41% of Births end in Abortion...100%

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
421

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

You can’t have women running around thinking for themselves, and taking control of their reproductive cycles. Nothing good can come from women who decide for themselves what’s best for them, especially educated women [shudder].

No, you best stay at home with the kids and let the man of the house do the thinking for you, after all: father knows best.
[/quote]

What does that have to do with the taking of a human life? We’re not talking about ‘feelings’ or the societal position of women in the western world today.
The question is when does human life begin?

Is it ok to take a human life simply because it has not reached a certain point of development?

Whether or not women are superior or inferior to men is 100% irrelevant. [/quote]

I wrote to Chris that he sugarcoats his position by shouting, “think of the children!”. You do the same thing pat. I don’t believe you when you say you’re only concerned about [fetal] human life.

Ofcourse you could very well be sincere, and if you are, i’m sorry for not being able to believe you, but being on PWI for too long has made me cynical about many posters’ motivations.[/quote]

I also care about the woman’s rights, however killing an innocent life deliberately has never been a right of someone. So stop with your projecting and arguing the points.

422

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:
I get the whole abortion debate, but saying birth control is immoral is just…silly. [/quote]

How is it “silly?”[/quote]

Using condoms prevents the transmission of STDs, and prevents children from coming into the world when their parents aren’t able to properly nurture and raise them. It also helps prevent overpopulation, which is a real issue in countries like China.[/quote]

I would be happy to explain this in more detail in the appropriate thread, but I was more curious as you used the word silly.

423

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Swolegasm wrote:
it appears men are the only ones on this thread agruing against abortion… intresting.[/quote]

I guess you missed Grneyes, Buckeyegirl, and BG’s friend. And, what is your point?[/quote]

i did say it appears that men are, plus i thought buckeyegirl was for it. My point? its pretty hard for men to have say when we have no idea what carrying a child is like, the pressures, the demand, the worry, commitment.

424

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:
…I do think that property rights are absolute, [/quote]

Unless they belong to a clump of cells, no?[/quote]

I ignore them, just like I ignore the property rights of rocks, daisies and livestock.[/quote]

You sure know how to stretch the definition of the word “absolute.”

[/quote]

Really?

I must subscribe to some sort of pantheism or shintoistic animism or else I am wavering?

People have property rights.

The mere possibility of a person does not. [/quote]

What exactly is the ‘possibility of a person’?
[/quote]

It might be one one day or it might not be one one day.

425

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:
…I do think that property rights are absolute, [/quote]

Unless they belong to a clump of cells, no?[/quote]

I ignore them, just like I ignore the property rights of rocks, daisies and livestock.[/quote]

You sure know how to stretch the definition of the word “absolute.”

[/quote]

Really?

I must subscribe to some sort of pantheism or shintoistic animism or else I am wavering?

People have property rights.

The mere possibility of a person does not. [/quote]

So now you are backtracking? Because I’m almost positive that earlier in the thread we had already agreed that the organism created by the sexual union of a human male and human female is a new human organism. Or did you intend to streeeeeeeeeeetch the definition of “person,” too, now?

426

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Grneyes wrote:
I would have to say in the first three questions there are ways to tell when you conceived. Granted, if it’s within a few days…that would be up to the woman and her husband to decide, if they want to take that chance. If the baby ends up being the rapist’s they can always give it up for adoption, but personally I would err on the side of caution and abort and hope my husband would understand. We can always get pregnant again. As for the fifth question, I would do everything in my power to make my child’s life as full as I possibly could for as long as it lived. A risk to the mother’s life is if the continued pregnancy and birth would put her life in any kind of danger. I’m not talking about pregnancy induced diabetes (I cannot remember the term for this right now, I’m sorry), but serious medical issues. [/quote]

Okay, well I guess what I am trying to get at with the first three questions, is how does the value of that human being change based on who the father is?

You can always get pregnant again? I hope I have mistaken what you said, but are you saying that child is a means to an end? If it is not what the child you want (the end), you can just abort and get pregnant again and conceive another child (the means)?

‘Any kind of danger’ seems a tad arbitrary. Let me see if I can understand you better.

Like what ailment would the mother need to be in risk of to induce abortion? Is a small risk good enough or does it have to be a good chance of it happening? If there is a high risk (or even a small risk), what if it is easily preventable?

