A friend pointed out this article to me recently. Without giving my opinion on the matter (which would probably be incoherent at best right now), what do the rest of you think?
For those of you who are pro-choice, is this encouraging?
For those of you who are pro-life, is this surprising?
For either side - does this article give us enough info to be balanced and fair?
An aside: Does anyone know what kind of stats they keep for abortions? Do they track the difference between abortions for immediate health reasons vs. lifestyle reasons? (Or some other indicator of the reason an abortion was sought?)
Posted by Allegra (Member # 6773) on :
I only have an answer to your question to pro-choice people. It is in no way encouraging. I do not like abortions. I think there are some situations where they are a reasonable option and I think it should always be a womans choice to carry a child to term. I actually find it very sad. I wish that more women would make more of an effort to prevent unwanted pregnancys instead of terminating them.
Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
quote:For those of you who are pro-choice, is this encouraging?
No. I find it disgusting.
I am pro-choice because I believe that the back-alley, coat hanger jobs will be done if the law makes doctor administered abortions illegal.
This statistic breaks my heart and almost makes me believe that if a woman thought her own life may be at risk by having an abortion, she may think twice about having unprotected sex.
I don't think that there is such thing as a win when it comes to legislating life in a free will society.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Keeping in mind that the real statistic (when comparing apples to apples, instead of to oranges) is 40 out of 100, I am horrified.
And so very saddened. Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
I find it ironic that the ads at the bottom of this thread are:
"Birth Mother Options" and "Considering Abortion?"
Posted by BGgurl (Member # 8541) on :
I find that statistic not only vile, but also frightening because it shows just how careless people can be today.
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
I actually see "Christian T's up 50 percent off"
My favorite one is "Satan is a Nerd."
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
quote: Keeping in mind that the real statistic (when comparing apples to apples, instead of to oranges) is 40 out of 100
*nitpick* The statistic 74 for every 100 is equivalent to 74/174 which equals 42.5 %. So the difference when comparing apples to apples is only a 2.5% difference.
Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
Maybe the ads cycle. Now I see:
"Unplanned Pregnancy" and "Birth Mother Options"
T-
If you get the "Satan is a Nerd" shirt, you can get the "Hades Doesn't Know Diddly About Dungeons and Dragons" for free. Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
I see abortions as fine, as long as they are done before the half-way mark of the pregnancy, best if the first trimester. I see the fetus in the beginning as potential Human life, not a baby...but getting past the first or second trimester the fetus becomes too much like a baby and having an abortion becomes more and more morally uncertain.
I am also totally for women's right to choose. Birth control was and is one of the foundations of women's rights. The fact that they can choose not to be laid up with children if they don't want to be gave and gives them political freedom... to get jobs or do other things besides mothering. Because you ain't gonna stop the sex drive. People are going to have sex no matter what you do. Just look at the African AIDS crisis.
And abortion is also good for the children. Because if you are poor/destitute or are an unfit parent, it is criminal to raise a child that will be abused or will suffer unduely. To think about the big picture we already have six billion people on the planet. How long can the Earth's reasourses hold out against our population explosion? New York city is the US's most densly packed city. How many people can fit on that island? Anyway, the article states that the numbers are inflated because New York is a liberal city so there is a huge exodus from the outside coming in to get abortions safely and without harassment.
Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
quote:Birth control was and is one of the foundations of women's rights.
Ugh. My whole being rejects the idea that abortion should be looked at as merely another form of birth control.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Because you ain't gonna stop the sex drive. People are going to have sex no matter what you do.
This is not a universal fact.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
I believe abortion should be legal, although it is not an option I would choose myself except in some very specific, never-going-to-happen circumstances. But I find it horrifying and saddening when it becomes, as these statistics seem to show it being, a form of birth control.
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
I think it's scary that we could have half again more children if there was no abortion. Naturally I wish that people would practice safer sex, and I wish abortion didn't have to be an option. Hopefully in the future as birth control becomes more prevalent and more effective, we won't have to have it.
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
quote: Because if you are poor/destitute or are an unfit parent, it is criminal to raise a child that will be abused or will suffer unduely.
I would be very curious to see statistics on the socio-economic statuses of people who get abortions. I've heard your argument frequently but from my purely anecdotal experiences it seems that the poor tend to have children whether they want them or not. The upper and middle classes are less likely to do this. I think if you're well off, you're more likely to want to maintain your current lifestyle and get an abortion than if you're poor and having babies that you'll struggle to feed is part of the norm.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
I agree that abortion should not be done as birth control, it should be a last resort. People should use contraceptives or the morning after pill...although some would say that the morning after pill is a form of abortion...but since it prevents pregnancy or terminates the egg so early on I hardly consider it abortion.
Posted by Mean Old Frisco (Member # 6666) on :
The inability for such a large portion of our society to take responsibility for their own actions makes me want to vomit.
And that's before I think about the bloody carcass being vaccuumed out of a vagina.
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
Nope, I was wrong . Economically disadvantaged women do have higher rates of abortion.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
It's the lack of responsibility in choosing actions to begin with that really saddens me here.
Birth control isn't 100% foolproof. As I can attest. But when the numbers are so high, I have to feel that many people who should be using it, aren't.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Not that I don't trust a news service to report something accurately, but here's the study, and the summation by the article appears to be accurate.
Those numbers just seem weird to me. I am curious why they are so high.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
quote:Originally posted by Amanecer:
quote: Keeping in mind that the real statistic (when comparing apples to apples, instead of to oranges) is 40 out of 100
*nitpick* The statistic 74 for every 100 is equivalent to 74/174 which equals 42.5 %. So the difference when comparing apples to apples is only a 2.5% difference.
*nitpick*
Actually, no. You're forgetting something.
74 abortions per 100 births does not mean that there were only 174 pregnancies. Many pregnancies end in something that is neither an abortion nor a birth, such as a miscarriage (look up the statistics for how often miscarriage occurs, and you might be surprised).
You cannot extrapolate the actual percentage of aborted pregnancies from this data.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
quote:I am pro-choice because I believe that the back-alley, coat hanger jobs will be done if the law makes doctor administered abortions illegal.
I can understand and sympathize with some pro-choice folks' reasons for their opinion (though I disagree).
However, this is the one justification that just drives me crazy.
Making something legal entirely because a segment of the population threatens to willingly harm themselves if we don't do what they want ... it just strikes me as very similar to giving in to a terrorist's demands.
And what if we were to definitively discover that, statistically, pedophiles would rarely or never resort to murdering children if their sexual proclivities were made legal? Would that mean that child molestation should be decriminalized? And afterwards, would you say, "You can't stop people from molesting children if they really want to do it, and isn't this SO much better than all the kidnap-murders we'd be having if it weren't legal?" And you'd come up with some shocking statistics about all the unreported kidnap-murders that were covered up back before the legalization of man-boy love ... and you see where I'm going with this.
Either it's wrong and harmful to an individual protected by society, and it should be illegal, or it's NOT wrong, and legally, it should be just fine. This whole, "It's wrong, but at least with the laws the way they are, people aren't resorting to doing WORSE things" just does not fly with me.
It also just strikes me as patronizing. Like we're protecting people from themselves. We predict that people might willingly make a harmful choice unless we give them what they want, and so we GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT? Would you respect that kind of attitude if it came from a parent? "Well, she said she'd hold her breath until she turned blue if I didn't buy her a new Barbie, so I just HAD to do it ..."
What happened to telling people, "This is right, and this is wrong," then expecting them to adhere to it? If we frame our laws around the assumption that human beings cannot be expected — or even asked — to obey the law, and rather are more like an implacable force that cannot be ruled or instructed, but must be gingerly appeased like an angry god, then aren't we just encouraging our society to dip further and further into lawlessness?
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:The new Vital Statistics report released by the city Department of Health this month shows there were 124,100 live births, 11,700 spontaneous abortions and 91,700 induced abortions in the city in 2004.
Total conceptions = 227,500 Induced abortions = 40.3% (91,700/227,500)
So, with uber-nitpickery, we're basically back to Rivka's original 40 out of 100. Whoo.
Edit - In retrospect, I'm not sure why I bothered to do this.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:Making something legal entirely because a segment of the population threatens to willingly harm themselves if we don't do what they want ... it just strikes me as very similar to giving in to a terrorist's demands.
I understand how you feel about this one. But try this. Instead of looking at it like some kind of auto-terrorism, imagine it as though you're helping out, say, a scared, desperate, fourteen-year-old who beleives (and possibly rightly) that her parents will disown her for getting pregnant. She doesn't want to have an abortion, much less one involving a coat hager, but as she sees it, this is all that's left to her. It's one of the things legalized abortion is trying to prevent: to protect people, so they aren't driven to such lengths of desperation.
That said, yes people abuse the privelege far too often. You'd think simple economics would work it out for them; a condom is less expensive (on many levels) than an abortion. But people continue to amaze.
I heard a politician say something, in a rare and all-too-brief flare of intelligence, that sums up my feelings on the matter.
Abortions should be safe, legal, and rare.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
Are miscarriages what they mean by unplanned abortions? If 40% of babies are dying because someone wanted them to, and another 34% are just dying, it seems a little odd that we spend so much time on the abortions.
Wouldn't it make more sense for us as a nation to spend more time preventing miscarriages? That's a lot of dead babies someone intended to keep.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose: Abortions should be safe, legal, and rare.
Yes. Thankfully, the rate of abortions in the US has been on a general trend down for the last decade or so. (For national abortion data, the best we have available is the CDC's annual reports through the MMWR Surveillance Summaries on abortion.)
Of course it isn't surprising that the ratio of childbirth to voluntary abortion is somewhat artificially elevated in the country's largest city. [As is mentioned in the article, it is becoming more difficult to get an abortion in certain geographic regions, so I'm not surprised that we see high rates in a city such as NYC. Also, many people living in the city proper are young urban professionals, more likely with decreasing rates of childbirth than with increasing abortion rates -- the scale can be tipped by either losing some from one side or gaining on the other.] That is, I'm glad that I don't this is indicative of a larger trend of increasing numbers of abortions.
If it is, I am definitely saddened and concerned.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: Are miscarriages what they mean by unplanned abortions? If 40% of babies are dying because someone wanted them to, and another 34% are just dying, it seems a little odd that we spend so much time on the abortions.
Wouldn't it make more sense for us as a nation to spend more time preventing miscarriages? That's a lot of dead babies someone intended to keep.
Yes. "Spontaneous abortion" is the medical term for "miscarriage." And I agree with you about this issue being of similar weight and concern as voluntary abortions. When I think of lost life, I think of so much grieving for spontaneous abortions, too.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Re: 40%...I don't know if you can trust that figure for number of spontaneous abortions. It may only be the ones that resulted in a trip to the doctor. I've heard estimates several orders of magnitude higher.
As for comparing apples to apples, abortion statistics are routinely reported both ways: - # abortions: # live births - # abortions/total(# abortions + # live births)
You just have to be careful which set of numbers you are using at any given point. Clearly, 74:100 encourages us mentally to think, Whoa! 74%!!! But as we've seen, the actual percentage or ratio is much lower.
According to the article, NYC has a 40% rate of abortions to total pregnancies, whereas the national average is 24%. They claim NYC is still the highest per-preganancy abortion locale in the US.
I suspect that if you looked only at large urbanized areas, NYC wouldn't look all that different from the rest of the country.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
(^^^*should have just waited for Bob )
Yeah. What he said.
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
I honestly never have understoof why pro-choice people would be bothered by a high rate of elective abortion.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Maybe you aren't understanding all the possible reasons for being pro-choice?
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irregardless: I honestly never have understoof why pro-choice people would be bothered by a high rate of elective abortion.
I am bothered by a high rate of elective abortion for many reasons, including (but not limited to, and not in rank-order) the following: it increases divisiveness in an already polarized society, it puts women at greater risk of harm than adequate birth control methods would have (although still less risk of harm than carrying to term), and I suspect it reflects one outcome of a long string of what I would consider bad decisions.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Re: 40%...I don't know if you can trust that figure for number of spontaneous abortions. It may only be the ones that resulted in a trip to the doctor. I've heard estimates several orders of magnitude higher.
How can 40% be wrong by several orders of magnitude?
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
(Was responding to Irregardless.)
If people are using birth control properly, and it's availabe, and they're being educated about its use, it would seem to me that there shouldn't be a high rate of abortions because most people should really only be getting pregnant when they want to. At least, that's a big reason why I think the 40% ratio is weird, if not regrettable.
However, I thought that NYC was pretty proactive with sex ed and making birth control available? So, again, why the large number? The suggestion that it's because of out-of-staters coming into NYC simply isn't borne out by the study. As was mentioned in the article, they represent less than 2%.
I also don't buy the idea that a lot of women are using abortion as birth control over other methods. Abortion isn't some day at the park. Other methods are easier on the woman both mentally and physically.
Posted by Zan (Member # 4888) on :
quote:I honestly never have understoof why pro-choice people would be bothered by a high rate of elective abortion.
I've come to realize that the vast majority of those who are pro-choice don't like abortion and would prefer it not to happen.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:How can 40% be wrong by several orders of magnitude?
There are so many spontaneous abortions, they even outnumber the number of conceptions. *grin
Actually, I bet Bob was speaking of orders of magnitude in terms of actual numbers, not just percentage rates. That is, more like 400,000 total than 40,000 total (to pull a figure out of a hat, for illustrative purposes only).
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Yeah, that phrasing is a bit odd. I was using "re:40%..." to let people know I was talking about the numbers side of this discussion, not the "do you like abortions" side of the discussion.
Then, I went on to say that I didn't trust the figure given for spontaneous abortions, which is not 40%, but 11,700. I've heard numbers of spontaneous abortions that are in the ballpark of the number of live births (i.e., nearly 1/2 of fertilizations end without actual implantation or pregnancy). I don't have time to look that up now, but I think there's a specific definition of "spontaneous abortion" that should be presented along with whatever number people are reporting.
Sorry for the confusion.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:And abortion is also good for the children. Because if you are poor/destitute or are an unfit parent, it is criminal to raise a child that will be abused or will suffer unduely.
As someone who was born to poor, unfit parents, and who was abused as a child in more than one way, I reject your implication that I would have been better off aborted. I happen to kinda like the life I have now.
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
Well, I can imagine a true anarchist personally opposing abortion but being unwilling to have a government in order to stop it. But among the 99.9% of people who'd agree that government has a legitimate purpose in forcibly protecting human rights, there should really be only two polar positions. Either elective abortion is the premeditated murder of innocent children, or it's simply a medical procedure involving the removal of some superfluous tissue. If the former, it's utterly vile and ought to be banned. If the latter, it's morally no different from a haircut and all this hand-wringing over its prevalence makes no sense.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Wouldn't it make more sense for us as a nation to spend more time preventing miscarriages?
If someone were to demonstrate that it is not possible to make abortions illegal while also funding research into miscarriage I might consider this argument. As it is, the two are not mutually exclusive. Sure, one can make the argument that diverting resources from abortion prevention to miscarriage would save more lives. Beyond the empirical proof difficulty - after all, this might not be true - there is a consistency issue. Few people who make that argument, on either side of the political divide, really mean it. Otherwise we'd spend nothing on museums, theaters, or internet forums until we had managed to solve every single problem worse than inadequate cultural outlet and lack of bandwidth.
quote:That's a lot of dead babies someone intended to keep.
So should we do away with suicide prevention hotlines and depression screening until traffic accidents are down to zero?
Further, the availability of legal abortion may possibly make many people mentally minimize the level of harm caused by a miscarriage by devaluing the life of unborn children. For a large segment of the population (pretty much not including the mothers), the harm being mourned is that of the mothers' loss and, at most, the "potential" for human life.
Finally, unless one is strictly results-oriented in ones morality, it is possible to consider an abortion a greater moral evil than a miscarriage, even though the loss of human life is the same.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: However, I thought that NYC was pretty proactive with sex ed and making birth control available? So, again, why the large number? The suggestion that it's because of out-of-staters coming into NYC simply isn't borne out by the study. As was mentioned in the article, they represent less than 2%.
I also don't buy the idea that a lot of women are using abortion as birth control over other methods. Abortion isn't some day at the park. Other methods are easier on the woman both mentally and physically.
That's one of the reasons I suspect that the ratio may be just as affected by decreased childbirth-in-city rates as increased voluntary-abortion-in-city rates. (It's a ratio, so of course the balance can be affected by an increase or decrease in either side.)
I'm thinking it's likely that if you want to have a child and have the option of doing it elsewhere than in an overcrowded, serving-all-who-come-to-the-door inner city hospital, you will. I bet the birthing centers and such are out in the suburbs.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
You don't have to like abortions in order to want to keep them legal.
I don't like abortions, but neither do I think there should be a law to tell women they can't have them.
So why is it a contradiction to be pro-choice and be bothered by abortion rates?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Thanks for the clarification, Bob and CT. That makes sense.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:So why is it a contradiction to be pro-choice and be bothered by abortion rates?
I think the confusion is over why abortion bothers someone.
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
Xavier, why do you "dislike" abortions?
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irregardless: .... there should really be only two polar positions. Either elective abortion is the premeditated murder of innocent children, or it's simply a medical procedure involving the removal of some superfluous tissue. If the former, it's utterly vile and ought to be banned. If the latter, it's morally no different from a haircut and all this hand-wringing over its prevalence makes no sense.
I see larger ramifications and implications of this rate for society as a whole.
I mean, one may not think that any other reason than loss of potential life should trump, but surely we can agree that this number (abortion rate) can be a proxy measure of other things that can be wrong? And surely we can agree that abortion doesn't just affect those immediately involved, no?
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
quote: That's one of the reasons I suspect that the ratio may be just as affected by decreased childbirth in-city-rates as increased voluntary-abortion-in-city rates. (It's a ratio, so of course the balance can be affected by an increase or decrease in either side.)
I'm thinking it's likely that if you want to have a child and have the option of doing it elsewhere than in an overcrowded, servng-all-who-come-to-the-door inner city hospital. I bet the birthing centers and such are out in the suburbs.
Ah, this clears things up. I was confuzzled as to your statement in your last post about this. For some reason, it just wouldn't parse for me.
So, you're saying more people elect to go out of city for births, but elect to stay for abortions? Sounds possible. I wouldn't be suprised if there was a follow-up study, or article, on the heels of this one that examines this percentage more in-depth.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
(BTW, just for clarity's sake -- and Dagonee and I have puzzled around with this together before, so I'm pretty sure he understands where I'm coming from -- I don't think we should stop trying to prevent abortions until we've solved the problem of miscarriages. I'm at a stage where I'm just trying to get my head around the different sorts of emotions and inductive conclusions that result from each of them.
That is, I'm still struggling to figure out why and how we (in general) feel and act the way we do about each. This likely reflects more my own confused mind than trouble anywhere else. I say that sincerely.)
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: Ah, this clears things up. I was confuzzled as to your statement in your last post about this. For some reason, it just wouldn't parse for me.
Probably because I wrote it. *grin
quote:So, you're saying more people elect to go out of city for births, but elect to stay for abortions? Sounds possible. I wouldn't be suprised if there was a follow-up study, or article, on the heels of this one that examines this percentage more in-depth. [/qb]
I'm just saying that it's a possible interpretation. I'm sure someone else will run it up the evidential flagpole and see if the numbers salute.
(Betcha that butchered analogy made you even confuzzleder. )
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
quote: Either elective abortion is the premeditated murder of innocent children, or it's simply a medical procedure involving the removal of some superfluous tissue.
I think that this is only a true statement if you believe in the human soul.
Without that belief, there's middle ground between those two positions.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:BTW, just for clarity's sake -- and Dagonee and I have puzzled around with this together before, so I'm pretty sure he understands where I'm coming from
Another aspect is something Avid Reader said: "That's a lot of dead babies someone intended to keep." This gets to the heart of the matter, from a different direction. The fact that the baby was never intended to be kept before it died is adds to the wrong being done.
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: I see larger ramifications and implications of this rate for society as a whole.
I mean, one may not think that any other reason than loss of potential life should trump, but surely we can agree that this number (abortion rate) can be a proxy measure of other things that can be wrong? And surely we can agree that abortion doesn't just affect those immediately involved, no?
Well, that *might* be so, but I could just as easily imagine someone arguing that abortion is also an indicator of good things -- e.g., fewer abused/unwanted children, less welfare burden, more economic productivity from women not tied down by motherhood, etc. But really what I had in mind was pro-choicers being bothered by the morality of abortion itself, rather than merely using it as a measure of perceived societal ills.
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: I think that this is only a true statement if you believe in the human soul.
Without that belief, there's middle ground between those two positions.
I don't see that the soul even comes into play here, unless it's your contention that government is instituted only to protect beings with souls (a mighty high burden of proof, IMO).
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
And, of course, the other side of the story, is the way teen moms - or just single moms of any age - are often treated.
quote:But really what I had in mind was pro-choicers being bothered by the morality of abortion itself, rather than merely using it as a measure of perceived societal ills.
What you are missing is that pro-choice is not pro-abortion.
I think that abortion is wrong. But there are times when it may be the lesser of two evils, and in those times I think it should be the couple (or the woman if there is no "couple") who make the decision, in consultation with their doctors, family, and religious community if applicable. And because the decision is likely to be an agonized one, I don't think there should be legal hurdles to go through once it's been made.
I'm upset by high rates of abortion, because they suggest, to me at least, that many are not the result of a considered choice to pursue the lesser of two evils in an extreme situation, and many would likely have been preventable by a little forethought and/or a little more knowledge about birth control. Which makes me question whether I still wish to identify as "pro-choice." So far I do . . . although I do not allow the term, at least as it applies to me, to be defined by the opposing side as "wants women to have abortions" or even "anybody should be able to get an abortion at any time for any reason."
[ January 18, 2006, 09:57 AM: Message edited by: dkw ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irregardless:
quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: I see larger ramifications and implications of this rate for society as a whole.
I mean, one may not think that any other reason than loss of potential life should trump, but surely we can agree that this number (abortion rate) can be a proxy measure of other things that can be wrong? And surely we can agree that abortion doesn't just affect those immediately involved, no?
Well, that *might* be so, but I could just as easily imagine someone arguing that abortion is also an indicator of good things -- e.g., fewer abused/unwanted children, less welfare burden, more economic productivity from women not tied down by motherhood, etc. But really what I had in mind was pro-choicers being bothered by the morality of abortion itself, rather than merely using it as a measure of perceived societal ills.
Ah. I was perhaps being hyperliteral when I responded to this:
quote:Originally posted by Irregardless: I honestly never have understoof why pro-choice people would be bothered by a high rate of elective abortion.
That is, I was answering the (implied, I guess) question of why a high rate bothered me. In part, it bothers me because of what I take it to indicate in toto.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
And, just for the record, Dagonee has indeed helped clear a whisp or two of the fog of confusion through his writings on the subject.
I'm getting there, but this is going to be a long process for me, I think. I'm sure I'll make sense of it for myself eventually.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
The more I think about it, the more "That's a lot of dead babies someone intended to keep" bothers me.
My principle premise underlying my beliefs on abortion is that the "worth" of a human being is inherent and depends not at all on other people's wants, desires, needs, or perceptions of that person's value. A particular person may be more or less important (I had a hard time picking the word) to another particular person - a person will care more about the suffering of a family member than a stranger, but the true worth is measured from a perspective external to all of us.
That doesn't mean that all preference for family or friends is wrong - I believe we can incur higher moral duties based on relationship. But this is an elevation of our duty of care, not the inherent worth of the person owed the duty.
I think a lot of the world's ills come from failure to acknowledge this as well as failure to live up to it once we've acknowledged it.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
I can't believe they had the nerve to include spontaneous abortions in with induced abortions. Spontaneous abortions are basically miscarriages.
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: I think that abortion is wrong. But there are times when it may be the lesser of two evils,
OK, we are getting to the heart of the matter here. I can only think of one meaningful reason for abortion to be regarded as 'wrong' -- that it is the killing of an innocent child. If you think it's wrong for some *other* reason, I'd love to hear it.
But if that IS the reason, then I cannot imagine what alternative would make infanticide the lesser of two evils. What is worse than child murder?
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: I believe abortion should be legal, although it is not an option I would choose myself except in some very specific, never-going-to-happen circumstances. But I find it horrifying and saddening when it becomes, as these statistics seem to show it being, a form of birth control.
I might have said the exat same thing, so I'm just going to quote kq and call it good. Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I can't believe they had the nerve to include spontaneous abortions in with induced abortions. Spontaneous abortions are basically miscarriages.
They didn't, at least not in the 74 abortions for every 100 births figure.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote: I can only think of one meaningful reason for abortion to be regarded as 'wrong'
Well then maybe you need to think a little harder. I'm not particularly interested in going any further in this discussion with someone who is only capable of seeing one reason for anything.
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
So you are unwilling to articulate any other reason?
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
I'm not sure what you're getting at, Irregardless. That is, although I respect your freedom to pursue any line of thought on this forum (within TOS, of course), I don't really have a good sense of why you are pursuing this particular one.
I seem to be picking up some hostile or aggressive vibe, but that could just be me. [Maybe you are just intense? Or maybe I'm having a paranoid day, which definitely happens.]
So, what's the point of this conversation, for you? (Again, you're welcome to just about any point you want , but I think dkw and I could be aided by a clarification of where you see this going, ideally. Thanks!)
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
I don't like abortion. Pretty outspoken on the fact, but I don't tend to argue with people - this is one of those topics that people believe that they believe, and no amount of factoids or logic will sway themselves from their position (myself included).
I have no respect for the "the child is better off (dead)" arguement.
Where I do tend to get really upset is when abortion is used as a form of birth control. But self-control isn't something easily taught, and some kids today (including some of my relation) believes it's perfectly ok to have vigorous unprotected sex with many men, because hey, STD's only happen to other people, and if I get pregnant, well, that can be taken care of. I guess that's one of my main complaints about abortion (aside from the spiritual complaint) - it's people not taking responsibility for their actions, in many cases (But not all, I know, I know)
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Irregardless, there are lots of people who think premarital sex is wrong, or birth control is wrong, or kicking a puppy is wrong.
None of these involve killing an innocent child.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
*Daghead
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
I don't think premarital sex is wrong, it's just good sense (to not do it). And even Catholics use the "timing" method of birth control (or so I've heard).
Kicking a puppy is wrong.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Some reasons that the question of abortion might not be as black and white as Irregardless seems to think:
While a fertilized egg has the potential to become a human being, when that happens is a matter of some controversy.
An embryo is both a potential human being and a parasite, depending on the host for life.
A woman's health could be seriously endangered or lost by bring a pregnancy to term.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Because I'm thinking that maybe (and this is just a hypothesis) Irregardless is trying to express that he find the idea of abortion to be personally and morally repugnant, and that he can't imagine why someone else would not. That is, I'm guessing that he is expressing some pretty heartfelt emotions along with a confusion about how someone could not react the same way.
If that's true, Irregardless, then I want you to know I hear you. I do get that this is somehing you feel quite strongly about.
(I suspect I feel less strongly about it than you, but I'm pretty sure I'm in a more confused state than you. Witness my posts at the top of the page, for instance.)
---------
Edited to add: I'm not sure about the "asking other people questions" part of it, though. Do you want a list of answers, or do you want more to underscore the conclusion you've already drawn, or what? (Honest question -- not a trap. I think dkw and I -- and others -- may be able to help with the former, but the best we can do in the latter case to help you would just be to acknowledge your position and respect your right to express it. Anything else would just muddy the sitation abominably, I'm afraid.)
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
To me it comes down to which wrong acts should be criminalized. While not the only indicator, direct physical harm to another human is usually dispositive that something should be made criminal.
Although "direct" is fairly fuzzy, I doubt anyone would dispute that it does "direct" harm to the fetus. This leaves two main area of arguments for opposing banning abortion: either 1.) the fetus is not another human being yet or 2.) some circumstance exists that places this situation outside the usual criminalization of direct harm to another.
Those who favor choice one don't always think abortion should be legal up until birth - they may decide to cut it off at the point the fetus is definitely or most likely human.
Many, or most people, favor choice 2 at least sometimes. Most people who oppose legalized abortion want a danger to the life of the mother exception. Many want a danger to the physical health of the mother exception. Some want a danger to the mental health of the mother exception and some want a rape/incest or disabled child exception.
If one wishes to honestly convince others - and it is possible to do so - then it's very important to comprehend the many ways someone can arrive at the belief that "this set of abortions should be legal." And many of them include recognition that abortion is wrong in some way.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
[note: deleted block-quoting of self because I am ashamed of my inability to understand the difference between the "edit" and the "quote" buttons. ]
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:So, what's the point of this conversation, for you?
It is not my intent to be either aggressive or obtuse; it just seems to me that there is rampant inconsistency on this issue (not on this forum, especially, but everywhere). There are any number of politicians, for example, who are soundly pro-choice with respect to public policy but also say things like they "personally oppose" abortion, that it's "wrong," "tragic" or "sad" and that it needs to be "rare."
However, I have never heard any of these people attempt to explain why abortion is so "wrong."
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Telperion,
quote:And abortion is also good for the children. Because if you are poor/destitute or are an unfit parent, it is criminal to raise a child that will be abused or will suffer unduely.
While I certainly don't disagree that it's criminal to raise a child in an environment of abusiveness and suffering, I fail to see how terminating that child is better.
Well, actually my mind can grasp that idea-the idea that at some point, to die or even never to have lived is better than a life, if that life is filled with pain and misery. I don't believe in that idea, but I can understand it.
What troubles me is the enormous hubris implicit in making such a decision. If an abortion is based on the avoidance of suffering argument, then you are making one of two arguments. One, never existing is better than a life like that. Or two, if the person had lived they would thank you. Who are you-or who is any human being-to snuff out a life based on such flimsy supposition? Particularly when we can point to any one of the millions upon millions of people in the world who are suffering but would still prefer to live?
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irregardless:
quote:So, what's the point of this conversation, for you?
It is not my intent to be either aggressive or obtuse; it just seems to me that there is rampant inconsistency on this issue (not on this forum, especially, but everywhere). There are any number of politicians, for example, who are soundly pro-choice with respect to public policy but also say things like they "personally oppose" abortion, that it's "wrong," "tragic" or "sad" and that it needs to be "rare."
However, I have never heard any of these people attempt to explain why abortion is so "wrong."
Okay. So, bear with me here. (picture a confuzzled crone, more-than-slightly hard-of-hearing, with an earnest and intent -- if somewhat turtlish -- expression, peering over at you)
Are you wanting to tell us you see this inconsistency and that it troubles you? That is, what sort of response would be helpful to you? [i.e., do you want a list of reasons, or an acknowledgment of your passion, or a list of hypothetical guesses about what reasons someone else might have?]
What would be appropriate for someone trying to engage in thoughtful discourse with you to say?
[What would a "good" or "useful" response to you look like, for you?]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I believe he's asked for reasons why someone would consider abortion to be wrong that don't involve the death of an innocent child.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Thanks, Dagonee.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: I believe he's asked for reasons why someone would consider abortion to be wrong that don't involve the death of an innocent child.
So, a useful response would be to list some reasons why someone else might hold a different position?
[I'm obtuse, but not intentionally so. I'm just trying to figure out if supplying such a list will make this conversation more helpful or less. I've got my paranoia itch on today, and I'm pretty sure I'll be messing up on something before 12 noon. ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I think so.
Edit: And I think the confusion is on "wrong," not "tragic" or "sad." Your response earlier about it being an indicator covers "tragic" and "sad" very well.
Edit of the edit: I'd be interested in hearing them if no one else is.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
(see edit as above)
Okay. Cool. I'll run with that, unless Irregardless lets us know that he would like something different.
Sometimes it seems that the more productive discussions I've engaged in on sensitive topics (at least, when clarity and understanding are the primary goals of all involved) have started with lists of hypothetical reasons. That is, what are all the sorts of reasons (good and bad) that one can come up with for someone to hold a given position?
I think making it hypothetical (rather than framing it in terms of a given persons "defending" his or her own views) can make it easier.
I'll go looking for you, Irregardless [and Dagonee. I have to do some paid work now, but I'll keep this simmering on my back burner for later today.]
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: I believe he's asked for reasons why someone would consider abortion to be wrong that don't involve the death of an innocent child.
Exactly correct. For example, it is conceivable that someone could call abortion "wrong" simply because their religion tells them so (this is similar to some things Senator Kerry said in the last Presidential election). But even in that case, there is usually some underlying rationale involving perceived harm to a child, etc., rather than alleging the existence of some arbitrary "thou shalt not abort" edict from God.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I'll say something that will almost certainly upset some people, but personally I believe that a lot of the "I'm pro-choice but I don't like abortion" comes from a deep-seated uncertainty about what actually happens in an abortion.
I'm not talking about the biological mechanics of the operation, of course. I'm talking about issues of life, death, humanity, and murder. I rarely meet anyone whose faith in an idea is so certain that when faced with such issues, doubts-even niggling, tiny doubts-are felt.
I believe that someone who is pro-choice worries, deep down, that just maybe the out-and-out criminalize-abortion pro-lifers are right. "Maybe it is infanticide. Maybe that is a human child we're destroying. I mean we don't really know what if anything a fetus is thinking or feeling, do we?"
And then the mind moves back, thinking to the string of decisions that brings one to the clinic, and realizing that, awfully, if they (it takes two) had just been more cautious, this dreadful decision would never have come up at all. (Not everyone who has an abortion does so because of stupid decisions, I realize. But lots do.)
I think people can be pro-choice while disliking abortion for a variety of reasons. After all, the kinds of choices that end up in abortions are usually bad or flawed.
Unprotected sex, either with a partner you love and want to raise a family with or with a partner you love but don't want a family with, or a partner you lust after or just like, or protected sex used improperly, and sometimes-rarely, I believe-protected sex with a partner you love and wish to raise a family with, but the properly-executed protected sex failed to protect by no fault of your own.
All of these acts except the last one are either undesireable or at least questionable. But as to why think those things are undesireable? Well...honestly a bunch of that is tied up with-for most of us-the string of decisions that ends up with, "Do we get an abortion or not?"
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Irregardless, there are lots of people who think premarital sex is wrong, or birth control is wrong, or kicking a puppy is wrong.
None of these involve killing an innocent child.
You just brought up the proper deabte. Is the fetus a child? Is it just another part of the female body until birth? Must there be brain activity? Individual heart beat?
What I would like to see are large amounts of funding by those that want to outlaw abortion that would go to women willing to wait and give it up for adoption.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:this is similar to some things Senator Kerry said in the last Presidential election
Except that Kerry said he accepted the Catholic teaching on abortion, and the Catholic teaching on abortion isn't "abortion is wrong." It's that an person is fully human person from the moment of conception and that abortion is the taking of an innocent life.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irregardless: But even in that case, there is usually some underlying rationale involving perceived harm to a child, etc., rather than alleging the existence of some arbitrary "thou shalt not abort" edict from God.
Do you think so? Because a lot of the discussions I've had with my religious friends seem to rely on the understanding that edicts from God don't have to make sense, and sometimes that is the point. (e.g., not mixing wool and linen fibers for the clothing of those who are Jewish, and certain LDS practices that I can't quite remember right now)
I'm not sure I think this wouldn't fit on the list of reasons.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:I can't believe they had the nerve to include spontaneous abortions in with induced abortions. Spontaneous abortions are basically miscarriages.
They didn't, at least not in the 74 abortions for every 100 births figure.
I stand corrected, double checked my math.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I'm not sure I think this wouldn't fit on the list of reasons.
The Catholic teaching on abortion wouldn't fit there (see above).
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:I'm not sure I think this wouldn't fit on the list of reasons.
The Catholic teaching on abortion wouldn't fit there (see above).
Yeah. But I'm thinking that this could be a tenable reason to hold. That is, it wouldn't be beyond the pale for someone to sincerely hold that it is wrong for no other reason (or rather, no other needed reason) than that God has said so -- either in scripture, or direct revelation, or whatever.
[ January 18, 2006, 11:57 AM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
(Of course, whether and how many people have this particular primary reason is another question. But I'm taking it that our goal here is to come up with a list of plausible, tenable reasons. That's why I asked, initially.)
