You certainly don't have to have one yourself. But I am asking that you live in that society.
And by the way, I think only Dag and Belle have brought any sort of religious argument to the table. Rakeesh hasn't, I don't think, Tom's Agnostic, and I'm an Atheist. There are plenty of moral arguments to bring to the table in an abortion conversation without resorting to the word of god.
quote:I seperate sex from procreation. This is deep...
And yet the end result...is rather shallow.
quote:It's alive, but so are fish. The Avian flu has a unique genetic make up.
Okay, but can you find anything with all the characteristics of a fetus? Human, alive, and unique genetic makeup?
I mean, I can play this game, too. Potatoes have eyes, so it should be legal to julienne and deep fry Dagonee, right?
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
You know lawyers are called sharks, and although I've never eaten shark, I hear it can taste pretty good...
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
Dagonee, could you test the temperature of this giant vat of probably-boiling oil by leaning real, real far over?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
So, are people of all viewpoints allowed to chow down on deep-fried Dagonee? I hear he was raised free-range; bet he has a reeeal nice flavor. Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
A lot of what I see from people in every discussion of this issue is assumptions.
People assign motivations to others that that can't possibly know about, then argue based on those assumptions.
Since we can't really know why someone does something like this most of the time, we judge them based on our own prejudices and assumptions.
I have said more than once where I stand on these issues, and why, so I am not going to rehash them again. I will say that I have learned a lot...from both sides....here at Hatrack.
I hope this discussion can continue respectfully so that others have to opportunity to do so as well.
quote:Okay, but can you find anything with all the characteristics of a fetus? Human, alive, and unique genetic makeup?
But then, let's flip it around again. If by human you mean, "has a genome defining it as homo sapiens sapiens," then yes it is human. Yet it fails to have humanity by just about every other metric you could judge it by. Awareness, decision making, productivity, or relationships, a fetus excercises none of these things*. In the same way that a coma patient has ceased to be a person, a fetus is something that could/will develop into one. To be sure, that potentiality is worth protecting to some point, which is why you can be pro-choice and still be against late term abortions or infantcide. And no, I don't consider the meanest possibility of humanity enough to outweigh the causal good (yes, I said it) that comes from legalized abortions.
*To the best of my knowledge. If anyone has medical evidence otherwise, I'd love to hear it.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
If a coma patient has "ceased to be a person" because of lacking the qualities you mention (awareness, decision making, etc.) are people who simply have a diminished capacity less human than others? I mean, should we value the lives of more productive people more than less productive people? Better decision makers over worse ones? Or do you see it as binary (either you can or you can't)?
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Awareness, decision making, productivity, or relationships, a fetus excercises none of these things
Neither does a newborn child. Does that mean babies that are born healthy at term are not human? What about preemies, are they human?
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Awareness, decision making, productivity, or relationships
There's very little scientific knowledge on the subject of fetal brain activity.
I don't think that just because we have no memories of the womb, we're not aware of ourselves. I mean, I don't remember being three.
And I know some 30 year olds that aren't productive, either. Plenty of them who suck at relationships and lack basic decision making capabilities.
But that's their fault. They've had a chance, at least. So I'm all for them having their own hunting (hunted?) season.
As for good coming from abortion, I don't dispute that. But it's all short-term and superficial. In the long-term, it just encourages a society in which it's always someone elses problem or fault. Why take responsibility when you can sue the restaurant in which you got drunk before you got in an accident and killed your family? Why use all methods of birth control when you can get by on one or two and kill the innocent fetus if those 1/100 (1000, 10,000) odds catch you?
quote:Awareness, decision making, productivity, or relationships, a fetus excercises none of these things*. In the same way that a coma patient has ceased to be a person, a fetus is something that could/will develop into one.
Well, that's an argument I have to admit I haven't heard often. A coma patient is not a person? It's been said here, but what of the many coma patients that wake up? And there are many degrees of coma, of course.
Furthermore, judging humans by the standards of awareness, productivity, decision-making, relationships, invites a slippery slope. It would invite that even if you hadn't mentioned coma patients losing their humanity.
I won't give a full list of the types of "people" (in quotes since by the standards you've given, the are not human beings), but it certainly includes the mentally and physically handicapped, as well as the old and sick.
Judging humanity on a pass-fail defend-kill grading system like you're doing...frankly it puts you in the moral and political company of some very unpleasant people.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Technically, the abortions at issue in this entire discussion are "induced abortions." Perhaps keeping the adjective for this particular part of the discussion will help make my point clearer. When I say "I will not support abortion" I mean "induced abortion." I think induced carries the intent with it.
To be clear, if the actions are being taken to directly repair damage - including necessary steps to make the damage accessible - then I'm not considering it within the boundaries of "induced abortion" and therefore it is not within my earlier statement about what I can't support.
As I understand the Catholic position, abortion is always immoral, however medical procedures whose primary action does not attack the fetus are not considered abortion even if a secondary effect of the procedure is the certain death of the unborn child. Please correct me if I have misunderstood.
