Abortion; Why?

Just thought Id share... I'm neither for nor against. My reasoning is, and this is what I personally feel and I am in no way debating against anyone on the matter. I think if a woman is raped and becomes pregnant, or is under the age of 18 and becomes pregnant they should have the "choice" of an abortion. But if you are 18 and up (an adult) and you get preg because you didn't use any protection (when KNOWING 100% the consequence) , then you should have the baby.

Having worked in some of the less affluent areas of my City in North England and seeing the state of some of the mothers who breed children as a career choice, I am an advocate of forced abortion in some cases and also forced sterilisation.

Why you ask?

Ive seen pregnant women high on drugs, alchohol, smoking loads, eating nothing but crap and drinking fizzy drinks 24/7 etc.

Some of these Mothers have 8+ kids to probably around 4-5 different men, all absent, and the kids are left to wander the streets causing pure havoc for people going about their day or relaxing at home.



As regards the more civilised population, I would say that the message of party, party, party, have loads of sex or you are a failure, is so drummed into our young that obviously unwanted pregnancy is going to be a problem, with neither party likely to want to have a child after 1 night stands etc.

Yes.

The UK.

In WW2 the Nazis tried to starve my country out by virtually blockading the Atlantic with U-boat 'wolfpacks'. Unfortunately for them we had invented RDF (radar), Asdic (sonar) & the programmable electronic computer, which decoded encrypted U-boat communications. Either way, a lot of Canadian & Commonwealth crews (together with later help from the United States) risked their lives &/or died to keep vast amounts of Canadian grain exports flowing & other produce so that we didn't starve. We were an industrialised first world country & our merchant navy was then the biggest in the world. Then as now we still rely on imports as we are not large enough as a country to feed our indigenous population.

The Third World is growing in population with a fantastic rapidity yet with no apparent ingenuity or innovation in resource or food production. Many are returning to obscurantist & fundamentalist governments who have a dismal view of education & technological progress. They are entering a new Dark Ages. The climate changes in the next few decades are going to exacerbate the situation until a critical mass in overpopulation & obscurantism will cause civilisation as we know it to collapse.

You obviously don't live in China or India. Call it 'killing', 'euthanasing', 'abortion' or whatever, the population is approaching a point of unsustainability. I also think that there are cultural patriarchal issues in many societies about educating women about birth control or allowing them to choose what to do with their own bodies.

This hasn't happened in parts of the Mid East, South America, the Indian Subcontinent, Indonesia or some other areas in the Pacific Rim.

There are over a billion Indians & counting. Most of the population live in terrible poverty & rely on large families for economical reasons, let alone cultural. I don't see them & many others in the Third World reaching any kind of 'base level of affluence' in the next fifty years. By then their population will almost certainly be around three billion.

Overpopulation is not a fear, it is an inevitability.

Off topic, admittedly, but you haven't lived until you've tried proper unpasteurised real ale like *Butty Bach from the Wye Valley.

*Welsh Gaelic for 'Little Friend'.



http://www.wyevalleybrewery.co.uk/beers/butty-bach.html

What do you mean? We've been overpopulated for a long time now

I think we are overpopulated, but using that as a justification for abortion isn't a great argument. And I'm all for abortion.

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Are you using the reflexive plural pronoun 'we' as in the 'Royal We', or are you referring to a particularly country?

It's probably not a great argument, but it is another aspect of the original question.

I'm referring to humans. On Earth, to be specific.

Oh, right.

Of course, it all depends on where you actually live on Earth in many ways.

Well heck, we've got lots of room here in good ol' 'Merica. Come on over. You can crash on our couch. That's right, America's Couch. Which I guess we normally call New Jersey.

Well, as long as you're doing something the world wants, you'll keep havin' food.


I have two thoughts:

1) There are, as you imply, government and cultural issues at play. But while I wouldn't bet on any one country getting its act together in the short-term, I'd bet on most of them doing so in the long-term. In fact, some of these problems, like those in Africa, specifically deal in people's disparate locations, which become less of a problem as population increases. There are lots of natural equilibrium points like this, for example: the very things that increase lifespans are the things that accompany economic growth.

2) I've been reading a bit about this, and I'm rather befuddled as to why everyone thinks climate change is going to make everything worse. That's not to say there won't be major adjustment and major problems, but we're also looking at potentially major increase in the amount of farmable, livable land. This is not to downplay what can go wrong, but there's no reason to think all the change will be negative. I have a link to a fascinating little blog post talking about this very thing that I can try to dig up if you're interested.

Aye, this ties into the above. But I think the cultural issues are cultural issues, and will be be solved culturally, not by encouraging abortion.

The key equation is that people create in addition to consuming. It's all well and good to wonder whether or not we might eventually have too many people to feed, but if your solution to this is to abort people, what happens when you abort the next Norman Borlaug? There's no reason to think this "solution" won't make the problem worse. We can't see those kinds of ends, which is why I think it's dangerous to take action based on such speculation.


Could you be more specific? Indonesia, for example, has very low population growth last I looked.

