Nonsense. If the children’s experience is insufferable, kill them. If it’s not, then their experience is not justification for abortion. There may be other reasons to support a pro-choice stance, but I responded to what you offered. It’s your syllogism, not mine.
How do you emotionally and financially support a fetus? The ad makes no sense to me. A pregnant woman physically supports the fetus; a man does nothing. Are you supposed to give the thing an allowance?
I’m imagining a pro-lifer world in which a potential father would be granted visitation privileges to his fetus and pay child support.
The anti-abortion rights movement has never been troubled by the need for accuracy and sensitivity, so this ad (as stated in the OP) is not surprising. It is sufficiently ridiculous that it’s hard to see how anyone would be swayed by it.
Which group is sponsoring it?
I think that without abortion, there would be a hellova lot more teenage pregnancies. Think the world is overpopulated now?
Without abortion, we would be overrun!
How does this follow syllogistically? It is better not to create a child than to bring a child into hellish living conditions. Once a child is born, then, of course, it has all the rights of any other person.
Why does abortion have to be “justified?”
I think the debate is taking things the wrong way round, semantically.
Without having actually seen/heard the ad, iampunha’s description suggests that the ad wants to imply that being “pro-choice” automatically makes a woman a bad mother, because not supporting her children. By equating the label “pro-choice” with that of “deadbeat dad,” it makes a clear association of bad parenting on those women who are pro-choice.
And since I think everyone here knows examples to the contrary (i.e. pro-choice moms who support their kids very well), I think it’s safe to say that yeah, the ad’s quite disingenuous, from any perspective.
It’s about equivalent to saying that Christians are bad parents because they believe in God. :rolleyes:
I think the ad is just a somewhat poorly phrased way of trying to say “Abortion is a form of neglect”–not saying that the pro-choice ideology makes people neglectful of all their children, but that ABORTION ITSELF is a form of neglect. To their view, a man who runs away as soon as he finds out his girlfriend is pregnant is the same as a woman who makes an abortion appointment as soon as she finds out she’s pregnant…neither one wants to get involved with their child.
Now, I am pro-life, and I do think that is a bit simplistic view. Personally, I’ve known many women who agonized over aborting, some who really regret doing it, and I don’t think that abortion means a woman is callous or trying to just run away.
I also don’t think that women who are ambivalent or initially consider abortion are necessarily destined to be bad mothers…contrary to the viewpoint put forward by BOTH pro-choice and pro-life people at times. Some pro-choicers have the attitude, “Oh, if she was thinking of aborting at first, obviously she would just toss it in a dumpster if she did have it.” In reality, I think most aborting women are normal women who are capable of being good mothers, but feel pressured by circumstances to abort–and that it is quite normal for ANY woman to be ambivalent about being pregnant at first.
Actually, I think it would be a more interesting and perhaps relevant ad if they brought up the “Choice for Men” concept. There are some men out there who feel that they should be able to forfeit all rights and responsibilities related to the fetus as a form of male “abortion”.
magic8ball, actually the teen pregnancy rate has been falling in the last few years, even though a smaller percentage of pregnant teens are aborting. More consistent use of contraception has made the most difference in the teen pregnancy rate, not abortion. To a lesser extent, the trend of teens abstaining from intercourse (though not necessarily from other sexual activity such as oral sex, going by the definitions some teens have for “virginity”) is also a factor. I say this based on infromation from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which favors abortion. The same organization also notes that only 58% of those who abort were using a method of contraception during the month they conceived–and how many of those were using ineffective methods like “the pull-out method”? Personally, I think it’s a true shame that so many people in this era are still not educated in proper contraception, or haven’t been given the motivation to put their knowledge in practice for whatever reason.
**If the conditions are hellishly insufferable, then why wouldn’t it be merciful to kill the child? If the conditions are not hellishly insufferable, why wouldn’t it be better to be born than obliterated?
Gee, why don’t you tell me, since you apparently felt compelled to do just that?
**
I disagree with that rationale, too, but it’s a moot point. The problem with your interpretation is that (assuming the OP’s recollection of the wording is correct) it’s not what the ad says. The ad does not say “someone who gets an abortion.” The ad does say “pro-choice.” There is a difference.
Several people have said that they are pro-choice, even though they would never get an abortion thenselves. Put my wife and I in that category too. After two difficult miscarriages, she would never want an abortion and I would never want her to get one. However, we are both firmly pro-choice in ideology.
If that ad didn’t mean to refer to the ideology, then it shouldn’t have referred to the ideology… but since it did, I still say it’s disingenuous.
so a woman should be forced to carry a child to term regardles of wether she or the father (if she knows who it is or he is around) wants the child or not?
I never said this was REQUIRED as a justification for abortion, or that abortion was required any justification at all. A woman can get an abortion because it’s monday for all I care.
You are compare children who EXIST to children who do NOT exist. There is no analogy here. Real children have rights. Imaginary children do not. You cannot “obliterate” that which never existed.
**Oh, please. The statement “Isn’t it worse…” clearly draws a comparison between two less-than-desirable circumstances. There is no other reasonable inference to take from this; it’s a classic “lesser of two evils” analogy. And “justification” is not equal to “required.” Moral issues can be described in terms of A justifying B even if there is no legal need to do so (to use a single example). Someone can offer justification for using corporal punishment on his child, even if this is not required of him.
I do nothing of the sort. You offered as justification for abortion the notion that it is better than bringing children into a hellish circumstance. I responded to that notion. If unborn children have no rights, then don’t offer justification or rationales for why it’s OK to abort them. I’m not a mind reader, and I have no interest in responding to arguments made and quickly abandoned via backpedaling and rationalization.
