NationStates Jolt Archive

Erm, we just got over this one, BUT -

I'm pretty much pro-choice, because it's not really my right to say if a woman gets an abortion or not, it's up to her. But there we go.

*edits* YUS FOR THE THREADSTEAL!

We've all heard arguments for and against abortion. So now, I submit the question to NSG. What is your stance on abortion?

What a refreshing topic.

I, for one, have never been asked my position on abortion on NS:G.

for abortion, outlaw it and people won't stop having sex/getting pregnant, so all you'll get are lots more babies in dumpsters/shelters, as well as many more kids being raised by parents that can't support them.

As of this moment, more people have set their pants on fire than are opposed to abortion. Long may this continue.

I guess I'll begin. I personally believe that abortion is wrong, but I have decided yet if it's really my right to force that opinion on other people.

Rolling squid;13225975']for abortion, outlaw it and people won't stop having sex/getting pregnant, so all you'll get are lots more babies in dumpsters/shelters, as well as many more kids being raised by parents that can't support them.

and a lot of dead or incontinent or otherwise ill women.

I think that it is sort of wrong and should only be used in extreme circumstances such as there would be no life after birth etc. Also I think it should be done only when the unborn child is still unformed/ not created if you get what I mean.

I'm pro-choice. It's none of my business if someone wants to get an abortion, and it's no one else's business other than mine and my doctor's if I do.

Rolling squid;13225975']Also I think it should be done only when the unborn child is still unformed/ not created if you get what I mean.

no, what stage of development do you mean exactly?

i find the general outline of the supreme court decision in roe v wade to be suprisingly wise.

abortion on demand in the early stages with increasing need for medical justification as the pregnancy progresses.

I think that it is sort of wrong and should only be used in extreme circumstances such as there would be no life after birth etc. Also I think it should be done only when the unborn child is still unformed/ not created if you get what I mean.
No I didn't get what you mean. But here's a cookie for tryin'. :D

As for me, only for necessary medical reasons and rape/incest. However, in those cases, it's still up to the mother to decide.

We've all heard arguments...against abortion

i haven't heard any that are even vaguely plausible or that are built on premises that the person making the argument actually agrees with. i'd be interested in seeing one, though.

i haven't heard any that are even vaguely plausible or that are built on premises that the person making the argument actually agrees with. i'd be interested in seeing one, though.

So let me get this straight, since I'm not sure I understand you. You are against abortion because they make ineffective arguments? If so, don't expect one out of me, I don't support it.

So let me get this straight, since I'm not sure I understand you. You are against abortion because they make ineffective arguments? If so, don't expect one out of me, I don't support it.

no, I think he's for abortion because he has yet to hear a good argument against it.

Abortion, in itself, is neither good nor bad. Rather the intentions of the mother(or father) who wants the abortion. If they are doing it for good reasons, such as that they can in no way afford a baby, or it is putting strain on their relationship, or whatever, then the abortion should go ahead. If it is desired for crap reasons like 'I don't want to spoil my figure!', then tough luck.
As for those who argue 'abortion is murder', i say exactly the same.

As someone who is personally against abortion I find myself torn between my beliefs after finding myself in a sticky situation with my sister....Let em explain...My younger sister made a not so smart decision about the people she chose to hang out with and party one night and ended up sitting infront of a 24 hour grocery store hoping to find someone who could take her home because the party she had been at had been busted up by the cops....a stranger approached her when he noticed that she was still sitting outside the store when he came back out an hour later..he offered her a ride home, and because she couldn't get ahold of anyone else and was not looking forward to spending a cold night on the streets she took him up on the offer....needless to say he did not take her home....he took her to his cabin where him and 2 other men proceeded to rape her...luckily they left her alive....we took her to the hospital and had the full work up done when she finally admitted to us what happened, by this time too late for the morning after pill....when next it came time for her monthly friend to show up...it didn't...my sister was with her longtime boyfriend at the time and when she found out she was pregnant...with twins no doubt...she was terrified that they may not be her boyfriends but instead one of the men that raped her she began the counseling required before a woman is allowed to have an abortion, it truly tore her up to even consider this abortion but in her mind she couldn't even begin to think that the children were her boyfriends and she was scared she couldn't love the product of rape or even take care of herself during the pregnancy...for the first time in my life I found myself advocating for the abortion to our family who is very strictly against it and adoption....we believe that all children should stay in the family....even if it isn't the mother that raises the child...my sister went through with the abortion and it seemed that life would be able to move on...minus the long time boyfriend because he couldn't forgive her for killing children that were potentially his....after about a year she met another man they fell in love and she was soon pregnant...of all the irony, with twins....tragedy struck when she found that she lost one of the babies and the doctors were not sure that she would be able to carry the other to term....despite all these issues my sister did everything that she could to make sure she could deliver a healthy child....she went into premature labor at 5 months...they stopped it and we thought she was safe, at 7 months she went into labor again at the funeral of our best friend and luckily they stopped it and decided they would induce labor at 36 weeks because of the stress the pregnancy was placing on both my sister and the baby....the day of the induction came along and I called at my lunch hour to see how she was doing....dialated to a 5 and doing well I let her go and told her I would call after work...in the short space of time that ensued I lost my nephew and nearly my sister.....the doctors had misjudged the effect of toxemia and gestational diabetes on the baby and my sister being a very tiny girl was unable to deliver my 11lb nephew before he pinched his umbilical cord against her pelvis and died from lack of oxygen...my sisters episiotomy (for those not familiar with the term, that's when they have to snip the mom a little to allow a large baby to fit out and to avoid tearing) ended up going clear up inside her to her cervix....I called after work to find the nurse hesitant to tranfer me to the room and quickly got upset that I was unable to talk to my sister, when our aunt answered the phone I asked what was up and was told the news and that my sister was on the operating table being stitched up and they weren't sure that she was going to make it...the baby was stuck for 20 minutes after they cut her six inches up inside and they were afraid she had lost too much blood......I called work and left a message for my boss to get the next morning that I was going out of town and wasn't sure when I'd be back, I'd be in touch.....I raced to my sisters side and the next morning when I could finally see her all she did was burst into tears and tell me that god was punishing her for aborting her first set of twins by taking her second set away....my heart broke for my sister that day and I have sat and thought long and hard about my beliefs on abortion...I was against it in any form at all before...barring that some congenital defect would prevent the baby from surviving...to me even a rape victim should be able to care for a piece of themselves...I know some women who have done it and never held it against the child that they were a product of rape....now I worry that perhaps some women aren't strong enough to do that....now I stand on the belief that if a woman spreads her legs for a man without protection and ends up pregnant and decides that for some reason of vanity or because the relationship with the man doesn't work the way she wants it to, that she wants to abort, she should burn in whatever hell her religion sets aside for murderers, but for those who were raped and during counseling find that they are truly torn about the thought of killing their own child and not just her own body perhaps abortion isn't such a bad thing but counseling should be pursued for longer than just the decision process

Rolling squid;13226039']no, I think he's for abortion because he has yet to hear a good argument against it.

more specifically, i know of a host of arguments each of which alone is enough to at least make us allow abortion. while on the other hand, i know of no good counters to these arguments, let alone strong arguments against that stand alone.

-snip-

Wall of text crits for 3607.


OP: I am fully pro-choice, no-one has a right to decide for someone else.

more specifically, i know of a host of arguments each of which alone is enough to at least make us allow abortion. while on the other hand, i know of no good counters to these arguments, let alone strong arguments against that stand alone.

Abortion should be allowed in medical cases where the mother's life is threatened or in the case of rape. Otherwise, no. Because everyone is entitled to the right of life (as stated by the declaration) and if you have even the slightest doubt as to whether it is alive or not, you should give it the benefit of the doubt. We have whole task forces dedicated to regulating animal abuse, and I'd hardly consider them human. We should give the same rights to the unborn.

Abortion, in itself, is neither good nor bad. Rather the intentions of the mother(or father) who wants the abortion. If they are doing it for good reasons, such as that they can in no way afford a baby, or it is putting strain on their relationship, or whatever, then the abortion should go ahead. If it is desired for crap reasons like 'I don't want to spoil my figure!', then tough luck.
As for those who argue 'abortion is murder', i say exactly the same.

so you would favor some kind of written test before a woman be allowed to have an abortion?

Abortion should be allowed in medical cases where the mother's life is threatened or in the case of rape. Otherwise, no. Because everyone is entitled to the right of life (as stated by the declaration) and if you have even the slightest doubt as to whether it is alive or not, you should give it the benefit of the doubt.

your inclusion of a rape exception demonstrates that you do not believe your premise that 'everyone is entitled to the right of life' and that blastocysts are included in that 'everyone'. the rape has no bearing on the alleged personhood of the blastocyst, and therefore is an irrelevant concern if we are talking about some right to life that equates to generally outlawing abortion. unless you wish to hold that beings formed by rape are not persons, but that hardly seems either likely or defensible.

try again?

so you would favor some kind of written test before a woman be allowed to have an abortion?

Possibly. Take a look at socio-economic status and the like.

Possibly. Take a look at socio-economic status and the like.

So is it only poor people should be able to have abortions or only rich people?

Pro choice, although my personal position is to allow an abortion up to the point of no brain activity, at that point you could probably consider the creature alive (although still allowed to abort for medical reasons).
We have whole task forces dedicated to regulating animal abuse, and I'd hardly consider them human. We should give the same rights to the unborn.

I don't quite see the link between a living sentient animal an a non-living non sentient zygote.

Possibly. Take a look at socio-economic status and the like.

so as long as she knows what the "right" answers are, she can have an abortion but if her reasons arent good enough for you, she's out of luck?

do you see a small problem with this system?

Abortion, in itself, is neither good nor bad. Rather the intentions of the mother(or father) who wants the abortion. If they are doing it for good reasons, such as that they can in no way afford a baby, or it is putting strain on their relationship, or whatever, then the abortion should go ahead. If it is desired for crap reasons like 'I don't want to spoil my figure!', then tough luck.
As for those who argue 'abortion is murder', i say exactly the same.

A good point, and I agree. It is a medical procedure, and as such is not inherently, in and of itself, either good or bad. How we use it can be productive (for the good of the mother) or bad (pointlessly destructive). That doesn't mean we shoudl regress to the point where women are forced to deliver mroe childen than is health for them into a life where the children are neglected and resented to a family unable to cope. Our mothers deserve better than that, and so do our future generations.

your inclusion of a rape exception demonstrates that you do not believe your premise that 'everyone is entitled to the right of life' and that blastocysts are included in that 'everyone'. the rape has no bearing on the alleged personhood of the blastocyst, and therefore is an irrelevant concern if we are talking about some right to life that equates to generally outlawing abortion. unless you wish to hold that beings formed by rape are not persons, but that hardly seems either likely or defensible.

try again?

The fact is I haven't really decided whether or not to support abortion in the case of rape. My belief that it is wrong contradicts the fact that I do feel empathy for the mother, who has just withstood probably the highest stress level a person can be asked to withstand. So my opinion in regards to rape is yet undecided.

Regardless of that, I still believe abortion in general is wrong. It is, in fact, the taking of a human life, which is wrong no matter what the circumstances.

Pro choice, although my personal position is to allow an abortion up to the point of no brain activity, at that point you could probably consider the creature alive (although still allowed to abort for medical reasons).


I don't quite see the link between a living sentient animal an a non-living non sentient zygote.

While everyone begins as a zygote, not all fetuses are a zygote and making such a blanket statement is utterly ridiculous.

Forget whatever the hell I said, I usually include rape to try to satisfy pro-choicers who would otherwise eat my head. My goal is to present my view in a non-extremist way. Instead of focusing on one contradictory thing I said, maybe you should focus on the issue on the issue at hand. Your attempt to poke holes in my argument (I am human after all, I'm not perfect) implies that you really don't have a defense for your point of view.

So fine. I drop the rape charge due to contradictions but keep the "mother in mortal peril" exception. Abortion is still wrong.

i'm afraid your willingness to include the exception at all, under any circumstances ever, demonstrates that you don't actually buy the premise, unless you are sometimes in favor of allowing murder because some people happen to like murdering people. maybe you are, but that seems crazy to me.

but anyways, ok, new argument. blastocysts are persons and persons have a right to life in a sense which precludes abortion, therefore blastocysts should not be aborted, yes?

would you mind taking a little trip down a thought experiment with me? here is the scene. there is a fertility clinic which you are in for some reason. in the fertility clinic there is a petri dish over on the table which you know contains two blastocysts all ready to be implanted. also in the clinic is a two year old child. oh, and the fertility clinic is on fire and you have time to save either the two blastocysts on the petri dish or the toddler, but not both, before the flames and smoke will overcome you. which do you save?

WALL OF TEXT


Paragraphs exist for a reason.

Paragraphs exist for a reason.

lies!

lies!

I'll tell you what lies... sleeping dogs! :D

depends. If it still has gills, a tail and hasn't decided to be a boy or girl, I don't really have a problem with it. If its ready to be or on the way out of the devil dungeon, I do.

-snip-

for the love of God use the tab and enter buttons. They're there for a reason my friend.

Abortion is murder.

Abortion is murder.

what punishment do you propose we institute for women who have abortions?

I love re-runs. Here sit with me and enjoy. http://www.nearlygood.com/smilies/popcorn.gif

Of course they should be able to! Every woman should have the right to murder her own little person! Its a basic unalienable right people!

what punishment do you propose we institute for women who have abortions?
If they have abortions for reasons such as rape or medical reasons, nothing.

If they have abortions because they're whores: incarceration.

i'm afraid your willingness to include the exception at all, under any circumstances ever, demonstrates that you don't actually buy the premise, unless you are sometimes in favor of allowing murder because some people happen to like murdering people. maybe you are, but that seems crazy to me.

but anyways, ok, new argument. blastocysts are persons and persons have a right to life in a sense which precludes abortion, therefore blastocysts should not be aborted, yes?

would you mind taking a little trip down a thought experiment with me? here is the scene. there is a fertility clinic which you are in for some reason. in the fertility clinic there is a petri dish over on the table which you know contains two blastocysts all ready to be implanted. also in the clinic is a two year old child. oh, and the fertility clinic is on fire and you have time to save either the two blastocysts on the petri dish or the toddler, but not both, before the flames and smoke will overcome you. which do you save?

Interesting senario. I'll have to take a side trip before I answer so you know completely the perspective I'm coming from.

Yes, I am against abortion. I don't consider it a moral issue, but an issue of basic human rights. For hundreds of years people have been using the justification that some people (blacks, jews) aren't fully human, and therefore don't have full rights, and therefore can be genocided or enslaved at will. The same logic is applied to the unborn. They aren't born yet, therefore they can't be human, therefore they can be slaughtered at the mother's discretion. I understand where you're coming from. Zygotes aren't people and blastocysts are arguably not people. They're just a little blob of cells. We lose hundreds of thousands of cells each day and we debate over killing a few others? Before you add anything else to that, allow me to provide you with a senario. A mother is having a child and is within minutes of giving birth when she decides she wants to have an abortion (impossible, but work with me here). So the doctor reachs up and stabs the child, strangles it with the umbilical cord, or kills it in some other clinical way. This child got killed a minute before it was born. Now if it had already been born, it would have had rights and wouldn't have been killed. There is no difference between the child still inside the mother and the child just been born except for one is now independently using it's lungs (which isn't grounds to be considered "living" because then we can rule that people on IVs and such are "not living"). So basically, the child was killed because it missed its legal rights by seconds. Within that one minute, the child is otherwise the exact same, it still has the same sentient capabilities. Which makes "birth" as a requirement for rights a purely arbitrary designation.

What about when the child is still inside the mother then? When is the apropriate time to rule it as "non-living"? The second week? The third week? At some point during the child's stay inside the mom (differs for every kid), the heart starts functioning independently, the brain developes and begins to work, and the child even begins to "kick". True, throughout most of its development the child is only semi-sentient at best, but so are our mentally disabled folks. Their moms aren't allowed to kill them when they become a burden, are they? The fact is that the line is so grey and blurred for when the child can actually be considered alive that it is practically non existant. The zygote is clearly not alive. But the child, moments before its birth, clearly is. And when you mess around with something as important as life, you really can't afford to screw it up. So don't mess with it at all. If there is ever a doubt in your mind as to whether a person is alive or not, give him(her) the benefit of the doubt. After all, this is the fundamental premise that underwrites our declaration of independence (assuming you are american)

It is a great irony, that everyone who supports abortion has already been born. I see pro-choice along these lines: the same way Nazis reassured themselves that there is no way Jews were actually humans through pseudo -science, the same way we reassure ourselves that the unborn couldn't possibly be actual humans. And the same way whites used to enslave blacks for economic convience, we kill these children for our own economic convience. When we say that they aren't actual humans we do so that abortion becomes legal, moral, and within humanitarian guidelines, which it is clearly none of those. And for those who say "I don't have the right to pass judgement, the right to choose is some else's right", this is very faulty logic. What if back in the 1860's people said "I believe slavery is wrong, but it's not my right to pass judgement. If that man over there believes slavery is right and steals a black man's rights from him, it's not my right to interfere"?

As to rape, I believe fully that abortion is wrong. At the same time I find it difficult to pass judgement on someone who has just undertaken a huge amount of stress. I really want them to keep the child alive and give it up for adoption, but once again, not all people are that strong and I am hesitant to pass judgement in such an extreme situation. I like to think of myself as not a completely heartless bastard.

There are my beliefs concerning abortion. God, that took forever to type.

While everyone begins as a zygote, not all fetuses are a zygote and making such a blanket statement is utterly ridiculous.

Abortion is murder.
No more ridiculous than the above statement. But okay, until a zygote or a foetus becomes advanced to such a state that it has brain activity it cannot be considered anything more than a parasite feeding from the woman.
Is that better?

100% of pro-Abortionists were not aborted.

100% of pro-Abortionists were not aborted.

Exactly. Hence the complete hypocrisy of the action they are suggesting.

100% of pro-Abortionists were not aborted.

And in most of our cases, it's because our mothers chose to keep us. :)

Exactly. Hence the complete hypocrisy of the action they are suggesting.

I think you may need to look up what the word hypocrisy actually means

100% of pro-Abortionists were not aborted.


Hitler was unaborted

So was Stalin

infact, 100% of all serial-killers were not aborted.

remember: Abortion saves lives, your kid may grow up to be a serial-killer.

I think you may need to look up what the word hypocrisy actually means

hy·poc·ri·sy (h?-p?k'r?-s?) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies
The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

The people advocating for abortion are only alive because they weren't aborted. Hence the hypocrisy, because if their mothers had practiced what they advocated for, they wouldn't be alive.

I think you need to come up with a more effective rebuttal.

100% of pro-Abortionists were not aborted.

And so I should be against abortion because I've been born? Is that your whole argument?

Rolling squid;13226447']Hitler was unaborted

So was Stalin

infact, 100% of all serial-killers were not aborted.

remember: Abortion saves lives, your kid may grow up to be a serial-killer.

Einstein was unaborted.
So was FDR.
And every Allied soldier who defended against Hitler.

I'm just making a point...

Exactly. Hence the complete hypocrisy of the action they are suggesting.

I think you may need to look up what the word hypocrisy actually means

Yeah, it doesn't really make sense that way. It would hypocritical to not support abortion but then get one yourself, and it would be hypocritical to support abortion but prevent your daughter or wife getting one. But to support it while you yourself were not aborted (that is, the object of the action)? That's not hypocritical at all.

Personally, I see legalized abortion as the lesser of two evils (the greater equal is illegal abortion). I wouldn't go to a pro-choice rally, or support a candidate only because they are pro-choice, but I probably wouldn't support someone who was extremely pro-life.
In the end, though, it doesn't really matter what I think, because abortion can't be made illegal without a decision by the Supreme Court or a large majority of Congress, and I have no control over either of them.

Exactly. Hence the complete hypocrisy of the action they are suggesting.
Most people aren't pro-abortion, so much as "I don't care what anyone else does".

hy·poc·ri·sy (h?-p?k'r?-s?) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies
The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

The people advocating for abortion are only alive because they weren't aborted. Hence the hypocrisy, because if their mothers had practiced what they advocated for, they wouldn't be alive.

I think you need to come up with a more effective rebuttal.

*sigh*

I have been punched in the face before. I am against punching people in the face. By your logic, this makes me a hypocrite. See how that doesn't work?

