"The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion"

[lpetrich]

The Daily Kos once reprinted The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/22/9334/83825), describing all the anti-abortion women who try to get abortions for themselves.

It mentioned numerous cases of such women, though it did not name any names.

One of them, an antiabortion activist, when asked what she is going to do about her position an an antiabortion-activist organization, said, 'You're not going to tell them, are you!?'

And some such women claim that they are not like all those "trash" and "sluts" and "whores" who get abortions. They claim that their case is different from other women's cases, even though those other women often have reasons much like theirs.

One such opponent even started screaming that the abortion personnel were "murderers" during her abortion.

As a result, some doctors do not perform abortions on women who are opposed to abortion.

However, some anti-abortion women do become pro-choice or at least more open-minded about abortion after getting abortions.

Although few studies have been made of this phenomenon, a 1981 study (Henshaw, S.K. and G. Martire. Abortion and the Public Opinion Polls: 1. Morality and Legality. Family Planning Perspectives. 14:2, pp 53-60, March/April 1982) found that 24% of women who had abortions considered the procedure morally wrong, and 7% of women who'd had abortions disagreed with the statement, "Any woman who wants an abortion should be permitted to obtain it legally." A 1994/95 survey of nearly 10,000 abortion patients showed 18% of women having abortions are born-again or Evangelical Christians. Many of these women oppose abortion, as research shows Catholic women have an abortion rate 29% higher than Protestant women, and one in five women having abortions are born-again or Evangelical Christians.

[Hevvin Machine]

Cool.
A fight about abortion. How trendy.


Should a male have the right to require the mother of his child to abort, without any government oversight or interference in his private decision?
Hev

[DMB]

Thta was an interesting article. Back in the late 1980s, an Italian woman who was involved in contracpetive provision explained to me why Catholic Italy had rather low contraceptive prevalence and a rather high abortion rate. It goes like this:

If you go to confession and tell the priest that you are using contraception, it is clear that you are going to continue doing so, and hence cannot be absolved from your sin. If OTOH you confess to having had an abortion, you can be repentant and sincerely intend not to repeat the sin and hence can be absolved.

Hev, a man can "require" a woman to abort or do anything else for that matter. It doesn't mean that he will get his way.

[Valheru]

Should a male have the right to require the mother of his child to abort, without any government oversight or interference in his private decision?
Hev

It's not his body, so the answer is no. What's your point... because frankly I only see a strawman?

[BigEvil]

Cool.
Should a male have the right to require the mother of his child to abort, without any government oversight or interference in his private decision?
Hev

Very touchy subject for me.

My dickhead son-in-law tried to convince my daughter that he had that right.
My daughter eventually kicked him out, I was about to kill him.

When my daughter refused to get an abortion, he said, "You are pro-choice and an atheist to boot, its a little late to claim morality, isn't it?"

He actually said that. Fwiw, he's non-practicing catholic.

Little fucktard is now afraid to come around my house.

[DMB]

I think people like that don't get that pro-choice is not necessarily pro-abortion. And to assume that pro-choice is immoral is deeply offensive to many people.

[Danhalen]

Should a male have the right to require the mother of his child to abort, without any government oversight or interference in his private decision?Absolutely not. It's not my body, so it's not my choice. Furthermore, just because you say it's "his child" does not make the fetus any more his child than a sperm cell is his child.

[Garnet]

Countdown to the "but if she refuses to have an abortion then the male shouldn't have to pay child support" argument in 3....2....1.....

[Garnet]

To the OP. I don't find it surprising. Finding yourself with an unwanted pregnancy can change your view very quickly.

[Matty]

Countdown to the "but if she refuses to have an abortion then the male shouldn't have to pay child support" argument in 3....2....1.....
Go on. I'll bite. :)

not not pay any, but certainly it should be taken into account when assigning payments IMO.

Its always assumed that the woman is an innocent dupe in these discussions, which isnt the case. As it stands its shared responsibility for the conception however the moment it happens all the power then shifts to the woman. That simply isnt right.


Should a male have the right to require the mother of his child to abort, without any government oversight or interference in his private decision?Nope of course not. No one should have the right to make that decision other than the woman. However there should be implications of bringing a child into the world against the express wishes of the other party. To then expect the guy to pay a significant chunk of his wages for the next 18years purely on the basis of her decision is bollocks.

I think that the system should be fairer, and that the woman bear more responsibility of her choice than simply, "i'm having it and you are paying for it, like it or not"

I say this as a loving father ans someone who if i were to get someone pregnant would never shirk that, however it is massively unfair to take the "shoulda kept his dick in his pants route" and slap the "blame" all with the guy, when BOTH bear the responsibility and the woman has all the power. If he refused to wear a condom. Fair enough. If they did but it broke and then the woman decides to keep it against the guys wishes, that is very different IMO.

Basically if you cant afford to bring a kid up then you shouldnt fucking have one.

I would also be willing to change my tune if the chances of custody were equal but we all know that all else being equal , every court in the world sides with the woman in that case too. I'd be more inclined to raise the nipper myself than to simply hand over cash AND rights to the woman who was equally as irresponsible as me


and someon needs to post this

Panicked, Sweat-Covered Pope Reverses Longstanding Ban On Abortion (http://www.theonion.com/content/news/panicked_sweat_covered_pope)

[Mediancat]

It might be argued that if the woman bears the child and raises it, that that is her share of the responsibility . . .

Rob

[Matty]

It might, but that would be far from the whole story if it is her choice and her choice alone. I'm sure the discrepancy could be adjusted in terms of access rights vs paymeys etc but at the moent it is all stacked in one direction.

My main bugbear with the whole parenting thing, in this day and age of supposed equality, is that ALL the power lies with the woman , the guy has no say after the point he sticks his dick in her. I'm sure more than one kid has been born out of spite over the years, or to tie some guy down that doesnt want it , one is too many.

Like i said if the custody laws were anything other than totally fucked and uterly bias in the womans direction it might be a different story, but they arent. AL the cards are in the womans hand, and she can use them to manipulate the situation however she wishes.

Then there is the issue of making sure the money is spent on the child, not on some whim of the woman's too. If shes irresponsible enough to insist on a child even knowing she is giving it a relatively shit life before it is even born, the childs welfare is not exactly her top concern.

I'm not being a dick here. tis is more DA than anything, but i get tired of the whole "shoulds kept his dick in his pants" argument, like that should condemn a guy to a life of friggin servitude depending on her attitude. In a few cases in the UK the child support agencies were charging guys over 75% of their wages, there was at least one case of well meaning guys who paid what they could, still had acces restricted becasue it wasnt deemed wnough, and ended up topping themselves. No one wins in that situation. Where is any onus on the woman to not get herself not knocked up by some deadbeat wanker, or to try and tame said deadbeat wanker? The finger always seems to point i nthe direction of the "sperm donor" in these cases. How about if the woman swore she was on the pill but wasnt? The guys fault? Yeah hes a dick for believing her, but is that really reason enough to 100% take the side of the woman in these cases and fuck him over to the maximum possible? I dont think so. . And it IS the woman, not the kid, that is sided with.

Guys that go into it with their eyes open and then do a runner, or get cold feet after Jr is born and leg it, fair enough they should be made to pay but there are many cases where it isnt that simple and still everything is stacked against the guy.

[trendkill]

Countdown to the "but if she refuses to have an abortion then the male shouldn't have to pay child support" argument in 3....2....1.....But if she refuses to have an abortion then the male shouldn't have to pay child support.

Sorry, I'm not a fan of deadbeat dads either, but fair is fair.

[BigEvil]

Any fairness in the situation is illusional. If it was fair, they could flip a coin to see who was pregnant.

[Hevvin Machine]

Countdown to the "but if she refuses to have an abortion then the male shouldn't have to pay child support" argument in 3....2....1.....
That is, of course, exactly where I was going.
When trying to make sense out of a difficult problem it often helps to do thought experiments. Take a concept out to the extreme, or flip one term over, and see whether what used to make sense still does.

In modern America, if two adults get together and choose behaviour that results in a child the legal system suddenly gets so sexist that lawsuits would be filed if it were less politically correct. The female parent can decide that the fetus is a child and the male parent owes her decades worth of child support. She doesn't have to spend any of it on the child if she doesn't want to, the male parent just owes her, period. If on the other hand, the female parent decides that s/he is just a growth in her uterus she can kill him/her with impunity. The male parent has no say in the matter. This is so sexist that it is incoherent. But it isn't much questioned by politely politically correct society.

Don't get me wrong. I do not see state laws as a benchmark of morality. But as a thought experiment trying to discern right from wrong, the results are pretty darn clear. In order to remain convinced that "a woman's right to choose" trumps any other ethical concern one must keep those blinders on and pretend that the injustices do not exist. One must remain convinced that women aren't capable of exercising choice before becoming a parent. One must remain convinced that men can only be parents in the company of women.

I don't really have a problem at all with the laws that are so heavily loaded in favor of female parents. For all of history male parents were much more free to walk away from the results of their own sexual behaviour. The culture is deeply marinated in male icons and images that do not reflect the reality of parenting. Putting the burden back on the male half of any parental unit works for me.
But at the same time, the inherent sexist bigotry required to maintain the illusion that RvW is moral is obvious. Do the thought experiment for yourself. If the male parent is to be held responsible for his actions, then why is the female parent given license to just kill the fetus?
Hev

[BigEvil]

I never thought RvW as moral, just a lesser of evils.

[dancer_rnb]

Countdown to the "but if she refuses to have an abortion then the male shouldn't have to pay child support" argument in 3....2....1.....

Well, since you are bringing it up......:p

[Bright Life]

Countdown to the "but if she refuses to have an abortion then the male shouldn't have to pay child support" argument in 3....2....1.....But if she refuses to have an abortion then the male shouldn't have to pay child support.

Sorry, I'm not a fan of deadbeat dads either, but fair is fair.

Bottom Line: Life ain't fair. The best interests of the resulting child are what is at stake.

In other words...

Just because Daddy told everyone he wanted you aborted doesn't mean he gets a discount on child support.

[Christina]

I can agree with Matty's principle in that if two people agree not to have children and the woman willfully breaks that agreement then it's pretty unfair to the guy to be stuck paying for her untrustworthiness for the next 18 years but IMO it's still about taking responsibility for your actions on both sides and about taking care of the child. To truly equalize the situation beyond addressing the bias in custody decisions there would have to be a legally recognized and binding agreement in place before they have sex as to what would happen in the case of pregnancy and who would bear the financial responsibilities. That's highly impractical when it comes to sex outside of a committed relationship.

[Matty]

Any fairness in the situation is illusional. If it was fair, they could flip a coin to see who was pregnant.

the woman can choose whether to be a mom or not, the guy has no say in whether he is a dad or not. yet is still expected to pay a chunk of his wages depending on which way SHE decides.

There is NO fairness in the situation. It is 100% woman biased.

[BigEvil]

Any fairness in the situation is illusional. If it was fair, they could flip a coin to see who was pregnant.

the woman can choose whether to be a mom or not, the guy has no say in whether he is a dad or not. yet is still expected to pay a chunk of his wages depending on which way SHE decides.

There is NO fairness in the situation. It is 100% woman biased.

Agreed that there is no fairness in the situation. I don't understand how you think there can or should be fairness in the situation. They are not buying a car or a house. When the man and woman do not agree on whether to carry the pregnancy to term, no fair and palatable compromise is available. None. No court or law is going to come up with a fair and equitable solution. The best you can hope for is an adhoc measure that reduces the damage to a specific area. And that ad hoc solution is going to have numerous flaws.

You don't like the status quo? Fine, no one really does. I know I don't. What is your alternative? Do you even have one?

We could make it so that all a man has to do is say, "abort" and is free of all future obligations. Is the outcome of this an improvement for society. Such would be 100% male bias. What's the compromise?

How about this? If a male wants to get out of legal obligations due to the ramifications of his sex life, he can do so if he gets castrated or at least gets a vasectomy. Medical operation for medical operation, a bit fairer though somewhat draconian.

[frazier]

... the guy has no say in whether he is a dad or not. .... It is 100% woman biased.
Wow Matty, you make it sound as though the woman can reach into a guy's crotch and grab some sperm any time she wants.

[BigEvil]

... the guy has no say in whether he is a dad or not. .... It is 100% woman biased.
Wow Matty, you make it sound as though the woman can reach into a guy's crotch and grab some sperm any time she wants.

If she has an incredibly sexy voice, she probably doesn't have to take that much effort. (We had a plain Jane nothing special female at work who had this soft smokey voice that was able to get any of us males to do whatever was her beckoning.)

[Christina]

You don't like the status quo? Fine, no one really does. I know I don't. What is your alternative? Do you even have one?


This is where many conversations get frustrating for me also. When people talk about public policy they're basically comparing various alternatives and their ramifications and evaluating the potential for unintended consequences if implemented. To say that something is bad or good you have to look at it in relation to the other choices. What gets evaluated is really better or worse from different points of view because there will always be competing interests and there is no potential for pleasing everyone on any controversial issue.

I'm not familiar with the family court process in any detail but I would think that there's definitely room for improvement there. I bet there's organized groups working on it and that's a tangible way to channel the outrage.

[Danhalen]

I don't understand how fairness has anything to do with this. Someone is not going to be happy in an unwanted pregnancy no matter how you look at the situation.

[openeyes]

Back to the original topic of this thread:

I remember a story in the NYTimes a few years back (thought I might have saved it in a file someplace, but can't find) about how many families, especially Catholics, when faced with having a Down's Syndrome child, for example, decide it's in the best interests of their families to abort. In many cases, even the grandparents would agree that this was the best thing, even if they had championed the "pro-life" position for years.

It seems to be problematic for many people who purport these "moral" positions that it so often comes back to the fact that they don't/can't live them either, but somehow "they" are different and can make up their own minds and live their own lives. I've been thinking that lately about supposedly "staunch" Catholic Mel Gibson divorcing his wife and mother to his seven children now that his girlfriend is pregnant.

[BigEvil]

Back to the original topic of this thread:

I remember a story in the NYTimes a few years back (thought I might have saved it in a file someplace, but can't find) about how many families, especially Catholics, when faced with having a Down's Syndrome child, for example, decide it's in the best interests of their families to abort. In many cases, even the grandparents would agree that this was the best thing, even if they had championed the "pro-life" position for years.

It seems to be problematic for many people who purport these "moral" positions that it so often comes back to the fact that they don't/can't live them either, but somehow "they" are different and can make up their own minds and live their own lives. I've been thinking that lately about supposedly "staunch" Catholic Mel Gibson divorcing his wife and mother to his seven children now that his girlfriend is pregnant.

There are probably alot of different things going on in these decisions. Some are probably just basic hypocrital double standard. But I suspect that most are based upon a change in perspective that looks hypocrital but isn't. Its one thing to sit and give an opinion from an abstract philosophical position, quite another when the decision is no longer abstract but intimately real and personal. One's judgemental scales change and one begins considering things that paid no prominence in the abstract philosophical judgement. I don't consider that hypocrital, just a change in judgement.

It can be very hard to gauge one's pro-life position also. One can be pro-life while only thinking about the subject in general terms and not a specific instance.

Some people support laws as if they were nothing more than an opinion poll. Supporting RvW seems too much like saying you like abortion, so they are publically against it, even though they might privately agree with it.

