Philo's POTD 3-22-04

[philosophizer]

A couple of posts by pwbayon from this thread. They're short, but make their point wonderfully. :thumb:

Originally posted by pwbayon

The question of when life begins ignores the fact that what makes a human being a person and not just an animal is that we have a soul. When is the soul given to the fetus is unknown.

But lets us analyze abortion:

Lets us look at a matrix of choices when it comes to the issue of abortion. The first issue is whether the unborn is a person. The second issue is the cost of interfering with the life of a woman. If the unborn is not a person and the woman has an abortion then nothing is lost. If the unborn is not a person and the government interferes and the woman is not allowed to have an abortion then at the most it can cost the woman the inconvenience of few months of her life. This is a possible cost. Pregnancy by itself is not a risk to a mother since a C-section can always be done. On the other side if the unborn is a person then not allowing an abortion interferes with a woman's life but again for only up to nine months. If the unborn is a person and abortion is allowed then a grave injustice has occurred since it is a life that has been lost. The cost of an error in this discussion is either a woman suffers some inconvenience or a life is lost. At the end of the day we as human should error on the side of caution and not allow abortion.

Originally posted by pwbayon
A prenancy is not a death sentence for a woman but it does interfere with her normal life. But a woman also has made a series of choices in order to get into this condition and thus must be held accountable for her chioces and not offered a "simple" way out of the consequences of her choices. I must conclude that we as a sociewty should error on the side of protecting life.