Abortion

[Oryx]

With that being said, let's say only american born citizens are protected under the law, everyone else is fair game for murder. Does that make it morally right? No, of course not. Just because the law says its not protected, doesn't mean it's morally right to kill it.

I also disagree with the people that say a woman has the right to control her body, of course she has the right to control it, but you agree to share your body with a child when you take part in the act that results in the conception of a child. Should a murderer be taken off death row because he didn't like the consequences of his actions? Absolutely not, this is no different. You conceive under no fault of anyone else but your own, therefore, you do not get to play God and choose who lives and who dies because you made a stupid mistake and did not want to deal with the consequences.

My opinion may differ in cases of rape or possible harm to the mother, but otherwise, you make your choice and you live with the consequences, that's how life works. In cases where you can't afford the child, that is what adoption is for.

I find it interesting that your accusation of stupidity applies only to the potential mother in this scenario.

I've mentioned this before in the thread, but your argument brings it to the front again - even if a parent agrees to have a child and raise it, and they would be under no intense stress from donating an organ to the child and the child would die otherwise, they are under no legal obligation to do so. American law, at the least, puts bodily autonomy above everything; otherwise, we would have no right to keep our organs even after death. Considering no matter what obligations we agree to in our lives we are still never legally obligated to give up our body or harm our own body for the sake of another person, how does it follow that the woman should be legally obligated to give up her own body and harm herself (because make no mistake, pregnancy is difficult and causes long-term, often lifelong damage to the body) because she had sex? Why is that situation more legally binding than actually raising a child from birth, willingly?

 

[~Justified~]

I find it interesting that your accusation of stupidity applies only to the potential mother in this scenario.

I've mentioned this before in the thread, but your argument brings it to the front again - even if a parent agrees to have a child and raise it, and they would be under no intense stress from donating an organ to the child and the child would die otherwise, they are under no legal obligation to do so. American law, at the least, puts bodily autonomy above everything; otherwise, we would have no right to keep our organs even after death. Considering no matter what obligations we agree to in our lives we are still never legally obligated to give up our body or harm our own body for the sake of another person, how does it follow that the woman should be legally obligated to give up her own body and harm herself (because make no mistake, pregnancy is difficult and causes long-term, often lifelong damage to the body) because she had sex? Why is that situation more legally binding than actually raising a child from birth, willingly?

I didn't say pregnancy doesn't cause harm, but when you have sex you know the risks, you're not stupid. You make a conscious decision to do so, in doing that, you agree to share your body with a child. Going back to my murderer analogy, would you allow a murderer to go free because he didn't like the consequences of his actions? No, of course not. This is no different. There is protection and other methods of preventing child conception, so just don't be stupid and you'll be fine. If you're not ready to face the consequences of your actions, you are no more mature than a five year old child. Do we not teach children to accept responsibility? How can we do so when we ourselves cannot face the consequences of our own actions? That is hypocritical and completely ridiculous, being mature includes taking responsibility. By the way, of course it is not solely the mother's fault. It would be the person impregnating her as well. They both are equally accountable.

Also, I find not wanting to donate your organs selfish, why keep them if you're not going to use them? That is completely self-centered and cruel, many people could have lived with those organs that you yourself did not have any use for.

I'd like to bring up another topic to add to this as well, here it is:
Should the father have a say as well as the mother in abortion?
My answer to this is, of course, because the man also gave up some of his DNA for the child, it is not a decision to be made solely by the mother, but by both of the parents.

 

[Oryx]

I didn't say pregnancy doesn't cause harm, but when you have sex you know the risks, you're not stupid. You make a conscious decision to do so, in doing that, you agree to share your body with a child. Going back to my murderer analogy, would you allow a murderer to go free because he didn't like the consequences of his actions? No, of course not. This is no different. There is protection and other methods of preventing child conception, so just don't be stupid and you'll be fine. If you're not ready to face the consequences of your actions, you are no more mature than a five year old child. Do we not teach children to accept responsibility? How can we do so when we ourselves cannot face the consequences of our own actions? That is hypocritical and completely ridiculous, being mature includes taking responsibility. By the way, of course it is not solely the mother's fault. It would be the person impregnating her as well. They both are equally accountable.

