Why do so many people think that abortion is acceptable?

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Mikah
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06 Nov 2015, 1:48 pm

I don't have a definitive definition of personhood, I'm not even sure there is one. Fortunately I do not need one for my position. Be careful before you argue yourself into an abhorrent stance.

The legal definition of person in US law:

"An entity recognized by the law as separate and independent, with legal rights and existence including the ability to sue and be sued, to sign contracts, to receive gifts, to appear in court either by themselves or by lawyer and, generally, other powers incidental to the full expression of the entity in law. "

Not a lawyer but that sounds like anyone up until they become an adult is not a person.


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Edenthiel
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06 Nov 2015, 1:57 pm

Mikah wrote:
I don't have a definitive definition of personhood, I'm not even sure there is one. Fortunately I do not need one for my position. Be careful before you argue yourself into an abhorrent stance.

The legal definition of person in US law:

"An entity recognized by the law as separate and independent, with legal rights and existence including the ability to sue and be sued, to sign contracts, to receive gifts, to appear in court either by themselves or by lawyer and, generally, other powers incidental to the full expression of the entity in law. "

Not a lawyer but that sounds like anyone up until they become an adult is not a person.


Well then let's get philosophical instead of legal, shall we?

Is a single cell a human being?


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Mikah
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06 Nov 2015, 2:01 pm

Quote:
Is a single cell a human being?


Nope.


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Edenthiel
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06 Nov 2015, 6:26 pm

Mikah wrote:
Quote:
Is a single cell a human being?


Nope.


Thank you.

Is a single human cell a human being?

(I think you know where I'm going with this)


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wilburforce
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06 Nov 2015, 7:21 pm

Mikah wrote:
Enemy of women now am I? I still await a consistent definition of life/personhood whatever you want to call it that justifies terminating a pregnancy for no good reason. Without that this thread will go nowhere, best just to let it rest otherwise.


Being raped is a good enough reason to get an abortion to anyone who actually possesses a human soul. So, I don't expect you to be ever be able to comprehend it. Continue your hateful life judging women who've been violated, I'm sure it will get you far and earn you lots of satisfaction and fulfillment and good feelings inside yourself.



CockneyRebel
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06 Nov 2015, 7:27 pm

It costs $40,000 in Canada and the US to adopt a child. If the adoption price dropped to $400 - the same price of an abortion, many more children would be adopted. There are also foster parents who are trained to raise special needs children who do want to adopt special needs children.


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CockneyRebel
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06 Nov 2015, 7:29 pm

Another thing. I'm biologically female, but I self-identify as male due to my Gender Dysphoria.


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Neotenous Nordic
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06 Nov 2015, 9:09 pm

CockneyRebel wrote:
It costs $40,000 in Canada and the US to adopt a child. If the adoption price dropped to $400 - the same price of an abortion, many more children would be adopted. There are also foster parents who are trained to raise special needs children who do want to adopt special needs children.


Strange, isn't it? It's almost as if someone wants all the babies to be killed instead of adopted because they make it pretty much impossible.

Infertile couples dream about conceiving, or adopting, but they can't conceive, and the requirements for adoption are so high very few meet them.

And then there are women who just flush out their baby because it came in the way of career.

After enough abortions, those women eventually become infertile. Then they change their minds, but it's too late.

Here is a video on abortion that everybody needs to watch:



Mikah
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06 Nov 2015, 10:34 pm

Quote:
Thank you.

Is a single human cell a human being?

(I think you know where I'm going with this)


No it's not. (I don't think I'm going to go as far as you would like.)


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Skilpadde
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06 Nov 2015, 11:05 pm

There are personal attacks in this thread. I understand that this is a topic that set off strong feelings, but keep to the topic and attack the opinion, not the person.
If the personal attacks continue this thread may be locked.


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cathylynn
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06 Nov 2015, 11:14 pm

skilpadde, can't we block the offender rather than the thread? discussion is enlightening.



wilburforce
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06 Nov 2015, 11:18 pm

cathylynn wrote:
skilpadde, can't we block the offender rather than the thread? discussion is enlightening.


I don't think we will ever enlighten these people. They just want to bully women for deciding what happens to their bodies because it makes them feel better about themselves for a few minutes before dissolving back into self-loathing. How do you enlighten bullies who want to tell other people what to do with their bodies to have control over others, because it makes them feel powerful and important in ways they lack in their lives? How does one enlighten those who don't want to be enlightened, they just want to hang on to their perceived power over others?



Edenthiel
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06 Nov 2015, 11:55 pm

Mikah wrote:
Quote:
Thank you.

Is a single human cell a human being?

