I am not defining “pro-abortion” as someone who wants as many abortions as possible to take place. I’m saying that the “pro-choice” or “pro-abortion”(according to your terminology) makes a mistake when they ignore the moral ambiguities of abortion.
phantomdiver, you consider yourself a feminist yet you don’t believe women are entitled to make their own choices when it comes to childbearing? How does that work?
What I was trying to get across to your son, is that regardless of what he thinks about your sister’s behavior, he cannot ascribe her motivations to every woman who elects to terminate a pregnancy.
Yes, abortion is killing, and killing is wrong - but it is also sometimes necessary and even merciful. And who is in the best position to determine when death is an acceptable alternative? In the case of my cat, I am, because it is assumed I am a responsible pet owner, a rational human being who does not act out of malice or cruelty. If I am capable of making this determination for a pet, why am I any less capable of making a rational and responsible decision when it comes to myself, my body and my child?
Yes, I KNOW killing is wrong - but if that is the choice I have made, you can be damned sure I have good and sufficient reason to take such a drastic step. I am not a monster, devoid of feelings, bent on the destruction of innocent children. I am a rational and responsible human being - and that is why you don’t get to make my decisions for me.
Deplore your sister’s actions all you like, but don’t try to tell me that justifies taking away the rights of other women.
And yes, I do think you’re a fathead. But I think most people are fatheads.
You’re treading a very fine line here, my friend. Close to calling me unreasonable (which, in this case, I don’t see as true). How do you define reasonle or unreasonable?
My problem with most forms of birth control is that they artificially prevent life from being formed. Things which make the attachment of a zygote to the uteran lining, in my opinion, kill that organism and as such prevent it from developing into as much of a human as it would have been. Things which make it relatively impossible for sperm and egg to meet (artificial things such as condoms), in my opinion, basically take away any chance the sperm and egg had of creating a life.
However, I don’t think anyone can explain something to you in the way of it being moral or not if your moral code is something that isn’t going to change. It’d be somewhat like trying to convince cmkeller that Christianity is “the way” or trying to tell me that Zen Buddhism is Truth. What it comes down to, in some cases, is your belief system.
I didn’t say I believed it, just that this is the argument I’ve seen most of the time. What it comes down to, I think, is people not considering other ways of thought or other opinions or such.
I knew a guy in high school (name not important) who did not believe that someone who had not been born was human. he refused to discuss or debate this. Pity. He was almost a decent guy, IMO, notwithstanding his refusal to debate this.
Your announcement that a 3rd-tri baby is human and your grounds for a refutation are interesting. While I think human life is substantiated before the 3rd tri, I don’t agree with the methodology of your refutation. You’ve stated previously that someone who disagrees with you is unreasonable, without providing a working definition, or a cause/truth defining that unreasonable quality.
I would say that the severity of the threat to your health would play a part in this. Are we talking about contracting e-coli or about getting a nasty case of mono? In some cases mono might present a true threat to the life of the mother, in which case I think you need to concern yourself more with the health of the mother, because if you cater to the baby’s needs and neglect the mother . . . mother dies, baby’s SOL.
IMO, so long as you try your level best, while not doing something you know will kill you, you’ve done your job. I’ve not yet seen a case where I didn’t think someone’s level best wasn’t good enough.
IMHO, this is getting into quite another debate . . . euthanasia. What I have been taught (and sccordingly, what I believe, simply because I’ve not yet seen a compelling argument against it) is that you do what you can. If there is no possibility of improvement from, say, a coma, then you do your best to make the person’s last few days as pleasurable/empty of pain as possible. You involve their family or friends as much as is possible, per their wishes.
I don’t think that removing a baby prematurely (with the knowledge that the chance it will live being slim to none) and trying to keep it alive is necessarily abortion. In the case of my aunt, we knew this baby would not live long at all. At the same time, it would have died in utero. She would have died had she tried to carry him (baby/my cousin) to term. A brain transplant was literally impossible.
What I have a problem with is withholding medical attention when such is available and practical. If you don’t have a way to save someone, you do what you can to make their death as peaceful and pain-free as possible. If you do have a way to do it, go for it:)
Maybe this is a naive belief. My opinions and moral code are not immutable . . . if I see a compelling argument for something and I cannot find anything or do not know of anything to refute or otherwise break it down, sometimes I do change. I’ve changed my opinion on euthanasia twice now because of that.
