Wednesday, February 8, 2012

A Less Than 28 Days' Old Foetus: a Thing or a Life?

Stephen Wan's Personal Understanding and Observation:

100 out of 100 women, on hearing the doctor's confirmation that they are pregnant, be they happy or sad, normally would exclaim:-
"Oh, really, my God, I am pregnant... I have a baby!"

Normally none would coldly respond and say, "Well, I have a THING inside me!"

Some pregnant women, when they calm down later, may consider their private situations (poverty, loss of love, being already separated from their boyfriends or husbands, or physical illnesses and weaknesses) and change their minds instead, then seeking the option avoiding the 9 months' burden of conceiving their babies. That moment on, they seek professional opinion and professionals all try to be scientific, talk about "right", personhood, autonomy, consciousness, etc. only to ease these pregnant women's psychological tensions, convince them finally that what there are inside wombs are just THINGS, not exactly true lives, not babies, and they are free to be determined, to look for doctors to move out their THINGS at their own discretion. Instead of helping the hesitant pregnant women to treasure lives (future babies inheriting their genes), these professionals handle their jobs purely as jobs only. They themselves have no motherhood and they talk as if there is no motherhood, no blood -tie intimacy, no value and no meaning for the process of conception, and meaning of life and the world only should base on so-called "right" (and "adult right only"), nothing else. Such absolutism itself is dogmatic, like any other dogma, becomes tricky trap against other alternative reasoning!

Please have mercy. It is against nature to say there is a THING (as if it is lifeless or malignant like a tumor or cancerous growth) inside the womb of a pregnant woman. "There is a baby!"

If a pregnant woman coldly demand: "I have a THING inside my womb. Doctor, please help remove it!" The problem lies NOT with the foetus. The problem lies with the woman who at that moment may have lost motherhood and at that moment cannot act as a true mother anymore. BUT can she be kind enough to let "her baby" come up into this world under her kind permission and perseverence in 9 months' time and then she can quit, proud of herself, leaving "her baby" to be taken care of in a foster home, rather than "killing her THING and then feeling guilty afterwards"?

Isn't it unreasonable and weird when you hear a woman shout with her finger pointing to her belly, "Oh no, I have a THING inside me. Please help. I want it out now. Be quick, please help!" Most pregnant women cry instead. What they need should be counselling and support, and social welfare, not a shortcut medical skill to kill a life- the baby or foetus.

4 comments:

  1. testing :

    anonymous post

    匿名留言

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  2. 1.
    'Please have mercy. It is against nature to say there is a THING (as if it is lifeless or malignant like a tumor or cancerous growth) inside the womb of a pregnant woman. "There is a baby!"'
    這個又回到堂上對胎兒與人之間的分別的討論.

    2.
    全文將重點放在胎兒視為生命, 所以與物件有分別. 但這個邏輯會引申其他問題. 如果我把胎兒換成是癌細胞, 那麼會得出癌細胞也是某一類的生命, 所以不應消滅癌細胞的看法. 我並不想把胎兒等同癌細胞, 但以胎兒視為生命的觀點, 就可能會引申至 "因為同是生命, 所以其他的行為本來也是道德的事情也自然地成為不道德了.

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  3. Reply from SWAN = Stephen Wan:

    Thanks, Graham, for your comment.

    I am glad that at least you do agree that a foetus is NOT equal or similar to a tumour (cancer).

    If you may also spare some time to read one of my other posted blogs, I hope you may find I have written down a statement more or less like this:

    "If a pregnant woman has to remove or get rid of her foetus under emergency or her foetus would pose a real risk to her own life, we should call such operation including surgical operation to remove the foetus an 'emergency operation', not 'abortion' because the motive for such surgical operation is to remove as quickly as possible such threatening foetus, SAME as the motive for removing tumour (cancer) as quickly as possible."

    IF

    we can DISTINGUISH emergency operation (removal of cancer or severely deformed foetus or foetus that really threatens the pregnant woman's life) [which is "Involuntary- operation has to be carried out under medical advice"] FROM "abortion" [which is "Voluntary- the pregnant woman's decision without encouragement from medical profession",

    THEN

    the kind of so-called pure logical induction taking foetus and a tumour (cancer) as alike under all circumstances

    can be easily discarded as non-appplicable in our discussion.

    Therefore your worry "things moral may become immoral" as stated in your last sentence should be unnecessary.

    As a matter of social needs, if nothing is related to risk of the mother's life, only her weakened will to keep the foetus due to her other private or family problem, then our society should provide counselling services, social welfare, and friendly professional psychiatry advice to the troubled pregnant woman, see whether she can change her mind to avoid "abortion".

    Please do not assume abortion is "as simple as" removing a tumour (cancer). Actually many pregnant women suffer from trauma and psychological depression after "abortion". Therefore the medical profession and society in general should try to avoid rather than actively promote any so-called right to "abortion", if we really want to take care of the interest of all pregnant women.

    I assume me and you are humanists. We know that all lives are to be treasured, and therefore potential lives (foetus for example) should also be treasured.

    A tumour (cancer) might be equally taken as a life but also a merciless parasite going to kill the host (a man's life). If we do not keep the host (a man), that tumour also dies. If we want to keep the host (a man), that tumour must die or be removed!

    BUT is a foetus going to kill the host (mother) in the same sense? Very unlikely except the situations as described above.

    Therefore, the pure logical induction method, if to be applied, is over-simplifying human affairs in reality, and really appears rather naive if we have to obey such simple inductive reasoning.

    We construct applicale logical method, NOT to be dictated by our constructed logical method. Logicity is rigid frame, applicable or not depends on our own humanistic mindset, otherwise we should all be robots instead of human beings.

    I sincerely hope that you may find my arguments convincing. Thanks.

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  4. 我們可以把一種在 28 日後變成生命、10 個月後變成人的存有稱為物嗎?
    我們說石頭是物件因為無論多少天以後它還是石頭。本人認為無論是多少天的胚胎也不應稱為物件。這是基於生物學以外的考慮。

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