The Problem with Legalized Abortion

Bullshit.Show us where anti-abortionists are offering to take care of pregnant women so they don't have to have abortions. Bullshit.You can always offer to help. "The silliest thing you've ever heard" comes up pretty often, don't it?If you had any substantive response at all, you might have some credibility.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels

From a scientific point of view, for the millionth time, conception. I have been as candid as I possibly can be. You on the other hand have introduced so many strawmen and slippery slopes, all the while avoiding nearly everything that has been asked of you.You have still not answered when a fetus becomes a human being with rights.

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“First dentistry was painless, then bicycles were chainless, and carriages were horseless, and many laws enforceless. Next cookery was fireless, telegraphy was wireless, cigars were nicotineless, and coffee caffeineless. Soon oranges were seedless, the putting green was weedless, the college boy was hatless, the proper diet -- fatless. New motor roads are dustless, the latest steel is rustless, our tennis courts are sodless, our new religion -- Godless” -Arthur Guiterman

what, from a scientific standpoint, is "conception"?is it when the egg allows a sperm to enter? is it 20 hours later when the dna starts to unravel and combine? is it when the cell starts to divide? is it when the blastocyte implants? is it when that one tiny little cell of the whole thing that isn't set to be placenta etc starts to divide? tell me, when is conception? what is this nanosecond when a sperm and egg disappear and a baby appears?

I guess that was a bad choice of words. I meant that if the woman is having unprotected sex and someone else pays for the medical bills, food, etc, then how is this situation prevented from repeating itself with the same players? I think if I have to pay for something I'm not responsible for then I should have some say in preventing it from happening again. Or do you think that women who decide to have unprotected sex should just have their lives paid for by other people?
If prevention of pregnancy is the real key to minimizing abortions, then how do we bring that about?

I was explaining why the religious folks are trapped by their own system into trying to prevent abortion the way they do.I didn't know that birth control is not covered by Medicaid. From now on I will write my congressman to try to change that. That's right, sorry. I forgot that men are to blame for every problem that women have. I also forgot that every man on the planet is out to stick it to every woman on the planet. Hey, that's just the natural order of things right? I mean, we men just stick it to everything 'cause all we do is think with our sticks.How about you actually provide something to support that statement about men controlling the Medicare system to the point where they are preventing women from having the fun and frolic that men get to have.

Look broadly speaking we are on the same side regards the abortion issue.
HOWEVER - Your argument that not bestowing FULL human rights on a fetus is paramount to admitting that a fetus is not a person in the eyes of anti abortionists is not valid.
We don't accord various groups full citezenhood for various reasons yet we don't deny them the BASIC fundamental rights of citizenship.Anti abortionists may not accord fetuses full rights as human beings without any admission that they are any less human than you, I or themselves. BUT they can still argue for the fundamental rights of humanness (and indeed they do)
I don't agree with their arguments but on purely level of rights accorded I don't think your argument stands up.

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I meant that if the woman is having unprotected sex and someone else pays for the medical bills, food, etc, then how is this situation prevented from repeating itself with the same players?

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Lots and lots of free sexual health education for everyone, and free and easily obtained birth control for everyone are how these things are abundantly proven to be prevented.

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I think if I have to pay for something I'm not responsible for then I should have some say in preventing it from happening again.

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Great. Lobby your government for lots and lots of free sexual health education for everyone, and free and easily obtained birth control for everyone so each individual will be able to make better choices for themselves.

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Or do you think that women who decide to have unprotected sex should just have their lives paid for by other people?

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If they get pregnant, and you believe that their conceptus is a person and she therefore cannot terminate the pregnancy, then yes, you should pay for everything related to that baby.Around half of all unwanted pregnancies happen to people using birth control. You seem to have trouble remembering that.Anyway, I thought this was about babies, not controlling women's sexual behavior, or was I wrong about that?

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If prevention of pregnancy is the real key to minimizing abortions, then how do we bring that about?

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Jesus, it's only been said a hundred times in this thread already:Lots and lots of free sexual health education for everyone, and free and easily obtained birth control for everyone are how unwanted pregnancies are abundantly proven to be prevented.

This is a silly argument. A sperm is a potential child as is any egg. A fertilised egg may or may not develop into a fetus. In fact many many many naturally do not. Do you suggest we divert valuable resource from cancer and AIDS research to stop the natural miscarriage of millions of fertlised eggs a year on the basis that they are equal lives??????????
Of course not.
An unconscious bunch of cells may be potentially human but if cloning were a viable option so may a nostril hair.
Where do you draw the line? Do you really think that the millions of naturally miscarried very early fetuses deserve the same medical research to halt this phenomenon as the many tragic human diseases we are already challenged with???If not why not given your equal standing of fetuses with actual humans?????

Exactly.Nature does not work in instants. Our conceptions do.
Unconveniently for us there is no instant of humanness, conception or anything else.
Therefore the sooner we admit that limitations on abortion are necessarily arbitary decisions the sooner we can get about forming rational basis for making that rationale.
Arbitary in this case does not mean random or ill thought out just not based on agreeable physical definites.

now you just took the argument to the exact different path that i did with the same argument.if an embreyo is not classified as human because of its lack of development, then why not children?and as you assert: if an embreyo is human, why not sperm and eggs?the question is: at what stage of the life of a man do we consider it a life, in such that its destruction is murder?

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keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

he just things he gets to decide when people aren't using birth control effectively enough. if they're not being careful enough to please him, it's just as irresponsible as doing a train and being surprised that one of these 50 men you fucked in one night got you pregnant....as though missing one pill will compromise the whole lot of it. it won't. it really won't.

Well, we do grant a birth certificate at birth - because we recognize the baby as a person at birth.I have said several times that anti-abortionists - if they were honest - would be pressing for CHILD-SIZED (did you catch it that time?) rights at conception instead of birth. They would be pressing for THE RIGHTS THAT A NEWBORN HAS (did you catch it that time?) from conception instead of from birth.Since they aren't doing that - and in this thread they've done nothing but ridicule the idea - I can't help but conclude that they're being dishonest when they claim the conceptus is a person.I have not mentioned anything but CHILD-SIZED (did you catch it that time?) rights for the fetus, so you're arguing against a point I didn't make. Well, I haven't said what "side" I'm on in this thread, so I'm not convinced that you know.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels

Well I ask you why not sperm and eggs??Is a man every time he masturbates effectively committing mass murder????Obviously not.For that same reason a woman is not committing murder by having a set of unconscious cells removed.I am not a mas murderer. Just a sad maturbator.

the problem is that despite the laws we decide to make, scientifically, there is no discrete point of anything. except maybe brain death. but there is no singular point where development has reached a place where one was not fully human a moment ago and is now. i know some 30 year olds who aren't fully human. we, as a race, tend to draw boundaries beyond what we know has to be wrong in order to make sure we're not doing wrong. just like the rule is no longer "don't boil a baby goat in it's own mother's milk" but is now "don't eat meat and cheese in the same kitchen with the same utensils" we don't kill infants because we're not sure if a 5 year cut-off or a 3 year cut-off or a 6 month cut-off is acceptable. why? because humans develop at different rates. this is why making laws about when a fetus becomes viable is foolhardy. this is why we absolutely have to depend on medical professionals to help us make individualized decisions on individual cases.

my position lies not in the implication that abortion is not murder, but rather that, in the name of freedom and the rights of the host of the fetus should allow the descision to be made by that host by rights of law.which is essentially what you propose, but by different motivations.

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keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides