Trebla wrote:zmic wrote:IMO the only hope for the Democrats is to recognize that they might be on the wrong side of history regarding abortion.
That does not mean they have to oppose abortion. But they have concede to that the right to abortion should be decided at state-level by democratic vote rather than be imposed by Roe vs. Wade. And yes, that means that Roe vs. Wade must go.
In general (and I could be wrong) pro-choice people are AGAINST abortion... in an ideal world, nobody would get an abortion (certainly there are extremists who disagree)... but before that can be eliminated, unwanted pregnancies have to be completely eliminated. As unwanted pregnancies decrease, the need for abortion decreases. You can't fight abortion and contraception at the some time. Reducing one leads to the other... hell, estimates are that abortions are going to increase by a minimum of 40% in places that are no longer getting funded because they talked about contraception.
Unwanted children in general is also a problem in many communities. But the line is drawn at birth for some people, between "human" and "tissue". Pro-life supporters simply draw the line earlier. Once a baby is born, it is literally a crime to abandon the baby. Pro-life supporters consider the "piece of tissue" to be a baby still, and wish to extend the crime to the period while the individual is still within the womb.
If we were to hypothetically go back in time, and convince Steve Job's parents (or Hitler's parents) to get an abortion instead of giving birth to the kid... and we all know that those individuals would no longer exist. Even if a new child were conceived by the same parents, the individual "Steve Jobs" would have been lost to time.
The genetic information that makes up an individual is chosen at conception. And while genetics is not 100% of the individual, it is a strong aspect of our individuality. It is virtually impossible to recreate the DNA-sequence that defines the one-cell zygote once it is conceived. And even in the cases where the genetic information
were recreated perfectly (ex: identical twins), the experiences between zygotes within the womb create different individuals by the time of birth. There's no denying it, should the zygote, even at conception, be aborted... the individual is dead and the genetic information will
never be recreated.
Whether you call the "individual" a piece of tissue or a baby, I think we all can agree to the basic physics at play here. All of us were single-cell zygotes floating inside our mother's womb at one point. Drawing the line before that is impossible: because our genetic information was split between the egg... from the mother... and the sperm... from the father. I'm sure people will go towards the "its a parasite" route or other such deflections... but trust me, I've heard it all before... and I've never been convinced through that line of argument.
In any case, I've chosen explicitly to respond to you Trebla, because it seems like your argument is carefully crafted. You seem to have discussed abortion before and seem to have an understanding of both sides of this issue. I too speak from a lot of experience in this debate. I have no hope that I can convince you of... really anything. Abortion debates go no where the vast majority of the time. Still, I commend you for making a well-reasoned post on this difficult to discuss issue.
First Strike +1/+1 and Indestructible.