Let me make sure I understand you right here: you’re saying that in and of themselves, totally apart from anything else, sperm and eggs are not people. If that’s what you’re saying I agree with you.
Re: killing unborn babies, there’s a case going on right now with Rae Carruth, I believe, which concerns his pregnant girlfriend and a drive-by shooting. I don’t know how far along the pregnancy was as I don’t know the specifics of the story.
If I die, my cells still exist long after. That an individual skin cell is not a person . . . I won’t disagree with you there. But I believe that a zygote, with human DNA, which is going to make a woman pregnant . . . that’s a human life right there.
Grass, bilogically, as far as I know, is so different from a human that you might as well be comparing the price of magoes in Wichita with the temperature of spit in Sumatra (to quote Cecil Adams). Yes, they’re both alive. How they reproduce . . . their genetic information . . . far as I know, very different.
Identical twins are genetically identical, far as I know. They share resources inasmuch as they often occupy the same general space. If I’m sleeping in a room with someone and reading the same book, that doesn’t make me the same person.
Can you explain to me excactly how a cell from my stomach could make a new “Patrick”? I don’t think that’s in its cellular code.
What makes the fertilized egg special is that it has the capability to, without having its DNA enhanced or otherwise changed, to develop into a human. And I think it is very significant morally. I have no qualms about cutting my fingernails or washing my face. I have a very serious problem with killing a fertilized egg.
What you have destroyed or killed (or temporarily disabled, perhaps) is that zygote’s ability to do what is in its nature: to divide and multiply and grow into a human being. And a zygote normally develops into a human being, whereas a liver cell does not. Killing one liver cell isn’t going to have the same impact as killing a zygote.
The magic of the zygote is that it, without tampering with or changing its genetic information, will normally develop into a human being.
The part underlined is, I feel, your opinion. You feel that at the zygote stage we do not have a person. I feel we have a human being, albeit nowhere near completely developed.
Very early in development (I don’t know how early, I’ll adit), stem cells for the brain, heart, lungs, etc have been detected.
I have not yet seen evidence to support your claim that any of my skin or muscle or heart cells has the capability of developing into a person. Whence do you derive this claim?
I do not so much “cling” to the moment of conception as I believe that is when a human life starts.
[underlining my emphasis]So when I have a newborn baby in my arms, a baby who can neither talk nor walk, I a holding a baby, a tiny human, but not a person? Perhaps you could point me to your definition of a human? All this copying and pasting has made me lose my sense of direction.
I’m truly confused by you here. First you say that a human who can’t walk or talk isn’t a person. Then you say that it isn’t reasonable to argue against a 3rd-tri baby not being a person. As for why they deny the baby personhood (or don’t), why not let each pro-choice person decide that for him or herself?
As for causing it to die . . . I feel fairly safe in saying that I am a person. It would be entirely possible to cause me to die if the circumstanes are severe enough. What is your point about 3rd-tri fetuses?
To which person are you referring in the first sentence? And as for it being a matter of opinion, and making a mistake, I’d rather err on the side of a baby being human (and therefore not killing him or her).
I have used the argument as follows for women who unwillingly have sex (as in rape or incest): why would you not want to give life to a child who might become a good person inspite of his or her mother’s rapist? I see it as a matter of control and assertion. “Yes, I’m going to carry this baby as long as I can, and I’ll try to raise my child to be a better human being than the man who raped me.” I realize, by the way, that the fact that I will never become pregnant after having been raped discounts this somewhat. I’m also not foreign to the concept of rape.
Rape is very often kept as a private thing, as is child abuse, or our jails would be easily twice as full as they are now.
That something isn’t practical isn’t going to stop me from saying I believe it is wrong. And there are drugs whose side effects include birth defects. Those drugs hae since been taken off the market, as far as I know. I don’t believe that a drug whose sole design is to harm, kill, or otherwise tamper with a fetus or developing zygote, or whatever stage you’re discussing, should be legal.
As for how we can protect rights . . . advocacy. Educating the human members of our society. Trying to support those who need our help. There are more things but I can’t think of them right now.
