Abortion

[Fuzzbucket]

I like how your saying life....so you are saying its alive and not dead or that it is dead and it will be alive? And yes if the mother dies so does the fetus but once in a while it will continue to live on after the mother pasts... not for long but it will still be there and if surgins can get it out in time it could live by itself.

Not at the age almost all embryos are aborted it couldn't.

 

VANISHINGLY few abortions are carried out past 20 weeks - the earliest a foetus is generally considered viable on its own. And those usually for some ghastly condition like anencephaly. I would not wish that on ANYONE. Not that they would know anything about it

 

But OK - if we all have the rights to use other people's bodies against their will - I'll have the functional ears of some of you anti-choice people. It would be nice to hear properly again - and I must have the right to take them if I want them.

 

[DarkLadyNyara]

Where life begins is the one of the core arguments of the whole abortion debate. Some people believe that life begins at conception, and others believe life begins at birth.

The thing is, I don't think it should be part of the debate. I mean, the zygote is, in strict biological terms, alive at conception. And from my perspective, that is utterly irrelevant to the morality of abortion. Bacteria are alive.

 

But OK - if we all have the rights to use other people's bodies against their will - I'll have the functional ears of some of you anti-choice people. It would be nice to hear properly again - and I must have the right to take them if I want them.

I vote we harvest blood and bone marrow. Do you know how many people; actual thinking, feeling, already-born people die because there aren't enough marrow donors? To say nothing of organ donors- we should start harvesting the dead immediately. None of that "must have prior consent to harvest organs" crap. I mean, since "life" outweighs "bodily autonomy" and all.

 

And the fetu- I mean baby isn't sitting inside your body going "heh heh heh, I wannna ruin your life. I am gonna make you miserable, everything that makes you tick is because of me"

 

It's sitting in there growing peacefully. The most it can do is kick and suck its thumb.

 

You...are aware that pregnancy can kill people, right? And even when it doesn't, it puts a truly massive strain on all parts of your body. People are frequently disabled by pregnancy- permanently, in many cases.

 

No the fetus doesn't "intend" to hurt you - it would need the capacity to think, first. But that doesn't matter. Vermin in the walls of your house don't intend to cause problems either, but no one objects to ending their "innocent" lives.

[Zovesta]

It's finally happened.

 

People are using Dr. Seuss to help justify their protest against women's rights.

 

I always knew this day would come.

 

Honestly though, no matter if you view the embryo as a baby (like I do), or as a parasite, it all comes down to putting the baby's needs before the mother's. And that is disgusting. Neither one would have a good life if we force her to have it.

[LascielsShadow]

They've been doing that for many years now. His wife filed a lawsuit in (I think) 2001 to stop the use of that quote by anti-choicers. The book has absolutely nothing to do with that, and she was/is not amused by them using the quote that way.

Edited July 12, 2013 by LascielsShadow

[Destiny Arts]

They've been doing that for many years now. His wife filed a lawsuit in (I think) 2001 to stop the use of that quote by anti-choicers. The book has absolutely nothing to do with that, and she was/is not amused by them using the quote that way.

Ok ok fine I was just trying to make a point with a relatable quote duh. I still can't see how the fetus isn't alive when it is started tho because really how can a thing that wasn't alive but developped then become alive?

[7Deadly$ins]

Ok ok fine I was just trying to make a point with a relatable quote duh. I still can't see how the fetus isn't alive when it is started tho because really how can a thing that wasn't alive but developped then become alive?

Nobody said it wasn't alive.

[Destiny Arts]

Nobody said it wasn't alive.

true but some are saying that it takes time for a fetus to develop into a baby and that it is not live and others say that it is not living untill it is born which I find preposterous.

Edited July 12, 2013 by Destiny Arts

[Fuzzbucket]

I vote we harvest blood and bone marrow. Do you know how many people; actual thinking, feeling, already-born people die because there aren't enough marrow donors? To say nothing of organ donors- we should start harvesting the dead immediately. None of that "must have prior consent to harvest organs" crap. I mean, since "life" outweighs "bodily autonomy" and all.

