Well, of course that is the crux- and it's the bottom line issue we can't solve, wonderful as we both are.
You use the term child, which I think you do for the emotional impact as well as to reflect your personal belief. I wouldn't use this referring to the first trimester. I do not believe a blastocyte or an embryo has needs and rights that take precedence over the host body. It is not a child at this point and saying it "deserves to die" for me is a meaningless sort of description. I see no excuse for allowing an unwanted pregnancy to progress beyond the first trimester except under very special circumstances.
I value human life. But I also am not religious and don't believe in a soul as a separate entity that somehow floats into us somwhere along the gestation process. (Let's see- you got it around 40 days, while I, inferior female, had to wait til 80, wasn't it? But wait, the Jews said we weren't human til we were born, and someone else thought--- )
I found Mother Teresa's telling her dying patients that suffering was good and to offer their pain to God when she might have found painkillers for them an abomination. To me, forcing women to pay with the rest of their lives for a mistake is just as strangely punitive, if the mistake can be righted the day or week after. I believe that we slowly improve the lives of those already here and try to prevent the necessity for abortions, but I believe that women will obtain them whatever the laws, and I would prefer the procedure be regulated. There are always irresponsible men AND women. How far do we go to try to force them to behave by our standards? You go farther than I.
As for the poor choice of the mother in a sperm donor-- yeah-- what happened to that responsible, eager man? What? You mean he lied about being there for her? He DIDN"T love her? Gosh- tough luck, huh? She gets the betrayal and the kid. |