Also, I find not wanting to donate your organs selfish, why keep them if you're not going to use them? That is completely self-centered and cruel, many people could have lived with those organs that you yourself did not have any use for.

I'd like to bring up another topic to add to this as well, here it is:
Should the father have a say as well as the mother in abortion?
My answer to this is, of course, because the man also gave up some of his DNA for the child, it is not a decision to be made solely by the mother, but by both of the parents.

So you must hold equally as passionate views about making it illegal to not be an organ donor, right? Are you petitioning for parents to be required to go through surgery if their child needs it, regardless of the level of risk to the parent (since women still die in childbirth to this day)? It's hypocritical to argue against abortion and ignore all these other issues, and speaks to a focus on punishing women for their "stupidity" instead of any amount of care for children or other people - if it was about caring for children or other people, then those arguments would be just as important, if not more so.

As far as the father, once again, back to my analogy - my (hypothetical) husband cannot force me to go through surgery for my child. He cannot force me to give up bodily autonomy for what he wants from my body. Just like I would never be able to deny him any kind of medical procedure because I am married to him, or force him to undergo one. This is another layer of hypocrisy often ignored; men are often willing to argue that they should have the legal right to demand a woman go through a dangerous, uncomfortable, painful 9 months, but are not willing to argue that they should have the legal responsibility to stay around for those 9 months if they don't want the child. It's the exact same situation; because of the physical reality of things, men can do things that women cannot, namely leave before the child is born. This is analogous to women being able to do things that men cannot, namely choosing not to carry a child that they do not want. In all my discussions of abortion online (and trust me, I have had quite a few), I have never seen a person argue that fathers should be legally obligated to support the woman they got pregnant, but have seen countless people argue that mothers should be legally obligated to carry the child of the man that impregnated her. Do you believe that women should give up their right to bodily autonomy for the sake of the man she had sex with, but men should not give up their right to bodily autonomy for the sake of the woman he had sex with?

 

[Dakotah]

With that being said, let's say only american born citizens are protected under the law, everyone else is fair game for murder. Does that make it morally right? No, of course not. Just because the law says its not protected, doesn't mean it's morally right to kill it.

Let's not get carried away with "devil's advocate" type arguments. The simple fact is that the Constitutions and laws in most places covers citizens and non-citizens alike when it comes to protecting their human rights. But let's also be clear, those laws only protect those that are born.

I also disagree with the people that say a woman has the right to control her body, of course she has the right to control it, but you agree to share your body with a child when you take part in the act that results in the conception of a child.

Your argument essentially is that a woman automatically forfeits her liberty rights the moment she conceives. I don't agree with that. A woman has every right to determine her future, including deciding whether to carry to term the life growing within her, which is not yet a person.

Should a murderer be taken off death row because he didn't like the consequences of his actions? Absolutely not, this is no different.

Nonsensical argument. Ignored. Especially since in the country that I live in there is no death penalty, no matter the crime. We moved beyond revenge punishment a long time ago.

You conceive under no fault of anyone else but your own, therefore, you do not get to play God and choose who lives and who dies because you made a stupid mistake and did not want to deal with the consequences.

Okay. It's alright to play god when creating a life but not okay when terminating a pregnancy.

My opinion may differ in cases of rape or possible harm to the mother, but otherwise, you make your choice and you live with the consequences, that's how life works. In cases where you can't afford the child, that is what adoption is for.

Adoption is not the convenient solution some people make it out to be. That is because fewere and fewer people are considering adoption these days, and are instead opting for fertility treatments in the hopes of having a child of their own, rather than someone else's.