Has anyone here read Kazuo Ishiguro's book: Never Let Me Go ?

 

Carries that to a MUCH further extreme. But if a parasite is to be allowed the same rights as the host body, it seems suddenly perfectly reasonable.

 

TYPEFAILS AGAIN

Edited July 12, 2013 by fuzzbucket

[siliconrose]

true but some are saying that it takes time for a fetus to develop into a baby and that it is not live and others say that it is not living untill it is born which I find preposterous.

No one said it wasn't living, they said it wasn't a person. Just as an acorn is not an oak tree, a fetus may someday become a person.

[Shienvien]

true but some are saying that it takes time for a fetus to develop into a baby and that it is not live and others say that it is not living untill it is born which I find preposterous.

Alive? Yes.

Has a life? Yes.

Is a person? No.

 

Everything from bacteria and algae to ostriches and mammoth trees to corals and tapeworms has a life and is alive. Unless you insist that the entire animal, plant, fungus and bacteria kingdoms be all equally granted the same rights, being alive doesn't matter in this debate.

 

Only whether or not it is a person matters.

 

And even persons can't legally use other persons' bodies to sustain their own.

Edited July 12, 2013 by Shienvien

[Zovesta]

They've been doing that for many years now. His wife filed a lawsuit in (I think) 2001 to stop the use of that quote by anti-choicers. The book has absolutely nothing to do with that, and she was/is not amused by them using the quote that way.

Yyeah, I was intentionally poking fun at that with sarcasm. XP

 

But yeah off-topic.

[Destiny Arts]

No one said it wasn't living, they said it wasn't a person.  Just as an acorn is not an oak tree, a fetus may someday become a person.

Those things are alive and breathing, but the one thing that is missing is a soul... I mean every person has one good or bad. trees and animals I believe don't have one... So it is like aborting a soul and body.

Edited July 12, 2013 by Destiny Arts

[hydrargyrum]

Those things are alive and breathing, but the one thing that is missing is a soul... I mean every person has one good or bad. trees and animals I believe don't have one... So it is like aborting a soul and body.

I'm sorry, but this is absolutely not a good line of reasoning for banning abortion (perfectly fine for refusing to get one yourself, though). YOU PERSONALLY believe it has a soul. You can't prove this. At all. Why should you get to take away someone else's rights for a personal belief?

 

If I believed that all trees have souls, and thus said that cutting them down is murder, do you think I should be able to ban cutting them down? I believe fetuses don't have souls (I'm not even really sure I believe in the concept of souls), just like you believe trees don't have souls.

 

You can't make laws about personal beliefs, especially when it takes away the rights of others. And I get rather upset when people think they can; it's not right.

[Kith]

Those things are alive and breathing, but the one thing that is missing is a soul... I mean every person has one good or bad. trees and animals I believe don't have one... So it is like aborting a soul and body.

If I recall correctly, there is contention over when exactly ensoulment occurs among those belief systems that hold that souls exist (with a wide range of beliefs as to which things have souls). I've heard several comments that indicate some believe the soul enters the body with the first breath, in which case a soul is not yet in the body when the abortion would be performed.

 

So whose belief system do we use? Yours? Theirs? That of someone who believes that souls don't exist? And what criteria should be used to determine the answer? If it's to affect legislation, it would have to apply to everyone regardless of belief system, so the basis of the answer would be as important as the answer itself, if not moreso.

[Destiny Arts]

I'm sorry, but this is absolutely not a good line of reasoning for banning abortion (perfectly fine for refusing to get one yourself, though). YOU PERSONALLY believe it has a soul. You can't prove this. At all. Why should you get to take away someone else's rights for a personal belief?

 

If I believed that all trees have souls, and thus said that cutting them down is murder, do you think I should be able to ban cutting them down? I believe fetuses don't have souls (I'm not even really sure I believe in the concept of souls), just like you believe trees don't have souls.

