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Abortonist Kermit Gosnell convicted of first-degree murder, sentenced to life

icomeanon6

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I'm only going to post here once because the topic literally makes me feel ill.

There is exactly one question that needs to be answered concerning abortion, yet it is one that everyone wants to avoid: When does a human being's life begin?

The vast majority of us, I'm sure, would agree that convenience is no excuse for murder. We would also agree that it is wrong to kill someone to make amends for a violent crime that they bear no responsibility for in any way.

We all agree that Kermit Gosnell had no right to do what he did. The question is whether what he did would have been right had his victims still been inside their mothers and been only a few weeks younger.

If a fetus is not a human, then killing one is morally no different than killing an animal. If a fetus is a human, then killing one is morally no different than killing an infant. On top of that, the only real question concerning the morality of an abortion would be whether the mother's life is in danger, and whether we should kill one to save the other. Convenience cannot excuse murder, and neither can killing be amends for a violent crime if the object of the killing is not guilty.

(For the record, I apply the same reasoning to eating meat: if animals are in fact deserving of the exact same right to life as human beings, then there can be almost no moral justification for killing and eating them. That's a big 'if,' though.)

The question of when human life begins would have been answered by science already if science could ever answer it. It is a matter of our society's philosophy and conscience. I myself would argue that our courts are far too exclusive in deciding on which humans are alive, and that we should err on the side of protecting human life over human convenience or privilege.

Moreover, before we all accuse those who disagree with us on abortion as being either un-empathetic misogynists or un-empathetic murderers, I would ask that we all remember that most of us are acting on wildly different assumptions. What this issue calls for is understanding, and understanding will not come from personal animosity.
 

Oryx

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There is exactly one question that needs to be answered concerning abortion, yet it is one that everyone wants to avoid: When does a human being's life begin?

I see you didn't read the thread, as I completely disagree that this is relevant at the most basic level of abortion. When we focus on this as a benchmark, we obfuscate the issue, which is: human being or not, should a woman be legally forced to donate her organs to another creature for 9 months? Just like no one is legally obligated to ever donate a nonessential organ to a family member, no one should be legally obligated to donate their body to a child, potential or otherwise.
 

Belldandy

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I see you didn't read the thread, as I completely disagree that this is relevant at the most basic level of abortion. When we focus on this as a benchmark, we obfuscate the issue, which is: human being or not, should a woman be legally forced to donate her organs to another creature for 9 months? Just like no one is legally obligated to ever donate a nonessential organ to a family member, no one should be legally obligated to donate their body to a child, potential or otherwise.

This is an interesting way to look at it, actually. Never thought of it that way. I do think if you can donate a kidney to save your child, you should (and a lot would, out of love) because it's the moral thing to do IMO. People could feel differently about that, though.

In regards to "donating their body" out of conception, I still think that if the person was irresponsible about sex, then they actually willingly "donated their body" to begin with, and that is is therefore unjust to kill a child because technology now makes it convenient to do. You don't have to raise it, but you should give birth to it (adoption is always an option) and give it a chance at life, since it's not the baby's fault that its mother or father was irresponsible about sex i.e. not wearing condoms, not taking birth control, etc.

Noting, even if it's the father's mistake, it's still the mother's in a way, too, making both parties irresponsible. If you truly don't want to get pregnant (or have a pregnant girlfriend), you'd be mature enough about sex to protect yourselves in all ways possible, including making sure your partner is using protection and being mature. You don't see people working with radioactive materials wearing swimshorts and sandals. They wear the proper equipment for the task; so should the mother and father. Birth control + condom + morning after (if ever a doubt) is really the best thing to counter conception. Though all of them have a chance to fail, if used properly and constantly together, the chance drops to, what? 0.001% And then you're just freakishly lucky if it stills happens lol

Noting that if you have to make sure your partner is using contraceptive every time you engage in intercourse, then the person ought to be dumped because 1) it's a very important issue (and the person's being an idiot about it), and 2) a partner is a partner and not a parent; if they can't think for themselves and understand it without you nagging them about contraceptive, then they need time to grow up. Not your job to be a mom / dad.

Different topic, though.
 

