A quick word of explanation first. I am not actually trying to annoy anyone, but sometimes we have to call stupidity as stupidity, and delusion as delusion. If I have annoyed anyone, I do apologise, but urge you to consider what I have written below more carefully. There are no opinions here at all, just observations, and questions for you to think about. That is all.
John.
OK, interesting so far.
First, I have seen a couple of replies here from posters who say they were 'Pro-Life', then became 'Pro-Choice'. Well, I went the other way! And no, I do not suffer from religion!
One thing that many bring up is this bizzare idea that the child is somehow not a child until it is born, or until cellular differentiation begins, or until its heart beats, or some other arbitrary point in the development cycle. Then they suggest it is OK to kill the child before that point because it is not really a person yet. What a load of rubbish. You are deluding yourselves people. You may not be able to release yourself from your delusion, you may not be strong enough, but at least have the good grace not to delude others!
Now that I have got you mad, think about this. A mother to be on a bed, waters have broken, contractions have been going for a while. There is a fair bit of anxiety now, I know, I have been there (only as the father though, unfortunately). But what is that anxiety about? It is about the health of the mother and child, we are anxious that they both come through this together, and are both healthy. So what is my point? Well, what are we not anxious about? Simple, we are not anxious about what the child will be. Think about it, we know that the child will be Human, right? We are not worried that mum might have an alligator, or an elephant, or a toaster, right? You may think this sounds ridiculous, but that is because it is so easy to demolish your delusion. We know that what is about to pop out, or be cut out, is going to be Human, with all that this state entails. Sure, the child might have serious health problems, might even be still born. But even with a still birth, we mourn the passing of a Human being. And it is pointless setting some arbitrary point in the development cycle to say that the child is not a Human before that point. For example, if they are only Human after their heart starts beating, then what were they before that point? A fish? Seriously? They were Human, and they were Human all along. From the moment that sperm dives into that ovum, you have a Human. And this is not a viewpoint, or a theory. It is an observation. For those who would try to negate this observation, the question stands, if that developing blob of cells that already contains all it needs to be a Human being is not Human, then what is it?
There are also many other points brought up by those arguing for 'choice'. I will just pick a couple to start with.
For example, the idea that 'it is the woman's body, therefore it is her choice.' How wrong is that? There are two bodies now. One is the child, and the other is the mother. I totally support the woman's choice for her own body, but not for the body of the child. This is a huge moral load on the woman's mind that men do not have. It is something that requires directed education so that the correct decisions can be made for the child. If you think the separation of the two bodies is an opinion of mine, or just a question of definition, think about this. If you support a woman making a choice to kill a child that is in her womb, do you also support a woman making a choice to kill the child after birth? Huh? Well? Why not? Obviously, there would not be many people who think it is OK for mum to just decide to kill her six year old daughter because she can't afford to bring her up anymore. No, all the excuses you hear about killing the unborn are based on the falacy of the unborn being not Human, which I discussed above.
Now we come to the tricky one. Rape. This one slowed me down a bit, because when I was 'Pro-Choice', I totally supported the idea that the woman who has been raped and finds herself pregnant must be given the ability to make this decision for herself, and I even felt that no one else had the right to interfere with her decision, or make a judgement about it. What an idiot I was! I claim temporary mental incompetence your honour! The solution of course, is to just apply the observation made above about the separation of the mother and the child, as two different Human beings. Well, the child is also a separate Human from their father. I ask the same question I asked above, those of you who support the killing of an unborn child because the child is the result of rape, would you want to kill a six year old because you just discovered that they are the result of rape? Unfortunately, I fear that many in the Pro-Choice camp will come uncomfortably close to answering Yes! I say this because one person I talked to about this recently actually answered Yes! For real, she said that she wished all the children of rapes could be killed, no matter how old they now are, that the world would be a better place. Seriously, she has a degree in social 'science' from a respected University. This is one of the things that happened to me recently to force me to think about this subject. Again, not my opinion, but if you make the observation that the person you are killing is a Human child, then it is never OK, as the child is never responsible for their parent's behaviour. Besides, what if the unborn child's mother was a murderer? (Instead of the male always being cast as the criminal). Would you still kill the child just because their parent was bad? Again, a question for you to think about, not an opinion.
So, what do we do in the case where a woman gives birth, unwillingly, to a child who is the result of a rape? Firstly, we hope that they both survive the birth process in good health. Then, we organise some major psychological help for the unfortunate woman. Also, if we cannot reconcile the mother with her child, who is at least half hers, think about it, then we also organise to have the child adopted. And the most important thing. We introduce some proper bloody laws into the country so that those susceptible to commit rape can be isolated early, and treated where possible, and incarcerated where not possible. Yes, we do the Human thing, we apply technology to the problem, and solve it at its cause. Dealing with a rape by killing a child is not a good option. We must use that rape as a way to introduce measures that will prevent future rapes, instead of the current laws that allow proven rapists to walk the streets stalking women. Solve the problem people, don't kill the result!
It should be easy enough to apply what I have said above to all other situations. One last example, the 'medical necessity' issue. First, I don't think that abortion is 'necessary' anywhere near as often as is being suggested. And when it is, apply the lesson from rape above. If the decision is necessary, let's make sure that it never happens again, ever. Yes, that means actually spending money on our health system, gee, what a novel concept! Let's use technology to improve our medical science to the point where the decision never needs to be made. And don't tell me it can't be done, it can, it is just a matter of wanting to. Killing a child because we could not be bothered to spend enough money to develop better medical science technology is unforgiveable.
Well, sorry to all the people I have pissed off, and I totally understand if this post gets removed. But seriously people, it is never OK to kill a person, not even when you try to justify it by pretending that they aren't Human.
Oh, I just read Butterfly's post above. What the hell? Am I reading this right? Have you made a major typo butterfly? Because what it seems to me you are saying is that because the foetus cannot survive outside the womb before twenty four weeks it is not Human? What? First, try telling that to a woman who has had a miscarriage before twenty four weeks. Try telling her that there is nothing to be distraught about, because after all, the miscarriage only involved a thing, not a real Human at all! And secondly, what about my mate who cannot survive without his heart pills? Is he now no longer Human because he cannot survive without external support? What the hell are you saying?
John.