Abortion

[WiccanHeart]

And Catholics are supposed to be against abortion and birth control....QUOTE]

I know catholics who use bc and a few who had abortions...I think there are double standards when it comes to what anyone is 'supposed to be against' and what they actually do when push comes to shove.

Unfortunately, this issue won't be solved on a message board

I know it wont be solved on a message board. And I also know that not all Catholics are against abortion and birth control. Strictly speaking, though, they are supposed to. Abortion is a fundamental thing Catholics are against and I am pretty sure they are also supposed to be against birth control, although it's illogical.

 

[flicka]

I'm assuming you would not? Not for your own child? Many would, and over the years, working with women in OB, MANY have. Many times both mama & baby were saved in the end, but I know of a few times baby made it...and mama died. You may think that is tragic, but those mamas who died, never once faltered in their decisions. My children are grown, with children of their own...and I would take their place & die in a heartbeat if need be.

Love-n-Blessings
dee

You make way too many assumptions about me, and personal ones at that!! Try to keep the debate academic ok?

I'm not necessarily talking about a pregnant woman. If we had make a choice between Mr. Average Joe with a family/mortgage/dog/job/etc or a zygote I wonder if one would have more rights that the other...

I'm sure many woman would die to try and give her child life, and I'm sure many wouldn't because they have other obligations to consider. That doesn't make it a selfish choice just a choice.

 

[Michali]

I'm not necessarily talking about a pregnant woman. If we had make a choice between Mr. Average Joe with a family/mortgage/dog/job/etc or a zygote I wonder if one would have more rights that the other...

Which one is more innocent?

I'm sure many woman would die to try and give her child life, and I'm sure many wouldn't because they have other obligations to consider. That doesn't make it a selfish choice just a choice.

Most choices are made with a reason. If a choice is in the best interest of the mother (which may include her relationships to her family, freinds, and her sex partner), and not in the best interest of the baby; it is, what we consider, a selfish choice. And the deprivation of life to the unborn baby, is, in many cases, not toward the best interest of the baby. Infact, the child is not even able to voice their own view of the matter.

Even those with hard upbringings, are thankful for their life.

 

[flicka]

Which one is more innocent?

Most choices are made with a reason. If a choice is in the best interest of the mother (which may include her relationships to her family, freinds, and her sex partner), and not in the best interest of the baby; it is, what we consider, a selfish choice. And the deprivation of life to the unborn baby, is, in many cases, not toward the best interest of the baby. Infact, the child is not even able to voice their own view of the matter.

Even those with hard upbringings, are thankful for their life.

Sooooo...innocence is a determining factor now? Geeze, this is just getting silly, no wonder I don't like debating abortion.

Still, IMO self preservation vs a potential human life is not selfish choice and I'll just leave it at that.

 

[Michali]

Sooooo...innocence is a determining factor now? Geeze, this is just getting silly, no wonder I don't like debating abortion.

You must kill either a new-born baby, or an average Joe. Which would you kill, and why?

Still, IMO self preservation vs a potential human life is not selfish choice and I'll just leave it at that.

"Self preservation" is a "selfish" motive. Which does not automatically imply that it is a morally bad motive, just that it is an ambition with an aim to set up the self as the sole benefactor.

Moral terms, such as good and bad, are meaningful so long as they are applied to communities and societies. Humans are social beings, and being "good" benefits the community as a whole. Therefore, being selfish, is commonly regarded as being bad. Since it does not promote the good for the entire collective, selfishness usually leads to crime against the community. Laws are set up and enforced for communities to abide by. Moral issues are, thusly, a concern. One could always have an abortion on their own, for their own selfish desires, but should the "collective" accept this? In my opinion, no.

 

[flicka]

You must kill either a new-born baby, or an average Joe. Which would you kill, and why?

"Self preservation" is a "selfish" motive. Which does not automatically imply that it is a morally bad motive, just that it is an ambition with an aim to set up the self as the sole benefactor.

Moral terms, such as good and bad, are meaningful so long as they are applied to communities and societies. Humans are social beings, and being "good" benefits the community as a whole. Therefore, being selfish, is commonly regarded as being bad. Since it does not promote the good for the entire collective, selfishness usually leads to crime against the community. Laws are set up and enforced for communities to abide by. Moral issues are, thusly, a concern. One could always have an abortion on their own, for their own selfish desires, but should the "collective" accept this? In my opinion, no.

