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Author Topic:   Points on abortion and the crutch of supporters
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 121 of 440 (103156)
04-27-2004 6:25 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by White_Hill
04-27-2004 6:14 PM


The thing about abortion supporters like us is that we'd love for abortions to never be necessary. If no woman ever had an abortion, we'd be happy.
But so long as abortion is necessary, it must be legal. So long as women become pregnant unneccesarily, they must have the ability to rectify that situation.
Pregancy is a life-threatening condition. If it weren't necessary for the species we'd classify it as a sexually-transmitted disease.
Abortion has a horrible cost to the mother, regardless of your position on the status of the fetus. Everybody knows that. But an unwanted preganacy is even worse. It's like a disease, and abortion is a treatment.
So why is the government in the business of telling doctors what treatements they can and can't perscribe? I'd rather my doctor made that decision based on what worked, not on what some pinhead suits thought was morally proper.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 119 by White_Hill, posted 04-27-2004 6:14 PM White_Hill has not replied

coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 477 days)
Posts: 3645
From: Indianapolis, IN
Joined: 03-29-2004


Message 122 of 440 (103169)
04-27-2004 7:17 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by White_Hill
04-27-2004 6:14 PM


I'll be honest here and say that I am personally against abortion (not that it mattered because I'm a guy and I'm gay). However, people have certain rights that no one, not even the government, should violate, including the right choose to share their organs with other beings or not.
Whenever you prohibit something, all you do is create a black market for it. If the government ban abortion, the demand for it will still be there. Just look at the prohibition of alcohol and what happened.
This is why I really think we should educate women about these stuff. I've known personally 4 girls that had gotten pregnant and their boyfriends (the guys that told the girls they'd love them forever) ran off.

The Laminator

This message is a reply to:
 Message 119 by White_Hill, posted 04-27-2004 6:14 PM White_Hill has not replied

MrHambre
Member (Idle past 1393 days)
Posts: 1495
From: Framingham, MA, USA
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 123 of 440 (103221)
04-27-2004 10:44 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by White_Hill
04-27-2004 6:14 PM


quote:
Because the fetus in the womb is the baby outside the womb is the little girl is the teenager is the woman. They are all the same person in different stages of development.
White Hill,
It may shock or dismay you to know that I have two children of my own. I know the difference between a fetus and a child. You seem to want it both ways, that women have full reproductive freedom and that abortion should not be permissible. This is impossible.
Any rational person would admit there is at least a slight difference between a fetus and an infant: the fetus is inside its mother. And so the mother has the responsibility for deciding whether to carry the baby to term. As Crash and Lam have both stated, the ideal would be for every pregnancy to result from the free choice of a healthy woman ready to start a family. However, we are realistic enough to realize that that's not always the case. And we are realistic enough to admit that if a pregnant woman doesn't want to have the baby, she will abort. Whether that unfortunate choice is respected or turned into a virtual death sentence for both mother and baby is up to us.
regards,
Esteban Hambre

This message is a reply to:
 Message 119 by White_Hill, posted 04-27-2004 6:14 PM White_Hill has not replied

Stipes
Inactive Member


Message 124 of 440 (103267)
04-28-2004 1:01 AM


A kinda new look....
I read the first two pages of this issue, and then I felt like replying. So if this seems kinda random, then sorry.
People say I have an "interesting" and "different" look on the issue of abortion. I stay out of the what is life argument, because frankly it is based upon definitions and those defintions can be changed. It is a fight that is hopeless.
I think women should be able to abort under certain circumstances. Those circumstances occur when the women gets pregnant and she was forced. Rape etc...
However this is where I kinda differ. Look, we have ways that are 99.99 percent effective ALONE in preventing pregnancies. You can use more than one method at the same time. If there is an unexpected pregnancy due to laziness, or in the moment sort of situation, I don't believe that abortion should be an option.
Why? Its kinda philisophical. Because if you get pregnant in today's society you deserve to suffer the consequences. Period, because you made a really stupid choice. The fact is, I don't want to live in a society where people can not suffer the consequences.
I can already predict an argument. The argument is that if the person doesn't want to have a baby then the environment will be bad and you might as well not have it. Well....that isn't necessarily true. Mothers have a bond with their child. They may deny it, but they will regret it in the future. There are countless stories about that. I believe it is a biological feature in our evolution. Also there are plenty of "planned" pregnancies and still there isn't a desireable environment.
Look there will always be mis treated children. There will always be people that don't abide by a society's values and morales. Why? Because that is the consequence for living in a largely populated community of humans. Yeah it sucks, but that is the way it is. My history book suggested that the fall of the Roman empire had something to do with no distinction from right and wrong.
That is why I think this issue is important to fix now. I don't care if the resolution is not my point of view. As long as our society knows what it will accept as "right."
I know it wasn't very scientific. Usually my posts have some scientific knowledge or meaning behind it, but this one doesn't. However it is a point of view that is acknowledged by my piers.
Take it easy guys.

