Abortion....why?

Hoplon

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Mar 31, 2010
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It's a tricky one, on the one hand I would frankly prefer that no one ever had to have an abortion. By all reports it's not a gentle thing to go through emotionally or physically.

Unfortunately it is on occasion required or desirable for various reasons and as such needs to be legal and well regulated since it's a medical procedure.
 

Athinira

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HalfTangible said:
I used 'it' to refer to the fetus/baby, not killing in general, and I don't support assisted suicide. (I support the death penalty because the person has already made choices that (for obvious reasons) show the person is a danger to society and people in general)

You speak as if the 'if' is an absolute truth - that it will happen, it's simply a matter of when. Abandoning the baby is no different than aborting it, doesn't make it any less wrong.

You can't justify murder on the basis of 'the species will be better off'. Because that means serial killers should be left out to wander the streets. Heck, probably given medals.
Wait, let me get this straight for a minute: First you argue that you support the death penalty because the person has made choices that shows they are a danger to society/people, and then you argue that you can't justify murder just because it's better for the species. I hate to say this, but those two arguments directly contradict each other, because the reason death penalty still exists in modern society is to get rid of people 'for the better of the species'.

Arguing this point with you is moot until you get a hold of what your beliefs truly are. There is nothing wrong with voting with your feelings in an ethical debate, but you apparently don't understand where yours a coming from.

By your definition, that means it's ok to kill people who can't feel pain (yes, they exist) slowly and the Holocaust's gas chambers were perfectly acceptable, as they killed the people quickly.
Actually that is not what i said. What i said was more in line (but not exactly equivalent) with postulating that it's wrong to kill people who can UNDERSTAND pain. A fetus is perfectly capable of feeling and reacting to pain, but it can't understand it, and therefore can't understand cruelty.

Not to mention that the road to the gas chambers were already paved with fear, terror, despair, hunger, violence (in some cases torture), uncertainty and murder. Even IF we by my definition could excuse the holocaust chambers (and that is a big IF), you can't excuse everything that lead up to it.

In fact, i already addressed this point with the hypothetical question about if we assumed that there is a life after death. You failed to understand my definition.

'Abadonment is worse than abortion' is not a valid point - you can't solve one problem by making another worse.
Yes it is. Abandonment makes a child SUFFER. A fetus cannot suffer until it is at a certain stage of pregnancy.

Your argument here relies on the inherent assumption that abortion is a problem. That abortion is a problem is an opinion, not a fact.

My argument is based on this: that individual life begins when the egg is fertilized, not when the baby is born, or when it can start feeling pain. Birth control doesn't kill a fertilized egg, it prevents the egg from being fertilized at all.
Which in short means that your argument is based upon you defining 'life' as "when a child being given a chance".

That's about as valid as a christian arguing that a child is given a soul during conception, and it's forbidden to kill a creature with a soul.

At the end of the day, those two definitions are rather arbitrary, and based on personal beliefs rather than science. Most people are as likely to take your point as they are to take the other.
 

Darkmantle

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what bothers me most is the total absolutes involved in the pro-life group. If it's not okay to abort ever, then it is literally saying that the baby's life is more important than the mother's.

There was this abortion doctor I read about (lost the link sorry) that only performed abortions for extreme cases, IE rape victims, when the mother had a high chance of mortality, stuff like that. Many of the abortions he performed were on girls under 14 who had been raped! Can you honestly tell me that the abortions were not justified in those cases?

well apparently a "pro-life" extremest didn't so he was shot, on his way to church IIRC
 

Versuvius

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Darkmantle said:
what bothers me most is the total absolutes involved in the pro-life group. If it's not okay to abort ever, then it is literally saying that the baby's life is more important than the mother's.

There was this abortion doctor I read about (lost the link sorry) that only performed abortions for extreme cases, IE rape victims, when the mother had a high chance of mortality, stuff like that. Many of the abortions he performed were on girls under 14 who had been raped! Can you honestly tell me that the abortions were not justified in those cases?

well apparently a "pro-life" extremest didn't so he was shot, on his way to church IIRC
Life is sacred! Unless you disagree with us. Fantastic.
 

Bara_no_Hime

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BNguyen said:
"Eh.. I don't really want a kid right now, so I'm just going to kill this thing inside me"
Do you really think that's how most women who get an abortion feel about it?

