While there are good arguments against my stance, I do think that any form of medical care that is not pure esthetically should be free/very affordable, regardless of how that person ends up on the operation table.
Edit: To bring this back to the argument: I would not only allow abortions, but I would use your tax dollars to pay for it.
So the logical conclusion of that would of course be that all women who wanted an abortion would have to claim rape. That’s going to lead to fun times, I’m sure. I’ll rather stick with your previous statement of “the idea of forcing a woman to have a child that she didn’t voluntarily conceive seems repugnant to me”, as otherwise it sounds like the lawmakers should legislate a “we know better than the woman when an abortion is prudent”. If you have the “foetuses are people, and we can force a person to give up their bodily autonomy for the sake of a another” opinion, then fair enough, but otherwise, you’d do what, set up social court to find the cases where abortion is deemed acceptable?
Oh, and of course: what penalty should there be for women getting an abortion, according to those who are against legal abortions?
I don’t really get the responsibility argument. OK, the woman (and man?) is responsible because she willingly had sex. So she must now face the consequences. Why can’t she do so by having an abortion? Why is having a baby the only responsible choice?
Do you still suspect we might be speaking at least somewhat metaphorically when we say that a human person with all his rights is created in the moment of conception, so that you can cleverly entangle us in contradictions? For my part, I have to disappoint you. Let manslaughter be prosecuted under the laws of manslaughter, and murder under the laws of murder.
No, because it would entail some serious risks for the donator; now you’re down to one kidney. And you have no connection to the other person suggesting that you owe him or her that kind of risk.
Babies are different. The connection is obvious, and the risk much less (in this day and age).
A better analogy: would I support the government telling me I have to donate a little bone marrow (not all that risky, but very painful)? There’s still no connection, but I probably would, since it would save a life.
This is one of the zillion ways in which the problem is icky, but I agree with you. The exceptions get put in because it seems especially horrible to “reward” the rapist by forcing his victim to carry the baby to term… but the baby is still innocent.
True story: I knew a woman working in a crummy job who already had three small children. Single mother. She got pregnant again – yes, bad decisions, but. She didn’t abort the baby; she carried it to term. But then she had to put it up for adoption because she couldn’t afford to care for it. She had to explain this to her little kids. Can you imagine the scars this left on all of them? Whenever times are tight, will the other kids think “maybe mama will put us up for adoption”?
There are no good solutions. I tend to think that killing innocents just makes the problem worse, but I am not enthused by most on that side of the debate, because they are more interested in punishing people for “moral failings” than they are in helping those innocents grow up to be healthy, happy members of society. And no matter what we do, there will be tragedy for some. Where is the support for real sex education? For helping poor children and single mothers? For making adoption easier on all involved?
Forced bone marrow transplants? I have to say that sounds like something people wouldn’t support immediately.
But anyway, there’s really no analogy, anyway. Donate a little bone marrow (though wrong) != forced continuation of pregnancy for 9 months and forced birth/c-section.
You say the connection is obvious in the case of pregnancy, so let’s change the “donating kidney to other person,” let’s make it someone you know. In fact, let’s make it someone you hate.
Doesn’t make much difference to me whether you hate them or not; you are still responsible for their existence.
But I agree that no analogy really works. And I don’t think many will be swayed by this argument, either; I’m just thinking aloud.
Seriously. You know, if we as a society worked to remove all the idiotic pointless stigma surrounding not just abortion and early-stage abortive practices, but sex and sexuality in general, we wouldn’t have these kinds of problems. Do I blame religious views on contraception? In large part, absolutely. Preaching abstinence is a failure and a product of a bygone era. It became obsolete and an exercise in hypocritical failure about 50 years ago. It’s caused far more problems than it has prevented, and anyone who seriously thinks otherwise isn’t really paying attention to modern North American society.
I just love pro-lifers who are guys. Seriously, WTG fellas. Panel of fuckin’ experts you all are. All life is precious…except for those foolish whores who let themselves get pregnant. To Hell with them, their bodies, their lives, their futures. We have an aggregate of cells to save!
Telling teenagers they can’t have sex when they’re going to anyway, not preparing for it, and then further imposing regulations on not just them but all women over what happens when they do ultimately get pregnant is a hodge-podge admixture of idiocy. Like Qenan mentioned, it’s a failure no matter how you slice it in terms of how it’s viewed and treated. Something’s got to either give and/or be seriously overhauled or improved, be it personal values, education, medical services, even adoption service - but good luck of any of that happening, right?
ruling by bible = moronism.
relgious people = morons
Religious people in power = controlling morons.
You might as well say “I don’t get the responsibility argument. OK, you have a kid. You now must face the consequences. Why can’t get get rid of the annoying little bugger by drowning him in the bath?”
You are avoiding the fundamental question of whether killing non-adults is wrong. Your answer fundamentally assumes that before birth it is not wrong. Many do not share that assumption, and regard it as rather bizarre special-pleading.
But the responsibility question is already avoiding that issue, because if we accept that abortion is murder, than the question of whether or not terminating a pregnancy represents a lapse of responsibility becomes irrelevant. The responsibility argument is meant to address those who do not feel that a fetus has the same rights as a human being. The whole point of the argument is to say “Even if you don’t think abortion is murder, you have to admit that it’s pretty irresponsible.”
Except that as Robert points out, you really don’t.
