06-19-2008, 05:30 AM | #21 |
Elf Lady
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In the lands where mountains are but a fairytale
Posts: 8,588
|
Though it is true that you don't know what future a few cells might have had if you had decided to let it grow to its full potential, you cannot automatically assume it's a good one or that everything is better then death.
Also, if giving children up for adoption is such a good thing, then why are there so many children in orphanages who can't get adopted? We have the possibilities for abortion in a safe manner, not like in the old days when women would drink poisonous herbal drinks or beat the belly as long as it took for a miscarriage to happen (yes, that is how they "performed" abortion back then and yes, abortion was not that uncommon). Abortion has always been there. And people have always condemned the woman for doing it. Don't you think that is something between her and her Maker? Let's look at it from a religious point of view (like we haven't done that before ): God gives life and He takes it. Let's assume that indeed those few cells do have a soul from the moment of conception. Would God punish the soul for being aborted? Or would He send it back to receive the gift of Life? Would there be any 'negative' consequences for the soul? I don't see why. Then there is the woman who had the abortion. God may decide to punish her for it. But then again He may not. It's up to Him. He knows what's best and fitting, right? So why are all these people protesting against women having an abortion? The soul of the future child doesn't need to be saved and the soul of the woman is not for us to judge. Honestly, I don't see why people want to try and make the decision for others or in some cases why they would try and take over Judgment from God. Rather, help this woman who is in a difficult enough position as it is. Do not judge and be there for her after she had the abortion when she needs it the most. The decision is hers, but living with it, that is where you can help her. And if helping this "fallen person" "tarnishes your soul", who cares? At least you'll have done what you thought was right.
__________________
Love always, deeply and true ★ Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. ★ Friendship is sharing openly, laughing often, trusting always, caring deeply.
...The Earth laughs in flowers ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Hamatreya"... |
06-19-2008, 12:08 PM | #22 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, CA
Posts: 10,820
|
But, of course, as we have all seen infallibly demonstrated on the last page, you CAN automatically assume that its future will be something worse than death.
__________________
Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
06-19-2008, 12:29 PM | #23 |
Elf Lady
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In the lands where mountains are but a fairytale
Posts: 8,588
|
Well no of course not. It guess without saying that something good may come of it. However in abortion-debates some people tend to glorify being born no matter what the circumstances and completely ignore the fact that there is a whole period to come after being born and that a child might not get a very good start if it's a) unwanted and b) often in difficult circumstances (teenage mothers, that sort of thing)
I just wanted to point out that though we don't know what will happen with the child in the future, it is not right to assume that all will be well, just because it was born.
__________________
Love always, deeply and true ★ Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. ★ Friendship is sharing openly, laughing often, trusting always, caring deeply.
...The Earth laughs in flowers ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Hamatreya"... |
06-19-2008, 01:24 PM | #24 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
Posts: 6,343
|
Quote:
While it's not right to assume things will be well for the child, abortion performed on this justification assumes the child will have a life that the child would feel is worse than death (for if the parent feels that way and the child disagrees, the parent's view is automatically trumped). The assumptions made in justifying abortion this way are GIGANTIC.
__________________
If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
|
06-19-2008, 01:27 PM | #25 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 4,535
|
I agree. But the woman is a person, and the cell cluster is only the potential for a person.