Getting an abortion is a horrible, traumatic experience, full of anguish, guilt, and grief. It is very upsetting - and very painful. That is, physically painful. It is also emotionally painful, but I think I covered that above.

No woman has ever said "eh, I'm just gonna kill this thing" about an abortion. It is usually an agonized decision, one come to out of need.

It's surgery. It's dangerous - life-threateningly dangerous.

All of you, not just BNguyen here - if you think that women are casually getting abortions, you are wrong. Women do not use abortion as contraception (as so many MALE pro-lifers try to claim). That would be like getting spinal surgery instead of asking for a back-rub - it's crazy dangerous when the alternative is cheaper, safer, and easier. Women get abortions when contraception FAILS, yes, but then they tried to prevent pregnancy - and are usually upset and terrified about the accident.

[sub](And yes, I'm speaking generally - but then, so are most of you. I'm sure there's the 1 in a million woman who is sociopathic enough to behave as you and others have described, but that is the very rare exception, not the rule.)[/sub]

And now, OT:

Should it be legal? Of course - it is a medical procedure that can save the mother's life.

And, as a woman, it is my right to do as I like with my body. Studies have shown that women who want abortions will get one no matter what. You can perform an abortion in your own home - it's crazy dangerous, and has a 50% death rate for the mother. Banning abortion doesn't prevent abortion - it just leads to more dead women.
 

AnarchistFish

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chadachada123 said:
AnarchistFish said:
chadachada123 said:
To answer another implied question, I would absolutely have preferred to have never been born than to have been born to a) shitty parents b) parents that didn't want me or c) a household that couldn't AFFORD to have me.
You can't make that decision for others though.
But you want people to make that decision for me? You think it's okay to FORCE someone into a tortured existence before they've even had a thought before?
So everyone is forced into an existence then? They should have the chance to live, no matter what the conditions they're born into. Do you really think everyone who was born into these situations would rather have never lived?
"But you want people to make that decision for me?"
It's not like you can make the decision, so that's better than nothing.
 

Athinira

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aei_haruko said:
I disagre. if we measure life as anything that can feel pain, then we ignore what it means to be alive.
Again: That wasn't my definition. I said "some people like to define".

If the ability to feel pain was the deciding factor for my opinion, then i would be a member of PETA or some other group by now advocating their cause against killing animals for any reason.

there are 7 definitions as to what a life is, and a fetus fills up 6 of them.
Except that i wasn't arguing that a fetus wasn't a life. I was arguing whether or not it can be considered murder/cruelty to kill one.

Plus I think it's much more cruel to kill something that never had the chance to live on its own, then something which might've lived a good life.
Except that this can ruin the life of the mother, and since she is ultimately the one who is going to be the most affected by this, it's her choice to make.

Also, by that logic, you could argue that it's cruel to a non-existent baby to interrupt its mother and father in their sex just before they conceive it. If i walked in on two people trying to make a baby and made them stop their act (as in, they would have conceived a child if i hadn't walked it), then by your argument, I've been cruel to the baby, because i "interrupted it's chance to live" (even though it happens before a fertilization, which you a few lines later defined as the point where life begins, i still interrupted it's chance).

I'm sorry, but to me, that idea is ridiculous. It's impossible to be cruel to a non-sentient being, and a fetus isn't sentient (reacting to stimuli isn't equivalent to being sentient). It's true that a fetus is eventually going to grow into something that is sentient, but until it does, you can't be cruel to it.

You can't both say that abortion is wrong because it's "taking a life" and it's wrong because you are robbing a child of the "chance to live", because like i just demonstrated with my interrupted sex example, it's possible to rob a child of it's chance to live before it (by your own definition) can even be considered a life. Either you consider abortion wrong because it's taking a life, or you consider it wrong because it's robbing the child of the chance to live.

in a prior post I stated that adoption should be a viable option. it's essentially giving up responsibility over a child that somebody never wanted, and hopefully it would go to a good home because of the mothers choice. I say that if a mother doesnt want to have her children, thats okay. In fact, I've donated money to organization made specifically for that purpose. Yes they were catholic ( I'm definatly not in agreement with the catholic church, but I'll admit, it does some good) . In the organization, there are many houses for women who are victims of rape, and abuse, it gives them a place to stay, and all of it is funded by charity. Women give birth to their children, and then they can either stay and raise their children, or they can leave their kids their and continiue with their lives, it's a wonderful place really. i've volenteered there at one time, and it definatly does lots of good. And i know that these types of places really can contribute to societal good as a whole.
The problem is that adoption isn't a viable option if an all-out prohibition against abortion is put in place. There is simply going to be too many babies, and not enough people to adopt or take care of them. In Denmark alone (where i live), we are 5 million citizen and there is around 15k provoked abortions in a yearly basis (in fact, a friend of mine, a very beautiful girl who i was out partying with last night had an abortion today. I was supposed to go with her to the hospital, but had to cancel because i got ill). Now scale that up to world-wide level and the problem is apparent.

