NationStates Jolt Archive

There is a troubling trend tied to abortion in the united states. Since it has been available, there are three effects it has had which seem, to me, to be tied with eugenics. I am not entirely sure how I feel about this, but that's why we start threads here. ;)
I'll list the effects from least worrisome to most. First off, mothers are very commonly having fetuses screened genetically or with ultrasound in order to determine if they posess major birth defects. If the fetus does posess such defects, the mother will very often chose to abort the pregnancy. We are (or soon will be) filtering such people out of our genepool, and you can see why this might seem questionable.

The second effect is one that's already been noted in the abortion debate, and that is that poor women, single women, women with less educational opportunities than most, are more commonly getting abortions. This means that, to a greater or lesser degree, their genes are being bled out of the genepool.

The third effect is the most troubling, though it has not happened yet. If the entire human genome is ever mapped, and genetic testing becomes significant enough, a woman could decide to have an abortion if she dislikes her child's eye color, or future height, or so on. Of course, this train leads to the whole "designer baby" fiasco.

I really have no idea how exactly to feel about this. Should mothers have the ability to practice amature eugenics?

Some of the early advocates of abortion in the U.S. argued that abortion would have the positive effect of keeping down the population of undesirable minorities, like blacks and the Irish. That rationale isn't too common nowadays...

Edit: More to the point.. as more and more women decide to have kids past their prime (40 yrs +), the abortion industry is going to keep on booming. I don't see any solution to that.

And this has what to do with the fact that a woman owns her body, including the contents of her womb?

I'll list the effects from least worrisome to most. First off, mothers are very commonly having fetuses screened genetically or with ultrasound in order to determine if they posess major birth defects. If the fetus does posess such defects, the mother will very often chose to abort the pregnancy. We are (or soon will be) filtering such people out of our genepool, and you can see why this might seem questionable.

No, I do not. Please explain.

The second effect is one that's already been noted in the abortion debate, and that is that poor women, single women, women with less educational opportunities than most, are more commonly getting abortions. This means that, to a greater or lesser degree, their genes are being bled out of the genepool.
No, it just means that they will not have 15 children - not that they will have none at all.


The third effect is the most troubling, though it has not happened yet. If the entire human genome is ever mapped, and genetic testing becomes significant enough, a woman could decide to have an abortion if she dislikes her child's eye color, or future height, or so on. Of course, this train leads to the whole "designer baby" fiasco.

That this will be possible in the next 100 years is doubtful - adn I can not judge the morals of a future society, nor the implications of being "non-perfect" in such a society.
However, please state the arguments for considering it bad in our current world, and maybe we will find an ironclad argument to forbid it.

I do not agree to the abortions of disabled children. That picture just seems very wrong to me, and I agree that as we map the human genome, it'll lead to "designer" babies. Aborting disabled, poor, and creating designer babies. Hitler would be proud. (Yes I know it's a Godwin. But Hitler also killed anyone who wasn't "perfect" (Aryan) and thats the trend I'm seeing here.)

Sometimes I wonder if these women who keep on getting abortions realize that they only have a limited numbers of eggs?

Who says it's a bad thing to destroy unwanted genes. I mean as long as the only casualties are unfeeling and inconsequential fetuses, would it really be so bad if hereditary diseases were wiped out or nearly completely marginalized?

I do not agree to the abortions of disabled children.

Do you then believe we should create disabled babies on purpose ?

I do not agree to the abortions of disabled children. That picture just seems very wrong to me, and I agree that as we map the human genome, it'll lead to "designer" babies. Aborting disabled, poor, and creating designer babies. Hitler would be proud. (Yes I know it's a Godwin. But Hitler also killed anyone who wasn't "perfect" (Aryan) and thats the trend I'm seeing here.)

small difference - nobody forces anyone to terminate a pregnancy. which rather nicely undermines comparisons to hitler.

Sometimes I wonder if these women who keep on getting abortions realize that they only have a limited numbers of eggs?

yeah, they might run out of the 400,000 they each start out with...

Do you then believe we should create disabled babies on purpose ?

No, what I'm saying is that you should let things happen naturally. So what if the child is disabled, would you love it any less? Just because the child is disabled doesn't mean it can't become a productive member of society, even in the smallest way. To "abort" children on purpose just because they are disabled is just cold hearted, and to me proves that you are an unfit parent if you're not willing to accept the worse possible situation.

Do you then believe we should create disabled babies on purpose ?

seriously. if we know that a fetus or embryo will develop some condition that will cause suffering, what the hell kind of morality says that we ought to go right ahead with the pregnancy?

Who says it's a bad thing to destroy unwanted genes. I mean as long as the only casualties are unfeeling and inconsequential fetuses, would it really be so bad if hereditary diseases were wiped out or nearly completely marginalized?

Yea, and I'll be laughing when people realize that not every disorder, or disability is detected while it's still a "fetus".

No, what I'm saying is that you should let things happen naturally.

not a believer in wearing glasses, then?

seriously. if we know that a fetus or embryo will develop some condition that will cause suffering, what the hell kind of morality says that we ought to go right ahead with the pregnancy?

*hint* defective condoms

Yea, and I'll be laughing when people realize that not every disorder, or disability is detected while it's still a "fetus".

we can't avoid everything, therefore we should actively cause suffering that we can in fact avoid

I thought the genome had been mapped :P Last time I use Metal Gear as my scientific gospel..
Anyway, I dont know about the disability dilemma.. Has anyone read Brave New World? I personally havent.. but its been summed up for me.. And to be perfectly honest.. It didnt sound that bad.
Eveyrone was happy and cheerful, no disabilities (Im not saying disabled people should be culled, im saying that there arent any), until some idiot comes in and wrecks it..
Anywho, Im not trying to step on everyone who knows anyone with a disabilities toes, but I dont know, its an interesting topic. I have never heard the abortion debate have this spin on it.
What are you going to do? Only allow the abortion of healthy babies?

___________________________________________________________

Edit: What has been said is right, these 'things' are cells, not people.

seriously. if we know that a fetus or embryo will develop some condition that will cause suffering, what the hell kind of morality says that we ought to go right ahead with the pregnancy?

What kind of mrality says that we should abort a child just because it's disabled? What level of disability are you going to accept? Are you going to abort a person just because he has learning disability or Dyslexia? Suprise Suprise, many disabled people do not agree with this pratice.


As a person with a "disability" myself (Asperger's), this is just outrageous.

Of course people wouldn't be outraged these days, though. Society back then didn't go through thirty/forty years of femwashing and Televitz distraction. People still made their own decisions and the fighting spirit was still alive and kicking. Today that spark has been snuffed out.

The pro-abortion crowd is also the anti-rich anti-egotistical crowd. They abhor inequality, want everyone to be the same. Too 'disabled'? Abort them . Too rich? Make them pay higher taxes. Too beautiful? mar their features. Too intelligent? Get them hooked on drugs. Too proud? Destroy their pride. Too white? Accuse them of being "overly-causasian". Envy and phony sympathy are their modus operandi. They hate diversity yet impose diversity on everyone. They value that which they aren't.

The are like Procrustes; cut off the legs of his victims if they are too tall, stretch them if they are too short

Myself with a disability (severe to profound hearing loss), it is so outrageous.

I was born with a severe to profound hearing loss. However, my parents did not find out about my hearing loss until I was around 2. It was a kind of shocking to my parents. At first, they were kind of at loss and got a little desperate and scared. However, they realized that I was just a human, and the only difference is my hearing loss. So, they were very determined not let me to have a poor and difficult life. They have been helping, supporting, educating me to succeed in whatever I am doing. I am fortunate to have parents like mine. They have helped me so much.

But, my parents have learned so much from me as a person. It's not what I'm doing, but it's love, compassionate, bonding, adversity, determination and character. IMO, children with disablities really teach older adults and parents some lessons about life and love. They bring family much closer and increase bondage between family members. No matter how hard and tough for people having to deal with people with disabililities, I believe that they are some wonderful blessings from God. They bring some wonderful and unique lessons to human.. that is... love, compassionate, courageous, determination, toughness, adversity

You always hear stories out there of how people with disabilities succeed in the real world. Almost 100% of time, it always gives profounding effect on people, and those stories are always very inspiring. They teach some lessons for those "normal & perfect" people about life.

The current society really needs people with true character and determination to set example for all people.

A friend of mine was born legally blind, among other physical ailments, and was told by her stoner mother that if it were Germany in the thirties, she would have taken her to the "special hospital" to be killed, otherwise amount to nothing. Yeah, right! Got an obscene 4.0 in undergrad biochem, modeled viruses on a molecular level for her masters, PhD work in microbiology gets published. Extremely pro-life as well, and asks how much talent is this nation missing by killing babies because they happen to be "inconvenient".

What a load of &^%$%. Some of the most influencial people in this world have/had a disability. Lets see.....Ray Charles was blind. Stevie Wonder is Blind too. Beethoven became deaf.

And thats just to name a few. God uses ANYONE to do his work, and God don't like it when people mess with life.

I don't blame you for being anti-social. I hate how our society is getting more violent, classisist, impoverished, immoral, fascist and debauched. I want nothing to do with it, because it doesn't know what to do with people like you, or me. It is merciless on those who are down on their luck, or have a tragic event in their lives. Like a sadistic gang banger, it kicks people down, and kicks them down again when they try to get back on their feet. I know first hand how this is, I had problems because I was born blue and suffered anoxia during birth, which could have killed me. I dodn't develop the way most children did, I didn't talk until I was four. My parents and doctor thought I was autisitic when I was little, I had learning disabilites, and I was the square peg in a round hole. I still am. AS for the pro-abortion people, they are Nazis. Under Hitler, the first people to be murdered in the death camps were the retarted, the insane, and the disabled. Our society is getting more and more mediocre, homoginized, and joyless evey day. Sometimes, I think I should have been a 1,000 or 2,000 years ago.....I might not have lived as long as I have already, but I would likely live far more than I do now. If these fascists had their way, I would have ended up in a pail rather than a cradle. They'd murder any baby who was having a hard time just surviving.

Have a nice reading.

What are you going to do? Only allow the abortion of healthy babies?

which itself would be a form of eugenics - a stupid form, at that.

To "abort" children on purpose just because they are disabled is just cold hearted, and to me proves that you are an unfit parent if you're not willing to accept the worse possible situation.

Cold hearted to whom ? Am I cold hearted if I state that I do not wish you to break my sons legs even though he could still be a productive member of society then ? Am I coldhearted if I decide not to have a child if my country is in the middle of a war ?

You are assuming that adding a new life to this world is by definition a good thing, regardless of the quality of said life; and that a fetus loses something when it is killed before it can have experiences. This vision is not supported by logic, mainstream philosophy or the Bible - so I would like to hear your basis for it ?

To me, abortion in an early stage prevents a handicapped human. It doesn't mean handicapped people are worthless - but I do not see why we should increase the number of handicapped people if we can prevent it.

What kind of mrality says that we should abort a child just because it's disabled?
you can't abort a child

What level of disability are you going to accept?
i'm not the one proposing massive, invasive government snooping and regulation over which fetuses (feti?) can be aborted.

Yea, and I'll be laughing when people realize that not every disorder, or disability is detected while it's still a "fetus".
Many are.

Cold hearted to whom ?


The child or "fetus".


Am I cold hearted if I state that I do not wish you to break my sons legs even though he could still be a productive member of society then ?


Straw man


Am I coldhearted if I decide not to have a child if my country is in the middle of a war ?

Then use birth controls, use condoms jeez, think ahead.

You are assuming that adding a new life to this world is by definition a good thing, regardless of the quality of said life;


Adding a life to this world used to be a good thing. Now the miracle of life have been degraded to "parasite" and "clumps of cells." It used to be that life in itself was a miracle, and that it was precious. But, I guess like everything else, we take this for granted.

and that a fetus loses something when it is killed before it can have experiences.


Prove to me that a "fetus" cannot experience anything.

This vision is not supported by logic, mainstream philosophy or the Bible - so I would like to hear your basis for it ?

Where in the Bible does it say it's ok to "abort" babies?

Many are.

Yea, but you know, not all disability are genetic. To name one, Goldenhar.

you can't abort a child

Oh, that's right, how silly of me, it's a "fetus".


i'm not the one proposing massive, invasive government snooping and regulation over which fetuses (feti?) can be aborted.

and yet, you're not denying that it's more "compassionate" to "abort" a child just because it's "disabled". We can't have that now can we? Nooo, we can't have an inconvience.

It used to be that life in itself was a miracle, and that it was precious.

when was this?

when was this?

Oh a long time ago, before they started using words like "fetus" and "parasite" etc. You're probably too young to remember.

Oh will the fetus
Be aborted
By and by Lord
By and by
There's a better
Home awaiting
In the sky Lord
In the sky

Oh a long time ago, before they started using words like "fetus" and "parasite" etc. You're probably too young to remember.

was it before or after essentially every culture in the world came up with both abortifacients and perscribed methods of infanticide?

The thing is, I had my feelings on abortion pretty much figured out, then I stumbled upon this argument, and I just don't know what to feel about it, or even if anything could be ethically done. However, I don't think a semantical argument about whether it's a "fetus" or a "child" will get us anywhere, unless it's backed up by evidence, or some kind of deeper argument.

(edit)

was it before or after essentially every culture in the world came up with both abortifacients and perscribed methods of infanticide?
See, this is what I'm talking about. He's backing up his statement.

I would give any pro-choice people $5 (US) to just come out and say that they think this world would be better without any "disabled" people in it. Let's cut through the lies and be honest.

Also, today, I saw a bumper sticker that I thought was funny. It had "Pro-faith, Pro-Family, Pro-Choice." Ahh the irony is sooo thick you could cut it with a knife.

The second effect is one that's already been noted in the abortion debate, and that is that poor women, single women, women with less educational opportunities than most, are more commonly getting abortions. This means that, to a greater or lesser degree, their genes are being bled out of the genepool.

No, it doesn't. This only holds true if it results in an overall drop in the number of children they have. All evidence I've seen suggests that it has only led to a reduction in teenage pregnancies and these same women having a similar number of children but starting later.

Then use birth controls, use condoms jeez, think ahead.

Really? Condoms NEVER fail. There is much evidence that many women who get abortions WERE using birth control and it failed. Birth control IS NOT 100%. Also, most birth control pills are considered by many anti-choicers as abortion pills because they prevent implantation after conception.

I would give any pro-choice people $5 (US) to just come out and say that they think this world would be better without any "disabled" people in it. Let's cut through the lies and be honest.

i think it would be better if fewer people were born with debilitating birth defects or painful, life shortening genetic disorders. i also think the world would be a better place if we could medically repair the disabled to as close to optimal function as possible. so yes, i think the world would be better off if nobody was disabled. where's my money?

and i still want to know if you morally object to people wearing glasses.

The child or "fetus".
Why ? The fetus cannot experience anything. The child does not exist yet.

Straw man

No, it isn't actually. You *are* advocating the creation of more handicapped people.

Then use birth controls, use condoms jeez, think ahead.
Assume the war broke out unexpectly.

Adding a life to this world used to be a good thing. Now the miracle of life have been degraded to "parasite" and "clumps of cells." It used to be that life in itself was a miracle, and that it was precious. But, I guess like everything else, we take this for granted.

No, we just realised there is more to life than simply existing.

Prove to me that a "fetus" cannot experience anything.
Before it has developed a neural net, it has nothing to experience things with.
At later stages of the pregnancy I tend to oppose abortion - though I admit I am undecided on what one should do with a child that is certain to suffer pain 24/7 and will not live past age 3. I *do* recognise it as a person, and as such the only one who can decide its own fate, but I also feel it wrong to let it exist just to let it be in pain.

Where in the Bible does it say it's ok to "abort" babies?
Check my "Is the Bible pro-choice" thread. Causing a miscarriage through a fight is specifically stated to not be murder, but merely a fineable offense - and the father can even choose not to demand that fine to be paid. Other verses also show that the life of a fetus has no intrinsic value in the eyes of the Lord.

Check my "Is the Bible pro-choice" thread. Causing a miscarriage through a fight is specifically stated to not be murder, but merely a fineable offense - and the father can even choose not to demand that fine to be paid. Other verses also show that the life of a fetus has no intrinsic value in the eyes of the Lord.

did you get the abortion-causing trial by ordeal for suspected unfaithful wives in numbers?

i think it would be better if fewer people were born with debilitating birth defects or painful, life shortening genetic disorders. i also think the world would be a better place if we could medically repair the disabled to as close to optimal function as possible. so yes, i think the world would be better off if nobody was disabled. where's my money?

and i still want to know if you morally object to people wearing glasses.

Yeah, and is getting Lasik 'eugenics'?

