Are you a moderate on abortion?
- promisemposted 8 years ago
0The abortion debate is dominated by two extremes. On the one side, "pro life" extremists insist that abortion is murder. On the other side, "pro choice" extremists insist that abortion is a personal choice.
I have met quite a few people who think they belong to one or the other. But when I question them, it turns out that their position is moderate. The extremists have prevented people from identifying with a rational and moral middle ground.
I propose that a moderate on abortion is someone who accepts abortions in almost all situations in the first trimester because the fetus is incapable of living on its own as a viable human being.
In the second trimester, abortion is available in more limited circumstances such as rape, incest or endangerment of the mother.
In the third trimester, it is illegal in all except for the most extreme cases (requiring a court ruling) because the fetus is a viable human being that can live outside of the womb.
Your thoughts?Pro
It's the right of a women to her own body and what she puts into it.If a "fetus" is eight months and 29 days old, and fully able to live outside of the womb, can a woman be allowed to abort it?
except what the woman is aborting is scientifically considered another human being, so its not her body that she is aborting. No one has the right to have a human being dismembered (while still alive) and then decapitated.
Except that scientifically a human being being has an operating brain and heart, while an early fetus does not. It thus cannot be a human being.
It's all in the definition of "human being", isn't it? A simple claim that it's "scientific", while appearing to lend credence to the statement, actually says nothing at all.Actually, science states pretty clearly that life begins at conception. You will not find a doctor or scientist that disagrees with that, and you generally don't find an educated proponent of abortion who tries to argue it. The argument among educated individuals in the abortion debate is not when life begins, but when life begins to matter. The argument that unborn humans aren't really alive is a logical fallacy.
Also, not sure what you mean by "early fetus," but the heart begins beating at around 3 weeks. This is weeks before a woman even misses her period. The unborn human has a beating heart and a developing brain before the mother can even know she is pregnant.What scientific fact says that personhood begins at conception? Not a scientist's opinion, mind you, but a scientific fact? And not "life", but "b]human[/b] life" - a much different thing, for you are absolutely correct in that it is "when life begins to matter" - when the zygote becomes a human being - that counts. Not whether that zygote, or even the gamete's that produced it, are alive.
You're complaining that humanity begins at conception and want to argue that a fetus has a heart "only" 3 weeks later? If the appropriate date is conception, what possible difference does it make when the first cardiac cell grows?Like plants that can propogate from stems, leaf, seed, root, pots and other ways. So can human DNA structure produce other human beings, just from the skin.
The Religion right want to play God with our lives over every sexual issues that certainty would put us all in hell on earth and tortured for eternity from the source of life- fire. About 98% males masterbate and spread their sacred seed on the ground that could produce the population of a city. Get over it, humans are wasteful.
Yet feel nothing about killing children in war.These real people are beyond conception (like concept) they have identity, development of their body and individual chariture ways of thinking.
The only way we all can be considered to be equal is if each one of us is God. We are all co- creators with pro choices in every move we make interaction with all life forms.
Humans are very selfish and stupid when considering their choice toward the other 10s of millions of other specie's we share the planet with.You are saying "personhood." I said "life." Those are two completely different things. It is a scientific FACT that human life begins at conception. You originally claimed: that "scientifically a human being has an operating brain and heart, while an early fetus does not. It thus cannot be a human being." Regardless of what you mean by "early fetus," this is incorrect. It is not only a logical fallacy, but it shows complete ignorance of basic biology. You're attempting to marry the philosophy/opinion of personhood with the science of biology and say they are the same. They are not. A developing human is never not a human. Is it a dog? Is it a chicken? Is it a tomato? No. It's a human, and is scientifically classed as such from the start. As I said, the argument among educated individuals in the abortion debate is not when life begins, but when that life begins to matter.
As for the rest of what you've said... a human being is a zygote for about 4 days, so I'm not really sure what your point is, other than to try to use terms that sound "sciencey."
If you want to argue personhood, a basic requirement for personhood is individuality. Fertilization accomplished this, as what is created is an entirely new human organism with it's own unique DNA. The heart beginning to beat and other very early milestones fulfill this criteria as well. Science defines life as the possession of self-sustaining biological processes. Even at the earliest stages, a human in the womb fits this criteria. It is the entirety of the human organism, not just parts or part of it. It is a unified whole.
As I said and you agreed, it is about when the life we are talking about begins to matter. I don't really understand the argument here and to be honest, I never have. If people are OK with this kind of killing because they feel the child involved does not matter, they should just say so. There is no need to pretend it's something it's not or attempt to distort science to back their claims. Trying to claim the child is not alive, is not a human being, is not a person or any of this other rubbish is either simple ignorance or outright lies. Even the president of Planned Parenthood said in an interview with Ms. Magazine that abortion is killing, and that anyone who believes otherwise is essentially deluding themselves because they don’t want to admit it.You say abortion is murder.
I assume your account that abortion premist is murder to the first degree according the Bible quote. :Killing of an unborn person is murder. Nothing very sciencetific about that. Lets see who else agree abortion is murder.
1. No dictionary defines abortion as murder.
2. No science proof that abortion is murder.
3. Most countries in the World are pro choice.
4 Most population in the world are pro choice regardless if they are Religious or not.
5. When I think of murder, I think of Authoritarian Governments and Religion by far doing most of the murderering by war or by Police.
Over a million children killed in the Middle East as in the last decade.
Now tell me, do you assume that most of the world are murderers, when it comes to abortion?LOL. I did not say abortion is murder. I said abortion kills a human being. These are two totally different things. Murder is a legal construct which describes an unlawful killing. Abortion is not illegal, therefore it cannot be murder.
I did not mention religion, or the bible, nor am I religious. Reading comprehension is your friend, dude. Assumptions are not. Obviously - since not one thing you said applies even remotely to anything I've said here.Sorry, my assumption is mistaken,was not sure what you were leading to.
So many here are calling abortion murder.
If I may interject,
"It is a scientific FACT that human life begins at conception."
As far as I can tell, nobody has been disputing that a new human organism can be made during fertilization. This thread chain began when someone conflated a scientific definition of human being with a legal/philosophical definition of human being.
"As I said, the argument among educated individuals in the abortion debate is not when life begins, but when that life begins to matter."
That's why wilderness tried to bring the discussion back to personhood, instead of whether the developing embryo is made of human DNA. And I'd argue that another element to the discussion is not simply when and what type of life begins to matter, but whether it is justifiable to force pregnancy and parenthood onto a person that does not want to be a parent.
"If you want to argue personhood, a basic requirement for personhood is individuality."
There are plenty of things that have a separate existence but are not persons. What are the other requirements for personhood?
"Trying to claim the child is not alive, is not a human being, is not a person or any of this other rubbish is either simple ignorance or outright lies"
Again, nobody claimed the embryo is not alive or that it is not a new and distinct human organism. You've established that it is a separate entity, but this doesn't automatically make it a person.
"Even the president of Planned Parenthood said in an interview with Ms. Magazine that abortion is killing, and that anyone who believes otherwise is essentially deluding themselves because they don’t want to admit it."
Nobody denies that abortion is killing. There are plenty of procedures that involve killing, like vaccinations, biopsies and surgeries. The type of life form that is being killed is a key factor, and this gradually changes during embryogenesis.Mainly agree
It is more of an organism in development than a person.Yes, that is the point. We, as a culture, kill every day, and some of that killing is of cells containing human DNA. We condone and actively support those killings, from tumors to cancerous cells and so on.
It is only when a person is killed that the morality comes into question. The "personhood" of those cells being killed.Since the only place states an unborn person is murder is in the Bible. Maybe from some other Religions too.
So we know where the source of unnatural conflicting information comes from. Can we rewrite the Bible? Many do to take us out of the dark ages to fit us into the now.
If you're going to argue "personhood," then don't confuse it with science. It is a social construct, not a scientific one. To say personhood has anything to do with science is disingenuous, at the very least. If he wants to use that as his yardstick for the ethics in this case, that's up to him. But it isn't scientific. That is what I took issue with. (The "human cells" argument is just silly. Liver cells in a petri dish are not a human, not a human organism. A 3 day old zygote in a petri dish is. Why? Because one is only part of a whole organism and the other is the whole of the organism itself. Basic stuff, man.)
As far as other requirements for personhood, most arguments for it actually seem to revolve around the concept of becoming ensouled and when a person believes that happens to human beings. Some say fertilization, some say development of the heart, some say at the first breath, etc. That is not how I really how I view it, and I do not subscribe to the philosophy that personhood is evolutionary/dependent on when a person is ensouled but rather that it is static. So much of who we are is determined by our DNA, and that is present from conception. Therefore, the personhood argument is a non-issue to me. An unborn human is no more or less of a person at 10 weeks gestation in the womb than it is at 10 weeks old outside the womb, yet it is perfectly OK with most (morally and certainly legally) to kill one but not the other. Why? At what age do we just decide someone is a person? One day? 1 month? 1 year? How do we decide? Sentience? Viability? Consciousness? Ability to reason? What about those who are never going to develop these things, regardless of how old they get? Are they then not persons? Is it permissible to kill them? This is where the personhood argument logically takes us and that is why I don't subscribe to it.
There is a paper that was published in the Journal of Medical Ethics a few years ago entitled, “After-birth Abortion: Why Should The Baby Live?” that endorses the killing of born babies using the same arguments made to justify abortion, including the personhood argument. The authors state that “killing a newborn should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.” The paper states that babies are “morally irrelevant” and that it is “not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense.” The crux of the argument is that a fetus and an infant are “morally equivalent.” These arguments have been made many times, by the way; in some cases regarding children up to a year old – or older. This particular paper endorsed “no threshold.” That means no age limit. If you agree with these justifications for abortion, you are left with absolutely no argument for what these people are saying in this paper, other than “Because it’s just wrong after the baby is born.” That isn’t much of an argument and it begs the question: if one is OK and not the other, what does this mean? It means you either have to agree that killing babies after they are born is morally acceptable or you have to agree that abortion is not morally acceptable. It can’t be both ways, because the paper is correct: there is no real difference.What makes up a soul of a person takes a million parts, like a person name country, heads, arms and so on. A 10 week old bio organism has very little soul, only support by a Bible oxymoron science. Mortality has a big difference than ethics. I can boil down the 10 commandments morals to 2 ethics, 1.Do not harm and 2. Be honest. How can you call a Christain country ethical? When they murder and steal by invading other countries and invading others personally sexual private lives. What is worst ethical offence for Christians is destorying the total bio organism dirverty of the planet with their much of their bs one species screaming me me greed mortalities.
The only sane solution is pro choice because most of the world"s populations do not subscribe to Christian morality which Christian are the greatest Hippocrites and offender of anyways.
Sorry if I can not be so nice about this. Because assumed very nice people, can do very bad things.DinDelle says, "The "human cells" argument is just silly. Liver cells in a petri dish are not a human, not a human organism. A 3 day old zygote in a petri dish is. Why? Because one is only part of a whole organism and the other is the whole of the organism itself. Basic stuff, man."
