Abortion

[El Nino]

Teran hates humanity the way I hate abortion debates.

So basically, it's ok to kill a human in its first stages, up until a point that you arbitraliy decide upon, requiring no reason for deciding upon this point.

I think the anti-abortion movement does itself no favors by downplaying the reasons that drive people to seek abortions. Whether it's poverty or sexual abuse, if you want to counsel someone away from abortion, then you need to take their concerns seriously. One way would be to take steps to address those problems, whether by improving sexual education or birth control (which you seem to oppose), or starting programs to help low-income parents, or by trying to significantly decrease the rate of sexual assault and abuse.

What won't work is telling someone that their needs, their fears, their pain, or their trauma is somehow unimportant in the glowing radiance of your morals and value for human life.

And ultimately, even if you do a good job of addressing their concerns, the choice still isn't yours.

Even if I were dying of kidney failure, society doesn't allow me to knock you unconscious and cut out your kidney, even if you survived the procedure, even if your kidney would save me. Because my life intrudes on your body, I still have to ask you for your permission. And I am only granted life if you say yes.

 

[Dre89]

Teran hates humanity the way I hate abortion debates.


I think the anti-abortion movement does itself no favors by downplaying the reasons that drive people to seek abortions. Whether it's poverty or sexual abuse, if you want to counsel someone away from abortion, then you need to take their concerns seriously. One way would be to take steps to address those problems, whether by improving sexual education or birth control (which you seem to oppose), or starting programs to help low-income parents, or by trying to significantly decrease the rate of sexual assault and abuse.

I was simply trying to point out the logical flaws.

What won't work is telling someone that their needs, their fears, their pain, or their trauma is somehow unimportant in the glowing radiance of your morals and value for human life.

I sympathise with thsoe who have had abortions, praticularly those who have been *****. Just because I'm anti abortion doesn't mean I have no feelings. Remember, I'm only criticisng the act, not the person.

I prioritise a human's life over another human's convenience and struggles. If I'm not supposed to value human life, why would I care about people's feelings anyway? That doesn't make sense.

And ultimately, even if you do a good job of addressing their concerns, the choice still isn't yours.

Does a mother have the right to kill a born baby if she doesn't want it anymore? Is that her choice too?

Even if I were dying of kidney failure, society doesn't allow me to knock you unconscious and cut out your kidney, even if you survived the procedure, even if your kidney would save me. Because my life intrudes on your body, I still have to ask you for your permission. And I am only granted life if you say yes.

There's a difference between the kidney example and abortion. In the kidney example, the person who needs the kidney is in a state of dependancy (SOD from now on). A fetus is dependant on the mother, so it is also in a SOD.

The difference between the two scenarios is that in the kidney example, the person was in a SOD, regardless of the donor, the donor is not responsible for the SOD. With abortion however, the mother is physically, or causedly responsible for the baby's SOD. The baby is only in a SOD because of the mother.

It doesn't matter if the mother was innocent, by killing the baby, the mother has now shifted the problem/burden onto another innocent party (ie. the baby).

If you lend me money, which I'm supposed to pay back, and then someone robs me, can I just say "well I was innocent in the way I lost it, so I don't have to pay you back"? Of course not. Regardless of how I lost the money, it's still my responsibility to pay you back, because even though I was robbed, I'm still phsyically responsible for your SOD.

So to remain consistent, you either have to say abortion is impermissable even in the case of ****, or you have to say that if you're innocent in burdening someone else, you have no obligation to repay them.

Now you just argue that a fetus is not a person, but that's a different story. but that's what I was criticisng initially before you changed the subject onto the "the mother's body is being infiltrated" line of reasoning.

 

[El Nino]

Does a mother have the right to kill a born baby if she doesn't want it anymore? Is that her choice too?

Is a born baby capable of living without the mother? That is, can the responsiblity for its care be passed on to someone else?

If so, then its life does not directly interfere with her rights to her body.

Edit: The value of human life is subject to constraints and limitations.

 

[Bookworm]

Can I just ask, why, of all rights, the right to the body is the one that takes priority? How did you conclude this?

Also, following this strain of logic, if I surgically implant someone else's (born) child into my body, do I have the right to kill it?

Dre- Are you for animal rights?

The reason I ask is that, by arguing that an abortion is never permissable, are you not arguing that the interest of 'a clump of cells', incapable of thought, complex emotion and lacking the biological mechanisms of a living animal, takes priority over a creature who possesses all these traits (ie. the mother)?

If I'm not mistaken, to retain consistency, you would have to at least argue that all animal life is equal to that of humans. Do you support this poosition?

 

[El Nino]

I'm going to reiterate my previous point that banning abortion won't stop it from happening. A more proactive approach would be to address the underlying causes for why people seek abortions and hopefully reduce the rate of their occurrence.

Can I just ask, why, of all rights, the right to the body is the one that takes priority? How did you conclude this?

First off, Nature does not recognize rights. Nature is also amoral. Values, morals and rights are social constructs, things that human beings choose to acknowledge for the sake of social cooperation and collective living.

Acknowledging a person's rights to their body is part of the foundation for a society, part of the rules we agree upon when we agree to live and work together as a community.

A person's right to life is tied in to their rights to their body, the right to not be physically violated or harmed.

But a person's right to life is not the same as an entitlement to life. Nature acknowledges no so such entitlement, and society cannot guarantee it.

Rights are given out of consideration for social cooperation. A fetus is not a member of society. However, if an aborted fetus were to remain living once out of the uterus, then its life is no longer parasitic on its mother, and one could say that he or she is now a member of society, and society would then have reason to acknowledge his or her rights as a human being.

Also, following this strain of logic, if I surgically implant someone else's (born) child into my body, do I have the right to kill it?

Implanting a BORN child into your body? That would be something to see.