income inequality and abortion

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I take it from the lack of responses to the my previous post about practical ways to reduce the number of abortions that none of the people who want to restrict access to them actually care about reducing the number of abortions that occur. Do you simply want to enact laws that reflect your preferences but don't accomplish anything worthwhile, or what?

That's what will happen whether we want it to or not.

Make laws banning abortions, and women will find illegal abortionists.

Make abortions legal, and people will enact laws to restrict them.

It is not so much that the laws are ineffective, but that people will do what they want despite any laws to the contrary.

There were too many assumptions in your position. I would be interested to have that discussing with you but I am leaving tomorrow and I need to pack my bag.

The assumptions, as you call them, are based on data:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.html

Yes its sounds absolutely reasonable to me, that someone rather would like to stand for his own opinion, instead of trying to take others the right of their oppinion. So instead of wasting your time, by trying to convince us, to have no right of an oppinion of our own, having the same worth as yours, maybe you could start having some guts and make yourself responsible for your oppinion, by doing whatever democrately can be done to stand for your oppinion.

I'm an ER nurse. My mother was, too. She started her career in a large urban hospital in the early 1960s. She saw a lot of young women come in, severely injured, infected, bleeding, and sometimes dying from illegal abortions. The one thing she says the women had in common was, they would NEVER tell who did it to them, because even inept abortionists were worth protecting in a world where abortion was so hard to get.

I have only seen a handful of this type of case myself (I began my career in the mid-1980s), and it's been self-induced for the most part--the woman tried to abort herself with something. I've seen knitting needles and yes, a wire hanger. In most of the cases I've seen, the patient was either really young and afraid to tell her parents (usually because they were religious nutballs) or just too poor to pay for or get to a legal abortion facility (where I live, you have to travel an hour or two to get one).

We can argue all we want about whether a fetus is a living thing (in my opinion, life begins with the first breath--just like it says in the book of Genesis for you religious types). The fact is, the WOMAN is who matters in this situation. It's HER life that should be given prime consideration, and if she's not ready, willing, or able to be a mother, that settles the question for me. Maybe I come off as abrasive here, but if you'd seen the number of women who should NEVER have become mothers coming into my workplace with abused, neglected, starving children you might understand my passion on this subject a bit more.

Living in a country which still has laws against "destruction of an unborn child" which could lead to prison sentences, if anyone ever owned up to it, I can assure those of you who think its theoretical about the woman forced to carry a dying child to term, no it happens. That is what happens when religion and government are not separate. Dogma replaces common sense and compassion.

Another consideration concerning the child is that if the mother is some evil murderer by preference, then why do the anti-choice people think she ought to be raising children at all, never mind against her will?

Its quite a contradiction.

No-one should be accountable to the specifics of another's religion, just guided by a general common sense morality with the aim of improving the world, not bringing misery into it

Just a general question for the sake of my own curiosity:

For those of you opposed to abortion on the grounds that abortion is murdering a human life, but support abortion in cases of sexual assault, how do you reconcile those conflicting views?

There isn't any true reconciliation. In my view, ALL destruction of human life, even capital punishment, is wrong. Even self-defense. What's wrong with it is that it has to happen at all. The death penalty, for instance, by design allows justice to be served when one's debt to society is too great to be paid any other way than to forfeit his life. In other words, you can't put a price on a life, so for lex talionis to be equitably carried out, one must pay "life for a life."

(Incidentally, while lex talionis may be interpreted literally "eye for an eye," most people don't execute justice that way. The criminal is usually required to pay an equivalent monetary amount in addition to punitive damages of a percentage of that loss. In the New Testament Bible, apparently this was a familiar concept to the ancients. Jesus accused the Sadducees--strict literalists in legal application--of not even knowing the ancient scriptures, which do thoroughly detail proper application of the "eye for an eye" law, defining precisely what that means. "Eye for an eye" was NEVER intended to be taken literally, and ancient scripture explicitly states that life can only be repaid by life.)

