Abortion.

[Rían]

wow

Major

So even if scientific studies show that fetuses can feel pain, you think it's a waste of time to inform the mother she has the option of providing pain relief to the fetus as it's being aborted?

And people get all in an uproar over dogs or cats being hurt

[inked]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

i curious, for those who are pro-life and express indignation at the total disregard for it abortion represents... how do you feel about the total disregard our society gives to those babies in terms of financial resources, education, etc. after they are in fact born?

I dare to disagree, BJ. I see firsthand the extremes our society goes to preserve preterm babies and babies with congenital or genetic defects very often. I also see the resources poured into parental assistance programs for children with disabilities. (In fact, when I was in residency '84 - '88, I well remember the Chinese delegation visiting our neonatal nursery where the premies were cared for and literally asking, "why go to all this trouble? Why not the parents let it die and just make another one?") So I think our society provides extraordinarily well for infants and children.

If you compare the life of the average American "poverty-stricken" child with that of the average child elsewhere not in the first world, you'd know that our kids are extremely well provided for.

But if you mean that every child ever born should have every potential advantage before you want to stop killing the unborn on the grounds of the (potential) quality of their (potential) life, I am afraid we must part company. After all, wasn't J.S. Bach the 8th child of a couple who had had prviously handicapped children in most of their offspring? And don't they make movies about those types of folks overcoming tremendous odds?

Or is life only worth living as long as you have every potential material advantage and you can end it when you get bored, or it might make demands on you that you don't like?

I quote Carl Sagan, probably discontextually, "It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English - up to fifty words used in correct context - no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese." The dolphins, nor the whales for that matter, do not kill their young in utero. But one frequently gets the non sequiter that abortion is justifiable on the grounds that there are too many humans for the environment (dolphins and whales) so killing humans is okay. (ARE there secret debates in dolphinese about aborting in utero dolphins to make more room for humans, I wonder?) Everyone who earnestly feels that way should commit suicide in logical extension of their beliefs and make more room for dolphins and whales, but NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Somebody else should die, preferably baby humans in utero. And, as Margaret Sanger intended, it can be used to keep the undesirables down and not over-running the WASPs! (Just don't quote that part of her intent!)

[Rían]

inked, what's the news/attitudes in your profession in regards to the fetal pain awareness bill?

[Spock]

of course dolphins are superior, they had one of the first, very own, television series.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

wow

Major

So even if scientific studies show that fetuses can feel pain, you think it's a waste of time to inform the mother she has the option of providing pain relief to the fetus as it's being aborted?

And people get all in an uproar over dogs or cats being hurt

i have no issue with it in and of itself, just the priority it has been given over the hundreds of much more pressing issues

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by inked

After all, wasn't J.S. Bach the 8th child of a couple who had had prviously handicapped children in most of their offspring? And don't they make movies about those types of folks overcoming tremendous odds?

If this is your rational for not having abortion then you are going to be hard pressed to deal with the Hitlers and Pol Pots and hundreds of other despots and evil people who have caused uncountable damage to millions of innocents. Imagine how many lives could have been saved if they had been aborted. So that kind of rational never works.

As to your declaration that every american ever born has been "extremely well provided for" well what insane measuring stick do you use to calculate that exactly? I know of dozens of cases of kids myself who would have been better off never born when I used to do counseling.

[Rían]

I imagine the point was that you never know!

And speaking of guys like Pol Pot, isn't capital punishment just abortion a little later than usual, but with the recipient earning it?

IRex, would you vote for passing the fetal pain awareness bill?

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

And speaking of guys like Pol Pot, isn't capital punishment just abortion a little later than usual, but with the recipient earning it?

So the logic is let them be born so they can kill millions of people and THEN you can kill them? Sounds rather macabre.

IRex, would you vote for passing the fetal pain awareness bill?

No theres way too much disagreement about the scientific evidence involved. A LOT of doctors and scientists disagree as to when fetuses start feeling pain and what exactly pain is to begin with so to only cherry pick a few doctors that support your contention and to create legislation based on that smacks of extremist tactics.

Now... if your concern is just when the fetus is conscious of pain and its meaning then would you be more in support of abortion techniques that minimize any possible "pain" for the fetus? What if we could eliminate pain at any point during the pregnancy? Im going to guess the vast majority of ant-abortion folk wouldnt care. They still wouldnt want to allow abortions. And if thats the case then what exactly is this bill all about? Seems to be yet another stealth attack on roe v wade itself.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

So the logic is let them be born so they can kill millions of people and THEN you can kill them? Sounds rather macabre.

Are you saying that we should have known that Pol Pot would have turned out that way so he should have been aborted?

Maybe we're misunderstanding each other here...

No theres way too much disagreement about the scientific evidence involved.

If there comes to be a strong scientific consensus, would you support the bill?

Now... if your concern is just when the fetus is conscious of pain and its meaning then would you be more in support of abortion techniques that minimize any possible "pain" for the fetus?