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: Do you think so? Because a lot of the discussions I've had with my religious friends seem to rely on the understanding that edicts from God don't have to make sense, and sometimes that is the point. (e.g., not mixing wool and linen fibers for the clothing of those who are Jewish, and certain LDS practices that I can't quite remember right now)
Oh, I'd agree that this is true of many religious tenets (i.e., God says so, and if I don't understand why, that's tough) -- but not so much on abortion. It seems to me that even most religious opponents of abortion want it criminalized for exactly the same reason that they want, say, killing ten-year-olds illegal. Not because God specifically said "don't kill ten-year-olds" but because it's an application of where He is believed to have said more generally "don't murder people."
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Then this might well be a partial answer to the confusion for you. Perhaps some people have a different reason [regarding God] than what you attribute to them? (Almost certainly not all of them, of course, but we can well imagine that all of us are likely to fail somewhat in trying to guess correctly at other people's reasons for their beliefs.)
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
And a lot of religious opponents of abortion (by which I mean people who are opposed to abortion for religious reasons)are also opposed to birth control (which would prevent the need for many abortions) and are pro-death penalty. So how does that makes sense?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Because they think birth control is wrong and the death penalty isn't?
If ones opposition to abortion is that it is the taking of an innocent life, there's nothing incompatible with deciding that it's ok for the state, after due process and a finding of guilt, execute people who take others' lives.
After all, most death penalty opponents are in favor of murder laws.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
People are pretty complicated, and the reasons we give for what we believe usually are pretty complex, too.
I more than half-wonder if we often come to conclusions first and then make sense of why afterwards. I guess that's another possible reason to put on the list: maybe some people haven't worked through why they believe what they believe yet (rather like Rakeesh said, actually)?
That is, perhaps some of the people Irregardless finds confusing just haven't pieced through the logic yet, and so maybe they either don't have a reason (per se) or are unaware of the logical contradictions that follow from holding certain beliefs in tandem.
[That definitely seems like a potential candidate for the list, to me.]
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I'll say something that will almost certainly upset some people, but personally I believe that a lot of the "I'm pro-choice but I don't like abortion" comes from a deep-seated uncertainty about what actually happens in an abortion.
No. Not at all. I think a woman should have the ability to choose whether or not to go through with her pregnancy. I think that in a lot of instances, such as teenage mothers and rape victims, abortion is probably the preferable choice. However, I do not think that people should take the availability of abortion as a license to have unprotected sex with no thought of birth control beyond, "Oh, I can just get an abortion."
-pH
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Dagonee,
And I think that for some people, not all by any means, it is about wanting to punish people for having sex.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
km, I was responding to the "so how does that make sense" portion. I agree, there are some people with that motivation.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I certainly don't either, pH. I'm not sure where you got that idea from my post, unless that was more of a general statement.
But why do you think abortion shouldn't be viewed as birth control? People can cite medical health reasons for that opposition, but I think it's a rare person who would view that as the only reason.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
I think pH is saying that it shouldn't be used as casual birth control, as a replacement for condoms, etc. Hence:
quote: I do not think that people should take the availability of abortion as a license to have unprotected sex with no thought of birth control beyond, "Oh, I can just get an abortion."
My impression is that she's suggesting it as a last resort, rather than a primary method.
If I'm misinterpreting you, pH, let me know. I'm only speaking now because your last post really resonated with me.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
No, that is EXACTLY what I meant, Megan.
-pH
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I certainly don't either, pH. I'm not sure where you got that idea from my post, unless that was more of a general statement.
But why do you think abortion shouldn't be viewed as birth control? People can cite medical health reasons for that opposition, but I think it's a rare person who would view that as the only reason.
Not speaking for pH, here, but one other tenable reason is a respect (? don't know what the most accurate word would be, and this one seems to come with certain assumptions, but it's the best I can do) for life. That is, one does not have to place all life on equal footing in order to mourn or regret the snuffing out of a spark.
For example, in Buddhism (I believe) it is common to address in a mantra the suffering of all living creatures. So -- and again for religious reasons, perhaps -- one can acknowledge that loss of a life of any sort might be something to hope to avoid. We can't always avoid it, of course -- even vegetarian Buddhists survive in part through the deaths of countless micro-organisms -- but the valuation can still be assigned.
I'm a little afraid that this is likely to be responded to with the argument that "but Buddhists aren't trying to kill anything, but those who have abortions are." If I can respond pre-emptively ( ), I'm not trying to claim that Buddhists are pro-abortion or that the fetus is somehow morally equivalent to digestive bacteria. I just mean that it appears tenable to value life even if that value isn't the same as what one would have for a fully realized human life.
We see something similar in our expected treatment of human remains. When I dissected a body, I knew it was just arranngements of protein and water and various other chemicals (strands of muscle we cut aside to reveal nerves, pieces of bone we chiseled off to trace out the gray matter, etc.) -- and it did not have religious significance for me, not as it was then.
However (and this is a big however), I felt very strongly about not treating these pieces of flesh as mere toys to joke around with. Actually, my classmates felt the same -- there was none of the usual joking around with parts of bodies that you'd see in, say, dissection of a frog. I think (think) there was an awareness that to treat this material irreverently would be to do a disservice to those who had treasured (and perhaps still did) it, both those who knew the person of the body intimately and those who cared about human remains in general.
So, every little fragment, even the tiniest gobbet of fat, was set aside to be incinerated. It was the rule, but we enforced this ethic on ourselves. (And, at that time, infectious disease control wasn't the focus of concern it is today.)
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote: km, I was responding to the "so how does that make sense" portion. I agree, there are some people with that motivation.
Yeah, I didn't express myself very well there. To try to make it clearer:
There are people who, while claiming (and perhaps believing) it is all about the sanctity of life, have no problem with executing minors, or the mentally handicapped, or those who have shown every indication that they have repented, reformed, and are trying to put their lives to some use. Often these people are the same people who refuse to allow sex education or access to birth control that could help to prevent unwanted pregnancies. In the areas where it is most diffucult to get abortions, it is also the most difficult to get pre-natal care. Mississippi, a state where getting an abortion is very difficult also has the highest infant mortality rate in the country. (Thankfully, they are starting to address that.)
These things lead me to the conculsion that some of the folks that want to make abortion illegal are doing it because they want to punish people for having sex or to control what women do with their bodies. This is part of the reason that, while I don't believe I would ever have an abortion myself (I would say never, but I am superstitious) I would oppose making it illegal.
A bigger part of the reason is that, like with the death penalty, I don't think the government is wise enough to make those decisions.
[ January 18, 2006, 01:27 PM: Message edited by: kmbboots ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
[written while knboots was posting, so not really in reference to her thoughtful post right above this]
So, to summarize, I think I'd add to the list the following two candidates:
1) Some persons might see the loss of life -- any life -- as something to be mourned or regretted. That wrongness might not trump the wrongness expected to result in other circumstances, such as (perhaps) in the context of legislation totally outlawing abortion. This seems to be a tenable position to me, although I don't necessarily hold it myself.
2) Similarly, perhaps some people have beliefs about human tissue being (?sacred? sancrosanct?), regardless of whether it is alive or not. This, too could affect one's reasoning regarding medical procedures involving human tissue. Again, I don't necessarily hold this position myself, but I can understand it as a possible reason to have.
[ January 18, 2006, 01:26 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
And on a different tack entirely, I wonder if "trump" isn't a useful consideration to bring into play as we puzzle through this? That is, one can hold that each of two options (A and B) are "wrong," but that doesn't means that one believes A "trumps" B (i.e., "is worse than" B). It would also be possible to hold that B "trumps" A or that they are morally equivalent (i.e., equally "wrong" options).
Does that distinction make sense, or does it make things more confusing?
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
(And kmboots, how eloquently you express your position and concerns. Thanks -- it was an excellent read.)
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Thanks, honey. You, too.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
kmboots, I think you're doing a little of what Irriegardless was doing - projecting your own reasons for moral choices on others in a particular situation and finding their positions inconsistent.
For example, you go from this statement:
quote:Often these people are the same people who refuse to allow sex education or access to birth control that could help to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
to
quote:These things lead me to the conculsion that some of the folks that want to make abortion illegal are doing it because they want to punish people for having sex or to control what women do with their bodies.
Just as Irregardless's implication that people who think abortion are tragic or sad must think that it involves killing, you seem to be positing that people who think abortion is wrong must either be OK with birth control or wanting to either punish sex or control women's bodies.
If one thinks birth control is a great moral wrong, one is perfectly consistent to not support its use, even to avoid a greater moral wrong.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
No, I think that there are people who have separate reasons for those things. I do think that there is enough overlap that, with the other things I mentioned, I have reason to be wary.
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
Ummmm, I guess I don't get the whole "controlling what women do with their bodies" thing. Are you saying it's a control thing, not opposition to killing? Not being snide here, I just really don't understand what you're trying to say.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I think that, for some people, it is sex that is the real issue. The idea of people having sex without consequence is a problem. Since men can more easily escape the consequences of pregnancy, this mostly impacts women.
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
I see. I guess, as I look at the issue, the "death of an infant" part completely trumps the "having sex willy-nilly". (I'm trying to word things so as not to cause a fight, but have intelligent discourse.... please stick with me) (and I'm failing miserably. Just saying nothing)
Edit: Not being a jerk.. just think that arguement, well, insane, or I am terribly naive.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Does anyone mind if I go back and re-visit the whole miscarriage idea?
Because I'm confused. Was there some indication that people think we shouldn't address abortion because we have so many natural miscarriages?
There's an easy answer there to me. I see a huge, huge difference between allowing a natural process to take place and stepping in and artificially doing something. For example, letting a terminally ill person who has a DNR order die when they stop breathing is not murder. Smothering someone who can breathe on their own is murder. In one case you're simply allowing a natural process to take place. In another you're taking action to cause the death of a person.
Miscarriages are tragic and sad, and there is plenty of research out there and things that can be done to prevent miscarriages in people who have repeated ones - I had a friend who suffered six miscarriages before she began seeing a specialist who treated her with drugs and she was able to carry to term. So there is research and there is effort to help women carry to term when they've had miscarriages before.
Surgical abortion is a far cry from a natural miscarriage though. I guess I'm not seeing the connection, maybe I missed something?
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
Nato, Juxtapose, & Bob, sorry for messing up on the math there. Thank you for the correction.
My views on abortion are not entirely decided. I've found this very civil discussion of abortion to be interesting and insightful. For years, I was very much on the pro-life side. I saw abortion as a means to avoid responsibility for one's actions and that made it clearly wrong. Then a few years ago a friend made an argument to me that I've never been able to counter. Imagine a situation in which you cause a car accident through carelessness. The person in the other car is seriouslly injured and needs a blood transfusion. As it turns out there is none of his/her type of blood available in any form. However, you have their blood type. To me it seems clear that it is your moral responsibilty to give them your blood if you are able to. Legally though, do they have any claim to your blood? I don't believe they do. (If this is incorrect, I would love to know.) The government does not have domain over our own bodies. They can not make us give blood to save a victim of our own carelessness. Similarly, they do not have the right to make a person carry a living entity within their body for 9 months even if it is that person's fault.
As I stated before, my feelings on this matter are very muddled. I think abortion, other than in rare scenarios, is very wrong. But I also don't feel convinced that the government should have the authority to control our bodies, something that is so fundamentally our own.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
smitty,
I appreciate that you are trying to word things carefully. This is a tough issue.
Not everyone sees a (for example) week-old embryo as an infant. This is a place where there is some room for doubt. Sometimes the health or even the life of the woman is at risk - also a place where judgments need to be made. There are cases of rape which may not qualify as having sex willy-nilly. All of these are examples of places where there are shades of grey.
My point (well, one of them)is that when some of the people that are most concerned with making abortion illegal are also people who would deny access to birth control and are the people who show very little concern about those infants once they are born, I have a problem with their motives. It makes me suspect that, for some of them, it is not about (or just about)saving babies.
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
{Self Edited}
That's not really an arguement against abortion. It's an apples/oranges thing.
{slaps self on wrist, reminds self to think before posting)
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:They can not make us give blood to save a victim of our own carelessness. Similarly, they do not have the right to make a person carry a living entity within their body for 9 months even if it is that person's fault.
You could have said, "That's a ridiculously contrived analogy that only works in a universe of your own making."
But you probably wanted to keep your friend.
Similarly, you could have said, "No, legalizing abortion is more like, after donating blood to the accident victim, demanding that I want it back, and the government saying, "Go ahead, bleed him down!"
But you probably wanted to keep your friend.
Friendships are more important than analogies anyway.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Sorry, smitty. Were you asking me? I'm confused.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:are the people who show very little concern about those infants once they are born
I keep seeing people say this. Could you cite something about this?
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
I gotcha Kate. I understand the grey areas, and the entire "when is it a life" argument. Unfortunately, this is an issue where there is not much middle ground where the two sides can compromise. Your point is well taken.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:when some of the people that are most concerned with making abortion illegal are also people who would deny access to birth control and are the people who show very little concern about those infants once they are born, I have a problem with their motives. It makes me suspect that, for some of them, it is not about (or just about)saving babies.
Whether the opposition is hypocritical or not makes NO DIFFERENCE to the morality of killing the unborn.
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
yeah, kate, we were kinda having a conversation. I'm just a slow poster. Thanks for the replies
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote: Whether the opposition is hypocritical or not makes NO DIFFERENCE to the morality of killing the unborn.
As far as that goes, I agree. And I am not saying that all opposition is hypocritical. But motives do have an impact on whether or not it should be illegal and why.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:You could have said, "That's a ridiculously contrived analogy that only works in a universe of your own making."
I don't see any argument for this in your post, Scott. What makes the analogy so contrived?
quote:"No, legalizing abortion is more like, after donating blood to the accident victim, demanding that I want it back, and the government saying, "Go ahead, bleed him down!"
I disagree. Carrying the fetus involves further hardship beyond what you've already suffered, so it's more analogous to donating the blood than it is to demanding back blood you've already donated.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote: I keep seeing people say this. Could you cite something about this?
The highest infant and child mortality rates tend to be in the "Bible belt". Infant and child mortality rates are (I think pretty clearly) connected to poverty and healthcare, yet people will vote for candidates who are anti-abortion over ones who address poverty and healthcare issues.
And remember the discussion about the teacher in a Catholic school who got fired for getting pregnant outside of marriage? Wouldn't a more pro-life response be to make it easier for that women to raise her child?
I think the way to have fewer abortions - which I think we can all agree would be a good thing - would be to help women to avoid those desperate circumstances and to work toward a society where those circumstances aren't so desperate.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:Imagine a situation in which you cause a car accident through carelessness. The person in the other car is seriouslly injured and needs a blood transfusion. As it turns out there is none of his/her type of blood available in any form. However, you have their blood type. To me it seems clear that it is your moral responsibilty to give them your blood if you are able to. Legally though, do they have any claim to your blood? I don't believe they do. (If this is incorrect, I would love to know.) The government does not have domain over our own bodies. They can not make us give blood to save a victim of our own carelessness. Similarly, they do not have the right to make a person carry a living entity within their body for 9 months even if it is that person's fault.
Here's the whole analogy. The bolded part is contrived. For the analogy to work, that highly improbable element must be accepted.
Destineer, I know that my analogy doesn't work and is over the top. That's why I said, "Similarly, you could have said. . ." I suppose I was trying to say, "Another analogy, from the opposite viewpoint of your friends, but still just as silly is X."
I'm anxious for the advent of human embryonic transfer (I know it's possible, but I'm not sure just how legal it is, or what the full extent of medical ramifications are). I know it won't solve all cases, but I can imagine that it would help.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Sorry to respond to something on the first page; this ballooned while I was off the computer. However, I think it fits in here, too.
quote:Either it's wrong and harmful to an individual protected by society, and it should be illegal, or it's NOT wrong, and legally, it should be just fine.
This is my problem: while I think it's morally wrong, I don't believe in legislating by my morals when that means curtailing personal freedoms. Not in this country. Also, I'm not sure how wrong it is. I mean, I don't know when a soul enters the body, and until that point, I don't consider a fetus a seperate human being. It might be different for each pregnancy. (I say this as a woman who is on her third pregnancy, second viable pregnancy-- I had a very early miscarriage last Easter, I have a healthy two-year-old, and while I've had a few problems here and there, I wholly expect that this child will be born alive and healthy as well.) It might be an in-and-out kind of thing. It might be something completely different. In any case, it's not mine to know, and so I would err on the side of life, myself. BUT. I would not force someone else to make the same choice based on my personal beliefs. There are some things that people think is universally wrong, with small exceptions-- murder, for example. But there are so many people who don't think that abortion is universally or almost universally wrong, I don't think it's up to me to make them behave as if it is.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:yet people will vote for candidates who are anti-abortion over ones who address poverty and healthcare issues.
Because those are always mutually exclusive, right?
Infant mortality rates are obscenely high in poor southern states, and many of them are trying to address it. But I really, really get angry when I see the implication that pro-life people don't care about the babies once they're born or about the women carrying them. Especially since I've volunteered my time, and donated my money to ministries that do exactly that - help the woman with pregnancy and baby expenses and offer counseling and support for her during the pregnancy and beyond.
As a principle, I do NOT donate money to pro-life groups that do nothing but picket clinics or publish the names of doctors so they can be harassed - I only put my money and my time on ministries that actually minister to people, in this case the mother and child. And there are far, far more pro-life people out there that feel as I do than you seem to be aware of. Stop with the generalizations - it's disrespectful to those of us who care about this issue and are actually trying to do things that help the people involved.
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
Destineer -
Allowing someone to die through inaction isn't necessarily murder - or, if it is, we're all very, very guilty people. Taking a life (the fetus) because it's convenient to do so (it would be such a shame if it crimped my lifestyle) is wrong on so many levels that if you can't see the difference, there's no way I would be able to explain it to you.
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
kq, I think it's impossible to legislate morals. When you do, they stop being morals.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Infant and child mortality rates are (I think pretty clearly) connected to poverty and healthcare, yet people will vote for candidates who are anti-abortion over ones who address poverty and healthcare issues.
You're still looking at this from your perspective. If, in your view, people were killing close to a million babies a year, legally, wouldn't that be a top priority for you?
Should abolitionists have been told that the way to have less slavery is to save up to buy a slave's freedom and to get that freed slave a job? Were people who concentrated on abolishing slavery doing something wrong because they didn't divert that energy to sending freed slaves to Liberia?
In this day and age, there's almost no way to vote for a pro-life candidate who also supports expanded government-subsidized pre-natal care. Yet there are literally millions of people who would do this if possible.
I'm not arguing whether your analysis about which method would reduce abortion more is correct or not. People could agree or disagree with your take on moral grounds, pragmatic grounds, or both.
Rather, I'm trying to get at another point. You seem to be saying, or at least strongy suggesting, that people spending them advocating for abolishing abortion are being inconsistent by not doing something else instead.
They're not being inconsistent. They have a different set of moral priorities than you do, and it's simply not possible to analyze them as if the only difference is their view on abortion. This is the problem Irregardless was having before, from the other direction.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:There are some things that people think is universally wrong, with small exceptions-- murder, for example. But there are so many people who don't think that abortion is universally or almost universally wrong, I don't think it's up to me to make them behave as if it is.
I disagree vehemently. Everything from "home corrections" of wives by husbands to slavery had majorities or at least very signifcant minorities claiming that these actions were moral and good.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: This is my problem: while I think it's morally wrong, I don't believe in legislating by my morals when that means curtailing personal freedoms. Not in this country.
And yet we do it on a daily basis. If the government doesn't legislate morals of some kind, what purpose does it serve?
The question should be - what morals do we enforce?
[Edit: Gosh, I'm terribly slow.]
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote: Infant mortality rates are obscenely high in poor southern states, and many of them are trying to address it. But I really, really get angry when I see the implication that pro-life people don't care about the babies once they're born or about the women carrying them. Especially since I've volunteered my time, and donated my money to ministries that do exactly that - help the woman with pregnancy and baby expenses and offer counseling and support for her during the pregnancy and beyond.
And, Belle, then you would not meet the conditions I outlined. Please reread what I have said. I was very careful to not make generalizations.
And kq, thank you. You have very well outlined my larger reasons for being pro-choice.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
quote:Originally posted by Swampjedi:
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: This is my problem: while I think it's morally wrong, I don't believe in legislating by my morals when that means curtailing personal freedoms. Not in this country.
And yet we do it on a daily basis. If the government doesn't legislate morals of some kind, what purpose does it serve?
The question should be - what morals do we enforce?
[Edit: Gosh, I'm terribly slow.]
Actually, many laws are enacted for public safety, regardless as to whether the public is itself moral or not (as certain groups of people, from varying philosophies may claim our society is), [EDIT: or whether the law itself mandates a moral good].
Take speeding. There is nothing inherently wrong with driving fast, but because one can foresee that such behavior could cause harm to another citizen, these rules are put into place. That other citizen could be a serial killer, and crashing into their car could be construed as a moral good. Therefore, I am of the opinion that the speeding laws aren't inherently moral, and that there are many other laws that aresimilarly morally neutral.
-Bok
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Everyone is free to disagree with me. I'm just stating how I feel and why, to go back to that whole "how can you be pro-choice and saddened by abortions" thing. Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
kmboots: Why do you think there's a waiting list for infant adoptions in this country?
EDIT:
GRRR. Anyway, it hardly matters. I reiterate-- if the anti-abortion crowd is right about abortion = like-unto-murder, then any hypocrisy on their part about post birth care is immaterial to the wrongness of abortion.
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
Even the laws concerning violence are more or less to protect our freedom and property, not morals.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
Fair enough, Bok. But public safety itself is a moral position.
"It is good for as many people to be as safe as possible."
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
Smitty, look further back. Why is freedom or property "good"?
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
what does good have to do with laws?
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:GRRR. Anyway, it hardly matters. I reiterate-- if the anti-abortion crowd is right about abortion = like-unto-murder, then any hypocrisy on their part about post birth care is immaterial to the wrongness of abortion.
I don't know if this question admits "right" or "wrong" unless you believe in a supreme adjudicator, and then, well, it's His decision.
I'm pro-choice, but not haughtily so anymore. I could be wrong.
[ January 18, 2006, 04:53 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
If any moral question admits "right" or "wrong" then this one does.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
Lemme rephrase - not to sidetack. Why is freedom and property worth protecting? There's some [value judgement] there.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote: kmboots: Why do you think there's a waiting list for infant adoptions in this country?
Lots of reasons including:
Babies from poor or minority mothers, or babies with health problems may not be what people are waiting for. I don't know if there is a waiting list for those, I could be wrong. I know they have ads on TV trying to get people to adopt them.
Some mothers may try to keep their children once born and fail, so their children wouldn't be infants when they come up for adoption.
Getting pregnant is seen as so shameful that women who get pregnant out of marriage are afraid to have people find out.
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
Well, the entire basis of laws are basically the pursuit of life, liberty, and property. (pursuit of happiness makes it sound more noble). Morality doesn't really enter into it. The real question, legally, is whether abortion is murder or not.
Edit: I think it's worth pointing out that I oppose it morally, but you can't impose morals on others.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
All you said is that laws are based on value judgements. If laws were founded on objective, neutral things, everyone would probably have the same laws. Thing is, we don't. Some Islamic laws are based on the value judgement that men are superior to women, correct? Some of our laws are based on the value judgement that men and women should have the same rights.
This is off topic, I apologize.
[Edit: I'm just saying that the majority of laws are value judgements (ie, morally based).]
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
I think the US has worked to not make them value judgements. Some laws may have originate there, but if I'm remembering my gov't classes, they're supposed to be based on life, liberty, and property. At least in this country.
I'm not sure it's that off topic, since we are discussing the legality of abortion as well, I think.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:but if I'm remembering my gov't classes, they're supposed to be based on life, liberty, and property.
And the thing that underlies that "supposed to" is a value judgment.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
Yes, thank you Dagonee.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:If any moral question admits "right" or "wrong" then this one does.
I don't know. Some of them are clearer than this one. Where does the dignity in a human life reside. Is it just biology? I don't think so. If that were so, we could never countenance the killing of even the most hardened war criminal, as long as they were biologically human.
Aristotle does a decent job of understanding man as a progressing being, at first a man and always on the way to becoming man. (He didn't talk much about women.) There is a truth to that. There is a reason we don't afford five year olds voting rights, or sentence ten year olds to life in prison. It's because they haven't attained a full humanity in that second sense.
And then people start talking about all of these rights, Life, Liberty, etc, but I'm not big into them either. And I can't get over the sense that making a woman carry a baby to term is anything less than treating her like a beast. And while my views on the humanity of that fetus are mixed, I'm darn sure about the dignity that should be afforded to the woman.
[ January 18, 2006, 05:28 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
quote: You could have said, "That's a ridiculously contrived analogy that only works in a universe of your own making."
Yes it is contrived, however I don't think that undermines the point that the government has no dominion over something as personal as our own bodily processes.
quote: Allowing someone to die through inaction isn't necessarily murder - or, if it is, we're all very, very guilty people. Taking a life (the fetus) because it's convenient to do so (it would be such a shame if it crimped my lifestyle) is wrong on so many levels that if you can't see the difference, there's no way I would be able to explain it to you.
At least one method for abortion includes taking the fetus out of the mother and then leaving it there. It is unable to survive on its own and quickly dies. I don't know if this is the most common method, but if so I think this could qualify as allowing somebody to die through inaction.
quote: The real question, legally, is whether abortion is murder or not.
I disagree. I think the legal question is whether or not the government has dominion over the internal processes of our bodies.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:And can't get over the sense that making a woman carry a baby to term is anything less than treating her like a beast. And while my views on the humanity of that fetus are mixed, I'm darn sure about the dignity that should be afforded to the woman.
On the other side of the coin is the idea that it's not dignified to treat women as if carrying a baby to term is something that "just happens" to them. Usually there's a whole mess of voluntary behavior behind that, and often in the case of abortions there's a whole mess of either no forethought at all, or bad planning.
In what way is it dignified to shield a fully-grown adult human being from the consequences of their actions, possibly at the cost of a human life? Dignity is never something you can give to another human being. They must get it and hold it on their own.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:I think the legal question is whether or not the government has dominion over the internal processes of our bodies.
The answer to the first question trumps the second question. If it is murder, then that fetus is a human being, and is not a slave to the whim of its host. If it's not murder, then the question becomes whether or not the government has legislative rights over "internal body processes". (Which are easily avoidable).
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:In what way is it dignified to shield a fully-grown adult human being from the consequences of their actions, possibly at the cost of a human life?
As to the first part of your question, I believe that bankruptcy laws are in place just for that reason. Jeniwren and I had this discussion before. I'm not big into natural consequences as a substitute for pedagogy, for children or adults.
quote:Dignity is never something you can give to another human being. They must get it and hold it on their own.
I'm not sure what this means, but it sounds awful violent.
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
quote: The answer to the first question trumps the second question. If it is murder, then that fetus is a human being, and is not a slave to the whim of its host. If it's not murder, then the question becomes whether or not the government has legislative rights over "internal body processes". (Which are easily avoidable).
I think the term murder makes this too emotionally charged. I propose we instead use the question "Is the fetus a true human being?" If it is, the question becomes is a human being's life more valuable than people's autonomy over their own bodies.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
I am almost positive that I would support a reversal of Roe v. Wade IF birth control were freely available and while being educated about birth control people were also educated about what options they would have if they got pregnant.
I had a pregnancy scare a month ago. It was fairly minor, I had been really stressed, and symptoms of stress are very close to symptoms of pregnancy. But when you're a sophomore in college, the mildest possibility you might be pregnant is terrifying. I'm going to ask right now, I would prefer if no one judged me, or informed me that I shouldn't be having sex if I wasn't prepared to deal with the consequences. I made an educated decision to have sex, I've taken precautions to avoid getting pregnant, and the chances of my actually getting pregnant are tiny. I was terrified. I will never get an abortion, so I imagined all of the possible outcomes. There weren't many. I could attempt to raise my child while in school. I could drop out of school and attempt to raise it. And then there was the fuzzy idea of adoption, so fuzzy that it offered very little hope. Finally one night, I looked up adoption online, and amazingly it was easy, there were tons of parents who would love to adopt my kid. It was a huge relief. I found a family that I liked, and got a good night's sleep that night for the first time in a week.
The rather drawn out story is meant to illustrate simply this. I'm a fairly educated member of society. I'm also very well informed about birth control. But no where in my extensive reading about birth control, no where in any of the classes I'd taken on the subject was adoption mentioned at all. So while I knew it existed, that choice didn't really seem to apply to me. I think there's a good possibility that if girls who are considering abortions were more educated about adoption. Could see pictures and stories from families that desperately want to adopt, that a fair sized number of them would decide to carry to term and give the baby up for adoption.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
blacwolve, I think that's an excellent idea. Because the truth is, that for every couple that actively wants to adopt and is working toward that end, there must be a number of couples that would adopt if the opportunity dropped in their laps.
I would, in a heartbeat. There's a huge part of me that would love to have more children, though I've almost no desire to ever be pregnant again.
addited: and I'm sorry to hear about your scare. Whenever I meet someone who admits they've had an abortion in their past, I think about the many scares I had in my teens and 20s and remember how easily it might have been me with their experiences.
Posted by desta (Member # 8777) on :
"My whole being rejects the idea that abortion should be looked at as merely another form of birth control."
I wasn't sure how to quote someone, so I just copy and pasted the relevant portion of the post.
Keep in mind, that the term you're using is "birth" control, not "pregnancy" control. I believe that they are two seperate ideas. The term "birth control" is used to encompass both ideas these days, which I believe misleads many debates these days.
Just my two sense.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Amanecer: ... is a human being's life more valuable than people's autonomy over their own bodies.
It's certainly a sticky thing when it comes to things like kidney transplants or bone marrow transplants. That is, we have a heckuva lotta people very sick on dialysis right now, and there are a heckuva a lot of people with perfectly healthy extra kidneys.
Of course, then the issue come up of the fact that these people with kidneys haven't assumed some responsibility for those on dialysis (such as, say, being responsible for their existances), and so it is argued that the issue is more complicated than just life v. autonomy.
But then that gets us into some of the issues kmboots raised.
It just is never really distillable into a bumper sticker-sized sentence, at least not if you grant it the serious thoughtfulness and respect that I think we should.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Of course, then the issue come up of the fact that these people with kidneys haven't assumed some responsibility for those on dialysis (such as, say, being responsible for their existances), and so it is argued that the issue is more complicated than just life v. autonomy.
It is indeed very complicated.
There's also the idea that the duty not to abort doesn't arise from responsibility that's been assumed - that the responsibility is created whatever the circumstances of conception.
Beyond that there's the action vs. inaction issue. Not donating a kidney is inaction; aborting a child is action. Some people see serious moral differences between the two.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
The NYS vital statistics for 2003 can be found online, by the way:
for New York City: Live births: 119,469 Induced abortions: 84,903
The abortion ratios are highest in the Bronx, by a very large margin!
The city dwellers have higher abortion rates (per 1000 live births) than the rest of the state, consistently in practically every category (where the counts in the raw data don't fall too low for meaningful ratios to be calculated).
Black women have a consistently higher ratio than the other ethnic groups listed.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
What is mentioned in this article is that New York city includes areas like the Bronx and Harlem which have some of the highest poverty rates in the country. In fact, with the exception of Manhattan, New York City suffers severly from low ratios of income/cost of living.
Poverty is the number one reason women seek abortions, not liberalism.
And Wonder Dog, your first question "For those of you who are pro-choice, is this encouraging?", is not only insulting but shows you know nothing about the pro-choice community. I would suggest you do a bit more research.
I consider myself both pro-choice and pro-life. I favor every possible measure to reduce the number of abortions except making them illegal. I'm disheartened by the statistics given in this article but not at all suprised. If the pro-life community would focus more on eliminating the reasons women seek abortions such as poverty, ignorance and intolerance and less on supreme court battles, I believe the abortion rate would be dramatically lower.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Bob, Very interesting statistics. I wonder if there are any studies out there that investigate the reasons that city dwellers have higher abortion rates than other regions.
Perhaps it is because city dwellers are less likely to be part of a support extended family who can help then deal with the stress of an unplanned child.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: I'm not big into natural consequences as a substitute for pedagogy, for children or adults.
I'm a big fan of natural consequences (to a point) as an essential part of pedagogy for both children and adults. I don't believe it's possible for children to truly mature into adults without its inclusion.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Oh, absolutely, Dag.
Posted by Wonder Dog (Member # 5691) on :
Rabbit,
I didn't mean my questions to sound ignorant or insulting. I'm currently taking a Women's Studies class and I've heard many people who call themselves pro-choice talk about how a truly liberated women will have children only when she wants to, and how abortion is a fundamental way to assert that control over thier own lives. I assumed, then, that those who hold this view might read the abortion numbers in NYC as an indicator that more women were asserting thier right to choose when they give birth; these same people would say that this as a good thing.
quote: And Wonder Dog, your first question "For those of you who are pro-choice, is this encouraging?", is not only insulting but shows you know nothing about the pro-choice community. I would suggest you do a bit more research.
As you can see, I am in fact attempting to educate myself on this matter. That's one of the reasons I'm taking this class. That's one of the reasons I asked my questions to this community, which I hold in high regard. And from what I've read, there are a variety of views and positions occuping both the pro-choice and pro-life camps. I'm sorry you've percieved my curiosity as an insult - I meant no offense.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I find the distinction between "action" and "inaction" to be morally dubious although I recognize this is probably a minority opinion but I think I'm in good company. Jesus had a whole lot more to say about the immorality of "inaction" than the immorality of "actions".
The big problem with "natural consequences" is that the consequences of most choice affect many people. It is not only the mother who bares the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy. Certainly the child suffers adverse consequences if the mother is unable to care for it. Other children in the family, friends, extended family, and the community also bare many of the consequences. In our society very few acts have consequences that are limited only to the actor. We are highly connected.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:I'm not sure what this means, but it sounds awful violent.
This only follows if you believe dignity is something that is created by other human beings, who either give it to an individual, or have it taken from them by that individual. I do not.
Amancear,
quote:I think the term murder makes this too emotionally charged. I propose we instead use the question "Is the fetus a true human being?" If it is, the question becomes is a human being's life more valuable than people's autonomy over their own bodies.
Heh. Well you're asking the people who disagree with you to define their idea in a way that makes anything but your way of thinking incorrect.
No, if a fetus is a true human being, then killing it without asking it for the convenience of its host is obviously murder. If it is a human being, then the host has a responsibility to it akin to a parent to an infant. There's just no way around that. Personal bodily autonomy over a choice that could have been avoided does not trump a true human life, if that's what it is, especially since the host has decided to assume responsibility for that life in all but a rare few cases.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
From Bob's links, I found he following statistics for New York City
County Per Cap. Income % below pov. level abortions/ 100 live births Bronx ...........13,959....................30.7..................91.7 Kings.............16,775....................25.1..................73.5 New York.......42,922....................20.0..................61.1 Queens..........19,222....................14.6..................64.9 Richmond......23,905....................10.0..................43.3
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I find the distinction between "action" and "inaction" to be morally dubious although I recognize this is probably a minority opinion but I think I'm in good company. Jesus had a whole lot more to say about the immorality of "inaction" than the immorality of "actions".
While the difference between inaction and action may be less important morally, the action/inaction distinction is incredibly important in deciding what to criminalize, which is the context in which I raised the distinction.
Forcing someone to donate a kidney - which would essentially be criminalizing not donating the kidney - would be criminalizing inaction, something rarely done for a variety of reasons. Further, how would we decide which person must donate a kidney? That's a practical problem not faced when deciding to criminalize abortion.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:The big problem with "natural consequences" is that the consequences of most choice affect many people. It is not only the mother who bares the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy. Certainly the child suffers adverse consequences if the mother is unable to care for it. Other children in the family, friends, extended family, and the community also bare many of the consequences. In our society very few acts have consequences that are limited only to the actor. We are highly connected.
Indeed. I find this to be one of the strongest arguments for actually criminalizing abortion - ensuring that the law values human life consistently, not based on stage of development.
The bold part I find to be a reason for helping people who are unexpectedly pregnant, not for killing the child.
There are very few people who actually wish they weren't born, and many of the unwanted children would have a standard of living better than half the people on the planet.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:No, if a fetus is a true human being, then killing it without asking it for the convenience of its host is obviously murder.
