Abortion

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That was why I said "an immediately accessible example." Still following completely peripheral arguments: Should we kill the children in the orphanages, the children who have no hope of any kind of normal, pain-free, happy life?

((And let me say one more time: Peripheral argument.))

Some people would argue that it is cruel to let poor ignorant people that treat children as accesories have children. I know people that were brought up in nuring homes yet enjoy life. If you are talking about complete vegetables then i agree that abortion is probably the lesser of two evils but id like to know your definition of when a baby is deformed enough that it doesnt deserve a chance to live?

perhaps of concern:

More Abortions Than Births in Russia — Health Official
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/08/23/ ... lems.shtml

perhaps not

LOL. There are plenty of rich snobs who regard children as acessories or status symbols.... Treating kids as objects is not class specific. (Just look at the way autie children are treated across the board....)


They lived in a nursing home their whole life? I personally would not want to condemn my child to that. I'm not saying such people don't deserve life...but I would feel deeply guilty about doing that to one of mine.



I am not saying that anyone doesn't deserve a chance to live. That isn't the issue here. I do not approve of euthanasia except when it is the express and emphatic wish of the person and they have a damned good reason for wanting it so. But examples of where I personally would far rather abort than to have the kids would be: anencephaly (most are born dead or die right away, no brain, only fluid and a face), Tay Sachs, and other fairly lethal conditions where the kid is almost certain to die in childhood or at birth anyway. I also might consider it in the case of Down's syndrome if accompanied by serious heart or other defects *and* I could not find adoptive parents for the child. These are the choices I would make, and they might be different were it not for the fact that I already have 5 children to worry about. I mean, if I were 40 years old and well off, and didn't have any kids at all, then a Down's baby would probably be fine. As it is, it would be a terrible struggle for me right now.

Being that I was adopted,

I wonder if my parents would still have adopted me if they knew
that I would grow up with undiagnosed autism.

It's never been an issue.
I don't think I'll make it one.
But its interesting too ponder.

It might not be class specific but i want to cut the PC crap and admit that it tends to be poor people brought up to have less value on life. I could walk around middle and upper class areas all day, every day of the week but it is the poor areas that you see 10 year olds drinking and taking drugs. It is the same areas where thugs are encoraged to do these things by their scummy parents.

I was born in a council estate then moved to a wealthy area and am now back to staying in a council estate and guess what there is a difference. So in short the rich snobs that had a bad upbringing are unlikely to try and rob my house or smash my windows or come at me gang-handed for no good reason on the streets. I hate to use a cliche but lets keep things real.

it's not a cliché, eamonn. it's called real life. you're quite right. and it's not PC either, otherwise i'd be running for the hills.

no point in seeing what we wish was there.

i'm not saying that there isn't maltreatment of kids (whether physical, psychological or emotional) amongst the middle and upper classes, mind you.

To all those people who think that killing a foetus that isn't born yet as being murder, answer this question: Do you object to killing insects? Do you think that anyone whos stepped on an ant or used fly spray to kill a fly is a murderer? What about plants? Do you consider anyone who's ever cut down a tree a murderer? And are all of you people who are against it are strict vegetarians who consider everyone who eats meat to be murderers as well? Because otherwise people who use this as an argument against abortion are hypocrites.

I suppose this is the reason religions are against using contraception, as they believe that wasting sperm is murder, which means that any male who's ever masturbated OR had a wet dream is a murderer as well.

So unless you consider all of those things to be just as bad, you're all hypocrites. Which is why I have nothing against abortion. Sometimes I wish I was aborted...

Thats like comparing homocide to killing insects. If you accept human life is more valuable than insects (please feel free to explain if you dont) then you must accept that abortion is regrettable if understandable for someone who has been careful and still gets pregnant. There are no easy answers but i think the limit should be cut down to 12 weeks at the very least. Sometimes i wish i wasnt born either but most people actually wish to be alive most of the time so that doesnt make it any more right for me to agree with abortion any more than agree with with murders.

Oh and by the way i dont go about killing insects for fun but my cats do because like most wild pro-abortionists they dont know any better and think tiny things are fair game. Like i say if the guy uses a condom and/or the woman uses the pill, and any condom splits lead to the morning after pill and then the woman still gets pregnant and wants the baby aborted early this is understandable but it is naive to think this is always the case. Especially with repeat "offenders".

