Abortion: Legal or Illegal

stonebeard wrote: 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. I'm just going to say it: a fetus is not a person and does not deserve all  the rights we afford to born people. As I've said before, ideally I'd most prefer to draw the line at the threshold of pain, or as best we can approximate that, before abortion becomes tricky. But merely being conceived does not mean anything to me.

We give dogs some semblance of rights.

Slartibartfast wrote: What I disapprove of is the government interfering in people's lives in medical matters.

But you approve its interfering in every other matter .

The T wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: What I disapprove of is the government interfering in people's lives in medical matters. But you approve its interfering in every other matter .

Actually, only in some.

I do want to repose the question: What about frozen embryos? (serious question) Many are destroyed in the process of trying to have a successful pregnancy.  Some are left in the deep freeze.  Does person-hood begin at successful implantation in a womb?  One day with technology we'll probably have artificial wombs.  How about instead of abortion, women have the choice to give up their fetus or baby at whatever stage of development and turn it over to be completed in an artificial womb?


Edited by Slartibartfast - November 03 2011 at 18:47

Sean Trane wrote: totally legal     if you don't want to abort, fine....   but who's anyone (and I mean ANYONE, beit some religious zealot or the concerned male genitor) to tell a woman what to do with her body???

Straw man.

Slartibartfast wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: The T wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: What I disapprove of is the government interfering in people's lives in medical matters. But you approve its interfering in every other matter . Actually, only in some. I do want to repose the question: What about frozen embryos? (serious question) Many are destroyed in the process of trying to have a successful pregnancy.  Some are left in the deep freeze.  You support the FDA so you don't actual disprove of the government interfering in people's lives in medical matters. The FDA isn't forcing or outlawing abortions.

And? It interferes in other's medical matters. What you really mean to say is that you disprove of the government interfering in people's lives in medical matters that are abortion.

The opposition in Argentina have this to say, amongst other things that I might translate later for more discussion:

Edited by The Quiet One - November 03 2011 at 19:00

Slartibartfast wrote: If you oversimplify a thing sometimes you deny the complexity of it.  Are you for life?  Sure, who isn't?  No, I hate life, I wish everything was dead.  If one has an abortion is better for both to be dead than one?

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: The T wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: What I disapprove of is the government interfering in people's lives in medical matters. But you approve its interfering in every other matter . Actually, only in some.I do want to repose the question: What about frozen embryos? (serious question) Many are destroyed in the process of trying to have a successful pregnancy.  Some are left in the deep freeze.  You support the FDA so you don't actual disprove of the government interfering in people's lives in medical matters.

Actually, Slarti loves Obamacare and government-controlled healthcare. In general, he actually loves government interfering even in medical matters. .

Atavachron wrote: I wonder if the subject was whether the mother should be killed in order to save, or improve, the baby's life.

Why wonder? You can just check the OP to see if that's the case.

stonebeard wrote: 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. I'm just going to say it: a fetus is not a person and does not deserve all  the rights we afford to born people. As I've said before, ideally I'd most prefer to draw the line at the threshold of pain, or as best we can approximate that, before abortion becomes tricky. But merely being conceived does not mean anything to me.

Based on what logic? A human man and a human woman have human sex. The human sperm connects with a human egg and grows inside of the human woman's human womb. After nine months a human baby pops out of the human woman's vag' and grows into a human adult. At what point does the "fetus" magically cease to be human?

Slartibartfast wrote: 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.

There IS an epidemic of healthy babies being aborted in this country. Here's some data taken from http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/facts/women_who.html about the number of abortions:

"Each year, almost half of all pregnancies among American women are unintended.1 About half of these unplanned pregnancies, 1.3 million each year, are ended by abortion.1,2

There are many myths and misconceptions about who gets abortions, and why. The fact is that the women who have abortions come from all racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and religious backgrounds. If current rates continue, it is estimated that 35% of all women of reproductive age in America today will have had an abortion by the time they reach the age of 45.3"

I'm using data from a PRO abortion site because I don't believe in using data from my own viewpoint because it could easily be slanted towards supporting its own position. Instead I use data and sources from the point I'm arguing against because it should, in theory, at least be more credible to you.

More data from the same website:

"MYTH: Women have abortions for selfish or frivolous reasons.

The decision to have an abortion is rarely simple. Most women base their decision on several factors, the most common being lack of money and/or unreadiness to start or expand their families due to existing responsibilities. Many feel that the most responsible course of action is to wait until their situation is more suited to childrearing; 66% plan to have children when they are older, financially able to provide necessities for them, and/or in a supportive relationship with a partner so their children will have two parents.8 Others wanted to get pregnant but developed serious medical problems, learned that the fetus had severe abnormalities, or experienced some other personal crisis. About 13,000 women each year have abortions because they have become pregnant as a result of rape or incest.1"

So most women get abortions because, like I said, they just don't feel like having kids at that time. The bolded part states this. When you say that women get abortions due to the babies being unhealthy, yeah, that's sort of true, but it's not the majority according to this website.

Slartibartfast wrote: 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.

I apologize if you're offended by me saying "you". I probably should have said "someone" instead. I certainly did not at all mean to imply that you yourself would do such a thing. Do you see the point there, though? They technically don't have any active "Will" against it, so what's the issue? That's why using a vague concept like "will" is not particularly effective.

Slartibartfast wrote: 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.

Oh, it certainly shapes my opinion, but what I said is that I don't use my faith in my arguments. My whole argument that I use, personally, against abortion is that it's illogical to kill a human when murder is illegal. Operating on a faith-based argument would be silly because to people who don't believe what I believe, it would be a meaningless argument.

The difference between kicking a woman and killing her baby and the woman aborting her baby on her own is simple:

If me kicking a woman and killing a baby in its first trimester, where most abortions are performed, is MURDER, then the law is saying that the unborn fetus is a human with human rights.

But... If that same woman has an abortion performed an hour prior to me kicking her in the stomach it's fine? There's a logical inconsistency there.

Slartibartfast wrote: 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?

That's a really difficult question, actually, because they're there, waiting, and there are a lot of extra ones that are never used. There ARE cases out there of babies being born from 20 year old embryos. To me, that's just freaking weird... That's a slippery slope and I'm honest enough to say that I don't really have a firm or definite stance on it because it's hard to really say with conviction what I think should be done with unused embryos sitting around.

The problem is, if the parents aren't using them and can't donate them to another couple... What else can really be done with them? Research might be the only conceivable (See what I did there?) option. The thing is, we can create synthetic stem cells now that can reproduce on their own; the need for embryos to harvest stem cells is being eliminated, which is a good thing IMO.


Edited by TheMasterMofo - November 03 2011 at 21:08