With all that being said, there are numerous pro-lifers that walk the walk as well as talking the talk, so to speak.

[trendkill]

Countdown to the "but if she refuses to have an abortion then the male shouldn't have to pay child support" argument in 3....2....1.....But if she refuses to have an abortion then the male shouldn't have to pay child support.

Sorry, I'm not a fan of deadbeat dads either, but fair is fair.

Bottom Line: Life ain't fair. The best interests of the resulting child are what is at stake.

In other words...

Just because Daddy told everyone he wanted you aborted doesn't mean he gets a discount on child support.This is disingenuous, and the way you can tell is because if it were just about the financial welfare of the kid, it would be assumed that the taxpayers would be picking up the tab. Going after the dad specifically shows that it's not just about the money--it's about assigning responsibility (unfairly).

[Hevvin Machine]

Countdown to the "but if she refuses to have an abortion then the male shouldn't have to pay child support" argument in 3....2....1.....But if she refuses to have an abortion then the male shouldn't have to pay child support.

Sorry, I'm not a fan of deadbeat dads either, but fair is fair.

Bottom Line: Life ain't fair. The best interests of the resulting child are what is at stake.
The bottom line of the this thought experiment is to ask why the sexism is required. Why is a fetus a child if the female parent decides s/he is, but just a growth if she decides to kill him/her? Nobody has come anywhere close to addressing this.
In other words...

Just because Daddy told everyone he wanted you aborted doesn't mean he gets a discount on child support. So I'm asking again. Why is a fetus a child if the mother chooses to carry him/her to term, but not if she decides to kill him/her? If a fetus isn't a child, then why doesn't a male parent have the same right to choose against parental responsibilities prior to the birth of the child?
Hev

[frazier]

The bottom line of the this thought experiment is to ask why the sexism is required.
Dude. Biology 101, you should take it.

Why is a fetus a child if the mother chooses to carry him/her to term, but not if she decides to kill him/her?Um, no. It is a fetus if the woman decides to abort. It is also a fetus if the woman decides to carry. Many months later, it may become a child. This information is also available in Bio 101.

There's no question that modern medicine has altered the playing field, and culturally we may not have caught up. Two hundred years ago, a woman had about a 1 in 10 chance of dying as a result of pregnancy. That was a pretty heavy burden. Does the fact that modern medicine has improved her chances make you feel that we need to make her pay in other ways? Would you be so dismissive of her choice, if the odds of dying were still in effect?

It's not like cutting a pie, where you can make two equal pieces. There's no way at all to make it equal, so someone can always complain. :rolleyes:

[Hevvin Machine]

The bottom line of the this thought experiment is to ask why the sexism is required.
Dude. Biology 101, you should take it.

Dude, I have. I know that when a stallion successfully breeds with a mare there is a new horse on the way. Maybe two, but there is no doubt that the progeny are in fact horses and the fetal horses are not either the mother or the father, but are new and separate beings that are also horses.
It is only when you get to politically correct humans that they cannot understand Bio 101. Suddenly they can't tell if a female human is pregant with another human or not. If she wants the child, s/he is a human and the male parent owes her half his pay. If not, s/he is just a growth to be killed.

It is the simplicity of Bio 101 that makes the pro-abortionists look retarded to me. This isn't really all that complex.

Why is a fetus a child if the mother chooses to carry him/her to term, but not if she decides to kill him/her?Um, no. It is a fetus if the woman decides to abort. It is also a fetus if the woman decides to carry. Many months later, it may become a child. This information is also available in Bio 101.Here's where your rampant sexism trips you up. You are saying that if the female parent decides a fetus is something other than human her opinion is qualitatively different than if the male parent decides the same thing. All humans start at conception and carry on until death. The same goes for all other animals. That is Bio 101. A human does not become a human on the whim of another human, they just exist. Similarly pigs do not become tumours, tulips or trees at whim. Bio 101 is a science, and everybody knows what the human trajectory is, even if they prefer to not recognize it.

There's no question that modern medicine has altered the playing field, and culturally we may not have caught up. I agree completely. For most of history women were assumed to be simpering incompetents, quite unable to make a choice for themself and then deal with the consequences. I don't think that is true any more and neither do most people. But the culture hasn't caught up with it, yet.

The assumption underlying RvW is that women aren't capable of making a choice before becoming a parent, and so must be allowed to change their mind later, if they wish. If they wish to be parents, the male parent is drafted into service, regardless of his choice. Males are assumed to be competent choice makers, and females assumed not to be.

This is not my opinion.
I think that adults of either gender are competent to make their own choices. The "Bio 101" facts are quite available. If you are a female having potentially fertile sex you will be the parent with the responsibility for the gestation period. The male half of the well known procreative unit cannot be, and everyone knows this. I do believe that women are able to understand Bio 101 as well as any man out there.

Two hundred years ago, a woman had about a 1 in 10 chance of dying as a result of pregnancy. That was a pretty heavy burden. Procreation has always been a heavy burden. For most of history men were much better able to squirm out of the responsibility for their choices. I'm glad that in sophisticated societies it is much harder for them to do so. It is getting ever more difficult for them to do so, what with DNA paternity tests. Bully! Everybody who makes a choice that results in bringing a new member of the Human Family into the world should understand what that means, not just the female parents.

Does the fact that modern medicine has improved her chances make you feel that we need to make her pay in other ways? Would you be so dismissive of her choice, if the odds of dying were still in effect?Of course not, but that isn't relevant now, is it? We do make men pay whenever we can. That was the point to this thought experiment. "Do the rules make sense when applied to the male parent?" And the answer is "NO". Noone thinks a man should be allowed to off his unborn child at will. Only women are allowed that "right". It's a totally sexist way of doing things, and everybody knows it. It just isn't politically correct to say so.

It's not like cutting a pie, where you can make two equal pieces. There's no way at all to make it equal, so someone can always complain. :rolleyes: EXACTLY! You cannot share two pieces of pie equally among three humans, one of whom has no voice in the division.

But while the humans who do have a voice are complaining about the unfairness of it all, they are the ones who had the choices, now aren't they? The human that had no voice at all is the one who is most likely to wind up dead, because two supposedly competent adults don't like what they chose.
Hev

[BigEvil]

I don't think anyone is being fooled by your semantics game. You might be fooling yourself, though. A human fetus is human and its a fetus but its not a child. A human child is human and a child but its not a fetus. A human adult is human and an adult, but its neither a child nor a fetus. If you are going to refer to a fetus as a child, why not just go for the complete absurdity and insist that its an adult.

As for as the qualitive difference between the male and female choice, it is a qualitive difference but not in whether its a fetus or not, or if its human or not. The difference is whether the gestation of the fetus is worth it or not. Since the male is not going to be gestating the fetus, his opinion is not as important as the female's.

[court and spark]

This thread title should be changed to "Abortion, Paternity, and Fairness." Perhaps the OP should be split to a new thread, on the off chance that anyone wants to discuss it. Misleading thread titles are annoying.

[Bright Life]

Hev,

The male's "choice" comes in when he spins the roulette wheel with his penis. His biological choice is whether or not to release his semen where it may (or statistically speaking, may not) result in pregnancy.

The female's "choice," once she is pregnant, (which, statistically doesn't happen very often)is whether or not she allows the resulting cells to continue unimpeded to their possible biological ends. This is also a spin of the wheel...Many, many pregnancies end very early, sometimes even the mother "ends."

Should she make that choice, there's a chance that a child may result.

Both participants (biologically speaking) have choices thay they may make to prevent the creation of a child. It just so happens, as women get the biological responsibility for their choice, they also get burden of that last-chance option.

[Worldtraveller]

Hev, life is a continuum. There is no point where you can point to a blastocyst, fetus, or bay and say 'there is the point where it changes'. A sperm cell and an egg are alive too. They are just as much human as the blastocyst. Bigevil is right, you're just playing a semantics game.

Most of us at least realize the choise is somewhat arbitrary, though, and recognize that even though we are pro-choice, it is hardly ever an easy decision, and some of us still wouldn't make that choice.

It's the supposed pro-life people who are much more guilty of trivializing the decision. Additionally, those same 'pro-life' (anti-choice) people are the same ones who rail against the welfare state, call single moms 'whores' (among other epithets), and refuse to acknowledge that there is a societal responsibility for a child once it's born. They seem more interested in treating the child as a punishment to the parent(s) than actually taking responsibility for it.

[Matty]

Hev,

The male's "choice" comes in when he spins the roulette wheel with his penis. His biological choice is whether or not to release his semen where it may (or statistically speaking, may not) result in pregnancy.

The female's "choice," once she is pregnant, (which, statistically doesn't happen very often)is whether or not she allows the resulting cells to continue unimpeded to their possible biological ends. This is also a spin of the wheel...Many, many pregnancies end very early, sometimes even the mother "ends."

Should she make that choice, there's a chance that a child may result.

Both participants (biologically speaking) have choices thay they may make to prevent the creation of a child. It just so happens, as women get the biological responsibility for their choice, they also get burden of that last-chance option.


thats a nice long winded version of the "he shoulda kept his dick in his pants" argument but just as baseless.

Its not always an accident, nbor is it always even fair. I know of one case personally where the woman got pregnant to try and salvage a rocky relationship. She simply didnt tell the guy that she had stopped taking the pill. Of course it had the oposite effect to hte one she wanted but that still doesnt change the fact that here was a woman holding all the cards as well as an unwanted baby and a guy in a really shit situation through no faulty of his own, yet still to your mind he should be forced to pay for her fucked up manipulation for the rest of his life?

How is it fair in that case to lumber the guy with paying for what is 100% the womans irresponsible and selfish actions? As far as he knew, she was still on the pill, she wasnt, and purposefully kept that from him with eth full intent of getting pregnant becasu she was scared he was going to leave. . You'll be claiming that sperm donors should pay support next.

[frazier]

I know of one case personally where the woman got pregnant to try and salvage a rocky relationship. She simply didnt tell the guy that she had stopped taking the pill. Of course it had the oposite effect to hte one she wanted but that still doesnt change the fact that here was a woman holding all the cards as well as an unwanted baby and a guy in a really shit situation through no faulty of his own, yet still to your mind he should be forced to pay for her fucked up manipulation for the rest of his life?

Oh great, an anecdote. That settles the issue I guess. Matty, better let everyone know your buddy got screwed, so they can change all the relevant laws.

Look, I’ll concede this point: Perhaps many laws, regulations, and attitudes are holdovers from a bygone era. An era from, say, fifty or a hundred years ago, when it was a lot easier for men to skip out, and women had much less control – either via contraception, DNA testing, abortion availability, etc etc. Men also had the lion’s share of wage-earning potential, so it made sense to hold them financially responsible.

Nowadays, women are gaining more parity with men in terms of reproductive control and financial opportunities. Still a long way from “equal”, if you ask me. Pretty hard to convince me that men are being oppressed, any more than that whites or Christians are being oppressed by blacks or atheists.

[Danhalen]

I'm sorry, but I agree with the "he should have kept it in his pants" argument. Even if the woman is being deceitful I think the man should have taken that possibility into consideration before having a one night stand or whatever. If a guy gets an STD from a woman we think he should've thought first, and I see no reason why we should treat any other sexual consequence differently.

[Notta]

Cool.
A fight about abortion. How trendy.


Should a male have the right to require the mother of his child to abort, without any government oversight or interference in his private decision?
Hev
Silly Hev. Men can try to 'require' women to do anything. Whether they are successful is a completely different thing.

(Seriously - the day men give birth is the day they get to make decisions about abortion, IMO.)

[Notta]

Let's not forget that even modern pregnancies are fraught with medical complications, some of which can last a lifetime. A woman who goes through with a full term pregnancy and birth, even if starting out in perfect health, risks developing diabetes, blood clots, embolisms, a critical rise in blood calcium, heart attacks, hemorrhages, infections, just to name a few.

Some of these can result in either death or a life-long medical problem, all because of doing what comes naturally - gestating.

It is NOT equal because the state of pregnancy can result in death to the woman.

FYIW, I had an abortion at aged 16. I never thought of my baby as 'a bunch of cells', and agonized over the decision. For many years (at least 20), I thought of this child on what would have been his/her birthday (approximately) and mourned the fact that I got pregnant despite using birth control properly and consistently. But because of my abortion, I was able to graduate from high school and college, meet my husband, and raise 3 children I could support emotionally and financially. I often look at it as the reason my current children exist. I doubt THEY would be here if I had dropped out of school and married at 16 (which was the other option my parents gave me).

Don't ever think it is an easy decision that is forgotten with time. I'll never forget. But I also don't regret it, knowing how my life has turned out otherwise.

Oh, and my other three children? Each one conceived using a DIFFERENT form of birth control, including the last one while on the pill. I have had FOUR pregnancies resulting from birth control failure, even though no condoms broke and I followed all directions exactly. Even with trying very hard NOT to get pregnant, I did repeatedly. Don't blame some of these couples who did what they thought would be effective, only to find themselves stuck in a position they desperately tried to prevent.

[Glass*Soul]

To the OP. I don't find it surprising. Finding yourself with an unwanted pregnancy can change your view very quickly.

Hi, Garnet. :)

I think it's interesting that the decision to have an abortion doesn't necessarily cause a woman who has been anti-choice to change her stance. I've spoken to women seeking abortion who volunteered the information in the course of the referral that they were anti-choice. In each case the woman before me expressed the opinion that her particular situation was dire enough to warrant an exception to what she judged was otherwise a moral imperative against abortion, yet each went on to describe circumstances that are indeed quite common: a health problem, a financial problem, a relationship problem. Granted, these conversations represent a vanishingly small sample, but I've mused over them often.

[trendkill]

I'm sorry, but I agree with the "he should have kept it in his pants" argument. Even if the woman is being deceitful I think the man should have taken that possibility into consideration before having a one night stand or whatever. If a guy gets an STD from a woman we think he should've thought first, and I see no reason why we should treat any other sexual consequence differently.I think you're putting too much weight on the fact that he should've kept it in his pants. Of course he should have (except in the case of deception). But I think that's a bit tangential. The responsibility is equal at that point. The inequality happens when the woman gets the final say, which is the result of abortion rights. There's a fundamental inequality in the fact that women carry the child and men don't, which we should try to redress, and abortion rights are an excellent way to that.

Unfortunately this then creates another inequality, i.e. women have more say than men in whether they procreate or not. A lot more say. So this then creates an inequality in the other direction. And there is something we can do to diminish that inequality--give men the legal right to opt out of paternity rights and responsibilities. So given that we are left with an inequality, and a way to diminish it, why not take it? The fact that he should have kept it in his pants offers no answer to this question.

[lpetrich]

There's an old feminist joke that goes:

If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

Although male pregnancy (mpreg) is a staple of certain sorts of fan fiction, it's still a long way off technologically. But until that happy day comes, pregnancy will continue to be a female burden.

[Glass*Soul]

The bottom line of the this thought experiment is to ask why the sexism is required. Why is a fetus a child if the female parent decides s/he is, but just a growth if she decides to kill him/her? Nobody has come anywhere close to addressing this.

