Feb 15, 2010
Good thing babies can’t fight back, eh?
Suppose, in the encounter between doctor and child [during an abortion], the child won half of the time, and killed the doctor…
-Stephen Schwarz, The Moral Question of Abortion, 143
(via JT)
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how about this: What if the mother sneezed during the partial birth abortion and delivered the baby? Would the doctor finish the abortion or is he/she legally obligated to save a delivered baby?
Reminds me of the partial birth laws and controversy leading up to the election of our current president.
http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000007034.cfm
ooh, I like that. posting to my facebook page
They’d probably find a different way to get it done….seriously.
probably, you’re right. i also think about how it’s supposedly not the same as violent murder, etc. so it’s kind of a nonsequitur to say “the child killed the doctor [instead of vice-versa].”
but i think the real point is that if abortion weren’t so easy–if it happened to be life-threatening to either mother or doctor, or be incredibly lengthy and complicated and expensive–then all that talk about it being a woman’s right that we have to fight for wouldn’t make nearly as much sense to people. it’s not a “human right” worth fighting for–which makes sense to those who know it’s not a right but a crime.
Disclaimer: I don’t like abortion. And now for my comment.
I feel that too many people get caught in this game of ‘What if’ when discussing serious topics like these. ‘What if’ it was life-threatening, or really expensive, or whatever… then sure, maybe we would be having a totally different discussion.
The fact is that those things just aren’t true. It’s not expensive, it’s not life-threatening to the mother or doctor (for the most part) and it is extremely convenient. We can’t say something is wrong simply because a hypothetical situation that we come up with can then change the circumstances.
It’s like saying drinking tea is wrong if, hypothetically, it was a lot more expensive or had the possibility of health risks. It doesn’t, and so the argument is fallacious, and those on the opposite side will laugh at you.
“it’s not life-threatening”
o.0
Huh? They’d have to totally miss the point that abortion is ALWAYS life threatening.
They don’t believe that life is lost at all, so no, to them, it’s not life-threatening.
If someone doesn’t believe the Bible is true, you can’t quote it to them and expect them to believe it. If someone doesn’t believe a fetus is a living baby, you can’t expect them to think that it is life-threatening to that fetus (erm… baby).
Also, there are some people who would still say it is the woman’s right to go through with the abortion even though it is life-threatening. Just as it is anyone’s right to go through surgery even though it is life-threatening, or get on a roller-coaster because it is life-threatening.
We can’t fight against the argument that it is “woman’s right” to do these things. What we need to focus on is helping people see that there is indeed life in the baby that hasn’t been born. Frankly, I agree that it is within every woman’s rights to do this if it was only her body we were talking about.
But we’re not. We’re talking about a baby, so let’s put focus on the life of that baby, and not on the fact that the mother doesn’t actually have the right to do something with her own body. People who say that she can have an abortion don’t believe there is any life in the fetus, so why would they listen to any of us about that anyway?
Very thought provoking. This would definitely put a whole new perspective on the issue for medical personnel involved with infanticide (aka abortion).
While I appreciate the sentiment, this thought experiment implies that the unborn child understands what is happening to it in an abortion but just isn’t strong enough to “fight back,” which is obviously untrue and rather silly.
It’s also a good thing that the Al Qaeda can’t send drones to take out our leaders and children can’t spank their parents back and dogs can’t put us on leashes. But since we live on planet Earth…
Isn’t pain a kind of understanding?
Perhaps — but does that mean it is wrong to kill anything that feels pain? Do vegetables feel pain? Certainly animals we kill to eat feel pain.
I think pain is just an instinctual reaction, not any kind of understanding.
When a young child gets a vaccine shot, he or she feels pain. They don’t understand that the shot is actually in their best interest.
Wow. I’m quite surprised how many people have totally missed the point. The point is that if it’s ok for the doctor to murder the child, why isn’t it ok for the child to murder the doctor?
It’s a valid and profound argument.
It’s the same old argument, really. It is equating an unborn child to the status of an adult — which anti-abortionists agree with, so they think this is “profound.”
But pro-choicers don’t, so it doesn’t carry weight with them.
It doesn’t advance the argument, it’s just a different way of making the same point. If someone doesn’t agree with the typical presuppositions, it isn’t any more convincing than the traditional argument.
True. It’s not new. But it is valid and it is profound.
well, seeing as an unborn fetus is not a baby, nothing much would happen.
By definition, a fetus is an unborn baby.
A human one is, at least. And 8 weeks after conception.
Did you see the woman who saw an abortion on an ultra sound, and described it as “it’s fighting for it’s life,” as she saw the baby (about 13 weeks gestation) moving away from the probe that would soon dismember it and suck if out of the mother’s womb? Sounds to me like that “fetus” reacted to trying to be killed.
Disclaimer: I’m not saying this woman is a liar or wrong (again, I don’t like abortion), I’m just making a statement to say we need to be careful of our resources. BTW, here is her video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y8vcIiBmxQ
When I was at my church a few months ago, worshiping God at around midnight with some good friends, and praying for the health of a few friends who had separate accidents and were rushed to the ER, one of my friends suddenly collapsed and started having a seizure. She stopped breathing, and was spazzing on the ground.
Several of my friends thought it was a demonic attack, leaping on her immediately and casting the devil out of her. When she reached for her throat, they screamed louder that she ‘would not kill herself!’ There was crying, gnashing of teeth, pain. The girl’s 15 year old ‘sister’ was crying nearby, thinking something horrible was happening.
Turns out this girl has Pots disease, she’s had it all of her life. She has seizure-like activities often, because of various issues with her nervous system. When she reached for her throat, it was to say ‘I can’t Breathe’ and when her face became deformed, it was with fear and the inability to cry. There was no demon, it was simply the cause of her disease and the situation she found herself in.
My two friends were only making matters worst with their screaming and carrying on.
I say all of that to make this point: just because it looks like that baby was fighting for its life, doesn’t mean that it was. How did the baby know that the probe was going to injure it? The only way for it to know that would be if it had previously experienced a similar event… and if it had that experience, then it wouldn’t be alive on that day to experience it again.
In an old church I listened as a few of my friends cried out that they were seeing flashes of light on the ceiling during service – that these were angels ministering to them. No, they weren’t. They were light reflecting off of the silver tambourines nearby.
It’s a matter of perception, and because we weren’t there to see what this woman saw, then I can’t say I actually believe she saw a baby fighting for its life. I would be more willing to believe that as the probe moved fluids and muscles contracted, etc, that the baby was moved involuntarily.
But again, I wasn’t there… so who knows.
And, that baby was indeed killed.
And remember that if a pregnant woman is killed, the law allows for the murderer to be charged with 2 counts of murder, not one, so what makes that baby considered a “life worth defending” and one who is aborted not?