NB: I don’t mean to be cold about this subject, I condemn rape and the rapist without reserve. No woman deserves to have something forced on her like that and not only is she being forced to let go of her innocence, she was forced to give up her freedom in some ways.[/quote]

My thinking is why should I have to go through a pregnancy resulting from a rape? Why do I need to be put through that? Wasn’t getting raped enough? Now I have to give birth to that kid? No thank you. I apologize that I am not thinking of the possible human life and I’m being selfish, but I think that making me go through with an unwanted pregnancy makes the rape that much more horrible and damaging.

No, what I’m saying is that I would hope my husband would understand WHY I would need to abort that baby and understand that we can always get pregnant again and for sure conceive a child in love and not have a baby possibly tainted by rape. If there is a way to do a paternity test in utero, an abortion in such a case would not be considered.

Okay, the only thing I can think of is my best friend from college. She has endometriosis and actually needed to take fertility drugs to get pregnant. Her first pregnancy almost killed her. She had the world’s worst pregnancy and her labor was unreal. Her doctors said she should NEVER get pregnant again or her life would seriously be in danger. Now, they also thought there was an extremely remote chance that the first pregnancy “rebooted” her reproductive system but they didn’t know. I even suggested I would be a surrogate if she decided to have another kid. Just this year she had her second daughter and her pregnancy was textbook and easy. Now, if it had gone the way the doctors thought it would, and if her life was in danger, if she started hemorrhaging uncontrollably or something equally horrific, I would say an abortion would be okay in that case. Or at least inducing a miscarriage.

427

[quote]Grneyes wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Grneyes wrote:
I would have to say in the first three questions there are ways to tell when you conceived. Granted, if it’s within a few days…that would be up to the woman and her husband to decide, if they want to take that chance. If the baby ends up being the rapist’s they can always give it up for adoption, but personally I would err on the side of caution and abort and hope my husband would understand. We can always get pregnant again. As for the fifth question, I would do everything in my power to make my child’s life as full as I possibly could for as long as it lived. A risk to the mother’s life is if the continued pregnancy and birth would put her life in any kind of danger. I’m not talking about pregnancy induced diabetes (I cannot remember the term for this right now, I’m sorry), but serious medical issues. [/quote]

Okay, well I guess what I am trying to get at with the first three questions, is how does the value of that human being change based on who the father is?

You can always get pregnant again? I hope I have mistaken what you said, but are you saying that child is a means to an end? If it is not what the child you want (the end), you can just abort and get pregnant again and conceive another child (the means)?

‘Any kind of danger’ seems a tad arbitrary. Let me see if I can understand you better.

Like what ailment would the mother need to be in risk of to induce abortion? Is a small risk good enough or does it have to be a good chance of it happening? If there is a high risk (or even a small risk), what if it is easily preventable?

NB: I don’t mean to be cold about this subject, I condemn rape and the rapist without reserve. No woman deserves to have something forced on her like that and not only is she being forced to let go of her innocence, she was forced to give up her freedom in some ways.[/quote]

My thinking is why should I have to go through a pregnancy resulting from a rape? Why do I need to be put through that? Wasn’t getting raped enough? Now I have to give birth to that kid? No thank you. I apologize that I am not thinking of the possible human life and I’m being selfish, but I think that making me go through with an unwanted pregnancy makes the rape that much more horrible and damaging.

No, what I’m saying is that I would hope my husband would understand WHY I would need to abort that baby and understand that we can always get pregnant again and for sure conceive a child in love and not have a baby possibly tainted by rape. If there is a way to do a paternity test in utero, an abortion in such a case would not be considered.

Okay, the only thing I can think of is my best friend from college. She has endometriosis and actually needed to take fertility drugs to get pregnant. Her first pregnancy almost killed her. She had the world’s worst pregnancy and her labor was unreal. Her doctors said she should NEVER get pregnant again or her life would seriously be in danger. Now, they also thought there was an extremely remote chance that the first pregnancy “rebooted” her reproductive system but they didn’t know. I even suggested I would be a surrogate if she decided to have another kid. Just this year she had her second daughter and her pregnancy was textbook and easy. Now, if it had gone the way the doctors thought it would, and if her life was in danger, if she started hemorrhaging uncontrollably or something equally horrific, I would say an abortion would be okay in that case. Or at least inducing a miscarriage. [/quote]

So you’re saying it’s okay for a person to kill another human willfully and intentionally in order to save themselves from death as a result of the risks they voluntarily took?
The only thing more repugnant to the natural human right to life than homicide, is the willful conception of another human life with the full knowledge that you wouldn’t give your own to defend it.

