You may have missed a good one. A "fetus" is not "my body". There is not a single cell in the fetus that has the woman's DNA. From the moment of conception, the single cell zygote is a new and unique DNA with every piece of instruction to form a body through birth and when to form the 12 year molars.
The assumption on the pro-abort side in this argument is that co-location is enough. Because there’s a clump of cells in her uterus that she doesn’t want then, just like any other surgery to remove unwanted cells, she should be free to do so.
This is excellent and unassailably logical. Expanding on your 5th point, because of the Ten Commandments, we'd have to repeal every law against murder, stealing, perjury and adultery (generally not a crime, of course, but can be consequential in a divorce case). Just because churches or religious individuals are vocal about abortion on religious/moral grounds doesn't make it only a religious belief or argument. Religious beliefs or lack thereof don't negate your premises in #3 any more than a uterus or lack thereof does.
This is great. I particularly like #1. I think much of the pro-abortion argument recently (in our pain and responsibility adverse society) has centered around avoiding being stuck with the hardship of having a kid. We should kill the fetus now so the parents and kid are spared pain in the future after the kid is born. But in essence they’re saying because I am forbidden from committing illegal acts later I should be allowed to commit immoral acts now. It’s precisely because there’s a high legal burden placed on mothers that pro-advocates try to couch abortion as a ‘freedom pill,’ a quick fix. This line of reasoning is actually quite a departure from Roe which saw the burden in being pregnant in a society that might look negatively on say, unwed pregnancy. It was a woman’s right to privacy about her sexual activity that was defended. But now that our culture has moved passed those mores the argument has become that abortion is good because it helps women avoid the joys and responsibilities of motherhood.
evil greedy kill4cash sociopath abortionists coercing vulnerable Mothers into crushing the skulls of their innocent defenceless harmless Children alive in the womb is NOT “women’s rights”.......
To truly be "Pro-Life", we need to be focused on giving women real choices.
One of the top arguments for abortion is that women have no other realistic choice. The irony is palpable, that such an argument is used to support being "Pro-Choice".
If we are successful in stopping this ancient evil, we are going to need solutions. That means answering some hard questions, and having a PLAN.
What is missing from this amazing article is abortion used for birth control and just an aside late term or birth and then killed it is murder as far as I'm concerned
These are great. I never understood how some people will scream keep abortions legal and then say we need more workers to do the jobs that we don't want to do so let's have open borders. I know a great way to get about half a million people in the US per year and still keep our borders closed and secure.. Stop having abortions.
The “poverty” is the USA is known as financial independence in other parts of the world. Open your eyes. I’ve carried food boxes to cars that were nicer and newer than my own car. Our poor are given homes, food, and education. We have “poor” people that are obese. Have you ever seen poor obese people in India, Africa, or China? I know people on federal assistance that smoke, chew snuff, drink and gamble at casinos with their income.
I come from a family of ten children. We were “poor”. We were the talk of the neighborhood with ten dirty Catholic kids running around. “ Is your mom pregnant again?” was a question I happily answered because I didn’t see the snideness behind it. Now my brothers and sisters are CEOs, CFOs, lawyers, and sanitation workers. We are all healthy, happy, productive, and love each other.
Young people just cannot appreciate the nature of time. My mother was not happy being pregnant with her ninth child, and almost devastated with her tenth. Those two children became the joy and light of my parents lives, and almost the hub of our family as we all revolved around the “ babies” lives. The youngest four children took care of my father through years of a debilitating disease while motivating him to live to see them graduate college.
Young people just can’t fathom how quickly life changes. My parents struggled to care for us fifty years ago, but my mother is reaping the rewards now. She would have been in an assisted living home paying thousands of dollars a month for the past 8 years if she didn’t have her two youngest to care for her. In retrospect, my mother could not have afforded to NOT have ten children to care for her. She is in our homes with her grandchildren and children to lovingly provide for her.
We hear how many boomers will need care and assistance and I can only imagine the cost to the tax payers. Imagine if families took my parents’ example of sacrifice for their children, and were repaid from one generation to the next. Sacrificial love is the key to life, not economic comfort.
Hate the argument that men shouldn't have a say, these are their babies too. Also "my body, my choice" is inaccurate. Unless women spontaneously grow extra limbs, heart, and brain, what's growing inside them is NOT their body.
