With Roe v. Wade’s anniversary this month and the March for Life canceled, I think we should consider the moral case for abortion and at least understand the views of those who advocate for abortion rights. “The fetus is the most subordinate of all the developmental stages of the human being in their organic structure. This is fact, unchanging, immovable, everlasting fact, fixed by the hand of the Almighty, but whether so at the beginning of all things, or by subsequent decree of the Eternal, mortals are not permitted to know. We know the fact, and God holds us responsible only for our mode of dealing with it, and when we wilfully shut our eyes, disregard and ignore it altogether, and impiously strive to degrade women down, or to force the fetus up, to “impartial freedom,” or a forbidden level, we are blindly striving to reverse the natural order, and to reform the work of the Almighty.” (
WOW!! Kinda' kicked that one in the ding-ding, Erick!! I couldn't figure out where you were going with this until you pulled the curtain back with the big reveal. VERY well done! Oh, and to those who want to argue your point, please continue living your life as you see fit. Just know that there WILL come a day when abortion is seen for what it really is - infanticide - and future generations will question how we allowed it to happen.
In March 1982, while I was a senior nursing student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, I had a coat hanger abortion at Planned Parenthood in Charlotte NC. I was in a counseling room with other slave owners who were on their 3rd, 4th and 5th abortion for birth control purposes. I was crying my eyes out, completely undone. No anesthesia, no pain medicine and the Massa who performed the abortion said, "can someone shut her up?" I left there bleeding like a stuck hog and drove myself home. It is a wonder I made it to Salisbury alive. Thirty nine years later, and I am no better off. I killed my little slave. I have repented. I have a successful career and a great life and two beautiful successful daughters. I miss that little baby and nothing can undo what I have done. In February, I am going to a Rachel's Vineyard Retreat to try to learn more and to try to understand and heal. I miss my little baby and long to see that little boy one day.
My heart goes out to you. I had 2 abortions before I was ready to acknowledge the truth. That’s why I was able to stand firm as the police carried me away from the door of the Surgi Center.
Thank you much. I accept the embrace and hope that those of us who have done this will have understanding. I don't believe in such a thing as closure. It is always there like a nagging gnawing pain that never goes away.
But grief is like that, Teresa. Whether it's grief over a lost child, a spouse, a parent--the grief never fully disappears. But it DOES lessen with time. The gnawing will stop.
I understand the difference between losing a chid in an abortion versus losing a parent or beloved friend--grief is different because you didn't have a role in their death. With the child, you bear both grief and the weight of your decision--HOWEVER...THIS is where the GRACE and forgiveness of God comes in. Without His grace and mercy, none of us, not the most pious, not the most faithful, could stand in His presence. None of us could. As the late Dr. Adrian Rogers often said, "I wouldn't trust the best day I ever lived to be good enough to earn me a place in His presence."
How true.
This is why Jesus sacrificed His life for us, and through His atoning blood, we are set free from guilt and the penalty of it. If you have not accepted that freely offered gift of forgiveness and "acceptance in the beloved," I pray you will. Today. If you have, and yet pain and guilt still press against you like an unmoveable boulder, this is what the retreat will help you with. There IS freedom and forgiveness.
I only wanted to say that as with any grief, there never really comes a day when there's not that nagging loss. I've never lost a child, but I've experienced a loss that was so painful I did not know if I would ever recover. Recover, I did. "Be the same?"--no. But with t-i-m-e, I have learned that the wound does become less painful. God's love and grace files off the sharp edges, We still hurt when that place is touched, but we find He has brought such significant healing. I pray just that for you and each one of the women attending this retreat.
"Now, to Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you spotless before the Presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, both now and foreer. Amen." (Jude, verses 24-25) <3
Proverbs 24:11-12 was my mantra back in 1988 as I sat in front of the Surgi Center where unborn babies were killed every day. I spent a week in jail with 135 other committed Christian who knew this is an evil practice. If anyone supports this barbaric practice of slicing up a baby in the womb, there’s just something wrong with your thought processes. Never should my disadvantage cause me to stop the beating of another’s heart—it’s nothing but murder.
“Rescue those being taken away to death, and those who are staggering to the slaughter, Oh hold them back!
If you say, “See, we did not know this,” does He who weighs the heart not consider it? And does He who watches over your soul not know it? And will He not repay a person according to his work?”
I have only one objection to Abortion and that is life begins at conception and so to kill a baby in the women's body is against God's law of murder. When Mary went to see her cousin and told her about be with child the baby in the body of Elizabeth lipped with joy. That speaks to me that God looks on abortion as murder.
