Pro-life

[jklinders]

Both sides are equally guilty of this manipulation of language to make themselves feel better. No one would join the "pro-fetus killing" or "anti abortion" group so they put a nice frilly label on it.

I am solidly pro choice. It should be up to the woman whether she gives birth or not. Especially if conception was done through abuse or rape. Or if the woman's health is at risk. BY biology men have more reproductive control than women, it just makes sense to allow a woman to make her own choice if we want to call ourselves a free society.

Besides, any attempt at banning abortions will end up with a flourishing black market of back alley abortionists making a living off of people in very unsanitary conditions. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. If we are going to have it then it should be under controlled environments. And at the women's choice, not some arbitrary panel of moral judges.

My .02

 

[Sylveria]

snips

A giant parasite is going to attach to your face against your will. It will drive your body crazy, cause you great pain and inconvenience, and quite literally feed off you for 3/4 of a year. You will support that creature whether you like it or not because it is a living thing and the government said you have to.

You don't want to support it? Too bad, you don't have the choice; the face-leach's right to survive supersede your desires. Now, after the face-leach detaches itself, you can take it too a home with a lot of other unwanted face-leaches, but your body belongs to that face-leach till it decides to leave. You're an incubator, like it or not.

Of course, you could always go to a back-alley face-leach remover who will stab it with a coat-hanger in the back of his van. Hopefully he doesn't miss and hit anything vital of yours, cause, well, then you're really screwed cause what you did is illegal? Remember how good Prohibition did with stopping people from consuming alcohol cause it was illegal? Or how successful the War on Drugs is on stopping people from doing drugs? Total victory right? Cause if something is made illegal, people stop doing it, right?

 

[DailonCmann]

This isn't about a war on women's rights. That is bullshit. However, I can't swallow the argument that this is a matter of property rights, namely the right to treat whatever lies on the other end of the placenta as part of your body, and not a being in their own right.

Your own personal morals can demonize it all you want, but there are many ways to justify abortion, all of them based in simple logic such as the abortion crime rate connection.

John Donahue and Steve Livitt's paper The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime made several connections between the legalization of abortion and the drop in the rising rate of crime in the nineties. You can read the paper here. http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf

Their argument is essentially this, "We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began to fall roughly 18 years after abortion legalization. The 5 states that allowed abortion in 1970 experienced declines earlier than the rest of the nation, which legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. States with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s experienced greater crime reductions in the 1990s. In high abortion states, only arrests of those born after abortion legalization fall relative to low abortion states. Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime."

Other moral justifications include the women's right argument and the fact that the human population is swiftly approaching a tipping point, where the Earth's resources cannot sustain human life for millions, this can be seen even today in places like Somalia and other regions.

 

[orangeban]

Alright, maybe the pro-life crowd chose a name that makes them automatically sound good to an ignorant bystander ("Well, I sure like life, these pro-life people sound great!"), but surely so has the pro-choice crowd? ("Well, I sure like choice, these pro-choice people sound great!")

Anyway, I'm pro-choice, in that I think that the women who's life and health is at risk (child birth is dangerous remember, not to mention the fact that having a baby can seriously derail all your life plans) is more important than the unborn fetus. The women has friends and goals and memories, while a fetus has none of these things.

 

[geK0]

snips

A giant parasite is going to attach to your face against your will. It will drive your body crazy, cause you great pain and inconvenience, and quite literally feed off you for 3/4 of a year. You will support that creature whether you like it or not because it is a living thing and the government said you have to.

You don't want to support it? Too bad, you don't have the choice; the face-leach's right to survive supersede your desires. Now, after the face-leach detaches itself, you can take it too a home with a lot of other unwanted face-leaches, but your body belongs to that face-leach till it decides to leave. You're an incubator, like it or not.

