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Author Topic: Hypothetical on Abortion -- Now For All to Consider
rollainm
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Dag, I admit I'm not incredibly familiar with the current state of adoption, so I won't press that for the moment. My perception of how many kids spend their childhood in sub par foster care may very well be way off. As for your other point, perhaps "right" wasn't the right word. Let me try again. What the potential person might think isn't important because they will never know. Yes, someone who chooses to abort may may be wrong in their assessment of the risk, but to put it bluntly, so what?
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Corwin
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quote:
Originally posted by Corwin:
quote:
Originally posted by Dan_raven:
Who foots the bill?

I made this point on another forum: having even more children would pose economic problems. But we (humans in general) don't seem to be very conscious overall that at our current rate of growth we'll run into problems soon anyway. I don't think anyone actually favors we keep all the babies (maybe even ban contraceptives?) without finding a solution to the finite resources problem.
I hate to repost this but it is still not answered... What do you do with all the people? Do we grow, grow, grow until we all die of lack of space/resources? If the hypothetical situation does not account for this I'd leave both abortion and contraception legal.
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Shigosei
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One thing I'd be concerned about is whether this procedure would be a complete substitute for medically necessary abortions, particularly in emergency situations. Otherwise, I think it would be great -- prevents the needless destruction of embryos and fetuses while allowing women the freedom to decide whether they want to be pregnant. Everybody wins.

I think government funding for this would absolutely be worthwhile.

We'd definitely have to work out certain things. For example, weighing the costs of supporting a fetus that has such severe birth defects that it will definitely die. Is taking the fetus out from the artificial womb the same as withdrawing life support? We'll also need to figure out how to discourage people from using this as birth control. (Incidentally, would this be seen as more acceptable by the Catholic church than using the Pill?)

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Belle
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The wait for a healthy infant to adopt is incredibly long, which has led to a huge upswing in foreign adoption. Most of the kids in foster care are there temporarily - the goal is usually to return them to their families and in most cases that is done.

Also, kids who spend years in foster care often don't enter the system until they're older - my aunt used to be a foster parent, and she took kids who were in their teens. Most of them were not on the system as infants.

Unwanted, healthy infants usually get adopted pretty quickly. Especially if they're white. Although I should note that I've seen much more cross-racial adoption lately, I know several white couples who adopted black infants.

quote:
I hate to repost this but it is still not answered... What do you do with all the people? Do we grow, grow, grow until we all die of lack of space/resources? If the hypothetical situation does not account for this I'd leave both abortion and contraception legal.
Maybe I missed it, but where did someone argue that contraception should be outlawed?

The goal of course, for everyone pro-choice and pro-life alike, is for there to be no unwanted pregnancies. We may disagree how that comes about - whether by distributing free contraception, promoting abstinence, sex education, whatever your personal beliefs - but I think we all agree that ideally, every pregnancy would be a wanted pregnancy.

Contraception, as I see it, is a big part of that. As is good education.

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manji
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quote:
Originally posted by Corwin:
I hate to repost this but it is still not answered... What do you do with all the people? Do we grow, grow, grow until we all die of lack of space/resources? If the hypothetical situation does not account for this I'd leave both abortion and contraception legal.

Flash freeze the fetus and stagger artificial births so that only a few "unwanted" children are born every couple of years? If the mother decides after a few years that she wants to raise the child after all, and it hasn't been born yet, give custody back to them?
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Corwin
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quote:
Originally posted by Belle:
Maybe I missed it, but where did someone argue that contraception should be outlawed?

The goal of course, for everyone pro-choice and pro-life alike, is for there to be no unwanted pregnancies. We may disagree how that comes about - whether by distributing free contraception, promoting abstinence, sex education, whatever your personal beliefs - but I think we all agree that ideally, every pregnancy would be a wanted pregnancy.

Sorry, the part about contraception was not on this forum. Still, even with sex education, for us not to grow beyond the resources at our disposal it would be required that we slow and eventually stop our growth rate. Do we want more unwanted pregnancies in place of the wanted ones And I see a pregnancy that results from banning abortion as unwanted. I may want a baby, but I don't see why someone else has to make it.

So, if you want, take out the part about contraception and the question stays.

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Corwin
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quote:
Originally posted by manji:
Flash freeze the fetus and stagger artificial births so that only a few "unwanted" children are born every couple of years? If the mother decides after a few years that she wants to raise the child after all, and it hasn't been born yet, give custody back to them?

That's a delay, not an answer. Freezing fetuses still requires resources. Is it better than allowing abortion in the long term?
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fugu13
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Dagonee: yep, just me editing in midstream and not letting the changes propagate.
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Kwea
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quote:
Originally posted by Trent Destian:
quote:
IE if there was an operation that would allow the fetus to survive and was equivalent to or better than an abortion in every other way, would you still believe that it is the mother's right to decide whether to use that operation or have a classical abortion?
To sum up: This process is in place, but mother could still kill the fetus if she chooses(the old method).
If this is the case then my paradigm has shifted a bit. I would have to say take the option away. If you are with child you may choose to keep it or give it up.

