Abortion II

[Lief Erikson]

Abortion rates are climbing in the Middle East, primarily, it seems, because of culture changes as a result of Western influence.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,2600933.story

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Of course not. I'm saying that they are both developing, and any point chosen within the time of development to say the person is now a person is arbitrary. So there's no rational reason to pick the two celled zygote for destruction and not the adolescent.

Come on Lief that’s ridiculous. Theres plenty of rational reasons to pick the two celled zygote for destruction over the adolescent… You don’t need me to list them because I already know you know them quite well. You just don’t want to admit to that because you want to stick to your absolutist point of view about human life and ignore the obvious which is that there is a world of difference between a 2 celled zygote that has NO feelings or brain and a 10 year old. To say we have to treat them both the same because we don’t know at what point they become a “person” is really hiding from reality.

If we don't use any definition of personhood, I don't have any reason not to kill you if I want to

This is such a silly line of arguing Lief. I mean really. Defining “personhood” says nothing about reasons not to kill you. What IS a significant factor in deciding whether abortion is a viable option is the development of the fetus. And if the fetus is almost completely undeveloped (2 cells) on what can you base your argument that its wrong to abort it? And I don’t care if you call a two celled zygote a “person” or not. That doesn’t enter into it. The question still stands.

Conception and late adolescence are the beginning and ending points of the development process, so they are the only points for person-now that we could pick that would not be not arbitrary.

No there is no ending of the “development process”. You keep right on changing until death. Otherwise everyone would look and act like a 15 year old for the rest of their lives. So your attempt to argue against abortion using a kind of Hume like rational that we can never know the exact point of necessary connection where bunch of cells becomes person so we therefore cant abort AT ALL, is a major league cop out and rather silly. It either comes down to a development issue or it simply comes down to a religious/moralist issue and the latter approach, unlike the developmental approach, is free to be absolutist: KILLING IS WRONG NO MATTER WHEN. So why not just come clean and go with that? Ill respect that way of thinking if you genuinely believe it. Ill disagree but that’s ok. But don’t try to twist that into a biological argument please. It doesn’t work.

The fact that a zygote and an adolescent aren't the same does not mean they don't have equal right to live.

The fact that a two celled zygote has no feelings and an adolescent is NOT implanted within another human and therefore is holding nobody’s life potentially hostage is whats important here. And you have your “rights” confused. The woman has the right to keep her zygote alive in her if she wants to. We DON’T have the right to force her to abort it even if its two cells. But we shouldn’t have the right to force her to keep it either.

Out of curiosity, do you think that a 2-year old baby, based on its psychological development state, should have less right to live than an adolescent?

No I don’t. Ive already made my arbitrary cut off point so I have no problem answering that question unlike you…

Abortion laws do the opposite from what most of the laws you described do. Rather than trying to make someone's life better, based on our idea of the person's biological development, it's about making that life worse and then trying to justifying that.

No… We were talking about granting/denying rights based on biological development. Alcohol laws say THIS person MAY NOT drink because we think they ARENT developed enough yet and THIS person MAY drink (and possibly kill themselves in the process) because we think they ARE developed enough. Abortion laws say THIS “person” MAY NOT be aborted because we think they ARE developed enough and THIS “person” MAY be aborted because we think they ARENT. Both cases are the same. We are picking an arbitrary point at which we will allow on not allow the action to happen. And the action is potentially lethal in either case.

Anyway, better or worse doesn’t even enter into it. The point is that we limit so many things based on the biological development of the life form involved. The very same thing is true for abortion. We limit it after a certain point based on our knowledge of the development of humans biologically. Now you can argue with the scientists about what happens when developmentally but you cant sit here and say its ok to limit drinking or smoking based on age but its not ok to limit abortion based on age (of the aborted). You cant have it both ways. If you are going to make the argument that development is irrelevant then you will need to approach ALL issues in this way. Or… you are going to have to abandon this silly notion of development not mattering when it comes to abortion and pick a point where its not ok.

Voting, driving, drinking and joining the army restrictions all exist for the benefit of the child too. As well as for the benefit of the rest of society. They're mutually beneficial, intended to help and to protect, not to destroy.

Again this is an inconsistency and a double standard. And also you ignore the fact that making laws banning abortion does not “help” or “protect” the woman. There is a victim no matter what you do in the case of abortion.

Bad precedent is a rational justification. If you can kill two cells, why not three? If three, why not four? Etc.

Not according to the supreme court its not. You can extend it and say if you can kill a cow why not a human. So there is not allowed any more killing. Ridiculous argument Lief. If you can abort two cells it doesn’t immediately follow that you should be allowed to drown infants. The question then becomes WHEN is it not ok to abort. Slippery slope arguments never work under the harsh light of law. Especially when there is another life involved that will be severely impacted.

It's all part of the development process. Any part on the development process is arbitrary, as our Western countries are finding out. The Netherlands, as I pointed out earlier, have already legalized killing mentally handicapped infants. It's a slippery slope that our countries are slithering along.

Then make the argument that it should be illegal to kill infants. But – again – this is completely irrelevant because I wasn’t talking about infants. So do me a favor and avoid the shell game tactics of constantly changing the subject and deal with what Im talking about: a two celled zygote. What is your argument that IT cannot be aborted? Not an infant or an 8 month old fetus or even a 4 celled zygote but a TWO CELLED ZYGOTE.

