Hahaha! Are you serious? There may be a case to be made for the anti-abortion position, but the level of intervention required to insure the demise of the embryo versus the demise of the lung tumor is not it!

Let’s compare: For the average abortion, a single dose of a relatively low risk medication may be all that is required to ensure the end of the pregnancy. If surgical abortion is preferred, an outpatient procedure is scheduled and performed under local anesthesia. Usually, a single dose of low level pain medication such as ibuprofen is required for post surgical pain. The patient can usually return home within a few hours and to work within a few days. Anecdotally, most people I’ve heard talk about it describe it as unpleasant but no worse than a colonoscopy or other minor medical procedure. Yes, some abortions are more complicated and more “violent” but that’s a typical abortion in the first trimester as almost 90% of abortions are.

Now, a typical lung cancer…Well, first off, you can’t kill the typical lung cancer: most lung cancers are discovered too late for curative intervention. But suppose you got one of the rare cases that are potentially curable with surgery: A major operation is required. The patient is in the hospital at least a week, assuming nothing goes wrong, which it does all too frequently. To get to the lungs, the ribs or sternum must be broken (nearly everyone’s least favorite part of the procedure). Major pain medication, such as IV narcotics are required to control the pain after surgery and the patient is unlikely to return to work for months, if ever. Some oncologists give chemotherapy before or after surgery, depending on stage and other factors. If so, multiple (3-4 months) of extremely toxic drugs are given. Patients may experience nausea, vomiting, infections, changes in their sense of smell, skin problems, hair loss, excess bleeding, fatigue and other symptoms for months after the treatment*.

And what, you might ask, about the embryo or the cancer? Well, neither has any neural activity worth talking much about so neither is self aware or experiences pain on removal from its environment. The embryo would have a better chance of developing neurons, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that a cancer might grow some neurons too. You just can’t ever tell with cancers. So neither is a participant in any meaningful way and both have “potential”. Pretty even, really. Arguably, removing the cancer is less moral–if it did develop self awareness that’d be much more exciting than just another H sapiens and would you want to be responsible for preventing a new intelligent species from coming into being? (Well, maybe, if it lived parasitically off of humans, but that’s a side issue.)

*I’m making it sound pretty nasty in order to make the point, but to avoid scaring people I should point out that many of the “classic” problems of chemotherapy can be treated now. Some people with particularly aggressive tumors actually feel better after chemotherapy. But if I had to have either an abortion or chemotherapy at some point in my life but could pick which one I’d go for the abortion.

It depends what you mean by “vulnerable participant.” A tumor is certainly capable of living independently of its host, given the right conditions. Consider the Hela cell line, still alive more than 50 years after its host died. And that’s only one of many.

Perhaps you might say that tumor cells never develop intelligence…and the evolutionary chances do look slim. But other animals might more easily. Should one avoid killing cockroaches or mosquitos because their descendants may evolve intelligence, making them “vulnerable participants at some point in the future”?

Certainly, unfertilized gametes are “potential vulnerable participants”–fertilization is one of the easier steps in the process of making a baby. Much easier than gestation, much more likely to be successful. So the difference between an unfertilized gamete and a fertilized gamete is far smaller than the difference between a fertilized gamete and a baby. Is masturbation really murder then? Not to mention contraception? And let’s not even talk about abstinence–evil incarnate!

And you’re still ignoring my question, which is why aren’t you interested in helping all the “vulnerable participants” who are dying of miscarriage and failed implantation? They are just as much at risk and far more in number than any embryo post implantation. It’s like you were living in the time of the Black Plague and ignoring it because the occasional murder occurred. The “Oh, but it’s natural death” defense is complete BS. We have huge institutions, private and public, dedicated to defeating numerous causes of “natural death.” And we’re successful–far more successful than we’ve ever been at preventing murder. So you’re ignoring the easy problem (miscarriage) in order to concentrate on the harder problem. Hmm…you don’t care if “babies” die if they die of natural causes, but you do mind if women aren’t properly punished for having sex…why do I just have the feeling that your reasons for being “pro-life” as less than altruistic?

