Should it be legal to kill a fetus two days before he/she is born? (user search)
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  Should it be legal to kill a fetus two days before he/she is born? (search mode)
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Author Topic: Should it be legal to kill a fetus two days before he/she is born?  (Read 2168 times)
John Dibble
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Posts: 18,732
Japan


« on: January 09, 2005, 09:16:08 PM »

2 days before its born, that should defaintly be illegal. The real question on any issue on abortion and creation, is when does life begin.
So much for women's rights.

Richius, the thing you must understand is that many people view the fetus as a human being - a being with rights. The question isn't when life begins - hell, sperm is alive - but when the fetus becomes enough of a sentient being to have rights. Some people believe that the time is at conception, others at some point down the road(like when the fetus starts moving, once called the 'quickening', thought to be the time the fetus gained a soul). Most of it is based on opinion, and I'm not sure science could give us an answer either - basically science could only tell us how much activity is going on in the fetus, and based on that you would have to come up with a philisophical answer. My thoughts are that it is not at conception, and it is not until the brain develops that there is really any worry. Anywho, back to the rights of the fetus - if the fetus is indeed a sentient lifeform, a human being, then does it not have rights just as all other human beings do? If so, does it have a right to life, and does that right go above the mother's right to control her body? Does she have the right to kill a sentient being just because she doesn't want to bear it? This is one of those cases where rights would conflict - and in cases where rights conflict it is usually the higher right that wins out(ex, we all have the right to free speech, but someone may restrict my speech if I am on their property, and they may kick me out if I do not abide by their rules, even though I have the right to free speech). Now, in this case it may be that rights develop over time - the fetus may be sufficiently sentient to have the right to life, but the mother's right to control her body may still be superior at some points depending on how developed the fetus is(the more the fetus develops, the higher its rights become).

Basically, the whole thing really boils down to philosophy - when does the fetus/baby attain the full right to life, which can not be ursurped by any other right(exluding the case where the life of the mother is threatened, so abortion could be construed as self-defense in that case, but that case is very rare). Anywho, it's all very confusing and my head hurts every time I try to discuss it. I'm basically on the fence. Abortion is the wierdest issue there is, and I really wish it would just go away - it would be better if nobody ever bothered having them, but they do, so we gotta deal with it. Tongue


On the question at hand, I think we can probably say it should probably be illegal at that point - the baby could be born at that point and easily survive. We pretty much recognize full right to life once the baby is born, aside from a few people who don't believe the baby is sentient enough yet. The point at which abortions become forbidden shouldn't be arbitrary, but they probably should be forbidden at some point later in the game.
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