I wonder if Stephen Hawking ever wishes he had been aborted? Surely being confined, immobile his entire life, with that humongous brain of his is a real bummer. Think how aggravating it must be that he can’t pick things up and show the rest of us stupid monkies how to do it right.

But should Stephen have been aborted?

And what if someone is a total slacker, and never does anything in their life. Should we travel back in time and abort them? Taking away that right to live is down right unAmerican- we all have the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In all of this Ted, I find it interesting that you don’t use the same rationalizations for abortion the pro-deathers do. Or do you? Do they think like you? I thought they were just supporting a woman’s right to be a ho, without repercussions.

And you’re right. If abortion is murder, then the punishment should fit the crime. The problem is, people equate what is legal with what is moral. The Supreme Court created this mess when they imposed their will on the people of the United States and on the unborn child. What I’m saying is the culture has largely been conditioned to accept abortion as moral or as not being a serious moral wrong. Therefore, I’m wondering what the legality will be given the fact that those who legislate from the bench are responsible for engendering this laissez faire approach to life in the womb. Should Roe be overturned, it will take at least a generation to reverse the trend. Given those complexities, the court may have to take that into consideration when handing down sentences on those who abort with impunity.

Yes, I know you were talking about the fetus. You’re missing my point, I think. In order to fit the termination of that potential life into the “killing” category you need justification and there’s no justification unless we’re talking about self-defense. Conversely, murder deals with the taking of innocent human life…sounds like abortion to me.

As for why it’s wrong to kill the unborn, you say it’s because we’re dealing with a potential life. But you also stated that it was a matter of “opinion.” You also state that there is much that is arbitrary here, to which I ask, then why impose any punishment on the woman? This is just moral relativism, Ted. If it’s arbitrary, then you have no right whatsoever to impose your sliding scale sentence on the woman. NONE! After all, to her it may be perfectly acceptable and good to have an abortion any time she feels the need.

To recap:
(1)The criteria given by the pro-abortion movement for induction into humanity can be applied to already born humans. And if these criteria are valid, then we are all humanoids from the deep and not worthy of rights of personhood. To wit: Some of us are larger than others; Some of us are more developed than others; Some of us have changed and continue to change environment; and some of us aren’t viable on our own. Therefore, if we aren’t willing to impose the same criteria on ourselves, we shouldn’t be imposing them on the fetus. Of course, the well adjusted among us would never go there, because underneath at all we know how absurd the notion is. Yet, this is precisely the justification given by the pro-abortion movement. All in all, it’s just another pathetic excuse to murder, (or to use your word, “kill”) innocents in the womb.

(2)Murder applies to innocent human beings. Killing can apply to anything and everything living and always has survival as its catalyst. Makes no difference if you’re killing for food, or self-defense, it derives the same way: Survival. Since taking the life of an unborn child, at least as far as the general practice goes in the abortion industry, is a matter of innocent life being taken, the practice most definitely fits the category of Murder.

(3)If the status of the fetus is up for grabs, then there is no principled reason to impose ANY sentence on the woman who chooses to abort. To do so is inconsistent with the relativistic paradigm. Additionally, if the status of the fetus is based on a type of moral relativism, then there is no way in which we can say that it is wrong to kill the fetus, since morality is subjective, just as the standard of humanity is subjective.

First, I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I got into all this. You guys may find it useful in some way, but I don’t. It only confirms what I said before – that nothing is going to change.

Now to the particulars.

“As for sentencing someone to life in prison or some other such stiff penalty for having an abortion, I’m not really sure that is the answer—especially, given the fact attitudes about abortion have changed so dramatically since the Roe”

That should have nothing to do with you personally. If you think it’s murder, then it would be inconsistent if not hypocritical to think someone deserves any less penalty for aborting a short-term fetus than for murdering their mother-in-law.

“Since survival is the catalyst for making a distinction between killing and murder, you’ll have to show how the vast majority of man-made abortions in this country are actually for the survival of women”

I wasn’t talking about the survival of the woman, I was talking about the fetus. A fetus capable of surviving outside the womb is a completely different entity to me than a first term fetus.

Killing any unborn is wrong because you are terminating a potential life, but that’s my opinion. I can understand how someone would not feel that a potential life is the same as an actual life. In other words, there is a lot that is arbitrary. All that matters is that unless some reasonable compromise can be found, a lot more abortions will occur than need to.

Trog,

“When a person is murdered, the life, the experiences they would have lived have been taken from them.”

it’s the old “if a tree falls in the forest” question. First, you don’t know that any given fetus will survive or what that life will be like. You assume that life is worth living. For my part, had I been given the choice to live like this, not only would I have declined, I’ve have punched God in the mouth for suggesting it.

In addition, if you take something one doesn’t know one has and never will, has he lost anything? I think that, at best, you can argue that others and the world in general -may- have lost something, but that’s an unprovable assumption.

Regardless of how these latest comments are received, I think I’ve explained it all to the best of my ability

Let’s face it, as Christians, we believe in life after death. So why is death such a big deal?

When a person is murdered, the life, the experiences they would have lived have been taken from them. They won’t (unless you believe in reincarnation) ever get that chance again. And think about the precedent for this line of reasoning- how many wrongful death civil suits are filed every year, where loss of projected wages are calculated for the benefit of survivors?

As for sentencing someone to life in prison or some other such stiff penalty for having an abortion, I’m not really sure that is the answer—especially, given the fact attitudes about abortion have changed so dramatically since the Roe court imposed its twisted value system on the states. It will be some time before those attitudes are brought back to where they were before Roe v Wade. What I do know is that women are routinely victimized and exploited for profit by the abortion industry. Therefore, the stiffest penalties should be imposed on those active in the abortion industry itself.

Yes, I do understand degree of immorality. By extension the punishment should, indeed, fit the crime. So at least we understand one another there.

Next, stating that killing a fetus is morally wrong, but not morally reprehensible doesn’t answer my question. Neither does downgrading murder to killing, as though the woman getting an abortion is acting in self-defense. Instead, it changes the classification of the act itself. Since survival is the catalyst for making a distinction between killing and murder, you’ll have to show how the vast majority of man-made abortions in this country are actually for the survival of women as opposed to the convenience of women. Otherwise, the killing classification doesn’t stick.

Beyond that, the question still lingers, albeit in a slightly altered state: Why is “killing” the unborn morally wrong?

I believe that I have repeatedly drawn a distinction between killing and murder (which would also create a distinction between “morally wrong” and “morally reprehensible”), and what makes repeated abortions outrageous to me is not that the next one is worse than the first in and of itself, but that the next one takes place with the individual in a greater state of awareness, and thus it becomes a greater moral failing. Surely you understand “degree of immorality” where circumstances can cause a little white lie to be horrifically immoral?

Now I know you don’t want to concede any of this, and I won’t concede that God is “all good,” or even that he has the right to dictate what is moral, for that matter. In order to do that, at minimum he’d have to stop with the mind games he’s playing on all of us.

And while I was done, I like Chad’s latest line of thought- if it isn’t murder, why is it morally wrong? Why should it be illegal with repeated instances? I don’t get that at all.

Again, thanks for the viewpoints- I had always assumed it came down to murder vs non-murder; I never realized there were folks with other issues on the subject.

Now let’s keep this thread going, for a record if nothing else. Chad? Have we broken a thread count for MTW yet?