"Life begins at conception"

Academics believe that personhood begins when one publishes.

Schroedingers blastocyst?

Well, you can find it in a box...

It really shouldn't matter what the president or Congress or the Catholics or the Islams or the person sitting next to you thinks about when life begins. The point is that every person is entitled to believe what they want and every person is responsible for their actions. If a women decides to abort, then she alone should be able to decide. She alone will be responsible for the repercussions of her actions whether it be guilt, sorrow, eternal damnation or whatever. The state should not create laws based on religious beliefs. And if abortion is made illegal, women will still have them, only in back allys and with quack doctors. The state would not lock a woman up for cutting her own arm off and if you must look at it in a non-religious way, that baby is a part of that women until the umbilical cord is cut.

I personally do not belive in abortion because to me, a baby is a baby from the moment of conception. (Just quick fact...the heart beat begins at around 20 days into pregnancy and brain waves begin at about 40 days) However, I do believe in someone's right to choose it. I am definitely pro-choice for the simple reason that I believe in free will with ones body.

The other side of the coin that I find interesting is the father in all this. Should a woman be allowed to abort without the father's consent? It is his baby too and shouldn't he be part of the decision, despite the fact that the woman is carrying the baby?

The state would indeed lock up a woman who cut off her arm.

It's not a crime to cut your arm off. They might think she was insane and put her away at a mental institution but it isn't illegal to cut your own arm off. Unless I am grossly uninformed about my states laws, in which case I retract my statement.

Might be considered practicing medicine without a license.

Regardless, they'd lock you up and dope you with all sortsa nifty drugs. Yay mental health!

yeah, but everyone in this country self-medicates so I guess that makes us all insane.

You'll get no argument from me. You're all nuts!

Kristie, the father may have an ethical claim in this matter, but his decision cannot override that of the woman until he figures out a way to carry the fetus himself. He cannot command the woman to use her body for his goals. As I said elsewhere, it is not her function to produce children. She is not a farm. I also said that her decision to abort may be morally and ethically abhorrant, but with respect to the power over her body, since it's her body, it's HER decision. To force her to carry the fetus against her will is even more abhorrant. You may say that she is morally obliged to carry the fetus, but your moral sensibilities are not her behavioral obligations.

Producing children the most important role of any female. Whithout that, any species will become extinct rather quickly.

Are you saying producing children isn't an important "function"? or are you proposing someone else should do it?

elbrown_p, I think the suggestion was that women are not baby factories, and as a women I can say I'd be pretty pissed if someone told me my most important role in life is to bear children.

For some women, yeah, it is but not all women want children.

If you want to get into what's "natural," infanticide is quite routine in the wild world.

Kristie,

What role for a woman is more important than bearing children?

The very survival of our species depends on it.

What did your great-grandmother do that was more important than to give birth to your grandmother? If it weren't for her accepting this role, you wouldn't even be here to have this conversation.

In the interest of fairness-- impregnating women is the most important role of a man.

Wow, thanks for the license, ebrown. So if one's wife is unable to bear children it is the man's obligation to run around town impregnating women. And perhaps as many as he can?
Do you really believe that it would ever come to a condition where the species was threatened because not enough women would choose to bear offspring? And if it did come to that, should we men force women to reproduce? Perhaps we could give them good enough incentives to motivate willing compliance?
Do you see how absurd the issue is?

Until a fetus is able to survive on its own, it is not life in my opinion.

It is the potential of life and is still domain of the woman.

I do not believe in abortion, it is not the decision I would make. I am male and it is not my choice to make.

It is a decision for each individual(woman) to make. It is an inalienable right, regardless of religioius or government mandate.

Is it the duty of women who inherit terrible genetic deseases to bear children who will have to put up with the same strains and ultimately weaken the human race as a whole by the mere existence of their tained genes? Just so I know where I stand in your little utopia.

JL, you are putting words in my mouth. We were talking about "roles". It is my "role" to impregnate my wife, and my wifes role to have our baby. I said nothing more than that.

I don't feel my argument is absurd. I make these arguments to challenge the all-to-common tendency to take our 21st century American values and speak of them as "morals", "ethics" and "roles" as if they were somehow universal timeless truths. Our ideas about the women and society and roles don't have any intrinsic value over those of the past if judged by reason.

The fact is that we need to have babies. The fact is that in spite of our newly discovered views of "equality" and "justice" it is the women who have babies.

Our modern technology has changed us. The view that women could choose not to have babies depends on the fact that we have drastically decreased infant mortality and don't need sons to work on farms.

In the past, had societies held your view that women could choose not to have babies, many societies would have simply ceased to exist.

You have the luxury to hold "modern" American values. My only point is that we shouldn't presume that they have any connection with intrinsic truth. Each society has to have mechanisms to ensure there are enough babies and stable families to raise them that necessarily inform relationships between men and women. The gender roles that have evolved in each society reflect these biological and social needs.

A scientific biological perspective has value. I don't think you will dispute that females of any species, including ours, have evolved to be effective at bearing children, and males have evolved to be effective in impregnating them. Our history and many parts of our culture reflect this biological need. Saying that these are male and female "roles" is correct.

Modern American values aren't as satisfying as they would have been impossible to maintain by previous societies.

Every society also has to have food and neccessities for those babies. And some form of technology to make food and neccessities. And some form of relaxation so everyone doesn't go insane. Who's role is it to provide that? The Martians?

Ebrown, sorry to have put words in your mouth. You unintentionally did it to me when you assumed I was calling your argument absurd. I was referring to the entire issue. By "role," I was denoting the sociological notion of a constellation of rights and duties. In some societies a woman's obligation to bear children has great moral force. She can suffer dearly for her failure to comply with that role obligation.