So I'm asking again. Why is a fetus a child if the mother chooses to carry him/her to term, but not if she decides to kill him/her? If a fetus isn't a child, then why doesn't a male parent have the same right to choose against parental responsibilities prior to the birth of the child?
Hev

Barring various deleterious factors, a fetus has the potential to develop and grow into a fully formed human being capable of surviving outside of the womb. If it is aborted, further development and growth toward this end will immediately stop.

Calling a fetus a child generally denotes a certain sense of actual or anticipated emotional or social connection with it. Despite the fact that fetuses generally do grow, calling a fetus a growth seems odd wording to me--not that my finding it odd is particularly important to the discussion. By using the term 'growth' do you mean to denote a lack of connection? If so, that may answer your question. People are probably using the terms that best describe how they are experiencing their sense of actual/anticipated connection/non-connection to the fetus.

At any rate, neither term nor any other term determines the state or nature of the fetus. It is as it is.

When fertile heterosexual couples have sexual intercourse, the woman assumes all risks associated with any ensuing pregnancy and it's various possible outcomes whether abortion, miscarriage or delivery. The man assumes all risks associated with not having personal control over the body which will carry any ensuring pregnancy. As the disparity in these risks is due to the participants' natural physical differences rather than to any artificial, socially constructed circumstances, it does not qualify as sexism.

If one cannot bear dealing with this disparity, he/she has the choice of abstaining.

[Glass*Soul]

Unfortunately this then creates another inequality, i.e. women have more say than men in whether they procreate or not. A lot more say. So this then creates an inequality in the other direction. And there is something we can do to diminish that inequality--give men the legal right to opt out of paternity rights and responsibilities. So given that we are left with an inequality, and a way to diminish it, why not take it? The fact that he should have kept it in his pants offers no answer to this question.

Under what circumstances do you anticipate that the man would be allowed to opt out of paternity rights and responsibilities? It seems to me that this has the potential of leaving the woman bearing both all physical risks and all financial risks, with abortion being her only means of avoiding taking on all financial risks.

[Danhalen]

There's a fundamental inequality in the fact that women carry the child and men don't, which we should try to redress, and abortion rights are an excellent way to that.

Unfortunately this then creates another inequality, i.e. women have more say than men in whether they procreate or not. A lot more say. So this then creates an inequality in the other direction.These are two entirely different inequalities. Of the two, one is necessary, and the other is contingent upon the first. At this point, it is not possible to change the first, and so asking for the second to be more equitable is simply stupid until the first can be changed.

And there is something we can do to diminish that inequality--give men the legal right to opt out of paternity rights and responsibilities. So given that we are left with an inequality, and a way to diminish it, why not take it? The fact that he should have kept it in his pants offers no answer to this question.Under what circumstances should we allow a man to opt out of paternal responsibilities? Like Glass*Soul has already stated, that's the way to force a woman to make the decision the man wants. Why should he have the nuclear option?

[dancer_rnb]

I'm sorry, but I agree with the "he should have kept it in his pants" argument. Even if the woman is being deceitful I think the man should have taken that possibility into consideration before having a one night stand or whatever. If a guy gets an STD from a woman we think he should've thought first, and I see no reason why we should treat any other sexual consequence differently.

This sounds an awful lot lot blaming the victim if deceit is involved.

[trendkill]

Unfortunately this then creates another inequality, i.e. women have more say than men in whether they procreate or not. A lot more say. So this then creates an inequality in the other direction. And there is something we can do to diminish that inequality--give men the legal right to opt out of paternity rights and responsibilities. So given that we are left with an inequality, and a way to diminish it, why not take it? The fact that he should have kept it in his pants offers no answer to this question.

Under what circumstances do you anticipate that the man would be allowed to opt out of paternity rights and responsibilities?Under much the same circumstances as women can, i.e. during pregnancy.

It seems to me that this has the potential of leaving the woman bearing both all physical risks and all financial risks, with abortion being her only means of avoiding taking on all financial risks.Yes, it does. I never said it was completely fair; life isn't completely fair, and no law can change that, of course. But letting both parties have the final say as to whether they want to be parents is more fair than letting one party make the final decision for both.

And I'd like to add that I would take a dim view of men who exercise this option. I'm not a huge fan of abortion either; I think women should keep it in their pants if they don't want to have a kid, just like men should, and not try to change their mind after the fact. But in order to protect peoples human rights, we sometimes need to let people do things that we find objectionable. And people have a right to choose whether they want to be parents.

[Bright Life]

Hev,

The male's "choice" comes in when he spins the roulette wheel with his penis. His biological choice is whether or not to release his semen where it may (or statistically speaking, may not) result in pregnancy.

The female's "choice," once she is pregnant, (which, statistically doesn't happen very often)is whether or not she allows the resulting cells to continue unimpeded to their possible biological ends. This is also a spin of the wheel...Many, many pregnancies end very early, sometimes even the mother "ends."

Should she make that choice, there's a chance that a child may result.

Both participants (biologically speaking) have choices thay they may make to prevent the creation of a child. It just so happens, as women get the biological responsibility for their choice, they also get burden of that last-chance option.


thats a nice long winded version of the "he shoulda kept his dick in his pants" argument but just as baseless.

Its not always an accident, nbor is it always even fair. I know of one case personally where the woman got pregnant to try and salvage a rocky relationship. She simply didnt tell the guy that she had stopped taking the pill. Of course it had the oposite effect to hte one she wanted but that still doesnt change the fact that here was a woman holding all the cards as well as an unwanted baby and a guy in a really shit situation through no faulty of his own, yet still to your mind he should be forced to pay for her fucked up manipulation for the rest of his life?

How is it fair in that case to lumber the guy with paying for what is 100% the womans irresponsible and selfish actions? As far as he knew, she was still on the pill, she wasnt, and purposefully kept that from him with eth full intent of getting pregnant becasu she was scared he was going to leave. . You'll be claiming that sperm donors should pay support next.

It's not fair. You can't legislate biology. You may not like the options, but they are the only ones currently available.

Re: Your anecdote...

My sister and I were both conceived by trickery so that my father would not leave.

Would have it been fair to deprive us of support because of our "mother's" deceit? Of course not. It's just not fair. There's no great arbitor of "fair" that can alter biology.

So...Biology=Not fair.

Only sure-fire way to beat biology? Don't play the game. Otherwise, one must accept the possible consequences.

[Bright Life]

FYIW, I had an abortion at aged 16. I never thought of my baby as 'a bunch of cells', and agonized over the decision. For many years (at least 20), I thought of this child on what would have been his/her birthday (approximately) and mourned the fact that I got pregnant despite using birth control properly and consistently. But because of my abortion, I was able to graduate from high school and college, meet my husband, and raise 3 children I could support emotionally and financially. I often look at it as the reason my current children exist. I doubt THEY would be here if I had dropped out of school and married at 16 (which was the other option my parents gave me).

Don't ever think it is an easy decision that is forgotten with time. I'll never forget. But I also don't regret it, knowing how my life has turned out otherwise.

Oh, and my other three children? Each one conceived using a DIFFERENT form of birth control, including the last one while on the pill. I have had FOUR pregnancies resulting from birth control failure, even though no condoms broke and I followed all directions exactly. Even with trying very hard NOT to get pregnant, I did repeatedly. Don't blame some of these couples who did what they thought would be effective, only to find themselves stuck in a position they desperately tried to prevent.

Just so you know, I wasn't making judgments, only pointing out the biological options. As you know, intentions don't change the possible outcomes.

[dancer_rnb]

Nevermind. I'm thinking more of post marriage custody fights.

[Glass*Soul]

I'm sorry, but I agree with the "he should have kept it in his pants" argument. Even if the woman is being deceitful I think the man should have taken that possibility into consideration before having a one night stand or whatever. If a guy gets an STD from a woman we think he should've thought first, and I see no reason why we should treat any other sexual consequence differently.I think you're putting too much weight on the fact that he should've kept it in his pants. Of course he should have (except in the case of deception). But I think that's a bit tangential. The responsibility is equal at that point. The inequality happens when the woman gets the final say, which is the result of abortion rights. There's a fundamental inequality in the fact that women carry the child and men don't, which we should try to redress, and abortion rights are an excellent way to that.

Unfortunately this then creates another inequality, i.e. women have more say than men in whether they procreate or not. A lot more say. So this then creates an inequality in the other direction. And there is something we can do to diminish that inequality--give men the legal right to opt out of paternity rights and responsibilities. So given that we are left with an inequality, and a way to diminish it, why not take it? The fact that he should have kept it in his pants offers no answer to this question.


As you seem to be envisioning this opt-out clause, the woman necessarily bears all of the physical risks associated with pregnancy and it's after-effects, whether through abortion or the continuation of the pregnancy. Also, if the woman continues the pregnancy, the man may forgo any financial responsibility, in which case she now must assume all financial responsibility.

Add to this the whole "she deceived me" defense in which the man insists he must bear no consequences for having abdicated responsibility for contraception to his partner, however unwise, and we find ourselves coming very close to fantasizing a society in which consensual sex is, for the man, potentially the equivalent of responsibility- and consequence-free sex.

Gentlemen, study the methods of contraception that are under your control. Educate yourself as to their effectiveness, risks, benefits and side-effects. Make an informed decision. Use them or not. Have sex or not. That much is in your control. Once you have opted to have sex, certain things will immediately be out of your control: whether or not a pregnancy results, whether or not a pregnancy is brought to term, whether or not your wallet will suffer mightily for the next 18+ years. :D

No intoning, "I abort thee. I abort thee. I abort thee."

It simply doesn't get any fairer than that.

[Glass*Soul]

I'm sorry, but I agree with the "he should have kept it in his pants" argument. Even if the woman is being deceitful I think the man should have taken that possibility into consideration before having a one night stand or whatever. If a guy gets an STD from a woman we think he should've thought first, and I see no reason why we should treat any other sexual consequence differently.

This sounds an awful lot lot blaming the victim if deceit is involved.

There are birth control methods available that are under the man's control. If he abdicates all responsibility for contraception to the woman, he can hardly cry, "Victim!" Maybe he can cry, "Oh! For stupid!!"

[dancer_rnb]

I'm sorry, but I agree with the "he should have kept it in his pants" argument. Even if the woman is being deceitful I think the man should have taken that possibility into consideration before having a one night stand or whatever. If a guy gets an STD from a woman we think he should've thought first, and I see no reason why we should treat any other sexual consequence differently.

This sounds an awful lot lot blaming the victim if deceit is involved.

There are birth control methods available that are under the man's control. If he abdicates all responsibility for contraception to the woman, he can hardly cry, "Victim!" Maybe he can cry, "Oh! For stupid!!"

So, if a man lies to a woman about having had a vasectomy, would you tell her she should have used birth control if she got pregnant?

[frazier]

Do people really lie about sex?? I had no idea!

[Glass*Soul]

I'm sorry, but I agree with the "he should have kept it in his pants" argument. Even if the woman is being deceitful I think the man should have taken that possibility into consideration before having a one night stand or whatever. If a guy gets an STD from a woman we think he should've thought first, and I see no reason why we should treat any other sexual consequence differently.

This sounds an awful lot lot blaming the victim if deceit is involved.

There are birth control methods available that are under the man's control. If he abdicates all responsibility for contraception to the woman, he can hardly cry, "Victim!" Maybe he can cry, "Oh! For stupid!!"

So, if a man lies to a woman about having had a vasectomy, would you tell her she should have used birth control if she got pregnant?

I would suggest, if she came to me beforehand, that she use a highly effective contraceptive (better yet two) unless she has a copy of the negative sperm count in her hand. If pregnancy would be a dire outcome, I don't mind suggesting abstinence.

(I'm not much of a "should have" sort of a person when someone's just had a positive pregnancy test and is unhappy about it. I'm more of a "what can we do in the future" sort of a person.)

Not that either partner lying about their status isn't a low down wicked thing to do. It is. I just think it's foolish to give all of the responsibility or the power over to one's partner. When it comes to contraception it takes two to fail to use it.

[Glass*Soul]

Do people really lie about sex?? I had no idea!

I know. It's utterly shocking!! :eek::(:eek:

[Danhalen]

This sounds an awful lot lot blaming the victim if deceit is involved.I disagree. The man is not a victim in this case. He willingly made a decision without verifying his information first. I am sure there are some cases where it is true the man has a reasonable expectation of not being deceived, but I also think these cases are rare.

[BigEvil]

Just a small note: parenting does not equal money.

Sending a check each month does not make one a parent. The male is not being allowed to opt out of the financial responsibities. He is still being allowed to opt out of the rest of the parenting responsibilities. He can even opt out of helping the kid with the homework.

[Hevvin Machine]

I don't think anyone is being fooled by your semantics game. You might be fooling yourself, though. A human fetus is human and its a fetus but its not a child. A human child is human and a child but its not a fetus. A human adult is human and an adult, but its neither a child nor a fetus. If you are going to refer to a fetus as a child, why not just go for the complete absurdity and insist that its an adult.
The semantic game being played is this:
A human being might be an adult or a child or a fetus. Someone who would agree that it wrong to choose the death of another human being, but wants to justify elective abortion, becomes unable to understand Bio 101 and cannot see that a fetus is a human at the youngest stage of life. This is really the semantic game being played here.


As for as the qualitive difference between the male and female choice, it is a qualitive difference but not in whether its a fetus or not, or if its human or not. The difference is whether the gestation of the fetus is worth it or not. Since the male is not going to be gestating the fetus, his opinion is not as important as the female's. I understand that gestation is a life altering process with risks. But I also understand that women know this as well. They know perfectly well that having potentially fertile sex makes them potential mothers. They know that the guy taking the risk of becoming a father cannot take that chance for them, nobody can. They are taking the chance that they will become the one and only human being who can give another human being the most basic need a human being has, a gestation period. That know that here in civilized places the father will be required to provide support, whether he wants to or not. She knows that she could give up the baby for adoption. She has a social safety net available no matter what she picks. When a healthy mother chooses the death of her healthy fetus one human being is choosing the death of another. Semantic games don't change that.
Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

This thread title should be changed to "Abortion, Paternity, and Fairness." Perhaps the OP should be split to a new thread, on the off chance that anyone wants to discuss it. Misleading thread titles are annoying. It appears that discussing the politics of procreation is more interesting to most people than discussing hypocrisy.

There are plenty of forms of hypocrisy to discuss. I can go Matty one better. I know a woman who lied to her boyfriend about being on the Pill. Once she was pregnant he did the "right thing" and married her. He was a good little Baptist boy, he didn't feel like he had any more choices. A couple of years later she lied again about being on the Pill and got pregnant with their second child. Once he was born, she came out as lesbian and divorced his ass. She had the two kids she wanted. They came with a substantial father who was very able and willing to provide support and fathering, without interfering with her lifestyle choice. This not just trash talking from an angry ex, she herself told me this story.
Hev

[BigEvil]

Someone who would agree that it wrong to choose the death of another human being, but wants to justify elective abortion,

Perhaps there is someone that is going to argue that it is wrong to choose to kill or cause the death of a human and then argue that a human fetus isn't human, but I am not one of those people. I fully recoginize that a fetus is human. I fully recognize that a fertilized human egg is human. I do not think it is always wrong to kill a human. That is not a semantical game. We might see this differently or judge this with different moral scales, but I assure you that I am not trying to trick you or misrepresent things.

