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for those against abortion

Usehername

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I find this interesting because I'm your age but I'm reluctant to consider adoption as an option due mainly to the horrifying things you so often see in foster care....and even if it doesn't get to the abuse levels, you can't really know how the adoptive parents will treat the child...or even that it'd be adopted at all. And then you have the adopted child later in life wondering why you "threw him away" and didn't want him etc etc. Not to say there aren't amazing foster parents (there are), you just can't know for sure without an open adoption.

I would kinda rather prevent the child from being born rather than subject it (and me) to that uncertainty for our whole lives. So the choice for me would be between abortion and keeping it...and I'm not even sure now what choice I would make, because abortion's not something I would be comfortable with (but neither is raising a child at this point in my life..)

sorry I'll stop talking since I'm a potential baby-killer. I just wanted to comment on that.

New babies are always "in demand" in the West--it's kids that adoptive parents aren't able to raise from birth that are in foster care. (Right? I think?)
 

Tewt

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New babies are always "in demand" in the West--it's kids that adoptive parents aren't able to raise from birth that are in foster care. (Right? I think?)

Children that are initially placed in foster care are there because their parents didn't/won't sign away their parental rights and as of yet, a judge has not terminated their rights. While they are in the foster home, the parent may sign or a judge may terminate and then they are (sometimes) available for adoption.

There are a lot of studies and information coming out of the adoption reform that makes adoption look like a pretty poor choice as well. In America its a billion dollar industry, a lot of corruption and child trafficking. Many Biological Mothers from the 50s/60s are now speaking out about the effects have given their children up and their children after reuniting are speaking out with them.
 
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Sniffles

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Plain and simple, abortion means the killing of not only an innocent life form, but one that can't even rightfully defends itself. That in itself is unjust.

Appealing to the differences between a fetus and a child is really a red herring, since Personhood is an ethical not a biological category. One's Personhood is not determined by what exact stage of biological development you're in, it's an instrinstic value - based upon the key notion that human life is a good in of itself.

This also ties into issues of "quality" of life; which treats life as merely a means, not an end. As Aristotle put it in Rhetoric: "And life: since, even if no other good were the result of life, it is desirable in itself."
 

The Decline

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Thanks for trolling.

I just find it hard swallow that anti-abortionists groups enjoy taking away civil rights, on the sole basis of "saving lives", when there's plenty of lives to be saved in Africa due to malnutrition, as well as environmental poverty which leads to an increased infantile mortality rate.

Such a limited scope makes me lose complete respect in their fight.
 

Risen

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I just find it hard swallow that anti-abortionists groups enjoy taking away civil rights, on the sole basis of "saving lives", when there's plenty of lives to be saved in Africa due to malnutrition, as well as environmental poverty which leads to an increased infantile mortality rate.

Such a limited scope makes me lose complete respect in their fight.

So the obvious solution is to ignore the killing our own infants and focus on reducing our own wealth so we can help raise up the rest of the world? Because we as individuals have so much more control over what happens in Africa than we do with our own children?
 
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Sniffles

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I just find it hard swallow that anti-abortionists groups enjoy taking away civil rights, on the sole basis of "saving lives", when there's plenty of lives to be saved in Africa due to malnutrition, as well as environmental poverty which leads to an increased infantile mortality rate.

How exactly is abortion a civil right?

Concerning social injustices, you obviously lack any realization that religious groups have long been addressing those as well - in Africa and elsewhere. Just within the last week or so there's been stories about the Pope trying to raise such issues with the Synod of Africa(which just closed today); along with his latest encyclical Caritas in Veritate which asserts that respect for the sanctity of human life is the true basis for social justice.

You could also benefit from introductionary readings into Protestant Social Gospel as well.


Such a limited scope makes me lose complete respect in their fight.
If anybody is demonstrating a limited scope here, it's you.
 
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Sniffles

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Uh... you're taking away a woman's right to do what she wishes with her body.

Except in reality she's doing something to somebody else's body. Even then, self-posession has its limits - both legally and morally.
 

BlackCat

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Except in reality she's doing something to somebody else's body. Even then, self-posession has its limits - both legally and morally.

I would consider a fetus part of someone's body when it's in the womb.

