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Mar. 2, 2006 Abortion in these modern times is a political tool meant to getChristians to vote Republican. "If you pray, vote pro-life" - thebumper sticker that sums it up. Has anyone heard or read a politician in favor of abortion talk aboutit in a non-religious context? During the recent confirmation hearings, I was unlucky enough to channel surf and hit CSPAN just in time hear a self-righteous Republican making an ass out of himself to those thatknow better as he pressed the abortion issue. He, of course, quoted theBible and used religious language and then went on to say that ifaliens came to Earth they would be shocked by the procedure. I would hope that liberals try to use the church-state issue to defendchoice - they have oodles and oodles of speeches from the elephants touse as evidence. Lets take the "best argument" from the other side. Someone will saythat they were adopted or up for abortion, but they lived instead. Letssay Ed was told that his biological parents almost aborted him. Plot these events on a time line. Start with the meeting of the parents onthe left, and on the right, put the birth. If any event leading up the birth had not happened, Ed wouldn't bealive. Lets suppose that Ed's parents were Christian and followed the notion of "no sex until after marriage". Had they broken that rule, Edmight have had a sibling. This potential sibling, folks, does not existbecause Ed's parents didn't have sex as often as they could have. What about the night that Ed was conceived? What if his mom had comedown with a sudden "headache"? What if the father was too drunk toperform? Each would have lead to death of Ed, potentially. 60% of pregnancies end in natural abortions, so most of humanity existed onlyas potential. On that note, why doesn't the Religious Right push forfunding for early pregnancy detection systems that can be implanted into women of age which would beep as soon as a fertilized egg isdetected? These could be protected and allowed to develop. Near the right of our time line, we have the meeting of sperm and egg. Is this event special? Not really. Any failure previous or after thispoint and Ed would not exist. The sperm is alive in every sense of theword. The egg is also alive. Naturally, when they join, the fertilized egg is alive. Not morealive, but only alsoalive. Next on our time line we see the instructions, the fertilized egg andits DNA, get transported to the factory, the womb. The womb works in a particular way. However, we know that it's technically possible, if notyet technologically feasible or ethical, to construct a "womb" whichtakes either sperm or egg alone. Fertilization is a good evolutionary technique, but it is by no meansrequired to make a unique human. Of course, if we would make a humanout just the egg or just the sperm, we would have a clone. Isn't a clone less unique then the fertilized egg, and therefore, isn'tthe egg more "special"? Not at all. Clones are actually different fromeach other. The clones of animals we have made thus far have been less unique than natural clones, otherwise known as identical twins. Yup, twins! Most twins would certainly tell you that they are, in fact, NOT the same person even if they have identical fingerprints. Dolly thesheep is more different from the sheep she was cloned from, than twinsare from each other. Humans are machines of such utter complexity that differentiation cannot be helped at the biological level. But we don'tneed biology to make the case for the uniqueness of a clone. If I wereto clone myself today, my clone would age naturally, meaning when I turned 66, it would be 33. Being raised in a different generation wouldbe more than enough to ensure a quite different being, identical DNA ornot. So, on our time line, we can't really say that anything is special about the meeting of sperm and egg, it is simply another tick on thetime line. A religious response might suggest that it is at thisparticular time that God decides to en soul the being, but this hasmany problems. First, we have no way of knowing this for sure and since we live in a nation of diverse religions, the majority religion can't,by law, enforce a view on the rest of us that's entirely based onreligious dogma. Of course this doesn't stop them from trying, as Imentioned above. This would also mean that heaven is full to brim of nameless andfaceless (at least from the point of view of their parents), beings,since, as I said, most pregnancies end in silent natural abortions. Some might at this point argue that God doesn't en soul the naturalabortions. This troubles me - again, how do we know when or what Goddoes? If God works in mysterious ways, how do we know that he isn't guiding the hands of parents which choose to abort? Why does God exertsuch power and control over human biology and leave no evidence for it?And, wouldn't this imply that maybe we shouldn't use life-extending procedures such as organ transplants? How do we know that God did notmean for someone's heart or liver to fail? If we give someone a newliver, are we meddling with God? Lincoln was a cool guy for admitting that he had no idea if God approved of the carnage he was responsible for. Personally, I think itwas wholeheartedly the right thing to do to defeat the South, but cananyone