Rakeesh, You are ignoring the obvious. There are no other situations in which a persons failure to provide for another human being is considered murder by our society. In the the case of a pregnancy, the child cannot live without its connection to the mother. Does this mean that the mother's failure to maintain that connection is equivalent to murder? The fact of the matter is that two lives (at a minimum) are entertwined here. To say that the fetus's life always trumps the life of the mother denegrates the mother. This is not to say that I believe abortion is a moral choice. In most cases, I believe it is not.
What I am saying is that abortion is a unique moral and ethical situation because two lives which are intertwined must be considered. To say that it is no different from murder, is intellectually dishonest.
In our society we make a distinction between many different kinds of killing, we have self defense, manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, vehicular homocide, negligent homicide, 2nd degree murder, premeditated murder and many more. We don't call running over a pedestrian murder, even though one person is killed because of the choices made by another. Certainly if we make all these distinctions, abortion should be considered as a distinctive case and not simply labeled as "murder".
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
quote:If the pro-life community would focus more on eliminating the reasons women seek abortions such as poverty, ignorance and intolerance and less on supreme court battles, I believe the abortion rate would be dramatically lower.
Rabbit, I find this to be a staggeringly statement. In what practical ways would you suggest pro-life organizations improve their work to combat ignorance and poverty that results in abortion? (Just out of curiosity, what does tolerance have to do with it? I'm curious as I thought it was a strange thing to include.)
Do you think prolife organizations should stay out of the courts entirely? If so, do you think NARAL and Planned Parenthood should stay out of the courts as well? What about lobbying? Do you think they should stay out of lobbying?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:There are no other situations in which a persons failure to provide for another human being is considered murder by our society.
That's actually not true. I can't link the source, unfortunately, but the cite is 40 Am Jur 2d HOMICIDE § 82:
quote:Neglect on the part of one charged with the duty of supporting another to provide the necessary food, clothing, and shelter to the dependent, resulting in the latter's illness and death, renders the person upon whom the duty rests guilty of culpable homicide, the grade of which depends upon the nature and character of the act or acts causing death.9 The crime is murder when the neglect is willful or malicious,10 as where a parent intentionally withholds the food necessary to sustain an infant's life,11 or abandons an infant in a remote place where it is not likely to be found so that it dies of exposure,12 or where a husband criminally neglects to shelter his wife when he is able to do so and knowingly leaves her to perish.13
Some of the cases cited to this proposition took place as late as 1993. The article was updated in 2004. Obviously, specifics will vary from state to state.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Tolerance is very important because a serious consideration for many young women who are considering abortions is how they will be accepted by their family and community if they become pregnant. When a young woman finds her self pregnant and without means to care for the child, knowing that she will be shunned by her family and community if they discover she is pregnant plays a big role in the choice to get an abortion.
As far as practical things pro-life organization could do to combat poverty, how about support for an increase in the minimum wage, support for universal health insurance, support for extended family leave with pay, support for raising the poverty level, support for increased welfare assistance for families with children, and decreased taxes for families with children. Everyone of those things which would help poor women with children has been opposed by the right wing. There is ample evidence to suggest that support for these types of liberal innitiatives makes more difference in the abortion rates than laws which try to ban abortion.
I think that the best way to reduce the number of abortion is to reduce the reasons that women seek abortions. Passing laws that criminalize abortion will cause enormous harm to women and is unlikely to make a big difference in the real abortion rates.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Neglect on the part of one charged with the duty of supporting another to provide the necessary food, clothing, and shelter to the dependent, resulting in the latter's illness and death, renders the person upon whom the duty rests guilty of culpable homicide, the grade of which depends upon the nature and character of the act or acts causing death.
But there are legal means by which a parent charged with the duty of supporting a child can transfer that duty to another. Pregnancy is fundamentally different in this respect. That difference is real and important and is the reason that abortion needs to be treated uniquely. It is not the same as murder, or child abuse, or neglect. It is unique because the rights of the mother and the rights of the fetus are in a direct conflict which cannot be simply resolved.
To say that the mother's needs and desires are always superceeded by the fetus's need to receive life support from the mother's body is a denial of the mother's personhood. Likewise, the argument that the mother's desires should always take precident of the fetus's needs is a denial of the fetus's personhood.
I should also add that I view carrying a child to term as an action. The choice to have an abortion is not a choice between action and inaction, it is a choice between two actions. A law prohibiting the act of car theft, does not implicitly require any other action. One might choose instead to buy the car, but this is not required by the law. A law prohibiting the act of abortion, makes the action of carrying a child to term a legal requirement. In this respect, laws prohibiting abortions are fundamentally different.
Please note that I am not argueing that abortion is an ethical choice. I am simply argueing that it is a complex moral issue which needs to understood and treated as the unique ethical issue it is.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Rabbit,
quote:There are no other situations in which a persons failure to provide for another human being is considered murder by our society.
This isn't conclusive of anything but itself, really.
quote:In the the case of a pregnancy, the child cannot live without its connection to the mother. Does this mean that the mother's failure to maintain that connection is equivalent to murder?
Since the mother-ultimately-is almost always the one who invites that connection, yes. There are obviously exceptions, such as rape or failed birth control. But almost always the mother has invited and started this connection, without ever asking the fetus if it wants the connection or not. If the fetus is a true human being, then to terminate it for convenience is murder. That's something that's done to slaves.
quote:The fact of the matter is that two lives (at a minimum) are entertwined here. To say that the fetus's life always trumps the life of the mother denegrates the mother.
This is true, but as I've said, the mother almost always has the opportunity to proactively avoid te intertwining altogether. The fetus-whether it's a true human being or not-has no such option. Furthermore I have not said that the fetus's life always trumps the life of the mother. However I have said that the life of the fetus always trumps the mothers convenience, since the mother-in America at least-has a thousand and one opportunities to avoid creating the fetus.
In the morally correct and most desireable of situations, the man of course will also be proactive and add another thousand and one methods of avoiding this creation as well.
quote:What I am saying is that abortion is a unique moral and ethical situation because two lives which are intertwined must be considered. To say that it is no different from murder, is intellectually dishonest.
I disagree that to say it's no different from murder, not because I'm sure of that, but because to many people, failure to provide lifesaving help when possible is murder. Particularly when the person actively failing-not just neglecting to provide, but actually flipping a switch, so to speak-to provide that help is the one who brought the life in in the first place.
Anyway, I have not said, "Abortion is murder." I have said, "If a fetus is a true human being, then abortion is murder," and obviously that is true. It's certainly murder in some degree.
quote:Certainly if we make all these distinctions, abortion should be considered as a distinctive case and not simply labeled as "murder".
Well, murder requires intent, first-degree murder at any rate. I'm certainly not labeling someone who really thinks that a fetus is a lump of tissue a cold-hearted murderer. I will say to that person, "You cannot possibly be sure, you're basing that belief on your faith that it is a lump of tissue. Since you could have avoided creating the life, you should have done so rather than gambling that your faith is correct, because if it's not correct, then you are killing another human being for your own economic, social, educational, romantic, whatever, convenience."
quote:Tolerance is very important because a serious consideration for many young women who are considering abortions is how they will be accepted by their family and community if they become pregnant.
I wholeheartedly agree. Tolerance is important because shunning-whether outright or in some degree-has the possibility of making abortions more likely. Some people will have unprotected sex and get pregnant, no matter how much you strive to advocate abstinence until marriage (note: I do not think that's a reason not to advocate such a stance). Given that, intolerance will make people want to hide their pregnancy, and there's only one sure way to do that.
quote:When a young woman finds her self pregnant and without means to care for the child, knowing that she will be shunned by her family and community if they discover she is pregnant plays a big role in the choice to get an abortion.
It is this sort of language that I think contributes to unwanted pregnancies. Young women don't "find" themselves pregnant and unable to provide financially for their impending child. They have unprotected sex without the proper financial safety net to take care of the child that could quite possibly result from that unprotected sex, in the majority of unwanted pregnancies.
A pregnancy that results from unprotected (or improperly protected) sex can only be labeled "unwanted" if you can have an "unwanted" injury from playing football.
quote:As far as practical things pro-life organization could do to combat poverty, how about support for an increase in the minimum wage, support for universal health insurance, support for extended family leave with pay, support for raising the poverty level, support for increased welfare assistance for families with children, and decreased taxes for families with children.
With the exception for the first idea-increasing the minimum wage makes everything cost more, it is only a band-aid for the people actually earning minimum wage-I agree. Furthermore I believe that right-wing Republican organizations traditionally do oppose such efforts, and I believe that is a wrongheaded thing to do, particularly as far as decreasing abortions and increasing standards of living are concerned. One of several reasons I am a registered Independant, actually.
quote:I think that the best way to reduce the number of abortion is to reduce the reasons that women seek abortions. Passing laws that criminalize abortion will cause enormous harm to women and is unlikely to make a big difference in the real abortion rates.
I think that the best way to reduce the number of abortions has as a part of the overall plan the things you've mentioned. If there is a problem with things that some human beings want and you want to correct the problem, any effective solution must address both demand and supply. It's a lot like illegal drugs, actually.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:But there are legal means by which a parent charged with the duty of supporting a child can transfer that duty to another. Pregnancy is fundamentally different in this respect.
True. But it is, by it's nature, limited in duration.
quote:To say that the mother's needs and desires are always superceeded by the fetus's need to receive life support from the mother's body is a denial of the mother's personhood.
I don't think many people say this at all. For example, I don't personally know any pro-life activists who don't want a life of the mother exception. And I know lots of pro-life activists. The true question is which needs of the child supercede which needs of the mother and vice-versa.
A parent has a duty of care. Yes, it can be transferred. However, if it is physically impossible to transfer care, the parent continues to have the duty to act to care for the trial until such time as care of the child can be tranferred.
quote:I should also add that I view carrying a child to term as an action. The choice to have an abortion is not a choice between action and inaction, it is a choice between two actions. A law prohibiting the act of car theft, does not implicitly require any other action. One might choose instead to buy the car, but this is not required by the law. A law prohibiting the act of abortion, makes the action of carrying a child to term a legal requirement.
I agree carrying a child is an action. But that's not where I was using the inaction/action distinction. I was comparing the act of not donating a kidney to the act of abortion.
The act of carrying the baby to term is analogous to the act of carrying for a child in ones custody.
quote:Please note that I am not argueing that abortion is an ethical choice. I am simply argueing that it is a complex moral issue which needs to understood and treated as the unique ethical issue it is.
Understood. I, too, argue that it is a complex moral issue.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:I'm anxious for the advent of human embryonic transfer (I know it's possible, but I'm not sure just how legal it is, or what the full extent of medical ramifications are). I know it won't solve all cases, but I can imagine that it would help.
Yeah, I think it will help a lot. I might even support an abortion ban if fetuses could be safely transferred to artificial wombs instead.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
(I have tried to rewrite this in a non-snarky way, but I give up.)
I have to ask many of you who argued about my statistic, did you actually READ the article? The 74:100 stat is deliberately inflammatory, and highly misleading. (It's one of those third-kind-of-lies statistics.)
The reason why there are that many abortions in NYC is due in large part to the fact that women who do not live there go there to have an abortion. Those 34% are people who do not live in the city, and the article makes that fairly clear.
While the 100 births they are being compared to are almost certainly all -- or darn close -- women who do live there. While many women will (due to availability mostly) travel an hour or two to have an abortion, it is unlikely they are doing to so deliver!
The actual 40% is horrible. Why make an artificial comparison -- is 40% not horrifying enough?!
Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
desta,
I used the term "birth control" for two reasons:
1) to echo the previous poster who approached abortion as a form of birth control
2) because I've never heard the term "pregnancy control" before.
What is your distinction between "birth control" and "pregnancy control"?
And welcome to the forum Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
quote: Heh. Well you're asking the people who disagree with you to define their idea in a way that makes anything but your way of thinking incorrect.
I disagree. I was trying to side step the question of murder because I do not know that I agree that that term is appropriate or that the question is necessary to the debate. At no point did I ask anybody to define their idea in a way of thinking that makes me right. In fact, you answered the question I asked when you said, "Personal bodily autonomy over a choice that could have been avoided does not trump a true human life." I do not think that there is a clear cut answer to the question I posed. While I understand and respect that you value human life over personal bodily autonomy, I am not certain that I do.
quote: If the fetus is a true human being, then to terminate it for convenience is murder. That's something that's done to slaves.
I think that a mother who unwillingly carries a baby to term is having her will and body subjugated to another. This is also something that is done to slaves.
As to your other statements, I am largely in agreement with Rabbit.
quote: It just is never really distillable into a bumper sticker-sized sentence, at least not if you grant it the serious thoughtfulness and respect that I think we should.
I agree that abortion is an incredibly complicated issue. As this thread has shown there are multiple ways to view it from moral, legal, spiritual, economic, and psychological perspectives. When it comes to whether it should be legal or not, the most important question to me is whether a human being's life is more valuable than people's autonomy over their own bodies. People's reactions to my statement suggest that they perceived me as thinking the answer was obvious. I do not think it is obvious.
quote: I have to ask many of you who argued about my statistic, did you actually READ the article?
I did read the article and I'm sorry that I tried to correct you. As others pointed out, I was wrong and you were right.
[ January 19, 2006, 02:29 AM: Message edited by: Amanecer ]
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
...In most cases... In most cases...
If you believe abortion is murder, then abortion is murder.
It doesn't matter if the mother properly or improperly used birth control.
It doesn't matter if the mother was raped.
Because neither of these things were within the control of the "child".
If you want to make the case that abortion should be illegal because abortion is immoral, there aren't half-measures to that stance. You make your bed and you lie in it. And you accept that a certain number of women are going to be put through a terrible and traumatic experience because of the need to exert what is viewed as a moral position.
I do not believe that abortion is murder. I believe abortion is the destruction of the potential for a human life. The availability of that process is something I believe is sad, but necessary.
My position is unlikely to change.
I could have been aborted. My mother was advised by one doctor to abort me in the wake of her suffering a cereberal hemorrhage; the doctor in question felt that carrying me to term might put an excessive strain on her and put her at risk for her life. According to family lore, the look she gave said doctor would have cracked stone. The fact that my mother decided not to abort me has always allowed me the certainty that I was completely wanted, and a certain belief that perhaps there's a reason I'm here. I would not have denied my mother the ability to have an abortion for anything. I have no memories before the age of two; questions of "would I actually prefer to be alive" or not, I don't exactly believe that I would have "missed" much. That's the sort of perspective we have as adults.
Secondly, be aware that my spouse is a doctor who is willing to, and may some time in the future, perform abortions. This is a moral position. It is, in fact, a courageous moral position, seeing as how abortion providers in every state are the frequent recipients of death threats.
This is not an intellectual exercise in moral uncertainties for me. And I should probably drop out, because this is quite frankly so intensely personal that I'm likely to lose sleep, and quite possibly the ability to remain borderline civil, if I continue.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Since the mother-ultimately-is almost always the one who invites that connection, yes. There are obviously exceptions, such as rape or failed birth control. But almost always the mother has invited and started this connection, without ever asking the fetus if it wants the connection or not.
I was halfway ready to write a scathing retort to this. It would have included veiled accusations of sexism, and overly-lame metaphors like, "it takes two to tango." Fortunately for everyone, I stopped to think a bit, and realized that of course you - and everyone else here - knows that the father is responsible too. However, the lack of dialogue on the subject leads me suspect that many view the issues of abortion and paternal responsibility seperately, or with the latter as an afterthought. Or maybe it's just that the debate is complicated enough without this element included. Regardless, this train of thought led me to think up an argument in favor of legalized abortion on the basis of parental responsibility that I haven't heard before. I think it's interesting, but I have a sneaking suspicion it won't hold an ounce of water. Oh well, here it is:
1. Father and mother are equally responsible for conception. 2. Discrimination on the basis of sex is unconstitutional. 3. Women are physically tied to children, whereas men are not. 4. Therefore, this situation is inherently unequal, as "ownership" defaults to the mother. 5. Enforcing child care with an unwilling father is notoriously difficult. 6. Therefore, legal abortion is the only way to remedy this situation.
Have you heard this argument, or one like it before? Either way, please, rip into it.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Amancear,
quote:I was trying to side step the question of murder because I do not know that I agree that that term is appropriate or that the question is necessary to the debate.
If the fetus is a true human life, then of course the term is appropriate, and where murder is concerned, it's necessary to any debate if it's actually happening. That's why you can't just negotiate it out of the discussion by changing the terminology. It's wrong (I believe, obviously), and furthermore it's simply not going to work. People will not accept it, the people who believe it's murder, that is.
quote:While I understand and respect that you value human life over personal bodily autonomy, I am not certain that I do.
But, see, in almost all the cases, personal bodily autonomy is not being violated. Because the woman could have chosen to have their autonomy unchanged by preventing the pregnancy in a host of ways. So too could the man (and so the man should, if he is not certain that he and the woman both want and are prepared for a child).
You are suggesting that this personal bodily autonomy trump everything at all times, with layers of repetition. Even when respecting that autonomy requires letting someone kill another person-if in fact that's what's happening.
Pretty much the only time the law actually permits someone to kill another person is if that other person is committing a crime against oneself, or a loved one, or an innocent bystander.
quote:I think that a mother who unwillingly carries a baby to term is having her will and body subjugated to another.
Who is doing the subjugating, though? In the majority of situations, she is. Unprotected sex or improperly used birth control are usually the causes of unwanted pregnancies. I see no reason to want to redress this "subjugation" at the cost of-possibly-a human child's life when the "subjugation" is temporary and easily avoidable.
I suppose I should be protected from the "subjugation" of my body when I eat spicy foods. Or the "subjugation" of my body when I suffer an injury-it's not fair that I have to lie up in a hospital if I drive without my seatbelt on!
In those cases, too, I'll be fighting against the "subjugation" imposed by simple biology and laws of probability.
As for Rabbit's statements, you'll notice that I agree with many of the things she said too.
----------
Juxtapose,
Thank you for rethinking that. I wholeheartedly understand your initial anger. Obviously the man does carry a great portion of the responsibility. If, for instance, the man does not want a child, it is his responsibility to make sure that correctly-used and highly-effective birth control is being applied. It is also the woman's responsibility as well.
I think that paternity laws should be severe and enforced (and fortunately nowadays, often they are). I think deadbeet dads should be tracked down and either forced to pay their share of the financial burden, or face jailtime (nowadays, frequently they do). And the thing that nowadays doesn't happen so much, I think sperm donors who cut and run-even if they do pay-should face a social stigma as strong or stronger as young women with an "unwanted pregnancy" face.
There's not much I can do about that last though, except express my own personal contempt for such a man when I meet him, and tell him I think that's a crappy thing to do, and that he should be a man, and do the right thing. I've done that before, on more than one occassion.
As for the argument, there are at least two problems. One, tracking down deadbeet dads is difficult, it's true, but it's not impossible-more and more deadbeet dads are forced to pay or are jailed every day. Two, nowhere in your arguments do you address the lost human life-if that's what is lost.
Any argument which fails to address the idea that a fetus is a true human life will probably (almost certainly) fail to sway the overwhelming majority of pro-lifers. But to be fair, there's little persuading them, because they're pretty convinced that it's a true human life being terminated. Or else they'll not be convinced until it can be proven it isn't.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
Dag, I'm sorry I upset you. I didn't mean to imply that we shouldn't do anything about abortion becuase people have miscarriages. It just seemed odd to me that we as a society spend so much time trying to change the minds of women who conciously chose to terminate their pregnancies when almost as many women have their babies taken from them by nature. I thought I remembered from one of the miscarriage threads that little is understood about them.
quote:Miscarriages are tragic and sad, and there is plenty of research out there and things that can be done to prevent miscarriages in people who have repeated ones - I had a friend who suffered six miscarriages before she began seeing a specialist who treated her with drugs and she was able to carry to term. So there is research and there is effort to help women carry to term when they've had miscarriages before.
I had no idea, Belle. Chet works with a gal who's had half a dozen miscarriages. I'll have to pass that along.
I think what bothers me most about abortion can be summed up nicely in a single poster. When Chet was in the hospital with food poisoning, I remember seeing a poster in the emergency room: "Not ready for a baby? Your parents don't need to know."
All I could think was how dare they deliberately come between a parent and their child? How can they possibly justify encouraging kids not to talk to their parents?
The worst part is knowing they want young girls to get surgery by themselves after seeing the way they treated Chet. The morons couldn't write anything down. They never had the doctor's orders that we had written down in our notes. He got his blood transfusion at the wrong time. We were routinely given the wrong test results. And they want to get 16 year olds who don't know any better there by themselves? They probably encourage it to keep down the number of malpractice suits.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
rivka,
I actually don't think there was much argument about the statistics. And the online data from NYS Health Department show the same ballpark figures that your article showed.
The 74:100 thing is one way to express the data that is only misleading if people try to turn that into a percentage, which it ain't. Yeah, it can be alarming, but, yes, so is a rate of 40%, as you've said.
Anyway, I did want to quibble with on thing. It appeared that the article said very few women were coming in from outside NYC to get an abortion.
That was my first hypothesis and I rejected it ultimately because the number of people not from within the 5 boroughs was something well below 10%.
I think they changed the denominator in reporting that stat in the article...I'd have to check again, and I'm needing food now instead.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
AvidReader, tell your friend to see a specialist, usually they are with fertility clinics, who can work with her. In my friend's case, it was certain hormone deficiencies that were treatable. I'm not saying every miscarriage can be prevented, mind you, or that every woman can be helped but it certainly is worth looking into.
And, quite frankly, not every miscarriage should be prevented. In many cases, studies have shown that the fetus that was miscarried was not viable, because of some genetic problem or something else. It doesn't mean it's less traumatic or tragic for the parents that want that baby, but remember that many women who have miscarriages go on to successfully carry to term later on and have healthy babies. There have been several miscarriages in my family and I may have had one myself (we chose not to have tests to definitively find out if I had been pregnant, but it was very likely an early miscarriage) and in each case we all had healthy children afterwards.
So while there are certainly women like my friend and yours that need help carrying to term, most women who suffer a miscarriage don't need additional medical intervention.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Y'know, the one thing I truly don't understand in logical stance of the general pro-life position is the "rape" exemption. I understand "life of the mother" clauses, but not the "ok in case of rape" standpoint. It just doesn't seem consistent to me.
If the fetus is a person at conception than it's a person regardless, and shouldn't have to pay the consequence for other people's actions, even if it was an unconsenting action.
I think I'm personally coming to the point where I believe a "chemical" type abortion is much more morally acceptable than a surgical one. I know that may seem like an odd position, but I really can't find a lot of fault with the morning after pill, nor any process that mimics early term miscarriages.
I realize that with actual later term miscarriages, sometimes labor is forcibly induced in order to deliver the fetus. However the early term misccariages, are more along the lines of having a heavy period with cramps. No labor is specifically induced, the hormones levels are simply imbalanced for whatever reason and can no longer sustain the pregnancy.
Yeah it's a wierd shade of grey, but it seems to be the shade that I feel the most logically comfortable with.
AJ
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
BannaOJ,
Speaking for myself, I view it as this. Rather like Amancear has been talking about forcing a woman to carry the fetus to term, I view being raped as actually forcing a woman to carry a child to term-i.e. she just didn't have any choice at all in the matter.
The real reason I'm pro-life is because I think there's a strong possibility that a fetus is a human life, that possibility growing daily right up until birth at which time it's a certainty. Mixed in with that is the knowledge that with just a little inexpensive planning, the possibility can be avoided entirely without risking the destruction of a human life.
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
AJ, For me, I still hope any individual who is pregnant would protect the life of the child, no matter how they got pregnant; but I recognize the difference between becoming pregnant due to the choice to have sex, and becoming pregnant because you were forced and had no choice. I would hope no one would terminate that kind of pregnancy, but I would not want to legislate against it in a case where the mother has already had her choice taken from her.
It's not to say I think abortion is okay, in those circumstances; but I think in those cases the decision should be made by the mother, since it's only after the fact that she has any choice. So in this instance there's a difference between thinking it's morally okay, and thinking it should be legal.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Ahh... so there really is a shade of grey in the pro-life stance already then for some choice... never really looked at it that way before. But to me it dilutes the strength of the total argument, since there's already a "choice" exemtpion in there.
AJ
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Women who got pregnant and were using protection probably didn't choose to get pregnant, either.
I don't know. To me, that shade of grey makes pro-life seem far more like a punishment for having sex.
-pH
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
BannaOj,
I'm not sure what you mean, if you were speaking to me or JennaDean.
If you were speaking to me, all I can say is that my discomfort level rises dramatically when someone is actually forced-as in the case of rape-to bear a child they in no way asked for.
Perhaps a little contrived analogy will make things clearer. If I invite my neighbor over to my home and tell him, "I will take care of you. I will sustain, clothe, and shelter you," and he has no way of living without my support...and then I withdraw that support, to me that's murder. But if someone blunders into my home when there's a "No Trespassing" sign posted, then things are quite different. I am not responsible for that person's life. I did not ask for that person to be in my home, he forced his way into my home.
(I realize there's some squicky metaphor there-sorry about that).
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by Amanecer: The person in the other car is seriouslly injured and needs a blood transfusion. As it turns out there is none of his/her type of blood available in any form. However, you have their blood type. To me it seems clear that it is your moral responsibilty to give them your blood if you are able to. Legally though, do they have any claim to your blood? I don't believe they do. (If this is incorrect, I would love to know.) The government does not have domain over our own bodies. They can not make us give blood to save a victim of our own carelessness.
As some others have suggested, there is a fairly significant distinction (legally, if not morally) between a passive failure to do good and and an active attempt to do harm.
If people were trying to pass laws requiring pregnant women to eat only certain 'approved' healthy foods, abstain from alcohol, etc., I'd oppose them. But deliberately seeking an abortion is fundamentally different, IMO. In the one case, perhaps the mother doesn't care about the child she carries and is not going to be bothered with changing her lifestyle; so be it. It's a huge jump to go from that to essentially hiring an obstetric hit man.
I'm also not sure that your example is true because the "government does not have domain over our own bodies." Certainly, irresponsibility as a driver can lead to being fined, jailed, sued for civil damages, etc. The reason why one's blood is not demanded in your scenario may be that legally establishing criminal or civil liability takes a lot longer than the window of time in which your 'victim' will be in need of blood. Certainly, if the victim has perpetual medical expenses related to the accident, the courts can take that out in lieu of physical blood.
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: This is my problem: while I think it's morally wrong, I don't believe in legislating by my morals when that means curtailing personal freedoms... (snip) ...BUT. I would not force someone else to make the same choice based on my personal beliefs.
Legislating anything curtails personal freedom, and legislating is always based on some moral judgment. Tax laws, traffic ordinances, environmental statutes -- all curtail freedom, and all are based on some kind of morality.
quote:Also, I'm not sure how wrong it is. I mean, I don't know when a soul enters the body, and until that point, I don't consider a fetus a seperate human being. It might be different for each pregnancy.
Is it your contention that government is only bound to protect people with souls? That is a very odd standard for a secular nation, particularly when the existence of a soul cannot be proven or disproven in the first place. It also sounds a bit like you want public policy on this matter to conform to *your* personal beliefs (or the ambiguity thereof).
The fact that a fetus is a living human organism is a concrete biological fact. Nebulous musings about whether it has a soul may be interesting from a religious standpoint, but have no place in American public policy, IMO.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Y'know, the one thing I truly don't understand in logical stance of the general pro-life position is the "rape" exemption. I understand "life of the mother" clauses, but not the "ok in case of rape" standpoint. It just doesn't seem consistent to me.
quote:Ahh... so there really is a shade of grey in the pro-life stance already then for some choice... never really looked at it that way before. But to me it dilutes the strength of the total argument, since there's already a "choice" exemtpion in there.
Many pro-life people do not want such an exception. Some of those are willing to compromise in order to obtain a law that target 97%+ of abortions.
I, for one, would vote for a law with a rape exception in a second, assuming it was that or nothing. I'd be up front about thinking the exception is wrong, though.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Hi, Irregardless! Did you get a chance to puzzle through the list we were putting together for you, up back a little in the thread? Was it what you were looking for?
quote:Originally posted by Irregardless: The fact that a fetus is a living human organism is a concrete biological fact.
I'm not sure I would agree with that statement, and I'm pretty well-trained in the area of concrete biological facts.
Do you mind if I ask you some questions to try to unpack the meaning of the sentence, or would that be too bothersome?
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: As far as practical things pro-life organization could do to combat poverty, how about support for an increase in the minimum wage, support for universal health insurance, support for extended family leave with pay, support for raising the poverty level, support for increased welfare assistance for families with children, and decreased taxes for families with children.
Most of those might reduce abortions (though there might be unintended offsetting consequences, such as the minimum wage increase driving up low-wage unemployment). However, I regard much of this governmental redistribution of wealth as itself a form of violence -- armed robbery -- and as such I could not conscientiously support any organization that pushed that agenda. At least with the present abortion laws, someone else is (usually) doing the killing, whereas tax-funded redistribution at gunpoint makes me a fellow participant in the crime.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
They're dying, but at least they're dying on their own initiative.
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: Hi, Irregardless! Did you get a chance to puzzle through the list we were putting together for you, up back a little in the thread? Was it what you were looking for?
To some extent. I'm still ruminating on the matter.
quote:
quote:Originally posted by Irregardless: The fact that a fetus is a living human organism is a concrete biological fact.
I'm not sure I would agree with that statement, and I'm pretty well-trained in the area of concrete biological facts.
Do you mind if I ask you some questions to try to unpack the meaning of the sentence, or would that be too bothersome?
Fire away. Up front I will elaborate that I say it is a human organism if it has a human genome, and that "life" is determined by fairly straightforward biological criteria (growth, energy transformation, reproduction, reaction to stimuli, etc.).
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:However, I regard much of this governmental redistribution of wealth as itself a form of violence -- armed robbery -- and as such I could not conscientiously support any organization that pushed that agenda. At least with the present abortion laws, someone else is (usually) doing the killing, whereas tax-funded redistribution at gunpoint makes me a fellow participant in the crime.
Wow, we've got quite the libertarian here. Perhaps you can explain to me how it is, exactly, that the concept of private property (which developed gradually as Western civilization's solution to the problem of how to make use of natural resources) came to be written down as eternal moral law? You concede that wealth redistribution could improve people's lives in at least one important way. So why rule it out as a possible solution to some of our problems?
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: Ahh... so there really is a shade of grey in the pro-life stance already then for some choice... never really looked at it that way before. But to me it dilutes the strength of the total argument, since there's already a "choice" exemption in there.
For me, there are shades of grey. Not for everyone. But in my "shades of grey", I'm more likely to want to err on the side of protecting the innocent life of the baby, than on the side of protecting the freedom to choose of the mother - since the mother exercised her freedom to choose whether or not to engage in the act that led to that life. (Which is why, although I don't like it, I would support an exemption in cases of rape.)
quote:Originally posted by pH: I don't know. To me, that shade of grey makes pro-life seem far more like a punishment for having sex.
I don't think of pregnancy as being a punishment for sex; I think it's a natural consequence of sex, and anyone old enough to do it should know that, and accept that possibility when they make their choice to engage in it. To say that people who want to protect the baby are trying to punish the mother is unfair ... nobody forced her to engage in the baby-making behavior.
Unless somebody did. Which is when there should be an exception. Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I see forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term as being a punishment for sex. Saying, "Well, she shouldn't have been having sex then anyway" just reinforces that to me, since that's how I interpret what you're saying.
Also, I think there should be way more of a push for men to use condoms. I like that there is a new line of protection marketed solely to women, and I think that's wonderful. But from what I've heard from friends, a lot of men get pissy when asked to use condoms because they make sex feel less good (?) and "She's the one with the uterus; it should be her responsibility anyway." That kind of attitude makes me sick.
-pH
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: Wow, we've got quite the libertarian here. Perhaps you can explain to me how it is, exactly, that the concept of private property (which developed gradually as Western civilization's solution to the problem of how to make use of natural resources) came to be written down as eternal moral law?
Well, I would first of all deny that the concept of private property is either Western or recent in origin. As a matter of my own personal beliefs, I say that God instituted it, but in regards to using it as a basis of public policy I'd say that it is a natural outgrowth of human nature, and that any society which persistently fails to protect it is doomed to economic collapse.
quote:You concede that wealth redistribution could improve people's lives in at least one important way. So why rule it out as a possible solution to some of our problems?
Because the end doesn't justify the means. You correctly identified me as a libertarian; as such, I reject the use of coercive force except in the protection of rights.
We may be getting a bit far afield from the abortion topic, though.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
quote: Also, I think there should be way more of a push for men to use condoms.
"I'm not sleeping with you unless you use a condom."
Problem solved. Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irregardless: Fire away. Up front I will elaborate that I say it is a human organism if it has a human genome, and that "life" is determined by fairly straightforward biological criteria (growth, energy transformation, reproduction, reaction to stimuli, etc.).
Okay, cool. I'm going to try to parse out where we are going with this first, so be sure to let me know if I'm misinterpreting this.
By the way, I'm pretty sure this line of thinking leads us either into an untenable position or one which requires additional (i.e., less concrete) assumptions. I'm not sure I know what you mean, though, so unpacking it slowly would help me a lot.
On the other hand, it should be clear from the get-go that I would hold that even if I'm correct -- that is, this line of thinking leads us either into an untenable position or one which requires additional (i.e., less concrete) assumptions -- this shouldn't be taken to prove anything for or against a policy permitting voluntary abortions. it would just mean that we would've identified an additional area of complexity, that's all.
Sound okay to you?
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
quote:Originally posted by pH: I see forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term as being a punishment for sex. Saying, "Well, she shouldn't have been having sex then anyway" just reinforces that to me, since that's how I interpret what you're saying.
I don't mean to say "she shouldn't have been having sex." I mean to say, "If she chooses to have sex, she knows beforehand what the consequences might be, and either agrees to them or ignores them; but the consequences don't change just because she wishes she'd made a different choice after the fact."
How can we (society, the government, whatever) punish a woman for having sex? We don't jail her for it. We didn't sentence her to be pregnant; we didn't create the pregnancy; she and her partner created it. We're just trying to protect that life that she started, just as we would protect her life if someone was trying to end it. If she's finds pregnancy a punishment, she's punishing herself.
On the other hand, pH, I completely agree 100% with your second paragraph. I wish pregnancy showed on dads too!
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Yeah Storm, but a lot of men make such a huge deal out of it. And I think for a lot of women, if they're willing to let a guy be that intimate, they're a lot more likely to give in on that point. I don't think women should have to make those demands so often. I think the men should WANT to use condoms without ultimatums.
-pH
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
pH, I think you know entirely the wrong guys. Among the guys I've talked about this with, using a condom is a written-in-stone law unless there is some reason why one is not necessary (and "she's on birth control" doesn't count unless both partners have had recent STD testing).
Added: Wait, I can think of one guy who avoids using them wherever possible... to the point of "forgetting" to take any with him when he hits the clubs to, uh, forage. He once said "Hey, if I forgot it, that's just a reason not to use one!"
But he's a mysogynsitic jerk, so that shouldn't count.
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
quote: If the fetus is a true human life, then of course the term is appropriate, and where murder is concerned, it's necessary to any debate if it's actually happening. That's why you can't just negotiate it out of the discussion by changing the terminology. It's wrong (I believe, obviously), and furthermore it's simply not going to work. People will not accept it, the people who believe it's murder, that is.
I fail to see how I have changed the terminology. Either human life is of higher value than bodily autonomy or it isn't. Whether you view abortion as murder or something lesser is an irrelevant point. I'm sorry if I'm being repititious, but I feel that I feel that I'm being falsely accused or bad discussion tactics.
quote: Who is doing the subjugating, though? In the majority of situations, she is. Unprotected sex or improperly used birth control are usually the causes of unwanted pregnancies. I see no reason to want to redress this "subjugation" at the cost of-possibly-a human child's life when the "subjugation" is temporary and easily avoidable.
From a moral standpoint, I absolutely agree with this. However from a legal standpoint I think that punishments should fit the crime. I think that carrying around a baby for nine months is a stiff penalty for irresponsible sex. Especially when somebody equally as guilty has no punishment. I think that Juxtapose has an important point. There can not be true legal equality between the sexes if abortion is criminalized.
quote: The reason why one's blood is not demanded in your scenario may be that legally establishing criminal or civil liability takes a lot longer than the window of time in which your 'victim' will be in need of blood. Certainly, if the victim has perpetual medical expenses related to the accident, the courts can take that out in lieu of physical blood.