There are many reasons for abortion, and none of you seem to understand that, or even attempt to cover the myriad of scenarios that require a SAFE abortion. And I’ll say it again, if you insist an embryo is an actual person, then afford all rights and privileges, including child support at conception. And while you are so concerned for an unborn child, what about all of the suffering children outside of the womb? Don’t care about them, do you. And the argument “better poor than dead” is absolutely ignorant. What a selfish, entitled thing to say. You clearly have no idea about life outside your own bubble. Stop trying to govern women’s reproductive rights.
1. Abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human. There are certainly reasons people want to intentionally kill innocent humans—serial killers have reasons for doing what they do—but having reasons isn't enough. They need to be morally sufficient reasons. The reasons given are not morally sufficient. You cannot morally justify ending a preborn life any more than you can justify ending a toddler's life. The arguments that attempt to undercut the value or humanity of the preborn are not good arguments.
2. There's no such thing as a "safe" abortion. You cannot safely kill an innocent person.
3. You said, "what about all of the suffering children outside of the womb?" That's a serious but separate issue. The fact that children are suffering outside the womb does nothing to diminish the wrongness of intentionally killing innocent humans inside the womb.
4. Do you believe it's better to be dead than poor? If so, why don't you advocate for the extermination of everyone currently suffering in poverty?
5. We aren't talking about reproductive rights. We're talking about murder (i.e., abortion) which happens AFTER reproduction has occurred. Women have the right to control their own bodies. They do not have the right to dismember and discard someone else's body.
Your responses are once again ignorant and elementary. To suggest the extremes you present is ridiculous. It is impossible to have an intelligent discussion when you insist on throwing out nonsensical arguments. Let me know when we can start assigning social security numbers to embryos and men can start forking over child support for those embryos.
His response was intelligent, thoughtful and courteous. Your comments continue to be vague and unhelpful. I think you are suffering from "confirmation bias". I hope you someday have an open mind, but it looks like you are blinded by your own selfishness.
Confirmation bias is exactly what I see in this thread. No attempt to understand or accept any other point of view. No concept of any reality beyond your own.
On the contrary. I recognize that there are at least two very passionate ways of thinking about the subject.
A woman who discovers that she has become pregnant, and has no desire to continue with the pregnancy, is faced with a series of extremely difficult choices. I understand that dilemma for a variety of very personal reasons.
Seth argues reasonably, with a number of fair illustrations, that the needs of the woman (that has conceived), do not outweigh the rights of the unborn child. You may disagree with his conclusions, but that does not mean that he has no concept of any reality beyond his own.
I am looking for straightforward arguments against his recent comments. I would imagine that you have thought through the issue and can provide those arguments. I am open to hearing your thoughts.
I admire individuals who promote their points of view, based upon science, logic and fairness. Since Seth has obviously taken hours to prepare a very cogent article, perhaps you can take just a bit of time to counter his arguments with appropriate answers. Thank you for investing your time in this important subject.
I'd like to chime in and acknowledge your point. It is, in fact, also the moral duty of the father to accept his responsibility for his own offspring. I am very much in favor of compelling men to fully supp ort his pregnant partner,and would support legislation compelling men to participate.
True story Me1. A young girl just found herself pregnant. The man she’s engaged to is NOT the father. As customary to a woman having a child out of wedlock, she would be stoned. Should she consider abortion, yes or no?
Oh good grief......I guess some are simply born to be sheep......As a compassionate female I have long been involved with easing the earthly burdens of others. Far more effort does needs to be put into solutions for helping the poor and disadvantaged......but where there is life there is hope.....sadly once you destroy a life on purpose you can never restore it. It is mind boggling to witness the mental and moral gymnastics someone who desires something that is uncivilized at best, is willing to put themselves through to have it be so. There is something sickeningly similar to proabortionist and those in the ancient days of Baal who burned their newborn babies as sacrifices to their bloodthirsty god...... only abortion is sacrifice to a different god..
The god of inconvenience, selfishness, shame, fear and a million other challenges. Like it or not there will be a time each of us will have to account for all choices we made during our lifetime and not believing that will not be enough to make it not true.
Unborn babies already have rights, privileges and government
support available. Any woman who is pregnant and does not have
the means to provide herself prenatal care can qualify for Medicaid, food stamps, and the many supports available through WIC. There is is no citizenship requirement for the moms. The baby continues to get healthcare though medicaid for a year, then could switch to the CHIP programs.
I worked for decades as a nurse for these moms. The dads generally step up to the plate and support as best they can, and get inspired to do more as the baby grows. The extended families step up as well, and adjustments are happily made for the mom’s life plans. There are so many ways that these moms can get the support they need. All it takes
This is true. There are hidden and discounted consequences to getting an abortion.
