Abortion....why?

[Galletea]

What's a "pro-abortionist"?

There's only pro-choice, and anti-choice.

Maybe they're murderous baby haters, who try to convince people they shouldn't have kids.

Anyhow, I can see this topic has descended into pointless arguing /not-suprised-face. I'll just wade in here and briefly say what I think...Ahem.

The reasoning all boils down to what is considered alive, with a 'soul' and so on. If it's alive and you kill it, you have committed murder and the bible says that isn't a good thing to be doing. As far as I can tell it really is that simple.

As for me I am very pro choice. Bringing a child into the world is hardly a beautiful thing if you can't give it what it needs, from food and water to simple love and devotion. However, it is a difficult one to call a limit on. After all, current laws have babies being aborted at the age where they can be saved...but then should we be limiting the abortion limit further, or limiting the age at which a child can be saved, considering the amount of premature babies who have serious defects and live hardly a life at all.

 

[Handbag1992]

What is it about a fetus that makes it not a human life? Honestly, that isn't condescending or rhetorical, I'm serious. How is this [http://www.babycenter.com/fetal-development-images-13-weeks] not a baby. That's only after thirteen weeks. To call it a parasite, or a clump of tissue is asinine. Does a random clump of tissue have arms and legs, eyes that can see, ears that can hear? Can a clump of tissue breathe, swallow, blink, or move its arms and legs? Can a tumor kick you? No.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/28635507#.Tski40OXuso

http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2008/03/03/4380055-my-big-fat-greek-tumor

Yes.

And yes, of course rape is a horrible thing. But don't punish your unborn child because of something horrible that happened to you. Like I said before, millions of people are look
ing to adopt children, there is no such thing as an unwanted child.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2043062/UK-adoption-figures-plunge-Just-60-babies-given-chance-family-life-year.html

There is always such a thing as an unwanted child.

Also, feel free to continue informing women as to what's best to do if they're raped. I'm sure your experience in gestating the child for nine months and how awesome it is to give the child away to a system that really doesn't care will help them immensely.

EDIT: Please note that after only 43 days the baby has a beating heart and brain waves, meaning it meets the medical requirement for it to be considered a human life for adults. But I love the double standard within the medical community so it somehow doesn't apply to unborn babies.

So abortions are OK up to 43 days after conception?

 

[Athinira]

Ok, yeah, my bad, I should've phrased it better: You can't kill somebody INNOCENT just because it'll help the species.

The thing you don't seem to get here is that the only difference i see between a baby and a fetus is that the latter hasn't been born yet: the fetus is still a human being, it's innocent as a baby. So unless the mother is at risk of death from it (and i mean serious risk) there is no reason to kill the fetus.

The thing you don't seem to get is that this is just your PERSONAL definition of what a human being. It's not something you can just pass off a universal truth and then expect it to fly in a debate.

It doesn't understand WHY but it can sure as heck (by your own admission above) feel pain.

Then i should perhaps also have phrased it better: It can't feel pain. It can REACT to pain.

"Reacting" and "feeling" is two entirely different things. The first only implies a simple cause and effect set of events. The latter implies sentience, which a fetus doesn't have in the legal abortion period (the nerve connections and brain development necessary for it is first developed in the 24th to 28th week of gestation, which is the equivalent of the 26th to 30th week of pregnancy).

A fetus might react to pain, but that is simply a programmed response from the nervous system. It's no more "aware" of it than your computer is "aware" of whenever you click a dialog box with the words "Okay" on it. And that is why i don't consider abortion the same as 'murdering' an innocent being, because by my definition, to qualify as a 'being' you have to be sentient. Sure, a fetus would eventually achieve sentience, but that argument can still be taken apart by arguing that an ejaculation would also eventually achieve sentience if directed into a vagina.

There is a good reason that the legal abortion period is typically 3-5 months, because it's around the 6th to 7th month that a fetus achieves sentience.

