posted
Shik - thats better than coffee first thing in the morning.
-------------------- I have plenty of experience in biology. I bought a Tamagotchi in 1998... And... it's still alive.
Registered: Apr 2005
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
Dude. You just made my day! LOL!
After reading that. And deciding it has some valid points strewn in there. I guess that while I think Abortion is still sick and wrong, People should be allowed the freedom to choose.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
posted
I was staying away from this thread, but after Shik's post and the responses afterwards I would just like to echo them.
To me, the argument is over the moment the two sides have announced their 'team-names'. One is Pro-Life. The other is Pro- Choice. Not Pro-Death. We believe that you should be able to choose what happens to your body and your life. If you want to carry on and have the baby, good for you and I hope you do a good job raising the kid. But if you want to make a reasoned, rational choice to end the pregnancy, just as good for you, provided you take precautions in future. Choice. It's all about choice.
Registered: May 2005
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posted
The Shik post? I hope to hell it was tongue imbedded so firmly in cheek it burst out the side of it.
If not, gods help us all.
Not Invented here, remember, if you can dehumanise an unborn child, you can rationalize any crime you want. Even murder.
We can talk about reasonable sounding ideals like choice and freedom all we want, but we've got the advantage. We're alive and can defend ourselves if someone tries to vacu-suck us away.
-------------------- This is just fun...it's not life...keep this in mind and we'll all enjoy it much more
Registered: Dec 2003
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I want to punch you in the face, and thus I should be allowed to do that, because that's my choice. How is the reasoning different?
(I don't actually want to punch you in the face, it was just an analogy.)
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
The reasoning is different in that yours involves a person not of your responsibility and NIH's (presumably) an embryo that would be.
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
Because Shik's face is not your problem, his face is not your responsibility to nurture, groom and feed, nor did you have any hand in conceiving Shik's face. Furthermore, punching Shik's face is a deliberate act of malevolence and is a sign of your inability to talk to Shik's face instead of punching it. You can't reason with a fetus but you can at least retort to Shik's face. An analogy could work sometimes as a retort, though your analogy is approaching NRA-member levels.
Registered: Aug 1999
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quote:The reasoning is different in that yours involves a person not of your responsibility and NIH's (presumably) an embryo that would be.
So you see two differences. One, that one is my responsibility and the other is not. That's not a good point for you to make given your position, since I would think that someone being my responsibility would REDUCE my right to harm them, not vice versa. Two, that one is a person and the other is an embryo. We always come back to defining personhood. And defining personhood at birth is utterly arbitrary.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
"would be" as in would become your responsibility if allowed to develop to fetal stage, which is the point where I begin to have ethical objections to abortion (barring any special circumstances, that is). Also, I don't know how you could "harm" something that is incapable of feeling pain anymore than you could harm, say, your hair follicles.
As for the definition of personhood, it's just as arbitrary to say it starts at fertilization as it is to say it starts at birth, so I don't see the difference there.
Registered: Nov 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Cartman: The reasoning is different in that yours involves a person not of your responsibility and NIH's (presumably) an embryo that would be.
A bettervcomparison might be that youo develop a tumor that you want extracted, but that some religous group decides should stay and possibly kill you....and then they take away your right to have the tumor removed.
Yes, it's disturbing and offensive to think of a potential human life that way, but most pro-lifers conviently overlook that having a child is a real medical condition with very real risks to a mother's health. I hear "it was her fault for getting peganant so she is responsible", but do you really want motherhood to be a state-forced punishment for promisquity?
Most unwanted pregnantcies are more than just the supposed "inconvience" of having a child- there's huge economic strain involved (only fo the mother- a father can literally deny everything and walk away from his responsibility in most cases). So you get a woman forced into motherhood, with zero money and no prospects for the future othre than raising a child she never wanted...
There's enough child abuse cases and instances of children living so far below the poverty line they cant get nourishment already, thanks.
Before the government can even think of forcing a child to term, they need to insure that child and his mother's future- medical coverage, food, housing, schooling and job training (or at least placement) for the mother....and of course, make certain the child is loved and cared for at least a few hours a day (emotional development is as importnamt as physical).
So: once we all live in that Star Trek untopan society, we can safely pass laws limiting a woman's right to decide what to do with her body/baby/burden.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:A bettervcomparison might be that youo develop a tumor that you want extracted, but that some religous group decides should stay and possibly kill you....and then they take away your right to have the tumor removed.
Gods, that's not only offensive, it's pointless. A woman would never compare her unborn child with a deadly tumor. You're so far afield here it's sad.
quote:Most unwanted pregnantcies are more than just the supposed "inconvience" of having a child- there's huge economic strain involved (only fo the mother- a father can literally deny everything and walk away from his responsibility in most cases). So you get a woman forced into motherhood, with zero money and no prospects for the future othre than raising a child she never wanted...
I really don't think you care about these mothers in unwanted pregnancies. I think you just want to be right.
quote:Before the government can even think of forcing a child to term, they need to insure that child and his mother's future- medical coverage, food, housing, schooling and job training (or at least placement) for the mother....and of course, make certain the child is loved and cared for at least a few hours a day (emotional development is as importnamt as physical).
What? Does the government have that obligation by virtue of enforcing laws against murder?
-------------------- This is just fun...it's not life...keep this in mind and we'll all enjoy it much more
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I can't quite pin down the argument that abortionists make. You argue that it's the mother's body and thus her soverign right to do what she pleases. Someone points out that the child has a body too, and you jump to arguing about economic consequences, as if that rendered the previous argument moot. Someone points out that economics is no excuse for immoral action, and you jump to the definition of life. Someone questions why responsibility for one's child created by one's voluntary actions should begin after birth instead of before, and you decide to talk about rape or how laws about paternal child support aren't enforced. Yes, you have legitimate points in some cases, but please try to be a bit more linear, because right now we're just going in circles.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:So you get a woman forced into motherhood, with zero money and no prospects for the future othre than raising a child she never wanted...
Give the child up for adoption. Right now there are significantly more people waiting to adopt a baby than there are babies up for adoption. As for money, medicaid covers hospital bills for poor mothers.
Why are pro-choicers so concerned with eliminating the consequences of people's poor choices? Just because teenagers will be stupid and have sex doesn't mean they shouldn't have to face the consequences of their actions.
quote:I'd be seriously intrested to see how many of these far-right wingers were virgins when they got married: less than 1% would be my guess...
I am one of those who waited until marriage. I am now happily married with two children. My wife, being a mother, is even more against abortion as I am.
quote:I don't know what this will do to anyone's opinions on the matter, but, according to various sources I've seen (on the Internets, mind you), between 50 and 80% of fertilized eggs never make it that far. They don't implant and end up just being flushed out in the normal course of the menstrual cycle.
There is a difference between a natural occurence and a deliberate act. If someone is rock climbing, slips, and falls to his death, it's an accident. If I push that person off, it's murder.
-------------------- "Having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."
Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:A woman would never compare her unborn child with a deadly tumor.
You obviously don't recognize the possibility for unstable humans to develop psychoses and/or temporary mental problems due to the shock of getting burdened with a pregnancy. Both men and women can go through personality changes as the real and imagined (exaggerated, prejudiced) consequences pile up in their minds.
And the less sympathy, understanding or information they get (from damning family members and fundamentalist officials) the larger the risk that they will harm themselves in amateuristic "desperate measures".
Registered: Aug 1999
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