I don’t know about you, but I can pray for the soul of that baby and its (since at that stage it is neither male nor female) eternal repose in heaven. I can try to gain an understanding of the reasoning behind it. Ultimately that woman, I don’t think, is going to tell me why she killed (in my opinion) a human, if she believes she did. But she will have her judgment.
Do me a favor, Lemur? Email me your definition of a person. I’m not seeing it.
As for protecting those who are in utero . . . see my statements above regarding advocacy etc. While we cannot kave little monitors that tell us if a woman is 1/2 hour pregnant, we can instill in her some quality (not physical) that will perhaps cause her to want to keep that unborn baby alive.
What freedom, would that be? The freedom to kill a human being? I see that as violating the rights of an unborn child.
As for 2nd and 3rd-tri abortions, I had thought they were legal, to a point. Partial-birth abortions, anyone?
I think I’ve made pretty clear what I try to do. It’s one of the reasons I started this thread.
Criminy, I’m sorry for the length of this post. ITF I will try to break things down more.
i’ve held for many years that abortion should be legal up to the age of two in all cases except adoption.
there are some folks who think abortion should also be legal from age 13-17, but that begs the question ‘when does life really begin.’
I’m not offended if you call me “anti-abortion”. Because I am anti abortion (in most cases. if a womans life is at risk, for instance a tubal pregnancy, or other life threatening circumstances, then yes, abortion is the only humane option. otherwise, keep your panties on or take the consequences of your actions. whether or not you give the child up for adoption is your “choice”). So why are you offended if I call you pro-abortion? It’s obvious you are. “No” you say, “I am for the womans right to choose”. Choose what? Abortion, if she so deems it. Ergo, pro abortion. Okay, I’ll do ya one better, call me “anti choice”. Because I’m that also. It isn’t a choice, it is in fact a life. Regardless of what you may or may not believe, abortion kills a human being. A viable human being? In a lot of cases, yes! Would abortions still happen if it were illegal? No doubt they would. But so do all other crimes.
What a sick society we live in when the preferred method of birth control is murder.
Someone explain to me again why I DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE? I don’t mean the right to choose what happens to a womans body. But I do mean the right to choose whether or not I want to raise a child (or pay for that rearing under the threat of jail/wage garnishment/some judeges ruling of how much money the woman can squeeze out of me? Afterall, isn’t that what “the right to choose” really boils down to? Whether or not you want to raise a kid? Or is the “right to choose” arguement more based on what a pregnancy can do to a womans body? i.e. stretch marks, etc.? Okay, so she decides to have the baby and stick me for child support. Why can’t I in turn decide that I don’t want to raise or help raise a kid and let’s say take the child out and kill him/her? “Oh what a sick thought” you say. Yes, you’re right, it is a sick concept. Very sick. Just as sick as “a womans right to choose.”
Why do you believe that? Do you think humans under the age of two don’t have the same right to life as anyone else?
BullDawg, I applaud your fervor . . . but sometimes being less zealous works more effectively as a means of arguing.
BullDawg:
Well, except that it isn’t. It’s really quite simple: As of this point in time, the ability to abort a pregnancy is legal. If you disagree with that, then knock yourself out trying to change it. Understand, though, that while you are trying to change the law, many people (and I include myself among them) will be working to keep things as they are.
Waste
Flick Lives!
it actually has more to do with my views on death than on life. i believe you will be born again after you die, so your life isn’t all that valuable until you’ve lived for enough time to gather solid memories. i personally have no memories before the age of three so i picked 2 as an age where i would’ve had no problem being aborted and born again (that is if my parents didn’t want me. they did.)
**
Yes, I understand that if you don’t accept my arguments against the non-personhood of a zygote, several forms of birth control would be wrong.
But what is wrong with preventing the sperm and egg from ever meeting? Yes, you are taking away the chance they will create a life, but you would be doing that if you refrained from intercourse. Which Catholics believe it is OK to do. It is not wrong to prevent your sperm from entering the female reproductive tract, is it? I just can’t understand this. This may be the teaching of the Catholic church, and if you are a Catholic you may think this, but it makes no sense.
What I mean is that I can’t imagine a person actually believing this. I know you don’t, of course not. But I also can’t believe that anyone pro-choice would believe that a 3rd trimester baby is not a person. It would boggle my mind. If they haven’t thought about it seriously they might think this, but then they don’t fall under my “reasonable person” standard. Come on, all you pro-choicers…anyone think that it is perfectly OK to kill a baby up until the time the head comes out in the delivery room, but wrong after that? Hmmmmm…silence. No, no one thinks this, it is crazy, and I hold that if they do think this, they are absolutely wrong. They have their chance to explain why I’m wrong, but I’m pretty confident.
