To staunch pro-lifers : Is abortion always wrong?

reply to post by 44soulslayer

I could ask "why" do you think a fetus is a human being with full human rights; but it would only end in semantics and each person drawing the line in another place.

I think its a good question.
If there is a heartbeat,there is life,and all life has rights.


As for Roe v Wade,the biggest problem with that ruling was that it allowed women to abort babies for the most ridiculous and selfish reasons;its the wrong sex,its disabled and its too much hard work caring for it,I'm doing it to spite my boyfriend/husband etc etc etc.

Originally posted by 44soulslayer
"why" do you think a fetus is a human being

Because he or she is a human being. Their heart is beating.
The feel pain. They suck their thumbs. They play with their toes.
They open their eyes and they go to sleep. etc

Would you support a repeal of Roe vs Wade?

Sure. But it won't ever happen. You can't catch smoke.

According to your logic, should miscarriage be treated as manslaughter?

Miscarriage occurs when the mother's body attacks the fetus and treats it as a foreign pathogen.

Manslaughter is the unintended murder of another person, regardless of the intentions.

Why is miscarriage not a crime? Is it the conscious action of choosing an abortion within which the sin is inherent? The net effect is the same; but is it the decision process which is immoral?

Originally posted by 44soulslayer
According to your logic, should miscarriage be treated as manslaughter?

Miscarriage occurs when the mother's body attacks the fetus and treats it as a foreign pathogen.

Manslaughter is the unintended murder of another person, regardless of the intentions.

Why is miscarriage not a crime? Is it the conscious action of choosing an abortion within which the sin is inherent? The net effect is the same; but is it the decision process which is immoral?

No, because a miscarriage is a biological dysfunction that the mother has no control over. attributing it to manslaughter is like saying a man committed suicide by having a heart attack.

Now lets say the doctor recommends that the fetus is an endangerment to both the mother and the child to be, that is also not a matter of choice. It is like when your left arm becomes infected to the point that infection could spread to your heart and kill you. The doctor is not going to ask if you want your arm to be amputated or not, it is going to get amputated, as their obligated duty to help you live.



[edit on 18-1-2009 by juveous]

reply to post by juveous


So the sin is in the choice?

What about if the choice is between saving the mother's life or saving the fetus' live? Why does the mother's life become more important at that point?

Originally posted by 44soulslayer
reply to post by juveous

 

So the sin is in the choice?

What about if the choice is between saving the mother's life or saving the fetus' live? Why does the mother's life become more important at that point?

That is someone's personal opinion of importance now isn't it?

All human life is equally significant IMO but if I was given such a dilemma as to actually choose I honestly couldn't say without knowing the details of the situation.

People might say the child is more important, because the mother has already experienced life. Then again, one might say the mother because there might be other lives very dependent on hers. You pose a very difficult question which calls for a complete sacrifice for life.

The main reason the mother's life might be seen as more significant, is in the case that if she does die, there is an increase chance of the child dying.
where you have a probability of both dying if the mother does not live, as a probability of one living if the fetus is aborted. - would be under the decision of medical expertise I'm sure.





[edit on 18-1-2009 by juveous]

Welcome to the official National Sanctity of Human Life Day

America is a caring Nation, and our values should guide us as we harness the gifts of science. In our zeal for new treatments and cures, we must never abandon our fundamental morals. We can achieve the great breakthroughs we all seek with reverence for the gift of life.

"If abortion isn't wrong, then what is?" - St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

St. Mother Teresa said this to the American Supreme Court -

"Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government," she said. "They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or sovereign. The Constitutional Court of the Federal Republic of Germany recently ruled: 'The unborn child is entitled to its right to life independently of its acceptance by its mother; this is an elementary and inalienable right which emanates from the dignity of the human being.'

St. Mother Teresa said this to the Cairo Conference -

"I have said often, and I am sure of it, that the greatest destroyer of peace in the world today is abortion. If a mother can kill her own child, what is there to stop you and me from killing each other? The only one who has the right to take life is the One who has created it. Nobody else has that right: not conference, no government."