It's possible that time frames are an issue, but I doubt it. I believe the disctiction lies in what is an acceptable form of punishment and what is more "cruel and unusual." Taking away somebody's blood against their will seems like such a violation that I believe it is both cruel and unusual. Making somebody pay for medical expenses does not seem so.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by twinky: pH, I think you know entirely the wrong guys. Among the guys I've talked about this with, using a condom is a written-in-stone law unless there is some reason why one is not necessary (and "she's on birth control" doesn't count unless both partners have had recent STD testing).
See, all things Canadian taste good and are better for you. It's true.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
*LOL* I don't deny that these men are not choice individuals. But they seem to be getting laid the most when it comes to the women I know, who are mostly college-age.
-pH
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
Then the women you know have terrible taste in men. Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
MOST women have terrible taste in men.
And it is probably the women who have terrible taste in men who are mostly getting pregnant.
Therefore, the women need to be educated and encouraged, and the men need to have some sense smacked into them.
-pH
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
Yes, I agree. Condom use as a non-negotiable item should be drilled into everybody's head throughout every sex ed class they ever take.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Amancear,
I'm sorry, I meant to say "phrasing", not terminology. You've obviously not changed any of the definitions to the words we're using, but the way in which you structured your sentence forces the speaker to place a higher priority on personal bodily autonomy than on the life being destroyed.
At least, it does when I say it to myself. Anyway, pro-lifers aren't going to agree to consider the issue from a stance that from the get-go handicaps their position. Just like a pro-choicer wouldn't agree to argue from the idea that, "Destroying the fetus that she could have avoided is more less important than her personal bodily autonomy."
quote:I think that carrying around a baby for nine months is a stiff penalty for irresponsible sex. Especially when somebody equally as guilty has no punishment. I think that Juxtapose has an important point. There can not be true legal equality between the sexes if abortion is criminalized.
Ummm...well, that's biology. Blame God, or evolution, or the Life, Universe, and Everything. And-as I've kept saying-if you don't want this penalty, don't engage in the behavior. Why, when there is quite possibly a human life being lost, is this so much to ask? Why? Birth control is cheap. It's abundant. It's easy to use. It's effective when used properly. I believe in "personal bodily autonomy", but really, if you want someone to protect it, encourage them to protect it proactively-not when you have to kill something to protect yourself from a stupid mistake.
As for there being no true equality...well in exceptions of rape, sure there can. If you permit abortions in the case of rape (and no, the woman does not have to prove she was raped and yes, I know, this offers an opportunity for abortions for women who were not raped that some might take), then the vast majority of women seeking abortions would be doing so because they had unprotected or improperly protected sex with a man before they were ready to have a child.
Assuming the sex was consentual, in what way is equality between the sexes threatened? Really the only way it is threatened is because the woman is "forced" to carry to term a baby she doesn't want...but apparently was not concerned with enough to properly prevent the pregnancy.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Rakeesh, it's unequal because the man can walk away from the situation at any time. Even legally, all he has to do is pay money every month. He doesn't have to deal with the physical and emotional implications of being pregnant, even though he was being just as irresponsible as the woman.
-pH
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:Even legally, all he has to do is pay money every month. He doesn't have to deal with the physical and emotional implications of being pregnant, even though he was being just as irresponsible as the woman.
This is one of those situations where civilization should step in and collectively disdain him...
EDIT: with the purpose of encouraging him (and all males) to support in every way possible the child he was responsible in making.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Y'know, the one thing I truly don't understand in logical stance of the general pro-life position is the "rape" exemption. I understand "life of the mother" clauses, but not the "ok in case of rape" standpoint. It just doesn't seem consistent to me.
I understand that it doesn't look consistent at all. Personally, I'm against a rape exception. If I take a stand believing that life is life and that the baby is alive then it doesn't matter how it was created, it deserves the protection we afford a newborn infant. I am, however, fully in support of providing medical care to any woman who has been raped and for that medical care to include the morning after pill, if she desires it. While it's not foolproof, it's highly effective in preventing implantation, and that will remove a worry and burden from the woman and she need never know whether she would have been pregnant or not.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
So far as that goes, I agree, pH, it's unequal. Personally I think the man should have to do more-spend time with the kid, take an interest. I'm unsure how something like that would be legislated, but I fail to see how the possible death of a human child doesn't trump this "what if" inequality.
It all comes back to that, for me. Personally there's a lot I'm willing to support in the name of equality. Affirmative Action, sexual harrassment laws that are enforced, public and media pressure to end gender discrimination, improving job opportunities and education opportunities for women, more women in politics, tough (and I mean draconian) punishments for rapists and wife-beaters, tracking down and jailing or forcing to pay deadbeet dads, maternity leave, insurance support and tax breaks for young mothers (single or otherwise)...hell, I've voted for political candidates before based on their support of measures like that.
But I get a lot more hesitant fighting inequality when there's a chance the fight is won over the corpse of a human child.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I guess to me, it's not a child. I can understand how partial-birth abortions are bad. Those bother me. But first trimester abortions? They don't bother me at all.
I'm curious as to how many of you have spoken with women who've had abortions and what they had to say and what you thought of it.
One of my experiences: One of my old roommates once told me that she'd had two (I believe, it may have only been one) abortions in high school. She had a medical condition that made her chances of being pregnant something like one in a million, and she used condoms, but she still got pregnant. Her father told her that she could choose to keep or abort, and that she could either decide alone or with the father-to-be. She made her own decisions. She said that when she had the abortion, she got physically ill. Apparently, she was far enough along that they could tell that the baby would have been a boy. She knew approximately when he would have been born, and that month is always a sad one for her. It was a tough, emotional decision. But overall, she feels that she made the right choice, and I agree with her. Now she has the opportunity for college and a career, and she can make a much better life for any children she does choose to have. I don't think adoption was offered as an option to her; I don't think it was acceptable where she lived at the time, but even if it was, I still agree with her choice.
-pH
Posted by Zan (Member # 4888) on :
quote:Personally I think the man should have to do more-spend time with the kid, take an interest.
I don't think this would be a good idea. If a man doesn't want to be around the baby, I don't think you should force him to. I don't see how either the child or the dad will benefit from it unless he is the type that could be brought around by holding a baby. I don't think that would include most young men.
That seems almost like requiring the woman to keep the baby for awhile before choosing to give it up for adoption.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:I'm curious as to how many of you have spoken with women who've had abortions and what they had to say and what you thought of it.
I have when I've volunteered with a ministry and I have seen women devastated by it, especially those who knew deep down they were doing something wrong and allowed their boyfriend or family to talk them into it. I've also seen the other side, the women who kept their children and now say they can not imagine life without their beloved babies and are so grateful they didn't go through with the abortion.
And I've heard testimony from a young man whose mother DID abort him. It was a later term abortion than they thought and he survived the procedure. Talk about powerful. Here's someone that some people might say shouldn't have been born. His mother was poor and uneducated and couldn't support him. She definitely decided she didn't want him and turned him over to the state to raise. He was adopted by a family and he had a lot to say about whether or not his life was worth living.
I don't buy the argument that having a baby means you can never have a life of your own or a career, I'm proof that having a baby at a young age before you finish college isn't a death blow to your dreams. Heck, I stay home and enjoy my children and can work on my novel anytime I want to and my dream as a young girl was to grow up and become a professional writer.
I know many women who had babies young and even unmarried who have done very well for themselves. One is a friend whose daughter takes gymnastics with my Emily, and we've talked about it many times. (you get to know people you spend three hours a week with, when there's nothing for you to do but watch your kids and talk) She continued to work to support herself and her baby and now is a regional manager for a department store, owns her own home in a great neighborhood and she and her daughter have an extremely close relationship.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:I guess to me, it's not a child. I can understand how partial-birth abortions are bad. Those bother me. But first trimester abortions? They don't bother me at all.
That's just a guess, though. You're guessing it's not a true human life. You don't actually know. And what length of gestation is this magic number? Six months and one minute? Five months and three days? The instant of conception? Right up until the baby crowns?
Some people say, "You have to pick a date." I agree with that, actually. An arbitrary date needs to be picked for all sorts of things. Driving, drinking, sex, voting, credit cards, etc. None of those are possibly destroying a human life.
Posted by smitty (Member # 8855) on :
well, it could be said that all 5 are possible destroying human life, but that's beside the point.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:That's just a guess, though. You're guessing it's not a true human life.
What I meant was not, "I guess it's not a human life" so much as, "I guess TO ME it's not a human life." As in, in my opinion, I suppose I don't really think it's a human life. Just like, I guess to me, God exists. The point is not the "I guess" so much as the "To me."
-pH
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
The whole thing about "Life starts at conception" bothers me, because statistically it means I could have 50 dead children waiting for me in heaven, even though I've never had an abortion.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Olivet, the part I wonder about is less when life begins (that's a scientific concern) and more when the life has a soul. I have a hard time believing that ALL spontaneously aborted fertilized eggs have souls. It just doesn't fit with my picture of God.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
I suppose I equate "life" with the presence of a distinct spirit.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
I think that's where I get confused reading some people's posts. Life is a measurable, is it or isn't it kind of thing. You look in a microscope and if it moves, it's more likely to be alive than dead. Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
But the "to me" part has no bearing on whether or not "the guess" is right.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: nowhere in your arguments do you address the lost human life-if that's what is lost.
You're right of course, Rakeesh. That's what was bothering me when I formulated this argument; it still returns to the question of whether or not the fetus is a person. This is what I get for hatracking at 4:30 AM. Although, I should say, I still do think the point in and of itself is valid.
quote:Originally posted by Irregardless: Up front I will elaborate that I say it is a human organism if it has a human genome, and that "life" is determined by fairly straightforward biological criteria (growth, energy transformation, reproduction, reaction to stimuli, etc.).
I'm no biologist, Irregardless, but it seems like your definition here covers just about every cell in my body, possibly exempting my sperm, which only have half a genome. If I were to bang my head against the wall a few times, killing some brain cells, you might consider me stupid, but certainly no murderer.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: But the "to me" part has no bearing on whether or not "the guess" is right.
Except that the guess concerns my beliefs and not the fact of whether or not there is life.
But if it's the guessing that bothers you, one could argue that we execute people based on the fact that twelve other people guess that they're guilty of a heinous crime. Until we develop the Star Trek technology to extract memories from the deceased, it's a guess, and it will remain a guess.
Edit: People who are most assuredly alive.
-pH
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
I don't know that every miscarriage is a death. But since I don't know when life starts, I don't think we should pick an arbitrary time before which it's not a human life, without having more information than we have now. Perhaps someday we'll be able to state categorically that "At this moment, when the heart starts to beat, when the brainwaves are measurable, we know that the soul enters the body, and before then it's okay to abort." But we don't know that time yet.
To some people that would mean, "Okay, since we don't know it's alive, let's give the woman the freedom to choose up until we know it's alive." To me, it means, "Let's give the woman the freedom to choose her actions up until she starts what may be a life (in other words, conception), after which, let's protect that life."
And to those who've said that carrying a baby to term is unfair, unequal treatment of the sexes, a punishment, I like Rakeesh's answer best: That may be true, but it isn't the government or the pro-lifers that determined those consequences or made things unequal; it's God, or Mother Nature, or Biology. Don't look at those who are trying to protect a life and accuse them of trying to punish the mother. They had nothing to do with determining the consequences of her actions. They're just trying to prevent further harmful actions.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
The sperm and egg are also alive.
Every time a male ejaculates, the cell count is in the millions, IIRC.
The reunion in the afterlife is going to get awfully crowded if we meet up with every potential life...
I think there's a real problem with determining when a human soul is present...at what point does that happen...
Since we can't measure its existence in the first place, figuring out WHEN it gets in there, or if the soul merely "wears" our body, or interfaces with it...etc., it just going to boil down to a matter for religious disputation.
Adding in atheists and 1/2 credit for agnostics (give or take), I think we're going to have a very tough time deciding the point at which we would call an embryo or fetus an equal to any person already born.
This is one of those nasty issues that could simply absorb a lot of time and energy and generate nothing but heat for decades to come.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:To me, it means, "Let's give the woman the freedom to choose her actions up until she starts what may be a life (in other words, conception), after which, let's protect that life."
Again, I argue that a woman who engages in intercourse while taking birth control precautions is making a conscious decision NOT to start what may be a life.
-pH
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Just to clarify, I wasn't talking about miscarriages per se, just fertilized eggs that never implant (usually due to meeting up with a sperm at the wrong time of the cycle).
My question would be, is it a miscarriage if your were never actually "pregnant" (no implantation)?
This is why I have zero qualms about the 'morning after pill' and similar treatments. I just don't have the mental energy to morn ever unimplanted embryo, especially since I have no way of knowing how many there may have been.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:But if it's the guessing that bothers you, one could argue that we execute people based on the fact that twelve other people guess that they're guilty of a heinous crime. Until we develop the Star Trek technology to extract memories from the deceased, it's a guess, and it will remain a guess.
On the contrary, it's not a guess, it's a certainty to the point of being beyond a reasonable doubt.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
quote:Originally posted by pH: Again, I argue that a woman who engages in intercourse while taking birth control precautions is making a conscious decision NOT to start what may be a life.
You keep reiterating this point. However, if she has thought it through to the extent that you are suggesting, than she surely is aware that there is the small chance that she will get pregnant. You get in a car, you may never get out again even with a seatbelt, airbags, and defensive driving. You use drugs, you still may get a disease or OD no matter how careful you are with the needles and dosage.
With sex comes the possibility of creating life, no matter what precautions the two tangoers have taken. Just because in this case we have the means of that discharging that responsibility my means of killing the fetus/baby doesn't mean that we should utilize it. The whole concept makes me sad. Seems something like a using a baby airbag Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I don't think many people say this at all. For example, I don't personally know any pro-life activists who don't want a life of the mother exception. And I know lots of pro-life activist.
I do know pro-life activists who oppose a life of the mother exemption. I know many who oppose a health of the mother exemption. The line between the two is not always distinct since medical science is not advanced enough to know exactly which conditions will kill the mother and whether medical care will be successful in saving a life.
I offer you one borderline case, suppose that the mother is diagnosed with cancer. She can not receive chemotherapy while pregnant. The doctors estimate that her chances of survival if she begins chemotherapy immediately are 80%, if she waits to receive chemotherapy until after the child is born, her chances of survival will drop to 50%. Is the life of the mother or the health of the mother at risk here. Should a woman be allowed the choice of an abortion under these circumstances?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
She could proceed with chemotherapy without getting an abortion.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote: I regard much of this governmental redistribution of wealth as itself a form of violence -- armed robbery
There are many who regard the market system which takes the wealth created by workers and rewards it to CEOs and stock holders as a form of violence -- armed robbery so to speak.
All of your arguments rely on the proposition that the current distribution of the wealth in our society is just. I personally, can't find think of any logical definition of justice that would make such a proposition defensible.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
Dagonee, I'm presuming that, in Rabbit's example, the chemotherapy would have (at least) a high chance of lethality for the fetus. Since chemotherapy is basically pumping poisons through the patient, this doesn't seem like much of a reach, to me. Anyone who knows better, feel free to brutally correct me.
Irregardless and Rabbit, The debate between libertarianism and government regulation is one I find very interesting, but out of place on this thread. It really deserves it's own space to develop, so I'll go start one. Here's the link. Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Juxtapose, I know that. There's still a difference between treating a disease and ripping a child out of the womb.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Dag, chemotherapy would likely produce the equivalent of an early-term chemical abortion, thus eliminating the "ripping a child out of the womb." (nice emotionally charged language, btw.) Even late term, it would cause the death of the fetus.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Well it comes back down to intent. There is a major difference in intent between undergoing dangerous (to the mother as well) chemotherapy that stands a strong chance of killing the fetus as well, and targeting that fetus for destruction for the sake of convenience.
And frankly, his language is not very emotionally charged except for the word "child". Tack on "possible-" to that word, and it becomes a realistic reflection of what actually happens.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote:The sperm and egg are also alive.
I like this thought. Since the female body is designed to kill off as many sperm as possible before they reach the egg, it suggests that every human being is biologically designed to weed out the weak, inferior life as soon as possible.
Sounds good to me.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Rakeesh, I was in fact primarily referring to the use of the term "child" as opposed to the term fetus. I have always been under the impression that fetus is the medically correct term until birth.
Posted by Historian (Member # 8858) on :
Abortion...
A debate decades old...
And no matter how much we talk, argue, yell, cry, beg and sadly, choose to vote using only this as a factor, it will not change anything.
Shall we agree to disagree and be done with it all?
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote:Shall we agree to disagree and be done with it all?
What fun would that be?
Posted by Historian (Member # 8858) on :
quote:Originally posted by erosomniac:
quote:Shall we agree to disagree and be done with it all?
What fun would that be?
It seems we have very different definitions of fun.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote:It seems we have very different definitions of fun.
Very, but debating issues like this is (IMO) a large part of what gives this forum life. If you don't like reading threads debating controversy, even if it's controversy that's been beaten into the ground, why are you here? There are hundreds of other threads.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Dag, chemotherapy would likely produce the equivalent of an early-term chemical abortion, thus eliminating the "ripping a child out of the womb." (nice emotionally charged language, btw.) Even late term, it would cause the death of the fetus.
Yes, chemo might lead to the child's death. Some chemo regimes will almost certainly lead to the child's death. It's still different than taking steps with the intent to kill the child.
Edit: Moved "They mourned their baby" from here.
quote:I have always been under the impression that fetus is the medically correct term until birth.
"Fetus" is a stage of development. Unless you never call an infant a child, it is perfectly consistent to call an unborn child an undborn child. I've known many women who have suffered miscarriages. Not one of them mourned their fetus, or their "potential" child.
Nor are we restricted to medical terms. People speak of a heart attack, not a myocardial infarction.
Edit: Move "They mourned their baby" to here.
They mourned their baby.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
Belle, good point about the miscarriages. 34% sounds enormous, but I guess back in the day when women had 6 or 8 kids, one or two miscarriages wasn't as large a proportion.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
quote:Not one of them mourned their fetus, or their "potential" child.
I did. Read the miscarriage thread. *sigh*
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I'm not sure what the *sigh* is for. Could you explain?
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
KQ, I think Dag meant, "Not one of them mourned their fetus", they mourned their child. Even though at that point the correct medical term may be "fetus", the mothers who miscarry don't mourn the fetus. They mourn their baby.
Could be mistaken, but that's the impression I got.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:KQ, I think Dag meant, "Not one of them mourned their fetus", they mourned their child.
Well, that's what I said, so why the *sigh*?
Edit: Never mind - I put the sentence "They mourned their baby" in the wrong place.
Posted by Historian (Member # 8858) on :
I suppose there has to be someone that can take pleasure in beating dead horses.
And I don't recall saying that I didn't like the debate.
As to why I am here? I was offering my point of view, just like everyone else.
And that point was that this subject it a study in futility. Watching the merry-go-round spin and spin...
I meant no offence, and perhaps a Graemlin or two would have helped express my intent. Mayhap you will forgive me this time... After all I did manage to get you off subject Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
I suppose you're right about not being restricted to medical term, but you must admit that "killing of unborn children" is highly charged languange in a highly charged debate. For those of us who don't consider the tiny cluster of cells that is a fetus in the first trimester a child, that sort of language represents an end to productive debate.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:And that point was that this subject it a study in futility. Watching the merry-go-round spin and spin...
I've changed two different minds on this subject, and made at least a dozen begin to see the issue differently, even if they haven't changed their mind. And I've helped convince a young mother to keep her child. I'm not going to stop.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I suppose you're right about not being restricted to medical term, but you must admit that "killing of unborn children" is highly charged languange in a highly charged debate. For those of us who don't consider the tiny cluster of cells that is a fetus in the first trimester a child, that sort of language represents an end to productive debate.
"Tiny cluster of cells" isn't any less charged, and it's far more misleading a term.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: She could proceed with chemotherapy without getting an abortion.
Dags, as someone who had a good friend who was in PRECISELY the situation Rabbit described, no she could not.
To begin with, doctors will not give chemo to a woman who is known to be pregnant -- for reasons both medical and legal.
While it is likely that the chemo will kill the child, the fact that her body is under the stresses of pregnancy makes the chemo far less likely to be effective. Chemo on a pregnant mom is all too likely to result in a woman who still dies of cancer, and a baby who is tortured for weeks and then dies. A worse scenario than either of the real options.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
I definitely don't think discussion should stop. It does tend to be productive, to a point.
I'm also impressed with how civil and reasonable this discussion has been for the most part, mostly lacking in extreme rhetoric from either side.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
quote:"Tiny cluster of cells" isn't any less charged, and it's far more misleading a term.
Would you mind explaining how, on both points?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Rivka, it is just not true that doctors will not give chemo to a woman known to be pregnant.
Obviously, not all treatments can have such results. But I do know that even when a horrible outcome is expected, there are doctors who will do it.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Allow me to rephrase.
American doctors will not do so. And I believe they are correct not to.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Would you mind explaining how, on both points?
A mole is a tiny cluster of cells. So is a tumor. "Tiny cluster of cells" leaves out everything that distinguishes a fetus from things everyone agrees can be cut out without moral thought.
If "unborn child" - a term used all the time in non-abortion contexts to refer to a fetus, although not as often as simply the word "baby" - is highly charged, then the introduction of a term that almost no one would use to refer to a fetus outside of abortion contexts is more charged, more biased, and less accurate.
Which word would be understood with no additional context as refering to a fetus?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Allow me to rephrase.
American doctors will not do so. And I believe they are correct not to.
That's not true, at least not as a generalization. I'm sure there are American doctors who won't. I've talked to three cancer survivors who received chemo during pregnancy, one of whose child survived and is now fine.
All good points...all the more reason to use medical terminology, thereby keeping the debate civil.
Note that I did say "For those of us that believe." I intended to describe my own position, no more. To me, describing a pro-choice viewpoint as "for the killing of unborn children" is akin to describing the pro-life viewpoint as "for forcing women to carry unwanted collections of cells to the point where they become children." Either one of those descriptions is biased and heavily charged.
That is why I'd rather medical terms be used in the debate of such an emotionally charged subject. That's all.
As a side note, I am actually one of those who has revised her position somewhat on abortion due to debates on Hatrack. This has been due to calm, reasonable, civil presentations of viewpoints from both sides. This is why I value civil debate on the subject so much.
Also...I'm going to bed. So, if I don't respond, no offense meant.
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
One could with equal accuracy say that an adult is merely a "large cluster of cells", but that hardly seems relevant to establishing the adult's rights.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:To me, describing a pro-choice viewpoint as "for the killing of unborn children" is akin to describing the pro-life viewpoint as "for forcing women to carry unwanted collections of cells to the point where they become children."
And I have not described the pro-choice viewpoint thusly.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
It has been about 10 years since my friend was diagnosed. Clearly some things have changed.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I met those three women in college - no later than 1992.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Juxtapose, I know that. There's still a difference between treating a disease and ripping a child out of the womb.
I was originally responding to this post. Am I misinterpreting something in this post?
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
I see; you were saying you hadn't described the viewpoint that way, though you have described abortion that way.
How would you describe the pro-choice viewpoint, then?
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
quote:One could with equal accuracy say that an adult is merely a "large cluster of cells", but that hardly seems relevant to establishing the adult's rights.
Since going on the Alien ride at Disney, my boyfriend likes to refer to me as his "smaller carbon based lifeform" so I say different strokes for different folks. Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
The reason I mentioned the "cluster of cells" thing is because I personally have a very difficult time seeing the few cells that make up a fetus in the first trimester as a child. It has the potential to become an infant, giving development and eventual birth, but at that point it isn't one, to me. I agree that choosing an arbitrary point is troubling, but no more troubling to me than the idea that something 8 or 16 cells big takes precedence over a full-grown woman. That's my personal stance, though.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
quote:I'm not sure what the *sigh* is for. Could you explain?
It's just sad to think about the miscarriage.
But, I did not mourn a child. I mourned the potential for a child-- it was a very early miscarriage, but I don't feel that that particular pregnancy was ever more than the potential of a baby. Not a baby.
Conversely, I felt that Emma was a baby as soon as I knew she was pregnant-- and freaked out when I could have lost her, to the point where I, the non-compliant-because-I-forget, stayed on bedrest for a month.
Like I said, I think it may be different with every pregnancy.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:How would you describe the pro-choice viewpoint, then?
The view that abortion should be (edit to add the word "legally" here) available at some point during the pregnancy at the mother's election, with no other justification required.
quote: 8 or 16 cells big takes precedence over a full-grown woman
Except when discussing the morning after pill, there are never this few cells during an elective abortion.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Yeah, I've actually reached the end of my (limited) knowledge of how quickly pregnancy progresses. I should correct that.
I do agree with your description of the pro-choice viewpoint in your last post. I don't think your earlier terminology was as lacking in emotionally charged language, but that's beside the point.
Anyway, now I really am going to bed. Really.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Good night!
Posted by demosthenes83191 (Member # 9071) on :
Abortion is murder,no matter what stage the baby is at. It kills a little helpless baby iside the womb of its mother, and it also increases the mother's chance of getting breast cancer to 800%. It harms the mother, by hurting her physically and emotionally, and it KILLS the baby. Life should be preserved from the moment of conception to natural death.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
I take it you're against the death penalty and are a complete pacifist?
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
All right, I suppose I should post something non-snarky...
The argument over when life begins won't ever be resolved, I think. We don't even have a good definition of what this "life" is that we want to protect. It's not just the fact that the embryo is alive--so are bacteria, and we consider it good to kill the harmful ones. It's not that it contains human DNA--so did my wisdom teeth before I had them removed. It's not quite the potential to become a fully-grown human, since sperm and eggs have some of that potential (to a lesser degree). So, what is it that we want to protect?
Uniqueness? Certainly an embryo contains a unique collection of genes. That in itself is somewhat worth preserving, though this argument doesn't cover cloned embryos. Nor is this really sufficient, I think, to justify the banning of all abortions.
Perhaps it's a certain degree of potentiality that's worth protecting? I'd agree with this as well, that a human embryo is a precious thing which has the power to blossom into a conscious being. But this has the weakness of arbitrariness. At what point is there enough potential for life that it is immoral to destroy something?
Here's my problem. I don't really believe that a newly fertilized egg is morally equivalent to a newborn. I'm not bothered by the fact that I'll most likely lose several fertilized eggs because they didn't implant. I think it's because I associate personhood with self-awareness. I think it's a vital part of what makes us human and valuable, and before the brain forms there's no chance of self-awareness. Even long after the neurons are in place, the fetus may well not have anything resembling sentience. So, at what point does its right to existence trump certain rights of the sentient being carrying it?
And yet...I can't deny that some of who that embryo will be if it is simply given a place to grow is already right there in that ball of cells. I can't see destroying it casually. And because the issue of when personhood begins is so nebulous, I would prefer to err on the side of protecting that life. Except--going back to the whole sentience thing--when the life/health of the mother is at stake. I consider the mother more valuable than the baby. The baby doesn't comprehend its own mortality. It can't fear its impending death. Whether or not there's even an "I" in there is iffy.
But here's the thing...I'm not really wild about limiting the mother's rights, even though I think it's the right thing to do in this case. And pregnancy isn't just an inconvenience. There are several potentially fatal complications associated with pregancy, not to mention the pain and dangers of childbirth itself. Additionally, the truth is that Roe v. Wade probably won't overturned anytime soon, and even if it is many states will continue to keep abortion legal.
I guess all of this is why I think the solution isn't to have fights between pro-choice and pro-life people over the legality issue. Sure, I'd vote for most forms of abortion bans if it came up on the ballot, but I'm not going to expend energy lobbying for it. I think we all really ought to be exploring ways to make abortions unnecessary in the first place. I strongly doubt that most pro-choice groups are against adoption; why don't they work to make the public more aware of the option and the whole process easier? And if pro-life groups are willing to focus on preventing pregnancies in whatever way they can, even if that means sex-ed and promotion of birth control, it may well be more effective than focusing on legislation. Plus, if we all stop concentrating on legislation, we get to dodge both the issue of when life begins, AND the women's rights issues.
We as a society can do better to help prevent pregnancies and support the women who do end up with unwanted pregnancies. I think that's something just about everyone can agree on, so why not work toward common goals instead of annihilating each other in a fruitless burst of energy?
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
I apologize for the somewhat meandering nature of my previous post. Also for triple posting.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Life begins when I say it does. Next Thursday, I think, would be a fine time.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
Nuh-uh, it was LAST Thursday when all life began.
Posted by SenojRetep (Member # 8614) on :
I've read most of the thread, and thought that this article at Reason this morning was pertinent. It travels a lot of the ground we've covered in the last six pages, has some interesting national (U.S.) statistics and is only slightly biased. Keep in mind Reason is a libertarian webzine, so caveat emptor (except it's free, so...nevermind).
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:She could proceed with chemotherapy without getting an abortion.
This would probably not be allowed medically because it would cause unacceptable risks for both the mother and the the fetus. Chemotherapy agents are typically designed to target fast growing cells. Since a fetus grows faster than nearly all forms of cancer, chemotherapy is virtually certain to kill the fetus. Since no studies have or should be performed on the influence of chemotherapy on a human fetus, the risks to the mother from such are choice are totally unknown and are likely to be very high. For example, chemotherapy often reduces the clotting ability of the blood making the potential of hemoraging high. Having chemotherapy while pregnant would pose a severe risk to the mother and the effects on the fetus would be identical to having an abortion. I would consider it a breach of medical ethics for any physician to give chemotherapy to a pregnant woman.
Beyond that, you did not answer my question. My question wasn't should the hypothetical woman get an abortion, it was should this hypothetical woman be allowed the choice of an abortion. These are very different questions.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
So, okay, I've been sitting quietly for days, and just thinking about everything everyone has been bringing up.
There are a lot of great points to consider, and the reason this topic is such a great one to debate is that both sides have a lot of valid points as to why their way should be the way. Some people disagree with abortion for religious reasons, some agree with it for social reasons. But here are the things we can all agree on, as I see it:
Killing babies is bad. No one disputes the fact that once the kid has the umbilical cord cut, and is screaming and crying, it's too late for abortion.
Killing sperm and eggs before they join is not bad. Or else every woman who's had more than one period and every guy who's had a wet dream is a mass murderer.
There's no way to definitively determine when, exactly, life starts in the womb. Does it start at conception? If so there are a lot of miscarriages that nobody knows about. Instances where a fertilized egg doesn't attach to the uterine wall. Everyone's pretty sure that awareness comes about sometime in the third trimester (although maybe before), but that occurence hasn't been pinpointed to any one day, or even week to my knowledge.
Since we're unable to say with any certainty that anything beyond *this* point is killing a child, the only moral thing to do is to either allow abortion, no matter the situation, or to disallow it entirely, no matter the situation.
This is where it gets cloudy. There's a lot of people who want exceptions. And there are a lot of good cases for exceptions, to be sure. When the mother's life is in danger from being pregnant, when the pregnancy is due to rape or incest, or when the mother is an intravaneous drug user are the first three that come to mind.
But when you start making exceptions it's hard to draw the line. It's easy to say, well, if x is alright, why not x+1? It's just one more, what's the harm? That's a slippery slope that leads to rampant abortions, most of which could be easily avoided with some common sense.
But why use birth control when you know you can always get an abortion? It's like rock climbing; you're a little more likely to take a risk as long as you have a safety rope. Maybe you wouldn't normally, but hey, the rope has your back, right? If you limit or ban abortions except in the extreme case where the mother's life is in immediate danger from taking the pregnancy to term then people know they have to exercise more caution or face the consequences. Rape or incest is a terrible situation, and I firmly believe that it would be awful for a woman to have to raise such a child. But that's where adoption comes in.
So, you can probably guess where I come down on the whole thing. Morning after pill, fine. 1st trimester abortions for the scenario where the mother's in serious danger, and no other abortions for anyone, for any reason. I know that's harsh, but as I said it's hard to stop making exceptions once you start.
And let me say this, too: I don't have any problem with anyone who is having, or has had an abortion. I have several friends who's girlfriends have had them. And if I'd been in their situation I may have done the same thing. So while it's legal I don't judge anyone who does it. I'm not a moralist. I just don't think our current system is healthy. But I respect anyone for making a choice that hard, and I hope I'm never in their shoes.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Originally posted by Shigosei: I apologize for the somewhat meandering nature of my previous post. Also for triple posting.
I thought it was very thoughtful, Shigosei. Thanks.
Posted by SenojRetep (Member # 8614) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Since no studies have or should be performed on the influence of chemotherapy on a human fetus, the risks to the mother from such are choice are totally unknown and are likely to be very high.
I realize later in the post you address why you think they're likely to be very high (blood clots and whatnot), but these two statements are contradictory. Either the risks are totally unknown and therefore equally likely to be very high or very low, or they are not totally unknown. Anyway, just being a logic Nazi, not adding anything productive. I'll shut up now.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
SenojRetep (or shall I call ya "Pete" ? ) The more you post, the more I like you.
Logic Nazis are the bomb.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Since we're unable to say with any certainty that anything beyond *this* point is killing a child, the only moral thing to do is to either allow abortion, no matter the situation, or to disallow it entirely, no matter the situation.
That doesn't follow at all. You might think some situations are bad enough to justify the "risk" that you might be killing, while other situations aren't serious enough to justify it. Even if you don't know whether abortion is killing or not.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
Shigosei, I like just about everything you wrote. As Sterling said, it was very thoughtful.
In the end, however, it ends up being a request that we all just get along. The problem with discontinuing the route of legislation is that both sides would have to agree to it. And when it comes right down to it, while grassroots movements are my personal preference, law is too powerful to abandon. When you view abortion as murder, logically it is therefore criminal to put aside one of the more powerful, ethical means of combatting it. It would be like saying people who think murder is wrong should just try to combat it by working to eliminate the reasons people commit murder. Certainly some people think that, but I think most of us can agree that it's negligent idealism. And thankfully, the law agrees.
Should we then abandon the grassroots method as well? I don't think so, nor do I think we have.
I heard a story a long time ago about a woman who personally disagreed with abortion. She was driving by a pro-life rally and said, "Why don't those people use their energy to help people instead of standing around with signs? I would never do what they're doing." Her friend in the car with her replied, "Because that's what's important to them. It's not important to you, so you don't." For me, that story points out that we all have different passions and talents, and for some, standing by a roadside with a sign is their method of expressing something they disagree with. If nothing else, they serve as a reminder that abortion isn't something we should take lightly. People who picket immenent executions serve the same purpose. It's not something I'm into, but I try to remember to appreciate that what they're doing isn't a complete waste of time or energy. They remind us that life is precious, even when it's wasted on rape and murder.
Posted by SenojRetep (Member # 8614) on :
quote:Originally posted by Olivet: SenojRetep (or shall I call ya "Pete" ? ) The more you post, the more I like you.
Shhh..don't let out my secret identity, Tevilo.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Beyond that, you did not answer my question. My question wasn't should the hypothetical woman get an abortion, it was should this hypothetical woman be allowed the choice of an abortion. These are very different questions.
Speaking as a pro-life mom with cancer right now, if I were pregnant I would not undergo chemo. I would wait until the child was born and start the chemo then.
However, I would not want to prohibit abortion in these cases. I would think it would be an extremely difficult situation but if doctors agreed that the woman's life was defnitely in danger if she carried the pregnancy to term without chemo then in this case I would call the abortion something that falls under the necessity to save the mother's life exemption. I mean, no pro-life person I know thinks a woman shouldn't be allowed to have an ectopic pregnancy removed. If the mother's life is truly threatened, then I can understand the need for an abortion. I would certainly not want to be faced with the situation, and thankfully it's a very rare one, I would think.
By the way, I do know someone who was faced with it. She did exactly as I would - refused chemo treatment of her cancer and carried her baby to term. He was born healthy, is now 11 years old and she is cancer-free.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Chemotherapy agents are typically designed to target fast growing cells. Since a fetus grows faster than nearly all forms of cancer, chemotherapy is virtually certain to kill the fetus. Since no studies have or should be performed on the influence of chemotherapy on a human fetus, the risks to the mother from such are choice are totally unknown and are likely to be very high. For example, chemotherapy often reduces the clotting ability of the blood making the potential of hemoraging high. Having chemotherapy while pregnant would pose a severe risk to the mother and the effects on the fetus would be identical to having an abortion. I would consider it a breach of medical ethics for any physician to give chemotherapy to a pregnant woman.
