Abortion Laws, Pro Life or Pro Chice?

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.

I agree and my definition still allows for Hitler to be human. He still had the capability to contibute to society in a positive way. Doesn't mean he did...or would have. Think about it, everyone can contribute. Also Hitler didn't do it alone. He couldn't have done so much damage without pre-existing antisemitism. Hitler was evil, can't argue that. But whats an evil guys without an army? It took a group to tear apart Europe, and it didn't start with Hitler. But I digress.

But these poor children will be deformed/crippled/mocked and ridiculed because, for some reason, they are doomed to a substandard lifestyle.

If you'll read the post responding to Starfire you'll see that I advocate no such arguments from this "day and age". I specifically used the word ALL. And of course we are all born human, no one argues that, certainly not I. the philosophical opening in my definition allows for the dehumanization of ones self. Suicide for example. To reach a point that you not only don't want to contibute, but you want to remove your potential to do so.

Anyone else? I'm willing to reconsider my definition, but twisting or simply not reading my words isn't the way to get me to do so.

 

Robo Nerd

"Or do you seriously think we can just wave a magic wand and make unwanted pregnancies go away, "

LIke I said before there are. If people are just a little bit more responsible all unwanted pregnancies can be prevented. there are so many contraceptives out on the open market. Condoms, Birth control Pills, Diaphragms, etc.(there are probably more) all of this is 98% effective in preventing preganancies or higher. Other than that there is a pill that you can take 72 hours after having unprotected sex to stop the baby from starting to grow. there's your "magic wand" right there. NOw if all of these stupid people would just use anyone of these items no problem, yet people are still supid enough to get pregnant and have abortions. It's all bull, there are no more excuses, other than the fact that our moral standards are that you should wait till marriage we still creat these contraceptives that say "hey, here you can have sex and not be in danger of pregnancy" still people fail to use it, is it just plain stupidity or ignorance? After all of that a law that outlaws abortion does not seem that extreme. C'mon guys, abortion is just a fancy term for "Baby Killing"

 

JediTre11: There is nothing philosophical to the definition of a human. If you gave a genetics expert a sample of your DNA they would identity you as human.

My post about children being doomed to a substandard lifestyle was not aimed specificaly at you. I hear it come up every time abortion is discussed. I hear these on the fence politicians say all the time that they are against abortion except in the case that the child will be born with a mental or physical handicap.

Hitler would most heartily agree with this arguement. Of course, he took it one step further and killed them after they had been born.

Recently an interview with several surviving German officiers was broadcast on the Discovery channel. The Germans told stories of leaving loved ones in hospitals to be taken care of. When they came back halfway through the war their family members were gone. They were told to forget about them because they were not human/sub-human, they were a drain on resources, or the could not contribute to Hitler's vision of the future.

So if you set your definition of whether or not someone is human base on whether or not they can contribute to society, then you must define contribution. Hitler defined it, and that led to mass murder.

 

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

Well actually it's quite simple FlamingSword. I believe God gave everyone free will. I believe in upholding that precedent that God set down for human beings, but at the same time I hold to the higher law that he has prescribed for his followers. So, Pro-Life in private and Pro-Choice in public. Simple and quite logical.

 

NOw if all of these stupid people would just use anyone of these items no problem, yet people are still supid [sic] enough to get pregnant and have abortions.

No, it still doesn't ensure that one will not get pregnant! Abstience (sp) is the only way to ensure that you will NOT get pregnant...And calling them stupid is in my opinion ridiculous. I personally know several families who were stringently taking contraceptives when they got pregant...I even know one mother who got her tubes tied four times (and four children later) had a hysterectomy...so you can't just believe that taking contraceptives is a fool-proof way to not get pregnant, because it isn't.

As for the abortion, I'm not weighing into it, because I don't really know what I believe or which side I support (one of the reasons I have been lurking), but I just had to point out some stuff.

Kit

 

RoboNerd: However, as some sort of law, it is unenforceable. How are we to prove someone was pregnant and aborted a fetus?

People will get abortions illegally. It's a given.
People will commit murder illegally. It's a given.
Yet the latter is not justified, because legalized murder is decidedly not a beneficial aspect of a society. This is part common sense, part belief that no man has the right to unduly extinguish the life of another.
In Western society, human life is held to be sacred from the moment it is born. To kill another man unless sufficiently provoked is heavily frowned upon. No one is foolish enough to guarantee equality of results. And nothing gives one man the right to decide whether another shall live
Many unwanted children wouldn't receive loving homes. But instead of punishing the child, stick it to the mother. A human being's right to life is a very fundamental tenet. If you reject it, you reject the greater philosophy which forms the basis of Western culture.