Abortion is a sensitive issue. Let's take sexual assault, since you brought that up. I don't really think that abortion is right even under those circumstances. The reason why is you're putting an innocent baby to death based on the circumstances of its conception. It's not the baby's fault it was conceived through sexual assault and against the will of the mother. However, in the United States, we place a tremendous amount of value on personal freedom. For instance, the only way that abortion can be legally justified and not be significantly challenged in the court system is that the US Constitution is interpreted to guarantee women the right to do whatever they want with their own bodies and whatever is inside them. A human fetus is viewed inconsistently in terms of whether it is legally a person having equal rights on par with other legal persons. If someone purposefully injures you and you miscarry, it is sometimes possible to sue that person for damages or have him serve jail time. If a fetus wasn't ACTUALLY a person, whether or not recognized legally, there'd be no point. The only serious challenge facing abortion advocates is that while women have the right to whatever they want with their own bodies, they cannot do whatever they want with someone else's body. If the Constitution was interpreted THAT way, no abortion would EVER be legal.

As it stands, regarding sexual assault, women ALREADY have the right to choose whether or not they get pregnant, which is a risk they take when they engage in sexual activity. They tacitly permit a baby to grow in the womb when that happens. The "pro-choice" argument is absurd based on that fact alone. They can CHOOSE not to have a baby as long as they CHOOSE not to have sex. And the contraceptive argument fails, too, since there are known risks involved in using contraceptives. I've had a condom break before. The result of that will be 19 months old tomorrow (it's cool. I've got two other kids besides...the FIRST one was actually done on purpose. We actually like them). But at least with contraceptive use, you at least choose less risk than you would unprotected sex.

When sexual assault occurs, the rapist takes away the woman's right to choose. She didn't get a choice; the sex act was forced on her. Based on freedom of choice, the argument cannot be made that the woman had a choice if she actually DIDN'T have a choice. So it's difficult justifying taking away her access or right to an abortion in the eventuality of sexual assault.

The problem I have with allowing it in those circumstances is it's still taking a life. Remember, "life for a life." I would say that in the case of rape that an abortion COULD be allowed IF the rapist was charged with murder--or at the very least, some form of voluntary manslaughter. I say stick it to 'em and impale the mutha... But whatever... I don't have to like it, but in something as awful as rape, in which not only is a baby going to die, but if a girl brings the baby to term, she has to deal with the psychological trauma for as long as she raises that baby. It's unjust to force a girl to carry that baby to term. But it's also unjust to kill the innocent. So if you kill the baby, you gotta kill the rapist. It's only fair.

As it stands, we don't kill the rapist. I still support abortion in that instance, but I'd rather see something happen to the perpetrators over and above typical rape sentencing.

I also think if carrying a baby to term NECESSARILY imperils the woman's life, as in she WILL die if she delivers the baby, aborting constitutes self-defense. I don't LIKE it, either but I don't think it's right to require a woman to forfeit her own life against her will. If she's ok with dying for her baby, she's braver and nobler than I would be. If I had to choose between my wife and a baby, I'd choose my wife any time. And yes...been there, too. Our middle child was the result of a wild night after we ran out of condoms. There were problems with the pregnancy, and she was delivered via emergency C-section and was some 8 weeks premature. My wife wouldn't even consider terminating the pregnancy, and it's not like I didn't try to talk her into it. Ultimately, whether out of self-preservation, an act of mercy for a child that's either dead in the womb or won't survive to term, or to escape the ordeal of a lifetime with a rapist's mess, abortion is a matter of personal conscience. I can't claim to be TOTALLY against ANY ABORTION whatsoever based on that.

I CAN, however, oppose abortion under any and all other circumstances, especially when abortion is used as a method of birth control. "I had too many beers and got a little crazy" just doesn't cut it. Not wanting a baby because it will cramp your social life doesn't cut it, either. Hint: We have three kids, and I'm still able to play with my band, and my wife can spend weekends out of town with her friends. Kids can just be plain FUN if you let them be, whether you wanted them at first or not (hey, two of mine were unplanned and unwanted...and I LOVE 'EM!! !). Killing people because they merely inconvenience you is never an excuse to murder them. The same should apply to the unborn as well.

Personally, I agree with you on religion (I consider myself a religious person, but I have the same rights to practice religion as I choose as anyone else here). In a free society governed by the will of the people, religion WILL inform how laws are made simply because religious people have to be represented just as well as non-religious or anti-religious people. I don't know the specifics of your country, but an unfortunate reality is that if the majority wants theocratic rule, that is what you MUST deal with; otherwise you just need to get out of that country and find a home that affords you more liberty. I don't know your circumstances or that you even CAN do that, but, to be blunt, that's just the reality we live in.

