Let's be real here. Abortion has become, in recent years, an easy out.
That's not a bad thing.
This is not a small issue. There are millions of unborn babies being aborted. Just try to imagine how many there would be in your lifetime. The number would be staggering.
As I don't see anything wrong with abortion and in some cases see it as a positive, the scope of the procedure's usage doesn't particularly concern me.
Abortions are more readily available, less expensive than before,
Those are generally positives. Making the procedure easier to obtain is not a bad thing unless you don't don't approve of it, so it's not a compelling argument to someone who does approve of it.
and are often touted as the "best choice" for pregnant women.
It often is the best choice. Raising a child to term is a very difficult thing to do in many ways, and it only gets worse as it progresses. For a pregnancy that was unwanted to begin with, abortion makes a lot of sense.
We teach women that not using protection or being sexually promiscuous is not only socially acceptable, but often socially expected. Why wouldn't it be, when abortions are so readily available?
While I think what you have just said is completely disconnected from reality outside of the far left, the question is whether sexual promiscuity is necessarily a bad thing. I don't believe it to be. It's not
my thing, but I'm tolerant of it because I don't believe it to be unethical. While abortions may make that kind of lifestyle easier to engage in (so do condoms), I don't really think that's relevant to the question of whether abortion itself is a bad thing or not.
There are 13,000+ clinics in the United States that perform abortions. There are twice as many abortion facilities in the country than there are actual hospitals. Think about that.
That is likely because it is easier and cheaper to establish a specialized, one-floor, relatively small clinic than to build a full hospital with several stories and multiple wings. The merchandising company I work for has more branch offices than major offices; this is hardly a surprising fact.
There's always the argument that abortion isn't an easy choice. That the process is harrowing, humiliating or emotionally distressing. If this was so, I cannot imagine half of the women who have abortions each year would be willing to make the same bad choices as they did before, seeing as they've had at least one abortion in the past.
The question of whether abortion is easy is irrelevant to whether it is ethically tolerable or not. With that said, again, I don't see the fact that we've somewhat destigmatized it and made the procedure easier to obtain as a bad thing. Again, you have to realize this is not a compelling argument to someone who already approves of the procedure.
You hear "horror stories" about states enacting strict legislation that shut down clinics across their state, but I just don't feel sympathy. Just because you think you're an adult does not mean you are mentally or emotionally. You should have to deal personally with your choices, not pop a pill you bought from a clinic or let a doctor stick a vacuum inside you to take care of the problem for you.
Why?
It's irresponsible, and personally, sickening.
Oh. I see. So you're opposed to adoption, as well? After all, that's an abdication of personal responsibility. If they had sex one time without birth control, they had better be ready to take responsibility by spending tens of thousands of dollars and decades of their life raising the child. Because when people make mistakes, by God we had better not try to fix those mistakes. That's just irresponsible. Far more irresponsible than trying to raise a child you never wanted and probably aren't ready to raise (again, adoption isn't an option because that would be abdicating personal responsibility!).
I try not to be sarcastic, but I really take issue with this particular argument.
When I see women who openly praise their abortion or say it was for the best, I seethe inside.
Your personal distaste for the procedure is not a valid argument as to whether the procedure is ethical or as to whether it was the right choice for the woman who obtained it.
Think about the millions of women each year who struggle to have children, or who have unexpected children but take responsibility for them as a reasonable adult should.
That is that, and this is this. Their decisions are their own. The fact that they've decided it is right for them to raise their child has nothing to do with the decision as to whether it is the best choice for someone else.
I personally know a couple who lost a baby to miscarriage before having a little bundle of joy of their own, and another couple that had three children (triplets) by accident but gratefully accepted their duty as parents. Look at their life choices, and look at the life choices of women who have abortions, and I can almost always guarantee you mistakes were made in both lives. The way they deal with those mistakes is drastically different.
And so far, I haven't heard anything that would convince me that the way they've chosen to deal with their mistakes is any worse.
I've pretty much always been against abortion because there is an inherently evil vibe about dismembering and vacuuming up the innards of an unborn child.
Unfortunately, ethics is generally not based on "vibes" and the fact that you find something distasteful does not make it unethical.