And that is why people don't agree on this matter. A lot of people don't think anyone else should have the right to decide what they can and can't do, even on issues far less important than this.
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Glenn Arnold
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quote:
I don't think I agree with the value we place on human life being tied to consciousness. If that was the case then why prohibit sexually molesting a brain dead person in a coma? Why disallow abuse or why not subjugate them to medical experiments if they are brain dead and in a coma?
1.Because those of us that are conscious are appalled by it because it's gross.

2. Because we wouldn't want it to happen to people we care about.

3.Because we envision ourselves in that situation and are unable to dissociate our consciousness from the idea of what it would be like it it were us that was being treated that way.

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Chris Bridges
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quote:
I don't think I agree with the value we place on human life being tied to consciousness. If that was the case then why prohibit sexually molesting a brain dead person in a coma? Why disallow abuse or why not subjugate them to medical experiments if they are brain dead and in a coma?
Because some see a difference between a life with an existing consciousness that is now switched off, possibly temporarily, and a life that has never achieved consciousness in the first place.

Some other things to ask about the hypothetical procedure:

Would underage mothers require adult permission/notification to have the procedure?

Would abortion still be permissible in the case of medical danger to the mother that precluded the transplant operation?

Am I the only person to hear about this and start thinking "creche babies"?

Edited to add: Thank you Belle, for pointing out the one thing that can draw both sides together. Love to see more of this.

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Threads
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quote:
Originally posted by lem:
I don't think I agree with the value we place on human life being tied to consciousness. If that was the case then why prohibit sexually molesting a brain dead person in a coma? Why disallow abuse or why not subjugate them to medical experiments if they are brain dead and in a coma?

As a society we have decided that we can take them off of life support, but we haven't allowed their living bodies to be abused. There may be a case to be made that we outlaw it because of what it does to the abuser or because it might encourage abuse as acceptable, but I also think there is value still placed on a person who is not aware.

Their consent, even if unattainable, is necessary for certain uses of their body--effectively prohibiting certain said uses.

This partially results from the fact that we don't have a good medical definition of death. The current definition of death (brain death) is fairly well-defined but also controversial. According to the article, it also doesn't apply to patients in persistent vegetative (which is good since people have been known to recover from them). We should tend to the side of caution in cases where it is not clear that consciousness loss is permanent.

There's also a difference between being unconscious and never being conscious. A fetus (at least pre-20 weeks) does not have the capabilities to be conscious.

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Rakeesh
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quote:
And that is why people don't agree on this matter. A lot of people don't think anyone else should have the right to decide what they can and can't do, even on issues far less important than this.
To put my reply into context, I believe that the vast majority of women do have sovereignty over their own bodies even as things stand today. In the United States, that is. Birth control is reliable, highly effective, cheap, and abundant, after all. However I do acknowledge that some people disagree, for whatever reason, and feel that restricting abortions "violates" a woman's sovereignty, somehow.

But in this case, well, any "violation" of sovereignty cannot be described as anything other than 'minimal'. The "violation" in real-world modern terms is considerable: a lengthy pregnancy that's not without physical (and emotional) risk, or a complicated and expensive surgical procedure that's not without physical and emotional risk.

But in this hypothetical situation described, that's simply not the case. No physical danger, no expense, and I believe we would very quickly find there wasn't even much social risk involved either, if the operation can be done so easily. (i.e. it could be done in any doctor's office or hospital). The only risk involved at all is emotional, and it's not unreasonable to me to say to someone objecting to incurring that emotional risk, "Well, you had ample opportunity to avoid that risk before, and now you're not the only party involved."

--------------

Also, Dan, when you say things like that it's difficult for me to imagine you know or at least understand very many social conservatives, especially seriously pro-life conservatives. If you imagine they wouldn't be elated by the existence of such a procedure, and be willing to shell out big tax bucks to pay for it, well then I think you're seriously out of touch with the people you're mocking.

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Lyrhawn
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I think most of what I would have said has already been said in this thread, so I won't clog it with repeats, but I wanted to jump in to at least say kudos to Dagonee. I think he said everything I would've said, and much more succinctly and to the point than I would have. Mostly I'm grateful he brought up the rights of fathers in this discussion.

Good stuff Dag.

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Kwea
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Good questions, although the hypothetical situation as described will never happen.

IRL, you would still be forcing someone to choose between a risky operation and having a child, which I don't find acceptable.


Of course, just to muddy the waters even further, in my personal life we would always choose to have the child, or to use this "bubble", because we consider a potential life worth the risk. We just don't agree anyone else should be able to make us choose one way or another.

[ August 02, 2008, 01:04 AM: Message edited by: Kwea ]

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Rakeesh
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quote:
IRL, you would still be forcing someone to choose between a risky operation and having a child, which I don't find acceptable.
Everything depends on where and when you place the choice, Kwea.
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Speed
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Anyone who reads the news knows that there are a lot of people who oppose the morning-after pill for the same reason that they oppose abortion.

If this technology were available, would you favor outlawing the morning-after pill as well, since this could (from the mother's perspective) accomplish the same thing?

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JennaDean
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Yes ... but then I favor outlawing the morning-after pill anyway, except in cases of rape.

I can see why some wouldn't. It'd be much easier to never really be pregnant in the first place than wait to see that you're pregnant and have to have a "procedure" done.

Well, I don't know about "much" easier. I've heard the morning-after pill induces some rather unpleasant effects.