Further, you will have to look fairly hard to find people who are "pro-abortion." Most of us are pro-choice, which is more than a little different.

*sigh*

I have been punched in the face before. I am against punching people in the face. By your logic, this makes me a hypocrite. See how that doesn't work?

Further, you will have to look fairly hard to find people who are "pro-abortion." Most of us are pro-choice, which is more than a little different.

No, that wasn't the logic I was using. By your example, a more effective phrasing would be "I have never been punched in the face in my life, but I support people punching other people in the face if they so choose."

I understand that most people are pro-choice, i.e. they want people to make the moral issue for themselves. But this isn't a moral issue, this is a humanitarian issue dealing with human life. People who are pro-choice, i.e. not wanting to force their opinion down on someone else, whatever it may be, are ideologically the same as people who witness a genocide of some type but decide to stay out of it. "Let those people work it out for themselves" they say, as an ethnic minority is being slaughtered whole-sale. While being pro-choice is a bit better then being blatantly pro-abortion, it isn't better by much.

*sigh*

I have been punched in the face before. I am against punching people in the face. By your logic, this makes me a hypocrite. See how that doesn't work?

Further, you will have to look fairly hard to find people who are "pro-abortion." Most of us are pro-choice, which is more than a little different.

No, that wasn't the logic I was using. By your example, a more effective phrasing would be "I have never been punched in the face in my life, but I support people punching other people in the face if they so choose."

I understand that most people are pro-choice, i.e. they want people to make the moral issue for themselves. But this isn't a moral issue, this is a humanitarian issue dealing with human life. People who are pro-choice, i.e. not wanting to force their opinion down on someone else, whatever it may be, are ideologically the same as people who witness a genocide of some type but decide to stay out of it. "Let those people work it out for themselves" they say, as an ethnic minority is being slaughtered whole-sale. While being pro-choice is a bit better then being blatantly pro-abortion, it isn't better by much.

No, that wasn't the logic I was using. By your example, a more effective phrasing would be "I have never been punched in the face in my life, but I support people punching other people in the face if they so choose."

True, that would also not fit the definition of hypocrisy. Of course, we could also rephrase that as "I have never been handed a million dollars, but I support people handing out millions of dollars if they so choose." (Sounds a little different, doesn't it?) Because, see, being the object of an action in no way effects one's agreement or disagreement with that action. My mother's choice to keep me was not a decision in which I had any say, and I cannot be rendered hypocritical by her decision.

I understand that most people are pro-choice, i.e. they want people to make the moral issue for themselves. But this isn't a moral issue, this is a humanitarian issue dealing with human life. People who are pro-choice, i.e. not wanting to force their opinion down on someone else, whatever it may be, are ideologically the same as people who witness a genocide of some type but decide to stay out of it. "Let those people work it out for themselves" they say, as an ethnic minority is being slaughtered whole-sale. While being pro-choice is a bit better then being blatantly pro-abortion, it isn't better by much.

This is nonsense. First, you don't really seem to understand that we are pro-choice, since you just argued that supporting a woman's right to choose was inherently hypocritical because we weren't aborted - although that was our mothers' CHOICE. Second, it is ridiculous beyond words to compare the abortion of a pregnancy to genocide. Me, I value people above embryos. I think the real, living PERSON whose life may well be trashed by remaining pregnant deserves more respect, concern, and dignity than a mere potential being.

100% of pro-Abortionists were not aborted.

So what? If my mother had aborted me, I wouldn't be around to care.

True, that would also not fit the definition of hypocrisy. Of course, we could also rephrase that as "I have never been handed a million dollars, but I support people handing out millions of dollars if they so choose." (Sounds a little different, doesn't it?) Because, see, being the object of an action in no way effects one's agreement or disagreement with that action. My mother's choice to keep me was not a decision in which I had any say, and I cannot be rendered hypocritical by her decision.



This is nonsense. First, you don't really seem to understand that we are pro-choice, since you just argued that supporting a woman's right to choose was inherently hypocritical because we weren't aborted - although that was our mothers' CHOICE. Second, it is ridiculous beyond words to compare the abortion of a pregnancy to genocide. Me, I value people above embryos. I think the real, living PERSON whose life may well be trashed by remaining pregnant deserves more respect, concern, and dignity than a mere potential being.

And the people who are getting punched in the face have no say either. They are the object of the action

The fact is, for starters, my example of punching in the face and yours about a million dollars are EXACTLY THE SAME except for yours sounds positive and mine sounds negative, each mirroring our own opinions about abortion.

I guess this is the point where I stop debating, I've been on for the last two and a half hours, to little avail. If the living person's life was in jeopardy, then yes, they could choose for an abortion. But otherwise, no, they can't kill a person for their own economic convience. I've explained in a previous post (page 3, I believe) my rationale for calling the unborn persons and how killing them is wrong. If you want to take a look at that you may. Otherwise, I'm finished. Auf wiedersehen.

So what? If my mother had aborted me, I wouldn't be around to care.

Not quite, you would feel a few minuites of horrible agony then blip.

Not quite, you would feel a few minuites of horrible agony then blip.

Not necessarily, depends how early in development he/she was aborted.

And the people who are getting punched in the face have no say either. They are the object of the action

The fact is, for starters, my example of punching in the face and yours about a million dollars are EXACTLY THE SAME except for yours sounds positive and mine sounds negative, each mirroring our own opinions about abortion.

No, see, this example has nothing to do with abortion. It has to do with hypocrisy, a concept you don't understand. People getting punched in the face have no say in that, and thus it does not render hypocritical any position they may have on face-punching. People not being given lots of free money have no say in that, and thus it does not render hypocritical any position they may have on giving away money. And people being born have no say in that, and thus it cannot render hypocritical any position they have on abortion.

I guess this is the point where I stop debating, I've been on for the last two and a half hours, to little avail. If the living person's life was in jeopardy, then yes, they could choose for an abortion. But otherwise, no, they can't kill a person for their own economic convience. I've explained in a previous post (page 3, I believe) my rationale for calling the unborn persons and how killing them is wrong. If you want to take a look at that you may. Otherwise, I'm finished. Auf wiedersehen.

Ah, yes, because the only downside of an unwanted pregnancy is "economic inconvenience."

I often wish anti-choicers would say these things to their mothers. "Hey, Mom, you know those nine months during which you had to drastically alter your lifestyle, during which you spent half your mornings vomiting nonstop, during which your body changed in quite a few permanent ways - just so you know, none of that was a problem for you at all!"

Not quite, you would feel a few minuites of horrible agony then blip.

And how do you know this? Are you just making up whiny little facts because you have no solid ones to back you up?

I hate the idea of an abortion when the pregnancy is nearing its end. But how does a woman I've never even heard of getting an abortion affect me or my family. It doesn't, the issue of an abortion is a private matter best left for the family to sort out.

I'm pro-choice. It's none of my business if someone wants to get an abortion, and it's no one else's business other than mine and my doctor's if I do.

Really? You don't give the baby much say in the matter. I suppose you would say the same thing when the baby has been born or is five years old? (I hope not.)

I guess the question really is when does the baby begin to have the right to be considered a person? I, for one, do not believe the baby is only a person when he comes out of the womb.

Really? You don't give the baby much say in the matter. I suppose you would say the same thing when the baby has been born or is five years old? (I hope not.)

I guess the question really is when does the baby begin to have the right to be considered a person? I, for one, do not believe the baby is only a person when he comes out of the womb.

Actually, I'd say the real question is when does the woman cease to have the right to be considered a person - which, among other things, involves the right to bodily autonomy? I, for one, do not believe that one forfeits one's personhood upon becoming pregnant. Even if we consider an embryo to be a full person - which, to be honest, you probably don't - no born person has the right to use my body against my will. Why should an embryo have a right which no born person possesses?

I'm going to suggest my abortion compromise, which I think I did in the last thread about this a month or two ago, that no one seemed to like. Maybe people here will feel differently.

Everyone agrees that once it leaves the womb, it is human. And every agrees that before it's conceived, it isn't really human; opposition to birth control is because it prevents life, not because it destroys it. Thus, the moment of "humanization" falls somewhere in between.
What I suggest we do is use percentages: an organism which has not yet been conceived is 0% human, one that is leaving the mother is 100%. Doctors can fill in the rest, based on how the organism develops, but I'm not a doctor, so for the purposes of argument I'll assume that humanization is a continuous process.
Here's where abortion enters in: if we make sure the United States never, in one year, kills 100% of a baby/fetus/cell, there's no ethical dilemma! For example, if in one year doctors aborted a sixth-month organism, a one-month, and a six-week one, we have only destroyed 94.4% of whatever it is. It's flawless in its simplicity.

Erm, we just got over this one, BUT -

I'm pretty much pro-choice, because it's not really my right to say if a woman gets an abortion or not, it's up to her. But there we go.

*edits* YUS FOR THE THREADSTEAL!

since this is now your thread I shall direct this toward you

http://www.flashgiochi.org/materiale-per-forum/immagini-old/img/Not.this.shit.again.jpg

Before you add anything else to that, allow me to provide you with a senario. A mother is having a child and is within minutes of giving birth when she decides she wants to have an abortion (impossible, but work with me here). So the doctor reachs up and stabs the child, strangles it with the umbilical cord, or kills it in some other clinical way. This child got killed a minute before it was born. Now if it had already been born, it would have had rights and wouldn't have been killed. There is no difference between the child still inside the mother and the child just been born except for one is now independently using it's lungs (which isn't grounds to be considered "living" because then we can rule that people on IVs and such are "not living"). So basically, the child was killed because it missed its legal rights by seconds. Within that one minute, the child is otherwise the exact same, it still has the same sentient capabilities. Which makes "birth" as a requirement for rights a purely arbitrary designation.

three things:
firstly, i'd just like to mention that i actually support post-birth infanticide in certain limited cases (the argument for this falls out of utilitarian and sympathy-based grounds about suffering).
secondly, limit cases always pose exactly the same sort of problem in every circumstance where we have things changing on a gradient and laws that make distinct divisions. but we don't use this point to prove that infants should have voting rights, for example.
third, i find that birth is about the least arbitrary distinction it is even possible for us to draw about a human life. it marks the clearest and most distinct division between segments of our lives other than the original fusion of parental dna and death. culturally we already recognize this point as well - it's birthday parties rather than anniversary of brainwave formation parties.

What about when the child is still inside the mother then? When is the apropriate time to rule it as "non-living"?

it is never non-living. the fact of living is not at issue, personhood is.

It is a great irony, that everyone who supports abortion has already been born.

where is the irony? those are the only entities capable of supporting or opposing anything. besides, its not like we demand no births at all/abortions for every pregnancy or something. and even if someone did, it still wouldn't really be ironic.

When we say that they aren't actual humans we do so that abortion becomes legal, moral, and within humanitarian guidelines, which it is clearly none of those.

so about the burning fertility clinic...

Everyone agrees that once it lives the womb, it shouldn't be killed.

i don't. if a child is born which will live in agonizing suffering for the remainder of its few short months or years, with no realistic hope of anything better, it is fucking inhuman to not kill it.

i don't. if a child is born which will live in agonizing suffering for the remainder of its few short months or years, with no realistic hope of anything better, it is fucking inhuman to not kill it.
Fine, I'll change my statement.

Abortion should be legal until the child leaves home and/or gets a full time job.

three things:
firstly, i'd just like to mention that i actually support post-birth infanticide in certain limited cases (the argument for this falls out of utilitarian and sympathy-based grounds about suffering).
secondly, limit cases always pose exactly the same sort of problem in every circumstance where we have things changing on a gradient and laws that make distinct divisions. but we don't use this point to prove that infants should have voting rights, for example.
third, i find that birth is about the least arbitrary distinction it is even possible for us to draw about a human life. it marks the clearest and most distinct division between segments of our lives other than the original fusion of parental dna and death. culturally we already recognize this point as well - it's birthday parties rather than anniversary of brainwave formation parties.



it is never non-living. the fact of living is not at issue, personhood is.



where is the irony? those are the only entities capable of supporting or opposing anything. besides, its not like we demand no births at all/abortions for every pregnancy or something. and even if someone did, it still wouldn't really be ironic.



so about the burning fertility clinic...

Congratulations on the infanticide. I'm not exactly sure how to respond to that one yet. I've honestly never met someone who supports infanticide. Unless the child is suffering and only has a week to live anyway, infanticide is completely UNJUSTIFIED.

Using birth as a culturally accepted item is an unacceptable defense. Unless you support conservative values too, which you wouldn't be if you supported abortion. Using birth as a definition of life just because we've been doing it for a thousand years is a horrible excuse, especially since in the light of modern science, we clearly see that the baby has both a beating heart and a partially or fully active brain. That information wasn't around when birthdays were made a "culturally accepted item".

Regardless, voting rights delineation is necessary for a democracy. Determining when someone is alive as to determine when it is legal to kill them? NOT NECESSARY OR EVEN IMPORTANT FOR A DEMOCRACY. An abortion is not a protected or necessary right under a democracy (in fact our debate is whether it is even legal at all), so therefore the law shouldn't undertake the process of drawing an unfair and arbitrary border to protect it. As I've mentioned before, the line between life and death for an unborn infant is so hopelessly vague that THE LAW SHOULDN"T MAKE ONE AT ALL!!! The fact is that by arbitarily setting the boundary in a very grey area, you leave many stranded on the wrong side of the border. They recieve injustice at the hands of the law simply for being on the wrong side of a poorly drawn border. I was always under the impression that the purpose of the law was to be as just, but apparently you see otherwise.

Burning a fertility clinic? How does that fit into anything?

Congratulations on the infanticide. I'm not exactly sure how to respond to that one yet. I've honestly never met someone who supports infanticide. Unless the child is suffering and only has a week to live anyway, infanticide is completely UNJUSTIFIED.

Reading comprehension not your thing? He explicitly stated he only supports it in cases of the child living a short, or agonized life.

[quote="FS"](the argument for this falls out of utilitarian and sympathy-based grounds about suffering). [/quote

Reading comprehension not your thing? He explicitly stated he only supports it in cases of the child living a short, or agonized life.

[quote="FS"](the argument for this falls out of utilitarian and sympathy-based grounds about suffering). [/quote

For starters, he only mentions suffering which is a HUGE difference between suffering and dying. If the infant was suffering, but it would get over it eventually, then infanticide is blatantly...just...wrong. If the infant was suffering and has a 100% chance of dying within a week, then yes, a mercy killing is humane. He only said suffering, and I took it at face value.

Regardless, I was expressing how ridiculous it was for his argument to start talking about euthanasia in an ABORTION discussion. The two are obviously not synonomous and I was attempting to get a cross how they aren't and how him mentioning it did really do anything at all except mildly shock me.

hy·poc·ri·sy (h?-p?k'r?-s?) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies
The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

The people advocating for abortion are only alive because they weren't aborted. Hence the hypocrisy, because if their mothers had practiced what they advocated for, they wouldn't be alive.

I think you need to come up with a more effective rebuttal.

Their mothers actions are in no way a reflections on the beliefs they profess

Try again

Abortion should be banned completely, as well as removed from any source; such as the dictionary, encyclopedias, novels, and wikipedia. Contraceptives should be burned in a giant bonfire which will reach all the way to the gods. In order to keep down our burgeoning population we will ritually cull 2 billion people every 5 years and feed them to the shark plantations in Utah, the Soviet Union, and Taiwan. These sharks will become the staple of the working class diet and they will be eaten raw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-jk3VvjGoE


my opinion on abortion is somewhere in that.

Their mothers actions are in no way a reflections on the beliefs they profess

Try again

No, not even close.

They are hypocrites because they enjoy the basic right to life (because their mother was generous enough to allow them to live) and yet are perfectly willing to campaign to take it away from others.

They are hypocrites because they are alive and are stealing that right from others, all the while proclaiming to be humane.

[QUOTE=Julianus II;13226864For starters, he only mentions suffering which is a HUGE difference between suffering and dying. If the infant was suffering, but it would get over it eventually, then infanticide is blatantly...just...wrong. If the infant was suffering and has a 100% chance of dying within a week, then yes, a mercy killing is humane. He only said suffering, and I took it at face value.[/QUOTE]

So you would rather it live out a long and agonized life with no chance of recovery?

That, in my opinion is considerably sicker.

So you would rather it live out a long and agonized life with no chance of recovery?

That, in my opinion is considerably sicker.

That is the choice of the person himself (or herself). If they reach an age and they decide that their life is unbearably sucky then they can euthanize themselves or commit suicide (there being comparatively little difference between the two). YOU have no right to decide that for them.

I'm unapologetically pro-abortion.

Let's go kill some fetuses!

No, not even close.

They are hypocrites because they enjoy the basic right to life (because their mother was generous enough to allow them to live) and yet are perfectly willing to campaign to take it away from others.

They are hypocrites because they are alive and are stealing that right from others, all the while proclaiming to be humane.

That or they are enjoying their mothers right to choose ... and wish that upon others...

Either way I am not convinced you can be hypocritical over a choice you did not get to make in the first place

My point is that abortion is simply wrong. It is both un-democratic and un-humanitarian. The child, when still within the mom, has both a beating heart and a functional brain. These are generally accepted criteria for life. We can also obviously tells that the child within the mom is "kicking", ie experimenting with it's new limbs. While the zygote obviously isn't alive, the child hours away from being born obviously is, meaning that there can be no truly accurate definition of when a child becomes alive, meaning that the law shouldn't assign one. When the law assigns a definition to such a hopelessly grey area, it means that there will be innocent people trapped on the other side of the line, thus causing injustice to be served. Since the law's purpose is to be just, and it can't create a line that would serve justice, then it shouldn't make a line at all. "Birth" is not an acceptable delineation because the child is clearly alive a few hours prior, at least.
Abortion is clearly unjustified and arguments stating that "abortion helps the mom" is akin to "slavery helps whites" in that both involve the oppression and the undermining of rights of an underrepresented people for the sole benefit of someone else and the complete detriment of themselves. The only case where abortion is acceptable is when the mother's life is in danger.

Well, after blasting this thread for several hours across 4 pages, I am finished. I am clearly in the minority opinion. I apologize for anyone who I've personally offended as I can lose myself when I am debating, but I still stand behind EVERY single point I made. I'm not an abortion-clinic torching fanatic (believe it or not) I have long believed that this is an inherent injustice in our system that needs to be fixed but have never really said anything until today. I encourage you to please look over the thread and read the points that were made and decide for yourselves if there is actual injustice, instead of accepting the majority opinion of "it's the woman's right to choose". Whatever you ultimately choose is cool with me (I guess), but just consider the possibility...

Well, that's all. Bon Adieau (spelled wrong).

100% of pro-Abortionists were not aborted.

a certain number of us exist only because abortion IS legal.

the woman who aborts her first pregnancy then goes on to have 2 babies probably would not have had a 3rd pregnancy if she had been forced to carry the first one. (reasonable supposition is that after the first unplanned pregnancy she only had planned ones and only wanted 2 children as is most common today) so her second child would not exist if she had not had the legal right to abort her first pregnancy.

she would still end up with 2 children, just a different 2 children.

My point is that abortion is simply wrong. It is both un-democratic and un-humanitarian. The child, when still within the mom, has both a beating heart and a functional brain. These are generally accepted criteria for life. We can also obviously tells that the child within the mom is "kicking", ie experimenting with it's new limbs. While the zygote obviously isn't alive, the child hours away from being born obviously is, meaning that there can be no truly accurate definition of when a child becomes alive, meaning that the law shouldn't assign one. When the law assigns a definition to such a hopelessly grey area, it means that there will be innocent people trapped on the other side of the line, thus causing injustice to be served. Since the law's purpose is to be just, and it can't create a line that would serve justice, then it shouldn't make a line at all. "Birth" is not an acceptable delineation because the child is clearly alive a few hours prior, at least.

Okay, you seem to be very, very confused about your science. Zygotes are alive. So are embryos. So are fetuses. No one actually disputes this. The question is not whether it is alive, but whether it is a person. We have no moral qualms about killing "things that are alive" - you, personally, have almost certainly killed billions of living things in your lifetime. We have qualms about killing people. At the stages of embryonic development during which the vast majority of pregnancies are terminated, the embryo is still in a state which would be very hard to call personhood.