Even then, sure I respect your belief. But I don't respect that people shouldn't have the right to do what they want. If you are against abortion, then don't get one. Don't force your beliefs on others.
 

Grayscale

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I think abortion is wrong... and that making disctinctions about what is a human life is just splitting hairs to bend it to our desire one way or another.

Let's say a woman who plans on getting pregnant conceives, and somehow someone were to sedate her and perform an abortion within the first month of her pregnancy against her will, would the couple and relatives not be outraged? "I'm sorry about doing the procedure on you without your permission, ma'am, but besides that it's okay--it wasn't a baby yet" :rolli:

The US government does have laws against having intent to commit a crime, well a fetus might not look like a baby but if you allow it it will become one, is this not intent to have a full life? If you abort it, it cannot... actually if we wanted to look at it in a rational way, we should be able to kill certain decrepit senior citizens but not a fetus. To say we can kill it at one point in time but not the other is just a matter of convenient definition.
 

Venom

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babylon, that's why I said that once the fetus has/is developing a brain, it should be considered a life with present or potential sentience on some level. The brainwave argument is poor because we cannot use brainwaves as the sole defining aspect of neurologically produced consciousness, and consciousness itself is an ambiguous concept, with much that we do not fully understand. Rather, what we do know about the brain/central nervous system is that it is necessary for the body to function and for any manner of consciousness. Thus, it is better to say that once the brain is present, that would be the defining point for human life. Either way, there are all manner of other implications that go along with it, including the extreme that i didn't imagine I'd have to mention, that being that the normalizing of such behavior (abortion) makes it easier for people to participate in further devaluing human life (Hexis) as a whole, and that never goes to a good place. I usually don't like making the "slippery slope" argument, but this forum is often a testament...

my post addresses all of your issues. I think you missed where I split it up as: "assumption naturalism" and "assumption non-naturalism". Both equally lead to equally as grisly possibilities as far as when it might be ok to abort. Both lead to reasonable results when we make some further assumptions to protect people from assumptions (of any kind).
 

Athenian200

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Plain and simple, abortion means the killing of not only an innocent life form, but one that can't even rightfully defends itself. That in itself is unjust.

Appealing to the differences between a fetus and a child is really a red herring, since Personhood is an ethical not a biological category. One's Personhood is not determined by what exact stage of biological development you're in, it's an instrinstic value - based upon the key notion that human life is a good in of itself.

This also ties into issues of "quality" of life; which treats life as merely a means, not an end. As Aristotle put it in Rhetoric: "And life: since, even if no other good were the result of life, it is desirable in itself."

Well, that is an interesting perspective, but it seems to me that there's something important left out of it. It seems to me that since the baby is dependent upon the mother to survive up to birth, that it's essentially engaged in a parasitic relationship with it's host.

The problem is that, whether it's fair to the life going on inside of the mother, it's still their body, and unlike in the case of suicide or mutilation, there are clear ways in which pregnancy can harm the mother's body more than an abotion. It can result in calcium deficiencies, pain, inability to work, and more. In extreme cases, labor can even result in death. The fact is, I think that inherent risks of the birth process balance things out. If pregnancy had absolutely no negative effects on a woman's body, your perspective might be justified, but that's not the case. It's not the same as killing a person in cold blood, considering the parasitic element and health risks carrying a baby involve. The baby is, albeit unconsciously, doing biological harm that it can't necessarily be held blameless for if we're going to regard it as a life.

The fact that it's a "natural process" doesn't mean we have no right to interfere. We already interfere with several natural processes that don't directly affect ourselves (such as killing animals for food, medicine, agriculture, etc), but somehow the ones that do directly affect ourselves are the ones you're going to consider too "sacred" to touch? That strikes me as kind of self-centered and hypocritical, if not ironic. We have the right to decide what other species live and die, but not the life of something that's living your own body? Seriously? Illness and death from illness are also a natural process, and yet I don't see any of you jumping to oppose the use of medicine.

If you adopt a moral system that forbids abortion, by all means don't get one. But... I don't think you have any right to make that decision for others.

I don't think every other civilization that forbade them was wrong. I just don't think forbidding abotion is in keeping with our countries ideals, which we're developing new understandings of all the time (for instance, abolishing slavery and giving women the right to vote). For countries founded on different principles, perhaps it is in keeping with their spirit.