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Kwea
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quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:
IRL, you would still be forcing someone to choose between a risky operation and having a child, which I don't find acceptable.
Everything depends on where and when you place the choice, Kwea.
Honestly, I disagree. That fact that someone is forcing such a choice is where the sticking point is for a lot of people, and this becomes a serious problem once we leave never-never land and enter the real world.

I DO hope that research on this goes forward, and I bet a ton of women WOULD chose a moderate risk to themselves in order to not abort. It is probably our best chance of resolving a large portion of the problems we face regarding abortion.


But there is no magic bullet, and this is not a cure all. For example, I favor making the morning after pill MORE widely available.

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Speed
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Happy Post #11111, Kwea.
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Shigosei
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I wonder how this would affect the status of frozen embryos. Right now, if no woman wants to carry a particular embryo to term, it will either remain frozen indefinitely or be discarded. However, with this technology, there would be no need for a willing surrogate mother. So would we decide that all frozen viable embryos have the right to be put in an incubator after a certain period of time?

I don't think this technology would be grounds for banning the emergency contraception. Although it's hard to be sure about the exact mechanism of action, it looks as though the morning-after pill (progesterone ones like Plan B, anyway) works mostly by preventing ovulation. Here's a study where researchers determined whether women taking emergency contraception had ovulated. There were no pregnancies among the 34 women who took EC before or on the date of ovulation. Among the 17 women who took EC after ovulation, 3 became pregnant (the abstract says 3-4 pregnancies would be expected).

If the procedure to remove the embryo and put it in an incubator is a far more significant burden than emergency contraception, those who would want a ban would need to demonstrate that the morning-after pill can prevent implantation, or that it does damage that kills the embryo after conception. Even then, it would make sense to ban it only for women who have already ovulated.

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Shigosei
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I wonder how this would affect the status of frozen embryos. Right now, if no woman wants to carry a particular embryo to term, it will either remain frozen indefinitely or be discarded. However, with this technology, there would be no need for a willing surrogate mother. So would we decide that all frozen viable embryos have the right to be put in an incubator after a certain period of time?

I don't think this technology would be grounds for banning the emergency contraception. Although it's hard to be sure about the exact mechanism of action, it looks as though the morning-after pill (progesterone ones like Plan B, anyway) works mostly by preventing ovulation. Here's a study where researchers determined whether women taking emergency contraception had ovulated. There were no pregnancies among the 34 women who took EC before or on the date of ovulation. Among the 17 women who took EC after ovulation, 3 became pregnant (the abstract says 3-4 pregnancies would be expected).

If the procedure to remove the embryo and put it in an incubator is a far more significant burden than emergency contraception, those who would want a ban would need to demonstrate that the morning-after pill can prevent implantation, or that it does damage that kills the embryo after conception. Even then, it would make sense to ban it only for women who have already ovulated.

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Speed
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quote:
Originally posted by Shigosei:
I don't think this technology would be grounds for banning the emergency contraception. Although it's hard to be sure about the exact mechanism of action, it looks as though the morning-after pill (progesterone ones like Plan B, anyway) works mostly by preventing ovulation.

That's just the point. Many of the people that oppose emergency contraception are fully aware of this, and still feel that terminating something that has the potential to become life is murder.

If we would use this technology as an excuse to ban the termination of a non-sentient implanted zygote, why should the point of view of the anti-plan-B crowd have any less sway? If it's good enough to close the book on one moral grey area, why not get them all?

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Shigosei
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quote:
Originally posted by Speed:
quote:
Originally posted by Shigosei:
I don't think this technology would be grounds for banning the emergency contraception. Although it's hard to be sure about the exact mechanism of action, it looks as though the morning-after pill (progesterone ones like Plan B, anyway) works mostly by preventing ovulation.

That's just the point. Many of the people that oppose emergency contraception are fully aware of this, and still feel that terminating something that has the potential to become life is murder.

I'm a bit confused about this. Are you saying that some people think that preventing fertilization is the same as murder? Or that the possibility (however slight) that an embryo might be killed is grounds for banning it when alternatives are available?
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Speed
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Have you really never met, read about, or heard of people who oppose Plan B on moral grounds?

I'm not one of them, but I assure you that they do exist, and many of them aren't even ignorant of how it works.

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Shigosei
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Of course I know of people who oppose Plan B on moral grounds, even knowing that there's a very good chance it will prevent conception, not destroy an embryo. I am well aware that the Catholic church opposes all contraception, including condoms, on moral grounds. However, I have not heard of anyone who thinks that preventing conception is the same as murder. That's what I was surprised about.

I would understand if the Catholic church declared that it would be best if its followers terminated unwanted pregnancies through the artificial incubator rather than using condoms or taking birth control. However, I'd argue that before the embryo is created, there is no possible harm to a third party and it would be hard to find grounds to justify banning contraception (unless it could be demonstrated that it posed a thread to embryos).

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Rakeesh
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quote:
Honestly, I disagree. That fact that someone is forcing such a choice is where the sticking point is for a lot of people, and this becomes a serious problem once we leave never-never land and enter the real world.
Yes, but again, precisely who is forcing the choice depends on when and where you assign the ultimate choice in this situation.

If you assign the choice to agreeing to and engaging in consensual sexual intercourse, well then you get one answer. If you assign the choice to some point after that agreement and participation, then then exactly who is doing the forcing changes.