Besides which, as I've already mentioned (though it's gone ignored), whether or not an embryo is a person should not, in itself, legally matter. No born person is allowed to use my body against my will, even if not doing so will cause their death. Even if you are dying of kidney failure, you are not allowed to force me to share my kidneys with you. Why should an embryo have more rights than a born human being?

Really? You don't give the baby much say in the matter. I suppose you would say the same thing when the baby has been born or is five years old? (I hope not.)

I guess the question really is when does the baby begin to have the right to be considered a person? I, for one, do not believe the baby is only a person when he comes out of the womb.

How can something that isn't sentient have a say? Why should that something trump a woman's sexual reproductive rights? And now you're just making grossly uninformed assumptions because I'm pro-choice. Pro-choice decisions are made well before the embryo develops into a foetus.

It as the right to personhood after it is born, either through a C-Section or through the birth canal, u[on drawing its first breath. However, I don't support abortions passed the middle of the second trimester, but it doesn't affect me if someone makes the choice to do it.

Pro-choice is more than being in favour of abortion, it's also the right to choose to keep the unborn foetus. It works both ways and leaves the choice up to the woman.

Pro-choice is more than being in favour of abortion, it's also the right to choose to keep the unborn foetus. It works both ways and leaves the choice up to the woman.

Indeed. As a pro-choicer, I find forced abortion just as repugnant as forced pregnancy.

My point is that abortion is simply wrong. It is both un-democratic and un-humanitarian. The child, when still within the mom, has both a beating heart and a functional brain. These are generally accepted criteria for life. We can also obviously tells that the child within the mom is "kicking", ie experimenting with it's new limbs. While the zygote obviously isn't alive, the child hours away from being born obviously is, meaning that there can be no truly accurate definition of when a child becomes alive, meaning that the law shouldn't assign one. When the law assigns a definition to such a hopelessly grey area, it means that there will be innocent people trapped on the other side of the line, thus causing injustice to be served. Since the law's purpose is to be just, and it can't create a line that would serve justice, then it shouldn't make a line at all. "Birth" is not an acceptable delineation because the child is clearly alive a few hours prior, at least.
Abortion is clearly unjustified and arguments stating that "abortion helps the mom" is akin to "slavery helps whites" in that both involve the oppression and the undermining of rights of an underrepresented people for the sole benefit of someone else and the complete detriment of themselves. The only case where abortion is acceptable is when the mother's life is in danger.

Well, after blasting this thread for several hours across 4 pages, I am finished. I am clearly in the minority opinion. I apologize for anyone who I've personally offended as I can lose myself when I am debating, but I still stand behind EVERY single point I made. I'm not an abortion-clinic torching fanatic (believe it or not) I have long believed that this is an inherent injustice in our system that needs to be fixed but have never really said anything until today. I encourage you to please look over the thread and read the points that were made and decide for yourselves if there is actual injustice, instead of accepting the majority opinion of "it's the woman's right to choose". Whatever you ultimately choose is cool with me (I guess), but just consider the possibility...

Well, that's all. Bon Adieau (spelled wrong).

Meh. You are fundamentally confused and misinformed.

Your arguments about babies just hours prior to birth are misplaced. Late-term abortions are exceedingly rare and are generally illegal unless necessary for the life or health of the mother. About 90% of abortions are within the first 13 weeks of pregnancy. So we are generally not talking about even fetuses.

The U.S. legal framework of Roe v. Wade (http://laws.findlaw.com/us/410/113.html), 410 U.S. 113 (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (http://laws.findlaw.com/us/505/833.html), 505 U.S. 833 (1992) allow for states to regulate abortion and allow them to ban abortion in the later stages of pregnancy (post-viability) except for when necessary to protect the life or health of the mother.

So the line is already drawn in such a manner as to err on the side of protecting a developing fetus long before it has a serious claim to personhood.
Mere blastocysts, zygotes, and embryos do not have superior claims to the body of the woman. A woman has the right to control her own body that is protected by the current legal framework.

Burning a fertility clinic? How does that fit into anything?

how soon they forget...

would you mind taking a little trip down a thought experiment with me? here is the scene. there is a fertility clinic which you are in for some reason. in the fertility clinic there is a petri dish over on the table which you know contains two blastocysts all ready to be implanted. also in the clinic is a two year old child. oh, and the fertility clinic is on fire and you have time to save either the two blastocysts on the petri dish or the toddler, but not both, before the flames and smoke will overcome you. which do you save?Interesting senario. I'll have to take a side trip before I answer

how soon they forget...

Don't take this the wrong way, but Neo Art phrases that thought experiment considerably better. I used to have the link to the quote from him laying around but I can't seem to find it.

hy·poc·ri·sy (h?-p?k'r?-s?) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies
The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

The people advocating for abortion are only alive because they weren't aborted. Hence the hypocrisy, because if their mothers had practiced what they advocated for, they wouldn't be alive.

I think you need to come up with a more effective rebuttal.

Nope. I stopped reading the thread there, post # 48. You're going in to bat for Oakandra's silly goad with the exact same seriousness with which you spoke of human rights.

If you can get a trivial thing like this wrong, your opinions on the far more serious issue of your thread aren't worth the reading time.

Pro-choice because it's the right stance to take.

As for arguments against choice, I have yet to see a single one that did not boil down to punishing women for not being virgins. Also, despite all claims about the personhood, humanity, or other value measure of embryos/fetuses, I have yet to see an anti-choice argument that did not treat them as nothing more than cudgels with which to beat up women for not being virgins. Yeah, let's talk about hypocrisy. The Scarlet Letter, anyone?

My personal favorite argument in favor of abortion rights is the one about the human rights and civil rights of women, i.e. the bodily integrity argument. I decline to be enslaved to an embryo for the exact same reason I decline to be enslaved to anyone else. I especially decline to be enslaved by the biases and demands of someone who isn't even an embryo and who has even less to do with my life than these posited embryos ever will.

Go ahead, be sexually immoral. You can always kill the baby if you get pregnant!

sexually immoral

i assume by this you just mean rape and other non-consensual acts, right?

i don't. if a child is born which will live in agonizing suffering for the remainder of its few short months or years, with no realistic hope of anything better, it is fucking inhuman to not kill it.

I agree, and one day hope that we can legally apply the same logic to adults.

They are hypocrites because they enjoy the basic right to life (because their mother was generous enough to allow them to live) and yet are perfectly willing to campaign to take it away from others.

I was unaware that enjoying life was a prerequisite for being pro-choice.

As for arguments against choice, I have yet to see a single one that did not boil down to punishing women for not being virgins.

Go ahead, be sexually immoral. You can always kill the baby if you get pregnant!

I have to say, I was rather amused by seeing these posts back-to-back. :p

tis kind of a court of last resort. pity it's neccessary. rather it wasn't.

the only way in which it would make sense to eliminate or drastically reduce resorting to it, would be to lower ALL human firtillity generally (a VERY good idea i favor strongly), and provide every unmarried person from the age of about ten on, until metapause, with absolutely free and totally effective contraceptive methods and devices, whatever anyone, any belief, or anything else, might otherwise think about it.

i for one, do not believe unwanted children, overpopulation, or environmental degridation do to human overpopulation, are the will of any god, but only the shortsighted callusness of political and idiological bias.

=^^=
.../\...

i assume by this you just mean rape and other non-consensual acts, right?

Probably means any sex that isn't between a married couple doing it missionary style with the lights off, open to the possibility of children.

You know, the "right" way to do it.

Indeed. As a pro-choicer, I find forced abortion just as repugnant as forced pregnancy.

Exactly. It is a choice both ways. :) a choice the woman makes.

Probably means any sex that isn't between a married couple doing it missionary style with the lights off, open to the possibility of children.

You know, the "right" way to do it.

How foolish of us to think otherwise. The sheer thought that sex exists for anything else... *gasp* Well... I never!

How foolish of us to think otherwise. The sheer thought that sex exists for anything else... *gasp* Well... I never!

Shocking, isn't it? What will they think of next. Marriage isn't solely for fertile couples wanting to have children? The nerve of some people.

I wanted to select option 3, but somehow my computer decided to transmit for option 4. How odd.

i don't. if a child is born which will live in agonizing suffering for the remainder of its few short months or years, with no realistic hope of anything better, it is fucking inhuman to not kill it.

Ever heard of "Death Without Weeping"? A lot of the lines of thought of the mothers run roughly along those lines, although after the child has been born. Personally, I'd prefer that it be done before the child is born, rather than let them starve to death, or die of nasty diseases after the fact.

I have to say, I was rather amused by seeing these posts back-to-back. :p

kind of appropriate I'd say

Pro-life, pro-choice, anti-abortion, and anti-ban on this topic.

I do feel, however, that far too much time is spent on the debate over whether or not abortion should be allowed, and far too little is spent on preventing the situations in which a woman might feel she needs one in the first place.

As for the, "You're a big hypocrite if you advocate choice because you're living," idea, it's complete bunk. I am here because my mother wanted to carry me to term and give birth to me. She had that choice. I would not want to be here if someone had to force her to go through pregnancy to achieve that end.

I do feel, however, that far too much time is spent on the debate over whether or not abortion should be allowed, and far too little is spent on preventing the situations in which a woman might feel she needs one in the first place.

For those of you whom this is too subtle for, this translates into: comprehensive sexual education, easy access to birth control and emergency contraceptives... all the stuff frowned upon since it's seen as preventing life. The things that reduce the demand for abortion.

For those of you whom this is too subtle for, this translates into: comprehensive sexual education, easy access to birth control and emergency contraceptives... all the stuff frowned upon since it's seen as preventing life. The things that reduce the demand for abortion.

Indeed. I'd also add aid for women who do not wish to abort, but do not have the means to raise children - programs to help them find well-paying jobs and to help support them until they can. (I think this type of aid should really be available to everyone, but there are many women in poverty who chose abortion because they see no other way out).

Indeed. I'd also add aid for women who do not wish to abort, but do not have the means to raise children - programs to help them find well-paying jobs and to help support them until they can. (I think this type of aid should really be available to everyone, but there are many women in poverty who chose abortion because they see no other way out).

<SARCASM> But we can't do that because then we'd be promoting having sex which is icky if you're not married</SARCASM>

The best way to stop abortion is to abort all pregnancies everywhere. Then we wouldn't have to argue about it.

I don't think that abortion is an acceptable means of birth control, but there are some limited situations where abortion is justifiable.

Hmm.. on the one hand I don't really like abortion but on the other hand it's really not my place to decide on what a women chooses to do with her body so I guess that makes me pro-choice..

Although, thinking about it, do we really need anymore people on this planet? I say we kill everyone!

I don't think that abortion is an acceptable means of birth control

why not, other than practical concerns about cost, trauma and the like?

I don't think that abortion is an acceptable means of birth control, but there are some limited situations where abortion is justifiable.

Abortion isn't birth control at all. Birth control is used to refer to methods that prevent pregnancy. Abortion is termination of a pregnancy that has already begun.

The best way to stop abortion is to abort all pregnancies everywhere. Then we wouldn't have to argue about it.

No, that wouldn't stop abortions at all, neutering everyone would be the most effective method of stopping abortions... If no-one was able to reproduce then there would be no possibility of an abortion being 'necesary'

Abortion isn't birth control at all. Birth control is used to refer to methods that prevent pregnancy. Abortion is termination of a pregnancy that has already begun.

which results in the control of whether a person gives birth or not. its not a standard usage of the term, but it isn't totally incomprehensible.

Abortion isn't birth control at all. Birth control is used to refer to methods that prevent pregnancy. Abortion is termination of a pregnancy that has already begun.

Actually it is birth control, if a women has an abortion than there is no birth


Damn, beaten to the punch by Free Soviets

which results in the control of whether a person gives birth or not. its not a standard usage of the term, but it isn't totally incomprehensible.

Not totally incomprehensible, but it brings up certain implications. People usually say something like "I don't think it should be used as birth control" to suggest that abortion is being used instead of or in much the same way that the pill, a condom, or an IUD might be used. The truth of the matter is that most women who undergo abortions were using some form of birth control when they became pregnant. You might find the occasional woman who is constantly having abortions, but the truth of the matter is that most women try very hard to avoid it.

Actually it is birth control, if a women has an abortion than there is no birth

There's no birth if one abstains, but abstaining isn't "birth control."

In most usage, the term "birth control" means "contraceptives". If you choose not to use it that way, that is your prerogative, but it is not a generally accepted use of the term and will most likely be misunderstood.

Not totally incomprehensible, but it brings up certain implications. People usually say something like "I don't think it should be used as birth control" to suggest that abortion is being used instead of or in much the same way that the pill, a condom, or an IUD might be used. The truth of the matter is that most women who undergo abortions were using some form of birth control when they became pregnant. You might find the occasional woman who is constantly having abortions, but the truth of the matter is that most women try very hard to avoid it.


only a fool would use abortion as a primary birth control method when contraceptives are cheap and reliable. abortion is only a primary method of birth control when contraceptives are illegal, prohibitively expensive or so badly made that they dont do the job.

I am pro-life and voted accordingly because:

I reject the right to choose argument. Nobody's rights supercede the life of another human being. Nobody's. All the discussion over the right for someone to control their body is irrelevant to this point.

If someone is dangling over a cliff, holding onto only your arm to keep from falling, and you force them to release their grip because they don't have a right to use your arm to save themselves, you'll be arrested and charged with depraved indifference at the very least.

I reject the justification that's based upon "well we used birth control but it failed. I'm not ready to be a mom!" If you're not ready to handle the potential result, don't have sex. It's that simple.

People hate when I say that because they want to portray sex as being essential to life on the same level as eating and breathing. Remember back when there was a time when self-control was considered a positive trait? When abstaining and practicing a little self-discipline were encouraged? Now we have morphed into a culture where the only philosophy that's honored by the left is "I do whatever I want whenever I want for whatever reason I want to and you have to respect that, pat me on the back and make sure to stay out of my way as I take action to escape any consequences that come of it!"

A lot of pro-lifers have screwed up by making pregnancy sound like some sort of punishment for immoral behavior. That's stupid and it doesn't score points with anybody. When I say consequences I mean that pregnancy is a natural and normal result of sex. Any person who thus has sex and is not in a position to be able to handle that possible outcome is being irresponsible. Abortion is like the magic fairy that comes and makes it all better. All you have to do is forget that you had to kill somebody to get there.

And don't trouble me with that idiotic analogy about how this somehow equates to refusing medical care for someone who goes skiing and brekas their leg, even though they knew it could happen. If you can't see the difference between an injury and a pregnancy, then you need to start over.

And no, it's not an injury. Breaking a leg is an accident. It causes damage that the body immediately goes to work healing. A pregnancy is NOT an accident. Maybe YOU didn't mean to get pregnant, but your body got pregnant on purpose and will go to extraordinary lengths to preserve and protect the baby.

I'm a Libertarian and I believe the state mustn't regulate morality or behavior, BUT that goes only as far as people aren't being killed. It's why in even the most libertarian systems m urder is still a crime punishable by the state.

<SARCASM> But we can't do that because then we'd be promoting having sex which is icky if you're not married</SARCASM>

I think you could go a long way in NSG, young man.:D

I am pro-life and voted accordingly because:

I reject the right to choose argument. Nobody's rights supercede the life of another human being. Nobody's. All the discussion over the right for someone to control their body is irrelevant to this point.

Ever hear the expression "give me liberty or give me death"?

Yes, rights can be more important than lives. Neither you nor anyone else as the right to enslave me or anyone else, whether or not someone's life may be at stake.

And you are presuming without support that a zygote or an embryo is a person with a right to life.

If someone is dangling over a cliff, holding onto only your arm to keep from falling, and you force them to release their grip because they don't have a right to use your arm to save themselves, you'll be arrested and charged with depraved indifference at the very least.

Bullshit. Care to offer some proof?

Regardless, are you arguing you can be forced against your will to provide your arm to someone for nine months?

I reject the justification that's based upon "well we used birth control but it failed. I'm not ready to be a mom!" If you're not ready to handle the potential result, don't have sex. It's that simple.

Simple is right. Simply stupid. There is no reason why sex has to entail pregnancy.

People hate when I say that because they want to portray sex as being essential to life on the same level as eating and breathing. Remember back when there was a time when self-control was considered a positive trait? When abstaining and practicing a little self-discipline were encouraged? Now we have morphed into a culture where the only philosophy that's honored by the left is "I do whatever I want whenever I want for whatever reason I want to and you have to respect that, pat me on the back and make sure to stay out of my way as I take action to escape any consequences that come of it!"

When exactly was this time that you remember? During the teen pregnancy highpoints of the 1950s, maybe?

A lot of pro-lifers have screwed up by making pregnancy sound like some sort of punishment for immoral behavior. That's stupid and it doesn't score points with anybody. When I say consequences I mean that pregnancy is a natural and normal result of sex. Any person who thus has sex and is not in a position to be able to handle that possible outcome is being irresponsible. Abortion is like the magic fairy that comes and makes it all better. All you have to do is forget that you had to kill somebody to get there.

Funny that you ridicule the argument and then make pretty much the same argument.

And don't trouble me with that idiotic analogy about how this somehow equates to refusing medical care for someone who goes skiing and brekas their leg, even though they knew it could happen. If you can't see the difference between an injury and a pregnancy, then you need to start over.

And no, it's not an injury. Breaking a leg is an accident. It causes damage that the body immediately goes to work healing. A pregnancy is NOT an accident. Maybe YOU didn't mean to get pregnant, but your body got pregnant on purpose and will go to extraordinary lengths to preserve and protect the baby.

Sorry, but it doesn't have to be an injury. Many diseases and afflictions are "natural and normal," but we still don't deny people medical treatment on those grounds.

Funny that you go on about how your body purposely gets pregnant and goes to "extraordinary lengths to preserve and protect the baby," when as many as 1 in 4 pregnancies end naturally with a miscarriage.

I'm a Libertarian and I believe the state mustn't regulate morality or behavior, BUT that goes only as far as people aren't being killed. It's why in even the most libertarian systems m urder is still a crime punishable by the state.

No persons are being killed. End of argument.

Ever hear the expression "give me liberty or give me death"?

Yes, rights can be more important than lives. Neither you nor anyone else as the right to enslave me or anyone else, whether or not someone's life may be at stake.


I reject this claim. Rights are natural, almost sacred. However, the rights of one person cannot interfere with the life of another, unless that person agrees to it. (I do believe that just as people have a right to life, so they also have a right to death. However, it is not for others to decide when or how.)
I have no court case or philosopher's quote to base this belief on, which may mean I have no proof. But I think it's common sense that the death of a person should be avoided as much as possible. Assuming the goal of society is to maximize its citizens' quality of life, the decrease in quality of one person is nothing compared to the drop caused by removing someone's life.

All of that being said, I support abortion and agree with everything you say.

No persons are being killed. End of argument.

as a side note, i'd like to point out that the burning fertility clinic dilemma remains unresponded to by those claiming fetal personhood. quite the streak of non-response, i might add. years, i think. i find that fact interesting.

To me, the 'pro-choice' argument sounds like: "I don't want to go hungry because I won't work."
In cases where the woman's life is in danger, sure, abort. I don't want anyone to DIE for their idiocy.
In cases of rape, abort away, I can hardly blame the woman.
But in cases of "Oops, oh s**t, I'm a fool, and now I don't want to face the consequences of my actions!"
Give me a break.
Break me off a jebeshing piece of that kit-cr@p bar.
:p

I reject this claim. Rights are natural, almost sacred. However, the rights of one person cannot interfere with the life of another, unless that person agrees to it. (I do believe that just as people have a right to life, so they also have a right to death. However, it is not for others to decide when or how.)
I have no court case or philosopher's quote to base this belief on, which may mean I have no proof. But I think it's common sense that the death of a person should be avoided as much as possible. Assuming the goal of society is to maximize its citizens' quality of life, the decrease in quality of one person is nothing compared to the drop caused by removing someone's life.

