What's wrong with this picture?

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Either embrace all human life as sacred or cut loose with the concept and focus on the good of society as a whole and de-emphasize the rights of individual life just like the ants and monarch butterflies.

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They key here is whether we're talking about something of equal moral value to a full term, thinking human being. 96% of abortions are first-trimester - including virtually all non-health-threatening abortions. This means that we're either talking about something with no nervous system, or a nervous system little more complicated than an insect's. Can you understand why people would have a hard time equivocating that with a fully thinking human being?------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

It's more than what it is at the time it's aborted. Everyone in the abortion room knows that you are ending a human life outside the natural bounds of it's survival potential. So if it doesn't reach a certain stage of developement it's of little importance as far as the act, it just either lessens or heightens the reality in our minds the closer the human gets to reaching a recognizable life sustaining form outside the womb.Let's say that you embarked on building a really bomb 15 meter competition sailing vessel. You went through all of the time to aquire the materials, extra man power, resources and facilities. Let's say you and your team start to assemble the ship. It goes slow at first because it's extremely critical to set the keel beam and mark the rib joints perfect so the thing will track straight in open seas. Say I come along and not only burn down the crude skeleton of your boat but I destroy the building you are working out of, forcing you to completely start over and you had just started the boat 2 weeks ago.Now lets say that I wait for 7 months before I come in and destroy your boat and building. Which of the 2 times did I destroy your boat? Which time will you suffer great loss from? Which time will set you back and potentially jeapordize your goal. Which one will taint your perception of the joy of boat building?Of course if I wait until the seventh month to burn your boat, you had more time to get to know your project but on both instances you lost a boat. It's a crude example but I believe you are on to the point I'm trying to make.Now on the other hand, if all you had were the materials and the facilities, but you never were able to meet up with the material, then there was never a boat, just potential. But as soon as you take the first step and take the first few pieces of wood and lay out the keel beam - well there's your boat and you would get very angry if I came in and cut your keel in half with a chain saw, and then burned down your building. I just destroyed your boat.

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It's more than what it is at the time it's aborted.

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Why? If someone were to drop an atomic bomb on what is now New York back in 1600 and irradiated the countryside to make it unlivable, vs. dropping an atomic bomb on New York today - killing everyone and irradiating the countryside - would they be the same thing?

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Everyone in the abortion room knows that you are ending a human life outside the natural bounds of it's survival potential.

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Actually, you'll find that everyone in the operating room will disagree. They'll agree that you're ending the life of an embryo which may have developed to the point to have as complex of a nervous system as an insect (only if late first term or later). You'll also find that essentially none of them will equate that to a thinking human being. Now the question goes back to you: Why do *you* do this?

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So if it doesn't reach a certain stage of developement it's of little importance as far as the act, it just either lessens or heightens the reality in our minds the closer the human gets to reaching a recognizable life sustaining form outside the womb.

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The further along it is, the more of a moral issue it is, because it is closer to being like a normal human the further along the pregnancy gets. Eventually, it will transition from no nervous system to insect-level to human-level. The key word being "eventually" - not currently.

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Let's say that you embarked on building a really bomb 15 meter competition sailing vessel. You went through all of the time to aquire the materials, extra man power, resources and facilities. Let's say you and your team start to assemble the ship. It goes slow at first because it's extremely critical to set the keel beam and mark the rib joints perfect so the thing will track straight in open seas. Say I come along and not only burn down the crude skeleton of your boat but I destroy the building you are working out of, forcing you to completely start over and you had just started the boat 2 weeks ago. (etc)

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Ah, so you're talking about the situation where the woman wanted to have a child. In that case, yes, it would be a tragedy if a woman who wanted to have a child had an abortion.If you're talking about a case where it's a self-building boat, unless the boat was sentient, the only tragedy of your burning would be to the owners of the boat who lost their investment - again analogous to the case of a woman who wanted to keep her baby.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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I don't have a problem with anyone who is Pro abortion

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Being "pro-abortion" would seem to me to constitute thinking that abortion is a positive, good thing.I don't know anyone who is pro-abortion, and I would have a problem with anyone who did feel that way.I do know people who are pro-choice, meaning that while they do not like abortion and believe that as much as possible should be done to prevent it's being needed, it is their view that it is not the government's role to impose it's will and intervene in what should be a private matter between a women and her doctor.

Amen Sister.------------------
Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

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It is what those cells become that is important.