OK, what about stem cells? Once you start cloning from stem cells, you can make the same argument. That's why the pro-lifer moralist doesn't want to see liver cells cloned from stem cells to make a new liver for a transplant. They're scared to death that a zygote may be cloned. Then you get into the argument that once that zygote becomes a fetus (excuse me, "unborn child") and then is born, does it have a soul? In metaphysical circles the question is asked, "is there a soul willing to come and occupy that body? Do you really want to go there?What about them? As I've already stated, the soul has nothing to do with anything in my opinion, or with facts. That is a religious topic. I am not religious. That is what the personhood argument usually revolves around, but I don't really find it a valid argument, as I've already explained.
Doesn't matter. The Christians are the ones who are raising hell about abortion, and they are raising hell over these topics that you brought up. I've already said I'm pro-choice. If you remove religion from the picture, there won't be enough moralists left to debate the question.
I don't think you are correct about that. There are many people who are against abortion that are not religious. They are also not the only people who have morals in general, or that believe abortion is immoral.
It's a mistake, in my opinion, to believe that the only real opposition to abortion is religious, or comprised of religious zealots.
"If you're going to argue "personhood," then don't confuse it with science. It is a social construct, not a scientific one. To say personhood has anything to do with science is disingenuous, at the very least. If he wants to use that as his yardstick for the ethics in this case, that's up to him. But it isn't scientific. That is what I took issue with."
I think the intent was to make this very point (implicitly) by challenging anyone to provide a scientific definition of personhood. Since it can't be done, it's not in the realm of science.
"(The "human cells" argument is just silly. Liver cells in a petri dish are not a human, not a human organism. A 3 day old zygote in a petri dish is. Why? Because one is only part of a whole organism and the other is the whole of the organism itself. Basic stuff, man.)"
Who claimed liver cells in a Petri dish are humans? I certainly didn't. I said we do plenty of procedures that involve killing but are morally permissible, or even preferable. This was to address the implication that abortion is killing and all killing is wrong.
"I do not subscribe to the philosophy that personhood is evolutionary/dependent on when a person is ensouled but rather that it is static."
That's the problem - your mind is blind to intermediates. Dawkins' piece "The Tyranny of the Discontinuous Mind" is relevant here.
"So much of who we are is determined by our DNA, and that is present from conception. Therefore, the personhood argument is a non-issue to me."
I don't follow you. We're largely determined by DNA, therefore anyone with DNA is a person?
"An unborn human is no more or less of a person at 10 weeks gestation in the womb than it is at 10 weeks old outside the womb, yet it is perfectly OK with most (morally and certainly legally) to kill one but not the other."
Refer to the Dawkins piece I mentioned. There's such a thing as intermediates. This is why we can say that our 200 million greats grandfather would go well with lemon and tartar sauce.
"Why? At what age do we just decide someone is a person? One day? 1 month? 1 year? How do we decide? Sentience? Viability? Consciousness? Ability to reason? What about those who are never going to develop these things, regardless of how old they get? Are they then not persons? Is it permissible to kill them?"
I'd say if it is sentient, it qualifies for personhood. That means prior to the development of sensory structures, a fetus is not a person. I'll consider your second question if you can give me an example of a person that won't ever have basic sentience. I can't think of anything.
Note that it can be permissible to kill people that are sentient yet not viable. Viability can come into play when the person in question has a poor prognosis for survival and poor quality of life. That's when euthanasia is a possibility. This is typically discussed with end-of-life care, though the Netherlands applies this concept to newborns as well.
(I'm taking "permissible" to mean under certain conditions, by the way. For instance, only the legal guardians or the person in question can elect an abortion or euthanasia. It's not like we are allowing a free for all on anything that can qualify for either procedure.)
"There is a paper that was published in the Journal of Medical Ethics a few years ago entitled, “After-birth Abortion: Why Should The Baby Live?” that endorses the killing of born babies using the same arguments made to justify abortion, including the personhood argument."
It wasn't endorsing such a thing. It was a thought experiment by ethicists designed to challenge the arguments made for pro-abortion. And what they are using is not the personhood argument, it is a personhood argument. They do so by defining person as follows:
We take a ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence is a loss to her.
What does this mean, exactly? How do we measure the capacity of valuing your own existence? Well, the paper goes on to say that it thinks non-human animals and mentally retarded humans are persons, so perhaps they consider undertaking basic survival instincts or desiring basic elements as an affirmation of the value of their life - in which case, newborns would certainly qualify, contrary to their claims. Fetuses would qualify at a certain point in their development as well.
If they are instead considering a rigid interpretation of a person being someone who is capable of cognitively assessing their life as valuable, then forget newborns, animals and the mentally retarded - some adults who are otherwise capable of cognitive assessment would not pass this test. For instance, severely depressed or suicidal people would not be considered persons under this definition if they do not value their own lives.
Overall, the paper suffers from a poor definition/qualification for personhood, which is the crux of their argument, the entire reason they morally equate newborns with fetuses. I recommend Regina Rini's Against “After-Birth Abortion” for a more thorough rebuttal.
"It can’t be both ways, because the paper is correct: there is no real difference."
No, it isn't correct. You really can't see the differences between a zygote, a newborn, and everything in between? This is why I think you are blind to intermediates.Abortion will never go away like pot and gays. I live and let live. None of these things is harmful to me, I don't know how it"s anyone elses business. I"t all comes from nature or from your body and anyone forces their will upon you, is acting unnatural and conflicting your free will.
"That's the problem - your mind is blind to intermediates." Blind? Because I don't subscribe to a philosophy? No. I recognize there are other points of view and the merits people feel they have. I just don't personally feel there is a grey area. I don't have to agree with or subscribe to a philosophy to understand it. You can argue there is a grey area and I understand the arguments you are using to do so, but I don't agree with them. For instance, a key feature of the sentience argument (for human and non-human animals) is often, "Can it suffer?" This is something that is too difficult to answer in many situations and therefore should be left out of the debate, because then we have to define suffering and quality of life, among other things. It is generally too hard to do, especially with regard to non-human animals, the disabled, and anything else which cannot say, "I am suffering." I prefer to deal with facts and there just aren't enough in that arena to be definitive. We can assume, we can hypothesize, we can postulate, but this is all we can do. I run into that argument all the time when I am speaking against vivisection and other testing on animals.
In that same vein, an appeal to authority argument in the form of an opinion piece from Richard Dawkins - though well-constructed, if a little heavy on the rhetoric and religious bs - is not going to convince me, especially when it contains the argument that "personhood doesn’t spring into existence at any one moment." This is exactly my point, and since the "achievement of personhood" cannot be pinpointed, measured or proven in any way, it should not be the yardstick by which we use to measure the morality or ethics of killing. It would be a little like saying a suspect's guilt is not really determinable but it's ethical to go ahead and execute him anyway because he's probably guilty. To be blunt, when we are talking about death, we should have to prove it. To come to the conclusion that the ambiguity of personhood somehow moralizes or renders ethical the killing of humans for which personhood cannot be determined is absurd. An opponent can just as easily argue that if achievement of personhood cannot be pinpointed, it may just as easily be said to be static, because if there is no point at which the state of personhood is achieved, perhaps it is innate. This is just as logical of an interpretation, based on the "facts" of personhood (which there are none). If you cannot see that, perhaps it is you who are blind.
As for the JME paper, the point is basic: If a living thing cannot understand the loss of their life, then it is not a loss. You find that a poor definition for personhood. So do I, to be frank, but it is indeed the definition of personhood used to justify abortion. That's kind of the point: that argument is ludicrous. Virtually all of the opposition to that paper essentially states: "You can't argue that, because it would apply to other people - including adults - and we cannot do that/don't agree with that, so it's just not true." The paper you refer to is no exception. Her claim that a newborn has "aims" is laughable in my opinion (do aims not require - at the very least - conscious intent?), and the entire rebuttal boils down to the assertion that birth propels the fetus to instant personhood, irrespective of anything else (consciousness, sentience, etc.). It's completely predicated on her reinterpretation of the author's definition of personhood and her personal opinion that these arguments cannot apply to any BUT fetuses. It is a very obvious attempt to protect the practice of abortion but it fails because her whole argument is that these definitions cannot be applied to any except fetuses. Her argument basically states, "This definition of personhood is too strict as it would remove the right to life for some adults, therefore it cannot apply to newborns - or any human except the unborn ones." This is fallacy. I guess she is blind to intermediates too, huh? Surely there is a grey area between adults and newborns. You claim I cannot see intermediates because I feel unborn humans and newborn humans are morally equivalent but you cite a paper which concludes that newborn humans are morally equivalent to adult humans - but NOT unborn humans? OK? Her fear that the JME paper would somehow affect the perception of abortion was embarrassingly obvious throughout the entire rebuttal, dude. Come on. "Or we might think that a willingness to kill a human infant displays a warped character or deficient moral vision. For my part, I find these to be extremely compelling objections to the Valued Personhood Argument." LOL! The JME paper creates an interesting paradox and I have seen no one resolve it yet.
In the end, this side of the debate is an area of opinion only. An unborn human is no more or less of a person at 10 weeks gestation than at 2 months old. Unless someone can provide proof that this is somehow not true, it cannot be resolved. It is an opinion. If you believe that killing a human at that stage of life is morally acceptable, that is up to you. I don't. I used to, but after having 3 children and researching the topic for almost 20 years, I no longer do.Maybe a century or two ago it would be difficult to determine an organism’s capacity for suffering (especially if you limit yourself to things that can say “I am suffering” – again, plenty of functioning adults would fail this). At present we know the function of pain and we know the structures and pathways that trigger it. If they exist in other organisms we can conclude that they are capable of feeling pain, which is what we've found in basically all vertebrates, fish, and a wide range of invertebrates. If these structures are not present and there are no indications of a pain response then there's no reason to assume they are capable of feeling pain, as is the case with most insects.
I'm not really appealing to authority, as I didn't mention Dawkins' credentials or their relevance to our discussion. It's a good argument regardless of its origin and is not even limited to our topic of discussion. However, you are not making the same point Dawkins is making. When he says that “personhood doesn’t spring into existence at any one moment” what he means is that it's a continuous process. We can't pinpoint "when" it happens because it's ongoing. It's like trying to pinpoint the exact moment when dinosaurs evolved into birds. That's not how it works.
This doesn't mean it cannot be measured or proven in any way - we know dinosaurs evolved into birds and we can measure when the first instance of a bird species occurred through fossil data (150 million years ago). More importantly, we know the evolution can't have happened before the first instance of a bird species. Likewise, we know personhood can't begin before the first relevant sensory structures have developed, and we can and have measured when this happens. To call this process static demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of continuous processes. It would be the equivalent of stating that we can’t pinpoint when dinosaurs transitioned into birds, therefore “birdhood” is static and innate, and all dinosaurs are birds.
