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Editorial
See other Editorial Articles

Title: Liz Michael on Abortion
Source: http://www.lizmichael.com/
URL Source: http://www.lizmichael.com/abortion.htm
Published: Aug 15, 2006
Author: Liz Michael
Post Date: 2006-08-15 16:42:59 by wakeup
Keywords: None
Views: 858
Comments: 40

I fully recognize two sets of conflicting rights on the abortion issue. I believe strenuously in the right of a woman to control her own body. And I also believe strenuously in an unborn child's right to life.

I fully reject the concept that a fetus is not a human being. A fetus is scientifically a human being because it carries the human genome, it is alive, and it possesses all necessary cells needed to mature to adulthood under natural conditions. It is not a part of the woman's body: it resides inside a woman's body. These things are made quite evident via ultrasound and photography. From the moment of conception, an embryo is scientifically a being of the human specie, and therefore a human being. To willfully engage in an act which destroys that human being, regardless of what the law is or should be, is morally, murder unless there are compelling reasons. It is the same as killing a grown person or a child in cold blood...

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Poster Comment:

I am not looking for debate but, from time to time, certain positions on issues need to be re-stated, especially when that life or death issue involves those who have no voice. I offer Liz Michael's argument because she has great credibility and respect among many I respect.

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 27.

#21. To: All (#0)

"I am not looking for debate but, from time to time, certain positions on issues need to be re-stated..."

I changed my mind. I'm lookin' for debate. Persuade me.

http://www.freedom4um.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=32558&Disp=0#C0

wakeup  posted on  2006-08-16   0:55:42 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

I changed my mind. I'm lookin' for debate. Persuade me

hihi wakeup

sorry i didn't reply to your posts earlier but i had to deal with a hungry little one then i fell asleep.

i read through your replies and its obvious i have touched a raw nerve as you have touched one of mine! this isn't just an intellectual argument for you is it? it isn't for me either, having lost 2 pregnancies due to miscarriage (no i did not do anything to cause them) and i am an incest/abuse survivor who luckily did not get impregnated by my abusers. you made several references to a 1-year old child and i'm not asking you to explain why. i just get a feeling of immense pain and sadness in your posts.

oh it would be a wonderful world if all sex was consensual, all pregnancies went well, all children were wanted and loved...but it isn't all like that. i wish it could be but i have to be grown up and embrace the goodness where i find it but not let the bad things overwhelm me.

i stand by my ground - emotive images of aborted babies are a crass way of illustrating an argument. the loss of a woman to blood poisoning who has gone for a back street abortion because she already has too many mouths to feed is not a pretty sight either. i am in no way discounting the sadness of a little life lost before he or she is born and allowed to thrive. but i would be crushed by sadness and despair if i allowed myself to be dictated to by emotive images. it is a cheap shot.

i'm sorry but i cannot accept any position other than my right to choose whether i should carry an unborn baby to term. once that baby is born, i sincerely believe it is a different situation - the baby is out of my womb and deserves the best chance to live i can give it. am i cold? perhaps i am but when i breast feed my little one at night i don't feel particularly cold.

as to the extreme arguments i put forward, it was to demonstrate how partial it is to try to define when a foetus is "living" - is it when the ovum is fertilised by the sperm? is it when cells start differentiating? is it when nerve tissue has begun to form? and i argued that you can't be arbitrary and say "well, its obviously when..." - the concept of a human genome is so new, it is just another marker on this absolutist scale.

i don't think i'm being silly about the issues of when it might be treated as murder. i can imagine some of the psychopathic bible thumpers in Texas praising the righteous "justice" of a woman being poisoned to death in the execution room for "murdering" her unborn child by an illegal abortion, while the doctor and nurse who assisted wait their turn on Death Row. am i really being silly?

and the dreadfully difficult issue of what merits an abortion - deformity, risk to the mother's life, product of rape...all these sound good or "compelling" reasons. but then there are the other uncomfortable issues - race, colour, sex of the infant, and the future issues of designer babies too. look at the Indian villages where there are NO girl children because the women were pressurised into only giving birth to boys - they are facing a human crisis because of male dominancy. look at the women in some of the states in America who have to travel in secret to clinics in other states because if they were discovered to have had an abortion they would be criminals!

so please don't try to tell me what i should or shouldn't do with my own womb - once a baby is born, it HAS the same right to life as you or me. until that time, i firmly believe it is the sole right of the mother to decide whether it shall reach that stage. i'm not arguing about whether the foetus is "alive" or when that happens (my faith teaches me that it is at the moment of conception). nor am i saying that i would agree with a woman's choice to keep or abort a particular baby. what i AM saying is that it is HER decision to make (and live with) and when others interfere, no matter how well-meaning they believe themselves to be, they are meddling in dangerous territory that can have disastrous effects for all humanity.

(p.s. who is this "Jefferson person" - is he a member of the forum too???) - just kidding, honest ;)

ruthie  posted on  2006-08-16   7:43:13 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

I am not emotional and the issue does not strike a raw nerve any harder than when the murder of a one year old is rationalized. The "immense pain and sadness" that you think you see in my posts may be associated with overcoming the consistently illogical arguments I hear in the abortion debate and not some burden I carry.

"Emotive images" of aborted babies are not "cheap shots." They simply shed light on the issue in an effort to change the "out of mind, out of sight" mindset.

A better example of a cheap shot would be constantly associating abortion with rape. Most are not done because of rape, most are done as birth control.

