posted
As much as I detest the practice of abortion, I really don't feel good about the government deciding what constitutes medical risk for the mother.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I was going to post on this topic, but decided I really don't want to get into an argument about this. The rest of you, feel free, but I'll be over there. *points*
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I'm pro choice but this is a really stupid argument.
quote: "Making abortion illegal never has and never will stop women from having abortions," Looby said, urging the committee to reject the bill.
By the same logic we should let murder, theft and every other crime just be legal since people still do them.
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posted
Well, South Dakota is really struggling to retain their population...so maybe this is in that vein, and not in a "Let's repeal Roe V. Wade" kind of way...
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posted
I think they would be better off waiting some more time before charging into another Constitutional test that is likely going to go against them considering the USSC's current members.
Edit: Oops, didn't read the article, the bill only matters if Roe v. Wade is overturned first.
posted
"...no provisions for abortions in cases where a woman's health is at risk..."
I dislike the whole idea. As I've said before, just because I'm pro-choice doesn't mean I love abortion. But I think this is simply going about the problem the wrong way. I don't see how prosecuting a scared young woman is solving the problem.
By the same logic we should let murder, theft and every other crime just be legal since people still do them.
The only difference is that abortion is not wrong and can be made very safe with medical help. Humans have been doing abortions since ancient days and if the government makes it illegal doesn't mean people will stop having aportions...it only means those abortions will be dangerous and unclean. I like what "Cider House Rules" has to say on the subject.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:The only difference is that abortion is not wrong
If it's not wrong, then the "it won't stop it anyway" justification isn't relevant. If it is wrong, then the murder/rape/etc. response is pretty telling.
The difference is that when we tried to stop women from getting legal abortions, many more of them died from botched, unsafe, home-done abortion attempts.
That is all I'm going to say.
*leaves for real this time*
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
That's one of my concerns as well, kq. Also, it makes me extremely uncomfortable that no provision is made for the mother's health - only her life.
quote: Correct, but let’s recap: Pro abortionists claim that in 1972, the year before the Supreme Court legalized abortion, there were 1,000,000 illegal abortions and 5,000 to 10,000 women died.
Actually only 39 women died — less than one per state per year.
But they can’t have it both ways.
- Either there were not many illegal abortions
or
- Illegal abortions were all extremely safe.
Since we assume that all illegal abortions were not extremely safe, it seems obvious that THERE WERE NOT MANY ILLEGAL ABORTIONS One other comparison is relevant here. The pro-abortion claim was 1,000,000 illegal abortions in 1972. But with abortions legal without restriction in all states, the total reported for all of 1973 was about 750,000. This climbed to 1,500,000 by 1979 and plateaued there.
posted
That logic can still be applied to the murder/rape/assualt argument because if we legalized those things we could regulate rape to make sure that the perpetrator didn't have to use violence thereby causing harm to the victim or himself. Or we could legalize murder and then the murders could be committed in an uncruel and usual way.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:The difference is that when we tried to stop women from getting legal abortions, many more of them died from botched, unsafe, home-done abortion attempts.
Oh, man, I hate this argument. It's basically terrorism, in a sense. "If you don't write the laws the way we want, then a bunch of us will voluntarily go and kill ourselves!"
If people need support to get through an unwanted pregnancy, they should receive it. If we need to reduce the stigma on unwed pregnancies to lessen some of these desperate feelings, then we should. Those are both causes worth pursuing. But the fact that people will risk serious personal harm to perform a (debatably) immoral and hurtful act does not mean we should legalize that act to prevent the personal harm.
At some point, personal responsibility must come into this. If someone chooses to undergo a back-alley abortion — which is an entirely elective surgical procedure — then at least to some degree, we must recognize that they chose to do so. They were not forced to by the law. They chose that solution because they personally didn't like the alternatives.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
nfl, the answer to that would be that the rape and murder would be harmful in and of themselves, whereas those of us who believe abortion should be legal, do not believe it to be harmful.
In answer to the statistics (admittedly without having read the link...I'm supposed to be doing my homework), I would like to add that I would imagine not all bad things that came from illegal abortions were deaths. Sterilization and other injury, both permanent and otherwise, probably also arose with some frequency; again, admittedly, I have nothing to back this up, since I'm doing my homework (really, I am!), and wasn't actually alive pre Roe v. Wade.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Thanks for the link, Farmgirl, I was wondering about those statistics. It's interesting how many people accept the thousands-dying-from-illegal-abortions argument without question. (I myself did so for years) I will say, though, that I know a few nurses, all aged over 50, who say they'd hate to see abortion made illegal again because they have memories of women with sepsis from bad abortions being dumped at the ER door... There is no question such deaths did happen.
