for those against abortion

[Usehername]

I'd only be willing to HAVE a kid if I thought that the dude who caused it was good dad material and would stick around forever... I've seen way too many cases of unwanted or uncared for kids wandering about, and I thoroughly doubt my own motherhood capabilities!

But yeah- I think that a woman bears the brunt of the burden of pregnancy and childcare, so I think that thier opinions should be weighted so!

^These are some of the legitimate reasons for one to be pro-choice. The analogies tried earlier are not legitimate reasons because nothing is a comparable situation (excluding instances in which the mother's life is in danger unless she aborts, but we're discussing abortion as a generalized concept, not extenuating circumstances kinds of abortions).

 

[Amargith]

It's not a comparable analogy. Most abortions are not threatening to kill the mother, so the analogy is not comparable.

Btw, I'm pro-choice.

No, but it does demand a considerable toll from the body, it's not a walk in the park, and although it is clearly less likely with hospitals etc these days, you can still very much die from it. Same goes for the fire. You might still get found by firefighters, but you will still have a long time to recover from smoke inhalation, and second degree burns for instance, and the hospital will give you chances you otherwise wouldn't have, but the chance of dying is real, depending on how fast the fire spreads, how big a fire it is, the strenght of the building, where the fire is located compared to where you are, etc etc.

I'll grant you that the time frame is different, but that's the only difference between the two, imo.

 

[Sniffles]

She didn't compare it to God, she compared it to the pope.

The argument still stands actually. If we want to get into more specifics, many of the original arguments on this question did actually try to draw analogies between secular authority and that of the Pope. Most famous example of this was King Henry VIII, who determined that monarchs were popes in their own kingdoms - and thus could determine both political and religious matters of their subjects.

Most Christians do not have faith in the pope being anything more than a flawed human at the top of a religious hierarchy.

I really don't know about that, not least since Catholicism is the largest Christian denomination - with over a billion members.

Your premise of this being a flawed analogy rests on the belief that the pope is representative of divine authority.

Well that is the Catholic understanding of Papal authority. Not only do I find this analogy flawed, I find it rather unwise to make in the first place.

I don't believe that, in the sense that he is any more knowledgeable about God than any other religious person seeking after God's truth.

Well of course, you're a non-Catholic. However, if you're going to make analogies between secular authority and papal authority, it's still best to understand the nature of what you're talking about.

 

[Usehername]

I'll grant you that the time frame is different, but that's the only difference between the two, imo.

Nuh-uh.

Sex by definition is the recipe for babies.

They're not comparable circumstances--did the person stuck in the house fire situation take action that directly resulted in a house fire? And not just take action that incidentally resulted--did they take action that directly resulted, in the same manner that having sex directly resulted in a baby, i.e. they were playing with matches and lighter fluid around flammable objects?

Answer: there is no proper analogy for abortion as a generalized concept.

This does not devalue the pro-choice stance, and as I've said it's the stance I hold, but your analogy here is not comparable. Sex is the recipe for babies.

 

[Amargith]

Both are possible, but so they are with sex, if you take rape and uneducated/hormonal teens into the equation. I dunno, maybe my standards aren't as strict as yours, but it works as an analogy to me.

 

[Usehername]

The argument still stands actually. If we want to get into more specifics, many of the original arguments on this question did actually try to draw analogies between secular authority and that of the Pope. Most famous example of this was King Henry VIII, who determined that kings were popes in their own kingdoms - and thus could determine both political and religious matters of their subjects.

Rajah was talking about 20/21st century American supreme court decisions. So this historical reference is valuable on its own, but unrelated to her analogy's context.

I really don't know about that, not least since Catholicism is the largest Christian denomination - with over a billion members.

Those billion people hardly represent the number of believers who put their faith in the institution as defined by the institution. I know as friends/am related to several dozen Catholics (including my mother and family on her side) and only a handful of them take their faith seriously as defined by the Catholic church. Those billion people are not really a billion people who believe in the pope. We both know that's a weak argument.

Well that is the Catholic understanding of Papal authority. Not only do I find this analogy flawed, I find it rather unwise to make in the first place.



Well of course, you're a non-Catholic. However, if you're going to make analogies between secular authority and papal authority, it's still best to understand the nature of what you're talking about.

I understand it fine--I disagree with the entire notion of Catholicism in an era when people can read the Bible and learn on their own. Just like I understand the notion of a literal creation story, I disagree with the notion in an era where I have scientific support to suggest otherwise.

It is not a necessary premise for the purpose of the analogy you took exception to, so your exception has merit in isolation but fails to have merit in context of what you took exception to.

