About abortion

[zaksmummy]

Mostly as christians we see abortion as abbhorant, as murder of a person who is yet to be. This believe stems from our understanding that too God, all life is sacred, that he created all life and it is not up to us to choose who should live and who should die.

I guess you can guess where I stand when it come to abortion!

The problem is that most people dont really care about themselves and their bodies, and anything resulting from any type of indulgence is an irritation, a by product, to be sorted out.

This is generally because people have been told - "its ok to do whatever you like and to hell with the consequences", "live for today, never mind tomorrow" etc. Pure selfishness.

Putting people in prision is not the answer to abortion though - it never has been and it never will be, because the only one who can change our selfishness is God - he says that he will put a new heart in us, a heart of flesh and not of stone. Only when this happens can we see ourselves and other humans as God see us. Only then will abortion stop.

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

Abortion to me is a sticky issue and I'll argue it from an atheist perspective.

On the one hand look at it this way. If there is a burning building and a fireman arrives and finds out that there is a 50 year old man and a 2 year old infant both on the 14th floor. The building is nearing collapse and he has to make a decision as to which person to save first assuming he won't have enough time to save the second. Who do you think he should save? I've yet to meet a person that would say the 50 year old man, regardless of the man's position of power, wealth or famousness. Nearly everyone, Christian, Muslim, and atheist alike will say that it is morally better to save the infant. Why? I think its because the infant has the most potentiality to live out an actuality. The child has the greatest potential to live, procreate, help others, learn, grow and develop. The 50 year old may have the potential to do these things but not to the same degree.

From this perspective it seems that an unborn child has the most potentiality of anyone. And I find it interesting that people so quickly dismiss a fetus while almost universally opting to save the child from a burning building.

I also don't understand the argument that a fetus "isn't a human yet". It seems that conception is by far the most clear cut point when a human life begins: when the sperm cell's DNA joins with the egg cell's DNA. Where else could we possibly define it and on what grounds? Perhaps when the babies heart starts beating? Or when it can respond to a stimulus? Both these are, in my opinion, still far more ambiguous than conception.

Perhaps a fetus is just a package of cells but I think its rudely anthropocentric to think that it only becomes a "human" once it "looks like a human". Because pro-choice advocates are far more likely to support an abortion when the fetus looks like a gross, slimy alien as opposed to a 12-week fetus with eyes, arms, legs, and a beating heart who's sucking his/her thumb.

On the other side of the coin I (very callously) think that overpopulation is probably the gravest danger to humanity and the Earth's biosphere at the current moment and bringing unwanted children into the world seems to only intensify this problem. Ideally I would just prefer people had safe sex: the pill plus condoms is nearly foolproof when both are used properly and in conjunction.

If I was in a position of power, I would not make abortion strictly illegal because I don't believe a secular government can impose such a morally ambiguous law. However I would NOT make them publicly funded and I would NOT make them anonymous. Promiscuous teenagers need to be responsible for their stupidity. I would probably say that each abortion should cost around $1000 thereby forcing teenagers to either be smarter in their sex life or own up to it and suffer the consequences in $$$ or by going through with the pregnancy and giving it up for adoption (because I'm also not a fan of teenagers raising their own kids which generally leads to poverty and a rougher life for the child).

 

[zaksmummy]

Just one last point - in Britain if a pregnant women is attacked and her unborn child dies as a result of the attack the perpetrator is charged with murder, but it is perfectly legal for that mother to abort her child.

The law is an ass.

 

[MattRose]

Just one last point - in Britain if a pregnant women is attacked and her unborn child dies as a result of the attack the perpetrator is charged with murder, but it is perfectly legal for that mother to abort her child.

The law is an ass.

What about the 2 most contentious points?
1. When you were 17, had you been raped would you have had an abortion? If a 17 year old friend had been raped would you support laws to prevent her from having an abortion?
2. If you got pregnant now and you would almost certainly die if you carried your baby full-term (health problems), would you abort? Same question if it happened to a friend.

 

[WhyohWhy51]

I'm pro choice. 100%. The main reason for this is that it is their body and I think they should be allowed to do with it what they want. Whether it be heroine, coke, prostitution, what have you. I have seen those ultra sound videos too at many religious meetings about it. Funny thing is all of them that I have seen are on late term abortions that are done for an emergency reason. AKA the bother is about to die, or the mom got in a crash and the baby will not survive. Same goes with all those pics of abortions. The ones with the baby in hand and a quarter next to it. All meant to pull at your heart strings. And they all do a great job at it, too bad they aren't to rational.

 

[mbassadoor]

Lynching black people is never a good thing, but sometimes it is the lesser of two possible bad outcomes.

Raping little girls is never a good thing, but sometimes it is the lesser of two possible bad outcomes.

Gassing three million Jews to death is never a good thing, but sometimes it is the lesser of two possible bad outcomes.

Beating a homeless man to death with a baseball bat is never a good thing, but sometimes it is the lesser of two possible outcomes.

Foolish, isn't it?

BEAUTIFUL !

 

[MattRose]

Lynching black people is never a good thing, but sometimes it is the lesser of two possible bad outcomes.

Raping little girls is never a good thing, but sometimes it is the lesser of two possible bad outcomes.

Gassing three million Jews to death is never a good thing, but sometimes it is the lesser of two possible bad outcomes.

Beating a homeless man to death with a baseball bat is never a good thing, but sometimes it is the lesser of two possible outcomes.

Foolish, isn't it?

So if a woman will almost certainly die without aborting her fetus, you would say "Let her die!". Do you hold your arm out and point down with your thumb as well Casear? Foolish, isn't it?

BTW, I think you also hold the dubious distinction of the 4 worst strawman arguments in a single post.