Let’s expand on your analogy of guilt a little. There are some cases where we don’t know the guilt or not guilt of an accused. There are some cases where we don’t know the personhood or not of a fetus. In both cases we (ought to) rule in favour of the party at hand – we assume the person is not guilty and we assume the fetus is a person because we don’t have enough evidence to prove otherwise. It may be that the person was indeed guilty and the fetus lacked the capacity for personhood, but we (ought to) err on the side of caution. We (ought to) operate with a presumption of personhood much like we operate with a presumption of innocence.
Obviously there are cases that have enough evidence for guilt, and there are things that have evidence for personhood. However, there are also cases that definitively demonstrate “not guilt”; for instance, if the accused is physically incapable of committing the crime in question. Likewise, we can determine “not person” if the thing in question lacks the structural requirements for sentience. My suggestion is that (outside of emergencies) abortion be done only when we know the fetus lacks the structural requirements for sentience. The 20 week cut-off that someone mentioned for Canada is reasonable in that regard, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they operate in this fashion.
Where has G&M's definition of personhood been used, either socially, legally or politically, as a justification for abortion? Well, the authors cited Michael Tooley’s philosophical definition of person in 1975 as their starting premise. I might be wrong here but I’m going to assume that it isn’t a justification currently used by society if the authors have to reference a 40 year old definition to start their argument. Continuing to calling it “the” definition of personhood used to justify abortion is disingenuous.
Incidentally, the fact that G&M's paper is utilizing a fringe definition of personhood is precisely why attacking the logical consequences of that definition - namely, that adults would not pass the test of personhood - is so effective. If it were the case that we define persons based on their ability to understand the loss of their life, and that it is morally permissible to kill non persons, then it would be permissible to kill adults who do not understand the loss of their lives but are otherwise perfectly functioning adults.
At this point there are two possibilities: either the legal definition of personhood is indeed as the paper suggested and by practicing abortion but not infanticide (or adult-cide) we as a society are inconsistent with its application (and thus morally flawed) - OR - it's not the legal or societal definition of personhood used to justify abortion. Unless you can provide me with legal or political establishments that demonstrate the former, I’m going to assume that it’s the latter.
With regards to Rini’s paper, you’re making a number of mischaracterizations. First, contrary to your evaluation, the paper would be an exception because it explicitly states that G&M probably did not intend a definition that included adults:
Indeed, G&M say exactly this, immediately after introducing (VP1): “many non-human animals and mentally retarded human individuals are persons (G&M p2).” So they recognize the implausibility of (VP1a). They must, therefore, intend something weaker, something like (VP1b).
In fact, not only does her paper not limit itself to attacking one interpretation of G&M's definition, it attacks all possible definitions. She’s not “reinterpreting” anything. Exploring every possible definition of something shrouded in ambiguity is only evidence of thoroughness.
Now, I find it odd that you question Rini’s claim of a newborn having “aims” but not that of a non-human animal or a mentally retarded human (which was claimed by G&M). What conscious intent do animals display that a newborn does not? Her point should be obvious: if the original paper considers non-human animals to have aims (presumably, things like warmth, food, shelter) then it will have to consider newborns as having aims because newborns also have those basic aims of survival. It’s simply demonstrating that the original paper is logically inconsistent in claiming that non-human animals have aims but newborns don’t.
The fallacy you’re accusing her paper of is a misunderstanding on your part. She’s not saying “it’s too stringent because it applies to adults -> don’t apply it to newborns -> apply it to fetuses.” You’re conflating definition VP1a with VP1b. Re-read the paper, she is eliminating VP1a as a possibility because the G&M paper stated that mentally retarded adults are still persons, and they would fail under definition VP1a. Therefore it’s the more lenient definition of VP1b, regarding generic aims. I’m only repeating myself at this point, but if the G&M paper establishes animals as persons then whatever aims animals have qualify them as persons, and newborns share at least some of these aims, but fetuses do not. This is not her argument, this is her reaching a logical conclusion of G&M's "aims" argument.
Her final argument (which was used throughout the paper) was using the premises of the original paper arguendo. It’s not her opinion; it’s her following through G&M’s arguments to conclude that they’re actually arguing for abortion. By virtue of the fact that they never defined "aims" Rini was able to came up with a definition that excluded fetuses but included newborns, turning G&M's original argument on itself. To reiterate, this is G&M's own argument carried out to its logical conclusion. If that conclusion is that humans and newborns are morally equivalent but fetuses are not, then it is G&M's argument that cannot distinguish between intermediates.
Finally, I’m baffled by your conclusion that she obviously “fears” the effect of G&M's paper - which what was what? Near universal objection? That shouldn't sound terrifying to someone who is presumably for abortion. And you reach this conclusion because she alluded to a moral judgement on the permissibly of killing infants? Had you read the very next sentence you'd realize that she intentionally set aside this point to focus on the argument's premises themselves:
Or we might think that a willingness to kill a human infant displays a warped character or deficient moral vision. For my part, I find these to be extremely compelling objections to the Valued Personhood Argument. But I will set them aside for the rest of this paper, and speak as if the inference from (VP3) to (VP4) is unproblematic.
Yet somehow, you conclude that she utilized this type of argument throughout her entire rebuttal. LOL! indeed.
G&M's paper creates an unresolvable paradox only if you willingly ignore the flaws within its premises. Otherwise, it's largely self-defeating.There will always be a division on abortion. One could move to another country if your own country dose not approve. People will do what they want to do, and say what they want to say. If it's your body, don"t do what others tell you, without allowing you to go with heart first than shortly follow with mind
I'm pro choice but I suppose you would consider me to be a moderate. I think six months is long enough to wrestle with the decision one way or the other and choose. However, I don't know anyone who has chosen to have an abortion in the third trimester. I would have to have a better understanding of the reasons and the risks. It seems a horrific choice, by my current understanding. I don't think it would be fair for me to draw a line which would mean a woman and her doctor couldn't consider what they consider to be a reasonable choice.
Moral stands are meant for personal guidance in how we live our lives. Our lives are not anyone else's lives. I can say I would not choose an abortion at any stage. I will not say you, or anyone else, should be forced to make my choices. Woman have, for too long, been forced to cater to men's demands; been manipulated by men's desires and been kept under the jack boot of suppressive customs and laws. Being pushed in one direction by society will result in undesirable outcomes. We have an obligation to attempt to understand the reasons why abortions are a part of our lives and help guide our society into a direction where they become less of an option because women are not pushed into a direction where they need to consider that option. Being against abortion, without attempting to understand and correct the underlying problems which cause it is the bigger travesty; in my opinion.It is the law of the land. Personally I don't think it is a choice for me but I think that others should be free to make up their own mind. Once again it is the law of the land.
I think the ending of innocent human life, or taking of innocent human life needs to be justified. I think the huge debate we see is because there is no justification. Personal choice is among the least of these justifications I see given, but the most common one.
Even in the first trimester, each of us were just at our earlier stages of development. If our life had been ended then, there would be no "us." Those were our genes, and the same beating heart we have now. The same genes and make up and that we might pass on to our children and all descendants. Our personal choices need to be to protect such innocent life from ending, and need instead used to prevent such loss of life and all possible freedoms that person could ever have.
(I would have a hard enough time considering the debate on ending "non" innocent human life like on death row. So in my comments about innocent human life, just making the point of how much more troubling it is. Not one chance to do even one little thing wrong compared to all of us that survived long enough to do wrong things. The life being taken, will never get to debate whether or not human life could be taken, even. Something to think about)
Bottom line, do our choices or those of others that enable human life to come into existence, mean we ever have a justifiable reason to end an innocent human life? Ending it... we need to realize what we are doing, and what exactly the justification is. Does it match? Is whatever the reason given is, reason enough to end an innocent human life, that if left alone could be like you and me?I agree completely that the taking of life must be justified. Unfortunately, too many people don't agree when taking a life is justifiable.
I personally find it hard to find a MORAL justification for abortion even in the first trimester. But it runs into a moral and legal claim to freedom of choice, which is justifiable to some people as well.
I am satisfied with the compromise on the issue that is supposed to have been the result of Roe vs Wade.
Why the Right continues to pick it apart is beyond me.....Does life begin at conception? If so, the motive of the right in picking apart abortion is moral.
The problem that that is a question that I don't think that anybody really knows to the point of absolute authority. Who is in a position to prove this to the certainty of 2 plus 2 equals 4? So why tie up women's lives reducing them to mere incubating machines, because of the concepts or beliefs of a few?
It is just like the voter supression, 13 cases out of millions of votes casts make Voter ID a must.
Sorry to digress from the topic
It's up to the individual.
Roe v Wade failed to mandate an official position on when "life" begins, which has led to decades of debate; I guess no matter if they did or didn't the debate would have continued.
It's one of the "questions" that will never be answered, right up there with questions surrounding the human soul.
All people understand what they are doing when it comes to choosing to get or not get an abortion; they are the ones who have to live with those feelings for the rest of their life. I'm in favor of less, much less, intervention in our lives by the government.After having read through the first 2 pages here, I have not seen anything about how an abortion procedure can affect the surgeon who performs the abortion. I have spoken to a couple of people, and they tell me it is an horrific act, by a person who has taken the Hippocratic Oath, on a little person... one who has been taken from the warmth of it's mother's body; one who has all the markings and characteristics of a human being....who IS a human being, albeit not yet full formed and able to survive outside of the womb. The surgical procedure is not "nice," by any understanding of the word! It is killing. No other word for it.
I can make no judgment on the mother, the father, or anyone else who finds it necessary to make choices in such circumstances. Nevertheless, it seems a very horrible thing to do, when a careless, selfish act of sexual desire has given rise to an unwanted child.
Yet here we are, allowing a healthy fetus to be obliterated, while spending enormous amount of time and resources trying to save the lives of unhealthy, unviable fetuses that would be better not kept alive.
We live in a strange, man-made world of dilemmas.Abortion allows the mother to follow her true will. An abortion doctor probably believes in his/her mission to help girls gain their freedom. He also knows he will prevent the birth of an unwanted/loved child and also prevent a child from being raised in the bare branches of a tree rather than a feather-down nest.
It is unfortunate when abortion clinics provide free condoms and inform kids they can have relatively safe sex, knowing full well the clinics will thrive big time. At some point abortion doctors must loose their conscience.
I think societal views have been so warped and twisted to the point that people think it is a woman's right to cruelly, painful, sadistically have her baby's legs torn from its body, then arm then finally put out of its misery by being decapitated. Anyone with any sense, or who hasn't been painfully manipulated by the media, can see this is barbaric and wrong. Saline abortions are much worse also, where the baby is chemically burned to death in utero-- way to go pro choicers.
Be fruitful and multiple the earth to death.
You are describing a partial birth abortion not an earlier abortion. Statistics show that partial birth abortions account for less than 1% of abortions performed in the U S. But this is one of the propaganda tactics that pro-lifers use.
Thanks for that information... I did not know that.