Oryx

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Are you speaking morally or legally? I'm speaking purely from a legal standpoint, not a moral one. If having a child does not obligate you to donate nonessential organs if they need it, then having sex should not legally obligate you to donating your body for 9 months.
 

Star-Lord

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The sad thing is that abortion shouldn't be a question between "murdering" a "baby" or not. Rather, it should be a question on if a woman has the right to control what's happening in her body or not. What a lot of people don't seem to understand is that pregnancy and childbirth is actually a really tiring and invasive process. I'm a man and I don't think I could ever handle carrying a baby for nine months. Carrying a child isn't pretty and if a woman doesn't think she can handle it, she should have the choice to get an abortion.

I mean I don't really like the thought of abortion, but I recognize that a) As a man it really isn't my decision and I can't tell a woman what to do with her body and b) A woman should have the right to opt out of having her own body completely invaded for nine months.

And besides, if a woman doesn't want a child she'll find a way to abort it. Legalized abortions give safer access to healthcare and that's the important thing. Without it, well, we could have more stories like the OP 8(
 

Belldandy

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Are you speaking morally or legally? I'm speaking purely from a legal standpoint, not a moral one. If having a child does not obligate you to donate nonessential organs if they need it, then having sex should not legally obligate you to donating your body for 9 months.

Moral.

And besides, if a woman doesn't want a child she'll find a way to abort it. Legalized abortions give safer access to healthcare and that's the important thing. Without it, well, we could have more stories like the OP 8(

Yeah, that's where it becomes greyed for me. I think the laws should do something to prevent home-made abortions / dangerous abortions, but still have limits to when abortion can occur and under what circumstances. But because of these limits, some women / men (if it's the father that doesn't want the kid and is trying to force it down the mom's throat) will take alternate measures, resulting in horror stories. It's happened all throughout history with coat hangers, beatings, etc. There were posters around a few hundred years ago about home-made abortions and how many women died, typically due to infection.

It's awful, really.

But as I said, I think that if it can be proven that the mother (or father) were irresponsible about the conception, they should be legally obligated to carry to term and then have the option of adoption. There are a lot of families who would love a child because of infertility reasons, hysterectomies, etc. so it wouldn't be that hard to do. I know a bunch of adopted kids just growing up, and that's in a small town. One's mother was fifteen when she gave birth, but he was adopted into a really nice family the same day. The case was the same for another friend of mine whose adoptive parents drove 4h away to get her from the agency.

Being pregnant is incumbering and a lot of work, but it shouldn't happen (like I said, condoms + birth control + morning-after pill (or maybe even the "hook," too, since that can all be combined!) if both parties are very careful about sex. There's still a risk for it, but everything together pretty much drops it to 0.001%, following data we learnt in secondary (percentages are chances of it "failing," and not conception itself):

- Birth Control: 0.01%
- Wrongly Placed Condom: 25%
- Condom (In General): ~7%
- The "Hook": 0.01%
- Spermicide Additive: 15%
- Morning-After Pill: ~8% (longer you wait, more chance of failure)

Used all together [properly]? You really shouldn't fall pregnant, lest a freak accident occurs.

And if you realllyyy don't want to get pregnant, you'd use all of those measures, other than maybe the "Hook" because it might cost a lot pending which country you live in. The fact that all of these are openly available to women now (the pill being the reason for augmented promiscuity in our generation to begin with...) makes me believe that there's no reason to become pregnant "accidentally" through consentual intercourse; which is why, in these cases, I think the foetus > mother, since she could've used every resource to avoid the matter... but she didn't.

And if it "costs a lot," then maybe you shouldn't be having sex. Others may argue the government should intervene and lower the costs, but I don't know about that. There's enough education out there esp. with the Internet about sex that teenagers should know the risks. If they can't afford to be safe, then they shouldn't be doing it; however, it's a fact that regardless the risks teenagers will still partake in this kind of behaviour, safely or unsafely, which is why I also think the government's intervention is a grey area.

I'm pretty much stuck between how much we should "forgive" the mother versus how much personal responsibility the mother should have for herself and her unborn child. I don't want the government holding women's hand to the point where they stop using safety methods altogether and simply resort to abortion because "oh, the poor mother." Balogna.