Posts: 239 | Registered: May 2004
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posted
Grrr...I should be doing homework, but this is so much more interesting than colonial history!
Puppy, those are some good points. I'm definately giving them thought.
I wonder if enough women receive support with an unwanted pregnancy. (this is thinking out loud) The majority of groups I've seen that offer services are religious-based, which I'd imagine will turn some women off. Of course, that could just be my area of the country.
posted
I don't know whether abortion, in the ethical sense, is right or wrong. But frankly it really isn't one the government ought to be legislating. Its one that each person needs to determine for themselves whether or not they think it is ethical and then make the choice.
In a more practical view, I really doubt the current system of adoptions and taking care of orphans can handle much more than it already is. And there are enough kids out there in screwed up families and being screwed up by their families as well. Not to mention the fact that some time soon we're gonna need to start thinking about some population control methods, becuase the Earth can only support so many human beings before giving way. All of these factors sort of point to keeping abortion legal for the time being simply as a practical matter if nothing else. Becuase the current social system couldn't really handle the influx of unwanted children that would be created by making it illegal.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote: nfl, the answer to that would be that the rape and murder would be harmful in and of themselves, whereas those of us who believe abortion should be legal, do not believe it to be harmful.
Dag already covered that. If abortion truly isn't harmful than the argument isn't relevant anyways, abortion should simply be made, be kept legal. The argument is only brought up to imply that more harm will be created than is destroyed by banning abortion.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:I don't know whether abortion, in the ethical sense, is right or wrong. But frankly it really isn't one the government ought to be legislating. Its one that each person needs to determine for themselves whether or not they think it is ethical and then make the choice.
This presupposes that unborn fetuses are not deserving of government protection, which has not been established to many people's satisfaction.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I know there are other justifications used by abortion legalization opponents, but I have a hard time seeing anything other than a fetal-rights justification supporting banning abortion. And under a fetal-rights justification, even 5% reduction in abortions due to illegalization would result in fewer deaths, even accepting the worst of the abortion-related death statistics.
quote:This presupposes that unborn fetuses are not deserving of government protection, which has not been established to many people's satisfaction.
Heh, government protection up until it leaves the womb, and then when its a real, living baby they leave it to fend for itself with whatever family, often a single teenage mother, it happens to have. In the ethical issue sense its one that has to be decided by each mother, becuase only the mother can judge the practical issues connected with that birth and what the birth would mean to both the childs life and to her own.
I know a monk who trained to be a counselor for that. He said what the women go through showed him the pain and suffering for all involved, especially those women who believe they've been cast out of their church.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Well, ok, so the government protects an infant from intentional death at the hands of people. But honestly, by denying people abortions you essentially force unwanted children on many mothers who won't have a clue what to do with them. And the government offers those mothers little or no aid. Thats what I meant by government protection ending at the exitting of the womb.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:But honestly, by denying people abortions you essentially force unwanted children on many mothers who won't have a clue what to do with them.
By denying mothers the right to kill their infants you essentially force unwanted children on many mothers who won't have a clue what to do with them.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: By denying mothers the right to kill their infants you essentially force unwanted children on many mothers who won't have a clue what to do with them.
Is destroying a fetus in the early stages of pregnancy really that different from wearing a condom or using the morning after pill? Or heck, is it really even very different from jacking off or a woman's period? The only difference is that the genetic combination has already been made and the cells have started to divide. They haven't even begun to differentiate. Its not a human being yet. Its a mass of undifferentiated cells with a certain combination of human DNA.
The arguements that an abortion is "destroying a genetic combination" don't make a whole lot of sense. Everytime a guy has a wet dream, thats a hundred million possible halves of genetic combos that have been destroyed. Heck, every time you have sex, the result is one actual genetic combination and several HUNDRED MILLION destroyed. Everytime a woman has her period, thats a possible half a genetic combination destroyed. Frankly nature doesn't hold a lot of respect for particular genetic combos or possible genetic combos.
