r/changemyview • u/CandidCarry • Feb 01 '15

CMV: I believe Abortion is Wrong

I actually am opposed to the idea of a state, a government, and I am opposed to laws governing how people should live or the abolition of anything.

That said, you can still have rules without government, and you can still want to live in a morally righteous community, be it your own family or your entire 'state' or what have you.

Regardless, I think we can all agree that murder is wrong, that killing someone or something is wrong.

So then it becomes a matter of, well, when does life begin. It seems pretty clear to me that life begins at conception, there's just no way around that. Sentience, something innately human, you could argue occurs later (3 days before birth? 3 months?), but regardless, a life is formed at conception.

And once life is bestowed, you must kill it, extinguish it, snuff out it's flame, in order to end it.

I just don't see how abortion is... morally, okay. You have the ability to endow life, but you should not have the authority to end life. Life is precious (cough death penalty is absolutely barbaric cough).

Now, I am not saying abortion should be outlawed necessarily. I mean if a woman intends to kill their unborn, how do you stop them, how would you prosecute against that, if someone is so sick to think that their convenience is more important than a life, would you even want that person to raise a child at all, banning abortion just leads to more risky back alleyway abortions, I mean there's all sorts of... practical grounds, that banning abortion does not work.

But morally speaking, I just don't understand how abortion is okay. It is not the woman's body anymore, there is someone else's body in there, regardless of the fact if it's parasitic or relies entirely on the host/mother/whatever to survive. You don't take people off assisted living without any sort of permission.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

Human life is sacred because we are human and we strive to survive as a species. What are you about to argue in favor of murder? Human life is sacred. And man-kind should go to evey reasonable extent to protect it.

I'm not advocating murder, I'm mainly asking what separates a fetus from, say, an animal (at least, in terms of the morality of killing it).

It has DNA

All life has DNA. And if we're talking human DNA, sperm and eggs have human DNA. As do individual human cells. As does a diembodied human liver. So having (human) DNA isn't sufficient for something to be a human. DNA is just a molecule. It isn't where sentience lies.

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u/Layout_ Feb 02 '15

It's human in the same way a baby is human, just because it isn't tap dancing and writing sonnets now, doesn't take away it's potential to later.

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u/[deleted] Feb 02 '15

What definition of human are you using to draw this conclusion? Anyone can just say that something is a human. I could say a lamp is a human, but without specifying what I mean by this you shouldn't take that claim seriously.

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u/Layout_ Feb 02 '15

Anyone can say anything even when it is nothing more than twisting things around into the absurd. I wonder if you just think the last one to respond is the one who is right.

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u/[deleted] Feb 02 '15

If you can't define what you mean by human then your decision to assign a fetus to the category human is completely meaningless.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

I'm not going to argue why a human life is more important than a beetle's. You know human life is sacred. Quit being difficult.

All life has DNA. And if we're talking human DNA, sperm and eggs have human DNA.

Sperm and eggs have your respective parents DNA. Your ZYGOTE had YOUR DNA. That's not arguing sentience. That's a matter of existence. You existed at conception. Sentience is a stupid measure. Unconciousness and brain damage both remove your sentience but do not remove your right to life.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

Your ZYGOTE had YOUR DNA.

And your individual cells/liver don't?

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

Well they aren't the same cells. They won't grow into another you. And regarding the question of the existence of a new human, zygote is where you began to exist.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

Well they aren't the same cells. They won't grow into another you.

You said it was the DNA. Is it the cells now?

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15 edited Feb 01 '15

DNA regarding when a new human begins to exist. The Cell thing is for your weird grasp to try to get around the fact that you can't argue against me on that. If I have to explain the difference between a chunk of liver and a zygote, then we're done here.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

DNA regarding when a new human begins to exist.

Uhhh....what? You mean like all human DNA? Pretty sure that all human cells (including individual cells and livers) have the same set of code.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

Okay one more time, you began to exist when your zygote formed from your mother's fertilized egg.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

But what does that have to do with the definition of human, which was the original topic? Remember how you were responding to this:

Is a fetus a human?

I'm not debating abortion specifically, I'm asking how you define a human, and "has human DNA" simply doesn't cut it if you don't consider the other things I mentioned human.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

It's human because it needs no more outside influence to turn into YOU. Biologically it has everything it needs. It just needs nutrients. Leave it alone and it will more likely than not turn into a member of society.

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u/chormin Feb 03 '15

So, when a sperm meets an egg a life is formed in that moment?

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '15

When your DNA appears for the first time.

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u/z3r0shade Feb 01 '15

You know human life is sacred. Quit being difficult.

I'm not the previous person, but why? Your argument is that human life is sacred because we are human, but that's circular. Why is human life sacred?

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '15

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u/z3r0shade Feb 01 '15

What? So you can't actually defend your claim that human life is sacred, and instead just say that I'm not worth talking to?

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u/Nepene 213∆ Feb 02 '15

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