**
Euthanasia is a difficult subject. But withholding medical attention is not euthanasia. Really, you could ask a priest about it, they’ll probably tell you that sometimes man has to bow to god’s will, that it is wrong to interfere with death when there is no other alternative. There’s a difference between, say, giving a terminally ill baby a lethal injection and removing them from a respirator even though they might seem similar.
Yes, but why? Yes, the zygote has the potential to form a human life, but every cell in your body has the entire complement of DNA to create an identical twin of you. The reason they don’t is that certain genes get switched on after they’ve divided that quarantines the developmental genes. They still have them, they are just shut off. And of course, some cells lose that quarantine, they start to selfishly divide, this is cancer.
So, if I could take one of your cells, and somehow shut off the developmental blocks. If that cell is put in the right environment, it will develop into a brand new human being, your clone, an identical twin of you although it wouldn’t be you. The fact that a cell can turn into a person does not make it a person, although at some point in the development it becomes perverse to argue that there is not a person.
That’s what I meant in that crack about walking and talking. At some point this cell mass starts walking around, riding bikes, reading the newspaper. No one, not even pro-choicers, think that a cell mass that can read a newspaper is not a person. They even think the same thing about a newborn baby who cannot do those things. And they may try to say that what applies to a newborn baby does not apply to a 3rd trimester fetus, but that is crazy, there is no significant difference, other than the fact that this tiny person happens to be located inside another person. If this tiny person was invited in, and is not an interloper of some sort, then you don’t have the right to kill her.
**
Exactly. But the point is that our individuality is a consequence of our biology. It is significant for us, but for many creatures it is not significant. We can easily imagine that we could have evolved as colonial polyps, and the concept of individuality would have no meaning for us. What I’m saying is that biology does not support the idea that a unique genetic code, or a unique body neccesarily means a unique individual. After all, we can imagine two people with identical genes, who literally share the same body, this happens very rarely but it happens. I’m saying that there cannot be an unambiguous definition of “individual human”, and that to try using biology will only confuse the issue. We have to draw the line somewhere, but there is no bright line, even conception is not a bright line.
**
Yes, but consider this. I take a test tube with an egg cell, not a person, and a test tube with sperm cells, not people. I mix the two. Now we have a fertillized egg. But this fertillized egg cannot develop into a human unless it is given the proper environment, a uterus or uterine replicator. I just don’t see the significance of the fact that the two cells have joined. Yes, we could cause this cell to develop into a person, but it would require a lot of “tampering”. Would it be wrong to just let the test tube sit and do nothing? I hold that it is not wrong, the zygote is not morally significant.
**
Well, what if you were threatening my life, and I had to defend myself? What if you were being kept alive only with machines and tubes and there was no “you” there anymore? It would be moral to remove the life support in that case.
Yes, I’m agreeing. We sometimes cannot decide biologically whether this entity is a person or a non-person. We can decide when it is a baby you can hold in your hands and tickle. I say we can also decide when it is a couple of cells, although I understand that I haven’t convinced you. But we have a gray area where it is definately not clear. I’m saying that in this area we can make a presumption that the entity should be protected.
**
Yes, we can give this reasoning to the mother, and hope that she will act on it. Yes, my personal opinion is that it would be best if she kept the baby, or let it be given to someone else, just like I would hope that she might care for a baby left on her doorstep. But we cannot compell that care like we can when a parent chooses to have a baby. If we could do a fetal transplantation then of course we will not allow the baby to die, we will only allow the mother to remove it, and it will be adopted by someone else. But this technology does not exist now, so the baby will die. I’m sad about that, but what can we do legally? We can persuade, but not compell.
**
I understand, there is nothing wrong with convincing people not to have abortions, I’m trying to show what a rational (by my standards) abortion policy should be. And yes, that includes a culture where even though you might have the right to have one under certain restricted circumstances, you would not have one.
