Abortion.

[Rían]

It's a very complex subject - nice posts, IRex.

[HLGStrider]

Reads Rian's siggy and wonders if she has found another Chris Rice fan. . .the chance of it. . .

once the fetus has been saved and brought to term and born it immediately becomes "the problem" or "the enemy". a double standard Ive always found unbelievable. but millions happily justify this kind of duel thinking to themselves without a problem.

I don't know why you find it so unbelievable. It is similar to someone being against the death penalty not having any thought for prison conditions, I guess. Sure, prison conditions are ghastly, but if you believe the death penalty is murder you are more intent on stopping the prisoner from being murdered than seeing that the prisoner, once he has been saved from murder, is comfortable.

However, I don't think it is a fair accusation. Most prolifers do care a lot about children. I would very much like to adopt someday. I plan to have one biological daughter and then wait until she is in highschool to adopt another (I'm only 19 and unmarried at this point, so I have awhile to go). I also care about poor children. I sponsor a child through World Vision and am a major charity sucker. Most of the Christians I know are similarly generous and similarly pro-life.

You have also missed another point. The solution to abortion is a lot simpler than the solution to poverty. In America we have been "fighting" poverty for centuries. We invest a great deal of money in it, but it doesn't go away.

Sure, I care about those unaborted children. I just don't think the government has any effective way to help them, unlike the pre-borns who a simple law would help immensely.

so in the end we are forced to choose between stripping away the rights of an adult woman for the potential life of some cells in her own body OR terminating this potential life based on needs/whims/issues of the fully grown fully conscious.

I would like someone to logically prove to me that abortion is a right.

I think I can logically prove that free speech, religion, and association are all rights. Give me a little more time and I think I could prove the right to bear arms. I don't think you can logically prove to me that abortion is a right.

Meaning an inalienable one, endowed by the creator and what not.

[Earniel]

I don't really see how one can prove any right logically. To me the selection of what is a right and what is isn't is largely based on one's perceptions or that of a society and humanitairian thinking. I don't really see how logic would fit in.

[HLGStrider]

Which right do you want me to prove?

By your standard, then, there are no "inalienable rights" as they are all arbitrary and granted by society. If so, the right to 'choose" is meaningless and can be revoked by society, so it doesn't really matter if there is a right to choose or not.

[Earniel]

The ones you mentioned are just fine. Thanks. Perhaps better in Private Messages? Since we are moving a bit off topic.

[HLGStrider]

It is perfectly on topic, but I was hoping you would limit me to one of the above because the proof will take a paragraph or two.

Why it is on topic:

I asked for logical proof that there is such a right as abortion. I claim that rights can be logically proven. If rights are, as you suggest, arbitrary, then there is no right to abortion, and therefore the arguement that outlawing abortion limits women's rights is void (as is the right of the baby to life, actually and the right to free speech, etc.).

I believe that a right can be logically proven to be a right, and it must fit certain perameters:


A right cannot void another person's right.
A right cannot be taken away except by force.
A right exists previous to government intervention.

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

compasionate thoughts of course. and well spoken. but in reality thousands and thousands of women in this situation do NOT have such simple straight forward options.

But these thousands of women are not all drug addicts. Some abort because they can not be bothered to look after a chilld and some even abort out of spite to the baby's father.

if your life is such a mess that you can barely keep yourself alive then what are the odds for your offspring having a quality pregnancy and childhood? if you are addicted to drugs and you get pregnant chances are you arent going to stop taking drugs. do you know what that does to a developing fetus?

I can not say I do but I'm guessing that it isn't good. If a 15 year old was pregnant then they wouldn't be left to cope with it themselves. Parent's, Social Workers and sometimes the baby's father' family help you get through that and help to make sure you have a healthy pregnancy.

and if adoption was such an easy solution we wouldnt have half way houses filled with young abandoned children. unfortunately many people who adopt are "shopping" for a particular variety of child if you will and this leaves many many unlucky children without hope and destined to slip through the cracks, abondoned by a society that insisted it be brought to term. as i stated before, for many pro lifers,

I wouldn't say that people who adopt are shopping for the right child. Yes, they want to make sure that the child is a good child but i doubt many people care whether thay have blond or brown hair.

more well intentioned compasionate thinking on your part. and thats commendable. but unfortunately, again in this world we live in you cant save everyone. in fact a WHOLE lot of people will get lost through the cracks and become utter failure stories live horrible lives and die anyway. and you have to ask yourself is it better that their mother be forced to bear them for nine months, have them grow up miserable and abandoned and then have them die anyway, fully conscious and aware of their plight OR is it better to stop their development long before they become a conscious organism destined for a hopeless life? Youre right its a horrible choice either way.