Well I definitely agree that there should be a limit.

As for your comment on comparing homocide to killing insects, you've missed the point. I was basically saying why abortion isn't homocide. I do accept human life as being more valuable than insects, but were talking about humans that aren't even alive yet.

And I don't think anyone gets an abortion for fun either. Of course it's a tough decision for women, but that's my point, I'm sure it's hard enough going through the guilt let alone having people calling you murderers for it. But it's people's own choice, so if they disagree with it then they don't have to do it.

What my point was, I don't see how a foetus that isn't even born yet being killed can be any worse than those above examples. Of course if they're alive it's a different story, and people who are alive are more important than the above examples, but I'm just giving you something to think about. I don't see how it's any worse than not having a baby in the first place.

Babies in the womb are alive. Maybe the case can be argued after a couple of days or weeks that they arent fully functioned yet and arent a 'life' so to speak but after seeing pictures of aborted children after those first few weeks (i have not seen any of ones before that yet though would be interested so i could update my opinion) there is nothing to suggest to me that they arent alive or dont feel pain intensely.

Anyone who is sure that they dont want to have a baby can have an operation, granted though most places people would find that expensive and as i have been regularly reminded, nothing is 100% and accidents do happen.

Actually that argument places equal value on all life; I simply place higher value on human life than lower life forms. I freely admit that humans are one of the very few life forms whose life I actually respect. Ironically enough I am a vegetarian, no chicken or fish either.

Also, sperm and egg cells do not contain complete human DNA; they have only half a set of chromosones. They are haploid cells, or gametes. They have half of the DNA of a human. The diploid cell, or zygote, is formed through fertilization and has the sum of both sets of chromosones, or a full set of chromosones. Of course not all of these chromosones are essential to being classified as a "human" but having had this combination of a complete set of chromosones is; for example a metafemale is still human despite having three X sex chromosones in place of two, but she does not only have one set of chromosones. I am not explaining this with perfect articulation of course; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomes#Human would give you a more complete view of it, as well as links to information about zygotes and gametes.

Me and my mom spent half my life on welfare, still I dont think I would have been better off dead. Then I got hit by a car when I was 7 (well 6 363 days) and it was likely I would need alot of money to help me off, still I dont think I would have been better off if she had pulled the plug for no reason. But heres the real question what makes abortion right and killing a, say, 10 year old ret*d kid who will never be able to live without parents/communties help wrong???

Serissa, thank you for clearing up what I was trying to say.

If a mother (in decent health) is going to abort her child/children, then isn't it almost the same as waiting until the child is born and then killing him/her? Because (I believe) life begins at conception, not at birth, these two things might be considered very similar.

As a side note, adoption is a wonderful choice. At many hospitals, there are places where a mother (oftentimes a teen mother who cannot support a baby and whose parents are not willing to help, either) can drop of her child for adoption. Not that this is the best choice, but it sure beats killing the baby.

Here in Massachusetts (dunno where you are) they have an ad campaign up for it. I think it's great that they're doing that. I also don't know if other states are doing it.

I don't deny that a fetus or embryo is alive; it most certainly is, as were the two cells that combined to make it. Life in and of itself is not sufficient defense for not terminating it, though. Cancer cells are alive, viruses are alive, plants, bacteria, and other things are alive. The embryo in an ectopic pregnancy is alive, but I think that even the hard liners would see no point in not terminating its life, since it has zero chnaces of survival and a very high likelihood of maternal injury and death if something isn't done about it, pronto.

Nature always spews out more offspring than are required or needed, based on the premise that some of them will and in fact, must die. It's sad, I don't like it, but that's the way it is.

If we were like other animals, our deformed and weak offspring would die soon after birth, and the surviving ones would either starve out or crowd out the rest of the excess population. Anyone here who has had overcrowded livestock or other animals will know exactly what I'm talking about. If you don't believe what I'm saying, then go look for yourselves at the child mortality rates in countries that have a very high birth rate and you will see what I mean.

The fact that we have the technology to prolong the lives of some of the lethal gened or very deformed individuals is a mixed blessing at best...and can only be balanced by the choice not to always use it and to moderate the population at large.