And anyway, here's something to consider: having an abortion is not a zero-risk surgical procedure, either. Some time in the undefined uncertain future, it could become possible to perform an operation with nearly equivalent risks to an abortion that would entail transferrence to an artificial womb.

Would your objection remain the same then? Remember, the government (as opposed to the man and the woman, when they had sex) would not be forcing the woman to endure greater risk.

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Dagonee
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quote:
1.Because those of us that are conscious are appalled by it because it's gross.

2. Because we wouldn't want it to happen to people we care about.

3.Because we envision ourselves in that situation and are unable to dissociate our consciousness from the idea of what it would be like it it were us that was being treated that way.

All three of those can be applied to abortion foes/abortion as well.

[ August 03, 2008, 07:19 AM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]

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Glenn Arnold
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Which is part of what was going through my mind as I wrote them. I kind of liked the sense of irony.

I don't think it's too hard to recognize that if people can dissociate our emotions from these reactions that there is no impact on the so-called victims of abortion, or brain dead victims of molestation, because there is no consciousness. But people are unable or unwilling to dissociate from those emotions, which allows them to continue to regard non-conscious entities as victims.

The fact remains that the opposition to (early term) abortion lies in people's emotional sensibilities, not in concern for the feelings of so-called victims.

In the case of molestation of a brain dead body, there's an additional reason that molesting a brain dead body is untenable. We recognize rape and molestation as a crime, but at least we can understand the sexual motivation behind those crimes, especially if the victim is attractive. But we can't understand the same urge toward a dead or brain dead body, so by comparison we assume that a person who could engage in such an act must be even worse than a rapist of molester, and we certainly don't want such a person around.

In the case of abortion, pro-lifers undoubtedly feel the same way; that a person who could commit an abortion is a person they wouldn't want to have around, and for similar reasons. The difference is that a substantial fraction of people really don't have any problem with it, and have no problem voicing that position. The pro-life side can attempt to demonize those people, but it's much more difficult, if only from a purely numerical standpoint.

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Dagonee
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quote:
The fact remains that the opposition to (early term) abortion lies in people's emotional sensibilities, not in concern for the feelings of so-called victims.
No, my opposition to early term abortion lies in concern for the victim - not his feelings, but the victim as a whole. It's not an emotional sensibility - it would be far more accurate to call it a logical* sensibility.

*I'm not trying to say there's no logical sensibility to the contrary position. Both positions can be logical, but each starts with a different premise that is essentially irreconcilable with the premise of the other.

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Glenn Arnold
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How can you define a non-conscious entity as being a victim?
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Threads
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If you believe in souls then a person's soul could be a victim.
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Glenn Arnold
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Isn't a soul the essence of consciousness?
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For there to be consciousness after death then the soul probably has to be responsible for it, but I really don't know the nuances of what people generally believe about souls. It's just that if there were more to our existence than just material existence then could you harm someone by depriving them of a material existence? If I believed in a soul then I would think so.
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Glenn Arnold
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quote:
you could potentially harm someone by depriving them of a material existence
Which presents a never ending sequence. Do parents deprive a soul of a material existence when they prevent their daughter from going out with a guy who has a "gleam in his eye?" There has to be a point at which potential existence becomes actual existence. I've never even heard a biblical argument for conception being the beginning of life. Where did that come from?
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Belle
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quote:
There has to be a point at which potential existence becomes actual existence. I've never even heard a biblical argument for conception being the beginning of life. Where did that come from?
There are scriptures which refer to life in the womb - such as the description of Jacob and Esau in the womb and how God chose Jacob over Esau before he was born. Then there are scriptures such as the oft-quoted Jeremiah 1:5 which says "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart, I appointed you as a prophet to the nations" (NIV).

It's clear to me the Bible speaks to the idea of a distinct being existing in the womb before birth. I have very little doubt about that.

It is true, that nowhere does it say "Hey, a soul is present at the moment of conception and therefore life truly begins at conception so abortion at any point is morally and Biblically wrong."

However, for me, I tend to err on the side of life. If I cannot conclusively prove the soul is NOT present at the moment of conception, then I'm going to assume it is, because if there is any question, I'd rather err on that side than the other. To me, we should be much more zealous about protecting life if there's any question. Where it gets sticky is where does one individual's rights outweigh the need to protect life? I've answered where I come down on it, and how I feel about it. I recognize not everyone agrees with me.

*sigh* This is where I wish we could come up with some foolproof way of preventing pregnancy until someone makes a conscious decision that they truly want a child. In my perfect world, there would be no unwanted pregnancies at all and every child would be brought forth into a loving family that truly wanted him/her.

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Kwea
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quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:
Honestly, I disagree. That fact that someone is forcing such a choice is where the sticking point is for a lot of people, and this becomes a serious problem once we leave never-never land and enter the real world.
Yes, but again, precisely who is forcing the choice depends on when and where you assign the ultimate choice in this situation.

If you assign the choice to agreeing to and engaging in consensual sexual intercourse, well then you get one answer. If you assign the choice to some point after that agreement and participation, then then exactly who is doing the forcing changes.

