The one thing that really bothers me about the abortion debate is that as debates go, this one sucks. Both sides really stink it up when it comes to reasoning through this complex issue. Pro-lifers generally hide behind their Bibles which is great when preaching to the choir, but utterly worthless outside of their little clique. Or they'll say "life is sacred," and then get hammered into the ground with the death penalty. But I'll take it easy on the pro-lifers, because I'm on their side. Besides that, it's more fun to beat up on the pro-choicers. Let's take some of their ideas and just... run with them.
The first centers around the question of "When does a fertilized egg become a human being?" Many learned people have come up with arcane and elaborate formulas for this, which can be debated until the heat death of the universe. I prefer much more simple and elegant solutions that can be proposed and discussed in the space of no more than two martinis. So a couple of years ago, I came up with a Modest Proposal-esque solution to this dilemma. It's really dead simple (rimshot, please): Let any mother abort any baby at any time, with one condition: under penalty of death, she has to eat the fetus. Raw, straight up, and no Tabasco sauce. If it's not a human being - just some foreign tissue growing inside of her then there's nothing really wrong or gross or even cannibalistic about it, right? Heck, it just came out a nearly sterile environment and any toxins in it are just stuff she's got in her already. Just think of it as a really exotic dish. Biologically speaking, it's not nearly as gross as eating sushi, and I love to eat sushi. In fact, since some sushi is actually served alive, we really don't even have to kill it first. If you catch it early enough you can just suck it right down like an oyster. Maybe we can throw in just a little Tobasco. Remember: it's not a baby or anything like that. And ... um... how's that argument working for you right about now?
Another line of reasoning suggests that OK, OK, maybe it is human and all, but since a fetus isn't viable outside of the womb it's not really all the way human or something like that. This assertion fraught with problems to begin with (as anyone born prematurely can attest), but let's just take it at face value because we can have fun with it. The obvious question that comes to mind is "why stop at birth?" Babies can't survive on their own, nor can small children... or even many adults. If they can't support themselves then they're not viable, and we should be able to abort them instead of letting them drain our financial and biological resources (hey, they're costing me money and that's standing between me and more sushi). You could even go so far as to say that people who don't make enough money to pay taxes aren't viable in the sociological sense (ditto). Heck, we could solve social security insolvency, welfare problems, and eliminate the possibility of any Democrat being elected to anything ever again right there! It's tempting.
And finally, we get to: "My trigger finger is part of my body and the government can't tell me what to do with my body!!!"
(For the moonbats reading this, yes, this is satire, and no, I'm not going on nor advocating a shooting spree. But if you can eat the fetuses... well, you win.)
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like Taco Bell...but organic?
ReplyDeleteYour thoughts are somewhat similar to mine. My post was partly inspired by your comment on Becky's post, especially the part about "sociological parasites" (I call them "economic parasites"). I'm pretty sure it is different enough, though, that you cannot sue for copyright infringement!
ReplyDeleteMurder is the unjustified taking of a morally innocent life. It is not when "it becomes a human being", it's when life begins.
ReplyDeleteThe death penalty is imposed on a person who is not morally innocent if it's been proven they've taken a life and it was not justified.
Hey, Red, the trigger finger argument MAY NOT be satire in the future. When the government is taking control of my body under socialized medicine, I may be able to argue successfully before the SC that my Griswold/Roe Right To Privacy trumps a bureaucrat's right to overturn my choice of medical treatment made in the privacy of my Doctor's office. Eh?
ReplyDelete(Meadester, don't forget that in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a box of cereal was sent back in time resulting in a successful suit for copyright infringement against the cereal company. Anything is possible in a society with under-employed lawyers.)
How about this, no religion involved:
"Life" is a continuum, both sperm and egg are living cells. This puts a different face on 'life begins at conception.' Biologically, an individual is created when the two combine. The only question that remains is the moral one: When is it no longer OK to terminate the individual? Seems simple until you consider that less than one-third of fertilized eggs don't reach the state of placental implantation and so never become a fetus. So, can we say that traditional birth control pills and the morning after pill are OK because implantation has not occurred? And that measures after implantation (about the 5th or 6th day) would be considered ending a human life that the government can protect?