From: utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!wm
Newsgroups: net.women
Title: Re: Rational Argument Against Abortion
Article-I.D.: unc.4577
Posted: Sat Jan 29 12:08:17 1983
Received: Sun Jan 30 01:39:26 1983
References: ihnp1.163

Well, there is always more room for rational arguments on the net.
I want to present some (rational) arguments against your contention
that the fetus is human at conception and should never be aborted.
THEN, I want to present some further arguments against my own
arguments.  I will try not to be very confusing.

AGAINST the idea that the fetus is human at conception.

You have placed another boundary to "where life begins",
namely at conception rather than birth.  Most people will
agree with you that the fetus is human some time (5 minutes
at least!) before birth.  But most people will not believe
that it takes place at conception.  You could carry your
argument further.  There is nothing special about conception
(no more than birth, at least) and so the unfertilized egg
is human, and every woman has the moral (soon legal) responsibility
to get pregnant every time she is able to.
People have this very mystical view of conception.  Most eggs,
even fertilized ones, never go to term.  They never implant,
or they mess up for one reason or another.  So even nature
doesn't think much of a fertilized egg.
You also say there is no clear boundary when the fetus becomes
human.  A while back when there was a great debate on the
net about abortion (in net.misc, I think) someone presented
the idea that there WAS a clear boundary.  Doctors have a fairly
precise definition of life, based on brain wave activity.
They use it every day to determine death.  So the same criterion
could be used to determine when the fetus changes into a human.
This usually occurs at around six weeks.  So there is a clear
boundary.

AGAINST the "clear" boundary.

I have quite a few friends who are doctors, and asked some of
them why the "brain wave activity criterion" is not used to
determine human-ness.  The response I got really made me think.
The doctors I talked to think all these discussions on conception,
birth, human-ness of fetuses, etc. is all silly.  It is the
uninformed discussions of people who are trying to take scientific
arguments into a moral area.  That's why doctors stay out of
this whole discussion, when you might think they would have
quite a bit to say.  Consider:
Many fetuses are hydroencephaletic (spelling?) at birth.
They have brain waves.  They could probably live a few
weeks if they could be born.  Those weeks would be spent
in pain, and for no reason.  What that long word above means
is that their head is full of water.  (To be gross, their
brains are mush).  Since their head is enlarged, the only
way to deliver them alive would be to cut open the mother,
severly endangering her.  The normal, routine, every-day
way to handle this is to deflate the baby's head, effectively
killing it.  Is this murder?  Do doctors have a responsibility
to try and save this child?  Under a law that declared a fetus
a human at conception, they would!
I may have been graphic in the above discussion, but I was much
less so than the doctors who explained it to me.  The whole
point is this:  Pregnancy and birth are conplicated processes.
Many, many babies do not go to term, and die for one reason or
another.  Some are killed on purpose because of their horrible
condition.  This is no area for law to step into.  Fetuses are
not human.  If they are born, and are alive and healthy, or
even if they are not quite born but could be, and would be ok,
then they are human.  This is the criterion used everyday by
doctors.  There is good reason for it.  Trying to inject
religious arguments into this is just plain ignorant.  If
you are unconvinced, go talk to a doctor.  Ask her/him how
many fetuses die for one reason or another.  Ask how they
die, and what would have to be done to "save" them if they
were legally human.

Then I will listen to your rational arguments about abortion.

One last thing.  If you still think fetuses are human at birth,
and should be afforded the full protection of the law, I want
to know how you are going to inforce such a law without a full
police state to back it up.    ^- spelling!

			Wm Leler - UNC Chapel Hill