Interesting view on Abortion - Please Participate (FOR EVERY MEMBERS OF THE FORUM)

[billwald]

Over half of all conceptions are spontaneously aborted. If each one has a soul then the majority of the people in the next world were never born.

What determines the personality of one who was never born and lived on the earth?

How can a person who was never born be born again? Implications?

 

[Broken Doll]

Over half of all conceptions are spontaneously aborted. If each one has a soul then the majority of the people in the next world were never born.

What determines the personality of one who was never born and lived on the earth?

How can a person who was never born be born again? Implications?

I don't think I can really answer your question since I don't believe in souls or an afterlife. Sorry.

Broken Doll

 

[A4C]

How can a person who was never born be born again? Implications?

God does not expect children to be born again - but He does expect them to be born

 

[hugoguttman]

I saw somewhere...how in some place in the world, women justifies abortion declaring they don´t have resources enough to his well being. Is that a valid assuption?
In some countries, early-stage pregnant women use to abort for several reasons: I dont want my parents to know...My boyfriend does not want to recognize the kid...I just dont want to have it... difficult situations those ones. But, everything is as simple as getting one and effective anticonceptive resource. For those who believe in what is written in Holy Bible "stay away from fornication, Fornicazione" It sure will be very effective. There would not be any problem.
hugo

 

[Carico]

No, some people lives wouldn't be worth living if they had a child.

Abortion, however, should be carried out as early as possible.

So I take it you are saying that the mother doesn't love the child but would rather die before caring for it. is that correct? How is that love for others? Do people have the right tot ake someone's life if they don't love that person?

 

[tcampen]

I think most reasonable people on any side of the issue would agree that the fertilized egg is a "life." Heck, even a sperm would be considered a "life." What is considered "life" is not really the issue.

The issue is at what point to we extend the rights of a "person" to that devoping life. Drawing a bright line at conception for "personhood" is easy, but not necessarily intellectually sound. Since the fertilized egg is a single cell, supporters of such a position must provide arguments of why that single cell is a "person." I personally don't find unique DNA and the potential for more complex human development pursuasive factors on either an intellectual or intuitive level. There simply is no qualitative equivilent between a infant child and a single cell, or even a fetus at 4 months of development. They simply are not the same, qualitatively or otherwise.

While I am pro-choice, I am not pro-abortion. I recognize a greater "right to life" of the developing fetus as it matures. Where is the cut off? That is an extremely difficult issue, for which I do not claim to have the answer. There is a grey area there that makes most people extremely uncomfortable - and that is where bright lines come in handy - avoiding exceedingly difficult judgements. (And I apply this analysis to both the idea that the protected life starts at conception or at birth.)

I think deep down inside, even most of those who claim personhood begins at conception have difficulty with that position. I say this, because of the inconsitency in application of this position. For example, anyone who believes personhood begins at conception, should be against procedures like in vitro fertilization, where a number of fertilized eggs are necessarily destroyed. Or, if abortions should be criminalized to protect the life and health of the fertilized egg, then so should any high risk behavior by the pregnant mother, such as smoking, drinking alcohol, taking certain (legal) drugs, living in structures with exposed asbstos, etc. Yet, I've not heard a single peep about advocating such positions. Considering it would probably be easier advocating these positions that an all out criminalization of abortions, yet few if any do, I find this compelling evidence of some hesitation with the idea personhood starts at the moment of conception.

Just a thought.

 

[Blackguard_]

When does a human being become recognized as person? and during what process of pregnancy do we define this blob of blood as life?

I think the most important issue of the abotion debate is not the "leech" issue mentioned earlier but the philosophical issue of the soul, specifically when and/or how a person gets one.

I think the baby would be considered a full human whenever it gets a soul which I think is when the brain develops. If you were destroy all of a person's flesh and bones but kept their brain alive in a jar, have you killed a person? I'd say no. But if you were just to destroy the brain and leave the rest of the body intact and "alive" on life support then a person is dead, right? This is why brain death is the point of death and why it is not murder to take a brain-dead body off of life support.

So I think becasue the death of the brain is so closely tied to the end of life independent of the condition of the rest of the body it must be tied to the start of life somehow. So if life ends when the brain dies, it must begin when the brain comes alive.

So before the brain develops the fetus is not much different than a body on life support, as while it is technically alive, it does not have a soul. And there is the additional issue of what part of the brain hoses the soul, as it doesn't develop all at once. Is just the brain stem and the lower functions enough to have soul, or does that require the higher parts of the brain? I mean are people who are "vegatables" actually soulless and dead in the sense the soul has left for the other world?

So I think abortion is not murder until the brain/the part of the brain that houses the soul develops, as before that point it was not a person as it did not have a soul.

 

[praying]

"during what process of pregnancy do we define this blob of blood as life?"

That is disgusting.


Now whether you consider it life from the start or not what it never is, is a blob of blood.

 

[Monica02]

The complete genetic makeup is present and determined at the time of conception. The DNA of the new life is completely his own. This constitutes human life. He is a human life in the case of rape and incest too. She is a human life if the mother is poor. He is a human life if the parents are drug addicts. She is a human life if the mother is sick. He is a human life if it is deformed or Downes Syndromed. She is a human life whether you, me or anyone else thinks she has a soul. He is a human life whether you, me or anyone else thinks he has value.

 

[Cjwinnit]

Because the criminal is a conscious person, the fetus is not. It is impossible for two humans who occupy the same body to have equal rights. One's rights must over-rule the others.

Siamese twins?

 

[Broken Doll]

Siamese twins?