Then please explain the several links that directly contradict what you said - including ones from NIH and the american cancer society. You are wrong about chemotherapy during pregnancy, at least to the extent that you are extending it to ALL chemotherapy.
quote:Beyond that, you did not answer my question. My question wasn't should the hypothetical woman get an abortion, it was should this hypothetical woman be allowed the choice of an abortion. These are very different questions.
If the babies existance is a threat to the life of the mother, then abortion should be allowed.
If the risk is instead that the treatment will harm the baby, then abortion shouldn't be allowed.
The information I have uncovered is that, in at least quite a few circumstances, chemo is not impossible during pregnancy.
I'm not going to allow your inaccurate assertions to force me into answering a hypothetical that lacks proper foundation.
[ January 20, 2006, 05:04 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Topher (Member # 9028) on :
Abort away women - abort way. Providing the current legal measures are followed.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
I would be interested in knowing, statistically, what the survival rates are vs. people who start chemo immediately and those that wait six months to start. I wonder if there is an appreciable difference between the two? Certainly it depends on the type of cancer, etc, but seems to me in many cases there might not be that much difference. In which case, a person could carry a baby to the point that it was viable, then induce labor and begin chemo a few months later than originally planned.
Like with me - I didn't need to start chemo as fast as I did, I was given the option to wait until I had healed a bit more from the surgery. I chose not to, wanting to get the ordeal over with.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I think it depends on if the chemo is the primary treatment or adjuvant treatment. I get this from the lead times allowed in clinical trials when I worked in the field - adjuvant trials allowed a longer gap. I have no idea if that trend is actually accurate or just my limited perception of it.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
You're probably correct, Dag. My chemo was definitely not the primary treatment, the surgery was.
It's definitely a dilemma I would never want to be faced with.
Posted by Mean Old Frisco (Member # 6666) on :
quote:I personally have a very difficult time seeing the few cells that make up a fetus in the first trimester as a child.
Got to see an ultrasound today. 10 weeks from the date of conception, and it was moving its arms and legs like a breakdancer. Hard not to see it as a child, for me.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
I can see how that experience would affect your viewpoint. I don't personally see movement as necessarily indicative of sentience, but that's me.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Of course movement is not indicitive of sentience, but that's a pretty tricky word.
And anyway, it still brings the problem back to arbitrary cut-off dates. If sentience is what you're concerned with, then you've got to admit that at some point before birth, there is sentience (at least I haven't ever heard anyone seriously suggest there isn't), and you can't pin it down.
Which necessarily means that we're destroying a lot of sentient children.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
(I haven't forgotten about you, Irregardless -- just a really busy day. And it's started to snow! So I'll catch up on the weekend.)
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
I do absolutely admit that there is sentience well before birth. I haven't stated my current position outright in this thread, but I do not agree with abortion past the first trimester for that very reason. Arbitrary cut-off dates are troubling, but as I disagree with banning it wholesale, I find myself defaulting to wanting there to be a cutoff date somewhere in the first trimester. I'm fuzzy on this, though, which is why I continue to read and respond to these threads.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
The first trimester ends at 12 weeks, dating from LMP - last menstrual period.
Personally, I think we'd see fewer abortions if every pregnant woman had to have an ultrasound and actually see the baby on the screen. Maybe I'm wrong. But I know that seeing my ultrasound at 10 weeks was a life-changing experience. Like Frisco said, she was waving her arms and kicking her feet and there was zero doubt in my mind that was a baby, my baby. Any pro-choice leanings I had at the time vanished in that instant.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Interesting... was reading a couple of fetal development sites, and several have stated that the correct definition is "embryo" until 8 weeks and "fetus" therafter. CT, Theca, is this correct?
AJ
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
This , which I read yesterday in order to get a feel for size during the first trimester, says 11 weeks is the date for the term fetus. Still, I'd take CT's and Theca's word first.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Shigosei, I thought you raised some interesting points which I would like to respond to.
quote:Originally posted by Shigosei: The argument over when life begins won't ever be resolved, I think. We don't even have a good definition of what this "life" is that we want to protect.
That's precisely the problem. Without a working definition of what human life is and when it begins, I find it hard to imagine any sort of resolution to the debate.
quote:It's not quite the potential to become a fully-grown human, since sperm and eggs have some of that potential (to a lesser degree). So, what is it that we want to protect?
This is one argument I hear frequently from pro-choice proponents. I'm not trying to pick on you specifically, but I just don't buy into it one bit. A sperm or an egg on its own has zero potential to become human. Zero. I could be healthy, and nurture it all I want but I will never have a baby human from my sperm. This is a fundamental difference from a fetus. With no additional action on the part of the mother the fetus will develop into a baby. That's why this and other analogies (small group of cells) don't really hold up. It's like a chemical reaction. You could have a room full of chlorine gas or one with sodium in it, but neither room contains or will ever contain salt (or even have the same characteristics/properties of salt) unless the two are put together.
quote: The baby doesn't comprehend its own mortality. It can't fear its impending death. Whether or not there's even an "I" in there is iffy.
Are we even sure at what point this takes place after birth? It takes a newborn some time before they recognize themselves in the mirror, or even before they become familiar with all their attached limbs and appendages. So would infancide become ok? A newborn's level of sentinence isn't on par with the mother's. Or for that matter, what 17 year old teenage male comprehends his own mortality
I guess my contention which many others have previously stated (*beating dead horse) is that I view human life as a continium and thus any line that is drawn at some point from fetal beginnings to geriatric conclusions is completely arbitrary.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
quote:Originally posted by BaoQingTian:
quote:It's not quite the potential to become a fully-grown human, since sperm and eggs have some of that potential (to a lesser degree). So, what is it that we want to protect?
This is one argument I hear frequently from pro-choice proponents. I'm not trying to pick on you specifically, but I just don't buy into it one bit. A sperm or an egg on its own has zero potential to become human. Zero. I could be healthy, and nurture it all I want but I will never have a baby human from my sperm. This is a fundamental difference from a fetus. With no additional action on the part of the mother the fetus will develop into a baby. That's why this and other analogies (small group of cells) don't really hold up. It's like a chemical reaction. You could have a room full of chlorine gas or one with sodium in it, but neither room contains or will ever contain salt (or even have the same characteristics/properties of salt) unless the two are put together.
A fertilized egg on its own also has zero potential. The sperm and egg need each other (well...unless human cloning becomes common) and the fertilzed egg needs the mother. You're absolutely right that there is a great deal of difference between sperm and eggs and a zygote, but I would still argue that the zygote is still just potential. Way more potential than sperm and eggs, but far less than a newborn. I don't believe in just throwing away embryos (during IVF, for example), but I also don't have a problem with the morning-after pill preventing implantation. I guess that's a bit inconsistent, but there you have it.
quote:Originally posted by BaoQingTian:
quote: The baby doesn't comprehend its own mortality. It can't fear its impending death. Whether or not there's even an "I" in there is iffy.
Are we even sure at what point this takes place after birth? It takes a newborn some time before they recognize themselves in the mirror, or even before they become familiar with all their attached limbs and appendages. So would infancide become ok? A newborn's level of sentinence isn't on par with the mother's. Or for that matter, what 17 year old teenage male comprehends his own mortality
My point about the fetus having little or no self-awareness was only to point out the contrast with the mother. It is a reason why I personally value the mother's life more, and why I think that the right of the mother to abort if her life is in danger should be as zealously protected as the unborn child's right not to be aborted for reasons of birth control. The lack of sentience is not an excuse to treat an embryo or fetus as if it is not valuable at all.
Oh, and Jeniwren, you make some good points. I guess I'm just a big fan of "why can't we all get along?" in many situations, and it seems so very applicable in the abortion debate because the things both camps want most need not be mutually exclusive. I'm not saying people shouldn't protest abortion, just that I really wish both sides would work more toward a society where the both the rights of women and the lives of unborn children are protected. Pro-choice people don't want to kill babies, and pro-life people don't want to subjugate women.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Dag, My apologies. There are some forms of Chemotherapy which are acceptable during pregnancy. There are, however, many which are not. My example was based on two real life examples from women I've known. One suffered from a very rare cancer associated with the placenta. There was no way to treat this cancer as long as she was pregnant. She chose not to abort the child. By the time she gave birth the cancer had spread into her spinal column and she died not long after.
The second woman had bowel cancer which was discovered during her first trimester. They were unable to operate to remove the tumors while she was pregnant nor to use chemotherapy without killing the baby. She also chose to have the baby, and died of the cancer about 6 months after the babies birth.
I don't know whether or not either of these women made the right choice. I do know that they deserved the right to make that choice and not to have it made for them by the rest of us.
My point in bringing up the example in the first place is that unless you say no abortions ever for any reason, there is not a clear place to draw the line. Even among strong opponents to abortion there is a disagreement on when an abortion is justified. Note that Belle and Dag. disagreed on whether a woman with cancer should be allowed to have an abortion and both of them are strongly opposed to abortion. When there is debate over whether or not an abortion is justified -- who should get to make the choice? That is after all the root of the abortion debate. Who should be given the right to choose?
[ January 20, 2006, 09:29 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
As I discussed on mackillian's forum about a month ago, I had a patient, aged 32, with early colon cancer. Unfortunately she got accidentally pregnant about 3-4 weeks prior to the diagnosis. The surgeon said that the pregnancy was nonviable if they took the cancer out, which he strongly recommended. He sent her to me to arrange her "medical abortion". Great. I am prolife, in general. After asking the couple nonjudgementally about what their thoughts were, and about other options, I called the gynecologist neonatal specialist I was referred to by the other gyns. He also flatly stated the baby had no chance to survive major colon surgery and she needed that abortion, quickly, and he recommended only one doctor in the state who did them correctly, at a major hospital 2 hours away. The couple called me back and said they wanted to pursue other options after all so I got them in to see the specialist gynecologist. He talked them into getting the medical abortion after all, then she had surgery, so far as I know she is doing ok.
I still don't see why she couldn't just have the surgery and see what happened to the baby. The gynecologist wouldn't answer that question when I asked him. Not that I am that distressed about her choice. I AM glad that I wasn't the one who actively referred her to the abortion clinic, however.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I still don't see why she couldn't just have the surgery and see what happened to the baby.
I suspect it was an issue of complications and risks to the mother. If the chances of the baby surviving surgery are nill, then the doctor should perform the procedure that is the least risky for the mother.
Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
Oh, sure, but, I mean, babies spontaneously abort pretty easily at 4-6 weeks, don't they? I'd like to have heard what the complications and risks would have been for her.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Theaca, I'm not sure why you think it would have been better to perform the surgery without the abortion knowing that the surgery would kill the baby than to perform the abortion and then the surgery.
To me, there is no difference between the two at all. Either way both the mother and the surgeon know that the medical procedure will result in the death of the baby. They choose to undergo the procedure anyway in order to improve the mother's chances of surviving cancer. But clearly to you there is a difference, can you try to help me see what that difference is?
Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
Well, I'm not saying she made the wrong decision. I hope she continues to do well and have no future problems with this decision. I'm just relieved I was out of the loop as far as directly calling and arranging her abortion. I probably would have done it had she asked me to. But I'm grateful I didn't have to. I think if the surgeon wanted her to have an abortion, he could and should have made the phone calls himself, rather than tossing it off on me. My time is almost as valuable as his, is it not? I chose a field in which I don't have to perform abortions nor do I feel obligated to counsel abortions. I don't have the training to know when to recommend medical abortion is what I mean. He put me in that position and I didn't like it.
And yes, there is a huge difference. The surgery is to (hopefully) cure cancer. The abortion is to directly kill a human life. There is always a chance the baby could survive, or a miracle could take place. That can't happen if the baby gets destroyed deliberately prior to surgery. Now I don't know what reasons the gyn used to convince her to have the medical abortion, I don't know the risks to her life or to the baby's life so I can't say how necesary it was. And I'm only speaking of the case I know, not your friends' cases.
Posted by demosthenes83191 (Member # 9071) on :
quote:Originally posted by Shigosei: I take it you're against the death penalty and are a complete pacifist?
I don't know about that... the people who are put under the death penalty at least get a chance at life. Though I don't think the death penalty is as serious an issue as the debate on abortion.
What really bothers me is that the embryos dodn't even get a chance to live at all. Imagine being brought into existence just to be slaughtered in your mom's womb. That would suck.
Posted by demosthenes83191 (Member # 9071) on :
quote:Originally posted by Belle: Personally, I think we'd see fewer abortions if every pregnant woman had to have an ultrasound and actually see the baby on the screen.
Yes! yes! this is sooo true!
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:And anyway, it still brings the problem back to arbitrary cut-off dates. If sentience is what you're concerned with, then you've got to admit that at some point before birth, there is sentience (at least I haven't ever heard anyone seriously suggest there isn't), and you can't pin it down.
My earliest memory comes from when I was around two years old, so this is when I consider myself to have "awoken" into sentience, and therefore about the age I consider human beings to be sentient. It could have possibly been earlier, and I forgot, but probably not much more. 18 months old would probably be pushing it. That said, yes, infantcide is still murder, even though I'm in favor of euthanasia and am pro-choice. Yes, arbitrary cut-off dates are sticky, but I think the ones we use now are reasonable.
Edit - this was poorly written and I apologize, but I'm too tired to fix it. Night hatrack.
quote: Personally, I think we'd see fewer abortions if every pregnant woman had to have an ultrasound and actually see the baby on the screen.
This sounds like malicious guilt tripping. An abortion is a traumatic enough experience.
Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
Better they know the facts and see things like literature or ulstrasounds before they go through with it, then four years later when they get pregant again and start seeing ultrasounds and have to deal with emotions they weren't expecting to surface. That's a terrible time to discover what she really did to her first baby.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
I'm with Theca, because I know women who had that exact thing happen to them. When they got pregnant again, they felt lied to - like the abortion clinic made them feel "oh it's just a bunch of cells" but then later they saw what that "bunch of cells" really looked like at that stage and it was devastating to them. Better they have that info up front. You think an abortion is traumatic at the time? I've ministered to and worked with women who've dealt with the aftermath five, even 10 years later and the trauma they go through later after they realize in full what they've done, I guarantee every one of them wished they'd been shown an ultrasound and knew more fully what their decision really entailed before they did it. So many wouldn't have. I've heard it time and time again. "I didn't know. I had no idea what I was really doing, even I'd known what a 10 week old fetus was really like I wouldn't have done it." Maybe we can fix it by adding the study of the pre-born in sex education classes - let's show the pictures and videos of ultrasounds early to young kids, so they have a better idea of what happens after conception.
That story, Theca has me amazed. I can't believe that there wasn't an option of having the surgery and then waiting to see how the baby did. I mean, maybe it depends on where the cancer was located? At any rate, I'm with you - I'm glad the mom is doing well. And very thankful that my childbearing days were over before I got diagnosed.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
While it still feels guilt-trippy to me, I do see your point...and I think it would be MUCH more effective than the protestors' signs covered with aborted fetuses. How would you regulate this legally, though? Force a woman to carry her pregnancy through to ten weeks, and then force her to have an ultrasound?
The ten week ultrasound is compelling, despite the fact that the fetus is only 1-3 inches. I'm still skeptical about, say, weeks 5-6, when it's 1/17-1/8 of an inch long and has a tail.
Posted by Nell Gwyn (Member # 8291) on :
quote:Originally posted by Megan: How would you regulate this legally, though? Force a woman to carry her pregnancy through to ten weeks, and then force her to have an ultrasound?
I didn't think Belle meant that the ultrasound had to happen at/after 10 weeks. I took her statement as meaning that an ultrasound should be required before an abortion whenever the woman decides she wants one, even if it's earlier than 10 weeks. (Belle, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here.) Personally, I think this sounds like a good idea because I agree that women should know all the facts before going through with it. I don't agree at all with making a major decision with blinders on.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Ok...so, forcing a woman considering abortion to have an ultrasound. I guess I'm marginally ok with that, assuming that a) she's not forced to pay for it as well, b) it occurs in a timely fashion so as not to delay her until it's past the point where she could go through with the abortion legally, and c) if she decides afterward to go through with it, she's not delayed any further (assuming that all other legal requirements for that state are met).
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Yeah, I don't mean it has to be done at 10 weeks.
Thing is, in Alabama I believe it's common to do an ultrasound anyway to confirm the pregnancy's dating, they just don't show the results to the patient. I think they should.
My husband testitified in a case against an abortion doctor who killed a woman and injured several others. The case was up before the medical board and my husband was involved because he was the paramedic that took one of the women to the hospital. During the trial they showed the ultrasound pictures of this woman's 26 week old twins, and my husband nearly got sick because we had just recently had our twins. At any rate, point being the clinic had to do an ultrasound to date the pregnancy but it was never shown to the mother.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I'm not okay with that. It seems to me like an attempt to rub the woman's nose in it.
-pH
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Originally posted by Megan: Ok...so, forcing a woman considering abortion to have an ultrasound. I guess I'm marginally ok with that, assuming that a) she's not forced to pay for it as well, b) it occurs in a timely fashion so as not to delay her until it's past the point where she could go through with the abortion legally, and c) if she decides afterward to go through with it, she's not delayed any further (assuming that all other legal requirements for that state are met).
a) Not an issue for me, as I think that ultrasounds are already required for dating purposes and if the abortion clinic charges extra, then that's just part of it. It's an elective procedure and if you want it done, you have to pay for it. I think the ultrasound for dating is already included in the fees, though, so it's probably a non-issue.
b) From my experience working in the pro-life ministry, the ultrasound is done the same day, just before the procedure so timeliness is not an issue.
c) See I think there should be delay. I think there should be a mandatory waiting period (and Alabama may have one, I'll have to check) because a decision of this import should be carefully thought out. I think they also should receive information on adoption and other options before they leave the clinic. That way, the woman makes an informed choice.
quote:I'm not okay with that. It seems to me like an attempt to rub the woman's nose in it. - pH
So you'd rather she make a decision without all the pertinent information? I would think that someone who identifies themselves as pro-choice would be for informed choice. It's not rubbing her nose in it - she's pregnant, and should see the actual result of that pregnancy before she decides whether or not to terminate it. Why would you have a problem with her being fully informed? If she sees it on the screen and says "Wow! That looks like a baby, I never knew. I can't possibly have an abortion. Can you give me info on adoption?" Isn't that a positive outcome, for everyone? Why would you be against that?
And like I've said, I've seen the results of women who didn't know what they were carrying, who thought it was just an unrecognizable blob of cells learn later what it really was like and be so devastated, one of them attempted suicide, more than five years after her abortion. Thank God she did not succeed and received help and counselling, but that would have been avoided if she'd seen an ultrasound of her pregnancy before she had the abortion.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
quote:c) See I think there should be delay. I think there should be a mandatory waiting period (and Alabama may have one, I'll have to check) because a decision of this import should be carefully thought out. I think they also should receive information on adoption and other options before they leave the clinic. That way, the woman makes an informed choice.
Yes, it's important that they make an informed decision, but it's also important that they not be delayed through manipulation past the point where they could go through with a decision on a legal procedure. For example, let's say state X doesn't allow abortions past, say, week 12 (arbitrary, because I have absolutely no clue about time limits). A woman comes in at week 11, sees her required ultrasound, and then has to sit through a waiting period of two weeks before being allowed to make that decision. That, to me, is an example of a delay that is manipulative and deceitful, especially if the procedure would have been legal at the first place.
If there is a waiting period, it needs to be short enough not to produce manipulations like I describe above.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Alabama does have a 24 hour waiting period and they do require ultrasounds which a woman has a right to look at but is not required to.
Heres' the detail:
quote:A woman may not obtain an abortion until after the attending physician, referring physician, or physician's agent, who is a psychologist, licensed social worker, licensed professional counselor, registered nurse, or physician, tells her: (1) the nature of the proposed procedure, including risks and alternatives; (2) the probable gestational age of the "unborn child" at the time the abortion is to be performed; (3) the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics of the "unborn child" at the time the abortion is to be performed; (4) if the "unborn child" is viable or has reached the gestational age of more than 19 weeks, that the "unborn child" may be able to survive outside the womb, the woman has the right to request the physician to use the abortion method most likely to preserve the life of the "unborn child," and that if the "unborn child is born alive," the attending physician is legally obligated to take all reasonable steps necessary to maintain the life and health of the child; (5) the attending or referring physician must perform an ultrasound prior to the abortion and that the woman has the right to view the ultrasound prior to the abortion; (6) she has a right to view a state-prepared video; (7) she is free to withdraw or withhold consent without loss of any state or federally-funded benefits; and (8) the name of the physician who will perform the abortion, in writing or a business card.
In addition, at least 24 hours prior to an abortion, the woman must be informed about and be given state-prepared materials by the attending physician, referring physician, or physician's agent, who is a psychologist, licensed social worker, licensed professional counselor, registered nurse, or physician, in person or by return-receipt certified mail. If the materials are provided by mail, the woman must receive them again in person prior to the abortion.
The state-prepared materials must: (1) provide a geographically-indexed comprehensive list, including names and telephone numbers, of public and private agencies and services available to provide medical and financial assistance to a woman through pregnancy, prenatal care, upon childbirth, and while her child is dependent; (2) include a geographically-indexed list of adoption agencies and state that the law permits adoptive parents to pay the costs of prenatal care, childbirth, and neonatal care; (3) include "realistic, clear, objective, non-judgmental" materials to describe the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics of the "unborn child" at two-week gestational increments, including large color photographs, dimensions, and information on the possibility of survival; (4) describe abortion methods and the medical risks associated with each method and with carrying a pregnancy to term; (5) list the support obligations of the "father" of a child born alive; (6) state that a physician who performs an abortion upon a woman without her "informed" consent may be liable to her for civil damages; and (7) include the following statement: "There are many public and private agencies willing and able to help you to carry your child to term, and to assist you and your child after your child is born, whether you choose to keep your child or place him or her for adoption. The State of Alabama strongly urges you to contact those agencies before making a final decision about abortion. The law requires that your physician or his or her agent give you the opportunity to call agencies like these before you undergo an abortion."
In addition, prior to an abortion, the woman must be offered the opportunity to review a state-prepared videotape that must include much of the information provided in the state-prepared materials.
Ala. Code §§ 26-23A-1 to -13 (Enacted 2002).
A court held this law constitutional. Summit Med. Ctr. of Ala., Inc. v. Riley, 274 F. Supp. 2d 1262 (M.D. Ala. July 25, 2003) (memorandum opinion and order).
.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
I think that's alright, though the continued use of "unborn child" sets my propaganda senses tingling.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
If it's reasonable to require someone to wait to purchase a firearm for a background check and all sorts of things-and I think it is-I think it's quite reasonable to make a woman wait a few hours for a non-invasive, safe, painless and harmless procedure such as an ultrasound.
If she is secure in her conviction that the fetus or whatever stage it's in isn't a true human life, then she will not be swayed. If, however, she is the sort of person whose opinion would change if faced with that sort of evidence...shouldn't she see that evidence, that picture, pH?
Or is only imagery and evidence which condones abortion the kind we should allow? I think it would be easy to conduct the procedure without "rubbing the woman's face in it"-unless any point of view which might change her mind is in itself rubbing her face in it.
-----------
Megan,
That's possible. A word must be picked and it depends on context. An expectant mother who is murdered has died along with her unborn child. A woman who gets an abortion has destroyed a little clump of cells.
Obviously the law is designed to help ensure a woman takes another look at the choice, with the hope that maybe she will decide to do something else. Would the law be any different at all if it used "cluster of cells" or the exactly correct medical term (which changes)?
If the use of "unborn child" is propaganda, so too is "cluster of cells". Our propaganda senses tingle much less when it's propaganda we agree with.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Yes! Which is precisely why I prefer medical terms in this sort of debate; it's much more neutral. Say zygote/embryo/fetus; propaganda problem solved.
And, like I said, I have no problem with a brief waiting period. My troubles with it come when it's used as deceitful manipulation designed to prevent a woman from obtaining a legal procedure (see the situation I described above).
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
More clarification: I don't have a problem with a brief waiting period because it is a huge decision. However, it's also a personal decision, one that I don't feel the government should be making for the woman in question. I don't feel the government should be pushing one way or the other; I don't feel the government should be propagandizing.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
The government requires individuals to sign consent forms, have second thoughts, and wait, for all sorts of things, Megan.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Absolutely! But when you go to buy a gun, they don't say, "Now, here's some video about why you REALLY DON'T WANT A GUN. Watch these videos, and read these brochures, and then think REALLY REALLY REALLY HARD about whether you really want a gun, because it KILLS PEOPLE. Maybe you didn't know that they KILL PEOPLE. Are you really sure you want to KILL PEOPLE? Here are some government agencies that can help you with not killing people. How about you take a few days and think about whether you're really a killer or not?"
There's a huge difference between that and, "There is a mandatory waiting period before you can purchase a gun."
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
I don't understand the idea that more information could be harming the woman. Making an informed decision is always better than making an uninformed one. In any other medical procedure, the doctors try to be as specific and informative as possible, letting you know exactly what they'll do and what the risks will be. The only reason I can see to withhold information from the mother is if we want to encourage abortions, instead of simply preserve the right to choose to have one. If they're going to fairly choose, they have to really know what they're choosing.
And a lack of information could easily be manipulative, also: letting the mother think that she's having the equivalent of a mole removed, so it's no big deal, there's no reason to really think about it. If we are really concerned about the well-being of the mother, we should be in favor of giving her as much information as possible, warning her of possible risks (including emotional ones), and protecting her from later psychological repercussions as much as possible (by making sure she fully understands the choice she's making).
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Jenna, I don't know if you're addressing me or not, but I have said (several times now) that I have no problem with providing as much information as possible. What concerns me is the amount of bias in that information--that, along with facts, there will be provided propaganda along the lines of what I described above in the hypothetical gun waiting period brochure. I'm concerned that people in a position to do so will, rather than informing women, will manipulate them to the point where they cannot get a legal procedure, simply for the sake of preventing that legal procedure.
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
Yep. I'm agreeing with you on that point, although I'd rather it not be a legal procedure. As long as it's legal, they have no business trying to manipulate people out of it or make it so difficult to get that people can't do it.
I was just late to the party, rather surprised at pH's objection.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Well since we haven't seen the information that is provided we have no idea if it's propaganda or not, now do we?
Do you object to this statement?
quote:"There are many public and private agencies willing and able to help you to carry your child to term, and to assist you and your child after your child is born, whether you choose to keep your child or place him or her for adoption. The State of Alabama strongly urges you to contact those agencies before making a final decision about abortion. The law requires that your physician or his or her agent give you the opportunity to call agencies like these before you undergo an abortion."
I don't see how it's propaganda, I see it as letting a woman know about options that she may not have considered. For the record, the ministry I worked with is one of those agencies that provides financial support to women who are pregnant and after their child is born. Shouldn't a young woman who is terrified that she can't afford to keep a baby know about us and know we were there to help her? Because if she knew that we would hold a shower and make certain she had every possible baby item she needed, if she knew that we would set her up with a diaper delivery to make sure she had diapers for the baby, if she knew that we would help her fill out all the paperwork for WIC and other programs that can provide food for her and her baby maybe she would choose to raise her child. And if she make that choice, and it's an informed one, shouldn't everyone be happy with that?
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Well, that's just what it sounds like to me. Information is one thing. Information is great. But it seems like a sidelong way to influence the woman's decision.
Although it wouldn't affect me at all. I'm the kind of person who has to have a worst-case scenario plan for every conceivable situation, so I've already made my decision.
-pH
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Informed decisions are excellent, and should be promoted in every case. I don't have a problem with the paragraph you quoted, Belle. No, we don't know whether or not the information provided is pro-life propaganda. However, based on the continual use of loaded terms throughout the law (see the aforementioned "unborn child" usage), I think it's safe to assume that the information will definitely be biased to at least some extent. If the facts are so compelling, why not just present the facts? Why bother with leaning the information one way or another? It strikes me as strongly manipulative, and loading up guilt on a person who's already in an extraordinarily rough spot (and might well be there alone). For some people (I'm thinking of myself here, though I know I'm not the only one who feels this way), any attempt to manipulate is going to lead to an immediate push in the opposite direction.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Megan,
quote:There's a huge difference between that and, "There is a mandatory waiting period before you can purchase a gun."
Are you talking about something other than simply the ultrasounds? The piece of Alabama law in its entirety perhaps? I understand your reasoning in that case, but if you're just talking about ultrasounds, I don't understand where you're coming from at all. It's just an ultrasound, the women can draw their own conclusions from it.
pH, do we not expect doctors to inform their patients about alternatives to, say, surgery? Are patients not encouraged to get a second opinion at any time? Isn't it the job of a good doctor, not just to tell the patient, "This is what I'm going to do," but make sure the patient has a solid understanding of precisely what will be done? Maybe you treat doctor's visits differently from me, I don't know. I treat visits to the doctor rather like buying a car.
It's not that I distrust a doctor as much as I distrust a car dealer, it's that in such an important decision, I make it my business to be very well informed.
And if having extra information really is a "sidelong attempt to influence the woman's decision", then perhaps the other decision-to abort-is not as justifiable, sustainable, defensible, correct, insert the appropriate word here, as you thought?
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Rakeesh, in the line you quoted, I was referring to my hypothetical gun waiting-period propaganda (the paragraph above that line), suggesting that the "information" provided to women considering an abortion is quite heavy on bias. What I was saying in that line had nothing whatsoever to do with ultrasounds.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote:It's not that I distrust a doctor as much as I distrust a car dealer
You should. Doctors, like car dealers, have to make money - and many of them make more money by recommending more expensive courses of treatment.
(This is not to suggest that all, or even a majority of doctors are money driven to the point of deception, but if you know there's even one bad apple in a barrel of 1,000, it's probably a good idea to check every apple before you eat it.)
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Even among strong opponents to abortion there is a disagreement on when an abortion is justified. Note that Belle and Dag. disagreed on whether a woman with cancer should be allowed to have an abortion and both of them are strongly opposed to abortion.
As I said, If the abortion is necessary for the treatment of cancer, then it should be allowed. I agree with Theaca that there are seriously different moral issues at stake in a surgery that results in almost or even (to us) certain death for the baby and an actual abortion. But I'm comfortable with the idea of allowing the abortion as long as the doctor will attest to the necessity of it to protect the mother's life.
If the abortion is only "necessary" because the chemo will harm the baby, then I think it should be illegal, for much the same reason I oppose legal abortion to weed out disabled children.
There are serious disagreements about where the line should be for self-defense - disagreements which force people to make choices that could endanger their own life or risk jail. There are serious disagreements about how much and what kind of emotional distress should be needed to mitigate murder to manslaughter. There are serious disagreements about justification - it used to be the law that you couldn't use deadly force to defend others, or to use deadly force to save your life from a non-aggressor.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Megan I still have a problem with what you're saying. Many pro-choice people tell me that they want abortions to be "safe, legal, and rare" and believe that abortion is never a "good" thing to have happen; just that's it's necessary at times.
If that's your belief as well, then heck, shouldn't it be a good thing if the materials do lean in one direction - the direction that leads away from abortion - if we all do truly agree that it's never good, we should support the giving of information that might persuade a woman otherwise. I've heard pro-choicers say on this thread they think abortion should always be a last resort, so in order to get to that point, shouldn't a woman have to face the reality of her decision, by seeing the ultrasounds, and hear about all other options, including those that attempt to persuade her from that course? Only after going through all that and saying "I still want an abortion" can we say yes, it's truly a last resort, all other options have been considered and rejected, and this woman still wants an abortion.
She has to know about the other options in order to consider them and reject them though.
Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
Well, I'm prolife, as I said. But as long as abortion is legal: I truly believe that for the future mental wellbeing of the mother, she should have informed choice. And since we are talking about a group of ladies who are often young, poor, scared, or being pressured, who are usually being seen in a clinic whose sole purpose is to promote and carry out abortions, that there need to be firm rules in place to make sure these young girls aren't just breezing by the informed consent part. That's why I think literature along with ultrasounds or videos about the fetus and the procedure should be required. That's not rubbing her nose in it. It's making sure she THINKS. It's making sure she can't suddenly realize that abortion wasn't what she imagined it would be when it is too late.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
And let's not forget, (as Theca has reminded us) that the people who are giving these materials to this young woman are people who profit from her choosing to have an abortion.
Personally, I'd rather the person doing the counselling be a volunteer unconnected with the clinic, not an employee of the abortion clinic. Remember that abortion is a for-profit enterprise, and how hard is a person employed by that clinic going to try and persuade an uncertain young girl to go talk to an adoption agency, if her salary depends on that clinic performing enough abortions to be profitable?
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:pH, do we not expect doctors to inform their patients about alternatives to, say, surgery? Are patients not encouraged to get a second opinion at any time? Isn't it the job of a good doctor, not just to tell the patient, "This is what I'm going to do," but make sure the patient has a solid understanding of precisely what will be done? Maybe you treat doctor's visits differently from me, I don't know. I treat visits to the doctor rather like buying a car.
It's not that I distrust a doctor as much as I distrust a car dealer, it's that in such an important decision, I make it my business to be very well informed.
And if having extra information really is a "sidelong attempt to influence the woman's decision", then perhaps the other decision-to abort-is not as justifiable, sustainable, defensible, correct, insert the appropriate word here, as you thought?
It's not that I think that extra information will necessarily influence the woman's decision. It's how the information is presented. I don't think that a woman should HAVE to see the ultrasound if she doesn't want to. I do think that women should be informed about options such as adoption. However, being forced to see the ultrasound seems to me to be a cheap attempt at a guilt trip. I think that the decision to abort can be the correct choice. I don't think that it is ALWAYS the correct choice, but I think that the choice belongs to the woman. Period. If she WANTS to see the ultrasound or if she WANTS to persue other options, good for her. Otherwise, let her decide.
I think the buying a gun analogy was a good one.
Edit: Also, alternatives to surgery usually attempt to accomplish the same result as the surgery. Alternatives to abortion will inevitably still lead to the woman having to carry the pregnancy to term, with the limits of today's technology.
-pH
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:However, being forced to see the ultrasound seems to me to be a cheap attempt at a guilt trip.
If the woman remains secure in her conviction that she has nothing to feel guilty about and is not delayed more than a few hours, where is the harm?
By the way, the gun-buying analogy was originally mine (in this thread, at least), and I was talking about a slight waiting period without attempting to deceive the woman past some arbitrary date beyond which she could not legally get an abortion.
quote:I don't think that it is ALWAYS the correct choice, but I think that the choice belongs to the woman. Period. If she WANTS to see the ultrasound or if she WANTS to persue other options, good for her. Otherwise, let her decide.
Well obviously it's your opinion. But if we insist on a little education for things like driving, gun-ownership, flying, boating, and sky-diving, I see no reason why not to insist the woman see an ultrasound without being unduly delayed.
It's certainly not virgin territory for the government. In every case, the government insists on a little education for the protection of the individual, and others. The same can be said for ultrasound: a little extra knowledge for the woman, and a little bit of further hope for protection in the case of the possible-person.
I remain baffled by this insistence of the absolute supremacy of a woman's right to chose. Or, if not absolute, supreme to almost all other considerations-such as possibly destroying a child's life. And I'm one of the more hawkish Hatrackers!
Why does the choice belong to the woman, PERIOD? Why, if that choice is possibly made over the corpse of a dead child? Yes, I realize that's inflammatory language, and it's deliberate. If pro-lifers are right-if as many of them believe, human life begins at conception (and we'll probably never know until, if then, after dying), then the choice to abort is being made over the corpse of a dead child.
Why is that choice so sacrosanct? Is it because denying that sanctity threatens women's rights? I'll admit I can understand that argument, but I have to say it smacks of zealotry and no-tolerance policies to me. Is it because it's only possible that it's a true human life being destroyed? If that is the reason, then why is it reasonable to err on the side of caution for women's rights and not for the life of a child?
I just don't understand it. When pro-choicers say to pro-lifers, "If you care so much for life, why then do you support execution of criminals?" I can understand that argument, and frankly if you're speaking to Christian reasoning, I agree.
But that argument can be turned around. It goes both ways. A pro-lifer can say with just as much fairness, "If you care so much for the life of a multiple-murderer/rapist/child molestor, why do you care so little for the chance that children are being destroyed for convenience, to avoid consequences of stupid mistakes?"
