Abortion; Why?

I'm not pregnant,don't scare me

I hate how you and Yoda rearrange my words.I never said we should kill all poor people.

Prove that.

who's better off in this particular situation?I mean,who benefits?

I look at this from my point of view and some examples which I've seen.For example,my contry - If the family is working class,firstly they struggle to survive,wages are low.Many many people turn then into alcohol as the way out (I don't know if that is some kind of a national feature or soviet heritage).Men being drunk and beating women in a working class families is quite a common thing.Children are being threatened by a drunk parent(mothers do it too),they are scared of them,they feel unsafe in what is supposed to be the safest place for them in the world - home.
Now,this poor kid has to go to school,too.It really depends on the child whether he will be bullied or he will manage to defend himself but will it be easy for him to learn something?Will he even see a point in it?If he doesn't get an education,where he will end up?He might take up crime,he might follow his parents' footsteps.I know that girls from poor families often start early age relationships because they want attention which they didn't get when they were little.That usually ends up in early pregnancy again.This is a vicious cycle and it goes on and on.
I don't know about America but aren't there these black people neighborhoods where literally kids hang out with guns?Their parents sell drugs?Mothers are prostitutes?

You know,it's one thing to defend baby's right to live and be very pro-life in a forum but it's another thing to witness a beat-up kid on the street who is mugging another child as he is trying to fend for himself and survive.

I didn't get the question.

yeah,but what if they don't care?What if the girl doesn't even want a child?
I can totally agree when the parents' really do want a kid and they will do anything to make his life as easier as possible.But they must be reasonable.
Poor and united family might be the best thing ever because you are not only safe but you get an experience of a harder life.


I liked your arguments but you struggled on this one.I asked about defect andyou just gave me a bunch of pro-life arguments.But when it comes to rape you are not sure which means that all babies have a right to live until there is a case of rape.So it's what?Every child has a right to live but some have more right than others?

yeah,because it's important to give that child a life.Now,to give him some food and clothes?That's not that important.

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"Anything less than immortality is a complete waste of time."

I like the disputes in this thread. Because many participants defend their beliefs with Passion
I am a supporter of one of the idea's in Dante's Inferno: angels were sent to the first circle of Hell, "as they haven't been Passionate" in good, neither in evil.

People should be more aware that having sex may led to pregnancy. If they feel they wouldn't be able to bring up the child and provide enough money at least for basic needs they should either use more advanced contraception methods or completely give up vaginal sex.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

Lets face it, practically no one changes their view of this subject with the exception of those who are affected directly by the experience and those who gain/lose faith.
Because I wouldn't force a woman to go through a pregnancy and give birth against her will, just as much as I wouldn't force an abortion on a woman.

You won't be.
But you know this is the nub of the argument. Assuming that you mean human life and not 'just' life (I'm sure you do, I'm just clarifying) then we're back to drawing the line. I know we're unlikely to agree on where that line is, or even get close to it, but that's it, isn't it?

Honestly, I don't know where to start.

Not necessarily. Sadly, plenty of people from all walks of life, both sexes, young and old, regardless of colour or faith wouldn't agree with this. It's not about money, it's about quality of life. I'm think, given what I've seen of your views, would say that any and all life is better than none at all. I, for one, would disagree.

Feeling loss or guilt doesn't mean you've done something wrong or easy. Some parents feel the same way when they send their children to boarding school. People feel loss and/or guilt for all kinds of reasons and, sometimes, for no (real) reason at all. I don't think having an abortion or making the decision to have one is easy for the vast majority of women who do make the decision.

No, this thread is about abortion. I wouldn't call the fetus innocent or people.

TBH, this was the reason I went back to this post. This was the only bit I was going to bring up, but reading the rest of it annoyed me. Anyway, I see you've now changed this from "I don't believe in rape" to "Rape is ugly." I hope that's your way of saying you do believe in rape and not a re-writing of the words but with the same sentiment. In short, and I admit that to me this is far more important than abortion, do you believe in rape?

