Neocon, amazingly, you have written just what I was going to write this evening and expressed it more clearly. It is what I was aiming for in my posts, the need to show logical cause for exclusion from personhood and why I do not feel safe philosophically in excluding the unborn at any moment after the embryo has attached to the uterine wall.
My position here does not stem from religious tenets, nor am I ignoring the agony that unwanted pregnancy can cause, including unsafe illegal abortions. Damn it, E knows quite well, since I posted it on "feelies" a while back, I myself had an abortion when I was in college, terrorized into it by the fear of being "forced" into a marriage that would have been a disaster (although the loving friendship has persisted all these years).
I regretted it within a minute after the procedure started and wished I could have stopped it immediately. I knew then that I had underestimated myself and my ability to withstand pressure and make whatever other choices I could and should. I have no children--a jest of God, no doubt--but every time since that I have thought I might be pregnant, I have known that I could not terminate the pregnancy, no matter how appalling the consequences might be. By my own philosophical standards, I had chosen my life over the life of someone else, a someone else who could not speak for himself/herself.
So I am not merely mouthing off "family values" or whatever, nor am I speaking as a person who has no idea of how a woman feels and what the pressures may be. I am speaking as someone who has come to a philosophical position because of the experience itself. |
