Abortion: Legal or Illegal

Abstrakt wrote: Abortion should definitely be legal. If a person wants their baby or not it's nobody's business but their own. To force someone to keep their baby against their will is just stupid. If the mother doesn't want it, isn't it better to remove it at an early stage rather than letting the mother go through birth against her will, and then letting the child get adopted or something against its will? I really havn't read any convincing arguments on why it should be illegal.

You know for a fact that babies would rather be dead than adopted?

lazland wrote: Henry Plainview wrote:   lazland wrote: In addition, if aborted foetuses are condemned to eternal damnation, as my church teaches THAT IS NOT WHAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TEACHES Yes it is. In order to enjoy eternal bliss, you have to be baptised and entered into the family of the church. It is still official doctrine of the church, even if it is not publicised very much these days.

lazland wrote: Henry Plainview wrote: lazland wrote: Henry Plainview wrote:   lazland wrote: In addition, if aborted foetuses are condemned to eternal damnation, as my church teaches THAT IS NOT WHAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TEACHES Yes it is. In order to enjoy eternal bliss, you have to be baptised and entered into the family of the church. It is still official doctrine of the church, even if it is not publicised very much these days. You didn't even read the link, did you? Here is another one from a Catholic website if you perhaps do not like Wikipedia. Yes I did, and without wishing to get into a long argument about this, I would acknowledge that modern (and it is very modern, overturning centuries of orthodox teaching) teaching expresses the hope that a merciful God will allow unbaptised children into the kingdom of heaven, but absolutely not the certainty, because the church still teaches that we are all created in original sin, and thus without baptism to expurgate that sin, we are doomed (I paraphrase). It is, of course, this utter nonsense (without any biblical foundation as far as I can tell) that led to all those centuries of anxiety of parents whose children died in the womb, and latterly the debate to which your link helpfully explains. It is also why the church, until relatively recently, insisted that all those of differing faiths, let alone atheists, had no hope whatsoever of salvation. My point should, therefore, have read that for many centuries it was orthodox teaching that those not cleansed of original sin were not allowed entry to the kingdom of heaven. That teaching has very recently been adjusted.

I'm sorry that's one reason I could never be a Catholic. Far be it from me to stare into the eyes of cute and innocent newborn and call it sinful. In fact, such doctrine implies that God himself is sinful, for he creates sinful beings. I believe God creates beings with freewill, that may or may not engage in sin.

People don't even understand the Catholic teaching of original sin and are complaining about it. 

The problem with this discussion is that either side is playing on a different field, with different goalposts.  That leads to the unrelated arguments about killing living children, people's opinions on the death penalty, and whatever.  The fact is, there are two beings to consider, the child and the mother. They both have rights.  And the question is: when does the child's rights supercede the mother's?

The T wrote: ^There are plenty, plenty of reasons not to be religious whatsoever...

TheMasterMofo wrote: My whole problem with it is that it seems illogical that you can kill people at a certain early age and it's fine, but it's illegal to do it when they're born.

Edited by stonebeard - November 03 2011 at 17:34

Luckily, we don't actually have to worry about that since the idea of an afterlife is absurd.

TheMasterMofo wrote: What makes the line drawn there, though? Healthy babies are aborted ALL THE TIME. The vast majority of abortions aren't due to health concerns with the unborn baby, but are instead due to the fact that the parents don't want the baby. It rarely has anything to do with health, though there are circumstances in which it does. And I wouldn't really consider it an abortion if the baby's already dead. I can understand the desire to get a dead baby out of one's womb entirely. My whole argument against abortion is that it's killing a human; if the baby's already dead then my argument doesn't apply against that situation. What if tomorrow you go out and rape someone in a coma? Is it going to be OK because the person in the coma doesn't realize that it's happening and they won't have the will to say no? I'm not straw-manning, I'm just pointing out that "will" is a pretty vague term. Killing someone, in general, isn't allowed, even if they have will and ASK to be killed. If your friend asks you to kill him so that he doesn't commit suicide, are you going to be in trouble for doing it? Most certainly yes. And though I am a Christian, I don't base any of my arguments against abortion on my faith. My whole problem with it is that it seems illogical that you can kill people at a certain early age and it's fine, but it's illegal to do it when they're born. If I find a pregnant woman and I kick her in the stomach and the baby dies, I get charged with... Hmm... You guessed it! Murder! How is it human then but it's not human if it's an abortion?

Yeah there's a real epidemic of healthy babies being aborted all the time in this country.  You believe what you want to believe there, bud.  Clinics that perform abortions are shutting down all the time.  You guys are winning.

By the way, I don't like the way you use "you" in that whole rape someone in a coma thing, that you even thought of such a thing, reflects badly on you.  I am absolutely against raping people in comas.

Don't fool yourself, your faith does shape your opinion and you shouldn't deny it.   I fully accept that at some point in development the fetus becomes a baby and certainly qualifies as a person and really there is no clear line.  What I disapprove of is the government interfering in peoples lives in medical matters.  I'm not sure why you don't get the difference in assaulting a woman by kicking her in the stomach to kill her baby and a woman choosing to terminate her pregnancy?  Also, I'd never argue that abortion isn't terminating a human life.

To change the subject slightly, what's your position on frozen embryos?  Many of them wind up destroyed.  I'd like to open that question up to everyone.  What should be their fate if they aren't implanted?


Edited by Slartibartfast - November 03 2011 at 18:31

Yes, but what do you know about Catholic Girls?


Edited by Slartibartfast - November 03 2011 at 18:32