Abortion
Pro-life or pro-choice. I used to not think anything about this and thought if the person wanted to get the child aborted, it’s their child so it’s their choice. I’ve been listening to a lot of people speak about this subject and now I know for sure that I am completely prolife, although I have to admit I have been listening to only the Christian perspective of it.
Is a fetus a human being?(Directly from a sermon I heard)
Size – Some of the biggest arguments on why a fetus is a not a human being is that it’s small. Are large people more human than small people
Level of development – Some would say a fetus is not a human being because it is not developed and has no intelligence or awareness. Would you say that a 4 year old girl is less of a person than a 14 year old girl? The 4 year old doesn’t even have functional reproductive organs so is she less of a human? Could we say anyone who’s smarter than us has the right to exploit us because he’s more human? How can we rule out the human being a fetus just because the development doesn’t match ours?
Environment – Because the fetus isn’t born, does it make it not human? How does where you are have bearing on who you are? Do you stop being yourself when you walk into your kitchen? Does it make you more human? Does walking down the stairs change who you are? If not, how does a journey a couple inches down the birth canal transform a nonhuman tissue blob into a protectable, precious human life we ought to protect?
Degree of Dependency – Since a fetus is not viable, does it make it not human? If being independent of everyone or everything is a factor in being human, we’ve got a big problem. People depend on insulin, pacemakers, etc and without them they’d die. Does that make them any less human?
None of these points are morally relevent. A fetus is a human just like me, who types this up is human. It’s hard for me to get my mind around this, however slowly but surely, God is showing me it through and through.
These aren’t even from a Christian point of view really either. The separation of church and state should not matter here as it should in same sex marriage in my opinion.
I heard a woman, Kathy Sparks, who used to work for an abortion clinic (the Hope Clinic, one of the first abortion clinics) as a registered nurse before she became Christian speak also and abortion clinics run like a complete business. Counseling involved using a lot of open ended questions to see what was driving the desire for the woman to have an abortion. And once they would find this out, they would magnify this problem instead of trying to relieve it. By the end, 99 out of 100 girls choose to have an abortion.
In the cleanup room, they would have a toilet bowl that had no lid or flusher and was constantly flushing. What would happen is they would do abortions on women 14, 15, 16 weeks (3.5 – 4 months) pregnant but they couldn’t send the fetuses to the pathology lab because they would get in a lot of trouble. They would just drop the fetuses in the bowl and the fetus would just go down to the sewer system. They did this everyday.
It took 8-10 minutes to do the abortion and then have the nurses clean up and sort everything up for the next person. If it took longer than that time, doctors would get real mad because they were losing money (as there would be up to a 5 hour wait) and they would have to stay longer than they intended too.
A doctor didn’t want to do deliveries anymore because he could 3 abortions and make the same amount of money and not have to wake up in the middle of the night to do it and so he decided that he didn’t want to deliver and decided that it would be easier and more affluent to just kill them instead.
Some view abortions as something that helps people who can’t raise and afford babies, however in her 20 years working in abortion clinics, she never once saw a doctor give a reduced price, or have it done probono.
I really think abortion is wrong but I am also writing this to see what the other side is, since I do not know it as well. So feel free to comment and post what you guys thing and feel about this controversial issue.
I feel like no one is going to answer though, haha but that’s fine.
HH
blupen 3:10 am on February 8, 2009 Permalink |
i used to be completely prolife in high school. i just plainly knew in my heart it wasn’t right.
then one day.
i had the stomach flu…or something weird w/ my stomach and just woke up and started throwing up every 5-10 minutes. it was a sunday morning. i was supposed to go to church. and while laying on my bed after being tortured over the toilet, my mom sits on side of the bed and asked if i was pregnant and having sex.
i was in utter and complete shock. i said no.
as soon as she got up i thought, omg i need to get an abortion.
scary no?
i mean i wasn’t pregnant or having sex, but for some reason i got this sickening feeling that i needed to figure out how i could get an abortion asap (cause you cant get it after a certain point).
