While I do not speak for anybody else but myself, I do wish to have some clarification on the terms used in this particular debate.

At its broadest, abortion is homicide. Not necessarily (though most of the time it is) first-degree murder. There is a difference.

Human beings die. Many of them from unknown and unknowable causes. Some of them die unknown to others until much later after the fact. This fact does not make God or anybody else a murderer.

If I, through no fault and *no choice* of my own, find myself hooked up to a life support system only you can control, completely unable to function without it, and you decide to pull the plug simply because my presence is inconvenient to you, then yes, I believe this morally constitutes premeditated murder. If you didn't know I was there, then that's a different story (negligent homicide maybe?), and yet again if you didn't intentionally kill power to the system but undertook activities that interrupted power supply, then yet again is a different story.

People call a miscarriage a natural abortion, but that depends very much on how broadly you define the term. If abortion carried the implication of intent, then one could make the case that it is indeed murder, I suppose. But that would narrow down the list of what constituted 'abortions'... and that includes a large proportion of the actions you now call out in your posts in this matter.

Thank You for posting this! I really like your blog!!

Common Cents
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com

ps. Link Exchange??

Interesting post. I don't think I've ever seen an abortion post that didn't have huge potential to be a 500 comment anger-fest.

I waited to see how the comments went, I wasn't expecting the usual abortion post (think, "Allahpundit doing a religion post").
but when the word "abortion" comes up, weird things happen.

Gregory,

As long as you want to keep paying for the operation of your life support system no one should cut the switch.

But I'll tell you what. If the GOVERNMENT is going to outlaw abortion I think said government should pony up $30K a year per child to make sure that the government realizes that actions have costs.

M. Simon: Oh, and if the government wanted to outlaw speeding on public roads and highways it should spend $30K per driver to create a public racetrack? First time I've heard you advocate *more* direct government action after the fact.

Although, free money (coming from John Q Public) just because my baby mommas got 10 kids sounds like a damn good deal to me. Can you throw in another $100K/kid one-off for college?

And how would one distinguish between someone who wanted the kid and someone who didn't? Does it *really* take $30K/kid/year to bring said kid up? Who would police the scheme to ensure the money was spent on the kid rather than on a flatscreen and a PS3?

As for the life support system... here's the thing. Let's assume that it's through *your* actions, I have come to be dependent on said systems. *I* had no volition, no culpability, and in fact if it were not for *you*, I won't even need to be hooked up on the life support system. And yet, you are the only one with the master controls.

Still think I should pay for it? Okay, you extortionist, I want to live... but I currently have no way of communicating that. What now? I'm perfectly willing to work out a schedule of payment once I'm capable of paying you back... would you accept that arrangement?

Almost everyone does not dispute right-to-life for those who have been born. But somehow, something as arbitrary as birth changes your rights? (Arbitrary in the sense that it is just another stage in human development, like puberty, and like puberty, cannot be predetermined for any individual)

As arbitrary, in fact, as the government permitting certain recreational drugs and banning others.

Gregory:
A potential is not an actual, and to treat IT as one is irrational - that is unless you're into voodoo, witch doctors, and superstition.
The primitive basis of religion rears it's ugly head every time an abortion doctor is murdered, a clinic is firebombed, or a rape victim is made to feel guilty that she terminated the thing festering inside her.
To not recognize the right of a woman to have an abortion, is to admit that you don't have any respect for the individual rights of women, that they are indeed still chattel.
Muslim men carry this view to its logical, absurd, and grotesque extreme, by forcing clitorectomies on their victims, and by treating them as totally without any INDIVIDUAL worth by practicing polygamy.

It's possible women are unwilling to have even a "medically"-induced abortion unless an authority figure gives permission. That explains why the pro-"choice" side (motto: If it's not pregnant, regulate it.) is so insistent that druggists must be forced to provide so-called emergency contraception. They can't deal with anybody saying "no" even if it's somebody powerless.

Gregory:
Let's assume that it's through *your* actions, I have come to be dependent on said systems.
- - - - - - - - -
Not accurate - this implies that you once were independent.

And for the first month (at least) we are talking about a cluster of cells about as large, organized, and self-aware as mushroom spawn or primitive moss colonies.

There is NO will - and no action - other than that of the mother.

Frank: Ah, and now we come to the crux of the matter, don't we?

"she terminated the thing festering inside her"

That *thing*, sir, is a *human life* and a *human existence*, and women are designed (or evolved, take your pick) to nurture several of them for approximately 9 months.

"To not recognize the right of a woman to have an abortion"

No, sir, I do *not* recognise the right of *anybody* to take a human life, save (a) in self-defence or defence of others or (b) after due process of law, in a generally fair and just judicial system.