I'm virulently anti-abortion in the third trimester. Only slightly less so in the 2nd. In the first, I'm confused. The Catholic Church changed their position on abortion in 1869. Before that it was consciousness which they determined to be at "quickening" or when the child began to kick that determined if it was a person. The rule was 166 days or 24 weeks, the time that stands to this day in the UK as the cutoff when abortions are not allowed.
Then there's the question of miscarriage. Free Will certainly doesn't enter into that equation. Each one of those had a soul, so by Catholic teaching I reckon they all end up in Purgatory since they were never Baptised. But, I've not kept up with Catholic teaching for about 20 years so maybe all that has changed. Maybe they go back on the shelf and are given another opportunity to be condemned to hell.
Mr. Erickson has much training and can probably refute much if not all of this. I have a bigger question for another day.
I believe that an almighty and infinitely gracious God, had better judgement that any of our human led churches when it comes to where our should go, baptized or not.
Having said that, I heard recently something that provided me with new perspective on whether a baby in the womb has a soul or not: the first one acknowledged in the New Testament as having the joy of recognizing Jesus, was an unborn baby... that tells you a lot!
Also, while the link cites some likelihood of survival at 24 weeks, I have been following a case of a 21 week old baby born last week after the mother was badly beaten by her husband. The baby and her Mom are both doing well!!
A friend of mine gave birth prematurely to a 2 .3 lb baby. That child, a young man now, is in college. It amazes me that viability no longer enters the discussion, as it is viewed that the fetus remains that until the moment of birth, and in some states (VA) even birth may not preclude an abortion act after the fact.
I know many no longer believe the bible, but it is clear that it teaches that we are not a mere biological occurrence. We all know that biology is involved, but there is something additional that occurs. A soul is given, matching the biological experience. Rebecca watched as her sister Leah gave son after son to Jacob. At one point she goes to Jacob grabs him and shakes him saying, "give me a child". Jacob's response, "Am I in the place of God!" There it is...no person is conceived without God's active work.
Even the mother of Jesus, Mary, understood the biology. And Gabriel announced that "Nothing is impossible for God." Meaning...biology is not the first word, it is subservient to the power of God. Hence, "The Virgin will be with Child" and "He will be called Emmanuel...that is God with Us"
Personally, I believe that the instant of conception is also the instance of the soul being given. However, there should be little dispute about the point of viability, as even the smallest of fetuses can potentially survive. My friends son is a shining example.
There are 62 million American people who will stand at that great judgement, and will be witnesses against all who pushed for their genocide. That number continues to grow, and we must pray that many will wrestle with those words we cling too so often, "All men are created..." God is the creator, life is a gift.
There are two resurrections, one of life and one of judgement. Let us pray that many might desire the one of life. There is no "moral" argument for abortion. There is only life or death. And everyone must choose either life or death. Charles
This sounds as if you are defending abortion. As with all issues discussed by the left the discussion is like watching an illusionist. The right hand keeps you busy while the left hand is busy in deception. Our preacher at All Saints in Dunwoody received a standing ovation after his homily this Sunday. You can attach all kinds of illusions and promises of good things that may be ancillary to circumstances of abortion and fool the people . In the eyes of God and the Catholic Church abortion is Murder.
I find it interesting that everyone who has responded here is a man. I do not condone abortion. I guess I must be a simpleton in regard to that 'clump of cells" being the origin of a human child. Why must everything be expendable? I read about families that turn themselves inside out for want of a child (yes, that unwanted clump of cells is a child a couple would want). I am an "assault" survivor. I don't know what I would have done, but I hope that I could have given a couple a child they could love. Think about how people across the world use children and babies as a currency. Families who wish to adopt go all over the world to find a child to fill their family. We have surrogates and other "transactions" for the sake of finding a child. Lastly, a friend adopted a Downs Syndrome child who is loved even though he went to God two years ago. Yes, all my comments are based on emotions because I didn't feel like picking through journal articles on the baby/child industry.
I wanted to thank you for your comment. We certainly need to hear more women’s voices since this impacts them more. We men can theorize and rant all day, but this affects us peripherally.
(I will say...as the father of an aborted child, my experience has made me not in favor of abortion as contraception. But the circumstances were complex.)