I do not understand how someone can say, "I believe that the clump of cells becomes a 'true human life' at some point during gestation and prior to birth, but we cannot say when exactly, and it changes for everyone," and still say, "It should be the woman's choice, PERIOD."
pH, those are your words, but I am not trying to single you out, not trying to pick on you. Your words are words I've heard from many pro-choicers, and I ask people who share your reasoning-and you, too, of course-to help me understand, because I've been arguing and discussing and listening and reading about this for years, and still do not understand.
Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
I think it is a terrible analogy. (to ph)
Buying a gun is not causing a life changing event. It opens up new avenues, but in itself does nothing. BTW, you have to be 18, and in some states 21, to get a gun. I don't know any details
Having an abortion is an entirely different matter. It IS a life changing, irrevocable event, even if the girl doesn't see it that way at the time, and she may later.
quote:Also, alternatives to surgery usually attempt to accomplish the same result as the surgery. Alternatives to abortion will inevitably still lead to the woman having to carry the pregnancy to term, with the limits of today's technology.
That is not a helpful sentence. But I can't think of any words to respond to it right now.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
It's not a child. It has the potential to become a child.
Also. Just because someone feels guilty about something doesn't necessarily mean that he or she has made the wrong choice. Abortion is never an easy choice. But the fact that some women feel guilty about it does not automatically mean that they have done something wrong.
-pH
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
pH,
You think it is not a child. But what of a premature birth? Or a woman who is killed but her unborn child is saved and lives a long, healthy life? Was it not a child but a "potential to become a child" until the very instant it breathes the open air and seen with the naked eye?
Women feeling guilt isn't the whole basis for a pro-life argument by any stretch of the imagination. I don't understand why you even brought it up. Furthermore, for some women abortion is an easy choice. Both in America and abroad.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I do not know of any instance in which a woman has had a healthy, successful birth after less than three months of pregnancy.
No, I don't think it's a child. Yes, it's my opinion. Just as you have no evidence to prove that it IS a child.
The guilt thing was a random thought on my part because it seems that some others in this thread have the attitude that if the woman feels guilty, what she has done is OBVIOUSLY wrong.
-pH
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
pH,
quote:No, I don't think it's a child. Yes, it's my opinion. Just as you have no evidence to prove that it IS a child.
No, I do not have evidence that it IS a child, you are correct in that. But one of the questions I asked was why isn't it better to err on the side of caution? Tie goes to the runner, no executions without "beyond a reasonable doubt", on and on. Why isn't it desirable to err on the side of caution when admittedly there is a whole lot of uncertainty of just when "it" is a child?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I do not know of any instance in which a woman has had a healthy, successful birth after less than three months of pregnancy.
Here's the question, pH: if that's really the determining factor for you, what happens when modern medicine makes it possible to keep that kid alive?
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Honestly, if there was some way to transplant the fetus so that it could mature and be born, I would be all in favor of it.
-pH
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
How about this, then: suppose next year medical technology advances to the point where such a transplant is possible only after, say, nine weeks of gestation? Would you be in favor of it then?
This does not strike me as an elaborate, unlikely hypothetical, either.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Problem #2, then: who takes care of the child? Someone's going to have to pay for that kid's schooling, food, etc. We spared the mother the pain of childbirth; do we now spare her the work of motherhood? If so, how is this better than current adoption procedures?
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Who is going to care for the child? I think it should be adopted.
-pH
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Great. So what we've essentially done, through the wonders of hypothetical technology, is spared someone's biological mother the pain of childbirth.
If every second-trimester child currently being aborted were "transplanted" into an artificial womb or otherwise kept alive for adoption, what do you think would be the result?
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
It wouldn't be all that different from every single child not being aborted because abortion was outlawed.
-pH
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
You're entirely right! So do you agree that, if medical technology is really the barrier, we should ban abortion once it becomes possible to transplant second-trimester children? That all abortions become transplants instead, paid for by the mother or her insurance?
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
I imagine that in many cases the adoptive parents would be willing to pay for the procedure.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
I'll never understand why people talk about childbirth like it was some sort of punishment. Like pregnancy is merely something to be endured.
Am I the only woman looking forward to being pregnant? Is it not why God or nature divided a good chunk of organisms into male and female? The entire biological point of having a female in the species is to carry and bear young.
If we're female for this entire reason, how terrible can it be to fulfill that purpose?
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:Is it not why God or nature divided a good chunk of organisms into male and female? The entire biological point of having a female in the species is to carry and bear young.
Or maybe female is the default and the whole biological point of making some of the organisms male is to sire young.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
In any organism that uses sexual reproduction, I suppose female would have to be the default. How else would we get parthenogenic females?
I think my point still holds. Life doesn't exist without a way to create young. In a large number of organisms, ours included, sex is the default. Females carry babies and give birth to them.
If that's just the way it's intended to be, why do so many people feel the need to discuss it as some kind of evil inflicted on femalekind? It's what we were designed for, be it by natural selection of a creator. It's not the end of the world.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: . . . The entire biological point of having a female in the species is to carry and bear young.
If we're female for this entire reason, how terrible can it be to fulfill that purpose?
Frankly, I don't think God or the Supreme Being, or whatever Higher Power/Spiritual Force you choose to believe in created a male and a female for the sole purpose of procreation.
I am not here on this Earth to just bear and nurture babies.
My son's father is not here on this Earth to just plant a seed.
There is ever so much more to life than just the act of procreation and nurture of new little life forms.
There is the task of caring for each other, for our planet, for the creatures that creepeth on the land, swimmeth in the sea, flieth in the air . . . the plants that grow . . . the creations that our intelligence brings about -
There really is plenty to do on this Earth without focusing solely on our individual sex and procreative options.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I'll never understand why people talk about childbirth like it was some sort of punishment. Like pregnancy is merely something to be endured.
Have you spent any real time around pregnant women? I could tell you STORIES....
*shudder* Let me put it this way: you couldn't pay me enough money to carry a child to term, even if it were biologically possible. Frankly, I can't imagine a better way to reduce the number of teenage mothers out there than simply requiring every twelve-year-old girl in the country to spend two whole days with a woman starting her ninth month of pregnancy.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
How about requiring every male past the age of 12 to spend 24 hours once per year completely responsible for a colicky infant?
*grins evilly*
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
To take that more seriously than you intended: it wouldn't work. Because men still have the "option" of being poor fathers, so that kind of deterrent wouldn't phase them.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
*raises eyebrows*
Women have the option of being "poor mothers" --whether or not they adore or hate pregnancy, Tom -- just as men have the option of being "poor fathers" no matter their level of responsibility, no?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Not really, no. Certainly not in the same way. Because a man who doesn't want his child can leave; a mother who doesn't want her child has to abandon. I think there's a very real distinction here, and it's why "deadbeat moms" -- as opposed to "deadbeat dads" -- are a statistical rarity, especially compared to abortion rates.
A shiftless boy who sees how horrible caring for a colicky baby is won't think "Gee, I shouldn't have sex." He'll think "Gee, I should dump her before the kid's born."
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
Hmmmm. *ponders*
Perhaps is we legitimized "abandonment" and provided a way for babies to be given into the care of an intermediary (who can then place said baby/child with family wanting baby/child), maybe we'd see less of those awful stories of mom's that starve, drown, burn, beat, humiliate, or otherwise destroy innocent young lives - because of some social stigma that says it's better to keep and hate a child, then to "abandon" a child . . .
Just thinking out loud . . .
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Heck, according to social stigma, it's better to abort a fetus than abandon a child. I actually suspect that this is a major cause of abortions: people who don't want to go through pregnancy and/or don't want to keep a baby, but can't bear the thought of abandoning their child.
Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
The woman from Row v. Wade wanted the abortion because she didn't want the baby, but if she maintained the pregnancy she knew she'd fall in love with him and be unable to give him up. So she figured she would abort it instead. Easier to kill it than to love him. I don't think I'll ever be able to understand that line of reasoning.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
I linked (I think on page 2) to an NPR essay that looked at the social stigma surrounding a single teen parent - that, against all odds, completed her education through a graduate degree, yet still got flack from colleagues, friends, family. She's not an oddity.
As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter what decision the woman makes - all of the general public seems to feel entitled to tell her what to do and how to do it, with a generous leavening of judgementalism attached.
Of course, if we're truly just baby factories . . . *rolling eyes and snorting*
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I don't think I'll ever be able to understand that line of reasoning.
I think I do. It's not a logical thought, nor a reasonable one, but I can understand it.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
Shan, I wasn't saying any given individual is supposed to have kids. Plenty of people shouldn't. But there's no point to sexual reproduction if that's not what females as a whole are supposed to do.
Plenty of fish lay eggs which are then fertilized by the male. The area is protected from predators, but after that the kids are on their own. Single celled organisms use budding or mitosis where gender is completely nonexistent.
Sex is not the only option, but it is humanity's only option. I just find it irritating when people carry on about it like it's a horrible thing to do to women. It's kind of what we're built for.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
On the contrary, Tom, it's very logical-depending on one's priorities.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
AR did not say "[Women are] here on this Earth to just bear and nurture babies. [Men are] here on this Earth to just plant a seed."
She said the reason there is a difference is reproductive. I don't entirely agree with that (although I believe it is one of the reasons). But it's very different to say, "people were divided into male and female for reproductive purposes" than to say "the only purpose males and females have is reproduction."
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
Well, AvidReader - I certainly understand your irritation. I experienced similar feelings when people around me persisted in being so grossed out by breastfeeding, when my son was an infant.
But your statement that " . . .there's no point to sexual reproduction if that's not what females as a whole are supposed to do," is what I disagree with.
By that logic, men's bodies, chemical make-up, internal/external processes, etc., leave them as the sex that do all the "heavy work", the "protecting", the "waging war", etc.
I don't want men or women featly lumped into those categories -- and when we argue from the biological standpoint only, then we miss a whole realm of other possibilities in the human spectrum.
Just my opinion. Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
Shan, I agree with you that there is more to humans than biology. After all, the biological purpose is incredably specific: passing on genes to the next generation. I just don't agree with ignoring biology because we have arbitrarily decided everything else is more important. And I don't like seeing a natural biological process referred to in a demeaning way. Pregnancy is not a punishment.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
Understood. *smile*
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
quote:Originally posted by Belle: Megan I still have a problem with what you're saying. Many pro-choice people tell me that they want abortions to be "safe, legal, and rare" and believe that abortion is never a "good" thing to have happen; just that's it's necessary at times.
If that's your belief as well, then heck, shouldn't it be a good thing if the materials do lean in one direction - the direction that leads away from abortion - if we all do truly agree that it's never good, we should support the giving of information that might persuade a woman otherwise. I've heard pro-choicers say on this thread they think abortion should always be a last resort, so in order to get to that point, shouldn't a woman have to face the reality of her decision, by seeing the ultrasounds, and hear about all other options, including those that attempt to persuade her from that course? Only after going through all that and saying "I still want an abortion" can we say yes, it's truly a last resort, all other options have been considered and rejected, and this woman still wants an abortion.
She has to know about the other options in order to consider them and reject them though.
(I quoted the whole post, since the discussion has moved on somewhat since then.)
I see your point. I've never used the "safe, legal, and rare" argument, although I do think abortion shouldn't be allowed past the first trimester. I guess my real trouble is this: prior to implantation, and during the weeks in which the embryo (not a fetus yet) is 1/25 of an inch or 1/17 of an inch, and has a tail, I have a hard time as seeing abortion as "the killing of an unborn child." Part of this may be because of this thread, as I went and did some reading on fetal development.
Honestly? I'm to the point now where I personally wouldn't be able to have an abortion past the 7th week of pregnancy (though I fervently hope that's a decision I never have to make). Prior to that point, though...Well, I know this will make some of you sick and others angry and still others both, but the decision seems to me to be morally neutral. I do not see the embryo as a child. I know (as I've said now several times) that arbitrary cut-off dates are troubling, but I honestly think that's the compromise we should be looking for.
That, I guess, is why I am troubled by the heavy potential bias of the information provided--because I don't see very early term abortion as problematic morally. Would it be better if it didn't happen? Sure, because there are easier, less controversial, cheaper ways of preventing pregnancy up to that point (see "improving sex education"). Do I think this is a good reason to put a woman who's already going through the hell of having to deal with an unwanted pregnancy (and anyone who's had a pregnancy scare knows what I'm talking about) through further hell? No. This is why I think information like the size of the embryo/fetus, the ultrasound pictures, and the offers of post-natal aid are all great and wonderful. They offer facts that speak for themselves, and could definitely be persuasive on their own. To add manipulative language on top of that seems to me taking something that's meant to be informative and making it manipulative--like saying, "There's NO POSSIBLE WAY that a good person would make the decision you're about to make. Don't you want to be a good person?" This seems to me to be a horrible thing to do to someone in that situation.
******
quote:I do not understand how someone can say, "I believe that the clump of cells becomes a 'true human life' at some point during gestation and prior to birth, but we cannot say when exactly, and it changes for everyone," and still say, "It should be the woman's choice, PERIOD."
Rakeesh, I don't think anyone has said that here. Are your two hypothetical positions contradictory? Yes. Has anyone here said that? I don't think so; if you think pH has, please quote the exact passages.
I believe it should be the woman's choice up to a point (yes, I know, it's the "up to the point" with which you have a problem) because, as I said earlier, I do not see the embryo as a child--thus making your "choice over the corpse of a dead child" seem ridiculously overdramatic to me. Because I do not see the embryo in early terms as a child, at that stage, my reaction to you is, "Why are you trying to destroy a woman's control over her reproductive decisions for the sake of a cluster of cells smaller than my pinky toenail?" (You're not the only one who can do deliberately inflammatory language, you know.) I am a firm believer in a woman's need to control her own reproductive system up to the point where it infringes on the rights of another human being. * The trouble, of course, is at what point that happens.
*(Women's control over their reproductive systems is widely recognized as a major factor in allowing them to move from a subservient place in society into a more equal role. The right and ability to choose when to produce children is something I value immeasurably because it allows me to be a married woman and still pursue a career. For many, many people, this is why choice is that important.)
Considering how many failed implantations occur naturally, I find it almost impossible to believe that a human life, equal to the hosting mother in rights, exists from the moment of conception. This is why I have no trouble with the morning after pill. I've mentioned my other reasons for my lack of problem with early term abortion up post. I think it honestly comes down to a difference of "I do not see the embryo as a child. A potential child, yes. Having equal rights with the mother? At that early stage, no."
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by Shan: Hmmmm. *ponders*
Perhaps is we legitimized "abandonment" and provided a way for babies to be given into the care of an intermediary (who can then place said baby/child with family wanting baby/child), maybe we'd see less of those awful stories of mom's that starve, drown, burn, beat, humiliate, or otherwise destroy innocent young lives - because of some social stigma that says it's better to keep and hate a child, then to "abandon" a child . . .
quote:The "Safe Haven" law makes it possible for a mother to leave her unharmed baby, up to three days old, at any hospital in Wisconsin anonymously and without fear of prosecution.
I think these provisions are a critical step forward in improving society. I really do.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Yes, Alabama has a safe haven law as well. ON one hand, I do support it, becuase it will assure that the baby can be left somewhere where it will survive, and as a pro-life person, who is pro-life for all life, be it unborn child, infant, or disabled adult I have to support a measure that protects the life of those infants.
Part of me though, does not approve of someone being able to dump off their child without consequences. We make fathers pay for child support even if they didn't want the child in the first place - if we can prove paternity, he has to pay for the support of that child and be responsible to a degree. But these laws say the mother doesn't have to be responsible for the life she brought into the world. That bothers me, to a degree. Not enough to say the laws should be abolished, but it still bothers me.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Originally posted by Belle: Part of me though, does not approve of someone being able to dump off their child without consequences. We make fathers pay for child support even if they didn't want the child in the first place - if we can prove paternity, he has to pay for the support of that child and be responsible to a degree. But these laws say the mother doesn't have to be responsible for the life she brought into the world. That bothers me, to a degree. Not enough to say the laws should be abolished, but it still bothers me.
Unfortunately, the alternative to a safe haven isn't necessarily the mother taking care of the child; it's the child being left in a dumpster. That's why such laws exist.
As far as the ultrasound picture question: If "informed consent" were the issue, you could show a picture of *any* fetus at the same phase of development, not that particular woman's fetus. Showing the woman her own fetus isn't attempting informed consent; it's deliberately trying to ensure that the abortion IS a traumatic event.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:If "informed consent" were the issue, you could show a picture of *any* fetus at the same phase of development
Not really. At least, not at the exact same phase of development.
quote:Showing the woman her own fetus isn't attempting informed consent; it's deliberately trying to ensure that the abortion IS a traumatic event.
No, it's deliberately trying to make sure the mother has the most accurate information as part of her informed consent and, likely, attempting to discourage an abortion.
On a side note, SCOTUS has held that "protecting the life of the unborn" is a "legitimate goal" and that the state may require pass legislation to "ensur[e] a decision that is mature and informed" even if it the information given "expresses a preference for childbirth over abortion." Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Dag, I never meant to imply that I thought such biased information was illegal, only that I didn't approve of it. As you are pro-life, I'm sure you understand that just because it's a SCOTUS ruling doesn't mean you have to like it or approve of it.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Hence "on a side note."
I have encountered people who thought it was illegal in the past, and pointed to the language in case anyone was wondering.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Okie dokie, just checkin'.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:No, it's deliberately trying to make sure the mother has the most accurate information as part of her informed consent and, likely, attempting to discourage an abortion.
Baloney. If accurate information were the goal, we'd be insisting the same woman get to see footage of a twelve-hour delivery and all the attendant pain, involuntary vomiting and defecation.
Heaven forefend a woman have an abortion and go on with her life thinking she was still a decent human being.
The Supreme Court has, as they usually do, acceded that some matters fall to the states. They also agreed that abortion should be legal. What the states "may" do isn't an endorsement.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Baloney. If accurate information were the goal, we'd be insisting the same woman get to see footage of a twelve-hour delivery and all the attendant pain, involuntary vomiting and defecation.
I see, you're a mind reader now. You know that the intent is to make someone feel a particular thing.
And, of course, information which is undeniably more accurate than what you propose can't possibly be relevant unless we're willing to make a 12 hour movie?
quote:Heaven forefend a woman have an abortion and go on with her life thinking she was still a decent human being.
What, are you saying if someone were to receive more accurate information than you are willing to provide them that they would automatically conclude they were doing something wrong?
quote:The Supreme Court has, as they usually do, acceded that some matters fall to the states. They also agreed that abortion should be legal. What the states "may" do isn't an endorsement.
ONCE AGAIN, I didn't say it was.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
quote:Heaven forefend a woman have an abortion and go on with her life thinking she was still a decent human being.
It just seems to be a "damned if you do" and "damned if you don't" proposition to the whole notion of procreation.
Single moms are condemned for being single moms. Women that abort are condemned for aborting. Women that have "too many" children are condemned for adding to the world's overpopulation. Women that choose not to have children are found lacking. Women that struggle to have children worry that they lack something. Women that want to adopt out find very little support for their decision. Women that know they are not ready or capable of being nurturing mommas find little to no support for being honest and finding an alternative route, be that route: --abortion --adoption --abandonment to a safe haven.
It just seems that women are held under the microscope and judged for so many decisions and choices along the way: to conceive or not, to carry or not, for breastfeeding, for bottlefeeding, for cloth or plastic, for weaning or not weaning, for every last little thing connected to the rearing of the child.
For as much time as this country spends loking at mothering/parenting, it always surprises me how little support or acknowledgement there is about the importance of the job.
Maybe we all just need to be a little less judgemental, a little more compassionate, a little more thoughtful about how to ensure that parents get to be parents when they are fit and ready, that parents are supported by community/famiy/friends in their critically important jobs, that biological parents are supported in their choice to not parent, if that's what they choose - up to and including using preventative methods such as abstinence, birth control, or abortion.
*ends speech*
*steps off soapbox*
Carry on. Sorry to derail the abortion discussion with a brief look at the social norms of today's society.
I must say that the folks here at Hatrack tend to be far more tolerant of people's choices and decisions than I see other places. Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
*cheers*
Excellent post, Shan.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:that biological parents are supported in their choice to not parent, if that's what they choose - up to and including using preventative methods such as abstinence, birth control, or abortion.
The last is asking too much. I will not support anyone's choice to abort, in any way, shape, or form.
Posted by Evie3217 (Member # 5426) on :
I completely agree Shan. Women's choices are always criticized, no matter what they choose.
Posted by Evie3217 (Member # 5426) on :
As to abortion, I think it is completely up to the woman in question. It is her own choice and should not be regulated or restricted by anyone. I can completely understand someone not supporting another's decision to abort, but to forbid it is another matter.
Posted by Theaca (Member # 8325) on :
quote:Originally posted by Evie3217: It is her own choice and should not be regulated or restricted by anyone.
That seems pretty extreme. Are you saying less restrictions than we already have? More access to partial birth abortion and third trimester abortion?
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:I see, you're a mind reader now. You know that the intent is to make someone feel a particular thing.
This is a poor argument, Dag. Surely we here on hatrack are allowed to make inferences and point out fallacies as we see them? It was clear to me, at least, that A) Sterling didn't intend a twelve hour video, but a video documenting twelve hours of labor and birth and B) his broader point was to show that maybe certain pro-lifers wouldn't be so gung-ho about "all the information" if "all the information" includes material that leans toward aboring the fetus. And I think you proved his point.
quote:What, are you saying if someone were to receive more accurate information than you are willing to provide them that they would automatically conclude they were doing something wrong?
No, they might conclude that it was the right decision, but still feel guilty over it. Most people will admit that our feelings aren't always rational. Some might even say that feelings are rarely rational. If a pregnant woman has already made a tough decision, throwing visceral imagery at her serves no point but to pique her guilt.
Edited for some grammatical errors.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
I think my problem with the video idea is that labor is different for everyone. Some women use the old fashoned "lay flat on the bed with an epidural" method while many have moved to a birthing chair that allows her to squat. It is supposed to be a faster and less painful position. Then other women choose natural birth, underwater births, even Scientology's no screaming method.
On the other hand, abortion does the same thing for everyone.
And don't think for a moment that women don't know that childbirth is painful. Women love nothing better than telling other women how awful their labor was. I think it's some kind of female hazing.
As for the guilt, Jux, if you're so convinced women will change their minds once they see the baby, why do you want to deny them the opportunity to change their minds? A woman who doesn't go through with it can still get an abortion later. A woman who gets an abortion can't get her child back.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:This is a poor argument, Dag. Surely we here on hatrack are allowed to make inferences and point out fallacies as we see them?
You are also allowed to be called on them when they are insultingly wrong.
quote:It was clear to me, at least, that A) Sterling didn't intend a twelve hour video, but a video documenting twelve hours of labor and birth and B) his broader point was to show that maybe certain pro-lifers wouldn't be so gung-ho about "all the information" if "all the information" includes material that leans toward aboring the fetus. And I think you proved his point.
He could have made that point. Instead, he said it was "deliberately trying to ensure that the abortion IS a traumatic event." Surely you can see the difference, and surely you can see why someone saying "Baloney" in response to a correction about SOME ONE ELSE'S INTENT is not something I'm going to accept. That's what motivated the mind-reader comment - his presuming to speak about what is essentially my intent.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Megan,
quote:Rakeesh, I don't think anyone has said that here. Are your two hypothetical positions contradictory? Yes. Has anyone here said that? I don't think so; if you think pH has, please quote the exact passages.
No one has said that here specifically, no. But so far as I can tell, that is basically the stance of every pro-choicer in this thread. And outside of this thread, I have heard this argument many times. Disregard everything but the woman's choice, period. Furthermore, I said when I asked everyone that question that those were not her words specifically-so I don't understand why you're asking me to show where someone here has said it precisely.
quote:...I do not see the embryo as a child--thus making your "choice over the corpse of a dead child" seem ridiculously overdramatic to me.
I have been careful, I think, to be specific in pointing out that I don't know it's a dead child. I have been careful to point out it is a possibility.
quote:...a little extra knowledge for the woman, and a little bit of further hope for protection in the case of the possible-person.
&
...such as possibly destroying a child's life.
&
Why, if that choice is possibly made over the corpse of a dead child?
&
If pro-lifers are right-if as many of them believe, human life begins at conception (and we'll probably never know until, if then, after dying), then the choice to abort is being made over the corpse of a dead child.
&
If that is the reason, then why is it reasonable to err on the side of caution for women's rights and not for the life of a child?
...why do you care so little for the chance that children are being destroyed for convenience, to avoid consequences of stupid mistakes?"
My point stands until it can be proven that the clump of cells is not a true human life at some point. As far as I understand it, your response to most of my questions is simply, "I don't see it as a true human life, therefore I don't wish to prohibit it."
In what way is that different from the following?
quote:"I believe that the clump of cells becomes a 'true human life' at some point during gestation and prior to birth, but we cannot say when exactly, and it changes for everyone," and still say, "It should be the woman's choice, PERIOD."
You do believe that the clump of cells is a true human life at some point prior to birth. You do believe we cannot pin down when exactly that is. And you do believe that the choice should still be the woman's, period.
quote:*(Women's control over their reproductive systems is widely recognized as a major factor in allowing them to move from a subservient place in society into a more equal role. The right and ability to choose when to produce children is something I value immeasurably because it allows me to be a married woman and still pursue a career. For many, many people, this is why choice is that important.)
It is this argument that smacks of no-tolerance to me, of zealotry. See, women have massive control over their reproductive lives even before having an abortion ever comes up. The fortress of women's rights in this arena has a moat, it's got a drawbridge, a spiky portcullis, boiling oil, lots of archers, lots of food for a long siege. The argument you're making is that overkill is what's required to protect women's rights. Not only must the castle have all of that stuff, but it must have crocodiles in the moat, poisoned arrows, etc. etc. etc.
(I am not trying to mock you here. The imagery just occurred concerning something protected and overkill just occurred to me. Possibly because I was reading AFfC last night.)
quote:I think it honestly comes down to a difference of "I do not see the embryo as a child. A potential child, yes. Having equal rights with the mother? At that early stage, no."
It seems to me that we're regarding "rights" as a group of things that if one is threatened, all are threatened. This to me again seems overkill. I have the right to private property that I legally and honestly purchase being safe from people I have not invited straying onto it. If someone threatens that right by, say, parking on my grass to attend a party across the street, do I get to blow up their car? My rights are being threatened!
Obviously such a thing would be absurd. But when women's rights are threatened, this sort of reasoning is somehow valid. Why? Why is it a possible child's right to live-when it is defenseless and did not ask to be brought into that particular womb-does not overpower the woman's right not to be "forced" to carry a child to term?
In America in times of slavery, even then there were limits on what a white landowner could do to a black slave. Not many, but limits. Just because the white landowner has more rights than the black slave does not mean that in any situation, the white landowner's rights overpower every single one of the slave's rights.
That is the core of your argument. Not just that the clump of cells is inequal to the mother, but that the biggest possible thing for that clump of cells is insufficient to overpower the woman's "right" to avoid the consequences of a stupid mistake.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:I completely agree Shan. Women's choices are always criticized, no matter what they choose.
Welcome to humanity. This behavior is by no means specific to women and reproductive issues. Happens all the time, even in mundane activities like football. Armchair quarterbacking, after all.
And while I wholeheartedly agree that more compassion and respect for the job that mothers do should be given, Shan...I say the same to you, as well. That's humanity for you. People are "judgemental" on issues they think are massively important. It seems to me that on the pro-choice side, a whole lotta people are "judgemental" to the point of regarding and opposition to abortion as a premeditated threat to women's rights, a plan to put women back in the kitchen.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
You know, I'm starting to wonder whether it's possible for you and I to discuss this productively, because you seem not to be reading my posts completely.
quote:But so far as I can tell, that is basically the stance of every pro-choicer in this thread.
This proves it, since I have quite clearly said many times now that I don't have a problem with abortion not being allowed later than a certain point fairly early in pregnancy--a viewpoint quite obviously different than the viewpoint you're painting as belonging to every pro-choicer in this thread (unless you weren't including me in that, and I think that's unlikely).
quote:It is this argument that smacks of no-tolerance to me, of zealotry.
Of course it does to you--you have already decided that the instant a woman conceives, any of her needs take a backseat to the possibility that she could bring forth a child. You asked why choice was important; I answered. It's not my fault if you don't like the answer. I mean, heck, the pro-life viewpoint often smacks of a patriarchal need to control what a woman does with her body, but I didn't ask you about the reasons for your viewpoint, nor am I implying that your reasons have anything to do with that. I know them; I understand them; I respect them; I just don't agree with them. Can you say the same? Have you really tried to understand the opposing viewpoint, or have you just thought up different ways to say, "OHMYGOD, YOU'RE SO WRONG!!! HOW CAN YOU THINK THAT!!! BABY-KILLER!!!!"
Again, I'll repeat: I do not, and cannot, see the embryo in the first six weeks following conception, as a human being. Because of this, at that stage, I do not see a reason why abortion shouldn't be allowable. It is, to me, akin to any other morally neutral medical procedure that a person might undergo. Perhaps my mention of rights was specious because of this--in my mind, because the embryo is not a human being, I have no more trouble with early term abortion than I do with the removal of a mole.
I don't know if you're arguing to change my mind, or just arguing to argue. If it's the latter, continue on without me. If it's the former, then please take a second and try to understand my views.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Megan,
quote:This proves it, since I have quite clearly said many times now that I don't have a problem with abortion not being allowed later than a certain point fairly early in pregnancy--a viewpoint quite obviously different than the viewpoint you're painting as belonging to every pro-choicer in this thread (unless you weren't including me in that, and I think that's unlikely).
I noticed that, each time you said it. However, my statements don't stop applying before, say, the first trimester. That's why I haven't acknowledged it, really, because I feel it's not really an answer.
Perhaps the following is where you felt I wasn't reading your posts. I should've been more specific.
quote:And outside of this thread, I have heard this argument many times. Disregard everything but the woman's choice, period.
What I should have said and what I meant to say there was...
quote:And outside of this thread, I have heard the following argument many times. Disregard everything but the woman's choice, period.
So that's my bad.
However, there is still the possibility that prior to the first trimester, the "clump of cells" is a true human life. As I've said, we don't know and probably won't ever know until after death, if then. Your response to that has been to completely disregard the possibility based on your opinion that it's definitely not a true human life. Or probably not. Or likely not. Whichever shade of meaning most accurately describes your beliefs.
I am not talking about abortion in the third trimester. In almost all cases I regard that as so horrid and wrong, that on that issue there really isn't much room for productive discussion with me. With exceptions of the mother's life (definitely) being in danger and-possibly-serious birth defects being detected, I'm not decided on those last parts.
But on this issue-on the question of why precisely the woman's right to choose completely trumps the possibility of destroying a true human life-my questions have gone unanswered, Megan. I think they were fair questions. Let me be more specific, although honestly I thought this part was understood.
Why is it that the woman's right to choose should totally trump the possibility of destroying a true human life in the first and second trimesters? The only response you've given me is basically, "I don't see it as a true human life, and so that possibility doesn't enter my decision-making process, and there are other factors involved such as wider issues of women's rights."
Am I misunderstanding that response? I assure you I'm not trying to misrepresent you, but I've read your posts and in the process of talking to you, reread your posts. I don't think I'm missing anything, but it's possible I'm mistaken.
quote:you have already decided that the instant a woman conceives, any of her needs take a backseat to the possibility that she could bring forth a child.
I have decided no such thing, and I'm at least as irritated as you are that you would say I have. On many occassions I have said that in the case of rape, a woman should have the right to abort. In the cases of serious illnesses where treatment would likely kill the cluster of cells but save the mother, I think a woman should have the right to abort. I have said all of that many times in the past, in probably dozens of threads, and I believe in the nine pages of this thread, I've said all of that at least once.
But it's possible either I didn't and just assume everyone knew (which would be my mistake, obviously) or I did and you missed it, because there's lots of posts (which is possible, also), or you're deliberately misrepresenting me. I regard this last possibility as vanishingly small, but it grates when you tell me things like,
quote:"OHMYGOD, YOU'RE SO WRONG!!! HOW CAN YOU THINK THAT!!! BABY-KILLER!!!!"
Have I insulted you in this thread? You're certainly personally insulting me with this remark, Megan. You're characterizing me as some kind of abortion clinic picketing fanatic with a sign of a crumpled, destroyed fetus on a stick, shrieking at harried and unhappy women.
I don't appreciate that.
quote:You asked why choice was important; I answered.
You answered with things I already knew and had heard-and even said in the post where I made the question: you don't regard prior to the first trimester the clump of cells being a true human life, and there are lots of other issues involved such as women's rights.
Why are those two things-your opinion and the politics of women's rights-outweigh the very real possibility that it is a true human life being destroyed in a first trimester abortion? Are you disregarding that possibility altogether, or is there some other reason?
And as for women's rights, I believe I've made my case pretty well that in a world where a woman can ensure with 99%+ probability that she won't get pregnant in consentual sex even if she is sexually activer, women's rights are not seriously threatened by prohibiting abortions for the sake of convenience.
quote:Again, I'll repeat: I do not, and cannot, see the embryo in the first six weeks following conception, as a human being.
But haven't you said yourself that your positions on abortion have changed, going from believing abortions were reasonable and acceptable further along in the pregancy, to the point now where you oppose them after the first trimester? Doesn't that call into serious question the bedrock of your argument, that you just don't think it's a true human life?
I will tell you what I think. Please let me know what is different about what you think. I think that the only reason it should be acceptable to permit abortions for the sake of convenience is if we are certain that a true human life is being destroyed. And since pregancies are the natural result of overwhelmingly consentual behavior, I see no reason to call the vast majority of abortions something other than "abortions for the sake of convenience".
If I'm wrong? Then yes, lots of women will be "forced" to carry to term a child they would have otherwise destroyed back when it was a morally meaningless cluster of cells. But since that cluster of cells got there by their own choice (and choice and consequence cannot be seperated, in my opinion), that "forcing" is not so very troublesome to me. Regrettable, possibly.
If I'm right? Well if I'm right-and please, let me put that in bold-if I'm right, then millions upon millions of true human lives are being destroyed while they're defenseless for the sake of someone else's convenience.
I personally regard this kind of thing as a "beyond a reasonable doubt" kind of issue. And to me, it is reasonable to admit to the possibility that in the first trimester, a "clump of cells" is not just a tadpole, not just a mole. I cannot understand, given the constantly-changing discoveries in medicine and science, why it is not reasonable for you to admit the possibility.
Is, "I do not and cannot see it that way," still your response? If so, then we really have reached an impasse. But it's not because I'm just "arguing to argue", and it's certainly not because I'm a fanatical pro-lifer with a sign shrieking, and it's not because I'm not reading your posts. I resent that, Megan. I've read your words carefully.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
You are right about me mischaracterizing your statements, and I do apologize for that. I have been under the impression that you were against abortion in all cases, for any reason; that was my misreading, and I apologize.
Is it possible that the clump of cells in the first trimester is a true human life? I don't know. Is my opinion that it's not based solely on my opinion? Yes, my opinion that has been revised, through the course of discussion and reading. I was never, for the record, a supporter of abortion as acceptable at any time, but I have definitely revised my "arbitrary line" (or at least, the point at which I'm no longer certain that abortion is unacceptable) downward. Could this change again? Absolutely. If abortion were banned wholesale for that reason--that is, just in case the clump of cells actually is a human life--I wouldn't be happy, but my reasons for this are purely based on the reading I've done and the opinions I've formed. I also wouldn't go burning any buildings down or joining any major protests, either--because it's just my opinion. Hopefully, a well-informed opinion, but just an opinion.
quote: But since that cluster of cells got there by their own choice (and choice and consequence cannot be seperated, in my opinion), that "forcing" is not so very troublesome to me. Regrettable, possibly.
This is troublesome to me, because what about the woman who takes every precaution to ensure that she doesn't conceive, and conceives anyway? Well, she just shouldn't have been having sex, then, eh? A while back, I posted this as a reason why that doesn't work in every situation, particularly mine.
quote:I personally regard this kind of thing as a "beyond a reasonable doubt" kind of issue. And to me, it is reasonable to admit to the possibility that in the first trimester, a "clump of cells" is not just a tadpole, not just a mole. I cannot understand, given the constantly-changing discoveries in medicine and science, why it is not reasonable for you to admit the possibility.
