Abortion

[Gracchus]

People disagree about this. Very few demonstrate intellectual consistency in this matter.

Some questions to consider:
If abortion is wrong, killing the unborn, why is war O.K., killing those already born?
If you want to forbid abortion, are you willing to support the babies?
Are you willing to provide nutrition, clothing, housing, health care, education, recreation, and emotional support for those whose parent(s) cannot or will not provide it? Will you put your time and money where your mouth is?
Are you willing to refrain from sneers and discrimination against unwed mothers and "illegitimate" children?

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"

Why not let God judge, and mind your own business?

 

[mothcorrupteth]

Holocaust, holocaust, holocaust… Why do people see the need to exploit tragedies to support their argument?

Why are tragedies suddenly hands-off when people start making valid points based on their implications?

 

[platzapS]

No government has the right to make laws considering the intent of a sexual relationship between two people.
This only leads to a legal definition of what sexual intercourse is, this one indicate that sexual intercourse from a legal stand point would be for procreation. Meaning laws could be made to when you could or could not have sex. Who we could have sex with, that is bad because even the most conservative married couple would not be to happy if Bushy was telling them when to, how to, why to do “it”.
Keep the Government out of my bed room; it is such a simple thing to ask.

We can count on you, Ron Paul Jr.

 

[platzapS]

People disagree about this. Very few demonstrate intellectual consistency in this matter.

Some questions to consider:
If abortion is wrong, killing the unborn, why is war O.K., killing those already born?

A pro-lifer might state that a defensive war destroys aggressors to prevent the deaths of innocent non-aggressors, while a fetus poses no threat. I disagree. Pregnancy has huge effects on the mother's body--vital organs are cramped to make room for a gigantic uterus; there may be months of pain, vomiting, and impaired mobility; and there are significant health risks in the medical procedure of a delivery. Here's the catch: the government cannot force you to donate a kidney to your five-year-old child, even if you will be fine without it and the child needs it to survive. Similarly, a woman should be given control over her body--and be able to eliminate intruders that dramatically and painfully alter her physiology. The government cannot force a woman to undergo pregnancy.

 

[jayem]

A zygote/blastocyst/embryo/fetus has a genetic identity that is separate from the mother's. It is no more a part of her body than the dust mites in her eyelashes.

True, but her uterus is part of her body. And why should she not have control over her uterus, just as she has over her eyes, or stomach, or kidneys?

Just as my property rights to a knife extend only so far as when I've decided to place that knife maliciously in your neck, your self-proclaimed "right" to your body extends only so far as when it intrudes on another life.

But is one required to allow another to use a part of one's own body? Suppose I had a rare tissue type, shared by very few people. Someone with this same trait develops severe emphysema and needs a lung transplant. Now it would be a fine and noble thing for me to donate part of my lung, but should I be required to do so? Should it be a criminal act if my right to control my own body intrudes on another's life? And don't say that a mother is required to use to body to feed and care for a baby because that is not what I'm talking about. After a baby is born, the birth mother is really not required at all. A newborn can thrive perfectly well when cared for any motivated person, who can supply food, warmth, protection, and nurturing. But a fetus makes an obligatory biological demand on it's mother's heart, lungs, kidneys, Gi tract, etc.

And anyway a fetus's right to life is not absolute. You will have to agree that abortion is sometimes necessary for medical reasons. Is it wrong to terminate an ectopic pregnancy? I work in health care. I've seen pregnant women get cancer, and have major heart attacks complicate d by congestive heart failure. The embryo isn't willfully threatening its mother's life. It's just an innocent bystander caught in an unfortunate accident of nature. If you will admit to any therapeutic abortion, then you are implicitly agreeing that, if a choice must be made, the welfare of the mother generally takes precedent over that of a fetus. Prenatal life simply does not have exactly the same moral status as that of someone who's been born.

Autonomy is the central issue here. Pregnancy presents a moral dilemma, in that the rights of one party obligately affects another. I believe we have to strike a balance between two legitimate claims--the right to personal bodily autonomy of the mother with the right of a fetus to an undisturbed gestation. Neither the fetus's, nor the mother's "rights" are absolute. So, for a real-life solution, we must pick an arbitrary point between conception and completed gestation. Up to this point, the mother's autonomy takes precedence, and after this point, the fetus's rights must be respected. A practical compromise which is fair and reasonable. But absolutists on either side will never accept any compromise. So the same arguments go on and on....