It can and frequently does cause infection that can make “wanted” conception almost impossible. Especially for poor women who cannot afford the insanely high costs of fertilization procedures and treatments.
Having an abortion almost always causes a post procedure depression. Partly from the huge sudden shift of hormones but also the spiritual damage of doing something very unnatural . This can lead to a lifetime of poor self esteem, substance abuse, even suicide. It makes doing the work of improving oneself unbearable. No effort is made to present viable alternative choices. The clinics make enough money dealing death that it isn’t valid that they should not be required to discuss options, post procedure counseling, and even corrective actions as needed in the event the woman is injured.
They are deceptive about the viability of the growing fetus and would have you believe that at 10 weeks the fetus is only an unrecognizable clump of cells. We know that there is most certainly a beating heart, that IS life. Not sort of, not partial, full active life.
I know from my own experiences that what I’ve written is true.
One of the reasons for discouraging sex outside marriage is to remove the issue of child support.
I don't know of anyone against child support.
You have know idea of what anyone thinks or does about poverty. It's a lame statement and a distraction.
So is calling the better than death argument selfish. Poverty need not be permanent nor devoid of joy. Many children have no idea they are deprived of anything when quite poor. Otherwise, suffering is often a school that produces transformational people. Many important people in history made a difference because of the wisdom gained in suffering.
Good responses. Especially the "my body" argument. Visited a young mother of a 9 month old who was thrashed from lack of sleep due to the demands of that little one needing milk and attention.
Also like the "error on life" argument. Handling firearms, there is a natural instinct for most to exercise extreme care in storage and use.
First time reader here. Highly impressed with the sound, articulate logic in this article. It should be shared with no end in sight.
You may have missed a good one. A "fetus" is not "my body". There is not a single cell in the fetus that has the woman's DNA. From the moment of conception, the single cell zygote is a new and unique DNA with every piece of instruction to form a body through birth and when to form the 12 year molars.
The assumption on the pro-abort side in this argument is that co-location is enough. Because there’s a clump of cells in her uterus that she doesn’t want then, just like any other surgery to remove unwanted cells, she should be free to do so.
Love all of this. Thank you for the LOGIC the world needs some of this
This is excellent and unassailably logical. Expanding on your 5th point, because of the Ten Commandments, we'd have to repeal every law against murder, stealing, perjury and adultery (generally not a crime, of course, but can be consequential in a divorce case). Just because churches or religious individuals are vocal about abortion on religious/moral grounds doesn't make it only a religious belief or argument. Religious beliefs or lack thereof don't negate your premises in #3 any more than a uterus or lack thereof does.
This is great. I particularly like #1. I think much of the pro-abortion argument recently (in our pain and responsibility adverse society) has centered around avoiding being stuck with the hardship of having a kid. We should kill the fetus now so the parents and kid are spared pain in the future after the kid is born. But in essence they’re saying because I am forbidden from committing illegal acts later I should be allowed to commit immoral acts now. It’s precisely because there’s a high legal burden placed on mothers that pro-advocates try to couch abortion as a ‘freedom pill,’ a quick fix. This line of reasoning is actually quite a departure from Roe which saw the burden in being pregnant in a society that might look negatively on say, unwed pregnancy. It was a woman’s right to privacy about her sexual activity that was defended. But now that our culture has moved passed those mores the argument has become that abortion is good because it helps women avoid the joys and responsibilities of motherhood.
evil greedy kill4cash sociopath abortionists coercing vulnerable Mothers into crushing the skulls of their innocent defenceless harmless Children alive in the womb is NOT “women’s rights”.......
Not to mention selling their parts to the highest bidder!!!
To truly be "Pro-Life", we need to be focused on giving women real choices.
One of the top arguments for abortion is that women have no other realistic choice. The irony is palpable, that such an argument is used to support being "Pro-Choice".
If we are successful in stopping this ancient evil, we are going to need solutions. That means answering some hard questions, and having a PLAN.
What is missing from this amazing article is abortion used for birth control and just an aside late term or birth and then killed it is murder as far as I'm concerned
Can I have permission to reprint this in my pro-life column for our church's monthly newsletter?
Permission granted.
Can you all say "birth control"? I would rather fund that than the violent dismemberment of the unprotected unborn.
How about self-control, not allowing oneself to be in a position to create life and not caring for the resulting life.
