Discussions On Abortion [Reply #4]

The Question:
Abortion: Are You Pro-Choice or Pro-Life?

N.P. wrote on July 29, 2007:

Abortion, the termination of pregnancy in the first six months, could not be called immoral by anyone who has thought the matter through. It is not murder to prevent a foetus or embryo from turning into a baby any more than it is to use a condom, because in my opinion a human only begins his life when he is able to sustain it independently outside of the womb. In the first stages of pregnancy the foetus is not yet sufficiently developed to breathe or eat by itself, not to mention that it is utterly incapable of even the most elementary thought.

If a woman becomes pregnant and does not wish to have a child, she must make a choice between giving birth and abortion. If she does choose to give birth, she must again choose between keeping the child and giving it up for adoption, and in either case, an unplanned and unwanted child is brought into existence. The mother and the child would suffer unnecessarily from their experiences. After giving birth, the mother is often emotionally very attached to the baby but can not provide for it, and an adopted child will be more prone to a crisis of identity later in life at best, and placed in a completely unsuitable family at worst. With this in mind it might very well be the best option of all to stop the process of creating this particular life. Especially in circumstances where the life of the mother is at risk, she has been raped, or the child would have severe disabilities, abortion is not only acceptable but perhaps even recommended.
Abortion is incorrectly thought of as the end of a newly begun life when it is in fact simply a method of preventing life. Murder is an act which requires that the object is alive to begin with, and a foetus is not truly alive by my definition, as stated in the first paragraph. If something is not truly alive, it should of course not have any legal rights either. A foetus is not yet a human or a child but instead a mass of tissue, the blueprint and mere possibility of a baby.
So if a foetus is not an individual living creature, what is it? In my opinion, the foetus is still in fact completely a part of the mother. Connected by an umbilical cord, the foetus is physically attached and completely dependent on the mother for survival. Thus it should be so that the mother also has total control over the fate of that foetus or embryo.

If and since humans are quite rapidly overpopulating the planet and humans have the ability to safely terminate unwanted or unplanned pregnancies, I believe that abortion is a perfectly acceptable option. Every child brought into this world should, in my opinion, be wanted and cared for by a loving guardian or guardians. Making abortions illegal would not stop them from happening, but instead would simply make those who have them criminals. It would be in the best interests of everyone to campaign for further acceptance of abortion and to rid it of its controversial status in society.

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