And if she did, and it still occurred (really shouldn't, though, given that the chance is <0.01% when used together), then that's where it gets messy. Adoption's always an option, though.

x

On another note, kinda weird how if you kill a pregnant woman, it's double-murder in court (because the foetus, in this scenario, is a "human"), but if you give a woman an abortion, it doesn't count. Double-standards much? Once the foetus is wanted, it's a human, but if it's not, it's just a clump of nothing that is easily disposed. Seems the definition of a foetus in terms of its viability as a human is written out of convenience.
 
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But as I said, I think that if it can be proven that the mother (or father) were irresponsible about the conception, they should be legally obligated to carry to term and then have the option of adoption.

Nope. You cannot be legally forced to carry a pregnancy to term, as it constitutes indentured servitude, among other things.

And you say those other things as if contraception is always readily available to everyone at the drop of a hat, news flash, it's not. And I'm a little perturbed that you'd suggest the quote-unquote "hook" as a valid method of contraception. If that's indeed what I think it is.
 
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Oryx

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Wait, you said you're talking about morality and then said "legally obligated". So you're not talking about just morality, you're also talking about the legality of it. So answer my question: why are you legally obligated to do this, but not to donate your organs to your children?

You do realize the morning after pill is fairly expensive, right? What of a family living paycheck-to-paycheck that are being responsible but the condom broke and they can't afford the 50-100 dollar sudden expense? Now that woman is probably going to be out of work for a time to have the child, on top of the medical expenses a pregnancy carries with it. When they were perfectly responsible, just poor.

The pill is not the reason for "augmented promiscuity", not that promiscuity is even a bad thing to begin with (you have no right to judge someone else's sex life as long as they're not harming you). As someone who is actively on the pill and have been for years, you're teetering on the edge of being very offensive. Please watch what you say and the judgments you pass on people whose lives you don't know a single thing about.

An abortion is more expensive, invasive, painful, and difficult than birth control. Scare tactics about "women using abortion as birth control" are red herrings. Do you have any evidence that shows a significant amount of women using it as birth control now? Or did you just hear that once and it stuck in your head and now you think it's a legit argument? Because without any evidence, I don't see how you can even express this as a problem when every logical argument points to it not making sense.

Yes, it's also not murder for you not to donate your organs to someone who needs an organ and then they die, but it is murder if you kill them. Funny how that works. My body is my own. I am under no obligation of any kind to let a person leech off of my organs, my blood, my nourishment, my womb, for any period of time. If the fetus can't survive outside of my womb, that does not mean it's my responsibility to donate my womb to the fetus; that means that it's unfortunate that it can't survive but I have the right to decide what is using my body, human or not.
 

FreakyLocz14

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What Gosnell did was an abortion. They were late-term abortions. The procedure that is used to abort a child that late in the pregnancy is called intact dilation and extraction, which us pro-lifers call "partial-birth abortion" because it requires the fetus to be partially removed from the uterus. It's spinal cord is then severed while it is still in the uterus.

In other words, if the spinal cord is severed while the fetus's head had yet to emerge from the uterus, then it's an abortion. If it's head has emerged, then it's murder. The difference is a mere couple of inches.

The sad thing is that abortion shouldn't be a question between "murdering" a "baby" or not. Rather, it should be a question on if a woman has the right to control what's happening in her body or not. What a lot of people don't seem to understand is that pregnancy and childbirth is actually a really tiring and invasive process. I'm a man and I don't think I could ever handle carrying a baby for nine months. Carrying a child isn't pretty and if a woman doesn't think she can handle it, she should have the choice to get an abortion.

I mean I don't really like the thought of abortion, but I recognize that a) As a man it really isn't my decision and I can't tell a woman what to do with her body and b) A woman should have the right to opt out of having her own body completely invaded for nine months.

And besides, if a woman doesn't want a child she'll find a way to abort it. Legalized abortions give safer access to healthcare and that's the important thing. Without it, well, we could have more stories like the OP 8(

Pro-choicers see it as a woman's right to do whatever she wants with her own body, but I see that as fallacious because there is a second body involved: the child's. Babies aren't alien invaders. Babies aren't a punishment. Babies are bundles of joy! The woman chose to opt-in by assuming the risk that she may become pregnant when she decided to have sex.

