Follow-up to Oh, baby.
One of our readers commented on Mo’s disposition to protect spiders despite his views on abortion, and this prompted us to clarify a few things. Interestingly enough, his views on abortion and spiders are actually aligned.
Mo is pro-choice until the embryo becomes a fetus, which happens during week eight. Again, this refers back to the seven functions that classify a living thing and the time period in which an embryo becomes a living thing (fetus). After week eight, Mo believes it is completely wrong to abort the fetus, as it is alive at this point. Aborting at this point would mean taking a life. Couples should have made a decision before reaching this point.
Mo also believes that if the couple has taken every precaution possible to prevent pregnancy, yet becomes pregnant anyway, they would be more justified in pursuing an abortion of an embryo. If the couple has not taken any precautions and becomes pregnant, they would not be justified in having an abortion. Still, we both hope that all pregnant couples will make the right decisions for themselves and their babies.
We hope this clarifies any conflicting information!
I’m like pro-choice and pro-life. Does that make sense?
I mean why not just put the baby up for adoption? There are lots of couples out there who really want to be parents but are struggling to get pregnant. But then again, you can get attached to your baby by the end of term.
I believe there are some people for whom it would be better if they had never been born–because there impact is overwhelmingly negative. Judas Iscariot is a classic example of this, with strong support for this conjecture in sacred scripture. Others are mass murderers such as Hitler, Pol Pot and Kim Jong Il. However, there is no such thing as a purely evil person with purely evil intent. Rather, in certain individuals the balance toward the negative (darkness) is so tilted that their impact on humanity, goodness and God overwhelms whatever good proceeded from their birth. This is not a classic utilitarian argument (i.e. greatest good from the greatest number). It is merely recognition that all moral choices have practical consequences which can lead to the greatest joy or greatest suffering.
Cross-apply to the abortion debate and an 8 week demarcation seems silly. Is it really OK at 7.5 weeks but wrong a few days later? There seems to be a haziness to the bright line test. Not saying that 8 weeks is a bad line to draw, just that it is not any better than any other demarcation. It would be fair to say that medical professionals have far more certainly about what constitutes scientific death than what constitutes life, though attempts can be made. Heartbeats and brainwaves are good enough signs of life for me, but are they proof of life in a moral sense?