"We could compare a new-born baby’s brain to that of a developing foetus."

Ronnie, the point is we can't compare them, as one has a human
brain, the other does not. You still don't get it, but its only
around week 25 that what can be called a human brain, is finally
in place. The blank slate hasn't even formed yet, in a fetus.

You are contradticting yourself, your philosophy must be flawed.
At one point you say that life isn't fair, next thing you are
getting emotional over a cell!

Why are you obsessed with quantity of life, versus quality?

This issue faces most parents. Do they raise 2 kids or 10?
Do they flush those surplus 8 eggs and sperms down lifes toilet,
or do they try to raise all 10? Most, given the choice, decide
they would rather focus their resources on 2-3 and bring them
up well, give them a good education etc, then get bogged down
in quantity, as you seem to be.

Respect for human life has little to do with respecting cells.
What about hungry, sick, suffering people and other species?
Why not focus on those first? What is your obsession with
volume?

TLTR, great questions, great posts, but way over the heads of
the devoutly religious, I'm sad to say.

I really don't care what the bible says. It says I should kill
my neighbour for working on the sabbath. I like my neighbour, no
way will I kill him! It also talks about the wasted holy
sperms, which is what the Catholics base their dogma on.
Sorry, I base my opinions on ability to reason, not some
primordial dogma from a primitive bunch of people. But then
as Dawkins points out, brainwashing is part of their upbringing,
many just can't help themselves...

Col Rouge,

“You and I do not know what [the woman who terminates] might lose, maybe an education, maybe a career opportunity, maybe anything.” True, but not her life.

Illustrations of legal errors: Lying is legal (it’s only lying that does damage, like fraud, that is illegal); we are allowed to deceive each other. Adultery is legal. Workchoices. We can and should do better than the law.

For this reason, I’m not impressed by Yabby’s reference to “The first trimester abortion rule, which is now common through most of the world”. Incidentally, Yabby, if you really “try to see the big picture”, as you claim earlier, you risk seeing God: hold on to your hat!

TRTL, some more pedantry for you. Some say a human must be outside the woman and independent in order to be protected. How far out? Just the head or the whole body? What about a breach-birth, do we wait for the head? What about totally out, but still connected by the umbilical cord? Still kill “it” if we feel like it? What about dependent adults? What about the poor, the unemployed, drug addicts, orphans – just take them out? For their own sake, or because the sight of them is an affront to the pro-choicers? Who is safe?

We have to do better than death.

I haven’t read any post here that disrespects the woman’s sovereignty over herself. We just don’t agree that it’s just her. Some of us think a woman plus a foetus equals two people. If that’s a mistake, there’s nothing to discuss. But, if it’s true, then I don’t see how the woman’s rights to self-governance, while extensive and important, can go so far as to trample on the foetus’ right to survive.

If we could agree about the status of the foetus, I have no doubt we could come to terms on everything else.

Given our disagreement about the status of the foetus, I still recommend erring on the side of life rather than death. Life is a better orientation for us humans.

Pax,

Goodthief

"If we could agree about the status of the foetus, I have no doubt we could come to terms on everything else."

I agree with your sentiment. Yet, furnishing examples which Adolf Hitler, the now deceased anti-abortionist,

http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/essays/abort97.html

might have found abhorrent hardly gives insight as to why a single celled embryo has such higher status than other potential human beings. Nor do descriptions of babies writhing in agony as they are torn apart in Mummy's womb, or of Dr Evil wrenching out bubby with a pair of forceps then sticking a suction tube into the poor bugger's head and sucking his brains out. All very confronting, even challenging for a computer animator, but how do these examples equate to a lab technician destroying a human embryo of a few cells?