While clearly women are apparently “more directly” impacted, two thoughts come to mind: first, we should not dismiss the role (and impact) to men. We should actually rise men in the accountability of this whole matter. Second, aborted babies are the most affected in this issue. So anyone and everyone should speak for them. Just the same way we would have to speak for a new born, or for that matter even a toddler, that, while having been born already, is unable to survive on their own either, just as a fetus.
Brilliant, Erick! Human slavery and legal abortion on demand share the same philosophical and logical basis, that of utilitarianism - a conceit based on multiple moral flaws.
"[A]bortion — including the killing of viable infants at the verge of birth — is now a sacrament of the Democratic Party, nobody admits to being “pro-abortion”; they are “pro-choice.” This is an obvious lie. The right to choose anything presupposes the right to live. The child, fetus, embryo, or whatever you want to call the entity growing within its mother’s womb has no “choice” about being killed. It will never have a choice about anything." - Joseph Sobran
Strawman alert! Why not compare abortionists to Nazis while you're at it?
I have differences with your views, but I believe that a) this is a very nuanced issue and b) I respect the faith based views who consider abortion a sin.
I think the complexity of the issue is well illustrated by the wikipedia article below about the evolution of abortion views in Judaism, which has had a bit more time than Christianity as a religion to consider the issue.
Margaret Sanger wanted to exterminate the immigrants, whom she considered, along with Hitler, to be a lesser people. Read the book “Grand Illusion” for a full background into Sanger. She’s evil.
Actually, the Nazis did forbid abortion - for “Aryan” (German) women. They forced women in the occupied nations, especially Jews and Slavs, to have them. https://www.cpforlife.org/the-nazis-and-abortion
The arguments in favor of abortion today are also based on the same utilitarian “logic”.
Expanding on your slavery is the same as abortion theme, the slave and the fetus are both beings, possessing rights—the core of which is the right to continue to exist, correct? If so, why does the fetus’ right Trump the mother’s right to decide about her body? Moreover, when does it?
If one person’s right overrides the other, I should be able to get your kidney. The fetus (me) needs something from the mother (you) and she (you) must give it. She no longer wants to carry the fetus—why is really immaterial to this point.
I am a being, you are a being. I’m sure you don’t want to give me the kidney just like the mother no longer wants to carry the fetus. But my right seems to trump yours.
Why does the fetus right trump the mother’s right?
A significant element of the abortion should be legal argument is inequality. The fetus isn't a human being. It is merely a clump of cells . It isn't a baby until it is born.
The equality argument against abortion (and slavery) is that we are all equal and deserving of the same rights...to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are all negative rights, requiring no action on the part of another for you to have them.
Your kidney analogy creates a positive right, one where someone else must provide it for you.
The Constitution refers to negative rights, not positive ones.
I understand but I am conceding the highest possible argument to try and figure the legal side out. America is a legal nation with JudeoChristian moral-religious overlay.
To argue the fetus is not a person--for my discussion--ends the discussion. I want to understand more about EE's position and the logic (legal) rational ends. In fact, the rational of Roe v. Wade involved exactly this kind of analysis---if ________ is true, then __________ follows.
So, person A and person B need something. It would seem that--as you say--they can legally insist on person C providing, or they can't. It cannot be both ways. In my scenario, person C is there saying "no, I don't want that".
The positive/negative right doesn't seem required for this. The Constitution (via the Supreme Court) has already sounded off. The law has been stated. I'm interested more in the "ought" than the "is".
Erick's point is that the same arguments made for slavery are made for abortion. We outlawed slavery as inhumane and denying of people's rights. Would not then the arguments against slavery be valid against abortion?
SCOTUS "sounded off" a number of times upholding slavery but eventually rejected it.
"Ultimately, they all come down to property ownership arguments that choose to view a human as something less than a human because of the form it takes."
In fact, it assumes the OTHER way. Since we are substituting things....
"Ultimately, it comes down to individual rights arguments that choose to view a fetus as a human and those rights are set against another human's rights."
WOW!! Kinda' kicked that one in the ding-ding, Erick!! I couldn't figure out where you were going with this until you pulled the curtain back with the big reveal. VERY well done! Oh, and to those who want to argue your point, please continue living your life as you see fit. Just know that there WILL come a day when abortion is seen for what it really is - infanticide - and future generations will question how we allowed it to happen.
Nearly a million times a year just in the US... sadly!
I sometimes wonder how a society willing to kill to “solve an issue” can survive long term.
Morals, maybe that is the problem.
