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Not your body, not your choice.
Late stage abortions in order to protect the live of the pregnant woman happen. Unviable pregnancies happen. You know what happens in countries where abortion laws are so strict that even a medical emergency will land the doctor in legal trouble? The pregnant woman dies during or before childbirth.
> Hang on, how is listening to the heartbeat mental torture?
It's guilt-tripping based on an unscientific view of pregnancy. A foetus' heart starts beating way before it is even remotely close to being a child rather than a lump of cells.
> If it was so clear-cut the issue wouldn't be so polarising.
It's polarising because the topic is so very useful to get religious people who want to impose their holy book on everyone else to vote for you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
> unscientific view of pregnancy
As of 2018, a study found that 95% of all biologists affirm the biological view that a human's life begins at fertilization.
> being a child rather than a lump of cells
A child is an individual organism of the species Homo sapiens. Since the majority of biologists (who are the de facto subject matter experts here) affirm that human life begins at fertilization, your opinion is patently unscientific.
You may argue, as some do, that there are cases, including abortion, where it is permissible to take a human life, however your opinion as expressed is in fact unscientific, and I would encourage you to question the cogency of your conclusions.
[0]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3211703
You're taking this paper and saying "Aha! See but the scientific definition (which the paper points out is irrelevant) agrees with me!"
I don't think we have the same reading of the paper. Scientific facts inform ethical decisions, they are antecedent to them. We can't decide whether something is good or bad if we don't understand what it is.
But to the point, the comment I was responding to wanted to assert that pro-life arguments rested on some "unscientific" premise that a "lump of cells" is a "child," which is actually scientific consensus; my citation of that paper was to refute that claim.
Whether or not it is ethical to end a human child's life under certain circumstances is a moral question, but the fact that it is in fact a human child is scientifically settled.
Strong agreement here.
> Scientific facts inform ethical decisions, they are antecedent to them.
Sometimes, as your paper is saying is the case, they're orthogonal to them.
> but the fact that it is in fact a human child is scientifically settled.
From your article, emphasis mine:
"While this article’s findings suggest a fetus is biologically classified as a human at fertilization"
The problem you have is that this paper doesn't discuss children at all, merely that a fetus is of the human species. It's basically tautological so of course it's essentially unanimous. A human fetus is a human fetus and not, say, a chicken fetus.
A normal sane reaction is “yeah, there’s already a working cardiovascular system, better stop it before the organism develops even further.”
This said, it’s an obviously pointless and harmful delay. There is no reason to check a heartbeat of a fetus if a mother decides she doesn’t want to carry it.
No one's saying abortion should be possible at 8 months. At 6 weeks when there's a heartbeat it's barely a bag of cells.
In my personal opinion, though I am a bit in the fringe, person-hood doesn't come into being until a few years of development though if a baby is born and the family can't take care of it that's obviously a case where adoption would be preferred. Child rearing is a big life changing responsibility and I generally think it should only be undertaken voluntarily though the societal requirements and supports for child rearing in nearly all of the world put reasonable constraints on how far we can move in that direction[1].
1. As an example: financial obligations for child support are absolutely justified in societies where the financial strain on single parents isn't otherwise accounted for.
Sibling poster actually did say that; even moved the line further out.
>> Abortion 1 day before birth? That's clearly already a child and I will object.
> Not your body, not your choice.
Yes people do, what? It's legal in like at least 8 US states
How about if the state decided that it wouldn't force you to donate your organs to some dying person who needed them, but every time there was a person who needed your your organs and you declined you would have to sit and listen to their heartbeat for 20 minutes. Really sit and think about the person you're deciding to kill. After all, if you don't give your body to someone who needs it, you've killed them.
You'd be cool with that, right?
So for people who won't debate on anything but that axiom, it's important to point out the major issues with it.
There is no medical reason. It does not address rational part of decisiom making either. It is an attempt at forced emotional guilting by medical professional. And to drag you through it.
More people die from obesity, cars, flu, preventable illness, etc. But we discuss endless this one issue… it’s for political science reasons not humanity/moral/etc reasons.
I agree with you that it's a delicate issue, I really do. I'm also tired of taking infinite psychic damage trying to steel-man the arguments of people who are clearly not interested in operating at the level of steel.
Clearly you believe in the primacy of preserving life. I am wondering if your belief extends to after the child is born?
Are you suggesting that, because I object to abortion a day before delivery, that I must be some kind of misogynistic monster?
Because that's where the line is drawn in this current subthread - 1 day before delivery. If you cannot understand that people consider that a child (i.e. 1 day before delivery) then you have no hope of swaying your audience to your side of the argument at all!
Also, you didn't really answer the question....
Please read the thread; the article is about 12 weeks, the pro-lifers in this thread are sticking to 1-day prior to delivery.
> Also, you didn't really answer the question....
Have you stopped beating your wife? Y/N?