May I ask a quick question to some of the strong antiabortion supporters here: If abortion was made illegal in the US, what should be the penalty for a doctor or mother who has participated in one illegally? Also, what should the penalty be for an American woman who goes to Mexico to get the procedure done? I don't get very straight answers from most anti-abortionists I know when I ask these questions, and would very much like to hear some of your positions on this.
I don't think the govt should interfere with a woman's morality either. However, I don't think a child's life is a case of morality. Boob job maybe, but not a life. The question may be when life begins and I can see the validity of that debate. It just so happens that aborted children are guilty of nothing more than being conceived by people that don't want them. Inconvenience may be something the govt should not interfere with but I regard human life, potential or not, as more important. Deciding that life begins once it can be sustained outside the womb does not work either. That is just arbitrary. Premature infants need all sorts of help in survival. You can't anymore kill a premature child than you can anyone else. Truth is, that if the beginning of life is up for debate, you would think we would err on the side of life. But instead we err on the side of convenience.
Those things would have to be ironed out. To me, were abortion to be made illegal those who willingly participate in them should be charged with murder. It is really hard to speculate on. Again it is very hard to speculate on this. I think the woman should be tried for murder. Why do you use the term anti-abortionist? I don't mind it because a part of my pro-life belief is indeed anti-abortion. I just find the term funny because pro-choice folks usually cry foul when you label them as pro-abortion. It is a dichotomy I don't understand.
Not completely sure I'm as anti-abortion as everyone else, but if you put me on the spot, I'd say the starting point would be trying for murder, but I'm sure we'd have to come up with a new set of consequences. I'd say it follows the same rules any other crime committed internationally would happen. I'm not that well versed. If you go to Mexico (as an American Citizen) and kill someone, are you tried by the Mexican government or the American government? Same should apply in this case.
There is none? You just pointed out the difference. One IS a person, the other is a single cell. The presence of human DNA does not make something a person.
How is saying there is no genetic difference a difference? The presence of human DNA is exactly what makes something a person.
Of course it does. An embryo is not an independent life until it is independent of its mother. Until then . . . it part of a mother's body and hers alone to be responsible for.
That's why the Roe trimester rule is such an effective compromise that it has stood for 40 years. No second trimester fetus has ever survived outside the womb. But third-trimester fetuses are viable human beings and deserve the protection they already have. To be doubly sure, Roe permits no 3rd or 2nd trimester abortions. Since it is arbitrary and not agreed on, we should allow the mother to make her own decision, since she alone has to live with the consequences.
It's because the only "life" issue the anti-abortion crowd really promotes is to be anti-abortion. Most of you care little about other life issues such as caring for unwanted children. How many have you adopted? Most of you are against welfare, where most unwanted children end up. Almost all of you are also pro-death penalty. How is life sacred in it's first trimester, but it's perfectly fine to abort a human in his 116th trimester? Well, pro-choice people do not advocate abortion,they advocate choice. Most of us agree with you that many abortions are unneeded and believe it should be a rare thing. But it mustn't be illegal (under Roe guidelines) and that difficult choice should lie with the mother and her family, doctor, and pastor, . . . not the government, not somebody else, and certainly not religious zealots. Many mothers choose to have the baby and that's perfectly all right with us. This is a freedom issue.
