If a girl is raped and pregnant, should she keep the baby?

Page 69 of 94 [ 1500 posts ] Go to page Previous 1 ... 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72 ... 94 Next

Previous topic | Next topic

visagrunt
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 16 Oct 2009
Age: 59
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,118
Location: Vancouver, BC

27 Sep 2011, 5:04 pm

ruveyn wrote:

visagrunt wrote:

A foetus is a human being, with functioning organs. I will accept that unqualified statement.

And not enough neural mass to be a person. That takes time and brain growth.

ruveyn

I said, "unqualified statement," and I meant it. I also said, "whether or not [that human being] is a legal person," and I meant that to.

I will wholly and unrservedly acknowledge that my position involves the extinguishment of a human life. Period. End of Statement.

And in the fact of that acknowledgement, I still support a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy.

So enough.

_________________
--James

TwistedReflection
Pileated woodpecker

Joined: 21 Sep 2011
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 180
Location: At the End of Everything

27 Sep 2011, 8:15 pm

Doesn't this question already have an answer? I assume that given that the question is being posed at all that we are to believe that she has the right to choose? If so, then she is free to do with the child as she wishes, regardless of the opinions of others. If this question is a thinly veiled attempt to read into what I would do in her situation, then I might either abort the pregnancy and think nothing of it, or allow social services to take the child instead in the event of a crisis of conscience.

AngelRho
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Jan 2008
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,366
Location: The Landmass between N.O. and Mobile

27 Sep 2011, 8:20 pm

visagrunt wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

visagrunt wrote:

A foetus is a human being, with functioning organs. I will accept that unqualified statement.

And not enough neural mass to be a person. That takes time and brain growth.

ruveyn

I'll actually partially agree with you--the only difference is that termination of pregnancy as a last resort rather than first resort and only if the life of the woman really is in danger.

And I do not believe that termination in cases of rape and incest puts any guilt on the mother. And I think its a personal decision, but ONLY in those cases of rape/incest or the inevitable death of the mother.

Nice try at ending the conversation, but I suspect few will be so willing to leave it alone.

Or...

IN BEFORE THE LOCK!! !! :twisted:

AngelRho
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Jan 2008
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,366
Location: The Landmass between N.O. and Mobile

27 Sep 2011, 8:36 pm

Vexcalibur wrote:

Inuyasha wrote:

Actually, I'm going to be perfectly blunt and point out that your side and my side really have no clue when consciousness is possible,

We don't know when consciousness begins precisely, but we can make bounds. I can estimate that for most people, you can be 100% certain that there is such after birth. It is also possible to find dates before birth in which you can be 100% certain that consciousness is impossible. For example, it is unlikely that consciousness begins at conception as four cells a brain do not make.

All during the thread, we have come up with a perfectly reasonable threshold. 26-ish weeks, when the brain is actually getting plugged to senses. Before the senses are plugged to the brain it is really non-sense to think of consciousness as there is no stimuli to it, and at that point it doesn't matter if the brain is magical and can reconfigure itself, because there are still no senses. So we can be pretty safe with 26 weeks. But we are so very kind, that we are only asking for abortion to be legal until the 9-th or 10-th week. That gives us at least 16 weeks of margin of error.

I was going to make this response to someone else, but I'm glad I waited. You've expressed some of the things I've worried about.

The problem I'm thinking about is that even though stem cells can turn into whatever, they do seem to exhibit their own form of consciousness, which in my mind makes it difficult to justify the beginnings of consciousness at a certain point in brain development. Single-cell organisms also respond to stimuli. So they do exhibit the same kind of self-awareness that complex organisms like animals and humans do (I'm not denying that humans are unique, but from a strictly naturalist POV there's no difference). This means that the cell's consciousness exists only on the cellular level, but at that point at least the cells know all they need to know to take the next steps in development.

Lecks
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 11 May 2009
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,987
Location: Belgium

27 Sep 2011, 9:14 pm

AngelRho wrote:

response to stimuli = self-awareness

Would you care to explain? I don't follow.

_________________
Chances are, if you're offended by something I said, it was an attempt at humour.

AngelRho
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Jan 2008
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,366
Location: The Landmass between N.O. and Mobile

27 Sep 2011, 9:58 pm

Lecks wrote:

AngelRho wrote:

response to stimuli = self-awareness

Would you care to explain? I don't follow.

I was responding to someone else. Vexcalibur said that it's non-sense to think of consciousness as there is no stimuli to it. If that's what we're using as the basis for consciousness, then you have to accept that single cells are conscious because they do respond to stimuli--no brain needed. But cells are themselves complex. Mitochondria have their own DNA, for instance, not to mention the various specialized functions other various organelles carry out. A single cell is complex not unlike a whole human body which has specialized organs to carry out vital functions. Who's to say that part of cellular function doesn't include some kind of sensory role and maybe even a degree of "thinking," if you can call it that?

Beauty_pact
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 14 Oct 2010
Age: 145
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,314
Location: Svíþjoð

28 Sep 2011, 12:15 am

It's almost hard to believe that a topic like this even is discussed - even when it only is about abortion and not abortion after rape. About something to which the brain is not even connected, and *even* a blob of cells. Out in the world we have gang rapings, genocide, war, massacres, Syria-like prison torture, critical environmental pollution and countless other horrendous things to think about, yet it seems as if this is the most important thing ever, to some... non-sentient beings and blobs of cells. Why don't you join some charity and try to help *actual* people, instead? But no, instead, stem cell research even should be stopped... research that helps *real* people. Maybe you'd change your mind if your best friend, sister, brother, son or daughter would need that research, though.

