How do you feel about abortion?

[dong]

So my father, operating without major chunks of his digestive and excretory systems, isn't alive?

I get the idea. The blind and deaf are less than human.

Please stop burning strawmen. You are completely misconstruing my point, and it's simply poor argumentation. I never said that I promoted finding a set point so we can say that some part of abortion isn't murder. I was simply providing examples as to why such is difficult.

I'm sure you also realize that developmental biology is not an absolute. Every individual develops at their own pace. And the time progression is not a definite "mileston A happens at time B" situation.

And of course, silly as it sounds, doctors make mistakes when calculating gestational age.

I'm glad you mention this, actually. My bad for forgetting- I really should have. For the record: all that FYI regarding developmental milestones are approximates, and subject to alot of individual variation. Also, I seem to have forgotten to mention that gestational age is a tricky thing to calculate as it's based on recall of menstrual periods, and of course, doctors (being people) do make (a lot of) mistakes (thank you for the sarcasm).

I don't see why it is important to ride the line as closely as possible when setting the cutoff for when an abortion is not horrific. The only reason I can see is a coordinated effort to get people to accept more and more. "If we can get them to accept aborting a blastula, a baby that can't survive outside the mother isn't so bad. Once we get that, partial birth isn't so bad. Once we get that..."

I was under the impression that I agreed with you but I could have forgotten to explicity state this...here: "Any arbitrary set point is going to be just that- arbitrary, which is a pain in terms of jurisprudence." Oh, and my first sentence: "The difficulty here (I dunno if I posted this already) is that life and development of such exists almost purely on a spectrum, or variety thereof."

Now it's all well and good to criticise the current direction of the debate, but do the implications you draw make you believe that abortion should be made illegal, period, under the premise that it is tantamount to murder? Or are you simply stating that it is non-sensical to be debating about when "life" can be defined as such, and is in fact not particularly constructive to the debate regarding abortion?

The only absolute, the only sure thing that we can say "it is before, it isn't after" in all cases is conception. Why are people terrified of this?

Perhaps because it's next to impossible to tell when the moment of conception occurs, and therefore the applicability of the concept is next to zero...for a start (if you haven't considered other social factors and the circumstances surrounding why one might wish for an abortion). Pregancies are typically detected around the 5-7 week mark (clinical presentation due to physiological signs such as morning sickness) and the best pregnancy test we have is for a hormone (hCG) that doesn't express itself until a while after conception and implantation.

Fun (unrelated) fact: about 3/4 of pregnancies abort spontaeneously anywhere along the path to birth.

Other notes: Perhaps you mean symbyosis. On this point, I think you are perfectly right, this is a far more accurate term than parasitism. Editorial: I bet Martyr was just throwing a jibe.

 

[dong]

[FONT=&quot]I guess my assumption was that if the sex was consensual, then the responsibility for the conception is 50/50.

[/FONT]

Heh, what about the cases of 'failure of contraception'?

[FONT=&quot]

The facts that an abortion is uncomfortable to a woman, and pregnancy can be inconvenient are the reasons women get the final say in the decision. All I would ask is that if they make the decision, they own up to the responsibility completely. In my experience it’s never good to separate decision making authority from responsibility.[/FONT]

Well...in fact the risks associated with an abortion are far more significant than the discomfort (e.g. infertility, sepsis), which the patient may wish to take into account. I would agree generally that authority should accompany responsibility, but I would rather say that insofar as the decision was influenced by other moral agents, they too may potentially be held accountable...actually wait, scratch that- I see problems with this position, so instead I'm going to ask it in the form of a question to everybody else as well:

Ignoring responsibility for conception, to what extent should external influences on a patient's decision to undergo an abortion be held accountable?

 

[Agaric]

I personally think that pro-lifers have no credibility in supporting the outlaw of abortion by saying that it is murder. If they are so concerned for human life, why not turn efforts towards poverty and AIDS stricken countries, like many in Africa. These are actual, walking, cogent individuals who are dying and suffering every day. They are not a glob of underdeveloped organs floating in an amniotic sack. If they're so concerned with human life, why not protest war? Why not join the Peace Corps? Because that would actually be DOING something, not participating in a suburban rant from the comfort of one's own neighborhood.

 

[technoflutemom]

"symbyosis"

My spelling is an accepted one in the US.

My statements were not strawmen. In the US, the definitions of the judicial statement are long reaching. If you define "life" as one thing in one case, it applies to everyone.

Most of my post was a response built on the ideas presented in your post. They weren't a personal attack on your stance. Heck, with all the run-on sentences, I'm not even sure what your stance is!

"
I personally think that pro-lifers have no credibility in supporting the outlaw of abortion by saying that it is murder. If they are so concerned for human life, why not turn efforts towards poverty and AIDS stricken countries, like many in Africa. These are actual, walking, cogent individuals who are dying and suffering every day. They are not a glob of underdeveloped organs floating in an amniotic sack. If they're so concerned with human life, why not protest war? Why not join the Peace Corps? Because that would actually be DOING something, not participating in a suburban rant from the comfort of one's own neighborhood."

What on earth does one have to do with the other besides save you from presenting a compelling argument? I volunteer 30-40 hours a week for "liberal" organizations. I give a good part of my paycheck to related causes.

