Therein lies a huge issue.

Do you believe in exceptions when the mother’s life is at risk? If so, then you have already determined that one life has more value than another. That the born take precedence over the unborn.

And how many doctors have to agree to what degree of certainty? Where is that black and white line?

Because the moral issue is when does life begin, but the legal issue is at what point do civil rights begin.

And a newborn is not just as dependent as a fetus. That defies both science and reason. Only one human, the mother, can support life in the womb. Outside of the womb, any adult could theoretically support the life. A fetus before the point of viability cannot breathe without its mother’s womb. A baby can.

And yes, it would necessarily shift. As I said, it is not a moral argument, rather a legalistic one.

To your last point, I am afraid I have gotten into the position of arguing another’s point (although I took this on willingly). I do not believe abortion were done less. I wish it were done not at all. However, you were saying you do not understand how *someone* who is pro-choice can say they wish it were done less. I was pointing out that you are looking at it from an all-or-nothing moral standpoint. Someone who does not believe an unborn life is equivalent to a born life can still wish that unborn life were taken less often, without saying they wish it was completely illegal.

Abortion is different, however.

Because a life is at stake. And because my belief that taking an innocent life is wrong doesn’t come from my religious beliefs – indeed, I would have still believed it to be wrong in all of the years that I had no faith at all.

And while legislation can never truly be “black and white,” I cannot understand why, with this issue, we would choose – in the face of not having definite, scientific proof for when life begins – to err on the side of taking life, rather than on the side of protecting it – just in case, until we know for sure.

The problem with believing that life begins at any other point than conception is that your argument descends into being one of capacities. So human life becomes human life once it attains a certain capacity: lungs that will function, a certain amount of brain activity. But do we really believe this is all it means to be human? So people with severe disabilities are then “less” human? Try making that argument to my friend whose child is severely mentally retarded. The argument for capacities gets a little too close to eugenics for my liking.

Most people aren’t really sure “at which point” they would argue for, and they don’t really want to seek out a place because it’s much easier to place the point of viability somewhere vague, that way you can have a view on the issue of abortion that seems nice and tolerant but also compassionate.

And as to your argument that you believe legislation should begin “at the point at which life is sustainable outside of the womb?” Doesn’t work – for two reasons. First, a newborn is still just as dependent as a fetus. A mother who kills a dependent newborn (or dependent four year-old, for that matter), however, goes to jail. Secondly, I wonder if this argument would shift as technological advances in premature neo-natal care progress.

I think it will be interesting to see how advances in science will ultimately complicate this discussion. For one, I think the scientists who are currently working to create artificial wombs (see here for full story: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-not-artificial-wombs) will make it much more difficult to argue for a mother’s rights above the rights of a fetus with another avenue for viability.

And so ultimately, while I would never want to say or do mean things to those who disagree with me on this issue, I cannot simply “wish” it would happen less often and think that that is enough. If I knew that my next door neighbor was abusing her children (which I would consider to be wrong – not because of my faith – but because of a deep-seated sense of morality that is present in most secularists I know), I wouldn’t just sit back and “hope that it happens less often.” I would do everything in my power to make it cease. Luckily, in that situation, I would have the law on my side. But even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to “wish something were done less without believing it should be illegal” on any issue that involved harming innocent life.

If you would honestly say that you believe that life begins at conception, but don’t believe the law should change, then you are admittedly choosing to do nothing in the face of infanticide. Not trying to be ugly, but please correct me if I haven’t traced that out to a logical conclusion.

I love and respect my friends who feel differently than I do on a whole host of politically charged issues – and I am so grateful to live in a country where civil discourse is possible, much less being promoted by those in highest authority.

But the real reason – if you can get past all of the blistering rhetoric of the right-wing and the left-wing, the religious zealots and the radical feminists – the real reason that this is such a tough issue to “find common ground” on is that it hits those who are pro-life in such a profoundly intimate place … a place sometimes guarded by religious beliefs and sometimes not … because it calls into question the very essence of what humanity is and how humans should treat other humans. It saddens me when this debate becomes merely fodder for talking heads, because I think that all of the political pandering and inflammatory rhetoric distract from the underlying moral truths that are called into question when this issue is raised.

Today in Canada, a precedent was set in a Rwandan war crimes trial. I listened to the interview with the court reporter who had followed the case for 2 years, and what moved me most was listening to her speak of the judge’s call for healing.

Abortion is an issue that calls for healing. For the women involved but also for the solutions lost and bridges burned by inflammatory religious and political language.

My beliefs are based on faith but I live in a secular society.

I believe but cannot prove that life begins at conception.

Therefore, I cannot legislate it.

To legislate, I must have a logical, scientific basis for the start of life and civil rights.

Morality is black and white. Legislation is not. Someone does not have to be 100% right or wrong in the law. Certainly a baby has rights and so does the mother. So, where does one begin and the other end? How do we balance these sometimes competing rights?

