RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Ah, the great debate on when life begins, sentient or otherwise. This particular area has so much grey in it that I find it hard to take a black or white approach to answering it. I do believe that it is wrong to kill a human at any stage of development, and not based on the purely physical arguements of when the baby is alive, sentient, etc. I consider human life to be sacred, since the soul has been formed by God well before the flesh has started being woven together in the womb. It is not my place to decide if a baby should live or die. That is between God and the woman carrying the child, and not the state. I would counsel against abortion, but it is her place to decide, and also her consequences to deal with.

What does it say about our society when we are praised for saving the Porcupine Caribou but claimed a woman's choice violater when we try to defend a childs right to life?

is the child's anomaly really the reason for having a therapeutic abortion?or is it the usual reason -to save the life of the mother..?a fetus is more than a piece of tissue, and the very moment it starts its fertilization means that life already is contained in it.doctors were made doctors to preserve life and not to destroy it at any cause, even those of the innocent and the unborn,only God has the right to put an end to a child's life, not human beings.

If onlytheycould talk they might say -I am a first trimester baby and don't want to die before I am born-!If I am not a human being what kind of being am I?If I am only a part of my mother's body,why do I have my own sex,blood type,finger prints and toe prints?why is my genetic make-up completely different?My digestive,circulatory,nervous and respiratory systems are already working.My heart and brain waves can be recorded,and show regular patterns.I can taste,swallow,hiccup,make a fist and suck my thumb.If my existence has no meaning,why do I respond to my mother's voice?And why do I wake and sleep with her?And dream?Why do I react to light and to heat?And squint?And frown?And why is almost my entire body sensitive to touch?If I am just a blob of tissue,why would I feel myself painfully torn apart by the abortionist's suction-machine?Why would I react so violently to the cutting of his knife-like curette?If I am unwanted,why must so many couples wait 5-10 years to adopt a baby like me?If my body or mind are not perfect,why am I any less valuable than you?Don't we all struggle with some kind of handicap?Like anyone else I need a chance to conquer my handicaps and discover the joys of living.If you fear I would lead a life of poverty and despair,how would you show your compassion by taking my life?Please love and accept me,don't pity,then reject me.You alone have that special love that can reach past our circumstances and discover my worthiness,my unique value.Mama,maybe I can never be a part of your life,but I can bring love and joy into the lives of others.I would be content just knowing of your unselfish love for me.Excerpt from reading material I found floating in my work bag...

This is how we all started. Every person on this board. Pardon me if I don't equate personal freedom with destroying a living thing that only exists because of your own actions.

What horsesh#t. There are adults walking around today that are barely alive. You're either for or against personal freedom- semantic and philosphical arguments dodge the issue.

This is what disturbs me the most about abortion, and why I am not on the pro-abortion side. I am not on this side either, because I think women should have rights, but what they do to the fetus to get it out is very disturbing. It all comes down to the women's rights or the child's rights.

I don't have either a medical or a theological degree, but it seems to me that some of the arguments about when a fetus becomes a living being or a human being are a bit sophomoric. If we accept that a child is a real human being as soon as it exits the mother, I would argue that it's tough to maintain that it's not a human ten seconds before that. Accept that, and it becomes academic as to when the fetus develops into what we can define as a human being (i.e., at the moment of conception, during the first trimester, the second, the third, or at day 86 or 92 or whenever). It's a living organism right off the bat (at least I think that's medical fact). When the organism takes on the aspects of a human doesn't make it any more or less alive at the outset. I think that one of the reasons that so many abortions continue to be performed is that there is no real advocacy group for the unborn children. That probably sounds strange to some, but think of it this way - the biggest potential advocacy group against abortion (the aborted children themselves) are eliminated before they have any voice in their fate. How's that for stacking the deck?

Pro-choice? That's a lie. Babies don't choose to die.

I can kind of understand this. The fetus after three months is indeed alive and structured with reflexes. But in the first week or even month of contraception, It is only forming and it could not survive outside the body. UPDATE: As much as I understand what GoneAway is saying, It is also my understanding that the fetus cannot survive without a host in the first trimester. It feeds off it's mother's body and it basically has not developed. In the first two weeks of the first trimester, The baby has not even formed it's legs and arms yet.

If the courts say it's murder X2 to kill a pregnant female then that means that the child or fetus in the womb is a living being. So then tell me why isn't it murder to kill a child or fetus during an abortion? I think abortion is wrong for any reason. I am not trying to be insensitive to rape victims, there just has to be a better way, like adoption.

This is my reason for being anti-abortion. Killing a fetus, in my opinion, is the same as taking the life of a full person, not to mention an innocent child.