And why shouldn't the father have any say in it? He'll be held legally responsible for the mother's failure to get an abortion for the next 18 years, and morally responsible for the rest of his life!

And besides, there are ways to get rid of the child without killing it.

Are you speaking morally or legally? I'm speaking purely from a legal standpoint, not a moral one. If having a child does not obligate you to donate nonessential organs if they need it, then having sex should not legally obligate you to donating your body for 9 months.

Nope. You cannot be legally forced to carry a pregnancy to term, as it constitutes indentured servitude, among other things.

The funny thing is, the law won't allow the father to say that he didn't want to have a child to escape being held legally responsible for the child for the next 18 years of his life. The court will tell him "You assumed the risk that you may become a father when you chose to have sex with this woman".

Why should we hold men responsible for the choices that they make, but not women? How is that not indentured servitude? That sounds pretty sexist to me.
 
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Oryx

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You sure use a lot of punishment language for someone who doesn't think of babies as punishment.

If a woman does not want to give her body up and risk her health for the sake of another person, "full human being" or no, she has no obligation to. It is that simple. The fact that the child requires her to go through extreme risk and harm to her body and life (look at all those businesspeople that are elbowed out of their jobs due to pregnancy) to survive is not relevant, because there are plenty of adult people that would survive if someone decided they were going to hook themselves up to the person and donate their organs. Yet most people don't, and they are not legally obligated to. So those people die. Is it unfortunate that they died because no one donated an organ to them? Yes. Does it make the millions of people in the immediate vicinity who could have murderers? No. If the child can survive without the unwilling womb of the mother, then good luck kid! Be free! If it can't, then it's unfortunate but, just like all organ donations, completely legal to refuse.

The child, human or not, has no right to lay claim to my body and use me as he pleases just because he would die otherwise. Just like no adult human has a right to lay claim to my body and use me as he pleases, regardless of consequences.

As much as people want to claim it, having sex is not signing a contract in semen. Just like if I ride a motorcycle and get in an accident, the hospital has no right to say "you know, she chose to take that risk, so I think I won't reattach her hand so she learns her lesson". Or "while I'm in there, might as well take her kidney and give it to this dying man, she wouldn't be in surgery if she didn't get into an accident on her risky motorcycle".

And men are irrelevant to this. Back to the original point I made about organ donation to a person - if a mother does not want to donate part of her liver to her daughter and the father is not compatible, that does not mean that the father is able to legally force her to do it because he wants his daughter to live. The father has no control over the woman's body as well - no one has a right to a person's body except the person. Just like one person can't force another person to use their body for anything, a man can't force a woman to use her body to have a child and he can't force her to not use her body to have a child. When men start having children, they can make this choice on their own, as they will be using their own bodies. Women's bodies are not objects that can be owned by the men in their lives; they are under the sole jurisdiction of the woman.
 
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But as I said, I think that if it can be proven that the mother (or father) were irresponsible about the conception, they should be legally obligated to carry to term and then have the option of adoption.
So if a man is irresponsible a woman should have to stay pregnant? What exactly do you mean by "irresponsible?" I'm trying to think of a situation where a man could be irresponsible that doesn't involve some kind of force or deception, but nothing is coming to mind so I can only conclude that it's inhumane to say a woman should be obligated to stay pregnant because of a man's irresponsibility. I mean, if a man takes advantage of a woman who's, say, unable to give consent then it's rape and no woman should be forced to carry a pregnancy caused by a rape.

having sex is not signing a contract in semen
I think this is the best thing I've read in this thread so far. It's pretty evocative and really gets to the heart of the argument over responsibility when it comes to having sex. When people agree to have sex they're agreeing to have sex, not to reproducing or anything else. If a couple talks about having kids and intentionally has sex to reproduce and then later one of them changes their mind then I can see there being a case because both parties agreed to that in the first place.

Any time we do anything with any risk involved we're allowed to take steps to mitigate the negative effects even if something bad happens. So, let's say I play sports and I fall and hurt myself. We don't say "Sorry, you'll just have to live with that laceration because you knew the risks."

