Just a thought on abortion

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666 wrote: Bland wrote:
On the other hand, if it has an appreciable brain (such as a cat), then most people consider it unethical to kill it.



Are you sure that I wrote that?

What I dont get is why we all of a suddenly consider it a human life once its outside the womb, it still needs other people for nourishment and stuff. And if your saying it could survive on other people nourishment besides its mothers, yes thats true but the same thing could be said for a baby in the third trimester (in most cases).

I've been thinking about a short story where a character (called "mother") meets up with her (adult) son, and concludes he is a failure.

Within the story, the "mother" character asks such questions as why it is OK to murder someone when their potential is (practically) unlimited, being the unborn state, however it is illegal as the person goes down towards the path of failure, regardless of how deeply the person had fallen.

The son arrives at a conclusion of his own:
"In the end, I really must thank you. While it is true that I am useless and a failure, I can always take comfort in that I am not like you. "



I suppose that the story was made because of my personal musings on when abortion becomes murder, and why it is lawful to take a life at one point in time, yet not another.

To address the original scenario-is it worse to kill or to maim ? I changed it to adult human in my mind, okay ? Moral question still applies, in part.
We might generally consider damaging a person to be less wrong than to kill person. In some cases we consider torture (end-of-life measures, or military interrogation) to be crueller than death. Depends on how one tries to measure relative suffering inflicted by either action/outcome.
Over time, that balance may shift-we think we know how we'd feel until it hits home, when faced w/crisis we don't react as predicted. After the fact, we may engage in revisionist history, glossing over the uncertainty & shading memory in way that helps us go on.
The abstract posed at start of topic is too general & too arbitrary, which is why I altered details in answering here.

I agree-I don't feel sentimentally attached to microscopic materials my body disposes of.

Belfast wrote: I don't feel

It really isn't a question of what we "feel". It's just a question of life; or more accurately terminating that life and when, how and who gets to make that decision.

I think you are reading too much meaning into Belfast's use of the word "feel". I think Belfast just meant:

"I am not sentimentally attached to microscopic materials my body disposes of."

The point being that it is ridiculous to become attached to some cells just because they are alive. If you think like that, then men are committing millions of murders every time they ejaculate sperm when masturbating. Sperm is alive. Oh no, all those poor spermies dying!! "Masturbation is murder!" Early-stage abortion is much the same situation: It is disposing of some cells, which is something that the body does every single day. The female body also releases ovum/egg cells regularly despite it being almost certainly a death sentence for those cells (unless the female becomes pregnant, but most of the time the ovum cells are released with the expectation that they will die).

I support women having the right to choose abortion. I believe that prior to significant development of a fetus, it is unethical to force a woman to continue with a pregnancy that she does not want. And I believe it is unethical to bring an unwanted child into the world. Yes, I believe that all these anti-abortionists are being unethical. Especially when you consider the situation of pregnancy via rape. Some anti-abortionists make exceptions for rape, but then that makes them hypocrites.

As a Christian, I can say that the opposition to abortion is that the unborn child is still a valued being. This is how God sees each of us, with immense intrinsic value and we have no right to selfishly end that life. If the child is the result of rape or incest, that does not chang this. Adoption would be that better choice if the mother is unable to care for the baby. The death penalty is an issue that many Christians have trouble with. I would consider that having the individual incarcerated for life would be sufficient, with the death penalty being used in the absolute worst cases. The difference between the two-abortion and the death penalty- are that one is the death of an innocent life and the other is a punishment of the justice system.

The value of an unborn child is 30 min. worth of energy used to f*#k. If A fetus is concived in rape, that rewards the rapist if it's born. Fetus's resulting from incest will likely have genetic damage and it is downright foolish to bring them to full term.


This is the sort of upside down morality that Modern christianity teaches.

First of all, what you assume that it was the intent of the rapist to produce a child, when the fact fo the matter is, rape is about control and forcibly dominating another. To say that an unborn child has 30 minutes of energy in value is downright frightening. I think that it is your morality that is upside down, as nowhere in Christianity will you find what you say is taught by it.

That is sick. You want to force a woman who has been raped to have the baby!! Sick. But it does not surpise me that you (a Christian) think this because the Christian bible has multiple passages that support the raping of women and girls. According to the Christian Bible, raping women is OK. And according to you, then forcing the raped woman to have the baby is also OK. That is very sick. Christians should be absolutely ashamed of their terrible ethics.

I literally feel sick when I read the writings of Christians because of their abominable screwed-up morality.

Just curious which passages would those be considering I believe the bible says that rapers shall be put to death. Emp if you were the child of a rape and every time your mom saw you she was reminded of the rape would you think it was okay to shoot you and she gets off???

Also Im just wondering you think that its wrong for babies with genetic damage to be brought to life as in from incest because they have the genetic damage, but does that also mean its wrong for down syndrome babies to be brought to life or fragile-X babies to be brought to life, just wondering because its estimated that in a few more years they will be able to tell if a childs going to be autistic before they are born and some will consider us genetically damaged :-/.

See the following thread for an example of a bible quote that mentions killing babies and raping girls in a positive light:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/asperger.htm ... ic&t=12930


Ofcourse not. Why do you even need to ask this? Your question is entirely irrelevant to this topic because everyone already agrees that shooting people is wrong and to state the frickin' obvious, shooting is not abortion. We are arguing about the morality of abortion, not the morality of shooting people.



It is unethical to force a woman to continue with an incest pregnancy, or a downs syndrome pregnancy.
Re fragile-X, I do not know what that is.
Re autism, it depends on the particular situation because some autistic people are severely disabled, while others are fine. So hopefully tests will be able to distinguish. But this is a separate issue that is only indirectly related to abortion. I believe there is another thread where this topic has been discussed.

I feel sorry for you. All your attacks on Christianity have been to a straw-man representation that you have constructed and and in absolutely no way reflecting the beliefs of Christians. I have noticed that you do tend to take things very literally, which I have a problem with as well , but there are passages in the Bible that are metaphors and figurative that need to be read that way.

But you say that women should be allowed to have abortions if they are raped and its sick not to think so, thus destingishing between a fetus from rape and a fetus from consentual sex. Take this out farther and there would be a difference between a child from rape and a child from consentual sex. So if its better to end the pregnancy caused by a rape because its tourturous to the womon to keep the baby shouldnt it also be the same to keep the child???

Oh and fragile-X is the leading known cause of autism (most cases are unknown) and the second leading cause of mental retardations (only to downs.)

I never said that it was the intent (although sometimes it is) of the rapist to impregnate the woman. I spent 6 months in Bosnia. I saw firsthand, women who were raped and then forced to have the children of their captors.

My statement that an unborn fetus is only worth the energy it took to create it, has enough evidence to stand on its own. As frightening as you may think it is.

All good morality descends from practical concerns. I CAN find versions of christianity that teach that infanticide is moral. BET me on that one!!

Scrapheap wrote: My statement that an unborn fetus is only worth the energy it took to create it, has enough evidence to stand on its own. As frightening as you may think it is.


Who has made you the judge of what a developing human being is worth, irregardless of how the conception occurred? If we cannot judge who lives or dies in the case of the death penalty, then why should we do so in the case of an innocent? Maybe you are indifferent to babies or life in general but that doesn't give you the right to say that unborn humans don't derserve to live in certain situations. What happens when people don't value human life and decide to be the judge of who is worth to live and who is not? Can anyone think of any examples? I know I can; the word Holocaust comes to mind. And why do nonChristians insist on turning this into a religious argument? Hmmmm, I wonder.