i dont want to use the “your not a woman you dont understand” argument. and honestly, i dont think i could get an abortion. i think emotionally i would be even more scarred and messed up than having the responsibility of taking care of a baby. but yea, i dont necessarily think abortions are right…but,
i feel like you really need to be in the situation and some kind of instinct kicks in and all the logical reasoning is crap for the moment. hahah i talk like i know what it’s like to be pregnant. but seriously that time really scared me. and as for being in the situation guys cant.
but yea, iunno hard topic.
good post!
erica 1:44 pm on February 21, 2009 Permalink |
yeah.. i was completely prolife in high school too (i even have memories of yelling at someone (someone that we all know from gbn!) for not being fully prolife.. ugh..
but i think i’ve realized that no one is FOR abortion. Pro-choice ppl don’t like abortion. No one does. EVERYONE of course would rather abortions didn’t exist, didn’t have to exist, at all. But the fact remains that it’s there, and that some ppl will choose to do it, no matter what. it’s always existed, and will continue to exist. if you make abortion illegal, all you do is move it from clinics and hospitals to bathrooms and coat hangers and shady medicines. I think ppl have to realize that you can’t completely ban it – it’s going to happen, no matter what.
Also, most abortion doctors do NOT do abortions for $$. That’s a pretty terrible thing to say, no offense, cos it’s. not true. Many doctors do it, despite all the flak they get, because the women who get them are eternally grateful and thankful, and have no where else to turn. To face all the criticism and hate and even violence that doctors who perform abortions must do is not worth the money – they do it to help out desperate women. Women who may have been raped by their bf’s or fathers or random strangers. Women whose parents would probably throw them out of the house or beat them up for being pregnant. Women who are in highschool and just not ready to become mothers yet and throw their dreams away. If doctors wanted money, they could have gone into practices that paid much more and given them less of a hassle and stigma as well.
I mean, you write “I think abortion is wrong.” But who seriously thinks abortion is right? Do you think anyone wants an abortion?? But you have to think of people and their situations, and look beyond your own perspective of being a male, of being a conservative Christian, of being raised in an upper-middle class educated society (with substantial sex ed), of having a big support group, of not being pressured by some guy to have sex, etc… You are very lucky in that respect, seriously.
Abortion is something no one wants. To classify abortion doctors as simply greedy business men.. or ppl who have gotten abortions as murderers (without looking into their specific circumstances) is really dangerous..
I remember going to church and watching videos on abortion and stuff too. I know where you’re coming from. But.. it doesn’t hurt to get a non-Christian point of view too.. sometimes that’s better, since then you’ve heard facts on both sides of the issue, and can back up your own personal views more. You’ve looked at all the sides equally, and then feel more confident that the side you chose is the most correct. I think with all issues we need to do that..
erica 2:06 pm on February 21, 2009 Permalink |
and using anecdotal stories of abortion is not a good reason to be prolife or prochoice.. you can hear shocking stories on both sides of the issue. to me, that’s just a scare tactic. Thinking about such a serious issue should be done in a serious, logical, clear-headed way. Also, your points could be argued for other things that we routinely ‘kill.’ Dependency, size, environment, development – you could say this about an egg or a sperm. They’re all dependent on the whole body, small, internal, and a pre-req to a human being as well. So, I duno how strong those arguments are. I mean, this issue obviously has no clear answer – why else would it be such a controversial issue. Really, it’s a question each person must answer for themself. You might think there’s a right or a wrong.. but.. there’s a whole lotta ppl out there who would say you’re wrong.. There’s no seeing across the fence. Which, i think we need to do as a ppl. Realize we have vastly different opinions. And realize that we’ll almost never be able to convince the other side. Do you think someone could convince you to NOT be prolife? probably not, right? In the same vein, you should realize that you will probably not be able to convince a hardcore prochoice person to be prolife. And, we have to accept that, as hard as it seems. And make policy decisions based on the fact that there are two irreconcilable sides, and it’s essentially a waste of time and energy to convince one side or the other what’s right and what’s wrong. We’ll never agree.
