Abortion......I will now use my psychic powers to predict the most popular....

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Lincoln
Actually Boris there are many thousands of people waiting to adopt children. There is not a lack of willing parents who could raise an unwanted child. Anyway, surely killing the kid should not be an option, or should it?

People always say this, yet the foster homes remain full. People are willing to adopt the babies they want to adopt. Regardless, thousands does not make up for the face that an exponentially larger number than that will now be introduced to the system.

I saw a talk show on TV once where a father was pleading for his girlfriend not to abort their baby. He was roundly condemned by the audience for being so selfish in not wanting to kill the child before he had a chance to live with a mother who did not want him. I think that logic is rather twisted.

It's a shame these people were airing a private matter on television and in front of an audience. I'd hope the mother would seriously consider the father's opinion. They are the only two whose opinion matter.

Shi:

Boris, no doubt there will be difficulties for that child if it is born. That doesn't meany they have a right to murder it.

You didn't answer--is using a condom murder? Or the pill? If not, explain how, biologically, an embryo is any more a human being than a sperm cell. If you use the "potential human," explain why such an argument wouldn't work for a sperm cell (if killing sperm isn't murder), given that it is also potentially to be a human. Arbitrary delineations not accepted.

[Drogue]

I agree (with Kirnwaffen). However the boat is the captain withdrawing his own services in looking after the inhabitants, like the mother, whereas the life support one puts the emphasis on the foetus not being able to communicate its own opinions, and thus the next of kin deciding. While that would also work, I don't see a foetus as a person, and thus I would argue that it is more about the women being able to withdraw her services for own reasons, rather then solely the good of the child, with the mother deciding on what is best for the child. To me, the child still doesn't exist as a human until it is able to live on its own. After which, the women can have a C-section to remove the foetus rather than an abortion.

[Drogue]

That talk show brings up an interesting point. Should the father have any say at all in whether the baby is aborted?

I always thought the father should have some say, but the mother should have the main, overriding say. However that means the women can do what she wants, and thus the man has effectively no say. There was a court case here a few years ago where the girl wanted to have an abortion, and the guy tried to force her to keep it. He lost.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Vesayen
Then they shouldnt of had sex-or should of used better protection. Responsibilities for your actions? I know-its a foreign concept in our society.

That's not an answer, as responsibility is too late of an issue after conception, should abortion not be an option. They've been irresponsible, here comes the kid...so, is the welfare of that kid magically no longer your concern since it's at least going to be born?

Would you rather be in a foster hoom, or not born? You know the answer to that.

Now, if I was never born, I wouldn't know what I was missing, would I? Do you feel remorse that every sperm you don't use for conception doesn't become a person?

Your drawing other-wordly conclusions..... people make it sound like our countries adoption/foster care system is the seventh level of the thirteenth pit of hell...... most people come out of them fine...... Im not a liberal or conserative btw, I have views of both sides(and wish both the Republicans and the Democrats would fall into the sea).

Most people come out fine? I think if you did case studies of the system, you'd fine a predominant number of extremely problematic cases. Add to that the huge increase in need for foster care should all pregnancies be forced to be carried to term, and you'll see the problems increasing even more dramatically.

Keep in mind that since abortion was made legal in the 1970s, the crime rate in this country has dropped considerably, even during tough economic times. I think the correlation is very significant. I have no compunction about being utilitarian in this regard--stopping "potential life" from being is neither immoral nor should it be illegal, any more so than my wasting sperm when I don't procreate.

I have no love for abortions and would really love them to be eliminated through lack of necessity. But that isn't happening anytime soon, and until then, simply banning them and giving one's self a pat on the back won't solve anything, except maybe to whitewash your moral conscience.

If you want to see fewer abortions, the answer is simple: teach sex ed to kids that stresses both abstinence AND protection, and make sure kids have access to protection should they become sexually active. Not arming our kids with these things is tantamount to being complicit in their irresponsibility.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Drogue
That talk show brings up an interesting point. Should the father have any say at all in whether the baby is aborted?

I always thought the father should have some say, but the mother should have the main, overriding say. However that means the women can do what she wants, and thus the man has effectively no say. There was a court case here a few years ago where the girl wanted to have an abortion, and the guy tried to force her to keep it. He lost.

In the end, a father can't force a woman to go through a psychologically damaging pregnancy and painful, potentially hazardous procedure so he can have the kid. It is her body, and he isn't the one to have to carry it, after all.