And also this at that same Conference -

"If there is a child that you don't want or can't feed or educate, give that child to me. I will not refuse any child. I will give a home, or find loving parents for him or for her. Weare fighting abortion by adoption and have given thousands of children to caring families. And it is so beautiful to see the love and unity that a child brings to a family."

and St. Mother Teresa's words at the National Prayer Breakfast -

"By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. The father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion."

A VERY WISE WOMAN!!

Originally posted by DantesLost
So is your concern for over population of the planet or for the fact that its the woman's body she can do wants she wants? And does doing what she wants include ignoring the father's choice,if he wants the child that is?

My concern is for the fact that it's the woman's body, she can do what she wants and until the child is born it is a part of the mother. She has the right to remove it if she wants to because it's growing INSIDE her. I mentioned the overpopulation thing because SOME people place this unnecessary stigma on abortion and pressure women into feeling guilty about it or not going through with their choice. We end up with a lot of families on welfare or children who's parents can't provide for. We get a lot of abandoned children and THAT is a sad thing.

PERSONALLY, I think that if the father wants the child and the mother does not: it's for them to discuss, he has had a part in it after all. In my own personal case, if I didn't want the baby and the father did, I'd have the child and hand custody over to him. Let him raise it. He wants it, there's no harm in that.

Ultimately though, I don't understand why people DO say that it's wrong for the woman to make the choice of having an abortion. There are so many factors and personal variants that no one should be able to sit there and say that abortion is murder...by definition it is NOT.

Great debate so far. I've learnt some new perspectives from the "other side" as they say.

I think my conclusions so far would be:

1. That the fetus has an inherent right to life after the point where it can be sustained outside the mother. That point may be 18-24 weeks. Before that point, the fetus has no right to life, and is subject to the mother's jurisdiction. Think about it this way... if the fetus has an equal right to life, and the mother has to decide whether to abort the fetus to save her own life- then how is it any different from killing one man to give his heart to another (dying) man? If a right to life exists, then it must have total parity amongst all those who possess it.

2. That abortion is, at best, morally dubious. People have the right to draw their own conclusions and opinions. As such, I would like to see abortion continue legally; but perhaps with a greater emphasis on alternatives provided. I think that even if abortion is a grave sin, even if it is immoral and spiritually decrepit in the eyes of some; it is still a force for a more positive material world. In my eyes, Leavitt and Dubner's research into the subject is solid.

So... what say you to that? Abortion : A necessary evil?

Originally posted by 44soulslayer
So... what say you to that? Abortion : A necessary evil?

so are you saying that abortion is always wrong? that is your OP.
In that case - calling it a "necessary evil" is kind of like saying you shot and killed you rival company's CEO so your business could stay on top? well lets just say you figuratively shot and killed him...maybe you just told him some wrong information about some food and he accidentally poisoned himself. ooops!

Hey it was legal! but it was necessary to up hold the status quo. That is raise, a better community or "material world" (figurative).

reply to post by juveous


First off, I meant it in the event that you see abortion as a moral evil. Personally I dont (for reasons stated above), but I pose this to you guys (pro -lifers).

Secondly- I was referring to Leavitt and Dubner's work on the issue.

en.wikipedia.org...

Flyers also brought up this issue about abortion being disproportionately used by black mothers. Reducing the number of unwanted and teenage pregnancies amongst the most deprived communities results in a drastic drop in crime rates.

So this would not be like killing a rival CEO; but would be roughly tantamount to aborting the life of a future criminal. The stats are stark and clear that predominantly black inner city dwellers have the highest rates of crime and incarceration (and murder). If abortion were legal, we would have even more unwanted children on our hands, resulting in a greater rate of criminality.

In essence then, my question is about social engineering. Is it OK to abort future criminals? It probably falls under the realms of eugenics, but I have no qualms about discussing it impartially and logically.

Originally posted by 44soulslayer
reply to post by juveous

 

First off, I meant it in the event that you see abortion as a moral evil. Personally I dont (for reasons stated above), but I pose this to you guys (pro -lifers).

Secondly- I was referring to Leavitt and Dubner's work on the issue.

en.wikipedia.org...

Flyers also brought up this issue about abortion being disproportionately used by black mothers. Reducing the number of unwanted and teenage pregnancies amongst the most deprived communities results in a drastic drop in crime rates.