No, it doesn't. This only holds true if it results in an overall drop in the number of children they have. All evidence I've seen suggests that it has only led to a reduction in teenage pregnancies and these same women having a similar number of children but starting later.
You might be right. I think it rather possible that only the first and third arguments hold water.

No, what I'm saying is that you should let things happen naturally. So what if the child is disabled, would you love it any less? Just because the child is disabled doesn't mean it can't become a productive member of society, even in the smallest way. To "abort" children on purpose just because they are disabled is just cold hearted, and to me proves that you are an unfit parent if you're not willing to accept the worse possible situation.
Welllll Actually letting Defective Babies live is AGAINST nature.
Because if Natural Selection still existed, they would die.

Really? Condoms NEVER fail.
Tell me about it.
A friend of mine actually occasionally goes to stores and pokes holes in condom boxes with a long needle he happens to own.

Hilarious.

You might be right. I think it rather possible that only the first and third arguments hold water.

Not really. First of all, knowing about a birth defect is not an exact science currently. There is very little evidence what you claimed in the first point is happening on any statistically significant level. However, find a study. Prove me wrong.

On the third point, I don't buy it. With artificial insemination we could customize children in the future as well. I don't buy that people in any real way are going to custom create chidlren. And using abortion to do it... nonsense. Abortions are traumatic and they have not gotten significantly less so in the last 30 years. They have a risk of infertility that goes up the more you get them. It's not a means for picking and choosing an embryo.

did you get the abortion-causing trial by ordeal for suspected unfaithful wives in numbers?

No, but it did get the command to kill your wife if she was raped within the city , which distinctly forget to mention "but wait 9 months since the offspring, though not yours, is valuable".
The thread unfortunately did not get much discussion on the intended subject; though the actual debate in it is quite interesting.

News Flash to all the fundamentalist Christians out there. Mid-wives were practicing contraceptive and abortive techniques prior to the time of Jesus, and in that oh-so-precious area known today as Israel.

So I don't want to hear anything about a pristine history coming from religious argumentors; no one here (myself including) has a basis for claiming the moral highground when it comes to ancestory.



And I'll be blunt: the people who assert that abortion and euthenasia should be illegal under absolutely every condition make me sick. When the mother or child's life is in danger abortion can and should be used. When someone is in debilitating pain to the point that they can no longer take care of themselves, then exactly what argument can you come up with for justifying letting them continue to suffer? Abortion getting used to remove dyslexia from the gene pool is ridiculous. Only the most callous and socipathic individuals would consider that. But when I turn around and talk about aborting a fetus which had trisomie 13 I say anyone who doesn't support that is callous and sociopathic. Trisomie 13 results in death almost without fail within the first 4 years of life. Trisomie 13 results in horrific congenital abnormalities and leads to severe mental retardation and nearly constant pain. Such a person cannot take care of themselves even under the most optimal conditions, and taking that persons life in a quick and painless way is what I would consider to be the ultimate act of compassion.



And for those of you who think that somehow euthenasia and abortion no matter the circumstances violate some sort of holy law, then I ask you two things:

Show me where exactly it is in the Bible that says that you should not end someone else's suffering if doing so would REQUIRE killing them.

And, What kind of LOVING God demands that those who suffer be made to continue to suffer regardless of how much a person suffers?!



And Wilgrove you are guilty of the worst kind of double-speak and duplicitous behavior. You talk about the sanctity of life, as if it were some kind of miracle, and then you turn around and DEMAND that people be made to live out lives that would end only in their ruin. You, sir, are a hypocrite.

NT

Not really. First of all, knowing about a birth defect is not an exact science currently. There is very little evidence what you claimed in the first point is happening on any statistically significant level. However, find a study. Prove me wrong.
Ten seconds on google gave me these results.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/national/2002/05/28/abort020528.html
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=%5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200504%5CCUL20050405a.html

On the third point, I don't buy it. With artificial insemination we could customize children in the future as well. I don't buy that people in any real way are going to custom create chidlren. And using abortion to do it... nonsense. Abortions are traumatic and they have not gotten significantly less so in the last 30 years. They have a risk of infertility that goes up the more you get them. It's not a means for picking and choosing an embryo.
Ok, so maybe they won't use abortion to do it, but potential mothers are already "pre-selecting" embryos, often to avoid genetic defects or, more recently, to harvest umbilical stem cells in order to save the life of another family member. The technology is there, and are you sure that, given the chance, many if not most women would opt to choose how their child will look?

Your argument is silly.

On the issue of aborting embryos/fetuses that will have major defects... if we were still subject to natural selection (you know, survival of the fittest), these would most likely die anyway. That is the natural order of things. It's why you don't see many lions, wolves, deer, etc. with birth defects. They happen, but they die after being born because their defects prevent them from either getting enough food, escaping predators, or remaining healthy.


Now, for the other point, about poor women. Just because they don't have 10 kids doesn't mean they won't have one. Are you trying to say that people being born into homes with inadequate financial resources to provide for them is a good thing?

Perhaps "designer babies" are something to worry about, but not at the moment I don't think. And none of these arguments justify restricting a woman's rights to her own uterus.

The technology is there, and are you sure that, given the chance, many if not most women would opt to choose how their child will look?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Not every woman has the same aesthetic tastes.

The technology is there, and are you sure that, given the chance, many if not most women would opt to choose how their child will look?

Actually.. I have just started wondering...
Who exactly would suffer from this ?

Actually.. I have just started wondering...
Who exactly would suffer from this ?

ugly old people

Actually.. I have just started wondering...
Who exactly would suffer from this ?
...
No one, I suppose.
Maybe it just seems wierd, or unnatural, to not have our genes randomly selected.
The genetic lottory is kinda at the heart of the human condition, and changing that is a hard thing to be comfortable with.

If you're talking about a government getting involved and interfering in any sort of practice, you always have to ask that. Who is the victim? Who does this hurt?

If the answer is nobody, then what point is there in getting the government involved?

Ten seconds on google gave me these results.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/national/2002/05/28/abort020528.html
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=%5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200504%5CCUL20050405a.html

Notice the reference to infant deaths. They are aborting fetii who have major defects that would die. It might be statistically relevant to the number of infant deaths, but to the number of abortions, it's nearly insignificant.

About a million abortions occur a year. The number of them that occur as late as these studies reference are relatively small and most are for severe illness that has either already killed the fetus or is going to. Even if all down's syndrome children were aborted, for example, you'd be talking about a small number of abortions. Meanwhile, there hasn't been shown a statistically significant change in even the small number of down's syndrome babies.

Ok, so maybe they won't use abortion to do it, but potential mothers are already "pre-selecting" embryos, often to avoid genetic defects or, more recently, to harvest umbilical stem cells in order to save the life of another family member. The technology is there, and are you sure that, given the chance, many if not most women would opt to choose how their child will look?
So you are talking about a different problem unrelated to abortion.

The 20th week abortions you referenced are VERY traumatic. Trust me, it's not something that people are looking to do. It goes against everything we know about public health.

...
No one, I suppose.
Maybe it just seems wierd, or unnatural, to not have our genes randomly selected.
The genetic lottory is kinda at the heart of the human condition, and changing that is a hard thing to be comfortable with.

Those with major birth defects dieing naturally from environmental pressures was also part of the human condition. Until we domesticated ourselves and so were no longer affected by natural selection.

Those with major birth defects dieing naturally from environmental pressures was also part of the human condition. Until we domesticated ourselves and so were no longer affected by natural selection.
We're still affected by natural selection, our environment has just gotten a lot more forgiving.
The only real problem would be the "Fade out" of the people who were unable to get the genetic selection. (see Gattaca.) But after technology marched on well enough, and culture evolved, it would be common practice for everyone. Then, I suppose, there would be no harm to it. It just seems weird to break so much from the way things have been.

We're still affected by natural selection, our environment has just gotten a lot more forgiving.
The only real problem would be the "Fade out" of the people who were unable to get the genetic selection. (see Gattaca.) But after technology marched on well enough, and culture evolved, it would be common practice for everyone. Then, I suppose, there would be no harm to it. It just seems weird to break so much from the way things have been.
Unless of course the genes that get selected for turn out to be detremental in a new enviroment. Genetic diversity ensures the as many genes as possible are found and as much variation as possible exists. For all we know, the genes for a blonde could lead to an increased rate of muscle deteriation in low G's. We need as much insurance as possible for future climate change be it from global warming or fleeing the earth. Nothing less then the survival of our species is at stake.

There is a troubling trend tied to abortion in the united states. Since it has been available, there are three effects it has had which seem, to me, to be tied with eugenics. I am not entirely sure how I feel about this, but that's why we start threads here. ;)
I'll list the effects from least worrisome to most. First off, mothers are very commonly having fetuses screened genetically or with ultrasound in order to determine if they posess major birth defects. If the fetus does posess such defects, the mother will very often chose to abort the pregnancy. We are (or soon will be) filtering such people out of our genepool, and you can see why this might seem questionable.

There are two kind of genetic defects being eliminated here. The most common would be spontaneous mutations such the various trisomy (Down syndrome being the most least lethel). In this situation an individual inherites 3 copies of a chromosome instead of the normal 2, one from each parent.

Please note individuals with multiple copies of sex chromosome (X and Y) are not aborted in current medical procedure. These individuals are normal, you might be one yourself. The extra sex chromosome is also not passed on. Somehow the germ cells (ie the egg and sperm) leaves out the extra sex chromsome.

And the other being gene mutations that are pass through the family tree whcih give rise to diseases. Two examples at oposite ends of the spectrum are Huntington's disease and sickle cell anemia


Lets tackle the spontaneous mutations which are commonly aborted, the autosomal trisomies. For starters all individuals with none sex trisomies with the exception of trisomy 21 will not pass their genes. They do not breed mainly because they die prior to birth or soon after. Very few trisomy 21 individuals do reach breeding age, without some really funky medical techno found in the first world nations, and a really well to do (financially wise) family who can support a very demanding child (medical and social wise). If I am not mistaken even then the median life expentancy is mid 20s. The reason:- we still can't cure heart problems that many trisomy 21 individuals have.

And if said individual does breed... trisomy 21 is not passed down (unless your family is curse with a particular chromsome 21 fusion). The sperm or egg again skips the extra chromosome.

So in conclusion, as for common spontaneous mutation.. it is best to let broken hopes stay broken. If an abortion can help a woman avoid having to birth a child that will (even with all our medical knowledge) die minutes or days after birth, shouldn't it be allowed?

Trisomy 21 was one of those broken hopes which medical technology managed to ducttape together, but still would a familly want to invest so much energy, time, and emotions into a broken child? I know I sound cruel, but please remember there are other children in the family who deserve as much care and attention as any in the family and there CAN be other children. A couple can have another child.

Now on too the mutations that pass through the family tree. These mutations do not kill you the moment you are born, so are able to pass onto your children.

Lets look at Huntington's disease. This mutation is dominant, ie if you inherite one copy of a gene which has a particular mutation, you will get the disease.

Huntington's disease is fatal, it normal strikes after the age of 40... thus most individual have already had children. This disease in graphic terms destroys the mind and makes the body movement difficult, slowly, while jittering without control. Said person forgets every love one, every friend and loses even themselves as their thinking become unclear, memories fade and even their personality changes. Death comes from complications of these and above syndromes, after a heroic 10 to 25 year battle.

Unfortunately if a person is unluckly the this disease can start work as young as age 4yr.

Should this mutation be removed from the human gene pool? It would be difficult to argue to keep it. This mutation has no benefits to its carriers. And without the help of human intervention, nature will not remove it as this mutation only kills you after you have had children. Thus for all intents and purposes neutral in the scheme of natural selection.

Now to sickle cell anemia. THis mutation is recessive, it take two copies of this mutation to kill you. Without modern medical intervention, most individuals with two copies (homozygotes) die before age 4. The reason being this mutation makes blood (hemoglobin) bind to oxygen less well, also causing the hemoglobin to bunch together and form crystals, warping the red blood cells, which are then destoryed by the body. Thus the anemia

By the age of 4 and above, the body's demand for oxygen outstrips the blood's ability to deliver, and the anemia becomes so severe that the body can not get enough iron to make enough blood.

however this is not the end of the story, if you have one copy of the sickle cell allel and one normal allel, you are resistant to malaria. This mainly due to the high destruction rate of blood cell (which are defective) and the crystaline hemoglobine make getting iron which the malaria love hard to get.

Anyhow.. is removing this mutation a bad thing? Well.... this is were it gets grey. In areas without malaria, there is no benefit, in areas which do... well there is some advantage.


The second effect is one that's already been noted in the abortion debate, and that is that poor women, single women, women with less educational opportunities than most, are more commonly getting abortions. This means that, to a greater or lesser degree, their genes are being bled out of the genepool.

I disagree. Aborting one child does not preclude having another child later in life. And there is always a reason for an abortion...which in this context probably means said woman can not adequately raise her child in her current social-economic-physical condition. So in view of genetics, it would be more efficient to pass on her genes if she aborted said child in this suboptimal situations and try again when the situation improves... ie older, best status and more income. I believe a woman knows best, and we should not go around bossing people around.

Now on a related matter... this argument is plain silly. In nature, not all individuals are created equal. Infact, humans of modern times are in a fantastically unique situation, in that nearly all individuals in the population will breed. Look to any animal population and you will find that a section of the population will never breed.. the omega animals. Harsh but true.


The third effect is the most troubling, though it has not happened yet. If the entire human genome is ever mapped, and genetic testing becomes significant enough, a woman could decide to have an abortion if she dislikes her child's eye color, or future height, or so on. Of course, this train leads to the whole "designer baby" fiasco.

I really have no idea how exactly to feel about this. Should mothers have the ability to practice amature eugenics?

Actually, I will let you on to a little conspiracy that has been going on for centuries, millennias if not since the begining of time. It has cost me greatly to obtain this infomation. Woman actually LOOK at the guys they date... appearances (physical and dress wise) and good manners (ie a good upbringing) are important and judge them to see fit if they are worth a second date!! Yes, the horror!!! I though if I turned up like a slob, woman everywhere will run into my arms and be ready and willing to have my children.

In other word woman already practise eugenics. Infact men do the same. Ask any guy for their ideal woman, and you will get a list of physical characteristics.... some quite detailed. In fact there is the whole 'This guy/girl is not my type'. Which actually means said individual does not match the characteristics desired.

So we already do.

Abortion is not a problem in changing the gene pool. Because mate selection will alter it more drastically then abortion. Afterall if you want to change the taste of a cake, whould it be better to change the starting ingedients rather then rejecting the every odd cake.

If you are worried about altering the gene pool, forget about human engineering on the scale of picking and choosing characteristic already present in the population, but rather worry about human enginnering on the scale of picking and choosing characteristics not present in the first place.

Sound far fetch? Not really, there is no difference between the two from a genetic engineer's point of view. A gene is a gene is a gene, no matter where it comes from. Look through this lense and you'll see what might happen.

Maybe if I had better genes I could have read through all of that.. I believe I got the jist though..

If there were more abortions, come on, lets face it.. How many of us wouldnt have been here :P I have a good friend who was a mistake, but meh.

If there were more abortions, come on, lets face it.. How many of us wouldnt have been here :P

Counterquestion: how many of us would have cared ?
Answer: none, obviously ;)

I'll list the effects from least worrisome to most. First off, mothers are very commonly having fetuses screened genetically or with ultrasound in order to determine if they possess major birth defects. If the fetus does possess such defects, the mother will very often chose to abort the pregnancy. We are (or soon will be) filtering such people out of our genepool, and you can see why this might seem questionable.

The second effect is one that's already been noted in the abortion debate, and that is that poor women, single women, women with less educational opportunities than most, are more commonly getting abortions. This means that, to a greater or lesser degree, their genes are being bled out of the genepool.

The third effect is the most troubling, though it has not happened yet. If the entire human genome is ever mapped, and genetic testing becomes significant enough, a woman could decide to have an abortion if she dislikes her child's eye color, or future height, or so on. Of course, this train leads to the whole "designer baby" fiasco.

I really have no idea how exactly to feel about this. Should mothers have the ability to practice amature eugenics?

Filtering defective births is probably one of the best long term plans the human species could undertake. Slowly but surely, we could "bleed out" all kinds of hereditory diseases, and these abortions would be less common. As for abortion for cosmetic purposes, I believe this to be messed up.