Of course, you could always go to a back-alley face-leach remover who will stab it with a coat-hanger in the back of his van. Hopefully he doesn't miss and hit anything vital of yours, cause, well, then you're really screwed cause what you did is illegal? Remember how good Prohibition did with stopping people from consuming alcohol cause it was illegal? Or how successful the War on Drugs is on stopping people from doing drugs? Total victory right? Cause if something is made illegal, people stop doing it, right?

We were all face leaches once. If the face leaches could just be removed and put on somebody else's face that would be great! The fact of the matter is though that these face leaches depend on us for survival!

Maybe those face leaches will some day grow into healthy overlords, brood mothers or infesters, ultralisks or something. By getting rid of these face leaches, we are losing a great deal of potential.

If these face leaches put you in a considerable threat of death due to various possible health complications, then it is acceptable to get rid of the face leach; Otherwise, it is best to try your best to care for the face leach, it can be very rewarding.

Spoiler: Isn't it cute?

[image=http://conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=600775&stc=1&d=1235364654] http://conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=600775&stc=1&d=1235364654[/IMG]

 

[geK0]

Maybe those face leaches will some day grow into healthy overlords, brood mothers or infesters, ultralisks or something. By getting rid of these face leaches, we are losing a great deal of potential.

Or maybe it'll turn into a Hitler leach. Arguing that it might turn out good is a rather poor way to go about things since it might turn out bad.

Besides, that isn't justification for going against someone's will and forcing them to keep it.

Fair enough

I just feel the leach should have a chance.

As far as forcing people to keep their face leaches.... this is where I find it hard to choose a side.

While I greatly favour the decision to let the face leach live, I do feel there are some situations where it is acceptable to remove the face leach; face leaches that are a considerable threat to their hosts health can and should be removed at the host's discretion.

While I feel that keeping the leach is the ethical decision in any case, legislation against leach removal isn't helpful or necessary.

However, barring cases of forced face-leachification and health complications due to the presence of the face leach, I feel there is a responsibility to carry the leach to maturity; A similar responsibility to caring for a feeble elderly parent, or caring for other family members when they really need it.

If you don't feel you are capable of caring for a leach, then you should take the necessary precautions to avoid face leaches (face condoms, pills etc) or abstain from....... whatever it is that might cause you to get a face leach.

 

[00slash00]

something religious groups and politicians need to understand is that if someone wants an abortion, theyre going to get an abortion. making it difficult or illegal just means that they will resort to dangerous way of getting the abortion. this isnt just a wild assumption, abortion rates are higher in anti-abortion countries. even in america, people who live in areas where it becomes hard to get an abortion, take drugs to kill the baby

 

[Doc Theta Sigma]

I do believe Bill Hicks put it best:

"If you're so pro-life why don't you adopt one of the children that is already here, very alone and very unwanted?"

That's what I don't understand about pro-lifers. A lot of them will fight tooth and nail to keep an unborn fetus alive yet once it's out of the womb... It's suddenly not their problem. And as for having to pay for abortions with taxes. Well.

Would you rather pay for that or pay taxes to help that child for 18 years through health care, education etcetera?

 

[Pegghead]

Wait, is this a discussion about abortion or just about the terms used? If the latter, if we're going to judge people who are anti-abortion dubbing themselves "pro-life" then we might as well argue that the pro-abortion crowd are just as bad calling theselves "pro-choice" (instead of...I'unno, "I-ain't-got-no-beef-with-a-fetus-termination"). Spin's all around us, best to just accept it and move on.

As for abortion itself...I wouldn't really say I'm one or the other. On one hand it kills children is more merciful to the child in the case of, say, a struggling rape-victim, on the other hand it gives women a choice I could see it being overused to avoid the responsibilty of raising a child (or using contraception) if it were to become widespread or less regulated.

 

[Sectan]

Flame thread successful!

Anyways. Hypothetical question time! A woman is on her way to an abortion clinic to have the fetus aborted. On the way another driver runs a stoplight and collides with her vehicle and the fetus dies from the accident. Is the driver guilty of vehicular manslaughter? And if so, Why?

