Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Partial Birth Abortion

The Supreme court today upheld the federal law banning the practice of "partial birth abortion".

One of the tenets to the abortion debate has always been the question of "when does life begin"?

While no one in this lifetime will ever know the answer to this question, I would offer that society already has an established clinical solution to this question. It's simply the flip side of when life ends. I believe it's probably when a heart stops but a doctor can tell me more definitively.

For instance, if life ends with the stopping of a beating heart, then surely we can all agree that life should begin with the same definition..... when the baby's heart starts to beat. At that point in time, the baby should receive all the legal protection any other human would enjoy in this country.

Unfortunately, the whole debate has devolved into a woman's right to do with her body what she wants.

If you believe in that premise, do you believe prostitution should be legal? After all it's a woman's body if she wants to sell it for profit shouldn't she be allowed? What about drug use? Shouldn't a person be able to use meth, despite the abuse it does to one's body. What about eating up all that trans fat? It's my body.... shouldn't I be able to eat all the damn french fries I want? If it's simply my body, what the hell are all these seat belt laws for?

What if a woman wants an abortion for gender selection? Does the baby girl that's about to get killed have a say about her body?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The beating heart death criteria is way too subjective. Machines can keep people "alive" long after their heart stops. Same thing with brain waves. Are they really dead? Technology really muddys the water...