decnavda: Liberals love to debate the morning after pill because the claim that helping a woman’s body flush out a one-celled fertilized egg is murder is, on its face, absurd.

thene: whether or not the foetus has the physiological characteristics of a living thing is irrelevant; humans kill living things all the time. We also remove living tissue from the bodies of human beings all the time.

yes there will be failed implantations, live tissue removal, sloughing of fertilized eggs, massive disposal of fertilized eggs as a result of invetro fertilization, lung tumors removed, fetal demise. if we use the vulnerable participant model we would see that a one celled fertilized egg may be a vulnerable participant given time whereas a tumor removed from the lung of a woman would not be a vulnerable participant at any point in the future. so there is life and living tissue and there are organisms which, given time will develop into vulnerable participants in the abortion dynamic. yes thene you are correct that human kill living things all the time. this killing is justified by law or custom or doctrine.

my position is that abortion is violence by poisoning or suction or dissection or by means of the evacuation of the cranium against the vulnerable participant, which procedures are sanctioned by law and custom. the vulnerable participant is utterly at the mercy of the host and may or may not be viewed as “people” as you have stated. given the difficulty of determining whether the organism is “people” we would want to review what the medical professional is required to do in order prevent the pregnancy from coming to term and this effort gives clues as to whether this organism requires more intervention for its demise than does the lung tumor.

the advantage of stating the case in this way is that instead of shouting “abortion is murder therefore wrong”, i can state that there is violence committed against the vulnerable participant and there is more common ground amongst listeners to agitate against violence. the vulnerable and nonvulnerable dynamic is better understood and accepted. intact dilation and evacuation abortion procedure, while the example is wildly overused in the debate, would be the clear example of this violence.

You’re making category errors between ‘life’ and ‘personhood’, and I fear that the reason you’re doing that is because it will never happen to your body. Genitals are living cells. Gametes are living cells. A newly conceived embryo is thus also a living cell (not new life, note, no abiogenesis here, just a continuation of two living gametes). None of these things are people. Women are.

I’m not. I thought I made that clear.

Bjartmarr,
I didn’t mean to imply that you personally were trying to convince me that abortion ought to be illegal. I was speaking hypothetically. I was viewing this as a discussion, not as a debate. Speaking in the second person seemed to make sense at the time, but I’m sorry if I was unclear.

The fact that the cranium is too large to be delivered easily, i.e. by induction of early labor, does not imply that the contents of the cranium are brain. Quite the contrary, in fact. D and X or similar procedures are often needed because the fetus has an abnormally enlarged skull that is filled with fluid that replaces the brain. Sorry to be graphic, but sometimes it’s necessary.

in the saline abortion procedure the amniotic fluid is contaminated after the cervix is dilated for the purpose of expelling the fetus and causing its demise. i would argue that since the only purpose here is to expel the fetus and thus end life, the life that was ended was indeed life.

in the intact dilation and evacuation the cranium is punctured and the contents of the cranium are suctioned out thus causing the cranium to collapse and the body to pass through the vaginal canal. again the sole purpose here it to cause the demise of the fetus. i would say that if the fetus is sufficiently developed for there to be brain tissue to evacuate, then there would be sufficient development for there to be life otherwise there would be no purpose for the procedure.

the boston globe describes a procedure in which potassium chloride is injected into the heart of the fetus with the result that the fetus dies. again if the fetus is sufficiently developed for there to be a heart into which lethal injection is suitable, i would say that life has been exterminated. it is the boston globe dated august 10, 2007. i dont know how to make a link.

lacking a way to define when “life” begins, i would say that when a medical professional has to take intrusive action to cause the demise of the fetus, we would then have evidence that there was life terminated. this is the only external evidence of the existence of what we call life that i can demonstrate in a conclusive manner.

i dont know where “life” begins. i dont know how to define “life”.

if a person approaches this question from a religious construct, “life” would begin when the spirit enters the body. no common ground.

if a person approaches this from a secular construct, “life” might be defined as when the organism is viable. problems here as well since viability continues to be pushed back into the earlier stages of pregnancy by means of improved life sustaining technology thus life is not self evident but rather accessed by technology.

if a person is visual they might be tempted to say: well it looks human thus must be a sentient human being. ok, but is the organism suddenly sentient now that we have better ultrasound technology and can see the organism more clearly.

i dont think that there is a standard which enables us to draw the line of where “life” begins thus thus be able to determine at what point in time the organism would be deemed sacred or venerable or sentient and therefore worthy of attention/protection/reverence.

with reference to sacred life, i was impressed by james aggee’s work “let us now praise famous men” in which he chronicled the lives of other vulnerable and sacred persons: alabama cotton tenants during the summer of 1936.