I understand why some people would be uncomfortable with abortion at 24 weeks, however, I can tell you that the number of infants born that early that survive is very low. I can also tell you that two women I know who are currently pregnant only got notice that there might be genetic defects (down syndrome in one case, possible trisomy 18 in the other) right at that point. Whether or not you agree with selective abortion in the case of genetic defects, a lot of people won’t support preventing it.
I understand that, hence my rather clusmy attempt to separate out abortion as, for want of a better description, a purely lifestyle choice verses medical reasons however you wish to define that. Again I appreciate that there’s a murky grey area between the two there as well.
From a practical point of view, where are all these new children that don’t get aborted supposed to go? People fling adoption around like it’s some kind of magic solution, “splat”, baby’s out and tomorrow it’ll be with it’s new loving family. I know newborn, healthy babys are at a premium when it comes to adoption, but past newborn status your chance of getting adopted plummets literally month by month and that’s before you take into account any potential medical problems.
Maybe the Care system in the US is much better than ours, but once you’re in it in the UK your chances of getting out permanently aren’t great, you’ll get a shitty education, have a much greater chance of mental health problems and a massively increased chance of ending up in Prison.
I wonder how it feels having been a long-term crusader for a woman’s right to choose and having the knowledge that the primary reason for exercising that right world-wide is because the fetus was female.
I don’t see everyone agreeing that the moral law can be legislated. Sure, we can make murder and theft and perjury illegal. But how about adultery, unkindness, or rebellion against parents? If one considers the Ten Commandments the basis of moral law, then only three of those are illegal today (the aforementioned murder, theft, and perjury). That leaves seven moral codes which are not legislated against; not to start mentioning the whole rest of the Mosaic Law.
The grammar of the verse indicates that the injury under discussion is to the direct object: the pregnant woman. The fetus doesn’t appear in the sentence at any point, so it’s quite a stretch to say that the adjectival phrases describing injuries and considerations apply to this unspoken noun.
I’ll give you another point to think about from the Mosaic Law. It says that during her monthly period, a woman is ceremonially unclean. Now let’s say she got some action a couple days before and there’s a fertilized egg floating around in her, which is then flushed during her period and “dies”. We know now scientifically that this happens the vast majority of the time (something like over 70%). So why does the Mosaic Law only call her unclean during this few days? Why does she not have even so much as a sin offering proscribed by the Law, much less a death penalty under certain circumstances? My answer: because a fertilized egg does not a living human being make.
Thank you for the link. I suspect you didn’t know this is an area of my study on the side. Note the phrase (and excuse my rough transliteration into English): GAR/EN AUTE’/GENNE’THEN which is roughly “for/in her/that which is conceived”. GENNE’THEN is in the neuter gender, so that an objective translator would say “that which”, as opposed to a translator who would “interpret” this to mean “He whom” and support his existing theology. I added the word “thing” to bring this out clearly since in the English language we don’t really have many gendered words left as many other languages do.
So that’s the word I point to.
Yes, but when compared with other verses from Job we can see that death before womb-emergence is considered not to have existed, whereas death after womb emergence is considered the end of a living human.
What you call grasping at straws, I call a clear if somewhat side-lined parallel. I do not believe there is any better source for moral code than the Scriptures, and I’m curious what you, as I presume a fellow Christian, would consider better.
Just a bag of cells; a physical tent (as the Bible refers to the body many times especially in the NT) which does not yet have a soul/personality.
What do you consider a persons’ body to be after someone has died? A plant? A dog? A horse? </sarcasm>
Your hypothetical has nodded off into the completely absurd here, because you suppose to know the answer to an unanswerable question. I don’t know, and neither do you.
It’s a worthless strawman designed to throw off a clear parallel that most Christians cannot adequately address: was Adam a living human being while his body was being created but before God breathed the Breath of Life? Anyone who says yes has some serious theological explaining to do. The answer therefore clearly established, this sets undeniable Biblical precedent for how God creates human life.
[quote=“Qenan,post:86,topic:46830”]
No, because it would entail some serious risks for the donator; now you’re down to one kidney. And you have no connection to the other person suggesting that you owe him or her that kind of risk.
Babies are different. The connection is obvious, and the risk much less (in this day and age).[/quote]
Except that the medical risks from abortion are still way below those of childbirth. Despite advances made in the last century or so, bringing a child to term has a nontrivial chance to injure or kill the prospective mother. You’re implying it’s OK for the government to force 51% of its citizens to choose a far more time-consuming, disruptive, dangerous, and much more painful procedure to resolve a potential medical condition instead of one that could be completed in an hour.
It feels like gender-linked inheritance traditions have some negative consequences, that’s how it feels.
I think you and I disagree here at a level that will make future agreement difficult. I think you are assuming what you are trying to prove. I deny that a fetus is a baby. If it were a human baby, that would be a different matter entirely. I certainly would not agree that a mother could kill her own baby in order to alleviate responsibility. In fact, I think the adoption path should be done only for the sake of the child, not the mother and father. It should be done to give the child a chance at a better life (if that’s the decision that is reached), not because the parents just don’t feel like dealing with it.
But at the fetal stage, I don’t think we are talking about a human (baby) at all. So I would not say the connection is obvious any more than I would say that I am somehow connected to my fingernails (at least the parts I can clip).