All of that being said, I support abortion and agree with everything you say.

surely the crux of that feeling is the word "person". an embryo is not a person. when the fetus approaches the stage where it could live on its own (and thus approaches the stage where it can be reasonably considered an almost person), the mother's right to terminate is severely limited.

doesnt that cover your idea of not doing anything that would end in the death of a person?

you arent suggesting (to go back to the cliff example) that i have a legal duty to hang over the edge of the cliff holding onto the falling man indefinitely?

surely the crux of that feeling is the word "person". an embryo is not a person. when the fetus approaches the stage where it could live on its own (and thus approaches the stage where it can be reasonably considered an almost person), the mother's right to terminate is severely limited.

doesnt that cover your idea of not doing anything that would end in the death of a person?

you arent suggesting (to go back to the cliff example) that i have a legal duty to hang over the edge of the cliff holding onto the falling man indefinitely?

Like I said, I'm not pro-life. I was contesting only that idea, not The Cat-Tribe's argument as a whole.
As for the falling man, I think you would have a duty to stop the man from falling. If that means holding on to him indefinitely, it still applies. However, I can think of very few instances where this analogy would exist in real life, because you almost always have the ability to pull the man up, so he can stand on safe ground, or find a way that makes it easier to hold him, perhaps taking turns with someone else or fashioning some platform for him to stand on.

Like I said, I'm not pro-life. I was contesting only that idea, not The Cat-Tribe's argument as a whole.
As for the falling man, I think you would have a duty to stop the man from falling. If that means holding on to him indefinitely, it still applies. However, I can think of very few instances where this analogy would exist in real life, because you almost always have the ability to pull the man up, so he can stand on safe ground, or find a way that makes it easier to hold him, perhaps taking turns with someone else or fashioning some platform for him to stand on.

the more typical example is whether or not you should be forced to give up one of your kidneys to someone who needs it.

there are things we could be doing every day to save the lives of those in desperate need in other countries. we are neither legally nor morally bound to give up what we have to save their lives. how much less are we bound to give up our own life, health or well being?

I reject this claim. Rights are natural, almost sacred. However, the rights of one person cannot interfere with the life of another, unless that person agrees to it. (I do believe that just as people have a right to life, so they also have a right to death. However, it is not for others to decide when or how.)

It isn't that the rights of one can interfere with the life of the other. It's more that, because of my right to my own body, I am under no obligation to help another survive. It is my right to keep my own body to myself, even if someone else needs it. I cannot be forced to give blood, even if I am a match for a dying person. I cannot be forced to donate my bone marrow, even if I am the only match for someone who desperately needs a transplant. I am under no legal obligation to put my own life at risk to save another's, even if I think I can do it and save us both.

I might choose to do all of these things, but neither the law nor any other human being can force me to do so, because my body is my own.

I might choose to do all of these things, but neither the law nor any other human being can force me to do so, because my body is my own.
I would never advocate force, but I do believe that donating blood or giving a kidney is the moral thing to do. The post I quoted seemed to say one is morally obliged to make sacrifices in ones own rights to help others, which I believe is untrue.

I would never advocate force, but I do believe that donating blood or giving a kidney is the moral thing to do. The post I quoted seemed to say one is morally obliged to make sacrifices in ones own rights to help others, which I believe is untrue.

I believe that as well, but the discussion is a matter of rights. You have the right to refuse, whether it is moral or not.

I don't know what TCT's personal take on the situation is, but I'm pretty sure he was arguing that you are not legally obliged, leaving moral matters to the individual.

I believe that as well, but the discussion is a matter of rights. You have the right to refuse, whether it is moral or not.

I don't know what TCT's personal take on the situation is, but I'm pretty sure he was arguing that you are not legally obliged, leaving moral matters to the individual.

Okay, I agree with that then. Usually when he's talking about something legally, he will take the trouble to list twenty court cases or statutes to prove that it's legal. His lack of links threw me off. :)

I believe that as well, but the discussion is a matter of rights. You have the right to refuse, whether it is moral or not.

I don't know what TCT's personal take on the situation is, but I'm pretty sure he was arguing that you are not legally obliged, leaving moral matters to the individual.

after all, many women who are in dire circumstances elect not to abort a pregnancy because of their moral belief.

that is the essence of being pro-choice. you support whatever decision a woman might make whether or not you would ever make the same choice.

I have to say, I was rather amused by seeing these posts back-to-back. :p

Me too. :D It's nice when my opponent makes my argument for me.

Hmm.. on the one hand I don't really like abortion but on the other hand it's really not my place to decide on what a women chooses to do with her body so I guess that makes me pro-choice..

Although, thinking about it, do we really need anymore people on this planet? I say we kill everyone!

That's the spirit!

after all, many women who are in dire circumstances elect not to abort a pregnancy because of their moral belief.

that is the essence of being pro-choice. you support whatever decision a woman might make whether or not you would ever make the same choice.

That's the spirit!

We should send out a message to space: "After much consideration, we, the People of Earth, have decided to end it all. It was fun while it lasted. Sincerely, Everyone"

Of course, we'd have to go out with a bang, Hunter Thompson style. I suggest making use of the nuclear stockpiles, all at the same time.

I'm against abortion, simply because I don't think it is fair for the unborn... My first girlfriend told me that her mom almost chose to abort her, and that's quite something else to think about really...

I would never advocate force, but I do believe that donating blood or giving a kidney is the moral thing to do. The post I quoted seemed to say one is morally obliged to make sacrifices in ones own rights to help others, which I believe is untrue.
Whatever moral obligations we may put on ourselves is one thing (along with the moral standards we might expect of others). But what the law obligates us to do is something entirely different. I have no problem at all with anti-choicers haranguing all day and night about their moral beliefs against abortion. It is only when they try to bind others to their beliefs by a legal obligation -- i.e. outlawing or severely restricting abortion rights -- that I oppose them. Haranguing about their beliefs is called passionate advocacy, and they have the exact same right to argue their case that I have to argue mine. Using law to force me to carry a pregnancy against my will is called enslavement, and I will not tolerate it.

the more typical example is whether or not you should be forced to give up one of your kidneys to someone who needs it.

there are things we could be doing every day to save the lives of those in desperate need in other countries. we are neither legally nor morally bound to give up what we have to save their lives. how much less are we bound to give up our own life, health or well being?

If you are saying that would would NOT save the dangling guy you are a horrible person not deserving of any respect, life was wasted on you.

If you are saying that would would NOT save the dangling guy you are a horrible person not deserving of any respect, life was wasted on you.

im pretty sure i would drop the dangling guy so its a moot point.

I'm against abortion, simply because I don't think it is fair for the unborn... My first girlfriend told me that her mom almost chose to abort her, and that's quite something else to think about really...

oh pffft. if your mother had had a headache that day you never would have been conceived. big deal.

if birth control had been freely available in the 50s my mother would have stopped at her 3rd child and her next 4 children, including myself, never would have been born.

its never bothered me.

Though I am not sure about my exact position on abortion, there is one thing I am for quite strongly indeed.
The Abortion of Old and Worn Out Threads.
Do not worry, we snip them neatly in a highly medical, political, judicial, and grammatical procedure.

I think OPs should be able to choose whether they want it to be aborted.

Though I am not sure about my exact position on abortion, there is one thing I am for quite strongly indeed.
The Abortion of Old and Worn Out Threads.
Do not worry, we snip them neatly in a highly medical, political, judicial, and grammatical procedure.

I say NSG should have the choice to abort inane threads like this.

No, it has as much a right to exist as the OP!
It was the OP's fault for creating it in the first place, once created, it has rights. It is one of the community.
Think of the posts!
But it's a burden on the server. The server should not have to compromise its space for another thread, even if it means destroying it.

I think OPs should be able to choose whether they want it to be aborted.

No, it has as much a right to exist as the OP!
It was the OP's fault for creating it in the first place, once created, it has rights. It is one of the community.
Think of the posts!

By that reasoning, every thread is a burden!
You are advocating threadicide on a grand scale. The Almighty Jolt does not condone this behavior, for each OP is sacred, and every post that flows from the thread is special.
You're right, I'm being a hypocrite. After all, if the server had decided to delete all my posts, I never would have been born!

Oops, sorry. I confused our clever and very subtle satire with reality. That seems to happen a lot.

But it's a burden on the server. The server should not have to compromise its space for another thread, even if it means destroying it.

By that reasoning, every thread is a burden!
You are advocating threadicide on a grand scale. The Almighty Jolt does not condone this behavior, for each OP is sacred, and every post that flows from the thread is special.

Sorry, kids, but the decision to abort threads should definitely be made in concert with the forum professionals who carry out the procedure, with their opinion being given the greatest priority.

I've changed my mind about abortion. I think we should listen to this very, very weird cartoon I found on www.catholic.net.

Cartoon (http://www.catholic.net/culture_of_life/template_channel.phtml?channel_id=7)

I'm against abortion, simply because I don't think it is fair for the unborn... My first girlfriend told me that her mom almost chose to abort her, and that's quite something else to think about really...

If she had been aborted you never would have met her and thus wouldn't care.

If she had been aborted you never would have met her and thus wouldn't care.

also, life is rarely fair and probably isn't supposed to be.

If she had been aborted you never would have met her and thus wouldn't care.

That's not necessarily true. I cry everyday about my girlfriend, who I'm almost certain was aborted before she left the womb. That's why she isn't here. My personality has nothing to do with it.

That's not necessarily true. I cry everyday about my girlfriend, who I'm almost certain was aborted before she left the womb. That's why she isn't here. My personality has nothing to do with it.

Now you're just making excuses.

Ever hear the expression "give me liberty or give me death"?


Yes. Irelevant to this debate, but yes I've heard it.

Yes, rights can be more important than lives. Neither you nor anyone else as the right to enslave me or anyone else, whether or not someone's life may be at stake.

I generally try to be civil in these discussions but I don't mind, in this case, telling you that this statement was a big smelly load. Come on. You're comparing pregnancy to slavery and expect this to be taken seriously? Are you kidding me? Is this kind of emotional hyperbole what you normally use to salve your conscience or convince people of your rightness?


And you are presuming without support that a zygote or an embryo is a person with a right to life.


What support do I need? You're talking semantics. It's a stage of development like toddlerhood, infancy or adolescence. From where I sit, you're the one that needs to support the assertion that one stage of development is somehow not human while others are.


Bullshit. Care to offer some proof?


You know where the lawbooks are in the library.


Regardless, are you arguing you can be forced against your will to provide your arm to someone for nine months?


So you try to counter my analogy by stretching it over a scenario that's so improbable as to be absurd.


Simple is right. Simply stupid. There is no reason why sex has to entail pregnancy.

It doesn't *have* to, but it certainly can. Are you promoting a perspective so irresponsible as to ignore that fact when considering whether or not to proceed?


When exactly was this time that you remember? During the teen pregnancy highpoints of the 1950s, maybe?


I certainly remember a time when people weren't ridiculed for promoting self control. Don't you?


Funny that you ridicule the argument and then make pretty much the same argument.
If that's what you got from reading it, then I cordially invite you to re-read it.


Sorry, but it doesn't have to be an injury. Many diseases and afflictions are "natural and normal," but we still don't deny people medical treatment on those grounds.

Ah, but how many of those diseases are contracted by your body deliberately? Answer:0 try as you might, pregnancy is neither an injury nor an illness.


Funny that you go on about how your body purposely gets pregnant and goes to "extraordinary lengths to preserve and protect the baby," when as many as 1 in 4 pregnancies end naturally with a miscarriage.

So what's the problem? If the body "decides" the pregnancy is nonviable it does what it must. The rest of the time, it does what it possibly can to protect it. Redirecting the point doesn't invalidate it.


No persons are being killed. End of argument.

You wish it were that simple.

If your argument is so weak that you have to characterize pregnancy, a perfectly normal and natural event, as everything from slavery to injory to disease in order to justify your argument, then I suggest to you that your argument sucks and you're better of reconsidering it.

as a side note, i'd like to point out that the burning fertility clinic dilemma remains unresponded to by those claiming fetal personhood. quite the streak of non-response, i might add. years, i think. i find that fact interesting.

Care to elaborate on that?

No, you do not get to force me to make a baby against my wishes. Get over it.

Seriously, how many times does this same debate need to go around in circles? Let me just summarize it, okay?

"SHE MADE HER CHOICE WHEN SHE OPENED HER LEGS!"
"IT'S A BABY NOT A CHOICE!"
"ABORTION IS MURDER!"

Tell you what. I'll go out to the local evangelical church and read the bumper stickers off the cars in their parking lot, and all you anti-choicers can just go have a beer or something. It'll save time, and the conversation will be equally fruitful.

I generally try to be civil in these discussions but I don't mind, in this case, telling you that this statement was a big smelly load. Come on. You're comparing pregnancy to slavery and expect this to be taken seriously? Are you kidding me? Is this kind of emotional hyperbole what you normally use to salve your conscience or convince people of your rightness?

Slavery is forcing someone into doing something they don't want. A forced pregnancy could be considered unwanted, hence the forced pregnancy in itself is slavery. On that one, we could even add in forced abortion. You still don't understand it, do you? That pro-choice favours VOLUNTARY pregnancy and VOLUNTARY abortion and strongly opposed FORCED pregnancy and FORCED abortion.

slav·er·y /ˈsleɪvəri, ˈsleɪvri/
–noun
1. the condition of a slave; bondage.
2. the keeping of slaves as a practice or institution.
3. a state of subjection like that of a slave: He was kept in slavery by drugs.
4. severe toil; drudgery.

Ah, but how many of those diseases are contracted by your body deliberately? Answer:0 try as you might, pregnancy is neither an injury nor an illness.

So, if it is a result of FORCED penetration, you still stand by that?

If the contraceptives failed, then it's...?

You fail. Pregnancy can be an illness if the body is not able to support the foetus, and the body was forced to redirect its resources to the foetus instead of to the woman who is slightly ill.

So what's the problem? If the body "decides" the pregnancy is nonviable it does what it must. The rest of the time, it does what it possibly can to protect it. Redirecting the point doesn't invalidate it.

Even at the expense of the woman.

Let's say a woman with a kidney disease got pregnant despite using all pre-cautions. You'd be forcing it on her and subsequently turning a manageable condition into a life-threatening condition because the foetus even in a healthy woman would put additional stress on the organs.

Care to elaborate on that?

I know what he's referring to, so I'll give you the gist of it.

A fertility clinic is burning down, and you only have the strength/time to carry out either a container of fertilized eggs or an adult human. Not both.

Which would you choose?

I know what he's referring to, so I'll give you the gist of it.

A fertility clinic is burning down, and you only have the strength/time to carry out either a container of fertilized eggs or an adult human. Not both.

Which would you choose?

I'd carry the human if they were unable to move. Hell, I'd help anyone who was living before I even considered the fertilised eggs. Those eggs aren't living beings, the human is.

I'd carry the human if they were unable to move. Hell, I'd help anyone who was living before I even considered the fertilised eggs. Those eggs aren't living beings, the human is.
On a personal note, I whole-heartedly support classifying fertilized eggs as persons, because it would mean that I am a serial killer. There is no Son Of Sam law in my state, so this will allow me to pen one of those ever-popular serial killer biographies and grow fat off the profits. At the same time, I could never be convicted of any of the murders I have committed, since the "bodies" have long since been flushed down various toilets.

On a personal note, I whole-heartedly support classifying fertilized eggs as persons, because it would mean that I am a serial killer. There is no Son Of Sam law in my state, so this will allow me to pen one of those ever-popular serial killer biographies and grow fat off the profits. At the same time, I could never be convicted of any of the murders I have committed, since the "bodies" have long since been flushed down various toilets.

:) And that is your choice my friend. We all have the freedom to make our own choices based on what is right for that moment in time, because what works once may not work again in a similar scenario.

I know what he's referring to, so I'll give you the gist of it.

A fertility clinic is burning down, and you only have the strength/time to carry out either a container of fertilized eggs or an adult human. Not both.

Which would you choose?

Ah okay I've seen that one before. Thanks.

My response is that the analogy is just plain goofy. (I believe I said this once before a while back.) If, to make your point, you have to create a scenario that's ridiculously improbable, then chances are it's not worth exploring.

But, lest anyone accuse me of dodging, my answer would be that I'd save whichever one I judged to have the greatest probability of survival.

Slavery is forcing someone into doing something they don't want. A forced pregnancy could be considered unwanted, hence the forced pregnancy in itself is slavery. On that one, we could even add in forced abortion. You still don't understand it, do you? That pro-choice favours VOLUNTARY pregnancy and VOLUNTARY abortion and strongly opposed FORCED pregnancy and FORCED abortion.

slav·er·y /ˈsleɪvəri, ˈsleɪvri/
–noun
1. the condition of a slave; bondage.
2. the keeping of slaves as a practice or institution.
3. a state of subjection like that of a slave: He was kept in slavery by drugs.
4. severe toil; drudgery.


You really need that logic twist to work, don't you? You describe it as if some mad scientist (with a Jesus fish on his collar) were strapping women down onto an examining table and inseminating them by force then turning them loose and forbidding them any recourse.

Can we please, just for the hell of it, stick to the real world here? Seriously. if a person willingly takes that chance, do you honestly feel they have absolutely *no* responsibility whatsoever? Has your sense of personal responsibility degraded that far?


So, if it is a result of FORCED penetration, you still stand by that?


Nice try. You and I have debated this before and you ought to know perfectly well my position on cases of rape. For those who don't, I do believe there should be an option to terminate in such a case. Fortunately, with emergency contraceptives, this is rare.


If the contraceptives failed, then it's...?


...time to start planning for the future.


You fail. Pregnancy can be an illness if the body is not able to support the foetus, and the body was forced to redirect its resources to the foetus instead of to the woman who is slightly ill.


I love people like you who use the phrase "You fail." like it were some kind of magical "I win" button.


Even at the expense of the woman.

Let's say a woman with a kidney disease got pregnant despite using all pre-cautions. You'd be forcing it on her and subsequently turning a manageable condition into a life-threatening condition because the foetus even in a healthy woman would put additional stress on the organs.

Again, I have no issue with terminating a pregnancy in cases where the mother's life is at risk. You ought to know that too from past conversations.

How do I reconcile that? Because Priority#1 is life, so why would anyone in their right mind force a situation where you'd have 2 deaths instead of only one? Even if the baby would survive and the mo ther not, since we are talking about her survival, then yes it may well be apropriate to terminate the pregnancy to save her.

You guys aren't going to score any points by trying to make the issue all - or - nothing. I've seen pro-life people make the same mistake by not having any flexibility or common sense. It's what comes of being on the extremes, I guess.

Ah okay I've seen that one before. Thanks.

My response is that the analogy is just plain goofy. (I believe I said this once before a while back.) If, to make your point, you have to create a scenario that's ridiculously improbable, then chances are it's not worth exploring.

But, lest anyone accuse me of dodging, my answer would be that I'd save whichever one I judged to have the greatest probability of survival.

That one didn't seem so bad to me. Granted, I may be somewhat jaded after reading Mary Anne Warren's space traveler analogies.

My response is that the analogy is just plain goofy. (I believe I said this once before a while back.) If, to make your point, you have to create a scenario that's ridiculously improbable, then chances are it's not worth exploring.

and both me and soheran demolished you on this point last time

But, lest anyone accuse me of dodging, my answer would be that I'd save whichever one I judged to have the greatest probability of survival.

so, petri dish every time then, yes?

and both me and soheran demolished you on this point last time

Is that how you remember it? Well I guess I'm not really surprised. I've seen your idea of "reality."


so, petri dish every time then, yes?

Whatever floats your boat. The fact that you said that tells me you have a grossly oversimplified point of view on that one.

You really need that logic twist to work, don't you? You describe it as if some mad scientist (with a Jesus fish on his collar) were strapping women down onto an examining table and inseminating them by force then turning them loose and forbidding them any recourse.

Can we please, just for the hell of it, stick to the real world here? Seriously. if a person willingly takes that chance, do you honestly feel they have absolutely *no* responsibility whatsoever? Has your sense of personal responsibility degraded that far?

Politicians and anti-choicers are limiting recourse for women by making Family Planning and other agencies widely unavailable. In some states, by keeping abortion extremely limited, if not illegal, the woman is being forced to carry the pregnancy to term.

And as for personal responsibility, it means recognising one's situation and making the choices based on that, and no, sex is NOT solely for procreation. If it was, then why do humans get pleasure and satisfaction out of it? If it was mean for just procreation, then there would be no need for the clitoris or any of the other sensitive parts of the sexual organs.