I didn't bring the whole camp into debate (i'm not THAT ticked) just the gas chamber. When brought to the gas chambers, they were told they were just going to get a shower.

You inherently assume that they believed what they were told, and that doesn't disqualify them from being scared of being killed at a later point either. You have to consider that the promised 'Bath' was the only positive thing that was promised them in a world that in the weeks leading up to it had treated them like sh*t.

You just repeated the same point. The one i just said was invalid for a reason you did not address.

On the contrary, you didn't address my point.

Was it you or the other guy who said that abortion was the lesser of two evils? I thought it was you =/

It was me, except that i didn't say that abortion was a lesser of two evils. What I said was that any ethical problems it might pose to some people (which, if i may remind you, is problems that exist solely on a personal level), it outmatched by the logical/practical problems that both society and the women in question face, as well as the ethical problems on the other side of the fence about women not being allowed to govern their own body (and who unlike the fetus actually can be considered sentient beings).

I'll assume the quote is a typo because it makes no grammatical sense. Also i don't know what it's saying.

It's not, and it makes perfect sense (i reread it just to make sure, and if someone had directed it at me i would have no problem understanding the point).

Fetuses are innocent and (for the most part) killing them serves no purpose. Why EARTH would it be okay to kill them? It makes no sense!

Again, i can still take that argument and scale it back to when the baby is just a sperm and an egg waiting to meet.

A fetus is a 'being' when it achieves sentience. Sentience isn't achieved until past 6 months into the pregnancy. Until that time it is no more innocent than the sperm ejaculated every time Old Man Bob is pleasing himself or the egg dispensed whenever Sally the Supervisor is having her period.

And yes, killing them DOES serve a purpose, pretty much all of the time. This is one of the points i explained several times in this thread. This isn't the old days where women would typically marry a man, and they would be together for life with him providing for her so she could manage the kitchen and raise the kids. Women these days needs to work towards a career of their own so they can stand on their own feet. An unwanted pregnancy can totally ruin that, hence women prefers an abortion to having her life made a mess.

On an interesting sidenote, the countries in the world where abortion is illegal for religious reasons are typically also countries where the world still functions like a few hundred years ago in Europe (the man earning the keep, the women managing the family).

Fighting abortion is just a moot point that serves little purpose other than trying to qualm some peoples personal ethical problems with it. It's as ridiculous as fighting against gene therapy and genetic research because of the belief that "Man shouldn't play god". Instead, I'd argue that all that energy would be much better spent limiting the amount of unwanted pregnancies, for example by reminding people to have safe sex, and perhaps provide easier and cheaper access to condoms (which has the positive side effect of fighting sexual disease).

 

[Erttheking]

Here is why I think that it is wrong, I think that it is ducking responsibility, if you don't want to have a kid, use a condom or take the pill.

And what if the condom breaks (low chance, but always possible), or you're one of the statistical minority of women for whom the pill is not 100% effective?

See the second part of my post, if you took the appropriate safety measures then I can't blame you if you want out if it went wrong.

 

[CaptainKoala]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/28635507#.Tski40OXuso

http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2008/03/03/4380055-my-big-fat-greek-tumor

These are odd events, no doubt. But when I asked "Does a random clump of tissue have arms and legs, eyes that can see, ears that can hear? Can a clump of tissue breathe, swallow, blink, or move its arms and legs? Can a tumor kick you?" You answered Yes. Those articles you posed do not support your answer. The articles don't talk about tumors that can see, hear, swallow, suck its thumb, and move its arms and legs.
The first article talked about a baby with a deformed foot in it's brain. Not a fetus or a tumor, it's a baby that had already been born. So that article is completely irrelevant.
The second article is closer to making your point, but those tumors might include some stray teeth or brain matter. Those aren't even close to fully functioning human bodies with beating hearths, working lungs, and a working brain, which is what a fetus is. No tumor in the world has even come close to the sophistication of an unborn child.

There is always such a thing as an unwanted child.