(I think you know where I'm going with this)


No it's not. (I don't think I'm going to go as far as you would like.)


Wonderful & thank you (again)! Assuming you aren't going to claim a single cell (fertilized egg) is a human being, we can just cut to the chase and you can reveal at what point in development you are arguing it becomes a human being.


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07 Nov 2015, 2:41 am

cathylynn wrote:
skilpadde, can't we block the offender rather than the thread? discussion is enlightening.


Agreed, especially since said offender apparently doesn't get the hint from generalized warnings and appears to actively be trying to get this thread locked, just like the last one. Topics should not be barred from discussion because of one member abusing a heckler's veto, instead those members should be removed from the discussion, under threat of suspension if need be. Even in PPR, the sort of naked personal attacks and name calling I've seen in these two threads are uncalled for and should not be tolerated, but they shouldn't shut down whole threads because of the actions of one member either.


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Mikah
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07 Nov 2015, 5:39 pm

Hehe you weren't specific enough. I'll try to lay out my views intelligibly, this was fun writing, and I have refined my views further while writing it.

FYI:
When I say "natural course of things" I mean the progression of a human life without human intervention to end it.

---

Let's put to one side natural deaths, miscarriages etc. To keep things simple, we must assume we are talking about conception and pregnancies that have no medical complications for now, that will lead eventually to the creation of someone like you and me at the other end. This will be the general case for a natural conception.

We start by working our way backwards. We start with an adult human being, let's say it is you.
- Do we both agree you are a human being right now? I assume we both say yes.

- Do we both agree you were a human being yesterday? Again I assume yes.

- What about when you were 10 years old? Here, I think is the real sticking point. A 10 year old is not a fully developed adult, yet I consider you a human being at 10 years old. If you do not, then this argument must stop here. The point is to accept that a growing human being is also, of course, a human being. An old human being is a human being despite creaky joints and wrinkled skin. A young human being is a human being despite being small.

- Go back now day by day and look for a point in time where you cannot be considered to be a developing or growing human being (just from that sentence you should know that such a point in what is _your development_ cannot possibly exist). If you are honest, logic will take you all the way back at least to fertilisation, that is the point where all possible human combinations from natural human conception become one (or two in the case of twins etc.). Prior to that point a different sperm might make it to the egg, creating a different human being, a different future, a different life. Drawing the line at conception seems a reasonable thing to do for now, though I am open to changing my mind in either direction.

What does this step by step backwards facing logic look like when you reverse the direction? Is it possible to generalise without exploding heads I wonder. I'll try. Because we do not know the future, we have to change what will be into what may be. "Something that may, in the natural course of things, become (but not necessarily become part of) an individual human being, must also be a human being, the same human being in fact."

Now let's consider unnatural conception, the fertilised egg created in a laboratory. Put to one side the morality of creating it, does this fertilised egg have a future as a human being in the natural course of things? No, not according to our previous definition. Further unnatural intervention is necessary to make that happen.

Now let's bring in miscarriage and "natural abortion". First a question to ponder. If a human being does die prematurely, was it ever really a human being? It seems obvious that yes it was. A child who dies in the first year was still human. Just because we know with hindsight that a fertilised egg did not have a future beyond 2 or 3 days, until implantation fails, until the wheels of fate turn, we must consider it a human, granted a very short lived one.

You and I both know that pregnancy is a crap shoot on the best of days. The thing is, until recently so was childhood. Even today not all 3 year olds make it to 4. We wouldn't apply the "a few more won't matter" rule to 3 year olds. If a human is a human in the first trimester, then we cannot apply it here either. Even if 1 in 4 fertilised eggs don't implant successfully, and those that do have a good chance of not making it further, interfering negatively with that process is ending a human life prematurely. This is where I have refined my views: in natural conception a fertilised egg is a human. In unnatural conception, IVF style, the slightly more developed bundle of cells becomes human as soon as the implantation attempt is made, successful or not.

If humans are humans right from the beginning, unnatural human intervention to end that life and prevent their future is in general a moral evil. Never say never, there are exceptions, but there will need to be extraordinary reasons.


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Mikah
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07 Nov 2015, 7:26 pm

I've said before that it's possible these lines of thought could be extended before fertilisation, into the sanctity of every sperm and egg but I cannot myself make the leap. It would be an issue of whether it was moral or not to create more human life wherever and whenever you can. My postings are only about protecting humans as soon as they are created, regardless of how they are created.

Besides I was careful with how I worded it. A sperm or an egg alone cannot be or become an individual human being, they must fuse with one another to do so, it's only after that point my statement becomes relevant.


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