The two-celled zygote could be a person for all you know.

Again with the person nonsense… what does that mean! And why does it matter! Are you saying two cells without a brain, without a nervous system, without even one discernable human feature other than its DNA should be considered the same as an adult human? If so WHY?

It's still gambling with a human life for the sake of the mother's social, economic or physical conditions.

Its not gambling with anything when we are aborting a couple of cells that have no human aspects whatsoever! All you can say is that we are aborting the POTENTIAL for human life. No guarantees there either of course even under the best of conditions. So it comes down to do you really want to restrict the womans right to have control over her own body simply based on the POTENTIAL for human life? Because theres a slippery slope the other direction that you could run with too you know.


Honestly Lief I think you are being disingenuous with your arguments on this subject. I think you should come right out and say its wrong to abort because its killing an innocent life created by god no matter how undeveloped that life is. Then maybe we can talk about the concept that god allows abortions just like he allows earthquakes and tidal waves and disease. And that’s another debate. But this whole attempt to argue that aborting two cells is wrong because it might be a “person”… is just silliness. You cant justify that point of view no matter how hard you try.

[inked]

IR, what do you think of this Lebensunwertes Leben resurrection?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...International/

"But others fear Ms. Palin’s emergence as a parental role model sends a different message. As a vocal opponent of abortion, Ms. Palin’s widely discussed decision to keep her baby, knowing he would be born with [Down Syndrome], may inadvertently influence other women who may lack the necessary emotional and financial support to do the same, according to André Lalonde, executive vice-president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada.

Dr. Lalonde said that above all else, women must be free to choose, and that popular messages to the contrary could have detrimental effects on women and their families.

"The worry is that this will have an implication for abortion issues in Canada," he said. "

Yep. The state might have to pay for them. Wonder what's next? I know the historical process and its sequence...............

[katya]

Just one thing I'd like to add to the discussion, I don't know if you've mentioned it yet... I was talking with a friend about The Brothers Karamazov and whether one character (Ivan) was partly responsible for his fathers death (because he didn't stay in town to prevent it, but instead left town, knowing that he would probably be killed in his absence). I thought the question of whether Ivan was a murderer was similar to the question of whether a woman who gets an abortion is a murderer. Generally, it's the doctor who performs the procedure. What do you think? I already know my opinion and it's pretty straightforward and simple, but I was just curious what everyone else though.

[Nurvingiel]

Very interesting question Katya.

In Ivan's case, I'd say he could be criminally negligent. Of course, if his own life was in danger, than he wouldn't necessarily be found negligent.

If one believes that abortion involves killing a person, then that could be considered murder. True, another person is actually performing the abortion, but it would, in this case, be akin to hiring a hitman to kill someone for you. Maybe that's not called murder (the hitman is doing the murdering) but it's definitely illegal and not right.

Of course, if you don't think of the fetus as a person then it would not be murder or anything bad at all.

Edited because I forgot to reply to Inked:

The screening for down-syndrome possibilities used to only be available to at-risk women (say, someone over 35 who is pregnant). Now, it's available to pretty much anyone.

While I do believe abortion should be legal, this issue is very difficult ethically because it means people might have the option to abort a fetus because it has a certain undesired characteristic. That seems wrong to me, but if someone feels totally incapable of caring for a down-syndrome baby, well, the better solution would be to provide the help the new parents might need. But, the choice should still be theirs.

My great-aunt was born with Down Syndrome and lived a full and happy life. Her Mom, completely without support (since this was way back in the day) taught her, among other things, to read and play the piano. She was always faultlessly polite and very cheerful. I don't really know that much about her other than that. She lived in an institution for a long time, which was the best place, and a group home towards the end of her life, which was the worst place since there wasn't much to do. At the institution there was a lot going on. My great-aunt worked in the laundry.

Originally Posted by inked

Dr. Lalonde said that above all else, women must be free to choose, and that popular messages to the contrary could have detrimental effects on women and their families.

This is the key message; central to my own belief, women should be free to choose.

Originally Posted by inked

Yep. The state might have to pay for them. Wonder what's next? I know the historical process and its sequence...............

This seems unfinished. I think I know where you're going with this, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

[Coffeehouse]

Dear anti-abortionists, who's womb is it anyway?

It's fair to say that on abortion there will never be agreement. Maybe a few who change sides as to whether it's taking a life or not, but it all boils down to one's views on life, or one's faith.

A far more interesting question for me is whether one should have the right to abortion. A right to use contraception, without feeling the wrath of other people or being judged harshly by one's own Church. And I think that's a right of privacy, and in my view something, that if you start eroding that right and chipping away at that sort of private matter, then you're going into a minefield.

[Midge]

Oh, goodness. On the day I get sick, I decide to get sucked into the abortion debate again! Oh, well...

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Come on Lief that’s ridiculous. Theres plenty of rational reasons to pick the two celled zygote for destruction over the adolescent… You don’t need me to list them because I already know you know them quite well. You just don’t want to admit to that because you want to stick to your absolutist point of view about human life and ignore the obvious which is that there is a world of difference between a 2 celled zygote that has NO feelings or brain and a 10 year old. To say we have to treat them both the same because we don’t know at what point they become a “person” is really hiding from reality.