claim to know what God thought about the process? Maybenegotiating with South and allowing slavery to end more slowly would have been more humane in the long run. Many less people would havedied, and the South wouldn't have suffered from the punishment it gotfrom the North after the war. Who really knows? Scientifically, the pro-life position is folly. Choice allowsChristians or anyone else to decide on their own, as Lincoln did, whattheir God wants from them (if anything). Given the utterly staggering chain of events that preceded each of us since the Big Bang, isn't it amazing that any of us are here at all?Conception is but one tick on an immense time line going back forbillions of years. With future technology, humans won't be restrictedto the natural methods (sex) and factories (the womb, placenta, etc.) for reproduction, just as we are no longer restricted to the naturalprogression of our bones (prosthetics) and organs (artificial hearts,organ transplants) today. We already interfere with nature and havedone so for a long, long time. Accepting that, the notion that a fertilized egg has full human rightsmeans that any set of information containing instructions also has fullhuman rights. Therefore, shredding a stack of computer printouts with my DNA on it would be murder, given that we could feed thoseinstructions into a machine and birth unique human being. That argumentis no more, or less, silly than suggesting that terminating afertilized egg is murder. If anyone wants to maximize the potential life of potential humans,have sex with the first member of the opposite sex that you see,stranger or otherwise! Move that special tick on the time line back a little to the left and help save billions of potential humans! Finally, let me end this with the idea of circumstances in and aroundthe conception - sex, in other words. It seems to me, that if one believes that a fetus has full human rights, that the circumstancesbecome irrelevant. Mother raped? That isn't the child's fault, it should be born! Brother and sister engage in naughty behavior? The child may be born with medical issues, but that is not its fault, it should be born! Mother may die during pregnancy? That's not the child's fault! Why isthe mother's life more valuable?Seniority? Why not let God decide? It should be born! If, on the other hand, you believe that a very early fetus does nothave full human rights, then, again, what do the deeds of the "parents"matter? Lets say that two people are totally ill equipped to handle any and all responsibility. Think of the worst kind of hedonisticsex-craved loons that have dangerous sex any chance they get, ignoringall religious taboos, all notions of common sense. They engage in utterdebauchery! In terms of the fetus, it matters not. If the fetus has no rights, then aborting it is not wrong. We certainly can't punish or try to change the sexual habits of peopleby forcing them to birth a child. As a matter of fact, aren'tirresponsible types the very LAST kinds of people that we want to see RAISE children?? If the fetus has no rights, than having a million abortions isn't anymore, or less, wrong from the point of view of the fetus than having abillion, regardless of the circumstances. When a politician supports the pro-life position, there are just a fewpossibilities. First, he's likely a buffoon - is it so hard to believe?People sorta want baboons though, don't they? Someone truly intellectual is a threat - sort of like an elite, and this scarespeople because lets face it, most of us aren't. [Recall that it's muchmore important to most of us to have a fun, friendly-seeming, road-trip compatible, leader ;) ] Alternatively, he may know better but merelywants to use religion to get himself re-elected, and/or wants to pushhis personal religious ideals onto the rest of us. Are either of thosehard to believe? If people REALLY believed that every day, abortion murdered oodles of"children", then I would expect to see much more violent reaction,regardless of the consequences. Come on, you pro-lifer reading this, be honest with yourself! What if Fidel Castro snuck a small force intoFlorida and killed three American kids? I dare say that Cuba would bein flames within 24 hours! Lets get real, people. Of course 99% of us do not reallybelieve that abortion kills millions of children every year, regardlessof our religious beliefs. At best, some of us have some moralreservations and aren't sure what the Big Cheese wants. That's good though - it's Lincoln-esque and humble and nothing to be ashamed of andthat's what choice is all about. ------------ About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys. I now have a blog that I will start to increasingly maintain and update. Here is the link: fredsuberview.blogspot.com/ About my personal background and life: I was born, I got some education, worked, ate, and had some kids. It seems I like to write � something that was unknown to me until relatively recently...How's that for detail? ;) Hate mail is welcome unless you are from the Army Of God. Please! It's not that I mind seeing pictures of aborted fetuses in my inbox, but once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all... Email: dahlek65@gmail.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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