On the subject of abortion

DeathMagus · May 7, 2008

Hypothetical for those who state that abortion is murder, but refusal to donate blood is not:

Would you be fine with simply snipping the umbilical cord, removing the fetus, and letting the fetus' dependence on a third-party source of nutrients be what "kills" it?

cantata · May 7, 2008

DeathMagus said:
Hypothetical for those who state that abortion is murder, but refusal to donate blood is not:

Would you be fine with simply snipping an umbilical cord, removing the fetus, and letting the fetus' dependence on a third-party source of nutrients be what "kills" it?

Good question! I've never heard a satisfactory answer to this one.

karisma · May 7, 2008

RobertByers said:
The wrong people are getting into Harvard but I knew that already.

Why do you say that? Because you are frustrated that the law does not hold up your personal opinion?

You again try to say that a human being does not have a inalienable right to life. We do.

All people have a right to life, until that right to life interfere's with other's rights.

Killing ahuman just because they arrived in ones body is not by any standard of God or man reason to murder the child. (in this case you are accepting its a child).

It's pointless arguing semantics. It is what it is. I prefer to use correct medical terminology. And apparently you don't consider that a valid reason to have an abortion, but others do. So you don't have to have an abortion, how about that? Oh wait, that's not something you will ever have to face.

To deny a organ/blood is not to kill a human being. It is the sickness that kills the human being. In abortion it is the motive and direct action to kill.

Abortion's intent is NOT to kill the fetus, it is to REMOVE the fetus. And denying someone organs/blood has the same end result as actively killing them, so as I said previously, if you actually valued human life, you would be equally horrified and fighting to make mandatory organ/blood donation to save lives. Except, oh wait, that might actually impact YOUR life, and you aren't willing to have to go through all that pain and inconvenience, so you just focus on abortion, which only affects OTHERS.

The right to life that we all have and agree all must have trumps any but the most serious need for self defence. We are talking about a people.

If you believe the right to life trumps anything else than logically you must be for mandatory blood/organ donation, since a stranger's right to life trumps your right to your own organs.

Abortion is from people who don't believe it kills a human.

I believe it kills a human. Humans also die everyday from want of other's blood or organs, while you personally have one more kidney than you need, and have more blood than you need with an amazing ability to regenerate it. Humans die of starvation every day while you grill a juicy steak on the grill. Humans die every day from exposure on the streets while you go to sleep safe and sound each night. Why aren't you doing more about the humans ALREADY HERE?

If you can so easily overturn the right to life of people on some secondary matter then all humanity is in danger of quick termination for minor reasons.

No. Just embryos and fetuses.

You are devalueing the right to life of mankind. This will not work

You are devaluing women by forcing them to become walking incubators. And abortions do work. They have been happening since ancient times.

WatersMoon110 · May 7, 2008

RobertByers said:
The inalienable right to life is unconditional on interference or anything else.

I disagree. The right to life only gives one the right to live on one's own. It does not give one the right to invade on someone else's rights in order to live. Which, I feel, pregnancy does, unless the woman willingly allows the pregnancy to continue.

RobertByers said:
You can't murder someone for stealing food.

No, but I can shoot them for breaking into my house, if I feel my life is in danger. Even if they were only trying to steal my food.

But that isn't what I said. I said that the right to life doesn't give one the ability to break other people's rights, so it would still be illegal for them to steal food, even if they needed it to live.

RobertByers said:
Denying a organ is not killing someone but instead the disease is. if you denied them a organ and then shot them then its the same thing as abortion.

I disagree. I feel that organ donation and pregnancy are very similar. In each case there is a human that needs something from another human in order to continue living. I do agree that they are also dissimilar, given that the unborn human is already getting that from the pregnant woman.

I feel that abortion, being the only way for the pregnant woman to deny use of her body to the unborn human before medical viability. I see this as being much the same, ethically, as refusing to donate an organ to someone who would die without it.

RobertByers said:
The only reason one has a claim , not right, to bodily integrity is because it follows a greater actual right to life.
The child being aborted also has any bodily integrity claims but first the right to life to make these claims relevant.

I disagree. I feel that bodily integrity, or the right of ownership to one's body, is also an inalienable right. I think that the right to life is equal to the right to bodily integrity.

RobertByers said:
You can't twist concepts here.
You must be accurate and say the inalienable right to life is made null and void for another reason.
War, self defense, punishment.

