Abortion Laws, Pro Life or Pro Chice?

I'll probably just stay out of this one this time around...done this topic many many times, I have.

Oh, man. That's exactly how I feel

Darth_Deliriousness: I'm not aware of these cut-off points you speak of. To my knowledge abortion in most states is legal until the end of the third trimester.

To the Pro-Choicers (excluding Cailina ): I want you to define human life. You don't have to post your definitions, if you don't want to. Make your definitions as logical as possible--no "after it's born" balony. Really define what makes someone a living human being, protected under the law.
Now, apply that definition to a fetus. Does it fly? Or do you find yourself changing your definition so that it excludes fetuses?
If you do, you need to do some VERY deep soul-searching. Because you're rationalizing murder.

 

That is where the temporary sterilization comes into play. Do it all you want, you won't get pregnant. But when you do want to have a child, go get certified.


For instance, it upsets me when someone will argue for this tiny little prelude, calling it a life, and then that same person will call the exterminator to come and kill an entire family of mice living in their house just because they find the mice to be a nuisance - a minor annoyance!

Funny, I don't remember fetuses carrying around the Black Plague, or rabies. Well, maybe Rabies, but only in Arkansas.

 

StarFire:

Sorry, when I mentioned the point of illegality, I wrote that it was the end of the 1st trimester, when I meant third, as you stated. My thoughts froze up for a second when I wrote it, and I even questioned myself on that in my post. I meant the end of the 3rd trimester, when I spoke of it being illegal.

Maveric:

True, but the Bubonic Plague is not really a huge concern nowadays, especially not in the U.S. People just don't like mice or rats, because they think they're just "icky." But that was also just one example - other animals are constantly considered inferior to that microscopic dot, even though it's the animals that are quite superior, at that point in time, in every way and area. And it's these animals that are killed on just a whim, because some squimish person finds them "Ewwwww, GROSS!" I find it absurd...

 

Definition of life: everything, exluding rocks. I'm not John Muir...

Definition of human life: anyone that can contibute or the potential to contribute, in a positive way to other forms of life.

So by this definition a fetus would be human life so far as it has the potential to contribute. Although one could debate whether a child raised in a bad environment is capable of positive contributions. Thats a bit to Utilitarian for me.

I'm not pro-choice because I support freewill, or because the definition of human life is debateable. I just don't think society is capable of proceeding without the option. Just because its illegal doesn't mean it won't happen. When its legal, it is done safely, with little or no risk to the mother. If its illegal some people would become more desperate and try "less conventional" ways to abort the child, or just leave it in a garbage can. This seems to me a smaller scar on society than abortion, but a much more painfull one for society and the individual. As a man, the best thing I could do, if forced to make a decision is advocate adoption.

Notice that I used the words "seems" and "if". None of this classifies as an official opinion that I support. Like I said above, I just avoid the problem on a personal level.

 

Darth_Deliriousness, thanks. And don't worry, I've made far worse mistakes

JediTre11, it's news to me that the greater population of retards and invalids aren't human.
If I'm human because of my potential to contribute to other forms of life, then toddlers can't be human. They eat ants, and they don't do much for the environment. But if a baby is human, you must submit that a child in the third trimester is a human being too--because they are both essentially the same, albeit one is slightly more developed.

 

StarFire: Let me try again. I would say toddlers are human, because they can grow into more. In fact I would say they are human because they can make the choice to eat ants. My definition of human life, includes ALL humans, including retards and invalids because although they may be playing with a different deck of cards, they still have to potential to contribute in a positive way. I would say a fetus is human because it has 46 (or whatever) chromosomes. Certainly a fetus has potential to contribute in someway sometime in the future.

 

It is really really simple, if you don't want a baby, use birth control. Now if you are raped or a condom breaks you can get a pill to stop the fetus from even starting to grow. There are no more excuses. Aside from that there are adoption agencies. The people who want abortions are irresponsible 16 yearolds who are too afraid to come clean with there parents. Don't say anything about "the government is telling women what to do with their bodies" Waht about the baby that is growing? So waht if it's only three months old, it is growing, it will become a person soon, doesn't that qualify as a human being already? what about that, it's not just telling women what to do with their bodies, it's trying to save a human, what is wrong with putting your baby up for adoption?

 

Something I want to say.......

I hear a lot of pro-choice people saying they have choice over whether or not to keep the fetus, because the fetus is part of the mother's body.

You will not find this in any objective medical book.

While the fetus is totally dependent upon the host organism, it is still a entirely separate organism.