Personal responsibility is NOT just carrying the pregnancy to term. It's making the choice to ensure that the future of all concerned parties is taken into account. This means often putting the humans in the family first, and these are the partner and any possible children that already exist.

It's not just certain groups of women who seek abortion, plenty of married women do, and probably because they already have at least one if not more kids to care for and another mouth to feed would mean spreading resources thin just so another kid can be brought into this world. If they can support it, great.

Nice try. You and I have debated this before and you ought to know perfectly well my position on cases of rape. For those who don't, I do believe there should be an option to terminate in such a case. Fortunately, with emergency contraceptives, this is rare.

I don't recall. Most anti-choicers are just one homogeneous blur in my memory.

...time to start planning for the future.

See my statement about personal responsibility, which says that aborting if you cannot care for the foetus is a reasonable option.

How do I reconcile that? Because Priority#1 is life, so why would anyone in their right mind force a situation where you'd have 2 deaths instead of only one? Even if the baby would survive and the mo ther not, since we are talking about her survival, then yes it may well be apropriate to terminate the pregnancy to save her.

Every pregnancy has that risk. Some women are not ready to take that risk (and do not say anything about sexual relations, I already made my thoughts about this known earlier in the post). It seems to great especially if they are already a caregiver for someone, even if that someone is an older individual.

You guys aren't going to score any points by trying to make the issue all - or - nothing. I've seen pro-life people make the same mistake by not having any flexibility or common sense. It's what comes of being on the extremes, I guess.

Pro-choice is not extreme. It says, you can either choose to carry or abort. To force a person into either is not right.

You're making a faulty error and that is in your text, you fail to understand that the majority of pro-choicers do not favour abortions past three or four months at the most. We just don't believe in limiting people in their choices.

No one person is like any other and pro-choice recognises that by giving women the choice to make their own decisions about their body instead of binding them to a certain condition. Pro-life and Pro-abortion are the extremes because neither one has the luxury of choice.

Can we please, just for the hell of it, stick to the real world here? Seriously. if a person willingly takes that chance, do you honestly feel they have absolutely *no* responsibility whatsoever? Has your sense of personal responsibility degraded that far?
of course they have responsibility, they have the responsibility to deal with the consequences of their actions, they may realize that a responsible person would abort the pregnancy, and as a responsible person they decide to do that.

of course they have responsibility, they have the responsibility to deal with the consequences of their actions, they may realize that a responsible person would abort the pregnancy, and as a responsible person they decide to do that.
Silly Smunk.

"Personal responsibility" = Carry a pregnancy to term no matter what personal or practical concerns may be involved.

Kind of like how it's always responsible to drive your car at 40 MPH, no matter what the situation!

of course they have responsibility, they have the responsibility to deal with the consequences of their actions, they may realize that a responsible person would abort the pregnancy, and as a responsible person they decide to do that.

I can't agree with that. Escaping responsibility is not simply a different form of responsibility. Finding the easy way out isn't responsibility. Casting oneself as a victim when they made a conscious decision to take that risk isn't responsibility.

Oh sure, that sounds good, and it probably goes a long way to salve the conscience of those who have done it or who support it, but it's smoke and mirrors.

Think about it: What's the motivation? Is a person who seeks an abortion due to, say, a moment of indescretion or carelessness being motivated by a desire to do the right thing, or to "make it go away?" Let's be honest. The answer is generally the latter. How is that responsibility?

Is that how you remember it? Well I guess I'm not really surprised. I've seen your idea of "reality."

if its the thread i'm thinking of, yeah, that's how it went down. i'll go look for it.

Whatever floats your boat. The fact that you said that tells me you have a grossly oversimplified point of view on that one.

no. you are quite simply morally obligated to save the petri dish because it always has more people on it and it is already stipulated that you can get them out alive. if blastocysts are persons, then you must always save the petri dish and let the kid burn to death. unquestionably. is this your position?

I can't agree with that. Escaping responsibility is not simply a different form of responsibility. Finding the easy way out isn't responsibility. Casting oneself as a victim when they made a conscious decision to take that risk isn't responsibility.
mitigating the consequences for those around you due to your own actions is responsibility.

Oh sure, that sounds good, and it probably goes a long way to salve the conscience of those who have done it or who support it, but it's smoke and mirrors.
is it?

Think about it: What's the motivation? Is a person who seeks an abortion due to, say, a moment of indescretion or carelessness being motivated by a desire to do the right thing, or to "make it go away?" Let's be honest. The answer is generally the latter. How is that responsibility?
who says it was carelessness or indiscretion? every woman I know who had an abortion was only concerned with doing the right thing.

Silly Smunk.

"Personal responsibility" = Carry a pregnancy to term no matter what personal or practical concerns may be involved.

Kind of like how it's always responsible to drive your car at 40 MPH, no matter what the situation!

I suppose it's kin to keeping a dog that bites other people instead of having him put down, after all when you bought that puppy you committed to taking care of him until he died naturally, it doesn't matter if he tried to eat the baby next door, I mean what kind of responsible person would kill a dog? :rolleyes:

I can't agree with that. Escaping responsibility is not simply a different form of responsibility. Finding the easy way out isn't responsibility. Casting oneself as a victim when they made a conscious decision to take that risk isn't responsibility.

Oh sure, that sounds good, and it probably goes a long way to salve the conscience of those who have done it or who support it, but it's smoke and mirrors.

Think about it: What's the motivation? Is a person who seeks an abortion due to, say, a moment of indescretion or carelessness being motivated by a desire to do the right thing, or to "make it go away?" Let's be honest. The answer is generally the latter. How is that responsibility?

Overall, 58% of the women having abortions experienced a contraceptive failure; 31% had used a method in the past but were not using one during the month in which they conceived, and 11% had never used any method.

So that means...

...six in 10 women having abortions experienced a contraceptive failure.

http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/prabort2.html

Compared to the indiscretion or "carelessness", the number using contraceptives is quite high. There were precautions taken.

Yes, I'll admit that there are people who use it for what you describe because there are people like that. But that is a clear minority.

There are many who do it because they can admit to themselves they are not ready to be parents, but they do want to in the future. Or they are not able to provide for the child because of a stressful financial situation. The people in question could also have at least one child already and feel it would be detrimental to their child's development if they had another, thus spreading our the household resources more.

There are medical reasons.
Family concerns.
Financial stability.
Career-related ones.

Those are just some more general reasons.

There are far more reasons for seeking an abortion than you could possibly list.

Politicians and anti-choicers are limiting recourse for women by making Family Planning and other agencies widely unavailable. In some states, by keeping abortion extremely limited, if not illegal, the woman is being forced to carry the pregnancy to term.


"Anti-choicers?" Either you're indulging in emotional hyperbole with this, or your perception of the goals of the pro-life movement are way off the mark.

And how is women carrying babies to term a bad thing? I see no problem here.


And as for personal responsibility, it means recognising one's situation and making the choices based on that, and no, sex is NOT solely for procreation. If it was, then why do humans get pleasure and satisfaction out of it? If it was mean for just procreation, then there would be no need for the clitoris or any of the other sensitive parts of the sexual organs.

You're making an incorrect assumption here, at least where I'm concerned. I've never indicated nor believed that the sole purpose of sex was procreation so this argument is preaching to the choir. I've said only that pregnancy is a natural and common result of sex, in response to people's efforts to characterize pregnancy as an injury or accident.


Personal responsibility is NOT just carrying the pregnancy to term. It's making the choice to ensure that the future of all concerned parties is taken into account. This means often putting the humans in the family first, and these are the partner and any possible children that already exist.


There's at least one person whose future is NOT being taken into account, and that happens to be the innocent person whose voice doesn't get heard.

Besides, don't you think it would have been easier to consider those things BEFORE having sex? I mean, are you advocating entering into sexual relations without *any* regard for the possible outcome?


It's not just certain groups of women who seek abortion, plenty of married women do, and probably because they already have at least one if not more kids to care for and another mouth to feed would mean spreading resources thin just so another kid can be brought into this world. If they can support it, great.


There are more constructive ways of dealing with those scenarios. There are state-run programs for assisting families in such need. If the family is part of a church, there are generally church run programs for meeting those needs. There may be other family members or friends who can help, and if necessary, there's always adoption. Any of those is preferable to killing the child


I don't recall. Most anti-choicers are just one homogeneous blur in my memory.

Unfortunate.


See my statement about personal responsibility, which says that aborting if you cannot care for the foetus is a reasonable option.


See above.


Every pregnancy has that risk. Some women are not ready to take that risk (and do not say anything about sexual relations, I already made my thoughts about this known earlier in the post). It seems to great especially if they are already a caregiver for someone, even if that someone is an older individual.


There's a big difference between "normal" levels of risk and high-risk pregnancies or pregnancies where there's a known problem. You can't lump them all together to justify all abortion.


Pro-choice is not extreme. It says, you can either choose to carry or abort. To force a person into either is not right.


When there are laws that say my daughter can't be given a Tylenol at school without my written consent, but it's illegal to inform me if she seeks an abortion, that's pretty damn extreme. When people boo and hiss at politicians for voting against partial birth abortions, in which there are documented cases in which the procedure is done improperly and the baby is killed AFTER leaving the mother's body, that's extreme. (As if that procedure, even when done correctly, weren't extreme enough)


You're making a faulty error and that is in your text, you fail to understand that the majority of pro-choicers do not favour abortions past three or four months at the most. We just don't believe in limiting people in their choices.


I understand that perfectly. The problem is that what I think you guys aren't getting is that pro-life people aren't saying that choice is bad. WHat we're saying is that your right to choose doesn't override someone else's right to live.


No one person is like any other and pro-choice recognises that by giving women the choice to make their own decisions about their body instead of binding them to a certain condition. Pro-life and Pro-abortion are the extremes because neither one has the luxury of choice.

Choice is a wonderful thing but like any right, it's paired with a certain responsibility. In any case, no choice can be considered moral or ethical when it results in someone else's death (unless one's own life is at risk.)

if its the thread i'm thinking of, yeah, that's how it went down. i'll go look for it.



no. you are quite simply morally obligated to save the petri dish because it always has more people on it and it is already stipulated that you can get them out alive. if blastocysts are persons, then you must always save the petri dish and let the kid burn to death. unquestionably. is this your position?

As I recall this is the same tactic you tried before, and patted yourself on the back when I refused to play the silly game. You're consrtucting a scenario that's severely improbable, then arrange circumstances within that scenario to try and create a trap, and when I don't go for the bait, you declare yourself a winner. If that's the sort of tactic you need to resort to, then your argument is feeble indeed.

I answered your question. Time to move on.

I suppose it's kin to keeping a dog that bites other people instead of having him put down, after all when you bought that puppy you committed to taking care of him until he died naturally, it doesn't matter if he tried to eat the baby next door, I mean what kind of responsible person would kill a dog? :rolleyes:

And now you've reduced an innocent human being to the level of a vicious dog.

mitigating the consequences for those around you due to your own actions is responsibility.

That's like commiting a crime then hiding the evidence to mitigate the impact of your going to prison on your family.


is it?

Yep.


who says it was carelessness or indiscretion? every woman I know who had an abortion was only concerned with doing the right thing.

I have a very difficult time believing that. Maybe that's what they told you, or even themselves, but it's naieve to think that someone goes to the abortionist with lofty ideas of nobility and self sacrifice for the greater good.

And now you've reduced an innocent human being to the level of a vicious dog.

And you've raised something with no higher brain functions to the level of an 'innocent human being'. Who is more at fault?

That's like commiting a crime then hiding the evidence to mitigate the impact of your going to prison on your family.


If one is going to commit a crime, yes, one would be stupid and irresponsible to not have some way of getting away with it, no?

Overall, 58% of the women having abortions experienced a contraceptive failure; 31% had used a method in the past but were not using one during the month in which they conceived, and 11% had never used any method.

So that means...

...six in 10 women having abortions experienced a contraceptive failure.

http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/prabort2.html

Compared to the indiscretion or "carelessness", the number using contraceptives is quite high. There were precautions taken.


Will you concede that those precautions were known to be less than 100% reliable? And that some percentage of contraceptive failures were due to their being used incorrectly?


Yes, I'll admit that there are people who use it for what you describe because there are people like that. But that is a clear minority.


I'll concede that people who rely on abortion as a primary form of birth control are in the minority, but that in no way relieves the rest of the responsibility they incur when using a method of birth control that's <100% effective.


There are many who do it because they can admit to themselves they are not ready to be parents, but they do want to in the future. Or they are not able to provide for the child because of a stressful financial situation. The people in question could also have at least one child already and feel it would be detrimental to their child's development if they had another, thus spreading our the household resources more.


All perfectly good reasons to put the baby up for adoption.


There are medical reasons.
Family concerns.
Financial stability.
Career-related ones.

Those are just some more general reasons.

There are far more reasons for seeking an abortion than you could possibly list.

None of the ones you listed justify the taking of a human life except the medical one, which we've discussed already.

And now you've reduced an innocent human being to the level of a vicious dog.
Doing something you don't particularly like to keep others from having to deal with consequences of your actions is what responsible people do. An irresponsible person doesn't care about others.

That's like commiting a crime then hiding the evidence to mitigate the impact of your going to prison on your family.
You have just reduced women all over the world to the status of criminals trying not to get caught.

I have a very difficult time believing that. Maybe that's what they told you, or even themselves, but it's naieve to think that someone goes to the abortionist with lofty ideas of nobility and self sacrifice for the greater good.
fine. I don't have any experience with the type that go to get an abortion for fun or to escape punishment for their evil evil sexcapades.

As I recall this is the same tactic you tried before, and patted yourself on the back when I refused to play the silly game. You're consrtucting a scenario that's severely improbable, then arrange circumstances within that scenario to try and create a trap, and when I don't go for the bait, you declare yourself a winner. If that's the sort of tactic you need to resort to, then your argument is feeble indeed.

I answered your question. Time to move on.

yes, and as we explained last time, the point is that it is a possibility and that it directly tests certain moral claims. if you are uncomfortable with the results of your moral claims in clearly possible circumstances(and more than possible - situations like this actually happen from time to time), then your commitment to those moral claims generally is suspect and should be reexamined.

if it were a choice between saving one actual person or two actual persons, you and me and everybody else will quickly and loudly and obviously save two. standard moral principles say save two persons rather than one when faced with the choice (all else being equal, obviously). the anti-abortion position commits itself to the idea that blastocysts are persons. therefore every single anti-abortion person is morally obligated to save the petri dish rather than the child, and this should pose no problem for them.

my 'trap' is only sprung by the fact that you won't openly proclaim that you will save the petri dish and let the child burn, and do everything in your power to avoid it. and this only works because of a conflict on your end. the only thing that makes it a trap is the empirical fact that one side doesn't actually believe their own statements. if they did, there would be no trap at all, there would merely be disagreement.

And you've raised something with no higher brain functions to the level of an 'innocent human being'. Who is more at fault?


So your definition of a human being includes their intelligence level.


If one is going to commit a crime, yes, one would be stupid and irresponsible to not have some way of getting away with it, no?

You've got to be kidding me.

Doing something you don't particularly like to keep others from having to deal with consequences of your actions is what responsible people do. An irresponsible person doesn't care about others.


None of which supercedes the right of that one individual to live. Killing them is NOT a responsible option.


You have just reduced women all over the world to the status of criminals trying not to get caught.

No, only the ones that kill babies.


fine. I don't have any experience with the type that go to get an abortion for fun or to escape punishment for their evil evil sexcapades.

I'm glad.

So your definition of a human being includes their intelligence level.



You've got to be kidding me.

Well, not quite, definition of a person. Sure a foetus is a human being, but a human being is not necessarily deserving of rights. Why should it be? A person, on the other hand...

Why not? Committing a crime is irresponsible, but it would be more responsible with regards to those around you to hide the evidence. If you were absolutely sure that hiding the evidence would prevent your punishment rather than make things worse. Of course, that doesn't make it right.

Surely you agree that a criminal who commits a crime without planning a way of getting away with it is an idiot, anyway.

None of which supercedes the right of that one individual to live. Killing them is NOT a responsible option.
I'll remember this when I have a choice of whether to kill someone or let them kill me.....they have a right to live. It would be irresponsible of me to infringe on that right.



No, only the ones that kill babies.
what babies? I thought we were talking about embryos.

I'll remember this when I have a choice of whether to kill someone or let them kill me.....they have a right to live. It would be irresponsible of me to infringe on that right.

Yeah, why don't we just cut to the chase on this?

Question to the floor:

Why is it automatically "irresponsible" for a woman to choose to terminate her pregnancy?

Edit: Actually, how about I answer it myself?

The answer is, it's not automatically irresponsible for a woman to choose to have an abortion. Even the most dedicated anti-choicers will typically agree that there are situations in which abortion is the responsible choice. For example, if a woman's pregnancy is totally inviable (i.e. the fetus will definitely not survive) or if both she and the fetus will die if she continues the pregnancy, then most of them will agree it is a responsible choice for her to end the pregnancy.

So if the pregnancy is viable and won't kill the woman, what then makes it "irresponsible" if it wasn't irresponsible in the other situation?

If it's irresponsible for a woman to choose to "escape the consequences" of having sex by choosing an elective abortion, why isn't it equally irresponsible for her to choose to escape the consequences of sex if her pregnancy would kill her? That fatal pregnancy is just as much a "consequence" of her sexual activity as a non-fatal pregnancy, after all. Shouldn't she do the responsible thing and die in childbirth along with her doomed fetus?

And how is women carrying babies to term a bad thing? I see no problem here.

When the women are forced to, it becomes a bad thing; hell, forced abortions are equally as bad because the woman has had her right to choice taken away from her. However, if the pregnancy was voluntary, or even if it wasn't planned but accepted voluntarily then it's a good thing.

You're making an incorrect assumption here, at least where I'm concerned. I've never indicated nor believed that the sole purpose of sex was procreation so this argument is preaching to the choir. I've said only that pregnancy is a natural and common result of sex, in response to people's efforts to characterize pregnancy as an injury or accident.

It's an accident when precautions are taken and all necessary measures were taken in the first place.

Pregnancy can cause injury. While I don't remember the name of the condition, the symptoms are as follows: she loses all feeling from the neck down because of the position of the foetus, which meant there was undue pressure placed on the spine. This does happen. I'm sure Bottle might know the name of the condition.

There's at least one person whose future is NOT being taken into account, and that happens to be the innocent person whose voice doesn't get heard.

It's an egg, not a person!

Besides, don't you think it would have been easier to consider those things BEFORE having sex? I mean, are you advocating entering into sexual relations without *any* regard for the possible outcome?

Which is why there is contraceptive use.

There are more constructive ways of dealing with those scenarios. There are state-run programs for assisting families in such need. If the family is part of a church, there are generally church run programs for meeting those needs. There may be other family members or friends who can help, and if necessary, there's always adoption. Any of those is preferable to killing the child.

Most families wouldn't qualify because of the financial cut-off point. They would not qualify and the bracket would be well below their general income level.

Oh and adoption... sure, clog up a burden system. Nice one.

When there are laws that say my daughter can't be given a Tylenol at school without my written consent, but it's illegal to inform me if she seeks an abortion, that's pretty damn extreme. When people boo and hiss at politicians for voting against partial birth abortions, in which there are documented cases in which the procedure is done improperly and the baby is killed AFTER leaving the mother's body, that's extreme. (As if that procedure, even when done correctly, weren't extreme enough)

Partial abortions typically happen in the 2nd trimester, from week 18.

In 2001, for women whose weeks of gestation at the time of abortion were adequately reported (42 reporting areas), 59% of reported legal induced abortions were known to have been obtained at <8 weeks' gestation and 87% at <13 weeks (Table 6). Overall (40 reporting areas), 25% of abortions were known to have been performed at <6 weeks' gestation, 18% at 7 weeks, and 16% at 8 weeks (Table 7). Few reported abortions occurred after 15 weeks' gestation: 4.2% at 16--20 weeks and 1.4% at >21 weeks.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5309a1.htm

Few if any occur after week 15, which is still in the first trimester, meaning that a partial abortion would not be used in these cases, but rather other methods would be used. If we look at the stats, we realise that only 5.8% of all abortions occur from week 16 and on, with 94.2% seeking abortion from week 15 and earlier.

As for your daughter not informing you... would the pharmacy HAVE to inform you if your daughter bought Tylenol over the counter from them? No. The school only does it because it answers to the parents directly.

