I've heard it said that life begins at 40, so I guess up until then it's fair game for an abortion.
The Abortion debate
- Thread starter Houseman
- Start date
Yes.
If your hope is that I will agree with you, then it's not gonna happen. At least not in the same way you may want to hear. However, allow me to elaborate with this...
I don't think abortion is wrong in several ways, much less a moral level. Questionable, maybe, but I can't bring myself to call it "wrong." I believe there is a level where it is necessary at times for the sake of people and how our society functions. This includes all of the reasons I've listed in past posts, as well as an additional reason I forgot to mention where the mother will be at risk of dying from child birth. At which point that's trading one life for another, and how does that become justified?
I do, however, do find it to be a very difficult choice. One with a lot of weight behind it. It's unpleasant. It's not a happy thing to decide. It's horrible in many ways, including many of the reasons you've stated where it snuffs out a potential life. In that sense, it can be considered wrong. But I define that version of "wrong" with quotations around it. It might be highly unpleasant, but I feel it's at least not to the point where it needs to be damned from existence.
I don't believe it is a matter of morals. It's a matter of what's necessary for that person at that point in their life. The easiest way I can define it in clear cut terms is that I think it's a "necessary evil." Not a good kind of thing to happen, and certainly not a pleasant one. One that people can consider "wrong." But to me, it's simply something that I feel some people need to be able to have available due to a myriad of circumstances that we can't hope to understand by being who we are as ourselves. You don't have to agree with that, but I'm telling you that the world is not so black and white in the ways you've mentioned prior. It simply isn't
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In this case, it should be free for the parents to decide, and any choice made would not be immoral.
Why not? It's just a clump of cells, right? It doesn't mean anything, right? It's just like removing a mole, like Xprimentyl said, right?
Then what does it matter if the parent wasn't at risk and decided to get an abortion, or if they were at risk and decided to get one to save themselves? It's still the same end, still the same process, still a life "ending" by your definition. The parent would be making a decision to save themselves the difficulty and struggle that comes with it. It's still selfish to some degree on the parent's part. It's still not giving the potential life a chance. So what's the difference?
I'm not heartless enough to say it's not in any way a challenging choice to make, it absolutely is. Because you are right, it's something inside one's body that can become a person. That doesn't make it any less difficult of a decision to deal with. I'm simply saying that those "clumps of cells" shouldn't get priority over the life that already lives, or their circumstances around it, OR the events that will follow if said life comes to term. That's all
For the same reason why it's justified to kill someone in self-defense but not justified to kill that same person in cold blood while they sleep.
I've never seen anybody ever admit this. Usually I just hear, like Xprimentyl said, "it's just a clump of cells".
Nobody on the pro-abortion side ever hints or implies towards it being a difficult decision at all. Nobody I've ever seen, that is.
I wonder why that is?
It's possible it's just words lost in translation, or something that is felt on their end but not fully conveyed properly. I know I had a few moments like that in this thread, and that's why my past few posts have been more about my perspective of things rather than arguing someone else'.
It's also entirely possible that many pro-abortion people feel the same way I do and have that sort of common ground, but find that pro-lifers are too busy damning them and their actions. Like calling them horrible and selfish people... stating they're incorrect for their choice and wanting to take away their ability to decide for themselves and direct their own life... saying they're wrong in the eyes of some holy entity that they've never even seen or know may exist, if they're even willing to believe it does...
As such, the response becomes reactionary, biting back at the other side. Then neither side gets a good chance to understand the other, as they're now too busy pointing fingers at each other. It doesn't take much digging online to find situations exactly like this. People being assaulted outside abortion clinics, treated like sub-humans for doing what they think is right, while the other side feels justified in being this hostile towards another living, breathing human being.
And yes, I am putting the pro-lifers on the offensive side rather than the defensive side. My reasoning for this is because people who make the difficult decision to have an abortion are just trying to get by. Just trying to survive in a harsh world that threw them a curve ball. Sometimes it is as flippant as people casting caution to the wind during casual sex. But sometimes it's people not being given a choice to be in that situation and having to deal with it. Sometimes it's a choice to take back what little control they can, after a situation where the control they had before was stolen from them. Sometimes that control is done out of care for the would-be child, knowing that said child deserves a happy, wonderful life that the parent simply cannot give, or has any chance of giving. Many pro-lifers are quick to deem it selfish and damn near criminal, to the point they think it SHOULD be criminal. But a little patience and understanding to see why people feel it's necessary can go a long way to making some common ground. At the very least, maybe then that will calm the hostilities a little bit.
That's what I think, at least
Should we find common ground with other things we find abhorrent? Racists? Nazis? Actual criminals? People who vote for Trump? Pedophiles, etc?
Because, especially on the internet, I see a lot of people "treated like sub-humans for doing what they think is right, while the other side feels justified in being this hostile towards another living, breathing human being."
I'm not saying that one excuses the other, I'm just want to know if there's a consistent set of rules here.
To answer simply, it depends. On what, who knows. But that's all that I'm going to say on that. I'm not here to deconstruct racism and nazis. That's not what this thread, or my post, is about.
You're not excusing it, but that sure is a good amount of whataboutism
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I bring it up, because I think it's relevant. Understanding one should help you understand the other.