To that I hear pro-choice people saying that since it is totally dependent, then it is still the mother's choice whether or not to allow that fetus to continue to live off her body.

To that I would say, even after the birth and far beyond the child is still totally dependent upon the mother. If she neglects it in any way he/she will die.

I find it interesting, and somewhat sickining, that a baby is a fetus 1 minutes before birth and a child 1 minute after birth. What is the difference? Many pro-choice say that the difference is that the child breaths oxygen after that. What do they think it breathed before? The child still breathed oxygen, but it was delivered through the mother's system.

1 Minute before and the remains would just be biological wastes; 1 minute after and it would be murder in the first degree ( where I live that is defined as the murder of an officer or the murder of a child).

 

You read my mind, SPECTOR. Very good job.

 

No prob SF

I generally try to avoid such threads since they are rarely productive but while we're on the subject....

The "contribute to society" idea is another that I find disturbing. Mostly because in this day and age it's not called that. Now arguements for that start with, " But these poor children will be deformed/crippled/mocked and ridiculed because, for some reason, they are doomed to a substandard lifestyle."

First of all we are human because we were born that way, not because of what we contribute to society. Hitler was a nightmare that tore apart Europe and made the rest of the world go through a living Hell, but he was still human. No one has the right to determine whether someone will contribute to the world in a signifigant way.

As to those who are born poor, I have met many people whose childhoods were terrible, but none of them have ever told me they wished that they had never been born.

And as to those who are born mentally retarded and physically deformed/maimed, there was a huge line of protesters that formed around the Capitol building in Washington D.C. the last time abortion came up. Of all these thousands of people, very few had had an easy life. Most were in wheele chairs or lead by seeing-eye dogs. None of them had signs that said BEWARE, HAVE ABORTIONS LEST YOU END UP WITH A CHILD LIKE ME. Each and every one of them that was interviewed said they had come out to say that they and their lives where worth something. Maybe not to you, maybe not to anyone, but it was worth it to them.


Who determines the standard of life anyway? The government? Getting a welfare check from USA, Britian, Sweden or many other places if you lived in a third world country would be like getting a fortune once or twice a month.

 

I'm under 18, thereforce, I have no voice or free thought of my own. However, for some strange reason, a particular phrase is ringing in my head that sounds something like "Pro choice." That sounds like a possible answer, right? Pro choice it is.

 

At this point in the argument, people generally start doing some actual debating . . .

It's in the manual. You can check for yourself if you want.

 

I have to say that while the concept of abortion, especially for convenince, is abhorrent to me, I also find the idea of the return to illegal back-alley abortionists worse.

Or do you seriously think we can just wave a magic wand and make unwanted pregnancies go away, or have every single one adopted?

I wish I had that kind of optimism, but I certainly don't see that sort of thing happening. Therefore I must conclude that legalized abortion is a necessary evil... just because the alternative is more evil.

What a terrible choice to have to make.

+=o RoboNerd o=+

 

In my private life I am Pro Life, but in my public life I am Pro Choice.

 

In my private life I am Pro Life, but in my public life I am Pro Choice.

Bah, that sounds like you're really being true to yourself. How in heaven's name can you be one thing in public and another in private? ... unless you're a politician or something

 

StarFire..........

As I said the last time, it doesn't matter if the fetus is a living human because legally in the Constitution you don't have any rights until you are born and so it doesn't matter. In the U.S. at least. (The relevant Articles were posted in the last mammouth thread on abortion.)

Abortion is wrong and should never be employed, but it is the individual woman's choice and not ours.

 

Oy.

Oy. Oy. Oy.

Haven't we done this enough?

Excerpt from Amendment XIV, United States Consitution: No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

If you read the entire amendment (even this small excerpt will do), you'll see that a clear distinction is made between 'persons' and 'citizens.' Citizen is a subset of person (ie, a person can be a citizen, but he isn't necessarily).
As you can see, it is clearly stated that no state shall 'deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.'
So the argument returns to whether a fetus is a person.

 

RoboNerd: Or do you seriously think we can just wave a magic wand and make unwanted pregnancies go away, or have every single one adopted?

What we want--what some stupid mothers-to-be will try--is hardly relevant to the child's right to life, which must come first and foremost.

 

Yep, we've done it enough and I have no more will to debate so this will be my last post in here and I shall never return...... to misquote General Douglas MacArthur.