I also do not see any rational reasons at all to choose to kill a two-celled zygote more readily than a ten-year-old. Unless you consider the fact that the zygote does not have the chance to beg for its potential life.

And incidently, IR, there's not quite a WORLD of difference. There is one very important thing that the two-celled zygote and the ten-year-old have in common: potential. While the ten-year-old has the potential to become a doctor or a vet, an actor or a car mechanic, the two-celled zygote has much of the same type of potential, only MORE than that. It has the potential to be a human, a girl or a boy, a down syndrome baby or a genius. The ten-year-old has passed those chances, though it once had them.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

This is such a silly line of arguing Lief. I mean really. Defining “personhood” says nothing about reasons not to kill you. What IS a significant factor in deciding whether abortion is a viable option is the development of the fetus. And if the fetus is almost completely undeveloped (2 cells) on what can you base your argument that its wrong to abort it? And I don’t care if you call a two celled zygote a “person” or not. That doesn’t enter into it. The question still stands.

Truthfully, defining personhood is at the heart of the abortion debate. When a "concepted organism" becomes a human being should be the time when abortion becomes murder. Murder is, in fact, illegal. So if a two-celled zygote is a person and someone aborts it, they've committed murder. If a baby isn't a human being, though, then killing it does not constitute murder.

One might base the argument of not killing a zygote on the fact that very very very few women ever realize they're pregnant in the first five days after conception, during which the organism is labeled a zygote, gradually growing into a blastocyst (containing 70 to 100 cells). That doesn't make it wrong, I realize, but it does make it highly unlikely to ever happen.

And if you don't truly believe that a zygote is a person, then you wouldn't see it as important. But it does answer the question as to what I base my argument on. What is your argument that the zygote isn't a person? It has every single prerequisite required to become a person!

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

No there is no ending of the “development process”. You keep right on changing until death. Otherwise everyone would look and act like a 15 year old for the rest of their lives. So your attempt to argue against abortion using a kind of Hume like rational that we can never know the exact point of necessary connection where bunch of cells becomes person so we therefore cant abort AT ALL, is a major league cop out and rather silly. It either comes down to a development issue or it simply comes down to a religious/moralist issue and the latter approach, unlike the developmental approach, is free to be absolutist: KILLING IS WRONG NO MATTER WHEN. So why not just come clean and go with that? Ill respect that way of thinking if you genuinely believe it. Ill disagree but that’s ok. But don’t try to twist that into a biological argument please. It doesn’t work.

Though people do change till they day they die, that is physically, and emotionally, and intellectually. They stop developing mentally around age 18 to 20 ish. Some take longer and some less time. That is why the legal drinking age in America is 21. Alcohol is a LOT more harmful to a developing mind than it is to a fully developed mind.

The developmental approach has its own absolutes: An organism begins developing (mentally or otherwise) at conception and continues until either death or the particular area is fully developed. Or you could say it continues until a certain point (different with all organisms in the body) at which time it stops developing and begins decaying, resulting in eventual death. The two-celled zygote has to begin developing at some point, or it would never become a blastocyst, which continues development to an embryo, then to a fetus, then to an infant, which continues on to an adult human being.

Development is a invariable trait of LIVING BEINGS. Humans, animals, even plants develop. They produce cells and grow of their own accord, from within themselves. They consume and produce. Non-living organisms, (i.e., water, rocks, air, etc.) do not develop on their own. The fact that a zygote develops at all makes it ALIVE. If something is alive, then destroying (or aborting) it is killing it. You kill plants, deer, and people. You get rid of water and rocks. The fact that the zygote has the potential to become a human being might give someone pause before they decide to kill it.

And way to condescend to religiousness as a basis for moral beliefs. You basically just said, "If you WANT to believe in something, that's okay, but biology is a better form of logic, so sucks to be you for jumping on a different bandwagon."

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

The fact that a two celled zygote has no feelings and an adolescent is NOT implanted within another human and therefore is holding nobody’s life potentially hostage is whats important here. And you have your “rights” confused. The woman has the right to keep her zygote alive in her if she wants to. We DON’T have the right to force her to abort it even if its two cells. But we shouldn’t have the right to force her to keep it either.

[Y]ou ignore the fact that making laws banning abortion does not “help” or “protect” the woman. There is a victim no matter what you do in the case of abortion.

Why shouldn't we have the right to force her not to kill her own zygote, blastcyst, embryo, or fetus? She underwent the process of sex KNOWING that it could result in pregnancy. She knew that she could potentially be a victim, while the organism growing inside her did nothing to deserve such a horrible fate as not to be allowed to grow and become a human. Why are most people on the side of the not-innocent in this case?

I bet I know what you're going to say: Rape victims should be allowed to abort the baby. It wasn't their choice to be raped. They are the innocents in this situation. No, it certainly wasn't their choice to become pregnant, but who says that just because they aren't at fault makes them more innocent than the fetus growing within them, which has never even experienced anything of the world at large, while the mother (certainly innocent, of course) does indeed know something about cruelty. So, that said, what right does that give the innocent mother to kill the organism growing inside of her? Two "wrongs" (put in quotes because I realize that some do not view abortion as wrong, but most see rape as such!) do not make a right. There again, most do not see sex outside of wedlock as "wrong" but in that case also, that proverb-thingy holds true.