To pro-life people, pro-abortion people are just as abhorrent as racists and nazis are to non-racists and non-nazis.
If you wouldn't give a nazi or a racist a fair shake and listen to their points of views and try to understand where they're coming from, then you should be able to understand why a pro-life person is "hostile" towards a pro-abortion person.
Understand what you're asking for, is the point.
I did edit my post to say "it depends" rather than my initial no, because I gave it a moment longer to think about my response.
There's a very key difference between racists/nazis and people who want an abortion. Racists/nazis do it because they were raised or taught to think that way, believing in suppression of human beings due to considering them inferior, among other things. Criminals are a little more of a grey area. Some do it because they're simply bad people, but sometimes a thief steals just to eat that day. Sometimes someone kills in order to preserve their life in a harrowing situation, like some drunk on the street with a trigger finger that doesn't like who he/she sees. Some people vote for Trump because they truly believe he can make a positive change, regardless if the changes truly are positive. As I've said to you several times before, things are not always so black and white. Some things can be. Others are not.
One thing I know is certain though. It'd take a very special kind of person to intentionally get pregnant because they get some kick off getting abortions, or have been taught that that's what these would-be children deserve, or that they're inferior and should be suppressed. I think you and I can agree this way of thinking is not the majority, let alone even a minority. It's an act that is not born of ill will towards others. That's the key difference, and why I feel that your comparison is slanted
Of course. It's just that you value your lifestyle more than the life of your unborn child.
What does a racist value? Their own race more than the lives of other races. Hmm...
Like you said, abortion isn't born of ill will towards others. It's not all black and white.
So is racism black and white? Nazism? Trumpism?
The answer to this question is irrelevant. My point is that "this is what other people think". Other people see these issues as black and white. Other people also see abortion as black and white.
You claiming "it's not black and white, it's morally grey!" is like a Nazi claiming the same thing from the perspective of their opposers. Their opposers DO see it as black and white.
If you're asking for understanding, I'm asking you to understand the opposers.
You're asking for consideration, but you won't get it, because the "other side" views you as a cruel murderer who casually tosses away life when it's inconvenient for you.
They don't want to meet you half way. They don't want to extend any patience or consideration to you. Of course you think that your cause is different, and special, and merits consideration, and all those other causes don't. That's what everybody else thinks about their own cause too.
You've been telling me repeatedly: "That's not how the world works".
The moral of the story is: asking for patience and understanding seems a little silly when you can easily understand why patience and understanding isn't given to other groups by their opposers.
So maybe don't try to put pro-lifers on the offensive if you want patience and understanding. It demonstrates a lack of understanding.
You say that as if I don't. Believe me, I do. I see exactly why the other side believes what they do. It unfortunately doesn't sway my opinion, but I don't act out against them for their beliefs because of that. That doesn't change anything.
I do understand that. But I for one don't think it has to be that way, which is why I ask of it despite your views. But as you said yourself, you compare pro-abortion with Nazism. What hope of compromise do I get at that point?
I will remove them from that position in my mind as soon as many pro-lifers with ill judgement stop justifying their actions through harming others in the name of "God's will." You don't make progress through violence against your fellow man. You don't justify your cause and earn the moral high ground through abuse, assault, murder, and other crimes punishable by law. I understand that not everyone is like that, and both sides are guilty of these things. At one point, however, the hostilities need to come to an end, and it has to be done mutually, coming together as people.
I have to ask at this point... What have you been looking to get out of this debate, exactly? I'm at the point where I've given you every point of view I can, and you've got an answer for everything built to discredit it through a mix of your opinions, whataboutism, and strawman arguments. I thought we had good progress, what with me admitting to something you hadn't heard of from someone with my perspective on the topic. But then it got flipped entirely with other topics unrelated to the discussion. At this point I don't know exactly what the purpose of this is. I mean, I can see this is a debate in some way. It's just starting to feel more like hitting a brick wall than a debate, considering my opponent seems unflinching at basically every point.
Do you want everyone to just be a yes-man and agree with you? Or did you come here with intent to debate and have someone oppose your views in hopes of broadening your perspective?
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There is no hope.
If some people think that life starts at conception, and killing a life is wrong, and if others think that sometimes killing life is okay when it inconveniences another person, there can be no understanding between those two groups unless someone concedes on something.
From one perspective, it is murder. From another perspective it isn't. There's no possible way to bridge that gap.
The only paths I see is if the former group says "life doesn't start at conception", or "killing a life isn't wrong", or if the latter group says "killing a life is wrong, but we need to do it for the greater good"
Other than that, I don't see a way forward.
People who believe that all life is sacred, especially people who believe that because of their religion, aren't ever going to be convinced otherwise, and you'll always be seen as a murderer in their eyes. Instead of trying to move an immovable object, work around it. Putting people on the offensive and accusing them of bad things is only going to entrench them and provide affirmation of their preconceived notions of you.
I want to be distracted from the futility of my own existence and my existential dread for a brief period of time.
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Fair enough, I guess.
Then my debate with you is over. Not because I intended to change your mind... but because my efforts to find common ground are pointless and will not bear fruit
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If it's any consolation, I agree with you that abortion can be beneficial for, not only a person, but for society as a whole.
Wha- then why have your views as they are at all if you agree it's beneficial?! Do you have any idea how confusing this all is?