Yes. Would you?

Seems to be yet another stealth attack on roe v wade itself.

What I wanted to see here is if people's desire to uphold a principle that they strongly support (the "right" to have an abortion) outweighs what I would consider to be common decency, to say the least (as I said before, we kill dogs and cats humanely - heck, I was even worried about the most humane way to put out fatally-injured HAMPSTER to death!) to a fellow human being. We can forget the gray areas like a 4-week-old fetus - how about an 8 month old fetus, where I can't imagine there's ANY real (as opposed to bias-driven) scientific doubt that they feel pain?

[inked]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

If this is your rational for not having abortion then you are going to be hard pressed to deal with the Hitlers and Pol Pots and hundreds of other despots and evil people who have caused uncountable damage to millions of innocents. Imagine how many lives could have been saved if they had been aborted. So that kind of rational never works.

As to your declaration that every american ever born has been "extremely well provided for" well what insane measuring stick do you use to calculate that exactly? I know of dozens of cases of kids myself who would have been better off never born when I used to do counseling.

IR, when you perfect the device that allows the determination of a person's actions prior to birth, then you might could argue that such determinations could be used to pre-emptively abort the really bad actors on the basis of deserved pro-active justification. However, until such time as that device is available, on what grounds of deserved justification do we abort the innocent?

I agree that your rationale never works.

And, what standards do you apply to state that a child/person you are counseling would have been better off dead? Is that a concensus we should worrry about implementing?

What standards do you apply to state that my observation of first world poverty beats third-world poverty hands down?

Should we just abort everyone who will be born into a family that makes less than 100,000 US dollars per year and be done with it? Is life really about material status or is it relationships?

[Rían]

(inked, you may have missed my question - what's the feel in your world of doctors/ob-gyns about the fetal pain awareness bill?)

[Spock]

Originally Posted by inked

IR, when you perfect the device that allows the determination of a person's actions prior to birth, then you might could argue that such determinations could be used to pre-emptively abort the really bad actors on the basis of deserved pro-active justification. ?

I'd vote for that, if it prevented the invasion of "the Baldwins".

[Rían]

I'll join in the current craze of cartoon posting against the opposite side with this:

here

and this:
here

and this:
here (the cartoon on top)

and this:
here

What's the feeling here? Do these promote an intelligent discussion? Do these provide a laugh?

I don't think so ... I just don't ...

[Rían]

(for those who haven't been on Entmoot in the last few days, I'm doing this to try to illustrate a point. People have been posting cartoons lately that knock some of my viewpoints, and the general feeling seems to have been "hey, they're cartoons, lighten up and laugh!" But to me, an insult is an insult, no matter if it's spoken straight to your face or delivered in an indirect (and imo, rather cowardly) manner.)

So am I too touchy about this? It's just that so far, the only cartoons have been against typically conservative/religious positions, and the people posting them have said "everything's cool, they're just cartoons!" - but they haven't been on the receiving end yet.

I just think that things can really escalate fast when we start doing that. I love humor, but not derogatory humor.

I'm really in a quandry here and am trying to work these thoughts out in my posts - what do you guys think? I just don't know ... but it sure feels wrong to me.

[Spock]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

What's the feeling here? Do these promote an intelligent discussion? Do these provide a laugh?
I don't think so ... I just don't ...

With reference to the cartoons you have selected, IMO:

They are not cartoons drawn to evolk laughter but rather rancor and anger.

[Rían]

I didn't laugh at the other cartoons

And I think these cartoons make very good points.

[Spock]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an.

People have been posting cartoons lately that knock some of my viewpoints, and the general feeling seems to have been "hey, they're cartoons, lighten up and laugh!" But to me, an insult is an insult, no matter if it's spoken straight to your face or delivered in an indirect (and imo, rather cowardly) manner.)

If one can't take cartoons for cartoons, one may need to reassess ones thinking.

If one takes insult with comedy, than one may have more of a problem than can be helped by mere posting.

[Spock]

THIS is what YOU are advocating as your position?

Or is this what YOU think is someone elses opinion?

Most peculiar, IMO.

They seem to promote an ideology but then if that's what you intended it makes sense.

If you do not think a woman has the right to do with her body what she chooses, that is your opinion. It doesn't make the woman who does chose to chose wrong. Nor does it make those who agree with her devils.

[Rían]

But look, Spock - you're telling me to take cartoons as cartoons, then objecting to the cartoons I put up! How is that fair? That's my whole point - it's very different being on the receiving end of cartoons than the giving end.

[Spock]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

But look, Spock - you're telling me to take cartoons as cartoons, then objecting to the cartoons I put up! How is that fair? That's my whole point - it's very different being on the receiving end of cartoons than the giving end.

NO I AM NOT telling you to take the cartoons as anything. They are humorous statements by the cartoonists, posted in an attempt to stop the shrill postings of one and all by bringing a smile to the thread.