Abortion?

I think both of you greatly misunderstood @Surfing Poet's point....

He was responding to someone who claimed that they never choose the easy way out if it would lead to someone losing their life. SP is just pointing out that that's probably not true, because we all make choices everyday out of convenience that lead to the destruction of the earth, and eventually killing people.

His last comment of "why even bother saving a life when it's too inconvenient," from my perspective, was clearly sarcasm to highlight the other persons hypocrisy.

I still think it's kind of a completely false equivalency, though. I would echo what MLMVSS said on that.

 

I forgot about that one! That's a really great documentary. I would recommend it as well.

 

But a foetus, up until late pregnancy, will never become a baby. Outside the womb, I mean.

 

Can you send or link some of this literature? Sounds like it would be useful reading.

 

It strikes me a weird that the scientific community would have agreed on this, yet most scientists I know are pro-choice. I don't think they mean they'e pro baby murder.

 

All due respect, that doesn't say that 'life" begins. It simply defines a point in time of the existence of something physical.

 

I’ve already provided references in my post.

 

If you're seriously still trying to equate cum with a fetus, I'm not going to entertain that debate. It's idiotic. You know as well as I do that they are not the same. Your gut knows that. That argument is ridiculous.

 

Slightly harsh tone?

I wasn't at all trying to make that equivalence. I agree it's ridiculous. And also gets us into a brilliantly ridiculous line of reasoning that not having sex is murder. Ah, maybe I could live with that.

I was just noting that if the test is, "Will make a baby on its own", then that makes it difficult to argue against early-term abortion, no?

Of course, that's a stupid test. Nobody here is arguing that we should be allowed kill a baby after birth (I hope), but that baby would absolutely die without care. So independent survival would seem to be a nonsensical test to apply, yet one that you do see trotted out on the pro-choice side.

Ah, it's so tough, isn't it? I mean it's such a personal conviction. Which would seem to be an argument for 'keeping Government out of it', I.E. legalizing abortion. But the personal conviction on pro-life side is that it's equivalent to murder, which should absolutely be illegal. I suspect my personal conviction is that things like the morning after pill be legal, and that abortion becomes much more available in instances of medical risk to the mother (it is legal in this sense in Ireland, but the burden of proof is requirement is heavily set against termination. there was a famous case in Ireland a few years ago, where a woman died if sepsis because the doctor (s) was unwilling to terminate for fear, presumably, of being charged with malpractice.) But that abortion for economic or lifestyle reasons should probably be illegal. I don't know whether it should be considered a full human life in early-term, but if there's doubt I guess the stance that guarantees no murder is the way to go.

Bit of a rant. What a horrible yet important subject. Bah, who started this stupid thread anyway?

 

I am fiercely pro life but am very libertarian which causes some interesting problems. Some of them include the state's involvement in these decisions. If I feel the state can restrict abortion in all cases which is my moral position, I have conceded a huge expantion of government and law enforcement. Tactically how would you even treat abortion as murder from a legal perspective? Would you investigate miscarriages for potential wrong doing? Would you be required by law to register pregnancies and be forced to have specific check ups to ensure the pregnancy was on track? Could you be held at fault for complications if you chose to deliver as a free birth? How does one actually grant full legal rights to an unborn child even if I agree it deserves them? In the end I think responsible restrictions by the community of doctors, an educated and informed population and changing hearts and minds through free speech and prayer are the only real way to reduce abortion. The perfect is the enemy of the good, murder has been illegal and immoral forever but it still happens. However, we could encourage communities to see human life as valuable and pocessing dignity and not as burden to society or to women.

 

Which is my point and why I didn't entertain the hypothetical question...

And no, it doesn't make it difficult to argue against early term abortion at all. Someone who is sick and needs doctors help, or a machine to live, or is born with some medical disorder that means they need a machine to help them breath for the rest of their life, or someone who was in an accident or something and now needs a pacemaker... all of those people are people who cannot survive on their own. Should we be allowed to kill them? Of course not. They're still human beings. Simple as that. It's not a difficult question at all.

