I think the article by Saletan linked by Joe below is actually quite good. Although basically a pro-choice guy, he sees no problem with women being presented with all the information available before making the grave choice concerning abortion. Darwinian conservative Larry Arnhart adds that evolution intends that we use both reason and emotion to decide what to do with embryos and fetuses. It’s impossible for us, Larry contends, to connect emotionally with an embryo that looks nothing like us, and it’s natural that the more the fetus resembles us the more we want to protect him or her. Larry agrees with his fellow sociobiologist James Q. Wilson that it’s proper that we endow a fetus with more and more humanity or moral worth over the course of a pregnancy. But is humanity really ours to endow, and are our emotions really reliable? Joe also gives us the link to the speech by Nick Eberstadt about the global effect of sonograms: It seems that many parents throughout the world can’t identity with images of females fetuses, and the result has been lots of abortions that have disturbed significantly the natural ratio between boys and girls. Killing that privileges testosterone is dangerous in all sorts of ways.
"Human worth grows as humanity becomes more apparent. In general, we are profoundly grieved by the death of a newborn, deeply distressed by the loss of a nearly born infant or a late-month miscarriage, and (for most but not all people)worried but not grieved by the abortion of a seven-week-old fetus. Our humanity, and thus the moral worth we assign to people, never leaves us even if many elements of it are later stripped away by age or disease."
Just a note ...
A 7 week old fetus (actually called an embryo at this point) has ...
a vertebral column, a bony jaw and clavicle, a primitive cranium, a brain seperated into 5 parts, ribs, femur, tibia, palate, upper jaw, developing nervous system, a closed circulatory system with a working heart, developing eyes,ears, and nose, lungs, arms, legs, hands, feet, a pancreas, a bladder, kidneys, a tongue, a larynx, a thyroid body, germs of teeth, nipples form, hair folicles form, and we have the beginnings of muscles, and looks very, very human albeit kinda sorta in the space alien way.
So, we have simple brain activity by this time and a working heart (with circulatory system), which by the way, are 2 medical conditions for being considered alive.
But, hey, we can emotionally reason this human away to nothing more than a bunch of human cells that ... well ... does not deserve the basic right to life that we all expect and demand.
Also, here is a medical illustration from FindLaws website of an abortion (Suction and Curettage) of an 9 week old fetus ... Illustratrion
"All of these developmental events leading to the activity of CNS result in the first movements of the 6-7 week old embryo and to the first reflexes at seven and half weeks [Flower, 1985]."
- Normal and Pathologic Development of the Human Brain and Spinal Cord, Maria Damska, 1999, John Libbey Eurotext
But, yet, this human is not human or, rather, should not be considered human enough to give a darn about. This runs counter to the scientific/medical knowledge we have about human development, which means we are judging life not by objective means, but mostly, if not fully, by subjective means.
And I am the one who is derided as being full of faith on this issue ... what a pant load.
This runs counter to the scientific/medical knowledge we have about human development, which means we are judging life not by objective means, but mostly, if not fully, by subjective means.
I like that! I'm not sure anyone can ever judge a pregnancy (or a life) objectively. Why, then, are we going to be making objective laws about such a subjective topic? Why are we now broad-brushing everyone legislatively (or judicially) without giving them the chance to make their own, subjective, decisions about their own, subjective, pregnancy?
No emotional connection with a fetus that looks nothing like us? Then, why do mothers and fathers cry and get excited when they find out they are having a baby and cry when they see the ultrasound of their babies, no matter what they look like? Do we wait to get excited when they "look like us?" The human soul is there and it is a newly-created human with 46 chromosomes and has the essence of humanity no matter what it looks like. Duck fetuses may not look like a duck either but they're born ducks a few months later. All us humans looked like the fetuses when we were a day, a month, or 4 months old in the womb and here we are today. Not human? I don't think so.
Being pregnant is subjective?
OK ... whatever.
Of course, the 1 life that is not being taken into account, which is on purpose for those like Matt, is the unborn, the innocent.
"Killing that privileges testosterone is dangerous in all sorts of ways."
(Killing Iraqis to steal their oil, on the other hand, is a laudable mission.)
So, if the fetus isn't "human" until 7 weeks, the first 6 weeks are totally cool? When does the soul actually enter-- what does the Bible say? And if the murdered baby goes to heaven now (thanks, Mr. Pope), isn't that good?
Go back to Russia, pinko.
It would be good if I went to heaven, but that doesn't mean that I want my body destroyed before I die a natural death.
Who are we to decide who lives or dies? We are not God! If the fetus is meant to live then it will, if it is not then God will make a way for it to be miscarried or something. Abortion is wrong period! Have the baby and give it up for adoption, they are so many people out there that can't have children and all these idiots are running around aborting babies because they have "problems" or they just don't want them. I'm sure one of these people who can't have children would love to have a baby whether it was sick or not!