428

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

A human being without personhood?

I find it difficult to put it into words.
[/quote]

Yes. The coma patient is a human being but not a person according to you, so the zygote would be the same? And even if so, aren’t both entitled to life?[/quote]

The zygote is not entitled to life before 21 weeks if that entitlement comes at the expense of deminished rights for the women.

In the Netherlands we have euthanasia laws that allow family members to pull the plug on a loved one if that loved one is beyond help medically.

There are strict rules for both procedures, as there should be.

429

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:
…I do think that property rights are absolute, [/quote]

Unless they belong to a clump of cells, no?[/quote]

I ignore them, just like I ignore the property rights of rocks, daisies and livestock.[/quote]

You sure know how to stretch the definition of the word “absolute.”

[/quote]

Really?

I must subscribe to some sort of pantheism or shintoistic animism or else I am wavering?

People have property rights.

The mere possibility of a person does not. [/quote]

So now you are backtracking? Because I’m almost positive that earlier in the thread we had already agreed that the organism created by the sexual union of a human male and human female is a new human organism. Or did you intend to streeeeeeeeeeetch the definition of “person,” too, now?
[/quote]

I am not stretching anything, in fact it is you that wants to stretch the legal definition of person to a point where a zygote has the same rights as a person.

There is no way and no how to equate a lump of cells with a full fledged human being without jumping head first into the mystical.

430

[quote]orion wrote:

I am not stretching anything, in fact it is you that wants to stretch the legal definition of person to a point where a zygote has the same rights as a person.

There is no way and no how to equate a lump of cells with a full fledged human being without jumping head first into the mystical.[/quote]

There is absolutely no stretching required for my terms. In fact, you even agree. Here:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Seriously, what don’t people get about this? There is no magical swap here. It IS the same individual organism throughout it’s entire life and developmental cycle. This isn’t a point for debate. The debate is, is intentionally taking innocent human life a legitimate “choice” in a nation that supposedly values “inalienable rights.” First, necessarily, being the right to life.

Orion wrote:
If you say so.

[/quote]

Here’s the telling thing about every response of this nature. Not once have they challenged me. I made plain claims, why not falsify them? I’m claiming to argue from science, after all.

  1. Human embryo is an organism. Y or N
  2. The above organism is an individual, having it’s own diploid set of DNA. Y or N
  3. An organism is living. Y or N

I’ll make this last one multiple guess. Human mother carries in the womb a) a dog b) a parrot c) a jackalope or d) none of the previous, as we can see by DNA testing that it is human. And, as we already know anyways, there is no organism swap-out just before birth.

If no one falsifies what I’ve said, then I’ve framed the debate correctly. This is a discussion about the “right” to take innocent human lives. Now, I can’t seem to find this right anywhere in our historic and founding documents. But, I did find this gem “The right to life.” It is–well, sadly that might be ‘was’–also a peculiar historical belief that our rights were inalienable.

[/quote]

Yes, yes and yes.

Does not change that an embryo does not have the same rights as a born human being and for good reasons.

[/quote]

So, here we have the one who posits that the embryo at its earliest stages is an individual living human organism, and should thus be afforded the rights of a…wait for it…human organism, and we have you, who actually agrees that the organism is indeed an individual living human organism, but it is somehow different in kind from the same organism at a later stage, but the organism itself is the same organism.

Now which of these two characters sounds more “mystical?”

431

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

A human being without personhood?

I find it difficult to put it into words.
[/quote]

Yes. The coma patient is a human being but not a person according to you, so the zygote would be the same? And even if so, aren’t both entitled to life?[/quote]

The zygote is not entitled to life before 21 weeks if that entitlement comes at the expense of deminished rights for the women.

In the Netherlands we have euthanasia laws that allow family members to pull the plug on a loved one if that loved one is beyond help medically.

There are strict rules for both procedures, as there should be.[/quote]

But the zygote isn’t beyond help medically. If it’s a human being as we’ve established, and if it has the same right to life that every human being inherently has, why is it ethical to pull the plug except in extreme cases like when the mother’s life is in danger? Or are you limiting your sanction to those extreme cases?

432

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

A human being without personhood?