And anyway, here's something to consider: having an abortion is not a zero-risk surgical procedure, either. Some time in the undefined uncertain future, it could become possible to perform an operation with nearly equivalent risks to an abortion that would entail transferrence to an artificial womb.

Would your objection remain the same then? Remember, the government (as opposed to the man and the woman, when they had sex) would not be forcing the woman to endure greater risk.

Yes, because once again it would involve allowing the government to decide what happens to an individuals body and would force them to have an operation that they didn't choose to have.
Even if the risks are exactly the same, it still should be the individuals right to choose which to do.

The other aspect of it is that YOU (not you specifically, but anyone other than the person directly involved) don't get to assign anything to them at the time of intercourse, or even thereafter. Should people consider the risks of sexual intercourse before having sex? Yes! But pregnancy isn't a punishment for having sex, or at least it shouldn't be considered as such.

I hold the positions I do regarding abortion because of the way I was raised. However, I have taken a lot of time as an adult to review my beliefs, and I believe I have considered most (if not all) or the angles regarding this issue.

Lets take abortion of of the equation for a second.

I was raised, and still believe on my own as an adult, that if I see someone in serious, life threatening trouble, I have a responsibility to help them. I will try (and have actually done so at the risk of my own life and financial future) to help them because if I just stand by and let them die I share some responsibility in their death, even if I didn't place them in that situation in the first place. If I try and cannot help.......which has happened....and they die, then I feel sorry, but I don't feel responsible (or at least I try not to) for their death.


However, every person has to assess the risk in those situations themselves, and I wouldn't fault someone else for not helping if they feared they placed themselves too much at risk.

I promise this DOES have something to do with the discussion at hand. [Smile]

They way this relates to the abortion debate is that I don't see a group of cells inside another human being as a person yet. I don't consider them human. However, they are the building blocks, the potential, of a human. I feel on a personal basis that as such that I have an obligation, with all other things equal, to protect that potential. So in my personal life, abortion isn't an issue for my wife and I ....we wouldn't consider it unless my wife's life was in danger without it. And even then we would carry the scars of that for the rest of our lives.

I also understand that the woman carrying that fetus is a person, a human, and DOES have rights, beyond any doubt. My decision regarding the potential of human life is MY decision alone, based on MY beliefs....and not everyone shares those beliefs. I can't, and shouldn't want to, try and force my decision on her when it would without a doubt violate her choices, and her right to decide what happens to her body.

I understand that others may not feel the same as I do, that they feel the fetus should have rights. The problem is that in order to give those rights to a fetus you HAVE to take rights away from the pregnant woman, and I am not OK with that. Nto by a long shot.


No one can force a person to have an abortion. Not one should be able to force a woman to have a child either, regardless of if it is carried to term or placed in an artificial womb.


At least in my opinion.

[ August 03, 2008, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]

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Rakeesh
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Kwea,

quote:
Yes, because once again it would involve allowing the government to decide what happens to an individuals body and would force them to have an operation that they didn't choose to have.
Even if the risks are exactly the same, it still should be the individuals right to choose which to do.

This is not a persuasive argument, since we as a society permit the government to force us to make choices or do things all the time.

Why should it be the individual's right to choose which to do when one choice terminates a potential human life* and the other does not, but both choices pose the same risk to the individual?

(* and by 'potential' I'm referring to all time periods. As gestation goes on, that potential becomes more and more actual in the minds of just about everyone)

quote:
The other aspect of it is that YOU (not you specifically, but anyone other than the person directly involved) don't get to assign anything to them at the time of intercourse, or even thereafter. Should people consider the risks of sexual intercourse before having sex? Yes! But pregnancy isn't a punishment for having sex, or at least it shouldn't be considered as such.
Again, not very persuasive because what you're actually saying is, "You don't get to assign anything in this situation." It's not some sacrosanct circumstance. We assign responsibility to people regardless of their personal beliefs on the matter all the time.

In what way could pregnancy possibly be deemed a punishment (as opposed to the much more accurate word 'consequence') of sex in the hypothetical case of the artificial womb?

quote:
I also understand that the woman carrying that fetus is a person, a human, and DOES have rights, beyond any doubt. My decision regarding the potential of human life is MY decision alone, based on MY beliefs....and not everyone shares those beliefs. I can't, and shouldn't want to, try and force my decision on her when it would without a doubt violate her choices, and her right to decide what happens to her body.

I understand that others may not feel the same as I do, that they feel the fetus should have rights. The problem is that in order to give those rights to a fetus you HAVE to take rights away from the pregnant woman, and I am not OK with that. Nto by a long shot.

The problem with this argument is that it's only as persuasive as the extent to which the fetus has rights. If we angle one direction, the fetus is just a cluster of animal cells. Not human, no rights. You can do anything you want with it.

But if we angle the other direction, is is human, it's definitely got rights. And this is the crucial part: if it is human, then it doesn't matter in the slightest what your decision concerning that human being is, or even what the pregnant woman's decision is, morally speaking.

If it's human, then morally it gets a shot at life, period. Especially if the three options are: carry to term, abort, and artificial womb, the latter two carrying the same risk to the woman's health.

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Glenn Arnold
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quote:
In my perfect world, there would be no unwanted pregnancies at all and every child would be brought forth into a loving family that truly wanted him/her.
I think just about everyone agrees on this.
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Sterling
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quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
This is not a persuasive argument, since we as a society permit the government to force us to make choices or do things all the time.