Exactly. I'm confused... You just said that the fact that the baby can't survive on its own early on makes it difficult to argue against abortion, but then you said this, which seems to be directly contradicting what you said before. Were you just presenting that other statement to play Devil's advocate or something? I thought you were saying that because that's what you actually think, so that was confusing for a minute.

No, it's not. It's a human life and shouldn't be legally able to be killed out of convenience. It's a very simple issue. I think people make this issue far more complicated than it needs to be, because they want to hold onto their "right" to have an abortion and they don't want to feel guilty about it. So they make it this convoluted grey area, and its just not. Scientifically, it's just not a grey area. At the moment of conception, the bundle of cells that is beginning to form another human life already has its own set of human DNA, separate from its mother. There's nothing grey about that. It's its own thing, and it is the beginning of a human life. It's how every single one of us began, and any of us who are alive now can look back on our lives and see that if our mother had gotten an abortion, even in those early stages, it would have robbed us of life. All of the experiences we've had never would have happened. She would be taking our life away, and that is murder, whether it looks gruesome and bloody or clean and simple, whether it touches our emotions because it looks like a baby, or whether it feels like a regular clinical procedure because it just looks like a blob of cells, it doesn't matter. It's a life that is already beginning to form, and to end it is murder.

The definition of murder is "the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another." The only thing that would make that description inaccurate is the word "unlawful," because unfortunately abortion is currently legal. But change that law, and all of a sudden, it fits perfectly.

Definitely. I don't believe I've ever met a pro-choice person who believes someone shouldn't be able to have an abortion if they're literally going to die. That would be pointless. The baby likely wouldn't survive the mother dying anyway, so we would just be letting two people die. It's a very unfortunate situation that the baby would have to die, but that's a different scenario than your average typical abortion.

Well good, I'm glad you agree on that. By the way, that would make you pro-life (not that labels really matter). Because the whole issue of women who needs an abortion because they're literally dying has never been a part of what the pro-life stance is against, as far as my knowledge. As far as I know, that's always been legal in America, and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be.

 

Those are some good questions. I think an obvious important first is to stop allowing abortions to be legally performed in medical clinics. That would greatly reduce them, of course, because you couldn't get them anywhere safely. Unfortunately the world is so incredibly hard headed about this issue that if we did make it illegal, I have no doubt that some women or doctors would probably perform illegal abortions out of their homes or something, because they genuinely feel that they're doing what's "right" by protecting the women's "right" to an abortion. Which just makes me sick.

Honestly, I'm not sure if I ever see abortion laws being changed. Or even if the law is changed, there will still be tons of people who fight like hell to get their "rights" back. I'm not sure if the nation, or the world, is ever going to be less divided on this issue, which is incredibly unfortunate.

It really does remind me so much of the issue of slavery. It's such a similar concept, or deciding which human lives have rights and which don't. And that took a war to change, and there are still people who are against the change even today. I think abortion will be an even more difficult thing to change, because it's too easy for people to be ruled by their feelings and not care about a human life being ended if it doesn't look like a cute little baby. Which is funny, because I feel like that's an argument the pro-choice movement often makes about pro-lifers... That we are ruled by our emotions and we always portray the fetus as a cute little baby. But obviously life is not determined by what something looks like or how we feel about it. It's still a life beginning, even early on, whether it looks like the kind of baby we imagine or not. But still, that's hard for people to understand, so I think it will be really really difficult to make that change.

 

You know what I don't believe you. I don't think you'd actually care if I did and why should you anyway? I'd say 80% or 90% of members on this forum wouldn't care if I or someone else killed themselves. Sure you might say you do but that's just you being polite. Some people might be sad for one day if they heard I killed myself but then they get on with their lives and forget. Deep down we only care about our own. The more I think about, the more ridiculous being pro-life is since deep down we don't care about everyone.