On a side note.. I always wonder how some extreme pro-lifers are also pro-capital punishment. That seems really hypocritical. They’ll want to save fetuses, but they have no qualms with putting other humans to death? Isn’t that wrong? My youth pastor was like that, and I could never figure it out… What do you think about that? You should write a blog post about that. Or about abstinence-only education. Or why Catholics are against all birth control (and why are protestants not?).
anon 8:53 am on February 26, 2009 Permalink |
erica pretty much hit the nail on the head. even the semantics of “pro-choice” vs. “pro-life” is ridiculous. it’s a slant against people who believe abortion should be a choice made by the female. no one who thinks abortion should be legal believe abortion is great. they think it should be readily available for women who think they need it. if you buy into the freakonomics theory, then Roe v. Wade actually SAVED lives with what it contributed to the fall of crime in the 90’s.
the fact is, if you’re against the legalization of abortion, then you’re probably for the death penalty. and therein lies the question erica asked which was, “where do you draw the line?”
it irritates me when Christians decide that because their “pastor” told them so, they decide to take whatever stance he has. im glad that some people (this includes HH of course) are doing their own research and coming up with their own conclusions, for better or worse.
i remember once when I was in church, a youth pastor said NOT to read “The Catcher in the Rye” because it was filled with filth. it only took 6 more years of the devil to persuade me that perhaps censorship isn’t exact the holiest of routes. free will is a gift, let’s use it.
livewell1 11:28 am on April 4, 2009 Permalink |
I know this is an older post, but I just came across it and thought it was interesting. I grew up in a very Christian environment, and was pro-life for a long time because it was the “Christian” perspective. Even when I was in high school and the first few months of college, and was able to finally make my own judgment calls, I fell victim to those scare tactics that Erica was talking about. But now that I’ve really sat down and looked at both sides, I can’t say I feel quite so strongly about the pro-life point of view.
First of all, placing a label like “pro-life” on a worldview immediately limits you. It becomes a strict, close-minded perspective with no room for adjustment. At the very lease, “pro-choice” gives you just that.. a choice. But then again, many would argue that a close-minded perspective is really just a focused one, which is valuable in some ways.
As for your arguments, most of them I agree with. Things like size and environment really have no bearing on whether a fetus is more or less “human”. Therefore, I think those arguments are irrelevant and fall flat. In addition, someone who is pro-choice cannot argue that a fetus is not a human because it is dependent, because often, so are those who are mentally and physically handicapped. One would certainly not even consider killing a child who is mentally retarded, though they can be extremely dependent on those around them.
The level of development is the point that caught my attention most though. You equate the difference in development between a fetus and a child with a child and an adult. Those two are completely different and really cannot be compared. It’s not a matter of whether an embryo is less developed than a child, it’s a matter of being undeveloped or developed. Once a child is born (or to take it even further, once an embryo becomes a fetus at 3 months), it is a developed human being. A 4 year old has grown less than an adult, but it is not less developed in the same sense that an embryo is less developed. I read that 90% of abortions are performed before the 3rd month, which is only a week or two after the baby is even referred to as a fetus. This means that most abortions are done while the baby is only an embryo. Embryos have a “reptilian” brain, which means they do not have any of the higher-order functions that all humans have; they do not feel pain (they possess pain receptors but the brain mechanism for pain is not yet formed); they don’t even resemble a human until just before the 3 month mark. As the comments above pointed out, those who are pro-choice do NOT like abortion. However, I think that given the lack of development of an embryo, women should be allowed to choose what happens to them and their unborn child.
Morals aside, think about how many poor, teenage, unprepared mothers we can avoid. Of course there are exceptions; every day young women have children that they raise to become healthy, responsible adults. However, it is rare that a teenage girl who becomes unexpectedly pregnant and cannot support herself, let alone another human being, successfully raises a child to its fullest potential.
Those are my thoughts anyway. Thanks for the insightful and thought-provoking post!