I do admit this possibility, but with a huge load of skepticism. Part of this is may be because I'm very doubtful about the definition of human life, particularly at that early stage. I'm not sure I would be able to see it as a human life at that stage without some sort of idea of a soul--and on a spectrum of belief/non-belief for that, I lean toward the non-belief. This may be the actual difference that causes the most trouble, though I could be wrong.
quote:I think that the only reason it should be acceptable to permit abortions for the sake of convenience is if we are certain that a true human life is being destroyed.
There should be a "not" somewhere in there, right? Anyway, I understand this, and I respect it; I agree with it. I just think that the definition of "true human life" is something we won't be able to agree on. This, I think, is my answer to your question about why I feel a woman's rights do trump the possibility of a human life in the first trimester. You may not see it as a sufficient answer, and I might be wrong, but I still cannot justify placing more importance on the possibility that my assumptions might be wrong than on a woman's right to decide when and if she's going to reproduce. (And we're back to the "she could've chosen not to have sex" bit, but I have trouble accepting that one for the personal reasons I mentioned in the linked post, above.) I know there's no way you'll agree with any of this, but can you at least understand why I would have difficulty accepting that a full-on ban of abortion?
Anyway, I apologize for overreacting and implying you were an extremist. I admit to getting a little frustrated with these debates when it feels like the points I'm trying to make are not being understood. I let that frustration rule me in the last post, and I'm very sorry for that.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:You are also allowed to be called on them when they are insultingly wrong.
Hmm. You've stated your desire to restrict access to abortion, so it would seem reasonable to expect that something you suggest along those lines proceeds from that intention.
Further, the definition of "informed consent" generally consists of making a patient aware of risks and medical facts, and forcing a woman to view a sonogram of her fetus provides neither- at least, beyond providing a picture of a fetus in a similar level of development.
It does provide a disapproving emotional context, which I suspect is the goal.
Either that (in the context of preventing abortion) is the aim, or there is an element of willful ignorance with regard to the effect.
quote:It was clear to me, at least, that A) Sterling didn't intend a twelve hour video, but a video documenting twelve hours of labor and birth and B) his broader point was to show that maybe certain pro-lifers wouldn't be so gung-ho about "all the information" if "all the information" includes material that leans toward aboring the fetus. And I think you proved his point. He could have made that point. Instead, he said it was "deliberately trying to ensure that the abortion IS a traumatic event." Surely you can see the difference, and surely you can see why someone saying "Baloney" in response to a correction about SOME ONE ELSE'S INTENT is not something I'm going to accept. That's what motivated the mind-reader comment - his presuming to speak about what is essentially my intent.
Actually, that was my intent. Could it be you were <gasp> misreading my intent?
And I'm sure you're aware the intent of a law is irrelevant to the effects thereof.
Very well, my error. The intention was that following the viewing of her sonogram the potential mother-to-be would in an entirely intellectual manner choose whether to undergo abortion, free of emotional bias or any trauma.
Incidentally, the yelling thing would be a lot more effective if you'd do it less often.
quote:And don't think for a moment that women don't know that childbirth is painful. Women love nothing better than telling other women how awful their labor was. I think it's some kind of female hazing.
All I can gauge is the reactions of the women in my childbirth class. Hearing about it is one thing; seeing it is another.
Epidurals or other anesthesia can reduce pain to a certain extent. But it's been noted that one of the most important aspects of pain control is having a loving person present for support at the birth, a factor many women considering abortion lack.
edited to provide context for quote Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Megan,
I don't have time for a lengthy reply, but don't worry about it, your apology is accepted, and it's not a big deal anyway. I've certainly flown off the handle on many occassions, on issues much less passionate than this. For my part I should not have called you on it so aggressively.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: (I haven't forgotten about you, Irregardless -- just a really busy day. And it's started to snow! So I'll catch up on the weekend.)
No problem -- it's going to take me a while to catch up reading this thread.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Man, that hug icon makes me want to start swearing or setting something on fire, dangit.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
*runs away*
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I will not support anyone's choice to abort, in any way, shape, or form.
Do you mean this? Would you really oppose a woman's choice to abort under all circumstance -- including when the life of the mother is at risk? Your statement implies you make no exceptions.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
In a better world...
Adoption would be a process without a lot of beuraucracy and hassle, but still manage to weed out unfit parents. It would take only weeks to perform the process of adoption, instead of marching out for months or years.
Sex education would be broad, and cover all safe sex options including abstinence, and include discussions of sexuality in the media and whether they accurately portrayed sexual relationships.
Everyone would have ready access to birth control methods, and all pregnant women would have the best in prenatal care.
Law would truly make men responsible for their offspring. Paternity tests would be easy to obtain. Courts wouldn't so readily reduce child support payments.
And no child would ever go hungry.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Do you mean this? Would you really oppose a woman's choice to abort under all circumstance -- including when the life of the mother is at risk? Your statement implies you make no exceptions.
Rabbit, there's a difference between "not oppose" and "support."
Theaca has described the distinction I find to be most morally important, between treatment that results in the death of the fetus and simply killing the fetus.
quote:And I'm sure you're aware the intent of a law is irrelevant to the effects thereof.
Were that really true, you wouldn't have framed your response as being about intent, but rather about the effects. You were making a very different point from "they want to discourage abortions" - something I've never denied is my main purpose for informed consent requirements. you were saying that people who favored such things wanted to make sure the abortion was traumatic.
Wrong. Flat out wrong. I, and presumably Belle, want there not to be an abortion. Our intent is not to "deliberately ... ensure that the abortion IS a traumatic event."
quote:Actually, that was my intent. Could it be you were <gasp> misreading my intent?
Possibly. You'll note I didn't use a polite form of the word bulls$%# when you clarified your intent.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
That definition of informed consent is a huge stretch, since the information conveyed is irrelevant to the risks or facts of the procedure. The only "information" attempting to be conveyed is of an emotional nature. And the tool being used to attempt to prevent the abortion is emotional trauma, or the threat thereof.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Rabbit, there's a difference between "not oppose" and "support."
So if your wife were lying in a hospital death bleeding to death and the only way doctors knew to save her life was an abortion, you would not oppose it but you also would not support her in making this choice.
Did I get that right.
I'm sorry Dag., but unless I'm misunderstanding you I find your position abhorrent.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:And the tool being used to attempt to prevent the abortion is emotional trauma, or the threat thereof.
Then make that case. Don't tell me what I intend.
quote:So if your wife were lying in a hospital death bleeding to death and the only way doctors knew to save her life was an abortion, you would not oppose it but you also would not support her in making this choice.
Did I get that right.
No, you absolutely didn't.
Perhaps Theaca can chime in with more detail, but in such situations the treatment is not an abortion, but a surgery that results in the death of the unborn child, a morally acceptable course of action.
Even a hysterectomy - which would absolutely kill the child - would be morally acceptable.
quote:I'm sorry Dag., but unless I'm misunderstanding you I find your position abhorrent.
I'm pretty sure you are misunderstanding me based on your example and the fact that you didn't quote the actual part of my post that made the distinction.
Frankly, I find your position that even if an unborn child is fully human it should still be up to the mother as to whether or not it is killed to be abhorrent.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Dag, I will of course yield to the medical professionals on this one, but I think that the treatment for a uterine hemorrhage (whether or not the woman is pregnant) is the same procedure as an early-term abortion. Assuming that is the case, isn’t saying “we didn’t have an abortion, we treated the hemorrhage” a matter of semantics? I understand the matter of intent, but what is the distinction, for you, between calling it a medically necessary abortion and calling it a treatment that also results in the death of the child? Assuming that the actions of the medical team in performing the procedure are identical either way.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Assuming that is the case, isn’t saying “we didn’t have an abortion, we treated the hemorrhage” a matter of semantics?
Technically, the abortions at issue in this entire discussion are "induced abortions." Perhaps keeping the adjective for this particular part of the discussion will help make my point clearer. When I say "I will not support abortion" I mean "induced abortion." I think induced carries the intent with it.
To be clear, if the actions are being taken to directly repair damage - including necessary steps to make the damage accessible - then I'm not considering it within the boundaries of "induced abortion" and therefore it is not within my earlier statement about what I can't support.
quote:I understand the matter of intent, but what is the distinction, for you, between calling it a medically necessary abortion and calling it a treatment that also results in the death of the child? Assuming that the actions of the medical team in performing the procedure are identical either way.
At this point, I think it's clear what I mean. I don't particularly care how the semantics are termed except insofar as the use of the term abortion in such circumstances is not used to support induced abortions that are notpart of actual treatment. The chemotherapy example is a good place where I find the distinction to be terribly important. Aborting a child because it will die or become disabled due to chemo is not "medically necessary," and I want no confusion on where I stand on that point.
When I made that statement, it was concerning abortions used in the context of a women choosing when she gives birth - a clearly elective procedure.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
This thread makes my soul ache.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Please tell me you clicked the wrong emoticon.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Dag, I’m getting the impression that you think I'm picking nits. I was (still am) genuinely curious whether you would term the situation I described an induced abortion or a treatment that resulted in a <non-intended but knowingly unavoidable> abortion. Not trying to score points, just interested in your thinking on this.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote:Please tell me you clicked the wrong emoticon.
Nope, that was most definitely the right one.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Dag, I’m getting the impression that you think I'm picking nits. I was (still am) genuinely curious whether you would term the situation I described an induced abortion or a treatment that resulted in a <non-intended but knowingly unavoidable> abortion. Not trying to score points, just interested in your thinking on this.
"treatment that resulted in a <non-intended but knowingly unavoidable> abortion"
Edit: and that phrasing makes it clear why "induced" is the critical word.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Originally posted by erosomniac:
quote:Please tell me you clicked the wrong emoticon.
Nope, that was most definitely the right one.
So a group of people discussing a very serious issue which implicates some of the most important issues in the world is roll-on-the-floor-laughing funny to you?
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
I think eros is laughing at the seeming inconsistencies in decision-making and arguments.
Could be wrong . . .
And it certainly wasn't polite or respectful.
However, the conversation around induced/medically necessary vs. induced/non-medically necessary is very interesting.
Carry on.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote:So a group of people discussing a very serious issue which implicates some of the most important issues in the world is roll-on-the-floor-laughing funny to you?
I should have been more clear: this issue is so emotionally and spiritually charged and wrought with the potential for deep offense that really, my only recourse is to laugh at it, to keep from getting sucked into the argument, and/or saddened that so many brilliant, caring people could stand so very divided on something that is, as you said, "a very serious issue which implicates some of the most important issues in the world."
I'm sorry about the lack of clarity - I really wasn't trying to make you upset, and probably should have included this reply in my previous one.
Edit for further clarification: I'm subscribing to Valentine Michael Smith's idea behind laughter.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:that biological parents are supported in their choice to not parent, if that's what they choose - up to and including using preventative methods such as abstinence, birth control, or abortion.
The last is asking too much. I will not support anyone's choice to abort, in any way, shape, or form.
Sorry to throw your words back at you Dag, but I went to Catholic school myself, and I remember there being justifications for abortion. Namely, an impending threat to the life of the mother with no hope of the child's ultimate survival, ie. Tubal Pregnancy, or a blood disorder, or the need for chemotherapy for a dying mom, etc. Surely you don't mean "and way, shape or form?" If you do then, what of these unsurpassable situations (which are very frequent occurences).
edit: Though I see youve answered the question partly, you haven't really answered this one yet, which is an induced abortion with cause.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Sorry to throw your words back at you Dag, but I went to Catholic school myself, and I remember there being justifications for abortion. Namely, an impending threat to the life of the mother with no hope of the child's ultimate survival,
I believe you are wrong. The difference is between treatment which results in the death of the child and treatment intended to kill the child. Here's one example:
quote:First, while the Church opposes all direct abortions, it does not condemn procedures which result, indirectly, in the loss of the unborn child as a "secondary effect." For example, if a mother is suffering an ectopic pregnancy (a baby is developing in her fallopian tube, not the womb), a doctor may remove the fallopian tube as therapeutic treatment to prevent the mother’s death. The infant will not survive long after this, but the intention of the procedure and its action is to preserve the mother’s life. It is not a direct abortion.
There also occur, very rarely, situations in which, in order to save the mother’s life, the child needs to be delivered early. But this can be done safely with a normal, induced delivery, or a caesarean section.
quote: ie. Tubal Pregnancy, or a blood disorder, or the need for chemotherapy for a dying mom, etc. Surely you don't mean "and way, shape or form?" If you do then, what of these unsurpassable situations (which are very frequent occurences).
Hence, removing the fallopian tube or the embryo in the tube is not an abortion.
I'm not sure which blood disorders you mean.
Finally, I have extensively dealt with the chemotherapy issue (in fact, I've dealt with all this in the thread except blood disorders). An abortion because chemotherapy will harm or even kill the child is not treatment. Surgery to remove a tumor that kills the child is.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Frankly, I find your position that even if an unborn child is fully human it should still be up to the mother as to whether or not it is killed to be abhorrent.
This is a fairly gross over simplification of my position. I do not know when an unborn child becomes "fully human". I don't believe that anyone on this planet knows the answer to that question. The scrictures and prophets I recognize are silent on this issue. I suspect that if we were to poll the American public, we would not get even close to a simple majority consensus on when a fetus becomes a full human.
I recognize that the leaders of your religion have weighed in on the subject, but to the best of my knowledge they have never claimed that their position on this subject was infallable. Even Catholics must admit there is a possibility that the fetus is not "fully human".
I believe that living beings which are not even partially human still deserve life and humane treatment, so whether or not a fetus is "fully human" is to me not the sole consideration.
I believe that in any pregnancy their are two living beings involved. The mother, who, hopefully, we can all agree is "fully human", and the unborn child, who may or may not be fully human. Because of the bond between these two lives, there are cases when the needs and desires of these two living beings will come in direct, irresolvable conflict. For at least the first several months of the pregnancy, the life of the unborn child is inseparably bound to the mother. It is an obligate parasite.
When I consider all of these facts, I conclude that the Mother's needs should be given greater weight under the law than those of the unborn child.
I believe that there are cases where abortion is a moral choice, even if the unborn child is fully human. We recognize as a society many instances where it is moral to kill a "full human", including self defense, defense of others, etc. I believe that there are gray areas, cases where I am unable to judge. How much sacrifice does God require a woman to make to bring her unborn child to term? I do not know the answer to this question.
I believe that God reveals the answers to such questions to the individuals who have direct stewardship for the decisions. That is why I support a woman's right to choose. The mother knows not only how much sacrifice she is willing to make, but because she has been given stewardship for the unborn child, she is able to know how much God expects of her.
I believe that most legal abortions today do not fall in these categories. It sickens me that so many woman seek abortions for selfish and silly reasons. I also have a great deal of sympathy for women who are pregnant with a child they believe they can not adequately care for.
My heart is torn in two on this issue. As a woman who has desperately wanted children, but has been unable to have them, it grieves me deeply that any woman would be willing to kill her unborn child. I am as hurt by the deep problems in our society that drive women to such desperate straights, as I am by some women who seem to make such choices lightly.
I believe that there are cases where a mother should not be trusted with this choice. This is after all a weighty decision and individuals who are not generally considered competent under the law to make such decision, should not be trusted with this one.
I believe that there are many things we can do as a society to reduce the number of woman choosing abortions. I think that criminalizing abortion is the worst option. Since it is unlikely to actually reduce the number of abortions, I view it as symbolic gesture that will inflict real harm on people.
If you find my beliefs abhorent. So be it.
[ January 23, 2006, 10:53 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I recognize that the leaders of your religion have weighed in on the subject, but to the best of my knowledge they have never claimed that their position on this subject was infallable. Even Catholics must admit there is a possibility that the fetus is not "fully human".
I know this doesn't change your position, but yes, they have.
quote:This is a fairly gross over simplification of my position.
If this is an oversimplification of your view then I apologize. I was recalling a thread before last election in which you stated, in reference to Kerrey's view that 1) a fetus is definitely fully and completely human and 2) that a woman should be allowed to have an abortion during at least the first trimester with no justification, that this was a moral position. It is the combination of these two that I find to be abhorrent. If it's not yours, I again apologize.
Certainly it's less of an over-simplification than your restatement of my position.
quote:I think that criminalizing abortion is the worst option. Since it is unlikely to actually reduce the number of abortions, I view it as symbolic gesture that will inflict real harm on people.
First, I seriously doubt it wouldn't reduce the number of abortions.
Second, the symbolism here is critically important. If abortion is not criminalized, then a particular class of human being is being dehumanized.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
I think I'm away from the pro-life movement in three ways.
1) I seperate sex from procreation. This is deep, so when anytime someone talks about someone having to carry the baby as a penalty and a consequence of sex, I'm not compelled.
2) I don't consider unborn children full people.
3) And most importantly, I'm not going to treat a woman like a beast of burden, even if I treat the unborn child like an animal.
That said, I understand that none of my positions are infallible and all of my assertions could be wrong. God need not seperate sex from procreation, deem unborn children full people, and women beasts of burden. I'm not indifferent to the idea that I could be wrong on all three counts in the eyes of the Almighty, but my position still stands.
Truthfully, I do believe that if you want lower the number of abortions, eliminating poverty and supporting education would do it much more elegantly than a law.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Yeah, that would pretty much divorce you from the pro-life movement, Irami. Although a less biased spin on those points would be welcome.
1) You don't recognize that pregnancy is a default consequence of sex, and that even careful sex can result in pregnancy.
2) You don't consider unborn children to be full people.
3) You don't believe that women should have to carry children to term, even if that means killing the infants.
--------
I find it particularly interesting that you believe it's necessary to view women as "beasts of burden" to believe that their children should not be killed to spare them the indignity of pregnancy, or that this opinion constitutes a desire for "punishment."
Consequences are not punishment. Punishment is something that comes IN ADDITION to a consequence, to further deter an action. If you rob a bank and get caught, you are imprisoned; if you lie to your mother, you might get grounded. These are not consequences; they're punishments.
But some actions also have natural consequences. If you jump off a cliff, you might well break your leg. This is not a punishment; it is a consequence. You might ALSO receive a punishment, if your parents ground you or take away your skateboard or something, but the actual leg-breaking is a consequence.
In the same way, becoming pregnant is a consequence of having sex. And denying someone the freedom to abort a child is not a punishment for having sex.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:1) You don't recognize that pregnancy is a default consequence of sex, and that even careful sex can result in pregnancy.
2) You don't consider unborn children to be full people.
3) You don't believe that women should have to carry children to term, even if that means killing the infants.
I'll accept 2 and 3 as friendly amendments. I'm still not happy with the wording of one.
quote:In the same way, becoming pregnant is a consequence of having sex. And denying someone the freedom to abort a child is not a punishment for having sex.
It seems to be a punishment by ommission. For example, if someone jumps off a cliff and the government has the opportunity to put an air mattress to soften the fall, but chooses not to, then it becomes a sort of crime of omission. In this case, as with the case of pregnacy, the line between consequence and punishment is blurred with respect to government intervention.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Were that really true, you wouldn't have framed your response as being about intent, but rather about the effects. You were making a very different point from "they want to discourage abortions" - something I've never denied is my main purpose for informed consent requirements. you were saying that people who favored such things wanted to make sure the abortion was traumatic.
Wrong. Flat out wrong. I, and presumably Belle, want there not to be an abortion. Our intent is not to "deliberately ... ensure that the abortion IS a traumatic event."
The bolded text shows exactly why information about abortions should be given/written by pro-choice people. I find it intellectually dishonest that you would be willing to give out biased information under some kind of "informed consent requirements" while rejecting opposing arguments out of hand.
Here's where Sterling and I disagree with you, I think. Say you have a young woman who has weighed her options, and decided that an abortion is the best choice for herself. She then has to run through a gauntlet of anti-abortion material, including sonograms of her own fetus. It has no medical impact on her health, and unless divine intervention is involved, she is conscious of the debate on the issue, aware of the opposing arguments, and has reached her own decision. I don't see a possible reason for this, except as emotional blackmail against the young woman.
Of course your intent is to, as you see it, save the life of the unborn child. As I see it, however, you also intend to do it by giving pregnant women a choice, either don't abort, or experience further trauma in an already emotionally wrenching experience. So basically, I'm left with no choice but to infer that you would be actively trying to punish those who believed differently than you. That this punishment is not in fact the ultimate goal, but one that must be acheived in order to accomplish the greater goal, does not change the fact that the this program would have, as one of it's intended effects, the emotional punishment of women who go through with an abortion.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:For example, if someone jumps off a cliff and the government has the opportunity to put an air mattress to soften the fall, but chooses not to, then it becomes a sort of crime of omission.
I'm not sure this is necessarily equivalent. If you choose to jump off a cliff and the government has the opportunity to manufacture a mattress out of the flesh and sinews of an innocent bystander -- but chooses not to -- has it committed a crime of omission?
In the case of abortion, you're actually injuring a third party in order to protect someone from the consequences of her own action. I don't think "omission" works in that scenario.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:I'm not sure this is necessarily equivalent. If you choose to jump off a cliff and the government has the opportunity to manufacture a mattress out of the flesh and sinews of an innocent bystander -- but chooses not to -- has it committed a crime of omission?
Then it becomes an issue of the dignity of the bystander. The more I think about it, the more I think that human life is dependent upon accepting a public presence, understanding itself as something in the world. I'm getting a little bit fuzzy, but its what I see.
We don't try to save every living organ for its own sake. We don't talk about the dignity of a liver, or try to preserve the placenta for its own sake, and I'm pretty sure that there isn't a movment to rescue all of the appendixes that have been removed. I think that we protect babies out of respect for the people they become when they start becoming aware of themselves as people in the world, and I don't think we protect babies merely because they happen to be alive.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I think that we protect babies out of respect for the people they become when they start becoming aware of themselves as people in the world...
That's the reason YOU protect babies. I suspect it's not the reason that Dagonee protects babies.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Agreed, and these are the sorts of issues where reasons matter, not just the final outcome.
HUGE ASIDE:
There is an argument for plurality that states that people with different faiths can live under one government, as long as their disparate reasons lead them to the same decision.
There is another argument saying that any government made of plural religious people is only a contingent mass of allies, not one people. This mass is unstable, they aren't even rightly considered one people, rather they are a strategic confederacy of clans using each other for economic reasons.
I'm not sure where I stand, or what the United States of America is.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Then make that case. Don't tell me what I intend.
I tend to make the assumption that those presenting a particular view-point are aware of the context in which they make their point. If you are claiming that forcing medical personnel to show a pregnant woman considering an abortion their sonogram would be a good thing, let along "informed consent", I tend to presume you're aware at the least of the punitive consequences of such an act toward the women who choose to go through with the procedure and choose to emphasize what _you_ see as the positive outcome in the face of- actually, because of- that negative aspect.
I can go into matters presuming you've given so little consideration to the ramifications of your suggestions that you're completely unaware of this context if you'd really prefer.
quote:Here's where Sterling and I disagree with you, I think. Say you have a young woman who has weighed her options, and decided that an abortion is the best choice for herself. She then has to run through a gauntlet of anti-abortion material, including sonograms of her own fetus. It has no medical impact on her health, and unless divine intervention is involved, she is conscious of the debate on the issue, aware of the opposing arguments, and has reached her own decision. I don't see a possible reason for this, except as emotional blackmail against the young woman.
"Yes", but actually "Yes and then some."
First, this proposition puts the medical practitioner in a mandated role as a sort of "disapproving parent"- and that's a position a medical practitioner should never be in. People who feel their doctor looks down on them don't come in for return visits. The mother who didn't get her child vaccinated doesn't get her child looked at when they come down with a cough, the smoker doesn't come in when he starts coughing up blood, the pregnant woman who feels her doctor disapproves of her premarital intercourse doesn't see someone when she starts bleeding vaginally. The medical community has enough barriers between them and proper care of their patients without putting up new ones like this for the sake of a particular narrow agenda.
Secondly, I would argue that it's recognized as the function of law to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Abortion remains legal, and a law such as this would function to punish the innocent for going about legal business. The onus on the law is to protect, not punish, the law-abiding.
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
I was going to respond to you, Irami, but I can't take seriously anyone who compares a fetus, or even a zygote, to an appendix. That's like comparing an acorn to a leaf.
Call it a parasite if you like, but not an organ. It's human, it's alive, it's got a unique genetic makeup, and in 20 years, it'll probably be able to kick your ass. Show some respect. Posted by clod (Member # 9084) on :
I need to take Frisco out to lunch.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: I'm not sure where I stand, or what the United States of America is.
::: Pushes United States of America up against the wall with a switchblade :::
"Its like I don't even know you any more!!!"
(note sarcasm)
Actually I agree, but I got the image and had to share
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Sorry to throw your words back at you Dag, but I went to Catholic school myself, and I remember there being justifications for abortion. Namely, an impending threat to the life of the mother with no hope of the child's ultimate survival,
I believe you are wrong. The difference is between treatment which results in the death of the child and treatment intended to kill the child.
I am only drawing from what I learned of common practice, and I being a challenging person, did pursue the matter thorougly with the religion teachers I had, and my concluding impression after four years of history/morality and religious lit, was that this semantical "removal of a Felopian tube which causes an abortion," is an intentionally deceptive argument. The baby is killing you, the baby is killing itself, you remove it, its an abortion. Just because "abortion" also means what is done with vacuums and speculi in clinics for healthy mothers, doesn't mean that isn't what your doing with an ectopic pregnancy. To say it isn't, and to say that removing the falopian tube is "indirectly" causing the death of the child is rediculous IMO. That being said, having an abortion because of this kind of problem, or say, having an abortion in order to go on immuno supressive therapy in order to recieve a life-saving transplant seems justifiable. But calling it something else is denying the fact.
I am no med expert, I don't have time to research it, so my medical speculation is not of value, but I've been told that it might be necessary for certain people to abort pregnancies early in order to avoid life-threatening complications in pregancy, such as a blood pressure disorder that threatens stroke, or hemophelia.
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
I'm always a little confused when people talk about birth control not being readily available. Do other parts of the country not have county health departments?
I'm a bank teller. I make decent but not great money. Based on the sliding scale, I paid 45 bucks for my annual exam, blood test, Pap Smear, and a year's worth of pills.
How could we possibly design a system that was more efficient or affordable? When I was in high school and community college, I didn't pay anything. When I get a raise, I'll pay a little more. And the whole thing's subsidized by a county's worth of tax dollars.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:was that this semantical "removal of a Felopian tube which causes an abortion," is an intentionally deceptive argument.
I don't mind you disagreeing, but when you call me (or the argument being made by me) intentionally deceptive it seems we've left productive discussion behind. This isn't something I made up. It's not like there isn't a lot written on the subject. It's not like I haven't discussed some of it here. It would be nice, when calling someone's argument intentionally deceptive, to at least deal with the aspects of the issue they raised.
quote:But calling it something else is denying the fact.
Nonesense. It's not like people are pretending the baby will survive.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:For example, if someone jumps off a cliff and the government has the opportunity to put an air mattress to soften the fall, but chooses not to, then it becomes a sort of crime of omission. In this case, as with the case of pregnacy, the line between consequence and punishment is blurred with respect to government intervention.
Where this argument falls apart is the fact that not only is it almost universally the person's choice to jump over the cliff, but they could have installed their own air matress, as well as strapping on a parachute, going to a skydiving class, hooking up a bungee cord, and making sure their health insurance was paid up, before stepping off that cliff.
No one pushed them off the cliff. They didn't go to a respected and trusted skydiving supply store and buy a parachute and double-check to see if it was right but through an unforseen and miniscule chance it wasn't, etc. etc.
Frankly the "beast of burden" argument doesn't hold much weight with me, because a beast of burden never has a choice. Either pull this cart, or go in a bottle of glue, Wilbur! You're either gonna lay some eggs or be kentucky fried, chicken!
Frankly I find it curious that someone who endorses improved sex-education would also endorse a "beast of burden" argument for pro-choice. Because if you endorse improved education, why are you endorsing it? Usually the answer is so that people will make informed (and thus better) decisions.
But endorsing a beast of burden argument diminishes the need for these informed decisions. No, so long as it is cheap, legal, and easy for women to buy safe and effective birth control-and the man should too, obviously, unless they want children and are ready for them-it is not treating a woman as a "beast of burden" to refrain from "saving" her from the natural consequences of a stupid mistake.
See Irami, that's how we do treat beasts of burden-protecting them from many natural consequences because they're stupid. We put fences around our beasts of burden because if we don't, they wander into the forest and get eaten, or into the road and run over. We castrate our beasts of burden to keep us from having to deal with the natural consequences of having sex with other beasts of burden.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
quote:I'm a bank teller. I make decent but not great money. Based on the sliding scale, I paid 45 bucks for my annual exam, blood test, Pap Smear, and a year's worth of pills.
o_O
Wow. That's half as much as I pay for my exam, pap smear, and one month of pills. And I'm a student.
AR, if that service is readily available anywhere where I've been, it's been ridiculously poorly publicized. If it were publicized more, I think that would be a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: [QUOTE] We castrate our beasts of burden to keep us from having to deal with the natural consequences of having sex with other beasts of burden.
THAT'S IT!!!
*picture Charlie Brown rolling head over heels backwards from Lucy's booming voice*
Sorry - couldn't help it.
Also thought a wee bit of humor might be valuable at this point.
Sorry to interrupt.
Press forward.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:See Irami, that's how we do treat beasts of burden-protecting them from many natural consequences because they're stupid. We put fences around our beasts of burden because if we don't, they wander into the forest and get eaten, or into the road and run over. We castrate our beasts of burden to keep us from having to deal with the natural consequences of having sex with other beasts of burden.
I like being caught when I fall. If that means avoiding the natural consequences of my actions, so be it.
quote: It's human, it's alive, it's got a unique genetic makeup, and in 20 years, it'll probably be able to kick your ass.
In twenty years, I'd consider it a person. It's human in a degraded sense of the term human. It's alive, but so are fish. The Avian flu has a unique genetic make up.
[ January 24, 2006, 11:33 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Then you admit your stance has nothing to do with not treating women like beasts of burden, but permitting them to remain safe from the consequences of their own voluntary actions.
Maybe if that consequence weren't tied to a behavior you benefited from, you wouldn't be so interested in protecting people from such consequences?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:I like being caught when I fall. If that means avoiding the natural consequences of my actions, so be it.
It's worth pointing out that a social mechanism that does not kill other living beings exist for women who fall into pregnancy.
You know-- adoption.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:It's human in a degraded sense of the term human.
What exactly makes it human in a degraded sense? And at what point does this sub-human (an appropriate word, despite its nasty connotations) upgrade?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Oh, and incidentally Irami, it's pretty damn easy not to fall at all. Cheap, reliable, and widespread, no less.
It's not like there are swarms of covered pit-traps abounding for a hapless woman to be thrust into by a man. Your stance-"I don't want to treat women like beasts of burden"-turns adult women into victims. It does so because even if you do believe that pregnancy as a result of unprotected sex is something a woman should be "protected" from, a host of reliable and inexpensive protections exist already.
Maybe what's called for isn't a white knight in shining armor. Maybe that damsel isn't in quite the kind of distress you think she is. Maybe her distress isn't quite worth destroying a possible true human life.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
It doesn't understand itself as a person in the world. At least, I don't think it does. I can't remember being in the womb. I thought I made this clear on the last page.
quote:It's worth pointing out that a social mechanism that does not kill other living beings exist for women who fall into pregnancy.
You know-- adoption.
Still, that involves the business of the government forcing women to give birth, and I just don't like that. There is nothing easy about unwanted pregnancy. It involves issues of metaphysics that can't be publically and demonstrably shown and are rightly quarrelsome. And I think that the pro-life side is arrogating political authority that doesn't belong. There is nothing simple about the entire ordeal, and all options are going to cause anguish to the mother and father. Let them decide. Mostly, I'm asking the religous people to suffer the indignity of living in a society with legal abortions. I'm asking them to do it out of humility and tolerance, and out of a deep respect for individuals in a religiously plural society. You don't have to like it. You don't have to say it is good. You certainly don't have to have one yourself. But I am asking that you live in a society where they are legal.
[ January 24, 2006, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Second, the symbolism here is critically important. If abortion is not criminalized, then a particular class of human being is being dehumanized.
I'm sorry, but I find symbols to be less important than real physical harm. Before abortion was legal, woman were commonly allowed to bleed to death when their lives could have been saved by abortions. Hospitals in major cities, like Chicago, had entire wards for women who had been mutilated in illegal abortions. Those real and substantial harms to women are far more important in my mind than a symbolic gesture to a class of humans who can not even perceive the gesture.
If you criminalize abortion in all circumstances, then you dehumanize pregnant woman, declaring by law that their lives and bodies are less valuable than those of their unborn children.
If you allow legal abortion in any circumstances, then someone must choose those circumstances. It is dehumanizing to woman, if they are not permitted a key role in this choice which dramatically affects their lives.
Additionally Dag, I'm rather insulted that after I put enormous effort in to trying to explain my stand, you completely ignored my efforts in favor of your memories of a statement I made ages ago.
Furthermore, I never tried to state your position. I quoted you, I offered examples and asked if this is what was meant by your quote. This is quite different than you gross misrepresentation of my position.
[ January 24, 2006, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:It seems to be a punishment by ommission. For example, if someone jumps off a cliff and the government has the opportunity to put an air mattress to soften the fall, but chooses not to, then it becomes a sort of crime of omission. In this case, as with the case of pregnacy, the line between consequence and punishment is blurred with respect to government intervention.
We could make this a better analogy by saying,
quote:If you jump off a cliff and break your leg, this is a natural consequence not a punishment. But if society then refuses to allow you access to medical treatment for the broken leg because you broke it by willfully jumping off a cliff -- that is a punishment.
[ January 24, 2006, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Again, I'll accept that as a friendly amendment to my analogy.
quote:Maybe what's called for isn't a white knight in shining armor. Maybe that damsel isn't in quite the kind of distress you think she is. Maybe her distress isn't quite worth destroying a possible true human life.
I have a low threshold for damsels in distress. Apparently, it's higher than my respect for fetuses.
[ January 24, 2006, 09:56 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Additionally Dag, I'm rather insulted that after I put enormous effort in to trying to explain my stand, you completely ignored my efforts in favor of your memories of a statement I made ages ago.
Considering what you did to my statement - a statement that had been put into enormous context by aspects of this discussion in which you participated - I'm surprised you'd still be insulted. I put at least as much effort as you into trying to explain my stand throughout this thread, and you seized on one sentence of a two sentence post that provided the distinction and pointed to the part of discussion that explained it - more than enough information to realize that your example was abolutely inapplicable.
Also, I was not relying solely on things from another thread. For example, you said:
quote:Rakeesh, You are ignoring the obvious. There are no other situations in which a persons failure to provide for another human being is considered murder by our society. In the the case of a pregnancy, the child cannot live without its connection to the mother. Does this mean that the mother's failure to maintain that connection is equivalent to murder? The fact of the matter is that two lives (at a minimum) are entertwined here. To say that the fetus's life always trumps the life of the mother denegrates the mother. This is not to say that I believe abortion is a moral choice. In most cases, I believe it is not.
A position with some valid points, but one which seems to imply that you accept that a fetus is a living human being - especially when coupled with the comment I remember from another thread. I did not see a clearer statement about your beliefs as to whether or not an unborn child was a human being until after the post which insulted you.
But it is not a gross mistatement of the position you seemed to have advocated in this thread: You have definitely stated that you think the mother should decide (i.e., abortion should be legal) and you strongly implied in the above quotation that an unborn child was a human being.
You have now explained that you don't think an unborn child is fully human. Fine. But it was certainly reasonable for me to think so based on your posts. Having been corrected, I apologized.
If that's not good enough for you, there's nothing else I can do.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Dag, You still haven't read my post where I explain the full rational behind by stance. Read it, respond to it or shut up.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I have too read it. You realize it wasn't written before the post that insulted you, right?
And don't ever (edit to remove obscured profanity) tell me to shut up again.
[ January 24, 2006, 12:06 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Wow, I would've expected the first "shut up" in this thread to have come from me.