In March 1982, while I was a senior nursing student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, I had a coat hanger abortion at Planned Parenthood in Charlotte NC. I was in a counseling room with other slave owners who were on their 3rd, 4th and 5th abortion for birth control purposes. I was crying my eyes out, completely undone. No anesthesia, no pain medicine and the Massa who performed the abortion said, "can someone shut her up?" I left there bleeding like a stuck hog and drove myself home. It is a wonder I made it to Salisbury alive. Thirty nine years later, and I am no better off. I killed my little slave. I have repented. I have a successful career and a great life and two beautiful successful daughters. I miss that little baby and nothing can undo what I have done. In February, I am going to a Rachel's Vineyard Retreat to try to learn more and to try to understand and heal. I miss my little baby and long to see that little boy one day.
My heart goes out to you. I had 2 abortions before I was ready to acknowledge the truth. That’s why I was able to stand firm as the police carried me away from the door of the Surgi Center.
Thank you. I’m not able to stand on the street corner but I don’t care who knows I had an abortion. No one knows but us.
No words suffice. I wish to reach out with arms of love and embrace you as you seek the healing God has for you.
Thank you much. I accept the embrace and hope that those of us who have done this will have understanding. I don't believe in such a thing as closure. It is always there like a nagging gnawing pain that never goes away.
But grief is like that, Teresa. Whether it's grief over a lost child, a spouse, a parent--the grief never fully disappears. But it DOES lessen with time. The gnawing will stop.
I understand the difference between losing a chid in an abortion versus losing a parent or beloved friend--grief is different because you didn't have a role in their death. With the child, you bear both grief and the weight of your decision--HOWEVER...THIS is where the GRACE and forgiveness of God comes in. Without His grace and mercy, none of us, not the most pious, not the most faithful, could stand in His presence. None of us could. As the late Dr. Adrian Rogers often said, "I wouldn't trust the best day I ever lived to be good enough to earn me a place in His presence."
How true.
This is why Jesus sacrificed His life for us, and through His atoning blood, we are set free from guilt and the penalty of it. If you have not accepted that freely offered gift of forgiveness and "acceptance in the beloved," I pray you will. Today. If you have, and yet pain and guilt still press against you like an unmoveable boulder, this is what the retreat will help you with. There IS freedom and forgiveness.
I only wanted to say that as with any grief, there never really comes a day when there's not that nagging loss. I've never lost a child, but I've experienced a loss that was so painful I did not know if I would ever recover. Recover, I did. "Be the same?"--no. But with t-i-m-e, I have learned that the wound does become less painful. God's love and grace files off the sharp edges, We still hurt when that place is touched, but we find He has brought such significant healing. I pray just that for you and each one of the women attending this retreat.
"Now, to Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you spotless before the Presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, both now and foreer. Amen." (Jude, verses 24-25) <3
Grief is really ok, it helps us grow and understand.
Proverbs 24:11-12 was my mantra back in 1988 as I sat in front of the Surgi Center where unborn babies were killed every day. I spent a week in jail with 135 other committed Christian who knew this is an evil practice. If anyone supports this barbaric practice of slicing up a baby in the womb, there’s just something wrong with your thought processes. Never should my disadvantage cause me to stop the beating of another’s heart—it’s nothing but murder.
“Rescue those being taken away to death, and those who are staggering to the slaughter, Oh hold them back!
If you say, “See, we did not know this,” does He who weighs the heart not consider it? And does He who watches over your soul not know it? And will He not repay a person according to his work?”
I have only one objection to Abortion and that is life begins at conception and so to kill a baby in the women's body is against God's law of murder. When Mary went to see her cousin and told her about be with child the baby in the body of Elizabeth lipped with joy. That speaks to me that God looks on abortion as murder.
Yes, I murdered my baby.
I am so sorry for you and I will pray that you will pray to God for His forgiveness because He is the only one that can forgive sin.
This controversy will never be settled, except in the anguished souls of the women who find themselves in unexpected pregnancies. "Jesus wept."
"Before I formed you in the womb, I knew ye."
I'm virulently anti-abortion in the third trimester. Only slightly less so in the 2nd. In the first, I'm confused. The Catholic Church changed their position on abortion in 1869. Before that it was consciousness which they determined to be at "quickening" or when the child began to kick that determined if it was a person. The rule was 166 days or 24 weeks, the time that stands to this day in the UK as the cutoff when abortions are not allowed.
Then there's the question of miscarriage. Free Will certainly doesn't enter into that equation. Each one of those had a soul, so by Catholic teaching I reckon they all end up in Purgatory since they were never Baptised. But, I've not kept up with Catholic teaching for about 20 years so maybe all that has changed. Maybe they go back on the shelf and are given another opportunity to be condemned to hell.