As usual in these discussions, there is much more than meets the eye.
Does it mean the pro-lifers might need to brush on their reliability for truth?I can't see a moral justification for partial birth abortions other than a situation where the mother's health is at risk.
The article below provides some good information.
http://www.npr.org/2006/02/21/5168163/p … -from-spin
I'm against all abortion restrictions. Women rarely have elective abortions past the first trimester anyway. Abortions after the first trimester typically happen because the mother's life is in danger or because the fetus isn't viable. Why force traumatized parents to have to get approval from the courts if their doctor feels an abortion is the best option?
Let's take an extreme example. If a mother is due to give birth in two days, should she have the right to ask for an abortion at that point?
I agree that a doctor's recommendation brings a lot of credibility to a decision in the second trimester. But I find it hard to oppose all restrictions in the third.
Its very much women's own choice actually. Cause bringing a kid to life is a huge responisiblity... Firstly they should be aware about this that if she is not interested or not ready to bring a child to the world then she should take proper precautions. But if something happens where she is not ready or having a unplanned pregnancy.. she suppose to have the right to get tht pregnancy abort as soon as she came to know about it as anyway its not good at all and even not good for health.. it breaks you physically n mentally... bt smtimes ladies dsnt hv choice... (Men are equally responsible for such things, even they need to understand) and smtimes its ur health which dsnt allow u to hv baby.... so there are few things which one has to consider before they go for the abortion tht Y its important? if one can justify then its purely their own wish..
How can you be moderate about abortion? Your in or your out, like being a little pregnant.m
You are a moderate if you accept abortions in the first trimester and oppose them in the third.
The father does not seem to get a choice. As far as it being just a part of the body, the mother and child may not even be suitable donors to each other. If it is just part of the body then it would not seem necessary to " kill it ". However a human being should have the choice of whether they wish to procreate. That choice should be made beforehand. Currently it is legal at stages. I think it desensitizes humans to life and death.
I am.
I would never support making abortions illegal but I also can't bring myself to support making them legal throughout an entire pregnancy. So I consider myself pro-choice... but only to a certain extent, I suppose.
Where I live abortions are legal until 20 weeks. I think that's fair. Some women don't find out they're pregnant until quite late (I was almost 7 weeks pregnant when I found out myself), so making the cut-off at 12 weeks (beginning of second trimester) is a little soon in my opinion as it's not a decision that should be rushed. I'd say a vast majority of women know and have had some time to think things through by 20 weeks, however. You still also 'beat' the viability point (~24 weeks) so no argument that the fetus could have survived outside the womb. If science progressed and viability became earlier than 20 weeks then I think I would have to seriously reconsider my stance on that number.
I know that people argue that any cut-off point is chosen arbitrarily and I won't argue that it isn't, but I still think it's better than banning all abortions or aborting 38 week old fetuses that would have gone home healthy the next day had they been born naturally.This sounds most reasonable to me, although I'm not all sure that "viability" has anything at all to do with it. After all, NO newborn can live outside the womb without near total assistance.
Making that point dependent on medical knowledge isn't just arbitrary, it's irrelevant. It's a matter of "determining" when the fetus becomes a person in their own right, not when we can keep it alive with superhuman effort.That's true, but anyone can provide assistance if the mother doesn't want to. Up until viability the mother is the only thing keeping the baby alive, literally no one else could do it, and thus her choice trumps everything else. If the fetus is viable outside of the womb then I'd argue her choice needs to be compared with a life that could survive away from her body.
One day we'll be able to have "test tube" babies, without a womb at all. What then? Thousands upon thousands of additional orphans to put through our abominable "system" each year?
No, to me a fertilized egg is not a person. Neither is a young fetus. Somewhere in between fertilization and birth it becomes a person, a human being, and at that time it is not to be aborted for any reason outside of saving the mothers life. I'm not smart enough to know when that point is (and don't think anyone else is, either) so will accept that trimester number or your 20 weeks. Of the two I would prefer 20 weeks (or maybe 16), but would be willing to compromise.
But not willing to compromise on either end; a week old fetus is NOT a person and may be aborted while a near term baby IS and may not be murdered.As I said before, if the point of viability became earlier then I would have to rethink my stance. I think that as it stands right now (around 24 weeks) it seems to be a point where I could see it being highly debatable that the fetus is or isn't a person yet, so having the cut-off slightly before that does seem like an appropriate compromise.
I agree with you that a fertilized egg is not a person and that would take precedence over my thoughts on viability, for sure.It's that egg thing that bothers me with setting viability as "personhood". A definition, seems to me, that is considerably more arbitrary that at least making an honest attempt to make the call the best we can. Yes, error must be on the side of not aborting, but we will certainly be able to save a fetus that has not reached that all-important stage, and in the not too distant future. So, for me, leaving out viability when it includes massive medical intervention makes sense.
Excellent points. I'm willing to bet that science will find a way to tell a mother that she is pregnant much more quickly in the future.
It would give the mother time to make a decision much sooner.You make some great points. The people who argue that a cutoff date is arbitrary are taking another black or white stance on a gray issue. The difference between a 3-week-old fetus and a 38-week-old "fetus" should be obvious to them.
George Will made an interesting comment many years ago about abortion and similar issues being a conflict between morality and utility.
Pro life is a moral stance and pro choice is utility, meaning it's "useful" for someone to have an abortion because of rape, incest, financial pressure or simple unwillingness to want a baby.Disagree. Pro life is a moral choice in that it declares that everyone must accept that a fetus is a person and therefore abortion is murder. Pro choice is a moral choice in that it says everyone will make their own determination of that - that they do not have the right to force the individual to make the determination they wish.
Of the two morality statements, I'll take the second.Wilderness, you always make me pause more than usual to think about my answer before I respond.
How can pro choice be moral if a person makes "their own determination"? Doesn't that undermine the meaning of morality if you define it as something beneficial for the common good?
Most of the time I thank God my parents realized I was an inconvenience after I was born.
I'm sincerely glad that you, your parents and God are in agreement about the meaning of your life.
As someone who has witnessed a pretty horrific destruction of a child, I can assure you that some children are not as lucky.
Some of them have good reason to wish they had never been born and actually say so. They make good on that thought by ending their lives.There is no right or wrong with subjective morality. Don't you realize people are going to be offended? Opposing political parties will be blamed? Rationalizations will be made?
People will be offended, oh well they'll live? Oh well, they'll live?You have nothing to fear from the truth. If people in their heat of hearts are truly seeking spiritual truth, their questions (words) will reveal that. On the other hand, if they are seeking space from spiritual truth in their heart of hearts their questions (and statements) will create space separated from the knowledge of the truth, and from you. So, they get triggered (yikes), ask another question and create more space further from the truth. The goal, their safe space. Its fascinating to watch to it.
If people are honest they will say what they seek, Truth or Space. Even if they will not be honest, its easy to see their heart's goal.
Spiritual knowledge vs carnal knowledge.
Once I was blind, but now ...
Personally, I am pro-life and look at abortion as ending a human life. That being said, I don't force my personal views on anyone but will share them freely if anyone is interested. I take a 'live and let live' stance ... because everyone has a free will and has to live with their own choices.
I wish there was better education at un-named abortion clinics given to each individual who considers an abortion. I mean real education on the subject...full disclosure, so that a woman can make the best decision for her unborn baby and herself. I know that pro-life clinics do give full-disclosure and most woman decide to keep their baby full term and take responsibility for the child. Seeing the fetus through ultrasound is pretty convincing its a human-fetus and not just tissue.
Its a moral issue that would be murder to for me to go through with.Some, call abortion the greatest murdering cause in human history. Yet, most feel nothing for the murdering of children in Iraq, .( not counting you colorfulone on Iraq.)
There are Christan who do not approve of homosexual realionship because they claim they do not reproduce. Nor dose children and old folks
Then you have a groups of elites and U N who want to depopulate the world between 1/2 billion to 3 Billion. You are really not going to like what they have planned.
I perfer the policy of the Chinese, 1 child per parent.China's one child per couple policy has backfired. The country currently has too many old people and not enough young people---to take care of the elderly, among other things. In China, you don't just dole grandma out "to the home" like we do in the U.S. Also, less young people means not enough productivity, i.e., people working and creating new innovations and doing all the things that maintain a society. Consequently, China is in a financial crisis---specifically because of their 1-child policy. China is now encouraging young parents to have at least two children. Same thing in Germany---which is one of the reasons why Merkel welcomed the refugees with open arms. The country has too many old people, not enough young people. Another financial setback for them, as in China.
But this question isn't about China and Germany, so I will only say that if I had been raped or molested, I would not want to bear the child. For that reason, I am not entirely pro-life. That being said, too many children are thrown away, like garbage, because the "time isn't right" and "it isn't convenient right now." Neither do I don't buy the "it's my body" argument. It's two bodies, not just one----which is why pro-life groups feel compelled to speak up on behalf of the rights of the unborn. A young fetus is not just a blob of tissue, and many fine babies have made it out of the womb and into the world---even from discouraged and frightened mothers, and have still gone on to do just fine for themselves, and even for their parents.If it were two bodies, the abortion would be called a murder. The Bibles calls the killing of an unborn person murder.
The last 40 years over population is harming humans on all levels and has killed (I would call it murdered) most wildlife on earth.
From being an elistist' I've hired 70% young people as it was a good balance at first.
Then Government elistist' clients and partner wanted more production for less money. Which harmed quality that turned into quantity and more toxic material. I went from Luke Skywalker to DarkVader.
All your doing is adding to the already 1000 times greater race towards extinction of species ever recorded history.
Giving all away to the dark Empire and punishing the good people more.
There need to be a revolution on both greedy elistist' and on over human populations.
I'll trade our gross national product of money to happiness in a heart beat.
Both an egg and sperm are living things, even without unification and transformation into a human replica.
A few questions:
Why is the argument divided between "pro-life" and "pro-choice"? Life versus choice seems a bit of a strange thing, as choice is within life, not separate from it.
Second, apart from health insurance policies, why is this even a political issue, an issue of government to begin with. Is it simply based on the legal parameters to euthanize said replica or some other agenda?
Lastly, why are men excluded from this process, as it takes a sperm to fertilize an egg and therefore men are 50% responsible for the formation of said replica. By default shouldn't they have equal rights in the decisions concerning it, sans a forced impregnation?Very good questions. I agree completely about choice within life. Life precedes choice because life must exist to make a choice. That makes right to life is a higher moral right.
I believe it is a political issue because it is a moral issue about when life begins and whether a mother has the right to terminate the pregnancy.
If I remember correctly about Roe versus Wade, men are left out or at least limited in their role, because RvW was built on a privacy right that the Supreme Court interpreted in the Constitution. The privacy right belongs to the mother because it is her body that is carrying the fetus.I would say that since men have a choice to walk away and there is no stigma put on them by society that they should never be able to force a woman to carry a baby full term.
Because men, as a group, can walk away means that a man, as an individual, can only stand by and see his "child" killed?