 

[Mary_Magdalene]

Thread moved from General political discussion to Ethics & Morality.

 

[JGG]

What really gets me annoyed on the matter of abortion is that people try to trivialize unwanted human life by calling it a fetus. If it has a beating human heart, a functioning human brain, a human nervous system, a human head, human eyes, human skeletal structure, why is it not called a human? It is a human, to anyone that can look at the facts objectively. The only thing is that it is not a fully developed human, and if you want to cite that then I'll cite that the human brain isn't fully developed until after the age of 25.

Personally, I agree with you. But what about the period between conception and week 12 when all of those systems begin operation? And then there's also the problem in determining whether that "child" is "alive?" For many, it isn't alive while it is still physically dependent on another creature. For others, life is the ability to socially interact. For others life is the ability to absorb, and integrate information. I simply can't force my belief of when life begins on other people.

 

[Mocca]

A question that strikes me as fundamental to this issue, yet rarely asked, is: why is it wrong to kill other people? What is it about people that obligates us not to kill them?

I wonder if a lot of disparity on the question of abortion comes down to different approaches to this question.

I agree so much. I've just been scared to ask why.

So yeah, why?

 

[Exhausted]

Hey, I agree man. Fetuses are people too.

However, I still don't see a problem with killing them in the most efficient and frequent manner possible.

 

[Mrs.Sidhe]

To the OP:

Don't you have better things to do than be in other people's business and try to make decisions for their lives and their bodies? Mind your own business and concern yourself with your life and its problems.

Is it your uterus? I think not. People like you have no concept of what do do with these babies--all you say is "the women can them up for adoption" . And what if they don't get adopted? Have you bothered to think of that life?? Life in a foster home, group home or in state custody. Wonderful! Why don't you and your "pro-life" compatriots pony up the money so birth control and better sex education will be available to young men and women?!

Incidently, are you completely pro-life? Do you agree with war and the death penalty? I find people who are so "pro-life" yet who agree with war and the death penalty to be hypocrites.

 

[mothcorrupteth]

If abortion is wrong, killing the unborn, why is war O.K., killing those already born?

A pro-lifer might state that a defensive war destroys aggressors to prevent the deaths of innocent non-aggressors, while a fetus poses no threat. I disagree. Pregnancy has huge effects on the mother's body--vital organs are cramped to make room for a gigantic uterus; there may be months of pain, vomiting, and impaired mobility; and there are significant health risks in the medical procedure of a delivery.

A red herring and a straw man. How quaint. But let’s run through it for the sake of fun:

The moral duties of a society (justice) are quite different from the moral duties of the individual (virtue). After all, a government’s stated purpose is to defend the public body from outside attack and to resolve disputes within said public body. A government that does not defend the public body is not fulfilling its end of the social contract. As such, there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral government—only those who choose the motto Fiat iustitia et ruint coeli and those who say Bella gerant alii (and then, of course, those who claim Ego sum Dominus et non est absque me salvator), those who embrace their existential duty and those who shirk it.

The individual’s purpose is debatable, myself falling on the side that argues we are given a purpose by another entity who happens to be God. In any case, I (if I may replace your hypothetical, generalized pro-lifer, although I don’t claim to represent the specific views of my fellows) believe that the supreme sin is selfishness, and that belief permits me to draw a distinction between killing someone to spare my life and killing someone to save the life of another. While I am single, I should hope I’d have the courage to preach the Gospel to a man who enters my house and means to stab me. But God help me if I callously declare, “It’s none of my business,” rather than render aide to a woman screaming for assistance from an alleyway. The situation for self-defence only changes when I act as an agent of a secular collective—of a government or of a family—in which case I am defending others by proxy. (This is not to say that I shouldn’t avoid killing if I can help it). But that, you see, is the difference between killing an unborn child because it may threaten my life and killing a dictator because he threatens the lives of persons in my society, and simplifying it to the bumper-sticker slogan of “You can’t be pro-war and pro-life” blissfully avoids the point.

True, but her uterus is part of her body. And why should she not have control over her uterus, just as she has over her eyes, or stomach, or kidneys?

We weren’t discussing the uterus. We were discussing what is in it, which is human.

Here's the catch: the government cannot force you to donate a kidney to your five-year-old child, even if you will be fine without it and the child needs it to survive. Similarly, a woman should be given control over her body--and be able to eliminate intruders that dramatically and painfully alter her physiology. The government cannot force a woman to undergo pregnancy.