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Well, by this logic, there should be a law that requires the menstrual fluid of all women to be collected and searched for fertilized eggs that did not implant and were in the process of being flushed out of the body. At least half of all ofhese fertilized eggs end up this way.Similarly, IUD's should be banned because they prevent implantation of fertilized eggs.

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My old boss and his wife were forced to make that decision when her life was put in danger by her pregnancy. He was a Catholic and very pro-life, but they chose not to take the chance of mother and child both dying.

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Yep. When the shit really hits the fan, even the pro-lifers get abortions when they really, really need them.

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I?m insulted every time the mother is portrayed as just the fleshy outer covering of the sacred fetus.

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If you're insulted, then how do you think women feel?It's fetus-worship and woman hating, pure and simple.Women are nothing but the vessels for the god-like fetus. Women have no intrinsic value beyond said vessel as soon as they become pregnant.How facist!

Hi Shraf,I just get really pissed when people use the term "pro-abortion". I think it is used to paint us a some kind of monster. NOONE is pro-abortion!!!The majority of the "pro-lifers" that I have talked to admit (after a lot of hand-wringing)that there are SOME desperate instances where even they would choose to have an abortion. I generally reply with "Welcome to the pro-choice side"------------------
Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

So there's really no pro-life either, it's pro-anti choice? It's a black and white issue when you look at the stats that have been posted on this thread. The majority are done for reasons other than life threatening issues. So if everything should be done to prevent abortion means that 21% of the women who abort need more money, 15% need more reassurance that it's going to be OK, 13% need to be told that they will be mentally fine. No, not quite.You are either Pro- let the baby live or Pro let the baby be killed if that's the host unit's desire. Pro Life or Pro Abortion. But see, you don't like the sound of Pro Abortion because that sounds cold and cutting and to the point, in your face, lets end a life- severved up helping of reality. Pro Choice sounds really much better like a choice of auto's or a choice of soda drinks or a choice of chewing tobacco or a choice of options concerning a womens health issues. Yeah that's much more palatable.I had a very "separate the wheat from the chaff" professor who liked to always say "If you use enough honey, you can make dog shit palatable". But dress it up all you want, to the human that's being knitted together in the womb, weather a women is exploring her right to chose her options for her own personal health issues, or it's another pro abortion action taking place, the end result is the same.See, someone who is pro-life might switch over and become pro-abortion if an unpleasant situation happens to them. It's by far the easier way out of an uncomfortable excursion. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be so popular. But you will never see anyone who is pro abortion become a pro life proponent because that is like climbing back up a vertical wall that's covered with motor oil. At best they chose to ignore or never discuss the topic again.You also said that there are no bonofide pro abortion people out there. Go to an abortion clinic and see the numbers of girls going in to them. Do think that if the people working in there after a few months of doing assembly line abortions really cared about these girls they would continue? Come on. If they really cared and viewed abortion as a safety net to stop desparate girls from having back alley abortions they would step back and say "Wait a minute". This is getting out of control, we need to stop this at the source because this is not just saving a few desparates from back alleys, this is becoming wholesale carnage". Of course they're not going to. The abortion industry is highly profitable for those who are in it, so don't think for a minute if it comes between pay dirt or play pen these people will take the "high road".Hell no my man, not when there's BMW's and West Bay Sonships and vacation villas to be had.Again, press on with pride with the abortion industry, but let's stop confusing the issue. We need to change our society's idea about the value of any human life so we can have a uniform code of conduct, single minded goal for the human race instead of moral rights and wrongs that can wavier with each administration change. Either all human life is sacred or none of it is. When you make out the rules as you go, people get confused, division lines get formed and nations such as ours gets dragged down. Personally I wish that our leaders would step up to the plate, come out and say that because we are an evolved being, as long as the human race survives in some form, individule life is of no consequence or importance so let's have at it. Like it or detest it, at least we'd all be on the same page and we could support our stance by evoultion and mathmatics which, in it's purest form has no emotions, feelings or biases.We are taught in school that we are an evolved state of billions of acidents that have arose by chance over millions of years as the laws of mathmatics and the dynamics of chaos exert their force. So what is so wrong with saying you are pro abortion if it's just another glob of DNA and if you terminate that chain of events, the minerals with just be recycled into some other thing. Nothing more. Why do people all of a sudden bring emotion into it instead of just calling it like it is. Because weather you or I live or die or are aborted, we're just another glob of DNA resopnding to enviornment and randomness. Nothing more.Good night all, I'll check this post in the morning. I now have to take my glob of DNA upstairs and give another glob of DNA that I refer to as my son Isaac a horsey back ride before he lays down to recharge the chemical stasis of his amino acids. Then if by random chance, biolgical definition, mathmatical probability and chaos dynamic consequence my knees are still attached, I'm going to watch 22 men who desparatly are in need of rest, perform for 80,000 people who are in desparate need of excersise. (Monday Night Football)[This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 11-10-2003]

