Abortion

[Cennazluga]

“In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it,“ said Investigator Tracy Emerson. “She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it’s no crime in the state of Virginia.“

WTF?

How do pro-choicers feel about this?

Well as my parents have always yelled, "We brought you in to this world, and we can take you out!" At which I yell, "Fine. It's not like I ever consented to being born anyway."

[Cennazluga]

So, I am basicaly of the oppinion that one does not have the right to take human life for an error in judgment. If a woman is raped, or she is in physical danger due pregnancy, abortion is allowed. If she willingly had sex, then she should not be allowed to kill something that is human.

But what if she willingly and knowledgeably used a form of contraception, and it failed? No form of contraception is absolutely 100% effective 100% of the time for every person who employs it.

I don't think anything can be called human really until after the first trimester. Are the majority of abortions not carried out fairly soon into the pregnancy anyway? (I don't know, someone provide stats, please)

[Omnicracy]

So, I am basicaly of the oppinion that one does not have the right to take human life for an error in judgment. If a woman is raped, or she is in physical danger due pregnancy, abortion is allowed. If she willingly had sex, then she should not be allowed to kill something that is human.

But what if she willingly and knowledgeably used a form of contraception, and it failed? No form of contraception is absolutely 100% effective 100% of the time for every person who employs it.

I don't think anything can be called human really until after the first trimester. Are the majority of abortions not carried out fairly soon into the pregnancy anyway? (I don't know, someone provide stats, please)

The argument that it is not 100% effective 100% of the time lends to my argument, not yours. There is always a risk of pregnancy when people have sex. Knowing this, if one chooses to have sex, why should they be able to kill something that is human?

Why do you draw that line? What if human jestational periods were one month. The developmental state that is the first trimester is no longer conveniantly availible. Would it then be the first week? First two? What if jestation took a full year. We likely could divide development into four parts then. If so, would it be at the first quater or the second? What if it took exactly sixteen days? How would you divide it then? When you draw a line and say "Everything on this side gets rights and everything on that side does not" you play a dangerous game. What gives anyone the right to draw such a line?

[Acadzia]

Christians have no right to impose their own beliefs on others, if the woman is fine with it, it's fine by me.

My beliefs on the matter have nothing to do with Christianity. Remember, this is not a Gay marriage forum.

Yeah, those damned Christians. Why did they have to stick their noses into slavery like that? And MLK Jr.?! He was a friggin' pastor! He had NO RIGHT to insert his religiously-backed, hippy-notions of racial equality into the collective conscience. Damn him!




Amidoinitrite?

[Acadzia]

Known. Irrelevant. We do not allow the mentally handicapped to be killed because they are a burden on the system or there family or any host of other unethical reasons.

It is irrelevant that life will develop and will become a free-willed sentient being with unique ideas and feelings?

But the key is that the handicapped person is sentient, albeit with a disability. They are still people, and are conscious, able to make their own decisions, unlike a foetus.

The problem is that the foetus isn't sentient yet. The person that would have developed, given the proper time, doesn't exist at that point. There is no-one inside of the foetus, it is nothing more than a collection of tissue.

But what if they are not sentient? What if there brain were damaged from birth and never developed any for of thinking higher than, say, a dog?

So why can the baby not be killed? It cannot survive on its own. If I were to take a new born and leave it in the middle of the street, would it not die?

Why not kill such a person as you mentioned? They are not capable of really living so what is the purpose of their life? What is sacrosanct about that life?

To believe that life is absolutely sacred, is as foolish to me to believe in absolute morality. or absolute objectivity. There is no absolute, everything cannot be defined in black and white terms and anything can be found to have exceptions.

And this, my friends, is where moral relativism takes us. Might makes right, and as long as you've got the biggest warband or the most swords or the most muskets or cannons or tanks, one can do whatever one wants.

What is sacrosanct about YOUR life, good sir? Hitler was probably a better painter than you'll ever be, Mussolini a better statesman. What are YOU achieving? That's the thing, there will always be someone more wealthy or more efficacious. It is easy for you to sit there, able-bodied, and mete and dole cruel justice on the unborn and the physically- or mentally-challenged, but I wonder how'd you react if society at large decided teenagers who spend their time on forums are of no use.

[Dempublicents1]

Irelevant. So you would argue that it does not have a right to existance if it is not able to survive on its own?

It may very well have the right to exist or the right to life. It does not have the right to use another's body against her will. If it must do that to continue living, and she does not want to allow it to do so, then it dies. Sort of like how born human persons die every day because no one gives them the tissue or organs they need. Yes, they have a right to life, but not to the bodies of others.

[Desperate Measures]

My opinion is that abortions happen sometimes. But not all the time. Maybe all the time but that would depend on your concept of time. According to my concept of time, they happen sometimes.

[Dempublicents1]

I both disagree and agree. While there are cases where abortion should be allowed (exception), why should a bad dessision on ones part rightfuly case the death of a human who had no choice in the mater?

You've already argued that it should. You've argued that, if the father makes a bad decision (to rape the mother), it's ok for the fetus to be killed.

[Lacadaemon]

You've already argued that it should. You've argued that, if the father makes a bad decision (to rape the mother), it's ok for the fetus to be killed.

I've never understood why that should be an exception. (Other than for political reasons). Same with incest. I guess a reasonable case can be made for health of the mother type stuffs, but the rape and incest exceptions make no sense within the confines of the fetus is a human life argument.

Whatever, it's not like you can stop abortions anyway, so they might as well be legal. Personally I'd go the other way and make sure they were handed out on a far more liberal basis. Hell, I'd give the poor and chronically unfit bonus checks for having them.