I understand that gestation is a life altering process with risks. But I also understand that women know this as well. They know perfectly well that having potentially fertile sex makes them potential mothers. They know that the guy taking the risk of becoming a father cannot take that chance for them, nobody can. They are taking the chance that they will become the one and only human being who can give another human being the most basic need a human being has, a gestation period. That know that here in civilized places the father will be required to provide support, whether he wants to or not. She knows that she could give up the baby for adoption. She has a social safety net available no matter what she picks.

I generally agree with all of this.


When a healthy mother chooses the death of her healthy fetus one human being is choosing the death of another.

I bolded the word "healthy" just to point that the mother is choosing the death of the fetus irregardless of health.


Semantic games don't change that.

I tend to call it a fetus. I have no problem calling it a human fetus or calling it human. I do not care to call it a human being because I don't agree with the implications of the term. Human being tends to imply a fully developed consciousness, which a fetus does not have. I don't consider that a semantical game. If the implication was true, it would be a semantical trick, but the implication is false. At the fetus stage, its not a sentient entity.

That may make no difference to you, but it does to me.

[Hevvin Machine]

Hev, life is a continuum. There is no point where you can point to a blastocyst, fetus, or bay and say 'there is the point where it changes'. A sperm cell and an egg are alive too. They are just as much human as the blastocyst. Bigevil is right, you're just playing a semantics game.
Life is a continuum, but the individuals who make up life as a whole are not. You were just a potential human being when the sperm and egg were both swimming around, but when they met and united you first came into being as a unique individual human being. Semantics don't change that. You and every other human being came into existence as a separate being when that egg and sperm went from being two haploid cells to one zygote. You know this as well as I do. It's you pro-abortionists that are playing the semantic game.

I have a nuanced view of the abortion issue. There are plenty of pregnancies that are unacceptably risky. This decision must be made in a context that recognizes the reality of the human situation. But pretending that an abortion is not a choice to kill a human being is a pretence that I believe is immoral.

The sexist premise that women are not capable of making an informed choice prior to getting knocked up by some guy is only one of the ridiculous notions that must be asserted to support elective abortion at the sole discretion of the mother. Another premise that I find objectionable is the premise that having potentially fertile sex is a right. All adults know where babies come from, and know the one absolutely guaranteed method of staying out of the way of parental responsibilties. It might be a dirty word to some, but abstinence works.

Most of us at least realize the choise is somewhat arbitrary, though, and recognize that even though we are pro-choice, it is hardly ever an easy decision, and some of us still wouldn't make that choice.

It's the supposed pro-life people who are much more guilty of trivializing the decision. Additionally, those same 'pro-life' (anti-choice) people are the same ones who rail against the welfare state, call single moms 'whores' (among other epithets), and refuse to acknowledge that there is a societal responsibility for a child once it's born. They seem more interested in treating the child as a punishment to the parent(s) than actually taking responsibility for it I am quite aware of the failings of the so called "Pro-life" people. I get very angry when somebody who calls themselves Pro-Life support Anti-Life governments and policies. But let's face it, "Pro-Choice" is just as much a misnomer. Pro-Choice advocates aren't really advocating responsible Choice, they are advocating certain people having the legal right to choose somebody else's death.
Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

Someone who would agree that it wrong to choose the death of another human being, but wants to justify elective abortion,

Perhaps there is someone that is going to argue that it is wrong to choose to kill or cause the death of a human and then argue that a human fetus isn't human, but I am not one of those people. I fully recoginize that a fetus is human. I fully recognize that a fertilized human egg is human. I do not think it is always wrong to kill a human. That is not a semantical game. We might see this differently or judge this with different moral scales, but I assure you that I am not trying to trick you or misrepresent things.

Hey BE.
The bolded part is where we obviously differ. I think it is always wrong to choose the death of another human. I realize that there are often circumstances where the question is "Who will die". I see that as the question when somebody is defending themselves or an innocent party. It is also the question when a pregnancy is gone awry. Some fetuses simply don't have a chance, or a pregnancy might pose an elevated risk to the mother. I am inclined to take very few unusual risks with the health of a mother. But the standard risks of pregnancy are part and parcel of having potentially fertile sex.
If you understand that a fetus human, might you also understand that s/he is A human? A unique individual human who will never again be conceived ever? Someone, who once killed, will be gone forever?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hevvin Machine
When a healthy mother chooses the death of her healthy fetus one human being is choosing the death of another.

I bolded the word "healthy" just to point that the mother is choosing the death of the fetus irregardless of health. The mother is choosing the death of another human being, regardless of health.
Some fetuses are just not viable. I read something once(on IIDB, I believe). A surg tech was describing a fetus he helped abort. The poor thing was basically a foot with a clump of hair and a tooth growing out of one side. Some problems are just beyond our ability to fix, or even ameliorate. That's not what I'm talking about here.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hevvin Machine
Semantic games don't change that.

I tend to call it a fetus. I have no problem calling it a human fetus or calling it human. I do not care to call it a human being because I don't agree with the implications of the term. Human being tends to imply a fully developed consciousness, which a fetus does not have. I don't consider that a semantical game. If the implication was true, it would be a semantical trick, but the implication is false. At the fetus stage, its not a sentient entity. You are not too subtly changing the subject from "human being" to "fully developed conciousness". Humans are not sentient entities throughout their entire existence. You were a "not yet sentient" human being at one point in time.

The semantic game I'm calling bullshit on is the distinction between a fully formed adult and a human being. If you don't think that one human being choosing someone else's death is a moral issue then we can talk about that. I do. But pretending that a human being only has value as an individual after some other human decides they have value has been the pretence that has supported most of humanity's worst crimes ever.


That may make no difference to you, but it does to me. Oh, yes, it matters to me.
Hev

[sohy]

The semantic game I'm calling bullshit on is the distinction between a fully formed adult and a human being. If you don't think that one human being choosing someone else's death is a moral issue then we can talk about that. I do. But pretending that a human being only has value as an individual after some other human decides they have value has been the pretence that has supported most of humanity's worst crimes ever.

The problem with your assumption is that good intelligent people don't agree on when a zygote, or fetus should be considered a full human being with all the rights of a full human being. While we would all agree that muder is immoral, we all don't agree that aborting a fetus is murder. Although some conservative Xians have tried to assign person hood to the fetus, most of us would disagree that a fetus should be entitled to all of the rights and privileges of a developed human. Imo, abortion is a moral issue for the one that has the womb. It should not be a political issue, since so many of us disagree on whether abortion is actually murder of a person.

Borrowing some from Michael Shermer who makes a good moral argument for choice, here's a few points to consider. How do you assign rights to a fetus? The fetus can't speak for itself, and cannot be asked if it would prefer to be born or aborted. If the fetus is not wanted or is very deformed, it may not want to be born, but since we can't ask the fetus, the mother of the fetus, who does enjoy all of the rights of person hood, can be asked to make this decision. She, not us, is the one most impacted by this decision. By not allowing the woman to make the decision, we take a big step backwards, a step that suggests that government is attempting to control women once again. Given the potential rights of the fetus and the actual rights of the woman, it makes sense to give the right to make this decision to the one that already exists as a full person. She is the one that enjoys full civil rights including the right to control her own body, and not the potential person ( even if you consider the fetus a human, it is not a person in the legal sense ).


Another point in trying to determine the status of the fetus is how we define what is human. The most defining element of what makes us human, as agreed upon by most scientists is the ability to think. The ability to think does not come about in the fetus until several weeks before full term. While this may be used to make a case against late term abortion, late term abortions are very rare. The only ones that I've ever heard of are those that are performed to save the mother or when the fetus is not viable or will not be viable for more than a few hours or days after birth. Most people would agree that late term abortions should remain very rare, and in fact I think most would agree there should be very limited reasons for them to take place at all. I doubt there is a physician that would perform a late term abortion without the reasons I've mentioned previously, but those who oppose choice often try to make a false claim that late term abortions are common. This is not and probably never has been the case.

Since the fetus is not a fully functioning human being during the first two trimesters, but merely a potential one, it is easy to make a case that abortion during this time is not immoral nor it is murder. Therefore, there is no justification to make what should be a personal moral issue into a societal or political one. Since most of us agree that a woman should have the control of the decisions that impact her own body, abortion remains a personal moral issue and not one for me or Hev or the government to decide.

With apologies to Michael Shermer if I've fucked up his argument in a way that makes it unclear. There is more, but this post would be far too long if I mentioned every point.

And, just for the record, I've never had an abortion but I have had a sister and many friends that have had to make this difficult personal moral decision. None of them are murderers and I deeply resent that implication.

[BigEvil]

I do not think it is always wrong to kill a human. That is not a semantical game. We might see this differently or judge this with different moral scales, but I assure you that I am not trying to trick you or misrepresent things.

Hey BE.
The bolded part is where we obviously differ. I think it is always wrong to choose the death of another human.

I had thought about putting it in bold myself just so you wouldn't miss it. I assumed that would be a major difference in our perspectives.



If you understand that a fetus human, might you also understand that s/he is A human? A unique individual human who will never again be conceived ever? Someone, who once killed, will be gone forever?

Yes, I understand that. Its not that I think its irrelevant, I assure you.


You are not too subtly changing the subject from "human being" to "fully developed conciousness". Humans are not sentient entities throughout their entire existence. You were a "not yet sentient" human being at one point in time.

I wouldn't call it changing the subject, as much as rejecting the premise that being a human life is enough to require legal protection.


If you don't think that one human being choosing someone else's death is a moral issue then we can talk about that. I do.

I do think it is a moral issue, but I think its a complicated moral issue. And I obviously don't come to the same moral conclusions as you.


But pretending that a human being only has value as an individual after some other human decides they have value has been the pretence that has supported most of humanity's worst crimes ever.

And I reject that this accurately describes the overall logic for abortion.

Just to be clear, I do not equate the "right" to do something as the same as "being moral to do." I hope you understand that. If a woman aborted her baby in the first trimester because it had the wrong hair color, I would extend that woman the "right" to do it. But I suspect that I would be as morally appalled and outraged by the woman's decision as you would be.

A fetus, or unborn human, or whatever we are going to designate it as, is not recognized as being a member of our society. As such, its not given the same rights as those that are in our society. One is not conceived into society, but born into it. That is roughly how the government approaches it, and I agree with this approach. In a certain sense, you are giving more rights to the unborn than to the born. If a 3 year old child needed a parents kidney, or bone marrow transplant, or blood transfusion, would the parent have the right to say no? Or would the government have the right to strap the parent down and exchange body parts with the parent having no say as to whether it can keep its organs for itself? I say, a person owns its own body and no other person has a right to it, not even its child. If the other person will die without it, then it dies. And on this, I will not give more rights to the unborn than to the born. In a pregnancy, it is the woman's body, the fetus has no right to it.

Nor can I look at a clump of cells that doesn't think or feel and conclude that this is substantially deserving of the same rights and privilages as a walking talking human.

And the issue gets even more complicated to me. Society's responsibility is not to any specific individual but to society as a whole. The realities of living make many ugly and revolting decisions neccessary. Alot of times fairness goes straight out the window. The human species isn't suffering from lack of births, but from too many. One can talk about human dignity, but when human population gets to a certain level, and resourses drop to a certain level, where dignity is available to no one, born or unborn. I forget who said it, but there is a quote that goes, "Once you confine x number of people into a small space, the question isn't whether you can have life, but what kind of life can be had?"

[trendkill]

As you seem to be envisioning this opt-out clause, the woman necessarily bears all of the physical risks associated with pregnancy and it's after-effects, whether through abortion or the continuation of the pregnancy.You make it sound like it would be the law's fault that women get pregnant and not men. That's not something that is determined by law, and thus it is not part of my "vision" of the "opt-out clause".

Also, if the woman continues the pregnancy, the man may forgo any financial responsibility, in which case she now must assume all financial responsibility.Yes, that's what sometimes happens when you exercise your rights. You take on responsibilities. If men were to exercise a legal right to choose to be parents, then they would take on financial responsibilities as well. But no law can force them to take on the physical risks of pregnancy, so taking issue with policy over the fact that those risks aren't equal doesn't really make sense, I don't think.

If it one day becomes possible for men to become pregnant, then maybe that will change.


Add to this the whole "she deceived me" defense in which the man insists he must bear no consequences for having abdicated responsibility for contraception to his partner, however unwise, and we find ourselves coming very close to fantasizing a society in which consensual sex is, for the man, potentially the equivalent of responsibility- and consequence-free sex.And you think men need to be punished for having sex, is that it? Because they are irresponsible? I mean, I'm sure there are many, many men who are jerks towards women in ways relating to sex. But I don't like the idea of using pregnancy or children as a weapon to 'get' these guys. And the desire to do so seems all too often to lurk behind the view that men shouldn't get the right to choose whether they want to be parents.

Gentlemen, study the methods of contraception that are under your control. Educate yourself as to their effectiveness, risks, benefits and side-effects. Make an informed decision. Use them or not. Have sex or not. That much is in your control. Absolutely, I fully agree with this. Men should definitely have an attitude of responsibility for their own sexual conduct, and they should keep in mind the risks beforehand instead of complaining afterwards.

And also, you should have a car alarm installed, and you may be a fool who's just asking for his car to be stolen if you don't--however, the fact that you don't have one doesn't mean that you haven't been wronged if someone steals your car.

The point of the illustration being, not to compare women to car thieves, but rather to point out that the need for caution and personal responsibility does not obviate one's rights.

Once you have opted to have sex, certain things will immediately be out of your control: whether or not a pregnancy results, whether or not a pregnancy is brought to term, whether or not your wallet will suffer mightily for the next 18+ years. :D

No intoning, "I abort thee. I abort thee. I abort thee."

It simply doesn't get any fairer than that.Smugness is not an argument.

[Hevvin Machine]

Gentlemen, study the methods of contraception that are under your control. Educate yourself as to their effectiveness, risks, benefits and side-effects. Make an informed decision. Use them or not. Have sex or not. That much is in your control. Once you have opted to have sex, certain things will immediately be out of your control: You've done an excellent job of making the rampant sexism of your premise clear. If instead of starting that statement out with "Gentlemen" you'd started it out with "Folks" it would have been totally incoherent, from a modern politically correct standpoint. Starting it out with "Ladies" would get you lynched.

Here, let me help:Ladies, study the methods of contraception that are under your control. Educate yourself as to their effectiveness, risks, benefits and side-effects. Make an informed decision. Use them or not. Have sex or not. That much is in your control. Once you have opted to have sex, certain things will immediately be out of your control.

If a man has sex which results in a child he is required by law to provide support if the woman wants it. If a woman has sex that results in a child she can
1) kill the fetus with impunity, noone even needs to know.
2)Have the child, and never tell the father that he has a child. She can give him/her up for adoption or raise him/her. She need never tell anybody anything.
3) She can keep the child and legally force him to give about half his take home pay to her even if he didn't even know the child existed until a month after he/she was born.

I have no problem at all with requiring parents to do the right thing by the child they created, whether they want to or not. But the current situation is such that the father is required to support a child that didn't "exist" until the mother decided that s/he did.
If a month after having sex a mother can decide that the fetus isn't a human why can't the father? Why don't women get held to the same standards?
Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

The semantic game I'm calling bullshit on is the distinction between a fully formed adult and a human being. If you don't think that one human being choosing someone else's death is a moral issue then we can talk about that. I do. But pretending that a human being only has value as an individual after some other human decides they have value has been the pretence that has supported most of humanity's worst crimes ever.