Edit: Err, forgive me if my comments were already covered.

ill start with this:

i am an advocate both of abortion and of euthenasia.

why? there are any number of reasons (and IMHO perfectly valid ones) for abortion, there are also many reasons for not terminating a fetus/embryo (henceforth referred to as baby or child).

the point is choice. whilst an unborn baby can experience things, the ability to interpret said input is sketchy at best. the point at which a child can respond in any sentient way to stimuli is still not universally excepted, and several schools of child psychology place this point well AFTER the birth.

from a religious perspective, i have nothing against abortion, in fact i am in awe of those that choose to do so, from a christian perspective.

however, i agree with erring on the safe side, and thats why late pregnancy abortions are illegal except in extreme cases.

as for euthenasia, defined as "Assisted suicide", the idea point of it is it is consensual, ie, the individual involved has a choice, a choice as to whether or not to end their own life, i have no problem with someone choosing to commit suicide, after all, its not anyone elses life. i personally feel that preventing someone from making that decision is immoral.

i have several questions however, several times on reading posts on this forum i have heard people talking about negative-population growth like it is a bad thing, can someone explain why? as far as i can tell if we are experiencing negative population growth it is more than likely due to natural "supply and demand" style social forces. and most people who are pro-life and similar perspectives are all in favour of things being natural.

the second question is,

what is wrong with eugenics? the thought line seems to go eugenics>aryan>nazi germany, must be bad. historically eugenics has taken place via the culling of undesirable elements post birth. surely the ability to do this pre-birth is in fact a step up. the vast paranoia re: eugenics seems to come from science-fiction literature of a the vein proposed by aldous huxley. need i remind you that in brave new world the vast percentage of the population are ecstatically happy, self-actualised individuals who have found a niche within their society (by design). is it not inconceivable that part of the problem with modern society is the attempts by individuals to force themselves into moulds they arent designed for?

darkside

If women did not have access to abortions; this would not happen. Talking of which it's less than a month (1st July) until South Dakota's abortion ban comes into effect.

If women did not have access to abortions; this would not happen. Talking of which it's less than a month (1st July) until South Dakota's abortion ban comes into effect.

*Thinks of the poor children*

I'd rather be disabled and alive then have been murdered before birth.

I'd rather be disabled and alive then have been murdered before birth.

A most intruiging statement. Please explain the underlying reasoning in more detail ?

I'd rather be disabled and alive then have been murdered before birth.
Having never been murdered before birth, how would you know? ;) :p

What right to people have to decide whether a human being will live or not?

Sometimes I wonder if these women who keep on getting abortions realize that they only have a limited numbers of eggs?


The munber of eggs isn't THAT limited. We naturally destroy one every month!!!!!

Think about it!

What right to people have to decide whether a human being will live or not?

If two people decide not to have sex, they are de facto deciding that a potential human will not live. Is that wrong of them ?

And please do not say yes just to make it easier to get laid.

No it is not wrong; in not having sex, there is no human being destroyed in the process, while in abortion there is.

No it is not wrong; in not having sex, there is no human being destroyed in the process, while in abortion there is.

Then the second question is: why and when is it wrong to kill humans ?

The answer to that question is quite hard. Lots of people are in favour of the death penalty for instance. Soldiers kill other people in war. In some situations killing one person can insure the survival of 10. We kill many animals with very little objections. Some people consider it a right to be allowed to end their *own* life. Some people believe that there comes a time to let go of loved ones, and not keep them on lifesupport forever.

All these things have one thing in common: they are talking about (former) persons. An embryo does not have a personality yet, and therefor calling it a person is not realistic.

If you can provide solid reasoning as to why killing humans is bad and why this reasoning also applies to a human embryo or fetus - you will make quite a few people quite happy.

This makes an interesting read on the topic - we're using the book in one of our classes "Genetics & Ethics" at university.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0684827050/104-0245658-9751103

Philip Kitcher, "The Lives to Come"

Deals with exactly those questions and while one might not come to the same conclusions, the questions asked are precisely those which need to be asked.

Then the second question is: why and when is it wrong to kill humans ?

The answer to that question is quite hard. Lots of people are in favour of the death penalty for instance. Soldiers kill other people in war. In some situations killing one person can insure the survival of 10. We kill many animals with very little objections. Some people consider it a right to be allowed to end their *own* life. Some people believe that there comes a time to let go of loved ones, and not keep them on lifesupport forever.

All these things have one thing in common: they are talking about (former) persons. An embryo does not have a personality yet, and therefor calling it a person is not realistic.

If you can provide solid reasoning as to why killing humans is bad and why this reasoning also applies to a human embryo or fetus - you will make quite a few people quite happy.

An embryo is clearly a person already, and I cannot prove to you the sanctity of human life without quoting the Bible which people round here do not seem to like.

An embryo is clearly a person already, and I cannot prove to you the sanctity of human life without quoting the Bible which people round here do not seem to like.I'm not sure how you can contend that an embryo in particular is 'clearly' a person, but no matter. If you're consistent in your views about the sanctity of human life, then fair play. Presumably, then, you are anti-death penalty, anti-euthanasia and anti-war as well.

I am anti-euthanasia, but pro-death penalty (as laid out in the Bible).

Who's pro-war? I am not a pacifist, if diplomatic solutions cannot be reached; send in the troops.

I am anti-euthanasia, but pro-death penalty (as laid out in the Bible).

Who's pro-war? I am not a pacifist, if diplomatic solutions cannot be reached; send in the troops.

Turn the other cheek, you hypocrite. ;)

but pro-death penalty (as laid out in the Bible).OK, I'm not expert on the Bible, but is one of the arguments against things like euthansia not that God alone should decided when people die? That being the case, why should anyone on Earth decide when anyone else dies, even if they have committed the most heinous crimes? (Personally, I am in theory an advocate of the death penalty, but I'm not at all religious anymore).

Who's pro-war? I am not a pacifist, if diplomatic solutions cannot be reached; send in the troops.I agree with this. War is sometimes necessary, but sadly some people are likely to die during it. The way I see it, abortion is sometimes necessary - for the health and wellbeing of the mother (and sometimes the father), even for the sake of saving public money at a wider level. Something - or someone, depending on your take on it - may die, but as discussed, death happens at the hands of others, quite legally, in many situations. In this one, the 'victim' has little to no knowledge of its/his/her death, nor anything else. It simply does not have the capability for thought, knowledge, or even physical pain at early stages. The young soldier killed horrifically in a war would have all of these.

A counter-argument is that the situation that leads to abortion is preventable (which in the cases of some wars could also be said to be true, but anyway). Arguing abstinence, however, denies perfectly normal couples - even many married ones! - a perfectly normal and enjoyable aspect of life undertaken by the majority of people worldwide. Care can (and definitely should) be taken, but it is not 100% effective. People can get their tubes tied, but that can be extremely expensive, and in any case, some countries won't let you do it until you reach a certain age. Adoption can be utilised, but the pathetic state of the system that leads to it in this country, where many children often go from care home to care home, foster home to foster home, with no stability whatsoever would not engender trust in that option in my view.

Punishments for disobeying God's words are laid out through out the Bible and that's why I am an advocate of the death penalty.

As for aborton to save the Mother's life, it is still wrong to destroy one human life to save another unless the human life being destroyed is guilty of which an unborn baby is incapable of being.

Punishments for disobeying God's words are laid out through out the Bible and that's why I am an advocate of the death penalty.

As for aborton to save the Mother's life, it is still wrong to destroy one human life to save another unless the human life being destroyed is guilty of which an unborn baby is incapable of being.

You disgust me. A woman always has more right to her uterus than anyone else does.

And why should I have to follow the rules of your religion?

I hope that someday your wife is in just such a situation, where the choices are abort or die. I'd like to see what your opinion is then.

When a major birth defect is detected, the defect could be fatal or the family may not be able to take care of a child with such needs. It would be completely unfair. Adoption is NOT an option in that situation either -- how many people would actually adopt and be able to properly care for a child with special needs?

As far as minorities and low-income women having abortions, it is a matter of not being able to care for themselves during the pregnancy and not being able to afford another child. Also, bear in mind that many young people are flat out poor. The difficulties of having a child are often compounded by being young and poor.

This appears to be a case of disparate impact versus disparate treatment.

Punishments for disobeying God's words are laid out through out the Bible and that's why I am an advocate of the death penalty.

As for aborton to save the Mother's life, it is still wrong to destroy one human life to save another unless the human life being destroyed is guilty of which an unborn baby is incapable of being.If that's what you really believe, that's up to you. However, by your own admission earlier on this thread, not all people like or adhere to your brand of religion, nor in many cases any religion.

Why, then, should the viewpoints of your Christian philosophy legislate the actions of everyone else? You cannot prove that God exists and wants policies x, y and z in place, just like I cannot prove He doesn't exist and doesn't want such policies. Therefore, the only sensible solution is one of plurality, where as many viewpoints as possible are taken into account. You may argue that legal abortion does not take account of views like yours, but the simple fact is no one is forcing you or your wife/girlfriend/whatever to get an abortion.

I have a sister who has cp disability (no idea if that's the correct english term) and sits in a wheel chair. I'm all for abortion on damaged featuses (sp, I know). I wouldn't wish her kind of life on my worst enemy. she doesn't really have a life and the only reason she is controllable at all is because she's pumped full with anti depressants and other drugs to keep pain and other bad things at bay.

I endlessly hate people who...think life is worth any cost. Because it isn't. It would have been much better if my sister would have been normal. For me, for her and certainly for my poor parents. I won't have a child who is born with big defects, like my sister was, because I know what hell it becomes. People who have never lived half their lives with people who have major mental and physical defects should shut the fuck up since they have simply no idea what it's like.

The state of Georgia.. What have you done!?
Opened a massive can of worms here..
In response to Gods support of the death penalty.. I think it depends on what damn page you read, coz if it does (I havent read the whole thing, but again, a friend summarised it for me) then that goes against the whole "Do unto the least of your brothers, that you do to me" or something.. my pre-year-0 English is a bit dodgy, but you get the jist.
Back to abortion:
If the mothers life is in danger, definatly yes. I had 'concrete' views before I read this thread, curse peoples pursuasive opinions.
I mean


What gives humans the right to decide if something lives or dies?


We would be giving unborn 'people' more rights than women?

no government ever will allow designer babies
sure it is possible but you need to remember people do still have standards the world is not that dodgy

tbh i think aborting foetus's with certain disablities is a good idea, however disabilities such as crap legs or blindness should not be allowed to abort upon that reason alone, governments have standards they are not idiots ( to some extent)

You disgust me. A woman always has more right to her uterus than anyone else does

i dunno i feel that the father should have a huge say in the matter, it is also his baby

I hope that someday your wife is in just such a situation, where the choices are abort or die. I'd like to see what your opinion is then.

harsh mate, harsh
Punishments for disobeying God's words are laid out through out the Bible and that's why I am an advocate of the death penalty.

As for aborton to save the Mother's life, it is still wrong to destroy one human life to save another unless the human life being destroyed is guilty of which an unborn baby is incapable of being.

you can never prove indefinately and completely that a person comitted a crime, even if there is witnesses and cctv footage, there is no way to be absolutely 100% exactly certain that a person did it, there is still a possibility which is within reality that the person did not do it (i.e. someone who looks the same. i.e. some form of secret lost identical twin (bad example))
so yeah thats y death penatly sucks


and you cannot really call an embryo a person untill it has developed a functioning brain ( which is about the deadline that governments have for when an embryo can be destroyed, i think its about six months in the uk i dunno,)
before that time the embryo is little more than a growing piece of meat.
would you consider it wrong to inject chemicals in a steak ( an untasty steak of course, if it was a good bit of steak then it is a crime beyond punishment )

What right to people have to decide whether a human being will live or not?
It's called "self-ownership". The woman has it. That's it.

Sometimes I wonder if these women who keep on getting abortions realize that they only have a limited numbers of eggs?
Women are born with several hundred thousand eggs and one is released every month regardless of whether it's fertilized or not. This is the stupidest argument against abortion I have ever heard.

No, what I'm saying is that you should let things happen naturally. So what if the child is disabled, would you love it any less? Just because the child is disabled doesn't mean it can't become a productive member of society, even in the smallest way. To "abort" children on purpose just because they are disabled is just cold hearted, and to me proves that you are an unfit parent if you're not willing to accept the worse possible situation.
I'm only going to have two children and with my family's history of spina bifida, I'm going to get screened for it and I would abort it if I had a fetus that had it. It's not cruel hearted, I can't afford to look after a child with a severe deformity either emotionally or financially. If the kid was deaf or blind, that would be one thing. But crippled or mentally challeneged, no.

I'm only going to have two children and with my family's history of spina bifida, I'm going to get screened for it and I would abort it if I had a fetus that had it. It's not cruel hearted, I can't afford to look after a child with a severe deformity either emotionally or financially. If the kid was deaf or blind, that would be one thing. But crippled or mentally challeneged, no.

good for you (not sarcasm)

I would give any pro-choice people $5 (US) to just come out and say that they think this world would be better without any "disabled" people in it. Let's cut through the lies and be honest.
I'm fine with disabled children, just not when they're hypothetically my offspring.

no government ever will allow designer babies
sure it is possible but you need to remember people do still have standards the world is not that dodgy

tbh i think aborting foetus's with certain disablities is a good idea, however disabilities such as crap legs or blindness should not be allowed to abort upon that reason alone, governments have standards they are not idiots ( to some extent)



i dunno i feel that the father should have a huge say in the matter, it is also his baby


harsh mate, harsh

The "father" doesn't have to go through nine months of hell, risk death via pregnancy and birth, and deal with the aftermath of the pregnancy. The father can skip out any time he wants. The woman is stuck -- the fetus is invading HER body, not his.

As for your opinion on the severity of disabilities, "crap legs" can be a result of more serious birth defects, and the same goes for blindness. Also, not everyone can AFFORD (financially and emotionally) to care for a disabled child.

There is a troubling trend tied to abortion in the united states. Since it has been available, there are three effects it has had which seem, to me, to be tied with eugenics. I am not entirely sure how I feel about this, but that's why we start threads here. ;)
I'll list the effects from least worrisome to most. First off, mothers are very commonly having fetuses screened genetically or with ultrasound in order to determine if they posess major birth defects. If the fetus does posess such defects, the mother will very often chose to abort the pregnancy. We are (or soon will be) filtering such people out of our genepool, and you can see why this might seem questionable.

The second effect is one that's already been noted in the abortion debate, and that is that poor women, single women, women with less educational opportunities than most, are more commonly getting abortions. This means that, to a greater or lesser degree, their genes are being bled out of the genepool.

The third effect is the most troubling, though it has not happened yet. If the entire human genome is ever mapped, and genetic testing becomes significant enough, a woman could decide to have an abortion if she dislikes her child's eye color, or future height, or so on. Of course, this train leads to the whole "designer baby" fiasco.

I really have no idea how exactly to feel about this. Should mothers have the ability to practice amature eugenics?

Oh for the love of...

First of all, as long as the woman in question is choosing to have an abortion of her own free will, it is none of your freaking business why she is doing it. If she wants to end a pregnancy because she doesn't want a blue-eyed baby, fine. She has the right to end her participation in ANY pregnancy, at ANY time, and for ANY reason. Or at least, she would have this right, if our society actually recognized the rights of pregnant women as equal to that of full human beings.

Second, human beings have been practicing eugenics since long before any of these medical technologies came about. People would continue to try to create "designer babies" even if you banned every single form of reproduction-related medical procedure in the world. Instead of wondering if abortion is eugenics (which it's not, duh), you should look at WHY somebody might consider blue eyes so objectionable that they would end a pregnancy that they otherwise would have carried to term. Or WHY somebody might choose to abort a female baby, but would have carried to term if the baby was male. Those are the real issues.

Third, poor and uneducated women are the ones having the most babies (on average). This is because they do not have access to education, contraception, and reproductive health care, and they frequenty are blocked from accessing these things by societal and cultural pressures. Their rates of abortion are higher in large part because they are not able to prevent pregnancies from happening in the first place. It's been shown time and time again: women who have access to contraception and education choose to have fewer babies, and they also have fewer abortions because they are able to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

You've actually got your fear-mongering backwards...the current refrain from the anti-choice brigade is all about how educated white women are not making enough babies because they are selfishly choosing to have jobs and lives of their own instead of being perpetually pregnant or nursing. The poor brown people are out-breeding us, OH NOES!!! Better guilt the white women into making more sons for the Fatherland, lest the inferior races overrun us all!

Fourth, tying abortion to eugenics is a scare tactic that's been used for ages. It's all about perpetuating the idea that if you let women make choices for themselves, OF COURSE the women are going to make immoral decisions. If you let women have the right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy, then OF COURSE the women are going to abort handicapped babies, or brown-eyed babies, or gay babies. Because OF COURSE women are not moral beings. This is why we need Daddy Government to step in and protect the little ladies from themselves.

The "father" doesn't have to go through nine months of hell, risk death via pregnancy and birth, and deal with the aftermath of the pregnancy. The father can skip out any time he wants. The woman is stuck -- the fetus is invading HER body, not his.

yeah but it is still his baby, im not saying he should have total control, im just saying he should have a say in the abortion process.


