[Abortion Thread] A Matter of Choice (NEW POLL!)

[Katganistan]

Lol, there is no linguistic authority for English.

They don't care. They didn't even link to the OED, they're just telling us that's where they got it.

[Cessarea]

Lol, there is no linguistic authority for English.

There should be. Spain and France do it, why shouldn't Britain?

Because these central authorities (such as the Académie française) only decide what is official to those who bother with officiality. Language does not depend on what is or not considered "official" or "proper" by certain institutions. A government can enforce linguistic standards upon its institutions, but not upon broader society and their personal uses of words, because it is impossible to "police" how people use language in an extra-official capacity. What an "official" dictionary would have to say on the topic at hand, the definition of a child, is at best unimportant. Because clearly some people have a different personal use of the word, and whether or not they are wrong according to official institutions does not make their use any more or less valid in the way of arguments. To appeal constantly to dictionary definitions is to attempt to "win" by formality alone - it'd be akin to getting acquitted in a trial because the fact you were being judged for has reached its statute of limitations. Sure, you're legally free, but you may or may not have committed a morally wrong action, legal proceedings notwithstanding.

The debate does not end with the Oxford, Cambridge and Merriam-Webster dictionaries. What those dictionaries have to say does not close or open any doors in this debate whatsoever. To pretend it does is naive at best.

[Ifreann]

Your source for the Oxford English Dictionary being the linguistic authority is Oxford. You're at "The Bible says the Bible is true" levels of reasoning here.

Lol. Lmao. Rofl, even.

Trees <---You
Forest<----- Harvard and Princeton also see oxford as the best source. But laugh on i guess.

You say "Harvard and Princeton", yet you cite Dalhousie University. Not an institution I had heard of before, but I'm sure they're one of the most prestigious universities in all of Nova Scotia.

[Port Carverton]

Because these central authorities (such as the Académie française) only decide what is official to those who bother with officiality. Language does not depend on what is or not considered "official" or "proper" by certain institutions.

I didn't know having standards was bad, but ok

A government can enforce linguistic standards upon its institutions, but not upon broader society and their personal uses of words, because it is impossible to "police" how people use language in an extra-official capacity.

No one said that, ever. Of course you can't prevent people from using language in a variety of ways. RAE is there more as a guidelines book than being grammar nazis.

What an "official" dictionary would have to say on the topic at hand, the definition of a child, is at best unimportant. Because clearly some people have a different personal use of the word, and whether or not they are wrong according to official institutions does not make their use any more or less valid in the way of arguments.

Actually, it does. You need a standardized definition, else words can be twisted to fit an agenda. Kind of how some people label universal healthcare 'socialism'.

To appeal constantly to dictionary definitions is to attempt to "win" by formality alone - it'd be akin to getting acquitted in a trial because the fact you were being judged for has reached its statute of limitations. Sure, you're legally free, but you may or may not have committed a morally wrong action, legal proceedings notwithstanding.

Definitions do matter, since that's what allows the law to be applied properly. Some laws have been deemed unconstitutional for being 'vague'.
Also breaking a law isn't necessarily 'morally wrong'

The debate does not end with the Oxford, Cambridge and Merriam-Webster dictionaries. What those dictionaries have to say does not close or open any doors in this debate whatsoever. To pretend it does is naive at best.

Sure, but like I said, definitions do matter.

[Three Galaxies]

Paraphrasing Aristotle: One might not be a good citizen, but one may still be a good person.

[Glorious Freedonia]

Paraphrasing Aristotle: One might not be a good citizen, but one may still be a good person.

Is that for real? I thought that all Ancient Greeks believed that being a good citizen of one's polity is an essential requirement to being a good man. They may have disagreed upon what it meant to be a good citizen but I thought that they all valued it quite a bit.

[Distruzio]

Sorry. As much as you wish to spin the image of the pro-choice people being Dastardly Whiplash; there is much more.

Your explanation is simplistic rather generalized. Abortions happen to remove a dead fetus. Why are you against that?

I'm not. An abortion terminates a pregnancy by killing a child within the uterus. A pregnancy is the condition of being pregnant. Being pregnant requires the development of a child within the uterus. If the child is already dead en utero, the child is no longer developing. The procedure to remove the dead body from the uterus, therefore, is not an abortion. It is a procedure to save the womans life.

Abortions “kill” an ectopic pregnancy. Why are you against that?

I'm not. There is no Right to Kill. There is a Right to Life, for both the mother and the child. Cesarians are done without killing a child all the time. There is no reason preserving the womans life requires the killing of a child.