 

[~Justified~]

Allow me to apologize, my previous statements may have seemed extremely one sided and blunt. I understand your point of view on this, that it's your body and you should be able to do what you want with it. It makes perfect sense. However, we just have two different mindsets on this, and more than likely, we will never change the other one's belief about the current topic. So rather than debating further, I'd like to explain my point of view in a better way.

Basically, I was trying to say that when you make the decision to go through intercourse, you know the risks and consequences, and you should not be able to terminate a pregnancy because you didn't like the consequences of your own actions.
Everyone needs to take responsibility, regardless of what it may cost you. A murderer may lose his life for having killed someone, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't face the consequences, he made his choice, and agreed to the risks when he killed someone.

Hopefully I said it better this time:)

 

[Oryx]

Allow me to apologize, my previous statements may have seemed extremely one sided and blunt. I understand your point of view on this, that it's your body and you should be able to do what you want with it. It makes perfect sense. However, we just have two different mindsets on this, and more than likely, we will never change the other one's belief about the current topic. So rather than debating further, I'd like to explain my point of view in a better way.

Basically, I was trying to say that when you make the decision to go through intercourse, you know the risks and consequences, and you should not be able to terminate a pregnancy because you didn't like the consequences of your own actions.
Everyone needs to take responsibility, regardless of what it may cost you. A murderer may lose his life for having killed someone, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't face the consequences, he made his choice, and agreed to the risks when he killed someone.

Hopefully I said it better this time:)

You said the same thing though, and conveniently ignored the many points I made against what you just said, reverting instead to a talking point that lacks nuance and critical thinking.

Pregnancy is not a crime. Saying a murderer loses his life for breaking the law (which by the by shouldn't happen, capital punishment is dumb and revenge-centric) is equivalent to saying that you believe sex is something a woman does "wrong" and therefore deserve the "punishment" of pain, a limited lifestyle, and possible death.

Consequence-based thought is so distinctly American and so distinctly angry - it follows directly to "no one should be treated for STDs because those people KNEW THE RISKS." If we follow consequence-based ideology to its logical conclusions, any person that suffers stress from pushing themselves too hard deserves no sympathy because pushing yourself too hard causes risks that they should have known, any person that hurt their knees from running shouldn't get medical care because they should have known the risks of running, etc.

There is no world where you sign a legally binding contract with semen inside you. This is just not a thing that legally makes any kind of sense. You can argue that ethically it would be immoral to abort a child, but there is no legal standing on this. The idea that sex should sign a contract saying you give up all your bodily rights for 9 months is completely ludicrous and only makes sense in punishment-centric minds.

 

[~Justified~]

You said the same thing though, and conveniently ignored the many points I made against what you just said, reverting instead to a talking point that lacks nuance and critical thinking.

Pregnancy is not a crime. Saying a murderer loses his life for breaking the law (which by the by shouldn't happen, capital punishment is dumb and revenge-centric) is equivalent to saying that you believe sex is something a woman does "wrong" and therefore deserve the "punishment" of pain, a limited lifestyle, and possible death.

Consequence-based thought is so distinctly American and so distinctly angry - it follows directly to "no one should be treated for STDs because those people KNEW THE RISKS." If we follow consequence-based ideology to its logical conclusions, any person that suffers stress from pushing themselves too hard deserves no sympathy because pushing yourself too hard causes risks that they should have known, any person that hurt their knees from running shouldn't get medical care because they should have known the risks of running, etc.

There is no world where you sign a legally binding contract with semen inside you. This is just not a thing that legally makes any kind of sense. You can argue that ethically it would be immoral to abort a child, but there is no legal standing on this. The idea that sex should sign a contract saying you give up all your bodily rights for 9 months is completely ludicrous and only makes sense in punishment-centric minds.

But aren't we all saying the same thing? I say abortion is wrong, you say its not. No matter how long we debate, none of us will change the other's mind. I also did not ignore your posts, I actually acknowledged them, if you read my post you would see. You seem to be ignoring that this discussion has brought us to an impasse. We will not change the other person's mind so this discussion is no longer relevant. I suggest that we move on to something more meaningful than to continue debating the current topic, because we've reached the end of our debate. You have your beliefs and I have mine, let us accept the fact that this discussion is over and that just because our beliefs our different, doesn't mean were bad. You're not bad, I'm not bad, we just have different views on the subject.

