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for those against abortion

Grayscale

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Killing human life is not wrong if it's done for a reason. For example, self defense.

Agreed... but who needs defending here? Why is the fetus/embryo/big-clump-o-human-cells being destroyed because of a decision that the mother made? You could say, a child exists because their mother gave birth to them, but I think we can all agree that would not give the mother the right to kill the child if it was an inconvenience.

Even our judicial system makes distinctions in accountability, adults are tried differently than juveniles and children because they do not know better. Well, who is the one who ought to know better here? Which one is suffering a loss at the mistake of someone else, and which is shirking responsibility for their choices?
 

Risen

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But it doesn't follow that we must agree on everything in order to coexist.

It is the manner of your "coexistence" that is determined by what is agreed upon, or not agreed upon. It is that order that creates the world we live in.
 
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Sniffles

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Well we are divided as a society already when it comes to certain beliefs.

True, but I never said we should agree on exactly everything for the exact same reasons. However, that doesn't mean it's a free for all in regards to certain values society should uphold in common. Again how can you have a democracy without common belief in freedom, justice, and law?

The abortion issue will NEVER be objectively and unshakeably true, because it's based on opinion.

Based on your opinion.


As I've been saying, the most rational decision is for people to be able to have their opinions and live freely.
Subjectivism is not rational. Reason actually determines that there is a common truth to all men, even if it may apply differently in specific circumstances.

This is why we have a freedom of religion and political belief.
Read again my references to Tocqueville's remarks on this issue.

This is also why we should have a freedom to believe whether abortion is "right" or not, and for the people who think it's "right" to be able to get them and for those who think it's not "right" to be able to choose to not get one. Simple as that.
In other words, bracket controversial issues for the sake of political and social cooperation. However, there are several problems with this approach, which in the end results in attempts to avoid the issue rather than resolving it - which would require a substantial view about conceptions of the human person in regards to moral, religious, and socio-political contexts.

Without that, you cannot assert anything about "civil rights" or anything of the sort, because you no foundation from which to assert that humans have any such rights at all.

I'll remind that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Personalist, which asserts the dignity of human personality and life - and it was on that philosophical basis he made his case for Civil Rights. Do I have to get into the importance of religious and moral arguments in that case as well?
 

Athenian200

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Agreed... but who needs defending here? Why is the fetus/embryo/big-clump-o-human-cells being destroyed because of a decision that the mother made? You could say, a child exists because their mother gave birth to them, but I think we can all agree that would not give the mother the right to kill the child if it was an inconvenience.

Even our judicial system makes distinctions in accountability, adults are tried differently than juveniles and children because they do not know better. Well, who is the one who ought to know better here? Which one is suffering a loss at the mistake of someone else, and which is shirking responsibility for their choices?

I think you might be oversimplifying a bit. You can't reduce this problem to "irresponsibility." There are a lot of factors at work here.

First, why is it necessary that all human life has the same value and the same rights? Couldn't human beings in one stage be accorded different rights than those in another? Does a person have a right to have a limb amputated, or is that wrong because the limb contains "human life" in the form of cells?

Second, why is the death seen as a "loss"? A loss of what, they haven't lived a life or had any meaningful experiences yet.

Lastly, why is it a matter of refusing accountability? It seems to me that getting an abortion might be some people's way of taking accountability, saying that they feel it's the best decision for everyone involved. Sex is an action that has consequences, and abotion is also an action with consequences.

Who are you to say that a person is allowed to take one action and accept that set of consequences, but not to choose the other action and accept the consequences? Why should a person not be allowed to take an action that modifies the consequences of a previous action? It's not true that abortion has no consequences... it does. They're just different from the consequences of NOT having one.
 

BlackCat

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Hmm...

Well I'm tired of this. Cya. You didn't shoot me down, we just have totally different ways of viewing this issue. Neither is good nor bad. And nothing is going to be changed when two arguers are both stubborn with their beliefs. This debate will be endless.

So whatever.
 
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Sniffles

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First, why is it necessary that all human life has the same value and the same rights? Couldn't human beings in one stage be accorded different rights than those in another? Does a person have a right to have a limb amputated, or is that wrong because the limb contains "human life" in the form of cells?