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Unless one is a sociopath, most women will regret their abortions later in life. The deranged emotional state that led her to kill her unborn child will pass.

http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.o...t-and-remorse/

You seem to look upon being poor as something bad. It is not. You can be poor and still be happy and productive.

Who benefits by not committing abortion? The unborn child. He gets to live.

Sometimes I don't want to live next to noisy neighbors but that doesn't give me the right to kill them.

I can't speak for Yoda, but if it were me, I say every child has a right to live regardless of the circumstances of how he was conceived. If you don't want the child then fine. Give him up for adoption, but don't kill him. What did he do to deserve death?

You're kidding?

The problem I see with contraception is that when it fails, and it always fails, abortion is sure to follow.

“While I personally believe in the sterilization of the feeble-minded, the insane and syphilitic, I have not been able to discover that these measures are more than superficial deterrents when applied to the constantly growing stream of the unfit. They are excellent means of meeting a certain phase of the situation, but I believe in regard to these, as in regard to other eugenic means, that they do not go to the bottom of the matter.”

~ Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.


No, of course not. Because then you'd have to accept responsibility.


No. They were poorly chosen words. Please, no non sequiturs.

I'm not talking about eugenics at all. I'm not talking about mental or physical impairment. It would not matter to me had I not existed.

No, it's because they're not. I'm not talking about late abortions, though I still think the woman should have the choice. However, even if I accepted your view and had to "accept responsibility" then I'd do that. I can't see any situation where I'd put the unborn before the born (for want of a better word).

I hoped they were, but I had to know. I wasn't trying to trip you up. Your stance is so extreme that I had to be sure.

I don't feel I've rearranged your words at all. You did not say we should kill all poor people, but you did suggest that being poor is reason enough to kill someone. If it isn't, then there would be no reason to advance poverty as a justification for abortion.

I'm really not sure what part of this is intended to respond to my questions. We all understand the horrible things that can take place in life. That's not the question. The question is, why is the mere possibility enough to kill them? How likely does that possibility have to be? You can say "might" and "may" forever, but they "might" or "may" use the experiences to become remarkable people, too. They might go on to write about poverty and change people's perspective on it. They may turn suffering into exquisite art.

All sorts of things might happen, but we don't know, and that's why we don't get to prejudge people's entire lives before they've had a chance to live them.

Also, if you think this can be used to justify abortion, do you believe the opposite is true? That people who statistics say are likely to have good lives can not be aborted? That seems to be the implication here. If you're saying poor people can have abortions because statistics suggest their children are more likely to have difficult lives, wouldn't it follow that middle-class or rich people would not be allowed to because their children are less likely to?

I'll try again then. You say it's okay to end a life because it might be poor and have an unhappy childhood, and because it can't make a choice to live anyway. But all those reasons apply to newborns, too; newborns don't have any more ability to choose than they did just before they were born, and they still might lead a miserable life. So why can't you use your logic to justify killing newborns as well?

I assume your answer will be something like "because they're already born! They're people!" In which case you'll have admitted that you can't kill a person for their own good. Which means all this talk about being poor or unloved is irrelevant, because it isn't justification to kill a living person. So the only relevant question is: when does it become a living person? None of the socioeconomic factors matter more than that, because if it's a person, no combination of socioeconomic factors can outweigh their right to life.

I agree completely! And that's precisely my point: if a parent cares, that's worth more than virtually any amount of income. But that makes your hypothetical impossible, because it's about parents who care enough to try to spare their child a difficult life. But if they care enough to do that, then they care enough to be decent parents, which means they wouldn't need to get the abortion for the child's own good any more. It's a paradox.

Yes, this question is the nub of the argument. I've literally been saying this for the entire 12 years the thread has been open, but as you can see, people continue to advance ancillary socioeconomic arguments.

This wasn't addressed to me, but I'll respond to it anyway: it's fine for you to disagree. The problem starts when you purport to make this decision on someone else's behalf.

I'm not sure where I come down on whether or not people should be allowed to end their own lives, or whether "any life is better than none at all" on an individual level. I think I'd agree, but that's not the question. The question is whether or not somebody other than the person living that life gets to choose.

