Kill It Dead
A post! Surprised? For the amazed among you, this post is the result of the ingenious epiphany that I could just email myself something I wrote at work and then post it when I got home.
For the uninformed among you, my posts have been lagging because I have started a new job, and for some reason LiveJournal does not like to load at this new job. This in itself is somewhat puzzling since, although our company uses WebSense to filter "non-work" websites, my cube-mate has no problem accessing the site, and no "website forbidden" page pops up as it does for other gaming sites etc. that I have tried to access.
Without further ado...
Getting into my car this morning I saw a bumper sticker on the car beside me that said something along the lines of "24 days after conception, the heart starts beating" with a picture of a fetus in the background. For some reason, it took me a bit to realize that the sticker was referring to the debate on whether / when a fetus is alive. So here's my thought - does it actually matter whether a concensus emerges on when the fetus actually becomes alive? I would hazard to guess that it doesn't. To the majority of women who get abortions, I honestly would guess that it wouldn't really matter to them if the fetus was technically alive or not (yes I know there are fringe cases like when the mother's life is in danger when generalities such as this might not apply, but I'm not considering those). It seems to me that we in the US have become so self-centered, that we will hardly stand for anything that stands in the way of what we want (I recognize that this can be good too). So who care's if the fetus is actually alive? It's "yours" anyways, isn't it?
Unfortunately, I can't seem to think of a good analogy that might apply to the situation, but maybe this will illustrate my idea. Suppose you've embezzled a million dollars. Suppose further that someone has found out about it. Now, if you were guaranteed that this person was the only person who would ever discover your embezzlement and that you could kill him while being guaranteed that no one would find out about it, would you? Do you think most people would? I know that this doesn't mirror the situation entirely, but my point is that I don't actually think the act of ending a life would stop that many people from protecting their way of life.
And now the caveats...
I actually don't really know whether most women who have abortions care whether the fetus is alive or not, but I would not be surprised if the above statements are correct. On the other hand, many Pro-Life (or anti-abortion ^_^ ) organizations attempt to prevent women from getting abortions by trying to convince them that the fetus is actually a human / baby. Since it seems to me that they are largely unsuccessful (in terms of number prevented vs. number not) in these attempts, I still think my assumptions have a decent chance of being correct.
Yes, I understand that my analogy isn't perfect for many reasons, chiefly among which is the fact that embezzling is considered wrong and many people don't believe having an abortion is wrong (if you can think of a better analogy, feel free to share).
Yes, I recognize that the fetus being alive matters in a legal sense since if you kill it and it is alive, then you have to deal with manslaughter / murder issues.
For the uninformed among you, my posts have been lagging because I have started a new job, and for some reason LiveJournal does not like to load at this new job. This in itself is somewhat puzzling since, although our company uses WebSense to filter "non-work" websites, my cube-mate has no problem accessing the site, and no "website forbidden" page pops up as it does for other gaming sites etc. that I have tried to access.
Without further ado...
Getting into my car this morning I saw a bumper sticker on the car beside me that said something along the lines of "24 days after conception, the heart starts beating" with a picture of a fetus in the background. For some reason, it took me a bit to realize that the sticker was referring to the debate on whether / when a fetus is alive. So here's my thought - does it actually matter whether a concensus emerges on when the fetus actually becomes alive? I would hazard to guess that it doesn't. To the majority of women who get abortions, I honestly would guess that it wouldn't really matter to them if the fetus was technically alive or not (yes I know there are fringe cases like when the mother's life is in danger when generalities such as this might not apply, but I'm not considering those). It seems to me that we in the US have become so self-centered, that we will hardly stand for anything that stands in the way of what we want (I recognize that this can be good too). So who care's if the fetus is actually alive? It's "yours" anyways, isn't it?
Unfortunately, I can't seem to think of a good analogy that might apply to the situation, but maybe this will illustrate my idea. Suppose you've embezzled a million dollars. Suppose further that someone has found out about it. Now, if you were guaranteed that this person was the only person who would ever discover your embezzlement and that you could kill him while being guaranteed that no one would find out about it, would you? Do you think most people would? I know that this doesn't mirror the situation entirely, but my point is that I don't actually think the act of ending a life would stop that many people from protecting their way of life.
And now the caveats...
I actually don't really know whether most women who have abortions care whether the fetus is alive or not, but I would not be surprised if the above statements are correct. On the other hand, many Pro-Life (or anti-abortion ^_^ ) organizations attempt to prevent women from getting abortions by trying to convince them that the fetus is actually a human / baby. Since it seems to me that they are largely unsuccessful (in terms of number prevented vs. number not) in these attempts, I still think my assumptions have a decent chance of being correct.
Yes, I understand that my analogy isn't perfect for many reasons, chiefly among which is the fact that embezzling is considered wrong and many people don't believe having an abortion is wrong (if you can think of a better analogy, feel free to share).
Yes, I recognize that the fetus being alive matters in a legal sense since if you kill it and it is alive, then you have to deal with manslaughter / murder issues.