I notice that my questions from before are being ignored, by the way.

Inuyasha
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 12 Jan 2009
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,745

28 Sep 2011, 12:47 am

Beauty_pact wrote:

Actually, this is something that needs to be discussed because it reflects on our core values.

Also, about stem cell research, they don't need embryonic stem cells for medical miracles they can get stem cells from the adult needing the treatment, and there would be no chance of a rejection, because it is the person's own cells.

Vexcalibur
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 17 Jan 2008
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,398

28 Sep 2011, 1:01 am

Inuyasha wrote:

The 26 weeks doesn't fly because there are signs of voluntary movement well before that.

You got to stop getting your medical facts from anti-abortion propaganda sites.

No sensorial input = No functional brain = highly unlikely to be a person.

Call it a game if you'd like and get completely self-rightous about we playing this "game". No one is going to remember your self-righteousness about playing games with life the next time you ask for the termination of welfare.

_________________
.

aspi-rant
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 3 Sep 2008
Age: 64
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,448
Location: denmark

28 Sep 2011, 1:13 am

it must be wonderful to be a child of such a rape…

you are purely the product of violence and disrespect.

nobody really wanted you.

but you came into being because of some moral rules and issues launched by people who don’t even know you. people that questioned abortion, and at what point a zygote becomes a real human and is alive. mostly in the name of god. to prevent murder. and that your mother was one of them...

it must be nice to know that your mother will remember the rape and your rapist father, every now and then she looks at you…

my guess is that most children in that situation will be wondering why….

proxybear
Snowy Owl

Joined: 28 Apr 2011
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 163

28 Sep 2011, 1:22 am

The girl should be able to do whatever she wants within the law of course, that is having the abortion early enough in a clinic.

Why would anyone force her to carry a baby she never intended to have with a man she detests, that's just cruel. And if anyone would think so they are pure evil or have no idea how other human beings feel. Even me with my bad sense of how other people feel could even understand such a thing.

If she wants to keep the child then fine. If she doesn't that's also fine.

If she didn't get raped, but got pregnant by mistake then she should also be able to have an abortion, simply because it's her body and her choice. That's to say that having lots of abortion might not be that ethical considering we do have protection available, but should still be legal.

I don't really feel bad for the "yet to be a baby" she is carrying in her stomach either seeing as he was never meant to be and would have been "aborted" anyway if a condom was used.

Last edited by proxybear on 28 Sep 2011, 1:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

Inuyasha
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 12 Jan 2009
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,745

28 Sep 2011, 1:28 am

aspi-rant wrote:

So you're saying it's a mercy to be stabbed in the head?!??!

Heck what if the kid doesn't even look like like their father?

What crime did the child commit?

JakobVirgil
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Feb 2011
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,744
Location: yes

28 Sep 2011, 1:52 am

Inuyasha wrote:

aspi-rant wrote:

So you're saying it's a mercy to be stabbed in the head?!??!

Heck what if the kid doesn't even look like like their father?

What crime did the child commit?

What is committing rape has a genetic component? (It seems to in pongo<Orangutans>)

_________________
?We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots??

http://jakobvirgil.blogspot.com/

mechanicalgirl39
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 6 Apr 2009
Age: 36
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,340

28 Sep 2011, 6:10 am

*sigh* More 'it's a person, it is it is it is' bleating.

None of it evidential, all of it wildly theoretical. Anencephaly referred to as a 'hardware crash'...

Boring. If I were to find out tomorrow, in a peer reviewed study, that fetuses are conscious at 2 days gestation...yeah, you know what, I'll maybe spare it a thought before aborting it.

And even if it were. No one gets to use my body against my will. No one.

_________________
'You're so cold, but you feel alive
Lay your hands on me, one last time' (Breaking Benjamin)

AngelRho
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Jan 2008
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,366
Location: The Landmass between N.O. and Mobile

28 Sep 2011, 6:16 am

JakobVirgil wrote:

Inuyasha wrote:

aspi-rant wrote:

So you're saying it's a mercy to be stabbed in the head?!??!

Heck what if the kid doesn't even look like like their father?

What crime did the child commit?

What is committing rape has a genetic component? (It seems to in pongo<Orangutans>)

Be careful here. By that ethic there should be mandatory sterilization of the children of murderers.

Vexcalibur
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 17 Jan 2008
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,398

28 Sep 2011, 10:19 am

Inuyasha wrote:

So you're saying it's a mercy to be stabbed in the head?!??!

Heck what if the kid doesn't even look like like their father?

What crime did the child commit?

We are talking about forcing non-people to become people for no reason. I think the cruelest punishment of all is forcing a fetus to become a child that is the product of rape and is not wanted. That is suffering that could be easily avoided by admitting that people have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies.

_________________
.

Page 69 of 94 [ 1500 posts ] Go to page Previous 1 ... 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72 ... 94 Next

Jump to:

If a girl is raped and pregnant, should she keep the baby? Post Reply New Topic

If a girl is raped and pregnant, should she keep the baby?