Sunday, May 9, 2010

Abortions

I am kind of surprised that abortion is even a journal topic, because some people tend to get sensitive when arguing over this sort of thing. Personally, I support allowing a woman to choose whether or not she can have an abortion. I agree with the fact that a woman should be given the opportunity to decide what is best for her life, and it is her body after all.
A few days ago, I began to ponder what constituted a baby during certain stages in pregnancy that would render an abortion illegal. And then I began to really ask myself why a certain stage even matters. It is not like the child is conscious at all, and it is not like the fetus will even know the difference between it being killed or not. It seems like there is not that big of a difference from killing a baby versus killing a fetus versus any variation of an abortion. Neither of these entities was ever conscious or self-aware, so in a way they are all indifferent towards their future lives. I find it kind of ironic that humans have no problem with killing animals that are self-aware and want to live but believe it is immoral to kill a human baby that is not self-aware and does not even understand what living is. But just to be clear, I am not advocating that everyone should kill their babies; I am merely just conveying some ideas that I thought were interesting.
I guess the idea of preventing a life from ever coming to be is different than actually terminating a life that already exists. But in the case of fetuses or babies, neither side is self-aware or conscious. Thus, abortions and killing a baby yields the prevention of a human adult. So if both instances would prevent the life of a human adult, then the only difference is that one kills something we can physically see and one kills something we can only conceptualize.
However, some people will argue that almost all human adults mostly enjoy living, and if were given the option, they would have preferred it if their mom had not aborted him or her. While this may be true, I believe that this is not an actual argument against abortions, because no one will have known the difference if you were aborted. For example, if in another reality, my mother had an abortion. Consequently, I would be indifferent, because I would my consciousness would have never existed nor would I have ever been self-aware. Similarly, one could then arguing that murdering human adults was morally acceptable; because say some murdered me, after I am dead, I am no longer am conscious or self-aware therefore am unfeeling over my death. The only difference is the instance before death, I was conscious and self-aware thus I would have been angry if some had tried to kill me where as a baby or fetus cannot comprehend death.
Arguing over whether or not abortions are moral is similar to ramming your head into a door over and over again. Neither side really ever convinces the other side. I believe that the reason for this is because arguing over abortions is equivalent to arguing over religion. I say this because the holy book of choice of whatever religion will most likely imply that abortions are illegal, or at least that is how most people will interpret their holy storybook of choice. And the other, usually non-religious, side will argue practical and pragmatic reasons.

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