Abortions happen for a fetus which will die soon after being delivered. Why does a woman have to go through the delivery?

Because the people advising she pay them to kill her child are not of sound mind. Credentialed or not.

Abortions happen for as my mom mentioned in one of her patients. A fetus with no head. Just enough of a brain stem to keep the body going and growing. If it didn’t die in utero, it would die during birth. Why are you for that?

Because I trust mothers more than I trust people advising she pay them to kill her child. A friend of mine was advised to kill her child as the ultrasound revealed she was developing without a face. My friend was, understandably, distraught. She trusted me with her despair, knowing I try to keep my Faith central to my view on issues. I asked her, "what is more likely... you endure a life knowing you killed your daughter without regret because the doctor advised you so or your daughter merely turned her head during the ultrasound? Pray. Trust that." I know nothing of my friends medical condition. I know nothing of her doctors expertise. I do know, however, that my friends body is female and had already birthed her son, successfully. Something her doctor definitely knew beforehand, as well. And yet, that doctor, with all her credentials, chose to advise the most heinous of actions on the basis of a snapshot from a given moment in time across a 9 month long period of development.

My friends daughter was born healthy and happy. As beautiful and as much a gift to the world as her mother, her father, and her brother are.

Doctors, even the ones that don't want women to pay them to kill their children, can be wrong. And being right from time to time, does not grant them the Right to Kill.

There are no exceptions to this.

[Soviet Haaregrad]

Abortions happen for a fetus which will die soon after being delivered. Why does a woman have to go through the delivery?

Because the people advising she pay them to kill her child are not of sound mind. Credentialed or not.

What exactly do you base this assertion on?

[Three Galaxies]

Paraphrasing Aristotle: One might not be a good citizen, but one may still be a good person.

Is that for real? I thought that all Ancient Greeks believed that being a good citizen of one's polity is an essential requirement to being a good man. They may have disagreed upon what it meant to be a good citizen but I thought that they all valued it quite a bit.

Independent thinkers know the difference between a good citizen and a good person.

[Three Galaxies]

In my opinion, a woman's right to choose between pregnancy and abortion is much holier than your "King".

[Spirit of Hope]

Abortions “kill” an ectopic pregnancy. Why are you against that?

I'm not. There is no Right to Kill. There is a Right to Life, for both the mother and the child. Cesarians are done without killing a child all the time. There is no reason preserving the womans life requires the killing of a child.

Cesarean section can only happen when a fetus is viable, which if you are willing to go with really low survival odds for the child is at 24 weeks. So this isn't really a solution to the problem of an unwanted pregnancy because it requires a person be pregnant for 24 weeks. Also caesarean sections are a major surgery and comes with the normal major surgical risks, including death of the pregnant person, it has a much higher risk than vaginal birth and a much higher risk than the risks from an abortion.

It especially isn't a solution for an ectopic pregnancy because by that point the fetus would be dead and the woman would likely be facing a life threatening injury. The fetus can not survive an ectopic pregnancy, but it can put the pregnant persons life at risk.

Abortions happen for as my mom mentioned in one of her patients. A fetus with no head. Just enough of a brain stem to keep the body going and growing. If it didn’t die in utero, it would die during birth. Why are you for that?

Because I trust mothers more than I trust people advising she pay them to kill her child. A friend of mine was advised to kill her child as the ultrasound revealed she was developing without a face. My friend was, understandably, distraught. She trusted me with her despair, knowing I try to keep my Faith central to my view on issues. I asked her, "what is more likely... you endure a life knowing you killed your daughter without regret because the doctor advised you so or your daughter merely turned her head during the ultrasound? Pray. Trust that." I know nothing of my friends medical condition. I know nothing of her doctors expertise. I do know, however, that my friends body is female and had already birthed her son, successfully. Something her doctor definitely knew beforehand, as well. And yet, that doctor, with all her credentials, chose to advise the most heinous of actions on the basis of a snapshot from a given moment in time across a 9 month long period of development.

My friends daughter was born healthy and happy. As beautiful and as much a gift to the world as her mother, her father, and her brother are.

Doctors, even the ones that don't want women to pay them to kill their children, can be wrong. And being right from time to time, does not grant them the Right to Kill.

There are no exceptions to this.

This is a great anecdote, but that means nothing. First we have no evidence if this actually happened or not beyond your word, and it may surprise you to learn people lie on the internet, and second an isolated case does not an argument about the greater system make. Your appearance to argue that c-sections are an appropriate remedy to ectopic pregnancies makes me think you aren't actually all that aware of how pregnancies actually work.