I find it difficult to put it into words.
[/quote]

Yes. The coma patient is a human being but not a person according to you, so the zygote would be the same? And even if so, aren’t both entitled to life?[/quote]

The zygote is not entitled to life before 21 weeks if that entitlement comes at the expense of deminished rights for the women.

In the Netherlands we have euthanasia laws that allow family members to pull the plug on a loved one if that loved one is beyond help medically.

There are strict rules for both procedures, as there should be.[/quote]

But the zygote isn’t beyond help medically. If it’s a human being as we’ve established, and if it has the same right to life that every human being inherently has, why is it ethical to pull the plug except in extreme cases like when the mother’s life is in danger? Or are you limiting your sanction to those extreme cases?[/quote]

Asked and answered forlife.

The perceived rights of a clump of cells do not superceed the rights of a woman.

433

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

A human being without personhood?

I find it difficult to put it into words.
[/quote]

Yes. The coma patient is a human being but not a person according to you, so the zygote would be the same? And even if so, aren’t both entitled to life?[/quote]

The zygote is not entitled to life before 21 weeks if that entitlement comes at the expense of deminished rights for the women.

In the Netherlands we have euthanasia laws that allow family members to pull the plug on a loved one if that loved one is beyond help medically.

There are strict rules for both procedures, as there should be.[/quote]

But the zygote isn’t beyond help medically. If it’s a human being as we’ve established, and if it has the same right to life that every human being inherently has, why is it ethical to pull the plug except in extreme cases like when the mother’s life is in danger? Or are you limiting your sanction to those extreme cases?[/quote]

Asked and answered forlife.

The perceived rights of a clump of cells do not superceed the rights of a woman.
[/quote]

I thought we just agreed it was a human being, not just a clump of cells?

434

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:
…I do think that property rights are absolute, [/quote]

Unless they belong to a clump of cells, no?[/quote]

I ignore them, just like I ignore the property rights of rocks, daisies and livestock.[/quote]

You sure know how to stretch the definition of the word “absolute.”

[/quote]

Really?

I must subscribe to some sort of pantheism or shintoistic animism or else I am wavering?

People have property rights.

The mere possibility of a person does not. [/quote]

So now you are backtracking? Because I’m almost positive that earlier in the thread we had already agreed that the organism created by the sexual union of a human male and human female is a new human organism. Or did you intend to streeeeeeeeeeetch the definition of “person,” too, now?
[/quote]

I am not stretching anything, in fact it is you that wants to stretch the legal definition of person to a point where a zygote has the same rights as a person.

There is no way and no how to equate a lump of cells with a full fledged human being without jumping head first into the mystical.[/quote]

Really? No way but “mystical”? You just like to ignore me, don’t you? I’m a little sad considering we’re both(it seems you are) advocates of minimal government. Would you at least agree that abortion isn’t a federal issue and should be left to the states to legislate on in a similar fashion to murder?

435

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

A human being without personhood?

I find it difficult to put it into words.
[/quote]

Yes. The coma patient is a human being but not a person according to you, so the zygote would be the same? And even if so, aren’t both entitled to life?[/quote]

The zygote is not entitled to life before 21 weeks if that entitlement comes at the expense of deminished rights for the women.

In the Netherlands we have euthanasia laws that allow family members to pull the plug on a loved one if that loved one is beyond help medically.

There are strict rules for both procedures, as there should be.[/quote]

But the zygote isn’t beyond help medically. If it’s a human being as we’ve established, and if it has the same right to life that every human being inherently has, why is it ethical to pull the plug except in extreme cases like when the mother’s life is in danger? Or are you limiting your sanction to those extreme cases?[/quote]

Asked and answered forlife.

The perceived rights of a clump of cells do not superceed the rights of a woman.
[/quote]

Well said.
Abortion is a wonderful tool. If the mother thinks that the child would recieve an inadequate/fucked up upbringing then I would much rather see the lump of cells be eliminated rather than that bunch of cells grow up into a potential murderer/child abuser/general clown.

436

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Asked and answered forlife.

The perceived rights of a clump of cells do not superceed the rights of a woman.
[/quote]

I thought we just agreed it was a human being, not just a clump of cells?[/quote]

Tomato / tomato?

437

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Asked and answered forlife.

The perceived rights of a clump of cells do not superceed the rights of a woman.
[/quote]

I thought we just agreed it was a human being, not just a clump of cells?[/quote]

Tomato / tomato? [/quote]

Very different, in my opinion. A clump of cells has no inherent right to life, but a human being does.