So this would not be like killing a rival CEO; but would be roughly tantamount to aborting the life of a future criminal. The stats are stark and clear that predominantly black inner city dwellers have the highest rates of crime and incarceration (and murder). If abortion were legal, we would have even more unwanted children on our hands, resulting in a greater rate of criminality.

In essence then, my question is about social engineering. Is it OK to abort future criminals? It probably falls under the realms of eugenics, but I have no qualms about discussing it impartially and logically.

ok.

well that last statement had to at the least have been a qualm of eugenics...
but you can keep the squeeze.

My metaphor could have been ever so slightly modified to pertain to the experience of each employee, but i'm not going to bother..

So when you reduce the amount of juveniles in a bad neighborhood the crime drops...hmmm, I know, lets just not let them live in the first place, so we can get a head start cleaning up the streets?
www.urban.org...

Again, this is your "necessary evil". To keep crime down. The fact is, which is the effect to truth? That abortions have an impact on crime rates or that the overall population does? - because when I look at it like that, I start to see that abortions are not the answer, and to fix problems we should be doing what appears absent which is educating families into making better moral decisions.


edit: spelling

Edit again: - you might want to shift the argument, or it won't leave these scenarios
[edit on 19-1-2009 by juveous]

[edit on 19-1-2009 by juveous]

Originally posted by 44soulslayer
Flyers also brought up this issue about abortion being disproportionately used by black mothers. Reducing the number of unwanted and teenage pregnancies amongst the most deprived communities results in a drastic drop in crime rates.

When i first heard that I was outraged and I thought it was vile. Then I read the book - Freakanomics - and it was spelled out in such a way that it is undeniable.

The fact that abortion is disporportionately used by black people would make Margaret Sanger very happy. She is the patron 'saint' of Planned Parenthood, and she was definately not fond of black people.

reply to post by juveous


It is the overall population within certain demes.

A higher overall population of a social fraction prone to criminality will result in higher degrees of criminality.

What do you think is my curl to make a child go through surgery left and right
and your child will die anyway would you sit there and let you see your child suffer.
the oldest child to live with hypo plastic left heart syndrom is age 5 how would you handle losing a child that way. there are other problem that doctors cant fix if there is sever complications what else would you do i use to be 100% against abortion till this happened to me you dont know unless you are faced with this problem Im sad that I had to let him go but i did it in a peaceful way i still gave birth he had everything it sad but we some times have to make decisions that are hard sometimes no matter how painful emotional.
I would be scared to death every minute wonder if he were going to die and my 2 year old seeing this what would you have done in my case. They said that I would have been a high risk pregnancy to My husband and child needs me no matter what I would have done
I would have lost there was no winning this.

Originally posted by 44soulslayer
reply to post by juveous

 

In essence then, my question is about social engineering. Is it OK to abort future criminals? It probably falls under the realms of eugenics, but I have no qualms about discussing it impartially and logically.

I don't believe there is any one who can say for sure that an unborn baby will be a criminal if allowed to live.

That is a negative and impracticable approach to life.

There have been many great people and/or just respectable, hard working people who have come from bad neighborhoods or bad home situations.

If no person can judge that a particular unborn baby will be a criminal why should any unborn babies who come from such a neighborhood or background die?

reply to post by Mahree


Yeah thats the moral ambiguity behind the issue.

However there is no doubt that its practical!

Don't look at it as some fascist state sponsored eugenics action. Rather consider that those women who choose abortion are unlikely to be capable of raising their children anyhow. These children are, though capable of being law abiding, disproportionately more likely to be criminals.

Im not saying that we should abort the children of anyone living in the inner city... ffs that would be mad. But allowing a woman who is incapable of raising the child to have an abortion is by no means a bad idea in my estimation. I suppose the only other choice is adoption... but that has its own problems.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Wrong comparison.

His mother wasn't some inner city crack addicted, unemployed woman.

She chose to keep him because she knew she could raise him well. I think there is no doubt that Obama is what he is today because of his mother and her family raising him.

Obama, Martin Luther King Jr, and Planned Parenthood.

MLK got a Margaret Sanger award?

Obama thinks this is great????

Margaret Sanger hated black people.

Unfreak'nbelievable!

BTW - 70% of abortuaries are in MINORITY neighborhoods.