[Lamoni]

Abortions happen for a fetus which will die soon after being delivered. Why does a woman have to go through the delivery?

Because the people advising she pay them to kill her child are not of sound mind. Credentialed or not.

Distruzio:

*** 3-day ban for trolling + history ***

Abortion providers are of sound mind. Your prejudices to the contrary does not make your statement true.

[Godular]

Abortions “kill” an ectopic pregnancy. Why are you against that?

I'm not. There is no Right to Kill.

Yes actually, there is. People are allowed to use deadly force to protect themselves from harm, and it happens all the time.

There is a Right to Life, for both the mother and the child.

But if one's right to life comes at the expense of another person's rights, the situation persists only at the other person's sufferance. That is to say, only as long as the other person consents to it.

Cesarians are done without killing a child all the time. There is no reason preserving the womans life requires the killing of a child.

This is so unrealistic as to be laughable. You're saying we should do a c-section for an ectopic pregnancy?

Abortions happen for a fetus which will die soon after being delivered. Why does a woman have to go through the delivery?

Because the people advising she pay them to kill her child are not of sound mind. Credentialed or not.

You are not qualified to make that determination, especially if you continue to attest to the claim that there is never a situation in which an abortion is necessary, even from a medical perspective.

Doctors, even the ones that don't want women to pay them to kill their children, can be wrong.

That's what second opinions are for.

And being right from time to time, does not grant them the Right to Kill.

There are no exceptions to this.

This is incorrect, on a wide variety of levels even disregarding the highly unlikely anecdotal scenario you have spoken of. A doctor's first priority is to the health of the individuals in their care, and if that happens to come at the cost of ending a pregnancy that has no hope of surviving to term, or would cause further harm if it were allowed to persist, then they should not be judged for advising their patients towards such courses of action.

[Katganistan]

Sorry. As much as you wish to spin the image of the pro-choice people being Dastardly Whiplash; there is much more.

Your explanation is simplistic rather generalized. Abortions happen to remove a dead fetus. Why are you against that?

I'm not. An abortion terminates a pregnancy by killing a child within the uterus. A pregnancy is the condition of being pregnant. Being pregnant requires the development of a child within the uterus. If the child is already dead en utero, the child is no longer developing. The procedure to remove the dead body from the uterus, therefore, is not an abortion. It is a procedure to save the womans life.

Abortions “kill” an ectopic pregnancy. Why are you against that?

I'm not. There is no Right to Kill. There is a Right to Life, for both the mother and the child. Cesarians are done without killing a child all the time. There is no reason preserving the womans life requires the killing of a child.

Abortions happen for a fetus which will die soon after being delivered. Why does a woman have to go through the delivery?

Because the people advising she pay them to kill her child are not of sound mind. Credentialed or not.

Abortions happen for as my mom mentioned in one of her patients. A fetus with no head. Just enough of a brain stem to keep the body going and growing. If it didn’t die in utero, it would die during birth. Why are you for that?

Because I trust mothers more than I trust people advising she pay them to kill her child. A friend of mine was advised to kill her child as the ultrasound revealed she was developing without a face. My friend was, understandably, distraught. She trusted me with her despair, knowing I try to keep my Faith central to my view on issues. I asked her, "what is more likely... you endure a life knowing you killed your daughter without regret because the doctor advised you so or your daughter merely turned her head during the ultrasound? Pray. Trust that." I know nothing of my friends medical condition. I know nothing of her doctors expertise. I do know, however, that my friends body is female and had already birthed her son, successfully. Something her doctor definitely knew beforehand, as well. And yet, that doctor, with all her credentials, chose to advise the most heinous of actions on the basis of a snapshot from a given moment in time across a 9 month long period of development.

My friends daughter was born healthy and happy. As beautiful and as much a gift to the world as her mother, her father, and her brother are.

Doctors, even the ones that don't want women to pay them to kill their children, can be wrong. And being right from time to time, does not grant them the Right to Kill.

There are no exceptions to this.

Personal anecdotes are nice, but not evidence. And I am sure you'd have washed your hands of it had she in fact given birth to a profoundly affected child who did not have a face with some platitude about God's plan.