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

There's no need to ask these questions; the answer is painfully obvious (ask any biologist).

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?

You could argue that murder is just something people can't stand morally. By that right, it shouldn't be illegal.
But again, part of the reason much of the world is as free as it is today is because the right to life is seen as fundamental. The distinction between human and a mass of tissue can not be arbitrary if this philosophy is to carry any real weight (which it must).

 

Wylding: Well actually it's quite simple FlamingSword. I believe God gave everyone free will. I believe in upholding that precedent that God set down for human beings, but at the same time I hold to the higher law that he has prescribed for his followers. So, Pro-Life in private and Pro-Choice in public. Simple and quite logical.

It doesn't appear logical to me, but maybe I'm misunderstanding you. I'm against abortion, but I do respect the law of the land and won't stop the people who want an abortion. I do not have that kind of power nor would I personally want it. People do have free will. Yet if anyone publicaly asks me if I'm for or against abortions I will answer them honestly.

What exactely do you mean with public and private? If a stranger were to come up to you and ask you what you think is right, what would you say?

 

There is a philosophical definition of humanity in the non-physical sense. A geneticist isn't trained to recognize that. So killing someone is always wrong in the physical sense. If they were going to kill themselves anyway, where is the crime against their mental state? The opening in my definition really isn't relevant to issues of abortion.

I've always ignored the problem. It seems to be such a judgement call for both sides. so I choose to address the larger question. Should people have sex if they are not prepared for the inevitable outcome of a child? Fight it from the bottom up.

 

Again, I see the arguments for the Anti-Choice crowd are basically to the effect of "the fertilized embryo is a living human, therefore it should be illegal to terminate it." All evidence to when conciousness begins is irrelevant.

While I agree that this is the correct moral reasoning, I cannot agree that this is the correct legal reasoning. You are basically wanting to make a woman unable to legally control her own body.

Furthermore, how do you propose to enforce the law? Ban abortion clinics? What good will that do?!? It will just drive it all underground again... and those of you who think that is acceptable need to talk to women who were around before Roe vs. Wade about what the situation was in hospitals then, when they treated back-alley abortion patients.

Now, I would definitely support a law that bans abortion after 4 months of pregnancy, because at that point, it is inhuman to do so, and those people who would do so deserve punishment.

However I still cannot justify a total ban on abortion. I think it would be counter-productive. I shudder to think of all the unwanted children that would suffer child abuse at the hands of uneducated poverty-level women and their stud-of-the-week, because the woman didn't have access to terminate the pregnancy.

Birth control doesn't always work, and not everyone can afford the effective kinds anyway. Quote all the statistics you want -- it only takes that one time. Not everyone has access to the morning after pill. Furthermore, many safe, inexpensive, and effective birth control which is avaiable in Europe is not over here. Why?

Now, call these women "stupid" and what you will, but it doesn't change the fact that many women out there don't even get the facts of life before they end up in trouble. Many women are victims of abuse and don't want to bring a child into that situation, and the father would never give up the child for adoption. You want a child coming into that situation? I don't.

There are many reasons that women get abortions -- and unfortunately, yes, many of those reasons are just because someone got themselves into a bad situtation. However, I refuse to condemn an unwanted child into that environment.

I still have to take real issue with you folks that insist that a woman gives up her right to her own body immediately when they become pregnant.

Or, as a really funny line goes:

"Pro-Lifers insist on laboring over a misconception."

+=o RoboNerd o=+

 

Again, I see the arguments for the Anti-Choice crowd are basically to the effect of "the fertilized embryo is a living human, therefore it should be illegal to terminate it." All evidence to when conciousness begins is irrelevant.

Define consciousness. And the anti-choice label is unnecessary and innacurate.

While I agree that this is the correct moral reasoning, I cannot agree that this is the correct legal reasoning. You are basically wanting to make a woman unable to legally control her own body.

A fetus is not a part of a woman's body. She cannot control it's function, voluntarily or involuntarily.

Furthermore, how do you propose to enforce the law? Ban abortion clinics? What good will that do?!? It will just drive it all underground again... and those of you who think that is acceptable need to talk to women who were around before Roe vs. Wade about what the situation was in hospitals then, when they treated back-alley abortion patients.

I'm not going to shed tears over people who commit murder.

However I still cannot justify a total ban on abortion. I think it would be counter-productive. I shudder to think of all the unwanted children that would suffer child abuse at the hands of uneducated poverty-level women and their stud-of-the-week, because the woman didn't have access to terminate the pregnancy.