__________________
That would be the swirling vortex to another world. Cool. I want one. TMNT No, I'm not emo. I just have a really poor sense of direction. (Thanks to katya for this quote) This is the best news story EVER! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26087293/ “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”...John McCain "I shall go back. And I shall find that therapist. And I shall whack her upside her head with my blanket full of rocks." ...Louisa May |
06-19-2008, 02:26 PM | #26 | ||||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
Posts: 6,343
|
Quote:
Quote:
It's tragic, as far as I'm concerned, and indicates that the pro-choice advocates may well be winning at impacting the psychology of the country. On the other hand, one of the weird things to me is how many pro-choice advocates that I've met ARE actually aware that the child inside the womb is as much a person on all counts that matter as one outside of it. 1) I've heard abortion advocated on the grounds of moral relativism, by one person. He said that all belief systems about what's right are relative, so who's to say the destruction of a child is wrong? That was his argument. 2) I heard another argue that people don't really know a child inside the womb, so it can be killed because its death won't make anyone grieve. 3) I've heard another argue that it's physically part of the mother and therefore, even though its brain isn't that much different from that of a born child and even though it is clearly a living human, it can be killed because of the physical connection it has to the mother. That physical connection, to her, means that it's not a person in its own right. Those three pro-choice people all did believe that the same basic things about a child that pro-life people do, but tried to justify killing it anyway by these methods. So while you may be right about pro-life people sometimes failing to advocate the same dignity for children inside the womb as exists for those outside, I've seen pro-choice people also several times whose words show that they hold to the same basic scientific facts that pro-life people hold to, but justify killing anyway. The argument that the fetus can be killed because it might have a bad future is just as weak as the above numbered arguments, by the way. You wouldn't even advocate killing most adults who are living bad lives such as those you fear fetuses might have. So ultimately, this argument collapses into this one: That fetuses are sufficiently psychologically different from infants that have been born that they don't deserve the same rights. This, troublesomely, is an arbitrary judgment. There is no break-off point at which a fetus instantly changes from a blob of cells into a full-fledged little 1-week from birth person. The changes are all fluid and gradual, and enormous development of the brain occurs in the first weeks following conception. Quote:
Massive development occurs in the embryo and then fetus at extremely early stages, and the child's development afterward is a continuous, steady process. Besides, we also know that the child's physical and psychological development continues to progress between infancy and childhood, childhood and adolescence, adolescence and adulthood. Birth is no magical line at which anything happens. All that happens is the child receives heightened awareness of the outside world. As Johns Hopkins University Psychologist Janet DiPietro said, "it is a trivial event in development. Nothing neurologically interesting happens." Quote:
If we're making the cut-off point based on psychological development, really the most obvious point at which the killing of a child should be made illegal is the time when development stops. That's late adolescence. We only choose birth because that's when we first see the child ourselves, and consequently our personal feeling of moral responsibility for him or her leaps. Many of the people seeking to change the abortion laws are Christians, and we have repeated scriptures in the Epistles and Gospels telling us not to violently rebel against the government. We try to make change through peaceful methods.
__________________
If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 06-19-2008 at 02:49 PM. |
||||
06-19-2008, 02:29 PM | #27 | |
Elf Lady
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In the lands where mountains are but a fairytale
Posts: 8,588
|
Quote:
I didn't mean to say that I was pro-abortion because the child will have a bad life. Or because you don't know if it will be happier if it's aborted or not. Just tried to say that neither side can really use that sort of assumption to support their position. IMHO, in the end it's between the woman and her Maker, as I said before.
__________________
Love always, deeply and true ★ Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. ★ Friendship is sharing openly, laughing often, trusting always, caring deeply.
...The Earth laughs in flowers ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Hamatreya"... |
|
06-19-2008, 02:58 PM | #28 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
Posts: 6,343
|
Quote:
There is no fixed point at which someone ceases to be potential, and if you're calculating by the physical development of the human, any set point to say that "here personhood begins" is arbitrary.
__________________
If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
|
06-19-2008, 03:00 PM | #29 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
Posts: 6,343
|
Well, in the end Joseph Kony's deeds will also be between him and his Maker. That doesn't mean we can't try to create just laws here on Earth, too .
__________________
If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
06-19-2008, 03:21 PM | #30 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
Posts: 6,343
|
On a related issue, politicians in the Netherlands have legalized and regulated the infanticide of children with terminal medical conditions or disabilities.
Quote:
__________________
If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 06-19-2008 at 03:27 PM. |
|
06-19-2008, 03:46 PM | #31 |
The Ñoldóran
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Mishawaka, IN
Posts: 2,050
|
I don't see anything wrong with that.
Children, the same as adults, have the right to some level of dignity in their lives, and in their deaths. Do you really think that it is alright to let a child live if it is 'certain' that his life is going to be one of 'hopeless and unbearable' pain? That sounds rather cruel to me. Death is not the worst of all possible options. I think this mindset that even being allowed to live in horrible pain is preferable to death comes from a natural human fear of death, but is in many ways cowardly and cruel. As for the suicide comment made before in reference to my father - he has been suicidally depressed for fifteen years, and there have been times we have been unable to leave him alone. If not for the pain it would cause my mother, my brother and myself, I am quite certain that my father would not still be with us.