I will agree with you on the 'selfish' definition then...however I do not agree that the 'collective' should be involved in something as personal as my obstetric care or be informed of my family planning (BC) activities.

That said, I don't know why we bother debating abortion. People are going to respond based on their own experiences and world views, things that are not easily changed! But sometimes I just have to vent....and I suppose it's true for all sides of the issue.

Things that get to me: refering to pregnancy and child birth as an 'inconvenience', assuming women who get abortions are just lazy about bc, have no self control when it comes to sex, are young and unmarried, etc, saying a real woman would die instead of having an abortion. To name a few.

 

[SallyNow]

saying a real woman would die instead of having an abortion

Who is saying that?

If a woman is in serious medical risk because of a pregnancy, an abortion probably would be the only way.
Can this extend to serious psychiatric risk? In some cases, yes, it could.

I think in many cases, the militant anti-abortionists nomatterwhatists (as opposed to pro-lifers) are a reaction to the pro-abortion (and even pro-choice) groups that say, "Hey, abortion is great! Better than adoption! Easier than having a baby!"

 

[jazzbird]

I'm not necessarily talking about a pregnant woman. If we had make a choice between Mr. Average Joe with a family/mortgage/dog/job/etc or a zygote I wonder if one would have more rights that the other...

I'm sure many woman would die to try and give her child life, and I'm sure many wouldn't because they have other obligations to consider. That doesn't make it a selfish choice just a choice.

I know it's shocking flicka, but I agree with you on this. *gasp*

If a mother has to make a choice between her own life and the life of her unborn child, we cannot judge her for her decision either way. I don't think choosing her own life over the child's makes a statement saying that this child is worthless or doesn't have the right to live. Both mother and child have the right, but only one can survive. If this woman has other children to care for, or even a husband at home, it seems to me that she is needed here. One could argue that it is a form of selfishness for her to choose death for herself since she would be leaving others motherless and wife-less. Those situations are tragic, anyway you look at it. Choosing one over the other does not mean that you place more value on one life - it just means a decision has to be made and it may be of more benefit to others if the mother remains alive.

 

[flicka]

I know it's shocking flicka, but I agree with you on this. *gasp*

jazzbird you just made my day! No doubt I secretly agree with some of the points you and some others make but ::shhh: don't tell anyone!

 

[Blissman]

Allow me to voice my opinion. First, a basic assumption: Life per se is valuable. Abortion has, IMHO, two elements.
One is what (or when) is life defined ?
Who has rights of life and death of what, depending on your position, a new or potential life v your right to live and control your body, it's reproductive capability.

Also: I believe we need to include men in this debate. It takes both sexes to procreate. Both are equally responsible for a child. And, depending on the nature of
how the baby was procreated, both are reponsible for each others lives. Men must be included in this, since men can not be excluded.

If you believe that the matter at hand is the right to live, and not a position taken where Right to Life means in fact anti-abortion, and not Life, then you should be arguing anti-abortion.

If it were a matter of self-preservation, and if you were to assume that once an egg had been fertilized with a sperm was life, then the mother and the child have an equal right to live. If life itself was a God-given (or for those who do not believe a God, use whatever standard that you have by a different name for the same thing) right, then God, the creator, gives equal value to life to everyone (or, depending on your opinion, potential life).

I disagree that survival is a 'bad motive'. Survival is a God created instinct; you are supposed to survive. If survival were a poor excuse, so too would be the survival of children, infants, fetuses, zygotes, blastocytes, eggs and sperm. A fetus has no more of a right to live than a mother. Nor any less. Then too, so would the egg and the sperm, and the man and the women who make egg and sperm, they as egg and sperm, and their parents, and theirs...

Blaming abortion on doctors is wrong. I liken it to drug users and drug pushers. I believe that it is absurd going after drug pushers. We will have a drug problem as long as people want to put drugs in their own bodies (or the parents of infant addicts).
Suppose, for the sake of arguemnt, Michali was a drug pusher, selling addictive drugs to thousands. Suppose that everyone here were addicts, and we all bought our addictive drugs from Michali. Who had decided to take drugs in the first place? Us, or Michali? Would it make sense for us to point a finger at Michali and claim that 'it's all her fault' ?

I believe that abortion is a false issue. The issue is sex.

 

[Michali]

Would it make sense for us to point a finger at Michali and claim that 'it's all her fault' ?

I'm not a girl.

The issue is sex.

My sex.