Liz, you seem obsessed with saying people MUST accept your argument, that it is the only logical possibility, but it is not.Whether we are just chemicals or not, humans have concepts of "worth" and "sacredness". Concepts such as these are what guide individuals to protect human life with laws.You use this fact alone to formulate a "kill all or nothing" dilemna.However, humans also have diverse concepts regarding what is thought of as human life (or more accurately a full fledged human being). While Nazis may have blurred this line based on grounds of human vs animal, what we are talking about here is not the same thing. Once born, there is no question that the person is a fullfledged human being. Euthanasia is similar only as people consider individuals that lose mental capacity to the degree of brain coma or death as essentially being dead.No matter your personal view point, other people do not view a clump of cells as the same thing (having the same rights) as a fully developed child. This is something you simply have to accept.Most people who are prochoice have this viewpoint. They may be prolife in that they do view the fetus as a form of life, and generally do not think abortions are the best choice for avoiding unwanted children. In fact, they may not even desire to have an abortion themselves (when faced with that choice). They key is that they view the growing form as something different than the form once it reaches the end of its gestational period.During that gestational period the fetus is not the same type of entity as its mother, and the mother's right to life supercedes the right to continued development of the fetus. More than this, as a reproducing being the mother (the gestational host) has a right to control whether she will reproduce or not, including the right to terminate the development of a child before it finishes its gestational cycle.You cannot argue past this. From conception till some time near birth (and arguably slightly after that), children are in a gestational phase. This separates them quite clearly from humans who have moved well past that stage and through accident or age, no longer have full physical control of their body.ProCHOICE argues that individuals should retain full control over their own bodies and more specifically their reproductive cycles (which old people are not part of). This allows devout Xtians to choose to have a child, as well as letting those of different philosophies (or level of devotion) have a child (or not), depending on their personal concepts of "sacredness" and "worth" regarding gestating entities.ProLIFE, first of all makes the State dominant over the individual regarding matters of their own bodies and specifically their reproductive cycles. Secondly, that stance does what its name suggests and stamps one particular personal concept of "sacredness" regarding the nature of gestational human life on everyone else.You may argue that individuals could abuse the choice given them, but that is incompatible with fears that the state will become a eugenic killing machine.In contrast, it is giving the state control over our bodies and worse still what religious concepts we all have to embrace regarding human life, which can lead to forced eugenics or indoctrination programs (for potential parents).I am unsure what evidence you have for some thriving "abortion industry". I would love to see it. Even more important would be evidence that this industry is trying to encourage people to use unsafe sexual practices in order to get women pregnant to keep the business going.The irony here is that all of those men in the photo who are proLIFE are the ones promoting no contraceptive education for the young or the poor. Bush has even stripped such necessary information for sexual health education overseas.ProCHOICE advocates are the ones trying to reduce unwanted pregnancies through proper use of contraceptives.And in the end if you wanted to stop this supposed "abortion industry", we could pull all of the profitability out of it by:1) having a national healthcare plan that would bring such prices down
or
2) make the procedure nonforprofit.------------------
holmes

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When the shit really hits the fan, even the pro-lifers get abortions when they really, really need them.

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Our buddy Lizard's Breath here even admitted he's done the same thing, regardless of the fact it made him feel like a murderer. This makes him a fundie, a misogynist, and a hypocrite.

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Women are nothing but the vessels for the god-like fetus. Women have no intrinsic value beyond said vessel as soon as they become pregnant.

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So when the fundies call the fetuses "innocent children," who do you suppose they're saying is guilty?I love how Lizard Breath here is still sarcastically referring to his kids as 'blobs of DNA,' as if the parents among us can't see the difference between a first-trimester fetus inside a woman's body and a child sitting at the breakfast table. I'll let him have his fun. I mean, I may be pro-choice, but at least I'm not a murderer!------------------
America is like watching a symphony conducted by the tuba player. -Dow Mossman, The Stones of Summer

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You are either Pro- let the baby live or Pro let the baby be killed if that's the host unit's desire. Pro Life or Pro Abortion.

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So what does that make you, Lizard Breath? You had one of your own children aborted. Why is it all right for you to make that choice and no one else?