 

You can't make laws about personal beliefs, especially when it takes away the rights of others. And I get rather upset when people think they can; it's not right.

And I am upset at your miss reading.I'm not taking anyones right from them. I am not banning it I just don't support abortion. If you think that there are no such things as souls... prove it. I also get upset about people making laws about personal beliefs too.

 

 

Thank you Kieth. I really don't mean harm when it comes to beliefs

Edited July 12, 2013 by Destiny Arts

[HeatherMarie]

And I am upset at your miss reading.I'm not taking anyones right from them. I am not banning it I just don't support abortion. If you think that there are no such things as souls... prove it. I also get upset about people making laws about personal beliefs too.

If you think that fetuses have souls and *that's* a good reason to not abort, then isn't it on you to prove that? Since that is, in fact, your opinion. An *opinion*, not a fact, but an opinion that you were the one to bring up.

 

Also, *many* religions/belief-systems believe that all animals have souls. So can we use the soul-argument to try to outlaw ALL hunting? All factory-farming, all places that kill and process animals so us humans can eat them? We should all start big huge protests and push legislators to act on that RIGHT away, since *some* groups believe that all animals have souls.

 

What you believe doesn't matter. I'm not being mean, I'm just stating the truth. What *I* believe doesn't matter. Beliefs are not a reason to ruin women's lives. End of story. That's simply not a reason.

[KageSora]

Thanks Sock, I read it and yes you make some good points, but I still disagree

 

Pro-choice people can't exactly argue from a biological standpoint because you'll lose, as the second conception occurs the two cells converge and create a human organism, proving that there is human life.

 

So we now move up to the philosophical stance on debating where it be comes a person.

 

I am going to use euthanasia for an example to kinda show you guys where I'm coming from .

 

Say there is an old man who has alteimerz (I can't spell it) and someone looks at him and says,

 

"Well, he can't function right. He can't remember anything, and he is old. He isn't really a person."

 

And they kill him.

 

In the civil war, they looked at a black person and said,

"He's black, he is different than us, he can't be a person, he will be our slaves."

 

 

What confuses me is, since when does what someone thinks about you determine who you are, what you are? I look at my brother and see an ape, but he isn't... (biologically. He sure acts like one.)

 

So, if a woman wants the baby, it's a person, but if she doesn't, it's nothing but a clump of cells?

 

The US law is so that if a pregnant woman is murdered, it is considered a double homicide.

 

If a pregnant woman who was getting an abortion the next day was murdered, guess what?

 

It would be a double homicide.

 

So, let me get this straight. I want you, you have rights. I don't want you, I can kill you and walk away without legal charges.

~

 

But now to the issue.

 

I believe that before an abortion, the woman should be given an exam of her home life, financial situation, etc, and be told all her options of what she could do and look into programs and such. She should also be shown an ultrasound of the baby, to see the heartbeat and such. I guess it would at least save a few lives.

 

~

 

Quick question, have you all heard about Kermit Gosnell?

Er, no, we won't lose from a biological standpoint.

 

Alive =/= a person.

 

A tapeworm is alive, but it is not a person. My skin cells are alive, but they are not people. A fetus is alive, but it is not a person.

 

Besides, killing people is okay depending on the circumstances. If it's my life or theirs, then I feel justified in killing them to preserve my own life--unless saving myself would ultimately cause considerably greater harm than allowing them to kill me.

 

Killing a fetus because allowing it to come to term is causing more harm to the female carrying it than killing it would is totally justifiable, IMO. Especially since it doesn't actually lose anything--it's simply not advanced enough to comprehend not being born or what it will never have.

 

 

Also that BS about forcing ultrasounds. You just want to ing guilt people into having a baby they don't want. That's far more cruel than killing something that won't even know it was alive in the first place.

 

 

I personally think it's also ridiculous that it's considered a double homicide if you kill a pregnant woman, since the fetus is not a person.