BTW, a belief that unborn children do not exist is a notion so preposterous that I am not going to waste additional time addressing it. Argue that unborn children have no rights, if it makes you happy. Describe what it is about their state that makes that so. But they certainly exist.
You can conclude that if it makes you happy. My post, though, was in response to a very specific argument (later abandoned by the person posting it) that the potential circumstance a child will be born into could be justification enough for abortion.
There is no such thing as an “unborn child.” There are embryo’s, there are fetuses, there are children. It’s not a child until it is born.
Let me rephrase my original premise:
I would submit that a woman who cannot properly care for a child should avoid giving birth to them. Preferably she should use birth control. If not, then she should terminate any pregnancies as soon as possible before they RESULT in a child.
**Whose definition is this, based on what? You are actually arguing, for example, that there is a substantial difference in an entity the moment it is born, as compared to the moment before delivery, and that this difference is tantemount to actual existence? This entity does not exist the second before delivery, but it does the second after delivery? OK, please explain what transformation the entity in question has gone through to accomplish this miracle. In particular, I’m interested in the attributes it possesses after birth that did not exist immediately prior to birth.
And not to waste time here, again, please limit your points to the argument you’re actually advancing–i.e., that unborn children don’t exist. Don’t, for example, now state that what you really meant was that third trimester children really do exist, but their rights are subjugated by the mother’s. That is an argument some would advance, but it is not consistent with yours.
But now you don’t have a premise. Your statement is not supported by any sort of argument. Why would you submit that? Do you still hold that “improper care” equals “hellishly insufferable,” a circumstance beyond endurance? If it is something less than that, exactly what benefit does your recommendation produce as it relates to the children in question or the parents who now obstinately refuse to follow your advice, the ones you described in your first post? What is it about these circumstances that makes you feel they must be avoided? Because they are not pleasant for you to observe? Do you feel this advice is simply axiomatic?
And if someone’s circumstances are, in your assessment, beyond what we’d expect a human to endure, why wouldn’t it be merciful to kill the children, regardless of what stage of development they happen to be in at the moment? Why limit it to the unborn? You may assert that a “child” has rights, but that doesn’t preclude us from acting mercifully and in the child’s undeniably best interests.
Even if we accept that “rights” would prevent us from actually acting on this, do you agree that it would be better for the children in question to be mercifully, painlessly put to death?
It’s the Supreme Court’s definition, for one. As long as its in the mother, it’s not a “child.”
You know damn well that third trimester abortions are rare, as much as the anti-choice people would have us believe that demonic evil doctors are yanking out full term babies with forceps, moments before actual childbirth, and casting them into incinerators, or using them in satanic rituals, or whatever it is they think those horrible “abortionists” do.
Having said that, however, I don’t have a problem with late term abortions. It’s still not a baby. You can pull it out and throw it on the floor and stomp on its fucking head for all I care. No more significant than stomping on a bug. Is this arbitrary? You bet. But it’s no more arbitrary than hysterically shrieking that a fertalized egg is a person, or showing a lot grandstanding, mawkish sentimentalism for the “suffering” of zygotes.
An ACTUAL child (i.e one that has been BORN) has a right to live. society’s obligation is to to do whatever it can to alleviate the child’s suffering, and to give the family all the help and support it needs. In extreme situations the child should removed from the household. The options are not “kill it or leave it” as you suggest. It would be less of a load for society, however, if some people didn’t have kids.
I actually care about REAL children, not IMAGINARY ones, unlike so many “pro-lifers” who are really just pro-fetus. They don’t give a shit about them after they’re born.
Now you are advocating infanticide. According to your own definition, once you yank the fetus out it becomes a child.
**Were you a fan of their work on the Dred Scott case? Anyway, this from the actual text of the Roe v. Wade decision:
**Roe v. Wade was decided principally as a privacy issue. But while the court refused to assign “personhood” to an unborn entity, they did not discount interests outside of the mother’s wishes:
** Some additional illumination from you:
Um, OK. Hope your rant was therapeutic. I’m done asking you for clarification since it’s clear you are unable or unwilling to fashion a logical thought bridging more than two sentences, and I have no further interest in giving you a forum to repeat your silly diatribes ad nauseum, supported, it would appear, solely by the fact that you believe it should be so.
Well this IS the PIT, is it not? It isn’t GD. I was being facetious. I was going to an extreme in order to short-circuit an endless, acrimonious, pointless debate about when a fetus becomes a child. Any line we draw is going to be arbitrary. To say that it is a child at the moment of conception (actually a misnomer, there is no “moment” of conception) is no more rational than to say that a fetus is not a child until the moment of birth.
There is not an epidemic of women running into abortion clinics at eight or nine months along and demanding abortions. This scenario is a red herring. I was not going to give in to it. I have repeatedly said that I would prefer birth control first, or an abortion AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE.
And to get back the OP I was expressing an opinion that it is bullshit to associate a pro-choice position with neglect when obviously, plenty of children are being neglected by so-called “pro-life” parents.
And it is bullshit to associate abortion with child neglect because there NEVER WAS A CHILD. An egg is not a chicken. a tadpole isn’t a frog, and an EMBRYO IS NOT A FUCKING BABY. You can invent imaginary third trimester scenarios all you want, but the truth is these are rare and are usually performed only if the woman’s health is in danger.
And Bob as for your parsing of my “Isn’t it worse…” rhetoric to infer that I think abortion requires justification, let me just say that I think you’re reading more into it that I intended. I will rephrase: Isn’t it preferable for a woman terminate a pregnancy (as early as possible) than to give birth to a child that she cannot or will not take care of?
Would it generate more heat than light to point out that for approximately the first two trimesters, a fetus fits all of the definitional requirements to be classed as a parasite?