Abortion??? anyone??

[palerider]

Its not if the rights should exist arbitor, its from when should the rights exist.

Aborting a baby due in a week is no different from abortion a baby that is alive.

Aborting a couple of cells after a few weeks is not the same as aborting a child by any stretch, whether you want to play semantics with what makes it alive or not.

You keep saying that but you seem completely unable to substantiate it in any way and your faith that it is so simply isn't sufficient. Can you prove in any way that an unborn at any stage of development is something other than a living human being?

Shouldn't the mother have the rights over a few cells?

Not if those "few cells" as you like to call them are another human being. Can you prove that they are something other than a human being?

If you say no and life begins at conception - should a man have rights over his semen? Or should he bottle it and make sure none of it goes to waste, because its hardly more developed than an egg and cell that have just joined.

Still can't bring yourself to make an honest argument huh? We have been through the whole "sperm is not a human being" argument before and you lost it handily. Do you believe it has become a valid argument again because you are making it to someone new? This is one of the really pitiful aspects of the pro choice argument. You lose flatly to one person, you have your beliefs proven wrong and then when someone new comes along, you drag out the same old losing arguments again as if they hadn't already been soundly defeated.

You aren't interested in really making a rational argument are you? You are simply hoping that you can "trick" the new guy into believing the very arguments that have already been defeated and when someone comes along later, you will drag out the same old losers and try and try to trick them as well.

 

[numinus]

If you say no and life begins at conception - should a man have rights over his semen? Or should he bottle it and make sure none of it goes to waste, because its hardly more developed than an egg and cell that have just joined.

You are seriously misunderstanding your own post.

If human life begins AT CONCEPTION, then there is no way a sperm cell is human life, no?

 

[palerider]

You are seriously misunderstanding your own post.

If human life begins AT CONCEPTION, then there is no way a sperm cell is human life, no?

Human life doesn't necessarily begin at conception but an individual human's life does.

 

[numinus]

Human life doesn't necessarily begin at conception but an individual human's life does.

And what is an individual human's life if not human life, hmmm?

There is a general confusion in your arguments that become quite apparent when one looks at your posts in the capital punishment thread.

 

[ilikeboobs]

"It is a great poverty that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
Mother Teresa

 

[RenegadeFuture]

Personally, I think that killing the unborn is a terrible tragedy, no matter what the parents' choice. If people don't want kids, they should use contraception, not deny life to developing babies in the womb, as if they are any less human.

Abortion is murder, but there are those cases where babies will be disabled in such a way that it will severely harm their quality of life so much that it won't really be a life, or childbirth might kill the mother. Parents don't own their children, even if they are in their mother's belly for however long. If the parents-to-be can't cope, then the baby should be put up for adoption, not killed because their parents don't want them. It deals a blow to "choice", but it isn't really a fair choice at all.

 

[The Scotsman]

..they should use contraception,

...not an option if your're a Roman Catholic...priests'll put a curse on your penis if you go in suited and booted!! You'll spend the rest of your life saying "Hail Mary's" or "Hail Caesars" or whatever it is they burble on about; all the time wondering what Hell's going to be like and if if they sell a halfway decent decaf latte. Best thing is not to mention it during confession I guess!!?? Or d'ya get blasted for that as well? bit of a bummer either way!

...Abortion is murder,....

....errrmmm... says who?

..but there are those cases where babies will be disabled in such a way that it will severely harm their quality of life so much that it won't really be a life, or childbirth might kill the mother. Parents don't own their children, even if they are in their mother's belly for however long. If the parents-to-be can't cope, then the baby should be put up for adoption, not killed because their parents don't want them. It deals a blow to "choice", but it isn't really a fair choice at all.

Adpotion!!! Let's explore that myth shall we!! Like everyone's queuing up outside materity wards just to get their hands on severly handicapped kids...please!! One of the worst ways to be brought up is in care!

How many of such kids have you adopted?

Here's a little story for you. A trip into the alice in wonderland world that is UK PC, it kinda illustrates the problems you'll encounter going down this particular yellow brick road of yours.

The Catholic Church in the UK runs adoption agencies. They fund the care and medical requirements and placement of severely handicapped kids with parents whom they themselves train to look after these poor wee mites. These agencies do a fantastic job and are renown not only for their successes in placing children but also the aftercare and support to the adoptive parents - in short they're godsend so to speak.

Then, along comes our Government and says that all prospective parents should have a right to adopt irrespective of sex, colour and creed. No problem you think, isn't equality a great thing! Trouble is the Catholic Church does not recognise homosexual couples as their religion is against it so they go to the Government and say "look guyss, for our adoption agencies give us a break huh! can we have a dispensation?" Not a chance lads!!" say our elected f**kwits its against their human rights. "Huh?? okay then" says the Church we will have to consider closing our adoption agencies down!

Good luck finding prospective parents for all the unwanted kids Renegade! Handicapped or not!

 

[RenegadeFuture]

Oh, I'd like to clarify something. You misunderstood. I said, meant to make it clear, that in the case of severely disabled kids, YES, I think that abortion is justified.

...not an option if your're a Roman Catholic...priests'll put a curse on your penis if you go in suited and booted!! You'll spend the rest of your life saying "Hail Mary's" or "Hail Caesars" or whatever it is they burble on about; all the time wondering what Hell's going to be like and if if they sell a halfway decent decaf latte. Best thing is not to mention it during confession I guess!!?? Or d'ya get blasted for that as well? bit of a bummer either way!

Thing is, abortion is also considered immoral by the church, so that argument is invalid.

I'm Agnostic, and in a secular state, religion shouldn't really come into law. You don't have to be religious to consider abortion murder as such, myself being an obvious example. Contraception isn't really, as it is not inevitable that sperm cells and eggs will become developed fetuses, etc, etc. Capiche?