Ben-David:

"Not accurate - this implies that you once were independent."

Uh, no. It does not matter. I make a chair from MDF. It is through my actions that the chair had come to be in my living room. Implies no need for independence on the chair's part - the origin of the chair remains with me, its maker. Cause and effect, kapisch?

"we are talking about a cluster of cells about as large, organized, and self-aware as mushroom spawn or primitive moss colonies."

Yeah, and so? We are still talking about a *human being*, a *human life*, and a *human existence*. We've already established that "Ontology recapitulates philology" is a load of hogwash, and therefore at *no* time during a human being's lifetime is said human being *not* human.

Or would you like to be killed once you lapse into a coma (or when asleep), simply because you are not self-aware during that course of time?

Gregory:
I don't think women need to ask your recognition, or permission to have an abortion, that is unless you place yourself directly in control, or the power of the state in situ of your authority, over them.
As you imply, the crux of the matter is when exactly does human life begin. Is it at conception, somewhere between conception and birth, or at birth?
Your answer, if I read you correctly, is at conception, and therefore a homicide occurs, when anytime after that a woman chooses to terminate what you say is the new human growing inside her. And if you are consistent with your belief (and I would emphasize belief) then abortion is murder after the first cell division.

To those of us schooled in the physical sciences (my father was a doctor, and I was pre-med) this is simply hogwash. There may be some justification for laws governing late term abortions, since the fetus - child - at that point is most likely capable of surviving outside the womb. But to deny women any control over the process of creation inside them, is to deny them their individual rights. It is to treat them as nothing more than incubators.

What would drive someone in an age of science to postulate this other than religious belief I can't fathom.

Come clean now, Gregory, by showing us your justification for this. Do you believe that a soul is created at the instant of conception?

Gregory:
You state: at no time during a human being's lifetime is said human being not human
Well, nothing like stating the redundant obvious.
But you still haven't answered the question at what point does a collection of cells inside a woman's uterus become a human being.
I can't help but think you are like Plato in the Allegory of the Cave - you think that we reality bound lessor mortals only see the shadows on the walls and think the fetus is just a collection of cells, and YOU in your wisdom and philosophical insight must enlighten us as to the true nature of what we are perceiving. To you reality is conceived in your mind, and we are only seeing ephemeros. Or like Lord Berkeley, nothing exists except as your mind defines it.
Well, reality exists apart from what you think. A tree still makes a sound, and still does fall in the woods, even if you are not there to witness it. A is A as Aristotle said.
A collection of a few cells is not a human being, and sucking them out of a woman's uterus is not murder.

Frank: Again, sir, you misunderstand me. Why don't *you*, a fellow human being, tell me when you think *your* life began? Maybe you believe that "life begins at 40"? In which case anybody below that age should be killable?

Nor do I believe that Chief Kilumbem-bungabunga of the Eatemall tribe needs my permission to cook and roast atheists before eating them. That does not mean I recognise that he has a right to do so. Or vice versa, I suppose.

I can tell you with complete certitude, to the best of scientific knowledge, that a new and unique organism of the species Homo sapiens is created upon conception. And that said organism continues to develop and grow until it dies, and at no stage during its lifetime is it ever not human.

As for myself, my life started when I was conceived. So even before the zygote performs its first cell division, in fact.

Again, abortion (as depicted on this blog, at least) is homicide; further details are required before making the determination of *what kind* of homicide.

Now, as to my religious beliefs, I make no apology for my being an evangelical Christian. I owe no one any such apology or defence, and certainly not to you.

But why you would choose to denigrate me based on this I cannot understand.

As to the soul, I believe that the moment a unique individual is formed, there too forms the soul. How this works wrt n-tuplets I do not know; I freely admit that is not within the realm of science.

As if science was all there is to the world, anyway.

But why are we turning this into a standard argument on abortion? I simply wish to point out that it is homicide, and not necessarily murder.

And I must take exception to your description of the zygote/embryo/foetus as 'A collection of a few cells'. While technically true, it is exceedingly misleading. An amoeba is an organism unto itself, comprising only ONE cell. Lichen are symbiotic organisms that form a single organism made of a collection of a few cells. During the life cycle of an individual Homo sapiens organism, there will exist a time when he/she is unicellular, and then multicellular. So yes, even a single cell zygote is a human being.

Unless your definition of a human being is other than "an individual member of the species Homo sapiens". In which case, you can go to Hell and stay there, or do whatever the hell you want, but you stay away from me and mine, you eugenist.

Your call.

Gregory:
Thank you for the clarification.
We have nothing in common.
You are a religious fanatic who if pushed into a corner would act no differently than an Imam who believes he is appointed by God to lead the faithful and smite the Infidel.

And Eric: This is what we are supposed to make common ground with?