Ultimately, my reason for wanting it legal is because I don't think the government should be involved in it, just like I don't want them banning alcohol. Essentially, I believe that we should limit the government's involvement in what people can and can't buy, including abotions. Granted, I don't think the Government should be paying for abotions or creating free abortion clinics either, but it should be legal. It's one thing if you want to protest against and create a social stigma around it, but to create a law regarding it would be unjust, since to do so clearly forces a particular understanding of an issue on which there can be reasonable disagreement upon people unnecessarily. In a religious community, you could reasonably create a stigma around abortion that's as much of a deterrent as any federal law. Shame and upbringing are powerful on their own.

One of the things that's good about our country is that people who have different religious beliefs and conceptions of morality are more free here to live according to their beliefs here than anywhere else. I don't feel that outlawing abotion is in keeping with that. You could choose to put it on the same level as killing people, but there's a huge difference if only in practical terms, because it's not necessary to outlaw abotion to maintain order. Societies have managed to maintain order even when exposing weak children to the elements was considered acceptable... this is still far less brutal than that practice.
 

Lateralus

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No, you are showing your ignorance again Lateralus.

First consider at least reading Roe v. Wade and get some basic understanding of U.S. Constitutional law (I have and I know you have not based on the above post [either that or you were too dumb to understand it). The states can't deny federal fundamental rights of its people when those rights are selected to be applicable to the states via the 14th amendment. The majority of the Court deemed that the 1st amendment's implicit "right of privacy" is applicable to the states via the 14th amendment in Roe v. Wade and similar subsequent cases. By virtue of being a fundamental right and applicable via the 14th amendment any law within the jurisdiction of the U.S. , state or federal, sufficiently infringing upon the fundamental right makes it illegal.

Public nudity is not a fundamental right and thus the states may outlaw it. What a horible example.

It is not so bad that you are ignorant but when you accuse other people on being ignorant who know what they are taking about in an area you totally ignorant in then this shows you sir, have low character. Really after this everything you say is suspect. The shame is yours.
Blah blah blah. Where in the Constitution is it explicitly stated that people have the right to have abortions?

I was taking your original post to be completely literal, no interpretation. If you want your posts to say more, then say more. Your first post was really, really bad.
 

Risen

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my post addresses all of your issues. I think you missed where I split it up as: "assumption naturalism" and "assumption non-naturalism". Both equally lead to equally as grisly possibilities as far as when it might be ok to abort. Both lead to reasonable results when we make some further assumptions to protect people from assumptions (of any kind).

Yea, i pretty much agree. And I also forgot to mention that you are correct about the development of the brain itself. Our genes code for the basic function and structure of brain cells and the brain at large, but it is all a process of construction highly dependent on the environment, both physical and psychological. The neural connections, the specialization within different parts of the brain, and its psychological functions are all environmental factors from the womb to the living adult human. It is the environment that shapes gene expression and gives rise to the amazing complexities within the central nervous system far exceeding the complexity of the genes themselves.
 

LEGERdeMAIN

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Sterilization all the way. Abortion was just a hoax created by Catholics to scare young women into being celibate.

I think that this set of statistics is noteworthy:

42 million abortions(worldwide, per year)

17% of all abortions are performed in developed countries.

Less than 2 million abortions are performed in the US each year.

white women have more abortions in the US, but black women are three times more likely to have an abortion.

In the US, women are 100% more likely to have an abortion than men.
 
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Sniffles

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I would consider a fetus part of someone's body when it's in the womb.
But again, personhood is an ethical not a biological category.

Even then, sure I respect your belief. But I don't respect that people shouldn't have the right to do what they want. If you are against abortion, then don't get one. Don't force your beliefs on others.

Sure, we should respect others beliefs. But we are dealing here with issues that concerns elementary issues of human life; and what should take precedence in law - the good or one's rights. You really can't argue rights takes precedence over moral good, since rights themselves are based upon a conception of a moral good.
 

Venom

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Plain and simple, abortion means the killing of not only an innocent life form, but one that can't even rightfully defends itself. That in itself is unjust.

Appealing to the differences between a fetus and a child is really a red herring, since Personhood is an ethical not a biological category. One's Personhood is not determined by what exact stage of biological development you're in, it's an instrinstic value - based upon the key notion that human life is a good in of itself.

