I’m actually quite shocked over the aggression shown by some of the people in this thread. Is it because you still have to fight for abortion rights? No wonder you just dig deeper into the trenches. Where I live, abortion is free (both legally and economically) through week 12, and only a handful of hardcore religious fanatics even consider challenging that. OTOH, only a very small amount of militant feminists would challenge the line drawn at week 12. Free abortion - at the mother’s choice and no-one elses - through the first trimester is taken for granted, and it’s a non-issue in public debate. Another positive thing that has come out of that is that over here even the most militant pro-choicers don’t use a rhetoric where they compare a human fetus to a parasite, a worm or other gross stuff.
No, I don’t have a uterus. But I do have three children and have been very much “there” through all three pregnancies. I also know people who suffer from infertility, and, frankly, I’m appalled at some of the parallels used in this thread. Is it a knee-jerk reflex to overcompensate for your own perception of a poor standing in the debate?
When we start deciding people with no brains are not worth letting live, we can then easily decide that it is unwise to allow the halt to live, then we can make the small jump to eliminating the retarded. From there we can see the logic that those who produce little should not be a burden on the rest of us. Soon we start to consider the tax advantages we would have if Granny were to drop dead before 31 December rather than after it.
I would point you to the strange turn the discussion took about the legitimacy of killing some infants.
Protecting all human life, and even potential human life, seems like a reasonable starting point. I am willing to compromise, but the point I start from is everyone deserves the protection of society.
Of course such a position cannot be defended in every case we see in the world, but it seems to me to make the most sense to start from this point.
Sorry my posting schedule does not line up with your convenience.
See my answer in post #230.
Clearly there are women who would abort late term by choice (not medical necessity) out there. How many? I have no clue. How many are ok?
I would like to think no doctor would perform an elective, late term abortion if it were legal but if it were legal can you say there is no one seedy enough to perform the service for some amount of money? There are plenty of examples of doctors doing terrible things in the past so while most wouldn’t I also would not be surprised if some did.
But all that is really here nor there because I have stated repeatedly in this thread that my talking on the late late term abortion is part of a thought experiment to determine where a line may be discerned between the mother’s rights and the unborn’s rights.
See, this is an issue that occurs in any society all the time. It is common for two people’s rights to come into conflict and one of society’s main functions is balancing and adjudicating between those rights. It’s is how lots of people can live together without killing each other.
Does the woman have rights? You bet she does.
The issue is does the unborn have rights and how they stack against the mother’s when there is a conflict of interest.
Killing someone to resolve a conflict is pretty aggressive and final for a solution wouldn’t you agree? Question is can we say aborting the unborn is killing someone? So, we do the thought experiment (read that again some of you before flying off the handle) and figure 10 seconds before birth the unborn is not different in its personhood than it is 10 seconds after birth and killing it after birth is deemed murder.
And so from there you walk it back to find the (fuzzy) point at which you say the mother’s rights trump the unborn’s rights such that she can terminate the pregnancy.
I would also point out the mother, if she gets to a late term pregnancy, has chosen to do that. Circumstances may have changed such that while she once wanted it now she no longer wants it. You see no reason that she should not be responsible for her decision and have to deal with it at that point?
I want to be clear. I absolutely support a woman’s right to choose and feel 100% it is her choice to make and no one else’s. I have literally worked for that goal and I have volunteered and been to marches and defended clinics and donated money in protection of that right (how many here ranting have put their money and time where their mouth is I wonder?). I am saying it is unreasonable to expect that choice to exist unchecked right up to the moment of birth (even just theoretically). Given that then where do we draw the line?
So, do you oppose organ harvests then as a grave threat to human rights? :rolleyes: Men’s rights rather, since you clearly have nothing but contempt for the rights of women.
And hey, if you are going to go so far as to force women to give birth to a brain dead fetus, why don’t you go all out and dangle the corpse in front of her and call her a slut? Since your goal is clearly to torment them that’ll be even more effective.
No, you don’t. You have made it clear again and again that you don’t think that women deserve the protection of society. You want to be “very careful” about the rights of a blob of tissue regardless of how much suffering you inflict on women in the process - you certain don’t feel like being “careful” towards them.
No, you “urge caution” when it comes to the “rights” of fetuses, but show no concern at all for the genuine rights of the women who host those fetuses. Rather the opposite, you urge that those rights be ignored in the name of being “cautious” over the “possibility” that a small lump of tissue somehow magically qualifies as a person.
