I don't understand the arguement that because many pregnancies naturally terminate, even before the mother knows she is pregnant, abortion is morally excusable.

Many children get run over by cars every year, so it is morally excusable to run children over with cars?

Many people die of AIDS, so it is ok to kill people?

The only person that should dictate if an abortion is morally excusable is the woman getting one.

Also, those children run over by cars and the ones with AIDS, they can all survive without life support outside of a womb just fine.

A fetus cannot. A fetus is not a human, it is potential for one yes, but it definitely isn't one; especially at 8 weeks.

Do you know why a woman goes into labor? it isn't because the baby is ready....it's because the mothers body is ready to remove the foreign object, parasite if you will, from itself.

__________________
- Wisdom comes when you stop looking for it. -
"If God were alive today, he'd be an atheist" - Kurt Vonnegut

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No, my emotions do not dictate my belief that murder should be illegal. Murder is defined as illegal.

Reason and discussion should be what is used for determining cases of right and wrong, based on fundamental rights.


So are you going to start advocating that everyone be forced to give blood and bone marrow, or to donate one of their kidneys?

He's not making that argument.

It appears to deny purpose by the very fact that your next statement confirms it.

"Live to Leave a Legacy"

How is it that if all life has the purpose to leave a legacy, that spontaneous abortions would occur, thereby preventing said life from leaving a legacy?


Even if those were my needs, that does not dictate purpose. Needs are there so that we can pursue our individual purposes. Needs help us function.


No, that is not my purpose. Nobody created me and said "Asimov, this is what you need to do".

See? I am saying nothing new. Everyone knows it, well, almost everyone, but how many of us have this power start acting according to this common sense knowledge?


Where's this law?


Says who?


How do you know that the conscious ending of a life in the womb is not a natural purpose of life?


Do you eat food? Then you destroy.
Do you build things? In order to build you must destroy.
In order to live you must destroy.

oh this is so like politics...i read pinski and thought great post...then read asmov and thought well...ok...and come to my conclusion no one is wrong...only different places on there path and yet more thought provoking understanding of our human behavior as to why we choose differently...

Good point, except that I think someone has to be wrong or the world would be chaotic and senseless.

It's not that I think that Pinski's ideas of his own purpose in life are wrong, I just don't think it's reasonable to assume that because he thinks his purpose is x means that everyone's purpose is x.

...I have to laugh is this not what a lot of the state of things are in...and it is from your thinking there must be a right and a wrong...yes?.... ...do they not say we are crazy to do the same thing each day...and think we will get something different...we humans including myself...we dont like not being in control....with some living we learn that is not so necessary...well really it is not at all......when we stop fighting / resisting...things work...it does not make any difference what we believe i have found...things go as they should...i dont know the answers to how many things go as they do...but i have no doubt regardless of my thinking it will continue...so you let go..and just do what you do...and life really...really works its way....it is awesome....

I would agree, except that I believe a foetus to be a human life. So, if I say that it is the woman's decision, that is like saying 'The only person who has to decide if murder is morally excusable is the one commiting the murder', which is obciously ludicrus. If society decides that life starts at conception it is everyone's decision; if society decides that life starts at some other point, than it is the woman's decision before that point (Be it 8 weeks or birth). Societal consensus makes laws, and I don't see a societal consesus on the issue.



I don't see where you make this distinction, how are you defining a human being? I am not saying you are wrong, and I certainly understand that this is open to interpretation, I just need your defintion to understand your viewpoint. For me, human DNA and any amount of independence defines an independent being with all the same rights as any other human. Without even getting into the whole soul thing.

If we are going to define survival on their own as a qualification for humanity than people on life support that they need to live should not have the right to make decisions. If consciousness defines humanity then the mentally challenged ought to be considered lesser people and anyone in a coma equally so. Obviously this is silly and inhumane.


Emotions don't dictate your belief that murder should be illegal? Really, so you only follow that law becuase it exists and not because you support if morally? How do you think that law came to exist? Society reached a consensus that murder was morally and societally unacceptable. I don't believe that society ought to force their morals on others, but there are obviously cases where we must, to protect the rights of all member os society. Rape is illegal, murder is illegal, theft is illegal, discrimination in many cases is illegal. These aren't arbitrary laws that just exist, they are moral and societal consensuses that we have put the force of law behind.

I agree reason and discussion should be used, based on fundamental rights. Life is considered a fundamental right, liberty a fundamental right. I argue this must be extended to all, not a select few. If the right to life and liberty is extended only to those who are conscious or capable of purely independent existence, we ought to kill every person who contracts a fatal disease or has less than perfect mental capacity, or falls into a coma.

Ok, I will admit I drew evangelicalhumanist's argument further than is justifiable. It is a longstanding argument me and my father have. He says that the idea of the sanctity of life and the right to life are bunk, because then every miscarriage and pregnancy that naturally aborts early on is a death. I agree. Deaths & miscarriages happens, that does not justify murder & abortion.

Of course. Just because I don't believe a woman has the right to kill for her own comfort does not mean I am in favor of sexually irresponsible men. I personally choose to eschew sex outside of marriage, but I understand that is not for everyone. If you are going to have sex, you have a morally responsbility to do it responsbily, or people can get hurt. The woman, her family, your family, potential children. I don't think male aggression is excusable, and I think men carry a great deal of the responsbility in a lot of the sexual problems on earth (AIDs being spread from adult men to poor young girls for example, and manipulative men resulting in unwanted pregnancies).