The prolife segment uses the abortion argument as a starting point and a cover for what is really at stake- A woman’s control over her own life, her own body and her own mind.

It will not stop with just banning abortion- Honestly, if those who really believe in prolife positions were only in it for ending abortions- they would support more comprehensive sex ed so that women and men both understand their roles and responsibilities in preventing the conception of a child.

They would support social programs that support parents which would make the choice of keeping a child more viable.

They would support consistent access to birth control for men and women.

However, it is not about those things. It is about trying to control me, as a women, and my choices, my thoughts and my morality.

if you’re trying to convince me that abortion ought not be illegal because people will do it anyway

I’m not. I thought I made that clear.

The above argument may be a red herring, but more importantly, it’s a straw man. It’s a straw man because nobody here is making said argument: you are proposing it, attributing it to another, and then knocking it down.

In contrast, most pro-lifers say they aren’t out to punish women (and indeed, most pro-life laws don’t (criminally) punish women who get abortions); they claim that their goal is saving fetal lives.

In that context — unlike the examples of rape and grand theft auto — it’s legitimate to ask whether banning abortion is an effective way of reducing the total number of abortions, compared to other policies.

You’re making the common mistake of conflating behavior which is “bad”, and behavior which “ought to be illegal”.

Bjartmarr,
If a behavior “ought not be illegal,” then it “ought not be illegal”–end of story. It doesn’t matter whether that behavior would increase or decrease or stay the same if we made it illegal. So, sure, if we both agree that abortion should _not_ be illegal, then there’s no grounds for debate.

But I was pointing out a logical inconsistency: if you’re trying to convince me that abortion ought not be illegal because people will do it anyway, then, for comparison’s sake, I need an example of something that ought to be illegal, except for the fact that people will do it anyway.

ADS pointed out that I was taking their statement out of context. However, people do make the argument: “Abortion should be legal, because even if it were illegal, people would still get abortions.” I was just pointing out that this argument is a red herring. No one would realistically say “XXXXX should be legal, because even if it were illegal, people would still do it,” unless they already believe that “XXXXX” ought to be legal. Thus, that argument was–and always is–a red herring.

I’m not saying that abortion shouldn’t be legal, just that, logically, it should be legal for other reasons than that particular one. But, as has been pointed out, generally speaking, legalization does not cause abortions; that point is still well taken.

A human foetus has a value anywhere from worthless to priceless, can have different but equally-valid values assigned by different people at the same time, and can change from one value to another within one person over time and according to their mood. Good luck finding a consistent definition for either side.

So you consider life sacred. What is your opinion on harvesting ape organs to save human lives? Or pig organs? Or eating pigs to sustain human life? Or as a tasty mid-afternoon snack? Or eating birds? Or fish? Or setting mousetraps because they carry disease into the house? Or because they scare your toddler? Or using bugspray to kill fleas that bite you and make you itch?

That’s not human life, but it is life. Is there anything specifically “sacred” about the human genome? Especially if you claim not to be using religion or philosophy to justify your killing?

The fact is, you cannot avoid the religious or philosophic arguments, because to call life sacred, you have to define life. And from non-living organic chemicals to robotic viruses, to living bactria, to multicellular trilobites, to redwoods and humans, life is a process with no clear boundries If we are going to hold life sacred, we have to draw lines regardless, and we have to use our philosophic principles to do so. Conservatives love to debate partial birth abortion because to claim that killing a baby five minutes after birth is murder but to kill it five minutes before birth is just fine and dandy is, on its face, horrific. Liberals love to debate the morning after pill because the claim that helping a woman’s body flush out a one-celled fertilized egg is murder is, on its face, absurd. Unfortunately, just as there is no clear point between virus and human where life is self-evidently sacred without reference to religion or philosophy, there is also no such clear line between conception and birth. You are justified in using your religion or arguing your philosophy to tell me where you believe the line should be drawn. But it is intellectually dishonest to claim that I am just using my religion or philosophy to rationalize killing because I happen to draw the line in a different place than you.

