Is it a right to abort

Page 4 of 9 [ 131 posts ] Go to page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ... 9 Next

Previous topic | Next topic

greenblue
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Age: 50
Gender: Male
Posts: 7,896
Location: Home

09 Sep 2008, 5:08 pm

slowmutant wrote:

Life need not be self-aware to be life.

No need to be self-aware to want to be alive or to be dead.
Life is life, that is obvious. Self-awareness would be the real issue here.

Life is a curse, you might want to stop it before is too late.

_________________
?Everything is perfect in the universe - even your desire to improve it.?

Phagocyte
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,757

09 Sep 2008, 5:56 pm

slowmutant wrote:

Life need not be self-aware to be life. Your words anger me.

Let's remember that "life" and "sentient life" are two different things. A plant is a living things, but it's not sentient; that's why the abortion issue isn't black and white, regardless of how much people on both sides of the fence may want it to be.

_________________
Un-ban Chever! Viva La Revolucion!

iamnotaparakeet
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 25,091
Location: 0.5 Galactic radius

09 Sep 2008, 5:59 pm

I don't think life is made valuable merely due to sentience and isn't taken away due to the lack thereof, temporary or permanent. I love my birds, and they are extremely intelligent, but I don't value their lives over human lives, even that of my step-dad.

Phagocyte
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,757

09 Sep 2008, 6:04 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

I completely agree with you, but that's my point: Many pro-life people believe that an embryo qualifies as a human life as soon as the sperm meets the egg, when there are obviously no neurons formed to give even the slightest hint of any sort of intelligence, sentient or not.

So, from my secular stance, being that I condone non-sentient killing all the time (I eat meat among other things), I would have to see that a life is sentient before it has the same legal rights as a human being. This is why abortion is such an excitingly ambiguous issue.

_________________
Un-ban Chever! Viva La Revolucion!

pandd
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Jul 2006
Age: 53
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,430

09 Sep 2008, 6:57 pm

I think Orwell hit the proverbial nail on the head.

Different starting points with different axioms results in very different answers. My starting point in any discussion about 'rights' includes my beliefs about what rights are, what rights should be and how rights work; arguments that are contrary to those beliefs cannot succeed in convincing me of anything, unless and until my beliefs about rights are altered (so that the two are no longer mutually contrary).

It seems reasonable to assume that anyone arguing about anything, brings wider/general beliefs to the argument. In the case of abortion, I suspect that these wider/general beliefs (as are materially relevant to the issue) may be numerous, very strongly held, and often irreconcilable with the axioms of those who have opposing views.

chever
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Aug 2008
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,291
Location: Earth

10 Sep 2008, 12:26 am

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

_________________
"You can take me, but you cannot take my bunghole! For I have no bunghole! I am the Great Cornholio!"

crackedpleasures
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 Oct 2007
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,367
Location: currently Belgium, longing for the Middle East

10 Sep 2008, 7:25 am

slowmutant wrote:

Life need not be self-aware to be life. Your words anger me.

Are you vegetarian? If not, then your theory is completely void in my opinion.

And as I said, in my opinion life starts at birth. Not a second earlier. Abortion is not terminating a life, the life hasnt even started yet. Therefor I cannot classify it as murder. To force a woman to have a child for the rest of her life which she didnt want, may not terminate her life but it will ruin it, abortion can avoid this without having to terminate any fully developed life.

_________________
Do what Thou wilt shal be the whole of the Law.
Love is the Law, Love under Will. And...
every man and every woman is a star
(excerpt from The Book of the Law - Aleister Crowley)

"Od lo avda tikvateinu" (excerpt from the Israeli hymn)

monty
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Sep 2007
Age: 65
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,741

10 Sep 2008, 7:26 am

"Life is life"
"Life need not be self aware to be life"

... these are obvious and tautological. The real question: "Are there differences between different forms and conditions of life?"

Obviously, one distinguishes between human and non-human life.

Typically, one values one's own life more than the lives of others. We will spend thousands on medical bills (or luxuries) for ourselves, but are reluctant to part with a few dollars that might save the lives of several other people.

Ask the average American how many people have died in the Iraq war, and they will say between 3000 and 4000, discounting the lives of non-American citizens.

Trillions of human sperm die each day - is that a tragic loss of life? What about the removal of suspect skin growths, which may be cancerous, but which could also be normal parts of your organism.

What is it that defines the line between precious life and non-precious life??

slowmutant
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 Feb 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,430
Location: Ontario, Canada

10 Sep 2008, 7:30 am

crackedpleasures wrote:

slowmutant wrote:

Life need not be self-aware to be life. Your words anger me.