Aside from that, according to an Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) study done in 2004, 92.5% of abortions are for reasons not related to rape, incest, health of the mother or possible fetal health problems. The first two reasons were less than 0.5% of "Most important reasons" given for abortion.

Check my sources out here and here

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

No… We were talking about granting/denying rights based on biological development. Alcohol laws say THIS person MAY NOT drink because we think they ARENT developed enough yet and THIS person MAY drink (and possibly kill themselves in the process) because we think they ARE developed enough. Abortion laws say THIS “person” MAY NOT be aborted because we think they ARE developed enough and THIS “person” MAY be aborted because we think they ARENT. Both cases are the same. We are picking an arbitrary point at which we will allow on not allow the action to happen. And the action is potentially lethal in either case.

Because killing isn't lethal???

"...and THIS “person” MAY be aborted because we think they ARENT [developed enough]."

What exactly do you mean by "aren't developed enough"? Like, "aren't developed enough to care" or "aren't developed enough to matter" or "aren't developed enough to be a person"? The first two make absolutely no sense to me, and I realize that you probably didn't mean it that way. But that is what it sounded like to me. The third one is most likely what you meant. However, (you may get tired of hearing this) the fact that it is developing makes it alive. While you may not put it on the same level as a human, it has the potential to be one, but you essentially make it the plant that is an eyesore in your yard or the animal you take home for food. You put more importance on a pet or a prize flower than on a growing organism that will one day be a human being.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

The point is that we limit so many things based on the biological development of the life form involved. The very same thing is true for abortion. We limit it after a certain point based on our knowledge of the development of humans biologically. Now you can argue with the scientists about what happens when developmentally but you cant sit here and say its ok to limit drinking or smoking based on age but its not ok to limit abortion based on age (of the aborted). You cant have it both ways. If you are going to make the argument that development is irrelevant then you will need to approach ALL issues in this way. Or… you are going to have to abandon this silly notion of development not mattering when it comes to abortion and pick a point where its not ok.

That's just the thing. YOU are the one who says development is irrelevant. You say all development BEFORE a certain point doesn't matter. And the smoking and drinking laws say all development after the certain age doesn't matter. If a person takes up smoking at age 18 (the legal age), and doesn't quit till they're dead, then smoking is going to affect the development of healthy lungs for the rest of their lives (which depending on how much they smoke, could be very short).

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Not according to the supreme court its not. You can extend it and say if you can kill a cow why not a human. So there is not allowed any more killing. Ridiculous argument Lief. If you can abort two cells it doesn’t immediately follow that you should be allowed to drown infants. The question then becomes WHEN is it not ok to abort. Slippery slope arguments never work under the harsh light of law. Especially when there is another life involved that will be severely impacted.

"...another life involved that will be severely impacted." I'm assuming you're talking about the life of the mother of the unwanted baby. And you say that as if the life of the fetus will not be severely impacted by its being torn from its only source of nourishment? While it may not be the life of a human in your eyes, it's self-developmental aspects certainly qualify it as being alive.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Then make the argument that it should be illegal to kill infants. But – again – this is completely irrelevant because I wasn’t talking about infants. So do me a favor and avoid the shell game tactics of constantly changing the subject and deal with what Im talking about: a two celled zygote. What is your argument that IT cannot be aborted? Not an infant or an 8 month old fetus or even a 4 celled zygote but a TWO CELLED ZYGOTE.

I refer to infants in this argument because in my eyes, two-celled zygotes equal infants. They are the same thing. If a two-celled zygote can grow into an infant, then there is no difference in the zygote and the infant. They are, in essence, the same thing.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Again with the person nonsense… what does that mean! And why does it matter! Are you saying two cells without a brain, without a nervous system, without even one discernable human feature other than its DNA should be considered the same as an adult human? If so WHY?

It isn't nonsense. The two-celled zygote is alive (were it not, it would be expelled from the mother's uterus during her next menstrual cycle). It is developing. One day it WILL BE a human. That's just how pregnancy goes. You cannot refute, no matter how hard you try, that one day, a fetus growing inside a human woman is going to be a human. That is, unless it is miscarried or aborted. Or she happened to have sex with some other animal (other than a human male), which I'm not sure would work out, and is also kind of against the laws of nature, really.

No, it should not be treated the same way an adult human should be treated. If you see it that way, you might feel perfectly justified giving it the death penalty for trying to ruin a young woman's life. It should be given the same consideration as a newborn human. It is innocent, it is alive, it is undeniably human. Any acts of cruelty against it should be stopped; it deserves the chance to grow and live a human life just as much as I did when I was that size.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Its not gambling with anything when we are aborting a couple of cells that have no human aspects whatsoever! All you can say is that we are aborting the POTENTIAL for human life. No guarantees there either of course even under the best of conditions. So it comes down to do you really want to restrict the womans right to have control over her own body simply based on the POTENTIAL for human life? Because theres a slippery slope the other direction that you could run with too you know.