But I can’t think of another category of behavior that ought to be illegal where a reasonable person would say, “But…people are going to do it anyway, so it might as well be legal.”

That’s not an accurate summary of the argument. You’re making the common mistake of conflating behavior which is “bad”, and behavior which “ought to be illegal”.

The argument is that there exist behaviors which I might consider “bad”, but which (for various reasons) shouldn’t be illegal. (Usually this is because the societal effects of the punishment are worse than the societal effects of the behavior that is prevented.)

There are plenty of such behaviors. I think that drinking to excess is “bad”, but I don’t think we should make it illegal. Similarly, smoking, cheating on your spouse, not getting enough exercise, making nasty comments, having unsafe sex, and shooting heroin are all “bad” behavior — but I don’t think we should put people who do them in jail.

If you really believed human life is sacred from conception onward then abortion would be the least of your worries. You’d be much more worried about the vastly greater problem of failed implantation and early miscarriage (spontaneous abortion). Far more one-celled “children” die from failed implantation and early spontaneous abortions than die in induced abortions. Yet I’ve never seen any pro-life group devote even a token amount of time or money to trying to prevent these events.

Suppose you lived in a really nasty society in which maybe 10% of children were murdered within the first few months of their life. That’d be bad, right? But what if, at the same time, as many as 80% of children died within their first two weeks of life due to “natural causes”. Would you really ignore those 80% of deaths? Or say that you’d only be interested in them if no acts of infanticide occurred? That’s not very pro-life! Yet virtually all pro-lifers are willing to write off early miscarriage as just “nature” or “god’s will” or “inevitable”. Contrast this to the response society had to a real instance of apparently “inevitable” infant death–SIDS. There are societies to fund research into the causes of SIDS, public campaigns to reduce the incidence of SIDS, etc. Where are the campaigns to prevent failure of implantation? Nowhere. Because no one, not the most sincere pro-lifer, really believes that one celled organisms are people! The inevitable conclusion about their real motives is…inevitable. It’s not about life or humanity, it’s about control. Control of women’s bodies, of their decisions, of their futures.

That having been said, I would be willing to support a law that restricted abortion in the third trimester if and ONLY if:
1. First trimester abortion were readily available to ALL women, regardless of their age, marital status, race, geographic location, etc. and were cheap or free so that no woman who desired a first trimester abortion would be unable to obtain one because of socio-economic issues.
2. Birth control were cheaply and readily available and real, honest sex ed were taught in schools so that most people would know how to avoid unwanted pregnancies.
3. The law had provisions for abortion at any gestational age if there were risk to the mother’s life or health, signs of fetal anomolies inconsistent with life outside of the uterus, or if the woman was prevented from getting an abortion earlier through no fault of her own (ie if she were kidnapped by anti-choicers, just got to the US from a country that prohibits abortion, just found a safe space away from a boyfriend or husband who threatened her with harm if she had an abortion, etc.)
4. No undue burdens were put on women seeking early abortions (i.e. laws requiring waiting periods or requiring that misleading information be given to women seeking abortion under the guise of “counseling”. Though I do think that real counseling that discussed options in an honest manner, including making sure that women know what support is available to them should they decide to have the baby and raise it, would be of benefit to all women with unplanned pregnancies, no matter what their plans on what to do about it.)

Why, you may ask, do I care about third trimester fetuses if I’m convinced that they’re not conscious? Well, truth be told, I don’t. I care about the sincere, if IMHO misguided, people who really worry about babies being aborted because the mother changed her mind when she had to start pushing during labor. It doesn’t happen, but a law such as I proposed might set their minds at ease and wouldn’t impose an undue burden on women seeking abortion.