ABORTION THOUGHTS -- Who Says That "No One Is Pro-Abortion"? I Think That Abortions Should Be Applied Retroactively To All Current Republicans!

Recently, on another blog, I happened to witness an exchange of comments attached to an original post with the title, "No one is pro-abortion." One of the comment writers was coming from the typical point of view of the "pro-life," anti-abortion, one-issue, political camps that have sprung up from the Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christian churches in the USA. Under the nom de plume I happen to use for comments on that blog, I posted the following longish reply to the existing string of others' remarks. While portions of my comments may be a tad too vitriolic for the taste of some readers, I think that the substance of my major points more than justifies republishing that reply in its entirety here. This reply was addressed to the author of that blog.

.....just who, exactly, is that dimwit with "bird-droppings-for-brains" who has, for all the world to see, now "anonymously" posted on your blog indisputable evidence of his astounding and absolute ignorance regarding not only the facts involved in the science of human biology, but also regarding the most basic conclusions of all modern, high-level, academically sophisticated, hermeneutical studies of the Judeo-Christian scriptures?

It never ceases to amaze me how the most rabid of the would-be "Christian," holier-than-thou, extreme right-wing, anti-abortion crusaders are also the same people who totally FAIL to understand the first thing regarding the true import of the Bible! As authority for their strident, unyielding, absolutist views, they simplemindedly attempt to quote a handful of pointless passages, almost randomly plucked from the Bible, that are meaningless and ridiculous when taken out of context and which, literally, have NOTHING whatsoever to do with the complexities of either the moral or the scientific aspects of the one issue they claim so troubles and concerns them!

This current anonymous commenter is not only pusillanimous and, intellectually, a limp dildo, he also presents the perfect example of someone who has ZERO comprehension of what the Bible actually says, of what its verses actually mean, of what the Bible actually represents, of who actually wrote the Bible, of who or what "God" actually is, of who Jesus actually was, or of virtually anything else in such a vein! And this is not to even mention his abject ignorance in the scientific area of human biology!

Indeed, such people as this anonymous commenter virtually always function at approximately the same level as the least educated of the Islamic jihadist terrorists who are consumed by a single-theme, one-track view of life and the world. But such sad people as this present anonymous twit also tend to LACK the dedicated conviction and the (for want of a better word) "courage" of those jihadists, as these anti-abortion maniacs hurl only stilted, simplistic, hypocritical, fundamentalist platitudes, rather than themselves, into the breach!

To even imply that the mere instance of a single-cell microgamete penetrating the outer wall of a single-cell macrogamete somehow constitutes, in human terms, a viable, self-sustaining organism that is capable of being "murdered" by the premature termination of the progress of its developmental process is laughably ridiculous! That sort of non-logic is tantamount to asserting that "coitus interuptus" constitutes the "murder" of the human being who MIGHT have been conceived and then subsequently carried to term and successfully delivered! And any clown who attempts to suggest that the story of Onan in the Bible somehow addresses THIS issue, clearly doesn't understand the import of that story, either!

An embryonic zygote, in it's earlier stages, absolutely DOES NOT constitute a viable, self-sustaining "human being" who is capable of being "murdered." Such a tiny, tenuously situated, frequently not-yet-implanted, globule of protoplasm most certainly IS NOT equivalent to a human "baby!" In fact, the majority of such zygotes never become viable and end up being expelled from the woman's body without her ever realizing that any "fertilization" had even occurred!

To assert that such a microscopic union of cells is a "human being" capable of being "murdered," is basically equivalent to asserting that removing tissue during a cancer biopsy potentially constitutes some similar form of "mass murder" because a certain percentage of the contiguously surrounding healthy cells, that usually are also removed during such a procedure, could conceivably (pun intended) be used to clone dozens or even hundreds of new human entities!

So, when does an embryonic zygote transform into a self-sustaining, viable "human being" capable of being "murdered"? The irrefutably correct answer to that question, logically, would be, "immediately AFTER a successful, live-birth delivery." But intelligent people are usually willing to concede that, more likely, such a "transformation" should probably be recognized as occurring an imprecise number of weeks earlier than AT the conclusion of a successful live-birth delivery. In any case, however, the definition of WHEN an early term embryonic zygote technically transforms into a self-sustaining, viable "human being" possessing anything even approximating the same "rights" as other human beings, is CERTAINLY NOT at any time in the first trimester, and probably not at any time in the first 19 or 20 weeks, and maybe not even at any time within the first 26 weeks!

Why is it so that this "transformation" does NOT occur until at some nebulous point approximately mid-term (or later) in the course of the woman's pregnancy? Because for that "transformation" to occur, the embryo MUST be viable enough to survive "on its own" (or with only limited medical assistance) outside of the mother's body, in order to be considered "alive enough" to be capable of being "murdered." After all, you cannot "murder" someone who is not technically and actually "alive." And a "self-sustaining independence" is the PARAMOUNT determining factor when defining what is, and what is not, a "living entity." Granted, an elderly, seriously ill, or gravely injured adult person who survives only through the use of life support systems in a hospital also does not possess a true "self-sustaining independence," but we are not discussing at what exact point a person CEASES to be a living entity, but rather, at what point an embryonic zygote first BECOMES a living person!

Why must the embryo be viable enough to survive "on it's own," independently of the mother? Because through the use of highly sophisticated medical technology, it is theoretically possible to create a "test tube" zygote that could be nurtured along entirely outside of a woman's body to the point of a self-sustaining viability; yet even THAT rather "sci-fi" scenario would STILL contain the conundrum of exactly at what point that independent viability was achieved! One imagines that through simple trial and error techniques, in the case of this "sci-fi" scenario, researchers might be able to eventually establish with relatively high accuracy a reasonably certain earliest date for this transformation, but thankfully we are not yet functioning, as a society, in such as manner as to be "farming" human infants!

To understand this concept of how a microscopic lump of protoplasm such as a freshly formed zygote is NOT originally a "human being," but can eventually "transform" into a self-sustaining, viable "human being," one merely needs to look at either an apple seed or at a fertilized hen's egg. The former is neither an apple tree, nor is it an apple, yet it contains the FULL potential, over time, and under the totally correct set of circumstances, to eventually become an apple tree that produces many apples! The latter example of the fertilized hen's egg is clearly NOT a "chicken," but it has the FULL potential, over time, and under the exactly right set of circumstances, to eventually transform into one!

And so it is, precisely, with newly formed human zygote cells! Originally, and for some number of weeks thereafter, they are NOT yet human beings, but they contain the POTENTIAL, over time, and under the totally correct set of circumstances, to eventually become a viable human being. Thus, just as it is logically impossible to KILL a future (but presently nonexistent) apple tree, or to KILL a future (but presently nonexistent) chicken by destroying the apple seed, or by destroying the fertilized hen's egg, it is likewise totally IMPOSSIBLE to "murder" a future (but presently nonexistent) human being by destroying the as-yet-nonviable protoplasm that makes up an early term embryonic zygote!


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