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Either all human life is sacred or none of it is.

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If a woman can't or won't bear a child, she'll have an abortion, Lizard Breath. If safe abortions are not available, she'll get an unsafe one or do it herself. I guess you don't really care about the sacred human lives that are involved in these difficult situations, or else you'd be concerned about their well-being too.------------------
America is like watching a symphony conducted by the tuba player. -Dow Mossman, The Stones of Summer

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We need to change our society's idea about the value of any human life so we can have a uniform code of conduct, single minded goal for the human race instead of moral rights and wrongs that can wavier with each administration change.

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Great idea..next time vote for anybody but Bush so that perhaps someone who actually values human life can get elected...unless you consider the bank accounts of Halburton and Bechtel to be a "sacred human life".

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Either all human life is sacred or none of it is.

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Let me guess...you are probably pro death penalty?

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Personally I wish that our leaders would step up to the plate, come out and say that because we are an evolved being, as long as the human race survives in some form, individule life is of no consequence or importance so let's have at it. Like it or detest it, at least we'd all be on the same page and we could support our stance by evoultion and mathmatics which, in it's purest form has no emotions, feelings or biases.

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Interesting since you are conflating atheism with acceptance of the ToE, then by your logic, if you were not a fundie zealot you would find it okay to go out and murder people wildly and for fun because the only thing holding you back from what you actually want to do is your A) Fear of some non-apparent diety, pink unicorn, higher-middle-lower power kicking the crap out of you when you die B) You will get some huge afterlife reward where you can lounge around in your underwear being fed pickles by the Sports Illustrated swimsuit models....just goes to show you (by your logic), your average atheist has a higher ethical standard than ANY fundie. They can recognize the value of life without the promise of reward or the fear of supernatural harm...and by the way, is it only atheist doctors performing abortions and atheists having them ?

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We are taught in school that we are an evolved state of billions of acidents that have arose by chance over millions of years as the laws of mathmatics and the dynamics of chaos exert their force

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I see your knowledge of the ToE is as pathetic as your knowledge of the abortion debate How about trying and informing youself?...you never know, you might like it.

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Why do people all of a sudden bring emotion into it instead of just calling it like it is. Because weather you or I live or die or are aborted, we're just another glob of DNA resopnding to enviornment and randomness. Nothing more.

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Actually, if was people such as Darwin who recognized the DIVERSITY of life and tried to develope a testable hypothesis to explain it. People like YOU ignore the diversity of life in favor of worshipping an error prone book written by people who did not know jack about biology. And there is much more reason to fear religious zealots who claim to be doing God's will to protect the sacredness of life than just about anybody else...you guys tend to blow things up, shoot people or fly planes into tall buildings.After you put your blob of DNA to bed you might want to take your blobulous self to the library and find out what the ToE actually states rather than continuing to embarass yourself here...you would not want your little blob to realize big daddy blob is missing a few base pairs in some critical genes involved in neural development.

Lizard BreathI used to have a regular jousting match with my then sister in law who was pro life and I agreed with her that it was a shame that all children could not be brought into this world and cared for to adult hood but I mentioned to her that it would be prohibitively expensive since someone somewhere does have to pay for these "unwanted" children.After stripping me of my flesh with verbal whips only a born again christian can muster I would ask her if,since she was obviously commited to the idea of sanctity of life,she had a carefully constructed plan showing the way all the legal ethical and procedural means of accomplishing the views she so dearly held.
She had none.I told her that it seems to me that if someone with such a gift for discerning the nobility of such a venture had not any concrete means of helping these children then what was the point of protesting.Even today I see organizations of church groups hit the streets in vast droves and deplore the loss of potential in aborting human fetuses but not one comes to the stage and says this is how we go about it.I look around the streets of Edmonton here sometimes and see the poor people struggling to remove things from dumpsters in winter and it strikes me as odd that we as probably the second wealthiest nation on the planet can do nothing to change this small segment of society for the better. That we have people who would be willing to put even more onto the streets with no real hope of a "good" life free from endless concern of where to find warmth or food and water is something I cannot understand.We have children in orphanages today who are wards of the court until they are 18 and then they are booted out to make it on their own.None of these ever found a proper home.My wife was bounced through several homes from an early age until she found one that had some stability in it.Anyway I suppose that someone somewhere has the balls to put together a plan that is capable of improving the lot of human beings rather than just snapping at empty air in the hope of finding nourishment.[This message has been edited by sidelined, 11-11-2003]