Even when we're presented with an opportunity to do something "good" (and I'm not conceding that having babies are always good) we don't have to go through with those either. If there's an injured animal on the road we don't have to help it. We may want to, but it might look dangerous, or we might need to get to work so we don't get fired and be unable to support our families, or we might be driving late at night and be worried about stopping on some seemingly deserted road. Point is, there are mitigating factors.
 

FreakyLocz14

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You sure use a lot of punishment language for someone who doesn't think of babies as punishment.

If a woman does not want to give her body up and risk her health for the sake of another person, "full human being" or no, she has no obligation to. It is that simple. The fact that the child requires her to go through extreme risk and harm to her body and life (look at all those businesspeople that are elbowed out of their jobs due to pregnancy) to survive is not relevant, because there are plenty of adult people that would survive if someone decided they were going to hook themselves up to the person and donate their organs. Yet most people don't, and they are not legally obligated to. So those people die. Is it unfortunate that they died because no one donated an organ to them? Yes. Does it make the millions of people in the immediate vicinity who could have murderers? No. If the child can survive without the unwilling womb of the mother, then good luck kid! Be free! If it can't, then it's unfortunate but, just like all organ donations, completely legal to refuse.

The child, human or not, has no right to lay claim to my body and use me as he pleases just because he would die otherwise. Just like no adult human has a right to lay claim to my body and use me as he pleases, regardless of consequences.

As much as people want to claim it, having sex is not signing a contract in semen. Just like if I ride a motorcycle and get in an accident, the hospital has no right to say "you know, she chose to take that risk, so I think I won't reattach her hand so she learns her lesson". Or "while I'm in there, might as well take her kidney and give it to this dying man, she wouldn't be in surgery if she didn't get into an accident on her risky motorcycle".

And men are irrelevant to this. Back to the original point I made about organ donation to a person - if a mother does not want to donate part of her liver to her daughter and the father is not compatible, that does not mean that the father is able to legally force her to do it because he wants his daughter to live. The father has no control over the woman's body as well - no one has a right to a person's body except the person. Just like one person can't force another person to use their body for anything, a man can't force a woman to use her body to have a child and he can't force her to not use her body to have a child. When men start having children, they can make this choice on their own, as they will be using their own bodies. Women's bodies are not objects that can be owned by the men in their lives; they are under the sole jurisdiction of the woman.

Equating a pregnancy with an organ transplant is laughable. Organ transplants require invasive surgery, while pregnancy is a completely natural procedure. Pregnancy is not invasive because the child has been in the woman's her entire life in the form of an egg. Women's bodies are designed to get pregnant and give birth. They're not designed to accept organs from another person.

You dodged my point about men. It's relevant because it illustrates a double standard. The radical feminists argue that not allowing women to have abortions forces them to become unintended mothers, so they must have a way to avoid that, yet the very same people demand that men be held legally responsible for their unwanted children.

Let's turn the tables. Say the woman decides to keep the baby, but the man isn't ready to be a father. Should be able to renounce any and all rights and responsibilities to the child? After all, as our Socialist-in-Chief says, "if you make a mistake, you shouldn't have to be punished with a baby", and unwanted babies are indentured servitude, like Live says.
 

Oryx

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Pregnancy is far more invasive than an organ transplant, had much longer side effects, and messes up your life much more than an organ transplant. You're right, they're not the same. For a woman that does not want a child, a pregnancy is much, much worse. :)

The radical feminists argue what I'm telling you right now - that women have a right to their own bodies. It has nothing to do with men because men cannot get pregnant. I don't know how you aren't understanding this; it is about a woman's right to choose who uses her body and for what purposes it is used. It has nothing to do with being a mother or being a father and everything to do with personal bodily rights.

You didn't understand Live's point about indentured servitude. The child being born is not indentured servitude. The child using your body against your will is indentured servitude. I don't currently know the laws on parents with children they don't want, so I can't comment on that and it's completely irrelevant to the issue of women's bodily rights.
 

Mr. X

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Although I support abortion, I agree with Locz, It - When considering its ultimate purpose, that is not wishing to have, care, or provide for a child, - really is sexist.