Replies to this message:
 Message 125 by coffee_addict, posted 04-28-2004 1:40 AM Stipes has not replied
 Message 126 by crashfrog, posted 04-28-2004 1:53 AM Stipes has not replied

coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 477 days)
Posts: 3645
From: Indianapolis, IN
Joined: 03-29-2004


Message 125 of 440 (103280)
04-28-2004 1:40 AM
Reply to: Message 124 by Stipes
04-28-2004 1:01 AM


Cranky mode
Stipes writes:
Take it easy guys.
I'll try.
However this is where I kinda differ. Look, we have ways that are 99.99 percent effective ALONE in preventing pregnancies. You can use more than one method at the same time. If there is an unexpected pregnancy due to laziness, or in the moment sort of situation, I don't believe that abortion should be an option.
No, your argument isn't a philosopical one at all. If you are interested in this issue, you should at least check out all the facts first. The majority of unwanted pregnancies are (1) results of ignorance on the matter and (2) due to the failure of contraceptive methods.
All contraceptive methods with the exception of abstinence have certain percentages of failure rate.
Here is a table I got directly out of one of my old biology text books (about 2 years old).
Method/ Used Correctly/ Typically per year
Birth control pill /.1% /5%
Vasectomy /.1 /.15
Tubal ligation /.2 /.5
Progestin minipill /.5 / 5
Progestin implant /.05 /.05
Rhythm /1-9 /20
Withdrawal /4 /19
Condom /3 /14
Diaphragm and spermicide /6 /20
Cervical cap and spermicide /9 /20
Spermicide alone /6 /26
These numbers may not look much, but just compare this these to how many times people have sex per year per person. So, I don't know where you got your 99.99% from.
Sure, people could argue for abstinence. It just happens that many religious organization are preaching abstinence while denouncing birth control methods except rhythm. The argument for abstinence is silly. Even catholic clergymen can't abstain from having sex. People like sex, period.
In fact, religious organizations such as the catholic church encourage rhythm. It just happens that rhythm has one of the highest rate of failure.
Why? Its kinda philisophical. Because if you get pregnant in today's society you deserve to suffer the consequences. Period, because you made a really stupid choice. The fact is, I don't want to live in a society where people can not suffer the consequences.
But in today's society, there are many things we do, while fully aware that there are the chances that disaster could follow, and we don't have to take responsibility for.
Take driving for example. Before you turn the ignition and pull out of your drive way, you should be fully aware that you could get into a car accident. Does that mean that if you DO get into a car accident that we should leave you to die? Hell, no.
However, we do make people be very very careful and follow certain sets of rules to help prevent accidents from happening.
Same thing with pregnancies. We should educate women, and sexist pig-men, on how to be more careful to help prevent unwanted pregnancies. But when it comes to it, we can't morally obligate people for paying such a high price. Again, education is the way.
As a preemptive strike against the possibility that you might use the argument of people using abortion as a birth control method (just following Bush's example), here is my preemptive answer to you.
We should educate women and make it hard for them to get abortion. This doesn't mean the the gov. has any right to tell the woman what she could and could not do with her own body.

The Laminator

This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by Stipes, posted 04-28-2004 1:01 AM Stipes has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 126 of 440 (103284)
04-28-2004 1:53 AM
Reply to: Message 124 by Stipes
04-28-2004 1:01 AM


