Letters to the Editor
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Just goes to show ...
Right wing talk show hosts can dish it out, but they can't take it.
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A Not-So-Trick Question
Instead of a privacy issue, isn't this really a question of who has control over our bodies? If so, there's always the old reliable ... does the state have the right to take one of your kidneys to save the life of that same 2-year-old who barely escaped from the burning fertility clinic? C'mon, you're an exact match and he's going to die without a new kidney. Even so, wouldn't most people say NO, it's their decision, not the state's? So the state does not have control of your body when it comes to saving the life of a living, breathing human being but it DOES have control of your body to save the life of a fetus?
I suppose Wilkow would sputter over that too!
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A Slightly Better (Less Tricky) Question
How about this for a question?
"There's a major fire at a fertility clinic. Are the firefighters required to enter the building to rescue the blastulas?"
I think that question is better than the either/or question because it's not a "trick" from the pro-lifer's point of view of having to choose which "life" to save. It's more direct in pointing out that not even the pro-lifers really think that blastulas are human life.
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And there are always "birth"days
Why do people in general and Christians specifically celebrate birthdays and not conception days? Is it because, perhaps, no one really thinks life starts at conception?
Some smart pro-choice legislator should introduce legislation basing all age-based legalisms on conception instead of birth.
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Counter Hypothetical
Unfortunately, all I think you proved is that Wilkow doesn't think very quickly on his feet. Here's my counter hypothetical (and I apologize in advance for the crudeness of it) -- you run into a burning hospice and you can either save 5 comatose patients who each have less than a day to live or a young child in perfect health. For those of us who would save the young child -- and then spend the rest of our lives trying to recover from the effects of our actions -- does that in anyway suggest that we don't really view these comatose patients as "people" or "alive"? Does it really follow that by choosing a more viable life over the others that that means we would be comfortable if the state allowed these patients to be killed by people who didn't want to be burdened by their care?
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To Middle Age Artillery Veteran
I suddenly realized that I am not fifty but really fifty-one and a half! How depressing!
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Is a baby a baby? That's the real issue.
People,
We could all debate about whether or not a few cells in a petri dish are sacred.
What's not really debatable is what an eight week old baby is. It's a baby.
From the website of the famous child doctor, Dr. Spock:
"By the end of the 8th week, all of the main organ systems are in place, although not in their final form. The embryo sits in the shape of a C, with its large head bowed, and legs flexed upward. It weighs about 1/3 of an ounce, and measures about 2 inches from top to bottom.
Up until this point, scientists have called this wonder of development an embryo. After week 8, the convention is to call it a fetus. All of the most dramatic transformations are over. But there is still a lot of development that needs to take place before the baby is ready to emerge into the world."
Notice he uses the term "baby" to refer to the baby.
Whether or not parents should have the right to legally kill babies, that's what the debate is really about. Not petri dishes, not rediculous arguments about how many angel fetuses could dance on the head of the pin.
We're talking about children. Maybe you've chosen to kill one, or would like that right.
Personally, I believe all life is sacred. Capital punishment is legalized killing, so is war, so is abortion. It's legalized killing folks.
If you are for protecting the legal right for women to kill, my question is, why are you not for other legalized killing methods? Or maybe you're for them all. Maybe you believe that we all should just do what we feel like all the time, no consequences.
I disagree.
You're alive and reading this because your mom chose not to kill you.
Take one second and think about that. Think about the next kid you see, the next baby, and think about the fact that even as he or she was being born, their mother had the legal right to kill them in many states. How do you feel about THAT?
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and then some
If somebody went back one week and smudged you out, would they be ending your life? What if they went back one year? Would that still be ending your life? Ok, they could smuge out your life when you were one year old but would that be ending your life? What if they went back in time to when you were three years old and smudged you then?
How far back does they have to go to smudge you out in a manner that won't be ending what has started as you?
If embryoes looked like miniature people, if they looked just like they'll look when grown up but tiny, would abortion be the same question?
We ask at what point we become humans, but do we ask this about any other animal? Do we wonder when our dogs become dogs. Nobody is argueing that he/she wasn't alive at conception, are they?
We pro-choicers must stop rationalizing; whether we are religious are atheistic, we all know that each of our lives was happening upon conception; none of us feel that a person wouldn't be interacting with us if they went back in time and smudged the first four complete cells of us. We must be clear: we believe that a women has the right to end the life of anything growing inside of her as long as it is in there. That goes for grown ups as well. If I were to somehow get into a woman's body and start living off of her, she has the right to take my life.