A compelling argument, but it doesn't diminish the right to life.

However, I refuse to condemn an unwanted child into that environment.

I refuse to condemn a child--period.

EDIT: Please excuse my brevity; I'm not feeling too good for some reason.

 

>>Hitler would most heartily agree with this arguement. Of course, he took it one step further and killed them after they had been born.<<

done for the sake of order.

>>Recently an interview with several surviving German officers was broadcast on the Discovery channel. The Germans told stories of leaving loved ones in hospitals to be taken care of. When they came back halfway through the war their family members were gone. They were told to forget about them because they were not human/sub-human, they were a drain on resources, or they could not contribute to Hitler's vision of the future.<<

his vision of order.

>>So if you set your definition of whether or not someone is human base on whether or not they can contribute to society, then you must define "contribution." Hitler defined it, and that led to mass murder.<<

which is why order is evil. Why should be contribute to society if society inherently wants to destroy us? By contributing to society, we are fueling our own destruction and the destruction of others, and therefore are committing both suicide and murder. By fighting AGAINST society, on the other hand, we are working to uplift every individual, no matter how "mutated" or "malformed" or "mentally handicapped." They deserve to live just because. By defying "society," which is an unjust and artificial mechanism to begin with, we are are supporting both the individual and the concept of "community," which is a natural organization of humanity.

Love, kindness, and care for one another can only exist in the absense of society. Society is what makes people hate and fear each other. Society is a parasite that lives off peoples' animosity toward each other. It lives off of and causes isolation.

 

Dear Kit'

On all contraceptives made today, they are either 98% effective. I agree that abstinence may be the best way to go, but there are other ways to get a full 100% chance of not getting pregnant. I learned in my health class that using a condom, and a diaphragm with proper spermicide(used correctly) will be a 100% effective way to preventing pregnancy. Aside from taht,need I mention it again, if a condom breaks, you can take a pill within 72 hours that will stop the fetus from growing. Besides we are talking about the majority of the public, and the majority of the public are just irresponisle and "stupid" for not using contraceptives. there are only very few reported cases, very very few reported cases that want an abortion althoguh they used contraceptives properly.

 

sultan -- The only thing that is 100% effective is abstinence. Nothing else. The morning after pill is generally used if you have unprotected sex. If the contraceptives you're using fail, you don't know whether you're pregnant in the 3 days afterwards. And I'm pretty sure no woman is going to take a morning after pill after every sexual encounter 'just to make sure'.

On top of that, the morning after pill is generally only 75% effective.

On top of that, these medications cost money. Not everyone has access to diaphragms, or the pill, or an IUD.

 

Sultan of Agrabah: I will agree that many contraceptives are 98% effective (learnt that in health class too ), however, they aren't a 100% effective.

Take my family for example. We have 8 kids in my family (my parents are divorced so there are 3 mums and 2 dads for all of the kids). Only 2 of those kids were born because their parents were trying for a child at the time, every other child was concieved while their mother (and father) were using protection. In one case three types of contraceptives were used and the child was still concieved. That is why I don't totally agree that contraceptives stop everything.

Even though something is 98% effective, you still have to worry about the other two percent don't you? I mean out of the 1000 people that take the pill, 200 of those are going to become pregnant due to no fault of their own.

But we are slightly off topic here, so I'll stop now.

Kit

Edit: Damn, Silmarillion beat me to it!

 

Ummm, how are the "morning after" pills not the same thing as a chemical abortion?

+=o RoboNerd o=+

 

Ummm, how are the "morning after" pills not the same thing as a chemical abortion?

Conception isn't instant, it may not occur for...well I don't really know the maximum but I know its not instant. Thats a long way to swim. Don't you remember?

Would aborting a Zygote (sp?) be considered abortion?

 

I guess this is exactly my point. Until a certain point where it is obvious that conciousness and the "spark of life" has begun, the choice of this matter should be left to the mother.

Speaking of which, where is the father in all of this? Why is nobody bashing the men that stud these unwanted children?

+=o RoboNerd o=+

 

Probably not being told that their girlfriend/wife/lover is pregnant, as it is "a personal thing between a woman and her doctor." To which I must contend that the women did not impregnate herself.

 

RoboNerd, could you define what you believe consciousness is?

Thanks!

 

StarFire, many people will have a different definition of conciousness. It's a matter of belief, not science. By asking my to define it, it seems that you wish to ascertain if I place some sort of boundry line of immorality. I assure you that is not my intention. My intention is to ensure that women who are going to abort pregnancies anyway have a clean, surgical method of doing so and thus not endanger themselves any more than they would have. It is certainly not my intention to condone what they do, because I believe personally that it is wrong.