Potential is everything. At the top of a hill, you have enough energy potential to run down it; as a ten-year-old, Plato had the potential to become such a philosopher that he is a part of everyday life. As a young married college woman, my own mother got pregnant with me before she and my dad had planned to have kids. Would it have been in her best interests to abort me so she could keep her job at Hardee's or finish the class she had in the greenhouses at her college, both of which she had to abandon because they invoked incredible morning sickness? Or the friend I had when I was in sixth grade whose mother was only sixteen years older than she was? Should her mother have aborted her because she wasn't ready? Or even the girl that graduated with me (two years ago)and now has a son of her own as she attends school?

If young women consider themselves ready to be sexually active outside of marriage, they should also consider the fact that perhaps they should be strong enough to care for the baby and their future. If they're not, they should abandon the care for their future. By shouldering the privilege of sex, they have also taken up the burden of mothering, whether they know it or not. Abortion provides a way for cowardly women to save their own hineys from responsibility that they simply don't want. Women can't have their cake and eat it too. They can't have sex and no children. Those two kind of go together, eventually.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Honestly Lief I think you are being disingenuous with your arguments on this subject. I think you should come right out and say its wrong to abort because its killing an innocent life created by god no matter how undeveloped that life is. Then maybe we can talk about the concept that god allows abortions just like he allows earthquakes and tidal waves and disease. And that’s another debate. But this whole attempt to argue that aborting two cells is wrong because it might be a “person”… is just silliness. You cant justify that point of view no matter how hard you try.

I will say it. It is wrong to have an abortion because it's killing an innocent life that is created by God (with a specific purpose), no matter how young and undeveloped that life is. But that belongs in another forum, I know.

God did make a provision for abortion. It's called "miscarrying". It's a spontaneous abortion, and usually unwanted by the mother. But in that case, it's a disaster, much like the earthquake or the tidal wave, or the disease. It's not a blessing.

And IR, you're one to talk about there being no absolutes in biology. You have absolutely decided that Lief's arguments are silly or ridiculous, or that something "can't" be justified or decided quite a few times in this very small essay.

(okay, here's where I stopped replying to IR's post)

I am not one to say, "Yay for un-wed sex! Down with abortion!" I do not like the idea of anyone having sex outside of marriage. But while I've momentarily accepted that it will happen, I have not accepted abortion. If abortion was outlawed and *shudder* better birth control made cheaper and more available to those participating in un-wed sex, perhaps abortions could indeed be done away with. (Bear with me in a small bit of theology) While I do not believe that killing is worse than sexual immorality, I do believe that killing and sexual immorality is worse than just one. Not because it makes you a worse person in God's eyes, but because it's harder to free yourself from guilt of two sins than just one.

I assume that pro-choicers are advocating abortion simply because you think women have the right, not because you think it is a good thing. Would not many pro-choicers not prefer the choice not to have to be made at all? Anyone?

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

How about this. You can't force me to feed someone if I don't want to.

Anti-abortion people aren't running around saying that homeless people have a right to housing and food. If a homeless guy dies in my town, no one will charge me with murder. But they say I would have to feed and house a zygote until it could safely live on its own.

Nope. I have other things to do. I have other priorities, for MY family.

I don't know if you've ever been pregnant, Midge. Through the grace of God, I have. but even being pregnant (let alone giving birth, or becoming a parent) is the sort of mission that's for volunteers, ONLY. I have a friend who is currently expecting her 9th child. (Not all that much older than you, btw.)She's not at all 'pro-choice', but when she had a stillbirth that threatened her life she used all those nasty medical means to prevent conception because she had (at that time) 5 children to live and take care of. Some with special needs. She just didn't have the RIGHT to leave her family motherless and only highly trained medical specialists, who knew about abortion, stillbirth, and reproductive medicine in totality, enabled her to live, and then have a set of twins, and now be pregnant again. She's not quite as glib about "abortionists" as she used to be.

That's what "choice" is.

God's choice for his own son was to die. And not in a miscarriage, was it.

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

A far more interesting question for me is whether one should have the right to abortion. A right to use contraception, without feeling the wrath of other people or being judged harshly by one's own Church. And I think that's a right of privacy, and in my view something, that if you start eroding that right and chipping away at that sort of private matter, then you're going into a minefield.

An interesting question no doubt.
I'd like to insert a Buddhist perspective on this, because I believe that people's asserted rights and what we consider morally right don't necessarily go hand in hand.

• A Buddhist Perspective on the Abortion Issue
  By Barbara O'Brien, About.com

<< What About Rights? First, the Buddhist view of abortion does not include a concept of rights, either a "right to life" or a "right to one's own body." In part this is because Buddhism is a very old religion, and the concept of human rights is relatively recent. However, approaching abortion as merely a "rights" issue doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere.

"Rights" are defined by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as "entitlements (not) to perform certain actions or be in certain states, or entitlements that others (not) perform certain actions or be in certain states." In this argument, a right becomes a trump card that, when played, wins the hand and shuts down all further consideration of the issue. However, activists both for and against legal abortion believe their trump card beats the other side's trump card. So nothing is settled. >>

[Midge]

Homeless people are usually adults, who COULD go and get a job of some sort, even if it is just at McDonald's for starters, or if they are mentally ill or something, they could go to the hospital. Even a hospital for the mentally ill has to be better than no home at all. If it is a homeless child, I would gladly open my arms to it, that is, if the child truly was out on its own and had no parents. I hope to have my own children someday, but also I hope to foster and adopt children. In any case, you are not responsible for the actions of some other irresponsible adult.