 

 

The problem with your other examples is that those are also independent people. Show me a fetus that can function as an independent person without leeching off a female, and I will grant that fetus personhood in my eyes. But, by it's very nature, it CANNOT exist without leeching off another human, therefore it is not a person.

 

 

Also, yep, heard about him--guess what? That is going to become much more common if abortion is outlawed. See, people resort to that WHEN THEY CANNOT LEGALLY GET AN ABORTION. Outlawing it does NOTHING to stop it, it just drives up the casualty rate.

 

The thing of abortion is... "A person is a person no matter how small" (Dr. Sesuss) so how can life not begin at the very begining? I mean I know we didn't look like it from the beginning but we developed and we became a baby, and we moved around inside of the woman so they are considered alive because I highly doubt that a dead or stillborn would move.

What part of "alive =/= person =/= human" are the pro-life crowd not understanding?

 

A tapeworm is alive. A shark is alive. A cat is alive. A tree is alive. GRASS is alive. The millions of microorganisms that you kill every day are alive. But they are not people. A fetus is alive, but it is not a person.

 

Um... who says that this person has more rights? To use another person's boby against there will is terrible but to abort  another person even in the very very first stage of being a being in terrible too. If a fetus wasn't alive at the begin then it would  be a bunch of cells that would dissolve other wise I don't know how a fetus would grow  if it wasn't alive, I mean I would find it odd if a dead person kept growing.

Uh, turning me into a walking incubator is giving it the right to use my body against my will.

 

If I kill it, it's the same as me denying a dying person my kidney. I have the right to do that, I should not be punished by the law for refusing to give up part of my body for the life of a person I care nothing for.

 

Those things are alive and breathing, but the one thing that is missing is a soul... I mean every person has one good or bad. trees and animals I believe don't have one... So it is like aborting a soul and body.

Please provide me with scientific proof that a soul exists in the cells from the moment of conception, and that this having of a soul grants the fetus the right to freely use the female's body without her consent despite the fact that even the dead cannot be harvested from without having given consent in life.

 

Until you do that, then I really don't care.

 

And even if you can, I again don't care--because if it's gonna up my quality of life, I have no qualms about killing it.

 

 

Now, if you don't mean to support the passing of legislation based on your beliefs, then I have no issues with whatever you believe. You can think what you like, and refuse to get an abortion. But if you ever try to support legislation to force your belief on me, then there will be problems.

[Destiny Arts]

If you think that fetuses have souls and *that's* a good reason to not abort, then isn't it on you to prove that? Since that is, in fact, your opinion. An *opinion*, not a fact, but an opinion that you were the one to bring up.

 

Also, *many* religions/belief-systems believe that all animals have souls. So can we use the soul-argument to try to outlaw ALL hunting? All factory-farming, all places that kill and process animals so us humans can eat them? We should all start big huge protests and push legislators to act on that RIGHT away, since *some* groups believe that all animals have souls.

 

What you believe doesn't matter. I'm not being mean, I'm just stating the truth. What *I* believe doesn't matter. Beliefs are not a reason to ruin women's lives. End of story. That's simply not a reason.

 

OK then... also I was asking someone else...

 

Following Aristotle and Avicenna, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274) understood the soul to be the first actuality of the living body. Consequent to this, he distinguished three orders of life: plants, which feed and grow; animals, which add sensation to the operations of plants; and humans, which add intellect to the operations of animals.

