Abortion is a horrible business
whatever way you look at it and most women who decide to have one rarely take
the decision lightly. There is nothing terribly ennobling about terminating the
life of a prospective human being at any stage, let alone as late as four or
five months which unfortunately is the case in many instances.
I think the fetus is sensate and can experience pain at a much earlier stage; perhaps as early as 6-8 weeks and this should weigh in people's considerations. But the choice here is ultimately for the woman to make; it is her body at the end of the day, in addition to which, and if statistics are anything to go by, the child, if born, is more likely to remain in her care.
I have some sympathy with the (Catholic) church's position on this; ie that the sanctity of life must be preserved, that a new soul has been created through the consummation of sperm and egg and that a termination at any point after this constitutes a 'sinful' and unnecessary vanquishing of human life. It has, at least, the merit of placing a distinctive value on each and every human life.
Pro-life activists, while I don't wish to generalise, invariably approach the matter from a religious perspective wherein the value of life is seen from a spiritual as opposed to a reductive biological vantage point. Those who bemoan the often extreme vehemence of pro-life objections to abortion would do well to remember the equally extreme biological reductionist viewpoint as illustrated in Nazi eugenics programmes or in the more extreme theories of Social Darwinism.
The human race has ably demonstrated it's capacity in the past to slip off the scale of acceptable norms and blithely transgress the rights of the individual for the supposed long term benefit of the species. The example may seem extreme and unjustified but underlying arguments concerning both eugenics and abortion lie varied conceptions concerning the worth of an individual life. There is evidently scope for a crass dehumanisation to enter into the process of abortion, trivializing it, making it wholesale and commonplace and ,I for one, welcome at least the presence of a healthy debate.
The perspective I would like to offer is much like Hegel's thoughts on potentiality; an acorn is not merely a nut that lies on the ground but is the sum total of all it's possibilities for growth - it is only the axis of time which makes it appear to us a thing undeveloped. Were we to see in each and every thing the full potentiality of it's capacity for growth it would restore to us something of how Nature might really look - from the looking glass of an eternal eye perhaps. Within the fertilised egg a busy fusion of life's forces has already taken place yielding into being already a complex dependent life form.
However, you take upon yourself the right to extinguish this life and no court in any land should, in turn, take upon itself the right or be given the ability to stand in judgement over you for doing so.
I think the fetus is sensate and can experience pain at a much earlier stage; perhaps as early as 6-8 weeks and this should weigh in people's considerations. But the choice here is ultimately for the woman to make; it is her body at the end of the day, in addition to which, and if statistics are anything to go by, the child, if born, is more likely to remain in her care.
I have some sympathy with the (Catholic) church's position on this; ie that the sanctity of life must be preserved, that a new soul has been created through the consummation of sperm and egg and that a termination at any point after this constitutes a 'sinful' and unnecessary vanquishing of human life. It has, at least, the merit of placing a distinctive value on each and every human life.
Pro-life activists, while I don't wish to generalise, invariably approach the matter from a religious perspective wherein the value of life is seen from a spiritual as opposed to a reductive biological vantage point. Those who bemoan the often extreme vehemence of pro-life objections to abortion would do well to remember the equally extreme biological reductionist viewpoint as illustrated in Nazi eugenics programmes or in the more extreme theories of Social Darwinism.
The human race has ably demonstrated it's capacity in the past to slip off the scale of acceptable norms and blithely transgress the rights of the individual for the supposed long term benefit of the species. The example may seem extreme and unjustified but underlying arguments concerning both eugenics and abortion lie varied conceptions concerning the worth of an individual life. There is evidently scope for a crass dehumanisation to enter into the process of abortion, trivializing it, making it wholesale and commonplace and ,I for one, welcome at least the presence of a healthy debate.
The perspective I would like to offer is much like Hegel's thoughts on potentiality; an acorn is not merely a nut that lies on the ground but is the sum total of all it's possibilities for growth - it is only the axis of time which makes it appear to us a thing undeveloped. Were we to see in each and every thing the full potentiality of it's capacity for growth it would restore to us something of how Nature might really look - from the looking glass of an eternal eye perhaps. Within the fertilised egg a busy fusion of life's forces has already taken place yielding into being already a complex dependent life form.
However, you take upon yourself the right to extinguish this life and no court in any land should, in turn, take upon itself the right or be given the ability to stand in judgement over you for doing so.
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