[Reinnapani]

Recently i discovered my best friend is pro-life and i was like WTH.

This is what I mean by pro-choice and pro-life
Pro-Choice: describes the political and ethical view that a woman should have control over her fertility and the choice to continue or terminate a pregnancy.
Pro-Life: Pro-life individuals generally believe that human life should be valued either from fertilization or implantation until natural death.


Pro Choice or Pro Life?

[EvilDarkMagicians]

Mixed.

[Greed and Death]

Both.
Pro life I would never get an abortion.(i am a guy so not possible anyways).
I think we should minimize the number of abortions performs by things like sex ed.

Pro choice When it comes down to it I would never dream of stopping anyone else from having one.

[Acadzia]

Your definition of pro-life, IMHO, is flawed. Pro-life should mean being in favour of protecting life in all cases. Your definition just sounds like anti-abortion, which can encompass a lot of different viewpoints.

I have a pro-life, Consistent Life Ethic. I oppose abortion, the death penalty, unjust war, and inequality of opportunity at any chance I get, as best as I can.

[Ascon]

Recently i discovered my best friend is pro-life and i was like WTH.

This is what I mean by pro-choice and pro-life
Pro-Choice: a woman can choose whether to have an abortion or not
Pro-Life: the woman cannot choose and must have the baby


Pro Choice or Pro Life?

False dichotomy = not good.

[The Tofu Islands]

I would define myself as both pro-choice and pro-life.

But then again, I’d define “the woman cannot choose and must have the baby” as anti-choice, rather then pro-life. Given that in countries where elective abortion is illegal, abortion still happens and at greater risk to the mother.

[Reinnapani]

I have re edited my original post

[Czardas]

Oh look, an abortion thread, this is a new topic we rarely ever discuss.



Pro-choice and anti-life. Or pro-abortion if you want to look on the positive side of things (I consider it preferable to adoption or the other alternatives).

[Nort Eurasia]

There can always be a third choice...

[Bramborska]

Finally, someone has done the brave thing of discussing abortion. [/sarcasm]

I'm anti-choice and pro-death in varying quantities.

[The Tofu Islands]

I have re edited my original post

At this point the two definitions are not mutually exclusive. It’s possible to believe the blastocyst/embryo/foetus should be valued from fertilisation/implantation while still believing that woman should have the choice. Most probably, by believing that it’s not one’s business to make choices for or enforce beliefs on other people.

[Bavin]

Both.
Pro life I would never get an abortion.(i am a guy so not possible anyways).
I think we should minimize the number of abortions performs by things like sex ed.

Pro choice When it comes down to it I would never dream of stopping anyone else from having one.

Pretty much this, although if I wasn't ready to have a kid I'd get the abortion, or put the kid up for adoption.

[East Canuck]

pro-choice

[H N Fiddlebottoms VIII]

If cars had evolved for billions of years for the primary purpose of driving off the road and exploding in a ditch, you might have a point. It is rather convenient that they haven't, though.

I don't see how that's relevant. Our sex organs have evolved just as long to bring us pleasure during the sex act and to invoke hormonal and emotional changes that increase bonding. But I'm not going to tell someone who doesn't want to bond any further with the person they have sex with that they have to.

These are secondary characteristics developed to encourage the act of reproduction. In humans, consensual sex between stable partners is the most effective means of producing offspring.

Not to mention the fact that my point had nothing to do with the purpose of the reproductive system. It had to do with engaging in a given behavior (driving a car; having sex) for one reason, knowing that what one would consider to be an adverse event (car accident; pregnancy) might occur. Someone who has sex also knows that they might get an STI, but one would hardly say that anyone who consents to sex consents to being infected with a disease. What they do consent to is the risk of getting a disease. And those diseases have evolved just as surely as our reproductive systems.

Except that pregnancy is not just an "adverse" event, it is the evolutionary purpose of your genitals. This is what they were designed to do. Humans know this instinctively, so when someone consents to have penises in your vagina, they consent to the possibility of pregnancy.
An STI is comparable to a car crash, in that it is something entirely negative and external to normal human reproductive function. STIs also aren't human, so there is no moral obligation not to purge them with whatever means are available.

You have the right to drink, but not the right to be free of the potentially life-ending consequences that can rise from it. You have the right to choose a career path that will ruin you.

No, those are a couple of things that people like you will graciously allow me to do, all while deciding whether or not you will use me as an incubator against my will. If I do not have self-ownership - if I can be physically subjugated to someone or something else for doing nothing wrong - if I do not have the freedom to determine something as basic as how my body will be used, all other "freedom" society might allow me is an illusion.

If I do not have the right to travel, if I can be physically restrained from entering an area despite having done no wrong, if I do not have the freedom to determine something as basic as the geographical coordinates of my body, all other "freedom" society might allow me is an illusion. So long as I, as an unsterilized civilian, am not allowed to wander into a hospital OR, there is no freedom.
See, I can make ridiculous, flamboyant statements in which I pretend that the only freedom worth having is the particular one I'm being denied at this exact moment, too. "If I don't have the right to masturbate on a park bench outside an elementary school, I'm not truly free! I was going to clean up my ejaculate, so you can't even claim that I was being unhygienic."

You're reading far too much into my word choice. Having your arm torn off by a wheat thresher is discomforting, assuming that you survive.

If it would save someone else's life, would you force someone to have their arm torn off by a wheat thresher?

Provided that I could be almost certain (99%) that the person losing their arm would survive, then yes. I should say that answer would have been obvious based upon my earlier statements.

[The Valepian Lands]

There can always be a third choice...

Please enlighten me on this third way.

[Bavin]

There can always be a third choice...

Please enlighten me on this third way.

Adoption? Birth Control?