Points on abortion and the crutch of supporters

You do realized that partial birth abortion has been outlawed in the states, right? Although it is currently being challenged, I really don't think that they will re-legalize partial birth abortion anytime soon.

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The Laminator

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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.

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The Laminator

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I'll try. 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 /26These 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. 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.

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The Laminator

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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.

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The Laminator

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You can't compare such laws with the case of abortion. I will explain as we go along. This is a rather poor comparason. The law, and morality, doesn't obligate you to take care or save another person. However, It does obligate you to give the person a standing chance by not doing anything else.That mother deliberately kept her child from food and proper care. She could have put given him up for adoption. Again, this mother actively killed her child by preventing him from other options when they are available. Again, this is a bad analogy. Those people actively brought their children out to the wilderness and left them. They had other options, like putting them out in the streets or give them to other people.There is a big difference between active and passive killings. Noone is morally obligated to save someone else. However, you are morally obligated to at least do something (according to the law) like pick up the phone when you see trouble.Going back to abortion, it is required that the doctors do everything they can to save the fetus if it is removed from the mother immaturely. However, if the fetus cannot survive on its own no matter what... as much as I hate to say this, there's nothing else we can do.I am tempted to go back to my original analogy. The woman volunteer has every right to disconnect herself from Scott. However, she is obligated and required to not do anything else that would contribute to his death, like locking the door and preventing other people from getting to him. She is obligated and required to allow doctors to get to him.Going back to the law about CPR and such, the reason medical personel are required to provide medical aid to people that need them is because everyone is obligated give other people a chance without violating anyone's rights. Besides the Hypocratic aoth that doctors take, the law requires that medical personel has to aid those that need medical help without violating anyone else's rights.My personal opinion and common sense tell me that abortion is wrong no matter what. However, logic tells me otherwise. It is painful for me to arrive at a conclusion that contradicts my prior beliefs, but that's the way it goes.

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The Laminator

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This is the premise that we disagree on. In the case of abortion, the fetus's right comes into conflict with the woman's right. Whenever this happens, we have to decide one or the other.When inducing early labor, the doctor is helping the woman severing the connection. That is still considered passive killing. The reason is that the fetus's inability to survive on its own kills it. However, the doctor is obligated to do everything he could to keep the child alive afterward.Here is the difference between the aborting the fetus and leaving a child in the wilderness. The woman's right to choose overrides her obligation to taking care of the fetus or the child. However, the child has many options. Unfortunately, the fetus doesn't have much option. This doesn't change the fact that the woman has the right to choose to share her organs or not.Trust me, once you go down the road of saying it's ok to force the woman to share her organs, there are many other issues that will arise out of it. It is somewhat off topic, so I won't say much about it. To make it rediculously short, you do not want the government to have the power to tell you what you should and shouldn't do with your body. Don't nitpick this sentence! It's an oversimplied version of what's at stake if we start forcing people to do certain things.

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The Laminator

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Again, you are not approaching this objectively. Yes, I agree that 9 months of prenancy is nothing compared to a life. However, noone is obligated to share her organs with anyone. Abortion does not directly kill the fetus. It disconnects the mother's organs from the fetus and the fetus eventually dies from lack of support. No, it is not easy for us to say it. In fact, after years of looking into the matter, I've made 2 vows that I intend to keep.1) I had to change my mind about abortion (I believe I already said this).2) I made a vow never to have children of my own so that I could adopt from other countries as many children as I could afford. The problem these days is that only white caucasions adopt and when they do the majority of them only want white, healthy newborns. This is the reason why some couples wait for years. If only they accept children from orphanages of other races, they wouldn't have to wait that long.
(By the way for those who are wondering, I made this vow before I know I was gay.) Again, we come back to the woman's right to not share her organs. Really bad comparason.I'm guessing that you are probably angry with me. If that's the case, I suggest you take a break from this forum and come back later.The most important part of a debate is you have to try to keep your emotion from getting in way of your objective outlook. You can believe whatever deity or divine laws you want. Some of us do ask that you keep them where they belong, in your mind.

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The Laminator

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You are missing the point. With a child, there are options if you don't want it besides starving it to death. In fact, the mother has to actively keep the child from seeking out food.Abortion is different. All the mother does is severe her connection with the fetus. She is not actively seeking out the fetus and killing it. All she does is severe her connection with the fetus. In cases of induced early labor, the doctors are obligated to try everything possible to keep the ejected baby alive. In the case of leaving the child out in the wilderness or keeping it in a box to starve, the mother could have done other things besides actively keeping her child from food. I was in a hurry when I wrote that. Let me try to be more clear. I used to be absolutely against abortion of any kind. After much thinking, I came to the realization that abortion, although very unpleasant and not necessarily right, isn't morally wrong either. The mother has the right to choose to share her organs or not. It is the same right that prevents people from forcing you to give up your organs, even for a short time, to another person. Yes, the fetus has the right to live. However, the woman has the right... freedom to choose. If you are talking about drug use, I am one of those that supports the legalization of drugs. Everytime you ban someting, all you do is create a black market for it. Legalizing it will allow the gov to regulate it the same way as alcohol.If you are not refering to drugs, please clarify. No, my beliefs are not inconsistent at all. I believe that people's rights, in short of directly violating other people's rights, are more important than life. What's life without rights?You are not morally obligated to help a starving child in the street. However, you are morally obligated to not put an effort in preventing the child from seeking out food if there are some. In the case of abortion, it is unfortunate that the "child" can't actively seek out food on its own. This is why we have doctors and other kinds of professionals that are obligated to help the child.I think the problem here is our differences in principles. For me, freedom comes before life. From what you've said about obligating people to share their organs for 9 months rather than allowing them to choose to disconnect, I take it that you value life more than freedom. Am I right? I have finals in 2 weeks. I think we have already said what can be said about our beliefs. Unless there's something new, I don't think I have the interest to continue this.Peace.