**
Oh, I forgot to state this explicitly. I’m saying that such a definition is not possible in an unambiguous way. Set out whatever definition of person you want, and I’ll come up with some sentient computer or ET or liver cell or chimpanzee that you’ve declared either a non-person or a person when you didn’t want to. There is no dividing line. We have to make choices, we have to make public policy, but the line does not exist. So, we make our laws. I know you think a zygote should be included under the people, but I’ve shown why I disagree. But I imagine on most other things we agree.
Oops, I was talking about my model abortion policy, not what we have now. Today, any woman who can find a doctor to perform the procedure can get an abortion at any time for any reason. Granted, it would be difficult to find a doctor to perform an abortion on a healthy 7 month fetus, but if they did they would be within the law.
Of course, my policy would drastically change abortion in this country, although it seems to you to allow all kinds of bad things. But I’m afraid my policy would prohibit (WAG) somewhere around 3/4 of all currently legal abortions. With better planning on the part of the “mothers”, most of these could still occur if they take place earlier than they do now. This might happen if drugs that prevent implantation were more widely available. So perhaps there wouldn’t be as many unwanted pregnancies as the pro-choice people might think.
Oh well, all I’ve done is outrage both sides. (See subject line) Hmmm…well, that’s what I get for trying to use logic…
Semantics rears it’s ugly head. Ok, I must concede that legally speaking, abortion is not considered murder.
I still stand by the premise, though. It is a sick society we live in when the preferred method of birth control is “abortion”. Sorry, I’m not much of a political activists. So, you won’t see me with the pro-lifers carrying signs of aborted fetuses or such. I happen to believe there are better ways. I wonder why the pro lifers (and by that I mean the activists), instead of causing such strife for women doing something that is legal, don’t try to work from within the system and perhaps try to get the clinics to allow them to work in them in order to TRULY give women a “choice”. For instance they could advise women on other options to abortion, like adoption. Perhaps the clinics wouldn’t allow it. Perhaps they may have before things got so out of hand. I’m of the belief that some higher power will punish people if their wrong. Perhaps not. As far as being active to change laws, nah. Not me. I pick and choose the laws I wish to obey and so far it has worked for me.
Thank you for the advice, iampunha. I’ll consider it and try and not be so … what? emotional?
BullDawg:
Except, and try to keep up here, it’s not.
Please forgive me if I’m wrong, but I’m forced to operate on the assumption that you have never been to a clinic, nor have any idea what actually takes place in one. Women are not forced to abort upon stepping into the local Planned Parenthood office. Most of the women who go there have already made up their minds, some of them arrive looking for advice, which they are freely given.
Y’know, I would think that your higher power might frown upon that sort of thing. Or are people only called upon to answer for those things that you consider wrong?
Waste
Flick Lives!
Good clinics do. I’ve had an abortion too, and prior to getting it, I was counselled quite heavily on all of my options.
Most clinics don’t let you just walk in and say “hey, I’d like an abortion, please,” then just usher you in and give you one five minutes later. You have to make an appointment (that’s why the 24-hour mandatory wait period that some states have tried to pass is, IMHO, ludicrous).
Clinics such as Planned Parenthood will get you what you need. If you choose to have an abortion, you can get one. If you choose adoption, they will help you find a good, reputable agency that deals with adoptions, and get you the counselling you will need if adoption is your choice. If you choose to keep, they will find you help with things such as food and clothing, medical care, and anything an expectant mother needs. They counsel in all forms of birth control, including Natural Family Planning and the rhythm method. They also assist those who are having problems with infertility, and those who may not be infertile, but are having some trouble conceiving. Yes, Planned Parenthood helps you become a parent, if that is your choice.
Yep. Check this out: http://www.serve.com/fem4life/
If you still want to discuss it after that, let’s do it!
I think of this whole thing as a civil rights issue – for the baby.
But that over-simplifies matters. I think there’s something very, very wrong with our society when it is so terribly hard to be pregnant and to give birth and to be a mother that many women have their babies surgically removed from them. Why is it so hard for many in society to contemplate a pregnant woman, married or not? Why is that an embarrassment? Are women “broken” that we need to be fixed by becoming unpregnant?
And what on earth is wrong with our social system that we don’t provide a long period of paid parental leave and fully-paid pregnancy, delivery, postpartum, and well-baby care?
Well, I didn’t mean to rant. I am pro-life, but I don’t think one can look at this in a one-sided way. When I was iampunha’s age, I did. I am trying to help my children see beyond the black and white of this issue to the gray humanity of it.