On this level?... We don't, really. We make certain laws about what one can and cannot put it one's body. We determine that if someone who is legally an adult has intercourse with someone who is legally a child, they're in legal jeopardy. We say "if you do not pay taxes, then you will go to jail"... And if you then do not pay taxes, your whole body is indeed seized and carried off to jail.

But most of our other laws have very little to do with what one does with one's own body except in relation to what the doing does to someone else's body. Even the mentally ill are very difficult to legally compel to treatment up until the point where they are judged to be an imminent danger to themselves and/or others. And even suicide and drug use are very much in an ongoing legal push-and-pull, very much in evidence in cases like Oregon's "Death With Dignity" act.

If the fetus is a human being, of course, the laws fall under those we apply with regard to a human affecting another human. Failing that, it would be a mistake to rush to judge the argument unpersuasive.

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Belle
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quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
quote:
In my perfect world, there would be no unwanted pregnancies at all and every child would be brought forth into a loving family that truly wanted him/her.
I think just about everyone agrees on this.
Yes, I think this is an area where all pro-life and pro-choice people can come to agreement.
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Kwea
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That is yet another reason e disagree, I guess. I don't think we do allow people to force us to have operations. There are some restrictions on them as to what is and isn't an approved and safe medical procedure, but most people would agree that 99.9% of the time they should be in charge of their medical treatments.


Also, we have no consensus on what "should" be the moral consequences of sex. Most people, once again, feel that legislating sexual conduct and or repercussions between consenting adults is wrong, and feel they should be able to make such decisions...both about personal morality and about sexual conduct....on their own.

Your morality about sex is your problem, not theirs. The morning after pill is a perfect example of this. Other than strong religious grounds, which I understand but don't wish to be imposed on others against their will, I have yet to hear one good argument against that pill being widely available. Yet people object to it on a regular basis.


As far as rights.....even if it was human, which I do not believe it is at that point.....that doesn't automatically override the mothers rights. Your right to peace and quite doesn't override my right to protest at a political event, for example....although it seems like politicians are always trying to find a way around that one. [Wink]


If two people assert a right which run counter to each other, a decision needs to be made. I tend to error on the side of what I know, that being that a person who IS alive, and IS a human, has a right to do what they want in regards to their own medical health and treatment.

It seems to me that your counter-arguments are the ones lacking in persuasion. [Wink] But then again, this is hardly new ground for either of us.To be honest, a lot of my views became more clear to me in discussions here on Hatrack, on the few occasions these type of threads didn't turn into flame wars.


All in all though....this type of medical development only allows for more choices, and would be a HUGE step forward, IMO. I hope it pans out this time, as the research looks promising.

[ August 03, 2008, 09:52 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]

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Rakeesh
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Kwea,

quote:
That is yet another reason e disagree, I guess. I don't think we do allow people to force us to have operations. There are some restrictions on them as to what is and isn't an approved and safe medical procedure, but most people would agree that 99.9% of the time they should be in charge of their medical treatments.
We do actually, given certain circumstances. Now, most of those involve either unconciousness or some form of mental impairment (due to drugs or medical condition or whatever), but I'm just pointing out that the 'don't allow people to force us to have operations' thing isn't an inviolate wall.

But to take it a step further, in this hypothetical situation: it's 'force them to have on operation of equal risk that doesn't kill what might be human' vs. 'permit them to perform an operation of equal risk that kills what might be human'.

Morally, that's an easy choice. Truly it is, especially given that we compel people to do stuff all the time. Objecting that we don't force people to do something to their bodies doesn't quite carry much weight when the thing we would be forcing is no riskier than the alternative, which potentially carries grave moral complications.

quote:
Your morality about sex is your problem, not theirs. The morning after pill is a perfect example of this. Other than strong religious grounds, which I understand but don't wish to be imposed on others against their will, I have yet to hear one good argument against that pill being widely available. Yet people object to it on a regular basis.
Like I've said, it's only my problem if the fetus isn't human. If the fetus is human...well, I could arguably incur the same responsibilities towards saving an innocent helpless life you discussed above.

quote:
If two people assert a right which run counter to each other, a decision needs to be made. I tend to error on the side of what I know, that being that a person who IS alive, and IS a human, has a right to do what they want in regards to their own medical health and treatment.
If two people assert such a right, yes, a decision needs to be made. I think we can agree that a woman's right not to be inconvenienced doesn't extend past another human being's right not to be killed, right? Since there are two possible decisions, each carrying equal risk but only one involving killing something...tell me in what way I'm not being persuasive, again?

quote:
I tend to error on the side of what I know, that being that a person who IS alive, and IS a human, has a right to do what they want in regards to their own medical health and treatment.
This is what it comes down to: should we permit someone to kill something that might be human, when the alternative forces zero additional burden/risk on that individual, just to protect their right to choose what to do with their own bodies?

If so, why? What social and moral ends are served by this, Kwea? We've already discussed that a person's right to do whatever they want with their own bodies is not an unlimited universal right.

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Kwea
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I think it is a lot more than a woman's right to not be inconvenienced, and to be honest I think you know that as well.