The problem with your assumption is that good intelligent people don't agree on when a zygote, or fetus should be considered a full human being with all the rights of a full human being. While we would all agree that muder is immoral, we all don't agree that aborting a fetus is murder. Good intelligent people don't even agree on whether the earth is closer to 6,000 years old or 5,000,000,000 years old. Just because somebody has an opinion doesn't make it correct, even if they are intelligent and good.

I don't use the word murder when discussing abortion, generally. Murder is a messy term that mostly exists in the eye of the beholder. Most of the time, when somebody chooses someone elses death it is murder to some, and not to others. The term murder is too subjective to be helpful when I am trying to stay on a clear and logical track. So I just avoid it.

Although some conservative Xians have tried to assign person hood to the fetus, most of us would disagree that a fetus should be entitled to all of the rights and privileges of a developed human. Imo, abortion is a moral issue for the one that has the womb. It should not be a political issue, since so many of us disagree on whether abortion is actually murder of a person. I also avoid the word "person" for the same reason. Here in my US state, 150 years ago, killing a Navaho wasn't considered murder either. No aboriginal human being was considered a person with any rights, they were seen as vermin. Your opinion might be that aboriginal adult humans are persons, but since that is just an opinion it doesn't really matter legally.

Borrowing some from Michael Shermer who makes a good moral argument for choice, here's a few points to consider. How do you assign rights to a fetus? The fetus can't speak for itself, and cannot be asked if it would prefer to be born or aborted. If the fetus is not wanted or is very deformed, it may not want to be born, but since we can't ask the fetus, the mother of the fetus, who does enjoy all of the rights of person hood, can be asked to make this decision. You don't assign rights to a fetus, you assign responsibility to adult members of society. If the fetus or the mother is too unhealthy to support the gestation then abortion is the right thing to do. But in the absence of voice we assume that any particular human wants to remain alive and healthy. A human can't form a coherent verbal response to the question "Is it OK for me to kill you?" for a good bit after birth. But we don't assume that their inability to verbalize is tacit acceptance of somebody else's preference.
She, not us, is the one most impacted by this decision. No, she is not. The baby is the one most affected by this decision. The baby is voiceless and totally at the mercy of others.
By not allowing the woman to make the decision, we take a big step backwards, a step that suggests that government is attempting to control women once again. Nobody seems to see a problem with attempting to control men and their parenting responsibilities. But the fact is that expecting parents, of either gender, to take responsibility for their own choices is not a "control" issue. If the mother was not in control when she conceived the child then she was raped. That is a whole separate crime issue. If not, then she made a choice that impacted her life in a quite predictable way. If she is a competent adult then she should be held to the same standards as everybody else is.

Given the potential rights of the fetus and the actual rights of the woman, it makes sense to give the right to make this decision to the one that already exists as a full person. I am not buying the "person" thing any more than I am buying The Noahs Fludde thing. I think that all women should be free to choose against motherhood, I just don't think that they should be able to choose it after having become a mother. Any more than I think a man should be able to choose against fatherhood, after he has already become a father.
She is the one that enjoys full civil rights including the right to control her own body, and not the potential person ( even if you consider the fetus a human, it is not a person in the legal sense ). She had full rights to choose to have sex or not to have sex. That is the choice that they, both the mother and the father made. After having made that choice, and bringing another human being into the equation, they don't have all the same choices any more. Just like if you sign for a loan, or step off a cliff. You have picked the consequences of your choice, even if you prefer that you hadn't done so.
Another point in trying to determine the status of the fetus is how we define what is human. The most defining element of what makes us human, as agreed upon by most scientists is the ability to think. Nonsense, most humans spend a huge part of their life unable to cogitate, assuming that is what you mean by think. And heck, my dog can think quite well, thank you. She can figure out what sort of behaviour will result in treats faster than I outsmart her, often.
The ability to think does not come about in the fetus until several weeks before full term. While this may be used to make a case against late term abortion, late term abortions are very rare. The only ones that I've ever heard of are those that are performed to save the mother or when the fetus is not viable or will not be viable for more than a few hours or days after birth. Most people would agree that late term abortions should remain very rare, and in fact I think most would agree there should be very limited reasons for them to take place at all. I doubt there is a physician that would perform a late term abortion without the reasons I've mentioned previously, but those who oppose choice often try to make a false claim that late term abortions are common. This is not and probably never has been the case. I feel like I should point out something here, at this point in our discussion. I do not oppose all abortions. I perfectly understand that modern medical technology makes it possible for us to recognize medical emergancies and disasters that couldn't be spotted even a few decades ago. Sometimes abortion is the best thing to do for everybody. I don't want any women to die from unhealthy gestations, or deformed babies without a snowballs chance in hell. What I am talking about are the abortions performed as post facto birth control. That is what I mean by the term "elective abortion".

Since the fetus is not a fully functioning human being during the first two trimesters, but merely a potential one, it is easy to make a case that abortion during this time is not immoral nor it is murder. Therefore, there is no justification to make what should be a personal moral issue into a societal or political one. Here is where I disagree with you on more than one level. A fetus is a fully functioning human being. S/he is still very young, but fully functioning for the age group. And I also think this is just as much a societal and political issue as the "personhood" of aboriginal Americans, it is not just a personal issue. I'm sure we both disagree with people who think that black people or female people or atheist people aren't quite "persons". But we both agree that these people are human beings. So let's just stick to a term that we all understand.

Since most of us agree that a woman should have the control of the decisions that impact her own body, abortion remains a personal moral issue and not one for me or Hev or the government to decide. I completely agree that a woman should have absolute control over her body, until she has made a choice that involves another human being. After that she has given up some rights, just as a man might. I'm sure that you and I and the government are all doing the right thing when we pass laws against rape and enforce them as best we can. I am quite willing to force my morality upon others sometimes, as are you.


And, just for the record, I've never had an abortion but I have had a sister and many friends that have had to make this difficult personal moral decision. None of them are murderers and I deeply resent that implication.
I do think some abortionists are murders, killing people for hire. But I certainly don't think that everybody who gets or provides an abortion qualifies.
I know a woman who lied to her boyfriend about birth control to snag him. He was enthusiastic about having the baby, but he wouldn't marry her. So at seven and a half months she got an abortion. She murdered her own child, IMHO, to get back at him for refusing to fall into her snare. I also drove my own sister to an abortion clinic. I do not see this as a simple issue, and I never meant to imply that anyone in particular is a murderer. Sorry if I seemed to.
Hev

[Faerie]

[QUOTE=Hevvin Machine;38420

I completely agree that a woman should have absolute control over her body, until she has made a choice that involves another human being. After that she has given up some rights, just as a man might. I am quite willing to force my morality upon others sometimes, as are you.
[/QUOTE]


No. On average PER WEEK here in Gauteng Province only in SA, SIX discarded babies are found, some alive, some dead. They get dumped in bins, down toilets and sometimes simply chucked out of sixth floor apartment windows. 80% of the live babies found are HIV infected with a lifespan of around 6/7 years. There are NO WAY for any sick baby to be adopted, the cost of ARV's in this country is astronomical. These little one's get placed in foster and adoption homes, and the volunteers try their utmost to care and love them. What type of life is this for any child? What use is this?

Many of the cultures here in SA prohibits abortion although its perfectly legal to do so up until 17 weeks gestation. The result of the cultures/religions is the above scenario. You speak of moral responsibility, surely you should then take into account whether the mother has the ABILITY to provide for the moral responsibilities. To speak of birth control is easy, but once again, the religious/cultural MORALS come into play, certainly you, with your Catholic background, know this?

I'd rather see abortion figures in this country escalate by 100% and see an 80% decline of lost streetchildren standing by the robots on our highway offramps asking for money and food. We have 3 year olds running between cars begging for money. They sleep under bridges and in drainage pipes. By the time they're 9 most are sniffing glue and robbing people in order to secure some type of life. The "authorities" collect them at times, give them a place to sleep and a good meal for a night, but by tomorrow, these kids have gone their way again.

They know no love, no luxury of sleeping in a warm bed, someone asking them how their day was, no new clothes EVER, no hugs at bedtime, no extra blanket thrown over them on a cold night by someone who loves them. They have NOTHING. A life of utter misery and abject poverty. How is this better than not living at all?

[Matty]

Oh great, an anecdote. That settles the issue I guess. Matty, better let everyone know your buddy got screwed, so they can change all the relevant laws. Dont be a dick i'm, simply pointing out that despite all the howls of "Keep his dick in his pants or pay the consequences", that it is not always that straightforward. It does happen., and in thoise situations and similar one, the guy gets totally fucked over, by the woman AND the law, because there is no way to assign the degree to which both parties walked in with their eyes open and were willing participants in the creation of said potential life.

To you that makes no difference, to the poor fucker whos life was ruined becasue of a BAD choice of girlfriend, opting for one willing to fuck him over for her own reasons and to prove a point should cost him for life? It certainly wasnt quite as easy as you guys are making it for him to write off as unfortunate collateral damage of a legislation made to protect all these damsels in distress from the attentions of these predatory and irresponsible deadbeat dads just waiting to knock them up and fucking leg it.

If you guys dont see the massively offensive, sexist and and inaccurate straw man you have built in the image of the evil deadbeat dad just asking to be taken down a peg or two by some blushing innocent maiden and her lawyer/CSA white knight, then there is no helping you.

That mindset seems to be getting an unquestioned assumption of okayness here so I was just pointing out that is far from always the case. I have no issues with guys that bail after jr is born being nailed for whatever they can afford to support said baby that they willingly brought into the world TOGETHER. But, if they shag, the condom splits/woman wasnt on the pill as promised/any bloody reason really, and then the woman 100% decided against a morning after pill for her own reasons, there is no fucking way he should be equally culpable for her dumbass and selfish decision. If the decisions is based on her religious morality then maybe her fucking church should be paying for the upkeep of the child? What happened to al this charity and looking out for each other?


I'm sure i can find recorded cases of guys being well and truly totally screwed over in these situations, but would you give a shit? Is it simply a case of "Shoulda kept his dick in his pants" or should we maybe strive to be a bit fairer in this day and age of supposed equality and not simply stick it to the guy for the maximum possible for having a cunt of a girlfriend.

[Bright Life]

Here's the Great and Mighty Word that you have, obviously, all been waiting for...

My Opinion on Abortion:

No reasonable person is pro-abortion. Reasonable people do disagree on the matter of choice. Due to cultural differences, no purely intellectual or logical discussion will resolve this issue to the satisfaction of all groups.

What NEED to be addressed are the societal issues that result in the desire to seek an abortion.

[Bright Life]

This thread title should be changed to "Abortion, Paternity, and Fairness." Perhaps the OP should be split to a new thread, on the off chance that anyone wants to discuss it. Misleading thread titles are annoying. It appears that discussing the politics of procreation is more interesting to most people than discussing hypocrisy.

There are plenty of forms of hypocrisy to discuss. I can go Matty one better. I know a woman who lied to her boyfriend about being on the Pill. Once she was pregnant he did the "right thing" and married her. He was a good little Baptist boy, he didn't feel like he had any more choices. A couple of years later she lied again about being on the Pill and got pregnant with their second child. Once he was born, she came out as lesbian and divorced his ass. She had the two kids she wanted. They came with a substantial father who was very able and willing to provide support and fathering, without interfering with her lifestyle choice. This not just trash talking from an angry ex, she herself told me this story.
Hev

Does she live in Florida, or did she when she was married? Seriously...This sounds like someone I know!

[Matty]

agreed w/BL.

Making abstinence only sex education fucking illegal would be a start. And telling the Catholics to STFU pretending to have a valid PoV about contraception and stick to symbolic cannibalism and other less destructive mind games.

Teaching that safe sex is responsible sex, that the only thing that really matters isnt where you stick it or which consenting adult of either gender you stick it into, but that you are wearing a condom when you do so.

[Hevvin Machine]

You speak of moral responsibility, surely you should then take into account whether the mother has the ABILITY to provide for the moral responsibilities. Faerie, this is the truth. I do not see the abortion problem as solely a matter of preventing mothers from choosing abortion after they are pregnant. That is just one part of a huge web of interrelated problems, not the least of which is poverty itself. I see a big difference between a deperately poor woman aborting her newest child because the older ones are already in grave danger of starvation or worse. Here in advanced countries we have huge social safety nets. People in places that don't have that advantage are in a different situation.
Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

Does she live in Florida, or did she when she was married? Seriously...This sounds like someone I know!No, they were a couple of Northern college students from religious families. I expect this sort of abuse is more common than is generally recognized.:mad:
Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

[QUOTE=Bright Life;38496 What NEED to be addressed are the societal issues that result in the desire to seek an abortion.[/QUOTE] This is the real point to Pro-Life. By the time a woman decides on an abortion the disaster has already occurred.
Hev

[Matty]

I do agree, but that doesnt jive with your churches teaching either. You defend the RCCs teaching that using condoms is unsafe or encourages "irresponsible" sexual behaviour and stated as much in the other thread that although it might no be the most factual proclamation going (understatement) , it was meant well.

That is in direct opposition to this idea. Abstinance, withdrawal or the other RCC approved methods are most certainly not in any way likely to every contribute to less unwanted pregnancies. You might see a correlation with less abortions and Catholic membership but not by any socially responsibly education about safe sex or by anything resembling concern, more by picking on the woman who is unwillingly pregnant and guilt tripping the fuck out of her, calling her a baby murderer and threatening her with excommunication, before looking down on her for having a child out of wedlocjk,. like that matters in this day and age.

You know, nice Christian methods to get the point across. Guilt and underhanded mental games.

Lets not forget that abortions are in no way always a bad thing butt he church has its priorities totally fucked in that case too of course.

According to Globo, the stepfather is not being excommunicated. “He committed a serious crime, but . . . there are many other serious sins. Abortion is more serious,” said Archbishop Sobrinho.

Repeatedly raping and making pregnant your 9 year old step daughter is bad but not too bad. Aborting these rape babies, is however, evil.

[Bright Life]

What NEED to be addressed are the societal issues that result in the desire to seek an abortion. This is the real point to Pro-Life. By the time a woman decides on an abortion the disaster has already occurred.
Hev

If this is their real point, why wave signs of aborted fetuses in front of clinics and torment those who enter their doors? Because if the disaster has already occured, this is a self-indulgent waste of time. If this were their REAL issue, then they would be very busy somewhere else, trying to prevent disasters, not scaring and scarring he victims of that disaster.

[Hevvin Machine]

But then you do defend the RCCs teaching that using condoms is unsafe or encourages "irresponsible" sexual behaviour, you stated as much in the other thread that although it might no be the most factual proclamation going (understatement) , it was meant well. Not exactly, Matty.
There are two different things going on here. For one thing the Catholic Church is considered the moral leader by nearly a billion people. It is incumbent upon them to set the highest possible standard of sexual responsibilty. In a community this huge and diverse nuance is a dangerous thing. I don't think the Pope is under any illusion that Catholics follow every word that comes out of his mouth;)

And there isn't any doubt that irresponsible sex will cause more damage than responsible sex, even if condoms are usually used. A married couple using a condom is completely different from a sexually irresponsible couple using a condom to reduce the danger from risky behaviour. The premise that people just can't help having impulsive sex willynilly is not true. The premise that using precautions makes risky sex safe is also just wrong. It just becomes less dangerous. The illusion of safety provided by Pills and condoms results in more risky behaviour. So much more that the net result is more damage over all.
Hev


ETA`- I'd already replied before you added that long last part. I'm not inclined to defend the hypocrisy of people I don't know though.