Why thank you. Surely it would be better to give them a chance of making something of their life. What if the child you abort would have gone on to find the cure to cancer or to something else to benefit the earth.

Yes but I think abortion deals with the relatively unique situation of having a life form growing within another body. You cant really make an analogy to that. it would be GREAT if we had the technology to take out a fetus even at its earliest stage with no obtrusive surgery and sustain that potential life in another location so the woman no longer was being held hostage by the pregnancy. but unfortunately we dont have that ability. so in the end we are forced to choose between stripping away the rights of an adult woman for the potential life of some cells in her own body OR terminating this potential life based on needs/whims/issues of the fully grown fully conscious. Again, no good choices at all.

Here I agree with Inked. I'm sure the fetus would like to be free as much as the woman. Most women who are pregnant endure this though. They sacrifice 9 months of their life to bring their child onto this lifa and many women do this more than once. If some can do it, hy can't others.

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

... No i personally wouldnt kill you for most any reason. But then I personally wouldnt have an abortion either. thats my CHOICE. But I cant make that choice for someone else. And neither can you. That needs to be up to them.

So you personally wouldn't kill Rian, but if someone else wanted to - you think they should have that right? IF allowing her to live would hamper their lifestyle, or economic situation or something??

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Valandil

So you personally wouldn't kill Rian, but if someone else wanted to - you think they should have that right? IF allowing her to live would hamper their lifestyle, or economic situation or something??

hey i was talking about lief. i didnt say anything about not killing rian.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by inked

It is natural that sexual relations result in pregnancy unless steps are take to prevent it. Let's move out of stone age thought processes. Where in nature does inter-gender sex not result in reproduction? Where an animal endowed with the ability to understand and deal with consequences BEFORE engaging in intercourse takes appropriate precautions! Which animal is that? Only humans, so far as we know.

Which animal routinely fails to so do and then kills the product of lack of forethought? Right! Humans.

Anybody else see a break between the sapiens component of our classification and this behaviour?

Hey Im the one that likes to argue that we ARE animals and we DO act like animals. You bring up a perfect example of that. We have sex despite risks. We have abortions despite the tragedy of it. Animals have sex despite the risks. Animals often KILL infants if its too their benefit. I see a perfect parallel there. If you are saying we should be better then that then don’t count on it. Because, in the end, on a global scale, we WILL act like animals. Period.

So instead of approaching this from the idealistic but impossible end of the stick we should be focusing on the realistic end: HOW can we limit abortions by making it a less likely choice to make?

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

It's a very complex subject

couldn’t agree more.

Originally Posted by HLGStrider

I don't know why you find it so unbelievable. It is similar to someone being against the death penalty not having any thought for prison conditions, I guess.

and that’s a horrible double standard as well. Thanks for bringing it up.

Sure, prison conditions are ghastly, but if you believe the death penalty is murder you are more intent on stopping the prisoner from being murdered than seeing that the prisoner, once he has been saved from murder, is comfortable.

then you (I) are (am) being a hypocrite in my opinion because quick death might actually be a much better fate then 30 years of unbelievable squalor and abuse. So if you are intent on saving lives you NEED to be concerned with the repercussions of your actions. You need to have a real interest in what happens TO those lives you saved AFTER you save them.

I would very much like to adopt someday. I plan to have one biological daughter and then wait until she is in highschool to adopt another (I'm only 19 and unmarried at this point, so I have awhile to go). I also care about poor children. I sponsor a child through World Vision and am a major charity sucker.

and this is equally as commendable let me say. But hun you realize adopting one child and giving a few dollars to charity will not account for EVERY situation. That’s my point. And that’s the problem. The numbers are against us here. There will ALWAYS be losers in this game. Always.