Well it's required if you wish to have a state based upon concepts of justice - which includes the defense of life on an objective basis. Otherwise you end up with regimes like the Nuremberg Laws, where accidental(subjective) elements become the main factor in determining your life's value. Lebensunwerten Lebens was the term used to justify this - "lives unworthy of life".
 

Grayscale

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First, why is it necessary that all human life has the same value and the same rights? Couldn't human beings in one stage be accorded different rights than those in another? Does a person have a right to have a limb amputated, or is that wrong because the limb contains "human life" in the form of cells?

Second, why is the death seen as a "loss"? A loss of what, they haven't lived a life or had any meaningful experiences yet.

If we are not going to give all humans the same freedom to life, then what criteria do you suppose we should use? As I said before, if anything it would be more appropriate to knock off the old and decrepit because they have already had the majority of their right to live. A fetus on the other hand has nearly limitless potential... and since we have such a hard time considering that human, let's just use children as an example--it's always considered tragic when someone young dies because "he had his whole life ahead of him".

Lastly, why is it a matter of refusing accountability? It seems to me that getting an abortion might be some people's way of taking accountability, saying that they feel it's the best decision for everyone involved. Sex is an action that has consequences, and abotion is also an action with consequences.

Who is it really the best decision for? Let's ask people who had an upbringing in poverty if they would have rather their parents killed them when they were a child.

Who are you to say that a person is allowed to take one action and accept that set of consequences, but to choose the other action and accept the consequences? Why should a person not be allowed to take an action that modifies the consequences of a previous action?

Simple. Sex is [most often] voluntary. Once you conceive, the choice affects not only the mother but the human life inside of her. Once it is a child, would not CPS take the child away if the mother were harming it in some way? So now we're back to semantics of whether an embryo is comparable to a child, and you can refer to my previous argument about approaching this essentially rather than semantically.
 

ayoitsStepho

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My mom aborted her first child, the one right before me. This happened 20 years ago and she's just now able to forgive herself. There isn't a day that she regrets it. It could've very likely been myself that was aborted. I mean, you see how scary that is? That could've been me. I could've been nonexistant because of a lie. Because my mother lied to her parents about being pregnant and she went and had an abortion.
She just revealed this to me about a month ago. It created alot of shame in her. If thats one thing that she tells me its that if I were to ever get pregnant, just to come to her and she wont be angry with me. That she'd rather me come to her then to abort. It caused alot of emotional and physical problems for her. She had an infection in her uterus, resulting constant bleeding and vomiting. She had to, once again, go to the hospital w/out her parents knowledge and pay for the damage done to her.
Not only that, but your body, when your pregnant, sends hormones to all parts of your body to take care and feed the baby thats inside of you. When you take the baby out prematurely, those hormones are still running...but wait...there's no baby. That results in mental and emotional problems. Post-partum depression is all she gained from aborting.
This...is something my mother doesn't take lightly. She did it and see's what it does.

I hold strong to that belief that every fetus is a being. Some call it a parasite, but I cannot see how you'd call it that.
Parasite:
-an animal or plant that lives in or on a host (another animal or plant); it obtains nourishment from the host without benefiting or killing the host

-leech: a follower who hangs around a host (without benefit to the host) in hope of gain or advantage

Fetus
-an unborn vertebrate in the later stages of development showing the main recognizable features of the mature [human].

Just as well, a fetus is not apart of a woman. Its inside the woman. In most cases, the fetus isn't even the same sex as the mother and can have a completely different blood type than the mother. In that case, it is NOT the mother. So you cannot say the woman has a right over her body in this case, because the baby is NOT her body. Its a completely different being.
 
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Sniffles

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Sorry I missed this post earlier.
However, I ultimately believe the idea that you can abort should not fall on justification based on consequence of where this child might end up.
For once we agree. As I cited Aristotle: "And life: since, even if no other good were the result of life, it is desirable in itself."

A fetus not developing into a human can be the result of god's will to miscarriages, or human will deciding that the time is not right.

However there is a significant difference between God's will and human will. God after all is the author of all life, while humans are not. For humans to determine the "time is not right" is essentially man playing god.


I think that's enough for me today. Hopefully later I'll get back to Athenian's arguments earlier.
 

Grayscale

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This...is something my mother doesn't take lightly. She did it and see's what it does.

Another commonly overlooked aspect to this... have never heard of a mother who was glad to have an abortion. Have heard plenty of stories of those who deeply regret it, or those who considered it and were glad they didn't in the end.