Actually, I think that would be the MOST acceptable reason for an abortion, is something that threatens the life of the mother. In the case of the stillborn, it's not abortion anymore, the child is already dead; it's just a surgery removing the dead baby from the mother's womb. Of course, I can see how conception-preventing medicine would be required after that. I don't particularly like the idea, but I am probably going to have to take it myself, someday.

I've not been pregnant, not yet. I'd very much like to be, but seeing as how I'm not married, I'm a college kid living with my parents, and my morals say otherwise, I've decided that abstinence is the way for me right now. Which sort of makes it unfair for me, if you think about it. Like when little kids who obey their mothers and don't take a cookie from the jar have to watch other kids to whom they're not related steal cookies.

Ultimately I know that my choices now will affect me better later in life. But if I did slip and have sex and get pregnant, under no circumstances (except possibly that mother's health thing.. and that would be shaky, considering that I have no other children to care for, and only if it was certain that I would die in the event of my child's birth) would I abort it. And I would only do so at the prompting of my obstetrician, if I had to, and at the agreement of my boyfriend/husband (depending on that particular status at the time of my pregnancy). It's his child too.

You say that parenting is the sort of mission that's for volunteers only. Isn't deciding to become sexually active, and taking the chance of getting pregnant volunteering? It's not when you become pregnant that you volunteer. It's when you open yourself up to the possibility of being pregnant that you volunteer.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Midge, the problem is, real life is messy.

For example...sexually active teens. Statistics show that as many as %15 of sexual assault and rape victims in the US are under twelve years old.

Worldwide: http://v10.vday.org/take-action/viol...t-women/incest

US info :

In 1995, local child protection service agencies identified 126,000 children who were victims of either substantiated or indicated sexual abuse.

Of these, 75% were girls.
Nearly 30% of child victims were between the age of 4 and 7.
93% of juvenile sexual assault victims know their attacker.

34.2% of attackers were family members.
58.7% were acquaintances.
Only 7% of the perpetrators were strangers to the victim.

http://www.rainn.org/get-information...ssault-victims

And that's reported. A lot of these issues are only uncovered years later.

Well, one of the outcomes of having your boundaries violated as a child is that your ability to set reasonable boundaries is compromised. Those children are set up to continue to be victimized...and to have their sexuality turned into casual and barter activity. In the course of that, they may well wind up pregnant.

If I know (as a point of law), that a contract with a minor to buy or sell a car is not valid, how can I assume they are making sound decisions as regards their personal behavior? If I know the impact on children of having children is extending the cycle, how can I force them to do it?

The idea the homeless people are responsible for their own conditions is also kind of limited. Many of them are mentally ill. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0201101738.htm
And getting appropriate services for them is expensive....the beds and other services just don't exist in many places.

Even limitations on abortion that seem reasonable, like parental consent, get kind of scary when you consider that a lot of those girls are pregnant due to incest. At the very least, they're pregnant because someone had sex with a minor. So the rapists get to make the decision.

It's the sort of thing that makes no sense when judged against a life of support and options. Unfortunately, some folks start with fewer advantages.

[Midge]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Well, one of the outcomes of having your boundaries violated as a child is that your ability to set reasonable boundaries is compromised. Those children are set up to continue to be victimized...and to have their sexuality turned into casual and barter activity. In the course of that, they may well wind up pregnant.

But it's not like they're mindless robots who don't even realize they're having sex. They know the dangers of it. They know what could happen. If you give them a way out from under that resulting consequence, are they going to stop? They might end up with an STD, which could be fatal. Is having an STD worse than having a baby or is it the other way around?

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

If I know (as a point of law), that a contract with a minor to buy or sell a car is not valid, how can I assume they are making sound decisions as regards their personal behavior? If I know the impact on children of having children is extending the cycle, how can I force them to do it?

If you don't force them to do it, will they know that it's wrong? Oh, sure, you might convey to them how disappointed you really are, and maybe they'll quit having sex for a while, or take more care for a while. But will they really learn? "The burned hand teaches best", as Gandalf said of a post-Palantir-Pippin, and he is right, for more than just leaving Palantiri alone. If they get pregnant and are made to take care of their own child, perhaps they will make wiser decisions in future.

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Even limitations on abortion that seem reasonable, like parental consent, get kind of scary when you consider that a lot of those girls are pregnant due to incest. At the very least, they're pregnant because someone had sex with a minor. So the rapists get to make the decision.

I'm not lobbying for abortion with parental consent. That would not improve the situation at all, IMO. Parents may want their daughters to get abortions simply because they feel her iniquity has reflected on their ways of raising her. I for one, hope never to impress that feeling on my children. If they make a mistake, I would like them to realize that it was a mistake and then stand through the consequences, though they'd have to stand for eighteen years. Though disappointed, I would help them, not abandon them. Ideally, that would be the situation, but unfortunately, many parents care more about public image than the well-being of their children. My parents care very much about how others see them, but I think they would be firm enough in their abortion views to not make me get one.

But perhaps I am at least lobbying for abortion to be reduced to only necessary abortions; in which case, perhaps it would be necessary for the extremely young girl to have one. But it would be her doctor (preferably obstetrician) that required it, and she'd have to go to a doctor to even consider getting one (legally).