Adoption works because it's an ALTERNATIVE to abortion, not because it replaces it.
 

someonehairy-ish

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Because for some reason they consider that a mindless ball of cells is even remotely similar to the human it would end up being a few months down the line. Which is a bit like thinking that eating an egg is similar to eating an entire bird (I'm aware that eggs that people actually eat aren't fertilised, shush).
Personally I think that if people are in a situation where having a baby could easily wreck their whole life then an abortion is perfectly reasonable. And those situations can crop up rather a lot.
 

direkiller

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otakon17 said:
Considering that probably more killing has been done in God's name than anything else, the zealots that push that abortion is wrong ARE THE BIGGEST HYPOCRITES EVER! Not allowing abortions is just another form of control the nuttiest of religious buffs use.
Yes because we hold people to what happened 600 years ago
or group 70% of people in the world together with fanatics

I don't know how long ago this was but there was the woman asking questions after a lecture/debate with scars all over her body on the TV talking about abortion. Turns out her mother wanted an abortion. A mistake happened during the procedure and she was deviled but with disfiguring scars. She asked the pro-choice person if its about choice then where was mine. He did not have an answer to it.

You see it as an option for the woman.
They see it as denying the fundamental right of that child to live.
 

KiKiweaky

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Honestly I have no idea why they have taken up the cause with such fervor, I watched a documentary called Jesus Camp on a summer camp for evanjelical christian kids in the states. A big scene in the middle of it is devoted to 'educating' the kids about the evils of abortion and the guy doing the preaching is scary, he's so intense its frightening.

Personally I dont think anyone has the right to tell somebody what they can and cannot do with their own body or their life.

If I had been there with that guy going on about the evils of abortion, I reckon I would have done the same thing you did op and just keep quiet, its not worth drawing them on you. You never know how they might react but its such a touchy subject and alot of people can get animated when debating it.
 

Canadamus Prime

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Jun 17, 2009
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Well I can't speak for Christians because I'm not one, but for me I'm against abortion because I hate the idea of it being used as a means of birth control.
 

Benny Blanco

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Jan 23, 2008
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CM156 said:
I have some pro-life leanings

And yet I don't debate abortion. Why? Because I have nothing to say that the other person has not heard several times before, and vice-versa. It's one of those pointless issues to bring up, like gun control. The court isn't going to rule in the other direction any time soon, as far as I can tell.
Funny, I'm anti-life. I'm basically disgusted by most people and anything we can do to keep their numbers down is alright by me. There are too many people on this rapidly overheating rock to feed, clothe and house. Worst of all, they keep insisting on weird beliefs as justifications to dominate one another, usually applied without consistency or logic.

As soon as I have the money, I'm building a self-sufficient survivalist compound at an undisclosed location, a good way away from major cities and well above sea level.

Just kidding.* On a more serious note, pro-lifers always seem to have a slightly wacky justification for their views and are oddly happy to take lives in other ways. The people who bomb abortion clinics are a great example of this. So pro-life, they'll kill ya!

*Except for the bit about the compound. I'm totally doing that. In the case of TEOWAWKI I think it's only fair that at least one such place exists which isn't run by right-wingers/ religious fundamentalists/ other mixed nuts. Besides, I saw this presentation on aquaponics and it sounds like the way to go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nIL9hWW3-Q
 

CM156_v1legacy

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Mar 23, 2011
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Benny Blanco said:
CM156 said:
I have some pro-life leanings

And yet I don't debate abortion. Why? Because I have nothing to say that the other person has not heard several times before, and vice-versa. It's one of those pointless issues to bring up, like gun control. The court isn't going to rule in the other direction any time soon, as far as I can tell.
Funny, I'm anti-life. I'm basically disgusted by most people and anything we can do to keep their numbers down is alright by me. There are too many people on this rapidly overheating rock to feed, clothe and house. Worst of all, they keep insisting on weird beliefs as justifications to dominate one another, usually applied without consistency or logic.

