DanielDeFig said:
NO. Don't you even try to use the "potential" argument. Because you're not using it properly. If you truly cared about the "potential" argument, you wouldn't stop at abortion. No. You would take the stance of the Catholic church and admit that every sexual act has the "potential" to create a person, and thus all forms of birth control should be outlawed. But even the Catholic church isn't following through properly with this argument.
Why stop at sexual acts? All sperms and all unfertilized eggs have the potential to make people. If you want to follow through properly with the "potential" argument, you should argue that its should be illegal to allow menstruations, as it is a lost potential to make a person.
"All those women had to do was to have sex. Their bodies clearly had the potential to conceive. Why didn't they? they may have just missed out on creating the next Da Vinci or Einstein. They are denying the world potential people by wasting perfectly good eggs. And where are the men? they should be fertilizing these women!"
If you truly wanted to go through with the "potential argument" THAT is what you should be saying. An if you think it's absurd, then you may realize how we see your argument. Abortion is done wile the foetus is still just a bunch of cells, with no brain or nervous system available to classify it as a living being. Once the foetus has reached the stage of brain activist, then it would be murder to abort it, but no legal abortion is done after that stage.
EDIT: This argument is also useless, as we live in a world where we already have problems with overpopulation. If we were underpopulated, your argument would still not be valid, but the argument to make as many new people would.
Well, the problem I have, ultimately, with abortion isn't the process of the development of the fetus, but the fact the process isn't entirely or even largely dictated by direct parental influence. A woman doesn't dive in with her hands to mix and shape and assemble. She doesn't devote entire thought sessions to enabling growth in cardiac, nervous, or cranial areas. It's more involuntary than voluntary, so destroying a fetus before it can develop its nervous system or brain functions irks me because, when left to develop, it
will have those systems and functions (obviously barring circumstances beyond human control). It's not like making a video game; if you start production, you have to follow through with the process because the game won't make itself.
Now, to your point: "every sexual act has the 'potential' to create a person" - I don't disagree with that at all. The problem I find is in justifying abortion in light of that. If we know that all sexual encounters could result in a child, and no contraceptive is 100% effective 100% of the time, why do we insist on assuming that small percentage of conception taking place will happen to someone else? If you can't support a child or you don't want a child, why plant the seeds? Is it really so much to ask that a couple willing to sleep together also be prepared for the potential for a child? Are we beyond expecting responsibility of ourselves? Are we above having to suffer the consequences of making mistakes, hasty decisions, or ill-informed decisions?
To cap this post, I readily concede my example for "potential" was a spectacularly flimsy one. I'll make a note to avoid that.