I don't see why. There's no immutable law of nature which says our birth rates will always be above replacement level. And I think we can agree that, when someone talks of overpopulation, they don't just mean eventually, they mean in the quasi-foreseeable future. One would not say we had an overpopulation problem (let alone advocate more abortions to stop it) if it were going to take, say, 800 years for it to become a significant issue.

New Joysey? There are only about 65 million of us, I reckon we could all probably fit in there.

We've just discovered new North Sea oilfields. I still reckon we should join OPEC. We only eat fish'n'chips & the occasional tindaloo anyway. We have plenty of spuds & are an island surrounded by fish. The French are convinced we live on roast beef, it's OK, we have plenty of cows. I believe they were a British invention, not unlike radio, TV, the jet engine, hovercraft, radar, computers, the World Wide Web & black pudding. Failing that we can just send out for pizza.


I believe you.

It will be too late in the long term. By the time they get their collective acts together the population of this planet will be around 20 billion at the least. Go & rent 'Soylent Green' on DVD. That film would be an almost optimistic view of what's coming.

I hope you're right. You won't be though. The upshot is that we can make wine in northern England now. The downshot is that as Europe heats up it will probably deflect the Gulf Stream which will probably induce a mini ice age, that & the torrential flooding from the ice caps melting should effectively destroy most of Western Europe's arable farmland & drown millions. Good times ahead eh?

I would encourage education about contraception, abortion & possibly aerial spraying of Agent Orange. The cultural issues won't change in cultures that believe that they either need massive families economically or believe that they have a divine right to overpopulate the planet. It's too late now anyway, it's even worse than any scenario envisaged by C.P. Snow.

You're just not getting this on any level are you? I don't even want to abort the next Norman Wisdom. Abortion isn't a solution to overpopulation it is a precaution. It's too late anyway, the planet is counting down for a population time bomb & the inevitable eventual complete breakdown in civilisation as we know it. We won't stop it, we may be able to delay it somewhat though. The plain fact of the matter is that many children born in the Third World die of disease or malnutrition anyway, I don't see what the moral problem is in letting a woman abort a foetus she doesn't want or can't support. This can apply to the advanced world equally. Either way, the Third World is already overpopulated, it is only going to get worse. The population has doubled over the past half century, it will almost certainly quadruple over the next 100 years.

And when was that? It has a population of approximately 237.6 million. Are you seriously telling me its population growth is going to be very low? Look again.

There's nothing 'quasi' about this.

You are in serious denial about this, it will not be an issue in 800 years time, it will be a major issue in 8 decades time or much sooner.

I've seen it, and it's actually something I'd cite on my end of things: it's a warning from decades ago that looks silly and alarmist now. As has every warning about overpopulation, ever. Malthus, Ehrlich, Heston.

And what makes you so certain these cultural issues are unchangeable? I see next to nothing in history that indicates this. There was no more Christian nation once upon a time than Britain, yet its births dropped below replacement level. This is the error of all people who warn against overpopulation: assuming that, while population rises, everything else stays static, be it culture or wealth or habits. They just do the people math and assume everything else stays the same. Well, no kidding: if the world changes and we don't react to it at all, sure, that'd be terrible for us. That goes for all change of any kind.

Which demonstrates...what? I'm not disputing any of these things.

I can't even really begin to answer your question as to why it's not okay to abort a fetus because many children in these places die young, anyway. If that's your position we're arguing from a fundamentally different set of assumptions. As I indicated before, it comes down to the humanity of the fetus. That's the discussion. And it assumes a mutual agreement about some level of sanctity of human life. If you don't share in that belief, then sure, you can justify mitigating the problem with all sorts of things.

It's 2011 estimated population growth rate is just over 1% and is joining the ranks of nations that have a below-replacement-level rate. It's fertility rate has been gradually dropping for decades.

The fact that you keep talking in nominal terms, rather than in terms of rates, is probably responsible for the disconnect here. The things I'm saying aren't contradicted by "but they have so many people!"

Please read this for a good overview of the long-term trends.

Oh, I'm sorry. The population has doubled on this planet in the past half century. I'm no mathematician but what do you reckon it will be in fifty years time going on that extrapolation?

Yes, women all over the Mid East & the Third World have equal rights to men & are all free & economically independent. Polygamy isn't practised in any Third World countries & all new governments that have recently been elected in that region are not fundamentalist in any way at all.

I dunno, just a hunch I reckon.

Was this before or after the Druids, the introduction of Roman Christianity, the Anglo-Saxon period, the Danelaw, the Norman Conquest or are you thinking of a chocolate box lid Victorian Britain that never actually existed?

Either way, the population has doubled in the UK in the last 100 years. We are highly overpopulated by the sheer definition that we can't actually feed ourselves without imports. Well unlike say Japan, at least we have hundreds of years left of coal. Well, that was if Thatcher hadn't destroyed the coalmining industry. Still, we are still surrounded by fish ... a bit like Japan.


I know exactly where you're coming from. I just think that the women that the foetus is actually residing in should have the say on what she does with it a certain time before it is born. It can do no harm to easing the population problem, just as education about contraception.

Yes, I get it. I'm Hitler.

Again, this is still an emotional issue with you. No one is denying that it isn't a human foetus.