If a woman didn't want to continue her pregnancy, but the father was willing to accept responsibility for the kid and wanted it, I'd hope she'd consider it seriously. His feelings are important. But no, it's her decision, ultimately.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Do you feel remorse that every sperm you don't use for conception doesn't become a person?

I feel a burst of "Every Sperm is Sacred" from Monty Python and the Meaning of Life coming on

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
I have no compunction about being utilitarian in this regard

I never understand why people have compunction about being Utilitarian. I used to feel like that, for some reason, until I suddently thought that there is nothing morally bad with wanting to create the most 'happiness', the most 'good' and doing what is best for people overall.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
In the end, a father can't force a woman to go through a psychologically damaging pregnancy and painful, potentially hazardous procedure so he can have the kid. It is her body, and he isn't the one to have to carry it, after all.

If a woman didn't want to continue her pregnancy, but the father was willing to accept responsibility for the kid and wanted it, I'd hope she'd consider it seriously. His feelings are important. But no, it's her decision, ultimately.

I agree with that. However, what happens when it's the other way round. If the woman does not want an abortion, but the man does not want a child, I believe it is still the woman's perogative to choose, but should the father still have to pay maintainance when he wanted not to have the child?

If you say yes to that (as I would tend to) what about if the manis duped into being the father, say the woman claims she is on the pill, when she isn't? This was another case in the UK, where the courts ruled that even though she claimed to be on the pill when she wasn't (the woman admitted that), he still should have used other precautions, and that he still had to pay maintainance for the child.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Drogue

I agree with that. However, what happens when it's the other way round. If the woman does not want an abortion, but the man does not want a child, I believe it is still the woman's perogative to choose, but should the father still have to pay maintainance when he wanted not to have the child?

If you say yes to that (as I would tend to) what about if the manis duped into being the father, say the woman claims she is on the pill, when she isn't? This was another case in the UK, where the courts ruled that even though she claimed to be on the pill when she wasn't (the woman admitted that), he still should have used other precautions, and that he still had to pay maintainance for the child.

Interesting scenario, but should a father not be held responsible for the kid in that situation, I forsee every louse who knocks up a girl claiming she lied to him about using contraception in order to get out of child support.

It reeks of a double-standard, I know, but perhaps the way it should be. It gives men added incentive to be responsible and avoid impregnating women. Since they don't have to carry a baby, it is easy for men to become roving inseminators. Making them fiscally responsible for the kids might make some of these walking sperm banks think twice and put on a rubber.

[Drogue]

Well, if I was in that situation, and a women I liked a lot said that she wanted to have unprotected sex, but that she was on the pill, I can't say I would pass it up, just on the off chance she was tricking me. She even admitted that she did it because she wanted to have a baby. Yes, men should be responsible, but if surely that constitutes fraud. She lied in order to get money. I understand that there needs to be a message to people to be responsible, but that includes the women. That women wasn't being responsible, in duping a bloke into giving her a kid.

[Boris Godunov]

It takes two to tango, though. Honestly, he should have been more responsible. Why he wouldn't wear a condom anyway is baffling, just because of STDs. He played with fire, he got burned. The woman was being a manipulative *****, yes, but that doesn't make the man's irresponsibility irrelevant.

In the end, the kid will have to eat, and I'd rather the father be required to provide for him than he not be provided for in order to satisfy a point of moral indignation.

[Bosh]

What people forget in this debate is how completely pointless banning abortion would be in a world where transportation is cheap. It really wouldn't be terribly hard to go to a country where its legal and just get the abortion done there. This is what happens in Ireland where abortion is banned, it being legal in the UK completely undermines that law.

This is especially the case as I doubt that it would ever be possible to ban abortion in the entire US, the most that will probably happen is that Roe v. Wade will be overturned and states will be free to do whatever the hell they want. Which means that the bible belt will all ban it but that won't make more than a small dent in abortion statistics as people would just drive north, and this wouldn't be a bad things since if taking a few hours trip is enough to dissuade someone from getting an abortion it probably isn't a good idea for them to get them, that and the whole legal argument of Roe v. Wade doesn't really make much sense...

That said, I think I'd go half-insane if I ever found out that a fetus of mine was ever aborted, but then finding out that any hypothetical mother of my child wanted to abort it but couldn't because abortion was banned would be almost as bad of a mind-****...

[Skanky Burns]

I'm surprised that anyone would advocate people who have already proven to be irresponsible (those who want abortions, for the most part) to be parents. Sure, the child would have a great life being cared for by them.

[Kirnwaffen]

Sure, the child would have a great life being cared for by them.