[The Black Forrest]

[
Because I trust mothers more than I trust people advising she pay them to kill her child. A friend of mine was advised to kill her child as the ultrasound revealed she was developing without a face. My friend was, understandably, distraught. She trusted me with her despair, knowing I try to keep my Faith central to my view on issues. I asked her, "what is more likely... you endure a life knowing you killed your daughter without regret because the doctor advised you so or your daughter merely turned her head during the ultrasound? Pray. Trust that." I know nothing of my friends medical condition. I know nothing of her doctors expertise. I do know, however, that my friends body is female and had already birthed her son, successfully. Something her doctor definitely knew beforehand, as well. And yet, that doctor, with all her credentials, chose to advise the most heinous of actions on the basis of a snapshot from a given moment in time across a 9 month long period of development.

My friends daughter was born healthy and happy. As beautiful and as much a gift to the world as her mother, her father, and her brother are.

Doctors, even the ones that don't want women to pay them to kill their children, can be wrong. And being right from time to time, does not grant them the Right to Kill.

There are no exceptions to this.

The others have addressed comments and you even earned a vacation for your disingenuous trolling.

Doctors are to be more trusted than you and your ilk in these matters. To say they do whatever for money is lazy, obscene and down right hateful.

As to your friend? They made a choice. Nothing wrong with it. You seek to take away choice from others who wont do or can’t do what you want.

Rather evil views to hold.

[Andavarast]

Because these central authorities (such as the Académie française) only decide what is official to those who bother with officiality. Language does not depend on what is or not considered "official" or "proper" by certain institutions.

I didn't know having standards was bad, but ok

The dictionary is not a standard for a language. It is a sort of "beginner's guide" to get a vague idea of what a word you don't know means. To prescribe a standard, universal meaning to some word is not only outside the powers of any institution or university, but also tremendously useless. Language is inherently vague and subjective, and every word has more interpretations of its meaning(s) than the number of speakers. People will always use a word in the most intuitive way to them, and as long as they can efficiently communicate within their dialect, register, or sociolect, they are using it correctly.

What an "official" dictionary would have to say on the topic at hand, the definition of a child, is at best unimportant. Because clearly some people have a different personal use of the word, and whether or not they are wrong according to official institutions does not make their use any more or less valid in the way of arguments.

Actually, it does. You need a standardized definition, else words can be twisted to fit an agenda. Kind of how some people label universal healthcare 'socialism'.

The meaning of a word changes depending on context. You could make an argument that within the American right-wing suburbanite demographic, "socialism" no longer refers to an economic system, but is just a derogatory term for left-wing politics. They aren't accurately describing the economic system, but are correctly using the word "socialism" within their social context, no matter how nonsensical it is to everyone else.

In the same way, a meaning of "child" cannot be applied evenly over all English-speaking demographics, because English is not one consistent language. It is an amorphous blob of dialects, sociolects, registers and vernaculars generally grouped under one greater category. They will never share the same understanding of words or grammatical constructions. In some AAVE, the habitual construction "he be working" is completely correct, even if it seems wrong to a speaker of RP.

To appeal constantly to dictionary definitions is to attempt to "win" by formality alone - it'd be akin to getting acquitted in a trial because the fact you were being judged for has reached its statute of limitations. Sure, you're legally free, but you may or may not have committed a morally wrong action, legal proceedings notwithstanding.

Definitions do matter, since that's what allows the law to be applied properly. Some laws have been deemed unconstitutional for being 'vague'.
Also breaking a law isn't necessarily 'morally wrong'

Applied "properly?" If there is a single "proper" meaning of a law, then why do we have people whose entire job is to interpret the law and apply it to real-life situations? Until we start writing laws in JavaScript, they will always be up to interpretation.

[Shrillland]

Arizona House votes 32-28 to repeal abortion ban, three Republicans join effort and are immediately punished for it

Well, only one was officially punished since only one had committee appointments that could be stripped.

[Godular]

Arizona House votes 32-28 to repeal abortion ban, three Republicans join effort and are immediately punished for it

Well, only one was officially punished since only one had committee appointments that could be stripped.

Anti-Abortion groups in Arizona have already sworn to go doorknocking in favor of republicans running against the three that voted in favor of the repeal.

[The Black Forrest]

Arizona House votes 32-28 to repeal abortion ban, three Republicans join effort and are immediately punished for it

Well, only one was officially punished since only one had committee appointments that could be stripped.

Anti-Abortion groups in Arizona have already sworn to go doorknocking in favor of republicans running against the three that voted in favor of the repeal.

Will it work?

In the past, I have heard similar claims and they didn’t amount to much or the “hated” people were already expected to lose…..

[Ravemath]

Take a break from these heated arguments.

GOOD:
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BAD:
I
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[Necroghastia]

Take a break from these heated arguments.
[snip]

This is spam. Don't do it.