If there is an unexpected pregnancy due to laziness, or in the moment sort of situation, I don't believe that abortion should be an option.
How would you determine the difference between a woman pregnant because of what you term "stupidity" and one pregnant as a result of rape or the unlikely failure of both BC methods she chose to use?
Your method assumes some kind of godlike access to the circumstances of conception. Congrats on finding a position that lets you take the moral high ground but the rest of us have to live in the real world, ok?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by Stipes, posted 04-28-2004 1:01 AM Stipes has not replied

derwood
Member (Idle past 1876 days)
Posts: 1457
Joined: 12-27-2001


Message 127 of 440 (103708)
04-29-2004 10:35 AM


Having been intimately involved with the "abortion industry" for a time (I worked at PP for a while, and my wife did for several years, in the education department), I find the notion of using abortion as birth control idiotic. But then, those who do so are a tiny, tiny minority. Most of those getting abortions got them for financial or psychological reasons. Many were married women, accompanied by their husbands. Not a few were actually anti-abortion protesters - after all, their situations were "different"...
Abortion - that is, control of the local population - has always been a part of human life, along with infanticide. It is a necessity, whether anyone wants to admit it or not.
I understand the objections ot abortion. Some are logical and valid, many are not. I cannot fathom, for example the position that once conception has taken place, the birth must occur, as is the position of the more extreme anti-abortion corwd, even if the fetus is severely deformed. And I know this not only from reading their materials and hearing them speak, but fror 'personal' experience. A neighbor of mine's sister-in-law was pregnant. Anti-abortion. An ultrasound detected acrania and myeloschisis - absence of a skull and an open neural tube. A fatal condition. Rather than abort, these good little Christians rode out the pregnany, knowing that the fetus would die a slow, painful death if it survived the birth. Survive it did. A whole 3 hours or so. Struggling to breath, completely unresponsive (how could it respond? it had only a brainstem), it finally died.
But at least it was born...
I suggest doing a Google Images search for "Harlequin fetus."
And I challenge the anti-abortionists to logically justify not terminating such a fetus - regardless of gestational age - upon diagnosis.

Replies to this message:
 Message 128 by Jackal25, posted 04-30-2004 1:50 PM derwood has replied
 Message 131 by gene90, posted 05-04-2004 5:52 PM derwood has not replied

Jackal25
Inactive Member


Message 128 of 440 (104206)
04-30-2004 1:50 PM
Reply to: Message 127 by derwood
04-29-2004 10:35 AM


SLPx,
I can agree with you that if the fetus has a fatal condition that abortion should be an option. After reading your post though are you implying that the familys should not have an option but to abort if the fetus has a fatal condition? When you said many of those who get abortions where for financial or psychological reasons really doesnt make sense to me. Maybe you can educate me on that. Are you saying that a financial reason would be not being able to support the new child? Explain the psychological reasons to please.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 127 by derwood, posted 04-29-2004 10:35 AM derwood has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 129 by derwood, posted 05-04-2004 9:14 AM Jackal25 has replied

derwood
Member (Idle past 1876 days)
Posts: 1457
Joined: 12-27-2001


Message 129 of 440 (105165)
05-04-2004 9:14 AM
Reply to: Message 128 by Jackal25
04-30-2004 1:50 PM


Not at all - I am not advocating 'forcing' anyone to have an abortion. Rather, I think a rational person would choose abortion as the most humane way to deal with certain conditions.
As for the financial reasons, yes, I am saying the ability to support the child. People seem to get their supposed 'right' to have as many children as they want is tempered by their obligation to support them. I recall during the Bush I/Clinton campaign that a gntleman complained to Bush that he was having trouble paying for his 8 children because his taxes were too high. He was a laborer (Catholic). If Bus had had any balls, he would have told the guy that taxes were not his problem.. But I digress.
Yes, this is, after all, a capitalist society, and it takes money to raise a child. The usual retort is 'what about adoption'? Yes, what about it. There are unwanted children still waiting for the goody-goody pro-lifers to adopt them. Seems that many people do not want to adopt. They would rather defy nature and force themselves chemically and surgically to have children.
Psychological factors - do you think the typical 13-18 year old is ready to raise a child? My wife and I both work in education, dealing with this very age range (and older). And I can say that with rare exception, people of this age range have trouble getting their homework done, much less caring for an infant (of course, we are talking about young women here, as for some reason, we do not hold the father accountable). I just see no reason to force motherhood on all women because not doing so makes a particular group of religious adherents feel all special.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 128 by Jackal25, posted 04-30-2004 1:50 PM Jackal25 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 130 by Jackal25, posted 05-04-2004 1:51 PM derwood has replied

Jackal25
Inactive Member


Message 130 of 440 (105243)
05-04-2004 1:51 PM
Reply to: Message 129 by derwood
05-04-2004 9:14 AM


