Can we reach a compromise regarding abortion?

[ecco]

Can you pinpoint exactly when red becomes green? If not, does that mean you can't point to a section that is clearly one or the other? A "line in the sand" is not necessary.

We live in the real world. Look at the poll. Only 20% believe that legal abortion should not be allowed. This is a poll taken on a Christian Forum! Furthermore, we know from history, that abortions will always be performed. Illegal abortions are much worse for the woman and for the fetus than legal abortions.

Therefore, people must decide when it is acceptable and when it is unacceptable to perform an abortion. I strongly suggest that everyone read the Supreme Court's decisions in Roe v. Wade. The justices struggled long and hard to determine a cutoff point. They looked at medicine; they looked at history; they looked at religious views, both current and historical. Some excerpts...

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/410/113.html (my emphasis)

Our task, of course, is to resolve the issue by constitutional measurement, free of emotion and of predilection. We seek earnestly to do this, and, because we do, we have inquired into, and in this opinion place some emphasis upon, medical and medical-legal history and what that history reveals about man's attitudes toward the abortion procedure over the centuries.

VI

It perhaps is not generally appreciated that the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of States today are of relatively recent vintage. Those laws, generally proscribing abortion or its attempt at any time during pregnancy except when necessary to preserve the pregnant woman's life, are not of ancient or even of common-law origin. ​

The OP asked: Can we reach a compromise. We did.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Except that it WAS murder.

As God said from atop of Mt Sinai:

Ex 20.13 “You shall not murder."

Where was the "legal" definition of murder there?

Assuming God said anything at all on any mountain, it surely wasn't said in english.

Murder
noun
1.
Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law.

 

[Armoured]

Your little color picture scenario was more of a comment than a question and certainly could not be considered an answer to any but one of the questions I asked. How does your picture answer the questions "If being conscious was the reason someone decided they would not be willing to abort a fetus would one want to test any fetus up to be aborted to make sure it had not reached that point? If so how would one go about testing for that?"

Neurologists and similar draw the line about 24 weeks. I'm happy to draw it at 20 weeks, for safety. I'm not a neurologist, so if you want the specifics on their research, you can research it as easily as I can, probably better if you have a clear idea of the question you want answered.

However, in layman's terms, I'm happy, generally speaking, to consider anything with less neural connectivity and volume than a goldfish as "not conscious".

 

[Archivist]

Be consistent then. If you want to be pro choice call your opponents pro life as they will tell you they want the women to choose life not death for the fetus. You seem unwilling to give what you demand to receive in this matter i,e, that those opposed to your position bow to your use of the language to describe your position.

When did I ever say that the term "pro life" shouldn't be used to describe those opposed to abortion? Perhaps others have said that in this thread but I have not. Don't make false accusations.

Personally I prefer the term "anti abortion" for those opposed to abortion rather than "pro life" simply because some would not allow abortion even if the abortion would be to save the life of the pregnant woman. That makes "anti abortion" a much more accurate term. However, once again, I have no qualms with the use oif the term "pro life."

 

[Armoured]

We live in the real world. Look at the poll. Only 20% believe that legal abortion should not be allowed. This is a poll taken on a Christian Forum! Furthermore, we know from history, that abortions will always be performed. Illegal abortions are much worse for the woman and for the fetus than legal abortions.

Therefore, people must decide when it is acceptable and when it is unacceptable to perform an abortion. I strongly suggest that everyone read the Supreme Court's decisions in Roe v. Wade. The justices struggled long and hard to determine a cutoff point. They looked at medicine; they looked at history; they looked at religious views, both current and historical. Some excerpts...

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/410/113.html (my emphasis)

Our task, of course, is to resolve the issue by constitutional measurement, free of emotion and of predilection. We seek earnestly to do this, and, because we do, we have inquired into, and in this opinion place some emphasis upon, medical and medical-legal history and what that history reveals about man's attitudes toward the abortion procedure over the centuries.

VI

It perhaps is not generally appreciated that the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of States today are of relatively recent vintage. Those laws, generally proscribing abortion or its attempt at any time during pregnancy except when necessary to preserve the pregnant woman's life, are not of ancient or even of common-law origin. ​

The OP asked: Can we reach a compromise. We did.

I think you mistake my position. I was attempting to assuage GTAW's concerns about determining exactly where consciousness starts.

 

[KCfromNC]

FYI, to all the liberals wondering about sex Ed., the reason why most "right-wingers" oppose it is because they don't want to encourage casual sex. They don't want rampant hedonism to be promoted and for contraception to be seen as a way to "get away with a one-night stand". "Right-wingers" would rather have people waiting until they are physically and emotionally mature enough in a relationship to have sex, and possibly prepared for a child. And if they don't want a child, there are plenty of sexual practices that don't result in pregnancy.

This fits right in with the theme of anti-abortion supporters really being in it to punish women for daring to have sex in ways the church doesn't approve of. If it were really about stopping the murder of babies then a few teens having safe sex would be more than a reasonable compromise.