Fester, Your question is intelligent, and deserves a response, though the logic of your challenge escapes me. As I have already pointed out, pro-lifers, in my experience, do not describe the destruction of newly-fertilized embryos as murder, nor do they claim that anything that exists before conception (which is scientifically accepted as the beginning point of every individual human existence) is a human being. Consequently, they owe nobody an explanation for a view they do not hold. You may say they they should hold that view, but that makes it your argument, not theirs.
Nevertheless, whatever terminology we use, an act specifically designed to deprive a human being already in existence of a future existence which would otherwise be lived is wrong. That is why both murder and abortion have been deemed to be criminal acts.
Like all arguments for abortion, yours takes a 'freeze-frame' view of human existence, comparing different stages of a single existence as though they are different types of life, when they are merely different stages (through which all of us have passed).
Try this reasoning, not with embryos in the abstract, but with the embryo which gave you your present existence. Assuming that the pregnancy which followed could have been ended at any time before birth, can you suggest why it would have made the slightest difference, morally or in any other way, whether that had occurred before or after you attained the "capacity for consciousness"? There are no degrees of death.
If you consider that the embryo-is-what-it-will-become argument is not valid, consider also that this is exactly the argument used in equating the unwanted pregnancy with the unwanted child. If an unborn child can be devalued for what it might become, we can hardly be derided for valuing embryonic human life on account of its immense future potential. Present appearance is irrelevant to that view of life.

Yvonne,
coincidentally, I am also from The Netherlands!
Must comment on your’ envy’ conclusion { smile}, I’ve always thought that the ‘Eve was created out of Adam’s rib’ story was inspired by envy also- how hilarious!

Ronnie,
I don’t get my morals from the Bible- as I said, according to the Bible, God killed all Egyptian first born children, how moral was that?
Pregnant women can decide for themselves whether there’s legitimacy in terminating their pregnancy.
We can’t know how they feel; neither can we tell them how they should feel. If force a woman to have a baby, then who’s going to be responsible for the child if she cannot cope, or abuses it? Bullies normally don’t accept responsibility.
I am sure that ‘hearing’ the words “unwanted child” is a lot easier to cope with than ‘being’ one!

Although I am pro-choice, I am all for reducing abortion rates, but ONLY in a way that doesn’t rob a woman of her freedom to choose. Abortion must always remain easily accessible.

Not only sex ed and contraception are important to reduce abortion numbers, but also improving social services which will help women feel that they can manage to bring up a child. Having a good, social services system is what real support is about, rather than some silly biased counseling sessions or a baby-bonus.

This social support can include, for example, equal wages for men and women, paid maternity leave and also paternity leave for the fathers if applicable (parents might want to share the care for their child, giving fathers more qualitiy time with their baby and mothers won’t lose job skills), superannuation up-keep while out of the workforce to have and raise a baby, affordable child care, flexible work hours for both fathers and mothers etc. Any other ideas?

If anti-abortionists are serious about reducing abortion rates, then make it attractive for women to have their babies.

I also want to say that I am delighted to find so many men in this discussion who really “get” abortion, thank you for your wonderful support

Yabby and TRTL have said that there are few moral absolutes. Can I quickly ask, the holocaust against the Jews in WW2, can we say it was absolutely wrong or not? A woman walks through a park after dark. She is mugged and raped by someone hiding behind a tree. Can she claim an absolute moral wrong, or does she lie there and consider the philosophical debate over objectives and subjective values?

I ask because I think it is relevant. Pro-lifers are obviously concerned that a major moral tragedy is taking place in the deliberate and largely unnecessary ending of human life.

In this end of the forum, the question of how to define life has featured strongly. Pro-lifers have given their case that life begins at conception.

Yabby, you have said that life begins with a functioning human brain, which you said comes in around week 25 (itself questionable). Does this mean you have concerns for implications of abortions which take place after week 25?

You claim that pro-lifers are being emotional when they talk about ‘babies’ in the womb which are not well developed. However, it cuts both ways. Haven’t you fallen for the pro-choice propaganda when you say abortion is just surgically removing a ‘clump of cells’, when evidentially it is far more than that? Many abortions occur after 13 weeks, at which stage the little one has developed fingerprints (and much else long before).

TRLT, you deny that a life beginning at conception is an absolute, but you didn’t propose when life does begin. If it is at brain development or at conception, how can we be sure, and on which proposition lies the burden of proof?

If a hunter sees rustling in the bushes and is not sure if it is a deer or a fellow hunter, if he shoots and hurts another human, he will be liable to a degree. If we are not sure of the status of the unborn, then society owes them more than what their getting now.

Please, Yabby, if responding, try to minimise anti-religious insults or Dawkinsian rhetoric.