Quote:
Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan
No it isn't....and that's what the people on the polar sides of this issue refuse to admit...and why I respect very, very few of them.
|
As you can probably guess, I'm probably in the most literal sense "pro-choice"--in that I think abortion is a complicated enough issue to be above my pay grade in terms of telling other people what to do. But when asked about my feelings about abortion, I usually reply that "it's complicated."
To me, if you think abortion is a simple issue, you haven't thought about it yet. Unfortunately, many people don't seem to feel the need to reflect profoundly on an issue before coming to an opinion. What makes discussing abortion so frequently pointless is that both sides perversely refuse to understand the ethical grounding of the other point of view, preferring to paint each other as evil, or as "baby-killers" or "patriarchalists." I've often found that it's only through genuine understanding of your ideological opponents that true wisdom is achieved--and it often takes the ironic shape of admitting the limitations of your own wisdom and knowledge.
So, to sum up... for me it's "complicated." I'd prefer that abortions, and unwanted pregnancies, not happen. I'd also prefer that doctors not be shot for doing their jobs. I also believe that it would be the height of presumption for me to assume that I am in a moral position to tell a woman what she should do with her body.
I believe that there must be a point during development at which we can say that a fetus is a "person," but I don't know when it is, or how we could know with any certainty the moment at which it occurs. And both sides use the extremes to illustrate their point; a third-trimester fetus is obviously a baby. A blastocyst is just as clearly not. If we want to point to something abstract like "self-awareness," we're in even bigger trouble: new-born babies are probably not "self-aware" in any sense that we could recognize. If we go with "viability," then we're in the realm of medical science, not morality--because we might develop a technique to-morrow that would allow babies born at 18 weeks gestation to survive--does that retroactively make early second-trimester abortions murder?
Personally--by 12 weeks gestation--to me, that's a baby. But that's my opinion, and I don't base it on science--just on my gut. My gut is hardly the basis for me to tell other people what to do.