And as a former EMT, I am very well versed in when we do and do not treat patients against their will. Once again, you are oversimplifying.


The point I am making is that I don't feel we should have the right for force someone to do something to their own body that they don't want to. That is a far different case than treating someone who has passed out, or even treating a mentally ill patient against their will. You are talking about refusing to allow people the right to decide their own medical treatment despite being in sound mind and body, which is a HUGE deal. It runs pretty much counter to ALL of the established medical wisdom we have in modern medicine.


It is not a simple matter at all, and pretending it is doesn't further your belief at all.

Refusing to admit this doesn't make you any more persuasive. Low risk isn't no risk, and I don't feel it is your right (or the government's right for that matter) to force someone to have a child if they don't want one. Even if they won't then be forced to raise it.

I also don't think that society will be bettered by allowing such an action.


There is a difference between allow someone to make a choice we don't agree with despite the risks, and refusing to help someone in need. I don't think you will be able to ever convince me that a bunch of cells inside another person's body is a person, although as you mention the further along a pregnancy is the close I would be to believing you.


But I don't feel any of your arguments are convincing enough to allow the government to force someone to have an operation against their own will, particularuly when the outcome of that would be a child.

What would be next....forcing a transplant operation years later despite never having seen the child? Medicine has proven over and over again that unlike most areas, the slippery slope DOES happen. Right now we have genetic codes from individuals that have been patented againt the person's will. Some of these are worth billions of dollars in potential income, but they came about from samples taken illegally and used without patiens knowledge or consent.


I think if there is ONE line that needs to be drawn in the samd so people can se it, it shoudl be here......starting with the fact that people have the ultimate right to decide their own treatments, and that they should have control over their own bodies as much as possible.


I prefer to keep the government out of the bedroon, and out of the operationg room as much as possible. [Smile]

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Rakeesh
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Kwea,

quote:
I think it is a lot more than a woman's right to not be inconvenienced, and to be honest I think you know that as well.
As the real-world situation stands now, I agree. Opposition to it is more than just a woman's right not to be inconvenienced. But I wasn't talking about the real-world present situation. I was talking about the hypothetical situation which started this thread.

quote:

The point I am making is that I don't feel we should have the right for force someone to do something to their own body that they don't want to. That is a far different case than treating someone who has passed out, or even treating a mentally ill patient against their will. You are talking about refusing to allow people the right to decide their own medical treatment despite being in sound mind and body, which is a HUGE deal. It runs pretty much counter to ALL of the established medical wisdom we have in modern medicine.

I'm aware of that. All I was trying to do was point out that there are already circumstances when we as a society allow the government or doctors or whoever to do things to patients that those patients either don't want them to do, or haven't consented to. My point was to say that we already do what you're objecting to, on a limited basis, for certain specific reasons.

In the hypothetical situation, when the risks are equal, why shouldn't we include 'potentially saving a life' as an additional reason?

quote:

Refusing to admit this doesn't make you any more persuasive. Low risk isn't no risk, and I don't feel it is your right (or the government's right for that matter) to force someone to have a child if they don't want one. Even if they won't then be forced to raise it.

In the hypothetical, it is a simple matter. We're left with an exceedingly simple choice. Or at least, the options are simple to state and the contrast between them is simple to understand. That doesn't make the decision itself less weighty. But in the hypothetical, we're faced with a specific situation.

What shall we do? Shall we permit the killing of what is possibly a human being, or shall we compel a woman to endure an operation which poses no additional risk than the operation she would get to terminate what is possibly a human being?

quote:

There is a difference between allow someone to make a choice we don't agree with despite the risks, and refusing to help someone in need. I don't think you will be able to ever convince me that a bunch of cells inside another person's body is a person, although as you mention the further along a pregnancy is the close I would be to believing you.

Fine, alright then. Personally I think the uncertainty is a reason to be more cautious and not less, but how about this: six three months and onward is what we're talking about. It's not just a cluster of cells anymore. What then?

quote:
But I don't feel any of your arguments are convincing enough to allow the government to force someone to have an operation against their own will, particularuly when the outcome of that would be a child.
I don't understand how you can make that argument - "...when the outcome of that would be a child." - and misunderstand where I'm coming from.

quote:
What would be next....forcing a transplant operation years later despite never having seen the child? Medicine has proven over and over again that unlike most areas, the slippery slope DOES happen. Right now we have genetic codes from individuals that have been patented againt the person's will. Some of these are worth billions of dollars in potential income, but they came about from samples taken illegally and used without patiens knowledge or consent.
In what way is forcing a transplant operation anything like the hypothetical? Such an operation is risky, and does pose a burden to the woman for the rest of her life. I'm not buying into your slippery slope argument for one simple reason: if that little cluster of cells you so blithely dismiss is a human being, then the slippery slope doesn't matter.
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Kwea
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I completely understand where you stand on this. I really do......so I don' misunderstand your points at all, I think.

I just don't agree with your conclusions at all. [Big Grin]

Even in a perfect world which will never happen, there is still risk....and still gave moral consequences once a child is born, regardless of it you HAVE to raise them or not. The slippery slope is already present, not a hypothetical, as this "solution" opens the door to all sorts of violation of informed consent pant patient/doctor confidentiality by it's very nature.