As soon as I have the money, I'm building a self-sufficient survivalist compound at an undisclosed location, a good way away from major cities and well above sea level.

Just kidding.* On a more serious note, pro-lifers always seem to have a slightly wacky justification for their views and are oddly happy to take lives in other ways. The people who bomb abortion clinics are a great example of this. So pro-life, they'll kill ya!

*Except for the bit about the compound. I'm totally doing that. In the case of TEOWAWKI I think it's only fair that at least one such place exists which isn't run by right-wingers/ religious fundamentalists/ other mixed nuts. Besides, I saw this presentation on aquaponics and it sounds like the way to go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nIL9hWW3-Q
To be fair, I'm more pro life in the sense that I want abortions not to have to exist, and to make their need much rarer. In other words, I want people to use contraception so they can prevent a unwanted child from happening. To me, that's a better solution.

And I oppose bombing abortion clinics as well.
 

Chemical Alia

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Bara_no_Hime said:
BNguyen said:
"Eh.. I don't really want a kid right now, so I'm just going to kill this thing inside me"
Do you really think that's how most women who get an abortion feel about it?

Getting an abortion is a horrible, traumatic experience, full of anguish, guilt, and grief. It is very upsetting - and very painful. That is, physically painful. It is also emotionally painful, but I think I covered that above.

No woman has ever said "eh, I'm just gonna kill this thing" about an abortion. It is usually an agonized decision, one come to out of need.
I agree with you on the point that most people don't use abortion as a means of birth control, as there are dozens of easier, cheaper, and less painful ways to not have kids out there. And of course nobody gets an abortion for the fun of it. But I don't think it's always a traumatic and agonizing emotional decision for someone to make. This reminds me of the propaganda you hear from those pro-life pregnancy counseling centers that try to persuade women out of abortions by telling them that the procedure will haunt and depress them for the rest of their lives if they go through with it.

For some people, it's just the best choice for whatever the reasons they may have, and I don't think that only a sociopath wouldn't be traumatized or emotionally conflicted in making that decision. People react to having abortions in many different ways.
 

aei_haruko

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Athinira said:
aei_haruko said:
I disagre. if we measure life as anything that can feel pain, then we ignore what it means to be alive.
Again: That wasn't my definition. I said "some people like to define".

If the ability to feel pain was the deciding factor for my opinion, then i would be a member of PETA or some other group by now advocating their cause against killing animals for any reason.

there are 7 definitions as to what a life is, and a fetus fills up 6 of them.
Except that i wasn't arguing that a fetus wasn't a life. I was arguing whether or not it can be considered murder/cruelty to kill one.

Plus I think it's much more cruel to kill something that never had the chance to live on its own, then something which might've lived a good life.
Except that this can ruin the life of the mother, and since she is ultimately the one who is going to be the most affected by this, it's her choice to make.

Also, by that logic, you could argue that it's cruel to a non-existent baby to interrupt its mother and father in their sex just before they conceive it. If i walked in on two people trying to make a baby and made them stop their act (as in, they would have conceived a child if i hadn't walked it), then by your argument, I've been cruel to the baby, because i "interrupted it's chance to live" (even though it happens before a fertilization, which you a few lines later defined as the point where life begins, i still interrupted it's chance).

I'm sorry, but to me, that idea is ridiculous. It's impossible to be cruel to a non-sentient being, and a fetus isn't sentient (reacting to stimuli isn't equivalent to being sentient). It's true that a fetus is eventually going to grow into something that is sentient, but until it does, you can't be cruel to it.

