Law and life.
I don't know that much about law, but I do know that a law either exists or it doesn't. A law can say "no green shirts worn on Tuesdays for penalty of death." This law isn't moral or immoral, right or wrong; it means don't wear green shirts on Tuesday to avoid being executed. Obviously, some laws are inherently better than others, and others are plain stupid; that's the nature of law in a dynamic society. A law against suicide is a very peculiar beast though. If a person kills their self, no penalty can be exacted on them by law courts. The corpse could be incarcerated, even beaten; such thinking really has no meaning as such; WTF is a law against suicide? It doesn't take a lot of brain power to conclude that, in some extreme cases of suffering, probably taking some pills and going to sleep makes more sense. In this context, a personal matter such as suicide is best decided on by an individual, and hopefully their doctor, than by some preacher or legislator. This, of course, is my personal opinion. As it stands now, many countries, even the State of Oregon, have laws legalizing Dr. assisted suicide. You may or may not agree with it, but such laws do exist in some places, and do not in others.
Abortion is a similar issue, and I know a little more about it than law, because I study biology. Like suicide, there are laws in some places allowing it, yet some other places have laws outlawing it. Regarding suicide, abortion, and other events, the fact is that different people possess different feelings about what is right, or wrong, and that is normal; we can't even imagine a world where all people always agreed about everything. Regarding when life begins however has no firm support in any case. As far as we know life originated on earth hundreds of millions of years ago, certainly not at the conception of any individual. In humans, a sperm and an egg are definitely alive when they fuse, so the life of a zygote is just the continuation of the lives of a sperm and an egg. Even then however, no part of a person appears till about a week or two after the zygote forms. The first days after the fusion of sperm and egg forms a ball of cells, a blastocyst, and then a trophoblast, none of which contain the embryo yet. Later, after a week or so a mass of cells called the 'inner cell mass' forms; these are the stem cells we hear so much about, and they eventually go on to develope into an organism. You would really have to wait till the inner cell mass forms before you could claim you're terminating the organism, because before then, one doesn't exist, just the trophoblast, which goes on to become placenta. However, most abortions occur after the inner cell mass has formed, so this distinction isn't really an issue. After this point, like suicide, it's comforting to think the decision would be between the pregnant person, and hopefully, a doctor. Decisions about intimate issues such as suicide and abortion aren't a modern problem, but have had to be dealt with in the real world for thousands of years, even before modern inventions like laws and books came into being. My personal view is that it's a woman's choice, as the counter-view runs dangerously close to the radical islamic view that women are property to be controlled and regulated. If men were the ones having babies, then it would be a men's issue. Of course, the moral distinction expressed here between "should or could" is my own opinion, which is mutually exclusive from any law that may or may not exist. Having two daughters however, I cannot but come down in favor of supporting women's rights. If I ever decide to commit suicide to alleviate suffering, you know, that's just my own business; screw the law. If my daughters ever felt they needed an abortion, that too would be their own personal concern, I'm just glad we jave laws allowing them that choice, should it come down to it.