The Right To Life is a wonderful banner to wave around, but in the end it is self-contradictory. What the "Pro-Life"/"Anti-Freedom" crowd seems to think will happen is abortions will be made illegal, women will be put back in their place of motherhood, and everything becomes just sun-shiny and happy again.

This is fine and dandy -- but we live in a nation, one of the last few on Earth, where health care is something that nearly one-half of the population either doesn't have, or can't really afford the co-payments and deductables on.

People are sitting here and trumpeting the successes of modern birth control without actually reading about it. Some women can't take hormonal birth control; it makes them absolutely crazy by messing with their normal balances. Condoms break, and spermicide can "miss".

The morning after pill is only effective 72 hours afterwards. What good does that do if one thinks they were protected?

"Well they just shouldn't be having sex." Sure. Right. What about young married couples who aren't ready for a baby yet, just scratching out a living on both salaries?

Who are you people to cast the first stone? Who died and left you in charge of women's reproduction?

Have you actually read the Bible? The whole point of Jesus' ministries is about changing yourself and not trying to force the world into your view of what it should be. (Not that most of the churches have ever followed this idea.) It was certainly not going around and telling people who get into situations about how they're murderers because they want to stop a pregnancy (which, by the way, is described in the Bible itself as common).

And speaking of "right to life", you could take this a step further to the Catholics' level and say that birth control is murderous (especially spermicide).

Is it your position then, that it should be illegal to abort? I still await what the answer is as to how anyone intends to enforce the idea.

So here's a new idea for you -- nip the problem in the bud. Personally I believe that the best enforcement is through family and friends, encouragement for alternatives, and maybe even open your wallet a little to help. Closing clinics is only shoving the problem back into a closet.

We don't need to change laws -- we need to change attitudes.

+=o RoboNerd o=+

 

Ho boy, here we go again...

Forgive the ensuing rant...

1. IT IS NOT YOUR BODY. Someone, *please* try to prove to me that a fetus is part of the woman's body before making that argument. The simple fact that the child is contained within your womb does not make it your body. If you could somehow engulf another living human being (swallow them?), would you then have the right to their body?

Let me repeat, IT IS NOT YOUR BODY. It was your body that you chose to use when participating in sexual activity with someone else. The new fetus combined part of your body, and part of your partner's, but it is a completely separate human being.


2. A bad forecast for the child's life is no excuse to end it. Most babies who are thrown into the dumpster after birth are unwanted, but that doesn't make it okay. It shouldn't be used as an excuse before birth, either.



3. I am not telling anyone what to do with their bodies. I am simply telling them what the consequences may be if they choose to behave in an irresponsible manner. Once a pregnancy results, you're past the point where you had a choice. Our legal system should protect a fetus the same way it protects a newborn.


4. Abortion should be illegal simply because it is murder. I understand that there will still be women trying to get abortions even if it is illegal, but that cannot be used as an excuse for legalized murder. In what other situation would you argue for laws that make it easier for a murderer to escape with his or her life? Should we outlaw self-defense to make sure that no one accidentally gets killed in the process of committing murder?


5. Birth control and education on its use are the best way to prevent unwanted pregnancies. It is far better for a woman to prevent a pregnancy than to have to experience all of the physical side-effects of a pregnancy followed by the painful procedure of an abortion. If you care about women, teach them to care for themselves *before* they get to the point where they need to think about abortion.


Now then, if you take issue with any of my statements, I can certainly understand. However, if you do, *please* try to make this a debate. I'd like to argue these points without resorting to name-calling, labelling, or emotional outbursts.


(Whew. Sorry 'bout that. Carry on.)

 

I believe that abortion should be legal because if a woman does not want the unborn child she should have the right to an abortion.

 

I believe that abortion should be legal because if a woman does not want the unborn child she should have the right to an abortion.

But then, shouldn't she also have the right to kill a child after it's born? I'm not talking about a 2 or 3 year old. Obviously, that's too old. But, if she just put the baby in the trash immediately after it was born, or suffocated it or something, shouldn't that be legal? If she didn't want it, I mean?

Abortion is the same as killing any other child. It's just a little earlier in the child's development and easier to hide.

 

Perhaps someone can explain this to me:

Why is abortion a right?

I have no right to take the life of a random person. I don't even have a right to take the life of my own child. Why would I have a right to an abortion?

 

It is a "right" in the sense it is protected by the law. It's sematics