While you do have the right to be indignant about the law, it doesn't change that she is able to make her own choices. Even if you don't think it's responsible, it still a choice. An irresponsible choice can also be to keep the child if one is unable to care for it.

I understand that perfectly. The problem is that what I think you guys aren't getting is that pro-life people aren't saying that choice is bad. WHat we're saying is that your right to choose doesn't override someone else's right to live.

We're not talking about murdering a living person, we're talking about abortion. If this was murder, then you'd have a point. Further, if you refer to the stats above, you'll see the vast majority of abortion occur before there is even a need for a partial abortion, so the foetus is lacking many vital aspects of a sentient being.

Choice is a wonderful thing but like any right, it's paired with a certain responsibility. In any case, no choice can be considered moral or ethical when it results in someone else's death (unless one's own life is at risk.)

Responsibility is not just carry to term. It's making the choice based on all the factors.

I'd carry the human if they were unable to move. Hell, I'd help anyone who was living before I even considered the fertilised eggs. Those eggs aren't living beings, the human is.

precisely the point the thought experiment is designed to bring out. and i'll bet that this answer wasn't the result of some agonizing internal moral struggle - it was clear in your moral sentiments and intuitions.

and this is precisely why you see anti-abortion people get all uncomfortable when faced with it, and then start grasping for anything to get them off the horns of this dilemma. we have two very nice examples of this in this very thread. most recently, neo bret's "fertility clinics don't ever catch fire!" and "i'll answer intentionally vaguely despite the grounding of my vagueness already being addressed by the hypothetical." but i liked julianus' method better. "interesting scenario, let me try to distract you with paragraphs of bullshit and then not answer the question, and deny that there ever was a question when pressed."

Yeah, why don't we just cut to the chase on this?

Question to the floor:

Why is it automatically "irresponsible" for a woman to choose to terminate her pregnancy?

because babies are God's punishment on women for having teh sex. *nod* it's so clear now. Women who get abortions are like criminals who are trying to get away without going to jail. Neo said so.

yes, and as we explained last time, the point is that it is a possibility and that it directly tests certain moral claims. if you are uncomfortable with the results of your moral claims in clearly possible circumstances(and more than possible - situations like this actually happen from time to time), then your commitment to those moral claims generally is suspect and should be reexamined.

I reject the claim that this scenario is even possible. More on that to come.


if it were a choice between saving one actual person or two actual persons, you and me and everybody else will quickly and loudly and obviously save two. standard moral principles say save two persons rather than one when faced with the choice (all else being equal, obviously). the anti-abortion position commits itself to the idea that blastocysts are persons. therefore every single anti-abortion person is morally obligated to save the petri dish rather than the child, and this should pose no problem for them.

my 'trap' is only sprung by the fact that you won't openly proclaim that you will save the petri dish and let the child burn, and do everything in your power to avoid it. and this only works because of a conflict on your end. the only thing that makes it a trap is the empirical fact that one side doesn't actually believe their own statements. if they did, there would be no trap at all, there would merely be disagreement.

You misunderstand.

But thanks, by the way, for admitting you're trying to set a trap.

Here's why I won't play your game. You're creating the most improbable of scenarios: A burning lab containing easily accessible and easily identifiable storage media for human embryos, and a trapped person. I'm apparently in this location and able to take action to save one or the other.

For some reason you seem to really want me to say "I'd take the petri dish." I made it clear in my first answer that I'd take whichever, in my judgement, was most likely to survive. Why that doesn't satisfy you I don't know but it makes me suspect your mo tives. Maybe it's because you can't stand a consistent answer and now you're trying to use some sort of logical distortion to make it look like I said the opposite.

The fact is I wouldn't know what sort of devices you store human embryos in, and I doubt I'd know one if I saw it. I'm pretty sure whatever it is would have to be frozen or something, which makes the odds of survival nil if I just snatched them out of the device and walked away in what was, presumably a burning bulding. That means I'm probably dragging the lab assistant out.

Your analogy is stupid and illogical and yet you criticize me because I don't see it in your oversimplified and unrealistic terms. If you're asking me if I'd go for the thermos marked "human embroyos" or the guy stuck under a burning beam, I'd go for the thermos. Is that what you want?

because babies are God's punishment on women for having teh sex. *nod* it's so clear now. Women who get abortions are like criminals who are trying to get away without going to jail. Neo said so.

That's not what I said. In fact, I openly criticized people who go the Go'd judgement route.

If you can't be honest in your answers, don't expect me to take the fall.

precisely the point the thought experiment is designed to bring out. and i'll bet that this answer wasn't the result of some agonizing internal moral struggle - it was clear in your moral sentiments and intuitions.

and this is precisely why you see anti-abortion people get all uncomfortable when faced with it, and then start grasping for anything to get them off the horns of this dilemma. we have two very nice examples of this in this very thread. most recently, neo bret's "fertility clinics don't ever catch fire!" and "i'll answer intentionally vaguely despite the grounding of my vagueness already being addressed by the hypothetical." but i liked julianus' method better. "interesting scenario, let me try to distract you with paragraphs of bullshit and then not answer the question, and deny that there ever was a question when pressed."

No it wasn't. However, if it was worded so that I had to pick between helping different people and only helping one, then I'd admit, there would be a moral dilemma because then you would have to pick between different humans. That would cause a struggle, though in that case, I'd say help the one unable to help themselves at all, whether it be an elderly person or a young child, or a disabled person.

And you know why I answered, because I know what my answer is and I don't have to sacrifice anything to answer. Of course, I would feel bad if someone lost a life in the fire but what matters is getting the people out alive and reducing the loss of actual life.

... neo bret's "fertility clinics don't ever catch fire!"

I never said that. Be honest or clam up.

That's not what I said. In fact, I openly criticized people who go the Go'd judgement route.

If you can't be honest in your answers, don't expect me to take the fall.

That's like commiting a crime then hiding the evidence to mitigate the impact of your going to prison on your family.

I am so sorry that I misrepresented your position.

how about you just answer Bottle's question then?

why is it automatically irresponsible for a woman to abort a pregnancy?

I can't agree with that. Escaping responsibility is not simply a different form of responsibility. Finding the easy way out isn't responsibility.

Neither is pretending that abortion is easy.

Neither is pretending that abortion is easy.
You know, it just occurred to me:

Has anybody else noticed how "pro-life" individuals like NB manage to make abortion seem way better than pregnancy and childbirth?

The way they tell it, having an abortion is the easiest thing in the world, and allows you to escape any and all negative outcomes after sex. (Pregnancy and childbirth, on the other hand, are a horribly difficult punishment that must be endured as penance for the sin of fucking.)

Frankly, they make abortion sound way better than it really is.

I just find that weird.

Will you concede that those precautions were known to be less than 100% reliable? And that some percentage of contraceptive failures were due to their being used incorrectly?

It's a hell of a lot better than not doing anything at all.

Besides, isn't there s poster here who used a condom AND birth control pills who did get pregnant? Smunk, right?

I'll concede that people who rely on abortion as a primary form of birth control are in the minority, but that in no way relieves the rest of the responsibility they incur when using a method of birth control that's <100% effective.

They have attempted to take personal responsibility. But life is unpredictable. It would be like saying, even though the people in the car did up their seat belts and drove the speed limit, they still got killed. They did their part responsibly but chance messed up that.

All perfectly good reasons to put the baby up for adoption.

And the chances of it finding a good home are...? Especially when the system is already woefully crowded.

None of the ones you listed justify the taking of a human life except the medical one, which we've discussed already.

The life is not a life until it has left the body.

223. (1) A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not

(a) it has breathed;

(b) it has an independent circulation; or

(c) the navel string is severed.

CoC - Life Begins (http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowDoc/cs/C-46/bo-ga:l_VIII::bo-ga:l_IX//en?page=6&isPrinting=false#codese:223)

I'll remember this when I have a choice of whether to kill someone or let them kill me.....they have a right to live. It would be irresponsible of me to infringe on that right.

what babies? I thought we were talking about embryos.

I can always tell when I've been debating for several pages when people start responding to items I've already addressed. In this case, I've already pointed out that there are exceptions when life is at stake, and I've also addressed the silliness of using semantics to redefine the subject.

Please go back and read where I've addressed this.


Why is it automatically "irresponsible" for a woman to choose to terminate her pregnancy?


Because it forces someone else to bear the consequence. Namely, the unborn child, by making them pay the ultimate price.


If it's irresponsible for a woman to choose to "escape the consequences" of having sex by choosing an elective abortion, why isn't it equally irresponsible for her to choose to escape the consequences of sex if her pregnancy would kill her? That fatal pregnancy is just as much a "consequence" of her sexual activity as a non-fatal pregnancy, after all. Shouldn't she do the responsible thing and die in childbirth along with her doomed fetus?


If you've been paying attention to the prior answers I've offered on this, then the answer to your question should be obvious: Namely, there's a difference between pregnancy and injury.

If you truly want to understand what I'm getting at, put out of your mind the notion that somehow pregnancy is a punishment. I know some people see it that way but I've never advanced that idea and I've been openly critical of it. It's stupid, which most people do realize and I suspect it's why you keep ascribing it to me in an attempt to make me look foolish.


It's an accident when precautions are taken and all necessary measures were taken in the first place.

It may have been an accident to you, but not to your body. I assure you, the female body gets pregnant deliberately whenever it possibly can.


Pregnancy can cause injury. While I don't remember the name of the condition, the symptoms are as follows: she loses all feeling from the neck down because of the position of the foetus, which meant there was undue pressure placed on the spine. This does happen. I'm sure Bottle might know the name of the condition.


Then we're talking about a different situation, aren't we?


It's an egg, not a person!


Once it's fertilized it's not an egg anymore, just fyi.


Most families wouldn't qualify because of the financial cut-off point. They would not qualify and the bracket would be well below their general income level.

How do you know that?


Oh and adoption... sure, clog up a burden system. Nice one.


Yeah people talk a lot about the overburdened adoption system and yet we often hear about couples who are clamoring for the chance to adopt.


Partial abortions typically happen in the 2nd trimester, from week 18.

In 2001, for women whose weeks of gestation at the time of abortion were adequately reported (42 reporting areas), 59% of reported legal induced abortions were known to have been obtained at <8 weeks' gestation and 87% at <13 weeks (Table 6). Overall (40 reporting areas), 25% of abortions were known to have been performed at <6 weeks' gestation, 18% at 7 weeks, and 16% at 8 weeks (Table 7). Few reported abortions occurred after 15 weeks' gestation: 4.2% at 16--20 weeks and 1.4% at >21 weeks.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5309a1.htm

Few if any occur after week 15, which is still in the first trimester, meaning that a partial abortion would not be used in these cases, but rather other methods would be used. If we look at the stats, we realise that only 5.8% of all abortions occur from week 16 and on, with 94.2% seeking abortion from week 15 and earlier.

So your point is...?


As for your daughter not informing you... would the pharmacy HAVE to inform you if your daughter bought Tylenol over the counter from them? No. The school only does it because it answers to the parents directly.


But we're not talking about buying anything over the counter. We're talking about medical care, however small, administered by a professional.


While you do have the right to be indignant about the law, it doesn't change that she is able to make her own choices. Even if you don't think it's responsible, it still a choice. An irresponsible choice can also be to keep the child if one is unable to care for it.


We're talking about a minor. You know, someone who you can be arrested for sleeping with precisely because at that age they're not considered able to make such choices.


We're not talking about murdering a living person, we're talking about abortion. If this was murder, then you'd have a point. Further, if you refer to the stats above, you'll see the vast majority of abortion occur before there is even a need for a partial abortion, so the foetus is lacking many vital aspects of a sentient being.


Now we're getting to the meat of the subject: whether the action is killing a human. Because I think we'd mostly agree that if it is indeed killing a human being, it is then murder. So I ask you: Where do you draw the line?


Responsibility is not just carry to term. It's making the choice based on all the factors.

One of those factors outweights all others: life.

Because it forces someone else to bear the consequence. Namely, the unborn child, by making them pay the ultimate price.

Somebody else will most likely be forced to bear the consequences if she carries to term. For instance, the infant's father might be forced to help support the child. Or perhaps her parents will be forced to help care for it. If the mother, like a great many women who seek abortions, already has at least one child, then her existing child(ren) will have to bear the consequences as well. Indeed, the "unborn child" itself will have to bear the consequences if it is carried to term.


If you've been paying attention to the prior answers I've offered on this, then the answer to your question should be obvious: Namely, there's a difference between pregnancy and injury.

I know you've said that. Why?


If you truly want to understand what I'm getting at, put out of your mind the notion that somehow pregnancy is a punishment. I know some people see it that way but I've never advanced that idea and I've been openly critical of it. It's stupid, which most people do realize and I suspect it's why you keep ascribing it to me in an attempt to make me look foolish.

You assert that a woman must "bear the consequences" of a pregnancy by carrying it to term, otherwise she is being irresponsible. You have not explained why it suddenly becomes responsible for her to end the pregnancy simply to save her own physical health. That, too, is forcing the "unborn child" to bear the consequences of her actions, yet you excuse it. Why?

A normal, "healthy" pregnancy will cause injury to the woman's body. This is a medical fact that is undisputed. So, clearly, you are quite comfortable asking women to endure injury for the sake of maintaining a pregnancy, but only up to a certain point. Why? How do you set the point at which it become acceptable for a woman to terminate her pregnancy to avoid injury?


It may have been an accident to you, but not to your body. I assure you, the female body gets pregnant deliberately whenever it possibly can.

Actually, no, it doesn't. The female body rejects the majority of fertilized eggs. The female body also rejects a significant number of pregnancies all by itself.


Once it's fertilized it's not an egg anymore, just fyi.

The term "fertilized egg" is medically correct, just FYI.

So your definition of a human being includes their intelligence level.

Now you know you are twisting things intentionally. There is a difference between the presence of higher brain function and any given level of intelligence.

Yes, a single outpatient procedure is comparable to 9 months of massive physical change and/or 18 years of providing for another human being.

See, there you go again, making abortion seem like the best possible choice.

Neither is pretending that abortion is easy.

You know, it just occurred to me:

Has anybody else noticed how "pro-life" individuals like NB manage to make abortion seem way better than pregnancy and childbirth?

The way they tell it, having an abortion is the easiest thing in the world, and allows you to escape any and all negative outcomes after sex. (Pregnancy and childbirth, on the other hand, are a horribly difficult punishment that must be endured as penance for the sin of fucking.)

Frankly, they make abortion sound way better than it really is.

I just find that weird.

Yes, a single outpatient procedure is comparable to 9 months of massive physical change and/or 18 years of providing for another human being.

It's a hell of a lot better than not doing anything at all.

Besides, isn't there s poster here who used a condom AND birth control pills who did get pregnant? Smunk, right?

So do you concede the point or no?


They have attempted to take personal responsibility. But life is unpredictable. It would be like saying, even though the people in the car did up their seat belts and drove the speed limit, they still got killed. They did their part responsibly but chance messed up that.


Which goes back to the injury analogy.


And the chances of it finding a good home are...? Especially when the system is already woefully crowded.


I addressed that in my other post.


The life is not a life until it has left the body.

223. (1) A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not

(a) it has breathed;

(b) it has an independent circulation; or

(c) the navel string is severed.

CoC - Life Begins (http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowDoc/cs/C-46/bo-ga:l_VIII::bo-ga:l_IX//en?page=6&isPrinting=false#codese:223)

OK that's what the law says, which is beside the point because we all already know that. I assert that the law is in error. Do you personally believe that life begins at birth?

Now you know you are twisting things intentionally. There is a difference between the presence of higher brain function and any given level of intelligence.

Alright then, would you support abortion after the point at which it's known that there is brain activity in the fetus?

Now you know you are twisting things intentionally. There is a difference between the presence of higher brain function and any given level of intelligence.

evidenced by.......never mind *leaves*

It may have been an accident to you, but not to your body. I assure you, the female body gets pregnant deliberately whenever it possibly can.

Then if it could, why does the return of the menstrual cycle get delayed by breast feeding?

Then we're talking about a different situation, aren't we?

It happened though.

Once it's fertilized it's not an egg anymore, just fyi.

Ok, then, let me ask you something then... slight OT but I'm curious, if a cute little girl bird had its raunchy birdie sex with the cute little boy bird, you know, feathers flying and a lot of squawking with it, then it laid an egg, that egg would be fertilised, do you call it an egg or something else?

Because the fertilized human egg is an egg until it plants itself and the cell multiplies into two... But even then, it's still non-decript cells, stem cells as it were, with no define purpose yet.

Yeah people talk a lot about the overburdened adoption system and yet we often hear about couples who are clamoring for the chance to adopt.

Here is the problem. The background checks leave the children trapped in the system. Thus it gets overcrowded and potential parents are stuck having o wait for a long time, while the child wastes away, languishing in the limbo that is being a ward of the state.

Even if there are people wanting children, there are still many children in the system, many older ones because couples opt for younger children and even infants if they can.

But we're not talking about buying anything over the counter. We're talking about medical care, however small, administered by a professional.

A licensed pharmacist is a professional and is instrumental in the healing process.

We're talking about a minor. You know, someone who you can be arrested for sleeping with precisely because at that age they're not considered able to make such choices.

So minors of age of consent, sleeping with other minors in the same bracket would be arrested?

Now we're getting to the meat of the subject: whether the action is killing a human. Because I think we'd mostly agree that if it is indeed killing a human being, it is then murder. So I ask you: Where do you draw the line?

I draw the line after the first trimester because the number of miscarriages drastically drops, and by this point, the woman will know if she is able to carry the pregnancy to term. That's my opinion.

Somebody else will most likely be forced to bear the consequences if she carries to term. For instance, the infant's father might be forced to help support the child.

Good. He should.


Or perhaps her parents will be forced to help care for it.


Forced by whom?


If the mother, like a great many women who seek abortions, already has at least one child, then her existing child(ren) will have to bear the consequences as well.

I know we don't always get along with younger siblings but jeez...

;)


Indeed, the "unborn child" itself will have to bear the consequences if it is carried to term.


Life.


I know you've said that. Why?

I posted it earlier.


You assert that a woman must "bear the consequences" of a pregnancy by carrying it to term, otherwise she is being irresponsible. You have not explained why it suddenly becomes responsible for her to end the pregnancy simply to save her own physical health. That, too, is forcing the "unborn child" to bear the consequences of her actions, yet you excuse it. Why?

A normal, "healthy" pregnancy will cause injury to the woman's body. This is a medical fact that is undisputed. So, clearly, you are quite comfortable asking women to endure injury for the sake of maintaining a pregnancy, but only up to a certain point. Why? How do you set the point at which it become acceptable for a woman to terminate her pregnancy to avoid injury?


Change isn't necessarily injury.


Actually, no, it doesn't. The female body rejects the majority of fertilized eggs. The female body also rejects a significant number of pregnancies all by itself.

Correct. Now tell us why.


The term "fertilized egg" is medically correct, just FYI.

I didn't say "fertilized egg."

It may have been an accident to you, but not to your body. I assure you, the female body gets pregnant deliberately whenever it possibly can.

Does it now? You do realize that the only reason the woman's immune system doesn't attack the embryo is that it sends out signals to stop that from happening, right? You are aware that many embryos fail to implant? That approximately half of all pregnancies never make it to term and that most of those end before the woman even knows she is pregnant?

If the woman's body were "trying to get pregnant deliberately", it would happen a whole lot more often and would be a much more efficient process.

Yeah people talk a lot about the overburdened adoption system and yet we often hear about couples who are clamoring for the chance to adopt.

Because they sit and wait for a healthy, race-matched, newborn, rather than adopting any of the numerous children already in the system.

Abortion is murder , the unborn should have the right to live.

Abortion is murder , the unborn should have the right to live.

Ah, the large bolded text approach to debating. Classic.

Alright then, would you support abortion after the point at which it's known that there is brain activity in the fetus?

I rarely support abortion at all. If you are asking whether or not I support legal access to elective abortion at that point, the answer is that I largely support the current legal stance on this. While it doesn't line up exactly, the end result is that, once higher order brain function is present, a woman cannot get an elective abortion.

Of course, if she needs a medical abortion or there are significant chromosomal defects that will prevent the resulting child from having a life of anything other than pain, I absolutely support her right to have one - and to have doctors able to choose the best possible procedure for her particular case.