As for your opinion on the severity of disabilities, "crap legs" can be a result of more serious birth defects, and the same goes for blindness. Also, not everyone can AFFORD (financially and emotionally) to care for a disabled child.

yes i agree in cases like that abortion should be allowed, im talking simply about just non functioning legs.

As for aborton to save the Mother's life, it is still wrong to destroy one human life to save another unless the human life being destroyed is guilty of which an unborn baby is incapable of being.
The only reason you are alive at this moment is because of the destruction of "human life" that occurs inside your body every single day.

Programmed cell death is essential for your survival. Human cells, complete with full human DNA, must die inside you constantly if you wish to continue living. Indeed, there's a name for what happens when this process doesn't occur correctly: it's called cancer.

These cells are complete, living, human cells, just like a fertilized egg would be. These cells have human DNA, just like a fertilized egg would have. These cells are not "guilty" of anything, other than existing, much like a fertilized egg.

People really need to get it through their heads: preserving all "human life" is neither possible nor desirable, so stop trying to use that line of argument. There are plenty of other ways you can try to support your beliefs against abortion, but this ain't one of them.

tbh there should be more pro choice demonstrations, there are too many anti choice, the rational majority should rise up and shut the idiot minority up

such as what we are doin here about animal testing. there are loads of peopl demonstrating against vivisection and the rational people have had enough and demonstrate pro animal testing. the numbers in these demonstration far out weigh those in the anti animal testing.
if shouting is the only way to show youre views then the rational majority should shout back



yeah but it is still his baby, im not saying he should have total control, im just saying he should have a say in the abortion process.

Giving a male, who cannot EVER become pregnant, a SAY in the process takes away control from the female. There are men out there who want all women barefoot and pregnant. There are men who are so pro-life that they will use scare tactics to keep a woman pregnant, even if it endangers her life.

Giving men an actual SAY is dangerous. Having men rationally discuss the situation with their pregnant partners, and RESPECTING the women's decisions -- now THAT is what should happen.

yeah but it is still his baby, im not saying he should have total control, im just saying he should have a say in the abortion process.
He has exactly the same amount of say as the woman: they each have the right to refuse to allow the fetus to gestate inside their own body. Neither one has the right to make that decision for the other.

Men have EXACTLY the same rights as women when it comes to abortion. Every man has the right to end his own pregnancy, and I will fight to defend his right to choose. No woman has the right to force another woman to carry or end a pregnancy, just as no man has the right to do so.

Actually.. I have just started wondering...
Who exactly would suffer from this ?

the biggest sufferers would be the deluded parents who thought that "perfect" sperm means a perfect baby. (or even that perfect egg + perfect sperm means perfect baby)

as if pretty people dont sometimes have plain children, as if smart people dont sometimes have dull children, as if musical people dont sometimes have tone deaf children.

yeah but it is still his baby, im not saying he should have total control, im just saying he should have a say in the abortion process.




yes i agree in cases like that abortion should be allowed, im talking simply about just non functioning legs.


That would be considered a major birth defect, and should be left up to the mother's discretion. It is VERY rare for someone to be born simply unable to use their legs. This is most often a sign of something else. However, even in this rare case, it is still expensive and draining to care for a disabled child. Wheelchairs, walkers, physical therapy,etc. are NOT cheap.

I'd rather be disabled and alive then have been murdered before birth.
I know someone who's disabled and alive who would rather not have existed.

Aside from that, your use of the word "murdered" in this context is wrong and I know this has been explained to you. There is nothing to murder.

Giving a male, who cannot EVER become pregnant, a SAY in the process takes away control from the female. There are men out there who want all women barefoot and pregnant. There are men who are so pro-life that they will use scare tactics to keep a woman pregnant, even if it endangers her life.

Do not forget, though, that there are plenty of WOMEN who will argue that all women should be barefoot and pregnant. There are plenty of WOMEN who don't think that other women should have the right to choose. There are women who get abortions themselves, and then go out and stand on the picket lines in front of the abortion clinic.

Nobody, male or female, should have the right to tell you what to do with your body. Your body is your own. They cannot force you to donate your kidney, or be a blood donor, or work as a slave for them. We recognize that no other person has a claim to any other organ in your body, so why should they have any claim to your reproductive organs?


Giving men an actual SAY is dangerous. Having men rationally discuss the situation with their pregnant partners, and RESPECTING the women's decisions -- now THAT is what should happen.
Just like any medical decision. Having fucked a person does not give you any right to dictate what medical care they can and cannot have.

i dunno i feel that the father should have a huge say in the matter, it is also his baby
So he gets to deceide what goes on in her body?

So he gets to deceide what goes on in her body?
A guy having sex with a girl is like a dog peeing on a tree: once he spooges inside her, he's marked his territory. The tree has very little say in the matter.

A guy having sex with a girl is like a dog peeing on a tree: once he spooges inside her, he's marked his territory. The tree has very little say in the matter.
Apparantly...

Do not forget, though, that there are plenty of WOMEN who will argue that all women should be barefoot and pregnant. There are plenty of WOMEN who don't think that other women should have the right to choose. There are women who get abortions themselves, and then go out and stand on the picket lines in front of the abortion clinic.

Nobody, male or female, should have the right to tell you what to do with your body. Your body is your own. They cannot force you to donate your kidney, or be a blood donor, or work as a slave for them. We recognize that no other person has a claim to any other organ in your body, so why should they have any claim to your reproductive organs?

I always forget about the women. Thanks, Bottle.

To be honest, I cannot stand the hypocrites who will "go away for a few weeks" to have and recover from an abortion, and the rejoin the picketing. Their line of thinking is pure DENIAL.

I recently had a run-in with some IDIOTS protesting outside a pregnancy care clinic, which does NOT perform abortions (neither does our Planned Parenthood office across the street), for giving prenatal care and counseling to young unwed mothers. (Which is really sad -- they want the girls to stay pregnant,but without any sort of care for them or the unborn..)They also had signs up saying "LIVES WERE TAKEN HERE". Guess what? There is no public clinic in my town that performs abortions. These fucktards didn't have enough sense to even KNOW what they were protesting.

I admit I have not read the previous posts, however I would like to draw your attentions towards a distinction that must be made. Involuntary euthanasia could be construed as eugenics if it is enacted not for compassionate reasons, but economic of ideological motivations. However, voluntary euthanasia defies the notion of eugenics, since it involves, quite evidently, the volition of the subject, something the SS may have lacked.

Apparantly...
It's really kind of funny, when you think about it, that guys like to claim that they should have a say because they "helped to make the baby."

What is the male contribution to the (biological) making of a baby? The male must have an orgasm with his penis close enough to a woman's reproductive organs that his ejaculate can swim up and get to work. Forgive me for not applauding this extrordinary effort.

Compare this to, for example, making a batch of cookies.

You're in your kitchen, and you've picked up all the ingredients you need to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies. You've got the bowls and pan and spoons and whatever. You're all ready to roll. Ooops, but then you realize that you haven't got any chocolate chips.

So you ask a friend of yours if you could borrow some chocolate chips for your cookies, and she says "No problem." She swings by and drops off the chips.

Then you go into the kitchen and start to work. (I suck at baking, so just fill in the specifics at this point.) There's a lot of mixing involved, as well as greasing of pans and spooning of batter, preheating of appliances, setting of timers, and at the very end you get yummy cookies from where you once had a pile of ingredients.

That evening, some of your friends come over, including the friend who dropped off those chocolate chips for you. As you're passing around the cookies you baked, this friend pipes up and says, "Don't you mean the cookies that WE baked? I mean, I helped make them! Why are you trying to take all the credit, when you could never have made those cookies without me? It took two to make those cookies, so we should share the credit equally!"

You'd be a bit miffed, right? She didn't "help you make cookies," she gave you one ingredient. She didn't bake shit. You bought all the ingredients but one, you supplied all the equipment...hell, you paid for the power that heated the oven that baked the damn things!

Human biology is unfair. The simple reality is that men's bodies do not make babies. Women's bodies do. Men's bodies make ONE ingredient (albeit a very important one) that is needed for babies, while women's bodies make HUNDREDS of ingredients. Men's bodies supply exactly zero percent of the biological processes needed for making these ingredients into a baby; women's bodies supply 100% of said processes.

Does this mean men have no part in reproduction? Fuck no. Does it mean men should not be allowed to be fathers, or be involved with their kids, or have a say in what happens in their families? Fuck no. Does it mean that men don't care, or are deliberately "slacking off," or are being intentionally jackassish and choosing not to have uteruses? Fuck no. Does it mean that all women are life-giving goddesses and all men are evil oppressors? Fuck no.

What it does mean is that men need to quit bitching about how they don't get enough say in pregnancies. Until you guys are "in the kitchen," so to speak, you get no say in the baking process.

seriously. if we know that a fetus or embryo will develop some condition that will cause suffering, what the hell kind of morality says that we ought to go right ahead with the pregnancy?

I suspect there are many Kids with downsyndrom that might disagree with your anyalsis, being that they are quite happy to be alive (as opposed to terminated) living productive and fulfilling lives.

I always forget about the women. Thanks, Bottle.

To be honest, I cannot stand the hypocrites who will "go away for a few weeks" to have and recover from an abortion, and the rejoin the picketing. Their line of thinking is pure DENIAL.

I recently had a run-in with some IDIOTS protesting outside a pregnancy care clinic, which does NOT perform abortions (neither does our Planned Parenthood office across the street), for giving prenatal care and counseling to young unwed mothers. (Which is really sad -- they want the girls to stay pregnant,but without any sort of care for them or the unborn..)They also had signs up saying "LIVES WERE TAKEN HERE". Guess what? There is no public clinic in my town that performs abortions. These fucktards didn't have enough sense to even KNOW what they were protesting.
I used to make the same mistake, but my mother was quick to correct me. (Thanks Mom!)

Some of the most vocal anti-feminists and anti-choicers are women. That may seem ass-backwards, but it actually makes a twisted kind of sense when you appreciate their "Good for me, but not for thee" kind of thinking. Their abortion is ok because they have virtuous reasons, but YOUR abortion is bad because you are obviously a selfish sperm-rejecting slut. Their use of contraception is ok because they are doing it for the "right" reasons, but you are on the Pill because you are a big ho.

It's very important to remember that women aren't any more (or less) reasonable and moral than men. Women aren't all part of some blessed sisterhood of loving and rational ladies. There are plenty of woman-hating women, and plenty more women who are ready and willing to sell out OTHER women in order to gain personal rewards.

Ann Coulter is a shining example of this: a woman who reaps tremendous benefits from ordering other women to give up the very rights and freedoms that she enjoys. The right wing is full of similar examples of women who have established flourishing professional careers out of telling other women it is wrong to leave the kitchen.

I suspect there are many Kids with downsyndrom that might disagree with your anyalsis, being that they are quite happy to be alive (as opposed to terminated) living productive and fulfilling lives.

That would be because their caretakers had the financial and emotional abilities to raise them. However, if something is terminated before it has a brain, IT DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT. Your point is moot.

I used to make the same mistake, but my mother was quick to correct me. (Thanks Mom!)

Some of the most vocal anti-feminists and anti-choicers are women. That may seem ass-backwards, but it actually makes a twisted kind of sense when you appreciate their "Good for me, but not for thee" kind of thinking. Their abortion is ok because they have virtuous reasons, but YOUR abortion is bad because you are obviously a selfish sperm-rejecting slut. Their use of contraception is ok because they are doing it for the "right" reasons, but you are on the Pill because you are a big ho.

It's very important to remember that women aren't any more (or less) reasonable and moral than men. Women aren't all part of some blessed sisterhood of loving and rational ladies. There are plenty of woman-hating women, and plenty more women who are ready and willing to sell out OTHER women in order to gain personal rewards.

Ann Coulter is a shining example of this: a woman who reaps tremendous benefits from ordering other women to give up the very rights and freedoms that she enjoys. The right wing is full of similar examples of women who have established flourishing professional careers out of telling other women it is wrong to leave the kitchen.


Good point. I do tend to forget that not all women are reasonable and somewhat compassionate like the people I choose to surround myself with. Of course, it would be nice if the rest of the world was compassionate and open-minded;wouldn't things be a bit simpler?

That would be because their caretakers had the financial and emotional abilities to raise them. However, if something is terminated before it has a brain, IT DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT. Your point is moot.
Seriously, why are people wasting time with that line of arguing?

"Maybe this person that never existed might have wanted to exist!"
"Oh yeah? Well, maybe this person that never existed would have wished they never existed if they did exist!"

Good point. I do tend to forget that not all women are reasonable and somewhat compassionate like the people I choose to surround myself with. Of course, it would be nice if the rest of the world was compassionate and open-minded;wouldn't things be a bit simpler?
Hell, I would settle for the rest of the world being a bit less bossy. They can be as close-minded and nasty as they want, as long as they quit trying to shove their bossy little noses up my uterus.

I recently had a run-in with some IDIOTS protesting outside a pregnancy care clinic, which does NOT perform abortions (neither does our Planned Parenthood office across the street), for giving prenatal care and counseling to young unwed mothers. (Which is really sad -- they want the girls to stay pregnant,but without any sort of care for them or the unborn..)They also had signs up saying "LIVES WERE TAKEN HERE". Guess what? There is no public clinic in my town that performs abortions. These fucktards didn't have enough sense to even KNOW what they were protesting.
oh they probably knew but its such an EFFORT to go somewhere where abortoins are performed. and what about LUNCH?

its so much easier to protest locally even when it doesnt make any sense and might keep away a woman who needs the care.

oh they probably knew but its such an EFFORT to go somewhere where abortoins are performed. and what about LUNCH?

its so much easier to protest locally even when it doesnt make any sense and might keep away a woman who needs the care.
Just another example of proof that the "pro-life" faction doesn't give a shit about "life."

If they really believed that abortion was "murder," and if their real priority was saving fetuses, they wouldn't be trying to block women from getting contraception. They wouldn't be trying to block Plan B. They wouldn't be trying to block sex ed. All of these efforts INCREASE the number of abortion, and we've known that for several decades. But "pro-life" isn't really about saving fetuses, it's about power and control. If a "pro-life" organization has to choose between saving fetuses and controlling women, it will pick controlling women any day of the week.

oh they probably knew but its such an EFFORT to go somewhere where abortoins are performed. and what about LUNCH?

its so much easier to protest locally even when it doesnt make any sense and might keep away a woman who needs the care.


What's pathetic is the result was the closing of a pregnancy care center -- the idiots left Planned Parenthood alone for the most part ( probably because the fucktards don't recognize their logo,lol).

That would be because their caretakers had the financial and emotional abilities to raise them. However, if something is terminated before it has a brain, IT DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT. Your point is moot.

What a rather childish technicality to point out.. if in your sleep I stab you in a manner that you feel no pain... ur not going to really care that you have died will you >.> [because ur dead]. That does not however discount the reality that you have been deprived of an otherwise productive and fullfilling life. So I belive it is YOUR point that is moot.., since im focusing on the life that was deprived rather then how an individual feels on the matter of being dead.

What a rather childish technicality to point out.. if in your sleep I stab you in a manner that you feel no pain... ur not going to really care that you have died will you >.> [because ur dead]. That does not however discount the reality that you have been deprived of an otherwise productive and fullfilling life. So I belive it is YOUR point that is moot.., since im focusing on the life that was deprived rather then how an individual feels on the matter of being dead.

The difference is the being you are claiming to stab was indeed SENTIENT. It had the ABILITY to feel pain. Also, what you would be doing is legally considered malicious.

An embryo or fetus (depending on what stage of development you're looking at) at the point of a legal, elective abortion, CANNOT feel pain, is NOT sentient, and NEVER WAS.

Your whole point is wrapped up in potential. That zygote, embryo,fetus, WHATEVER -- the probability of it curing cancer or doing something similarly miraculous or good is the same as it becoming a serial killer, rapist, or the next Alito.

Sometimes I wonder if these women who keep on getting abortions realize that they only have a limited numbers of eggs?

I wonder if women who keep abstaining from sex realize they only have a limited number of eggs. Unless they get pregnant they expel one every month. Women need to start being more promiscuous because otherwise they're wasting eggs.

The wonderful arguments of the anti-choice crowd strikes again.

NOTE: women expel about 480 eggs in their lifetime at most. They are born with 10's of thousands. The number of eggs is not an issue.

What a rather childish technicality to point out.. if in your sleep I stab you in a manner that you feel no pain... ur not going to really care that you have died will you >.> [because ur dead]. That does not however discount the reality that you have been deprived of an otherwise productive and fullfilling life. So I belive it is YOUR point that is moot.., since im focusing on the life that was deprived rather then how an individual feels on the matter of being dead.