You have also missed another point. The solution to abortion is a lot simpler than the solution to poverty.

the “simple� solution being ban it? Have the state take command over womens bodies? I don’t see that as a solution at all. the “hard� “solution� to abortion is pouring money into programs for poor single mothers and pouring money into more effective sex education and contraception programs and pouring money into our often abysmal foster infrastructure in this country and pouring money into pre-natal technological developments that could make a lot of this argument moot someday. Your “simple� solution will not work politically so you get nowhere.

Sure, I care about those unaborted children. I just don't think the government has any effective way to help them

so you just wash your hands of it like that? Do you spend as much time protesting about the maltreatment of children as you do speaking about the abortion issue?

I would like someone to logically prove to me that abortion is a right.

yer looking at the wrong side of the issue. The point is that a zygote does NOT currently have full human rights in this country. And really should it? Your hair follicle is just as human as the zygote, but we would never defend its human rights based solely on that fact. But I suppose that’s a separate debate. And again its one that goes back to when do you BECOME human (isnt there something about Man being endowed at birth with rights which are unalienable somewhere?) Currently the zygote or fetus or whatever you want to call it doesn’t have the right NOT to be aborted when it resides INSIDE another human who DOES have full human rights.

So to answer your question… logically… a woman DOES have the right to perform medical operations on her body. Well you wanted a logical answer. Personally I think this is one issue where its ok to speak to the various emotions that might be swirling around you when you focus on it. Its totally legitimate to be appalled by abortion. Its perfectly OK.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by HLGStrider

Reads Rian's siggy and wonders if she has found another Chris Rice fan. . .the chance of it. . .

Yes! Yes! Yes!

"Deep Enough to Dream", "Past the Edges", "Run the Earth and Watch the Sky", "Smell the Color Nine" - can't live without 'em! Which are your favorites? (I'm sure the mods will allow us one teensy little digression here ...)

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

I don't really see how one can prove any right logically. To me the selection of what is a right and what is isn't is largely based on one's perceptions or that of a society and humanitairian thinking. I don't really see how logic would fit in.

I think you're spot on, Eärniel. I totally agree.

Originally Posted by IRex

hey i was talking about lief. i didnt say anything about not killing rian.

Originally Posted by IRex

couldn't agree more

Hey, you cut my sentence off - you didn't quote the compliment part Are you afraid a compliment from me might ruin your image?

[Insidious Rex]

well i would have quoted you if it had been an insult.

[inked]

IR,
"I see a perfect parallel there. If you are saying we should be better then that then don’t count on it. Because, in the end, on a global scale, we WILL act like animals. Period."

We are RATIONAL animals. The very separation of man from beast is that he has specifically human qualities and the ability to think and judge among actions.

Why plead animality when you must use reason to justify the behaviour?

Shall we eat our young next? (Not a new idea, and it would help with both overpopulation and dwindling food resources! cf. A Modest Proposal by J. Swift).

[HLGStrider]

IRex, have you ever heard of the logical falacy known as the red herring? It is bringing up another subject, a possibly related but still another subject, into a discussion. The poverty issue is another subject, possibly related, but another subject, and bringing it up is a red herring. It doesn't help your debate at all and seems purely aimed at proving the opposite side to be hypocritical in an emotional appeal which doesn't really help a debate at all. It may be a good way to argue if you are simply interested in 'winning votes' but in a logical discourse it does no good.

Most women who are pregnant endure this though. They sacrifice 9 months of their life to bring their child onto this lifa and many women do this more than once. If some can do it, hy can't others.

An interesting point to bring up. We know that some women have more than one abortion within their lives. If they were forced to carry the first child to term, I think they would be less likely to engage in the activity that got them pregnant in the first place, less likely to get pregnant again, and so no need for a second abortion.

So instead of approaching this from the idealistic but impossible end of the stick we should be focusing on the realistic end: HOW can we limit abortions by making it a less likely choice to make?