But is one required to allow another to use a part of one's own body? Suppose I had a rare tissue type, shared by very few people. Someone with this same trait develops severe emphysema and needs a lung transplant. Now it would be a fine and noble thing for me to donate part of my lung, but should I be required to do so? Should it be a criminal act if my right to control my own body intrudes on another's life?

The analogy of organ donation just doesn’t hold up, for all the popularity it’s received. For one, I am responsible in no wise for the pathological condition of your patient in need of an organ, but unless I am a victim of rape, I am responsible for my fetus’s non-pathological condition (and I hasten to point out that responsibility is core to any sense of justice). For another, in your condition, I have to give something to someone else in order to let him live. In abortion, I’m choosing to withdraw something so someone else will die. To approach a true analogy, my organ would have to be already in your patient, with me in the role of considering taking it back.

 

[ReverendDG]

Why are tragedies suddenly hands-off when people start making valid points based on their implications?

because 99% of the time they arn't used to make valid points, sorry but this includes your post in the 99%

the thing is, you are comparing the already born with the unborn, one is a person and one isn't, the born person maybe mentally disabled, but i've known a lot of mentally disabled people who have a working cortex

IMO, comparing anything to hitler is the last line of argument to anything.

this is known as godwins law, godwining is a destructive argument

 

[ReverendDG]

A red herring and a straw man. How quaint. But let’s run through it for the sake of fun:

The moral duties of a society (justice) are quite different from the moral duties of the individual (virtue). After all, a government’s stated purpose is to defend the public body from outside attack and to resolve disputes within said public body. A government that does not defend the public body is not fulfilling its end of the social contract. As such, there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral government—only those who choose the motto Fiat iustitia et ruint coeli and those who say Bella gerant alii (and then, of course, those who claim Ego sum Dominus et non est absque me salvator), those who embrace their existential duty and those who shirk it.

The individual’s purpose is debatable, myself falling on the side that argues we are given a purpose by another entity who happens to be God. In any case, I (if I may replace your hypothetical, generalized pro-lifer, although I don’t claim to represent the specific views of my fellows) believe that the supreme sin is selfishness, and that belief permits me to draw a distinction between killing someone to spare my life and killing someone to save the life of another. While I am single, I should hope I’d have the courage to preach the Gospel to a man who enters my house and means to stab me. But God help me if I callously declare, “It’s none of my business,” rather than render aide to a woman screaming for assistance from an alleyway. The situation for self-defence only changes when I act as an agent of a secular collective—of a government or of a family—in which case I am defending others by proxy. (This is not to say that I shouldn’t avoid killing if I can help it). But that, you see, is the difference between killing an unborn child because it may threaten my life and killing a dictator because he threatens the lives of persons in my society, and simplifying it to the bumper-sticker slogan of “You can’t be pro-war and pro-life” blissfully avoids the point.
the point i could see from the bumpersticker, is how you define murder, pro-lifers i've found, claim its just killing something human, but thats not what murder is, or yes war would be murder by that logic, but murder is the unlawful killing of a human person by another human person.
which is why even soldiers who don't follow the set laws of war get tried for murder, namely killing people who arn't soldiers



We weren’t discussing the uterus. We were discussing what is in it, which is human.
see this is the problem, no one should be arguing if its human or not, it matters but, so is cancer and we kill that.
no what is being argued is, when are they a thinking, autonomus person. basicly functions on thier own blood digestiontion and breathing
which by the way a fetus doesn't do, but a born baby does, just for people making the same argument about how a child needs parents after they are born, this is not what i mean, i mean if you need someones body to survive and you don't have it and you die from the lack, then you arn't autonomus


The analogy of organ donation just doesn’t hold up, for all the popularity it’s received. For one, I am responsible in no wise for the pathological condition of your patient in need of an organ, but unless I am a victim of rape, I am responsible for my fetus’s non-pathological condition (and I hasten to point out that responsibility is core to any sense of justice). For another, in your condition, I have to give something to someone else in order to let him live. In abortion, I’m choosing to withdraw something so someone else will die. To approach a true analogy, my organ would have to be already in your patient, with me in the role of considering taking it back.

hmm i'm thinking you need another analogy, that one doesn't work very well, i would say its more like having someone stay in your house with you, who is being hunted by the mafia, if they go outside they will get shot.
while they are with you, they steal money,food and, blood from you, and beat you up
all the while you have the right to continue with them or not, but since you allowed this to happen knowing the alternative is the ending of their life, you feel some resposibilty because you asked them to stay

 

[CCGirl]

It is simply noone else's business what women choose to do with their bodies!!! And it is a medical matter, not a judicial matter.

