Hardcore.
Exactly. It’s not so much what you think should happen, it’s whether you support the government having that level of control over every woman’s body. Basically I choose to draw an arbitrary line of personhood because it would be wrong not to.
But this thread is so, so doomed.
Hardcore doesn’t even begin to cover it. God hasn’t even created people at that point!
Nezz’s post is awesomely hilarious from beginning to end.
Ooh! Ooh! I know! Pick me!
It’s a fetus! Or, as you already stated, an embryo!
It really is ok to expand your vocabulary with more nouns.
I know it’s already been mentioned in passing, but I would be very interested to know whether those who’ve declared themselves Anti-Abortion, especially if so on the basis of “protecting the baby” are also Anti-IVF.
If you’re not anti-IVF, why doesn’t the same reasoning that you apply to terminating a pregnancy also apply to attempting to artificially introduce one?
On a more general basis, why aren’t [religious especially] Anti Abortion groups as rabidly, if not more so, against IVF treatment as they are abortion? I know there’s that whole sex thing wrapped up in abortion so you get a double scoop of moral superiority but if it’s “Life from conception” then the IVF industry is guilty of, well, mass genocide I guess.
Yes, some do. I’m anti-abortion, anti-IVF, and anti-death penalty. I’m also (reluctantly) pro-choice. As I’ve already detailed, I think the first step has to be the building of support structures to help educate teens, help women in crisis pregnancy and make the option of keeping the child more attractive and feasible, as well as improving the adoption process.
I also don’t think that my religion should be forced on people by law, as it diminishes the significance of people who choose to follow those precepts voluntarily. And finally, I think that if you just outlaw abortion, not only will there be all sorts of issues due to illegal abortionists, but the people who supported the outlawing of abortion will fail to make any of the aforementioned positive changes to help single mothers and such.
In order to stay politically relevant in a two-party system in which one party stands for a fast transvaluation of all values and the other for a slow one, they have embraced the democratic principle of compromise.
OK, I’ve done a little bit of reading around (as much as you can do at work when you’re supposed to be doing something like work) and it does appear that many pro-life organisations, religious or not, aren’t too happy with how IVF works exactly for the reason that embryos are destroyed so I stand corrected on that front.
I prefer to see the abortion issue in a practical matter rather then a moral one (because as a moral issue it will never ever be resolved).
Murder is illegal because it’s harmful to society. It strips the resources of a person from society and furthermore it can escalate into more (retribution) violence, which in turn adds even more harm upon society.
Regardless of finding abortion murder, the practical effect of killing a fetus on a society level is near non existent when abortion is legal. If it’s illegal however we get the illegal abortion clinics, teenage mothers and all the problems that go with that. So in my opinion, making abortion illegal will leave society worse off and as such should be legal.
Murder is a crime for a reason. Claiming that “Abortion = Murder = Crime” leads to “Abortion = Crime” is a flawed argument because you should test against the original reason, not the rule derived from it.
And just to clarify my stance, a hypothetical society that would run the risk of going extinct should make abortion illegal.
That’s also the problem they have with stem cell research. I don’t think there’s anything inconsistent about the views of most pro-lifers. I just think they’re wrong in their basic assumptions of what counts as a human being.
Also, the practical concerns that Marinus raises are what led many religious leaders to SUPPORT Roe vs. Wade.
So when you get lung cancer due to smoking - a personal choice, with a well known cause>reaction and not just a natural occurring infection, you shouldn’t get any help. Am I doing this right? Because that’s where taking responsibility comes in, right?
Also, if you get smoke-raped, an act where an assailant holds you down and blows second hand smoke into your face, you also can’t get help. You should have held your breath longer.
Ignoring the validity of the smoking=> lung cancer connection for the moment, if you smoked for the better part of your life and get lung cancer as a result I don’t feel society should end up paying for that.
I agree with you on that, but that’s a wholly separate issue. We could just say society shouldn’t have to pay for abortions too. But that doesn’t mean the person shouldn’t be able to get help, if he or she can afford it.
Edit: I’ll also add that it’s a hard line to find, as you already noted. The connections are vague. For example, suppose I get in a car crash. This punctures my lung (sticking to a lung theme here). Is it my fault? Well, we could establish guilt somewhat. If I am at fault, should the hospital help me? What if I can’t pay for it (or they don’t know if I can because my ID was destroyed in the crash)? What if I’m not at fault, but nevertheless I knew the risks of driving? It’s hard to tell exactly where the personal responsibility line should be drawn. IF we could conclusively show that someone directly and intentionally harmed themselves, it would be another matter. But that’s not always easy.
I guess to just make clear my own position: While I’m broadly in favour of having Abortion legal and available I do think the current legislation, in the UK at least, needs to be looked at. I don’t know what the magic point is where an embryo becomes a baby but I do think that where the cut off point is currently (24 weeks) is too late when you have premature babies being born at that point and surviving, albeit with intensive medical care.
I don’t know whether, for example, a two tier system is practical or workable where if it’s elective, for “lifestyle”, reasons there’s an earlier cut off point than when required for strictly medical reasons or whether that just clouds the issue even more.
Dude. In order to stay politically relevant in a two-party system in which one party stands for a fast transvaluation of all values and the other for a slow one, you have to embrace the democratic principle of compromise.
Which seems to mean ‘we don’t have to make sense’.
Yeah, 24 weeks does seem too late. If the fetus has become a viable human baby, that seems like tricky moral ground. Actually, it just seems wrong to me, but I’d need more information that I don’t really have (knowledge, I mean).
There is still doubt about this in 2008? Someone should inform the European Union that forces the tobacco companies to print “SMOKING KILLS YOU” and “SMOKING CAUSES CANCER” in Arial Bold 48pt on every pack of cigarettes.
Also, being a socialist European I think society SHOULD pay for the stupidity of it’s citizens - including any form of abortion, cancer, operations after crashing you car while being drunk and any other immorality you can think of in this line.
Pro life just seems to have another meaning here.
Edit: on the other hand, smoking might prevent abortions
Mordrak, that sounds pretty much straight up like the pro-choice position, which the pro-life movement usually is the sworn enemy of. Pro-choicers usually aren’t salivating at the thought of abortions, they are mostly concerned with the legal and practical right to have it, beyond that it’s the woman’s fully-educated choice.
I really don’t think being “not a fan of abortion” is reason to (even rhetorically) to side with the rather unsavoury characters that have taken up the mantle of “pro-life”.
It’s more in the practical sense, can they definitely prove that somebody got lung cancer from smoking? As far as I understand it it’s a considerably higher chance but still, you can get lung cancer while never having touched a cigarette in your life. It’s not an exclusive smoking disease, which is what I was referring to.
Also, being a socialist European I think society SHOULD pay for the stupidity of it’s citizens -
Rewarding stupidity is bad imho. I take it though that you are also in favor of government sponsered bailouts of greedy banks who got their heads stuck in the honey flavored acid jar?