A lot of prolife groups are more involved with this than the political side. This is where you get crisis pregnancy centers, Angels in Adoption, and similar groups. This is simply because we are forced to work within this end. We are forced to work within a twisted system.

then you (I) are (am) being a hypocrite in my opinion because quick death might actually be a much better fate then 30 years of unbelievable squalor and abuse. So if you are intent on saving lives you NEED to be concerned with the repercussions of your actions. You need to have a real interest in what happens TO those lives you saved AFTER you save them.

First things first.

If a man is drowning but also has a broken leg, you rescue him first, then you worry about the broken leg. Drowning kills. Broken leg doesn't. Drowning kills now. Broken leg may eventually kill over time.

Abortion is killing now. Poverty kills slowly, but over a huge time period. I say save the baby and THEN worry about its life. If you let the baby be killed there is no life to worry about, and your excuse really is just an easy way out of a problem. Go ahead and kill them because I'm not willing to deal with their situation when they are impoverished.

and this is equally as commendable let me say. But hun you realize adopting one child and giving a few dollars to charity will not account for EVERY situation.

Dear, you realize that if everyone did it we would have a pretty good start.

There will ALWAYS be losers in this game. Always.

The poor will always be with us, admittedly. But does that give us a good reason to kill them?

Have the state take command over womens bodies?

No, just over the other persons within their bodies.

so you just wash your hands of it like that? Do you spend as much time protesting about the maltreatment of children as you do speaking about the abortion issue?

Red herring, but as it is very accusational, I will deal with it (this is why I say it is an emotional appeal but not logical. It forces a defense out of an offense off the topic).

I have never clocked my protestation time. I know that I give more money to help the maltreatment of children than to stop abortion. I don't generally do any protestion at all in real life. I am one of those people who believes picket people are wasting their time. I have only written a letter to the editor once and it was on neither the subject of abortion or poverty.

yer looking at the wrong side of the issue. The point is that a zygote does NOT currently have full human rights in this country.

My point is that it should.

Your hair follicle is just as human as the zygote

Correct me if I am wrong, but the follicle is part of me, is it not? The hair, if you want to get on that track, is dead, but the follicle is just as much a part of me as the one or two cells in the zygot are part of that feotus. Just because I am made up of many cells and the baby is made up of one or two, I don't see anymore right to it.

And the baby is not part of the mother. It has an entirely distinct genetic code right from conception. The follicle will have mine.

isnt there something about Man being endowed at birth with rights which are unalienable somewhere?)

It may be somewhere (for instance it is in your post) but it isn't in our founding documents. "Endowed by his creator with certain unalienable rights." Nothing about when they are endowed.

Personally I think this is one issue where its ok to speak to the various emotions that might be swirling around you when you focus on it. Its totally legitimate to be appalled by abortion. Its perfectly OK.

I'm not one of those people who needs to be told her emotions are ok. I have them whether they are ok or not and will cry if you don't let me have them. WHA!!!

Anyway, back to the inalienables.

If there are no inalienable rights, we are left with Maybury facism (as opposed to the idea of facism we have, Maybury defines facisms as "Whatever has the most force behind it is right because there is no right or wrong.").

Under Facism (by this definiton, I have heard others) there is no need for justification of any law or political action. The only thing necessary is fear of repurcusion. It is all right for me to kill a man, but I have to watch out because his brother might return the action by killing me. It may be all right for me to oppress a political minority, but if they gain majority status somehow they may in turn oppress me. By this philosophy, Hitler was in the right simply because he was able to maintain absolute power for a long while. . .until he was whooped and then he was in the wrong.

In the case of this philosophy being true, this entire arguement is void and therefore whoever wins political is in the right.

There are prolife facists. They generally don't see themselves as such, but in facism as there is no wrong it is all right to bomb those who disagree with you in order to get back in power.

I disagree with them, obviously. I disagree with all facism. Right is right, despite force. RightS are RightS despite force. I believe I have the right to live even if you kill me. I believe I have a right to speek even if I get imprisoned for it.

People in China have the right to everything people in America have. It is simply that in China the government steps on a lot of those rights.

If there are no rights, it is simply the matter of who can get political power faster.

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

Originally Posted by HLGStrider

First things first.

If a man is drowning but also has a broken leg, you rescue him first, then you worry about the broken leg. Drowning kills. Broken leg doesn't. Drowning kills now. Broken leg may eventually kill over time.

