The Great "Social Issues" Abortion Debate!

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
If you equate blood with a fertilized egg and it's future stages of development, then there really is not much we can discuss.

Like most people on your side of this issue who read or hear that argument, you have misunderstood it. I'm not "equating" blood with a fertilized ovum, I'm merely pointing out, using the blood as an example, that the fact a given bit of tissue is biologically human and living does not make it a human being. Yes, there are significant differences between the two, but those differences still don't make an embryo a human being, except in potential. (The potential, of course, is the main difference between the embryo and a blood cell.)

There are plenty of folks who will take up the argument where I left off.

If you've lost interest and want to leave, sorry to see you go. But that's your call.

Originally posted by Two Steps Forward

Like most people on your side of this issue who read or hear that argument, you have misunderstood it.

I don't think I actually declared a position on this issue.

If you've lost interest and want to leave, sorry to see you go. But that's your call.

Thanks.

People are not an endangered species.
The more people there are, the less each individual life is worth.
Abortion is currently legal in the United States.
It may or may not be "murder," but so what? Society determines who lives and who dies all the time.
Society also tells people what they can and can't do with their bodies all the time. Don't think so? Go shoot heroin on Main Street. See what happens.
Unless you lock them in cages, kids will always have sex and the girls will get pregnant.
Abortion is certainly not the best method of birth control, but until somebody comes up with a good mandatory, temporary sterilization plan, we need to keep all of our various options open.
People should mind their own damned business.
There's nothing in the Bible specifically about abortion, but even if there was, we don't follow the Bible anymore, anyway. If we did, we'd still have slaves.
Anybody who thinks they know what "God" wants can't even define "God" in the first place, and is a blasphemer in the second place.
Abortion is a whole better than infanticide, like dumping a baby in the garbage can.
Anybody who votes anti-abortion should be required to adopt a crack baby.
Anybody who has more than two abortions should be permanently sterilized, along with the father.

Have I touched all the bases? I think I got most of them.





[edit on 27-7-2006 by Enkidu]

Originally posted by Enkidu
Abortion is a whole better than infanticide, like dumping a baby in the garbage can.

Why?

Anybody who votes anti-abortion should be required to adopt a crack baby.

Why?

When was this vote held? Is there one planned?

[edit on 2006/7/27 by GradyPhilpott]

Grady I think I understand your position. Yes it's true the government regulates things such a drugs and yes there are laws regulating sex. However, when I said no one has the right to tell me what I can do with my body I was speaking to forcing me to have an unwanted pregnancy. Having my daughter was the most wonderful experience and I'm glad I have her; however carrying a baby inside you for 9 months isn't an easy thing and having her almost cost me my life. I was willing to take that risk because although she was unexpected she wasn't unwanted but I can't imagine going through that as a result of rape; frankly I couldn't do it nor expect anyone else to. I believe that the option of abortion should be the last resort and used only in the cases of rape, incest and danger to the mother's life. I donot believe that partial birth abortions should ever be legal.
Abortions should take place very early in the pregnancy before the first trimester is finished.

Seagull as far as regulating abortion more I'm interested to hear how much more regulated you would like them to be. Women already often have walk a gauntlet just to get into a clinic that performs them. I'm assuming that you mean not letting a minor have one without parental consent and that I would agree with.

This is a very emotional subject and I appreciate being able to consider other opinions. Thank you to all of you for sharing;I may not agree but it's thought provoking.

Actually, gallopinghordes, I am pro-choice, but let's be honest with ourselves. No human has ever given birth to a toad or a pinto bean. Abortion is homicide.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Actually, gallopinghordes, I am pro-choice, but let's be honest with ourselves. No human has ever given birth to a toad or a pinto bean. Abortion is homicide.

Sorry didn't mean to put words in your mouth I hate it when people do that to me. I don't think I'll ever consider it homicide but your position is thought provoking as have all of your posts been on this topic as well as others. I'm enjoying this debate.

It's an important subject and the more we talk about it the better. I generally choose not to argue the matter, but verbally dancing around issue with "politically correct" terminology benefits no one.

Agreed Grady and most importantly talking about it in a civil manner which is rare. As far as being politically correct I've never been accused of that usually quite the opposite.

I would define the beginning of life as the ability for a life form at the cellular level to reproduce itself. This occurs at conception. Once fertilized, the egg cell will split and reproduce, and by this definition, life begins. If left to take it’s coarse these cells will reproduce to form a human being.

To interrupt this process anytime after conception is not any different if it is performed before or after the birth of a child. It is that simple.

IMHO, the only exception is when it is matter of life or death to the mother during pregnancy. With the option of adoption made available, why would anyone choose abortion? Is it too inconvenient to spare a life?