Amusing. How many funerals for miscarriages have you been too? An equal 'tragedy' no? Technically, when Jody Sue at the local Hooters refuses to come back to my place a potential life was deprived. Let's protest Hooters. You make the signs. I'll bring the beer.

What a rather childish technicality to point out.. if in your sleep I stab you in a manner that you feel no pain... ur not going to really care that you have died will you >.> [because ur dead]. That does not however discount the reality that you have been deprived of an otherwise productive and fullfilling life. So I belive it is YOUR point that is moot.., since im focusing on the life that was deprived rather then how an individual feels on the matter of being dead.
Sorry, but you're the one who's out to lunch on this one.

If you really are interested in speculating about all the people who MIGHT exist, then you had better clear your schedule. Every viable sperm in every testicle in every man in the world could, in theory, contribute to the genetic make up of a new person. Every single one of those potential people requires your speculation.

You see, a fertilized egg is not a baby any more than a sperm and egg are. A fertilized egg is a critical ingredient for the making of a baby, just like the sperm and the egg are, but it is not the only ingredient you need. If you are going to argue that the ingredient = the final product, you'd better be prepared to go all the way (no pun intended).

By your logic, every man must ensure that every single one of his sperm fertilizes an egg that is made into a baby that is successfully born. And, if a man fails to do this, if he allows a single one of his sperm to not fertilize an egg, then his actions are comparable to if I were to stab you in your sleep.

Oh, but wait! A sperm is only half the story! That sperm would have become part of a totally different person if it has fertilized a different egg. What about THAT potential person?

Oh no, and uterine environment changes things too! That sperm would have become a part of a totally different person even if it fertilized the exact same egg but did so tomorrow instead of today. What about THAT potential person?

What about the baby that my mother could have conceived 3 months after she became pregnant with me? Because she was already pregnant, she couldn't get pregnant with that potential-person, and therefore he/she never had a chance to live!

What about my buddy Dan, who would never have been born if his mother hadn't had an abortion when she was a teen? His mother never would have met his father, and he never would have been conceived, if his mother had given birth to that first baby.

I could go on all day, but you get the idea.

I wonder if women who keep abstaining from sex realize they only have a limited number of eggs. Unless they get pregnant they expel one every month. Women need to start being more promiscuous because otherwise they're wasting eggs.

The wonderful arguments of the anti-choice crowd strikes again.

NOTE: women expel about 480 eggs in their lifetime at most. They are born with 10's of thousands. The number of eggs is not an issue.
Can't you hear the sounds of desperation, ladies?

QUICK, get pregnant! If you don't get pregnant now, you'll never be able to! And you ALL want to get pregnant, right? Of COURSE you do! Get pregnant now, whether you are ready or not, whether you want to or not, because if you don't do it now then you will be a dried-up old spinster who gets eaten by her cats!

Seriously, why are people wasting time with that line of arguing?

"Maybe this person that never existed might have wanted to exist!"
"Oh yeah? Well, maybe this person that never existed would have wished they never existed if they did exist!"

In all fairness the overwhelming majority of people that do come into existence seem reluctant to leave it again. So the former is much more likely than the latter.

That said; the person who got aborted never actually existed and therefor simply did not have wishes.

In all fairness the overwhelming majority of people that do come into existence seem reluctant to leave it again. So the former is much more likely than the latter.

Maybe it is, but what does that matter? If you are speculating about the wishes of a particular non-existant individual, how can you make that judgment? Maybe that particular non-existant person would NOT have wanted to live. Why should you rule that they must want to live just because the majority feels that way?


That said; the person who got aborted never actually existed and therefor simply did not have wishes.
Of course, I consider this entire thing doubly moot, because I believe that even IF a fetus is a human person, and even IF it does desire to continue living, it still has absolutely no right whatsoever to force a woman to gestate it.

Can't you hear the sounds of desperation, ladies?

QUICK, get pregnant! If you don't get pregnant now, you'll never be able to! And you ALL want to get pregnant, right? Of COURSE you do! Get pregnant now, whether you are ready or not, whether you want to or not, because if you don't do it now then you will be a dried-up old spinster who gets eaten by her cats!

Are you going to join me at the Hooters protest? Those women are wasting eggs and they work together so much that I bet they waste their eggs at the exact same time every month.

The difference is the being you are claiming to stab was indeed SENTIENT. It had the ABILITY to feel pain. Also, what you would be doing is legally considered malicious.

An embryo or fetus (depending on what stage of development you're looking at) at the point of a legal, elective abortion, CANNOT feel pain, is NOT sentient, and NEVER WAS.

Your whole point is wrapped up in potential. That zygote, embryo,fetus, WHATEVER -- the probability of it curing cancer or doing something similarly miraculous or good is the same as it becoming a serial killer, rapist, or the next Alito.

The orginal statement which i was responding to was making the statement: "that it was essentially imoral to continue a pregnancy which left the fetus (future child) with some disability..."

My simple response being, there are plenty of disabled kids that live perfectly productive and happy lives, and that I dont feel they would have been better off terminated.

Of course since then this has been transformed into some argument about when life begins and the value of a fetus.... but my simple argument is, rather then being immoral to allow these potential people from behing born because of a present sickness/disability .. the fact remains they would be able to live productive happy lives, and that it is more immoral to terminate simply because of the presence of said disability. It is the same as terminating a fetus because it wouldn't be a boy/girl or because it dosn't have the gene for blond hair or any other physical trait. If the fetus is still able to grow and develop into a productive person.. there is no reason why it should be terminated.. and is immoral to do otherwise! Who are you or anyone else to say what is or is not the "right" criteria to be allowed to live

Of course since then this has been transformed into some argument about when life begins and the value of a fetus.... but my simple argument is, rather then being immoral to allow these potential people from behing born because of a present sickness/disability .. the fact remains they would be able to live productive happy lives, and that it is more immoral to terminate simply because of the presence of said disability. It is the same as terminating a fetus because it wouldn't be a boy/girl or because it dosn't have the gene for blond hair or any other physical trait. If the fetus is still able to grow and develop into a productive person.. there is no reason why it should be terminated.. and is immoral to do otherwise! Who are you or anyone else to say what is or is not the "right" criteria to be allowed to live
See, but the argument being made against you is that it is not immoral to terminate the life of a fetus. Period. As in, it doesn't matter if the woman is doing it because the baby has Down's, or because it's got blue eyes, or because it's a girl, or whatever. As in, a woman's got the right to choose if she doesn't want to continue a pregnancy, and that's the end of the story.

Yes, selective abortion does constitute a form of Eugenics. But stand back and look at it for a second:

Since we have developed cars, planes, boats, etc, there are no more truly "isolated" populations. As you may know, isolation is one of the major driving forces of speciation and adaptation. We no longer adapt to the environment, with technology taking the place of adaptations. Natural selection has broken down in the face of improved medicine, and people whose genes would normally have been weeded out of existance are now breeding thanks to fertility drugs and viagra (and to a degree, plastic surgery).

Our species is no longer evolving. Rather, it is devolving. We have turned 180 from a scheme of survival of the fittest to one of survival of the best medicated and most technologically enabled. So if natural selection is no longer working for us, maybe it's time we did take some action.

As far as who controls this selection, it should be as it always was. Parents select which genes are fit, and nature tests them. If the selection was good, the offspring flourishes. If bad, the offspring fails to reproduce or dies outright. Before people get up at arms about this, remember this is the same scheme used in natural selection, with the genetic choices being made by careful (or sometimes indescriminate) selection of sexual partners.

Are you going to join me at the Hooters protest? Those women are wasting eggs and they work together so much that I bet they waste their eggs at the exact same time every month.
Pfft, I refuse to support your wishy-washy protest!

See, you are only yelling at the women who are failing to get pregnant right NOW. But what about all the women who die without using up all the eggs in their ovaries? What about the women who reach menopause with some potential-babies still waiting to be conceived?

And what about the women who get pregnant over and over again? Each time a woman gets pregnant, she makes her body unable to be re-impregnated for like a whole 9 months! That's 9 conceptions that could have happened, but she blocked those potential people from ever being conceived!

Yes, selective abortion does constitute a form of Eugenics. But stand back and look at it for a second:

Since we have developed cars, planes, boats, etc, there are no more truly "isolated" populations. As you may know, isolation is one of the major driving forces of speciation and adaptation. We no longer adapt to the environment, with technology taking the place of adaptations. Natural selection has broken down in the face of improved medicine, and people whose genes would normally have been weeded out of existance are now breeding thanks to fertility drugs and viagra (and to a degree, plastic surgery).

Our species is no longer evolving. Rather, it is devolving. We have turned 180 from a scheme of survival of the fittest to one of survival of the best medicated and most technologically enabled. So if natural selection is no longer working for us, maybe it's time we did take some action.

As far as who controls this selection, it should be as it always was. Parents select which genes are fit, and nature tests them. If the selection was good, the offspring flourishes. If bad, the offspring fails to reproduce or dies outright. Before people get up at arms about this, remember this is the same scheme used in natural selection, with the genetic choices being made by careful (or sometimes indescriminate) selection of sexual partners.
Bzzzt. Foul. The Montoya Principle is invoked on your use of the term "evolution": that word does not mean what you think it means.

If the fetus is still able to grow and develop into a productive person.. there is no reason why it should be terminated.. and is immoral to do otherwise! Who are you or anyone else to say what is or is not the "right" criteria to be allowed to live

The problem is that you don't realize the abortions that occur for this reason are because it will NEVER grow and develop into a productive person. The vast majority of those aborted for this reason will not live to an age where they'll be able to walk, talk, kick or throw a ball, make a wish over a birthday cake or go to kindergarten. The only potential generally be denied is the ability to live a short, painful life with little understand that it is doing so or why.

Bzzzt. Foul. The Montoya Principle is invoked on your use of the term "evolution": that word does not mean what you think it means.

I am not familiar with any such "Montoya Principle". Would you care to explain instead of merely brushing off my statements as flawed due to some term I am not familar with?

I would give any pro-choice people $5 (US) to just come out and say that they think this world would be better without any "disabled" people in it. Let's cut through the lies and be honest.

Also, today, I saw a bumper sticker that I thought was funny. It had "Pro-faith, Pro-Family, Pro-Choice." Ahh the irony is sooo thick you could cut it with a knife.

I, dyslexic pro-choicer, think that this world would be better without and "disabled" people. I'd like to wipe out all negative genetic conditions.

I also love how you've been here since May. I take paypal at andrewgeoghegan@msn.com

[Edit]

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die..."

Our species is no longer evolving. Rather, it is devolving. We have turned 180 from a scheme of survival of the fittest to one of survival of the best medicated and most technologically enabled. So if natural selection is no longer working for us, maybe it's time we did take some action."Devolution" would require returning to a state which we were at before. That would be incompatible with the evolutionary theory, and hasn't happened to the homo sapiens sapiens yet. We are indeed evolving (more socially and behaviorly than physically) to meet the needs of our new environment, albeit an environment we have shaped ourselves.

The problem is that you don't realize the abortions that occur for this reason are because it will NEVER grow and develop into a productive person. The vast majority of those aborted for this reason will not live to an age where they'll be able to walk, talk, kick or throw a ball, make a wish over a birthday cake or go to kindergarten. The only potential generally be denied is the ability to live a short, painful life with little understand that it is doing so or why.


Thank you!! That is exactly what we've been trying to point out!!

"Devolution" would require returning to a state which we were at before. That would be incompatible with the evolutionary theory, and hasn't happened to the homo sapiens sapiens yet. We are indeed evolving (more socially and behaviorly than physically) to meet the needs of our new environment, albeit an environment we have shaped ourselves.

We are indeed evolving. But we are becoming a weaker race as a result of enginering our envioment.

I am not familiar with any such "Montoya Principle". Would you care to explain instead of merely brushing off my statements as flawed due to some term I am not familar with?
The Montoya Principle refers to the character of Inigo Montoya from the movie The Princess Bride. A character in this movie is fond of using the word "inconceivable," and Montoya famously remarks to him that, "I do not think that word means what you think it means."

Your posting implied that evolution refers to a process that necessarily will guide the human species toward some particular outcome, and that when humanity does not progress toward this outcome it is "no longer evolving" or is "devolving." None of this is accurate.

Humans are evolving, as are all life forms that we know of, and we will continue to do so regardless of whether or not the outcome of our evolution is one that we like. We may be able to alter some of the selective pressures that impact the evolution of our species, but we cannot stop or reverse the simple reality of our evolution.

We are indeed evolving. But we are becoming a weaker race as a result of enginering our envioment.Indeed, but then again, our social evolution has managed to find ways to keep that from causing us to die out. While the average human being may be weaker than before, that no longer condemns any one to death. That's a very positive development.

"Devolution" would require returning to a state which we were at before. That would be incompatible with the evolutionary theory, and hasn't happened to the homo sapiens sapiens yet. We are indeed evolving (more socially and behaviorly than physically) to meet the needs of our new environment, albeit an environment we have shaped ourselves.

Thank you, this is a good point I hadn't thought of. What I meant to say was not that we are digressing to a former state of genetic complexity, but rather that natural selection has broken down to the point of nonexistance. In the proper scheme of natural selection and evolution, genetic combinations that are not fit to survive in the environment are weeded out of the population unapologetically. By contrast, in a more "human" scheme, and in western civilization especially, people who are born with genetic defects or bad combinations of genes leading to diseases or disabilities are not weeded out, rather medicated and specially treated.

The orginal statement which i was responding to was making the statement: "that it was essentially imoral to continue a pregnancy which left the fetus (future child) with some disability..."

My simple response being, there are plenty of disabled kids that live perfectly productive and happy lives, and that I dont feel they would have been better off terminated.

Of course since then this has been transformed into some argument about when life begins and the value of a fetus.... but my simple argument is, rather then being immoral to allow these potential people from behing born because of a present sickness/disability .. the fact remains they would be able to live productive happy lives, and that it is more immoral to terminate simply because of the presence of said disability. It is the same as terminating a fetus because it wouldn't be a boy/girl or because it dosn't have the gene for blond hair or any other physical trait. If the fetus is still able to grow and develop into a productive person.. there is no reason why it should be terminated.. and is immoral to do otherwise! Who are you or anyone else to say what is or is not the "right" criteria to be allowed to live

Not every disability or defect is MAJOR. Also, not everyone can AFFORD to care for such a child. Is that fair to the child? NO. Is that fair to ANYONE? NO! The American adoption system cannot afford to take care of such children, and few to none would be adopted.

We are arguing about MAJOR defects, which would leave the child unable to live a productive, enjoyable life. Here's an example: The wife of a high school English teacher became pregnant. Because she had several miscarriages before, she went in for testing. Nothing showed up wrong. When she was about 5 months along, it was discovered that the baby had a large hole in its heart, and would likely not even survive the duration of the pregnancy.

What would you do in this situation?

Medically, a doctor could recommend an abortion to avoid unncessary stress on the woman's body during labor.

Thank you, this is a good point I hadn't thought of. What I meant to say was not that we are digressing to a former state of genetic complexity, but rather that natural selection has broken down to the point of nonexistance.

Again, this is totally false. Humans are as subject to natural selection as any other species on the planet, and we are as subject to natural selection as we have ever been across history.

Perhaps you do not understand what "natural selection" refers to?


In the proper scheme of natural selection and evolution, genetic combinations that are not fit to survive in the environment are weeded out of the population unapologetically.

There is no "proper" or "improper" scheme here. Biological processes do not make moral judgments.

Natural selection is the process by which individual organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce. "Fitness" refers to how able an organism is to pass on its genetic material. Therefore, we are not eliminating or halting natural selection, but rather have changed the standards of "fitness" in our society. What is required to survive and thrive in our current society is different from what may have been required in the past, but this does not in any way constitute a halting of natural selection.


By contrast, in a more "human" scheme, and in western civilization especially, people who are born with genetic defects or bad combinations of genes leading to diseases or disabilities are not weeded out, rather medicated and specially treated.
The only reason these traits would be weeded out by natural selection would be if they decreased an organism's fitness. We have created a society in which many of these traits do not decrease fitness, therefore natural selection (while still quite active) is not weeding them out.

Indeed, but then again, our social evolution has managed to find ways to keep that from causing us to die out. While the average human being may be weaker than before, that no longer condemns any one to death. That's a very positive development.

Ah but through abortion "eugenics" or designer babies, we could have a stronger race with our great social evolution. Without going all out and killing actual people (which is bad), we're still going to have to continue along this path of social evolution but we'll also have a race that's more resiliant.

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die..."

Who's pro-war? I am not a pacifist, if diplomatic solutions cannot be reached; send in the troops.

Interesting, because while Jehovah of the OT was not much of a pacifist, it can easily be argued that as Christians we ought to be.