I reject the claim that this scenario is even possible. More on that to come.
...
Here's why I won't play your game. You're creating the most improbable of scenarios: A burning lab containing easily accessible and easily identifiable storage media for human embryos, and a trapped person. I'm apparently in this location and able to take action to save one or the other.

which part is logically impossible?

For some reason you seem to really want me to say "I'd take the petri dish." I made it clear in my first answer that I'd take whichever, in my judgement, was most likely to survive. Why that doesn't satisfy you I don't know but it makes me suspect your mo tives.

no, i want you to answer the damn question. the scenario already covers the determination of survival likelihood - you can save either but not both. whatever you save gets to not die in the fire, whatever you don't does die in the fire. choose.

The fact is I wouldn't know what sort of devices you store human embryos in, and I doubt I'd know one if I saw it.

you took a class.
do hypothetical test cases really confuse you this much? i doubt it.

If you're asking me if I'd go for the thermos marked "human embroyos" or the guy stuck under a burning beam, I'd go for the thermos. Is that what you want?

ok, good, progress. now, rather than some guy stuck under a burning beam (greatly adding to your own risk of death and therefore complicating the test), how about the actual scenario in question, which involves a scared little kid who just needs to be grabbed to get to safety?

A few points to bring to the table here
1. Abortion isn't and shall never be murder because officially the baby isn't alive until it has come out of the womb as is such you can only murder things that are alive
2. Abortion should sometimes to up o the parents but only if they are deemed fit to raise the baby.
3. If they are not fit to raise the baby but aren't willing to give it up then abortion should be a option that can be forced. The baby can be taken away so why not aborted.
4. If abortion was outlawed then thousands upon thousands of children would be abandoned all over the world this is not fair for the child to live this way. The child should therefore be allowed to be aborted and born into a family who can take care off it. (thats where it gets weird not born there born somewhere else)
5. Religions can sometimes be as bad as a dictatorship telling what you can and cannot do, what you can and cannot eat and that you have to give birth to your child even if you are unfit to take care off it. Religion assumes that those who follow it are perfect but no-one's perfect.
6. Sometimes things supersede religions because a child should not be placed in an unfit home. But as such if you follow your religion and give birth to your baby your are then failing not only your religion but yourself and the baby by having it taken off of you.
Sometimes you have to do things that feel bad for the greater good off all. No baby should have to live in suffering pain and neglect. So in conclusion i am and always will be pro abortion as no one should have to suffer defenselessly.

Does it now? You do realize that the only reason the woman's immune system doesn't attack the embryo is that it sends out signals to stop that from happening, right? You are aware that many embryos fail to implant? That approximately half of all pregnancies never make it to term and that most of those end before the woman even knows she is pregnant?

If the woman's body were "trying to get pregnant deliberately", it would happen a whole lot more often and would be a much more efficient process.


Yah pregnancy is so very rare, it's a wonder any of us were even born.

Do you ever ask yourself why those things happen, or are you only interested in them as far as you think they prove a point?


Because they sit and wait for a healthy, race-matched, newborn, rather than adopting any of the numerous children already in the system.
[/quote]

How do you support that assumption?

I rarely support abortion at all. If you are asking whether or not I support legal access to elective abortion at that point, the answer is that I largely support the current legal stance on this. While it doesn't line up exactly, the end result is that, once higher order brain function is present, a woman cannot get an elective abortion.


Don't you mean, once higher order brain function is detected?

The arbitrary cut off date varies by state. What do YOU believe? No dodging.


Of course, if she needs a medical abortion or there are significant chromosomal defects that will prevent the resulting child from having a life of anything other than pain, I absolutely support her right to have one - and to have doctors able to choose the best possible procedure for her particular case.

This is beside the point. I think everybody agrees that abortions are sometimes apropriate for medical reasons.

which part is logically impossible?

no, i want you to answer the damn question. the scenario already covers the determination of survival likelihood - you can save either but not both. whatever you save gets to not die in the fire, whatever you don't does die in the fire. choose.


I already answered the damn question. Repeatedly. Just because you either fail to understand the answer or just plain don't like it doesn't somehow obligate me to play your goofy game.

I've only humored you to this point because of a sort of clinical curiosity about you and what it is you think you'll get by continuing to ask. Are you trying to get me to reveal some kind of moral ambiguity by saying that I'd always save the lab assistant? Perhaps you want to paint me as unrealistic or dishonest by getting me to say I'd always go for the embryo-box. Since neither answer is apropriate or honest, I gave you one that was. You don't like that answer.

Tough.

A few points to bring to the table here
1. Abortion isn't and shall never be murder because officially the baby isn't alive until it has come out of the womb as is such you can only murder things that are alive

That's a simple re-statement of your side's postion.


2. Abortion should sometimes to up o the parents but only if they are deemed fit to raise the baby.
3. If they are not fit to raise the baby but aren't willing to give it up then abortion should be a option that can be forced. The baby can be taken away so why not aborted.


So you'd support forced abortions. I think that's even further left than most of the posters on here.


4. If abortion was outlawed then thousands upon thousands of children would be abandoned all over the world this is not fair for the child to live this way. The child should therefore be allowed to be aborted and born into a family who can take care off it. (thats where it gets weird not born there born somewhere else)

Yes, better to die in pieces than to live unhappy. Let's be proactive about this. Let's round up all the world's oprhans and give them a dignified mercy killing.


5. Religions can sometimes be as bad as a dictatorship telling what you can and cannot do, what you can and cannot eat and that you have to give birth to your child even if you are unfit to take care off it. Religion assumes that those who follow it are perfect but no-one's perfect.


Spoken like someone who doesn't understand religion


6. Sometimes things supersede religions because a child should not be placed in an unfit home. But as such if you follow your religion and give birth to your baby your are then failing not only your religion but yourself and the baby by having it taken off of you.

Moral platitudes from someone who endorses state-enforced abortion.


Sometimes you have to do things that feel bad for the greater good off all. No baby should have to live in suffering pain and neglect. So in conclusion i am and always will be pro abortion as no one should have to suffer defenselessly.

Kill the suffering, is that your goal?

Abortion is murder , the unborn should have the right to live.

I assume this statement takes one of two paths.
1.) Spiritual - Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Leviticus 17:10-12 Life of the flesh is in the blood.

It appears that the bible (admittedly 1 of many spiritual resources) is cloudy regarding definition, as God obviously knew the being prior to fertilization, but did not define life until the infusion of blood, which happens long after fertilization.

2.) Individual Rights - Basically, you have to believe that, given the assumption that both individuals are existing, that one "right" will be interfered with. The assumption that the fertilized "being?" has greater rights, as simply a resource user, in comparison to the mother, resource user and provider, seems strange. The argument that only the fertilized "being" has been violated is weak at best, as the mother's desire was enjoyment, not pregnancy. The fact that the fertilized "being" forcefully infringed on the mother, without her consent, would appear to be ample reason to justify the response. Unless, of course, you believe that all women who have sex without fertilization should be imprisoned, based on involuntary manslaughter.

Personally, while I understand the difficulty with the decision, I don't believe the government should be involved in the outcome, unless you consider the "being" to be an illegal immigrant, in which case it should certainly be deported until valid citizenship is established!

it is my firm belief that the person is alive at the moment the cells begin to divide, if not sooner at the point of conception.

"if it isn't alive now, then its alright to kill it so that it will not be alive later, even though we know it will be alive soon."

that is one of the pro-abortion arguments that i just find ignorant and quite short-sighted. just because its not alive now, doesnt mean it justifies denying the chance for life.

just fore the record, i am pro-choice, but highly against... if that makes any sense...

3. If they are not fit to raise the baby but aren't willing to give it up then abortion should be a option that can be forced. The baby can be taken away so why not aborted.

Absolutely not. Forced abortion is no better than forced pregnancy.


Yah pregnancy is so very rare, it's a wonder any of us were even born.

Twisting again. You said that a woman's body tries to get pregnant as much as possible. This simply isn't true. If it were, a sexually active woman not using birth control would be pregnant constantly.

Do you ever ask yourself why those things happen, or are you only interested in them as far as you think they prove a point?

My dear, I study biology. Of course I ask why those things happen.

How do you support that assumption?

The fact the waiting list for adopting a newborn is miles long while older children often sit in the system until they are 18 and the fact that a sickly newborn is unlikely to get adopted, and thus likely to stay in the system (as are non-white newborns).

There are those out there willing to adopt a sick, older, minority-ethnicity child, but most such children sit in they system for years.

Don't you mean, once higher order brain function is detected?

Essentially, yes, since that's the point at which we can conclude that it is present.

The arbitrary cut off date varies by state. What do YOU believe? No dodging.

The cut off date does vary, but it is always around 20 weeks. Based on everything I've read on the subject, 20-22 weeks is when that function develops.

This is beside the point. I think everybody agrees that abortions are sometimes apropriate for medical reasons.

Perhaps, but you've made it quite clear that you don't think a woman's doctor should be able to choose the best possible procedure for her case.

Yah pregnancy is so very rare, it's a wonder any of us were even born.

How on earth is "rare" the opposite of "deliberate"? Dem stated, accurately, that women's bodies do not "deliberately get pregnant," contrary to your assertion. That doesn't mean pregnancy is rare. Sinus infections are also not rare, but that hardly makes them something your body "deliberately" sets out to acquire.




How do you support that assumption?

Oh, I don't know, possibly the overwhelming numbers of non-white children currently in the foster system?



Don't you mean, once higher order brain function is detected?


It doesn't exactly take a lot of detection to figure out that, for example, embryos that have not yet developed anything resembling a brain do not have higher order brain function. Would you agree that pregnancies at that stage can be aborted, or is arguing over the precise point at which other people consider abortion morally reasonable or unreasonable simply a pointless digression?


I already answered the damn question. Repeatedly. Just because you either fail to understand the answer or just plain don't like it doesn't somehow obligate me to play your goofy game.

I've only humored you to this point because of a sort of clinical curiosity about you and what it is you think you'll get by continuing to ask. Are you trying to get me to reveal some kind of moral ambiguity by saying that I'd always save the lab assistant? Perhaps you want to paint me as unrealistic or dishonest by getting me to say I'd always go for the embryo-box. Since neither answer is apropriate or honest, I gave you one that was. You don't like that answer.

Tough.

...you didn't actually answer the question, and, honestly, your resentment of this is rather telling. There are threads here all the time with topics along the lines of "If a meteor was going to hit the earth tomorrow, what would you do today?" or "If a genie granted you three wishes, what would you pick?" Those scenarios are a great deal less plausible than having to choose to save a petri dish of embryos or a live human child, but somehow no one seems to object to them.


So you'd support forced abortions. I think that's even further left than most of the posters on here.

No, not at all. The "far-left" position would be that of absolute right to choice, not "abort them all." The latter is unambiguously a highly authoritarian position. The spectrum from right to left isn't "boo abortion" to "yay abortion," but "abortion is not a matter of individual choice" to "abortion is most certainly a matter of individual choice."

I also disagree wholeheartedly with Demogora on this one, but I at least respect that he/she is trying to look out for the welfare of potential children, something with which most pro-lifers rarely seem concerned.


Yes, better to die in pieces than to live unhappy. Let's be proactive about this. Let's round up all the world's oprhans and give them a dignified mercy killing.

No, better never to have lived in the first place than to live in misery.



Spoken like someone who doesn't understand religion

He/she said "sometimes." Do you really want to argue that no interpretation of religion, ever, is as authoritarian and unforgiving as what Demogora has described?


Kill the suffering, is that your goal?

I think it's pretty clear that the goal was "prevent suffering," which I hardly see as an unreasonable goal. As I stated before, I disagree that forced abortion is the proper way to accomplish said goal, though.

A few points to bring to the table here
1. Abortion isn't and shall never be murder because officially the baby isn't alive until it has come out of the womb as is such you can only murder things that are alive

While I agree with you in theory, I do believe that once the first trimester has passed then the woman has made her choice to keep the foetus. After that it begins to become more human-like and displays signs of a sentient being.

If only living things can be murdered, what of abortion at the later stages of the third trimester when the last of the foetus' feature develop, the features, which are not inclusive of the vital organs as those have developed already? Surely there does reach a point where it's better to just do an early delivery rather than force an abortion. (This is my stance - what other do is not my business).

2. Abortion should sometimes to up o the parents but only if they are deemed fit to raise the baby.
3. If they are not fit to raise the baby but aren't willing to give it up then abortion should be a option that can be forced. The baby can be taken away so why not aborted.

Forcing women to have an abortion is just as abhorrent as forcing women to carry a pregnancy to term.

Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. Some people are not perfect parents but they try their best.

4. If abortion was outlawed then thousands upon thousands of children would be abandoned all over the world this is not fair for the child to live this way. The child should therefore be allowed to be aborted and born into a family who can take care off it. (thats where it gets weird not born there born somewhere else)

Not necessarily. What is the more likely thing to happen would be a rise in the number of women seeking "coat-hanger" abortions as well as using methods to force a miscarriage of the foetus, often in very unsafe environments at the risk of their own lives.

Yes there would be a rise in the number of dumpster babies but the more important thing would be like I stated in the last paragraph.

5. Religions can sometimes be as bad as a dictatorship telling what you can and cannot do, what you can and cannot eat and that you have to give birth to your child even if you are unfit to take care off it. Religion assumes that those who follow it are perfect but no-one's perfect.

Religion does not assume the followers are perfect but it raises its followers above the infidels as the followers have attempted to make amends and cleanse their souls of the sins that exist within that religion.

6. Sometimes things supersede religions because a child should not be placed in an unfit home. But as such if you follow your religion and give birth to your baby your are then failing not only your religion but yourself and the baby by having it taken off of you.

What exactly is an unfit home? Religion (most people know my anti-religion stance but this is not of concern here) has nothing to do with it, unless it is in some way endangering the child's welfare. Can you clarify this?

Sometimes you have to do things that feel bad for the greater good off all. No baby should have to live in suffering pain and neglect. So in conclusion i am and always will be pro abortion as no one should have to suffer defenselessly.

You should change it so no one person has to suffer the pain of neglect.

Somehow being pro-abortion seems very extreme like being pro-life.

Twisting again. You said that a woman's body tries to get pregnant as much as possible. This simply isn't true. If it were, a sexually active woman not using birth control would be pregnant constantly.


Not twisting at all. Just getting to the heart of the matter. More on that in a second.


My dear, I study biology. Of course I ask why those things happen.


Very good. Now what have you concluded?


The fact the waiting list for adopting a newborn is miles long while older children often sit in the system until they are 18 and the fact that a sickly newborn is unlikely to get adopted, and thus likely to stay in the system (as are non-white newborns).

Is that a fact? You know, if our positions were reversed, by now you'd be demanding loads of proof to back up every assertion I made to this effect. Don't worry though, I won't ask you to. As you know, I never get involved in the "my source is better than yours" game. Instead, I'll remind you that people are going outside the country to non-caucasian nations to adopt.


Essentially, yes, since that's the point at which we can conclude that it is present.

The cut off date does vary, but it is always around 20 weeks. Based on everything I've read on the subject, 20-22 weeks is when that function develops.

Alright so in short, you're okay with elective abortions at or before 20 weeks or so?


Perhaps, but you've made it quite clear that you don't think a woman's doctor should be able to choose the best possible procedure for her case.

Of course. A doctor's role is to provide options, then the patient makes a decision.

How on earth is "rare" the opposite of "deliberate"? Dem stated, accurately, that women's bodies do not "deliberately get pregnant," contrary to your assertion. That doesn't mean pregnancy is rare. Sinus infections are also not rare, but that hardly makes them something your body "deliberately" sets out to acquire.


Of course they get pregnant on purpose. When Dem answers my above questions, I'll explain where I'm going with this. (Although anyone who has been honestly paying attention to my words should be able to anticipate it quite easily.)



Oh, I don't know, possibly the overwhelming numbers of non-white children currently in the foster system?


See above.



It doesn't exactly take a lot of detection to figure out that, for example, embryos that have not yet developed anything resembling a brain do not have higher order brain function. Would you agree that pregnancies at that stage can be aborted, or is arguing over the precise point at which other people consider abortion morally reasonable or unreasonable simply a pointless digression?


It's a digression, actually. Thank you for pointing that out, although I am hoping to see just how much faith people have in arbitrary dates and how much of their personal sense of morality is tied to technological development.


...you didn't actually answer the question, and, honestly, your resentment of this is rather telling. There are threads here all the time with topics along the lines of "If a meteor was going to hit the earth tomorrow, what would you do today?" or "If a genie granted you three wishes, what would you pick?" Those scenarios are a great deal less plausible than having to choose to save a petri dish of embryos or a live human child, but somehow no one seems to object to them.

Correction: I didn't answer the way you want me to. And I don't resent it, much as you may want o ascribe that attribute to me. The fact is, and I've said this over and over, I'm not playing the game. I answered it, then answered again with more detail. If you don't like those answers then it's not my job to accomodate you.


No, not at all. The "far-left" position would be that of absolute right to choice, not "abort them all." The latter is unambiguously a highly authoritarian position. The spectrum from right to left isn't "boo abortion" to "yay abortion," but "abortion is not a matter of individual choice" to "abortion is most certainly a matter of individual choice."


Depends on how much statism is mixed in, doen't it? And a high degree of statism is a trademark of the left. It's the part that makes Libertarians look like conservatives.


I also disagree wholeheartedly with Demogora on this one, but I at least respect that he/she is trying to look out for the welfare of potential children, something with which most pro-lifers rarely seem concerned.


Not concerned at all, noooo. Just trying to save their lives is all. Not that that counts for much, right?


No, better never to have lived in the first place than to live in misery.


Yeah? And who are you to decide that for someone else?


He/she said "sometimes." Do you really want to argue that no interpretation of religion, ever, is as authoritarian and unforgiving as what Demogora has described?


You'd be surprised.


I think it's pretty clear that the goal was "prevent suffering," which I hardly see as an unreasonable goal. As I stated before, I disagree that forced abortion is the proper way to accomplish said goal, though.

Again, who are you to decide that? Do you really think yourself qualified to judge who should live and who should die based on what you think of their chances for happiness? You criticize me and my side of the argument by suggesting that we don't want people to have the freedom of choice and yet you'd advocate this kind of drivel?

Abortion is murder , the unborn should have the right to live.

How dare you!

........................

How dare you ASSUME......


That I am actually AGAINST......


murder.......

:p

Very good. Now what have you concluded?

About what, exactly? There were several different events discussed there. If we're talking about miscarriages and failures to implant, the exact reasons often simply aren't known.

If we're talking about the fact that the embryo sends out signals to prevent the mother's immune system from attacking it, I'm not sure what kind of conclusion you're asking for. One could hardly suggest, however, that this is the mother's body "trying" to get pregnant. It is, instead, the cells of the embryo altering the reaction of the mother's body.

Is that a fact?

As far as I can tell, yes.

Alright so in short, you're okay with elective abortions at or before 20 weeks or so?

I'm ok with them being legal, yes.

Of course. A doctor's role is to provide options, then the patient makes a decision.

And yet you support removing an option from those the doctor can provide.

Not concerned at all, noooo. Just trying to save their lives is all. Not that that counts for much, right?

When "saving their lives" means "graciously allowing them a life of poverty, abuse, abandonment, and utter misery, which I shall do nothing whatsoever to alleviate," then, no, I don't think that counts for much at all. (Now, I don't know if this is your position. It is, however, quite unambiguously the position of a lot of pro-lifers I've talked to on these forums.)



Yeah? And who are you to decide that for someone else?

I'm just going to let this question sit here and see if you notice the irony of it.



You'd be surprised.

Erm, no, I wouldn't. I know exceedingly devout people who are incredibly generous, nice, and loving, and I know exceedingly devout people who are raving assholes. Fred Phelps and his "if you're gay, you'll burn in hell forever while I dance for joy" rhetoric springs to mind as an easy example of the latter.


Again, who are you to decide that? Do you really think yourself qualified to judge who should live and who should die based on what you think of their chances for happiness? You criticize me and my side of the argument by suggesting that we don't want people to have the freedom of choice and yet you'd advocate this kind of drivel?