What I can prove, is that there is a certain point at which life is sustainable outside of the womb. At that point, I am ethically comfortable and I believe on solid legal ground, saying that the mother’s rights if not exactly end, certainly become less prominent, and the fetus’s come to the fore.

Rare was not my language, but you can certainly wish something were done less without believing it should be illegal, no?

The position of being “pro-life on a personal level but pro-choice from a legal perspective” confounds me. Examine the root of your beliefs. Ravi Zacharias would ask it this way: Do you believe the fetus growing within a woman is a life — or do you not? That’s an either/or. If you believe that it is a life, then how can you allow it to be obliterated? If you believe that it is not a life, then why are you personally against it? And why would it matter if abortions are rare or not?

Morality is a personal thing–between you and your God (or not). However, laws have to be based on more than that as you say. They need to be based on society’s best interest, science, ethics, our constitution, etc.

So I see no contradiction with someone who dislikes the idea of abortion and hopes it will be rare but still believes it should be legal in order to prevent greater harm to society or because they believe it is a civil right.

As to your question about the Dad…until the baby can survive outside of the womb, it is completely reliant on mom’s body. Therefore, although ideally they are on the same page about all things baby-related, her choices do trump his in this case.

His choice came at conception. She gets to be more important in this decision for a slightly longer period (about 24 weeks) because the foetus is surviving off her body. Once the baby is born, both parents have legal, moral, and ethical obligations.

Just to reiterate, I am anti-abortion on a personal level…but I do see the pro-choice point from a legal perspective.

Side note: I agree that this shouldn’t be a “church law as civil law” issue, and though I’m a Christian, I am thankful for the separation of church and state in our country. I don’t think this is a “religious” issue, though. I think it is a “moral” issue. Many people decide their morals based on a particular faith, but faith is not a prerequisite for developing personal moral laws. Just because many of the people who speak out (admittedly, sometimes with very non-Christian behavior) against abortion are religious doesn’t mean that the abortion issue is a religious one. I think that people of all faiths and no faith at all would agree that we want the laws in our country to reflect a moral code, based on what we deem “right” or “wrong.”

Back to the “safe, legal, and rare” thing:
Based on your own moral code (either based on a particular faith or not), if abortion is morally permissible, why should it be rare?

On the contrary, if you believe that abortion should be rare, is your basis for that belief based on the conviction that abortion is not “good?” When I hear friends of mine make this argument, I just can’t follow it out logically. I wonder how they might apply it to other issues that they are passionate about — like, for example, (even though it is totally out of left field) President Bush invading Iraq. If lying to the country and waging a preemptive war is “wrong” (morally impermissible), then I don’t believe it should be “safe, legal, and rare,” I believe it shouldn’t happen. And if it is morally permissible, then it shouldn’t matter how many countries someone like Bush might choose to invade. I think that when we base laws on what feels “right” or “wrong” for individual situations rather than what objective science or a consistent moral ethic tells us, we are on shaky ground, indeed.

Going further, I find it problematic — again, from a logical perspective– what abortion laws say about a father’s rights. Simply put, I cannot understand how a fetus whose makeup is 50% the father’s and 50% the mother’s is relegated to only being the mother’s “choice” when it comes to having an abortion. A father who wanted to keep the baby would have absolutely no say, legally. However, if that same mother decides to keep the child, once it is born, the father (whether he wanted the baby to be born or not) is expected, by law, to pay child support for “his” child. How do we ethically condone this?

It seems to me that while you can throw out as many “but what if…” cases to argue back and forth on this issue on both sides … what I’d be much more interested in hearing is an argument for “choice” that moves beyond “what feels like it should be true” and holds up to the light of logic and ethics.

Everyone can choose what they want to do, but a doctor shoulnd’t be allowed to withhold information pertaining to the patient’s medical situation.

Also, I find it funny that the pro-life guy seems to be the one who has the foggiest ideas about how the policies he would like to see applied to abortion actually would apply to other medical situations. He was just blabbering about what he thinks is wrong in accusatory tones as opposed to actually answering the questions in a way that stated his point of view without making everyone sound like babykillers. I respect everyone’s opinion, but that is NOT the way to present your position in a discussion – not unless you want it to snowball and get uncivilized very quickly.

The Pro-Life stance is like the Abolitionist movement in the runup to the American Civil War. The Churches in the North were hotbeds of abolitionist agitation. To them, slavery was a great sin and the United States was cruisin’ for a bruisin’ from God if it wasn’t made illegal. They passed the collection plate to buy guns for killers (I’m sorry, freedom fighters) like John Brown. In like manner, there are people today who see abortion as a great sin for which America will be punished. And these people occasionally buy guns and bombs for activists. Hey, it happens.

For those of you who don’t believe in sin (or don’t understand that there are actual people in this world who do), it’s a real communication breakdown. The only thing you can count on is this: no one is throwing in the towel.

Not now. Not ever.