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, if you look at a teenage girl, unable to support the baby herself and therefore putting a financial burden on her parents for having to rescue it as well as the dangers and discomforts they'll have to help her with during the pregnancy...I dunno.

yeah, I think stuff like that was my point.

But even an extremity, like the "mom's life being in danger" and she already has kids... what then?
Lots of hard choices to be made here.

 

[Usehername]

Both are possible, but so they are with sex, if you take rape and uneducated/hormonal teens into the equation. I dunno, maybe my standards aren't as strict as yours, but it works as an analogy to me.

It only works in "extenuating circumstances" kinds of abortions. If you're defending abortion as a whole, you need an analogy that encapsulates every kind of abortion which you won't be able to find (well, excluding late term abortions which are illegal anyway, but all the legal kinds).

 

[Amargith]

^ Sorry, thought you meant to say that that part of it was different in the analogy from the baby-thing

 

[Amargith]

It only works in "extenuating circumstances" kinds of abortions. If you're defending abortion as a whole, you need an analogy that encapsulates every kind of abortion which you won't be able to find (well, excluding late term abortions which are illegal anyway, but all the legal kinds).

You can just as well be panicking because there's a fire a couple of rooms down that isn't so big yet, but the smoke makes you abandon the other person anyways. Context is everything.

 

[Usehername]

You can just as well be panicking because there's a fire a couple of rooms down that isn't so big yet, but the smoke makes you abandon the other person anyways. Context is everything.

But you're forgetting the fact that agency is placed solely on the people who got pregnant here. Your analogy sets up the situation as if an outside force acted upon them. Sex leads to babies, they had sex, they had agency, they were the ones who took action that led to the problem.

 

[Giggly]

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 agree. This is not as complicated an issue as people want to make out to be. Here are some abortion statistics.

Abortion Statistics

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.

Yep. I've seen this too often as well.

 

[Sniffles]

Rajah was talking about 21st century American supreme court decisions. So this historical reference is valuable on its own, but unrelated to her analogy's context.

I know what Rajah was talking about; and I'm making the argument that such an analogy doesn't really fit in any case; plus it's unwise to make such an anology not least because of the dark history it has(and I'm not just talking Medieval stuff here).

Those billion people hardly represent the number of believers who put their faith in the institution as defined by the institution. I know as friends/am related to several dozen Catholics (including my mother and family on her side) and only a handful of them take their faith seriously as defined by the Catholic church. Those billion people are not really a billion people who believe in the pope. We both know that's a weak argument.

Well yes we could argue who's really Catholic or even Christian all day long; but nominally speaking Catholicism is the largest denomination.

I understand it fine--I disagree with the entire notion of Catholicism in an era when people can read the Bible and learn on their own.

Literacy is not an argument against Papal authority really.

All of this is irrelevant to the value of that standpoint on its own, which is the bubble in which you find my flaws, but it is not a necessary premise for the purpose of the analogy you took exception to, so your exception has merit in isolation but fails to have merit in context of what you took exception to.

I really don't see how that's so. In anycase, we're kinda derailing the discussion here. Perhaps a different thread is the best avenue for discussing these matters in full?

 

[Amargith]

But you're forgetting the fact that agency is placed solely on the people who got pregnant here. Your analogy sets up the situation as if an outside force acted upon them. Sex leads to babies, they had sex, they had agency, they were the ones who took action that led to the problem.

So you leave on the furnace or a haircurler, forget to turn on the oven, leave a candle or cigarette burning and are three rooms down when you smell the smoke and panick. Forgetfulness, something done in on a whim..most of us are guilty of this at some point in their lives..and multiple times I'd say.

 

[Sniffles]

Alright, I'll concede that if you're just talking about the form of authority and structure of decisions, then you can make the analogy between the Supreme court and the Pope - but in a de facto sense really. Even then one has to be very careful how they frame it. There are still very significant differences between the two. Plus whether the analogy applies to issues like abortion is another question.

 

[Risen]

So you leave on the furnace or a haircurler, forget to turn on the oven, leave a candle or cigarette burning and are three rooms down when you smell the smoke and panick. Forgetfulness, something done in on a whim..most of us are guilty of this at some point in their lives..and multiple times I'd say.

It doesn't excuse people not to take responsibility for their actions. That's the key here, take some responsibility because you can't blame everything on someone else or the universe. People these days are all too quick to blame their wrong doings on something else, and then never end up changing their behavior or learning.

 

[Totenkindly]

So you leave on the furnace or a haircurler, forget to turn on the oven, leave a candle or cigarette burning and are three rooms down when you smell the smoke and panick. Forgetfulness, something done in on a whim..most of us are guilty of this at some point in their lives..and multiple times I'd say.

It doesn't excuse people not to take responsibility for their actions. That's the key here, take some responsibility because you can't blame everything on someone else or the universe. People these days are all too quick to blame their wrong doings on something else, and then never end up changing their behavior or learning.

