Quote:
Originally Posted by SWTXBelle
A chicken egg is not a good analogy - it needs only warmth and occasional turning to become a full-fledged chicken. Although the tadpole makes for a better one, the tadpole is a living thing, right? It's not quite a full-fledged frog, but it's certainly alive, so I don't know that it is an analogy which you really wish to use. Kill a tadpole and you have undoubtly killed something. I think (I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong) that the argument for abortion on demand before viability is based on the idea that you are not "killing" a being seperate from the mother. Argument by analogy is always a little lacking, I think. The best analogy would be one using a mammal, and we hit the same wall - you regard viability as the determining factor for "mammalhood", and I still regard it as a mammal from the time of implantation.
|
You are taking the analogy too far.
Is killing a tadpole, frog, etc. the same thing, from a legal standpoint, the same as killing a person? You're taking the comparison too far - in fact, that's kind of a running theme in this discussion to date. I'm not using "killing" as part of the analogy at all - the argument, put more simply, is this:
1. You introduced "potential human" as an analog for "actual human"
2. You claim that a fetus is a "potential" human, thus it is a "human"
3. There are multiple examples of transformations that help to illustrate that a "potential" human is not the same as a "human".
Don't read anything more into it.
Besides this, you haven't at all addressed the key issue here, although you touch on it here:
Quote:
|
Please note that I have not referenced a soul, or any religious belief in my discussion of my personal beliefs, although they form a part in my changing from pro-choice to pro-life.
|
I'm not 'accusing' you of doing this, I'm simply saying that it is basically implicit in using any definition other than medical viability (yes, even using your "heartbeat" standard below).
Quote:
If you want a strictly medical take on my beliefs, I'd have to say that for me, if it has a heart beat, it is alive. If it is alive, it has to be SOMETHING; therefore, it must be determined what it is. AOIIAngel has correctly stated that the problem comes about when we use two different definitions for "human". For me, it is a human. Therefore, as a human, it has a right to live without anyone, not even the mother, taking away its life. I realize that this simply narrows it down the point of "humanhood" to about 6 weeks - before that, yes, as I've said, we've tread into far murkier ground.
As I've said, I believe that a pregnancy which will result in the loss of the life of the mother would be a valid excuse for abortion. I am still not happy at the idea of abortion at any time, but will admit that before there is a heartbeat it is much less clear-cut.
|
OK - you've selected an incredibly arbitrary standard, but that's no different than any other completely arbitrary standard (including medical viability). I can definitely respect the choice, even if I completely disagree with it ("It has a heartbeat! People have heartbeats! It's a person!" seems very loose to me - almost reductive - but I don't really have an issue with it if that's what you want to use).
That's one of the key problems with any real substantive abortion discussion, and that's the impasse.