A very thorny question, but one that will have to be addressed.What has the feminism rhetoric done to men? No, men are not made of steal. Men can also care about human life at every stage of development. I have seen strongmen broken and wanting to die because of women's selfish-actions void of their consideration and best interests of an unborn child. Not all men are equal when it comes to conscience and moral integrity.
And men's selfish demands void of consideration or best interests of women can hurt women. This isn't as simple as the pro-life would make it out to be.
There is always a flip-side to the coin.
Hillary recently said, "Unborn Persons on their due date have no constitutional rights."
"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable."
~ Geroge OrwellIs her statement accurate? I'm not saying I agree or disagree with it. I just don't know that a fetus has any constitutional rights.
Yes. Hillary has gone so far as to say..."it's not a life until it leaves the hospital."
She must think she's god or the people who own her do.
Maybe they are satanists and love death?
I don't see anything thorny about the issue. Men should have no rights because they are not required to take responsibility. If you counter with they can be expected to pay child support I would point out that children don't care about money. They don't need money as much as they need caring parents. Men can't have it both ways. As long as our society is set up the way it is this is not a man's issue and men should not expect to have any say so in a woman'ts choices.
With due respect, I don't agree. That means my wife can have an abortion without my consent. I am required by society to take responsibility and have carried a great deal of it in caring for my children, raising them, protecting them and helping them when they needed it.
"Men should have no rights because they are not required to take responsibility."
That would be fair if it were true.
"If you counter with they can be expected to pay child support I would point out that children don't care about money."
Do you not see the contradiction in your statements? "Not required to take responsibility" yet is "expected to pay child support." And this isn't simply an expectation, it can be a legal obligation if demanded. If you don't pay it, you go to jail. Whatever children may or may not care about is irrelevant, it is still the father's responsibility to pay child support whether he wanted the child or not.
"Men can't have it both ways."
What do you mean by this? From what I can tell men don't have it any which way. If the woman wants to have the child, he has no say in it, financially or otherwise. If the woman doesn't want to have the child he also has no say in it. Really, it's women that have it both ways. A woman is allowed to choose whether to have the child or not, and if she chooses to have it the father must support the child if requested. The man has no say in either of those choices.
"As long as our society is set up the way it is this is not a man's issue and men should not expect to have any say so in a woman'ts choices."
I don't mind this when it comes to the woman's ultimate decision about abortion. I don't think you can justify forcing someone to carry out a pregnancy. However, the man should have a say in whether he wants to support the child or not. Women have the option of aborting fetuses, men should have the option of disowning them.
But if the woman decides to birth the child, that same man now is expected to pay support
so he could somehow urge her to abort, as he is the father after all? But she is not his wife. She can do anything she wants and the law has sided on her side.
~ well, good.
- JG Hemlockposted 8 years ago0
No I am not a moderate on abortion and I thank God for my mother not being a "moderate on abortion" as well. How about your Mom? Are you thankful that she was not a moderate on abortion otherwise you wouldn't be here to ask that question.
I would understand my mother from heaven because if I was born with sin, I would be in a hot nightclub in hell.
It would be better not to be born without my natural mothers love. Or to be born with too many members in our family causing most of the other specie's too much suffering in the World. We can always find reasons.
My ex wife gave me 2 choices. Have an abortion of our child or have the child if I marry her. I knew in my mind I would love my daughter. I aborted our marriage after 3 years. My daughter followed my foot steps as an artist and today she is my best friend. Life is all about choices, don' t let Trump punish anyone for their choices.Someone very close to me was beaten, robbed and raped. If she had ended up pregnant, I wouldn't have a problem at all if she decided to have an abortion.
Likewise, if my mother had been raped or risked death by having a child such as me, who am I to condemn her for dying in order to have me and deny her husband a wife and her other children a mother?
A true moderate does not take abortion lightly.
Apologies for this little injection, but I eavesdropped on a group of young people discussing this very issue, who made an interesting point,
"When you remove scientific -meaning medical procedures from the abort {euthanize} equation, the entire argument becomes rather moot, irrelevant. According to the laws of nature, the only "legal" abortion is a miscarriage. By the newly rewritten laws of nature, be it science or classical theology perspectives, this issue itself has been created, and supported or opposed by typical politics. The real underlying question is: at what price has mankind superseded natural law and to what extreme will they go to maintain dominance and supremacy over those laws? These rules have been in place for millions of years and -like so many other natural ways- are being consumed by man's appetite for -- who knows."
It did give me a moment of pause. Okay, truth be told, I was dumbfounded, primarily because it was a group of late teen - early twenties kids talking about it in such depth, but also because it actually made sense. Was a perspective I never really considered at the root.I learn more from my young daughter than anyone.
It is an interesting comment from young people, but false to fact and they did not carry through as they should have either.
According to the laws of nature, the only "legal" abortion is a miscarriage.
Will not a predator intentionally choose a pregnant prey, one unable to run as fast or defend as well as one that is not pregnant? A pretty effective abortion, I'd have to say. Do not predators search for, and destroy, nests with eggs, "aborting" the young inside them? Nor does changing the terminology from "abortion" to "miscarriage" change that a pregnant animal may well abort the fetus for a wide variety of reasons from hunger to chemicals to physical harm. This "law of nature" is not a law at all.
By the newly rewritten laws of nature, be it science or classical theology perspectives...
But no laws of nature have ever changed. Yes, our understanding of them changes constantly, both in the physical and biological world, but they remain the same as they ever were. No amount of "rewriting" will change that.
The real underlying question is: at what price has mankind superseded natural law...
But mankind has never "superseded" natural law, not once in all our history. Nor will we ever violate or supersede natural laws - it is not possible. Even such examples as dog breeds or plants that do not exist in "nature" do not violate the laws, for man is the environment forcing the changes, just as would happen were man not there at all. Pretending that we are not part of the "natural" world doesn't make sense - we are here, we are a part of the environment for both ourselves and other species and we have an affect on it just as the sun, a "dinosaur killer" asteroid or an exploding nova does. Every species, including man, affects the environment of other animals.
The statement sounds good, but a little analysis shows that it is totally false - just another collection of "facts" (that are not factual at all) to promote an emotional argument against abortion.Yes, animal do abort their young along with some homosexual. It would be natural law of controlling the survival of the species. Man has been the greater detroyer of million of specie's survival by their own over population explosion.
Man makes great lemmings. Grow the population until the neighbors land is required, then eliminate it.
Lo.
Wall Street junkies jumping out of buildings.
And lawyer(liars) at the bottom of the sea is a good start.
Can anyone argue that any interference in the procreation process prevents an eventual child from being born (condoms, the pill, IUDs, tubaligation, etc.)? Are any of those children any less not here because we chose to interfere with the process? So why is one choice murder and other choices perfectly OK? Has anyone ever definitively proven when life begins?
Because I don't believe it is to the benefit of mankind to over-populate an already crowded earth, I think the responsible thing is to use the birth control that is available to you. For many women (minorities, poor, remote from health services, victims of abuse and crime) that only leaves abortion. I say, leave those poor women alone. They are probably doing the best they can under difficult circumstances I'm blessed not to have to live under. Is that moderate? Maybe not. I hope it is compassionate.From researching around the world it looks like people are split to legalized abortion. Mainly Religious people disapprove abortion and there was 10 reason given by the Christian fate.
The Christianity morally reason were based in their Bible and their options.
My ethical reason would be base on natural law of the survival our species and all other specie's. Plus my own personally option of ethics. I did make a pro choice for my own daughter yet did not love the mother who gave me two choices marry her or abort the child. One child is enough for each parent on this earth. Animals choose to abort their young for what ever reason the mother understands.
Human beings have killed most of the aniimals on earth this last half century. Our human explosion has tripled since World 2. If Mother nature dose not destory our human species and their human explosion . We will destory ourselves like a over crowed rat race
The entire population of humans standing side by side would fit into the state of Texas. We aren't overpopulated. .Extinction will find us too. And most abortions world wide are gender based. Girls die. Also this it's a woman's body argument. What about the female child in the womb. Who's body is it? It's hers not yours.
It was my choice when my girl friend was pregnant and command me to marry her or she would a bort our child.
I aborted the marriage in 3 years and the daughter is my best friend and an artist like me.
Human do not have the right to kill most animal on the planet by pollution and reduce our life excepting due to overpopulation, and force extinction 1000 times faster than anytime in record in natural history. Would not work out with nature's laws or your God laws, for where ever they are made up from."Human do not have the right to kill most animal on the planet by pollution and reduce our life excepting due to overpopulation, and force extinction 1000 times faster than anytime in record in natural history. "
Interesting statement. As natural laws give every organism, whether individual or species, the "right" to do whatever it can, what has taken that right from mankind? Man himself, attempting to control the actions of other men?Most humans would not really want to destroy the Planet the way we are now. Even the powers to be want to depopulate the planet and who can trust their unnatural methods. The world pays for this kind of an abortion. They want the selection on who gets killed rather than the Mother with her own choice to her own body. What business is it of theirs.
Problem is that everyone has their own opinion of that "destruction". Some want to cut rain forests, but might decry our use of oil. Others want to kill whales for food while demanding the rain forest be kept alive. We pollute the air, making power, while others say that is wrong and produce tons of radioactive waste each year.
Point is that we ALL are "destroying" the earth in ways we find advantageous, while demanding that the things we don't do should be forbidden everyone else. Even you, with your desire to destroy native vegetation and replace it with tens of thousands of acres of hemp.I thought sand was the best diversity material on earth. After great study, tests and actually fact of 50'000 cannibis products out there, when it is illegal.
Imagine how many products we will make when cannibis becomes fully legal soon, it semi legal now.
I think Cannabis and the Tardigrades could of came from another Planet. What animal or plant is more tough and diversified than these two?
Cannibis is not destructive to the earth like most plants. Cannibis can be grown at 3 to 5 crops on the same acreages each year. No pesticides or fertilizer needed. It restore oxygen to this planet like trees. It can reloads products like plastics and oil which is one of the most destructive and over price toxic product on earth.
An actual military industrial complex trade website called Deagel.com comes out annually with its projection of population change of 182 nations. The most significant drop in a single nation will be the United States from its current 2014 number of near 319 million to just under 65 million by 2025. In other words, this website that tracks the earnings of the armament industry maintains that 78% of us Americans will either be dead or living elsewhere on the planet within ten years. Likewise, all the Western nations are listed to also absorb heavy losses in their national populations. Interestingly, America’s neighbor to the north Canada is expected to only reduce its population a little more than ten million to just over 24 and a half million people.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-global … re/5451356
Deagel.com: http://www.deagel.com/country/forecast. … p;ord=DESC
By this, you should stay in Canada because you have a better chance of survival.Plan A isolated Saskatchewan. and plan B Belize
That is so awesome about your daughter and you being best friends.
I have heard other stories somewhat like that. I am so glad that you chose what you did, and look at the effect!
