Well, the morning after pill is good for obvious condom failures, and no one should rely on only one method. I doubt most abortions occur after catostrophic failure of multiple birth control devices. But birth control is never 100% fool proof, so every time you have sex you’re accepting the risk of what may be an adverse outcome. If all else fails there’s keeping it in your pants (or techinical virginity :D ), so I don’t have a problem with people living with the consequences of their actions.
Wow. Well, I’m sure those people will be comfortable with the notion that you don’t have a problem with their lives being ruined by an unwanted pregenancy because they failed to live as virgins before marriage. Thanks for that realistic and useful advice, Brad.
I noticed no one has tried to address why the issue in the US turns on the point of privacy. Is that because no one really agrees that this is a valid argument for allowing abortions? I’m still a bit up in the air on this issue. However, I think the pro-life movement at least has a very clear set of arguments (albeit one that depends on a definition of life which not all agree on). The pro-choice movement on the other hand depends on a variety of arguments which seem much weaker. The whole Roe vs. Wade turning on the right to privacy just seems absurd. I would go so far as to say that insisting that the right to privacy guarantees the right to an abortion, weakens the pro-choice movement and makes it look like their whole moral framework is based on a house of cards.
If we really believe in the right to abortion, then it should be handled in a legal manner – added using legislation, adding an amendment to the constitution, or handled at the state level. To pin such an important decision on such a questionable foundation just seems wrong. The whole thing looks like the court decided it wanted to permit abortions and then went fishing for a reason to support their decision. They didn’t actually find one, so they hung it on the 14th amendment “right to privacy” as the closest they could find.
Caveat: I am not a lawyer, so maybe I’m missing something with this whole privacy thing. But it sure seems like a lot of hooey, and the fact that no one responded to this point in my original post adds to my feelings that it’s probably bull.
What does “viable outside the mother’s womb” mean?[/quote]
I think the two obvious definitions of viable would be (1) able to live outside the mother’s womb without aid, or (2) able to live outside the mother’s womb with some sort of assistance. My understanding is that some states use one or the other of these as the basis for determining whether or not the fetus counts as a person in some criminal trials – for example in the murder case I pointed out earlier.
To me an abortion after the fetus has reached the point where it can live unassisted outside of the mother’s womb is very clearly wrong. Even if the fetus is at an earlier stage, say the premie stage where some fetus survive with hospital support, aborting feels very wrong. The viable premie stage is a moving target as our technology improves.
I did like Dave Markell’s idea that perhaps the point of personhood is when the fetus develops a functioning brian (now we have to figure out what exactly constitutes a functioning brian :shock: )
So for the Europeans, are abortions allowed right up until birth? Or are there limits to when the fetus can be aborted?
I really thought this analogy was right on for those who support abortions in the third trimester. I noticed it was completely ignored except for Kalle who suggested that this was not necessary because, among other things, adoption was an option. Kalle, adoption is a good option for healthy white babies. But, at least in the US, adoptions are hard to come by for black crack babies.
Wow Kalle that’s pretty extreme and I disagree pretty strongly. If you’re talking legally, then perhaps. If you’re talking morally, then no way. I once dated a woman who refused to signup for a bone marrow registry on the grounds that they use a really big needle to remove bone marrow and it would have hurt a lot to donate. So I asked her if it came down to it, would she donate bone marrow if she was the only match and it meant saving a life. She said no, and that I didn’t understand, the needle was really big. That’s one of the reasons why we broke up. According to your sense of morals Kalle, she was totally within her rights. I personally thought her decision was morally repugnant.
I believe that heartbeat and brain waves can be detected in the fetus at 8 weeks gestation (approximately six weeks after conception). At this point the fetus is about the size of your thumbnail, although recognizably human and capable of movement.
No idea what constitutes a functioning brain from a legal perspective - I mean in “brain death” cases. I’m sure that levels of cognitive function play no part in determining rights or personhood.
Wow Kalle that’s pretty extreme and I disagree pretty strongly. If you’re talking legally, then perhaps. If you’re talking morally, then no way. I once dated a woman who refused to signup for a bone marrow registry on the grounds that they use a really big needle to remove bone marrow and it would have hurt a lot to donate. So I asked her if it came down to it, would she donate bone marrow if she was the only match and it meant saving a life. She said no, and that I didn’t understand, the needle was really big. That’s one of the reasons why we broke up. According to your sense of morals Kalle, she was totally within her rights. I personally thought her decision was morally repugnant.[/quote]
You mix up rights with morals. You own your body, period, it’s what you do with it that can be assigned moral values. The woman you dated acted immorally, on that we agree, but she was still within her rights to refuse. No one is in a position to demand of her that she give up her body to others, you can’t demand that people be good samaritans.
Wow Kalle that’s pretty extreme and I disagree pretty strongly. If you’re talking legally, then perhaps. If you’re talking morally, then no way. I once dated a woman who refused to signup for a bone marrow registry on the grounds that they use a really big needle to remove bone marrow and it would have hurt a lot to donate. So I asked her if it came down to it, would she donate bone marrow if she was the only match and it meant saving a life. She said no, and that I didn’t understand, the needle was really big. That’s one of the reasons why we broke up. According to your sense of morals Kalle, she was totally within her rights. I personally thought her decision was morally repugnant.[/quote]
You mix up rights with morals. You own your body, period, it’s what you do with it that can be assigned moral values. The woman you dated acted immorally, on that we agree, but she was still within her rights to refuse. No one is in a position to demand of her that she give up her body to others, you can’t demand that people be good samaritans.[/quote]
Kalle, I agree I’m mixing up rights with morals – mea culpa. But I’m still not sure I agree with your statement.