I believe the argument tends to be that the child will be cared for by others.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior
So what if a guy offers to take you deep sea fishing, and never promises not to abandon you. Does that give him the right to abandon you in the middle of the ocean?

Ah, you missed the point completely. Since the woman has never wanted the baby in the first place, your analogy crumbles.

[Elok]

Elok enters the fray...
First of all, why don't we stop hiding behind analogies and argue the actual point? The best, most relevant illustration of the possibilities of abortion is, (drum roll) an unhappy pregnant woman. Leave the damn captain out at sea where he belongs. Otherwise this will turn into a ludicrous argument of semantics.
With that said:
Boris, the precise distinction between sperm and embryo is that the embryo is essentially destined to become a human being. It is a human being for all intents and purposes. 46 chromosomes in a distinct combination different from the mother's. Given time, the embryo will most likely become an infant. Given time, any one given sperm cell will spend several days running headfirst into the endometrium before perishing of exhaustion. A sperm cell contains only the DNA of its father, is replicated to nearly identical specifications several times a week, will never be viable prior to fusion with an egg, and from a biological perspective is generally no more than a bastard member of the father's body on a single-minded mission. I thought the difference was obvious. For further information consult your local library. Many of the books you'll find there have very colorful illustrations; you should enjoy them. Check 'em out.
With that said, who gives a rat's ass what kind of fortune the kid is likely to have? I live near D.C., within a hundred miles of legions of people who live for their next fix and nothing else. Such people contribute nothing of value to society, will probably never know true happiness, and apparently spend a good deal of time screwing over their former friends for money. It's still murder if you shoot them. Likewise the guests on "Jerry Springer." It's not your responsibility to determine in advance the possible, or even probable, fortunes of anyone. It's a wacky world. Anything can happen. Miss Cleo might have a dissenting opinion on the matter, but I don't care.
And yes, it is not fair for a raped woman to have to birth her bad memories. What contract have you signed with the almighty, prior to your conception, to the effect that you signed on for your life provided it was totally fair? If you have such a contract, God's a cheat. Life is not fair. In the abortion issue we have an excellent illustration for the lesser of two evils-force a woman to go through with a pregnancy she never wanted, or eliminate a human life for the reason that one or more of its parents was a creep, careless or a fool? I've only been on this earth for two decades but even I know that there's a strong element to life of weighing off possible risks and consequences and picking among several less-than-ideal choices. If none of you were aware of this, I'm not the one here who can't face reality.
The rant ceases, the sun shines once more.

[Lorizael]

Life's not fair, no, but does that mean we're not allowed to try to make it so?

Despite how human the embryo may one day be, the eternal question is what it is at the time of abortion.

Hmm, what's the accepted definition of life? There are a number of criteria scientists generally use to determine if something is alive. They are...

Homeostasis
Reproduction
Reaction to stimuli
Consumption of resources

Are there any other criteria? And is there a time when a human embryo fails to meet these criteria? If so, I would say that abortion should be allowed then. After it meets the criteria for a living organism, however, I'd say that abortion is then murder.

[Elok]

This is not a difficult concept, bud. The embryo turns into the baby eventually. You are killing the exact same organism regardless of the time you do it. There is no magical fetus fairy who swaps out the ugly-looking form and replaces it with a baby. I'm pretty sure most pro-choicers have in fact had sex ed in elementary school, so I'm inclined to wonder whether there is some sort of shared synaptic dysfunction at work or if it's just common intellectual cowardice. Hard to say, really.
And as for trying to make life fair, that's what I was arguing by choosing the least of many evils, i.e. delivering the child. It's the least unfair option to all parties concerned. Can't get much more just than that without a time machine.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Cruddy
Personally, I never comment on abortion.

Why?

Because I'm a bloke. It's none of my business.

Personally, I never comment on the holocaust.

Why?

Because I'm a gentile. It's none of my business.

Jon Miller

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Lorizael
There are a number of criteria scientists generally use to determine if something is alive. They are...

Homeostasis
Reproduction
Reaction to stimuli
Consumption of resources

Are there any other criteria?

I'm sure a staunch pro-choicer might consider seperate from the mother as the criteria for being a seperate human being. While the babies still connected to the mother via the umbilical chord, it is still part of the mother, and thus she can speak for it.

This is just an idea, not necessarily my personal opinion... although I play Devil's Advocate so much, sometimes I'm unsure what my opinion is

[Gibsie]

A staunch pro-choicer would say, "Babies can't reproduce".