[Hevvin Machine]

Because if the disaster has already occured, this is a self-indulgent waste of time. If this were their REAL issue, then they would be very busy somewhere else, trying to prevent disasters, not scaring and scarring he victims of that disaster. I agree completely, it is a self-indulgent waste of time. Why do they do it? You know that as well as I do. I have never done it and I never will. There really are other peole out there quietly working on the root causes of the problem, they just aren't as direct and don't get the media attention.
Hev

[Bright Life]

Why are you waving a sign here?

[Hevvin Machine]

I am not waving a sign. We are having a thoughtful and civil discussion about a hot button issue that usually drops down to a barrage of slogans and then blows up into a flamewar. I like it, myself:)
Hev

eta~ I rather like this Secular Cafe and the way the harsh pendaric fascists run it!:)

[dancer_rnb]

Oh great, an anecdote. That settles the issue I guess. Matty, better let everyone know your buddy got screwed, so they can change all the relevant laws. Dont be a dick i'm, simply pointing out that despite all the howls of "Keep his dick in his pants or pay the consequences", that it is not always that straightforward. It does happen., and in thoise situations and similar one, the guy gets totally fucked over, by the woman AND the law, because there is no way to assign the degree to which both parties walked in with their eyes open and were willing participants in the creation of said potential life.

To you that makes no difference, to the poor fucker whos life was ruined becasue of a BAD choice of girlfriend, opting for one willing to fuck him over for her own reasons and to prove a point should cost him for life? It certainly wasnt quite as easy as you guys are making it for him to write off as unfortunate collateral damage of a legislation made to protect all these damsels in distress from the attentions of these predatory and irresponsible deadbeat dads just waiting to knock them up and fucking leg it.

If you guys dont see the massively offensive, sexist and and inaccurate straw man you have built in the image of the evil deadbeat dad just asking to be taken down a peg or two by some blushing innocent maiden and her lawyer/CSA white knight, then there is no helping you.

That mindset seems to be getting an unquestioned assumption of okayness here so I was just pointing out that is far from always the case. I have no issues with guys that bail after jr is born being nailed for whatever they can afford to support said baby that they willingly brought into the world TOGETHER. But, if they shag, the condom splits/woman wasnt on the pill as promised/any bloody reason really, and then the woman 100% decided against a morning after pill for her own reasons, there is no fucking way he should be equally culpable for her dumbass and selfish decision. If the decisions is based on her religious morality then maybe her fucking church should be paying for the upkeep of the child? What happened to al this charity and looking out for each other?


I'm sure i can find recorded cases of guys being well and truly totally screwed over in these situations, but would you give a shit? Is it simply a case of "Shoulda kept his dick in his pants" or should we maybe strive to be a bit fairer in this day and age of supposed equality and not simply stick it to the guy for the maximum possible for having a cunt of a girlfriend.

I've never believed the people who say it is about protecting children. It's about giving the advantage to women. Otherwise you see a much harder look given to who would be a bettr parent in the case of custody disputes.

-Ok, I've probably gone a bit too far. it's only the ones who completely disregard objections to the way things are currently done who are in it to give women advantages.

[dancer_rnb]

As I understand it, it's against the law to lie about your HIV status. I'd like to see it be illegal to lie about your birth control status.

[Matty]

And there isn't any doubt that irresponsible sex will cause more damage than responsible sex, even if condoms are usually used.

Please define "irresponsible sex" .

A married couple using a condom is completely different from a sexually irresponsible couple using a condom to reduce the danger from risky behaviour. The premise that people just can't help having impulsive sex willynilly is not true.
No Hev. there is nothing wrong with sex, tat is your religion talking, sex is not dirty taboo, sacred or any of those things, and a HI virus really doesnt care about your marital status, or even if it is with a guy or a gal it is either transmitted, if you arent wearing a condom, or not if you are. Simple.

The premise that using precautions makes risky sex safe is also just wrong. It just becomes less dangerous. Define risky and safe as you are definng them please. What is rsiky about consenting sex between any unmarried 2 adults using a condom?

The mythical illusion of safety provided by Pills and condoms FIFY. What do you think that becasue you have a condom in your pocket you will stick your dick into any thing, OR consent to simply sleeping with anyone? Dont trust everything the semi celibate paedo told you Hev, the real world simply isnt like that.

results in more risky behaviour. Such as what? Bungee jumping, raping a pitbull, intravenous drug use, freefall parachuting or having more safe sex with people?

So much more that the net result is more damage over all.What brainwashed and baselss bollocks Hev,. Cmon, you can do better than third hand victorian morality disguised extremely ineffectively as some sport of spurious health consciousness, cant you? If you cant you are on very shaky ground.

Proof please firstly of the sort of sex you assume is risky? Then proof that condoms dont massively abrogate any risk you managed to highlight.

Your spurious, church derived "moral danger" doesnt count for anything unless you can back it up somehow, we are talking defined health risks that your church purposefully undermines with lies, whenever it gets the chance, not "adultery is bad for your soul mkay"


There are two different things going on here. For one thing the Catholic Church is considered the moral leader by nearly a billion people. Which given the sheer amount of hypocrisy it exhibits is a truly scary thing to contemplate isnt it?

It is incumbent upon them to set the highest possible standard of sexual responsibility. In a community this huge and diverse nuance is a dangerous thing It should be incumbent on them to throw out retarded medieval dogma with no place in this day and age, such as the "contraception is evil" teachings. With that i agree. Teaching peopl that condoms are a bad thing isnt even remotely moral, honourable or justifiable. Making millions pof peopl promise to not use condoms on htye most AIDS riddels continent in the world, becasue it would "endanger their souls" and is therefore worse then AIDS, is even worse, isnt it?

That is, simply put, sacrificing a million lives on the alter of catholic doctrine is worth the consistency in immoral teaching?


I don't think the Pope is under any illusion that Catholics follow every word that comes out of his mouthI thought Catholics were obliged to treat every word of the pope as the word of God, no? Isn't that the basis of papal infallibility
?

[Hevvin Machine]

I do not think it is always wrong to kill a human. That is not a semantical game. We might see this differently or judge this with different moral scales, but I assure you that I am not trying to trick you or misrepresent things.

Hey BE.
The bolded part is where we obviously differ. I think it is always wrong to choose the death of another human.

I had thought about putting it in bold myself just so you wouldn't miss it. I assumed that would be a major difference in our perspectives.
I don't have time to respond to your whole post right now, but to me this is the bottom line issue anyway.

Throughout history the biggest crimes have generally been caused by some group of people with power deciding that some other group of people don't qualify as persons and so they are disposable. From slavery to genocide to wars it always comes down to the same thing. I see recognizing the value of each and every human being as the basis of sophisticated morality. That doesn't mean we can save everybody from the unfairness of fate, but that must be the foundation underneath of a sturdy morality that isn't based on an opinion about who is important and who can be victimized with impunity.

I do not see the premise that unborn humans aren't important as qualitatively different from the premise that black people aren't important. Once people start drawing lines between human beings and persons it is all just a matter of opinion.
Hev

[premjan]

Abortion is ethically equivalent to switching off life support. If you can do one why not the other?

[nygreenguy]

Throughout history the biggest crimes have generally been caused by some group of people with power deciding that some other group of people don't qualify as persons and so they are disposable. From slavery to genocide to wars it always comes down to the same thing.
This is a flawed argument because in those cases the "non-person" argument came from things such as skin color, religion, etc...

A fetus isnt a person because it isnt a life. Now, this doesnt mean that it isnt alive. A fetus is no more a life than our epidermal cells are, and we make laws against cutting because its killing "life".

Something which isnt a life, can not, by definition, be a person.


The illusion of safety provided by Pills and condoms results in more risky behaviour. So much more that the net result is more damage over all.

There are volumes of studies which conclusively show that proper sex education is way more effective than any abstinence only education. It is simply impossible to stop people from having sex. It is not an illusion of safety. These things really do prevent the spread of STD's and pregnancy just like seat belts prevent you from being thrown from your car. There is no illusion, its a fact.

[nygreenguy]

A human being might be an adult or a child or a fetus. Someone who would agree that it wrong to choose the death of another human being, but wants to justify elective abortion, becomes unable to understand Bio 101 and cannot see that a fetus is a human at the youngest stage of life. This is really the semantic game being played here. Incorrect. The fetus is developing into a human. If you are holding an orchid seed in your hand (some of which are too small to be seen) you would not say this is an orchid. You would clearly call it an orchid seed. It is totally unrecognizable as an orchid. Genetically, it is similar to an orchid, but that is where the similarities end. Genetics don't make a human a human, otherwise we could call a plate of human DNA a human.


I understand that gestation is a life altering process with risks. But I also understand that women know this as well. They know perfectly well that having potentially fertile sex makes them potential mothers. They know that the guy taking the risk of becoming a father cannot take that chance for them, nobody can. They are taking the chance that they will become the one and only human being who can give another human being the most basic need a human being has, a gestation period. That know that here in civilized places the father will be required to provide support, whether he wants to or not. She knows that she could give up the baby for adoption. She has a social safety net available no matter what she picks. When a healthy mother chooses the death of her healthy fetus one human being is choosing the death of another. Semantic games don't change that.
Hev Your argument tells me that people should be forced to suffer for their mistakes/accidents. Should people who get into car accidents not go to the hospital because they "knew the risks"?

Do you want an unwanted child to suffer simply because the women should be forced to learn a lesson? Since a fetus doesnt/cant know anything, I dont see the issue with abortion. It prevents the destruction of 2 lives (although sometimes abortion can have life changing effects).

I dont get the pro-life argument. Abortion, to me, is no different than washing your hands after touching a sick person. :dunno:

[Bright Life]

I am not waving a sign. We are having a thoughtful and civil discussion about a hot button issue that usually drops down to a barrage of slogans and then blows up into a flamewar. I like it, myself:)
Hev

eta~ I rather like this Secular Cafe and the way the harsh pendaric fascists run it!:)

You haven't posted any gross stuff. I see you more as the candle-holder type...You know...Trying to show us the light. :)

[Hevvin Machine]

I can only imagine the expression on your face as you blast away in righteous fury on your keyboard. You make words explode and your sentences run like incandescent rivers of lava...:)

And there isn't any doubt that irresponsible sex will cause more damage than responsible sex, even if condoms are usually used.

Please define "irresponsible sex" . In this context I am only talking about potentially fertile sex. Penile penetration of a vagina when both members are fertile human beings is what I mean by sex. Responsibility is a function of being willing and able to respond appropriately to whatever the outcome of a choice freely made.

A married couple using a condom is completely different from a sexually irresponsible couple using a condom to reduce the danger from risky behaviour. The premise that people just can't help having impulsive sex willynilly is not true.
No Hev. there is nothing wrong with sex, tat is your religion talking, sex is not dirty taboo, sacred or any of those things, and a HI virus really doesnt care about your marital status, or even if it is with a guy or a gal it is either transmitted, if you arent wearing a condom, or not if you are. Simple. I have never suggested that there is anything dirty or taboo about having sex. I'm not talking about STDs either, I'm trying to keep this discussion on track. I know a good bit about STDs, but we have enough of a topic in procreative morality for one thread.:)
But what you said about condoms is simply not true. They are not a guarantee against anything. Usually they work, but not always, sometimes they break. And many many people who depend on them don't always use them. A few drinks, a few promises, and terribly risky sex just happens between people who are usually more careful.

The premise that using precautions makes risky sex safe is also just wrong. It just becomes less dangerous. Define risky and safe as you are definng them please.
Risky sex is sex that might have an outcome that will be a big problem that the participants aren't willing or able to handle. On this thread I am talking about the risk of creating a new human being that the parents don't want to provide for in even the most minimum way, a gestation period.
There are many more risks associated with sex, but lets just try to stay on this one track on this one thread.
There is no such thing as utterly safe sex. Masturbation is about as safe as it gets. But if a heterosexual couple does it there is always the chance of offspring. So the safer the sex, the more likely that a pregnancy will be received as a blessing. A young married couple looking forward to raising children are having the safest sex possible. Competent adult friends who aren't planning to be parents, but are willing and able to do the right thing if they do are taking more risk having sex, but this risk can be minimized. A couple who are only thinking of the moment, and will kill their fetal child to escape the responsibility for their choices, are having the riskiest sex.

What is rsiky about consenting sex between any unmarried 2 adults using a condom?
What's risky is that condoms are not entirely reliable. As long as the two adults are willing to accept the small possibility that they will become parents despite the condom I don't believe they are behaving abominably. But they are taking the small risk of a big outcome. If they aren't even willing to accept the minimum responsibility for the choice that they made then they have behaved abominably.

Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

I am not waving a sign. We are having a thoughtful and civil discussion about a hot button issue that usually drops down to a barrage of slogans and then blows up into a flamewar. I like it, myself:)
Hev

eta~ I rather like this Secular Cafe and the way the harsh pendaric fascists run it!:)

You haven't posted any gross stuff. I see you more as the candle-holder type...You know...Trying to show us the light. :)Thank You. I appreciate that very much.

You know what would be cool? A candle smilie:notworthy:
Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

The mythical illusion of safety provided by Pills and condoms FIFY. What do you think that becasue you have a condom in your pocket you will stick your dick into any thing, OR consent to simply sleeping with anyone? Dont trust everything the semi celibate paedo told you Hev, the real world simply isnt like that. I seriously resent it when somebody changes what I said and then quotes it. I'll thank you not to do that any more.:mad:
No, but a person who generally relies on tech to protect them from the results of irresposible behaviour often are disappointed. Thinking that because you have a condom in your pocket you can stick it into anything without consequences has lead to many a tragedy.

And FWIW, I graduated from twelve years of Catholic education believing in a woman's right to choose abortion. It was the thirty plus years since of experience that gave me a more nuanced view of all this.

results in more risky behaviour. Such as what? Bungee jumping, raping a pitbull, intravenous drug use, freefall parachuting or having more safe sex with people? I'm talking here about taking the risk of choosing the burden that parenthood very clearly is. That is the risk I'm talking about.
I've done some of the other risky things you describe. Freefalling is awesome. And I haven't always been so prudish, it is the result of watching people and seeing what the outcomes of certain kinds of behaviour are.

So much more that the net result is more damage over all.What brainwashed and baselss bollocks Hev,. Cmon, you can do better than third hand victorian morality disguised extremely ineffectively as some sport of spurious health consciousness, cant you? If you cant you are on very shaky ground. Look around you. I don't know Canada as well as America, but the rate of children being born to dreadfully irresponsible parents here is horrible. The easy availablity of The Pill and condoms and abortion should have changed all that. But it hasn't. What got left out of the equation was irresponsibilty, and the results of it. Just because effective contraception is available doesn't mean people will use it. When abortion is available as a post facto means of birth control why should they? When you crunch the numbers and leave out the ideology, what you see is an uptick in sexual dysfunction and child victims of such. You've got girls in middle school who want to get pregnant, just like all their friends. You've got guys who see no reason to use protection, if that bitch can't get an abortion then it isn't his problem. That may not be true, but by the time Little Stud figures this out it is already to late for everybody. Then he doesn't even think he can get a job, because some court is just going to take half his money anyway.

