Eric Wrote:But don't you think the opposition to abortion is orchestrated by the Catholic and fundamentalist Christian Church authorities?No. Opposition to abortions comes from two viewpoints, both of which are logically unassailable. The pro-choice position is likely logically unassailable. Hence discussion is pointless. Here's why:
Logical argument against abortion: A person is a human animal with an immortal soul. The soul comes associated with a human body at the point of conception. Therefore a fetus is a person. From this it follows that abortion is homicide. Avoiding the harm caused by an unwanted pregnancy is not a sufficient justification for homicide.
Many people feel that a fetus is a baby because it resembles a baby, and at the time of birth it asymptotically approaches being a baby. As a result other people's abortions make them very uncomfortable, like the use of the n-word by white people. Hence they want to ban the practice out of PC concerns. There is no argument here because it is about feelings.
Logical argument in favor of pro-choice: A fetus is not a person; there is no such thing as a soul. Any empirical definition of person would involve functionality (e.g. persons are 'above' other animals because of people's superior intellectual abilities) and biological (persons are genetically human). A human fetus is not functionally more advanced than other mammalian fetuses, and certainly not intellectually more capable than many adult mammals. The genetic argument is ruled out by the fact that a cancer tumor is a genetically human organism that can live independently of the body, yet is not considered to be a person. In fact, they are routinely removed from their hosts and allowed to die.