I think actually all that is being said in a situation like this is that people are human... even when they're actually being responsible. They're still under a lot of various pressures and still prone to not thinking clearly and/or screwing up.

The fact that some people are pretty irresponsible and need to start taking some responsibility for their choices isn't really the "prime situation" being discussed. I think generally people would agree that the extremes of (1) expecting people to be perfect vs (2) otherwise exonerating them of their actions are two poles to avoid.

What happens with the basic human being, who wants to do right, who doesn't want to blow off their responsibilities, ends up in a situation like this at least partly by their own complicity and is having to process complex realities? (Whether it's a teenage girl who had sex with her bf partly because he pressured her but partly because she didn't want to lose him and/or wanted to rebel against her parents, OR another extreme, like the responsible mom who realizes she is pregnant with a baby with severe genetic issues that isn't expected to live a year or two past birth if not born dead and whose family does not have the resources to care for such a child?)

There's been an increasing polarization happening in the discussion where one side treats the woman like a victim and the other side treats her cynically. it's not nearly as cut-and-dried as the pregnancy resulting from someone who was just utterly irresponsible and must now simply be responsible regardless of long-term consequences, or someone who was responsible and then automatically gets a free pass to abort the baby due to some bad luck. It's more of a conundrum than that.

 

[Amargith]

^ What she said

For my part: we're not perfect, we're humans, and we make mistakes, and sometimes that means our options become less than perfect. Doesn't make us bad people, nor does it excuse anything. And handling that situation is dependent on context. Accidents happen. And difficult choices are reality. And they're hard enough without anyone judging you over the fact that you opened your legs and that you're even considering your options at all instead of 'doing the right thing' without that person even having a clue of what it's like.

I have no way of knowing what I'd do if I were to be in that situation. I've been sexually active for over 10 years, and there have been times where I forgot a pill, or I was sick, risking pregnancy. It happens. I got lucky. I always said I wouldn't abort though..when I was younger, I was pro adoption, and now I think I'd raise the baby. But I have no way of knowing what I genuinly would do (and I'd like to keep it that way!) But I'd like to have the reassurance that if that ever happens, the decision is mine, and mine alone, and nobody else can tell me what to do with my body.

 

[Risen]

I think actually all that is being said in a situation like this is that people are human... even when they're actually being responsible. They're still under a lot of various pressures and still prone to not thinking clearly and/or screwing up.

The fact that some people are pretty irresponsible and need to start taking some responsibility for their choices isn't really the "prime situation" being discussed. I think generally people would agree that the extremes of (1) expecting people to be perfect vs (2) otherwise exonerating them of their actions are two poles to avoid.

What happens with the basic human being, who wants to do right, who doesn't want to blow off their responsibilities, ends up in a situation like this at least partly by their own complicity and is having to process complex realities? (Whether it's a teenage girl who had sex with her bf partly because he pressured her but partly because she didn't want to lose him and/or wanted to rebel against her parents, OR another extreme, like the responsible mom who realizes she is pregnant with a baby with severe genetic issues that isn't expected to live a year or two past birth if not born dead and whose family does not have the resources to care for such a child?)

There's been an increasing polarization happening in the discussion where one side treats the woman like a victim and the other side treats her cynically. it's not nearly as cut-and-dried as the pregnancy resulting from someone who was just utterly irresponsible and must now simply be responsible regardless of long-term consequences, or someone who was responsible and then automatically gets a free pass to abort the baby due to some bad luck. It's more of a conundrum than that.

You still have to take responsibility for your actions, regardless. Your actions have effects, whether somebody punishes you or LIFE punishes you. there is no escape just because somebody wants to play victim. In most cases, both the man and the woman who messed up and created a child are responsible, and accountable for what they choose to do from then on. It applies to every other aspect of decision making in life, and it applies to this subject as well. Life is not fair. The world is not just. We make choices, we must live with the results of those choices. Things happen to us that really are out of our control, then we make CHOICES on how to respond, choices that are in our control. That is my point. The situation ends up different for everyone in regards to abortion, but nobody has grounds to suggest somebody is completely and wholly excused from how they choose to react to whatever situation may have given rise to the child being created. When you have the power to use your brain and make a choice in life, that is YOURS to own, and nobody elses. You are responsible for the choice you made and all the choices you didn't make.

But don't mind me, I'm just a right wing nut.

 

[Amargith]

..and you think that people who decide on abortion come to this decision lightly and never look back? That they don't live with those consequences, regardless of their choice? I agree with you when it comes to women that would use this as a contraceptive, instead of a last resort. But otherwise, I'd say their conscience will make sure they realize the consequences.