 

[jazzbird]

^^^

 

[tkster]

The answer to this is why should abortion be a choice. Everyone keeps trying to define what a "life" is, which is amazing. We're trying to get by through technical morality. Technically if a guy makes out with a girl, it's not a sin ... or is it? Is this what Christians have come to? What is "technically" right and wrong?

If you think a woman should have a choice (propaganda games pro-choicers like to use), let me ask you this ... would it have been right for the Virgin Mary to have an abortion? She had enough reasons too, in fact in those days premarital sex was wrong, and her being pregnant would make everyone judge her. Mary had a reason to abort her baby, but you can thank Jesus (no pun intended) that she didn't, or else we'd all be in trouble.

take care,
tk

 

[Faith In God]

The answer to this is why should abortion be a choice. Everyone keeps trying to define what a "life" is, which is amazing. We're trying to get by through technical morality. Technically if a guy makes out with a girl, it's not a sin ... or is it? Is this what Christians have come to? What is "technically" right and wrong?

If you think a woman should have a choice (propaganda games pro-choicers like to use), let me ask you this ... would it have been right for the Virgin Mary to have an abortion? She had enough reasons too, in fact in those days premarital sex was wrong, and her being pregnant would make everyone judge her. Mary had a reason to abort her baby, but you can thank Jesus (no pun intended) that she didn't, or else we'd all be in trouble.

take care,
tk

when one is conceived, if you leave them, they will become a fully grown man (or woman) to change this is to act the part of God. Technicalities are dumb. rule of thumb: in what you are doing, if you are not loving the Lord with all heart, mind, soul, strength, then you are sinning and need to repent, trust in Jesus, and commit to the Lord.

 

[tkster]

Thanks butxifxnot!!! That was actually my point: abortion is wrong, and this idea of "technical morality" is ruining Christianity. But thanks for saying it the way you did !

take care,
tk

 

[justaman]

Ah ah ah... If your pulling out from the self-philosophy, you must stick to it.

I am.

When this body is asleep, I do not exist. So what exactly "had" conscious experiences? Not I. I am the conscious experience. But it is the body, correct? It has had the conscious experience. And it (most likely) will have conscious experience once it awakens.

The conscious experience that is you exists constantly. You do not ever experience unconsciousness. If someone kills you in your sleep, they are terminating an existing consciousness, just one that is on 'pause'.

You claim the importancy lies in whether or not I was existent prior to my lack of being. Which, somehow, takes presedence over whether or not I will exist. This seems arbitrary, and will require justification.

It's not arbitrary, if you kill a fetus before it develops a consciousness it never existed just like Joey Joe Joe Jabidoo never existed and feeling sorry for both is just as silly. Nothing was 'lost' nothing was 'removed', there was nothing ever there.

That's not the same as when you're asleep, dude. It's pretty fundamental.

You walk into my room, whilst I slumber. Off of some random whim, you begin to decide whether or not you want to kill me. You remember that I owe you dinner tommorow, for you and your freinds, after the favor you performed for me yesterday.

:o

Will you really not kill the body on the bed, just because it was identified as Michali before? Or because it will become Michali tommorow?

Both. You were and will be Michali. We weep at funerals not because people aren't there (since we're often apart from them) but because we know they never again will be and we mourn the loss of the potential future of the person we remember from the past.

Not only that, but consider other outlandish scenarios. Say that a man teleports through a matter-breakdown & rebuild-elsewhere machine. Let's say the man had relatives that, simply, do not like him. They want him to die. Would anyone consider it a "good" thing for these people to kill the teleported man, who has not awoken yet?

Outlandish doesn't begin to describe this analogy, I'm going to need you to explain it better.

 

[Michali]

Man, I gave up after three days of waiting. Hope you read this.

The conscious experience that is you exists constantly. You do not ever experience unconsciousness. If someone kills you in your sleep, they are terminating an existing consciousness, just one that is on 'pause'.

Consciousness is not a thing (in that it does not exist in spacetime). It is a process of the brain, and a state of mind. It is either occuring or not occuring. If I am not occuring, I am not existent. I am not occuring when the body sleeps, so why not kill the body? It is not me.

You will not kill the body because the body's processes will begin me later.

It's not arbitrary, if you kill a fetus before it develops a consciousness it never existed just like Joey Joe Joe Jabidoo never existed and feeling sorry for both is just as silly. Nothing was 'lost' nothing was 'removed', there was nothing ever there.

But something was prevented. Why isn't this to be accounted for?