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The Laminator

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I don't know how many times I have to repeat this. The expecting mother and the doctors are obligated to do everything they can to keep the aborted fetus alive. However, it is the woman's right to end the pregnancy at anytime. This is not the same as putting a child in a box. The woman is obligated to do everything she can to keep the child alive if she decides to not be its mother anymore. Putting the child in a box deprives it other opportunities. In other word, she is actively preventing the child from seeking out help. Yes, she could have carried her child full-term. This is what I encourage people to do, and this is what I believe a person should do. However, I am not about to start forcing people to do (or not do) something against their will. It's the woman's organs, period. I disagree with this. If you look at history, innocent people died all the time for freedom. If life is more important, why did the US get involved in the second world war? If we surrendered, a lot less people would have died. Again, I agree that what the woman has to lose is far less than what the fetus has to lose. However, and again, we can't start forcing people against their will in this matter. The organs belong to the woman. If she wants to end the pregnancy, it is her right to do so. So now you are using the straw man. I never said that I was brave. Again, as much as I agree with you that the inconvience for the woman is far less than the life of the fetus, we can't start forcing people to go against their will to actively save someone else. Violent crimes doesn't count, because you are violating other people's rights by actively interfering with their affairs. Besides the drug laws, name something that deals with our bodies and I'll address them accordingly. No, it does not. Noone has the right to use other people's organs in the first place. It is a priviledge. The woman's organs are the woman's organs. But you are obligated to give the child a chance by bringing it to a shelter or orphanage. This is why I said the woman is obligated to allow doctors to do everything they can to keep the aborted fetus alive after the process. Unfortunately, most of the aborted fetus can't survive no matter what. This is why I am against PBA. The woman has every right to end the pregnancy, but the woman does not have the right to demand that the fetus be killed. If it could live, let it live! Abortion could also be viewed as an exercise of the woman's right to choose to not share her organs. If the fetus could live, let it live. If not, that's unfortunate.You can't compare the woman of Sparta with abortion. It was entirely possible for the child to live. The woman of Sparta should have let the child live rather than actively do something to exhaust the child's options. I'm not just speaking for myself. To tell you the truth, if I am presented with a red button and a blue button and I have to press one. Pushing the red button will kill an unborn fetus and pushing the blue button will trigger a bomb that will kill me. With all honesty on my part, I will most certainly push the blue button, given that there is no other factor, hidden or nonhidden, involved.Again, look into history and see which wars you agree with and which ones you don't. Even the American Rev. was based on the belief that freedom was more important than life. Otherwise, noone wouldn't have faught in the first place. My great grand father, grandfather, and father would have agreed that freedom is more important than life. My greatgrandfather was a guerrilla fighting the freaking French. My grandfather was also a guerilla. My father faught the communist but sadly lost. All of them faught wars for freedom. They all could have just given in and there would be no war.

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The Laminator

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I usually hate to use this phrase, but I guess it is necessary in this case. I agree to disagree.

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The Laminator

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This statement would work if the overwhelming majority of people that want to adopt children aren't white.

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The Laminator

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I am writing a paper now, so I don't have time to search for this info. Later.

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The Laminator

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Could you clarify to us why "fetuses" are "unborn babies" instead of a blob of cells?Please note that I am not trying to argue that they aren't. As you can guess from my little debate with gene90 that I do hold the belief that a fetus have rights (a really big giveaway was my analogy with Scott representing the fetus). I just want to understand your position on the matter.Edited: By the way, looks can be deceptive sometimes. You have to use stronger arguments than looks for this. The same thing with genetics. Chimps actually are closer to normal human beings in their genetic makeup than people with trisomy 21.This message has been edited by Lam, 05-06-2004 11:04 PM

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The Laminator

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I think what the frog meant was this.Every person has 23 pairs of chromosomes. That's 46 individual chromosomes. Within a pair of chromosomes, 1 carries an allele for a trait and the other one carries a different allele for that same trait. In most cases, only 1 is expressed and the other remains inert. Now, apply this to every trait that makes you you.I think what the frog meant was that many gametes contain all the chromosomes that happened to be the ones that are expressed in the frog. I am assuming that he was refering to the ones that resulted from the lack of crossing over during meiosis 1.Edited: I think Crashfrog also meant to make the point that, although many sperms contain all the genetic material that make the frog the frog, none of them will become a human. In other words, I think he meant to say that simply comparing genetics isn't good enough.This message has been edited by Lam, 05-07-2004 12:04 AM

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The Laminator

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Okie dokie.

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The Laminator

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