You have a male who doesn't want to care and provide (Or lacks the means to do so) for a child? He's a dead-beat *******.
You have a female who doesn't want to care and provide (Or lacks the means to do so) for a child? She's pro-choice.

While you can say that it's not the same as the woman sacrifices much to give birth to the child, so does the father. According to society, who is to care for the child? The mother. According to society, who is to provide for them both? The father. Having a child is a shared sacrifice - We shouldn't give one person a out, and ignore the other. Either neither should have a out, or both of them should.

Anyway,

tumblr_mmstnhVVNx1rs8e09o1_400.jpg
 
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Star-Lord

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Babies aren't alien invaders.

I'm pretty sure they're the definition of a parasite. They can't survive on their own therefor they take nutrients from the host body (which is a completely natural process but still). They are invasive to a woman's body and if you can't see that then you're blind.

The woman chose to opt-in by assuming the risk that she may become pregnant when she decided to have sex.

"Don't have sex AT ALL unless you're prepared to carry a child you don't want" have fun telling that one to women everywhere.

And why shouldn't the father have any say in it? He'll be held legally responsible for the mother's failure to get an abortion for the next 18 years, and morally responsible for the rest of his life!

Because in the end, it should be the woman's decision. A man can't understand the sort of impact that a child has on someone's body. There is no sort of physical trauma that can equate the feeling of being pregnant. Men simply aren't able to understand the complexities that goes inside the woman's body.

Now I believe that a woman should probably talk to her significant other about having an abortion, since it would be theoretically their child. I think it's just the polite thing to do to tell your partner. However, it should only be her decision and nobody should shame her for going against the man's wishes.


And besides, there are ways to get rid of the child without killing it.

Which is something I would prefer to happen. However, I'm not going to tell a woman what to do with her body. That would be so terribly rude of me.
 

TRIFORCE89

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I see you didn't read the thread, as I completely disagree that this is relevant at the most basic level of abortion. When we focus on this as a benchmark, we obfuscate the issue, which is: human being or not, should a woman be legally forced to donate her organs to another creature for 9 months? Just like no one is legally obligated to ever donate a nonessential organ to a family member, no one should be legally obligated to donate their body to a child, potential or otherwise.
If they're pregnant through no fault of their own, rape or incest or anything else, no they shouldn't be forced to carry. Same if it is medically unsafe to either the mother or child.

I have no problem with birth control. A quick search on the Planned Parenthood website brings up some twenty or so different forms of birth control. Abortion isn't listed as one and I don't think it should be. I think it should be used for the situations I described above or other such dire or unfortunate situations, on the advice of the woman's doctor.

But, to be clear, I describe an ideal situation or guideline. Not the reality, and I do not wish to alter that reality. I think a woman should be able to choose (although, I'd at least hope that if you're in a loving relationship with your partner you would at least have a discussion with them, for politeness' sake - with the ultimate call still being that of the woman). I'd just prefer if it weren't used as a form of birth control. ...like, for a really poor analogy, I think everyone should wash their hands before they eat in all situations. Ideal situation. But, that doesn't happen. I don't think they should be forced to wash their hands.

Anyway, it's not a disease. It isn't spontaneous. You have unprotected sex, you may get pregnant. You've had twenty other opportunities to have protected sex and significantly increase your chances of not getting pregnant, if not altogether eliminating the possibility. If you have unprotected sex, willingly, you shouldn't be forced to carry. But I'd think you have basically signed the paper work for inviting a tenant in, so to speak. Not a surprise. If you've willingly had unprotected sex, you've willingly allowed for the possibility of getting pregnant. You shouldn't be forced to carry, no. But there were also a number of faster and easier methods you could have done beforehand. It should be a last resort, but still possible. Really, I just wish people were smarter about how they go about things if they don't want a child in the first place.

And I think the question of when there is life or the potential for life is valid. If there's a point where it can feel pain or it is viable outside the womb, why not have that period be off limits to elective abortions (still valid for medical emergencies, say). You can still have an abortion prior to that point and its still a lot of time to do it within.
 
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Oryx

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Although I support abortion, I agree with Locz, It - When considering its ultimate purpose, that is not wishing to have, care, or provide for a child, - really is sexist.