That might be true in Britian, where that survey was taken, but look at the 2010 adoption statistics in the US, which are much
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/tar/report18.htm
That's a government survey conducted along side the census, so I trust the numbers are accurate.
52,340 were adopted by other families, that's over one hundred a week.
Roughly 40,000 exited the adoption system some other way (i.e. guardianship or moving in with a relative. But that number does NOT include people granted emancipation or who turned 18 and left the system.
250,000+ kids entered the adoption system in 2010, about 2% of those quarter million are still there. But there is a 3% margin of error, so give or take 3%.

Also, feel free to continue informing women as to what's best to do if they're raped.

Let me put it this way, if a guy gives you a gun and says if you don't kill your best friend he'll kill you, are you justified killing your friend? No. Of course rape is horrible, but murder isn't justified under any circumstances.

 

[Handbag1992]

These are odd events, no doubt. But when I asked "Does a random clump of tissue have arms and legs, eyes that can see, ears that can hear? Can a clump of tissue breathe, swallow, blink, or move its arms and legs? Can a tumor kick you?" You answered Yes. Those articles you posed do not support your answer. The articles don't talk about tumors that can see, hear, swallow, suck its thumb, and move its arms and legs.
The first article talked about a baby with a deformed foot in it's brain. Not a fetus or a tumor, it's a baby that had already been born. So that article is completely irrelevant.
The second article is closer to making your point, but those tumors might include some stray teeth or brain matter. Those aren't even close to fully functioning human bodies with beating hearths, working lungs, and a working brain, which is what a fetus is. No tumor in the world has even come close to the sophistication of an unborn child.

Then I direct you to the last statement of my previous post. If the little parasite doesn't have human parts, is it OK to abort? Where is the line for something being human and not human?

That might be true in Britian, where that survey was taken, but look at the 2010 adoption statistics in the US, which are much
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/tar/report18.htm
That's a government survey conducted along side the census, so I trust the numbers are accurate.
52,340 were adopted by other families, that's over one hundred a week.
Roughly 40,000 exited the adoption system some other way (i.e. guardianship or moving in with a relative. But that number does NOT include people granted emancipation or who turned 18 and left the system.
250,000+ kids entered the adoption system in 2010, about 2% of those quarter million are still there. But there is a 3% margin of error, so give or take 3%.

So in America do you just ignore the approximately 400,000 children that are still in care and have not been adopted? Do you think that if people stop having abortions that suddenly adoption rates will triple and take in all those kids?
Even then the average age of children being adopted is 9, meaning that unwanted children put up for adoption at birth will have an average of a nine-year wait in an underfunded and possibly abusive care system before getting adopted.

Let me put it this way, if a guy gives you a gun and says if you don't kill your best friend he'll kill you, are you justified killing your friend? No. Of course rape is horrible, but murder isn't justified under any circumstances.

Quite obviously, taking a pill and flushing the less than one inch long result of a horrible night of abuse from your body, is equal to shooting someone.

Actually lets turn this around for a moment. A pregnant woman (lets call her Mikki Kendal) is rushed to hospital with severe bleeding from her uterus. Mikki will die unless her foetus is removed. The foetus isn't viable and will die when the umbilical cord is severed.

Doctor A is on call, and decides leave the child alone and refuses to give Mikki any treatment, even painkillers.

Doctor B is contacted by a nurse and speeds to the hospital from her home to administer a vital life-saving abortion murder.

Do you side with the Doctor A or Doctor B?

 

[Athinira]

...Ok, you know what? I don't care.

You are sick. Absolutely sick. And I am sick of arguing this with you. You'd willingly kill something that you once were and for WHAT?! Convenience.

Be self righteous all you like. Abortion is wrong, it always has been and always will be. You will never convince me otherwise.

Getting involved in this at all was a mistake. Good day to you. Have fun murdering children.

And soldiers down in Afghanistan are willingly killing something they already are. And for what? Convenience, and it's not even their own.

Oh, and that's not the only thing we do for convenience. We also eat kill and eat animals for convenience (there are alternate food sources), some even do it for profit (animal farmers). We exterminate vermin for convenience.