 

[Zakarath]

I'm pro-choice, I see no reason a woman who has no desire to support a child can't get an abortion. While something is still a fetus, it's cognition levels are still a great deal below that of animals that humans have no qualms about killing. There is no reason that people other than those with a direct personal connection to the fetus should care whether it lives or dies. Certainly, it has the potential to at some point become a thinking human being with a right to life, but at the point while it's still a fetus it's still just a collection of cells with just a few hard-coded responses to outside stimuli, if that. It doesn't care if it lives or dies--it isn't capable of such thoughts yet. And it's potential is a moot point. If it doesn't live to become a human, than it doesn't. No human has been murdered.

 

[Vykrel]

i was thinking of George Carlin when i saw your title. he really has a point.

also, he mentioned that "pro-life" politicians care more about the fetus than the actual child that it becomes. theyll fight for you to be born, but after that you are on your own.

 

[Talshere]

All I'll say on the matter is I'm glad my mom didn't choose to kill me in the womb.

Why? Lets be honest if she didn't you wouldn't care and neither would any of us. By definition we couldn't.

This whole problem is one we will not manage to solved until we understand brainwave patterns and can unequivocally prove or disprove the point at which a foetus can begin to think or produce mental patterns of any distinction at all. Of course then we get the argument of at what point does it become "human" in its brain function, this should be an interesting one for the religious guys since by and large they see the mass slaughter of any animal that isnt human perfectly fine.

Tbh even when we have the technology to un-invasively remove and grow the foetus to maturity using machines giving all conceptions the chance at life the argument will STILL go on with the whole "difference between natural and lab foetal growth" even if no evidence exists to support said argument quality of life wise, then on top of THAT we get the problem that many of these children will be definition have no parents as the parents wouldnt have had the treatment if they'd wanted a family so you now have armies of children with no family to be cared and provided for by the state causing arguments of inhumanity not to mention the scale of the problem such a MASSIVE population boom would cause on the nation and planets resources in general.

Tbh, until we have mastered interplanetary travel and colonisation any argument against contraception is ultimately actually a pro extinction policy as at current exponential growth rates even WITH contraception we will outstrip our planets resources and space long before we achieve space travel resulting in mass starvation and likely a regression for all by the smallest minority of the planets population into a steampunk fallout style universe.


Also 1000 POSTS WOO!!!

 

[Lord Merik]

You can change the name of anything to make it sound bad. "pro-choice" how bout "Anti-baby"? There are sincere people on both sides. STOP acting like one side has moral superiority.

 

[Syzygy23]

I don't remember what comedian I am quoting, but I rembmber the message. Everybody is pro-life. If people wouldn't be, they would have killed them selfs years ago.
The notion "pro-life" was made so those people could feel better about who they are, calling it something that sounds better. And to quote Geroge Carlin:

They're anti-woman. Simple as it gets, anti-woman. They don't like them. They don't like women. They believe a woman's primary role is to function as a brood mare for the state.

I say people shouldn't interfere in what is not their buisness.

Thoughts?

EDIT: So people don't misunderstand: The Carlin quote is ofcourse part of a stand-up and is not to be taking literal, but he's pointing out that the women aren't being thought nearly as much of in this matter as they should.

Yyyyyeah, no, that comedian supports killing human beings in their early development, that isn't funny, it's just sad and sick.

The people who wrote the BioSLED say it better than I can, so I'm just going to quote them here.

Morally, it?s wrong to kill innocent human beings.



