January 22nd, 2007 at 12:11 am
The Aardvark has joined Blogs for Life, as if his stratospheric statistics could go much higher. 
Timotheos talks about blogging for life and asks, “I’d be interested in why you’re pro-life, if you are.”
I used to accept the Bush-41 definition of being anti-abortion, which is no abortion except for rape, incest, or the life of the mother.
When my twins were born early and spent weeks in the one of the highest-rated Neonatal Intensive Care Units in the state of Ohio, there were children who were born so early that they could have been legally aborted. One child weighed in at one pound. And yet they lived, recovering and finally released. Modern medicine is saving kids we couldn’t save even 15 years ago.
It is only an exercise of logic to work back when we stop trying to save these children. If a child is alive at 18 weeks of gestation, he’s alive at 12, 6, and 1.
These children in the incubators and in the womb did not choose their parents. They don’t choose not to live when dad is a rapist or a relative. They are 100% human regardless of lineage. As for the life of the mother requirement, that condition has been stretched so very thin as to mean inconvenience in some states.
Because of the experience in the NICU, the Bush-41 moderate policy is no longer satisfactory. Aborting because of rape or incest is making two wrongs where there was one, and two wrongs don’t make a right. In the third case, save both if you can, and if you don’t succeed, it wasn’t your choice to begin with.
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January 22nd, 2007 at 11:24 am
The Jan./Feb. issue of Clearly Caring give a report on abortion statistics. Since 1973 only 1% of abortions were done with the excuse of rape. However, I was shocked and horrified to learn that 18.2% of women having abortions were married! Reasons for abortion in general ranged from “Having another baby now would dramatically change my life” to “cannot afford a baby now”, “I do not want more children”, and “I don’t want to be a single mother”. There is something very wrong with our society when even married women who just don’t want another child can walk in to a clinic and kill it. Children seem to be valued only as personal instruments in shaping our lives in the way we see fit. How very sad.
January 28th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Hi there
I’d like to comment on abortion when the mother’s life is in danger. Morally, how do you see that as so different from self-defense? Or maybe I should back up: do you acknowledge a difference between self-defense and murder? And then, if so, how far different is the case of a pregnancy that directly poses a real threat to the mother’s life? I see abortions for financial convenience — especially in the good old U.S.A. where nobody need starve — as horrible. But I don’t see abortions to save the mother’s physical life as being in the same category.
January 28th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Anne, thank you for your response and for your courtesy.
Answering your back-up first, yes, I acknowledge a difference between self-defense and murder. Self-defense involves someone with plain intent to do harm to the victim, such as a break-in or a mugging. The burglar has made a choice to put himself at risk, and unless he has appreciable force, he is at risk.
The child ensconced in the womb has no intent to kill Mom. I don’t think a case can be made for self-defense here.
Now, I accept that there are circumstances where the child draws on the mom so much that the mom is in mortal danger. I think this is what you’re getting at. I think medical technology can alleviate a lot of those situations, especially when we are saving kids at 1 pound today. Saving both does not necessarily mean keeping mom and baby joined. If you attempt to save both, and you lose one, I consider that as just doing the best you can. Aiming to terminate the life because you assume you can’t save it is crossing the line, I think.
January 28th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
“Self-defense involves someone with plain intent to do harm to the victim, such as a break-in or a mugging…. The child ensconced in the womb has no intent to kill Mom. I don’t think a case can be made for self-defense here.”
Redefining “self-defense” to conveniently fit your argument does nothing to justify your argument.
Self-defense is a response to harm or imminent harm to the victim. Even if the victim (or defender) has mental telepathy, the “intent” of the person doing harm is not an issue, other than the physical evidence that unjustified harm or is indeed occurring or imminent.
What the infant’s “intent” is in a tubal pregancy is irrelevant. If competent medical diagnosis determines that a tubal pregancy is threatening the mother’s life, then the abortion or surgical removal of the fetus is morally justified. It is certainly a tragedy, but it is not a sin on the part of the mother or the doctor who performs the operation.
January 29th, 2007 at 12:30 am
Mr. Vehse! How I’ve missed your fortissimo!
It seems we are in agreement here, essentially. If the situation requires separation from Mom, then do it. I don’t think any of us here are saying we shouldn’t save Mom.
But what of the child/fetus? Make all best reasonable effort to save it, or not?
This is a fine line we tread. I take exception to the “risking the life of the mother” because of the violation of the spirit of that exception. Risking the life of the mother has become risking the quality of the life of the mother in some cases. We need to take all reasonable action to try and save both. If it can’t be done, the decision was never truly ours.
January 29th, 2007 at 7:50 am
But what of the child/fetus? Make all best reasonable effort to save it, or not?
Yes, of course. And surgeries have been performed on fetuses while still in the womb to correct life-threatening problems. Such surgeries do pose some small risk to the mother, but without such surgery the infant would not be born alive or would die soon after.
However in some cases, such as tubal pregnancy, abortion may be necessary to save the life of the mother. The point at which saving the life of the mother is the issue is based on the medical diagnosis.
January 29th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Hi Dan
I’m trying to make sure I’ve got what you’re saying. Here’s what I got: you’d say that if the mother’s life was in danger, trying a very early delivery — even dangerously early for the child when necessary to save the mother — would be acceptable to you, and you’d be ok with having that in a different moral and legal category than intended abortion (trying to end the child’s life)? Did I get that right?
January 29th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: If you stay with the premises that all life is sacred and that life begins at conception, then you have to try to save both. I think we lose a bit of our humanity when we decide to deliberately end a life, whether it’s mom or child. Trying to save a life and failing is not the same as not trying at all.