Not to focus on their mistakes, but let's at least learn from them ya know?

However, I ultimately believe the idea that you can abort should not fall on justification based on consequence of where this child might end up...

Unfortunately it appears that you apply the label "human life" to multicellular organisms within a human. Perhaps you should shed a tear the next time a cancerous growth is surgically removed from a human.

Why not? The law recognizes intent to commit. This is the problem with having this mindset of isolating the issue to a snapshot in time, you end up with ridiculous arguments like equating cancer to a fetus. Without the element of time, a person would not be seen as guilty for standing over someone's sleeping body with a knife because they haven't actually stabbed them yet.
 

ayoitsStepho

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Another commonly overlooked aspect to this... have never heard of a mother who was glad to have an abortion. Have heard plenty of stories of those who deeply regret it, or those who considered it and were glad they didn't in the end.

Not to focus on their mistakes, but let's at least learn from them ya know?

Agree completely. I've met girl after girl who've regreted the abortion. I've had 2 of my best friends get abortions and gah, it really hurt them afterwards. They regreted it so much. I've never met a woman who was glad she got an abortion. Am I saying they aren't out there? No...but I think if you really get down to it. Woman regret it alot of the time.
 

simulatedworld

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yeah plus the aborted fetus goes straight to hell and i hear that's not so good
 

Athenian200

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Well it's required if wish to have a state based upon concepts of justice - which includes the defense of life on an objective basis. Otherwise you end up with regimes like the Nuremberg Laws, where accidental(subjective) elements become the main factor in determining your life's value.

Okay, so what you're saying is that you have trouble conceiving of an objective defintion of human life that protects everyone which wouldn't also include fetuses?

Hmm... I don't know. On one hand, I can see value in that for all the living people.

On the other, it really does feel like a stretch to call something an independent "life" if it's still dependent on the host to survive. I suppose it depends on how you define life.

I personally would prefer to define human life as something that could be sustained without directly drawing on the biological/organic resources of another human being. Essentially, as long as the baby is a dependent process within the parent's body, it's more akin to a parasite, tumor, or defective organ within the body of the parent than it is to independent human life.

Naturally, some would not share my definition of life. That's understandable, of course. Some people like to be more inclusive.

I suppose the issue should be revisited if it ever becomes possible to remove the fetus from the parent's womb and grow it in an artifical tube, though, or even to grow a fetus entirely within one.
 

Athenian200

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Just as well, a fetus is not apart of a woman. Its inside the woman. In most cases, the fetus isn't even the same sex as the mother and can have a completely different blood type than the mother. In that case, it is NOT the mother. So you cannot say the woman has a right over her body in this case, because the baby is NOT her body. Its a completely different being.

There seems to be an element of injustice in this viewpoint that I just can't accept, though. I find it difficult to respect people who feel this way (as they must feel about me), though I'm trying.

It seems like you're admitting that there are definitely negative consequences for abortion. Which is one reason I think it should be an option, though not one to take lightly. Because honestly, it DOES have consequences. It seems unfair, somehow, to take it off the table completely despite all of what's involved in pregnancy.
 
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Sniffles

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Okay, so what you're saying is that you have trouble conceiving of an objective defintion of human life that protects everyone which wouldn't also include fetuses?

It's not really objective when you arbitrarily exclude some people from the category of humanity or human life, especially on merely accidental conditions.

Hmm... I don't know. On one hand, I can see value in that for all the living people.

On the other, it really does feel like a stretch to call something an independent "life" if it's still dependent on the host to survive. I suppose it depends on how you define life.
Well go by John Macmurrary's simple definition: "We are not organisms, but persons."

I personally would prefer to define human life as something that could be sustained without directly drawing on the biological/organic resources of another human being. Essentially, as long as the baby is a dependent process within the parent's body, it's more akin to a parasite, tumor, or defective organ within the body of the parent than it is to independent human life.
The wholeness of human personhood cannot be reduced to biological categories, and although an essential dimension it's still a subordinate one in regards to personhood.
 

Grayscale

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I personally would prefer to define human life as something that could be sustained without directly drawing on the biological/organic resources of another human being.

so the vast majority of adolescents would not fall into this definition of human life. without adults they would not have a means to survive.
 
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