No problem. I still think it’s funny.
phantomdiver
But it is not. for every pregnancy “prevented” by abortion, there are some 10000 prevented by other means, such as the pill, condoms, etc. Since we have no idea of how many sex acts without a condom (eg0 would actually end up ina pregnancy, the number is a guess, but a low end estimate. I have heard #s as 100000 to 1. Abortion is the “least favorite” method of birth control, not the most.
Are you then if favor of contracepives? If so, how about the “morning after” pill?
IzzyR,
You’re leaving out at least one position.
- Abortion may or may not be morally wrong, depending on the circumstances.It is never a good thing, although it may be the best of the alternatives. Society has not reached any consensus that a fetus is a person in all respects ( see my previous post for examples),and even many who are pro-life make exceptions,so there’s certainly no consensus that all abortions are murders. If abortion is illegal, with no exceptions, some women will be risking their lives. If there are exceptions, for the mother’s life or health, for example, then the decision making has simply been moved from the mother to the doctor(s) (who may or may not make that decision based only on medical reasons). Rather than force some women to risk their lives and health,or allow doctors to make the final dceision, I think it should be the woman’s choice for at least some part ( first 2 or 3 months) of the pregnancy.Ultimately, every individual determines the morality of an action for themselves. The government can only determine the legality. They are often not the same.
**
I went to the site and it had a bunch of links which would not work. As such, I do’t have anything to discuss and can safely say that someone who claims to be a feminist but also claims to be against women choosing what they do with their bodies is a model of inconsistancy IMHO. But hey, whatever works for you…
**
There is no baby. Look up baby in a dictionary. Then look up zygote and fetus. Then get back to us.
And the day we give a zygote or fetus more rights than a living, breathing actual human being without whose cooperation the zygote/fetus will never become a baby to begin with, it is a sad state indeed.
**
Why are you assuming that all women who would want or need an abortion are doing so for these reasons? What gives you this impression?
**
Do you really think that there would be less abortions if these concerns were met? Do you have a shred of evidence to support this idea?
Yer pal,
Satan
[sub]TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Four months, three weeks, 4 hours, 37 minutes and 0 seconds.
5727 cigarettes not smoked, saving $715.96.
Extra time with Drain Bead: 2 weeks, 5 days, 21 hours, 15 minutes.[/sub]
"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endorsement, honey!*[/sub]
Gosh darn it. Oh, well. I don’t have the energy or inclination to rehash this debate – no, it hasn’t been done here, but I’ve done it a bazillion times in the last several years, and I’m a little tired of it.
<shrug> Another time, I’ll take somebody up on this. For now, let me just say that I think feminism has been hijacked by those who are in favor of abortion rights. The early feminists (such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) were demonstrably against it. I’ve read some of their editorials on it in their newspaper, The Revolution.
It’s a definition thing. I say baby, you say zygote. I agree with you on zygote, but you don’t agree with me on baby. To me – and to many pro-lifers, including iampunha, and I know this because I have discussed this with him many, many times – a baby can be anything from a fertilized egg to a pre-toddler.
Not more rights. Equal rights to life. But I’m not going to go the vituperative route. It’s been done. What we really need is constructive answers. Common Ground is working on it. I don’t have an URL right now.
I’m assuming this because I know several women for whom this is true. I’m disregarding those who have abortions with no more emotion than removing a hangnail, because I don’t think they are representative of aborted women as a whole.
**
[/quote]
I am told that we have a very high rate of abortions here in the US, much higher than in Europe, where social services are much more extensive – paid parental leave, paid medical services, the whole nine yards. Heck, in France they even give parents of several kids (I don’t know how many, but four kids qualifies) special discounts – they refer to it as “famille nombreuse.” BTDT. We got it when we were visiting France in 1995 and took various tours. (iampunha, do you remember this?)
phantomdiver
Doreen,
I’m not sure how you are distinguishing your postition from the third postition that I outlined. You are saying that abortion is morally wrong (in some circumstances) but you are still not giving society the right to take a stand on it. This is commonly done with regard to moral issues whose outcome has a direct effect only on the person making the decision. In the case of abortion the decision has a direct effect on the fetus. To advocate that in such a circumstance the decision be left totally to one interested party has no parallel that I know of.