As for whether or not I'm sick, if you define 'Sick' by the fact that i just don't consider it either practical, logical or productive to put things (no matter what it is) on pedestal for emotional reasons and declare it sacred, then I'm probably sick.
Personally, I'd call it emotional detachment, but that's just me.

On the other hand, you are displaying the same emotional attachment to fetuses as PETA is demonstrating for animals, and the common denominator always seems to be that these kind of attachments are entirely arbitrary, have no sound logic behind them and often leads to impulsive and erratic actions. For example, PETA are all for animal rights, yet they exercise that attachment with actions that can be considered terrorism, in addition to them not even bothering to understanding the implications of their actions (for example, releasing animals into the wild that has been in captivity all their life, and who is as likely to survive out there for more than a week as I am of becoming Prime Minister), and at the same time they also do it with complete disregard for the humans involved (which then in turn offends other people who care less for animal life, and more for human life... like, for example, you).

So yes, getting involved in all of this probably was a mistake. It usually is when people with emotional attachment becomes engaged in a debate. Good day to you. Have fun fighting your internal emotional war. Personally, i prefer staying sane.

 

[Olrod]

We will.

You have fun dictating what people can and can't do with their own bodies.

If women can determine whether or not to conceive, they'd better have the right to determine whether or not to gestate, too.

When you get pregnant, feel free to carry to term, but don't think you have the right to demand all other women must become walking incubators against their will.

 

[Powereaver]

because i dont wanna see another unwanted child left by the side of the road or a train station ... thats not fair to the child i think there should be the choice to have an early abortion.

 

[Kennetic]

Anyways, I hate "pro-life" people for the simple fact that they are trying to make other peoples decisions for them, when they have no right to get all meddled in others business. Fuck em, if their lives are so boring that if all they have to do is protest abortion, then they can all just go kill themselves and save us the trouble.

Your life must be so boring that you ***** about how other people's lives are so boring. On the internet I might add.

*insert obligatory "Your life must be so boring that you ***** about how other people ***** about how other people's lives are so boring, on the internet I might add" retort here*

High five to Old Trailmix because we single-handedly summed up this thread and every other thread on the Escapist.

 

[cheese_wizington]

Anyways, I hate "pro-life" people for the simple fact that they are trying to make other peoples decisions for them, when they have no right to get all meddled in others business. Fuck em, if their lives are so boring that if all they have to do is protest abortion, then they can all just go kill themselves and save us the trouble.

Your life must be so boring that you ***** about how other people's lives are so boring. On the internet I might add.

*insert obligatory "Your life must be so boring that you ***** about how other people ***** about how other people's lives are so boring, on the internet I might add" retort here*

High five to Old Trailmix because we single-handedly summed up this thread and every other thread on the Escapist.

*Leaves you hanging*

 

[Kennetic]

Anyways, I hate "pro-life" people for the simple fact that they are trying to make other peoples decisions for them, when they have no right to get all meddled in others business. Fuck em, if their lives are so boring that if all they have to do is protest abortion, then they can all just go kill themselves and save us the trouble.

Your life must be so boring that you ***** about how other people's lives are so boring. On the internet I might add.

*insert obligatory "Your life must be so boring that you ***** about how other people ***** about how other people's lives are so boring, on the internet I might add" retort here*

High five to Old Trailmix because we single-handedly summed up this thread and every other thread on the Escapist.

*Leaves you hanging*

*Goes to cry in the corner*

 

[Bobbity]

A fetus IS at the very least a fundemental blueprint for human baby, and thus endowed with the right to life. That is the problem pro-choice advocates make. It doesnt matter if the fetus isnt a baby yet, it WILL become one. Seriously, its disgusting the justifications people make for abortion.

So is using condoms then an abomination, for it stops potential life?

I love it when people talk about embryos having rights; it's so cute!