What exactly are you saying? Are you asking if it's the same way with Siamese twins?

Broken Doll

 

[Blackguard_]

What exactly are you saying? Are you asking if it's the same way with siamese twins?

I think he is, although his point is a bit flawed as siamese twins are ussually two seperate bodies joined somewhere. I'm not sure if a true two headed-person would be a "siamses twin".

A better question would be "which head of a two-headed person would have the rights to the body?"

 

[Mekkala]

I don't believe in a soul, nor do I believe in some inherent "right to life" that we possess. Ultimately, it's neither "good" nor "bad" whether individual humans, or even the entire human race, survive for any length of time. However, we humans place a subjective value on our lives, because although they are not objectively "good", they are nevertheless important to us.

Now, I respect the lives of others for the same reason I respect my own life. Since this life is all I have, I would like others to allow me to go ahead and live it as I see fit. In fairness and in empathy, I also choose to allow others the same considerations.

Now, I am hardly going to extend that right to a sperm cell. That would be ridiculous. It is similarly ridiculous to extend that right to a single cell that happens to have a complete set of human DNA. So at what point do I decide that I owe another human being his or her life? It's not a question that has any objective answer, so I'll answer it from the only viewpoint that I can -- a subjective one.

I disagree with anyone's wish to take away my life because I am a self-aware, rational, thinking being. If I were not, then it wouldn't matter if someone killed me -- I wouldn't know or care. For example, I would feel like an irrational idiot if I insisted that I be kept on life-support indefinitely if I were brain-dead. If I'm brain-dead, I'm not going to know and it's not going to either hurt or help me. Until I experience life and have a chance of continuing to experience it, I do not have any "right to life". It's a moot point.

We could simply avoid this issue if it were not for the fact that you cannot give full rights to two people sharing the same body. Either the mother or the baby must take precendence. Now, if the baby is not self-aware, it seems obvious to me whose rights should take precedence, since as I said, a non-self-aware being has no rights in my opinion. If the baby is self-aware, then the problem becomes very difficult -- and I think the correct decision would be the one that results in the least total harm for both the mother and the child. But remember, psychological harm to both the mother and the child, and harm to the child because of a hard life are both considerations that must be taken into account. Survival, though it is the primary evolutionary consideration, is not and should not be our only social consideration.

I fully admit that my views on this matter are subjective -- but a caveat: I don't believe that there is any such thing as a non-subjective view on this issue. Even those who claim their opinion is objective are only saying so because they think that their subjective beliefs are objectively true. In any case, I cannot say that this is a hard-and-fast moral rule that everyone must agree with, but it is a rule that I live by. However, I don't think abortions should be performed lightly. It should be a decision that the mother feels is absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, it is not possible to enforce any such rule, and so it's not a viable way to determine the morality of a given case.

 

[pthalomarie]

I believe that there is no "moral" side to the debate. On paper, both sides seem to have good points. In reality, both sides require that we support immoral acts in order to preserve their viewpoint. And when you add to it the corrupt nature of each sides' advocacy groups, it's easy to see that there are no good guys in this debate. It's basically like watching Hitler and Stalin fight each other, and then being asked who I'm going to cheer for.

 

[The Bellman]

You know, I've never heard that argument before but it does make a lot of sense. This is one reason I am Pro-Choice. I am personally against abortion but I refuse to force someone to accept my views on it because I know that there is no consensus about this topic.

What an excellent response. "I don't like it...but I don't want to prevent someone else from doing it." I wish there were more people like you around, Holly.

That's what being pro-choice means. Not being in favour of abortion, but being in favour of people having the right to choose.

 

[Monica02]

What an excellent response. "I don't like it...but I don't want to prevent someone else from doing it." I wish there were more people like you around, Holly.

That's what being pro-choice means. Not being in favour of abortion, but being in favour of people having the right to choose.

I am not in favor of slavery, but if another person thinks it is okay then they should be allowed to choose to enslave someone.

I do not like rape, but hey, who am I to tell a rapist that he/she cannot choose to rape?

Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!

 

[The Bellman]

I am not in favor of slavery, but if another person thinks it is okay then they should be allowed to choose to enslave someone.

I do not like rape, but hey, who am I to tell a rapist that he/she cannot choose to rape?

Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!

If the morality of abortion was as clear and cut and dried as that of slavery or rape, your comparison would be valid, and you'd have made a good point.

It's not. It isn't. You haven't.

 

[Jennifer615]

Life starts at conception. There is no doubt about that. Even a fertilised egg has its own DNA. When it becomes a fetus, it has its own blood group, internal organs and the heart starts beating at about 3.5 weeks, usually before the mother knows shes pregnant.

The way I see it, the woman has a right to do anything with her body - she can get tatoos, multi body piercings, sleep around, whatever she wants, she is only harming herself. However, the minute she is pregnant, there is a completely different human being at stake now. A potential 75 years of life overrides 9 months of discomfort.

There are thousands of couples who can't have children who are waiting with open arms to adopt a child. No child is unwanted.

 

[Prince Lucianus]

There are thousands of couples who can't have children who are waiting with open arms to adopt a child. No child is unwanted.

And then she got a handicapped child and found out that open arms were actually closed.

Let's not abort anymore and all become vegies to morally justify this. Personally I think you can't be against abortion, but have no problem with killing cows (or other animals) who are more sentient than a foetus.

Lucy

 

[neocon]

Biologically a human life begins at conception. That is a simple fact. Certainly there are those who grandly declare their right to dispose of another human life because to do so suits their personal interest. Filthy concentration camp or gleaning abortuary the amorality is equal.