Yes, I get it. I'm Hitler.

I don't believe it. Even if it's true it's probably just a statistical spike.

There are many countries who have low birth rates, sophistry aside, they are the minority First World as a whole. There are still about three & a half billion more people on the planet than there were in 1960. Is that nominal enough for you?

Ha ha, that's made my day! Like I'm going to believe anything published in The Economist.

Why so exactly?

(You think anonymous economist journos should only write in numbers?)

(Less facetiously, I'd say, altho the Econ has its publically stated 'free market always' slant, this is a topic on which their philosophies would have less play than others. And at least they source hard. All economists like to hit the source hard )

(Alright, I couldn't resist more facetiousness )

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The entire point is that you can't extrapolate from that. You're extrapolating the population without positing any sort of reaction to changing circumstances. This is precisely what Malthus did: he compared the growth of humanity to the growth of the insect population. His warnings stemmed from his failure to recognize that humanity thinks and adapts and has shown a consistent ability to change (and react to) its circumstances. But sure, if you ignore everything about humanity that makes it human, and you extrapolate trends as if were no more resourceful or responsive than insects, then it looks pretty bad. Thank God we're not like that, eh?

I didn't suggest that cultural problems don't exist, or will disappear overnight. I asked why you were so certain that culture is immutable.

Aren't you kind of making my argument for me by citing so many cultural shifts?

I'm not sure how any of this is meant to respond to what it's actually responding to. Also, it doesn't logically follow that a country that imports food is overpopulated, unless they actively choose to try to feed themselves, fail, and import it out of demonstrated necessity, rather than choice. We import a lot of cars here in America, but it's not because we're incapable of making them. It's because others do it better than us, and we do other things better than others. You might as well conclude that my trip to Burger King means I don't know how to cook.

No, you're not Hitler. I won't pretend to know what your views on life in general are, but I thought it best to head off the possibility that you regard it as fairly fungible and worth sacrificing for various greater goods.

But they are denying that it qualifies as an otherwise normal human. There's a difference between a "human fetus" and a fetus with "humanity." I suspect you know what I mean by this, and I don't think I've given you the slightest reason to think anything I'm saying is "emotional." Unless by emotional you mean anything other than purely survivalistic. If so, guilty as charged.

Why don't you believe it? And what reason do you have for thinking it's just a statistical spike? Also, how can something that happens over 30 years be a "spike"?

Could you be specific? What's the source for this?

No, because as I said, I'm saying you can't just make nominal arguments. Saying there are more people than their used to be in no way contradicts the counterargument that our birth rates are dropping. Nominal population growth is about what happened. Current birth rates are about what's happening and what will happen. Nobody's denying that population has increased dramatically; that's an entirely different issue from whether or not it will continue to.

So if it were published somewhere else, all those numbers would magically become true? Not trusting a source is a basis for being skeptical of specific claims and then investigating them, not of ignoring them outright.

But if you've just decided overpopulation is a huge problem and you're going to automatically disregard any evidence or citation to the contrary, then there's not a lot of point in continuing.

Like I say, like I'm going to believe anything written in The Economist? I'm not being facetious either.

I see that. I'm just wondering on what grounds

this is the most entertaining part of the thread

this argument right here

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Jeez Louise ... we've been through this. Obviously, being Hitler, I am ignoring everything that makes humanity human. It's just my nature I guess. I really can't see the Third World changing in the next few decades. Therefore I extrapolate the global population to at LEAST double in the next fifty years.

You are again claiming things that I have never actually stated. Culture is not immutable, but I don't see the Islamic world, for an example, changing any time soon. The same with the billion or so who live on the Indian Subcontinent. It would take decades at least & there is not much sign of it happening yet.

I doubt it.

So, you are saying that the UK isn't overpopulated? Where do you get this stuff from? We can't produce enough food indigenously to feed 65 million people. Is that overpopulated enough for you or do you want me to repeat it?

How do you know for certain?

I believe in reincarnation, that real ale is better than lager, that women should have the right to abort an unwanted foetus, which may have some positive effect on overpopulation in the Third World, & last but not least; that my country is overpopulated & the planet has doubled its population to seven billion human inhabitants in the past fifty years, principally in the Third World.

It's unborn & therefore never lived. The question you have to ask yourself is why you are so obsessed with what women do with their own bodies & the foetuses that may or not be in their own bodies. I know where you're coming from on this issue. AND it is an emotive point even if you choose to deny this.

I dunno, maybe I'm just truculent, stubborn & pig headed. If you are right & the 'information' is correct then it can't be a bad thing. It doesn't mean that it won't reverse in the future though.

I think that there is a political subtext to publishing figures like this. I have no idea if they are true or not, I just have difficulty believing them. Just because they claim this in The Economist doesn't prove that they are necessarily true. You still can't deny that the population has doubled in fifty years & most of that population growth has doubled in the Third World.

You haven't actually proved anything though have you? Your 'evidence' has not explained away the doubling in global population levels. Nor the fantastic growth of population in the undeveloped world. You know as well as I do that there are political reasons why utilitarian supporting publications make the claims that they do.