And I notice you again ignored my point about organ harvests.
As for me being an “unpleasant person”; I’m not the one advocating for the systematic abuse and humiliation of half the human race.
But, you don’t seem to see that you are casually willing to disregard women’s rights in favor of a potential person. The fact is if you deny women the sole responsibility (and her doctor) of deciding what is going on medically in her body at any time, you are harming her rights. When are you going to deny men the opportunity to ejaculate irresponsibly?
Of course there is; the anti-abortion one however is clearly in the wrong, morally and factually. Just because there are two sides doesn’t mean that both are intellectually or morally equal you know.
OTOH, based on your postings in this thread you come across as a person who urge that the fetus’/child’s rights should be totally ignored in the name of women’s rights, regardless of whether the pregnant woman is in the 3rd or the 39th week of pregnancy.
If I were you, I’d read this:
and the rest of that post for good measure. Whack-a-Mole is able to express the balanced viewpoint I’m missing from you much better than e.g. I am able to.
The problem I see is that when you ban it for the nutcases, you end up sweeping in the legitimate cases. I tried to explain that in my second-in-a-row post above to P in Q. (Why can’t we see post numbers in preview?)
A woman has just found out that she’ll likely die or be permanently disabled if she brings the baby to term. After much agonizing, she decides to abort. Now, she has to prove that the medical necessity is bad enough to go with the procedure because she’s 10 days past the line you drew, and she may need to leave the state or country she’s in because of the line you drew. Any other obstacles you want to put in her way?
I have been explicit, several times, that medical necessity is always reason enough to terminate a pregnancy at any time. I can only assume your misrepresentation of my argument at this point it willful.
Know what? Later term abortions for medical necessity are performed today in this country. The women are not leaving the country to have this done. It is not a roadblock for them unless you can cite actual examples of women having to leave the US to get an abortion for medical reasons that she could not get in the US.
I pointed out that she would have to show that her medical necessity is sufficient – did you see that there? And, I also said she may have to leave the state or the country. This conversation started about Ireland, where she would indeed have to leave the country.
As soon as you say you need a medical necessity, that just changes the argument to what kind of necessity is sufficient. Injury? Death? Mental anguish? Loss of more than 1 limb? Loss of one kidney? Or two?
Anyway, we’re perseverating at this point, so I’m out.
By your same reasoning; War would be murder (and also self defense). The woman also has a right to life and in many cases abortion can be self defense and the right to life for her already born (if she has any)!
In Africa and some other countries one can see women with 4 or 5 children already born, who are starving to death, that then as I understand you that would be better than an end to a fertile egg. Otherwise the anti abortion group would be in favor of the morning after pill, and free contraceptives to the poor women who choose not to have another child(or even one)!Preventing the need for an abortion would be the thing they would press for.
If you wanted me to sell you 5 chickens at 3 dollars apiece and I gave you 5 fertile eggs, I doubt that you would be happy with that! Biologically it is the same thing. A fertile chicken egg can not be called a chicken nor a fertile human egg a person!
Are you then worried about all the little human lives that are lost when a man ejaculates, even if there is a conception?
I had 2 mis-carriages in my youth, neither could be called a person, my doctor let me see the clots(that is what it looked like).One other time I spent time in the hospital because the test showed positive, but there ended up in no pregnancy that time! With 2 of my children I had to spend a lot of time in bed, one in the hospital to keep the pregnancy.
I was very ill after the miscarriages for a long time, I lost a lot of blood and needed a transfusion.
I find it strange that most so called pro-Life people complain about taxes to support the poor who have children, but do little to help them prevent a pregnancy to begin with. Maybe all women who was not ready to concieve should avoid all men 'till their fertile days were over? wouldn’t men love that, since they seem to want to hold a woman to risk her life for their needs! No, most woman would not want that either, but they are not forcing men to have vasectomies so they won’t get pregnant!
Those decisions are made today in the US. You’ll have to ask a doctor what constitutes medical necessity in this case but I have yet to hear of a case where a woman needed one and she was denied. The decisions are made in reasonable time, the woman is not gathering papers and spending 3 months in court fighting to get an abortion. It is a decision the woman makes in concert with her doctors.
Can you cite a woman in the US who had to leave her state because she could not get an abortion for medical necessity in her own state?
Can you cite any cases where a woman was injured but doctors refused her an abortion because they felt her potential injuries were deemed not bad enough to perform an abortion? (Leaving aside “mental anguish” till you define some parameters for that since that could be anything.)