 

[TheBellman]

What really gets me annoyed on the matter of abortion is that people try to trivialize unwanted human life by calling it a fetus. If it has a beating human heart, a functioning human brain, a human nervous system, a human head, human eyes, human skeletal structure, why is it not called a human? It is a human, to anyone that can look at the facts objectively. The only thing is that it is not a fully developed human, and if you want to cite that then I'll cite that the human brain isn't fully developed until after the age of 25.

It IS a fetus; it is also, biologically speaking, a parasite. I don't see how either of those facts trivializes anything. Certainly, neither of them say or imply that it isn't also human.

That having been said, whatever rights it might have by virtue of its being whatever you think it is are overruled by the mother's.

 

[Gracchus]

IMO, comparing anything to hitler is the last line of argument to anything.

Well, you know what they say about opinions: Everyone's got one, and most of them stink.

this is known as godwins law, godwining is a destructive argument

Except of course, that Hitler was a historical figure, and some people do learn from history. As a matter of fact, even Herr Hitler learned from history. When the Roman plebs, tired of the oppression by the aristocrats seceded and took up residence across the Tiber, the patricians started a war, made a few concessions and lured them back. When Hitler needed to drum up political support, he burned down the World Tr....er, the Reichstag.

And of course it is all too easy to scoff at conspiracy theories, because there are indeed real conspiracies. Elaborate plans are not usually needed, save by those unaccustomed to governing. All that is needed is a wink, or a nod, or a shrug, and the old tried and true methods are put into play.

 

[The_Horses_Boy]

It IS a fetus; it is also, biologically speaking, a parasite. I don't see how either of those facts trivializes anything. Certainly, neither of them say or imply that it isn't also human.

That having been said, whatever rights it might have by virtue of its being whatever you think it is are overruled by the mother's.

It's a human baby, and people refuse to call it that because they don't want to or refuse to recognize that it is human. To be a parasite the subject in question must be living in and/or feeding off of another being and be of a different species, and a human child is the same species as a human mother.

 

[Mrs.Sidhe]

A parasite is an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the expense of the host. (this is from the Oxford English dictionary--I suggest you read one when you are defining a word for people)

It can be the same species or another species. The definition does not say it has to be a different species. It is from the greek word "parasitos" which means a person eating at another's table.

Technically, by how the fetus maintains itself by taking nourishment from its mother it is a parasite--however bizarre that may sound.

 

[jayem]

It's a human baby, and people refuse to call it that because they don't want to or refuse to recognize that it is human. To be a parasite the subject in question must be living in and/or feeding off of another being and be of a different species, and a human child is the same species as a human mother.

That is correct, though there is a special case involving conjoined twins. One twin stops developing, but remains attached to the other in a vestigial state. It may sound pejorative, but the proper medical term is "parasitic" twinning. (Though some use the nicer sounding term "assymetrical" conjoined twin.)

And here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia article describing the acardiac twin, which is basically just a torso with no head or heart attached to its sibling. It is very dangerous, since the undeveloped twin drains blood from the other, and puts enormous stress on its heart. If this twin is not aborted, it's likely both will die. Admittedly this is very rare, but you wouldn't question the need for termination in a case like this. Yet this is taking an innocent human life, isn't it?


"An acardiac twin, also called the TRAP sequence, is a parasitic twin that fails to develop a head, arms and a heart. The resulting torso survives by leeching blood flow from the surviving normal twin by means of an umbilical cord-like structure, much like a fetus in fetu, except the acardiac twin is not enveloped inside the normal twin's body. Because it is pumping blood for both itself and its acardiac twin, this causes extreme stress on the normal fetus's heart. This twinning condition usually occurs very early in pregnancy.
Without intervention, the normal fetus is only expected to have a 20% or less chance of survival. Fetal surgery to cut off the blood supply to the parasite can greatly increase the chance of survival for the normal fetus, but carries some risk of miscarriage or other comlications"


Here's a link to the whole article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_twin

 

[nvxplorer]

It's a human baby, and people refuse to call it that because they don't want to or refuse to recognize that it is human.

It's a human embryo/fetus. We call it that because that's what it is. Some people call it a baby because "baby killer" sounds evil.