We base that morality on three factors:

Intrinsic value of human beings ? an intangible quality.
Common nature of human flesh and blood ? biological evidence of Law of Biogenesis, uniqueness of DNA & embryological/anatomical science.
The equality of common physical attributes of human beings - Size, Level of Development, Environment, and Degree of Dependency (SLED). If we do not morally discriminate against human beings outside the womb with these attributes (we treat them equally as humans under the law) then such conclusions also apply to pre-born human beings because:

Size - Hillary Clinton is not less human than Shaquille O?Neal. An embryo is not less human than a newborn.
Level of Development ? Toddlers are less developed than pre-adolescents who are less developed than adults. An embryo is the organ development stage of a human being while in the next stage, a fetus?s organs mature, just as an adolescent?s organs mature through puberty.
Environment ? Astronauts and scuba divers do not lose their human nature in non-supportive environments. A womb is the natural environment for the pre-born at their level of development. Exposing human beings to unnatural, uninhabitable environments is an act of murder.
Dependency ? We don?t kill those who depend upon us. Infants depend upon parents/guardians for all their primary needs. Our dependencies extend to each other, and without the defense of the goodness of meeting human dependencies, none of us would be alive.

Refuting Non-Personhood Arguments ? such arguments deny the intrinsic quality of human beings by falsely assuming (petitio principii) two components (body and person), instead of one. These are a play on Level of Development. Gently ask: ?Would you be willing to undergo the same destruction of your body that is performed on the unborn during an abortion, and if not ? why?? They can?t prove their own personhood without referring to their own physical body, so gently question them until they do. We know scientifically from the moment of conception the pre-born also has a human body. We can?t establish tests for denying the rights of pre-born human beings that we, who also have human flesh and blood, are unwilling to take ? that?s discrimination. Refuting this works best in-person, not over the Internet.
Refuting Bodily Autonomy Arguments (aka Mother?s Rights) ? some argue gestation is a special right granted by the mother. This goes back to Dependency. We don?t kill those who are dependent upon us. Some argue biological dependency is different, but this falsely assumes (petitio principii) the responsibility to be humane can have exceptions because an innocent human being is undeniably killed. Further, such killing is an act of commission, meaning the violence of abortion is a direct appeal to force (argumentum ad baculum) on the mother?s behalf. Specifically, force is appealed to based on the victim?s Environment ? the natural location in the womb of the child?s mother. We wouldn?t want anyone we were dependent upon to justify killing us because we existed in an environment they claimed.

 

[MammothBlade]

snips

A giant parasite is going to attach to your face against your will. It will drive your body crazy, cause you great pain and inconvenience, and quite literally feed off you for 3/4 of a year. You will support that creature whether you like it or not because it is a living thing and the government said you have to.

You don't want to support it? Too bad, you don't have the choice; the face-leach's right to survive supersede your desires. Now, after the face-leach detaches itself, you can take it too a home with a lot of other unwanted face-leaches, but your body belongs to that face-leach till it decides to leave. You're an incubator, like it or not.

Of course, you could always go to a back-alley face-leach remover who will stab it with a coat-hanger in the back of his van. Hopefully he doesn't miss and hit anything vital of yours, cause, well, then you're really screwed cause what you did is illegal? Remember how good Prohibition did with stopping people from consuming alcohol cause it was illegal? Or how successful the War on Drugs is on stopping people from doing drugs? Total victory right? Cause if something is made illegal, people stop doing it, right?

I take it you didn't really understand what I said.

I explained that the baby has the right to live as long as the woman consented to become pregnant in the first place. This means a) assuming she wasn't raped, and b) assuming she and her partner didn't try to use contraception. If contraception does fail, then there should be a few weeks to allow for termination of very early pregnancy.

It's stupid and inhumane to compare a human foetus to a parasite. Remember, if a woman consented to become pregnant in the first place, the assumption is that the baby is NOT living a parasitic existence. It is wrong in my belief that a mother can have an abortion simply because having children is no longer convenient, or conversely that prospective fathers can pressure their girlfriends into it. We should not play games with human life like that. I know full well that pregnancy can be a very stressful and testing experience... which should not be undertaken lightly. I'm going to say it. Killing unborn babies is generally far worse than forcing a woman to endure the willing and temporary burden of pregnancy. Does that make me anti-women's rights? No. It does not. For if men could give birth, I'd say exactly the same thing. It's not me who makes natural law, unfortunately. I can't help it that pregnancy is a feat of which only females are capable.