Thank you for the discussion, I wish you luck in your next debate:)

 

[Oryx]

But aren't we all saying the same thing? I say abortion is wrong, you say its not. No matter how long we debate, none of us will change the other's mind. I also did not ignore your posts, I actually acknowledged them, if you read my post you would see. You seem to be ignoring that this discussion has brought us to an impasse. We will not change the other person's mind so this discussion is no longer relevant. I suggest that we move on to something more meaningful than to continue debating the current topic, because we've reached the end of our debate. You have your beliefs and I have mine, let us accept the fact that this discussion is over and that just because our beliefs our different, doesn't mean were bad. You're not bad, I'm not bad, we just have different views on the subject.

Thank you for the discussion, I wish you luck in your next debate:)

Well...it's a debate forum. Debating is kind of the point of posting here.

What I'm saying is that I made specific rebuttals to your points, which you ignored in favor of repeating an overall talking point and responding with your own talking point. I made specific points that you chose not to address, and I can only guess as to why. I asked you direct questions that you chose not to answer. One sentence does not sum up multiple posts with paragraphs of rebuttals, nuance, questions, and opinions and the two cannot be compared. I believe your stance is logically flawed, and expressed this in my detailed posts, which you then attempted to condense into "we can never agree because this sentence describes your views and this other sentence describes my views."

Frankly, it's a cop out.

 

[Kameken]

I've never approved of abortion, because as much as I can hear that the fetus isn't yet a living being and that it would suffer in the world, it's never sat well with me that many are so willing to throw away even the potential a human life has on such thoughts. I've never been one to fear hypothetical situations, or stress about things I can't control, but the idea of someone having the choice to kill me before I get even a taste of air for the first time frightens me quite a bit. A healthy birth, whether you're religious or not, is a beautiful thing, even in hard times. I realize not every child will have a good life, but I'd rather risk a bad life than have none at all. That said, my views are a bit less black and white than that would make them seem. If a mother's life is in danger from birth or if the child was conceived from sexual violence, then abortions may be a necessity.

I find it quite funny how so many arguments use both, "They're not a real person yet," and, "Religious people should be glad they go straight to *Insert afterlife here*" to the same end. Surely a non-living blob of cells doesn't have a fully developed soul? It's like those arguments that say, "This part in the Bible is untrue because The Divine Comedy says something different!" Though perhaps that's getting off topic.

In the end, to me, the idea that we as a species have the power and even the desire to prevent new individuals is off-putting to say the least. With adoption an option (Children who are adopted tend to have better, more comfortable childhoods than others, to give an idea), it seems absurd to kill someone who, if given a lifetime, could have done something great with it.

 

[Dakotah]

70% of all conceptions naturally never make it to a fully developed human being and therefore are aborted without any conscious choice on the part of the mother. This means, assuming God is real, that God is the world's greatest abortion provider on the planet.

 

[Kameken]

My view on abortion has nothing to do with my religion, by the way. I honestly don't even think that should come into it, because it's a human issue, and a relatively small one at that.

 

[twocows]

I've never approved of abortion, because as much as I can hear that the fetus isn't yet a living being and that it would suffer in the world, it's never sat well with me that many are so willing to throw away even the potential a human life has on such thoughts. I've never been one to fear hypothetical situations, or stress about things I can't control, but the idea of someone having the choice to kill me before I get even a taste of air for the first time frightens me quite a bit. A healthy birth, whether you're religious or not, is a beautiful thing, even in hard times. I realize not every child will have a good life, but I'd rather risk a bad life than have none at all. That said, my views are a bit less black and white than that would make them seem. If a mother's life is in danger from birth or if the child was conceived from sexual violence, then abortions may be a necessity.