Now here is a cheap shot: "psychopathic bible thumpers in Texas praising the righteous "justice" of a woman being poisoned to death in the execution room for "murdering" her unborn child by an illegal abortion, while the doctor and nurse who assisted wait their turn on Death Row. am i really being silly?" Bible thumpers (and I am not one) have their place in this issue because of the moral aspect. It is clearly appropriate for the religious in a society to remind others from time to time that Thou Shall Not Murder.

You read me wrong and I am not so emotionally involved that my arguments are weak. My arguments are intellectual, logical, consistent and morally sound.

You make a distinction between before delivery and after delivery without any explanation other than the child is part of your body. That really is not logical, at all but, the emotional aspect seems to reign in some.

Let us say, for arguments sake, that human children are not carried inside the womb but, outside, in a pouch with umbilical cord attached, of course. Now, let us make a few more changes, while we hold to your rule that the child is part of the women's body therefore, it's life may be taken at any time.

In this case, children develop faster, learn to talk, read and walk while awkwardly dealing with the umbilical cord. Will you still argue that you may kill this child anytime you choose simply because it is still part of your body. I think not. Therefore, your reasons are not as you say. This "part of my body" argument really is not sufficient to justify the death of that walking, talking, one or two year old appearing child.

May I suggest that the "out of sight, out of mind" argument may be real distinction for you and many others. Clearly no sane person would argue that the walking, talking child with cord, may be killed. Yet, that child is still part of the woman.

If you haven't interacted with a visible child, as would be necessary in my walking and talking example, it is easier to consider the death of the out of sight child. Furthermore, there is no way a sane person would allow a walking and talking, still connected by umbilical cord child to be dismembered and sucked into a vacuum machine for disposal. Why, because the grossness of the procedure and the sound of the child asking you to stop while it tries to run away, would be too much for society to bare. Yet, if this is done in the darkness of a womb then, it's a woman's right.

So, it is not really the "part of my body" argument, after all. It's the visual disconnect associated with carrying within the womb.

By the way, you never answered my questions:

Does your newborn have the right to live and did that child have the right to live the day before you went into delivery?

A simple yes or no, will do.

wakeup  posted on  2006-08-16   14:03:05 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

hihi wakeup

when you said "I am not emotional" did you misconstrue me? i do not mean that you are irrational. if you are truly unemotional, then why are you interested in this issue at all??? i'm afraid i don't believe you are not emotional. and it is nothing to be ashamed about, surely?

did i constantly associate abortion with rape? i can't see where i did but feel free to tell me. personally, i'm not saying a child conceived of rape should automatically be aborted. what i AM saying is that the decision rests with the victim of the rape. if she decides to keep the child, that too should be her choice.

i really beg to differ regarding the Bible Thumpers - they have NO moral imperative to force their delusional belief systems down the throats of others who do not share their views. in my experience the loudest proclaimers of righteousness are the biggest hypocrites and some of the wickedest people on earth. of course they are entitled to express their views as i am to express mine and you are to express yours. but imho they are NOT entitled to enforce their rigid definitions of morality on women. do you accept the reverse of your argument hold true, that It is clearly appropriate for the non-religious in a society to remind the religious from time to time that Thou Shall Butt Out Of Other People's Affairs?

you referred to murder - do you have degrees of murder? minor murder, not really quite murder, sort of murder but we let it go, ghastly murder, etc? is assisted suicide murder? is execution by lethal injection murder? is contraception murder? yet again, you hide behind an absolutist term that you hope will silence dissent - now THAT is a cheap shot!

when you said "You read me wrong and I am not so emotionally involved that my arguments are weak. My arguments are intellectual, logical, consistent and morally sound" i really beg to differ. you obviously believe the presence of emotion weakens the validity of an argument. i don't doubt but that you are intellectual, logical or consistent. but your logic is based upon false premises and you are constructing a tower on quicksand. your definition of what is morally sound is personal and you are welcome to it. i do not necessarily share it and you should not try to force me to your will, just as a society should not bully women into abiding by men's moral codes. you see, i equate the Evangelical Christians with the other phallocentric religious cults of Islam and Judaism. they are all bankrupt visions of humanity as chattels who must obey their interpretations of God's word to achieve purity and salvation. but that's not MY God of love, forgiveness, compassion and grace. my God put out His hand to the weak, the suffering, the unwanted, the despised. their God puts out His hand to punish, hurt, frighten and oppress those who do not follow His path - you take your pick, wakeup. i've taken mine.

i loved your bit about the pouch and the umbilical cord - it would be interesting indeed if humans had evolved from marsupials. i think we would be a much kinder, socially integrated species :) but i'm afraid you lost me there - my progesterone levels are still high (i keep staring at shoes, wondering what on earth they are for!) i'm struggling with your part of the body argument and wonder if you can simplify it to a level i can follow better?

and here's the answer to your questions:

yes, Michael James has the right to live and God help ANYONE who threatens him!

but no, he didn't have the right to live before my c-section. i wanted him to live, i prayed that he would survive a difficult birth even if i didn't but a right? no, he did not have that in my view.

go on, say it - "what a cold b*tch"

ruthie  posted on  2006-08-16   14:48:26 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

what a cold b*tch

wakeup  posted on  2006-08-16   15:00:14 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

#28. To: wakeup (#27)

what a cold b*tch

i forgive you :)

ruthie  posted on  2006-08-16 15:08:22 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

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