If women have a right to "bodily autonomy" don't men as well? Therefore o one can be compelled to get a mandated vaccination..
These are great. I never understood how some people will scream keep abortions legal and then say we need more workers to do the jobs that we don't want to do so let's have open borders. I know a great way to get about half a million people in the US per year and still keep our borders closed and secure.. Stop having abortions.
The “poverty” is the USA is known as financial independence in other parts of the world. Open your eyes. I’ve carried food boxes to cars that were nicer and newer than my own car. Our poor are given homes, food, and education. We have “poor” people that are obese. Have you ever seen poor obese people in India, Africa, or China? I know people on federal assistance that smoke, chew snuff, drink and gamble at casinos with their income.
I come from a family of ten children. We were “poor”. We were the talk of the neighborhood with ten dirty Catholic kids running around. “ Is your mom pregnant again?” was a question I happily answered because I didn’t see the snideness behind it. Now my brothers and sisters are CEOs, CFOs, lawyers, and sanitation workers. We are all healthy, happy, productive, and love each other.
Young people just cannot appreciate the nature of time. My mother was not happy being pregnant with her ninth child, and almost devastated with her tenth. Those two children became the joy and light of my parents lives, and almost the hub of our family as we all revolved around the “ babies” lives. The youngest four children took care of my father through years of a debilitating disease while motivating him to live to see them graduate college.
Young people just can’t fathom how quickly life changes. My parents struggled to care for us fifty years ago, but my mother is reaping the rewards now. She would have been in an assisted living home paying thousands of dollars a month for the past 8 years if she didn’t have her two youngest to care for her. In retrospect, my mother could not have afforded to NOT have ten children to care for her. She is in our homes with her grandchildren and children to lovingly provide for her.
We hear how many boomers will need care and assistance and I can only imagine the cost to the tax payers. Imagine if families took my parents’ example of sacrifice for their children, and were repaid from one generation to the next. Sacrificial love is the key to life, not economic comfort.
Hate the argument that men shouldn't have a say, these are their babies too. Also "my body, my choice" is inaccurate. Unless women spontaneously grow extra limbs, heart, and brain, what's growing inside them is NOT their body.
There are many reasons for abortion, and none of you seem to understand that, or even attempt to cover the myriad of scenarios that require a SAFE abortion. And I’ll say it again, if you insist an embryo is an actual person, then afford all rights and privileges, including child support at conception. And while you are so concerned for an unborn child, what about all of the suffering children outside of the womb? Don’t care about them, do you. And the argument “better poor than dead” is absolutely ignorant. What a selfish, entitled thing to say. You clearly have no idea about life outside your own bubble. Stop trying to govern women’s reproductive rights.
1. Abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human. There are certainly reasons people want to intentionally kill innocent humans—serial killers have reasons for doing what they do—but having reasons isn't enough. They need to be morally sufficient reasons. The reasons given are not morally sufficient. You cannot morally justify ending a preborn life any more than you can justify ending a toddler's life. The arguments that attempt to undercut the value or humanity of the preborn are not good arguments.
2. There's no such thing as a "safe" abortion. You cannot safely kill an innocent person.
3. You said, "what about all of the suffering children outside of the womb?" That's a serious but separate issue. The fact that children are suffering outside the womb does nothing to diminish the wrongness of intentionally killing innocent humans inside the womb.
4. Do you believe it's better to be dead than poor? If so, why don't you advocate for the extermination of everyone currently suffering in poverty?
5. We aren't talking about reproductive rights. We're talking about murder (i.e., abortion) which happens AFTER reproduction has occurred. Women have the right to control their own bodies. They do not have the right to dismember and discard someone else's body.
Your responses are once again ignorant and elementary. To suggest the extremes you present is ridiculous. It is impossible to have an intelligent discussion when you insist on throwing out nonsensical arguments. Let me know when we can start assigning social security numbers to embryos and men can start forking over child support for those embryos.
His response was intelligent, thoughtful and courteous. Your comments continue to be vague and unhelpful. I think you are suffering from "confirmation bias". I hope you someday have an open mind, but it looks like you are blinded by your own selfishness.
Confirmation bias is exactly what I see in this thread. No attempt to understand or accept any other point of view. No concept of any reality beyond your own.
On the contrary. I recognize that there are at least two very passionate ways of thinking about the subject.
A woman who discovers that she has become pregnant, and has no desire to continue with the pregnancy, is faced with a series of extremely difficult choices. I understand that dilemma for a variety of very personal reasons.
