Why is it just wrong, though?
Is it not potential? Is a zygote or fetus a fully fledged human being or does it have the potential to be one? I never once said it had the potential to be anything other than a human. Just that it’s not quite there yet. Ie not quite a being with full personhood yet, unlike the pregnant woman.[/qipte]
That argument fails completely, and here's why.
Using PRECISELY the same language: "Is it not potential? Is an infant or a pre-schooler a fully fledged human adult or does it have the potential to be one? It doesn't have the potential to be anything other than a human adult. Just that it's not quite there yet."
And yes, it IS a 'being.' That's a scientific/medical thing. It is not a person...because society hasn't given it that title. THAT is the question under discussion, so...saying that it is acceptable to kill it because it's not a person is a huge begging of the question, yes?
It can be human with the right help. But I don’t think any woman is obligated to do that. Even biology is not obligated. That’s their choice.
It was there choice, absolutely, before that human life was conceived. Once another human being is involved, it's no longer only about the woman. it is true that she has no obligation to conceive a human life. Once she has done so, however...there this new human is, and that new human should be considered.
As to 'it can be human with the right help..." Seriously? The woman doesn't need to 'help' that kid grow in her womb and eventually be born. That's going to happen will she, nil she.....unless it dies, or she kills it, first. Those are her only choices. She doesn't have to actively help the child grow and be born, though she can if she wants. She can let nature take its course....or she can hurt it.
But her choices were made before she conceived. If the sex was consensual, in full knowledge that sex is what makes babies, then she IS, IMO, obligated to that new life. She invited it in, knowing full well what she was doing. One does not invite guests into one's home and then kill them because you are bored with them.
Perhaps you can direct me to a specific scientific, medically sound, definition of the precise moment when a zygote or fetus magically becomes a fully fledged human being. It might help in these matters. In fact it would be a downright godsend.
"Human being"....it's human. That is scientifically established, would you agree with that?
It is a 'being,' as in...it's one, distinct, human that is unlike any other human (except perhaps a twin). It is not it's mother or its father, but wholly itself. It's basic DNA 'map' is established at conception and will not change: unique. It's DNA will be the same at conception as it is when it is a fully mature adult. It is a 'being."
What it is NOT, is a "person,' because that's a legal definition that is assigned, and frankly, whether an unborn human being should be a 'person' seems to be the question under discussion...a question that your argument is begging, big time.
A woman, indeed a baby, has already been born. They can survive without the womb. They can even survive without their natural biological mother. As can those kids who jump into rivers, or can be snipered to death. They don’t need the ongoing permission of the person literally carrying them inside their body in order to keep functioning. That’s the difference.
Why? It's an arbitrary point; really arbitrary. There is nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, scientifically or medically different about a fetus just before it is born and the breathing baby thirty seconds later. In fact, except for the stage of individual development, there is nothing different between the conceptus and the adult it will be--unless it dies, or is killed, first.
The question under discussion is whether we should have the right to end a human life because of a legally and culturally assigned label that can (and in my opinion, should) be changed.
As medical science gets better at doing things, fetuses can be taken from their mother's wombs earlier and earlier, and as we learn more, those babies (they're born, so they're babies, yes?) are more and more likely to live and be healthy. We already grow fertilized human eggs in petrie dishes...how long do you think it will be before we have 'artificial wombs' that can take that fertilized egg and grow it to healthy viability? What about all the kerfufle regarding pro-choice THEN?
I'm all for a woman's right to choose. All manner of birth control methods are available, from abstinence (which has such a nasty rep) to multiple forms, to vasectomies and tying tubes to hysterectomies. Yes, sometimes these things don't work. I have an amazingly beautiful niece who was the product of a man who'd had a vasectomy and a woman who was on birth control pills.
Unbeknownst to them, his vasectomy had healed and she'd had a cold at the wrong time. oopsie. However, if he had used a condom...or she had...my little niece would not have showed up. THEY, however, figured as I do; they made their choices, got married, had the baby...and their second is due any day now.
My own opinion is: if you don't have a strong commitment, aren't willing to take what God (or just the laws of nature) hand you in spite of all your precautions...if you honestly are horrified at the idea of pregnancy, then you aren't ready to have sex.
Period.
Or if the idea horrifies you to the extent that you are willing to kill someone (another human being), but you want sex really badly, then do something very permanent. Make that vasectomy the kind that can't grow back. Same with Fallopian tubes. Then go play bunny all you want.
I have a very stringent definition of bodily autonomy.
If the woman says, “nope” then that’s the final decision as far as I’m concerned. If the father wishes to be prominent fixture in the baby’s life after birth, then he can discuss it and try to work it out with the mother.
Granted I might balk at a late term abortion, but those are usually only done for medical reasons.
Usually, that's true. Sometimes it's not. There is no excuse for those which are not. IMO.
I know that my attitude seems harsh towards the fetus. But I just place more weight with an already functioning human being, than a being that no one can seem to decide has full personhood or not. Show me where people in the civilised world are calling the woman’s personhood into question. With foetuses, that’s all we seem to argue about.
That's because 'personhood' is the question under discussion, when it comes right down to it. If a fetus is a person, then abortion for the sake of convenience is a Very Bad Thing.
However...the laws regarding one person's right to live by taking action against another...even an innocent 'other' are already very clear.
If mountain climbers are held by ropes, in series, and one falls, leaving them all in the position of 'cut the rope and let this one...or these two or three...fall so that the rest of the climbers will live" then you cut the rope.
If it is a case of 'the fetus dies or both the fetus and the mother dies" you get the abortion.
In both cases it is an agonizing, if necessary, decision. I want abortion to be precisely that level of agonizing decision, in full knowledge that abortion means the death of a human being.
Necessary at times, but something to be mourned, because a human life is being ended. Not to be considered 'eh...just another method of birth control."