I feel that bodily integrity is another inalienable right. A right that allows one to violate another's right to life if there is no other way to immediately end the violation that other human is causing to one's body. I feel that self defense comes from the right to bodily integrity, in fact.

RobertByers said:
If this is your stance then you got nothing.

Because there isn't a better way to make your point than insulting people?

RobertByers said:
To erase a persons existence from earth one needs a GOOD reason.

RobertByers said:
Not some trivial thing. A human life is a great thing in value and legitimacy to continue existence.

(I grouped these together because I feel they are basically the same point.)

I don't feel that acting upon one's right to bodily integrity is a "trivial thing" and so I feel that this is enough of a "good reason" to keep abortion safe and legal (until some equally as safe alternative is available, like fetal transplant surgery).

TooCurious · May 11, 2008

RobertByers said:
The wrong people are getting into Harvard but I knew that already.

Ah, ad hominem attacks against anyone you disagree with. What a lovely way to start a post.

RobertByers said:
You again try to say that a human being does not have a inalienable right to life. We do.

You again fail to read or understand what is being said. What we are saying is that there are other rights that are just as important as the right to life.

RobertByers said:
Killing ahuman just because they arrived in ones body is not by any standard of God or man reason to murder the child. (in this case you are accepting its a child).

You keep repeating these sweeping statements, but you do not back them up.

RobertByers said:
To deny a organ/blood is not to kill a human being. It is the sickness that kills the human being.

This is nothing more than passing the buck. Choosing to deny the organ or blood donation is choosing that the patient dies.

RobertByers said:
In abortion it is the motive and direct action to kill.

Wrong. In abortion, the motive and direct action is to remove the zygote/fetus. Its death is simply the result.

RobertByers said:
The right to life that we all have and agree all must have trumps any but the most serious need for self defence. We are talking about a people.

There are a number of first-order rights that trump other rights; the right to liberty and bodily integrity is one of them.

RobertByers said:
Abortion is from people who don't believe it kills a human.

Have you been listening to us at all?

RobertByers said:
If you can so easily overturn the right to life of people on some secondary matter then all humanity is in danger of quick termination for minor reasons.

The right to bodily integrity is not "some secondary matter." It is just as important as the right to life.

RobertByers said:
You are devalueing the right to life of mankind. This will not work

You are devaluing the right to liberty and bodily integrity of humankind. This will not work. No one has the right to control bits of your body without your consent. This is just as important as your right to life.

RobertByers said:
Toocurious
It is the motive to kill the creature within the womb. Also this is the result.

The motive is to remove the fetus from the womb. Its death is a result.

RobertByers said:
You can't just invent rights to counter the great inaleinable right to life.

I'm not "inventing" any rights. The right to liberty, and the right to bodily integrity and sovereignty (which is a part of that right to liberty), is just as inalienable as the right to life. If you don't think it should be so, please explain why, or we will just keep going around in circles.

RobertByers said:
This right is the essence of prohibition against murder. it preserves the great legitamacy of ouirselves to our existence. You must submitt to it.

The same is true of the right to bodily integrity. It, as much as the right to life, "preserves the great legitimacy of ourselves to our existence."

RobertByers said:
Pro-abortion folk deny it kills a human being. Otherwise most, or all, would be pro-life.

Clearly not, or else we wouldn't be having this conversation.

RobertByers said:
You must persuade that its not a kid or that killing kids is fine.

Or that the "kid" is not allowed to be inside a woman without her consent.

RobertByers said:
Again the kids right to life trumps any secondary , therefore, minor claim for non pregnancy. Anyways any other rights the kid has too and cancels each other out.

I'm going to use big letters for this, because it's important.

The right to determine what happens to one's own body is neither "secondary" nor "minor"!

RobertByers said:
You have no case for justifiable homicide here. Its like your saying you could drown your two year old so as to have another bedroom.
Nope.

Rather, it's like saying you can shoot a stranger who breaks into your bedroom without your consent (which is legal in some parts of the USA). Yet the case for abortion is even stronger than this, because a bedroom is not a part of your body. My uterus is.

Kroger99 · May 12, 2008

Pwnzerfaust said:
...Why do certain groups of people feel it is in their power to control the lives of others? Why do they feel they have the right to decide what a woman can and cannot do to her own body?

Not intended to flame or troll or anything. Just trying to understand.

Frankley, I don't care what a woman does with her body, so long as she does not kill or intentionally harm her baby!