That's even assuming that any of the nonsense about kids needing to be taught in school that sex is something they want do to actually reflects reality.

 

[Archivist]

Not quite . Blacks could not cast votes. The 3/5th human idea was put forward by the southern states not so that blacks could cast votes that counted 3/5ths of a white but so that blacks would be counted in the census as 3/5th human and increase the southern states representation in the House of representatives and in the electoral college .

Incorrect. The southern delegates wanted to count all slaves for representation purposes. The 3/5s compromise was put forward by James Wilson of Pennsylvania.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Be consistent then. If you want to be pro choice call your opponents pro life as they will tell you they want the women to choose life not death for the fetus.

That is blatantly false. The "pro life" movement do NOT want women to CHOOSE anything. Quite the opposite... they wish to REMOVE choice and FORCE women to carry out a pregnancy (any pregnancy).

You seem unwilling to give what you demand to receive in this matter i,e, that those opposed to your position bow to your use of the language to describe your position.

No. He's just, correctly, stating that term "pro abortion" is not an accurate description of the position taken by people who wish for women to have the freedom to choose for themselves. To state that they are "pro abortion" kind of implies that they "prefer" women to abort - wich is not true at all.

They prefer women to have the freedom to choose for themselves - which is quite different.

 

[Dave-W]

Assuming God said anything at all on any mountain, it surely wasn't said in english.

Murder
noun
1.
Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law.

OK. The word translated there as "murder" is Ratsach,
רָצַח

which means to intentionally kill a human.

 

[Dave-W]

o state that they are "pro abortion" kind of implies that they "prefer" women to abort - wich is not true at all.

Historically, the biggest abortion mill in the US, Planned Parenthood, was formed to promote the elimination of blacks and other minorities thru contraception and abortion. Margaret Sanger did NOT want black babies being born, she preferred them to be aborted.

 

[Armoured]

OK. The word translated there as "murder" is Ratsach,
רָצַח

which means to intentionally kill a human.

So let's find out clearly and unambiguously at what point the Jews considered one "a human". *annoying sing song voice* you're not gunna like what you fi-ind...

 

[Armoured]

Historically, the biggest abortion mill in the US, Planned Parenthood, was formed to promote the elimination of blacks and other minorities thru contraception and abortion. Margaret Sanger did NOT want black babies being born, she preferred them to be aborted.

Even if, for the sake of argument, we accept this is true, so what? Of what relevance is that today?

 

[KCfromNC]

Even if, for the sake of argument, we accept this is true, so what? Of what relevance is that today?

The relevance to me is that the anti-abortion faithful need to do more than make up stories about what person might or might not have said a century ago if they want to win the middle to their side.

 

[pat34lee]

OK. Let us know who in the general public you convince with bald assertions.

Either reply with something useful or not. I'm going to start reporting off-topic snide remarks.

 

[pat34lee]

There is no such thing as a "pro abortion" movement. Some of us believe that a pregnant woman should have the right to choose an abortion, but that doesn't make us "pro abortion" as you claim because we also believe that she should have the right to choose to carry the fetus to term. Pro choice is the correct description.

For modern feminists, the only choice that matters is abortion.
They do not support the choice to have kids or be stay at home moms.

 

[Archivist]

For modern feminists, the only choice that matters is abortion.
They do not support the choice to have kids or be stay at home moms.

Do you have any actual evidence to support this? I am speaking of mainstream media, please don't provide links to right-wing fringe websites.

 

[Armoured]

For modern feminists, the only choice that matters is abortion.
They do not support the choice to have kids or be stay at home moms.

Nothing like collapsing an entire diverse group to a single, easily demonised strawman, is there?

I can disprove your claim easily. I'M a modern feminist, and I support stay at home mothers.

 

[Cearbhall]

I said "at any time during the pregnancy." However, if the fetus survives the procedure, the baby becomes a patient. Once the mother is separate from the baby, the baby's life no longer falls under her own bodily autonomy. She loses the right to choose to have the fetus be killed, though the parents can of course still choose to withhold life support.

The numbers of late-term abortions are tiny enough and the procedure is excruciating enough (and expensive and inaccessible enough) that I'm confident women are only going through with it when something is seriously wrong. Typically, these women are choosing to suffer for their baby rather than letting the baby live a painful, short life. It's no different than cutting off life support, really, except with even more selflessness. Creating even more red tape and making these women go through a court process before having the procedure done would do more harm than good, in my opinion.

Here's a post about one woman's late-term abortion experience: https://roadtocrunchymama.wordpress.com/2014/07/29/a-time-to-choose/

 

[Dave-W]

For modern feminists, the only choice that matters is abortion.

I disagree. Feminists want to eliminate all human males from existence (when science will allow reproduction with out us). In that light, abortion is kind of a temporary side issue.

 

[Cearbhall]

I disagree. Feminists want to eliminate all human males from existence (when science will allow reproduction with out us). In that light, abortion is kind of a temporary side issue.

Wha- what?

Did I accidentally click on the fundie conspiracy board? I shouldn't use the Live Feed so much...