Some people think abortion is murder; other people think it's not.
What about those who think the answer to that question is not clean cut? For example, I believe that terminating a two week old blastocyst (or whatever it's called at that point in development) is not murder or anything close to it in the sense that we use the word. However, I think it's wrong and as good as murder to abort a fetus which is, say, at eight months in development. That's a pretty well developed baby. In one more month when it *officially* slips out of that vagina, it will be a full human.
What's the difference between a fetus before and after it leaves that membrane? Nothing special in terms of embryology. (I'm talking about the instant it leaves the womb) The difference is in the human mind. I think laws ought to take this complexity into account and stop thinking in terms of "murder/not murder" and start thinking more about the way it really is, ie. "heinous murder; plain murder; not so bad murder; eh, civilization's done worse; that ain't nothin'; not really murder; not murder at all." Somebody (hopefully a biologist) could put a metric on how bad the sin is of aborting a fetus of a certain stage of development. For example, one might use a 0-10 scale. Aborting a one week old fetus might get a sin factor of .1 because terminating a one week old fetus is barely a bad thing at all; killing a five month old fetus would be maybe a 4.5; killing an eight and a half month old fetus would be 9; killing a born baby would be a 9.5; killing an intelligent 40 year old man would be a 10; etc. There could be different stages, like when the development of the fetus's nervous system reaches a certain critical level its termination sin value would increase, say, 2 or 3 points.
Then these point value systems could be used according to different situations to determine how appropriate it would be to abort a fetus. For example, if some dumb woman has been careless with birth control, she may be only alloted 4 sin points. She only gets that many because she should have to suffer the consequences of being irresponsible. What right does she have to cause a skeleton of nerves inside her suffer? On the other hand, if a girl is a rape victim, she may be alloted many more sin points, perhaps 8 or 9. After all, it wasn't her fault. She wasn't being irresponsible or anything. She may be committing "semi-murder" by terminating a late fetus, but she might suffer a lot more than that fetus did by having it and taking care of it.
I think it's a pretty reasonable idea, myself. Alas, it will never be acceptable because people have discontinuous minds. They think in terms of right and wrong, black and white, which is probably the result of language. I wish people could think beyond language and break down mental barriers.
What do you guys think?
What about those who think the answer to that question is not clean cut? For example, I believe that terminating a two week old blastocyst (or whatever it's called at that point in development) is not murder or anything close to it in the sense that we use the word. However, I think it's wrong and as good as murder to abort a fetus which is, say, at eight months in development. That's a pretty well developed baby. In one more month when it *officially* slips out of that vagina, it will be a full human.
What's the difference between a fetus before and after it leaves that membrane? Nothing special in terms of embryology. (I'm talking about the instant it leaves the womb) The difference is in the human mind. I think laws ought to take this complexity into account and stop thinking in terms of "murder/not murder" and start thinking more about the way it really is, ie. "heinous murder; plain murder; not so bad murder; eh, civilization's done worse; that ain't nothin'; not really murder; not murder at all." Somebody (hopefully a biologist) could put a metric on how bad the sin is of aborting a fetus of a certain stage of development. For example, one might use a 0-10 scale. Aborting a one week old fetus might get a sin factor of .1 because terminating a one week old fetus is barely a bad thing at all; killing a five month old fetus would be maybe a 4.5; killing an eight and a half month old fetus would be 9; killing a born baby would be a 9.5; killing an intelligent 40 year old man would be a 10; etc. There could be different stages, like when the development of the fetus's nervous system reaches a certain critical level its termination sin value would increase, say, 2 or 3 points.
Then these point value systems could be used according to different situations to determine how appropriate it would be to abort a fetus. For example, if some dumb woman has been careless with birth control, she may be only alloted 4 sin points. She only gets that many because she should have to suffer the consequences of being irresponsible. What right does she have to cause a skeleton of nerves inside her suffer? On the other hand, if a girl is a rape victim, she may be alloted many more sin points, perhaps 8 or 9. After all, it wasn't her fault. She wasn't being irresponsible or anything. She may be committing "semi-murder" by terminating a late fetus, but she might suffer a lot more than that fetus did by having it and taking care of it.
I think it's a pretty reasonable idea, myself. Alas, it will never be acceptable because people have discontinuous minds. They think in terms of right and wrong, black and white, which is probably the result of language. I wish people could think beyond language and break down mental barriers.
What do you guys think?