LightHorseman · May 12, 2008

Kroger99 said:
Frankley, I don't care what a woman does with her body, so long as she does not kill or intentionally harm her baby!

Thats a little simplistic and fails to address two fundamental issues...

1. At what point does the zygote/embryo/foetus become a "baby"?

2. At what point do we decide the right to life of one "person" overrides the right to self determination of another... e.g. a foetus will die if its mother removes it from her uterus, so she loses the right to self determination of her uteris, you think thats far... but say someone will die unless you donate that person a kidney... do you lose the right of self determination over your kidneys? Is it any less reasonable to expect people to compulsoraly donate a kindey to save a life than it is to expect a woman to compulsoraly carry an unwanted pregnancy to term?

HannahBanana · May 12, 2008

Kroger99 said:
Frankley, I don't care what a woman does with her body, so long as she does not kill or intentionally harm her baby!

And why exactly should a woman have to think of an unthinking, unfeeling, unknowing first-trimester fetus as "a baby"? Just because you think of it as a baby doesn't mean that it actually is a baby. Your opinion is not fact.

Kroger99 · May 12, 2008

LightHorseman said:
Thats a little simplistic and fails to address two fundamental issues...

Simplistic... perhaps, but I'm just a simple guy that beleived that we should ask the baby if he/she wants to live or die.

LightHorseman said:
1. At what point does the zygote/embryo/foetus become a "baby"?

IMO, Life begins at conception, but thats not what the OP asked.

LightHorseman said:
2. At what point do we decide the right to life of one "person" overrides the right to self determination of another... e.g. a foetus will die if its mother removes it from her uterus, so she loses the right to self determination of her uteris, you think thats far... but say someone will die unless you donate that person a kidney... do you lose the right of self determination over your kidneys? Is it any less reasonable to expect people to compulsoraly donate a kindey to save a life than it is to expect a woman to compulsoraly carry an unwanted pregnancy to term?

Your right, we don't have any right. Lets wait and ask the baby if it wants to live.

Kroger99 · May 12, 2008

HannahBanana said:
...Your opinion is not fact.

Nor is hers. Lets wait and ask the baby

cantata · May 12, 2008

Kroger99 said:
Nor is hers. Lets wait and ask the baby

Why not ask the foetus now?

Foetus, would you prefer to live or die? What's that? You don't have any feelings on the matter? I thought not.

Give me strength.

Khameo · May 12, 2008

Kroger99 said:
Nor is hers. Lets wait and ask the baby

Troll.

Either that, or you:
a) Are genuinely dense.
b) Believe suicide is fine and dandy.

HannahBanana · May 12, 2008

Kroger99 said:
Nor is hers. Lets wait and ask the baby

So you think that forcing women through pregnancy and childbirth (and thus treating pregnancy as a punishment) is a good thing, then?

Kroger99 · May 12, 2008

cantata said:
Why not ask the foetus now?

Foetus, would you prefer to live or die? What's that? You don't have any feelings on the matter? I thought not.

Give me strength.

How do you know that the baby did not answer? I say we wait and ask them when we can prove that is what they want.

HannahBanana · May 12, 2008

Kroger99 said:
How do you know that the baby did not answer? I say we wait and ask them when we can prove that is what they want.

You honestly think that non-sentient first-trimester fetuses are capable of comprehending and answering a question? You haven't actually studied fetal development, have you?

Also, is there any reason why you didn't reply to my post?

selfinflikted · May 12, 2008

Kroger99 said:
How do you know that the baby did not answer? I say we wait and ask them when we can prove that is what they want.

... nevermind.

DeathMagus · May 12, 2008

I'm still waiting for an answer to my earlier post.

Deathmagus said:
Hypothetical for those who state that abortion is murder, but refusal to donate blood is not:

Would you be fine with simply snipping the umbilical cord, removing the fetus, and letting the fetus' dependence on a third-party source of nutrients be what "kills" it?

WatersMoon110 · May 12, 2008

Kroger99 said:
How do you know that the baby did not answer? I say we wait and ask them when we can prove that is what they want.

So you're saying that we should kill teenagers?

Kroger99 · May 12, 2008

WatersMoon110 said:
So you're saying that we should kill teenagers?

Nope... I'm not even sure where that come from.

Kroger99 · May 12, 2008

HannahBanana said:
So you think that forcing women through pregnancy and childbirth (and thus treating pregnancy as a punishment) is a good thing, then?

Nope... I have never thought of Childbirth as punishment. I'm sorry that you do.

On the subject of abortion

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