[Krikkit]

As an antinatalist I believe that we should go beyond the mere pro-choice position and advance intellectually into a pro-abortion position, because everyone that ever was or were or is would've been better off aborted. I believe in a ban on reproduction and an abortion mandate.

I think one major point for antinatalism is looking around and seeing how many "pro-choice" "people" there are (just look at the results of this thread). Imagine if you had a child and they turned out to be so incredibly stupid, and imagine that this troglodyte you've burdened the rest of us with can vote and produce more little hell-spawns of their own, idiocracy at work. Imagine being such a failure of a human being (which is a fairly low bar to meet) that you could possibly have such a non-existent understanding of reproductive ethics, and even more spouting your bile even though you've done no meaningful research, how could such a person live with themselves?

If anyone wants to get a fresh perspective pertinent to the abortion discussion I'd check out David Benatar's "Better Never to Have Been." I'd provide a library genesis link but I'm using a library computer which blocks it.

This is another amazingly insightful read.

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=805c0a39 ... pa2k&ntb=1

Great... here come the eugenicists ready to completely fail at grasping class consciousness and solidarity. Blame everything on the individual, that will exempt us from questioning just how dysfunctional the structure of society is! Maybe abject poverty is to blame? An education system that seeks to prepare workers instead of citizens? A political structure that shuns "extremes" for the sake of them being extreme instead of critically analysing anything? Elites that incentivise complacency with their large capital that is easily transformed into political power?

Nah! People are raised stupid and they screw us over. If everyone was as competent as I am we'd be better off!

Using the term eugenicist to describe anti-natalism is either intellectually dishonest or ignorant. Eugenics is not wanting certain people to breed, antinatalism says that no one should.

Your using black and white thinking. If you understand how fucked up our society than why in god's name would you put a child into this mess. If you want to fix it and then put people into it that's another topic, we're talking about the realities of right here and right now, and the truth is if you put a child into capitalism, especially as a worker, that child is going to suffer more than any one of us can imagine, because it's the suffering of a lifetime; and there's no good reason for it, there's no hole that child needs, your child will not be the chosen one who saves us from every ill in the world because that will not happen. I also think that while yes socialism will make things better it is not a solution to the human condition, it is not a solution for boredom, it will not stop rape, and I emphasize this part because I was raped and it definitely reinforced my anti-natalist beliefs, there is no good reason, no justification, for spinning the wheel and risking that that child will have to suffer the same thing, possibly at a very young age, I heard from someone that they were raped at 3 years old, oh isn't life a magical wonderful and all around worthwhile endeavor, praise Gaia!

Also as a former Marxist-Leninist there is this thing and thing is called The Reserve Army of Labour, which means that the more the working class has kids, and those kids have kids, and those kids have kids, it causes an exponential growth of people all clamoring over each other to get a limited number of jobs, and once they have that job if they are fired they will return to that reserve army of labor, which in the US and many countries without a social safety nets means being homeless. The bigger the reserve army of labor is, the less and less and less power the working class has, because if you start unionizing or you're not working hard enough, maybe you're disabled, that mean you will be thrown back out into that same reserve army of labor.

[Vrbo]

Recently, Pro-Lifers came to our campus. Right next to our library is our student center which houses all of our food. And in front of the library is a fountain which tends to be the center of any student activities/protests and whatnot. Pro-Life organization decided to display very disgusting and uncensored images of abortion and whatnot in front of the library.

Safe to say, I did not think this was particularly effective.

[Ineva]

Recently, Pro-Lifers came to our campus. Right next to our library is our student center which houses all of our food. And in front of the library is a fountain which tends to be the center of any student activities/protests and whatnot. Pro-Life organization decided to display very disgusting and uncensored images of abortion and whatnot in front of the library.

Safe to say, I did not think this was particularly effective.

I think it is a good thing people see what exactly they are advocating for. If they are disgusted by it, perhaps they should not be defending it.

[The Caleshan Valkyrie]

Recently, Pro-Lifers came to our campus. Right next to our library is our student center which houses all of our food. And in front of the library is a fountain which tends to be the center of any student activities/protests and whatnot. Pro-Life organization decided to display very disgusting and uncensored images of abortion and whatnot in front of the library.

Safe to say, I did not think this was particularly effective.

I think it is a good thing people see what exactly they are advocating for. If they are disgusted by it, perhaps they should not be defending it.

Generally, those pictures tend to be very much fabricated. It’s a known issue, but the pro-lifers involved keep doin’ it.