Concerning the human soul, his epistemological theory required that, since the knower becomes what he knows[16] the soul was definitely not corporeal: for, if it were corporeal when it knew what some corporeal thing was, that thing would come to be within it. Therefore, the soul had an operation which did not rely on a bodily organ and therefore the soul could subsist without the body. Furthermore, since the rational soul of human beings was a subsistent form and not something made up of matter and form, it could not be destroyed in any natural process

 

This is what I found even if you do abort it, it will still be there. and here:

 

Most Christians understand the soul as an ontological reality distinct from, yet integrally connected with, the body. Its characteristics are described in moral, spiritual, and philosophical terms. According to a common Christian eschatology, when people die, their souls will be judged by God and determined to spend an eternity in Heaven or in Hell. Though all branches of Christianity –Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox, Evangelical or mainline Protestants – teach that Jesus Christ plays a decisive role in the salvation process, the specifics of that role and the part played by individual persons or ecclesiastical rituals and relationships, is a matter of wide diversity in official church teaching, theological speculation and popular practice. Some Christians believe that if one has not repented of one's sins and trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, one will go to Hell and suffer eternal damnation or eternal separation from God. Variations also exist on this theme, e.g. some which hold that the unrighteous soul will be destroyed instead of suffering eternally (Annihilationism). Believers will inherit eternal life in Heaven and enjoy eternal fellowship with God. There is also a belief that babies (including the unborn) and those with cognitive or mental impairments who have died will be received into Heaven on the basis of God's grace through the sacrifice of Jesus. And there are beliefs in universal salvation and Christian conditionalism.

 

~Removed~

Edited July 12, 2013 by SockPuppet Strangler

[LascielsShadow]

You're still trying to use a religious justification. Religion is not supposed to have any place in lawmaking in the US. Writings from several hundred years ago on theories which cannot be proven have no bearing on current legal decisions either.

Edited July 12, 2013 by LascielsShadow

[Destiny Arts]

You're still trying to use a religious justification. Religion is not supposed to have any place in lawmaking in the US. Writings from several hundred years ago on theories which cannot be proven have no bearing on current legal decisions.

And here we go again... seriously? I think this forum had enough points in it that people should just read what everyone else posted so they can get there answers...these can still have a point. so now you know why some people have a problem with abortion and some people don't end of a 200 and some page story.

[LascielsShadow]

And here we go again... seriously? I think this forum had enough points in it that people should just read what everyone else posted so they can get there answers...these can still have a point. so now you know why some people have a problem with abortion and some people don't end of a 200 and some page story.

The thing is, we already know these things. This is not anyone here's first time hearing about belief in souls and their relevance to the debate. We hear that all the time. We know what the people who believe in souls/ensoulment in the womb and that abortion is murder because of that have to say because we hear it a lot. Those religious arguments still have nothing to do with making laws. "God says it's murder because fetuses have souls, which makes them people" is a reason to not like abortion, not to create legislation outlawing it. Belief in souls is not relevant to secular lawmaking.

Edited July 12, 2013 by LascielsShadow

[Lila]

Destiny, it'd be best not to scold someone in a debate. It's demeaning.

If kids are reading this thread, I applaud them for questioning what they have been indoctrinated with, whether it be pro-life or pro-choice, and I hope that they repeat what they read here to their friends and classmates, so long as they fully understand their words.

 

/offtopic

[Syaoransbear]

I thought the bible was unclear about when someone is imbued with a soul, and no one knows if it's when the baby takes its first breath or when it is conceived. So if one belief forces someone to go through the trauma of pregnancy and bringing an unwanted child into the world to suffer, and the other belief terminates a soul-less body that is no different than an animal, why believe in the one that forces someone to go through one of the most painful and difficult events a person can experience? It sounds like you have a choice, so I don't really understand choosing to believe in the one that puts two individuals through hell.

[LegendOfKorraFan]

I think abortions should be illegal. Although obviously there would be some exceptions such as:

Being raped

Not being physically able to have/care for the child

If your life is in danger by having the baby

It being a parasitic vampire eating you from the inside out (Can't have this whole post be serious can I?)

 

Who are we to decide wither or not this beautiful mass of cells is able to live and possibly thrive? That's just ,y two cents, take it or leave it.

 

[Spelunker]

Who are we to decide wither or not this beautiful mass of cells is able to live and possibly thrive? That's just ,y two cents, take it or leave it.

People who don't think that mass of cells is beautiful.

People who would be mentally destroyed by pregnancy.

People who dislike children.

People who aren't religious.