As for adoption, well, that's a different thing. The matter is dealing with those babies unwanted and discarded by their biological parents. Sad situation, but at least they have a chance at life, rather than none at all. If the catholic church has a problem allowing homosexual couples to adopt, then perhaps the agencies should come under government control.

 

[The Scotsman]

Oh, I'd like to clarify something. You misunderstood. I said, meant to make it clear, that in the case of severely disabled kids, YES, I think that abortion is justified.

...abortion lite as it were

Anyway... Hi Renegade - Yeah I'm not bothered about religion either!

I'm all for the womans right to make her own decsion about what goes on inside her body - as to whether she wants to abort or not, I think she and only she should make the final descision. Personally I don't give a monkey's chuff about all the arguments that get thrown around about a bunch of cells constituting a baby...yeah I know......

 

[RenegadeFuture]

Are we to say that unborn babies in the later stages of pregnancy are any less human, and any less entitled to a chance at life?
Once a foetus develops beyond a certain point, it becomes recognisably human, and develops a brain. You know how it goes. I think that it's almost equal to murder beyond a certain point. Make no mistakes, in the early weeks of pregnancy, the embryo is just developing, dividing into cells which will be the framework of the growing baby, but which do not think, cannot think, can only develop into such. I think that abortion in the early weeks of pregnancy should be allowed. A line has to be drawn somewhere.
The contraception might have been ineffective, or it might have been due to rape or incest. You get the idea. There needs to be some room just in case.
Choice is not really valid, as it's not just what goes on inside a woman's body, it's another human life, and the parents should have thought about that before consensually having unprotected intercourse, and not checking for conception. If they didn't want children, why didn't they use contraception before or after?
I'm willing to make concessions as to the stage in pregnancy at which abortion stops being acceptable, however.

 

[The Scotsman]

Are we to say that unborn babies in the later stages of pregnancy are any less human, and any less entitled to a chance at life?

Agreed - that's why they have a cut off! I think the rule here in the UK is only up to 24 weeks - after that.... tough doo doo you're sadled. They allow up to 24 weeks as from 19 to 24 weeks you can tell it there is any abnormality thus allowing termination. As I understand it most terminations are well before the 19 weeks mark.

Once a foetus develops beyond a certain point, it becomes recognisably human, and develops a brain. You know how it goes. I think that it's almost equal to murder beyond a certain point.

That's why they have the cut off period I guess...

Make no mistakes, in the early weeks of pregnancy, the embryo is just developing, dividing into cells which will be the framework of the growing baby, but which do not think, cannot think, can only develop into such. I think that abortion in the early weeks of pregnancy should be allowed. A line has to be drawn somewhere.

Agreed!! We're singin on the same hymm here sheet then!

The contraception might have been ineffective, or it might have been due to rape or incest. You get the idea. There needs to be some room just in case.

Choice is not really valid, as it's not just what goes on inside a woman's body, it's another human life, and the parents should have thought about that before consensually having unprotected intercourse, and not checking for conception. If they didn't want children, why didn't they use contraception before or after?.

...happens to kids all the time does'nt it mate. Young and foolish....

I'm willing to make concessions as to the stage in pregnancy at which abortion stops being acceptable, however.

That's exactly how I see it too!!

 

[Libsmasher]

Any such cut-off points are entirely arbitrary and meaningless.

 

[palerider]

Any such cut-off points are entirely arbitrary and meaningless.

Agreed. There is one bright line throughout the course of a pregnancy in which we can say a human being exists and that is at the time conception is complete.

 

[r0beph]

Any such cut-off points are entirely arbitrary and meaningless.

Hardly arbitrary, my thoughts on the matter are simple and well defined. If the child has developed to the point in which were it removed from the mother it could survive on its own without extreme measures in medical care, it's humanity is justified and should not be aborted. This could easily be demarcated at the 6month+ line, its biologically sound as premature children born at 6months+ often do survive without excessive procedure.

Now, if you go and remove a 3mo old fetus, nothing you do is going to save it, nothing.

As for even 3rd trimesters being "person" I'm at balk to even say that. A simple little bit can show this. I am me, I am a person, to define "I" I must loopback and use "Me" as a definition, both of these self referential words loop in their definition unless you assert the abstraction of the term. I am nothing more than a set of symbols that are what we call memory. If I one day could not remember anything up to this point, from that point on, I'd not be me, I would become whatever I learned and lived as from there on. Same for an unborn fetus. It has ZERO personality. It knows nothing. Even for a while after birth all stimuli, sight , sound, smell, taste, touch, goes into the brain as the very same singular "feeling" the brain does not even have the structures yet formed to understand and decode the 5 senses. Without those you cannot form memories (this is why, very few people have memories preceding the 2nd year of life, no way to categorize the unknown input) This is all very well documented. Therefor it is quite reasonable to assert that unborn children are not persons. They contain the ability to become a person, but that person does not exist at all.

 

[Federal Farmer]

Now, if you go and remove a 3mo old fetus, nothing you do is going to save it, nothing.

And if you put a human in the vacuum of space, nothing you do is going to save them either, nothing. If you take a fish out of the water and put him on the dock, nothing you do is going to save it either. If you pull a corn seedling out of the ground, nothing you can do is going to save it either. The womb is that persons natural environment during that stage of it's development, so of course removing it from it's natural environment is going to kill it, but does that give you the right TO kill it? The fact is that even at 3 months, the child can feel pain, it has a heartbeat, and it has measurable brain activity, or in simpler terms, it's SENTIENT, and destroying that life for convenience is what is generally called MURDER.