At the point when abortions are done, the fetus is little more than a mass of cells, with human DNA, leeching off its mother. It hasn't developed a brain yet. It hasn't developed a human conscious yet. It isn't a defined human being yet. It has the possibility of becoming a human being. But so does a sperm cell or an egg cell, and those are destroyed wholesale daily.
Now don't get me wrong. I can see how you might feel that its destroying a human life from the point of conception, I might even agree with you. But my point is where the line is drawn, can and is being heavily debated. And no one can say for sure where the fetus becomes human rather than the possibility of a human. With so much uncertainty I cannot in good conscious support the government in removing the choice to have an abortion from the mother when there is so much uncertainty. It must be left up to the individual doctors and mothers where to draw the line. We must leave the decision in the hands of individuals and trust them to, with the right information decide where the point is for them. For you the point may be at conception. For a teenage mother, it might be a few weeks afterwards. For someone else even further. The situation, and thus where that line might be drawn, is different for each person and thus each person must be aloud the choice. Trust in the individuals to make good choices. Those people will have to live with their decisions for the rest of their lives and have it on their conciouses.
Unless of course, you offer to raise and love all those unwanted children who would be born, possibly killing their mothers or ruining their lives. Becuase chances are they aren't gonna get very good care or much love otherwise.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I think the problem with the above-mentioned arguement that AntiCool quoted is that most of the time, when a pregnancy is discovered and confirmed, it's progressed past the "undifferentiated cells" point.
space opera
edit: by 4 weeks the fetus/baby/cell cluster has a primitive heart that has begun to pump
[ February 17, 2005, 09:49 PM: Message edited by: Space Opera ]
Posts: 2578 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
I need to stop editing. To actually conclude my point, 4 weeks is actually early to discover a pregnancy if you're not trying to conceive. There can be several reasons for a woman's period being late, and many might not even test till they're 6 weeks or further along.
So while I'm pro-choice, I can't support a viewpoint that sees an abortion as no different from using a condom. It *is* different.
quote:But my point is where the line is drawn, can and is being heavily debated. And no one can say for sure where the fetus becomes human rather than the possibility of a human. With so much uncertainty I cannot in good conscious support the government in removing the choice to have an abortion from the mother when there is so much uncertainty.
With so much uncertainty I cannot in good conscious support the governmenting in removing the protection of the law from the fetus when there is so much uncertainty.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I think the argument of women having unsafe abortions is just as weak as the “never will stop women from having abortions” argument. Along the same legal themes “as every other crime just be legal since people still do them” should we make murder and thief safer so the criminal doesn’t get hurt? We have enough help with adoption options and other routes today that no pregnant woman should feel that she doesn’t have any other choice. This will probably offend a lot of people and I apologize. But to me abortion is murder. A baby isn’t a choice. It’s a life. I’m anxious for the protection that the unborn deserve to be made into law. Yes, I understand there needs to be exceptions for the life of the mother. And we should be careful with cases of rape and insect early on. But those are still innocent babes and killing them doesn’t help correct the crime. I really do understand when people say it should be up to the mother. But in most cases, didn’t she have the choice on the night of the fun? Why should an innocent baby suffer?
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: I think the problem with the above-mentioned arguement that AntiCool quoted is that most of the time, when a pregnancy is discovered and confirmed, it's progressed past the "undifferentiated cells" point.
space opera
edit: by 4 weeks the fetus/baby/cell cluster has a primitive heart that has begun to pump
Its not the heart, but the head that matters. A mouse has a pumping heart (well and a working brain for that matter), but few people cringe much at killing them when they invade out homes.
quote:I need to stop editing. To actually conclude my point, 4 weeks is actually early to discover a pregnancy if you're not trying to conceive. There can be several reasons for a woman's period being late, and many might not even test till they're 6 weeks or further along.
So while I'm pro-choice, I can't support a viewpoint that sees an abortion as no different from using a condom. It *is* different.
space opera
Italics added. Ok I didn't know that. But it doesn't change the argument. We don't know when consciousness starts. And that is when we can say for sure, that the person is a human. And that is when their environment starts to shape them beyond just their genes the possibilities of humans into one actual human. Consciousness may not even start when the brain forms, it may take a while.
I don't believe that an abortion is no different from using a condom. It is different. I was making a point that the there is a great deal of grey area in the journey from conception to human being and a lot of the arguments used for human being at conception don't make sense in view of birth control... and nature itself really. Personally I might agree with those who agree in human being at conception. But I'm not sure. And there are enough very inteligent people who aren't sure that I don't think the government should remove it till its known.