Irami,
quote:Let them decide. Mostly, I'm asking the religous people to suffer the indignity of living in a society with legal abortions. I'm asking them to do it out of humility and tolerance, and out of a deep respect for individuals in a religiously plural society. You don't have to like it. You don't have to say it is good. You certainly don't have to have one yourself. But I am asking that you live in a society where they are legal.
None of these requests, individually or together, trump the primary problem pro-life people have with abortion. That problem is that pro-lifers believe it is a human baby being destroyed, or like myself they don't know when it truly is a human life and prefer to err on the side of caution.
It is not, to them, a mere "indignity". You want the government to save an adult woman from her own choices. Pro-lifers want to save the lives of innocents. The worst that happens from your perspective is that a woman-the vast majority of whom chose the pregnancy-is "forced" to endure pregnancy and labor and birth. The worst that happens from the other perspective is a human life is snuffed out for convenience.
Asking people to grin and bear it is absurd. It's not going to happen, and appealing to religion in your request is beyond absurd.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I note that Rabbit STILL hasn't responded to the ongoing explanations about why her example was inapplicable.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Could both of you calm down, please? I'm enjoying this thread quite a bit and learning many things I didn't know, and I'd hate to see it locked down.
Rabbit, telling Dagonee to shut up was way out of line, uncalled for, and in my experience way out of character for you. Dagonee, I can see why you're upset, but could you please not send blistering profanities back at her for telling you to shut up?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Dag, that's not necessary.
Irami, I'm asking all people to practice discipline and restraint and reverence. You can see where this is going.
Etcetera. Etcetera.
So in a word: No. I refuse to stand by, voiceless, accepting, while the unborn are willfully killed. Especially when, with today's technology and society, so many of them can be given secure, safe lives.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I edited it.
Thank you, Rakeesh.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Dag, Your post which offended me was posted nearly an hour after my full explanation. In that post, I explained a number of things which I consider highly personal and which are highly emotional charged for me. This is something I rarely do on hatrack. Your following post completely ignored these statements (although you refer to other aspects of the same post) and instead made reference to a post you recall me making years ago. That was the point at which I took offense.
When I pointed out that I was offended, you repeated the offense by once again pulling another of my quotes out of context.
I'm sorry, but I don't think telling you to shut up until you acknowledged in a respectful manner the very sensitive personal nature of the things I had written was at all out of line.
You are simply reinforcing my belief that your opposition to abortion without exception dehumanizes women.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Dag, Your post which offended my was posted nearly an hour after my full explanation. In that post, I explained a number of things which I consider highly personal and which are highly emotional charge for me. This is something I rarely do on hatrack. Your following post completely ignored this statements (although you refer to other aspects of the same post) and instead made reference to a post you recall me making years ago. That was the point at which I took offense.
My follow up post was not aimed at refuting your post or saying that my criticism still applied - as is obvious from the post itself. I was explaining what I was thinking when I made the post which motivated your long explanation - to explain what I was thinking when I made what you called a gross misrepresentation.
It insulted you that I explained why I made a prior post? That's irrational.
had I said, "No, you don't really believe what you said in your long post" you might have rational reason to be insulted. But I said, "I'm sorry if I oversimplified. Here's why I thought what I did."
So I didn't say anything about your long post, except to apologize for my misunderstanding which the long post cleared up.
quote:I'm sorry, but I don't think telling you to shut up until you acknowledged in a respectful manner the very sensitive personal nature of the things I had written was at all out of line.
Yes, you were out of line. In a big way.
AND DON'T EVER TELL ME TO SHUT UP AGAIN!
quote:You are simply reinforcing my belief that your opposition to abortion without exception dehumanizes women.
Right now, for what should be fairly obvious reasons, you fail to make the list of people whose opinions I care about.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Dagonee doesn't oppose abortion without exception. One exception he has listed was specifically medical treatments to save the life of the mother which would kill the fetus.
It seems to me that both of you are saying, "You're misrepresenting me!" to each other. Perhaps a more productive method of dealing with this disagreement would be for each of you to review what you've said to each other as well as the times in which they were said.
It's certainly got to be more productive than telling each other to shut up or swearing at each other.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Ahh, well.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Dagonee doesn't oppose abortion without exception. One exception he has listed was specifically medical treatments to save the life of the mother which would kill the fetus.
To be fair, I don't oppose making those legal, but I do oppose them morally - with all the distinctions I've spent a couple pages making as to the difference between medical treatments that result in fetal death and abortion to protect the life of the mother.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
The idea that access to abortions guarentees women's rights in current day America is laughable. In light of the number of parents waiting to adopt infants, the technology available to ease the discomfort of pregnancies, the laws and social programs put in place to protect and assist mothers, it's a dinosaur of an idea.
In Africa, you might have a point; but in America, not a chance.
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
quote: Mostly, I'm asking the religous people to suffer the indignity of living in a society with legal abortions. I'm asking them to do it out of humility and tolerance, and out of a deep respect for individuals in a religiously plural society. You don't have to like it. You don't have to say it is good. You certainly don't have to have one yourself. But I am asking that you live in a society where they are legal.
What abortion boils down to for me is killing an innocent for the sake of convenience...and I'm supposed to say, "Well, to each his own."?
Why don't you change then. Let's make it illegal for women not to carry babies to term. You don't have to like it. You don't have to say it is good. You certainly don't have to have one yourself. But I am asking that you live in that society.
And by the way, I think only Dag and Belle have brought any sort of religious argument to the table. Rakeesh hasn't, I don't think, Tom's Agnostic, and I'm an Atheist. There are plenty of moral arguments to bring to the table in an abortion conversation without resorting to the word of god.
quote:I seperate sex from procreation. This is deep...
And yet the end result...is rather shallow.
quote:It's alive, but so are fish. The Avian flu has a unique genetic make up.
Okay, but can you find anything with all the characteristics of a fetus? Human, alive, and unique genetic makeup?
I mean, I can play this game, too. Potatoes have eyes, so it should be legal to julienne and deep fry Dagonee, right?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I don't know, what's his fat content?
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
Rak
I was gonna warn him not to tempt anyone, but you beat me to it.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
You know lawyers are called sharks, and although I've never eaten shark, I hear it can taste pretty good...
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I don't know, what's his fat content?
Alas, far higher than it should be.
Too many french fries.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I like french fries...
...and you are what you eat...
Dagonee, could you test the temperature of this giant vat of probably-boiling oil by leaning real, real far over?
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
So, are people of all viewpoints allowed to chow down on deep-fried Dagonee? I hear he was raised free-range; bet he has a reeeal nice flavor. Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Who said I was sharing?
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
*puppy-dog eyes*
*quivering lip*
*sniff*
Please?
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
A lot of what I see from people in every discussion of this issue is assumptions.
People assign motivations to others that that can't possibly know about, then argue based on those assumptions.
Since we can't really know why someone does something like this most of the time, we judge them based on our own prejudices and assumptions.
I have said more than once where I stand on these issues, and why, so I am not going to rehash them again. I will say that I have learned a lot...from both sides....here at Hatrack.
I hope this discussion can continue respectfully so that others have to opportunity to do so as well.
Kwea
[ January 24, 2006, 02:47 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
Posted by SenojRetep (Member # 8614) on :
I say we deep-fry Kwea as well. That'll teach him/her to try to re-rail a good derailment.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:Okay, but can you find anything with all the characteristics of a fetus? Human, alive, and unique genetic makeup?
But then, let's flip it around again. If by human you mean, "has a genome defining it as homo sapiens sapiens," then yes it is human. Yet it fails to have humanity by just about every other metric you could judge it by. Awareness, decision making, productivity, or relationships, a fetus excercises none of these things*. In the same way that a coma patient has ceased to be a person, a fetus is something that could/will develop into one. To be sure, that potentiality is worth protecting to some point, which is why you can be pro-choice and still be against late term abortions or infantcide. And no, I don't consider the meanest possibility of humanity enough to outweigh the causal good (yes, I said it) that comes from legalized abortions.
*To the best of my knowledge. If anyone has medical evidence otherwise, I'd love to hear it.
Posted by SenojRetep (Member # 8614) on :
Juxtapose-
If a coma patient has "ceased to be a person" because of lacking the qualities you mention (awareness, decision making, etc.) are people who simply have a diminished capacity less human than others? I mean, should we value the lives of more productive people more than less productive people? Better decision makers over worse ones? Or do you see it as binary (either you can or you can't)?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote: In the same way that a coma patient has ceased to be a person, a fetus is something that could/will develop into one.
Do the many coma patients who wake up regain their humanity at that time?
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Awareness, decision making, productivity, or relationships, a fetus excercises none of these things
Neither does a newborn child. Does that mean babies that are born healthy at term are not human? What about preemies, are they human?
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
quote:Awareness, decision making, productivity, or relationships
There's very little scientific knowledge on the subject of fetal brain activity.
I don't think that just because we have no memories of the womb, we're not aware of ourselves. I mean, I don't remember being three.
And I know some 30 year olds that aren't productive, either. Plenty of them who suck at relationships and lack basic decision making capabilities.
But that's their fault. They've had a chance, at least. So I'm all for them having their own hunting (hunted?) season.
As for good coming from abortion, I don't dispute that. But it's all short-term and superficial. In the long-term, it just encourages a society in which it's always someone elses problem or fault. Why take responsibility when you can sue the restaurant in which you got drunk before you got in an accident and killed your family? Why use all methods of birth control when you can get by on one or two and kill the innocent fetus if those 1/100 (1000, 10,000) odds catch you?
*shrug*
People disappoint me.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Awareness, decision making, productivity, or relationships, a fetus excercises none of these things*. In the same way that a coma patient has ceased to be a person, a fetus is something that could/will develop into one.
Well, that's an argument I have to admit I haven't heard often. A coma patient is not a person? It's been said here, but what of the many coma patients that wake up? And there are many degrees of coma, of course.
Furthermore, judging humans by the standards of awareness, productivity, decision-making, relationships, invites a slippery slope. It would invite that even if you hadn't mentioned coma patients losing their humanity.
I won't give a full list of the types of "people" (in quotes since by the standards you've given, the are not human beings), but it certainly includes the mentally and physically handicapped, as well as the old and sick.
Judging humanity on a pass-fail defend-kill grading system like you're doing...frankly it puts you in the moral and political company of some very unpleasant people.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Technically, the abortions at issue in this entire discussion are "induced abortions." Perhaps keeping the adjective for this particular part of the discussion will help make my point clearer. When I say "I will not support abortion" I mean "induced abortion." I think induced carries the intent with it.
To be clear, if the actions are being taken to directly repair damage - including necessary steps to make the damage accessible - then I'm not considering it within the boundaries of "induced abortion" and therefore it is not within my earlier statement about what I can't support.
As I understand the Catholic position, abortion is always immoral, however medical procedures whose primary action does not attack the fetus are not considered abortion even if a secondary effect of the procedure is the certain death of the unborn child. Please correct me if I have misunderstood.
From my point of view, this is circumductory logic, intended to allow some abortions which would save a mother's life by redefining abortion. I would not object to this redefinition if I thought it was benign. Unfortunately, I think that such a definition requires that women undertake unnecessarily risky and often damaging courses of action which have no benefit to the child. To me, that is anti-life not pro-life.
Let me offer an example. In ectopic pregnancies there two (at least) common treatments. The first is removal of the fallopian tube which meets the catholic standard of an medical procedure with intent to save the life of the mother which has a secondary effect of killing the baby. Thus this is not an abortion.
A second treatment which is becoming more common is treatment of the woman, with Methotrexate. Methotrexate causes death of the fetus by blocking adsorption of folic acid and inhibiting implantation. This is a direct attack on the fetus and the procedure is virtually identical to a procedure used for early term abortion of a fetus which has implanted in the womb not the fallopian tube. This procedure does not require the mother to under go surgery and so in many cases is safer for the mother. In addition, the mother more likely to be able to concieve in the future than with the surgical option, particularly if she has had a previous ectopic pregnancy.
The outcome for the fetus in an ectopic pregnancy is death whether the choice is surgery, Methotrexate or no medical treatment. In this case, I would consider treatment with Methotrexate to be a prolife option because its intent is to save the only life which can be saved (the Mother), to reduce trauma to a human life (the mother) and to improve the mother's chance of having a baby in the future.
The Catholic stance would permit surgery but would not permit treatment with Methotrexate even if there are clear medical advantages to this approach. To me this dehumanizes the woman by requiring that she sacrifice her well being for an abstract concept with no measurable benefit to any living thing. I am unable to see this as a moral requirement.
Unless of course, there is some way to define use of Methotrexate to remove an ectopic pregnancy as "not abortion" even though identical use of Methotrexate to remove a fetus emplanted in the uterine wall is abortion. I think that stretch of logic is too far for any rational human.
Please don't argue about the details of this example. If you do, you have missed my point.
Two lives are involved in any pregnancy and both lives are more valuable than any abstract symbolism. It is fair for us to debate what if any circumstances would justify taking an action which will lead to the death of the child. But once it is clear that the unborn child will die, then the other life, the life of the mother becomes the most important issue. At this point, medical treatment should focus on what is best for the mother. To do anything else would denigrate the life of the mother -- i.e. it would be anti-life.
[ January 24, 2006, 04:36 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:But once it is clear that the unborn child will die, then the other life, the life of the mother becomes the most important issue. At this point, medical treatment should focus on what is best for the mother. To do anything else would denigrate the life of the mother -- i.e. it would be anti-life.
Consider an accident victim with a matching heart or liver. The accident victim will die within 48 hours - we can know this with assurance - but we're not sure when.
The intended recipient will die if the transplant is not performed within 24 hours.
Is it OK to kill the donor at hour 23?
I say that killing the donor is wrong. It is an evil act, and doing so denigrates the life of the donor. It also means that the entire continued existence of the recipient is founded on that evil act - something that also denigrates life.
quote:Unless of course, there is some way to define use of Methotrexate to remove an ectopic pregnancy as "not abortion" even though identical use of Methotrexate to remove a fetus emplanted in the uterine wall is abortion. I think that stretch of logic is too far for any rational human.
Not really. As can be seen below, the position has been given much thought, and it is not clear that there is a difference between the two. (BTW, you have oversimplified the Catholic position on treatment of ectopic pregnancies. It is not settled.) Link.
quote:For example, some moralists disagree about the status of treatments intended to terminate an ectopic pregnancy. According to some, the surgical removal of the fallopian tube (a Salpingectomy) or the dissolution of the trophoblast via methotrexate entails a direct intent to cause the death of the fetus as a means to protect the mother. Others have argued to the contrary that, while detaching a fetus from its normal site of implantation would be a direct abortion, to detach it from an abnormal site in which it constitutes a serious pathology involves only the indirect destruction of the fetus. The central distinction between these two arguments is that in the latter argument, the direct intent is understood to be the treatment of a pathological condition in the mother by freeing her fallopian tube of an abnormal infiltration by the placental villi, whereas in the former argument the direct intent is understood to be the destruction of the fetus. Both of these analyses are relevant to cases of ectopic pregnancy treated by either salpingectomy or methotrexate. Other cases of treating serious pathologies involving the destruction of a fetus, such as induction for chorioamnionitis, are similarly ambiguous from a moral perspective. Such difficult cases need to be assessed in light of the requirements of moral certitude and following one’s conscience. In similarly ambiguous cases, both patients and providers in Catholic-sponsored facilities should make their own determinations in accord with the dictates of moral certitude and following their conscience. Within appropriate moral parameters set by hospital policy, individual patients and physicians should be supported in their decisions.
Also, your "abstract symbolism" comment, if related to my prior posts, is misdirected. My symbolism comment was in the context of one reason why abortion should be illegal. As I've said many times now, I don't think abortions in thse circumstances should be illegal.
Of course, I also object to your terming it "abstract symbolism" in this context. There is a huge non-symbolic importance to not actively killing a person.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Dag, I find it perfectly logical to say that killing the unborn child in the case of an ectopic pregnancy is fundamentally different from killing a child in the case of a normal healthy pregnancy. I do believe that intentions are important in determining the morality of an action. What I find to beyond logic, is claiming that the one case is abortion while the other is not. That distinction is totally artificial and as I said I do not believe it is benign.
If there is a huge non-symbolic importance to not actively killing a person, what is it? I'm afraid I just don't see this the way you do. People and real physical consequences are simply more important to me the principles. Any philosophy that puts principles above the lives and well being of people is, from my perspective at least, anti-life.
If I had been in an accident and my death was certain and imminent and it was certain that another life could be extended for many years by the use of my organs, I would be honored to shorten my life by a few hours to give life to another. I see such an act as an affirmation of life and its value. If I were conscious, I would want that choice. If I were unable to make the decision myself, I would want my closest family members to be allowed to make that choice for me.
I guess this is why we will never agree. I see the tangible outcome of saving one persons life as far more important than the principle of never actively killing a person. You, if I am not once again mistaken, see that principle as all important.
[ January 24, 2006, 07:07 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:If there is a huge non-symbolic importance to not actively killing a person, what is it?
Essentially, I don't believe that the physical (or tangible) outcome is necessarily the most important component of a moral choice. Or, more accurately, I believe that acts have consequences beyond the physical.
quote:If I had been in an accident and my death was certain and imminent and it was certain that another life could be extended for many years by the use of my organs, I would be honored to shorten my life by a few hours to give life to another.
I would, too (although I don't claim to know how I would react when faced with the choice - fear is strong and unpredictable). I would authorize removal of life support and cessation of attempts to save me. But I wouldn't authorize active killing, nor would I take my own life to gain those hours.
quote:I see the tangible outcome of saving one persons life as far more important the principle of never actively killing a person. You, if I am not once again mistaken, see that principle as all important.
That principle is not all-important. For example, I think killing an aggressor in self-defense is sometimes OK (I prefer not to divert this into when it's OK, but please note the "sometimes").
But, yes, I see the principle of not actively taking a life as very important.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:Originally posted by Belle:
quote:Awareness, decision making, productivity, or relationships, a fetus excercises none of these things
Neither does a newborn child. Does that mean babies that are born healthy at term are not human? What about preemies, are they human?
quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: I mean, should we value the lives of more productive people more than less productive people? Better decision makers over worse ones? Or do you see it as binary (either you can or you can't)?
Mmmmyep, more or less binary. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and even the mentally retarded/ill possess the attributes I mentioned to some degree. Even infants show some signs of these capabilities, most notably in the forming of a relationship with the parents.
And Belle, yes, that's more or less what I'm saying. Fetuses and newborns, while human in the biological sense, aren't possessing of humanity in any sense of the way we generally mean it. I did however, acknowledge that potential that exists and the need to protect it.
quote:Originally posted by Frisco: As for good coming from abortion, I don't dispute that. But it's all short-term and superficial. In the long-term, it just encourages a society in which it's always someone elses problem or fault. Why take responsibility when you can sue the restaurant in which you got drunk before you got in an accident and killed your family? Why use all methods of birth control when you can get by on one or two and kill the innocent fetus if those 1/100 (1000, 10,000) odds catch you?
I disagree. I think legal abortion is part of being a responsinble society as a whole. This is because - and you may have heard this before - I think that overpopulation and overconsumption of resources are two of the biggest problems in the world. Put simply it's bad now, and it's going to get worse, unless we start taking bigger steps to combat this problem. And aside from all the other arguments in it's favor, and against it, legal abortion is one of those steps. Frisco, when it comes to personal responsibility, I'm right there with you. I'm sick of hearing about some jackass suing McDonald's because he burned himself on his hot coffee. And I'm certainly in favor of encouraging contraceptives before abortion. But sometimes, people make mistakes, have lapses in judgement, and accidents happen. Abortion as a safety net is important, and dispite the fact that, yes, some people will abuse it, a reasonable measure. Social security is often called a safety net, but I've never heard the argument that it should be done away with because it makes the elderly lazy. Does it? Sure, in a few cases it probably does, but that's insufficient to warrant it's removal. Put very frankly, "Oops, I f****d up" is one of the worst reasons I can think of for bringing a child into the world.
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: A coma patient is not a person? It's been said here, but what of the many coma patients that wake up? And there are many degrees of coma, of course.
Furthermore, judging humans by the standards of awareness, productivity, decision-making, relationships, invites a slippery slope. It would invite that even if you hadn't mentioned coma patients losing their humanity.
Perhaps I mispoke. I think I intended to mean a persistant vegetative state. There certainly are degrees of coma, and I was thinking about victims who have the lower chances of recovery (as above, a degree of potentiality is worth protecting). And as I mentioned above in this post, it's not that I think we should judge people in how much they exemplify these traits, but by the sum presence or absense of said traits. A person who is disabled from the neck down can still make amazing intellectual contributions, a monumentally schizophrenic person is still aware of their surroundings and makes decisions based upon that awareness, however misperceived it is, and even the biggest introvert likes to talk to someone else once in a while.
Basically, every living person exhibits these traits to some degree. That's why I can hold this viewpoint and not feel like I'm on the edge of a slippery slope.
And If a person I loved very much was suddenly reduced to a state where they exhibited none of these traits, and they had next-to-no hope for recovery, I wouldn't hesitate to pull the plug. I wouldn't be killing them, I'd be mourning that they were already gone.
I hope they'd do the same for me.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
You wouldn't hesitate? I just don't understand that degree of certainty when it comes to murky issues such as these which change all the time. What was a hopeless coma twenty years ago is not necessarily the same today, for example.
quote:Fetuses and newborns, while human in the biological sense, aren't possessing of humanity in any sense of the way we generally mean it. I did however, acknowledge that potential that exists and the need to protect it.
Which is it? An infant is either a human, or it isn't. By the standards you listed, an infant most definitely isn't. It appears to me as though you're now putting some haziness in the issue that wasn't really there in what you said before, because you don't want to be saying, "Infants aren't human beings, they only have the 'potential' to be human beings."
We don't protect infants because they have the 'potential' to be human beings, man. It's in our guts. We protect them because they're a helpless human life that is completely at the mercy of the world. When someone molests a child or hurts them in any way, we aren't furious because of some potential that's lost. Or rather we're not furious because of that first.
The fact is you are standing on a precipice, whether or not you want to acknowledge it. Because once you start determining the value of a human life in terms of its usefulness, well then the question becomes, "What to do with valueless human life?" I assure you, there are many people for whom it can truly be said that when it comes to contributing to the world, they're making withdrawls and not deposits.
That is not a respect for life, it's a respect for useful life. And that's something quite different and demands another question: who are you to set the value on a human life? What gives you the right to say that this human life is worth protection, but this one less so?
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
I live in a country where there are plenty of people who determine the value of a human life in a far more mercenary and less compassionate fashion. There are lobbyists who actively lobby that children and old people who become the victims of industrial malfeasance are of less monetary value than adults.
Frankly, that bothers me a heck of a lot more than someone who, say, says "If I have a child now, when I'm not equipped to properly take care of it, I'm likely to do irreperable harm to both our lives. But if I wait until I'm further in my education, have more experience, have taken the time to learn what I need to properly care for a child, and have the social structures in place to properly care for that child, we'll both be far better off."
(And just so there's no confusion- yes, I'm aware that someone who chooses to have an abortion is not going to have the same child later on.)
Posted by Mean Old Frisco (Member # 6666) on :
quote:I disagree. I think legal abortion is part of being a responsinble society as a whole. This is because - and you may have heard this before - I think that overpopulation and overconsumption of resources are two of the biggest problems in the world. Put simply it's bad now, and it's going to get worse, unless we start taking bigger steps to combat this problem. And aside from all the other arguments in it's favor, and against it, legal abortion is one of those steps.
If we're killing people as a means of population control, why don't we get rid of people who deserve it? Seriously, if abortion weren't legal, I think the number of non-ideal pregnancies would taper off as people either take contraceptives seriously or undergo reversible sterilization. Or just wait to have sex until they're willing to accept its natural consequences.
There has to be a more moral method of population control out there.
quote:Social security is often called a safety net, but I've never heard the argument that it should be done away with because it makes the elderly lazy. Does it? Sure, in a few cases it probably does, but that's insufficient to warrant it's removal.
There are plenty of people who disagree with Social Security as it is now. For a number of reasons.
quote:Put very frankly, "Oops, I f****d up" is one of the worst reasons I can think of for bringing a child into the world.
And to me, "Oops, I f****d up" is one of the worst reasons to end its life. There are very few people in this world who couldn't raise a child if they put their mind to it.
And adoption is even easier and cheaper than that.
quote:Frankly, that bothers me a heck of a lot more than someone who, say, says "If I have a child now, when I'm not equipped to properly take care of it, I'm likely to do irreperable harm to both our lives.
That bothers me a lot because it's not true. It's an excuse. Life will be different, certainly. It's only irreparibly harmed if you make it so. All four of the girls I've convinced not to have an abortion are wonderful parents. And a couple, if not all, are actually better off and more responsible than they were. It's entirely possible to have an unexpected child and not ruin your life.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Seriously, if abortion weren't legal, I think the number of non-ideal pregnancies would taper off as people either take contraceptives seriously or undergo reversible sterilization. Or just wait to have sex until they're willing to accept its natural consequences.
There isn't a gentle learning curve here. This is learning to tightrope walk without a net. There are still plenty of people who don't have ready access to contraception and information about contraception. Just saying "they'll learn" isn't a solution.
quote:That bothers me a lot because it's not true. It's an excuse. Life will be different, certainly. It's only irreparibly harmed if you make it so. All four of the girls I've convinced not to have an abortion are wonderful parents. And a couple, if not all, are actually better off and more responsible than they were. It's entirely possible to have an unexpected child and not ruin your life.
That's your opinion. I've known a fair number of teenage mothers, and most of them were unquestionably brave people. But I can't think of one of them who wouldn't have said she and her child wouldn't have better off if she had an opportunity to get a decent education and some job experience. One of them was making less than minimum wage cleaning houses.
The girls you've convinced not to abort are wonderful parents, as far as you can see. I hope they continue to be, truly. But neither of us can forecast their path for the full eighteen years they're responsible for that child.
You make the decision to turn a blind eye and just say "no", you aren't just saying "no" to the ones who will make great mothers. You're also saying "no" for the ones who will be terrible mothers. For the ones who will bring children into a world of need, neglect, and abuse. For the ones who will leave their children in dumpsters.
There's a lot that can be done to make the decision to have a child rather than abort a tenable one. Working to ensure day care is available in institutions for higher learning, for example. If you just slam a gate down without recognizing the consequences, you're doing a lot of people a disservice.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:But I can't think of one of them who wouldn't have said she and her child wouldn't have better off if she had an opportunity to get a decent education and some job experience.
Her child wouldn't have been better - her child wouldn't have existed.
Yes, I know you say you realize that. But I'm not sure you realize how much it blunts your point. That child would not be better off had she been aborted.
quote:You make the decision to turn a blind eye and just say "no", you aren't just saying "no" to the ones who will make great mothers. You're also saying "no" for the onew who will be terrible mothers. For the ones who will bring children into a world of need, neglect, and abuse. For the ones who will leave their children in dumpsters.
Yes. We're telling those mothers that we won't allow them to kill their unborn child.
quote:There's a lot that can be done to make the decision to have a child rather than abort a tenable one. Working to ensure day care is available in institutions for higher learning, for example.
Yep.
quote:If you just slam a gate down without recognizing the consequences, you're doing a lot of people a disservice.
Seems to me the one not facing consequences is you. How many people who have faced neglect or abuse wish they hadn't been born? I bet some do. But I bet most don't.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
Dag, I think we're both aware that we don't agree on the point that a fetus becomes a child, and without that agreement, much of what you say becomes moot.
And again, the awareness that you're glad to be alive is something that comes with hindsight, usually adult hindsight. We're not talking about "Boy I'm glad to be alive" vs. "Why, why aren't I alive?" We're talking about it versus never being conscious of the possibility.
Consider the recent stir about "Freakonmics". If I'm remembering correctly, in summary, Card's interpretation was that because of abortion, gang activity, which seemed posed to take over much of American life in big cities and spread beyond them, failed to do so.
I'm not going to suggest for a second that that's a big win for the cause of abortion. The marginalized flocking to abort isn't a win for anyone. But if there's one thing that made the gang problem of the 90s so terrifying, it was the recognition that gang members frequently held a mindset that life- theirs or anyone elses- was of very little value.
And frankly, marginally preferring life to death isn't enough. If someone has a child before they're ready, and that child experiences neglect and abuse, they're more likely to also have a child too early, who is also more likely to be the subject of neglect and abuse, and so on.
We're already one of the few modern industrialized nations that still practices the death penalty. If we ban abortion, we're in very uncomfortable company.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Dag, I think we're both aware that we don't agree on the point that a fetus becomes a child, and without that agreement, much of what you say becomes moot.
Then how moot does it make every single thing you said in response to Frisco's last post? Frisco apparently does believe the fetus is a human being, based on "one of the worst reasons to end its life."
I'll give you a hint: entirely moot.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:There are still plenty of people who don't have ready access to contraception and information about contraception.
This is not true anywhere in America.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Yes, sadly, it is.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Well, it depends on if the intent was to say there are plenty of people who don't have ready access to information about contraception or who don't have plenty of information about contraception, period.
Because there are still lots of people without information about contraception.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:And frankly, marginally preferring life to death isn't enough.
Why, exactly? Just because it doesn't outweigh the "usefulness" of getting rid of all those unwanted and useless lives isn't a good enough reason.
quote:If we ban abortion, we're in very uncomfortable company.
Oh, yes. If we banned abortion we'd be just as bad as Third World nations which systematically oppress and degrade women. Right.
Wait a minute, that's not actually true at all. See, because in the nations you're talking about but aren't actually naming, it's frequently illegal for women to do things like vote, drive, have sex outside of marriage, be seen with men other than their husbands, purchase contraceptives, etc., etc.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Fugu,
You're definitely right about that. There are millions of Americans who are desperately uninformed about effective birth control.
Outside of illiterate Americans, however, there is no American who does not have the opportunity to utilize and learn about contraception.
Obviously the end result of these two different things is, well, identical. Therefore much better education about safe sex should be required and distributed. Another reason I'm not a registered Republican, despite my leaning much closer to their stance on abortion than the Democratic party's.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Then how moot does it make every single thing you said in response to Frisco's last post? Frisco apparently does believe the fetus is a human being, based on "one of the worst reasons to end its life."
I'll give you a hint: entirely moot.
No, actually. It's not.
If you claim that a fetus is a life, and those who disagree with you don't accept that claim, you can repeat it until your blue in the face, but it does you very little good. I can recognize that you believe this, and that that viewpoint is the rationale under which your assertions are made, but if you don't recognize that that premise is not one that I accept, then your repeating the same statements to me has very little effect.
If you want to argue that about the cultural effects of available abortion, or the effects on human sexuality, or population dynamics, or anything else, maybe you would make some headway.
Snarling "they're killing children" at me over and over again proves exactly one thing to me: that you enjoy chiding people. And, frankly, I already knew that. But it doesn't affect my thinking, it doesn't make me cringe in shame, it doesn't change my mind. Whether you say it one time or a hundred, whisper it or yell it. And I presume, rightly or wrongly, that since you're responding to me, you do actually want to change my view. As this repetition does not alter my view, I have to say that, as a response, it is moot. To be clear, that is as in "deprived of practical significance." This is literal, and is not intended as an insult.
Now, correspondingly, I'm stating that the lives of women who have children before they are ready are likely to be altered, significantly, for the worse. Arguably, the lives of any children they have later are as well. This point is may be "moot" in the sense "open to discussion or debatable." It is arguable that the change is not, from a perspective, negative, or that I exaggerate the negative aspects, and so on. To your view, presumably, any negative aspects are countermanded by the fact of saving a child's life. I recognize this. But then, I don't presume you're out to convince yourself and those who agree with you. I'm presuming that you aren't "preaching to the choir."
quote:Oh, yes. If we banned abortion we'd be just as bad as Third World nations which systematically oppress and degrade women. Right.
Wait a minute, that's not actually true at all. See, because in the nations you're talking about but aren't actually naming, it's frequently illegal for women to do things like vote, drive, have sex outside of marriage, be seen with men other than their husbands, purchase contraceptives, etc., etc.
Well, I could name them. Or you could do a little research yourself. But obviously it's more fun to set up your own version of what I've said so you can mock it, and it's far less work. Enjoy that.
But if you really prefer the five-mile-long, no-effort-on-my-part-please style of post, here ya go.
Afghanistan Antigua and Barbuda Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belize Botswana Burundi Cameroon Chad China (People's Republic) Comoros Congo (Democratic Republic) Cuba Dominica Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon Ghana Guatemala Guinea Guyana India Indonesia Iran Iraq Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Korea, North Korea, South Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Malawi Malaysia Mongolia Nigeria Oman Pakistan Palestinian Authority Philippines Qatar Rwanda St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Saudi Arabia Sierra Leone Singapore Somalia Sudan Swaziland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Trinidad and Tobago Uganda United Arab Emirates United States Uzbekistan Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
Now, cross reference that with countries that restrict abortion.
Do _you_ like that list? Perhaps it's enough for you to believe that your country is in the right. But others are going to judge us on it. And their opinions do, in fact, matter.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Now, correspondingly, I'm stating that the lives of women who have children before they are ready are likely to be altered, significantly, for the worse. Arguably, the lives of any children they have later are as well. This point is may be "moot" in the sense "open to discussion or debatable." It is arguable that the change is not, from a perspective, negative, or that I exaggerate the negative aspects, and so on. To your view, presumably, any negative aspects are countermanded by the fact of saving a child's life. I recognize this. But then, I don't presume you're out to convince yourself and those who agree with you. I'm presuming that you aren't "preaching to the choir."
To your view, presumably, the total of these negative effects on women is sufficient reason to ban abortion because there is no corresponding harm to another person to outweigh it.
One would presume you aren't preaching to the choir, either, especially because the person you were preaching at was Frisco, who pretty much straight out stated that he believed abortion results in the death of a child.
Responding to Frisco's reasons to ban abortion with an analysis that simply ignores his most basic premise makes your analysis moot.
And my response to you was simply pointing out and illustrating that you are, in fact, simply ignoring the foundational premise of Frisco's position. It wasn't so much to convince you as it was demonstrate why your argument is ineffective as a response to Frisco's.
Snarling "you're harming women and causing children to be brought into the world who will suffer more than their half-siblings brought into the world years later would suffer" at me over and over again proves exactly one thing to me: that you enjoy chiding people. But I already knew that. But it doesn't affect my thinking, it doesn't make me cringe in shame, it doesn't change my mind. Whether you say it one time or a hundred, whisper it or yell it. And I presume, rightly or wrongly, that since you're responding to Frisco, you do actually want to change his view. As this repetition is unlikely to alter his view, I have to say that, as a response, it is moot. To be clear, that is as in "deprived of practical significance." This is literal, and is not intended as an insult.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Snarling "they're killing children" at me over and over again proves exactly one thing to me
No one has snarled at you. In fact, the snarling that's been done here came from your side of this particular discussion.
quote:Well, I could name them. Or you could do a little research yourself. But obviously it's more fun to set up your own version of what I've said so you can mock it, and it's far less work. Enjoy that.
I don't think there was much research involved in making that list. Doing such things certainly isn't difficult. And as for versions of what you said?
Well, I know what you said. You asked, "Do we really want to be in the same company as nations which practice executions and prohibit abortions?" The obvious implication is that those guys are scumbags, and we don't wanna be scumbags.
My point which you paid no attention to is that as far as women's rights are concerned, the USA has a vanishingly small amount of things in common with any nations which prohibit abortion and permit execution.
See, the nations which you were implying we don't want to be lumped in with are nations that do the things I mentioned: restrict women's rights on a host of things beyond correcting stupid mistakes on the part of themselves or their partners. Voting, driving, education, profession, free speech, dress, medical treatment, protection from crime, and on and on and on.
To imply that we don't want to be seen as the same as such nations is nonsense, because if we did prohibit abortion in all but a few instances, that would be only a tiny fraction of similarity.
You can say all you want that women's rights are severly infinged upon by restricting access to elective abortion, but to suggest that we would be too much like those other nations you're talking about by doing so is stupid. In those nation, women rarely have a choice about getting pregnant or having sex at all.
And as for their opinions mattering...well of course they matter. But, if pro-lifers are right and it is true human lives getting thrown away for expedience, then frankly their opinions don't mean a damn thing in the face of that sort of profligate slaughter.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Oh, and furthermore, to assert that my objection was based on the idea, "My country, right or wrontg!" is transparent and ineffective.
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