On the flip side, we don't often hear about the stories of regret and how people never forgive themselves, because they made a rash decision during a very stressful and confusing time. Its not able to be undone, once a life has been ended. I absolutely believe in forgiveness, and that people can go on to be restored and at peace, but there might always be the regret and wondering of what could have been. There is so much baggage that isn't talked about that comes with having an abortion, and its not as tidy as people make it out to be.
People taking responsibility for what comes with their choices and thinking of another humans life is a wonderful thing, not a burdensome thing, like as in your story. Thanks for sharing that Castlepaloma.It"s not a religious thing, you may call it a higher energy. First did a pros and cons on having the child.
Then cast the question out into the Universe and some how a little voice comes back into my my subconscious. At first was so confused yet in time the extreme logic evolves into happiness.
Never regret the pass, only what you don't do in the future
Okay, let's pretend that how much room a person physically takes up with their body is the only factor that determines whether the world is overpopulated.
If no one had an abortion for 10 years there would be a population increase of 450,000,000. 450,000,000 unwanted children under the age of 10. That would overwhelm any foster care system and you'd see millions and millions of children homeless and dying with no one to care for them. Do you think that's not a population problem?
The gender issue is also quite easy to solve. In Canada it's illegal for an ultrasound technician or doctor to tell you the gender before 20 weeks. It's also illegal to have an abortion after 20 weeks. You cannot find out the gender before the abortion cut-off.We were a star feature in China. It took us nearly 2 hour to get through a crowd of nearly 2 million Chinese. We were ready to kill after 1 hour of fighting crowds. Can you imagine the mass murder in a crowd of 7 billion. Heat stroke would kill you first after a dozen hours. Let alone a whole life like that, I love people but not that much.
Until there is a system that is fool proof which would ensure the quality of life and safety of the children that would be the result of an unwanted pregnancy your question serves no purpose. The potential mother is the only person qualified to determine if abortion is the best option for all parties involved. Remembering, of course, that those of us voicing opinions on this do not qualify as parties involved.
Shoving our noses in other people's business is always frowned upon; unless it is a woman's business and then everyone wants to force their hand. Why is that, do you think?The Government want to control all land and waterways including a women birth channel.
NOWAY ?!!#@AY!!!8
- ahorsebackposted 8 years ago0
Facts
THIS is not a racist post , just citing fact .
Abortions in America .
White women having abortions, 138 per 1,000 women
Black Americans having abortions 501 per 1,000 women
All abortions - 3,315 per day in America.
Blacks are 12 % of population and account for 36 percent of abortions .
Twice as many Black children killed in America by abortion per year - than any other cause !
Planned Parenthood offices in excess in minority cities and neighborhoods !
Are you still a moderate on abortion ?
One of you can now call me a racist .Presentation of stats is not racist,unless they are based on a lie. These seem in the ball park.
Now give two major reason why and a solution.I'd like to see stats on income groups also. I would think poor people in urban areas would be more likely to have an abortion also. I could be wrong. I'm still a moderate on abortion. I don't think any statistics would change my mind because the primary reason I support a woman's right to an abortion is that she should make her own choices no matter what ethnicity, income group or any other group we can be lumped into by faceless statisticians.
I agree , but when one asks , Are you a moderate? , one has to look at fact ....truth .....and all the rest , Then you make up your own mind without the pollution of PC.
Well, there is only one fact and one truth that I hold to be important. A woman has a right to make the decisions that affect her life; within reason. Everyone has an opinion on the matter; but, not one person with a negative opinion toward her having the right to choose will be there to deal with the choice they want to force on her.
Where'd you get the first numbers? CDC's numbers in 2012 say 13.2 abortions per 1000 women. (I did some quick math and it amounted to 23 abortions per 1000 black women, and 4.3 per 1000 white women, which sounds more in line). The other numbers are correct.
These numbers don't change my opinion on abortion, but I would investigate why it is that a demographic has significantly more abortions than others.
Money is a decisive reason why black women resort to abortion. White women would have 20 time the media wealth as black. Equalities for blacks in jobs, health, justice, poverty, almost every social system support is not working equally enough. These Drug wars have resorted also to black lynching males as Corperationism do bidding for slave labor in prison. When they get out their live are often ruin from economically depression, and after a wail slavery an prisons seem like a normal way of life.
That is a socialist's way of excusing the individuals responsibilities , personal accountability is far more the issue when dealing with the truths about poverty , welfare related entitlements , abortions or anything . In America ,there is a constant tidal wave of abortions . Yes ! It's a woman's choice of course ! But you cannot be a moderate if you are just okay with the numbers , the racial divides , the costs of " planned parenthood " like costs and taxes to ALL taxpayers !
Like many or all entitlements, for some , abortions have become the new birth control. No one can deny that .I could denie that.
From my research from building tiny eco house that 90% of people can afford vs. most who can not. About 50% of household are owned by singjes.
In 1950 houses were 1/3 the size, and had 3 times more members of the family. That means we are 3 time better at birth control than then.
Since 2004 to 2008 abortion has gone down by 13% and still spiralling downwards. Mainly because people cannot afford childred. I perfer Education for methods of birth control rather than Corperationism pollution and toxic product us to death. Then we pay politicans to reward these scum scamers of the earth.I believe that when we get done with the southern border wall ,The next one should be build around our congress . No one in and no one out until it becomes a place of working class office positions again ! Our problem is that the laws and rules of leadership have been designed and written for Congressional office holders to keep their jobs , Law schools are not the best recruiting offices for political offices !
I don't think that is so. I knew a girl once. She said when she was in a bad marriage she went and got an abortion because she didn't want to be tied to the man or have him inflict the pain she dealt with on a child. She said she was horrified to find herself pregnant soon thereafter and the doctor came down hard on her explaining that it was not a form of birth control. I would assume most doctors feel the same way. And, honestly, women would too. I doubt the procedure is a pleasant one. I don't think this woman was dense, simply overwhelmed with life and she certainly was not attempting to get pregnant. She says she was doing everything possible to keep from getting that way.
We all are okay with the need for it in certain situations of course . Yet everyone needs to carefully check out statistics on abortions , check out race , age , economics , It's pretty discouraging to look at . Of course libs will blame the rights closed mindedness , They will call it racism . But take a hard look at where , who and why abortions are so prevalent.
Rape , age , education , reasonable reasons for abortions are fine , but multiple ones? , And I still say that when all are required to pay for them , all should have a say . Moderate or not !I have to tell you. I still say that if you compared the percentage of abortions in any poor neighborhood you would probably find that race doesn't play a big factor. Although, I'm not certain what conclusions could be made if it did. I'd have to actually talk to the individuals, understand their lifestyles, understand a great number of factors before making a determination. And, even if I did come to some conclusion I wouldn't know if I was right. My background, lifestyle and other factors would play a part in causing me to come to one conclusion or another. I couldn't allow my conclusions to sway my position on abortion because I know how I would feel if I was at that crossroads and strangers were attempting to force me to make a decision one way or the other.
In the future the race that will have decrease will be white in 2 decade. From whites 14% of the world's populating to 9%.. Blacks will be the fastest growing poplation and doubles because of Africa.
Now that Israel Zionist plot has been declared by UN as racist. I feel this the first serious step to controling destructive population and research more intelligent way to deal with these kinds of problem. The same with Drug wars.
You do realize this stand is completely unsupportable and unsustainable. Out of curiosity, throughout your lifespan, have you lived by this belief?
Sex is a spiritual principal and and a serious thing. Why do people take it frivolously? Like a game. Like it hardly matters.
It is the cement in a relationship. The glue that holds people together for the rest of their lives. A child benefits from this love.
But who cares about the products of sex/love? WHO CARES. Just kill it. "I gotta finish school. I can't afford a child right now. I don't want to get married. I can't be tied down." Should'a thought about that instead of your greedy ego that night in the dorm-room when your roommate went out of town for the weekend ... a couple months ago.
No, the ego massage is the most important priority in life.
Yep.You didn't answer the question. That speaks volumes.
Do you really think that all of this can be legislated by the beasts on the political right? There are contraceptives, morning after pills, RU-486, etc. etc. and again maybe a touch too much scotch would accomplishe the same. I accept Roe vs Wade as a reasonable compromise on the issue, why can't you folks accept the same?
"Sex is a spiritual principal and and a serious thing."...for you. Others differ.
"Why do people take it frivolously? Like a game. Like it hardly matters." Because they are not you: for them it is a game, Entertainment, nothing more. People differ.
"It is the cement in a relationship."...for you. Others differ. "The glue that holds people together for the rest of their lives."...for you. Others differ.
Are you setting yourself up to be the sexuality guide for humanity? Is there no room for other opinions, other attitudes? Not everyone agrees with your assessment; is yours to be forced on everyone else in the world? Why?For me sex/love is spiritual, it seem we do play games to arrive to that one we click with. I play with the girl to find the women.
Still we live and let live and be ourselves and find that lid for every jar. Nothing wrong in having fun along the ride by kissing a few toads.
In a few countries in Eroupe they teach sex and love education. The adsent of sex they known dose not work for abortion or sexual illnesses.
Or try jerking for Jesus website.
- ahorsebackposted 8 years ago0
IT'S A PERSONAL CHOICE FOR WOMEN , Everyone has to admit though , It IS a woman's choice . Be that as it may , there is plenty of blame to go around . The Men for instance who impregnate a woman in these situations. Humanity never learns much though , in spite of the computer in your pocket . I Pads , I phones , laptops , education , college ,........And still what does anyone know when they are twenty five or thirty ?
Considering that thirty five is the old eighteen , as to modern maturity . I would consider myself a moderate. I somewhat agree with the right to life people, that a life is a life. However, I also agree it is a woman's choice to choose if she doesn't want to have a child.
I feel for women, because the extreme views of the people who oppose abortion act like women are aborting their kids every time they choose to have sex. Ooops I did it again, better terminate tomorrow. That's how they act, and why so many people are apposed to those extreme views.
I do know of a couple women who considered aborting their child, simply because they knew they could not afford to raise it, and one wasn't even sure who the father was. Both women had their child, and they love that child, and do not regret making the choice to keep them. But, I would have supported them either way, just because of the hardship they have of working to support a child alone. One of the women had her first kid at 15, she had 4 kids before she was 20.
My big beef is with these people in our government who want to ban it. But, then when you ask them what is going to happen to all those children, they don't give shit what happens to them. Those people are complete assholes, and are only supporting their own egos.
If you want to ban it, fine. Then find a way for all children to get the support they need to live a happy normal life, and not just the ones you want to slam your fists about. Another thing that gets me is adoption. Did you know it is easier for an american family to adopt a child from another country, then it is to adopt an american child?It's just plain crazy.Jolie's adopted two African kids.
Kids responses, WE RICH!!!
~ what if we knew what the soul goes through, (experiences) in the zygote, fetus, and then out again after being murdered: bouncing back and forth in between the astral world and the physical world ... perhaps more than once!