Abortion is killing now. Poverty kills slowly, but over a huge time period. I say save the baby and THEN worry about its life. If you let the baby be killed there is no life to worry about, and your excuse really is just an easy way out of a problem. Go ahead and kill them because I'm not willing to deal with their situation when they are impoverished.

I totally agree with you here. What right do we have to decide whether someone lives or dies, even if they are the mother they should have no right to decide. Mothers aren't allowed to kill the child when it is a minute old, why should they not even give them the chance to live?

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Brownie - but you're still trying to lose my "intent" idea - I'd rephrase your line from "you are saying that making war for a very good reason justifies that fact that innocents will be killed... " to "you are saying that making war for a very good reason, intent being one necessary reason, justifies that fact that innocents will be killed... ". IOW, 'intent' may be a 'good reason', but it is also a required reason, so you can't just lose it in the 'good reason' category.

Kind of like if Fred killed someone, then even tho the dead body is still a dead body, regardless of Fred's intent, Fred can only be tried for first degree murder if there is intent. (or whatever the law is)

But that's enough on that

i've read this a few times and am still lost

from your earlier statements i assume you are saying wartime innocent deaths are not the same because eventhough the innocent person killed did absolutely nothing wrong (and had no "intent") they just happened to be in the "wrong place, wrong time" with someone who did do something wrong???

i don't see the difference myself

[Rían]

It's hard to explain, but to me there's quite a big difference - let me try again (and thanks for sticking with me! Sorry I can't explain better)

Capital punishment death - there was intent for harm on the part of the criminal, so society responds with the consequence that it has pre-approved for this type of action (and I think the death penalty is ONLY if there is intent/premeditation - i.e., not for accidental deaths, or even "in the passion of the moment" deaths).

Wartime death of innocents - there was intent for harm on the part of some leaders of a country/group, so the harmed group responds with a consequence approved by its group. Some innocents will be unintentionally killed because of this consequence, but THEY WOULD NOT have been killed if there had NOT been intent for harm on the part of those leaders. With abortion, there's no wrong-doing on the part of the baby, nor is the baby's death accidental in the same sense as a wartime accidental death, because the abortion is NOT in reaction to someone's chosen harmful action, like a war is. (and I'm talking about the vast majority of abortions, which are NOT due to rape.)

Abortion - The baby that is killed has done nothing wrong.
There is no pre-set penalty judged by society to be the fit consequence of CHOOSING to be conceived, because one does not choose to be conceived.
There IS a pre-set penalty judged by society to be the fit consequence of CHOOSING to commit a terrible, pre-meditated crime.
Therefore I don't see why abortion can be considered comparable to capital punishment, or why some people think it's hypocritical to be for capital punishment and against abortion.

Anyway, if this doesn't clear it up, never mind

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Anyway, if this doesn't clear it up, never mind

i'll agree with you on capital punishment, but not the war part... but i'll stop buggin' ya, for today

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by HLGStrider

IRex, have you ever heard of the logical falacy known as the red herring? It is bringing up another subject, a possibly related but still another subject, into a discussion. The poverty issue is another subject, possibly related, but another subject, and bringing it up is a red herring.

wait… let me get this straight… Im not allowed to bring up the clearly hypocritical fact that many many prolife conservatives are the very same people who rail against welfare programs and sex education programs and the “hand out� mentality of big government and that instead poor people should learn to pull their damn selves up by their boot straps and have the government stay away from my pay check so I can keep my 4 car garage and my nice suburban house and the vacation house at the shore? You don’t feel abortion and child welfare in our country aren’t intrinsically connected? Its not only just “related� its PART of the whole picture here. That’s why so many fundamentalists on this subject get nowhere because they refuse to look at the WHOLE picture.

Let me ask you this. Do you think the best thing we could have done in Iraq (oh dear hes bringing up Iraq in an abortion thread… the message board is going to implode now!) is gone in and taken out sadam and smashed things up then just left? Or would that have been the absolute worst thing we could have done because then Iraq would become a terrorist state and the people of iraq would have been left with no infrastructure and no education or health care systems and there would be a horrible unbalancing of power in the middle east that would certainly go against us in the long run. And desperation and poverty and despair would breed fundamentalism which would then be free to grow unfettered fueled by this despair and by resentment and ignorance. And you would end up with another Taliban state or worse yet simply a big chaotic black hole in the middle of the middle east that would be a plague on the world for generations. So then… is it your position that I shouldn’t bring up what happens AFTER the invasion when talking ABOUT the invasion? Massively short sighted if you ask me.