Here's the thing: I don't think it's a contradiction at all. If the mother is some kind of evil murderer by preference, that means she has committed some crime. Let's suppose abortion IS illegal (for the sake of argument). If the mother cannot legally obtain an abortion and cannot or does not terminate pregnancy in any other way, then she has not committed murder to begin with and thus is not a murderer. So she could still raise the baby, even against her will, without pro-lifers being all that worried (based on your logic, that is).

If she succeeds in aborting a child, albeit illegally, then that makes her a murderer and she'd face the death penalty or a long prison sentence. She WON'T be raising a child, anyway, since the child is dead and she's incarcerated.

There's no contradiction. If she has the baby and doesn't kill it, she's not a murderer. If she kills the baby, she doesn't have a child to raise AND she's in prison for murder. The circumstances you're describing simply don't exist.

Where abortion is LEGAL, everything changes. Here, where abortions ARE legal, a woman could have an abortion and have other children if that's what she wants. It doesn't even MATTER what we pro-lifers think or want. I suppose I wouldn't want a murderer raising any kids. But not wanting murderers to raise kids by no means justifies more murder.

If I understand you correctly:
1. Abortion is murder (according to pro-lifers)
2. Women who have abortions commit murder
3. Pro-lifers do not want murderers to raise kids.
4. Pro-lifers should WANT women to have abortions so murderers won't raise kids.
5. Therefore, pro-lifers support murder (contradicting the pro-life position).

Is that about right?

Part of the problem is the naturalistic fallacy in #4.

Besides that, all one has to do is stop abortions to prevent women from becoming murderers in the first place. If a woman murders a child via abortion, she's not raising the child, anyway. Generally speaking, child welfare will often take children away from parents if the parents are perceived to be a threat. So if a woman wants to kill her child, assuming the child has already been born, and it is KNOWN that she wants to kill her child, one only need call the Department of Human Services/CPS to get that child taken away and placed in foster care. It's an anonymous phone call, and social workers investigate EVERY call (we had a former babysitter go NUTS on us when we switched babysitters...she'd make up a bunch of junk, call CPS, and have social workers on our doorstep every other week for about two months. Not fun). If you want to get rid of a kid, there are ways to do that without killing him. So your logic, as I understand it, fails.

Hope that helps!

inability to afford legitimate abortion providers is what made women vulnerable to that butcher in New York.

Ok, let's clarify, then. Do you think that abortion should be allowed in cases like that described in the OP link? That woman had an abortion out of compassion for her unborn fetus and for her own peace of mind, but was not in danger of suicide or insanity if she had been forced to carry a doomed fetus to term.

Sentience and sapience are not either/or propositions. They are gradients. So is the coming-into-existence of a person. We draw a hard, clear line when the zef is separated from the mother and is no longer dependent on her body for life support, but 'life' was there before the gametes that made that zef even fused; the line is there because, in the face of a progressively maturing neurology and the conflicting rights of an unambiguously personal human, it's the most obvious place to say that the life in question is independent and not a part of someone else. If the suffering of that theoretical child, doomed to suffer for three years and then die as a toddler (assuming that its illness allowed it to toddle), could be ended when that life was less sentient rather than more, isn't that a good thing? How much suffering does a being have to endure before you allow that the tiny shredded scraps of grace that remain no longer make the whole experience 'worth it'? Have you seen so little true pain in your life that you have no compassion for this kind of situation?


And again, I reiterate that we are not only having this discussion, we are specifically talking in this thread about the abortions of non-viable zefs. If you want to talk about elective abortions, go necro one of the other abortion threads.

I dont oppose abortion generally, as it is custom in my country, everyone desicions is only guilty for the person itself, and so I oppose to do abortion myself.

When it comes to things like rape, I am not religious so I dont press my finger on an 3000 year old written rhyme, blindly saying "We must obey this without thinking! We must obey this without thinking."

Abortion out of an rape is for me very comparable to abortion out of an medical reason to safe the mothers life. In my oppinion, if you have the possibility to safe an additional life, go for it. But if you are forced to decide between an already existing life of an person, who will be missed by many, and an life that is yet mostly unknown, the first mentioned life (the mother) has for me more impact.

I understand that the raping situation is handled by everyone else. Some might not be that hard affected by it, for others this can mean to endure major psychical problems, being drained into major depression and so on. A major depression IS by statistic a high risc for the life of a person, so suicide rates are about 30%. Thats simply already a rate, where a doctor compared to physical risc of an pregnancy, would tell you to abort out of medical reasons.

