Life begins at birth?
Posted on May 4, 2007
Filed Under Abortion, Reason | 5 Comments
As part of my ongoing conversation with a particular liberal blogger, I’d like to address the common argument from the “pro-choice” establishment (so to speak) that life begins “at birth.”
I find this argument to be intentionally myopic, since all that is required to identify the beginning of life is a simple examination of the characteristics of life. We can perform such an examination in a single sentence: if it requires nourishment in order to continue growth and development, it is alive.
Now for the argument of when a “fetus” becomes “human,” that’s just a simple: if the end or objective of development of an organism is human, the organism is effectively human. It doesn’t matter how far along that development life cycle the organism has progressed. Trying to claim that an unborn fetus is not human simply by virtue of the fact that it has not yet left the womb is about as logical as arguing that I am not a citizen of my country except when I have left my house.
In a previous post, I made the assertion that abortion is effectively murder, to which my liberal opponent counterclaimed that life begins at birth. He made this claim in an attempt to destabilize my assertion on the grounds that all claims made without “basis for [the] position” carry equal validity. So since I did not provide a “basis,” nor did he, his claim is as valid as mine. If he were right–if there were no absolute truth against which all claims must be measured–I would agree with him. It saddens me that some humans can be so committed to an agenda that they need certain obvious truths to be spelled out for them, and that in the absence of a valid argument in their favor, rather than admitting to their error when truth is spelled out for them, they will resort to “lawyer ball,” demanding the definition of the letters.
But since this world seems to suffer from an ever-growing epidemic of self-imposed blindness, here’s the spelling again: if something is alive (as we have already established) and its life is terminated with pre-meditation, it is murder. Can anyone seriously argue that an abortion is not the pre-meditated termination of life? How else is murder defined? Would you prefer the term “homicide?” That’s just the “lawyer ball” term for a murder that has not been through the courts yet.
A shining example of the “life begins at birth” problem is found in the exchange between former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Penn) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Cal) that I pointed to in another previous post.
I’d like to see what you liberals have to say about that exchange relative to the “life begins at birth” argument.
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5 Responses to “Life begins at birth?”
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I hardly recognized myself.
I’ve been out of town and away from computers, so I didn’t have a chance to follow up on this juicy little debate.
You totally mischaracterize my argument. Far from arguing that life begins at birth, I make the case that life begins when we say it does. That’s quite different. I’m not a thumper by any means, but most pro-lifers believe in the bible, yet the bible has nothing to say about abortion. Therefore, it is left to us humans to decide – a legal construct, a legal argument, when does life begin. If we can come to agreement, we can all go home happy.
But we can’t. Therefore, we all follow our own individual consciences, with none of us imposing our views on others. Would that it were so.
Your belief that life begins at conception has no basis in law at this point, and can therefore be dismissed. If SCOTUS steps in and imposes a life-at-=conception viewpoint on us, fine. We’ll buckle under. Abortion will go on, just as before, but in the quiet of the night.
I didn’t mischaracterize your argument, I addressed the real issue. Whether your point is that life begins at birth or “when we say it does,” I am pointing out that neither is correct. Contrary to your assertion, it’s not a subjective matter open to debate, it’s an absolute. Whether or not people agree on that is irrelevant, it’s just true and no one can make a valid argument to the contrary. People can debate about whether or not gravity really exists too, but that won’t get me any closer to achieving unassisted flight.
Your assertion that life begins “when we say it does”—and the implication of such an assertion, which I understand is your point—suggests that truths are subject to change according to the morphing definitions of societal acceptability. That is just silly.
It’s true the Bible doesn’t say anything about abortion specifically, but it does say a lot about the sanctity of life and the sin of murder. That it doesn’t specifically spell out when life begins doesn’t justify us in ignoring the obvious. That’s like arguing that McDonald’s should pay me millions of dollars because they served me coffee without specifically warning me that it was hot enough to cause serious burns. Are we honestly willing to publicly admit to such ill-functioning mental processes that we must have everything explicitly spelled out for us? I, for one, would be embarrassed by such admission.
Speaking of ill-functioning mental processes, why should the law be designed to protect the lives and health of women who are so obviously mentally disturbed that, rather than carrying a baby to term, they will seek some kind of DIY abortion-in-an-alley? You really think that black-market abortion is a valid argument against regulation? Please. If a woman is stupid enough to 1) get knocked up on accident and 2) seek some means of abortion that is such an obvious health risk rather than keep the baby or give it up to one of the hundreds of thousands of American couples seeking to adopt, she deserves whatever ramifications result from the back-alley abortion. It’s like the motorcycle helmet law: if you’re dumb enough to ride a motorcycle on the open road without a helmet, you deserve the brain-damage (or worse) that you’ll get if you crash.
And for the genius (see comment #36) who thinks that Fact 1 in this post is an example of my opinion rather than actual fact, I guess he’s never heard of Dr. Bernard Nathanson.
Life begins at conception? If I place a human egg in a petri dish and then fertilize it with a sperm, is it the creation of a human? Conceived in a petri dish?
If I then dump it down the sink, am I killing an unborn child? It seems to me that if the answer is no, you will have to change the definition of the beginning of human life.
Uh…where did you get the egg and sperm from? It doesn’t matter what you did with it, you still had to get it from a human; therefore, a product of human design, or in other words, a human creation. That’s like saying that a lesbian couple’s adopted child doesn’t have a father. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances are now, the origin is unarguably human. Talk to me again when science can actually create the egg and the sperm.
As for dumping it down the sink, this is where your argument breaks down all the way. You were assuming the answer to your first question would be “No, it’s not a human creation.” But it is human. So your second question is founded on false assumption.
In fact you are killing an unborn child. Once fertilized (conceived), it requires nourishment to survive, and is therefore alive. And the end result of that development, sustained by nourishment, is nothing less than a human, so therefore, the developing organism must also be human.
Let me ask you this, if I crush a seedling, am I killing a tree? Or more pointedly, if I kill a child, am I killing an un-mature adult? In both cases, the answer has to be yes.
Nice try, though.