You've heard of adoption, have you? And what about all those desperate couples who try but are unable to conceive? Instead of destroying the child, give it to them, yeah? It's for this reason and others that we need governments who care about social programs and make them a priority.

Not a veggie, btw.

crackedpleasures
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 Oct 2007
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,367
Location: currently Belgium, longing for the Middle East

10 Sep 2008, 7:35 am

slowmutant wrote:

crackedpleasures wrote:

slowmutant wrote:

Life need not be self-aware to be life. Your words anger me.

Adoption is an ersatz option. The mother still knows the child is around somewhere, even when not within her reach. Do you think this will just make her feel comfortable that there is a distance? The child is around somewhere, she knows that, the pain is still there. Aborting will reduce the pain a lot compared to adoption.

And if you think life is sacred: fair enough but then I dont understand how you can not be a veggie (I am vegetarian myself by the way). Is murdering an innocent pork or cow OK, while aborting a child not even past embryo status is wrong?? The one is a developped life, the other is a life not even started...

slowmutant
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 Feb 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,430
Location: Ontario, Canada

10 Sep 2008, 7:42 am

I'd say that adoption is giving the kid more of a chance for a good life than abortion. Adoption is a chance at a good life, if mothers who abort do so for fear of giving the kid a bad life. And if the mother still doesn't feel redeemed after helping build another family with the wretched spawn of her rapist, she can always hunt the kid down and strangle it in its adoptive home, while everyone sleeps.

[/sarcasm]

crackedpleasures
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 Oct 2007
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,367
Location: currently Belgium, longing for the Middle East

10 Sep 2008, 7:51 am

slowmutant wrote:

If I were conceiver of a kid I didnt want, I would still feel haunted even when the mother promises me she will never let the kid contact me at all. You know the kid exists, even if you dont know its whereabouts. So for a mother who didnt want the kid, the knowledge of its existance will always remind her of the tragic event that led to the conception.

Also, you say adoption gives the kid a chance of a good home while abortion doesnt. True, but the child isnt born yet, life did not commence yet. In this case I think to give the woman a good life is priority over the future of an unborn. I would merely want to assure the woman can pick up normal life again rather than having a child somewhere on the planet that will always remember her of her rape.

slowmutant
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 Feb 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,430
Location: Ontario, Canada

10 Sep 2008, 8:01 am

crackedpleasures wrote:

slowmutant wrote:

How selfish would you have to be ...

slowmutant
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 Feb 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,430
Location: Ontario, Canada

10 Sep 2008, 8:02 am

As a Christian I will always champion human rights and the rights of the unborn.

monty
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Sep 2007
Age: 65
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,741

10 Sep 2008, 8:04 am

slowmutant wrote:

I'd say that adoption is giving the kid more of a chance for a good life than abortion. Adoption is a chance at a good life, if mothers who abort do so for fear of giving the kid a bad life.

Ok, sarcasm aside, doesn't this 'pro-life' attitude that the victims of rape should carry the child and then adopt it out to a nice family provide a good incentive for rape? I've heard people say that sex is a most holy act, yet rape is the complete opposite.

And how can you look to the Bible for guidance on issues of rape and abortion?

Quote:

23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

25 But if out in the country a man happens to meet a girl pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26 Do nothing to the girl; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders his neighbor, 27 for the man found the girl out in the country, and though the betrothed girl screamed, there was no one to rescue her.

28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. [c] He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

Deuteronomy 22:23-29 (New International Version)

So the Bible says that women who are raped in a town should be executed because they did not cry out? I don't see any exception for pregnant victims of rape - killing the woman would kill the child - this is 'purging the evil among you' is it not? Killing adulterers and victims of rape includes a mandate FOR abortion but is far more brutal than abortion.

Unmarried virgins who are raped are supposed to marry their rapist? Sorry, that simply makes no sense today. Maybe it was progressive in the 7th century B.C., but women were treated as chattel back then.

Last edited by monty on 10 Sep 2008, 8:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

slowmutant
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 Feb 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,430
Location: Ontario, Canada

10 Sep 2008, 8:12 am

You know, I wasn't even thinking of chapter & verse here. Not that killing the rape-victim is any bettre than aborting the living result of that unlawful union. No, in fact it would be worse. It makes me crazy when I hear of this happening under Sharia law. It makes me crazy when I hear of rape-victims killed or persecuted for the crime of being raped. Some law, huh?

Page 4 of 9 [ 131 posts ] Go to page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ... 9 Next

Jump to:

Is it a right to abort Post Reply New Topic

Is it a right to abort