As someone mentioned earlier, the more humans there are, somehow they have less worth. I would say to them, how valuable is life to them? It is easy to talk of worth when you’re here to say something. Who speaks for those who can’t? My life is extremely valuable to me, and I’m glad my mother didn’t choose the unthinkable.

I'm sure any unborn child would agree.

For most of you in this I congradualte you we have been civil and have used reason to guide us, to me that denys ignorance. Also, Two Steps due to how you presented your case and your incredible reasoning in these posts I'v voted for you for Way Above. To the few people I have seen who have not been able to use reason and take a second to see from anothers shoes I hope you try a little harder next time its always disappointing to see stuff like that here. I just want to take a second and just explain why I am passionate about this. I am an unwanted/unplanned child. My mother became pregnant with me the summer before her senior year of college. If my mother had beleive abortion was not wrong I WOULD BE DEAD. So I feel I need to at least give those who may be aborted a voice. I'd ask even thoe I know many won't agree with me to just take a moment and think of this. Imagine even at conception that the little microscopic fertalized egg could become a person, there is a person there. In most cases that egg will become a baby and be born. Do you think that person in the future would want to be aborted. Thats my whole point even if its not a human now it most likly would become one if not aborted. I hope even thoe most still wont agree that you can atleast see where I'm coming from and why I would do away with abortion completly. Thanks and I hope to see the debate continue.

I've had 23 abortions and I know it's kinda weird, but I still feel okay. I mean think about it, every time you eat an egg you are aborting that baby chicken, but you still do it because it tastes good, and you like it.

Originally posted by laiguana
I've had 23 abortions and I know it's kinda weird, but I still feel okay. I mean think about it, every time you eat an egg you are aborting that baby chicken, but you still do it because it tastes good, and you like it.

Laiguana

The eggs you buy at the supermarket are unfertilized and this discussion does not involve the beasts of the field or barnyard animals.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Actually, gallopinghordes, I am pro-choice, but let's be honest with ourselves. No human has ever given birth to a toad or a pinto bean. Abortion is homicide.

Grady, it's true that you hadn't declared a position in the debate (until the above-quoted post), but you've been arguing the anti-choice side. Since you've been arguing it, I've assumed you believed it, apparently in error.

If abortion is homicide then throwing away a plum seed is cutting down a tree. No human has ever given birth to toad or a pinto bean, but at conception the mother-to-be hasn't given birth to a baby, either.

There is a distinction to be drawn between levels of maturation. An embryo at conception is not a baby, it's a one-celled organism containing the genetic blueprint to become a baby. It's a potential baby, in other words. I see no justification for treating the potential as if it were the actuality, and frankly neither you nor anyone else has presented any. You've simply acted as if it were self-evident, which it's not.

We need to recognize how nature operates. All organisms produce far more potential offspring than can possibly come to maturity. The ecosystem won't support them all, and so the great majority of those potential offspring must die at some stage of their maturation process. A tree produces huge numbers of seeds; most of those never sprout at all; of those that do, all but a very few are eaten, pulled up, trampled, or shaded to death. The same pattern applies to all animal species as well, including humans. Our natural reproductive strategy makes it difficult perhaps to see this, but it's true.

Biologists recognize two different reproductive strategies, which are usually called "R" and "K." An "R" strategy is followed by all plants and most animals. It involves tossing out as many offspring as possible and then forgetting about them, trusting in the law of averages to ensure that enough survive to maturity to maintain the species.

Some animals, however, follow a "K" strategy instead. This involves having fewer offspring, but caring for and protecting them so that of those few, a high percentage survive to maturity. Most of the more intelligent species of animal, definitely including ours, do this. Because we are wired to care for and nurture our young as part of our natural reproductive strategy, it is that much harder to see that we, too, are subject to the natural principle that most of our potential offspring must die -- in exactly the same percentage as for a tree.

Not every sperm cell is a potential baby, because there are vastly more sperm than ova, but every ovum is one. Every month that does not result in conception, a woman flushes a potential baby down the toilet. Of those that are conceived, a fairly high percentage are naturally aborted. In the old days before modern medicine, quite a high percentage of fetuses that survived to become babies died in childhood, despite the nurturing and protection we naturally provide them. In this way, nature keeps our numbers in check (or did before we bollixed the works), killing potential (or actual) human beings, most before conception, the rest either during gestation or in childhood.

These deaths must happen. There is no alternative. We are subject to natural limits like every other species of life.