Sexual dysfunction is a gift that just keeps on giving. :bang:

Proof please firstly of the sort of sex you assume is risky? Then proof that condoms dont massively abrogate any risk you managed to highlight.
All sex carries some risk. Some has very low risk. In terms of procreation some has none.
While condoms greatly reduce the risk, the remaining risk is still very great. Even a 99.9% reduction in the risk of a 50% chance will still result in an outcome every once in awhile. Creating a new human being is a very grave event.

Your spurious, church derived "moral danger" doesnt count for anything unless you can back it up somehow, we are talking defined health risks that your church purposefully undermines with lies, whenever it gets the chance, not "adultery is bad for your soul mkay" I didn't use the term "moral danger", m'kay? I'm talking about the danger of human beings dying. I do have a problem with that.

If everybody lived up to the standards of monogamous sexual relations with competent adults the health benefits would be huge. It's not just my church that teaches that. I'm sure that we do not agree upon any definition of "soul", so I don't bring that up on this thread. But adultery is demonstably bad for your temporal person, that isn't too hard to figure out for most people.

There are two different things going on here. For one thing the Catholic Church is considered the moral leader by nearly a billion people. Which given the sheer amount of hypocrisy it exhibits is a truly scary thing to contemplate isnt it? Yep. If you feel you can do better, then have at it. Let's hear your plan for global peace and harmony.
It is incumbent upon them to set the highest possible standard of sexual responsibility. In a community this huge and diverse nuance is a dangerous thing It should be incumbent on them to throw out retarded medieval dogma with no place in this day and age, such as the "contraception is evil" teachings. I agree, it would be nice if the standard teachings could be thrown out, and more nuanced teachings substituted for them. But where do you start? Poor Brazilians who can't afford the children they have will be required to glove up, but wealthy Americans who can well afford another child aren't? It's OK for men to have premarital sex, but not mothers-to-be? You can't start drawing lines in a gray area when everybody is going to interpret them however they want. You set a high standard and try to get people to see the value in it. The Catholic Church doesn't really have much power to enforce anything, even among Catholics.

With that i agree. Teaching peopl that condoms are a bad thing isnt even remotely moral, honourable or justifiable. Teaching people that condoms are a safe substitute for sexual responsibility isn't moral, honorable, or justifiable, either. You can make a decision for yourself. You are an intelligent and resourceful and fortunate human being. The Church is responsible for nearly a billion human beings strung around the globe, from many different cultures and classes and situations.

Making millions pof peopl promise to not use condoms on htye most AIDS riddels continent in the world, becasue it would "endanger their souls" and is therefore worse then AIDS, is even worse, isnt it? I'm doing my best to stay with you here Matty, but words like "pof" and incandescent sentence structure don't really help.

If all Africans and everybody else decided to get married and remain faithful to their spouse and to their children there wouldn't be much of a problem. Plenty of Catholics decide to ignore the Pope when it comes to contraception. T'was always thus, and even the Pope knows it, but he can't very well say that publically. What the Church really tries to teach is "find a partner, stay true to them, and to whatever children you two produce". But you can't have different rules for different people at different times, so you forcefully make a case for the highest possible standards and hope for the best.

That is, simply put, sacrificing a million lives on the alter of catholic doctrine is worth the consistency in immoral teaching?
Millions and millions are already being sacrificed on the altars of other doctrines and ideologies. The sexual revolution promised greater sexual fulfillment and the techological sophistication of contraception and abortion promised less personal responsibility. But it hasn't worked out that way.


I don't think the Pope is under any illusion that Catholics follow every word that comes out of his mouthI thought Catholics were obliged to treat every word of the pope as the word of God, no? Isn't that the basis of papal infallibility
? You thought wrong. I do not feel obliged to treat every word of the Pope as the word of God. I hardly know a Catholic who does.
I hadn't really rejoined the RCC back in 2001, but I was connected enough to remember this. When President Bush was pushing his war on Iraq, the Pope described this war as a "crime against humanity". A bunch of patriotic republican Catholics were a bit dumbfounded to hear their Pope point blank contradict the President. They did not all change political course in lockstep, the way you might imagine if you still believe in papal infallibility. I assure you, Catholics aren't as big on papal infallibility these days as atheists and Protestants seem to be.
Hev

[Danhalen]

I thought papal infallibility only applied in matters of faith.

[Barbarian]

The premise that people just can't help having impulsive sex willynilly is not true.Abstinence-only sex education is a big flop. What more proof do you want that the premise is extremely true?

[court and spark]

In this context I am only talking about potentially fertile sex. Penile penetration of a vagina when both members are fertile human beings is what I mean by sex.

Oh man, you are so missing out.

My sympathies to the missus.

[frazier]

Oh great, an anecdote. That settles the issue I guess. Matty, better let everyone know your buddy got screwed, so they can change all the relevant laws. Dont be a dick ...
Point taken, I apologize.
i'm, simply pointing out that despite all the howls of "Keep his dick in his pants or pay the consequences", that it is not always that straightforward. It does happen., and in thoise situations and similar one, the guy gets totally fucked over, by the woman AND the law, because there is no way to assign the degree to which both parties walked in with their eyes open and were willing participants in the creation of said potential life. Bold added.
There are no easy answers, and it seems that you understand that. You have made some good points, which tend to get obscured (in my mind at least) by the strawmen you use to illustrate them. And yes, both sides are trafficking extensively in the strawman trade. I'm thinking it's damn near impossible to codify a set of laws which cannot be gamed by one gender or the other.

To you that makes no difference,Matty, you don't know me well enough to say that.

[Worldtraveller]

There are two different things going on here. For one thing the Catholic Church is considered the moral leader by nearly a billion people. It is incumbent upon them to set the highest possible standard of sexual responsibilty. In a community this huge and diverse nuance is a dangerous thing. I don't think the Pope is under any illusion that Catholics follow every word that comes out of his mouth.
So we shouldn't use seatbelts because that would encourage dangerous driving behavior and people are to stupid to understand the nuances of driving safely and taking precautions like seatbelts...better get rid of airbags too.

Let's get rid of safety glasses in shop class as well. Don't want to encourage kids to do something stupid by actually protecting their eyes. Oh, and get rid of those fire extinguishers in your house.

[Hevvin Machine]

Abortion is ethically equivalent to switching off life support. If you can do one why not the other? No, abortion is not the ethical equivalent to switching off life support.

Life support is mechanical means of extending life after the body is no longer capable of supporting life. This may or may not be a good thing. But it isn't relevant to the thread. For this thread's purposes abortion is more the ethical equivalent of offing an accident victim to save the perp the inconvenience of taking responsibility for their needs. If somebody chooses to drive their car and hits a pedestrian they are responsible for the needs of the pedestrian, even if the driver didn't mean to hit them. Most abortions are the ethical equivalent of shooting the injured and needy pedestrian to save the driver the expense and inconvenience of taking responsibility for their actions.

Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

In this context I am only talking about potentially fertile sex. Penile penetration of a vagina when both members are fertile human beings is what I mean by sex.

Oh man, you are so missing out.

My sympathies to the missus. C'mon, dearie, you must not have read what I wrote. "In this context" is not the same as generally speaking. I wasn't always such a prude. This is the voice of experience. In my younger days I learned all kinds of sexually gratifying stuff that wasn't particularly risky procreationally.:evil: I not only still know how to do it, I'm better than ever.

What I was trying to do was keep the discussion on one track long enough to reach a conclusion. Something I've noticed is that my abortionists friends, when wriggling in the crushing grip of logic, tend to change the subject. They stop responding to what I say and start talking about some anecdote, ideology, related problem, or anything but what I actually said. I am seeing it happen right here on this thread. I am trying to teach myself how to keep such a conversation on track long enough to reach a conclusion.

Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

Throughout history the biggest crimes have generally been caused by some group of people with power deciding that some other group of people don't qualify as persons and so they are disposable. From slavery to genocide to wars it always comes down to the same thing.
This is a flawed argument because in those cases the "non-person" argument came from things such as skin color, religion, etc...

So why is "their" argument about skin color or gender less flawed than your argument about age? My argument is that all human beings are important, regardless of age, race, gender, or any other characteristic. I don't even think it's OK to kill another human being if they have commited a horrible crime.

A fetus isnt a person because it isnt a life. Nonsense. It a fetus weren't a life with a quite predictable trajectory irresponsible parents wouldn't feel such a need to kill them, now would they? Everybody knows that a three week old fetus is a human life. This human will, in eight months or so, become a legally recognizable person and the parents will be the legally liable persons who owe that child something. And responsible parents know that they have a new little person growing inside them as soon as they get the happy news.
The science doesn't change depending on the attitude of the parents.

Now, this doesnt mean that it isnt alive. A fetus is no more a life than our epidermal cells are, and we make laws against cutting because its killing "life". Our epidermal cells are alive, but they are not A life. They are not a genetically unique individual human being.
C'mon, you're a scientist. We both know that you can see the difference between being alive and being A life.


Something which isnt a life, can not, by definition, be a person. A fetal human is, however A life. S/he might not be a person, but personhood is just a matter of opinion. If someone doesn't think that white people or women or old poeple are persons then you don't have any way to contradict them except for your opinion. So, I'm sticking with scientifically accurate terms like "human being".

The illusion of safety provided by Pills and condoms results in more risky behaviour. So much more that the net result is more damage over all.

There are volumes of studies which conclusively show that proper sex education is way more effective than any abstinence only education. I agree that sex education requires vastly more than some minimum. Sex education that consists only of "Don't" will be drowned out in the general culture and all the "education" kids get from that. Sex education that only consists of technique and contraceptive methods isn't any better though. To be truly effective sex education must teach why responsible sex, and only responsible sex, is likely to result in a happy outcome. I don't think schools are really up to that level of challenge. They can barely teach most kids how to write a complete sentence or why that's important. They can barely teach a kid enough math to balance their checkbook or why that's important. They clearly cannot teach a kid about responsible sex or why that's important.

It is simply impossible to stop people from having sex. True, dats. It is also impossible to stop people from driving unsafely. What is possible is to make the consequences of choices that involve other people well known. Then society can hold people to the standards that are well known. We don't have to wait until the disaster has already happened to regulate the behaviour that everybody knows will probably result in a disaster.

It is not an illusion of safety. If contraceptive technology is what you are talking about, then yes it is an illusion of safety. Somebody here (Notta? I don't remember who it was who said it:dunno:) described having borne four children while using high tech contraceptive devices.

These things really do prevent the spread of STD's and pregnancy just like seat belts prevent you from being thrown from your car. There is no illusion, its a fact. No, they do not "prevent" the spread of anything any more than seatbelts prevent you from being hurt in an accident. That is the fact here. Like seatbelts, they reduce the risk. But also like seatbelts, they will not save you from the ramifications of irresponsible behaviour. So if wearing a seatbelt makes you think you can pass that guy at 100 in the rain at dusk on a country road safely, then it just made you more unsafe, not safer.

Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

A human being might be an adult or a child or a fetus. Someone who would agree that it wrong to choose the death of another human being, but wants to justify elective abortion, becomes unable to understand Bio 101 and cannot see that a fetus is a human at the youngest stage of life. This is really the semantic game being played here. Incorrect. The fetus is developing into a human. No, the fetus is a human being who is developing into a person. S/he is not a person yet, if your definition of person includes cognitive skills and valuable characteristics, which your opinion of a subjective term like "person" might very well.

But scientifically, there is absolutely no way to justify the statement "the fetus is developing into a human". All of these terms have quite precise meanings, and a fetus has already developed into a human.

If you are holding an orchid seed in your hand (some of which are too small to be seen) you would not say this is an orchid. You would clearly call it an orchid seed. It is totally unrecognizable as an orchid. This is scientifically nonsense. A botanist knows that a seed, however small, is still a unique individual member of a species. They know better than to misrepresent the vernacular for the precision of science. If I held out my hand and showed you two seeds and asked you which was the walnut and which was the tomato you wouldn't be confused by the vernacular and say "Neither one is a walnut or a tomato until we plant them and see what plant we get". You are well versed in biology and you know the difference between the vernacular and scientific precision. You know the difference between a walnut and a tomato, even if the seed hasn't yet reached maturity.

Genetically, it is similar to an orchid, but that is where the similarities end. WTF:dunno:
An orchid seed is just genetically similar to orchid? If the circumstances are right and it thrives and flowers at what point did a "not orchid" become an "orchid"?

You are claiming that an orchid seed is not an orchid. Is there something like a scientific rationale for that claim? You are a botanist, this should be easy for you do do, if it's possible at all. I don't think it is.

Genetics don't make a human a human, otherwise we could call a plate of human DNA a human. This is gibberish, at best. An unrefrigerated plate of human DNA is no more capable of becoming a human than any number of frozen beef patties are capable of becoming a cow. So What?

A tiny amount of human DNA, capable of implanting in a human womb, will (if left alone for a few months) become a person. Everybody knows this. That is why irresponsible parets want to kill him/her. Because they know as well as you and I that that tiny bit of human DNA is a human being on the way to being a person.

Your argument tells me that people should be forced to suffer for their mistakes/accidents. That is not what I am saying at all. What I am saying is that allowing some people to choose other people's death is not the solution. The problems are huge. But letting some people sweep them under the rug by killing off their children is not a solution to the real problems.

Should people who get into car accidents not go to the hospital because they "knew the risks"? Of course not. But should people who have involved others be allowed to kill their victims if they are considered more imortant, socially? Let's take everybody to the hospital, get them the best care possible, and then assign responsibility, not blame.

Do you want an unwanted child to suffer simply because the women should be forced to learn a lesson? No, and there is no reason that the child should suffer. There are plenty of resources and competent adults around the world to provide for the children.

Since a fetus doesnt/cant know anything, I dont see the issue with abortion. This is wrong and you know it. A fetus doesn't know much, if anything, but s/he certainly can know as much as you do. S/he just needs as much time as you have gotten to work on it.

It prevents the destruction of 2 lives (although sometimes abortion can have life changing effects). What do you mean by "it"? Abortion obviously ruins at least one life. At best it results in the destruction of one life with the hope of partially salvaging another one. Abortion cannot possibly prevent the destruction of 2 lives, except for some exceptional circumstances. For those circumstances I use the term "medical emergency".


I dont get the pro-life argument. Abortion, to me, is no different than washing your hands after touching a sick person. :dunno:Killing a human being is no different than washing your hands?

This is what I see as one of the biggest moral disasters of the whole human race.

Killing a woman is no different than washing your hands.
Killing a nigger is no different than washing your hands.
Killing a whore is no different than washing your hands.
Killing a fag is no different than washing your hands.
Kiling a Muslim is no different than washing your hands.
Killing a criminal is no different than washing your hands.
Killing a Protestant is no different than washing your hands.
Killing a Jew is no different than washing your hands.
Killing an AIDS baby is no different than washing your hands.