Whilst a woman is pregnant, she is responsible for the life of another human being growing within her.
Thankfully, the majority of pregnant mothers know what is best for their children, but there are some pregnant women who don't, who decide to have an abortion mid-term when they would otherwise have given birth to a perfectly healthy child, because they are somehow inconvenient or unwanted. It is the duty of a humane society to protect unborn humans from infanticide, both at the hands of their parents and strangers. They are no less "human" and no less alive than those who have just popped out of a vagina. There are laws protecting newly born babies from being shaken to death or thrown out onto the street by abusive parents. It's easily argued that babies are just as dependent and often more stressful outside the womb than they are when they are still in it, yet no-one advocates for the right to have a post-natal abortion.

 

[Mad World]

What about in rape cases or in the case of life saving abortions? I believe abortion should be legal for those two reasons alone.

I've thought of that. With regard to rape, I still wouldn't agree with it. Either you consider it to be murder, or you don't. If you do, then it would still be murder.

As for life and death situations... that's more complicated. I'm not sure exactly where I stand on that just yet. I would most likely side with whichever death would be indirect.

How do the life and death situations usually work? I ask because I don't know all that much about them.

Technically, it does really...

I still disagree. I fail to see how I am anti-woman. Abortion can't be considered to be a legitimate right; it permits murder.

Yes - things could easily go wrong for an unplanned child, but that doesn't - at all - suddenly allow the mother to abort it.

This. I find it really saddening...

Well said.

Yes - the woman probably should have final say with regard to whether or not she wants to have a child. But if she gets pregnant - whether by accident or not - that's a new human being... and depriving that human being of life would be wrong.

 

[StBishop]

All I'll say on the matter is I'm glad my mom didn't choose to kill me in the womb.

All I'll say on the matter (actually I'm sure I'll say more) is that I'm glad my mother had the option to legally abort me if she'd chosen rather than risking her (and subsequently my, and any future sibling's) life by trying to self abort me.

OT. This should be in the religion and politics forum. It's political, and for some, religious.

 

[Something Amyss]

And to quote Geroge Carlin:

They're anti-woman. Simple as it gets, anti-woman. They don't like them. They don't like women. They believe a woman's primary role is to function as a brood mare for the state.

I think a more poignant quote from Carlin is: "If you're pre-born you're fine, if you're pre-school you're fucked."

It fascinates me that the pro-life crowd is absolutely adamant in their stance that life is sacred, but once you're born the majority don't give a damn about you. You can literally die in a fire for all they care.

Remember, abortion is murder, but letting a child die homeless and hungry in a gutter is okay.

But yeah, more to the point, they don't care about the women, or the children. Pregnancy is often treated as a punishment, which does establish "anti-woman." More and more people in this country oppose abortion even if it endangers the life of the mother. Oi.

 

[Mad World]

Yes there is a lot of "it's possible" in there because frankly, just being born doesn't qualify you for having a really good life.
Shit happens in this world and "Pro-life" people really need to wake up to that fact, yes the child is alive now but what is the consequence and what future have you given to this person because of it?
It may have a loving, well adjusted home (I know of someone who was "an accident" and lives happily) but the case for the most part.

Shit does happen... most definitely. But that doesn't mean you can just take the easy way out.

Even if the chance of a good life for the child is extremely low, that's still a chance.

Even if you knew with 100% certainty that the child's life would be a very negative one, I still stand by the belief that we don't get to choose when another human being deserves to die.

Condemning two or more people after a night of hedonism isn't really the way to go in all of this.
I'm not out to change your mind but it's my $2.

I'd argue that depriving the child of life because you THINK it will live a terrible life isn't the way to go.