re: #320 Westward Ho

Will you carry the fertilized egg of a rape victim since you equate abortion with murder even in these horrid circumstances? If you are not a woman should it not be forcefully planted in one since the Zygote is a potential human being?

I respect your posts and am not being nasty.

Ah, you misunderstand me. I’m not saying that I believe an embryo is a human being. I’m merely stating that, IF someone believes that an embryo is a human being, THEN it would be somewhat hypocritical for that person to advocate killing it because it had bad parentage.

Personally, my somewhat “moderate” opinion on this matter (if such a thing is possible) is that, if we have to drawn the line between “personhood” and “nonpersonhood,” then we shouldn’t go to one extreme, as the hardcore anti-abortion crowd does, that personhood begins at the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg, nor should we go to the the other extreme, as the pro-abortion side does, that personhood only begins at birth; but rather somewhere in between. In my strictly non-medical view, I’d pinpoint it at the moment of “viability” — i.e. the moment at which the child could survive as a seperate entity, and not merely as a subset of its mother. That would be somewhere around six months-ish.

I’m no fan of abortion, but I more strongly do not want the government telling woman and doctors what to do. Hence, I’m against banning abortion in early-stage pregnancies, but would oppose “late term” abortions, because by that time the fetus basically already is a child.