For background info you don't become a citizen till you are born.
"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States"

We can stop right here. You have no rights until you are born and so the next sentence does not apply to the unborn anyway. The line about persons was meant to mean people with temporary visas or such, not the unborn.


And I just want to reiterate that I'm totally against abortion, would never advocate getting one, and such.

 

If you'll peek back at the segment I posted, there is a clear distinction between citizens and persons. Neither shall be denied of their life, liberty, or property, and citizens get further immunities.
The Constitution doesn't address when a person becomes a person, which is why we're having this debate. I maintain that it lies well within the scope of debate because no such definition has been made--and I see no evidence that it was purposefully not.
It's our duty to create a definition that stays true to the spirit and text of the Constitution. To ignore the issue would be grossly negligent.

 

I won't ignore it. I'm just gone. See you guys around.

 

Okay ... take care then.

 

Robonerd: What you won't here about those back alley abortions is that there's still as much risk now in clinics. I not talking about sterilization of the tools, but about internal bleeding and that sort of thing.

Night all

Specs

 

Spector, please excuse my incredulity, but are you seriously suggesting that a coat-hanger abortion is just as safe as a clinical one?

StarFire, the "right to life" is a noble concept. However, as some sort of law, it is unenforceable. How are we to prove someone was pregnant and aborted a fetus? Mandantory pregnancy testing for all women? Check all women's cycles by the government? Furthermore, what kind of "life" are we giving the child? Most abortions are performed, unfortunately, on women whose financial resources are the main reason for their unwillingness to become a parent. Is it justified to force women, and hence their children, to live in abject poverty?

What are we going to do with the fathers in this situation? Are they going to be forced to marry? A single-parent home is generally not the best situation for a new life.

On what grounds do we base where life begins? The beginning of a heartbeat? The beginning of brain activity?

Many of these questions I do not hold the answers to. Certainly nothing more than opinions.

How can I justify a claim that my morals are superior to another's and still retain humility of kindredship? Can I really force someone to abide by my beliefs, just because I feel really strongly about them?

No, I can't. End of discussion.

+=o RoboNerd o=+

 

Concerning when human life begins........





In 1981 (April 23-24) a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee held hearings
on the very question before us here: When does human life begin?
Appearing to speak on behalf of the scientific community was a group
of internationally-known geneticists and biologists who had the same
story to tell, namely, that human life begins at conception - and
they told their story with a profound absence of opposing testimony.

Dr. Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, Harvard medical School, gave
confirming testimony, supported by references from over 20 embryology
and other medical textbooks that human life began at conception.

"Father of Modern Genetics" Dr. Jerome Lejeune told the lawmakers:
"To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new
human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion
... it is plain experimental evidence."

Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman, Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic
added: "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is
present from the moment of conception."

Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor, University
of Tennessee, testified: "The exact moment of the beginning of
personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception."

Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine,
concluded, "I am no more prepared to say that these early stages
represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the
child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty ... is not a
human being."

Dr. Richard V. Jaynes: "To say that the beginning of human life cannot
be determined scientifically is utterly ridiculous."

Dr. Landrum Shettles, sometimes called the "Father of In Vitro
Fertilization" notes, "Conception confers life and makes that life one
of a kind." And on the Supreme Court ruling _Roe v. Wade_, "To deny a
truth [about when life begins] should not be made a basis for
legalizing abortion."

Professor Eugene Diamond: "...either the justices were fed a backwoods
biology or they were pretending ignorance about a scientific certainty."

". . .when life begins - is no longer a question for theological or
philosophical dispute. . .it is an established fact. . .that all life,
including human life, begins at the moment of conception." (Dr. Hymie Gordon,
professor of Medical Genetics, Mayo Clinic; quoted by Public Affairs Council
pamphlet "The Abortion Choice," POB 98292 Tacoma, WA 98498)

"When Hitler determined to exterminate the Jews, some German humanists
objected on the basis of the sanctity of life and of natural justice, Hitler
simply defined the Jews as less than fully human, and his critics were
anesthetized. If the Jews were not human, then they did not have human
rights. What a simple solution to an otherwise perplexing problem! The
arument for rights...becomes capricious and merely a matter of definition of
terms by whoever has the power to make his definition stick...When abortion
opponents object that in doing so they destroy other persons - unborn
children - and deprive them of all their rights, the prochoice party simply
resorts to having the competent power - the Supreme Court - declare that
unborn children are not persons and hence have no rights to interfere with a
woman's freedom of choice." (JW Whitehead, The Second American Revolution,
pp. 118, 1982, David C. Cook Publishing Co)