But what we can do, is try to ensure that the deaths occur as early in the process as possible. A child who dies of a childhood disease suffers far more than an ovum that's flushed down the toilet, and so do its parents. An embryo at conception, which has no brain and so no human thoughts or feelings, suffers no more than an unfertilized ovum when aborted (whether naturally or by induction). A fetus near term -- that might be a different story. Probably is, in fact.

It is better, because of the relative suffering involved for all parties, to contracept than to abort. It is better to abort early than to abort late. It is better to abort late than to expose an unwanted infant. And it is better to expose an unwanted infant than to have a child die of starvation.

But to actually have all potential human beings become actual human beings is a natural impossibility, and this we must accept. If we could ensure that all the necessary deaths occurred before conception, that would be just dandy, but we can't. And to say that, when we fail to do this, we must not abort the pregnancy, is only to push the date of (someone's) death further down the line, when suffering will be greater.

GallopingHordes. You and I have agreed to disagree many times on this issue. Your daughter is almost as dear to me as she is to you, you know that...that may indeed be why I feel that abortion should be so very carefully supervised. I can't imagine not having her around. Pure selfishness on my part, I freely admit. My exceptions to the regulations have been noted previously.

As Grady wrote earlier, to be totally honest, every single abortion ever performed is a homicide. That doesn't change the fact that I can see that some abortions are nessecary for the health and even sanity of the mother. Maybe the phrase "Act in haste, repent at leisure..." has some validity here. An abortion is not reversible, its forever.

Originally posted by Two Steps Forward

If abortion is homicide then throwing away a plum seed is cutting down a tree. No human has ever given birth to toad or a pinto bean, but at conception the mother-to-be hasn't given birth to a baby, either.

And that is the whole point . . . when abortion becomes a political, religious issue with laws to control it,. . . the definition of what is life or would be life will become a blatant ridiculous issue that will push everybody with an agenda about life to bring their own views . . . yes . . . that is the way our society is and will always will be.

[edit on 28-7-2006 by marg6043]

Two Steps Forward, I gave you a WATS vote and wish I could give you more. Thank you for writing your wisdom.
What is rarely discussed in an abortion debate is why we have RvW. People tend to forget why women are allowed the right to a safe abortion. Before RvW, women got unsafe abortions, resulting many times in infection, sterility or death.
Overturning RvW will not stop abortions. Abortions would continue, just in an unsafe manner.

Originally posted by desert
Two Steps Forward, I gave you a WATS vote and wish I could give you more. Thank you for writing your wisdom.

He got my vote too. . .

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

Originally posted by Enkidu
Abortion is a whole better than infanticide, like dumping a baby in the garbage can.

Why?

Point taken. Either one is murder, and I don't have a problem with it either way. Sometimes you gotta murder. I guess I just don't want to be the one finding the little rotting baby in the can. Yuck.

Anybody who votes anti-abortion should be required to adopt a crack baby.

Why?

When was this vote held? Is there one planned?

It's more of an indirect kind of vote, if you vote for a candidate that is anti-abortion. To some folks, that's a strong single issue on which they decide their vote. Also, if you give money to anti-abortion groups, that's also a "vote" in a way, since in the United States, at least, one dollar equals one vote.

I just think that it's relatively easy to argue abstractions. I can say pretty much whatever I want about abortion, because I don't expect to ever have to make a personal decision about it. Obviously anybody having an abortion is personally involved. Those who are actively anti-abortion, who protest and spend money, etc., should have the same level of involvement, so they understand the situation better. Having to care for an un-aborted crack baby (or any un-aborted but unwanted baby, for that matter), puts them on the same level.

But it's not really a concern for me, one way or another. That's why it's so easy for me to be philosophical about it. I'm not woman, and since my vasectomy, I don't expect to get a woman pregnant. So for me, problem solved!

"Abortion" isn't really the issue. Contraception is. Because if people properly used contraception, there wouldn't be any "accidental" babies, would there?

That's why when I get to be Enkidu Hitler, Fürher of America, I'm going to spend at least as much money on mandatory contraceptive programs as I do on school lunch programs, even if I have to build one or two less stealth bombers to do it. And anybody who gripes about it gets a post-adolescent abortion, courtesy of my ruthless Secret Service. That'll put a stop to the debate, tout suite!

[edit on 28-7-2006 by Enkidu]

Someone recomended that if you have 2 abortions, you should be sterilized along with the father.

A few questions:
1. what if the baby's daddy is different for each baby?
2. what if you have 2 miscarriages?
3. what if #2, but because you did drugs?
4. what if you aborted twins?
5. women often lie about their ability to have children, use of birth control, etc. why should men be penalized because women lie?


These are questions you will have to answer if you ever hope to have brainchild become a permanent law.