 

[McNinja]

You will never have a definitive answer outside of your own preconceptions. This is the same debate as gun control: "well it's wrong because I think A." "Yeah, well, I thinks it's right because I think B." The argument is based solely on what you think is right, not what you know is right.

Currently, the law states that a fetus is not a person. Until that is changed, no one, except the father of the baby (assuming the father is there and gives a damn, because there's a chance they aren't and don't) and the mother of the baby has any right to dictate the life of that baby. Not you, not me, not your religion. You aren't having the baby. Your life isn't going to be potentially ruined/come to a screeching halt if you have the baby.

I could list a big long list of variables to consider, like rape, how ready the mother actually is, would she be able to care for it, etc. But you know what, I won't, because you know them. Everyone does. And if anyone thinks for a second that a woman wouldn't be petrified at the prospect of having a completely unexpected pregnancy at a time where they are not prepared for one, then you need to go sit in the corner and think to yourself about how stupid you are. You can't simply decide for someone when they are ready for a baby. It is the opposite of ethical, and if you find some sort of moral justification for dictating such, then by all means, let me hear it. No I don't care how "alive" a fetus is. While life is beautiful, I don't think a girl in college who has big plans for her future would be thinking about how fantastic it would be to have to support a child. That would be the same as sacrificing one life for another, and while the concept is noble, the reality is that the fetus does not give one single damn about the mothers life. It simply grows until it is born. A fetus does not have a future to think about, it does not have bills to pay, degrees to get, graduate schools to go to. One day, it could. But at the cost of destabilizing the mothers life, and preventing her from reaching her goals and dreams? No. It would be trading potential for potential.

What would happen if abortions are outlawed? Any woman that gets pregnant is required by law to have the baby. Orphanages would see an increase in orphaned children, for one. But what about politically? If the government realizes it can dictate what a woman can and cannot do with her body (and also her creation), where would it end? Would it end there, or would we go into 1984 territory? In this day and age, if you think it would end there, you have a naivety I would love to have. Not because I have no faith in humanity (in fact, I do very much hope for humanity), but because when faced with the prospect of being able to control people, I very much doubt the government would turn that sort of power down.

 

[AlexLoxate]

It seems as though people try too hard to keep their inherit beliefs whether they make sense or not. This issue should be plain and simple; if you don't want a child, stop it before it leads to complications or end up like that "The miracle of birth: The third world" chapter in Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life.

 

[Daverson]

The thing with the pro-life argument is that's it's a slippery slope! If we outlaw killing a zygote, then it won't be long before we start outlawing masturbation (and probably by extension, Sodomy) on the grounds that it's denying sperm their right to live long and healthy lives, what about sex, I mean, how many sperm don't make it? That's all murder there. And what about menstruation? That's got to be murder! It's got blood and everything! SLIPPERY SLOPE! D=

(It's satire, before anyone points out how ridiculous that was. Though I suppose the only way you can really try to get a point to the fanatics is at their own level...)

 

[Stublore]

The thing with the pro-life argument is that's it's a slippery slope! If we outlaw killing a zygote, then it won't be long before we start outlawing masturbation (and probably by extension, Sodomy) on the grounds that it's denying sperm their right to live long and healthy lives, what about sex, I mean, how many sperm don't make it? That's all murder there. And what about menstruation? That's got to be murder! It's got blood and everything! SLIPPERY SLOPE! D=

(It's satire, before anyone points out how ridiculous that was. Though I suppose the only way you can really try to get a point to the fanatics is at their own level...)

The problem with fanatics is that they don't do satire .
I assume you mean though,counter a ridiculous idea with another equally ridiculous idea?

 

[Versuvius]

Okay pro lifers, here is my proposal. All of these unwanted children who cannot and will not be supported because you made it illegal to get an abortion else it counts as murder: You go to the orphanages and you adopt every damn unwanted baby and look after them yourself. If you cannot afford to, or don't want to congratulations you are sentencing children to lives of misery. Not enough people adopt as it is, add more children that need adpoting...well. You monsters!