There have been documented cases of well-developed fetuses struggling
Presumably, you are suggesting that this means that they have some degree of meaningful consciousness. I don't believe that to be the case. At the very least, this is not a compelling argument in support of that point. Animals can struggle and we hunt them for sport (and I think conservatives generally do so more often than others; not to imply that I disagree with hunting for sport, I don't). Humanity isn't something of value purely because it has the capacity to struggle. A bacteria struggles before it is engulfed by a larger bacteria. A worm struggles before it is eaten by a bird. These are basic, instinctual, automatic reactions that most motile lifeforms exhibit.
as they are literally torn apart.
This is more shock imagery which has no bearing on the actual ethical dilemma at hand. Again, personal distaste is not a legitimate ethical argument, and this isn't something limited to this scenario; this is the exact same argument I use against animal rights activists and vegans arguing that the slaughter of animals for food is unethical.
It's easy to say an unborn child who cannot talk is not considered human, but unborn babies are innately human: they're the end product of human sperm and human eggs.
Then, in the words of our good friend Dracula, "what is a man?" I'm not asking biologically. I'm asking what makes a man special. What makes a man, a man? Why are we superior to other lifeforms? Why are our lives worth protecting to such a degree when others aren't? Without going into detail, the answer is because we have qualities that elevate us above other species. At a certain point in our life, we become more than just a bundle of wiring and instinct; we become
human, and I don't mean biologically. We gain the qualities that make humanity worth protecting, worth dying for. A fetus does not have these qualities. The only thing a human fetus has that an ape fetus does not have is the potential to become something better in the future, but that could be said of a human egg as well.
It isn't like they're a different species just because they aren't born out of the womb yet.
Whoops. That was basically the argument I just made. They are like a different (lower) species, at least from a philosophical perspective. The reason for that is that our biology isn't what makes us meaningfully human, the qualities that elevate us above other species are. The fact that we are homo sapiens, a two-legged, two-armed upright-walking mammalian species with a centralized nervous system and fine motor control has nothing to do with why our species is important and worth protecting.
So what if the baby's heart, brain and nervous system develop at different points, making pain perception or cognition impossible until a certain date? Does that mean the baby should be forcefully removed from the womb and left to die?
It means that the baby can be removed from the womb and that it's not particularly tragic, as a "human" (again, not a biological human, a "human") is not being killed.
Would we use this same argument against an elderly person (or any person for that matter) who is a vegetable or paralyzed? Shouldn't we be able to forcefully end their lives too, seeing as they're an "undue burden" or an "inconvenience"?
That's a good point, though not quite in the way you make it, and it's a significant weak point in my argument. Would I use this argument against someone mentally crippled? The answer is... kind of. Someone who has
permanently (and that's a high standard as we move into an age where more and more conditions are reversible; even "persistent vegetative state" is not necessarily a permanent condition) lost their mental functions has essentially lost what makes them meaningfully human. With that said, I think that decision should be left up to the individual or, failing that, the family. If it really is permanent, and I mean really-really permanent, I think end-of-life services are an ethically viable option if the individual wished it or, if we don't know the individual's wishes, the family wishes it.
In my opinion, a child's worth doesn't start or end at a certain point. It exists the moment it's created. Sorry, but that's just my perception of the truth.
Well, mainly for the reasons I've established above, I disagree. But that's the great thing about a free society: we're all free to disagree. Living in a democratic government, the question will be decided by the people, repeatedly, and sometimes in contrasting ways.
An unborn baby cannot consent. Neither can a born baby.
Consent isn't the issue at hand. Consent is not some innately valuable concept, it has value only when we value the consenting party's wishes. We value the wishes of "humans" because "humans" are valuable. A fetus is a human, but it is not a "human" in my book. Thus, its lack of ability to consent is not meaningful.
Or anyone under the age of 18 for most things, for that matter.
There are several things wrong with that statement (which things? why 18? why not?), but that would be outside the scope of this particular debate.
In almost any other case, consent matters a whole ton.
Again, this is because we value the consenting party's wishes because they are "human" (again, not human, "human").
Can you tell I'm a bit frustrated by this topic? Do you know how many people I have argued with about this? A few dozen, and no one seems willing to accept or even consider my point of view. I expect the same treatment here. Regardless, I still feel it important to make my beliefs known.
There's a difference between considering your view and acknowledging it correct or even rational. I have considered your position; if I hadn't, I wouldn't have responded to it at length and probably would have given a snide one-line remark insinuating you are a person of de-elevated intelligence or something (I'm not implying you are, that was a hypothetical wherein I didn't actually consider your position). I understand your position well enough and I believe the pro-life position, at least as it specifically regards to the question "at what point is a human life valuable," to be rational in its own way. I simply disagree with the conclusion you have come to.