In the end, to me, the idea that we as a species have the power and even the desire to prevent new individuals is off-putting to say the least. With adoption an option (Children who are adopted tend to have better, more comfortable childhoods than others, to give an idea), it seems absurd to kill someone who, if given a lifetime, could have done something great with it.

Your argument boils down to your feelings about an impossible-to-experience hypothetical, an appeal to beauty, and the idea that a yet-to-exist human life is sacred. I won't address the first two because they don't really constitute a rational argument, but let's look at the third since that seems kind of reasonable.

If the future of a pre-human is sacred and something we must protect, then we have to protect eggs and sperm, too. Not just that, but every potential human life that could come from one of those eggs and sperm could potentially produce a lot more human life. It's potential human life all the way down. The logical conclusion to that line of reasoning is that we hold a person accountable for every life they could ever theoretically beget. Better be careful driving in that world. You wouldn't want to hit someone and get infinity counts of manslaughter, I hear that carries a hefty sentence. Let's just hope they don't hold us accountable for all the eggs and sperm we don't turn into lives; we'd all be in the slammer for infinity years (especially us men!).

Joking aside, my response is that what gives our life value is not potential, it's our experience: all of the things we do and feel throughout our lives. By definition, there is no value in something that does not exist, and something that is yet to exist does not currently exist. As a mother is not merely of speculative value, I consider her wishes to be more important than what a fetus might have wished in the future.

As I said earlier, though, I still have some problems with the place of men in all of this. I think there are certainly some unfair practices in the system. I don't know if we are able to fix some of those problems or not. But I do believe that a mother should, in most circumstances, be allowed to... cast off her pregnancy. Right now, that means allowing her to terminate unless the father can find a surrogate.

 

[Dakotah]

Human beings have the potential to do great good. But they also have the potential to do great evil. Some like to pose hypotheticals, making the argument that aborting a fertilized egg could potentially rob the world of the next great thinker of our time, or a person who eventually may end up finding a cure for some of Earth's greatest diseases. But they completely ignore the fact that it could also be true that aborting that fertilized egg could save millions of lives that otherwise would be lost due to that individual's actions should it be allowed to be born and grow up. And this is why it is completely irrational to base ones decision on this kind of argument. We just don't know. We're not capable of seeing into the future. There is so much more than basic biology that determines what kind of person we will become.

The only thing we have to make this decision is what we feel inside that is right for us. Some will decided that they may not be ready to have a child. Some will decide that they are. But if we as a society take that decision away from women, then we essentially relegate them to nothing more than incubators. Because what we're saying (even though no one would admit it openly) is that a woman's life is meaningless so long as she is carrying a fertilized egg inside her womb. Her wishes and wants can be disregarded and we can then force her to have that baby.

And that is precisely what happened to Savita Halappanavar on 28 October 2012, at University Hospital Galway in Ireland. She was suffering from a miscarriage, the result of a bacterial infection when she was 17 weeks pregnant.

She sought medical attention and treatment and made repeated requests for an abortion which were refused. The reason given to her was that due to her fetus retaining a heartbeat and her life not appearing to be in physiological danger, having an abortion could not be performed because it was not legal. On one occasion, even, she was told "it was the law, that this is a Catholic country."

Then, on the night of October 23, she was standing in a restroom and collapsed. The following day the foetal remains were removed from her womb in the operating theatre due to a diagnosis of septic shock being made by a consultant. Her septicemia further deteriorated despite being treated with oral antibiotics for infection since late October 22 and intravenous antibiotics since October 24. Both of these treatments were ineffective and her condition rapidly deteriorated to the point of organ failure and finally cardiac arrest and death on 28 October 2012.

The point here was that because of the laws of that country, and the policies of that hospital, that woman was regarded as nothing more than as an incubator for that child, even though the woman's body itself had begun rejecting the fetus already. There was no way for that fetus to survive. It had already been rejected. And even though a serious infection had already begun within her, because those doctors detected a fetal heart beat, her rapidly deteriorating health was of no importance to them. All that mattered, as far as they were concerned, was that they do everything possible to ensure that fetus was kept alive.