You can't both say that abortion is wrong because it's "taking a life" and it's wrong because you are robbing a child of the "chance to live", because like i just demonstrated with my interrupted sex example, it's possible to rob a child of it's chance to live before it (by your own definition) can even be considered a life. Either you consider abortion wrong because it's taking a life, or you consider it wrong because it's robbing the child of the chance to live.

in a prior post I stated that adoption should be a viable option. it's essentially giving up responsibility over a child that somebody never wanted, and hopefully it would go to a good home because of the mothers choice. I say that if a mother doesnt want to have her children, thats okay. In fact, I've donated money to organization made specifically for that purpose. Yes they were catholic ( I'm definatly not in agreement with the catholic church, but I'll admit, it does some good) . In the organization, there are many houses for women who are victims of rape, and abuse, it gives them a place to stay, and all of it is funded by charity. Women give birth to their children, and then they can either stay and raise their children, or they can leave their kids their and continiue with their lives, it's a wonderful place really. i've volenteered there at one time, and it definatly does lots of good. And i know that these types of places really can contribute to societal good as a whole.
The problem is that adoption isn't a viable option if an all-out prohibition against abortion is put in place. There is simply going to be too many babies, and not enough people to adopt or take care of them. In Denmark alone (where i live), we are 5 million citizen and there is around 15k provoked abortions in a yearly basis (in fact, a friend of mine, a very beautiful girl who i was out partying with last night had an abortion today. I was supposed to go with her to the hospital, but had to cancel because i got ill). Now scale that up to world-wide level and the problem is apparent.

Adoption works because it's an ALTERNATIVE to abortion, not because it replaces it.
OH, allright, I think i understand. my apologies. i wasnt quite sure, so i made an assumption, silly me ^^;
wait, so I am confused. you admit ( from what I gather) that a fetus is life, but that ending said life isnt murder? If the fetus would live and not harm anyone, I cant possibly see how ending it's life isnt murder. Could you explain how ending a life thats only crime is existing is muder? I honestly cant see your viewpoint, and I genuinely would love to understand what makes somebody, who i presume is wonderfully intelligent, hold a view that I cant quite understand.
and as for the conception part of it, I like the mental image XD
Hmm, interesting point. okay, so you are saying that if the life doesnt exist, then preventing it from existing is wrong? well, I'd agree with the ridiculousness of the situation you described, that would be silly. But the being which i described( and From what I presume you admitted to, i am unsure, but i'll try not to assume) would be alive by filling up the criteria of life. So from what i gather by your stance on the issue, it's not wrong to kill something unless it is sentient? I would disagree, because of a hypothetical situation. Lets say That eventually humanity ccreates a computer capable of perfect reasoning, and it is fully sentient, and could make choices, and function quite well, would it be wrong to destroy it? Because if sentiencce is wha makes something have value as life, then would it be wrong to kill the computer? I know that sounds odd, and if you are confused by my point I could try to phrase it better, however, i dont believe sentience matters in determining weather or not something has a right to live. Which to me shouldnt be the determining factor in deciding life.
allright, as for the mothers ultimte choice, do you believe that your life should be up to anybody if your only detriment is existence? Like seriously, the baby would have done nothing wrong. I dont think it would be ruinious to the mother to not have to even be responsible for her child, if she wants it to not be in her life, she doesnt have to force it to be in her life.
now as for the population stuff, I think that maybe the world neeeds to focus on keeping people from overproducing, and also needs to focus more on contraceptive ( granted they sometimes fail)
 

drumguy818

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In my personal opinion, an abortion shouldn't happen unless someone were to get raped or if, somehow, the mother finds out that she would die at birth when an abortion could happen. But that's all that is, my personal opinion. If someone wants to get an abortion, they should have the right. It's not my place to tell others what to do, it's not my business. Those pro-life people can bite me.
 

Soods

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All those "pro-life" people are part of a secret cult, which tries to destroy mankind and Earth through human overpopulation.
/sarcasm

I, personally, am a lame-ass "live and let live" person who doesn't give a crap about anything ever, which works wonders at making me look like an uninteresting sheep but I do my best to redeem myself through cruel self-irony.

Damn, I guess /sarcasm command is broken. :S
 

WaderiAAA

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Aug 11, 2009
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Zachary Amaranth said:
WaderiAAA said:
If you consider a fetus a human being then abortion is murder, so it is well worth getting worked up about. Considering fetuses are living, growing beings of the species homo sapiens, it is not farfetched.
And going down that road, any sexually active woman who's had more than one period is a serial killer.

Birth control is murder, too.

It is not farfetched.
Those aren't living, GROWING beings. A fetus will be born a human unless something is done about it, while eggs and sperm only has the potensial.
 

brainslurper

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There is a serious issue with the logic Christians use to defend abortion. They say, "It's gods will that the baby will be born, and you are going against it by having an abortion". For me, they don't have much faith in god. If he is as powerful as they say he is, why isn't the abortion his will too?