Mr. Erickson has much training and can probably refute much if not all of this. I have a bigger question for another day.
I believe that an almighty and infinitely gracious God, had better judgement that any of our human led churches when it comes to where our should go, baptized or not.
Having said that, I heard recently something that provided me with new perspective on whether a baby in the womb has a soul or not: the first one acknowledged in the New Testament as having the joy of recognizing Jesus, was an unborn baby... that tells you a lot!
Just as a response to your "slightly less" anti-abortion position on 2nd trimester abortions I am including a link to John Hopkins on fetal development for further education: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-second-trimester
Also, while the link cites some likelihood of survival at 24 weeks, I have been following a case of a 21 week old baby born last week after the mother was badly beaten by her husband. The baby and her Mom are both doing well!!
A friend of mine gave birth prematurely to a 2 .3 lb baby. That child, a young man now, is in college. It amazes me that viability no longer enters the discussion, as it is viewed that the fetus remains that until the moment of birth, and in some states (VA) even birth may not preclude an abortion act after the fact.
I know many no longer believe the bible, but it is clear that it teaches that we are not a mere biological occurrence. We all know that biology is involved, but there is something additional that occurs. A soul is given, matching the biological experience. Rebecca watched as her sister Leah gave son after son to Jacob. At one point she goes to Jacob grabs him and shakes him saying, "give me a child". Jacob's response, "Am I in the place of God!" There it is...no person is conceived without God's active work.
Even the mother of Jesus, Mary, understood the biology. And Gabriel announced that "Nothing is impossible for God." Meaning...biology is not the first word, it is subservient to the power of God. Hence, "The Virgin will be with Child" and "He will be called Emmanuel...that is God with Us"
Personally, I believe that the instant of conception is also the instance of the soul being given. However, there should be little dispute about the point of viability, as even the smallest of fetuses can potentially survive. My friends son is a shining example.
There are 62 million American people who will stand at that great judgement, and will be witnesses against all who pushed for their genocide. That number continues to grow, and we must pray that many will wrestle with those words we cling too so often, "All men are created..." God is the creator, life is a gift.
There are two resurrections, one of life and one of judgement. Let us pray that many might desire the one of life. There is no "moral" argument for abortion. There is only life or death. And everyone must choose either life or death. Charles
This sounds as if you are defending abortion. As with all issues discussed by the left the discussion is like watching an illusionist. The right hand keeps you busy while the left hand is busy in deception. Our preacher at All Saints in Dunwoody received a standing ovation after his homily this Sunday. You can attach all kinds of illusions and promises of good things that may be ancillary to circumstances of abortion and fool the people . In the eyes of God and the Catholic Church abortion is Murder.
I wish my priest at St. Jude would receive a standing ovation.
I find it interesting that everyone who has responded here is a man. I do not condone abortion. I guess I must be a simpleton in regard to that 'clump of cells" being the origin of a human child. Why must everything be expendable? I read about families that turn themselves inside out for want of a child (yes, that unwanted clump of cells is a child a couple would want). I am an "assault" survivor. I don't know what I would have done, but I hope that I could have given a couple a child they could love. Think about how people across the world use children and babies as a currency. Families who wish to adopt go all over the world to find a child to fill their family. We have surrogates and other "transactions" for the sake of finding a child. Lastly, a friend adopted a Downs Syndrome child who is loved even though he went to God two years ago. Yes, all my comments are based on emotions because I didn't feel like picking through journal articles on the baby/child industry.
I wanted to thank you for your comment. We certainly need to hear more women’s voices since this impacts them more. We men can theorize and rant all day, but this affects us peripherally.
(I will say...as the father of an aborted child, my experience has made me not in favor of abortion as contraception. But the circumstances were complex.)
While clearly women are apparently “more directly” impacted, two thoughts come to mind: first, we should not dismiss the role (and impact) to men. We should actually rise men in the accountability of this whole matter. Second, aborted babies are the most affected in this issue. So anyone and everyone should speak for them. Just the same way we would have to speak for a new born, or for that matter even a toddler, that, while having been born already, is unable to survive on their own either, just as a fetus.
See above
Brilliant, Erick! Human slavery and legal abortion on demand share the same philosophical and logical basis, that of utilitarianism - a conceit based on multiple moral flaws.
It's a Sacrament… A blessing!