Must be confusion. It could affect the psyche of the soul. It could. If we knew for sure, we would be more careful with the souls who God loves whether in or out of the body, both in and out of the body.
But we don't know.
~ well, good.
"… destroy the parasite. I gotta move on."I know a thirty-five year old chick who lives with her mom and dad in her childhood bedroom. She got pregnant, (31/2 years ago,) had the child and the child, (so far) is bringing the whole family joy and purpose. It could work. It really could … but what is this chick doing? Carrying on an affair behind her daughter's back. She is having exclusive casual sex with someone who she can't respect enough to even THINK about marrying, (as she has clearly explained.) She is affecting her future by jinxing it with this cheap, go nowhere relationship. How will she ever find / attract a loving person who could love her and her child? I ask!
In my opinion, adoption would have been better in this case.
Maybe even in-womb murder.
Who knows.
Time will tell.This is a very judgmental post. I hope I don't have neighbors who spend their time thinking the worst of me. It just shows you how low people can go with their opinions; without giving any thought to the benefit of the doubt, or how sad it sounds when they voice their low opinions.
Around the same % of homosexual and Abortionists in the world. Many of the Religious are against both ways of thinking.
How I ecexpt Religion, although many would not except me for not being religious. Also many religious would not except a women personal free will choice to abortion or homosexauls. I thought God excepted the things that we can not change.And I thought God expected us to follow our own conscience and not go around judging everyone else for our perception of theirs; especially when we have no idea what the person we are judging is thinking. Judgmental church lady crap always irritates me. They run around doing whatever they want up until a certain age and then 'find God' and suddenly everything they did is forgiven and they damn us for being young enough to not have reached the point that we want to judge everyone and their brother.
98% of all women I know who are vehemently anti abortion had abortions when they were younger.
Maybe in-womb murder would be the best choice for some people's situations.
This child will never have a room of her own. She is stuck in her mother's small room as there are no other rooms in a very small house. The grandfather yells abusively at all times of day from his chair where all he does is watch TV. The grandmother responds in kind. The child has no place to play but in between them and the TV. The grandmother and grandfather are packrats and have junk, clothes, boxes, books, papers piled everywhere. The grandfather does not believe in throwing anything away. The child's mother works full time until 7:30PM. And the child is in a false Montessori school. The equipment there is dusty and broken and nap time is strictly enforced. I am not being judgmental. Just revealing a case study.LOL. I get the impression that you don't understand what the word judgmental means.
- ahorsebackposted 8 years ago0
Let me ask this of all who think one way or the other on abortions, If they are just ALL okay with you and it's the freedom of choice . I ask you this , if being gay, trans , perverted , bi- , all of these are now being being considered a genetic marker , What if ? And you know it's coming ? What if a pregnant mother and or father says -
" The genetic formula for our baby says it's going to be Bi-sexual or gay , we're not sure which yet , so we have decided that in order to spare us or our child's life the living stress , we've decided to have an abortion !"
Is this okay with you all ? Because after all , it's all just okay isn't it ?I think the whole point of this thread was to show that most people AREN'T completely black and white on this issue. No, that would not be okay just as aborting based on sex is not okay (and there are laws here to prohibit it). You can strike a balance between giving women choices and also implementing restrictions. It is possible.
Yes, very good. Many people I have met feel they are forced to choose one extreme side or another when in fact there is a middle ground.
Middle grounds would give Abortionists the pro choice. Calling abortion murder (more religious) as apposed to the very extreme ignorance sexual control (lack of education)
By far most of these judgement calls and harmful prisons and death sentence comes from predominantly religious countries against abortion and homosexual. If majority Christains can not except them, why should they except you?
Within the top 5 sins in America is pot, abortions, and homosexual. All 3 are a natural course of nature.
Pot smokers alone, if it were a religion, it would have more members worldwide than Christians. Although it's only legal in a couple of Countries.
Homosexauls still illegal in 80 countries, abortion close to the same.
Atheist Americans in order to protect themselves. They had to become a religion. If there was a true democracy. Pot smoker, abortionist, homosexual could ban Christains worldwide for harming them.
There are no legal restrictions in Canada that prohibit the right for a woman to choose to have an abortion for any reason. What you are describing is another law that effectively minimizes abortions based on sex by prohibiting sex identification before the abortion cut-off period. However, if the woman finds the sex of the fetus through another venue, like a private clinic in the U.S., then she would be able to have an abortion in Canada.
Canada is one of the few countries is where legal abortions is without restriction. This system has since 1998 decrease the abortion rate.
All we need is US war doger's and Abortionists running for the Boarder. Why can't they learn how to be civilized?
It would be "okay" in the eyes of the law (Canada's, that is) because abortions are not limited on any particular reason except in the third trimester, where they are only performed to save the life of the mother or if the fetus has serious malformations.
Would it be "okay" in my eyes? No. Abortion is a serious procedure, and should only be a last resort for a legitimate reason. But that's just me. There are people who are ill-equipped to deal with an unexpected pregnancy, whether they were poorly educated or lacked self-control - heck, even if they did everything right it could still happen. The alternative of forcing parenthood onto people who don't want to be parents (and are likely to be poor parents because of it) is, in my opinion, worse than having abortions for frivolous reasons. I want to minimize the latter, but I can't justify enforcing the former.
The question of whether it's "okay" or not is somewhat beside the point. I also don't find it okay, for instance, to utter racist rhetoric in public spaces. But the alternative of completely banning any speech that is considered "racist" is far worse to me. There are certain ideals that may allow for some questionable acts but are necessary for a just and open society.I too find racist worse thing for me too. It was sort of an inside joke about US murderers. I don't want to harm anyone, even American.
I don't hold regrets, yet American are bombing children in Syria.
Even though Iraq had no connection with. 9/11 where 3000 killed. For the pass 11 years in Iraq, an average of 6000 Iraqi children are being killed every month.More than that are killed in Africa each month. While the insinuation is that Americans are killing 6000 Iraqi children each month, it isn't true.
While Iraq had no overt connection to 911, it had a very definite connection to Kuwait and to the slaughter of Kurds. And that was part of the reasoning for invading it, not 911.I don't trust Zionist who own all the major media and control American minds. I don't respect US military that don't do body counts of the Iraq dead. This will haunt them to their graves.
I trust the Iraq people who know from all their murderer are also from the UN sanction. They know how to count their dead children. Along British MP of 25years George Galloway who want Bush and Blair to pay for their genocides. They counted one million children dead from all account's.
All lives matter and are equal, even abortion matters needs great care.
I don't agree with people breeding like rats and exceeding rats. Lad rats get very criminal like when crowded too close together.
"… while spending enormous amount of time and resources trying to save the lives of unhealthy, unviable fetuses that
would be better not kept alive."
???
Can you elucidate?Will try to Kathryn.
I believe it's true that in many situations where there is something "wrong" with the fetus, it is the fetus itself that triggers termination of pregnancy. I am no expert so not sure of this.
If it is true, and a genetic abnormality could be passed on to later generations, is it correct to use modern knowledge and technology to "rescue" the fetus? This is in no way a support for eugenics - only the use of our human brain to try to work out the best choice and outcome.
Contrast this situation with the somewhat casual approach to abortion of a perfectly normal and healthy fetus, terminated for out human convenience.
I realise the questions might raise a storm but I think they are reasonable and can be asked.
You would go here, JCL. Good grief… I get your point … but good grief!!! Uh, I would NOT step in to do what nature is doing: miscarrying for very good reason.
So the soul itself may be reaping its own Karma ... who knows. !!!
The thing is this: an abortion is an eraser. It erases a mistake. In this case, we allow it due to compassion for the mother: She just cannot have a baby at this time and the inconvenience would be too drastic. So we let her erase her mistake.
I do not think the unmarried sperm leaker should have any say-so in her decision to erase the mistake. I do not believe he has any say-so in her decision to accept the responsibility for raising the accidental product of fertilization or giving it away for adoption. If the man wanted a decision he should have married her proactively. End of story. She is single and she gets to decide. He has NO jurisdiction whatsoever.
TWISIOk, so hopefully back on track: What if it was primarily the mother's seduction which led to the pregnancy? Do you still put major blame on the father?
And are you implying that fathers have much less, or even zero concern for their son- or daughter-to-be-born? Does the father have no say in the matter, period?
Yes, this thread seems to be going in various directions. But, merely as a man who has attended many, many men's groups over the past 25-30 years, and not as one who has ever been or will ever be a father, I am fully aware of the pain and anguish many men do experience when the blame is stacked so much against them.
I have indicated in the previous post my concern for the unborn baby."Does the father have say in the matter?"
No. He has N O jurisdiction over the mother. He did not stake a claim.
"I am fully aware of the pain and anguish many men experience when the blame is stacked against them. What if it was primarily the mother's seduction which led to the pregnancy? Do you still put major blame on the father?"
Y E S. He should have married her first to keep track of where his life-giving fluids are flowing and to be able to assume responsibility for them. If he is not married to her, he can't.
"Are you implying that fathers have zero concern for their son / daughter-to-be-born? I have indicated in the previous post my concern for the unborn baby."
I am not understanding your point here.
a child is the last thing the girl or the guy are thinking about.
What are they thinking about?
This is where an alien, visiting earth, who has ESP, could give a very interesting report for his fact finding mission regarding human psychology and habits.
You are tending to place more responsibility on the father than the mother. That is bias, prejudice.
Of course we can't put blame on either party without knowing the full circumstances, but you need to admit the truth, that the man is NOT always mostly to blame. Your prejudice appears to be anti-man. Am I mistaken?
Now, how does this situation place your self and my self in relation to the Question? Are you a "moderate," or am I, or are we both moderate? Or neither, you tell me.Actually, I would say he does not have to pay up. She should accept that reality up front.
Thank you.... and I would prefer that no baby was aborted out of convenience. 100%. But, as you say, the understanding of different scenarios does make me a moderate.
The different scenarios happened because …???? That is very interesting to me… I should be that alien and write that report.
I wrote:
"A child is the last thing the girl and the guy are thinking about. What ARE they thinking about?
This is where an alien, visiting earth, who has ESP, could give a very interesting report for his fact finding mission regarding human psychology and habits."
hmmmm….
What are they thinking even though they know the birds and bees of life!
"This condom will not leak!"
"I did take that birth control pill ... didn't I?"
"I love him/her so much! for ever and ever!"
(etc.)
To isolate the difficulties in awareness in book form could help girls and guys prevent unwanted pregnancy.
Do I have a best-seller? HA!
Actually abortion rates are down.
So, that is good for girls who really don't want stuff sucked out of them.
I notice this is a hyper-active thread going in many directions!
So God Yahweh has entire jurisdiction over politicans and women choice of her body?
There are many other Gods who would disagree, mainly me. Even animals would disagree who eat their young for survival of their specie's. Human's better wake up on their over population before the God elistist' depopulate us for good. Dears do it, dogs do it to save themselve.
