Subject:
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Re: Abortion, consistent with the LP stance? (Re: From Harry Browne
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 12 Nov 2000 01:34:47 GMT
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Viewed:
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843 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John DiRienzo writes:
> [...]
> A human being at any stage of its development is still a human being. It
> is a human, always, until death. This supposes that you accept that human
> life begins at conception. One doesn't begin as one thing and turn into
> something else - it is constantly human.
Humans generally don't, but caterpillars and butterflies do. There is no one
particular moment that a caterpillar becomes a butterfly; the transformation
happens gradually. Similarly, when a human dies, there's usually not any one
paricular _instant_ that death occurs (unless you are vaporized or something)
but death can be rather gradual. Birth itself is pretty quick -- typically
much quicker than death, but of course not instant. There are moments in
time when you are neither "not born" nor "born" -- you're in-between.
If you take a bite out of an apple, is it still an apple? If you take another
bite, is it still an apple? If you take 20 bites, you no longer have an apple
but an apple core. I would say a whole apple is 100% apple, an apple with one
bite out of it is 95% apple, and an apple core is, oh, 10% apple.
I believe that a human life begins at conception. But to say that abortion is
wrong is ever so much as fuzzy as saying that killing another human is wrong.
Killing another human being is not always wrong.
I believe that killing in self defense is not necessarily wrong, and similarly
I believe that killing a 2-week-old fetus is not necessarily wrong. However,
I believe that if the intention of both biological parents was to produce a
baby, it is _more_ wrong for them to kill the fetus than if the intention of
both parents was not clearly to produce a baby. In cases of rape, I believe
that the earlier the pregnancy is terminated, the less wrong it is. I believe
that, even though the human life begins at conception, life itself isn't what
makes someone human (life in the biological sense actually begins long before
conception). I believe that terminating a pregnancy in the 3rd month is more
wrong than terminating a pregnancy in the 1st week. I also believe that
terminating a pregnancy in the 3rd month -- if it's discovered that the mother
and the baby have incompatible blood types -- is far less wrong than
terminating a "potentially safe" pregnancy in the 2nd month.
If the government wants to stick its nose in the abortion issue, it should
prosecute people in a criminal trial after the fact, based on relevant facts,
rather than introducing legislation to try to prevent it in the first place.
I do believe that terminating a pregnancy in the 9th month is almost as bad
as murder -- almost indistinguishable. Even in cases of rape. The child can
be given up for adoption.
Life isn't black and white. No one should try to pretend that it is.
> I really don't like when rape becomes one of the hypothetical arguing
> points in an abortion discussion.
It happens.
> I don't see a point in it. Two wrongs don't make a right. It's that simple.
I strongly feel that rape followed by abortion twenty days later is _not
wrong_. Not even .0000% wrong. Zero wrong. IMHO. But I also strongly feel
that rape followed by abortion 270 days later is _very wrong_. Nevertheless,
I believe that a mother should not be _prevented_ from doing it. If she wants
to terminate a third-semester abortion, she should be allowed to terminate the
pregnancy and then prosecuted under criminal law to determine whether or not
murder has been committed.
--Todd
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