For me this is simply absolutely comparable, and its for me totally understandable, that this situation will be for many absolutely sh***y to deal with. So the "life for an life" situation, is for me existing.

As someone deciding for myself, that I dont want to do abortion or support it, I still would never force that oppinion on you. So if I dont even do so in an normal situation, why should I then do so when it comes to such burdening cases?


In your try to force your one oppinion blindly and lunatic on everyone you are no different to an blind and lunatic pro-lifer. There are simply situations, that feel different for people, and where there is simply no THE ONE AND ONLY RIGHT OPPINION. Its just like the drone attacks of military. Is a person killing an innocent person a murderer? Most people will have that opinion. Is a person killing an non-innocent person, and by accident by doing so as well killing an innocent person a murderer? And suddenly you are in an area where oppinions will broadly spread. Some will basically say yes, because anyone how many guilty person were killed, there still was an innocent person killed, which means for them murder. Others will start summing the life safed by killing the guilty person, vs. the innocent life destroyed by the attack, and even then wont have an oppinion, because for some it will be still feel like murder, even if they can agree by logic, that more life have been safed. For others it simply wont feel like murder anymore, because of more murdering prevented then being done. Just as there will be half a dozend other oppinions about it.

The general acceptance of an choice for all when it comes to abortion, is simply the agreement, that there is no ultimate right desicion about that topic, but that everyone must decide upon that topic for his personally, according to his feelings, simply because its the deciding person, that will have to life with the consequences of his decision and his own feelings toward it. Another persons personal feelings about that topic, wont help me, facing the consequences of my personal feelings.

Last edited by Schneekugel on 13 Nov 2013, 4:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

As written half a dozend times, no its not right.

1. Abortion feels FOR ME as murder IF I did it.
2. Women who have abortions, will regularly feel else about this, then me, and it wont feel like murder for them. That the feelings, specially in the early weeks of development where an fetus is nothing more then a cellball without nerves and painfeeling, can be totally different is for me acceptable.
3. I would not want someone to raise kids, that commits in his own oppinion murdering on purpose, without feeling guilty.
4. WHY should I want that? Because of you giving no cause for your that oppinion that comes from your mind, it is hardly understandable what you mean, and why you mean that?
5. Nope, as already written half a dozend times, I am not interested in personally doing or personally supporting myself something, that feels for personally for me as murder. If you think that I support murder by doing so, if I do not try instead to force my oppinion actively on others, by forcing them to obey my oppinion, and trying to tell them that they have no right on having their own oppinion about it, you are right. If not, you are wrong.

@LKL

We will have to take this up another time. Am going to be traveling for the next while.

I was asking for clarification regarding dizzywater's reasoning. I found what I believed to be a logical flaw, and I went on to explain what I saw as being wrong with it.

Your response strikes me as purely emotional and doesn't seem all that rational, so I don't care to pick a fight over it. The main problem is you seem to be committing the relativistic fallacy. In essence, you're saying that according to YOUR OPINION, abortion is wrong FOR YOU but may/may not be wrong for OTHER WOMEN. I could say right back that in MY opinion, abortion is wrong FOR EVERYONE, PERIOD. Relativistic arguments can be knocked down just about every time by one statement of an absolute, reason being that you and I both believe our respective positions are applicable to EVERYONE, not just ourselves. You may say that your opinion is "just your opinion," but you don't really mean that.

The biggest flaw here has to do with how we define murder. Legally defined, murder is generally considered to be any DELIBERATE, PREMEDITATED, UNJUSTIFIED act designed to bring about the death of another human being. Abortion fits all three criteria almost every time. It IS murder. Women only get away with it because there is a dispute regarding its justification (not to ignore the legal definition of a human being, but I think that's too ridiculous to even bother with). You can kill an armed robber on your own property at night if you have the means and opportunity to do so, and it's not considered murder by way of justification: self-defense. By the same token, SOME, but NOT ALL abortions could be justified in a similar kind of way. The dispute is not really whether ALL abortions should be banned--that would be grossly illogical. The dispute is really whether abortions are justified for ANY REASON or NO REASON at all. I have a huge moral issue with unrestricted abortion-on-demand, and in light of the value we place on other human beings it's strikingly hypocritical.