Seth argues reasonably, with a number of fair illustrations, that the needs of the woman (that has conceived), do not outweigh the rights of the unborn child. You may disagree with his conclusions, but that does not mean that he has no concept of any reality beyond his own.
I am looking for straightforward arguments against his recent comments. I would imagine that you have thought through the issue and can provide those arguments. I am open to hearing your thoughts.
I admire individuals who promote their points of view, based upon science, logic and fairness. Since Seth has obviously taken hours to prepare a very cogent article, perhaps you can take just a bit of time to counter his arguments with appropriate answers. Thank you for investing your time in this important subject.
I'd like to chime in and acknowledge your point. It is, in fact, also the moral duty of the father to accept his responsibility for his own offspring. I am very much in favor of compelling men to fully supp ort his pregnant partner,and would support legislation compelling men to participate.
A pregnant woman who foolishly made a baby and now doesn't want it has two choices. One is murder. The other is adoption.
True story Me1. A young girl just found herself pregnant. The man she’s engaged to is NOT the father. As customary to a woman having a child out of wedlock, she would be stoned. Should she consider abortion, yes or no?
I think I heard that story. I think her relative got pregnant six months before her, at a very old age.
How did she "just find herself" pregnant? And not with the man she is engaged to?
An angel informed her.
Very mature. I suppose since illegal aliens don't have social security numbers (yet). we can kill them at will too?
Oh good grief......I guess some are simply born to be sheep......As a compassionate female I have long been involved with easing the earthly burdens of others. Far more effort does needs to be put into solutions for helping the poor and disadvantaged......but where there is life there is hope.....sadly once you destroy a life on purpose you can never restore it. It is mind boggling to witness the mental and moral gymnastics someone who desires something that is uncivilized at best, is willing to put themselves through to have it be so. There is something sickeningly similar to proabortionist and those in the ancient days of Baal who burned their newborn babies as sacrifices to their bloodthirsty god...... only abortion is sacrifice to a different god..
The god of inconvenience, selfishness, shame, fear and a million other challenges. Like it or not there will be a time each of us will have to account for all choices we made during our lifetime and not believing that will not be enough to make it not true.
Love your name......Me 1st. Says it all.
Indeed!!
Unborn babies already have rights, privileges and government
support available. Any woman who is pregnant and does not have
the means to provide herself prenatal care can qualify for Medicaid, food stamps, and the many supports available through WIC. There is is no citizenship requirement for the moms. The baby continues to get healthcare though medicaid for a year, then could switch to the CHIP programs.
I worked for decades as a nurse for these moms. The dads generally step up to the plate and support as best they can, and get inspired to do more as the baby grows. The extended families step up as well, and adjustments are happily made for the mom’s life plans. There are so many ways that these moms can get the support they need. All it takes
Is for the baby to be “wanted.”
This is true. There are hidden and discounted consequences to getting an abortion.
It can and frequently does cause infection that can make “wanted” conception almost impossible. Especially for poor women who cannot afford the insanely high costs of fertilization procedures and treatments.
Having an abortion almost always causes a post procedure depression. Partly from the huge sudden shift of hormones but also the spiritual damage of doing something very unnatural . This can lead to a lifetime of poor self esteem, substance abuse, even suicide. It makes doing the work of improving oneself unbearable. No effort is made to present viable alternative choices. The clinics make enough money dealing death that it isn’t valid that they should not be required to discuss options, post procedure counseling, and even corrective actions as needed in the event the woman is injured.
They are deceptive about the viability of the growing fetus and would have you believe that at 10 weeks the fetus is only an unrecognizable clump of cells. We know that there is most certainly a beating heart, that IS life. Not sort of, not partial, full active life.
I know from my own experiences that what I’ve written is true.
One of the reasons for discouraging sex outside marriage is to remove the issue of child support.
I don't know of anyone against child support.
You have know idea of what anyone thinks or does about poverty. It's a lame statement and a distraction.
So is calling the better than death argument selfish. Poverty need not be permanent nor devoid of joy. Many children have no idea they are deprived of anything when quite poor. Otherwise, suffering is often a school that produces transformational people. Many important people in history made a difference because of the wisdom gained in suffering.
There’s nothing reproductive about murdering a child!
Good responses. Especially the "my body" argument. Visited a young mother of a 9 month old who was thrashed from lack of sleep due to the demands of that little one needing milk and attention.
Also like the "error on life" argument. Handling firearms, there is a natural instinct for most to exercise extreme care in storage and use.
Bueno Seth!