I agree with this, I think. The only thing I think is 'right' is that the woman can/does decide whether or not to abort a pregnancy. I think anything and everything I say beyond that is 'just me'. Of course, this also goes back to the nub of the argument, as I'd argue that you're not making this decision on someone else's behalf. You're making it on your behalf.

Personally, I think the laws we have in the UK that deal with abortion are fine. I think that, so long as you're aware that you're pregnant within 3/4 months (which I suspect the vast majority of women are) then about 6 months/24 weeks is more than long enough to discover you're pregnant and make the decision. While I personally would allow later abortions, I doubt that there'd be a noticeable rise in abortions were it legal. My guess is that the vast majority of abortions are carried out between 8-16 weeks. making most arguments about late term abortions almost pointless in terms of the overall argument.

You mentioned quality of life. Abortion certainly improves that for the living.

Science has proven that human life begins at conception. It's not a matter under debate. Why do you deny it?

http://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/ar...yoquotes2.html


Why does it make a difference to you how old the fetus is?

I don't see anything extreme about my beliefs. I find putting an innocent person to death for no just cause extreme.

The question is not when life begins but when personhood does. Or, if you'd rather, whether or not there should be a distinction between the two. I don't know if there should, and you clearly don't think there should, but it should be pretty obvious by now that other people do make this distinction, so nothing is actually addressed by simply ignoring it.

This, however, is a good question. I remember asking will this a long time ago, and he simply refused to answer, thinking it wasn't a serious question. But it really does expose a tension between commonly-held pro-choice principles: if it's not a person until birth, why would a late-term abortion be any more upsetting or objectionable than one early in pregnancy? I can't think of any logical reason, but most reasonable people, even when they're pro-choice, express some level of additional discomfort with late-term abortion, which is to their credit. And to admit to that is to admit that it's clearly something more than just a "fetus" at a certain point prior to birth. Which is really just common sense, I think, but which people are hesitant to admit because of the political implications it presents.

Well, you'd say it; I'm not entirely sure you'd argue it. I'm all for getting into the weeds on personhood, but I assumed any attempt to do that with you would be a waste of time. If you actually wanted to have that conversation, you would have already.

Well, they can't be more pointless than the absurd hypotheticals about teenage girls with abusive fathers being impregnated against their will by gang members, or the other insane scenarios that people life to throw at pro-lifers all the time.

And it's also not pointless because abortions are plentiful enough in many places that even a fraction of a fraction of a percentage can mean tens of thousands of instances of something. And for something as reprehensible as late-term abortion, that's a pretty huge number.

It is certainly true that most abortions happen early on, and I find that to be a small mercy, at least. But it's also true that most abortions take place to avoid inconvenience, and not because of any major hardship that would really prevent the child from being raised--especially when adoption is considered. Most unwanted pregnancies are avoidable, and most of those that take place anyway are manageable. This is not to play down the significance of raising a child, but you can make a pretty good argument that the idea of a perfect time to have one is an unattainable standard to begin with. I think it's pretty clear that many, many abortions happen outside of the kinds of impossible situations these arguments are almost entirely made up of.

So people need to decide what kind of standard they want to use. I've harped a lot lately on how lopsided the burden of proof usually is on abortion, and this is a prime example of it: it can't be that we're arguing exceptions when testing the implications of the pro-life position, but we're arguing generalities when we switch to the other side.

An opposite question would be: When is a person no longer a person? When their heart stops beating? How long after a person's heart stops beating are they considered a corpse and no longer alive?

The heart of a fetus starts to beat at 6 weeks. How long after this are they thought of as people and not merely a bunch of cells?

I don't think you're using that term correctly. According to Wikipedia, a non sequitur is when the conclusion of an argument doesn't follow from the premises. I don't think it would fit that situation, nor many of the other times you've used the term.

You assume correctly because, as well you know, I don't care about personhood. That's not my concern with/about abortion. I put the rights of the woman before any rights of the unborn regardless of whether it's a person or not at conception and/or anytime upto birth. You know this, this is why we don't bother with the argument.