18If possible, (AM)so far as it depends on you, (AN)be at peace with all men.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am anti-euthanasia, but pro-death penalty (as laid out in the Bible).


Um, the Bible isn't pro-death penalty. The OT is, but Jesus, Himself, says to turn the other cheek.


38"(AZ)You have heard that it was said, '(BA)AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.'

39"But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but (BB)whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

He also says, "Judge not lest ye be judged." Even the OT says "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord."

19(AO)Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "(AP)VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.

20"(AQ)BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS ON HIS HEAD."

21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.


35'(A)Vengeance is Mine, and retribution,
(B)In due time their foot will slip;
(C)For the day of their calamity is near,
And the impending things are hastening upon them.'


For Christians, whenever there is conflict between the OT and Jesus, Jesus is the authority since He "fulfilled the law and the prophets".

Ah but through abortion "eugenics" or designer babies, we could have a stronger race with our great social evolution.

First define "stronger." Then we can discuss the lack of data :).

Ah but through abortion "eugenics" or designer babies, we could have a stronger race with our great social evolution. Without going all out and killing actual people (which is bad), we're still going to have to continue along this path of social evolution but we'll also have a race that's more resiliant.

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die..."I'd consider changing our behavior so that eugenics and designer babies were common place as a bad thing, and thus no longer a great society.

I'd consider changing our behavior so that eugenics and designer babies were common place as a bad thing, and thus no longer a great society.
Why? We already practice this kind of thing. People often select a mate based on their desire to see particular traits passed on to their offspring, or choose not to procreate with somebody because they wish to avoid seeing an undesirable trait passed on.

First define "stronger." Then we can discuss the lack of data :).

Ah and there we have the rub. I'm not saying "Omfg wez can haev nazi xman powerz coz thsi si fuly researced and FACT mwhaha".

I'm saying that an artifical human society makes it easier for those with genetic "weaknesses" - such as disabilities, heriditary diseases and so forth - to surivive to breed, which ensures the surivival of genes which do not increase fitness for surival. Removing these conditions to leave a more optimal gene pool would be ideal (though granted I bet many Irish farmers where thinking the same thing in 1844...).

In any case, I just want my $5.

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die..." Man I love that film

There is no "proper" or "improper" scheme here. Biological processes do not make moral judgments.


I was not attempting to imply any such morality on the part of biology, I used proper to imply the natural state, rather than that in the enginered environment.


The only reason these traits would be weeded out by natural selection would be if they decreased an organism's fitness. We have created a society in which many of these traits do not decrease fitness, therefore natural selection (while still quite active) is not weeding them out.

And that is exactly the issue we are at odds with in my line of reasoning. Rather than adapting to the world at large, we are adapting to the presence of technology. It is not inconceivable that at some point in the future we will have become so dependant upon technology to hold us up in the world that, removed from it, we would die. This does not set well with me.

For example, consider fertility drugs. Women who would normally be sterile, for whatever reason, are now able to bear viable children... and in a few cases end up bearing far more children than would normally be possible. If the sterility of the woman was dependant upon a genetic condition, the genes of this woman have now been placed into the population at large. Her children are less fit to survive, and yet due to medical technology they are able to pass on their genes. As a result, this genetic condition becomes more common, while "normally" (ie without the fertility treatments), the condition would have ended with the original mother's inability to bear children.

Fast forward a couple thousand years and fertility treatments may well be so commonplace due to activities like this that the human species is unable to reproduce without them, as a functioning reproductive system is no longer necessary for replication. This is hardly ideal in my mind.

Can't you hear the sounds of desperation, ladies?

QUICK, get pregnant! If you don't get pregnant now, you'll never be able to! And you ALL want to get pregnant, right? Of COURSE you do! Get pregnant now, whether you are ready or not, whether you want to or not, because if you don't do it now then you will be a dried-up old spinster who gets eaten by her cats!

:D Because there couldn't possibly be a woman on earth who doesn't want to be a mother. ;)

See, but the argument being made against you is that it is not immoral to terminate the life of a fetus. Period. As in, it doesn't matter if the woman is doing it because the baby has Down's, or because it's got blue eyes, or because it's a girl, or whatever. As in, a woman's got the right to choose if she doesn't want to continue a pregnancy, and that's the end of the story.

From this perspective then, you would support cultures who selectivly screen children specifically for male sex, terminating females .. because females are seen as usueful to the viability of the faimily.

From here i suppose we would simply have to agree to disagree... it is far too near a slippery slope for me, to allow families to made decisions about childbaring largely (and in some cases) soley for cosmetic purposes. Then influenced like a fad we could in extreme cases see whole sale loses of certain genetic attributes which may or maynot be to our benifit. Picking and choosing what our children may look like leads to no place good, and has sever ethical questions from my perspective. Not to mention the loss of gentic diversity can have agregious effects on our own development as a species down the road.

This is the slipper slope you begin to tread down, when you support the position parents should be allowed to exercise whole sale uffetered freedom over their offspring and reporduction.

Ah and there we have the rub. I'm not saying "Omfg wez can haev nazi xman powerz coz thsi si fuly researced and FACT mwhaha".

I'm saying that an artifical human society makes it easier for those with genetic "weaknesses" - such as disabilities, heriditary diseases and so forth - to surivive to breed, which ensures the surivival of genes which do not increase fitness for surival. Removing these conditions to leave a more optimal gene pool would be ideal (though granted I bet many Irish farmers where thinking the same thing in 1844...).

So you would argue that Stephen Hawking should have been aborted, lest his flawed genetics weaken the human species? Ludvig von Beethoven is believed to have suffered from an inherited autoimmune disorder, so it probably would have been best for him never to be born.

And what about mutations that occur during life? A person may be born with "perfect" gene, but can incur genetic mutations that are serious and detrimental. Some people who have ideal genes themselves may produce gametes with dangerous mutations. Some genetic traits may be both potentially helpful and potentially harmful, like what we see with sickle cell anemia.

And, of course, all of this is predicated on the assumption that all people will contribute to the human species by passing on their genes. What of all the brilliant individuals who make their contributions during their lifetime, and never produce biological offspring? Humanity is strengthened by their contributions even if their genes do not live on. A person with "unfavorable" genes might contribute tremendously to the human species, yet you would argue we're better off aborting them to prevent those genes from potentially getting passed on.

From this perspective then, you would support cultures who selectivly screen children specifically for male sex, terminating females .. because females are seen as usueful to the viability of the faimily.


And why should they not be allowed to decide this? In the end it would only hurt them. Simple math:

1 man + 10 women = 10+ babies
1 woman + 10 men = only 1 or 2 babies

If the practice persists for long enough, the groups participating in it either die our or realise the error of their ways.

The slipperiest of slopes when it comes to this kind of argument is setting up any kind of governing body to regulate what someone does with their own offspring. It is not up to the government to decide what people do with their genetics, rather it should be up to the parents SOLELY.

And why should they not be allowed to decide this? In the end it would only hurt them. Simple math:

1 man + 10 women = 10+ babies
1 woman + 10 men = only 1 or 2 babies

If the practice persists for long enough, the groups participating in it either die our or realise the error of their ways.

The slipperiest of slopes when it comes to this kind of argument is setting up any kind of governing body to regulate what someone does with their own offspring. It is not up to the government to decide what people do with their genetics, rather it should be up to the parents SOLELY.

It is a problem because these sort of systems inherently set up a patriarcal system, in which the female sex is given less value then males.. these are the single greatest problems with such systems, and we know what ulimately comes with this discrepency in value for life. The value you put on each of these conditions, weather it be sex, physical apearance, genetic make up what have you, will always extend beyond the individuals choice when choosing how they will setup their fetus.. but as well will be reflected in their additudes in society. In the societies I introduced, more value is put on male life.. subsequently males have more power in those societies and women inherently treated as lesser beings... if we begin to choose physical features... or genetic ones (affecting physical abilities) we can then presume the same thing will happen.

If societies (in a fad like fashion) begin to prefer blond hair and blue eyes... what is to say those children without those features will then be treated differently (lesser).

Ever watch the movie "Gattica" (sp.) . This is the world your proposing.. Not exactly the bastion of freedom and equality you make your position seem like.

It is a problem because these sort of systems inherently set up a patriarcal system, in which the female sex is given less value then males.. these are the single greatest problems with such systems, and we know what ulimately comes with this discrepency in value for life.

If value is placed in the way YOU want to place it, it actually values the woman higher. Because one man or twenty men makes no difference in biological succes but one woman or twenty women makes all the difference in the world.

It is a problem because these sort of systems inherently set up a patriarcal system, in which the female sex is given less value then males.. these are the single greatest problems with such systems, and we know what ulimately comes with this discrepency in value for life. The value you put on each of these conditions, weather it be sex, physical apearance, genetic make up what have you, will always extend beyond the individuals choice when choosing how they will setup their fetus.. but as well will be reflected in their additudes in society. In the societies I introduced, more value is put on male life.. subsequently males have more power in those societies and women inherently treated as lesser beings... if we begin to choose physical features... or genetic ones (affecting physical abilities) we can then presume the same thing will happen.

If societies (in a fad like fashion) begin to prefer blond hair and blue eyes... what is to say those children without those features will then be treated differently (lesser).

Ever watch the movie "Gattica" (sp.) . This is the world your proposing.. Not exactly the bastion of freedom and equality you make your position seem like.

I knew someone would cry GATTACA eventually. And yes, the spelling is important.

"The name "Gattaca" is composed entirely of the letters used to label the nucleotide bases of DNA. The four nucleotode bases of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) are adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine."

Why? We already practice this kind of thing. People often select a mate based on their desire to see particular traits passed on to their offspring, or choose not to procreate with somebody because they wish to avoid seeing an undesirable trait passed on.I'd call a society debased in which people put more emphasis on "selecting mates" due to physical traits than for affection.

If value is placed in the way YOU want to place it, it actually values the woman higher. Because one man or twenty men makes no difference in biological succes but one woman or twenty women makes all the difference in the world.

Im not talking in the abstract, these are real conditions with real consequences which can be viewed world wide... Patriarcal societies, such as cultures in India, and in China... as well as many accross Africa exhibit these very same results. Womens place in society is given lesser value and in turn they are treated as lesser people. A man over a woman in your eyes may not sem to make biological sense.. but in economic terms, it makes the world of difference.. Society isn't nearly as simplistic as you make it seem.. and is surely far darker. Someone needs to go back to their womens studies classes <.<

Im not talking in the abstract, these are real conditions with real consequences which can be viewed world wide... Patriarcal societies, such as cultures in India, and in China... as well as many accross Africa exhibit these very same results. Womens place in society is given lesser value and in turn they are treated as lesser people. A man over a woman in your eyes may not sem to make biological sense.. but in economic terms, it makes the world of difference.. Society isn't nearly as simplistic as you make it seem.. and is surely far darker. Someone needs to go back to their womens studies classes <.<

Yes, but for reasons you're not addressing. Correlation is not causation. Someone needs to actually address the point. The man over the woman is caused by other views you attributed it to a single view that does not bear out in reality. In the real world, not talking in the abstract, you simplified a complex situation.

No, my vision of the possible use of eugenics is far removed from visions such as GATTACA. The difference is simple: Genetic freedom. I beleive that parents, not the government, have the right to decide about these kind of things. And if I remember correctly, the movie GATTACA had a government body devoted to deciding which genes were good and which bad. That, the government regulation of genetics, is the slippery slope we must avoid, not eugenics itself (be it selection based or modification based).

Incorrect.. in Gattaca the government did not dictate which genes were better or not, rather society chose.. Of course (those who could afford it) sought to give their offspring every opprotunity "enhancing" them.. This inherently put these children top of the breed above those who were not "enhanced" creating a new societal class. Society became divided by those who were enhanced and those not..

The problem of who can afford to make these "choices" and who cannot, is yet another inherent problem... You leave the rich room to even farther distinguish themeselvs from those who could not afford these changes. Today we are chooseing if we want to keep a child or not.. tomorrow we are actually changing their genetic makeup to fit our shoping list of traits. Those individuals who can't afford such things, simply fall lower on the societial food chain and the rich truely do become "superior" humans.

No, what I'm saying is that you should let things happen naturally. So what if the child is disabled, would you love it any less? Just because the child is disabled doesn't mean it can't become a productive member of society, even in the smallest way. To "abort" children on purpose just because they are disabled is just cold hearted, and to me proves that you are an unfit parent if you're not willing to accept the worse possible situation.
How is it cold hearted? Nobody is being hurt. It's not much different from avoiding ionizing radiation exposure to make sure that when you do give birth to children they won't have birth defects. It's a preventative measure intended to increase the likelyhood of giving birth to healthy kids.

Oh, that's right, how silly of me, it's a "fetus".




and yet, you're not denying that it's more "compassionate" to "abort" a child just because it's "disabled". We can't have that now can we? Nooo, we can't have an inconvience.
Well there's a big difference between a fetus who's brain hasn't developed much past that of a rat and a child, who's level of brain development allows learning, emotion, and thought.

I would give any pro-choice people $5 (US) to just come out and say that they think this world would be better without any "disabled" people in it. Let's cut through the lies and be honest.

Also, today, I saw a bumper sticker that I thought was funny. It had "Pro-faith, Pro-Family, Pro-Choice." Ahh the irony is sooo thick you could cut it with a knife.
So send me my $5. I think this world would be a better place if everyone was healthy.

Yes, but for reasons you're not addressing. Correlation is not causation. Someone needs to actually address the point. The man over the woman is caused by other views you attributed it to a single view that does not bear out in reality. In the real world, not talking in the abstract, you simplified a complex situation.

True, I did simplify a complex situation, but within the given context of socity and the immense role it plays on individuals preferences and outlooks... You were further simplfying it make narrowing the argument only to biology and reproduction, where having fewer females clearly makes them more valuable then males.. I sought to expand that viewpoint to take in the critical aspect of real world conditions like society, economics etc.

So send me my $5. I think this world would be a better place if everyone was healthy.

Wilgrove owes a lot of people money.

True, I did simplify a complex situation, but within the given context of socity and the immense role it plays on individuals preferences and outlooks... You were further simplfying it make narrowing the argument only to biology and reproduction, where having fewer females clearly makes them more valuable then males.. I sought to expand that viewpoint to take in the critical aspect of real world conditions like society, economics etc.

No. I'm not further narrowing it. You narrowed it. I pointed out that logically one would not see the results we see in the real world just from that aspect. I simply showed the flaw in narrowing it in that way. Meanwhile, you still made an argument that has no basis in the real world.

...
No one, I suppose.
Maybe it just seems wierd, or unnatural, to not have our genes randomly selected.
The genetic lottory is kinda at the heart of the human condition, and changing that is a hard thing to be comfortable with.
Our genes have never been randomly selected. Healthy people and people with traits that help them advance in status within the group always had their pick of mates. They chose other healthy people. Selection of a breeding partner based on physical traits is totally natural and is found in many species. All we're talking about here is using better tools to accomplish the goal of breeding better kids. The same goal we've been pursuing subconsciously since the strongest, smartest cave guy banged the most females.

I'd rather be disabled and alive then have been murdered before birth.
You can't murder a non-person. A fetus who's brain is no bigger than that of a mouse doesn't qualify for personhood in my opinion.

No it is not wrong; in not having sex, there is no human being destroyed in the process, while in abortion there is.
Depends how you define human being. If you define it strictly by genetics, I see your point, and so braindead people need to be kept on life support forever. If you define it by some level of brain function, as I do, personhood comes long after conception and leaves a window for abortion.

An embryo is clearly a person already, and I cannot prove to you the sanctity of human life without quoting the Bible which people round here do not seem to like.
How do you figure an embryo is a person?

Punishments for disobeying God's words are laid out through out the Bible and that's why I am an advocate of the death penalty.

As for aborton to save the Mother's life, it is still wrong to destroy one human life to save another unless the human life being destroyed is guilty of which an unborn baby is incapable of being.
The bible commands the death penalty for disrespectful children, gays, and adulterers. So, if you support the death penalty based on the bible, to be consistent you must support killing gays, disobedient kids, and adulterers. And you call yourself pro-life.

No it is not wrong; in not having sex, there is no human being destroyed in the process, while in abortion there is.

There is no human being in abortions. In the vast majority of abortions, the aborted embryo does not meet the qualifications for being an organism.

I
The problem of who can afford to make these "choices" and who cannot, is yet another inherent problem... You leave the rich room to even farther distinguish themeselvs from those who could not afford these changes. Today we are chooseing if we want to keep a child or not.. tomorrow we are actually changing their genetic makeup to fit our shoping list of traits. Those individuals who can't afford such things, simply fall lower on the societial food chain and the rich truely do become "superior" humans.