Nope, I don't think myself qualified to judge "who should live and who should die." Did you miss the part where I explicitly stated, twice, that I don't agree with the idea of forcing women to have abortions against their will as a method of preventing suffering?

...you didn't actually answer the question, and, honestly, your resentment of this is rather telling.

indeed. its not like the question is ambiguous. it's so very very simple, yet neo bret will go for ages trying to avoid directly answering - to the point of just making up different scenarios to answer instead.

About what, exactly? There were several different events discussed there. If we're talking about miscarriages and failures to implant, the exact reasons often simply aren't known.

Would you consider it unreasonable to hypothesize that there may be some sort of flaw or defect in the embryo, and that the miscarriage or failure to implant may be a natural way of weeding them out?


If we're talking about the fact that the embryo sends out signals to prevent the mother's immune system from attacking it, I'm not sure what kind of conclusion you're asking for. One could hardly suggest, however, that this is the mother's body "trying" to get pregnant. It is, instead, the cells of the embryo altering the reaction of the mother's body.


And yet the mother's body nourishes the child, protects it by allowing nutrients to pass to the child first. You see a parasite, I see a symbiote.


As far as I can tell, yes.

So you say.


I'm ok with them being legal, yes.

That's not what I asked you. I am asking you whether you personally are okay with it.


And yet you support removing an option from those the doctor can provide.
Not in cases where it's medically necessary, as I've stated ad nauseam.

Correction: I didn't answer the way you want me to. And I don't resent it, much as you may want o ascribe that attribute to me. The fact is, and I've said this over and over, I'm not playing the game. I answered it, then answered again with more detail. If you don't like those answers then it's not my job to accomodate you.

i've got 10 internets for the person who can tell me based on what has already been written which 'persons' neo bret will save from the fire, the child or the two blastocysts on the petri dish.

i've got 10 internets for the person who can tell me based on what has already been written which 'persons' neo bret will save from the fire, the child or the two blastocysts on the petri dish.

I'll venture to say that, based on what has already been written, Neo Bretonnia would save the child from the fire because he is a human being, and most human beings have a stronger emotional attachment to children than they do to blastocysts.

i've got 10 internets for the person who can tell me based on what has already been written which 'persons' neo bret will save from the fire, the child or the two blastocysts on the petri dish.

If he was going to save a person, he could have come out and said it straight up instead of pissing and moaning about how it's a loaded question. It's not difficult to make that decision, unless you're afraid of being judged for a decision you made. After all, how hard is it to say that one would pick to save those alive, opting to help those who need it more than those able to help themselves? ie: helping a young child who is likely to be scared.

Would you consider it unreasonable to hypothesize that there may be some sort of flaw or defect in the embryo, and that the miscarriage or failure to implant may be a natural way of weeding them out?

Given that known miscarriages have been tested, I doubt that it is always the case. It does appear to be the case sometimes, however.

And yet the mother's body nourishes the child, protects it by allowing nutrients to pass to the child first.

Because the embryo sends signals to alter her response in this manner.

If I take your hand and use it to give me your wallet, does that mean you gave me your wallet deliberately?

You see a parasite, I see a symbiote.

Then you don't understand scientific terminology. It isn't as if the embryo/fetus provides the mother with any nourishment, cleans her, etc. In fact, it is quite a drain on her bodily systems.

That's not what I asked you. I am asking you whether you personally are okay with it.

Then no. I've made that perfectly clear numerous times.

Not in cases where it's medically necessary, as I've stated ad nauseam.

Says the person who supported the ban on intact dilation and extraction just a few pages ago.

None of the ones you listed justify the taking of a human life except the medical one, which we've discussed already.

It's a good thing no one is advocating taking a human life then. Zygotes and fetuses are not yet human life (unless you want to call my finger a separate human life from mine).

When "saving their lives" means "graciously allowing them a life of poverty, abuse, abandonment, and utter misery, which I shall do nothing whatsoever to alleviate," then, no, I don't think that counts for much at all. (Now, I don't know if this is your position. It is, however, quite unambiguously the position of a lot of pro-lifers I've talked to on these forums.)


Ok so you take upon yourself the ability to play god and decide whose life has enough meaning or happiness to live based on whatever your own personal criteria are.



I'm just going to let this question sit here and see if you notice the irony of it.


Go ahead. I know what you're getting at and you're proving that you're not reading my responses. I'm not going to hold your hand for you.



Erm, no, I wouldn't. I know exceedingly devout people who are incredibly generous, nice, and loving, and I know exceedingly devout people who are raving assholes. Fred Phelps and his "if you're gay, you'll burn in hell forever while I dance for joy" rhetoric springs to mind as an easy example of the latter.


So, relevance?


Nope, I don't think myself qualified to judge "who should live and who should die." Did you miss the part where I explicitly stated, twice, that I don't agree with the idea of forcing women to have abortions against their will as a method of preventing suffering?

Oh but it's not just about forcing abortions. It's about promoting abortion anytime the rationale is "well the baby whouldn't have a happy life anyway."

indeed. its not like the question is ambiguous. it's so very very simple, yet neo bret will go for ages trying to avoid directly answering - to the point of just making up different scenarios to answer instead.

:rolleyes:

But, lest anyone accuse me of dodging, my answer would be that I'd save whichever one I judged to have the greatest probability of survival.

Assuming I had a way of making that call. I elaborated later (and shame on me for coddling you) to give a more realistic answer since, after all, the analogy was not only oversimplistic but improbable to the point of uselessness. I had to elaborate it for you.

The fact is I wouldn't know what sort of devices you store human embryos in, and I doubt I'd know one if I saw it. I'm pretty sure whatever it is would have to be frozen or something, which makes the odds of survival nil if I just snatched them out of the device and walked away in what was, presumably a burning bulding. That means I'm probably dragging the lab assistant out.


i've got 10 internets for the person who can tell me based on what has already been written which 'persons' neo bret will save from the fire, the child or the two blastocysts on the petri dish.

I win.

So based on the fact that you've been continually accusing me of not answering, I'm forced to conclude that either you suffer from a level of reading comprehension that borders on functional retardation, or you're just a liar.

Given that known miscarriages have been tested, I doubt that it is always the case. It does appear to be the case sometimes, however.

Would you mind rephrasing the first sentence? I'm not sure I understand.


Because the embryo sends signals to alter her response in this manner.


So? That's part of the process.


If I take your hand and use it to give me your wallet, does that mean you gave me your wallet deliberately?


This analogy doesn't work. Remember, the baby started off, in part, from an egg produced by the mother's body...

...on purpose.


Then you don't understand scientific terminology. It isn't as if the embryo/fetus provides the mother with any nourishment, cleans her, etc. In fact, it is quite a drain on her bodily systems.


Yes, but the baby DOES give back. Emotional well-being, happiness, joy. That counts for a lot. Not to mention there are physical advantages, mostly based on hormomal stuff, but studies have shown, just as one example, that breast feeding lowers the risk of breast cancer.


Then no. I've made that perfectly clear numerous times.


When? I must have missed it.

Alright so if you're NOT personally okay with it, may I know the reason?


Says the person who supported the ban on intact dilation and extraction just a few pages ago.

Partial Birth Abortion is never medically necessary.

It's a good thing no one is advocating taking a human life then. Zygotes and fetuses are not yet human life (unless you want to call my finger a separate human life from mine).

Oh yeah I forgot about that analogy when I was going down my list of inane and idiotic analogies. Is your life contained within your finger? No. Is it contained within your brain? No. But if you, as a complete organism are killed then clearly life is over.

Abortion doesn't destroy a piece of a person, it kills the whole organism.

Oh yeah I forgot about that analogy when I was going down my list of inane and idiotic analogies. Is your life contained within your finger? No. Is it contained within your brain? No. But if you, as a complete organism are killed then clearly life is over.

Abortion doesn't destroy a piece of a person, it kills the whole organism.

If the brain is damaged enough it will cease in functioning correctly, therefore, life could be considered to be part of the brain.

The same could be said for the heart, or the lungs, etc.

Precisely. Even if a person dies of complications with the brain, the body is still ripe for harvesting.

If the brain is damaged enough it will cease in functioning correctly, therefore, life could be considered to be part of the brain.

The same could be said for the heart, or the lungs, etc.

Precisely. Even if a person dies of complications with the brain, the body is still ripe for harvesting.

So?

So?

If the dead can be used for their organs (assuming consent), aborted embryos could be used for stem cell research. Both actions would save lives.

Anti-choicers are looking at this the wrong way. The aborted foetus could be used to save the lives of the living, just as the dead have the power to.

If the brain is damaged enough it will cease in functioning correctly, therefore, life could be considered to be part of the brain.

You COULD say that, but it's a big stretch. Especially considering a body can be kept alive even when brain dead. (In this case machines merely take over the regulatory functions of the brain.)

Precisely. Even if a person dies of complications with the brain, the body is still ripe for harvesting.

So?

Parts are parts, dead guys are parts.

10 Internets to who gets the reference.

If the dead can be used for their organs (assuming consent), aborted embryos could be used for stem cell research. Both actions would save lives.

Anti-choicers are looking at this the wrong way. The aborted foetus could be used to save the lives of the living, just as the dead have the power to.

Post mortem organ harvesting requires consent. An aborted fetus cannot consent and thus they're not the same thing.

So based on the fact that you've been continually accusing me of not answering, I'm forced to conclude that either you suffer from a level of reading comprehension that borders on functional retardation, or you're just a liar.

once again, i ask, which did neo bret save: the child or the petri dish?

i saw a failed dodge based on survival probabilities, which won't work because of the nature of the scenario - whatever you save survives, whatever you don't doesn't.
i saw a failed dodge based on neo bret personally not knowing that there are blastocysts that can be saved, which won't work because of the nature of the hypothetical - you have all the necessary knowledge as part of the scene.
i saw a failed dodge based on 'impossibility' of "burning building-who do i save?" scenarios - hilarious.
and i saw a claim to save some mysterious lab assistant that wasn't even in the room, which is just plain sloppy.

If the dead can be used for their organs (assuming consent), aborted embryos could be used for stem cell research. Both actions would save lives.

Anti-choicers are looking at this the wrong way. The aborted foetus could be used to save the lives of the living, just as the dead have the power to.

Ok. At first you seemed to be suggesting that the brain is the source of life because damage to it would keep the organism from functioning correctly, and so the brain was the source of life.

I was a bit thrown by that, both because that argument would apply equally well to other organs, and because such an argument wouldn't work against the argument you were responding to.

But since you're simply making a point for perspective, I'll just mention that the comparison you're making seems problematic for the obvious reason that a fetus can't consent.

Ok. At first you seemed to be suggesting that the brain is the source of life because damage to it would keep the organism from functioning correctly, and so the brain was the source of life.

I was a bit thrown by that, both because that argument would apply equally well to other organs, and because such an argument wouldn't work against the argument you were responding to.

But since you're simply making a point for perspective, I'll just mention that the comparison you're making seems problematic for the obvious reason that a fetus can't consent.
Neither can a brain dead person, or even deceased, whose next of kin likely has power of attorney and thus the legal right to make the decision in place of the person. Likewise the woman would have the same ability to consent.

Ok. At first you seemed to be suggesting that the brain is the source of life because damage to it would keep the organism from functioning correctly, and so the brain was the source of life.

I was a bit thrown by that, both because that argument would apply equally well to other organs, and because such an argument wouldn't work against the argument you were responding to.

But since you're simply making a point for perspective, I'll just mention that the comparison you're making seems problematic for the obvious reason that a fetus can't consent.

Aside from the point that aborted embryos and (later on) fetal matter, have absolutely no medical use, even in stem cell research..... (just FYI, by the time a woman knows she's pregnant, the embryo has progressed too far for stem cell research, so this whole thing is a moot point indeed.)

If a child dies, let's say at the age of ten, we all agree that was a person. However, that person is incapable of consent, thus leaving it up to the parents. Yes, parents can opt to donate their child's organs to save a life.

In the case of the aborted embryo, why couldn't consent be given by the woman undergoing the abortion procedure, under the same 'parent' idea?

Yes. Irelevant to this debate, but yes I've heard it.

I generally try to be civil in these discussions but I don't mind, in this case, telling you that this statement was a big smelly load. Come on. You're comparing pregnancy to slavery and expect this to be taken seriously? Are you kidding me? Is this kind of emotional hyperbole what you normally use to salve your conscience or convince people of your rightness?

1. You claim that life is a higher value than liberty. I've shown it isn't. You fail to respond meaningfully.

2. Forced pregnancy against the will of the mother is a form of enslavement, yes. No hyperbole necessary.


What support do I need? You're talking semantics. It's a stage of development like toddlerhood, infancy or adolescence. From where I sit, you're the one that needs to support the assertion that one stage of development is somehow not human while others are.

So zygotes should have voting rights?

We make obvious distinctions in legal status based on "stage of development."

But, pray tell, why a zygote is a person, but a pig or dolphin is not.



You know where the lawbooks are in the library.

I do indeed. And, unlike you, I know what "depraved indifference" means. Deflecting the question only proves your ignorance.


So you try to counter my analogy by stretching it over a scenario that's so improbable as to be absurd.

Yes, comparing your analogy to pregnancy is absurd. I'm glad you see that now.


I certainly remember a time when people weren't ridiculed for promoting self control. Don't you?

So that would be, no, you can't specify when this golden age was.

Ah, but how many of those diseases are contracted by your body deliberately? Answer:0 try as you might, pregnancy is neither an injury nor an illness.

So what's the problem? If the body "decides" the pregnancy is nonviable it does what it must. The rest of the time, it does what it possibly can to protect it. Redirecting the point doesn't invalidate it.

Sorry, but your points don't reconcile. The body can normally and naturally end a pregnancy -- and does so about 25% of the time or more -- yet you will continue to maintain the body deliberately seeks childbirth? Based on what?


You wish it were that simple.

It is that simple. Things that are not persons do not have a right to life. Everytime you eat meat or vegetables you are re-affirming that principle.

Zygotes and embryos are clearly not persons. With later-term fetuses, we come close enough to personhood that we seek to protect them except in cases where the life or health of the mother is at stake.

Regardless, liberty is sometimes a higher value than life.


Again, I have no issue with terminating a pregnancy in cases where the mother's life is at risk. You ought to know that too from past conversations.

How do I reconcile that? Because Priority#1 is life, so why would anyone in their right mind force a situation where you'd have 2 deaths instead of only one? Even if the baby would survive and the mo ther not, since we are talking about her survival, then yes it may well be apropriate to terminate the pregnancy to save her.

You guys aren't going to score any points by trying to make the issue all - or - nothing. I've seen pro-life people make the same mistake by not having any flexibility or common sense. It's what comes of being on the extremes, I guess.

So, how much risk is enough to justify an abortion? What about risk to the health of the mother as opposed to risk of death?

Why should risk count at all if it is "normal and natural"?

And how is women carrying babies to term a bad thing? I see no problem here.

Of course you see no problem. That is the problem with your argument. You see no harm in forcing a woman to carry a child to birth against her will. You have no problem with a form of slavery.


There's a big difference between "normal" levels of risk and high-risk pregnancies or pregnancies where there's a known problem. You can't lump them all together to justify all abortion.

Again, what exactly is the threshold level of risk that would justify an abortion? How do you draw that line.


Choice is a wonderful thing but like any right, it's paired with a certain responsibility. In any case, no choice can be considered moral or ethical when it results in someone else's death (unless one's own life is at risk.)

Utter bullshit.

That's like commiting a crime then hiding the evidence to mitigate the impact of your going to prison on your family.

You compare having sex to committing a crime and you object to our hyperbole?


Yes, a single outpatient procedure is comparable to 9 months of massive physical change and/or 18 years of providing for another human being.

Curious. You've spent most of the thread downplaying the impacts of forcing a woman to carry to term, now your saying it is a big deal. Which is it?


If you truly want to understand what I'm getting at, put out of your mind the notion that somehow pregnancy is a punishment. I know some people see it that way but I've never advanced that idea and I've been openly critical of it. It's stupid, which most people do realize and I suspect it's why you keep ascribing it to me in an attempt to make me look foolish.

You really don't see the similarly between "the slut deserves to have the baby" and "the woman must be responsible for carrying the baby to birth as a consequence of having sex." You dress it in less inflamatory words, but the meaning is essentially similar.


It may have been an accident to you, but not to your body. I assure you, the female body gets pregnant deliberately whenever it possibly can.

How about if rather than your assurances, you provide some evidence?


Now we're getting to the meat of the subject: whether the action is killing a human. Because I think we'd mostly agree that if it is indeed killing a human being, it is then murder. So I ask you: Where do you draw the line?

No. Killing a person illegally is murder. Whether or not they are a human being is a separate question. I think you know the difference and are being deliberately obtuse here.


Yes, but the baby DOES give back. Emotional well-being, happiness, joy. That counts for a lot. Not to mention there are physical advantages, mostly based on hormomal stuff, but studies have shown, just as one example, that breast feeding lowers the risk of breast cancer.

1. Actually, abortion has been shown to be safer and have health benefits greater than pregnancy and childbirth.

2. "Emotional well-being, happiness, joy" do not necessarily follow from a pregnancy that is being forced against a woman's will. :headbang:

Neither can a brain dead person, or even deceased, whose next of kin likely has power of attorney and thus the legal right to make the decision in place of the person. Likewise the woman would have the same ability to consent.

Fully developed humans can and do, however, consent to their organs being harvested prior to the event. I'm a potential organ donor myself, because I gave that consent.

I understand that a person can make the decision for the deceased or brain dead. But that's generally allowed under the presumption that the person making the decision in their place understands what the deceased or brain dead persons wishes would be. The fetus has never had the chance to make their wishes known to anyone, so I'm not sure why the same principle would apply in both cases.

Aside from the point that aborted embryos and (later on) fetal matter, have absolutely no medical use, even in stem cell research..... (just FYI, by the time a woman knows she's pregnant, the embryo has progressed too far for stem cell research, so this whole thing is a moot point indeed.)

If a child dies, let's say at the age of ten, we all agree that was a person. However, that person is incapable of consent, thus leaving it up to the parents. Yes, parents can opt to donate their child's organs to save a life.

In the case of the aborted embryo, why couldn't consent be given by the woman undergoing the abortion procedure, under the same 'parent' idea?

Oh I quite agree that it's a moot point. I just like testing out different arguments. :)

That's a better parallel in some ways than a brain dead or deceased person. But using your analogy, if a child's life is ended by its mother in cooperation with a doctor at the age of ten, and then has their organs donated for them, that would probably be called a heinous crime.

So I think this line of argument really does no good for the pro-choice side. It might allow you to uphold a woman's right to an abortion in cases where her life is threatened (analogous to a case of self-defense from an attack by the ten year old child), but it doesn't really allow us to make the leap to a woman having a right to kill an embryo and then donate its stem cells.

That would seem to need a different justification.

Oh I quite agree that it's a moot point. I just like testing out different arguments. :)

That's a better parallel in some ways than a brain dead or deceased person. But using your analogy, if a child's life is ended by its mother in cooperation with a doctor at the age of ten, and then has their organs donated for them, that would probably be called a heinous crime.

So I think this line of argument really does no good for the pro-choice side. It might allow you to uphold a woman's right to an abortion in cases where her life is threatened (analogous to a case of self-defense from an attack by the ten year old child), but it doesn't really allow us to make the leap to a woman having a right to kill an embryo and then donate its stem cells.

That would seem to need a different justification.

Yeah, I wasn't even going for supporting any side. I was mainly trying to address the consent issue as per organ/tissue donation, with no regard to the nature of the death.

As per "killing an embryo", what about in vitro clinics, with extra embryos, so to speak? Would donating those embryos (which are pretty much our only source for stem cell research) be such a heinous crime?

Yeah, I wasn't even going for supporting any side. I was mainly trying to address the consent issue as per organ/tissue donation, with no regard to the nature of the death.

I wasn't going for any side either. I just thought you might be because you picked up on a pro-choicer's argument against a pro-lifer. A natural mistake, no?

I feel quite free to attack arguments from either side, though I'm basically in agreement with Dempublicents' position.

As per "killing an embryo", what about in vitro clinics, with extra embryos, so to speak? Would donating those embryos (which are pretty much our only source for stem cell research) be such a heinous crime?

Under the comparison of an embryo to a ten year old child, yes. I don't particularly agree with that comparison, so I'm inclined to say no.