__________________
Then Celegorm no more would stay, And Curufin smiled and turned away... ~The Lay of Leithian Last edited by Curufin : 06-19-2008 at 03:50 PM. |
06-19-2008, 03:54 PM | #32 | ||
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 102
|
Quote:
That's scary. Who wants to make a decision on a subject they know they know nothing about? I admit, it's totally beyond me what the definition of life is, so I personally wish to avoid making any possibly decisions regarding it, in fear of deeply regretting them afterward. Quote:
Also, a huge percentage of people who come to her looking for an abortion know near to nothing about abortions. They don't know how it works, how emotionally traumatizing the process itself is, what the risks of depression later in life are, and certainly nothing about what the infant with go through. Because sadly, the pro-choice movement doesn't want them to know. They want it to be clean, and black and white. It's not. It's a giant gray area, and one that should be more freely discussed outside the context of this bloody culture war. It does more damage than good.
__________________
Every blade in the field, Every leaf in the forest, Lays down its life in its season, As beautifully as it was taken up. Thoreau. |
||
06-19-2008, 03:59 PM | #33 | ||
The Ñoldóran
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Mishawaka, IN
Posts: 2,050
|
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
Then Celegorm no more would stay, And Curufin smiled and turned away... ~The Lay of Leithian |
||
06-19-2008, 04:09 PM | #34 | ||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 4,535
|
Quote:
The ONLY reason everyone doesn't see this for the monstrous invasion of government into the life of an individual that it is is because people blame women for being pregnant. It's all through this thread, already. "If a woman chooses to have sex, she should know she might have a baby." There might be some lip-service to rape exceptions, or 'life of the mother' but basically the message is, 'She asked for it, let her suffer." I know more about fertility and pregnancy than most people on this board will ever live to. And I say, "Being pregnant is a big darn deal, but it is NOTHING compared to having a baby." They are both more immense than any male will ever comprehend, and more complicated, and the only reasonable preventative is forbidding heterosexual behavior, at all. Because as long as women and men 'fraternize' the potential for pregnancy exists, and it won't always be welcome. Quote:
__________________
That would be the swirling vortex to another world. Cool. I want one. TMNT No, I'm not emo. I just have a really poor sense of direction. (Thanks to katya for this quote) This is the best news story EVER! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26087293/ “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”...John McCain "I shall go back. And I shall find that therapist. And I shall whack her upside her head with my blanket full of rocks." ...Louisa May |
||
06-19-2008, 04:41 PM | #35 | ||||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
Posts: 6,343
|
Quote:
But I entirely agree with your position that people should err on the side of caution when deciding the fate of a human life. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
I'll respond to the rest of your post shortly.
__________________
If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
||||
06-19-2008, 04:45 PM | #36 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, CA
Posts: 10,820
|
[Aristotle]Silly Lief, potential and material are the same thing![/Aristotle]
__________________
Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
06-19-2008, 04:52 PM | #37 | |
The Ñoldóran
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Mishawaka, IN
Posts: 2,050
|
Quote:
__________________
Then Celegorm no more would stay, And Curufin smiled and turned away... ~The Lay of Leithian |
|
06-19-2008, 05:23 PM | #38 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 4,535
|
Like methods to control fertility.
__________________
That would be the swirling vortex to another world. Cool. I want one. TMNT No, I'm not emo. I just have a really poor sense of direction. (Thanks to katya for this quote) This is the best news story EVER! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26087293/ “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”...John McCain "I shall go back. And I shall find that therapist. And I shall whack her upside her head with my blanket full of rocks." ...Louisa May |
06-19-2008, 05:27 PM | #39 |
Elven Maiden
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 3,309
|
Mari, I think you make a lot of good points. I certainly wouldn't have cared if I'd have died before I had any attachment to anything in the world, and no one's really gonna miss the kid either. As for how things turn out for the mother, well, that's her deal.
Also I read once or twice that maybe the fetus feels pain, well, like I care. Life is full of pain. Don't underestimate maternal instincts. I think a lot of pregnant women, by choice or not, feel a tremendous amount of attachment to the unborn child. And I did see an ultrasound. With head and arms and legs and cute and all. |
06-19-2008, 06:17 PM | #40 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 102
|
Lol!
__________________
Every blade in the field, Every leaf in the forest, Lays down its life in its season, As beautifully as it was taken up. Thoreau. |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Religion and Individualism | Beren3000 | General Messages | 311 | 04-17-2012 10:07 PM |
Abortion. | PippinTook | General Messages | 1004 | 06-18-2008 06:14 PM |
Abortion and Handguns | Aeryn | General Messages | 256 | 01-31-2003 01:39 AM |
Abortion | Gwaimir Windgem | General Messages | 9 | 01-28-2003 11:05 PM |
Let Gandalf smite the Abortion thread! | Gilthalion | General Messages | 7 | 08-27-2000 02:52 PM |