It doesn't help your debate at all

its simply a fact! Are you saying that if we agreed as a people on a working plan that would make sure EVERY single potential abortion that instead turned into a birth would have a guarantee of NOT living a miserable horrible life, that this wouldn’t make a massive impact on the number of abortions that occurred in this country? So many women get abortions because they think they are no way in a position to take care of that child adequately and the crumbs being thrown at them currently aren’t enough or simply go unnoticed because they are so far outside the mainstream of society. You think I shouldn’t even bring this very important PART of the debate up?? Are you kidding? Youre dreaming if you think you can limit the discussion to NO ABORTIONS BECAUSE ITS WRONG! and get anywhere at all.

We know that some women have more than one abortion within their lives. If they were forced to carry the first child to term, I think they would be less likely to engage in the activity that got them pregnant in the first place, less likely to get pregnant again, and so no need for a second abortion.

“forced�… *shiver* and meanwhile the baby they were forced to bring to term ends up living a horrible life and dies but hey that’s not part of the discussion apparently. And the woman who was forced to give birth (would we be putting her in a prison or a holding camp for suspect mothers until the baby was born? Or just holding a gun to her head for nine months?) is now in a much worse situation because shes lost what little income she may have had and/or dropped out of what passes for education where she is and the father refuses to even acknowledge her existence (do prolife lawyers ever take child support cases pro bono for mothers who would have otherwise aborted? I don’t hear much about that either). So you’ve won your battle and you can be smug about that but you’ve screwed up two lives. But oh wait, once again we aren’t allowed to bring up the after effects are we. Well I say this debate is ALL about repercussions. And its time people realized that.

If a man is drowning but also has a broken leg, you rescue him first, then you worry about the broken leg. Drowning kills. Broken leg doesn't. Drowning kills now. Broken leg may eventually kill over time.

no what you REALLY need to do is ask yourself why the heck are thousands and thousands of men with broken legs drowning in this particular area? What the heck is going on that causes this? And is there any way we can change things so that people are less likely to be in a position to drown? Hm perhaps they would be in a much less likely position to drown IF so many of them didn’t have broken legs. After all its hard to swim with a broken leg. So lets find out WHY so many of these people have broken legs and attempt to fix that somehow and the number of drownings will most certainly fall.

But anyway this analogy is a bit flawed because who seeks to drown? But people DO seek abortions. So in order for the analogy to work it would have to be men with broken legs attempting to kill themselves by drowning and prolifers rushing out to drag them and their broken leg back to shore to keep them alive. And then leave them laying there with their leg still broken as they rush off to save the next suicider.

Dear, you realize that if everyone did it we would have a pretty good start.

Yes and if everyone would just be nice to everyone else we wouldn’t have wars or crime or hatred or racism or jerry springer. but we are dealing with the real world here unfortunately not a fantasy utopia that can never be. So we need to approach real world problems with real world solutions not fantasy ones. When you approach real world problems with fantasy solutions you get other real world problems unfortunately.

The poor will always be with us, admittedly. But does that give us a good reason to kill them?

whos killing them? Im interested in helping them. Not make it worse for them.

No, just over the other persons within their bodies.

remember one mans person is another mans collection of cells. And no one as yet holds the ultimate scientific answer to that dilemma. So you are saying enforce YOUR beliefs on another person. While I am saying let EACH person choose for themselves.

I know that I give more money to help the maltreatment of children than to stop abortion. I don't generally do any protestion at all in real life. I am one of those people who believes picket people are wasting their time. I have only written a letter to the editor once and it was on neither the subject of abortion or poverty.

so then why are your views on this SO rigid and short sighted when it hasn’t been much of an issue for you in your life? Why are you having this big unwavering argument with someone on a web page when that same person thinks abortion is sad too but wants to approach the solution from a different angle?