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

It's the sort of thing that makes no sense when judged against a life of support and options. Unfortunately, some folks start with fewer advantages.

Even those who begin with fewer advantages have the ability to rise above those circumstances. I'm not idiot enough to think it will happen in every instance, but I am idealistic enough to HOPE it could happen in every instance.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Midge

But it's not like they're mindless robots who don't even realize they're having sex. They know the dangers of it.

Which ones 'know the dangers of it?' Do the 12 year olds? Don't be silly. They don't even have the emotional maturity to avoid tummyaches from candy. They aren't equipped to make 'reasonable' decisions about having sex. And they particularly aren't when they've been sexually and emotionally abused since childhood.

Having sex with a minor (and I mean under 21, ideally) should be castration at the first offense. I know a lot of you are teens, and you're bright teens, and you think you're able to make all the important decisions. And I disagree. I know children and teens who will make better decisions, everyday, than other 'full grown' adults. But there are reasons that you mayn't have sex with children, give them drugs or alcohol, lock them in contracts, or employ them. They aren't finished, and for you to PUNISH them by making them "responsible for their choices" is the same sort of idiocy that has people beating 2 year olds for wetting the bed. Age limits are an average, but they're designed to protect the society from the impact of exploitation.

They know what could happen. If you give them a way out from under that resulting consequence, are they going to stop? They might end up with an STD, which could be fatal. Is having an STD worse than having a baby or is it the other way around?

Depends on the STD. Also depends on their ability to get appropriate information on sex and access to medical care. But the incontrovertible fact is, when people have children, there are children involved. If you have any evidence that becoming a teen parent unwillingly makes people less promiscuious, I'd love to see it. Generally, I see it resulting in reinforcement of all the dysfunctions that got this family here in the first place.

If you don't force them to do it, will they know that it's wrong? Oh, sure, you might convey to them how disappointed you really are, and maybe they'll quit having sex for a while, or take more care for a while. But will they really learn? "The burned hand teaches best", as Gandalf said of a post-Palantir-Pippin, and he is right, for more than just leaving Palantiri alone. If they get pregnant and are made to take care of their own child, perhaps they will make wiser decisions in future.

Here's where the 'volunteer' part comes in. No one is 'forced' to take care of a child. How would you do that? At the most, you can "force' them to go to jail when the child dies of neglect. And it's the child who suffers. But, going back to an earlier point, how is it that you know not to get pregnant? It's not because you have a burned hand, it's because you have respect for yourself, respect for your family, and respect for your values. You said earlier about watching the other kids "rob the cookie jar.' Let me tell you, it's no such thing. Neither sex nor parenting is the rainbow's end. They bear great joys, but being a sounder vessel when you start makes the joy much better. Lesser vessels shatter under the pressure. The kids who eat early are more like kids who can't wait for the cookies to be mixed, and so claim their dry mouthful of flour is better than the full cookie. And the sad thing is, most of them will never know how cheated they are.

But perhaps I am at least lobbying for abortion to be reduced to only necessary abortions; in which case, perhaps it would be necessary for the extremely young girl to have one. But it would be her doctor (preferably obstetrician) that required it, and she'd have to go to a doctor to even consider getting one (legally).

I don't use an obstetrician. Obstetricians are surgeons, and I've never needed surgery. I see other medical professionals for my woman care. In fact, my general practioner is a DO, rather than an MD. So why an obstetrician? And who do you think is getting abortions without seeing a doctor?

Even those who begin with fewer advantages have the ability to rise above those circumstances. I'm not idiot enough to think it will happen in every instance, but I am idealistic enough to HOPE it could happen in every instance.

I hope so, too. But they aren't my moccasins. Unfortunately, I know parents who NEVER should have become parents, and fine parents who never got a chance to raise a child. It would be nice if I understood everything about those things. But when it comes to the most important job in the world, I want all volunteers.

[Midge]

You know, as much as I would like to change the world (and I really would!) I don't see it happening much soon. Mostly, I am using this for ideas to raise my own children, and all I can give you is what's running through my head on that subject. If my child was raped and got pregnant, I would encourage her to have the baby (people have been having children for thousands of years at that age, she could do it too), and I would either help her care for it, or completely care for it, whichever she preferred. If it was her choice to have sex and she got pregnant, I wouldn't let her have an abortion, and I would help her care for her child (but she would have to care for it), with help and guidance from me. My children will know that all actions have consequences.

I quite agree with you on the castration thing, only I see it applying to all rape cases, no matter the age. A good law, that would be.

There are two types of learning. As a woman with children, surely you know that sometimes they actually listen to you and obey, and sometimes they have to go through the consequences of their actions to learn not to do something. If the result of their action is

The obstetrician thing was because I was assuming in the case of abortion made illegal, so we were back to the coat hangers and stuff.

You'd rather allow abortions than let the children grow up with parents who didn't necessarily "volunteer" for the job? There are plenty of people who aren't good parents but want kids, or who are good parents but don't volunteer to get pregnant when they do!

[inked]

Hemorrhaging is the leading cause of maternal death in Africa and Asia, causing one in three deaths, it said. Infections, hypertensive disorders, complications of abortion, obstructed labor or HIV/AIDS are other causes.

See... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26792990/

UNICEF data.
.................................................. ..............................

I note that hemorrhage remains the number one cause of maternal mortality in developed countries (that includes childbirth, ectopic, postabortal).

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Well, Midge, I'm hoping you have lovely children.

Still, there's a place where 'what I will allow of my children' ventures onto unfirm ground. You would 'encourage her to have the baby" or you 'wouldn't allow her to have an abortion.'

But the fact is, that a child who has fallen away from your guidance (or fallen into sad circumstances) enough to find herself in this position may have opinions of her own about what she wants to do. At that time, she may suddenly have the wisdom to follow your advice, or she may solve her problems in a teenagery way. Hard to say, before you're there.

Most of the people here have lived all your lives in a world where abortions are safe and legal. Many of you never come into contact with anyone who needs one, socially. Either the girls are behaving, or they have families, like the Spears family, who support the unwed mother. The whole idea of abortion is a political, rather than a personal, reality. That's so much better than it used to be.

I've known people who have had abortions. Some regret it. I've known people who have had children. Some regret it. I've known people who have had and given for adoption children. Some regret it. I've known people who have never been pregnant. Some regret it. I don't know any situation that would work for everyone.

So the question, for me, is, who or how would I find someone to make this decision? And my first answer is, it won't be the government. The government sucks at most of the things I think are important. They aren't reliable. They can't control this.

People may be eccentric and downright wrong. But my Constitution says, 'Endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights', and goes on to reserve most rights from the government. If the Constitution won't let the government board troops in my home, how can the government insist I board citizens in my dress? It makes no sense to me.

As far as 'obey' goes, particularly with children. It's not a concept I work with, much. Children need to buckle up, in a car. They 'obey' that law, because I do. No buckle, no drive. But I wouldn't leave them at risk to teach them consequences. I would consider that abusive. That's why, even if it embarrasses me, I talk about choices, and self-respect, and safe sex, and anything else I think will help them understand the importance of care around sexual and emotional activity. But I don't send them on co-ed sleep-overs, either. As a parent, it's my job to protect them, not "teach them consequences". JMO.

[Coffeehouse]

Again, simple question. Who's womb, who's body, who's life is it anyways?

I find it troubling that people are so ready to deal out judgement on the actions of others in their sexual lives. If someone has chosen to have unsafe sex, the hardest lesson is becoming fertilized (worst of course: getting raped). But that's where it stops. You can't take the logic further and punish that person by forcing a pregnancy. I agree with Sis here. A pregnancy should be 100 % volunteering. If you don't want to have a baby, take an abortion.

Zygotes and lesser organisms die in the thousands and millions every day and year. It's not a tragedy. It's life.

[inked]

Coffehouse, sorry, but your "whose womb" argument is lame. You might as well ask, "whose penis?" since no womb can be filled without sperm. But, if you were consistent, you would then have to allow equal input from the sperm donor! I gather you have forgotten him, just like the innocent life conceived in that womb.

On the other hand, if society can assert an imputed "duty" to die as in the following to articles at the beginning and end of life, it can certainly impute a duty to preserve life.

“It is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome” ...

http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/200...d-right-to.htm

and,

“Dementia sufferers may have a ‘duty to die’ “

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...C-new_19092008


If you think that the government won't enforce it's control over the womb, I suggest you check out China and forced abortions. Would you then claim the opposite for a womb that refused the broom?

Just asking......

And, shouldn't the government just put contraceptives in the water and make you apply for a license to reproduce - if you meet the criteria for the same, of course? And the government is going to let me set the standards for reproduction, by the way. You get the same option as an embryo - none.

[Coffeehouse]

No, no, no! A guy can shoot around his sperm as much as he likes. But that does not mean he can choose for the woman. The woman has to endure the pregnancy, the woman will be the one to give birth to a child. If she does not want to give that birth, end of story.

Bottom-line is simple. It's about the rights of living, breathing human beings and decisions that affect the rest of their lives for the better or worse. I put the life of a woman and her well-being in front of any two-celled zygote or any man who wishes a child. Let the birth come when the birth is wanted by the mother.

[Midge]

CH, it is the woman's womb, the woman's body, but it is the child's life. The fertilized egg within her CAN become a child (I only say it like that because apparently some people do not agree with me that it is already a child). Isn't that important?

It's the woman's womb, the woman's body, but it was also her choice to engage in an act that could result in pregnancy. It's not like the unborn child was hovering over her while she was in the presence of a guy saying, "Have sex so I can be conceived..." She chose to do that for HER pleasure and OOPS! now she has a baby in her tummy that she doesn't want, so she can choose to get rid of that for her pleasure... Because a child might have ruined HER life, she can get rid of it. Nobody is considering the child. It was conceived for a purpose. Call it destiny or call it God, nothing is just random coincidence.

"It's about the rights of living" you say. But not for the newly conceived fetus. IT can just be killed if the mother doesn't feel like having it.

I myself would put the life of the two-celled zygote in front of my own life, as a woman. Surely it is worth far more than I am. Of course, if you look at it that way, then you enter a whole new ball-game. Isn't abortion just one more way for a woman to be selfish instead of giving of herself?

"If she does not want to give that birth, end of story." You say, "End of story"- I say, "Tough luck." That would be where we differ.