Well I can see where there are a lot of kids still waiting to get adopted, but they are older children and not new born babies. So your comment on waiting for the pro-lifers to adopt a child is not accurate. I personally know a family who had to wait for 8 years to adopt a child, because they were unable to have there own child. Now the situation with kids that are older to be adopted is a different topic all together. On the psychological factors, when you say they are not even able to get there hw done, so since they got pregnant its not really there fault, if you are trying to say this I can agree because young kids just arent educated enough. I just think that letting them have an abortion is just giving them a get out of jail free card. Im just wondering how many cases there are of young kids who have an abortion and then get pregnant again. Im sure you have experience and can educate me on that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 129 by derwood, posted 05-04-2004 9:14 AM derwood has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 166 by nator, posted 05-06-2004 9:48 AM Jackal25 has replied
 Message 173 by derwood, posted 05-06-2004 12:01 PM Jackal25 has replied

gene90
Member (Idle past 3823 days)
Posts: 1610
Joined: 12-25-2000


Message 131 of 440 (105308)
05-04-2004 5:52 PM
Reply to: Message 127 by derwood
04-29-2004 10:35 AM


I see nothing wrong with abortion, if the mother or the child or both will die as a result of labor. The death of two in place of one is senseless.
I do find it odd that Scott Peterson is being tried on *two* counts of murder, when if Laci Peterson had aborted her fetus, it would not have been considered a crime.
Obviously, abortion under all cases except mentioned above *should* be illegal, but is not due to special interest groups and the subjective opinion of a single Supreme Court judge. We will see how long this remains true. Abortions are down, and pro-life foundations are getting more money every year. Heck, even the woman behind Roe vs Wade has changed sides and is now pro-life, after being convinced that abortion does women more harm than good. I fully expect to see Wade overturned within my lifetime, more probably than not, within ten years. And if the current trend in abortion rates continues, nobody will much care when it is.
Oh, by the way, it seems that we (the US) actually have to *import* babies for adoption. Despite this, recently I was debating a friend of mine on abortion when she pointed out that she had friends that needed adoption and never were, instead growing up under custody of the State. She stumbled when I asked her if she (or her friends) would prefer they had been killed before birth. Maybe she had too many friends?
On a separate note, do you guys ever actually talk about *science* around here anymore?
[This message has been edited gene90, 05-04-2004]

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Replies to this message:
 Message 132 by crashfrog, posted 05-04-2004 5:55 PM gene90 has replied
 Message 134 by coffee_addict, posted 05-04-2004 6:47 PM gene90 has replied
 Message 167 by nator, posted 05-06-2004 10:02 AM gene90 has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 132 of 440 (105309)
05-04-2004 5:55 PM
Reply to: Message 131 by gene90
05-04-2004 5:52 PM


I do find it odd that Scott Peterson is being tried on *two* counts of murder, when if Laci Peterson had aborted her fetus, it would not have been considered a crime.
I don't find it odd. It's the mother's body, so the mother determines the status of the fetus.
Since I doubt Laci Peterson was on her way to the abortion clinic, it's pretty clear that she wanted the baby, so killing it against her wishes is unlawful.
Same legal priciple as an involuntary abortion, to my mind.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 131 by gene90, posted 05-04-2004 5:52 PM gene90 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 133 by gene90, posted 05-04-2004 6:05 PM crashfrog has replied

gene90
Member (Idle past 3823 days)
Posts: 1610
Joined: 12-25-2000


Message 133 of 440 (105313)
05-04-2004 6:05 PM
Reply to: Message 132 by crashfrog
05-04-2004 5:55 PM


quote:
It's the mother's body, so the mother determines the status of the fetus.
The fetus is not the mother's body -- DNA analysis and blood typing prove this empirically. It is a developing human being, entitled to all the rights given by God to human beings and expressed in the Constitution of the United States.
Killing the fetus abstains the mother from the inconvenience of pregnancy -- but regardless of what reasons she may have for not wanting the child, still denies a human being of life. It is a lesser evil that a woman should endure an unwanted pregnancy than that a human being should die for her to end her nine month pregnancy five months sooner. And it is not likely to help emotional trauma associated with the case "go away".
quote:
Since I doubt Laci Peterson was on her way to the abortion clinic, it's pretty clear that she wanted the baby
Is it your position then that what is a human being is defined by whether or not it is loved by its mother? Then why is infanticide illegal? Once a child is born it is dependant upon its parents for life, and for a few months, not much less dependant than it was in the womb. Why not expand the "right" to abortion another 18 years?
Certain civilizations of the past have done this. In Sparta, "unfit" infants were killed by exposure, as if leaving them in the cold was somehow less of a murder than killing them by hand. In republican Rome, the father had the "right" to the life of his son until he reached legal age.
Today we kill unwanted babies in the womb, or upon delivery, thinking, like the Spartans, that somehow this is less dirty than more direct means. Is our modern, "liberated" society of today any more enlightened than they?
[This message has been edited gene90, 05-04-2004]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 132 by crashfrog, posted 05-04-2004 5:55 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 144 by crashfrog, posted 05-05-2004 12:39 AM gene90 has replied

coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 477 days)
Posts: 3645
From: Indianapolis, IN
Joined: 03-29-2004