From my point of view, this is circumductory logic, intended to allow some abortions which would save a mother's life by redefining abortion. I would not object to this redefinition if I thought it was benign. Unfortunately, I think that such a definition requires that women undertake unnecessarily risky and often damaging courses of action which have no benefit to the child. To me, that is anti-life not pro-life.
Let me offer an example. In ectopic pregnancies there two (at least) common treatments. The first is removal of the fallopian tube which meets the catholic standard of an medical procedure with intent to save the life of the mother which has a secondary effect of killing the baby. Thus this is not an abortion.
A second treatment which is becoming more common is treatment of the woman, with Methotrexate. Methotrexate causes death of the fetus by blocking adsorption of folic acid and inhibiting implantation. This is a direct attack on the fetus and the procedure is virtually identical to a procedure used for early term abortion of a fetus which has implanted in the womb not the fallopian tube. This procedure does not require the mother to under go surgery and so in many cases is safer for the mother. In addition, the mother more likely to be able to concieve in the future than with the surgical option, particularly if she has had a previous ectopic pregnancy.
The outcome for the fetus in an ectopic pregnancy is death whether the choice is surgery, Methotrexate or no medical treatment. In this case, I would consider treatment with Methotrexate to be a prolife option because its intent is to save the only life which can be saved (the Mother), to reduce trauma to a human life (the mother) and to improve the mother's chance of having a baby in the future.
The Catholic stance would permit surgery but would not permit treatment with Methotrexate even if there are clear medical advantages to this approach. To me this dehumanizes the woman by requiring that she sacrifice her well being for an abstract concept with no measurable benefit to any living thing. I am unable to see this as a moral requirement.
Unless of course, there is some way to define use of Methotrexate to remove an ectopic pregnancy as "not abortion" even though identical use of Methotrexate to remove a fetus emplanted in the uterine wall is abortion. I think that stretch of logic is too far for any rational human.
Please don't argue about the details of this example. If you do, you have missed my point.
Two lives are involved in any pregnancy and both lives are more valuable than any abstract symbolism. It is fair for us to debate what if any circumstances would justify taking an action which will lead to the death of the child. But once it is clear that the unborn child will die, then the other life, the life of the mother becomes the most important issue. At this point, medical treatment should focus on what is best for the mother. To do anything else would denigrate the life of the mother -- i.e. it would be anti-life.
[ January 24, 2006, 04:36 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:But once it is clear that the unborn child will die, then the other life, the life of the mother becomes the most important issue. At this point, medical treatment should focus on what is best for the mother. To do anything else would denigrate the life of the mother -- i.e. it would be anti-life.
Consider an accident victim with a matching heart or liver. The accident victim will die within 48 hours - we can know this with assurance - but we're not sure when.
The intended recipient will die if the transplant is not performed within 24 hours.
Is it OK to kill the donor at hour 23?
I say that killing the donor is wrong. It is an evil act, and doing so denigrates the life of the donor. It also means that the entire continued existence of the recipient is founded on that evil act - something that also denigrates life.
quote:Unless of course, there is some way to define use of Methotrexate to remove an ectopic pregnancy as "not abortion" even though identical use of Methotrexate to remove a fetus emplanted in the uterine wall is abortion. I think that stretch of logic is too far for any rational human.
Not really. As can be seen below, the position has been given much thought, and it is not clear that there is a difference between the two. (BTW, you have oversimplified the Catholic position on treatment of ectopic pregnancies. It is not settled.) Link.
quote:For example, some moralists disagree about the status of treatments intended to terminate an ectopic pregnancy. According to some, the surgical removal of the fallopian tube (a Salpingectomy) or the dissolution of the trophoblast via methotrexate entails a direct intent to cause the death of the fetus as a means to protect the mother. Others have argued to the contrary that, while detaching a fetus from its normal site of implantation would be a direct abortion, to detach it from an abnormal site in which it constitutes a serious pathology involves only the indirect destruction of the fetus. The central distinction between these two arguments is that in the latter argument, the direct intent is understood to be the treatment of a pathological condition in the mother by freeing her fallopian tube of an abnormal infiltration by the placental villi, whereas in the former argument the direct intent is understood to be the destruction of the fetus. Both of these analyses are relevant to cases of ectopic pregnancy treated by either salpingectomy or methotrexate. Other cases of treating serious pathologies involving the destruction of a fetus, such as induction for chorioamnionitis, are similarly ambiguous from a moral perspective. Such difficult cases need to be assessed in light of the requirements of moral certitude and following one’s conscience. In similarly ambiguous cases, both patients and providers in Catholic-sponsored facilities should make their own determinations in accord with the dictates of moral certitude and following their conscience. Within appropriate moral parameters set by hospital policy, individual patients and physicians should be supported in their decisions.
Also, your "abstract symbolism" comment, if related to my prior posts, is misdirected. My symbolism comment was in the context of one reason why abortion should be illegal. As I've said many times now, I don't think abortions in thse circumstances should be illegal.
Of course, I also object to your terming it "abstract symbolism" in this context. There is a huge non-symbolic importance to not actively killing a person.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
:::![[Wink]](wink.gif)
(note sarcasm)![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
Rak![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