You have a male who doesn't want to care and provide (Or lacks the means to do so) for a child? He's a dead-beat *******.
You have a female who doesn't want to care and provide (Or lacks the means to do so) for a child? She's pro-choice.

While you can say that it's not the same as the woman sacrifices much to give birth to the child, so does the father. According to society, who is to care for the child? The mother. According to society, who is to provide for them both? The father. Having a child is a shared sacrifice - We shouldn't give one person a out, and ignore the other. Either neither should have a out, or both of them should.

It is not sexist in that a woman is not free to walk away from an already born child that the man wishes to keep. Just like she would have to pay child support if she walked away, so would he. It is a unique situation in pregnancy in that men cannot get pregnant. Therefore, giving them rights in pregnancy is literally the man dictating to the woman how she uses her body. That's very illegal and very immoral at its most base level.
 

TRIFORCE89

Guide of Darkness
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It is not sexist in that a woman is not free to walk away from an already born child that the man wishes to keep. Just like she would have to pay child support if she walked away, so would he. It is a unique situation in pregnancy in that men cannot get pregnant. Therefore, giving them rights in pregnancy is literally the man dictating to the woman how she uses her body. That's very illegal and very immoral at its most base level.
The man cannot get pregnant, but he certainly contributed to the pregnancy.

And, I don't understand your argument. You compare it to parents walking out after birth to show how it is okay. But, either parent is able to do that. During pregnancy, only one can. So how is it the same?

And the man shouldn't dictate. But he can be involved. Like many other decisions couples make. Where should we go for dinner tonight? Should we get a dog? Do you like this colour paint for the wall? You work together, you gather input and information, and whoever the more interested party is makes the decision based on that. Again, not a requirement. But I think its... nicer?
 

Mr. X

It's... kinda effective?
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It is not sexist in that a woman is not free to walk away from an already born child that the man wishes to keep. Just like she would have to pay child support if she walked away, so would he. It is a unique situation in pregnancy in that men cannot get pregnant. Therefore, giving them rights in pregnancy is literally the man dictating to the woman how she uses her body. That's very illegal and very immoral at its most base level.

I'm sorry - I've completely forgotten that some women can, for no reason whatsoever, suddenly become pregnant.

Both play a part in a pregnancy. Both should be given as close to equivalent options as possible.
 

Oryx

CoquettishCat
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Feel free to insert "potential" before any instance of child, mother, or father in this post, it's implied but I didn't want to be redundant

Because both scenarios deal with a born child that is not living by using a woman's bodily resources as his own. When the child is born, if either parent walks away, the parent is responsible (unless they both agree to put it up for adoption, obviously). When the child is not born, the person who is allowing the child to use her body to develop calls the shots, because it is her body. Just like if my best friend/child/brother/whatever was dying because my boyfriend hit him with a car and needed a kidney and my boyfriend was compatible, I still would not be able to legally force him to donate his kidney. Although the situation was his fault. Morally, he should. Legally, it's his body and I have no right to dictate how he uses it.

Of course I agree that if both parents can, they should be involved in the decision. The question is how that would work out legally. The father should not have the legal power to force the mother to carry a child to term, because that would be the father dictating to the mother how to use her own body and telling her that she must donate her body to the child. Morally, the father, if she's not a victim of incest or rape, should have a very important say in the decision. Legally, there is no way to implement that without there being a scenario where the father forces the mother to use her body the way he wants her to.

I think there's a moral/legal disconnect here. I'm not arguing that all women should use abortion as birth control or that all women should make their choices without consulting the fathers of the children. What I am saying is that legally, it is impossible to make a law like this that will not legally allow men to dictate how women use their bodies, which is a fundamental right. And just as I have explained numerous times, there is no other situation in which because you did something legal, you are legally obligated to use your body a certain way or allow someone else to use your body a certain way. If there are any counter-examples you can come up with, they would be welcome. The only time you would lose bodily autonomy in the US (speaking from these laws since I'm obviously not well versed in others) is either if you broke the law or you are a vegetable, in which case bodily autonomy is taken from you only because you are incapable of making decisions.
 
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