Such a decision would have far reaching consequences for all medical procedures, and quite frankly I feel it is a Pandora's Box better left alone.

It isn't simple, or easy, and just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they don't understand their position, Rakeesh.....it could be that they just place emphasis on different things than you do.


Such as the already existing rights of what is undeniably a human being.


And if you think I have blithely dismissed anything at all, you need to pay more attention.

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Rakeesh
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I didn't say you didn't understand your position, Kwea. To be clear, I said you were making the wrong conclusion based on given circumstances-more arrogant perhaps, but a lot less insulting in my opinion since after all we say that sort of thing all the time:)

quote:
And if you think I have blithely dismissed anything at all, you need to pay more attention.
I wasn't being precise enough. I don't think you're being blithe in your stance or your reasoning. I think your stance and reasoning have led to what amounts to a blithe dismissal.

Consider yet another hypothetical: suppose tomorrow, some miraculous scientific discovery were made (actually, a series of discoveries, heh) that proved scientifically, beyond a reasonable doubt, that that little 'cluster of cells' was in fact a human being?

Or if you don't like that, suppose tomorrow God manifests in person for all of humanity and declares that, yes, those clusters of cells really are human beings.

What would you say then of the millions of millions of humans killed for the sake of keeping another person's right to kill them safe? "We didn't know!"

Well, that would be a fair response. But the answer to that reply must surely be, "You weren't sure...so why not err on the side of caution?"

quote:

Even in a perfect world which will never happen, there is still risk....and still gave moral consequences once a child is born, regardless of it you HAVE to raise them or not. The slippery slope is already present, not a hypothetical, as this "solution" opens the door to all sorts of violation of informed consent pant patient/doctor confidentiality by it's very nature.

I already admitted risk. Equal risk.

It's strange that you're arguing that abortion should remain protected because of the moral consequences of having a child be born. What possible moral consequences could there be? If the woman has no responsibility to carry the child to term, then logically she can do whatever the heck she wants with that little cluster of cells, up to and including giving that kid up for adoption once (at some magic point) it ceases being a right-less cluster of cells and becomes a child (with many rights, not including necessarily the right to exist).

quote:
Such a decision would have far reaching consequences for all medical procedures, and quite frankly I feel it is a Pandora's Box better left alone.
Or we've already opened Pandora's Box. You don't know one way or another. Neither do I, of course. But in the hypothetical situation, you're stacking up a lot of intangible hazy values that could just as easily have been avoided with a tiny bit of common sense against the very real possibility of killing a human being before birth.

Yes, informed consent and patient/doctor confidentiality are pretty hazy, certainly when stacked up against 'don't kill people'.

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Sterling
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This is neither hazy, nor intangible:

The number of ob/gyns in the United States is plummeting. New students don't want to get into the field because there's hardly any fields that wouldn't make them more employable and more likely to pay off their student loans in a timely fashion. Older practitioners are giving up in the face of high malpractice insurance rates.

If obstetrics practitioners have to be concerned that practicing the best medicine for their patients may be second-guessed in court- could, indeed, get them incarcerated- those numbers are going to get much, much worse.

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Rakeesh
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quote:
If obstetrics practitioners have to be concerned that practicing the best medicine for their patients may be second-guessed in court- could, indeed, get them incarcerated- those numbers are going to get much, much worse.
I'm not sure why this issue, in the hypothetical situation, couldn't be very easily addressed with clearly written laws on the matter.
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Kwea
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quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
I didn't say you didn't understand your position, Kwea. To be clear, I said you were making the wrong conclusion based on given circumstances-more arrogant perhaps, but a lot less insulting in my opinion since after all we say that sort of thing all the time:)

quote:
And if you think I have blithely dismissed anything at all, you need to pay more attention.
I wasn't being precise enough. I don't think you're being blithe in your stance or your reasoning. I think your stance and reasoning have led to what amounts to a blithe dismissal.


Fair enough, Rakeesh. [Smile] Pardon me if I don't agree with your assessment though. [Wink]


I don't easily dismiss any of the possible consequences, I have given them more thought than most of the people I know IRL, to be honest.

I do understand what you are saying. I guess the sticking point is where I would have to force people to follow my views, my own beliefs and make them follow a course of action they don't believe in. Probably because of my background in medial protocols I have a very strong feeling regarding a patients right to decide what is best for themselves. I am particularly leery of allowing the government to interfere with this, as I don't think the government has a clue regarding medical decisions most of the time, and I feel this is irrevocably tied to the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" we are all promised.

No nebulous possibility of life is enough, for me, to condone allowing others to force someone to take a treatment they don't want. That doesn't even take into consideration the possible medical (not to mention moral) complications this would involve. Once a child IS born, they DO have rights, and where their rights and the rights of their parent conflict IS an area that WILL be unheralded in medical (and legal) history.


Short of God coming down and telling me personally, I just don't see anything changing my mind. That doesn't mean that I don't want to discuss it though....this has been a remarkably reasonable conversation so far. [Big Grin] I hope it stays this way.


What I find most interesting about all of this is the fact that I am arguing FOR rights I would never even consider using myself. If my wife and I didn't want children (and we do, desperately) I would without a doubt feel this artificial womb is the PERFECT solution.


I just don't believe I have the right to force others to make the same choices I would.

[ August 05, 2008, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]

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