What constitutes abortion?

Question

Legislation is being put to a referendum to amend the Colorado (US state) constitution to define a human life beginning the instant an egg is fertilized. This, in addition to a proposed bill to ban abortion within the state (as many states are now attempting) would make abortion illegal at any time after conception.

My question isn't so much about abortion, I just want to hear other's ideas about when a human life begins.

Answer 1

it's offspring, the fetus in no less a human being at any state of growth.

Answer 2

Does how we define it change how we feel about it?  Sometimes I think we pay too much attention to definitions instead of our feelings.  If I abort a baby at 6 months and somebody comes along and tells me that it wasn't a human yet so therefore I'm not supposed to have any feelings about it.  Same goes for a miscarriage, which happens a lot, and someone comes along and tells me that my body just killed a human life, does that change my feelings?

We're searching for the almighty definition of a human life handed down by god or something like that, so we can stop others from doing things that bother us, and I'm not sure if we're going to get one.  But definitions are things created by people, to make thinking and decision making easier.  They don't necessarily have any more profoundness than this.  Things are complicated.  This issue is especially complicated.  To simplify the rightness or wrongness of abortion by the amount of time that's gone by since conception is an oversimplification in my opinion.

I think we need to look into our hearts on a case by case basis to determine if abortion is the right choice.  But I know this scares people.  We're terrified that others don't have the ability to make decisions for themselves, so we need to make it for them.  I say educate them as best we can and let them choose, rather than forcing it on them.  A decision that is forced on someone, even if it's the right one, will often times be resented.  And that resentment may be transfered to the child.

Answer 3

After 12 weeks, when a fetus is 'viable'?

Answer 4

It's really very simple.  You need to look at what something IS, not what it MIGHT be.

For example, we do not give children the rights that we give to adults.  A child cannot choose to imbibe alcohol, or join the army.  Someone else is usually responsible for the child's behaviour.  If we gave all those rights and considerations to children, it would be a monstrousity, not a liberation.

So, too, with the unborn.  A fetus is not a born child.  It is a parasite.  If a superintelligent alien parasite came and latched itself onto your back, there aren't too many who would argue with someone who wanted to have it removed.  The only people who argue against abortion are those who aren't seeing a parasite, they're seeing the next Mozart or Einstein... something which almost all of those fetuses are not going to be.

Even more so when we're just talking about a couple of cells stuck together.  One of the bigger industries in the world is all about killing globs of cells.  Penicillin for those syphilis bacteria.  Antifungals to get rid of those nasty yeast infections.  There are no people protesting the genocide of influenza viruses... most would consider that a fantastic human achievement.

In truth, there isn't a step along the chain that ISN'T alive.  Your parents were alive, the sperm and egg were individually alive, the embryo and fetus were alive, and a child and an adult are alive.  To draw a line arbitrarily and say 'it wasn't alive before this' is ridiculous and distracting.  Whether it's alive or even whether it's human or not is not the question.  We kill humans and other living things all the time.  It is not that which is intrinsically wrong.  It's who or what and why that determines this.

Answer 5

I think life begins when the egg is fertilized.

Answer 6

I agree withthe previous poster,  life begins when the egg is fertilised, it may not look like a baby until more like 12 weeks but it is still a life.

Answer 7

It depends on who you are asking. I beleive it starts at fertilization but read this joke:

A Catholic Priest, a Protestant Minister and a Jewish Rabbi all get together Tuesdays for a round of golf. This week they are discussing when life begins. The Preist says "At conception". The Minister says "At birth". The Rabbi says "When the dog dies and the kids move out".

    On a side note I think abortion needs to be legal, however I think no one should suffer from the delusion that it is anything but death to a life. I kill usually hundreds of millions every day...animals, plants, the microbiotic creatures invading my body, the cheap goods i consume also have probaly contributed to death. I am Shiva, destroyer of worlds. this is not a joke, sort of.  

Answer 8

Unfortunately, neither side of this argument much cares to more clearly define their position.

Answer 9

I honestly have no idea- but its a womans right to have abortions, and MEN have no say in what we do with our bodies. What, you prefer we abandon the babies by the side of the rode like you allow so many people to do to their pets?

Answer 10

I believe that DNA is not enough to make a human life.  The blastocyst must be implanted into the uterus before it becomes even remotely viable, but I would argue that even at that point, it is still a bundle of cells without much differentiated function, and I find it naive to think that constitutes a human being.  However, once the cells have assumed specific functions, the line becomes really blurry.  

I believe this is the reason people choose to assume that life begins at one of three timepoints: the moment of fertilization, the moment of implantation, or the moment the fetus is viable without the mother.

Any other timepoint is too vague for legislation (or philosophical debates, where one must have a defensible position, which is usually more concrete than abstract), however all three seem somehow incorrect to me.  At implantation, there is really not enough functional ability to make me consider it "human," however I think that the week before the fetus no longer requires the mother for [immediate] survival is likely too late.

So, in my opinion, I do not think it is really an abortion -per se- prior to implantation (since the cells never had any chance), and I think that an abortion prior to the second trimester should be legal in all cases (and any time prior to the third trimester in many cases).

Answer 11

3 month before birth, before then the fetus isn't in the shape of a baby, more like a rodent of some sort, no joke, or that's what it looks like to me, the anatomy comes into it's own after 6 months, the brain develops more n all that n that.

Answer 12

I have read in Job "Surely I was sinful from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" Only humans have the knowledge of right and wrong, only humans have soulds, only humans sin. Trained animals know when they are naughty, but that is from our training, not their own conscience. Therefore, if Job was sinful from conception, he was a human being from the very second he was conceived, thus consituting abortion as murder.