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Elok
This is not a difficult concept, bud. The embryo turns into the baby eventually. You are killing the exact same organism regardless of the time you do it.

Asserting a zygote is an organism stretches things just a tad bit.

Originally posted by Elok
There is no magical fetus fairy who swaps out the ugly-looking form and replaces it with a baby. I'm pretty sure most pro-choicers have in fact had sex ed in elementary school, so I'm inclined to wonder whether there is some sort of shared synaptic dysfunction at work or if it's just common intellectual cowardice. Hard to say, really.

What's your point? As I pointed out repeatedly before, a zygote is physically no different from any other body cell. If you assert that zygotes are humans, so are your body cells.

[Elok]

My body cells are present in my body itself, not a uterus. My body cells serve a definite function within my body, whether as muscle, organ, nerve, bone, whatever. Short of remarkable genetic tinkering, my body cells will never become independent human beings. My body cells have, barring minor mutations, the exact same DNA as any other given body cell, and are part of the organism known to you as Elok. This is not rocket science. The zygote, even if you refuse to call it an organism now, is biologically destined to become an independent organism. You are using weak and irrelevant technicalities.
As for drogue: First of all, the fetus is within the woman's body, but that does not make it part of her body. Benign bacteria in the stomach for example. You don't call them a part of the woman(in the same sense as her liver or her femur, for example), do you? Secondly, custodial rights, among the already born, do not extend to the point of termination except as euthanasia for the terminally ill who have given a living will or specified against extraordinary measures. You might have a precedent for children/fetuses with fatal defects but the analogy(and I'd like to restate my loathing for analogies here) isn't generally applicable.

[Drogue]

No, but the women doesn't have to kill it. She can remove her services. She doesn't agree to have her body be used by foetus. Thus she can decide not to let her body be used by the foetus. If the foetus servives on the outside, so be it. If it doesn't, then it dies. Thus you can abort foetuses that cannot survive on the outside, but not those that can, as the law is currently IIRC. The next of kin can decide to pull the plug if something can't live independantly, and cannot speak for itself. The mother can do the same.

[Lorizael]

I never said the embryo is magically transformed into a full blown human at some specific time. Don't be obstinate. But a clump of cells sitting in the uterus feeding off of the mother is not a human. Not yet. And before it is a human, it has none of the rights that a human has. There's a point at which that embryo has no concept of self, no thoughts, no memories, no perceptions. There is no reality to that thing because it has yet to develop into a person.

The organism is most definetely not the same thing the entire time. If it were, there would be no need for a nine month pregnancy. If the man and the woman ****ed and then out popped a baby several minutes later, then I'd say the human had been present the entire time. But that's not reality.

The reality is that over the course of nine months an embryo is transformed, very slowly, into a human being and that during the course of that development it requires things that an ordinary human being would not require, because it isn't human yet.

Why should a thing without the capability to recognize its own existence take precadence over an actual, matured human being.

[Elok]

It should not take precedence, but in this case it doesn't. If the woman had to die instead of the child, that would be taking precedence. Here we just value the existence of one less than the convenience/mental health of another, which is something of a biological prejudice.
And I did not say the organism is the same the entire time. At least, not the same in FORM. You do not seem to be arguing against the statement that it is the same life form from two minutes to twenty days to 105 years of age. A fetus is not a person in the same sense that a caterpillar is not a butterfly. What the hell do you think it's going to become, meatloaf? I am aware of the gradual transformation, but a transformation so inevitable might as well be assumed not to exist. To stop the existence of the infant form is to prevent the future existence of the adult form. I still cannot comprehend what kind of perverted mental block you are using to hide from reality to this extent.
And finally,

There's a point at which that embryo has no concept of self, no thoughts, no memories, no perceptions. There is no reality to that thing because it has yet to develop into a person.

I think you take Descartes WAY too literally. If I believed the lack of thought implied the absence of human rights, I'd just whack you with a blackjack, slit your carotid while you were unconscious, and end this debate the easy way. I don't because I don't, so to speak. That, and I don't know where you live. That puts a damper on it too...
Drogue: "Okay, but on my way out of the room, I'm going to kick at the air. If you happen to fill that air, it's your fault!"
Or do you watch the Simpsons?