Once killing other human beings has become no different than washing your hands, where does it stop?
Hev

[Faerie]

[QUOTE] There are plenty of resources and competent adults around the world to provide for the children.


You might want to rethink or at least REPHRASE this statement.

[court and spark]

I'm really not too worried about killing human beings that do not breathe air.

[nygreenguy]

So why is "their" argument about skin color or gender less flawed than your argument about age? My argument is that all human beings are important, regardless of age, race, gender, or any other characteristic. I don't even think it's OK to kill another human being if they have commited a horrible crime. person "age" is measured in time since birth, not fertilization.

Nonsense. It a fetus weren't a life with a quite predictable trajectory irresponsible parents wouldn't feel such a need to kill them, now would they? Everybody knows that a three week old fetus is a human life. This human will, in eight months or so, become a legally recognizable person and the parents will be the legally liable persons who owe that child something. And responsible parents know that they have a new little person growing inside them as soon as they get the happy news.
The science doesn't change depending on the attitude of the parents. Potential to become a life =/= a life. This is another common, flawed argument. This is why abortion should be allowed, because we are stopping the potential life before it actually becomes a life.
Our epidermal cells are alive, but they are not A life. They are not a genetically unique individual human being. Then neither is a fetus.
C'mon, you're a scientist. We both know that you can see the difference between being alive and being A life. Thats what Ive been saying all along.

A fetal human is, however A life. S/he might not be a person, but personhood is just a matter of opinion. If someone doesn't think that white people or women or old poeple are persons then you don't have any way to contradict them except for your opinion. So, I'm sticking with scientifically accurate terms like "human being". My point exactly, and a fetus is not a life. You have presented nothing other than genetics (to which I showed how genetics alone doesnt determine a life) to demonstrate how a fetus is A life.

I agree that sex education requires vastly more than some minimum. Sex education that consists only of "Don't" will be drowned out in the general culture and all the "education" kids get from that. Sex education that only consists of technique and contraceptive methods isn't any better though. To be truly effective sex education must teach why responsible sex, and only responsible sex, is likely to result in a happy outcome. I don't think schools are really up to that level of challenge. They can barely teach most kids how to write a complete sentence or why that's important. They can barely teach a kid enough math to balance their checkbook or why that's important. They clearly cannot teach a kid about responsible sex or why that's important. This hanst been my experience, but because some schools do not perform great in this area doesnt mean that they couldnt, and your argument doesnt really seem to ever support the teaching of it.
If contraceptive technology is what you are talking about, then yes it is an illusion of safety. Somebody here (Notta? I don't remember who it was who said it:dunno:) described having borne four children while using high tech contraceptive devices. anecdotal evidence.

No, they do not "prevent" the spread of anything any more than seatbelts prevent you from being hurt in an accident. That is the fact here. Like seatbelts, they reduce the risk. But also like seatbelts, they will not save you from the ramifications of irresponsible behaviour. So if wearing a seatbelt makes you think you can pass that guy at 100 in the rain at dusk on a country road safely, then it just made you more unsafe, not safer. A flawed comparison. Condoms have around a >99% pregnancy and STD prevention rate. Seat belts cant even come close to being that effective. When used properly, condoms do protect you. Weather you like it or not, it is simply a fact.

[nygreenguy]

No, the fetus is a human being who is developing into a person. S/he is not a person yet, if your definition of person includes cognitive skills and valuable characteristics, which your opinion of a subjective term like "person" might very well. It is simply a developmental stage. It is in the process of becoming. Its like a pre-cooked cake. It has potential, but until put through all the necessary steps, it wont become a cake.

But scientifically, there is absolutely no way to justify the statement "the fetus is developing into a human". All of these terms have quite precise meanings, and a fetus has already developed into a human. Incorrect in every way. A fetus is not, in any way, a human. Its a human fetus.

This is scientifically nonsense. A botanist knows that a seed, however small, is still a unique individual member of a species. They know better than to misrepresent the vernacular for the precision of science. If I held out my hand and showed you two seeds and asked you which was the walnut and which was the tomato you wouldn't be confused by the vernacular and say "Neither one is a walnut or a tomato until we plant them and see what plant we get". You are well versed in biology and you know the difference between the vernacular and scientific precision. You know the difference between a walnut and a tomato, even if the seed hasn't yet reached maturity. I would say it is the seed of a tomato or walnut, but I would be crazy to actually classify it AS a walnut tree or tomato plant.


An orchid seed is just genetically similar to orchid? If the circumstances are right and it thrives and flowers at what point did a "not orchid" become an "orchid"? I dont doubt that the point of "orchid" and "not orchid" is a tough one (just like the cake) but at some points there are clear distinctions. A seed is clearly not an orchid, while a 12" height flowering plant is.

You are claiming that an orchid seed is not an orchid. Is there something like a scientific rationale for that claim? You are a botanist, this should be easy for you do do, if it's possible at all. I don't think it is. It is, because its not an orchid. An orchid is a photosynthesizing plant, a seed is neither. A seed is simply a stage in the development of an orchid. It is a vessel that contains all the things necessary to develop into an orchid.

This is gibberish, at best. An unrefrigerated plate of human DNA is no more capable of becoming a human than any number of frozen beef patties are capable of becoming a cow. So What? So something has potential to become a life, how does that make it a life? So what?

A tiny amount of human DNA, capable of implanting in a human womb, will (if left alone for a few months) become a person. Everybody knows this. That is why irresponsible parets want to kill him/her. Because they know as well as you and I that that tiny bit of human DNA is a human being on the way to being a person. Actually, it doesnt do it on its own. It can only become a human if the mother supplies it with what it requires. If you take it out, it wont survive. "Natural potential" has a few strings attached.

That is not what I am saying at all. What I am saying is that allowing some people to choose other people's death is not the solution. The problems are huge. But letting some people sweep them under the rug by killing off their children is not a solution to the real problems.
You still have yet to properly show how anyone is killing any individual at all. "Potential" simply doesnt cut it. Give us a real, actual argument on this.

[court and spark]

This is not a cake:

http://www.4kidsnus.com/food/hfde404.jpg

This is not an oak tree:

http://elderscrosspoint.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/acorn.jpg

This is not a baby:

http://images.suite101.com/387306_com_embryoforsuite101resize.jpg

[Hevvin Machine]

[QUOTE] There are plenty of resources and competent adults around the world to provide for the children.


You might want to rethink or at least REPHRASE this statement.I don't think I should. It is quite true exactly as it was written. There is plenty of everything to provide for all the children of the world and then some. The problem is that some humans have enough power to keep so much for themselves that others go without basic needs. That is not the same as saying there just isn't enough.
Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

I'm really not too worried about killing human beings that do not breathe air.
Heh You'd have fit right in during the Bronze Age.
At that time nearly everybody considered breathing synonomous with being alive.

Of course, at the same time nearly everybody thought that males planted seeds in female vessels. A child was the property of the father, until he came of age. Women just remained the property of whatever man owned them permanently. Feel free to maintain whatever primitive beliefs you want to, but don't expect me to support them.
Hev

[court and spark]

I'm really not too worried about killing human beings that do not breathe air.
Heh You'd have fit right in during the Bronze Age.
At that time nearly everybody considered breathing synonomous with being alive.

Of course, at the same time nearly everybody thought that males planted seeds in female vessels. A child was the property of the father, until he came of age. Women just remained the property of whatever man owned them permanently. Feel free to maintain whatever primitive beliefs you want to, but don't expect me to support them.
Hev

Expecting you to stop occupying your mind with the contents of my uterus is hardly a primitive belief.

[Faerie]

[QUOTE] There are plenty of resources and competent adults around the world to provide for the children.


You might want to rethink or at least REPHRASE this statement.I don't think I should. It is quite true exactly as it was written. There is plenty of everything to provide for all the children of the world and then some. The problem is that some humans have enough power to keep so much for themselves that others go without basic needs. That is not the same as saying there just isn't enough.
Hev

So I take it you're willing to downgrade to living in a shack, give 2/3 of your income to other's, and live off bag of grain a month? YOUR resources and competencies? Do you even realise how much power you have even as you speak of "some humans" keep so much for themselves?

[Hevvin Machine]

So I take it you're willing to downgrade to living in a shack, give 2/3 of your income to other's, and live off bag of grain a month? Yes, if I thought that doing so would end the problem, I would do it in a New York minute. But I know that living my life in a way that is both productive and also causes change is better for me. I am basically very selfish. I want the best thing for me.
My only real indulgence is buying Art. I've got a lot of it. Far more than our little house can display at any one time. But for most of the last twenty years the single biggest line item in my budget is "charitable giving". We paid off this house fifteen years ago and instead of buying a more expensive one we started giving money away. A fair number of people have had their basic needs met because I wrote a check or supported a committee or in some way got involved in furthering my morality. I believe that my willingness to confront public officials has had more to do with supporting my morality than the small amount of money that I could give.

I'm an educated and articulate white male with money. I do know how to write a letter-to-the-editor, and I do. I know enough about charitable organizations to support good ones and avoid bad ones.
I really like my church, because I can support causes while I actually know the people involved and exactly where they spend every penny. I get a statement every month and I know exactly who created it. I am quite willing and able to ask hard-assed questions and I get answers.

YOUR resources and competencies? Yeah, mine. I have a lot of both.

Do you even realise how much power you have even as you speak of "some humans" keep so much for themselves? Yes I do realize that. So I try to use it, and I'm not so bad at doing so.

Do you know anything about me? What I stand for, or how I go about supporting what I stand for?
Hev

[Bright Life]

So I take it you're willing to downgrade to living in a shack, give 2/3 of your income to other's, and live off bag of grain a month? Yes, if I thought that doing so would end the problem, I would do it in a New York minute. But I know that living my life in a way that is both productive and also causes change is better for me. I am basically very selfish. I want the best thing for me.

Sounds a lot like the reasoning you say people give to get abortions.

[Matty]

Matty, you don't know me well enough to say that. Touche. My bad.


Most abortions are the ethical equivalent of shooting the injured and needy pedestrian to save the driver the expense and inconvenience of taking responsibility for their actions.You dont get a pass that easy. Thats a fucking daft analogy but lets run with it for hypothetical sake, and to point out the pertinent bit you seem to be avoiding.

That might be a comparable story there as long as you exist in a world where the churches have already added such an extreme stigma to being hit by a car that in many cases there seemed little difference between living and dying. If you knew that there would be no support for the poor paralysed road traffic accident victim, in fact the opposite, where they would be judged as a subclass through no fault of their own, and spat upon becasue of it. Even in direct opposition to the supposed Xtian teaching, their whole families or anyone who offered help, were vilified as setting a bad moral example and castigated/exiled by the churches.

Only impure and irresponsible people ever get hit by cars, after all, it says so in the bible, and why would you want to help those, you might get dirty yourself. If you were one of those dirty RTA victims, you were fucked if you lived and fucked if you died, in fact fucked if you existed in the first place. In the case of children born into many faiths, like yours, literally as well as figuratively of course ***

You need to add in the stigma of being hit by a car, as well as the fact that people who are careless enough to get themselves hit by a car, are morally unclean in the first place, and then you need to add that having safe public crossings and stop signs would only make the matter worse. I mean who doesnt look at a stop sign or a public crossing and think "You know what? That STOP sign makes me want to do the exact opposite, i cannot control my lust for running down pedestrians, and anyway, anyone who happens to be crossing as i run the light, is morally questionable in the first place, so fuck them, its their fault"


** lets not forget that for the longest time, the priets and nuns of poorhouses and church institutions were fed reams of boys and girls for their abusive pleasure purely ON the basis of the fact that they were born out of wedlock and therefore had no real right to a normal life. The best these kids could hope for was a shit life of abuse

The religiously inspired contempt for these impure children is on record as what led so many people of your specific sect to abuse the shit out of them. To try and beat or fuck the unclean out of these ugly dirty children that only had the ugly and dirty status,. becasue the church assigned it it in the first place. If that isnt a fucked up morally repugnant, self justification i dont know what is.

Now, with those pertinent details in there, do you still like the RTA accident analogy?

[sohy]

What I was trying to do was keep the discussion on one track long enough to reach a conclusion. Something I've noticed is that my abortionists friends, when wriggling in the crushing grip of logic, tend to change the subject. They stop responding to what I say and start talking about some anecdote, ideology, related problem, or anything but what I actually said. I am seeing it happen right here on this thread. I am trying to teach myself how to keep such a conversation on track long enough to reach a conclusion.


I'm sorry if I'm one who gave you that impression. I stopped responding because your argument sounded like...a zygote is a baby is a fetus is a baby is a baby etc. In other words, your opinion on the subject is so black and white that I saw no reason to discuss this with you any further.

I presented Shermer's argument because I thought it was quite reasonable, but my personal opinion about abortion is as emotional as yours. You consider all fetal material to be sacred. I consider the right of all women to decide if the contents of her womb should be allowed to mature to be her sacred right. What is there left to discuss?

[Hevvin Machine]

Matty, you don't know me well enough to say that. Touche. My bad.

I spent most of an hour scrolling around looking for where I said this, so I could look at the context. I finally realized, that I hadn't said it. Frazier did.
Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

Most abortions are the ethical equivalent of shooting the injured and needy pedestrian to save the driver the expense and inconvenience of taking responsibility for their actions.You dont get a pass that easy. Thats a fucking daft analogy but lets run with it for hypothetical sake, and to point out the pertinent bit you seem to be avoiding.

That might be a comparable story there as long as you exist in a world where the churches have already added such an extreme stigma to being hit by a car that in many cases there seemed little difference between living and dying.


Matty, it's an analogy. My point was "If you make a choice that involves someone else then you are responsible for tending to them and their needs. It doesn't matter if you didn't mean to involve them, if you did you owe them the bare minimum even if it's inconvenient."

Your whole long story about past injustices aren't the point to the analogy. If we, as a society, were still judging people that way maybe it would be a point. But the fact is, we aren't. Children aren't judged by the behaviour of their paents nowadays, at least not here. Maybe you live in a more old-fashioned place than I do.

What I'm talking about is procreation. This is a very well understood concept, everybody knows where babies come from. It is, in a way, like driving a car. Nobody ever has to do it, and everybody who decides to do so knows what the risks are. If you decide to take the risks of driving, which include hitting a pedestrian, you are assumed to have decided to be responsible for the outcome. Even if you were being careful driving, if you involve someone else, you can't choose later to avoid the risk by killing someone that you hit. You chose to drive a car and if you hit someone you are responsible for their needs following.

The analogy starts to break down when you apply it to pregnancy. As a motorist you are not expected to personally heal anybody. You can't take that level of responsibility, it's not possible. One of the humans involved in a pregancy is utterly dependant on one other human for life. There is no way to transfer that responsibility to anyone else. It's just an analogy. It is an analogy about taking personal responsibility for choices a competent adult makes when they involve someone else.

Now, with those pertinent details in there, do you still like the RTA accident analogy? So, now, having eliminated all those irrelevant derails, will you agree that a person is responsible for the choices they make, when it is a matter of life and death to someone else?
Hev

[Danhalen]

Heh You'd have fit right in during the Bronze Age...

<snip>

... Feel free to maintain whatever primitive beliefs you want to, but don't expect me to support them.Says the guy who believes in the truths of a bronze age religion.