After seeing a thread on how abortion is genocide/murder HERE http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread666334/pg39#pid10651668
I decided to set out to show why abortion is not the black and white issue that a lot of people are treating it as, and why it is therefore legal to abort. I am not here to discuss why aborting late is a bad thing - I am simply proving there is no magical line where a human life begins - so to therefore we can not say abortion is murder or genocide or that it is flat out wrong - these arguments are all technically incorrect. You can say it is morally wrong - but that is your opinion and that is all it is. Our law's are designed to be based on factual evidence and the morals of society as a whole - not opinion. I am not trying to prove if abortion should be done earlier or later - just that there is no line on when life begins so we can therefore not know when abortion becomes wrong.
I am going to write this thread in such a way as to try to address both spiritual/religious people and non spiritual/religious people views.
Stages of pregnancy
First, lets all take a quick look at the stages in the begining of pregnancy - remembering we are not arguing
when abortion should take place but if there is a point where life starts and it should not take place because in law taking a life is murder.Before week 4:
Within four days of fertilization, the sex of the zygote can be determined through microscopic techniques. Soon after one week of fertilization, the zygote contains the beginning of all major body structures. Fetal circulation occurs by three weeks - complete with heart and major blood vessels coursing through its quarter-inch frame.
Week 4 - 1mm (fetus length) looks like a tiny tadpole
The embryonic disk has become thicker and oval in shape, coiled up because the outermost layer, the ectoderm, has developed faster than the endoderm. One end of it has swollen to form the brain, and the other corresponds to the coccyx. Between the two, the neural groove will form the central nervous system.
Week 5: 1.5 - 2.5 mm (fetus length) at five weeks, all basic body systems are developing, including the brain and nervous system enabling the fetus to feel pain.
week 6: 4 - 6 mm (fetus length)
week 8: 8 -11mm (fetus length)
week 10: 27 - 35 mm (fetus length)
A zygote is synthesized from the union of two gametes.
Human sex cells (sperm and egg) have one complete set of chromosomes from the male or female parent. Sex cells, also called gametes, combine to produce somatic cells. Somatic cells therefore have twice as many chromosomes.
A human somatic cell contains 46 chromosomes: 2 complete haploid sets, which make up 23 homologous chromosome pairs.
So at this point we have a cell that has human DNA but is DNA life?
What are we? Mind, soul, body, DNA?
The DNA argument
Many of us are used to thinking of DNA as this unchanging programming that governs all our body’s responses for the rest of our lives. In essence, certain things about our DNA are unlikely to change, ever. But there are a number of outside things that could result in minor DNA change. Source
With this argument when we created a zygote with 48 chromosomes we say life was created.
But life can not be defined by our DNA because as shown above our DNA changes - does this mean when it changes we cease to exist?
Or is human life defined by having 46 chromosomes - if that is the case what about the people with fewer or greater chromosomes?
If life is defined as just having chromosomes then the sperm also has a life.
The soul argument:
Assuming we see the sould as a distinct entity separate from the body and considering we have no way of knowing if the soul really exists or if it does- when it actually enters the body.
If God exists then having an abortion may be a waste of the gift of life but it has only killed the body - not the soul- you are not really destoying a life here because God could give that soul a new body - if it is his will.
We have only taken away an oportunity that we also created.
IMO people of religion often demonstrate here that they do not believe in their own faith, if the life we have taken this "life" then what was it beforehand? Did god create the soul when the fertilization took place? or did it already exist? If god created it's soul upon fertilization did he destroy it when the body died - if so is that murder?
If the sould was not there before hand then we may have killed the body but we still have created the soul.
If no God or any form of afterlife exists - then nothing happens when we die, and this fetus (say it with me) is not self aware at before it has a brain (we can not pinpoint where self awareness starts) - so no harm has been done because this life is meaningless anyway and this 'thing' did not even no what life was to be able to miss it
The living argument:
Some would go as far as saying the sperm itself is the seed of life and should not be "spilled". Masturbation in their eye's is a crime. This actually make about as much sense than the fertilisation argument - because the sperm is just as alive as a zygote, it has no brain or heart but it is comprised of functioning cells, with the exception of the zygote having the combined DNA - which would take us back to the DNA argument. So for those who say abortion is wrong (refer to definition below) - this mean you are also guilty of murder if you masturbate if you are use the living argument.
The mind argument:
The mind argument is easy to dismiss because in order to have a mind we must have thought and feelings which requires a brain (unless you feel the sould can think then go to the soul argument). The brain of the fetus is in the begining stages of development in week 5. Brain development in fetus and its associated problems are still being researched. Hence, there are no specific answers to the how's and why's of fetal brain development.
Week 29 to Week 40: The third trimester stage is highlighted with fewer brain developments. The brain continues to grow and increase rapidly in size, all the while establishing connections between nerve cells. The brain along with the lung is the last organ to develop, and is completed close to the end of the third trimester. A newborn's brain is only about one-quarter the size of an adult's.
As you are unable to prove for a fact where a human being becomes human it can not be argued that it is wrong.
- Definition: Wrong: "•incorrect: not correct; not in conformity with fact or truth"
As you are unable to prove a life was taken, because we do not know what stage life begins during the begining of pregnancy - it is not murder
- Definition:Murder: Murder is the unlawful killing of another human being with "malice aforethought", and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter)
The genocide argument is not even close to accurate and not worth debating futher - we will leave it to a dictionary.
- Definition: Genocide: •systematic killing of a racial or cultural group
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