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Elok
It should not take precedence, but in this case it doesn't. If the woman had to die instead of the child, that would be taking precedence. Here we just value the existence of one less than the convenience/mental health of another, which is something of a biological prejudice.
And I did not say the organism is the same the entire time. At least, not the same in FORM. You do not seem to be arguing against the statement that it is the same life form from two minutes to twenty days to 105 years of age. A fetus is not a person in the same sense that a caterpillar is not a butterfly. What the hell do you think it's going to become, meatloaf? I am aware of the gradual transformation, but a transformation so inevitable might as well be assumed not to exist. To stop the existence of the infant form is to prevent the future existence of the adult form. I still cannot comprehend what kind of perverted mental block you are using to hide from reality to this extent.
And finally,

I think you take Descartes WAY too literally. If I believed the lack of thought implied the absence of human rights, I'd just whack you with a blackjack, slit your carotid while you were unconscious, and end this debate the easy way. I don't because I don't, so to speak. That, and I don't know where you live. That puts a damper on it too...
Drogue: "Okay, but on my way out of the room, I'm going to kick at the air. If you happen to fill that air, it's your fault!"
Or do you watch the Simpsons?

To ignore the gradual development because it is gradual is awfully convenient for you, but there's really no reason for you to do that. A little bit over a lot of time is still a lot.

And I'm not speaking philosophically here. If you knock me unconscious, I'll still be thinking, I guarantee that. But an embryo has yet to develop to the point where it can think at all. I don't care what it will be, I care what it isn't when it's destroyed. You don't understand that.

And stop assuming I'm some horribly sick person trying to ignore the truth so that I can kill babies at my whim. It's not conducive to having constructive discussions.

And at the beginning of this thread I stated that my stance on abortion is sitll kinda wavy. You do make some convincing points, but I'm more playing devil's advocate than anything else.

[Jack the Bodiless]

My body cells have, barring minor mutations, the exact same DNA as any other given body cell, and are part of the organism known to you as Elok.

I do not know the entity "Elok" as a collection of living cells. I know the entity "Elok" as a collection of posts on Apoyton. From those, I deduce "Elok" to be an intelligence.

"Elok" could be an alien, or an artificial intelligence (unlikely given current technology, but possible in future). I do not consider the physical shell to be of importance, except for its role in sustaining the entity "Elok".

Without intelligence, there would be no "Elok". In early pregnancy, there was no brain, hence no intelligence, hence no "Elok".

[Elok]

No, Lorizael, I do not understand it, because it does not seem to derive from any sort of rational process. Your view of reality seems to base itself on temporary conditions, utterly irrelevant in the long term. You still cannot argue against the fact that it is the same thing at any point in its development. Every woman who has an abortion knows that by destroying the fetus they are preemptively eliminating the person it will eventually become. That's pretty much the whole damned point. The difference is purely academic and arbitrary, but it functions as a buffer against one's conscience, which is why the institution still functions. If you keep playing "devil's advocate," the devil will win. That's why I don't do it.
And I don't think you're a sick person, I think you're using a bizarre mental block imposed by yourself or others to justify your current philosophy. It's disturbing because a discussion of medicine should not ignore basic fundamentals of life, e.g. "a fetus eventually develops into an infant."
And Jack, my mother has memories of morning sickness that beg to differ with you. I think I was there. I'm pretty sure that ugly little blob turned into me. It couldn't think then-I couldn't think then-but everybody knew there would come a day when it could. I was not yet fully formed, which made me in some ways easier to ignore, but I existed and I was biologically inclined to continue my developing existence until the day I was ready to argue in philosophical gibberish with you. The physical shell eventually grew a brain, which more or less IS the entity you call Elok. I could scoop out my brains to test that for you, but I don't think I'd be physically capable of telling you the results.

[Jack the Bodiless]

The "ugly little blob" turned into you, yes. So did one of your mother's ova, and one of your father's sperm.

If someone succeeded in scooping out your brain intact, and preserving it alive in a jar, while also maintaining your body on a life-support machine: where would you consider "you" to reside?

In my case, the answer is obvious.

[Boris Godunov]

Elok, preventing life is not the same as destroying it. By that rationale, birth control would indeed be murder. There is nothing immoral about preventing life--we do it all the time, even through abstinence. An egg isn't the same as a chicken, and a zygote isn't the same as a human.

Saying the zygote is biologically destined (although not all the time, as there often are natural occurences that prevent its living) to become a living being is an unsound argument, just as it is unsound to say that since you will die one day, it's okay to treat you as if you were already a corpse and bury you.

What matters is what the entity IS at the time of abortion. Unless the fetus is developed enough to be a conscious, sentient entity capable of independent survival (which is probably about midway through the second trimester), then I see nothing wrong with ending the pregnancy, as it is preventing human life, not destroying it. It is in no way comparable to murder, in which life is taken away from a sentient being that already possesses it.