No, it's not reprehensible. You think it is. That doesn't make it so. I'm sure millions would agree with you, as I'm equally sure that millions wouldn't. Early or late makes little difference to me. Obviously an eight month old fetus is closer to a fully formed baby, but I still give the woman the right to abort. Like you, I'd much rather women prevented getting pregnant in the first place, if only because it'd mean they wouldn't have to make the decision and then go through the procedure which, I'm assured, is not a pleasant experience.

I agree with all this, though I wouldn't say being responsible for bringing another person into the world isn't a major hardship. I think it's incredibly hard and a huge decision. I don't mean to infer that you do think that, simply that I take the decision to have a child incredibly seriously and have seen how difficult having a family can be on the best of parents in terms of their physical and mental health.

Yep, I agree with this too, but I still don't see why it makes any difference. From what we've discussed before, you have conception at the point from which you cannot abort, that is to say, abortion is bad/should be illegal/evil/reprehensible/whatever from that point on. So, in reality, it doesn't really matter when 'personhood' happens as, without conclusive proof (which I'm still not sure you'd accept anyway, if I'm honest) you'll argue for your position.

I don't see how this makes any sense. You obviously care about personhood, because you think the woman has rights to begin with. And you think you have rights, too, simply by virtue of being a person, correct? Ergo you think personhood grants rights. Which means personhood matters in any discussion about rights.

The only way personhood could actually not matter to you is if you didn't believe in rights at all. Otherwise, all you can really mean by this is that you just arbitrarily choose not to think about it.

Yeah, I'm still not sure why you think it's worth anyone's time (including yours) to post flat contradictions like this. I could reply to dozens of things you've said by just pointing out that you're stating an opinion, but that would be pedantic at best and useless at worst. Now, when people start prefacing their opinions with things like "the following is empirically proven," then your talent for mere contradiction will surely come in handy, but until then it seems like a way to sound like you're arguing without actually saying anything.

Also, you ignored the point, which was that something being rare as a part of the whole does not make it rare in the sense of almost never happening. If something is happening thousands of times a year, and that "something" is the death of an innocent person, that matters, and is not brushed aside by comparing it to a much larger subset of the population

Sure, and part of arguing that position is pointing out the flaws in the arguments in the other direction. That's why it "makes any difference"--because it's a problem with one of the commonly advanced justifications for abortion.

He didn't answer my questions.

the only 100 percent protection is no sex.Others are up to 99.

That article is worthless and it doesn't prove anything.So does your words.Give me some research,numbers,investigations.

he gets to live knowing that he was deserted by his real mother before she even really knew him.
So when it comes to pregnancy you must have the baby.Whatever,maybe you were raped when you were 14,maybe you will despise that kid and pour out your anger on him till your last breath.You think the one and only thing that matters is that he will get to breath on this Earth?

I just believe in that.I think many people assume and consider when making decisions.I want to get a cat now and I would love it but I won't get myself one because I rent my place and there is a possibility that the animal may end up homeless.It may not happen but if it will,that would be a tragedy.After a party,I go home with a taxi because there are lots of creeps at night.I might not get attacked but I might as well.I don't consider baby a human and when it comes to babies,I don't think that it's some kind of a another type of thing,so I think people should weigh pros and cons and consider what's best.

because newborn is a human being to me.However short,he experienced life,he felt how it is like to be alive,he formed a connection with someone(unborn do too but it's not the same)

I don't think I stressed enough how important psychological factor is in this.There are girls who love kids,who get pregnant early and,despite being scared,they do have the baby,they struggle but the child is always loved.That is okay.If you feel very very strong emotionally and you love your kid unconditionally,all the poverty hardships are easier to face.
But there girls who are unprepared.They doubt.They want to get an education,they want to party,they don't want to get fat etc.They become depressed.And if this girl still has the baby not only she will continue to struggle mentally,she will also have financial hardships ahead of her.How can you give all yourself to someone who you didn't really want in the first place?So I still want to hear an answer - if the mother doesn't really feel that she is prepared to have a child?If she is sure that she will not be able to face responsibility?What is she doesn't care?Moreover,are there any cases where you would be for abortion?

I think that you are so defensive towards poor childhood because it kind of hits you personally as you had one.I did too.