If Joey Joe Joe Jabidoo was about to arise out of this process, and I knew this, I would not stop the process from continuing, because it would prevent Joey from occuring. Effectively "killing" Joey. Which is the same as, "preventing Joey from continuing (AKA occuring later)".

That's not the same as when you're asleep, dude. It's pretty fundamental.

It is the same. Your confusing the words again. "I" am not asleep, the body is asleep, and "I" is not occuring.

Both. You were and will be Michali. We weep at funerals not because people aren't there (since we're often apart from them) but because we know they never again will be and we mourn the loss of the potential future of the person we remember from the past.

So what if we mourn for those reasons? There are parents who mourn for the children they lose, after enduring a miscarriage.

Outlandish doesn't begin to describe this analogy, I'm going to need you to explain it better.

You do not mind stopping a process that will result in a person, so long as that process has previously resulted in a person. So I said, "Let's say a person were transported via copying his matter elsewhere, so that there is a new process (a new body). That body will result in the same consciousness, if awoken from cryostasis, immediately after the reconstruction of the individual. Would it be alright to kill the body before he awoke in his new location, just because you didn't want him to live?"

The same consciousness once existed, but now there is a foreign body that never gave rise to that consciousness. Would you be "killing" the consciousness if you prevented the body from arising to that state? If you prevented that consciousness, would you be killing that consciousness?

 

[Strawybears]

If abortion isn't wrong, where do we draw the line? Is it ok to do partial birth abortions...since the baby isn't 'aware' of itself...is it ok to kill a child who isn't aware of itself because of birth defect? Have you ever heard of the SLED test? I was taught it during chapel one day at school.
S-size-is a short person less human than a tall person just because of their size?
L-level of development-is say, a four year old less hman than a 60 year old because the four year old isn't as 'developed' as teh 60 year old.
E-environment-is a human living in the amazon area less human than one living in San Diego
D-dependency-is a 90 year old man who is dependent on a caregiver less human than a 2 month old dependent on his mother for food?
The ''determining'' factors of humaninty aren't up to humans to decide. God created the fetus...no matter what man says, God provides insight in the Psalms that He created the psalmist in his mother's womb. Why do we have to 'play God' and decide when we want a planned pregnacy or not?

 

[jingwei]

You must kill either a new-born baby, or an average Joe. Which would you kill, and why?

I would kill the average joe.
me.

 

[justaman]

Consciousness is not a thing (in that it does not exist in spacetime). It is a process of the brain, and a state of mind. It is either occuring or not occuring. If I am not occuring, I am not existent. I am not occuring when the body sleeps, so why not kill the body? It is not me.

While I don't really agree with this description, it really doesn't matter. This doesn't get around the fact that 'loss' requires there to have been something in existence in the first place. Killing a sleeping body is removing a process that has existed, will exist again and is subjectively in and of itself continuing to exist.

But something was prevented. Why isn't this to be accounted for?

Prevention is fundamentally different from destruction. It is entirely relevant here, because if prevention is to be regarded with the same taboo as destruction, we must ask how we are able to let ever sperm and egg which would have produced unique offspring of their own die.

If Joey Joe Joe Jabidoo was about to arise out of this process, and I knew this, I would not stop the process from continuing, because it would prevent Joey from occuring. Effectively "killing" Joey. Which is the same as, "preventing Joey from continuing (AKA occuring later)".

You know that ever sperm you do not fertilize an egg with kills a unique, individual human being. The human being that would have resulted from that sperm will now never have existed and you have, by this logic, killed him/her.

So what if we mourn for those reasons? There are parents who mourn for the children they lose, after enduring a miscarriage.

People cry when they lose football games. Grief is not a terribly good instrument of morality.

You do not mind stopping a process that will result in a person, so long as that process has previously resulted in a person. So I said, "Let's say a person were transported via copying his matter elsewhere, so that there is a new process (a new body). That body will result in the same consciousness, if awoken from cryostasis, immediately after the reconstruction of the individual. Would it be alright to kill the body before he awoke in his new location, just because you didn't want him to live?"

The same consciousness once existed, but now there is a foreign body that never gave rise to that consciousness. Would you be "killing" the consciousness if you prevented the body from arising to that state? If you prevented that consciousness, would you be killing that consciousness?

You've been watching too much Dr Who.

If the consciousness is the same - I.e. you could justifiably call both 'Billy' - then you are killing someone. Bodies without consciousness are not human beings, this is why we are morally able to turn off life-support machines.

I'd like to hear your response to flicka's question: Would you give your life for a zygote?