I was thinking about this in the shower, so I figured I might as well write it down.
If you saw the Saddleback forum, John McCain and Barack Obama were asked about their positions on abortion. John McCain's position was the human life begins at conception. Barack Obama said that the question was "above my pay grade". My position is more nuanced than that of John McCain but far stronger than the positions taken by Barack Obama.
From a moral perspective, I am not outraged about Roe vs. Wade, but I would not be terribly upset if it were overturned. I think that this pattern of irresponsibility in our culture and the self-centered philosophies that it engenders are highly damaging. This is well illustrated by Barack Obama's statement that, if one of his daughters were to become pregnant, he would not want them to be punished for their mistake. This shows almost a disregard for morality in the face of an expedient solution. There is another issue that was raised by a young woman who was born through an abortion. She lived through the abortion and went on to grow up into a healthy adult. Barack Obama was the only Illinois state senator to vote against a bill that said doctors should provide medical care to infants born alive after a botched abortion, instead of allowing them to die. His reasoning was that the mother's original decision should not be burdened. This point of view, which can be fairly labeled infanticide, crosses a real moral line that Obama seems to be completely disregarding in favor of a woman's more personally expedient choice. On another point, I do believe that sexual promescuity is both a cause of and a symptom of moral degredation and self-centered philosophies that do quite a lot of real damage in the world, however efforts to restrict or ban contraceptives could be worse than useless, and I oppose such actions from a libertarian point of view anyway.
However, from a scientific perspective, I am not against research on human embryos at all. I do not assign moral value to a human embryo and do not distinguish it from an individual sperm and egg that happen to not yet have intersected, or as just an arbitrary glob of carbon and other trace elements. I am unopposed to the morning after pill, and the abortion pill, RU486 for the same reasons. I don't really believe a fetus less than eight weeks old is worth the moral value of a human life, and could be rightly continued or terminated if the involved parties consent (though a stern warning, the form of which would need some deciding, about aforementioned damage due to irresponsibility, self-centered philosophies, personal expediency, etc, is called for).
After this eight week period when something like RU486 can no longer be used, but before the point at which a fetus reaches a level of development where it could be born and go on to live and become a grown up individual- I think there is a kind of fuzzy area, where, if such technology existed, it would be morally sensible to allow abortions under special circumstances- specifically those circumstances where great damage would be done by creating a human from this blob of mass where the option exists to not do so. At this point, however, some level of emotional and rational moral investment has accrued in this developing pre-human blob, and it could not be rightly terminated for just any reason. This is the most subjective range of time, but I believe one should always err on the side of life as much as possible.
Once the point has been reached where a fetus could be born and the infant could go on to live and grow up, I think at this point it would be infringing upon their rights to terminate them, and oppose such action from a libertarian perspective. Secondly, I take deep moral issue to the destruction of human life, even in the face of great damage, such as what would be taken into account in the decision about whether to continue a younger fetus. It would be well worth it to keep this little thing running at all costs.
Edited by Savage, 08 October 2008 - 04:08 AM.