Society makes all sorts of decisions that have enormous impact on people’s lives, health, and other forms of well being. The argument that you give is never brought up in any context other than abortion.
Maybe I can try my hand at this, as I’ve known PD for a while now.
PD believes, AFAIK, that it is not just a woman’s body. When you abort the life of a fetus you kill its (or his/her, depending on how old wee’re talking about) body. That is the nutrients the mother’s been eating and giving to her baby, but it’s the baby’s body.
My mother is more an advocate for human rights than anything else. This includes the right of an unborn child to be born without harm (harm here being abortion). She believes, AFAIK, that to assume one person’s life more important than the other, except in cases of direct dependency (such as pregnancy), is not terribly intelligent.
My rights, as well as those of thousands of people, have been infringed upon several times by other people. That doesn’t give me the right to infringe upon the rights of those who injured me any more than it gives me the right to hurt others who had nothing to do with me being hurt in the first place.
[quoteOriginally posted by Satan
**There is no baby. Look up baby in a dictionary. Then look up zygote and fetus. Then get back to us.
And the day we give a zygote or fetus more rights than a living, breathing actual human being without whose cooperation the zygote/fetus will never become a baby to begin with, it is a sad state indeed.
**[/quote]
I wasn’t under the impression that we were using the definition of a baby as defined in a dictionary, firstly. Secondly, since when is every dictionary going to give the same definition of “babyb”?
As for giving a zygote/fetus/baby/human being more rights than a living, breathing human being . . . I don’t see giving one human as much of a right to life as any other as an infringement of rights.
Satan, how about your definition of baby and human? that might make your argument easier to see.
IMHO, there are a pretty good number of abortions performed each year by mothers who do not believe they have the resources to raise a child in this society. If we as a society provided more to mothers, regardless of their social position (i.e. unwed, teen, diabetic, whatever), there would, IMHO, be fewer pregnancies because the resources would be there, at least.
I know this was addressed to my mother. That doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to share my opinion.
PD, if anything I said about you wasn’t true, feel free to say so:)
I don’t see how abotion is a “pregnancy prevented”. It is, in fact, a pregnancy terminated. This also occurs naturally, and possibly more then we know. One statistic I heard is that for every child a woman has had she has probably had 4-5 misscarriages but just didn’t know it (a conservative estimate). Thinking it to be just another menstrual cycle. Perhaps abortion is not the “preferred method of birth control”. My mistake for misstating that. I apologize. However just the fact that it is a method of birth control is still sickening. Condoms are not the same thing. Condoms prevent pregnancy, in most instances. The pill also prevents pregnancy. But the effects on the female body are often not good. So for the health of the woman, I certainly don’t recommend it. Surely you realize there are health risks associated with birth control pills? If you don’t know that then doctors must be dissimulating that information. Or you just don’t believe the facts. I don’t know enough about the morning after pill to speak on it. But I find it highly suspect. Probably more dangerous for a woman then birth control pills. I’m sure it will be proven in the future to do damage to a womans reproductive system (just as abortion also damages a womans reproductive system). You are right in assuming I have never been in an abortion clinic. I am going by information I have heard from third party’s that abortion in these places is encouraged in most instances. It is a high money making racket. And it is a cash business. I do know women that have been to these clinics and they have told different stories then I see on here. Stories of how they were encouraged not to “destroy their lives by having the child”. I tend to believe people that I know as friends before I believe someone on a bulletien board about the antics of abortion clinics like Planned Parenthood.
Perhaps my “higher power” does have a problem with me picking and choosing which laws I obey. But I hardly equate an occasional joint to a woman murdering her child. You, however, can put it on the same level if it makes you feel better. I don’t have a problem with you trying to justify your actions. It’s your world. If there is a God, then you’ll answer to Him, not me. I’m nobody.
And just for the record, I’m only expressing my views. I’m not here to change anyones mind on any issue. I just enjoy expressing myself. You have free will and can believe what you want. No matter how wrong it is. Hitlers god given right to free will was also none of my business. Until you violate my space or the ones I love, I don’t give a rats ass what you believe. If it affects me I’ll just sick the pitbulls on you and then shoot you. (and if you know pit bulls, you know how silly that statement is. if you just believe everthing the media tells you then that’s another issue and your problem, not mine)