Posted by silentpadna on 4/12/2011 2:05:00 PM (view original):
Posted by antonsirius on 4/12/2011 1:58:00 PM (view original):
If you're defining a fetus as a human being, entitled to all the rights of a human being, then you're faced with an impossible moral dilemma: either you have to deny the fetus its rights, or you have to deny the mother her rights.
I can understand the impulse to protect the one in that equation that can't speak for itself, but I can't share it. I know the mother is a human being; I'm not as sure about the fetus. So I have to side with protecting her actual rights, rather than the theoretical rights of the fetus.
What is it that makes you know the mother is a human being? And what standard do you apply to her that you cannot apply to the fetus?
I don't define the fetus as a human being. Science does. Draw blood or any living tissue from a fetus at any single point in the process and what kind of DNA is it? Is it living? Can you differentiate that kind of DNA from the mother's kind of DNA?
If you're defining humanity as beginning at the point of conception - which you were - then science does not at all "define" a zygote or embryo as a human being, any more than a sperm or egg are "defined" as human beings.
But I'm talking about the moral argument. A fetal nervous system isn't developed enough to feel pain until the late second or even third trimester, so you can't make a basic Utilitarian argument against abortion until that point in its development. As for Kant, well, he might be against completely voluntary abortions but in favor of those in the extreme cases (rape, incest, health of the mother endangered), but the Categorical Imperative can be a pretty subjective tool.
Basically put, I have yet to see a moral argument against abortion that's as strong as the moral argument against restricting arbortion.