I think your son has already contributed something great, a real honesty is very hard to find, and everyone that knows him has learned from it. Our world is changing, and there are many who are special people coming in to help us get it right.
I am no judge of what others believe or do, but I don’t like the idea of people commiting suicide whatever the manner. Time will tell and an understanding we are much more than the body we wear.
Love
This is definitely the most touchy subject these days.
Still, I absolutely think it should be legal. Soul or no soul, is it moral to raise a kid in a home situation of poverty and infrequent or abusive parenting?
After watching 2 seasons of 16 And Pregnant, I really wish teen pregnancies would tend to swing more to adoption if abortion is out. Let’s not forget that the decision if abortion holds squarely on the expecting mom, so if it’s not legal, what’s that tell women?
Reading between the lines, he must have gotten the maximum penalty because he actually did something wrong?
I don’t think he would be punished because he honestly said he didn’t do something.
I think abortion should be illegal with the single exception if the mother’s life is threatened.
Of course there is.
Of course it is, or we wouldn’t have any (relatively) sudden changes in the societal concept of what’s moral, and we do.
I’d *love *for you to lay out the chain of logic by which you come to that erroneous conclusion.
Of course I’d have a basis - the *same *basis I’d have if morality isn’t capricious, and I declare my morality paramount.
Of course I can - to the extent that their caprice doesn’t move to the same rhythms as mine.
No, it’s an acknowledgment that rights may be in conflict, not that there is no right to bodily autonomy. Which is the more fundamental right? The right to live, since no other right is meaningful without it.
I realize you don’t believe this–I’m just responding to your notion that pro-life beliefs ignore that the mother is a human being with rights. Of course she has rights. But so does the unborn child, just as all human beings do.
I don’t buy the societal benefit argument at all. What’s the calculus for that? What is the definition of “greatest benefit”? If we apply the same calculus to permitting the killing of children through toddler age, and the scale tips to the “good” side, should we permit that? Rights are a function of individual liberties that should be guarded for us all. I have the right to free speech not because it benefits society most (though I believe it does), but because it’s right.
I completely agree that all laws are a function of some moral compass. A different moral compass could produce a different set of laws, and by extension, a different society. One where the trash could still get picked up and the trains still run on time, and where countless other benefits could manifest themselves. All other differences would be deemed “good” or “bad” only through a filter of specific moral sensibilities. How could it be any other way?
Any system that directs, “you may do this, but you may not do that,” codifies what is right and what is wrong. It reflects a moral code. “Keep morality out of the law,” for me, forms an equation with “install nothing as law.” Hell, as JThunder points out, even that’s not quite true; my equation is a non-proof. “Keep morality out of the law” is a moral statement, and to install no laws is a moral decision. If we can rightly describe the active decision to install no law as a legal code, then “keep morality out of the law” is the trigger for a non sequitur, an unsolvable syllogism.
Should abortion be legal? I’ve mostly avoided this thread.
I’m a child of the Religious Right. I was educated in a Christian school. I was taught, & believed, that abortion doctors were in fact literal serial killers. I can easily imagine myself doing exactly what Scott Roeder did, & shooting an abortionist to death in his church.
All that said…
Abortion should be legal.
As a grown-up person, I now believe that given a choice between a fertile woman & a fetus, my default position is to save the mother’s life. Given a choice between providing for three children under the age of ten or carrying a fourth to term, my default position is to allow an abortion for economic reasons.
We may disagree morally about when economic hardship is enough of a reason, or how big a threat to the mother’s health justifies it. But the law should be written toward the liberal end of the spectrum. Let individuals decide. The mother who really wants not to bear a child probably isn’t going to be a great mother to that child anyway.
I agree with Daniel Quinn that we choose all the time between one life and another. Abortion is often enough necessary for medical reasons I don’t object to it being performed for non-medical ones.
There is the option of giving away babies for adoption.
That still doesn’t give the woman her health back, or compensate her for what amounts to a nine month rape (assuming that was even possible), or for the physical suffering of pregnancy and childbirth.
Hitler killed millions of people because his mother didn’t abort him.
That Godwin seems as reasonable of a defense of abortion as your words are an indictment of abortion, which is to say, not at all.
It is outweighed by the murder of the fetus.
As for the OP, abortion is partially a health issue, which is between a woman and her doctor, and partially a matter of personal morality, which is between a woman and her God. Since I am neither a woman, doctor or God, I don’t get a vote.
Which definition of the word murder applies to your scenario:
mur·der
–noun 1. Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson **(first-degree murder), **and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation **(second-degree murder). **
2. Slang. something extremely difficult or perilous: *That final exam was murder! *
3. a group or flock of crows.
Between a woman, her God, and at least one other person, who experiences an impact from the decision.
Well, that settles it. First guy to cite a definition wins.
Nope. Sorry. No vote. Not yours.
I guess I win then. shrugs
That the best you can do?
Right. The child or children she possibly already has to support, as the majority of women who seek abortions have already had at least one child. But what would they know about the health (and social) consequences of carrying pregnancies to term, the expense of raising children, the lack of legally mandated paid parental leave, lack of universal health care in place, expenses tied to pregnancy, post-partum problems, child-rearing… screw the 18% of American children living under the poverty line – I want fetuses growing in vats!
Funny, I thought that Stratocaster was speaking about the person who provided the sperm until I saw Cat Fight’s post. That’s what happens when people try and redefine words. A perfect example was “murder” before, and now, “person.” Use words incorrectly and people won’t know what you’re talking about - or worse for you, they will know very well that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
If you cannot even use simple words correctly, don’t be surprised if nobody takes your positions seriously.
No, it’s not. First because killing a blob of tissue either isn’t murder; or if you define it as murder then you’ve just created a category of murder it is OK to commit. Labeling it murder makes it no more significant.
And second, even if it WAS murder, forbidding a woman an abortion is worse as far as I’m concerned. As I said; it is the equivalent of a nine month rape. Utterly evil.