This also ties into issues of "quality" of life; which treats life as merely a means, not an end. As Aristotle put it in Rhetoric: "And life: since, even if no other good were the result of life, it is desirable in itself."

Im not suprised no one read my post. Your argument only works if you start with certain assumptions. Again, its not that I'm saying 'your religious views' are wrong. Its whose religious views, would the gov adopt if we are going to make the non-naturalism assumption? If you consider the non-naturalism viewpoint, almost any point could be arbitrarily chosen as "thats when the soul enters! or thats when it becomes a person hood!"

Its not that you are wrong, its "whose religion are we gonna use?"


This issue has been debated by the best minds for ages. The bottom line is there is no way to prove that one position is morally superior to other. Therefore, like religion, it's a matter of personal choice.

Exactly, anyone who is avoiding the elephant in the room is deluding themselves. This question only makes sense when we examine which assumption your working under. Its not that either one is better than the other, its that "why should the gov pick any over another?"

>>>>>>>>>>>under assumption naturalism: <<<<<<<<<<<<<
--Its tempting to say that until the fetus has a functioning brain, you cannot possibly consider it to be a person...I mean if there have never been any brain waves, how can it have a "personality" mapped to its physical being?

however, even a new born baby lacks any sort of set "brain pattern" linked to something of a personhood above:

How To Build A Baby's Brain | Newsweek.com

Its not legal to murder brain wave-less vegetables, for good reason. So what do unkillable lower animals have (ie pet dogs), that babies have, that make them "unkillable"? A heart beat comes to mind...however, people have killed mice that aren't in our favor.

Sadly, under the naturalism assumption: killing fetuses or even new borns seems to be wrong only if its a) illegal, b) the baby is valued by someone else. until it has a "brain pattern" its just not justifiably intrinsically valuable as personhood.

this is an admittedly grisly conclusion. Think how ridiculous it would be though to ever find a baby that was actually valued by no one...not as possible as you might think. Secondly, would people actually take the time to differentiate and do a brain scan? Where would you quantitatively draw the line as to this "level of brain personality mapping"? Thus, the grisly theoretical conclusion can be tossed out as quickly as im sure everyone wants to (including me!). Drawing the line at the birth point seems to make sense and protect the innocent.


>>>>>under assumption non-naturalism<<<<<<
--you'd be perfectly right to make up any point within any person's life and say "thats when their soul enters!", and then arbitrarily make that "the point where abortion can only happen before".
--It could be conception, a heartbeat, a brain wave, a first birthday, a communion, 100 years old.
the conclusion is potentially just as grisly. Again, in practice, its not that grisly. Most religions believe its at conception or sometime during pregnancy.


In conclusion: can anyone really justify the government taking a side based the assumption of metaphysics? would it be a violation of religious freedom? (whose religious assumption of 'the-soul-enters-at-this-point' would the law use?)
 

The Decline

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So the obvious solution is to ignore the killing our own infants and focus on reducing our own wealth so we can help raise up the rest of the world? Because we as individuals have so much more control over what happens in Africa than we do with our own children?

Infant =! fetus.

As I mentioned above, God/Mother Nature kills 30% of its own fetuses. How terrible! What a monster! Oh the humanity!

Yes, seeing as the developed world has plenty of money, they could stand to save those 40,000 people dying every day due to preventable diseases and starvation and such, don't you think? Well, no, they're from another country, they're not our issue! Fookin' Prawns!

How exactly is abortion a civil right?

--*something about religious groups being charitable*--

If anybody is demonstrating a limited scope here, it's you.

First, let me say that yes, religious organizations are indeed the most charitable groups. This is a strawman argument you raise, since I was talking about anti-abortionist groups. If such groups are so concerned about preserving fragile life, they could make a bigger difference in something that actually matters, instead of robbing a woman of her right to not raise an unwanted potential child in poverty and go through pregnancy.

Look, I can sprout fungal growth on my arm if I please, and then take a match to it and extinguish its existence. That's a civil right, a right to your property. A woman can also sprout embryonic growth in her womb if she so pleases. Seeing as both these cases are about an extension of your body, I don't see how, suddenly upon conception, an embryo is a self-contained individual. But hey, that's just me, right? And these are just bullshit issues, no?
 
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