And nature “says” that for humans, most sex isn’t about having children.
Uh, I swear I threw an “emphasis added” up there.
Who ever said “‘most’ abortions are performed on blastocysts or undifferentiated clumps of cells”? Not only is she likely to be 6-8 weeks along, but to my knowledge, no abortion providers will agree to terminate a pregnancy they can’t see on an ultrasound, meaning that to seek an abortion, she’s got to wait until at least 5-6 weeks at the very earliest.
My point was only that if you consider a conception human wayyy back in the fallopian tubes, then of course you’re extending the same consideration to blastocysts and zygotes, meaning that hormonal contraception and IUDs, amongst other methods, are, effectively, abortion.
It’s absolutely true that the earliest point at which a chemical or surgical abortion occurs is five weeks, though most providers with whom I’m familiar insist on 6-7 weeks.
And yet, there are people getting abortions, because they can’t see the forest for the trees.
I’m done witchoo.
That doesn’t even make sense. People have abortions because they can’t afford or don’t want children, or because there’s something wrong with the pregnancy/fetus. What is and isn’t natural isn’t relevant to that, morally or otherwise.
If you’re done with him, can you explain this wannabe soundbite to me, because I can’t make heads or tails out of it.
Sure it makes sense. If people want to continue to have sex, thinking that sex is somehow something more than procreation in the eyes of nature, than unwanted pregnancies will occur. Thereby, more abortions. A simple equation, that is somehow lost on you. Sex = children.
It IS more than procreation for us. Why else do we have such a high, constant sex drive, and such low fertility ? You might as well claim that since we sometimes eat fruit, eating is all about consuming fruit.
Translation: Those that think that sex is anything more than procreation in the eyes of nature are ignoring the obvious. Stop looking at all the individual trees of whether sex is something social; intimate; pleasurable; etc., and see the forest right in front of you: Sex will lead to pregnancy.
Rarely, with humans, even without birth control.
Dude, my god, I’m not arguing whether or not we, as people, want sex without the consequences. We’d also like to eat that fruit and not get fat. Seriously. Come up with some better rebuttals, but don’t bother trying to refute nature. You argue with me, as if I’m the one who decided we are to be this way. You’re at odds with what you want, and how it is. At least I can accept the truth.
Tell that to my two children.
I know you’re trying to make a relative argument, compared to other species. But, frankly, it’s irrelevant.
So… how many times a week does a typical married couple have sex? Two or three or so? That’s about 150 encounters a year, or 1500 over ten years. Compare that to the number of children this couple will produce over that ten year period, maybe … three? Does this represent an unnaturally sex-crazed couple, acting beyond all laws of nature?
And did you have sex only two times ?
What kind of point are you trying to make here? In no way am I saying we’re sex-crazed. In no way am I saying we should only indulge in the act when we desire kids. I’m just saying, when two fertile people have sex… the children, my god! the children!
I can’t believe I’m having this argument.
The number doesn’t matter, what matters is the process we took to create them. Which, as far as I can tell, is identical the the process for having sex without wanting to have kids. (barring any kind of BC, but even then, you can’t be sure).
It’s not an absolute statement. That’s where you’re wrong.
Not all conceptions result in pregnancy - therefore the result of conception isn’t necessarily a human.
Also, it’s a large leap in logic.
Also, as I keep arguing - it doesn’t matter until you can show that abortion harms society.
If anyone cares about actual numbers, if you take 100 average couples having unprotected intercourse resulting in ejaculation inside the vagina, at whatever rate is normal for them, for one year, 85 of those couples will get pregnant (at least far enough to end up with a positive pregnancy test).
Not a slam dunk, but not really what I’d call “rare”, either.
OTOH, violin playing is completely and utterly unnatural, but I’m really glad we’ve got people doing that. Living with diabetes is unnatural, as is treating syphilis with antibiotics. There are a whole lot of medical “un-natural” things that we’re mighty happy to enjoy in our current culture, and sex without children is one of them. Thanks, partially, to abortion - a medical procedure not entirely unlike treating syphilis with antibiotics.
Or should someone with syphilis go untreated because, after all, if you have sex you might catch syphilis, and you knew that when you decided to be “irresponsible”?
Having an abortion isn’t how you fix a mistake when you’ve been irresponsible. Having an abortion is *being *responsible.
Well, if it was a big number, were you using some form of contraception? The various methods have failure rates and if you perform 1000 acts of intercourse (not an extraordinary number over ten years of marriage, or even five years) the odds can catch up to you.
I’ll assume the methods worked for you and you got exactly the number of children you wanted. I can also assume that some couples won’t be so lucky. It’s just simple math.
I was thinking in terms of the per-sex-act chance of pregnancy. Which compared to an animal like cattle, for whom sex IS just about procreation, is pretty tiny; cattle have an 85% chance per sex act chance of pregnancy IIRC. Not 85% for a year’s worth of sex acts, with the frequency humans have sex.
FWIW, my first child took exactly one try. My second, about 4 tries. Also, I’m the king of contraception. I’m the guy with the latchhook, and chicken scissors, remember? My wife is also on the pill. We did get lucky, and the math worked out for us (so far). But if she gets pregnant again (which would not be desirable), we wouldn’t consider abortion. We’d step up and account for our actions by allowing nature to take its course. And in case you’re wondering, believe me when I say my wife feels more strongly about that, than I do.