I am not a moderate, although I wish I could be. I would like to take the stand that death/abortion is 100 % BAD.
but, perhaps it is not?????
We hate the word murder so much when discussing abortion ... why? If we have to murder, we have to murder! I suppose because there is a Bible commandment saying, "Thou shalt not kill/murder." It is actually left over from Christian doctrine and people hate feeling guilty.
You are a moderate. One who is not a moderate says that in no circumstance is death an option. Most people are moderates. Few think life is the only option in all scenarios including rape and incest.Maybe I'm a born rebel, and when I ask people.
Is not over population and destruction of our natural earth the two top threats to mankind.
Too many act like I'm the insane one. They may as well go back to sleep,then get up in the morning go to their zombie jobs. Then pump out more trashy babies of themselves. Because when it comes to sex education they have no real place to go. Although in parts in Eroupe school do teach lessons in love and happiness.
Then all we got, to pass down is our unpayable debt to our children. That is the best you got, for a reason for birth control, such a horrible sad sorry.I do understand what you are saying, CP. We have a world in which we try to prevent death occurring, at all costs, at great cost in fact. We have advanced the skills and technology of medicine, preventative medicine, surgery, pharmacology, hygiene, public health, trauma rehabilitation....all designed to prolong life. Entrepreneurs donate huge sums to banish such diseases as malaria, and other scourges. Human populations increase accordingly, while many other species are pushed out of their habitats. And yet, the demands on food and water supply increase exponentially, while production and supply dwindles.
Using our brains and good sense could help us and our world, if we only used the power we have evolved with. Communities could encourage warm, loving, effective partnerships where they have no intention or ability to produce children. Instead, they would at the same time be encouraged to help with the financial, food and educational needs of those couples who do have children.
This could move us forward in a much more cooperative world scene. The number of unwanted children would reduce considerably. Those who did come into our communities would have a much better and bigger "slice of the cake," with uncles and aunties there to nurture and support.
Abortion would become, largely, a thing of the past. Most children born would be cared for and wanted.
Is this all too fanciful and dreamy on my part?I'm an optimist dreamer too with patience for my thing.
Just frustrated with so much suffering going on from ignorance in the world. Grateful for the timing of birth and with freedom to aim at the source of the world problems, could of been born in Iraq. Yet Tunisia who has not been invaded has a better abortion system than America.
We now live in dark times of abuse, yet do sense the light is coming, just wish it would move along faster.
what if the soul in the newly forming body suffers trough its death in the womb?
and maybe its life would bring about greater awareness for itself and the world no matter what its circumstance?
It is best to avoid sex until there is a feather-down nest in the branches of your tree and true love in your heart.What if there is no individual soul, just like with any other organism, and we all subside into the big "ocean" of spiritual existence?
Each of us can believe what we wish.Not a bad concept, always did feel like a spiritual being.
Seem like a promotion from a crawling bio organism.
- Cissy1946posted 8 years ago0
Right or wrong, legal or illegal, abortion will always exist. Unwanted pregnancies happen every day, all over the world, to unmarried women and to married women. In this country, before Roe vs Wade, a married woman with an unwanted pregnancy could just tell her doctor she had irregular periods and get a D&C. During the procedure the doctor discovers she was actually pregnant. Oops, sorry. But what about the unmarried women? Doctors weren't quite as generous with their attitudes toward unmarried women leaving them to find alternative methods to end the pregnancy. If they had the money, and in the early 1970's it was still in the $1000 range, you could feel relatively sure you'd survive. But what happened to all the women who couldn't come up with that kind of money? Even if they were being helped by the man responsible? Where did they go? What were their chances of coming away in tact? Those back alley abortionists had an awfully lot of customers. Worst of all, what about the women who were so desperate they attempted an abortion themselves.
It breaks my heart that this issue, an issue that can only truly be understood by women, has become a political ball to be bounced around whenever a politician or religious fanatic wants to garner headlines, or maybe when a journalist wants fodder for a column.
Like I said in my first sentence, abortion has always existed and it always will. With that in mind, maybe the question being asked should be whether or not you want it to take place in dirty back alleys with a very real threat to the life and health of the woman involved or do you want it to take place in a sterile environment where a woman's chance of survival is close to 100%.Welcome to the hubpages
Good to point out the survival rate.
Sounds like the mother abortion survival rate would have a better chance than the baby being born for survival rates.
Sexual desires will be another natural thing that will always exist.
Yet many of the religious right sins want to make how people have sex their business and the Government business too.
As long as your the age of 18 and not harming anyone, why should it be ?
My daughter and I talk freely about sex to be ready for the responsibties or there difficulties.
Human life is holy and it starts at conception. Abortion is nothing less than murder. If only we could treat those pro-choice baby-killers the way they treat the unborn!
Women are entitled to choose what they do with their own bodies. Period. Nobody can dictate how they handle their pregnancies. If a woman doesn’t want the baby, it’s her decision to make, and hers alone. No parents, husbands, boyfriends or reactionaries have the right to meddle.Which one is it? are Abortionists murderers or do women have a pro choice?
I am pro-choice, but I think I would consider myself a moderate. For a woman to have no way out of a situation is a very scary feeling. I abhor the pro-lifers' calling anyone who does not agree with their position "pro-abortionists." Pro-abortion would mean that a person believes every woman who gets pregnant should have an abortion, which is not true.
Even some moderates believe that a woman should not have an abortion after a certain time has passed. But what about women whose cycles are so erratic that they don't know they are pregnant until five or six months, which may be why they got pregnant in the first place. I've known women who have had that to happened to them. (No, they didn't have abortions.) Anyway, in certain situations the father has moved on, leaving the woman to raise the child on her own, usually with little or no financial help.
Once a child is able to survive on its own outside the body, it should never be aborted. I believe that if it is necessary to end the pregnancy to save the life of the mother, if at all possible the child should be taken by either inducing labor or Caesarean section and efforts made to save it. However, I still believe that the life of the mother comes first.
I just love the do-gooders who say that sex is for procreation only. Don't screw unless you intend to make a kid. How provincial, how puritanical of you! How judgmental can a person get.Agree
They are afraid to give lesson in love in schools, must seem too creepy. Lessons in Love like what has been done successfully with happiness in parts of Eroupe.
Yet people tortured other people over sexual taboos and non solutions.
We better change ourselves before the Governments owns our birth channels like they control all other channels.Couldn't agree more. Our state, along with many others, keeps trying to legislate morality. Can't teach about sex in public schools, and the General Assembly has passed a couple of laws making it much harder for a woman to get an abortion. They always put so many restrictions on what she must and must not do, so much literature she has to read and videos she has to watch trying to scare an already frightened woman.
They don't criminalize the woman, but they put so many penalties on and criminalize the doctor and the clinic offering safe abortions that it is not safe anymore for the medical personnel. If the father agrees to the abortion and she later accuses him of pressuring her into getting one, even if it isn't true, he becomes a criminal. Same for her parents or anyone else involved. (As in the case of a scared 15-year-old whose parents have advised her to have an abortion.)
The anti-abortionists are now in control, and if another conservative gets appointed to the SCOTUS, there goes women's rights. In such case, get out your psychedelic pants; I predict another hippie uprising.Hippies started out with great intentions then drop the ball to greed. I'm inspired that today youth will pick up the ball again and reset the World again..
Just don't want to be on the front lines when the shooting starts. Follow me I will be right behind you.That very last sentence is funny. Is that what you call a "circular argument?"
A World War is when 2 continents are at war. America is invading on 3 continents and during a few of those war zone countries I've toured. From experience never visited the front lines during action. You can be fearless without being stupid.
Everyone started life as a fetus. Many talk about these unwanted children. And say it's better they be aborted . But what I think is unwanted are the people going around getting pregnant with these baby's they supposedly don't want. Purge them from this overpopulated world. Also I strongly feel that the cure for cancer will never make it out of the womb.why? The person who could do it. Went unwanted.
When the irresponsible actions of someone result in the death of a innocent person. What do we call that in this country? Man slaughter? Or abortion? Let us call it both.
Possibly negligence. But are you trying to say that abortion qualifies as manslaughter? Why isn't removal of a cancerous tumor the same? Neither tumor or fetus is an "innocent person", after all.
I think the most greatest connection and strength in the world is love. An unwanted, unloved child birth in an over populated fearful world, may as well be a tomor. Because if most fish, trees and wildlife have died on earth from our over population. All this destruction has come from when I was a child. Why directly contaminate the earth with more unloved parasites.
Is that not the way of most species? To overpopulate until nature steps in and kills off enough to bring it back into equilibrium? All our vaunted intelligence isn't enough to overcome that natural action - why insist that we are different than any other species in this respect?
I would like to meet one person over 30 who has not had a moment in their lives where they have done something they might regret later; if the result turned out differently from the best case scenario. I would love to meet one unmarried person over 30 who has never, ever, had sex outside of marriage. I would like to meed one man who opposes abortion to find himself pregnant, without being in the position he would like to be when he found himself that way.
It is easy to throw out accusations and make unkind remarks. It is much more difficult to live life without ever doing something that might turn out to be something you regret and cannot deal with. It is much more difficult to attempt to be supportive of others. Maybe women who have abortions wouldn't find themselves in the position of needing one if we were more supportive of each other, as a species and not so accusatory. But, that isn't going to happen. We create a society which causes unwanted pregnancies to easily happen and then we turn on women, as if it is somehow their fault. And, their fault alone.I personally share the fault because I married a women I did not love to save my child from being aborted. Lucky my child loves both of us and we both love her.
I'm divorced now, yet it could have been an unloved child aborted. I give each major choice decisions hard and long thought. In order to carry no regret, jealously or quilt. I leave that kind of lifestyle up to the Religious.I'm sure everyone gives major choice decisions long and hard thought. Even with that, things change over the years and in retrospect we may regret things. Or not. Regret is a part of life. Jealousy and guilt are things we struggle to overcome constantly. But, many times we assuage our own guilt by attempting to throw it on others. I see the abortion debate as driven primarily by this. It isn't fair to the women who have to read these comments. One person's regrets should not be used to drive other's misery.
I've mastered guilt, jealously, fear and regret. Except regret of what I don' t do in the future that could turn into a serious problem.
Why can't Christain master these things?
Why should women not be openingly informed and diversified educated about abortion?
Men find themselves in this situation all the time. Unlike woman who get to kill a child they don't want or can't afford. Free from judgement. Men are forced to pay for something they can't afford nor want. Men are jailed for simply not being able. While women get a free pass for manslaughter. Men don't have the choice to kill a fetus. Women shouldn't have it either. That's fair. Rape medical necessity and incest are the only reasons accepted. When I found out me and my wife were going to have a child I was 18 and hell and gone from being ready. Know what I did. I stepped up to the plate. If we give people the easy way out. It will become the only path they take.
Abortion, gays and abortion are here to stay. I'ts better to educate rather than incarceration if it's against your will or interest. It's all natural to me. Every and each body is their own, not the Government and not yours, this dictations is not live and let live.
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