In the end, all that their efforts accomplished was the eventual aborting of the fetus and the death of the mother. The doctors had every opportunity to save the mother's life. Instead they prioritized the fetus to the detriment of the mother. She was nothing to them. She was an incubator only.

 

[Oryx]

Imagine if someone as significant as, say, MLK had been aborted. This is simply speculation, but it's worth thinking about, I believe.

Imagine if someone as significant as, say, Hitler had been aborted. An aborted child is just as likely to be the next peaceful protest leader as it is to be the next serial murderer.

 

[Kameken]

Hitler's not a good example, really. As terrible as he was and everything he did was, his crimes against humanity did cause a lot of new laws of war to be created, and the world's governments matured a good bit due to WWII. Another huge problem with that is that people like Hitler tend to come from relatively well-off families, the kind who probably wouldn't consider aborting children often, whereas MLK and others like him had the kind of origins where people may not want to bring children into the world, such as a black family in an extremely racist American south.

 

[Oryx]

You're going to have to cite your source on that claim of abortion rates in early 1900s Germany vs. 1920s Georgia, taking into account race and class.

 

[Kameken]

Hitler wasn't born in Germany

Just as you could give sources for every argument you made?
Anyway, abortion was illegal in America, at least, most of it, in the 20s, not to mention very dangerous (https://www.teara.govt.nz/en/abortion/page-1), so an exact figure doesn't exist, but illegal abortion was popular enough to become a safety and moral problem in America at the time. Meanwhile, abortion was entirely legal in Germany, though such was not the case in Hitler's actual home country of Austria. It's actually claimed by some that Hitler's mother was considering abortion, but her doctor talked her out of it. Though, considering the fact that Hitler also made abortion legal for non-"Aryan" woman (As part of his quest for a pure "German" race), this information is dubious at best, and was possibly created as propaganda. Also, it's not as if Klara Hitler had no reason to fear bearing children in the first place.

 

[Oryx]

All my arguments have been made either directly from the law, which could be sourced if anyone doubted me, or from logical thought processes, which are not based in statistics and can be debated. All I'm hearing here is that, despite your irrelevant snark on a factual mistake, you have no basis for your claim because you have no statistics, just an assumption. And if you are truly arguing that Hitler was a net good for the world...

 

[Kameken]

You know what, he might have been just that. I'm not saying he's a good person, but if you look at the effect he had on the world, you can see that the extremity and horror of his actions have caused a more alert and considerate world. Antisemitism was not a rare thing in governments or the people by any means before and during WWII, in any country (Which is how Hitler turned Germany on them so easily), and, while he may not have meant to, Hitler helped us see the error in that way and become a more tolerant species as a result. You can hide behind that fact that he was Hitler, and how that should make all points involving him invalid, all you want, but the fact that the US abandoned internment as a method of racial control after the war supports the idea that it had some positive effect, and to deny that that's a significant amount of good done is sheer stupidity.

I never stated that there were definitely more actual abortions in Georgia than Austria, but it should be common sense, honestly. In a place where a man like Hitler being born is welcome, such as Austria, it stands to reason that he would have less reason to be aborted than a black child being born of two black parents in the southern American states. Does this mean that there was certainty Hitler would be born while MLK was aborted? By no means, but logical thinking would say it's a far more likely outcome than the other way around.

 

[Altairis]

What is with humans and heartbeats? You can't live without lungs or a brain, but according to my Internet research, those don't normally develop until everything else has, unlike the heartbeat which develops much sooner. Why are we saying that we can't abort the fetus because it has a heartbeat and therefore is a alive? If anything, shouldn't we be using a developed brain as the basis for our definition of "alive" since it's what sets humans apart from other animals? (I know other animals have brains but obviously ours are a lot more advanced, while our lungs and hearts function mostly the same as other animals')