Does that make me worthy of an opinion in the abortion debate, or do we just need to skip it because it's easier to say "most people who believe this way are wrong about other things, so they're wrong about this, too <blow raspberry>?"

 

[dong]

Perhaps you are reading too much hostility into this. I can understand if you have strong personal views, but allow me to iron out some misunderstandings first.

"symbyosis"

My spelling is an accepted one in the US.

You originally wrote 'sybiosis', which can only be found listed as 'a common mispelling for symbiosis.' I simply thought it was a typo; there are no implications on one's knowledge or lack thereof here. And I said you had a good point.

My statements were not strawmen.

First, I was only referring to the exaggerated responses quoted, not the whole post. But let me reread what I wrote *rereads*

Okay, I'll hold off on the strawmen charge as what I said was somewhat ambiguous and given some inferences, one could possibly argue that I seem to presume that you need everything functioning to be considered alive (which, obviously, is not the case). For what it's worth, I'll clarify that the presumption that I was actually making was that there are baseline considerations as to what constitutes a life, as you allude to. Perhaps I also presumed that people were aware of this, but I see that I was mistaken.

So then, to answer seriously:

So my father, operating without major chunks of his digestive and excretory systems, isn't alive?

Rest assured, I think as long as he maintains at least a heart-beat, he's clinically alive, and as long as he retains baseline brain function, he's medically alive. However the latter point's a bit iffy.

I get the idea. The blind and deaf are less than human.

No you don't- this is why I said you were burning strawmen, but let me amend that: you've committed projection. As I already stated, I wasn't arguing for making a specific guideline by which one could make abortion legal, but you've read it as such. I thought that the phrases I've already cited, as well as the telling "Obviously that's not particularly helpful"would have been enough.

Justifiably, you could ask me why I bothered writing all that in the first place! Admittedly, what I wrote was not a direct address of what you wrote, and it's a bit late for me to do that in detail now, so I will eventually get around to it tomorrow (hopefully).

In the US, the definitions of the judicial statement are long reaching. If you define "life" as one thing in one case, it applies to everyone.

Ridiculous as it sounds, I was under the impression that this was fair game for questioning. Moral parsimonity whether ethical or legal or otherwise is not necessarily a given.

Most of my post was a response built on the ideas presented in your post. They weren't a personal attack on your stance. Heck, with all the run-on sentences, I'm not even sure what your stance is!

Don't worry, I'm aware that you're not attacking me personally, but I did think you reacted a bit strongly, probably based on the misunderstanding that I was presenting an argument when the latter paragraph would have told you that I...simply didn't present one. Yet. I don't know whether I will.

 

[dong]

I personally think that pro-lifers have no credibility in supporting the outlaw of abortion by saying that it is murder. If they are so concerned for human life, why not turn efforts towards poverty and AIDS stricken countries, like many in Africa. These are actual, walking, cogent individuals who are dying and suffering every day. They are not a glob of underdeveloped organs floating in an amniotic sack. If they're so concerned with human life, why not protest war? Why not join the Peace Corps? Because that would actually be DOING something, not participating in a suburban rant from the comfort of one's own neighborhood.

While your criticism may validly apply to many people and imply perhaps a certain double-standard, I think the fact that the judgement entails a blanket generalisation might impinge upon your accuracy...as technoflutemom is anxious to demonstrate.

 

[sarah]

Y’know something… I actually must say that I see where Dong is coming from with this one. I agree with his reaction to this.

 

[dong]

Haha, now you've made me confuse myself Sarah. To which part of my response were you referring to...my response to Agaric, or my non-committal ramble?

 

[sarah]

I actually rather liked your last two responses.

 

[lizakollman]

I am in South Dakota right now, where we are having this huge issue with abortion. its on the ballet, and everywhere there are signs that say "vote god's values".. which i think is not good.

the abortion ban comes with no stipulations for rape or incest. i think that no matter what your believe in abortion is, you'd better have some kind of something that will protect the life of a 13 year old girl that has been raped by a relative and ends up pregnant.

 

[dong]

Yeah, that is no good. I'd respond with "vote God's values- support free will" if I wanted to do some sh**-stirring. More productively, one needs to remind the community of who is responsible for what in that kind of situation.

 

[eldragon]

My opinion about abortion is that it's a terrible decision for a woman to make - but that it is her decision to make.

 

[lizakollman]

Yeah, that is no good. I'd respond with "vote God's values- support free will" if I wanted to do some sh**-stirring. More productively, one needs to remind the community of who is responsible for what in that kind of situation.

that is actually a really good idea. it is just so scary to see all of the signs and to hear people say that god is on their side - as if anyone could ever know what "god's side" is. It is very haughty and pretentious.

 

[eldragon]

that is actually a really good idea. it is just so scary to see all of the signs and to hear people say that god is on their side - as if anyone could ever know what "god's side" is. It is very haughty and pretentious.

Nevermind the fact that many of us have different Gods or entities that we worship, and we all believe in them.

I let others decide for themselves, and I have.

 

[lizakollman]

i have as well. i think that this is the best solution. but i am scared that south dakota is going to become the first state that tries to go against the rest of the count