I think the effect of genetic dissemination is being underestimated here. While it is true that, initially, these genetic enhancements would be restricted to those that could afford them, in the truest capitalist style, through interbreeding the new genes would find their way into most all the areas of society.

No. I'm not further narrowing it. You narrowed it. I pointed out that logically one would not see the results we see in the real world just from that aspect. I simply showed the flaw in narrowing it in that way. Meanwhile, you still made an argument that has no basis in the real world.

But my argument clearly has a basis in the real world.. because the real world reflects these realities... perhaps if we thought only in biological terms, fewer women over fewer men would place more value on the woman.. but in the real world this is not the case. Males are chosen for economic and cultural reasons, and it is this preference which helps to elevate them in the eyes of society. My argument is based on what reality shows us everyday... not what logic would presume

Our genes have never been randomly selected. Healthy people and people with traits that help them advance in status within the group always had their pick of mates. They chose other healthy people. Selection of a breeding partner based on physical traits is totally natural and is found in many species. All we're talking about here is using better tools to accomplish the goal of breeding better kids. The same goal we've been pursuing subconsciously since the strongest, smartest cave guy banged the most females.

Seconded!

I think the effect of genetic dissemination is being underestimated here. While it is true that, initially, these genetic enhancements would be restricted to those that could afford them, in the truest capitalist style, through interbreeding the new genes would find their way into most all the areas of society.

Perhaps.. but what is the time frame in which these new enhancements would be disiminated throughout society.. and by that time, what cultural effects would already have been entrenched as the wealthy move from not only advantages in resources, but physical advantages as well.. (essentially superior humans).

An embryo is clearly a person already, and I cannot prove to you the sanctity of human life without quoting the Bible which people round here do not seem to like.

Sure, let's.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=2&chapter=21&verse=22&version=31&context=verse
Exodus 21:22 "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [a] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

a. Exodus 21:22 Or she has a miscarriage

Keep in mind that at the time a premature birth referred to a miscarriage as noted in the footnote. Interesting that according to the Bible a miscarriage is a finable offense, but if the woman, an actual person, is injured then physical harm must come to the person who harmed her. Kill a fetus, pay a fine. Kill a person, lose your life. The Bible does not agree that a fetus is a person.

Or there is Numbers 5 where they make a woman who cheats drink a fluid that causes her to miscarry and become barren.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=4&chapter=5&version=31

Now, given that abortion is endorsed in the Bible, can you show where it is outlawed or called a sin?

But my argument clearly has a basis in the real world.. because the real world reflects these realities... perhaps if we thought only in biological terms, fewer women over fewer men would place more value on the woman.. but in the real world this is not the case. Males are chosen for economic and cultural reasons, and it is this preference which helps to elevate them in the eyes of society. My argument is based on what reality shows us everyday... not what logic would presume

You are arguing correlation. It doesn't hold up to logic and explained why. Thus the onus on you is to show more than correlation and you have not. Correlation does not equal causation not even if you wish really, really hard.

Did you know that evironmental problems have been on the rise since the decline of pirates? There is an inverse relationship between the number of pirates and global warming. Bring back the pirates, I say. Now, before it's too late. Think of the children! Won't someone thing of the children?!?!

Abortion can't be compared to Eugenics. It's a sad, tragical choice woman takes but the alternative to legal abortion is clandestine abortion. It's also shocking to see that in many countries ruled by neocons there's a great interest to save embryos - which status as effective human being it's not univocally accepted before the 14th week - and there's no interest for social cares to hobos and poor people in general, those not having a good health insurance. Is there not a sort of Eugenics in such cases?

Pro-life and pro-choice, I am. I would like to see us increase the percentage of healthy people in the world. I would like to see us decrease the number of uncared for children and adults, by eliminating extreme poverty. I would like to see a decrease in the number of women who make the choice to abort because of money and health care issues. I'd like to see a decrease in violent crime. I'd like to see an almost entire cessation of war and violence on the part of Western goverments. I'd like to see respect on the part of the government for ALL of its citizens and not just the ones that fit some little fudamentalist mold. I've seen few in the pretend 'pro-life' crowd who can actually make these claims.

Sure, let's.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=2&chapter=21&verse=22&version=31&context=verse
Exodus 21:22 "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [a] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

a. Exodus 21:22 Or she has a miscarriage

Keep in mind that at the time a premature birth referred to a miscarriage as noted in the footnote. Interesting that according to the Bible a miscarriage is a finable offense, but if the woman, an actual person, is injured then physical harm must come to the person who harmed her. Kill a fetus, pay a fine. Kill a person, lose your life. The Bible does not agree that a fetus is a person.

Or there is Numbers 5 where they make a woman who cheats drink a fluid that causes her to miscarry and become barren.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=4&chapter=5&version=31

Now, given that abortion is endorsed in the Bible, can you show where it is outlawed or called a sin?

http://www.desiringgod.org/library/topics/abortion/exodus21.html

I think this will largely clear up the misconseptions your conveying here..

http://www.desiringgod.org/library/topics/abortion/exodus21.html

I think this will largely clear up the misconseptions your conveying here..

It doesn't.
First: how do you explain away the other parts of the Bible where pregnant women are to be put to death, without regard for the fetus ?
Second: how do you explain that practically every non-English translation of the Bible goes for the miscarriage option ? Most of them even seperating the "damage done to fetus" and "damage done to woman" parts specifically ?

Note that the mainstream opinion amonst the Jews, who tend to know quite a lot about the OT, is that human life starts at the first breath.

http://www.desiringgod.org/library/topics/abortion/exodus21.html

I think this will largely clear up the misconseptions your conveying here..

Golly. If we're just posting biased sources -
http://www.libchrist.com/other/abortion/exodus.html

Also, in this one note all the other scripture used to support his views.
http://www.elroy.net/ehr/abortion.html

I made two arguments and, golly, you were able to even address only one. Interesting that my 'misconceptions' were too compelling to dispel.

Here's a few more -
Ezekiel 37 - Until the repaired soldiers breath they are not living. -
"7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. "
Bodies with no breath = DEAD. They were not alive until they breathed.

Numbers 3 - "Count every male a month old or more." Children under a month old and particularly fetuses don't count. That's because they were VERY unlikely to live. Suggesting a premature birth would have ANY likelihood of survival is preposterous.
Leviticus 27 - gives no value to persons under one month old. No value.

Of course, you can prove me wrong. In the OT it was a life for a life, not two lifes for one. So can you think of an examples where a pregnant woman was put to death for her crimes but her innocent fetus was not saved? The fetus is an innocent. When a man commits adultery, do we kill his children? Then why when a woman is pregnant and commits a crime would we kill the fetus if the fetus is equal to a child? Or perhaps it isn't.

Why does every argument about abortion invariably end up in a biblical morass?

Golly. If we're just posting biased sources -
http://www.libchrist.com/other/abortion/exodus.html

Also, in this one note all the other scripture used to support his views.
http://www.elroy.net/ehr/abortion.html

I made two arguments and, golly, you were able to even address only one. Interesting that my 'misconceptions' were too compelling to dispel.

Here's a few more -
Ezekiel 37 - Until the repaired soldiers breath they are not living. -
"7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. "
Bodies with no breath = DEAD. They were not alive until they breathed.

Numbers 3 - "Count every male a month old or more." Children under a month old and particularly fetuses don't count. That's because they were VERY unlikely to live. Suggesting a premature birth would have ANY likelihood of survival is preposterous.
Leviticus 27 - gives no value to persons under one month old. No value.

Of course, you can prove me wrong. In the OT it was a life for a life, not two lifes for one. So can you think of an examples where a pregnant woman was put to death for her crimes but her innocent fetus was not saved? The fetus is an innocent. When a man commits adultery, do we kill his children? Then why when a woman is pregnant and commits a crime would we kill the fetus if the fetus is equal to a child? Or perhaps it isn't.

I fail to see the bias in the article i posted .. it merely calls into question the translation the new international version adpots.. and ive read over numbers 5 from the king james version and it makes no mention of miscarage at all...

The King James Version being the most widley used... newer versions of the bible in an effort to make the text easier to read relax the translation which allow room for misinterpretation.

It seems you focus on this version of the bible which in many circumstances takes on more relaxed translations... can you find these same comparable positions in more widley accpeted versions of the bible ?

Why does every argument about abortion invariably end up in a biblical morass?

Because the assertion that a fetus has a soul and that it therefor is a sin to kill it is the only "strong" argument for the pro-life position. An assertion which ironically enough is not supported by the Bible; especially when one reads the whole book - unless one claims that many parts of it are repeatedly mistranslated.

Which of course would make the validity of using the Bible as a moral compass quite uncertain...

Because the assertion that a fetus has a soul and that it therefor is a sin to kill it is the only "strong" argument for the pro-life position. An assertion which ironically enough is not supported by the Bible; especially when one reads the whole book - unless one claims that many parts of it are repeatedly mistranslated.

Which of course would make the validity of using the Bible as a moral compass quite uncertain...

yet the bible being the most widley known, widley distributed text world wide, of course it is open to interpretation, and no one has control over who releases whatever copies they wish.. From this point of view you can go out and grab whatever version best fits the argument you want to make.. instead if you want to argue against the core values the major Christian religions hold to, you should focus on the versions of the Bible they have endorsed and use. Really its of little surprise then that its these versions of the bible like the King James Version who are most widely distributed and used world wide...

I fail to see the bias in the article i posted ..

I was talking about the site and the person making the argument. One must always ask why one makes an argument. In this case, we know. It's not like you posted an article in a linguistics review or something.

it merely calls into question the translation the new international version adpots.. and ive read over numbers 5 from the king james version and it makes no mention of miscarage at all...

Again, you have to look to the original words, just like your source attempted to do. They were feeding these women drinks that would cause them to miscarry. Curiously, how come the KJV is correct in its translation of Numbers in your mind and wrong in its translation of Exodus?


The King James Version being the most widley used... newer versions of the bible in an effort to make the text easier to read relax the translation which allow room for misinterpretation.

They didn't relax the translation. They made it more accurate to the original text. The KJV has many flaws, but the biggest flaw is that it is written in a dialect we no longer use. That means to read it, in and of itself, requires translation.

It seems you focus on this version of the bible which in many circumstances takes on more relaxed translations... can you find these same comparable positions in more widley accpeted versions of the bible ?
What is that a joke? These are more current versions and it is incorporating the meaning of the original words. Ask GnI, he read the Bible in the original language. He'll help you out here.

I'll show you why the KJV is not an appropriate version to use today.

What does fornication mean?

I'm not sure. Will there be a way to find out if a baby will grow up to be an ornery Christian? I might be all for picking and choosing with my wife which babies to keep.

The King James Version being the most widley used... newer versions of the bible in an effort to make the text easier to read relax the translation which allow room for misinterpretation.

It seems you focus on this version of the bible which in many circumstances takes on more relaxed translations... can you find these same comparable positions in more widley accpeted versions of the bible ?

Interesting that while trying to have a scholarly discussion using the Bible, you have ignored the two scholarly translations. The NIV, the KJV, the Living Bible et al... are fine for worship but they are not scholarly translations.

Almost all scholarly work is done from the NRSV and the RSV.

It's interesting that your "expert" has pretty much denounced the translation used by almost all modern scholars, including many from pro-life traditions and chooses the NIV, which is described as:
The translators of the New International Version sought to make a version that was midway between a literal rendering (as in the New American Standard Bible) and a free paraphrase (as in The Living Bible). Their goal was to convey in English the thought of the original writers. ...

http://www.ibs.org/bibles/translations/index.php

I'm not sure. Will there be a way to find out if a baby will grow up to be an ornery Christian? I might be all for picking and choosing with my wife which babies to keep.

Yes, I wonder how the position will change if they suddenly discovered the gene for homosexuality. I wonder what percentage of the ultra-religious 'pro-life' front would be sneaking off to clinics to have those 'heathens sent straight to an eternity of hellfire and brimstone'.

harsh mate, harsh



I've never claimed to be a nice person. I can say that I am honest, though.

Yes, I wonder how the position will change if they suddenly discovered the gene for homosexuality. I wonder what percentage of the ultra-religious 'pro-life' front would be sneaking off to clinics to have those 'heathens sent straight to an eternity of hellfire and brimstone'.
Well, really they would only be ridding themselves of a clump of homosexual cells. It wouldn't be anything like a heaven sent fetus.

Oh for the love of...

First of all, as long as the woman in question is choosing to have an abortion of her own free will, it is none of your freaking business why she is doing it. If she wants to end a pregnancy because she doesn't want a blue-eyed baby, fine. She has the right to end her participation in ANY pregnancy, at ANY time, and for ANY reason. Or at least, she would have this right, if our society actually recognized the rights of pregnant women as equal to that of full human beings.

Second, human beings have been practicing eugenics since long before any of these medical technologies came about. People would continue to try to create "designer babies" even if you banned every single form of reproduction-related medical procedure in the world. Instead of wondering if abortion is eugenics (which it's not, duh), you should look at WHY somebody might consider blue eyes so objectionable that they would end a pregnancy that they otherwise would have carried to term. Or WHY somebody might choose to abort a female baby, but would have carried to term if the baby was male. Those are the real issues.

Third, poor and uneducated women are the ones having the most babies (on average). This is because they do not have access to education, contraception, and reproductive health care, and they frequenty are blocked from accessing these things by societal and cultural pressures. Their rates of abortion are higher in large part because they are not able to prevent pregnancies from happening in the first place. It's been shown time and time again: women who have access to contraception and education choose to have fewer babies, and they also have fewer abortions because they are able to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

You've actually got your fear-mongering backwards...the current refrain from the anti-choice brigade is all about how educated white women are not making enough babies because they are selfishly choosing to have jobs and lives of their own instead of being perpetually pregnant or nursing. The poor brown people are out-breeding us, OH NOES!!! Better guilt the white women into making more sons for the Fatherland, lest the inferior races overrun us all!

Fourth, tying abortion to eugenics is a scare tactic that's been used for ages. It's all about perpetuating the idea that if you let women make choices for themselves, OF COURSE the women are going to make immoral decisions. If you let women have the right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy, then OF COURSE the women are going to abort handicapped babies, or brown-eyed babies, or gay babies. Because OF COURSE women are not moral beings. This is why we need Daddy Government to step in and protect the little ladies from themselves.
Please calm down. I am not advocating the position, merely bringing it up. This debate had come around in my school, and I was unsure how exactly to feel about it. For the greatest part, I am now convinced that your position is correct.

I understand your anger at the position I brought up, but please do not accuse me of fear mongering. I've never been a part of the pro life crowd, and this is the first time my moderate pro-choice beliefs have come into serious doubt, and so I took the situation here.

The idea emotionally troubled me, and I will admit I made the thread title a bit more outragious than it could have been because I've grown tired of threads of mine being ignored.

Please calm down.

Why do you assume I need to "calm down"? I gave you a thorough, coherant response.


I am not advocating the position, merely bringing it up. This debate had come around in my school, and I was unsure how exactly to feel about it. For the greatest part, I am now convinced that your position is correct.

Good to hear.

The reason I reacted with such impatience to your post is because this subject is one of those topics that never seems to die no matter how hard you try. It's even older than people saying, "Hey, do you think maybe gay marriage is a slippery slope to legalized pedophilia?" Forgive me, but I think anybody who's got two brain cells to rub together ought to be able to see through this kind of crap without any effort.



I understand your anger at the position I brought up, but please do not accuse me of fear mongering. I've never been a part of the pro life crowd, and this is the first time my moderate pro-choice beliefs have come into serious doubt, and so I took the situation here.

Anger? Hardly. Just a bit of disgust, really, that such sloppy thinking still persists. You haven't seen me when I'm angry. :)


The idea emotionally troubled me, and I will admit I made the thread title a bit more outragious than it could have been because I've grown tired of threads of mine being ignored.
LOL! Ok, fair enough. I can totally understand how that goes, and I guess you did a damn good job of getting attention for your thread. Props to you for that.

Yes, I wonder how the position will change if they suddenly discovered the gene for homosexuality. I wonder what percentage of the ultra-religious 'pro-life' front would be sneaking off to clinics to have those 'heathens sent straight to an eternity of hellfire and brimstone'.
It only takes one sentence to convert a "pro-lifer" to a pro-choicer:

"Your daughter is pregnant, and the father's black."

There is a troubling trend tied to abortion in the united states. Since it has been available, there are three effects it has had which seem, to me, to be tied with eugenics. I am not entirely sure how I feel about this, but that's why we start threads here. ;)
I'll list the effects from least worrisome to most. First off, mothers are very commonly having fetuses screened genetically or with ultrasound in order to determine if they posess major birth defects. If the fetus does posess such defects, the mother will very often chose to abort the pregnancy. We are (or soon will be) filtering such people out of our genepool, and you can see why this might seem questionable.
I see nothing wrong with it.


