Skip to main content

a comment from email

This is a comment I received in an email. Like Lavender's thoughtful comment, it addresses aspects of the entire abortion controversy. I can't publish it as a comment, and therefore made it a post.

Ted

Like you, my own views on abortion have changed over the years. Like you, I think abortion should be legal (as much for doctors as for patients: if an abortion is done on a mother with eclampsia and a pre-term fetus, you don't want to face the possibility of having some lawyer accuse you of an illegal abortion on a fetus who, in the hands of another doctor (more skilled than yourself, according to the lawyer) could have been saved; "This doctor belongs behind bars" is not a pleasant phrase to hear, no matter how ludicrous.) Also like you, I don't know where the dividing line is for when it should/should not be allowed. I suppose the ability to survive outside the womb is as good as any dividing point.


In the last five years or so, I have come to have a rather pragmatic approach to early abortions. To me, an abortion on a one or two month old fetus is - in the final outcome - no different from taking birth control pills. In both cases, human beings have taken the conscious decision to prevent birth. Again, the final outcome is identical: no child is brought into the world.

Pro-lifers will argue that there is a world of difference, because in one case you are merely throwing away many sperm and an egg each month, whereas in the other you are throwing away a human. Well, I'm not so sure it's that clear. As that paper on DNA I sent you shows, "it's turtles all the way down". Life doesn't come from non-life. Life comes from life. A live sperm and a live egg form a live zygote. And that happens generation after generation. So, when does life begin? Not with the zygote. It begins with God.

Pro-lifers have no problems throwing away any quantity of sperm and any quantity of eggs. But not one single fetus should be tossed away. In other words, two kinds of life forms (sperm, eggs) with potential to become a baby are ok to throw away, but another kind of life form (zygote-fetus) with potential to become a baby, is not ok to throw away. There is a term for that kind of opinion, and that term is neither "right" nor "wrong". Rather, it is "arbitrary".



Comments

  1. LavenderMarch 16, 2010 at 12:14 AM

    In defense of a pro-life view, virtually no one I know has an issue with discarding eggs or sperm. Left as they are, they have a life expectancy of about 24 or 72 hours. A zygote, on the other hand, will begin the developmental process, complete with a unique, full compliment of DNA, and that life will continue until natural death (hours up to a century). Surely this is different from the cell death of egg or sperm. What is more arbitrary in my mind is identifying a point in fetal development (a continuum) at which it becomes murder (where before it would not be killing anything?). Even the age of viability is problematic as that is technology-dependent and, therefore, a moving target. Just my opinion.....

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMarch 16, 2010 at 11:31 AM

    Indeed, picking any point in a pregnancy as the dividing line between non-murder/murder is arbitrary. That's part of what prevents a consensus on this issue.

    Regarding the difference between sperm/egg and a zygote, it's true that left as they are, the sperm and the egg will have a short life expectancy. Then again, outside the body (and without artificially freezing it), if the zygote is left as it is, the zygote will have a short life expectancy as well. Outside of the body and without artificial freezing, sperm, eggs, and zygotes all die. Pro-choice advocates will say, "So what's the difference between masturbation, menstruation, and abortion?" Pro-life advocates will reply, "The last item is murder." And thus the impasse continues...

    DG

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is Forgiveness

 In doing years of medical teaching, I have told students that teaching and learning are not directly related. I can teach and teach, but you may never learn. Conversely, you may learn continuously without me teaching you a thing. 'I teach' and 'you learn' are two separate, active processes that may overlap or coincide. The same is true of forgiveness. I am an unforgiving man. I am the very opposite of God, who is slow to anger and of great kindness. I am quick to anger and very slow to forgive. I'm kind and insightful with people generally, but when mistreated or insulted I am not kind at all, nor do I forget, or forgive.  The Bible tells us to do something else. We are told to forgive. In Matthew 18:21, Peter asks Jesus how often he should forgive his brother's sin. The Jewish standard was three times. Like the young man in the story of the Samaritan, who asks who his brother is in order to know to whom he should be loving, Peter appears to be asking for guida...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Broken Tooth

 I broke a tooth today. I've done that before; I inherited my mother's horrible teeth, and if not for crowns I would have the smile of any drug-addicted homeless man in the street. But the tooth broke, rather than the crown coming off. I've had that happen a couple of times, and it's nothing. After all, the tooth is just fake, held on by cements similar to the ones I use for my models. This time, however, I have to have the root extracted so I can get the modern version of a bridge. And this new dental experience has reduced to me to jelly, this not helped by the condescending, sexist comments of the dental assistant. I have a long, longe memory, my first recollections coming from age 2. I have well-developed, detailed memories from age 3 onward. I vividly recall being at the dentiswt as a child, when it was fashionable to fill baby teeth. I can recall being left there by my mother as a 14 year old, on the day I was paid for working as 'the 5th ace' at Camp Maga...
1 comment
Read more

Politically Correct Dishonor

The Biblical prophets warned aloud that devastation would come to those who were unclean. Those that profaned God and the house of God, those who were drunken, fornicators, idolators, those that cheated, that gave unclean offerings. Israel was warned of the consequences of their behavior. And God did not punish Israel. Rather, by walking away from God, Israel simply suffered the consequences of its behavior and choices. I chose, I chose , to live, to receive a transplant. I struggled to have the surgery that prolonged my life, I accepted the gift of a kidney from a whole person that I might live. I was convinced by family and friends that I had some role in the world, something I might contribute. And I believed that. My idea of contribution was to teach, to give to others what I had learned to do. But I have lived to see injustice. To see self-interest and greed triumph over not merely right but reason as well. I see incompetence passed off as expertise, the mundane as the s...
2 comments
Read more