To come up with an extreme example, in the US in the last year or so there was a case where a woman hit a pedestrian and then drove home with the pedestrian stuck in her windshield. She watched him die and was unwilling to lift a finger to save him. While simply hitting him would have been a manslaughter charge, the charge was changed to murder because she didn’t try to save him. You can argue that the difference between this case and legislating that people be good samaritans is that she was reponsible for his injuries in the first place. But as Brad has pointed out, in almost all pregancies the man and woman who procreated both voluntarily took actions which which were responsible for creating the fetus. They both need to take responsibility for that action. To simply say that they don’t need to take any steps to protect the life or potential life they’ve created because it’s part of the woman’s body and she can do anything she wants with it just doesn’t seem right. Similar to the car driver that hit a pedestrian they took actions which affected another entity – in this case creating a new entity. To say that they can now let that entity die because it will inconvenience them just seems wrong.
Despite the fact I’m declining to engage in any arguments in this forum, what you say here reminds me of a quote. Something about the accidental creation of life and bringing it to term regardless of the ability to provide the proper environment for that child to flourish brings to mind something said in a rather cheesy movie:
In Sweden, it is the woman’s choice up until the 18th week, then you’re allowed to have one after permission from social services until the 24th week, though in practice that usually means the 22nd week.
There is a very noticible difference between a fully formed person who has been alive long enough to aquire vast amounts of memories and become skilled enough to play the violin, and a glob of flesh that cannot even understand it exists. The example is retarded. Cease and desist.
What does social services have to do with it? Why not just say that abortions are completely the woman’s choice up until the 24th week?
I’m pro-choice, but when you’re talking 22 or 24 weeks, you’ve passed the point of “terminating a fetus that never knew it was alive” and moved into “baby murder.” Babies can survive outside of the womb (with medical support) at that stage, and even grow up without long-term effects.
If you’ve waited that long, deal with it and go the adoption route. Having seen ultrasounds at various points, my own gut feeling is that abortions should only be allowed in the first trimester unless the mother’s life is in danger or the fetus is damaged or unviable.
(Not to get too deep into pro-life vs. pro-choice, but my basic feeling is that I’d be all for eliminating abortion if every baby could be guaranteed a home where it would be wanted and cared for. But having seen the consequences of neglected/abused/drug-damaged babied, there are times when it probably is better to just not live than to be brought into some households.)
That’s kind of what i was wondering about. Either 24 weeks is acceptable or it isn’t. There aren’t really any special factors for Sweeden’s social services to ponder and tip the scales on.
Probably threat to the mother’s life, etc.
I’m sorry if pointing out that having sex is a choice people make blows your mind. And I’m sorry if people think a 9 month pregnancy, after which they can put the child up for adoption, “ruins their life”. If that’s all it takes to throw it off course, well It doesn’t sound like a very robust existence to me. I’m not saying everybody must remain a virgin, I’m just saying that sex isn’t a magical, consequence-free act, and it’s absurd to pretend like it should be. Thanks for putting unrealistic and useless advice in my mouth, quatoria.
So is it your fault if you catch hepatitis from a fast food resturaunt worker?
In Sweden, it is the woman’s choice up until the 18th week, then you’re allowed to have one after permission from social services until the 24th week, though in practice that usually means the 22nd week.[/quote]
It should probably be said that European practices regarding abortion are not all that homogenous. On one hand we have Ireland and Poland, which forbids them, except in case of rape or threat to the mother’s life I think, on the other end of the spectrum is Sweden, Holland, etc.
Wow. I really, really agree with Brad.
Adoption is a very viable alternative. There are lots of people who want children, but cannot conceive.
Since it was never really addressed (I wish I’d been here earlier in the conversation), pro-lifers that make exceptions in the case of rape are using the basis that the mother did nothing to warrant the “consequences” of an unwanted pregnancy. Most pro-lifers come at it from a religous angle, with the idea that “if you don’t want a child, don’t have sex. If you do have sex, be ready for the possible consequences.” I have little sympathy for someone who becomes pregnant, but doesn’t want the child. They shouldn’t have put themselves in the situation to become pregnant. In the case of rape…that’s different.
That said – if every child conceived through rape were aborted, my mother-in-law wouldn’t be here, and consequently, neither would my wife (just because her mother wouldn’t be. My wife was no child of rape, so please don’t think that’s what I said). With that in mind, I would encourage adoption over abortion even in those cases.
I’m in the group that views abortion as outright murder. And the death penalty as justice. (But I have no problem with birth control, though I still recommend against sex before marriage.) So, now…Everybody should hate me, right? :)
(Aw, what am I going to do without Wumpus to say “We already did.”?)
Sure is. For healthy white babies.
You should visit the long-term infant care facility my wife worked in in California. It’d be an interesting reality check. The life these kids were living was gut-wrenching, and it would take a saint to adopt one of these babies with the problems they had and the care that they required.
Saints weren’t tearing the door down to get the babies.
That’s not very Christian-like of you Murph.
Okay, perhaps “no sympathy” isn’t the right way to phrase it. But it reminds me of the saying “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”
I feel bad for them, sure. But they brought it upon themselves, and they have to deal with the consequences.
Generalizing “action x has y chance of causing effect z, and when it does its entirely the fault of the participants” gets you into some really wierd territory.