Dag, when you decide to be your normal inteligent logical self and actually talk to me instead of just throwing my slightly editted words back at me, I will listen to you. Stop trolling. You're better than that.
Also people seem to be ignoring the question: what do you do with all those kids once they are born? You gonna pay to support them? You gonna leave them to their mothers mercy after they've been born? You gonna leave em to their own devices?
quote: I really do understand when people say it should be up to the mother. But in most cases, didn’t she have the choice on the night of the fun? Why should an innocent baby suffer?
The kids gonna suffer in a lot of cases, born or not. The question you should be asking is are you gonna make both the mother and the child suffer? Or just one? Unless of course, you have a good program to can ensure that the unwanted child will be taken care of and put in a home where it will be loved and cared for...
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Dag, when you decide to be your normal inteligent logical self and actually talk to me instead of just throwing my slightly editted words back at me, I will listen to you. Stop trolling. You're better than that.
I'm not trolling. I'm demonstrating that every single argument you make can be flipped easily around. If it's not trolling for you to say it originally, it's not trolling for me to say it in response. These are things I actually believe, and it's both interesting and illuminating that the arguments on both sides are so similar.
What it suggests to me is that clearly the important questions are "When does human life/personhood/whatever begin?" and "On which side do we err in the face of uncertainty about that question?"
quote: At some point, personal responsibility must come into this. If someone chooses to undergo a back-alley abortion — which is an entirely elective surgical procedure — then at least to some degree, we must recognize that they chose to do so. They were not forced to by the law. They chose that solution because they personally didn't like the alternatives.
Geoff, I guess to me there is a *huge* difference between a back-alley abortion and any other elective surgical procedure.
(And please no-one be smart and reply with yeah, only one involves murder or something along that line).
I think the notion of choice is really mitigated by factors. In some cases I do believe it is a choice - and sometimes one that is made selfishly.
However this is not so in all cases. Perhaps if there was more support (both mental and financial) for pregnant women, we could sensibly talk of a choice. But currently how much of a *real* choice does a rape victim have? A pregnant 12 year old? a 16 year old whose parents have threatened to kill her if she bears the baby? Someone living on the streets?
The list goes on. I can understand those people who view abortion as immoral. But please don't characterise it as a simple, elective choice. It's not.
posted
I remember when Dags an I were having a politicians and abortion and something became clear to me. Even though I didn't realize it, I approach abortion not really thinking of the fetus as a living being. My stance used to be personally strongly against abortion but I didn't think that it was correct for the government ot force people not to get them, although I supported efforts public and private to persuade people not to have abortions.
In the discussion we were having, Dags was talking about the obligation of Catholics to oppose abortion and I was thinking that it was really about the mother and saying that the mother shouldn't do something bad. But, as we went on, I realized that that wasn't Dags primary concern and that I really should have understood this from the start. His primary focus was on the human being he saw as being murdered. I had thought that I conceived the issue from that perspective, but I really didn't. I kept on talking about thinking that the woman was doing something bad and that being what people wanted to prevent.
I just tohught I'd inject that here becuase I thought it might be useful. I'm a bit more ambivilent about the whole legality of abortion now and it did help me to understand one of the sides better.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Jay, how bout an unbaised website with scientists from both sides?
Also, anything with a brain has brain waves. Its the conciousness that matters.
And as to the question: what are ya gonna do with them once they're born? Lets look at the big picture here. If someone can come up with a good system to ensure unwanted children would be taken care of, then I'd support illegalizing abortion with all my heart. But no such thing exists, and the kids that are aborted would not lead good lives if they weren't aborted. Neither would their mothers. If you can ensure that the kids would have a chance at being happy, and their moms would have as much chance at recovering their life after carrying and giving birth as they would after aborting then I'm all for the laws.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Jay, that same site probably has a spot in it that shows a photo of it's soul too...or it would if that would make people think twice.
I am not trying to piss you off, or pick on you, but that site is about as objective as PETA's site is about mink coats.
I see that the government has a lot to say about what is acceptable and what is not, but I don't think that they have the medical knowledge to determine what is best for the mother in cases where her life may be in danger.
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Oops, didn't read the article, the bill only matters if Roe v. Wade is overturned first.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