The second effect is one that's already been noted in the abortion debate, and that is that poor women, single women, women with less educational opportunities than most, are more commonly getting abortions. This means that, to a greater or lesser degree, their genes are being bled out of the genepool.
So what?

The third effect is the most troubling, though it has not happened yet. If the entire human genome is ever mapped, and genetic testing becomes significant enough, a woman could decide to have an abortion if she dislikes her child's eye color, or future height, or so on. Of course, this train leads to the whole "designer baby" fiasco.
Again, so what?

I really have no idea how exactly to feel about this. Should mothers have the ability to practice amature eugenics?
What is this bloody stigma attached with eugenics? :rolleyes:

I'd call a society debased in which people put more emphasis on "selecting mates" due to physical traits than for affection.
I didn't say that was their ONLY criterion, simply that it is a criterion. And, frankly, if somebody's main priority in life is reproduction, then it makes perfect sense for them to be picky about the genetics of their mate. I don't think there's anything "debasing" about that.

I didn't say that was their ONLY criterion, simply that it is a criterion. And, frankly, if somebody's main priority in life is reproduction, then it makes perfect sense for them to be picky about the genetics of their mate. I don't think there's anything "debasing" about that.
Agreed.

From this perspective then, you would support cultures who selectivly screen children specifically for male sex, terminating females .. because females are seen as usueful to the viability of the faimily.

Um, no...try reading my posts. I don't believe a "culture" should have any say whatsoever in an individual's reproductive choices. I believe individual women should be free to make any and all choices regarding their own individual pregnancies, and that nobody else has the slightest bit of right to over-ride them.


From here i suppose we would simply have to agree to disagree... it is far too near a slippery slope for me, to allow families to made decisions about childbaring largely (and in some cases) soley for cosmetic purposes. Then influenced like a fad we could in extreme cases see whole sale loses of certain genetic attributes which may or maynot be to our benifit. Picking and choosing what our children may look like leads to no place good, and has sever ethical questions from my perspective.

WE ALREADY LET PEOPLE DO THIS.

We allow people to pick mates for no reason other than aesthetics and their desire to produce pretty looking babies. We allow people to have their infants surgically altered for aesthetic reasons.

We already have people who will literally abandon a child to die if it is disabled, or female, or not cute enough. It is dangerously stupid to think that selective abortion is the cause of these problems, or that these problems will not afflict our society if we just take away a few more choices for pregnant women.

People already devalue human life if it doesn't look a certain way. If you want to attack that, GREAT!!!! I'm with you! But don't delude yourself into thinking that abortion is the cause of these problems.


Not to mention the loss of gentic diversity can have agregious effects on our own development as a species down the road.

Honey, our planet already has 3.5 BILLION surplus human beings. We're not gonna run out of genetic material, I promise.


This is the slipper slope you begin to tread down, when you support the position parents should be allowed to exercise whole sale uffetered freedom over their offspring and reporduction.
You do realize that the slippery slope is a logical falacy, right? So invoking it doesn't really strengthen your case.

I was not attempting to imply any such morality on the part of biology, I used proper to imply the natural state, rather than that in the enginered environment.

Don't make the mistake of equating "natural" with "proper" or "better" or "good."

Cancer is natural. Heart disease is natural. Women and infants dying in childbirth is natural. Many natural things are pretty rotten, from a human perspective.


And that is exactly the issue we are at odds with in my line of reasoning. Rather than adapting to the world at large, we are adapting to the presence of technology. It is not inconceivable that at some point in the future we will have become so dependant upon technology to hold us up in the world that, removed from it, we would die. This does not set well with me.

Hate to break it to you, but...too late. Take your average American and plunk him down in the jungle with some flint and steel and a pointed stick, and see how long it takes him to get eaten by a tiger.

Look, people have been flipping out about this same thing for CENTURIES. Native American tribes were concerned by the introduction of guns, because guns made hunting much simpler and easier (by comparison)...any rube with a boom-stick could bag a buffalo, and the old ways of skilled and risky hunting were, well, going the way of the buffalo.

When antibiotics were first coming into major use, there were factions who insisted that without typhus to keep us tough we would all degenerate into a race of wussy cry babies.


For example, consider fertility drugs. Women who would normally be sterile, for whatever reason, are now able to bear viable children... and in a few cases end up bearing far more children than would normally be possible. If the sterility of the woman was dependant upon a genetic condition, the genes of this woman have now been placed into the population at large.

Which is, really, a pretty big if. Plenty of women (and men) are infertile for non-genetic reasons. Do you propose that we allow those people to use fertility drugs, while refusing the same treatment to people with genetic disorders?


Her children are less fit to survive,

Bzzt, wrong. Her children's survival is not the same thing as her children's fertility. You have this wacky notion that a human being's reproductive capacity is the sum total of their value to humanity.

What if one of those poor sterile babies is the kid who grows up and cures cancer? Are you really going to tell me that it would have been better for the species if she never existed, simply because she can't crank out biological babies of her own?


and yet due to medical technology they are able to pass on their genes. As a result, this genetic condition becomes more common, while "normally" (ie without the fertility treatments), the condition would have ended with the original mother's inability to bear children.

Well, yeah. See, difficulty in having children isn't as much of a problem these days, so people who need fertility treatment can have kids. And those kids will, science willing, be able to access even better medical care when they reach reproductive age. So what's your beef?


Fast forward a couple thousand years and fertility treatments may well be so commonplace due to activities like this that the human species is unable to reproduce without them, as a functioning reproductive system is no longer necessary for replication. This is hardly ideal in my mind.
Frankly, the Earth is going to crash into the sun before you reach a scenario like that. I'd say the more significant concern is that human women will continue to produce offspring in litters, and human beings will so overwhelm the planet that we will all starve to death.

Be careful; dont get a cell colony mixed up with a concious human.
At the stage of the abortion, this is all pre heartbeat, and im SURE they are not concious.. Yes, they may have grown up to cure cancer or some crap, but they may have grown up to kill billons of people.
And besides; this isnt about the 'child', this is about the mother. The forum has strayed from the topic. The child, as established, doesnt give a shit. But if it means it stops the mother living a good life, then wtf? Its only a few cells.
Men shouldnt even have an opinion on this (Im one, and yes, i appreciate the irony). Men leave and the like, can still go out and work. Many women (im generalising) stay home, and if they return to work, have to worry about x, y, and z involving the kid. Theyre expensive as piss, no more travelling, and for another 16-24 years, your stuck with them :)

And as if the earth isnt overpopulated as it is.

Be careful; dont get a cell colony mixed up with a concious human.
At the stage of the abortion, this is all pre heartbeat, and im SURE they are not concious.. Yes, they may have grown up to cure cancer or some crap, but they may have grown up to kill billons of people.
And besides; this isnt about the 'child', this is about the mother. The forum has strayed from the topic. The child, as established, doesnt give a shit. But if it means it stops the mother living a good life, then wtf? Its only a few cells.

To be honest, I think you also are straying from the real point. It doesn't matter if a fetus is conscious. It doesn't matter if a fetus has thoughts or feelings. No conscious, living, individual human being has the right to hook their body into mine and force me to biologically support their existence. No conscious, born, thinking person has the right to take my blood, my organs, my tissues, or any part of my body against my wishes.


Men shouldnt even have an opinion on this (Im one, and yes, i appreciate the irony). Men leave and the like, can still go out and work. Many women (im generalising) stay home, and if they return to work, have to worry about x, y, and z involving the kid. Theyre expensive as piss, no more travelling, and for another 16-24 years, your stuck with them :)
Men most certainly should have opinions on this subject! It's a goddam important subject, and I'm a bit concerned about any person who doesn't give it some thought and form some opinions.

But having an opinion doesn't mean having control. It is my opinion that having more than two biological children is a disgusting, selfish, shameful choice...does that mean I have the right to force abortions on people? It is my opinion that wearing capri pants is a disgrace to humanity...does that mean I get to decide what other people wear?

Having an opinion is fine. Thinking that your opinion has any weight when it comes to another person's decisions about their body...well, fuck off. :)

[M]others are very commonly having fetuses screened genetically or with ultrasound in order to determine if they posess major birth defects. If the fetus does posess such defects, the mother will very often chose to abort the pregnancy. We are (or soon will be) filtering such people out of our genepool, and you can see why this might seem questionable.
Why? Because parents might not be financially or emotonally able to care for such a child? Because depending on how profound the defect is, it may cause nothing but pain or immensely horrible quality of life for the child?

The second effect is one that's already been noted in the abortion debate, and that is that poor women, single women, women with less educational opportunities than most, are more commonly getting abortions. This means that, to a greater or lesser degree, their genes are being bled out of the genepool.
So? How is this any different from a woman choosing not to have children at all, or to wait until she is financially and emotionally capable? The end result is the same as if a woman decided to become completely abstinent. Who is to pay for rearing children a couple is not financially or emotioanlly ablt to care for? There are already MANY children in foster homes, and some are NEVER adopted -- those who have an especially hard time are those with the birth defects you were decrying the abortions of earlier.

The third effect is the most troubling, though it has not happened yet. If the entire human genome is ever mapped, and genetic testing becomes significant enough, a woman could decide to have an abortion if she dislikes her child's eye color, or future height, or so on. Of course, this train leads to the whole "designer baby" fiasco.
Personally, I think this is the least likely scenario. If science got to that point, we'd just have made-to-order babies. Pick your eye color, pick your hair color, pick your IQ range....[/QUOTE]

Where in the Bible does it say it's ok to "abort" babies?

Newsflash -- not everyone believes in Christianity or the bible. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

Oh a long time ago, before they started using words like "fetus" and "parasite" etc. You're probably too young to remember.


You'll be happy to note then that abortifacients and prophylactics have existed since before the bible.

So, your argument is simply one of emotion and not of fact, as well as being amazingly condescending.

If women did not have access to abortions; this would not happen. Talking of which it's less than a month (1st July) until South Dakota's abortion ban comes into effect.


Bull. They'd just do them themselves in the same foolish ways some terrified teens do now (throwing self down stairs, getting boyfried to beat them, intentional poisoning, coat hangers) or else murder the minutes old infant when it was born.

Abortion is not pretty but it is INFINITELY better than these methods or backalley abortionists.


Thank god South Dakotans only need cross state lines to avoid the morality poilce, who by the way never offer any support to unwilling parents except "you should have kept your legs closed/you should have kept it in your pants."

What right to people have to decide whether a human being will live or not?


What right have you to dictate how others live their lives without having to bear any of the consequences yourself?

An embryo is clearly a person already, and I cannot prove to you the sanctity of human life without quoting the Bible which people round here do not seem to like.


Is it?

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/~pine/book1qts/embryo-compare.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/~pine/book1qts/embryo-compare.html&h=1209&w=1293&sz=259&tbnid=0snQyrbgpFsTuM:&tbnh=140&tbnw=150&hl=en&start=9&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dembryo%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG

As for the sanctity of life, I read a lot about when it's proper to kill other people in the Bible... you know, like adulteresses, your own kids, anyone working on the Sabbath...

If you accept some, you must accept all.

Bull. They'd just do them themselves in the same foolish ways some terrified teens do now (throwing self down stairs, getting boyfried to beat them, intentional poisoning, coat hangers) or else murder the minutes old infant when it was born.Yes, exactly. Also some studies have found that whether abortion is legal or not has absolutely no impact on whether women will have them - for example, in the UK prior to the legalisation of the procedure, roughly 16 - 20% of pregnancies ended in abortion (according to the Birkett Comittee), which is a similar rate to that found since its legalisation*.

Furthermore, in the Republic of Ireland where abortion is strictly illegal at present, in proportional terms roughly as many women travel to the UK/Europe for abortions as have them in The Netherlands, where laws governing the procedure are pretty liberal**.

* See O'Donovan, K (1985) Sexual Divisions in Law. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
** See Ketting, E and Praag, P (1986) The Marginal Relevance of Legislation Relating to Abortion. Writing in Lovenduski, J and Outshoorn, J (1986) The New Politics of Abortion. London: Sage.

Yes, exactly. Also some studies have found that whether abortion is legal or not has absolutely no impact on whether women will have them - for example, in the UK prior to the legalisation of the procedure, roughly 16 - 20% of pregnancies ended in abortion (according to the Birkett Comittee), which is a similar rate to that found since its legalisation*.

Furthermore, in the Republic of Ireland where abortion is strictly illegal at present, in proportional terms roughly as many women travel to the UK/Europe for abortions as have them in The Netherlands, where laws governing the procedure are pretty liberal**.

* See O'Donovan, K (1985) Sexual Divisions in Law. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
** See Ketting, E and Praag, P (1986) The Marginal Relevance of Legislation Relating to Abortion. Writing in Lovenduski, J and Outshoorn, J (1986) The New Politics of Abortion. London: Sage.
Excellent. May I quote this post in future threads? :)

But my argument clearly has a basis in the real world.. because the real world reflects these realities... perhaps if we thought only in biological terms, fewer women over fewer men would place more value on the woman.. but in the real world this is not the case. Males are chosen for economic and cultural reasons, and it is this preference which helps to elevate them in the eyes of society. My argument is based on what reality shows us everyday... not what logic would presume
This entire argument of yours is such utter bullshit. The social contributions of males and females are of equal importance to the practical running of societies, even if any given society chooses at any point in its history not to acknowledge that fact. There are very, very few, if any, jobs/social functions that cannot be done equally well by both sexes. The only times sex matters is when very specific physical abilities are absolutely required -- like upper body strength or childbirth. And the only times society works comfortably with gender-specific divisions of labor, is when it is necessary to combine work with pregnancy and nursing (you know, working mothers) -- i.e. in hunter-gatherer societies, women usually gather because you can do that while pregnant or nursing, and the kids old enough to walk can help. Everything else you talk about is nothing more than some Victorian fantasy of everybody being in their proper place.

So let's put you in your proper place and ask you if you wish to acknowledge at this time that you want to ban abortion because you don't want to see women in charge of anything, including their own bodies.

Abortion can't be compared to Eugenics. It's a sad, tragical choice woman takes but the alternative to legal abortion is clandestine abortion. It's also shocking to see that in many countries ruled by neocons there's a great interest to save embryos - which status as effective human being it's not univocally accepted before the 14th week - and there's no interest for social cares to hobos and poor people in general, those not having a good health insurance. Is there not a sort of Eugenics in such cases?
Good point. I guess eliminating undesirable traits from the gene pool is only bad if you do it via abortion, instead of forcing people to die of starvation, exposure, or disease.

And as if the earth isnt overpopulated as it is.

Prediluvian the earth's population could have been as high as 25 billion or so. And that's with primitive farming techniques...Today we could probably take care of much more.

Of course the flood wiped out all but about a dozen of them...

Bull. They'd just do them themselves in the same foolish ways some terrified teens do now (throwing self down stairs, getting boyfried to beat them, intentional poisoning, coat hangers) or else murder the minutes old infant when it was born.

Abortion is not pretty but it is INFINITELY better than these methods or backalley abortionists.


Thank god South Dakotans only need cross state lines to avoid the morality poilce, who by the way never offer any support to unwilling parents except "you should have kept your legs closed/you should have kept it in your pants."

Yep, because personal responsibility is for suckas.

Never could understand making someone else suffer for your immorality...

Excellent. May I quote this post in future threads? :)Of course, I knew that information would come in handy one of these days :p

Never could understand making someone else suffer for your immorality...I could never understand how some people could be so arrogant as to believe that their version of 'morality' is the universally correct one by which all other human beings must abide.

Never could understand making someone else suffer for your immorality...

Eeehmmm.. the whole point is that there is NO suffering. The pro-life morality is that one must always choose life, regardless of the quality of said life or the suffering involved. If you wish to avoid suffering, you must be pro-choice.

Yep, because personal responsibility is for suckas.

Never could understand making someone else suffer for your immorality...

Well after reviewing you signature, I can see you have a universal respect for human life. You seem quite happy to make others suffer for your immorality. I think what you mean to say is you never could understand people who think differently than you. Had you said that, I'd have believed you were correct.

Prediluvian the earth's population could have been as high as 25 billion or so. And that's with primitive farming techniques...Today we could probably take care of much more.

Of course the flood wiped out all but about a dozen of them...
It sucks that those dozen people decided to eat the dinosaurs.

Yep, because personal responsibility is for suckas.
I do hope you realise that an abortion is something that women don't casually do. I know people who've had abortions, and they've been quite damaged by it.
Never could understand making someone else suffer for your immorality...
Says someone who advocates the killing of "ragheads" and mocks gays and the French.

Morals are a subjective thing. This might be a shock to you, but the Bible isn't the only way to live your life...