Message 134 of 440 (105332)
05-04-2004 6:47 PM
Reply to: Message 131 by gene90
05-04-2004 5:52 PM


gene90 writes:
I do find it odd that Scott Peterson is being tried on *two* counts of murder, when if Laci Peterson had aborted her fetus, it would not have been considered a crime.
Here is an analogy before I explain why this is not odd at all.
Just imagine that Scott, the politician, has a fatal illness that is going to die unless he gets a treatment. However, the organs necessary for transplant won't be ready for another 9 months. In the mean time, Scott has to be connected to another person. And with Scott's luck, we have a volunteer who is willing to share her organs at the time.
Now, from here we have 2 possible outcomes.
1) After 2 months of just lying there with Scott, the woman changes her mind and she disconnects herself from Scott. Scott, of course, can't sustain himself on his own organs, dies.
Morally speaking, the woman is not obligated to keep sharing her organs.
2) While Scott and the woman volunteer is lying there one day, a man wearing a mask comes and kills the woman. Because of the woman's death, Scott dies as well.
In this situation, the man with the mask is directly responsible for both deaths by killing the woman.
Now, do you see the difference between abortion and the murder case?
Philosophically speaking, abortion is just disconnecting the fetus from the mother and the fetus dies on its own. However, murdering the mother has a direct consequence of killing the fetus as well.
This is why I am opposed to partial birth abortion. PBA actually requires the physician to actively kill the fetus.

The Laminator

This message is a reply to:
 Message 131 by gene90, posted 05-04-2004 5:52 PM gene90 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 135 by gene90, posted 05-04-2004 7:29 PM coffee_addict has replied

gene90
Member (Idle past 3823 days)
Posts: 1610
Joined: 12-25-2000


Message 135 of 440 (105345)
05-04-2004 7:29 PM
Reply to: Message 134 by coffee_addict
05-04-2004 6:47 PM


That's an interesting and very creative analogy. I like it, but wish to propose my own counteranalogy.
I start with a question. In some (US) States, is it not illegal to discontinue CPR, once you have started, until the patient is declared dead by a competant medical authority? In some states (e.g. France) can you not be prosecuted for denying aid to those in medical need, such as at an accident?
Here is "my own" analogy. Actually I pulled it from news headlines several months ago. Sadly, it happened in the real world.
A woman who is addicted to crack and works as a stripper is found to have her dead nine year old child stuffed in a box in her basement. (Keeping the child meant better welfare checks). The child had starved because she didn't feed him. Apparently, nothing personal, she just decided not to and didn't want the responsibility. The child, disconnected from his own sort of "life support", his mom, died "on his own", much as a fetus would when aborted. This is murder is it not? I think that's what the law said but my memory is foggy.
Killing dependants through neglect, especially deliberate neglect (abortion) is the same as if you killed them directly. Same as the Spartan mothers leaving their children on cold rocks in the wilderness. That is murder too, is it not? They killed them by deliberately placing them in an environment in which they could not survive on their own, and then they ignored them. Actually it sounds a lot like abortion, at least to me. The result is the same. And the intent is the same as well.
The failure of the law to ban abortion in all but the most extreme instances (death of the mother and/or child) is a case of moral inconsistency, that, I think, we will soon see rectified.
I salute your opposition to PBA, as it is one of the most ghoulish practices I know of amongst First World nations, but I don't see much of a moral distinction between vacuuming the child's brains out during delivery and injecting drugs to initiate delivery when it is known by all that the fetus cannot survive on its own and with the explicit intention of killing that fetus. The intent and the result are exactly the same, only the means whereby it is accomplished are different.
[This message has been edited gene90, 05-04-2004]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 134 by coffee_addict, posted 05-04-2004 6:47 PM coffee_addict has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 136 by MrHambre, posted 05-04-2004 7:50 PM gene90 has replied
 Message 138 by coffee_addict, posted 05-04-2004 10:30 PM gene90 has replied

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