438

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Asked and answered forlife.

The perceived rights of a clump of cells do not superceed the rights of a woman.
[/quote]

I thought we just agreed it was a human being, not just a clump of cells?[/quote]

Tomato / tomato? [/quote]

Very different, in my opinion. A clump of cells has no inherent right to life, but a human being does.[/quote]

Just by calling it one thing over another it suddenly has an inherent right to life?

does not compute

439

[quote]TooHuman wrote:

[quote]Grneyes wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Grneyes wrote:
I would have to say in the first three questions there are ways to tell when you conceived. Granted, if it’s within a few days…that would be up to the woman and her husband to decide, if they want to take that chance. If the baby ends up being the rapist’s they can always give it up for adoption, but personally I would err on the side of caution and abort and hope my husband would understand. We can always get pregnant again. As for the fifth question, I would do everything in my power to make my child’s life as full as I possibly could for as long as it lived. A risk to the mother’s life is if the continued pregnancy and birth would put her life in any kind of danger. I’m not talking about pregnancy induced diabetes (I cannot remember the term for this right now, I’m sorry), but serious medical issues. [/quote]

Okay, well I guess what I am trying to get at with the first three questions, is how does the value of that human being change based on who the father is?

You can always get pregnant again? I hope I have mistaken what you said, but are you saying that child is a means to an end? If it is not what the child you want (the end), you can just abort and get pregnant again and conceive another child (the means)?

‘Any kind of danger’ seems a tad arbitrary. Let me see if I can understand you better.

Like what ailment would the mother need to be in risk of to induce abortion? Is a small risk good enough or does it have to be a good chance of it happening? If there is a high risk (or even a small risk), what if it is easily preventable?

NB: I don’t mean to be cold about this subject, I condemn rape and the rapist without reserve. No woman deserves to have something forced on her like that and not only is she being forced to let go of her innocence, she was forced to give up her freedom in some ways.[/quote]

My thinking is why should I have to go through a pregnancy resulting from a rape? Why do I need to be put through that? Wasn’t getting raped enough? Now I have to give birth to that kid? No thank you. I apologize that I am not thinking of the possible human life and I’m being selfish, but I think that making me go through with an unwanted pregnancy makes the rape that much more horrible and damaging.

No, what I’m saying is that I would hope my husband would understand WHY I would need to abort that baby and understand that we can always get pregnant again and for sure conceive a child in love and not have a baby possibly tainted by rape. If there is a way to do a paternity test in utero, an abortion in such a case would not be considered.

Okay, the only thing I can think of is my best friend from college. She has endometriosis and actually needed to take fertility drugs to get pregnant. Her first pregnancy almost killed her. She had the world’s worst pregnancy and her labor was unreal. Her doctors said she should NEVER get pregnant again or her life would seriously be in danger. Now, they also thought there was an extremely remote chance that the first pregnancy “rebooted” her reproductive system but they didn’t know. I even suggested I would be a surrogate if she decided to have another kid. Just this year she had her second daughter and her pregnancy was textbook and easy. Now, if it had gone the way the doctors thought it would, and if her life was in danger, if she started hemorrhaging uncontrollably or something equally horrific, I would say an abortion would be okay in that case. Or at least inducing a miscarriage. [/quote]

So you’re saying it’s okay for a person to kill another human willfully and intentionally in order to save themselves from death as a result of the risks they voluntarily took?
The only thing more repugnant to the natural human right to life than homicide, is the willful conception of another human life with the full knowledge that you wouldn’t give your own to defend it.[/quote]

So you’re saying the baby’s life is more important than the mother’s? There can always be more pregnancies, there can only be one mother. I’m pretty sure most husbands would rather have their wives alive and able to conceive again than to be a single dad. Also, I don’t believe abortion is murder.

440

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Asked and answered forlife.

The perceived rights of a clump of cells do not superceed the rights of a woman.
[/quote]

I thought we just agreed it was a human being, not just a clump of cells?[/quote]

Tomato / tomato? [/quote]

Very different, in my opinion. A clump of cells has no inherent right to life, but a human being does.[/quote]

Just by calling it one thing over another it suddenly has an inherent right to life?

does not compute
[/quote]

You agreed earlier that a zygote is a human being. Is your position that not all human beings have an inherent right to life?