Self-bestowed...For us a crown!
It's a Rite we’re rightly proud of,
It's a Rite that’s quite profound.
It's our Choice,…. a sign of progress!
Free at last!...For Heaven's sake!
And for countless tiny ladies,
It's a choice they'll never make.
"[A]bortion — including the killing of viable infants at the verge of birth — is now a sacrament of the Democratic Party, nobody admits to being “pro-abortion”; they are “pro-choice.” This is an obvious lie. The right to choose anything presupposes the right to live. The child, fetus, embryo, or whatever you want to call the entity growing within its mother’s womb has no “choice” about being killed. It will never have a choice about anything." - Joseph Sobran
Strawman alert! Why not compare abortionists to Nazis while you're at it?
I have differences with your views, but I believe that a) this is a very nuanced issue and b) I respect the faith based views who consider abortion a sin.
I think the complexity of the issue is well illustrated by the wikipedia article below about the evolution of abortion views in Judaism, which has had a bit more time than Christianity as a religion to consider the issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism_and_abortion
I also think that the two movements share their views on a “lesser human” that can, and should, be dispatched. So certainly a good correlation.
See above
Actually, I think a Nazi comparison is appropriate particularly given Hitler and Margaret Sanger’s admiration for each other.
Margaret Sanger wanted to exterminate the immigrants, whom she considered, along with Hitler, to be a lesser people. Read the book “Grand Illusion” for a full background into Sanger. She’s evil.
Well, then. Slavery and Nazis = pro-choice in your book. I'll cease and desist from commenting.
Actually, the Nazis did forbid abortion - for “Aryan” (German) women. They forced women in the occupied nations, especially Jews and Slavs, to have them. https://www.cpforlife.org/the-nazis-and-abortion
The arguments in favor of abortion today are also based on the same utilitarian “logic”.
When can I expect your kidney?
Expanding on your slavery is the same as abortion theme, the slave and the fetus are both beings, possessing rights—the core of which is the right to continue to exist, correct? If so, why does the fetus’ right Trump the mother’s right to decide about her body? Moreover, when does it?
If one person’s right overrides the other, I should be able to get your kidney. The fetus (me) needs something from the mother (you) and she (you) must give it. She no longer wants to carry the fetus—why is really immaterial to this point.
I am a being, you are a being. I’m sure you don’t want to give me the kidney just like the mother no longer wants to carry the fetus. But my right seems to trump yours.
Why does the fetus right trump the mother’s right?
Why does a slave's right trump it's owner's right? Same argument the slave owner's made.
So you agree then it doesn’t?
The slavery-abortion rationale gets sloppy here. The slave owner wasn’t conceding equality. I am for the sake of this discussion.
Why am I incorrect? Such that I don’t get your kidney?
A significant element of the abortion should be legal argument is inequality. The fetus isn't a human being. It is merely a clump of cells . It isn't a baby until it is born.
The equality argument against abortion (and slavery) is that we are all equal and deserving of the same rights...to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are all negative rights, requiring no action on the part of another for you to have them.
Your kidney analogy creates a positive right, one where someone else must provide it for you.
The Constitution refers to negative rights, not positive ones.
I understand but I am conceding the highest possible argument to try and figure the legal side out. America is a legal nation with JudeoChristian moral-religious overlay.
To argue the fetus is not a person--for my discussion--ends the discussion. I want to understand more about EE's position and the logic (legal) rational ends. In fact, the rational of Roe v. Wade involved exactly this kind of analysis---if ________ is true, then __________ follows.
So, person A and person B need something. It would seem that--as you say--they can legally insist on person C providing, or they can't. It cannot be both ways. In my scenario, person C is there saying "no, I don't want that".
The positive/negative right doesn't seem required for this. The Constitution (via the Supreme Court) has already sounded off. The law has been stated. I'm interested more in the "ought" than the "is".
Erick's point is that the same arguments made for slavery are made for abortion. We outlawed slavery as inhumane and denying of people's rights. Would not then the arguments against slavery be valid against abortion?
SCOTUS "sounded off" a number of times upholding slavery but eventually rejected it.
My question doesn't assume the following:
"Ultimately, they all come down to property ownership arguments that choose to view a human as something less than a human because of the form it takes."
In fact, it assumes the OTHER way. Since we are substituting things....
"Ultimately, it comes down to individual rights arguments that choose to view a fetus as a human and those rights are set against another human's rights."
A very well-done apologetically based argument. Impressive & informative. Excellent Erick!