U.S. Abortion Attitudes Closely Divided

[SamSpade]

The reason I don't care for the apellation "pro-choice" (even though I just defended its use) is because, as Larry pointed out - abortion is frequently appallingly barbaric.

Because those who are pro-choice seem to be all-or-nothing in its defense, I tend to side with the lifers, even though they take a similar approach. If it's all or nothing, the more reasonable approach is to defend the fetus all the time.

And this is my reason - see, at some point very early after conception, what you have is a blastocyst inside. You have what might at one point be considered a life of its own, but in a very real sense, it's still not much closer to being a human being than an egg or sperm is all on its own. It's a collection of cells not a lot more sophisticated than a scraping from the inside of your mouth. The development of the embryo takes a considerable time before it resembles much more than a tiny blob.

At this stage, it's hard to regard its removal as barbaric. You're removing something that may not progress towards anything at all. Some pro-lifers feel differently, and I guess I get their point of view. Life is life.

What is hard to believe is that pro-choicers will defend abortion when it is quite late in the term - at a point where they are sucking out pieces of very human looking body parts with a vacuum. Or they use otherwise brutal means of killing the fetus before delivering the whole dead mass. So-called partial birth abortion, where they turn the baby around, deliver it as a breach birth without the head emerging (because once the head emerges, it's considered a baby and not a fetus) and then sucking out it's brain is simply too gruesome for civilized nations to sanction.

This is where the argument sickens me. I can understand allowing early abortion. This is where I depart from hard-core lifers. I can see that without any problem. I don't have a problem with a morning after pill. What I can't believe is that those defending abortion feel they can defend any of it, no matter how late it is.

If I had only to pick all abortions or no abortions, I do have to go with none, because cutting up fetuses late in the term is too horibble to me.