Just a thought on abortion

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I see nobody has directly responded to my hypothetical besides emp (who also has the coolest avatar on the site)

I understand that. It's up to you to explain what moral rules have changed to justify one but not the other.

Seigneur -- In one situation, you are maiming a fetus and then supporting it to develop into a child then adult. This is causing unnecessary cruetly. Cruetly for no reason at all!

In the other situation, you are withdrawing support for the development of the fetus. Even if you consider this to be cruelty (I do not), at least there is a reason for it.

The 2 scenarios have little relation to each other. To take it to an extreme, the hypothetical question was like saying, "Drink driving is illegal, but abortion is not, explain this inconsistency." They are very different matters (one involves developing a fetus into a child, the other involves the opposite), therefore the ethics of one cannot be automatically applied to the other.

Thanx for the compliment re my choice of avatar

I think abortion is nessecary, but it is still sad that it is needed. The only thing I can think of nothing more traumatic than having to make a choice about that, is not being given the option to make that choice. Also, for all the republican pro-lifers who claim to value the sancitity of human life, they support war, they support the death penalty, they support less gun control, they support not advocating birth control, and on top of it they support cutting public programs that would help these mothers if they do keep the babies. I can't think of a more hypocritical situation. Also if you look up the statistics on how many women in their lifetime will have one, it is too many to only be the democrats, so there is more hypocrisy, and you can bet if some republican congressmans 16 year old daughter got preganant by the gardener, they would end the pregnancy….

I fail to see why people always turn the abortion issue into a religious debate. It is not right to kill a child. An unborn fetus is a human child. The stupid excuse about the fetus not being able to survive on its own is like saying that any child that could not maintain life on his/her own without the assistance of a caregiver can still be killed by the mother's decree.
Why would anyone be against the death penalty but for abortion? Why let the criminal live and kill the innocent? Doesn't anyone here think that as backwards? From conception, a new human has begun. That human should have the same rights as you and I. Just because that human is not fully developed does not make them less human. A new and distinct being is not an appendage of the mother to be removed.
Also, unless I understood it incorrectly, it sounds as if some of you insinuated that women who are getting abortions are criminal somehow and it's a good thing that they are not successfully reproducing. What's that about?

I disagree. A fetus IS less human or non-human, and it does not deserve rights until it passes a certain point.

Humans kill things, that is an unavoidable fact. They kill mammals and eat them. They kill fish/seafood and eat them. They kill insects such as cockroaches, flies, spiders, etc. They kill living bacteria by the millions. They kill dust mites by the millions. They kill plants. It is impossible for humans to live without killing things. The human body even kills its own cells, millions of them, all the time.

What determines whether it is OK for a human to kill something? It depends on how advanced or developed or intelligent the thing is. If it has no brain (such as a plant or bacteria), then we think nothing of killing it. Or if it has a negligible brain (such as cockroaches), again most people are willing to kill it. On the other hand, if it has an appreciable brain (such as a cat), then most people consider it unethical to kill it.

The same standard can be applied to a fetus: It has no brain of any significance, therefore killing it is no big deal. However, the more the fetus develops, the more difficult it is to justify killing it. Therefore the debate should be about WHEN it is no longer ethical to kill a fetus, not IF. If I was a woman and having an abortion, I would want to have it as soon as possible to make it as ethical as possible.

Personally, I think it is immoral to bring an unwanted/accidental child into the world. A child should only be brought into the world when the parents make a CHOICE to do so.

I also think that women who have been raped absolutely must be given the option to have an abortion. And if they can have an abortion, then it is OK for everyone else too. If you can kill a fetus because of a rape, then you can kill it for other reasons too.

Yes, did read Freakonomics, it was quite thought-provoking. Am fervently pro-choice, yet I'm anti-death penalty. Execution is posited as punishment for a crime that person may or may not be guilty of. Once person is executed, it's too late to say whoops we goofed in administering justice. Abortion is not like that. I see it as the woman's inherent natural right to regulate the conditions within her own body. Don't believe in religion and dislike children, so I'm in the minority already.

Here is a reality about abortion....

Google search "Norma Mccorvey". She is Jane Roe from Roe vs Wade, and now PRO LIFE!

Jane Roe is a fictitious person, and the abortion never happened.

She reversed her pro-abortion stance on a live prime time liberal news station, and they immediately cut her off, kicking her out of the building. You never heard anything about it? READ HER BOOK!

Personally I'm pro-death penalty, but your point is quite valid.

Using that standard, there's a lot of fetus's walking around that need to be aborted. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I'm sorry emp, I just could'nt resist.

emp wrote: What determines whether it is OK for a human to kill something? It depends on how advanced or developed or intelligent the thing is.

Who determines this? You? Me? The almighty government? Doctors? Parents? How intelligent or advanced is enough to guarantee you some rights? Should people afflicted Down Syndrome or Autism spectrum disorders be killed? You use a very cold and frightening (and incorrect) logic about something very important and fundamental; the right to live.

Doctor: Ahh, darn, another Asperger Baby. There's still time to do away with it, Miss. He's only partially delivered.

Christians have to obey the will of God.

This is why they cannot abort a child:

Exd 4:11 "Who makes mouths?" the Lord asked him. "Who makes people so they can speak or not speak, hear or not hear, see or not see? Is it not I, the Lord?

In other words, whatever your "defects" it was God's intention that you have them. The reason for this is that He makes plans for all of us and appoints some people specifically for His purposes:

Jer 1:4 The Lord gave me a message. He said,

Jer 1:5 "I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesman to the world."

When you abort a child, you risk aborting someone who God may have designed for a purpose. You also risk damning yourself for interfering in God's plans. Also, you make yourself appear selfish in God's eyes since you would rather put your wants and needs before His.

Contraception interferes with God's plans. To use an earlier quote:

Jer 1:4 The Lord gave me a message. He said,

Jer 1:5 "I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesman to the world."

When you prevent a child from being conceived, you risk preventing someone who God may have designed for a purpose from being created. You also risk damning yourself for interfering in God's plans. Also, you make yourself appear selfish in God's eyes since you would rather put your wants and needs before His.

Aside from that, abstinance is easy. I see people who give in to sexual temptation as extremely weak. Surely people can be in control of their own minds and bodies, and if they are not, should they be having sex at all? I mean, if you aren't mature enough to control your own passions, are you truly mature enough to deal with the consequences of sex, such as STDs, HIV, and pregnancy?



This view reflects the current status of medical advancement. Even as little as 35 years ago, "somewhere around 23 weeks" would harldy have been possible.

What will it be in another 35 years? If the answer is "one second" is it then permissible to say that abortion is murder just as killing a born child is murder?

By your view, we should watch the advancement of medical science and say "no abortion after 23 weeks", and if it advances further "no abortion after 22 weeks" and so on.

I find it very sad that society should base the delineation between abortion and murder on the vagarities of medical scientific progress.

Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is good
Every sperm is needed
In your Neighborhood!

Every sperm is usefull
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted,
god gets quite irate!

Let the heathen spill them
upon the dusty ground
god shall make them search for
each sperm that can't be found!

The average male produces about a bathtub full of sperm in his life. Just think of all the murders you are commiting each time you jerk one off!! !

It has nothing to do with how appreciable an animal's brain is. People kill rats all the time, and rats are smarter than cats.

Didymus wrote: I find it very sad that society should base the delineation between abortion and murder on the vagarities of medical scientific progress.


I agree. If we, as a society, are going to dismiss innocent human life like so much garbage, then we should all live in fear. We will never know when our number is up; especially if you become sick or incapacitated in some way or are not deemed "credible" enough to live.