A few questions for you BlogJones, none of which are intended to be shocking, but only to prompt thought:

>Have you ever been raped and made pregnant as a result?
>Can you even begin to imagine what it would be like for a woman to carry her rapist's child?
>Is taking a pill the day after you're raped to destroy a fertilized egg even remotely the same as aborting a third trimester baby?
>Should a raped 12 year old have to endure 9-months of humiliation and a lifetime of guilt for putting her child up for adoption because you think destroying a fertilized egg is the same as a third-trimester baby?
>If a child (or woman) is ashamed or frightened to admit she's been raped and lets her pregnancy develop for a few weeks, should she really have to live with the consequence of being raped - of a man forcing a child upon her - for the rest of her life?
>If you had a 12-year old daughter who was raped and was obviously pregnant, how would you have her explain her pregnancy to others?
>Is it murder to prevent a handful of cells from developing into a zygote?
>Can you really compare a day after pill to a third-trimester abortion - regardless of the reason the woman decides to use such a pill?

Let me be clear: I'm not pro-abortion - at least not pro abortion on demand. And I think we'd be living in a grotesque society where people just flippantly got pregnant and then waited several months for an abortion to see whether they felt like they wanted it or not. I'm just saying, it's not so black and white.

Also, you can find a preponderance of scientific information to show that a day-after pill is not the same as a third-trimester abortion. I think if people were educated about sex, the need for birth control and had access to a day-after pill, the need or justification for an abortion--especially later term ones might drop precipitously.

Having said that, I think you should read up a little more on the reasoning behind why doctors do not consider a first-trimester abortion versus a third-trimester abortion to be exactly comparable.

I'm not saying that any sort of abortion doesn't make me queasy, but a) I'm not a woman and b) it's a fallacy to pretend that human life is equal along a continuum from conception to birth. That idea is what has some Catholics believing that even birth control is wrong.

Finally, I've known two different women who worked at Planned Parenthood; both of them told me that they'd seen anti-abortion protesters who later came in for abortions. I don't point that out to accuse them of hypocrisy. I point it out only to say that the reality becomes very different when the issue suddenly gets so personal.

So, at what point does a baby become a baby instead of a cluster of cells? What happens at the third trimester that makes the baby a baby?

A lot of the abortion debate depends on when you believe a baby becomes a baby. The way I figure it, there's only two clear points at which the transition can be made: Birth, and conception. As the jurors in the Scott Peterson case have affirmed by convicting him of murder in the second degree in the death of his son, an unborn baby is still a human being.

There's nothing biological or phyical that happens at the third trimester that magically transmogrifies the unborn child from a embryo or a zygote into a baby.

>Should a raped 12 year old have to endure 9-months of humiliation and a lifetime of guilt for putting her child up for adoption because you think destroying a fertilized egg is the same as a third-trimester baby?

So, putting the baby up for adoption would cause the 12-year-old guilt, but killing it wouldn't?

Look, in the case of a young child like that, having the baby would be an endangerment to the girls life anyway, if I'm not mistaken, and so the abortion-in-self-defense comes into play. But in the case of a woman who could safely deliver the child, I think she should. I am not female, so I can't imagine what that would be like, but I don't think the orgin of the baby matters in the decision of whether it's OK to kill it or not. To use the clichéd expression, "Two wrongs don't make a right."

I understand that abortion is an extremely emotional topic, especially for the mother in question, but emotions have no bearing on justice. Either killing someone is right or it is wrong.

Blog,
I agree with you. Most people who argue the pro-abortion side of things are often ignorant of the risks of abortion to the mother as well.

I cover some of these risks here.

If the hypothetical raped 12-year-old did get pregnant and have an abortion, how much more traumatized is she going to be if she becomes sterile or otherwise has serious problems from the abortion? The details are in the linked post, but having an abortion is very dangerous to the woman in addition to obviously resulting in at least one death.

If the hypothetical raped 12-year-old did get pregnant and have an abortion, how much more traumatized is she going to be if she becomes sterile or otherwise has serious problems from the abortion?

That's simply ludicrous. A 12-year-old girl is FAR more likely to get sterlilized due to a black market abortion, than a legal one.

The fact that you can quote individual incidents is irrelevant and unscientific--even if they are true. Show me current national statistics and legitimate studies that show that abortion isn't safer than blark market abortion. And referring to statistics from the 70s doesn't help your case either. You link to statistics that show that women increase their chances of sterility by having an abortion. Well a) that's not a reason to stop them , but to make them safer, b) if a woman's aware of that risk but wouold rather take the chance, than bear her rapist's baby, then that's HER choice, not YOURS and c) as mentioned black market abortions are going to be far more dangerous -- and I'll even add d) don't you suppose that *having* a baby runs the risk of complications including sterility?

These arguments aren't effectual because although they may cut it in the court of public opinion--especially when you're preaching to the choir--they aren't going to cut it for people like me who are actually familiar with *both* sides of the issue, and they're certainly not going to cut it with the Supreme Court, even if it is laden down with conservatives.

Blog, as I mentioned above, I'm not entirely comfortable with abortion, and I never said anything magical about the third trimester. Human life develops steadily along a time period. If you read up on the trimesters and the thoughts behind Roe V Wade, you'll see that there *are* significant differences at different times--and we're aware of even more now than we were when RvW passed. Read up on the development of brainwaves for example.

The trimesters are simply convenient points at which to draw a line. Personally, I can't quite stomach 2nd trimester abortions myself, but I also recognize that people with far more information on hand than I have settled in that time period *for now*.

I still say the RU486 is nothing like a third-(or second) trimester abortion and encouraging sex education and the use of birth control (and sure abstinence, as well) would cause the abortion rate to drop precipitously anyway. It's working in European countries, though you're never going to hear the "Moral" Minority talking about that over here.

We need to work this thing on all fronts.