Why support abortion for rape victims?

Post Reply New Topic

We're working on it.

actually, I've been a vegetarian (with occasional brief lapses) since 1995. Also, I'm a socialist.

Yes. I don't think that anyone's brief life is worth the bodily autonomy of another person. I find the idea of forcibly using someone's body revolting, basically the same thing as slavery if not worse: 'I will take this labor/liver/blood supply/womb from you, and there is nothing you can do about it.' It strikes me on such a visceral level as morally evil that it's hard to even articulate.

Yeah, actually they are (at least at the stage when most abortions occur) and yeah, actually I can. I've studied enough biology, and dissected enough brains (and whole organisms), to have a pretty good idea of how much organization is there and how much neurological function it takes to have some sort of sentience and sapience. Zefs don't even function on the level of a salmon until the 3rd trimester.

Again, you're saying something that belies a world view so completely foreign to what I consider morally correct that it's hard to even believe that's what you're saying, even though the wording is quite clear. Of course it matters. It's like the difference between having a ball-and-chain attached to your ankle, and a backpack that you can take off and hand to another person sometimes. One is a punishment; the other is a choice.



Personally, I'm ok with the extant restrictions on 3rd trimester abortions (life & health of the mother, fetal abnormality), in large part because of that neurological development that I previously mentioned. Birth is still the dividing line, where the fetus goes from being inside the woman and dependent on her body, to being outside of it and using its own heart, lungs, kidneys, etc; at the point of labor, though, actually giving birth is going to be the safest way to get the fetus out.
To me, the point of an abortion is to 'not go through pregnancy, labor, and childbirth,' so waiting 9 months and starting labor sort of makes the abortion a moot point.



Well, clearly I disagree.
People are dying for lack of livers, bone marrow, and kidneys every day; why don't we forcibly establish a donor registry that every citizen must participate in, and take one kidney, some marrow, and a third of a liver from everyone, so that those who need kidneys, marrow, or livers to survive don't die on the waiting list? It would save hundreds or thousands of lives every year, and very few people would die in the donation process or suffer from any long-term harm. Hell, why not mandate biannual blood donations from everyone who is an acceptable donor?

Yeah, it actually does matter what I think, since you don't get to impose your views on the rest of the world any more than you get to take a kidney from me even if you need it more than I do.


No; abnormal breathing and insufficient oxygenation is a medical condition. Breathing is the normal state of a healthy mammal.

Intended!?
By whom? Obviously not by the woman in question, if she's seeking an abortion. Cancer is natural, too. Everything dies of something, naturally. Lots of women used to die of pregnancy and childbirth, and even if they have 'normal' pregnancies, they're often pretty goddamn miserable for 9 months.

You are incorrect; lung cancer sometimes kills. Pregnancy sometimes continues life in a genetically unique organism, and sometimes also kills or maims the woman in question. First-trimester abortion is ten times less likely to result in death of the woman than going through full-term pregnancy and childbirth.

That would be the medical condition known as 'suicidal ideation.'

Oh well, that's a shame for them, I wish they didn't feel that way, doesn't change want I think of the phenomena life in general.

It's the logical conclusion of what you said. Blaming the problems of poverty on the poor existing. Tsk tsk. Poor people are people, not a population number. I agree that fighting poverty is a much more important issue than abortion, but that doesn't by extension make abortion right.


I'm not demanding anything from anyone, just debating what I think the law SHOULD be. The law as it is is completely irrelevant.

Where do I start?

You don't have to move if you don't want to, its your choice. You seem quite outraged that you should be dictated to about where you live, while trying to dictate to others what happens inside their own bodies! Hypocrisy doesn't even begin to describe that!

Whatever your views on race, I don't share them, I haven't come across that sort of thinking in real life, I've never been to America, but I can't imagine that many people think that way.

Hey, you still would have been older than me. I've been vegetarian sense I've been born with daily lapses. I guess I must be RADICALLY socialist.

And you don't find just leaving someone to die when you can easily save them to be morally evil? I don't think it would be as bad as slavery as slavery is control over one's labors and efforts and time, not just their tissues. Now, my conclusion was bit extreme, but the analogy is false. Pregnancy isn't control over a woman's body, that's the natural process of things. Rather, abortion is violates the fetuses rights over it's own body AND it's life. The difference between cutting open a guy to take out his liver and NOT cutting open a woman to take out a fetus is pretty f*****g obvious. Now, I'm going to make this a clear, if I a woman is going to risk her life with an underground abortion procedure I'm not going to stop it, and indeed if a woman is desperate enough to do that she should be given a clinical one, but I don't think abortions should just be handed out on the whim.

Um, most abortions occur after 6 weeks. By then it looks like this:

It's clearly organized, it even has proto-toes. Even a morula is more organized than it appears as the cells are loosly organized based on what they are going to ultimately develop into. Oh, you dissected brains, good for you, tell, how do you know what it's feeling with so much brain? You literally can't determine sentience for anything, it's a philosophical dilemma. Anyway, the potential sapience and sentience of the embryo at the time of abortion has never really been a key point of mine as I agree they most likely aren't aware at that point in time. However, that doesn't make it right. It's like killing a guy while he is unconscious during surgery because you got tired of performing the operation. He isn't aware at the moment, but he certainly would have been shortly if you didn't freaking kill him.

Let me phrase it this way: it doesn't matter if you a carry a backpack or an iron ball if you are going to use it to justify killing a baby. The different is between wearing an iron ball for awhile and not killing a baby and not wearing the iron ball for awhile AND KILLING A BABY. What type of morality says it's okay to kill a baby just so you stop wearing an iron ball? THAT'S foreign to me.

(And pregnancy is not a punishment, stop living in that mindset. Just because you don't like something and you have to live with it doesn't mean it's a punishment. By your logic it magically stops being a punishment and becomes a choice once the baby is born. )

And I say if there is no complications you might as well go through with the 9 months. It's a life experience.

I think that would be a great idea. Anyway, the key difference is this clause: "only a single person is a viable donor". Definitely we should find ways to increase the supply of parts, there is no need for making it mandatory or drafted if the supply is increased to appropriate level voluntary. The least we can do is set organ donation to the default, it has a huge impact.

And what makes you the arbitor of who and who is not a person? That's why your personal views don't matter, mine don't either. Oh, and what's with the term zef, where did that come from? It sounds like a racial slur. Hey, you were a zef once too!

Pregnancy isn't a medical condition either if you are going to go by that definition. It's also a normal state of a healthy mammal. As I said, equivocation.

It is not up for the individual to decide what is or is not a disease, otherwise we could have children institutionalized simply for refusing to clean up their room. I want you to go up to every expecting mother you see and tell them they are diseased, I think they will like. Now, the difference isn't the hard to understand. Diseases are not a part of the natural process of a species survival, even though they are naturally occurring and ecologically valuable. Pregnancy is REQUIRED for a species survival, you're mom was once pregnant, otherwise you wouldn't have been born. You can hardly call a essential mechanism a species survival a disease. I guess have s**t in your bowels after eating and piss in your bladder after drinking is a disease too?

"You are incorrect; lung cancer sometimes kills." ARE YOU f*****g KIDDING ME? ARE YOU f*****g SERIOUS? OH, I guess shooting someone in the head sometimes kills them as well. Hey, 5% of them do survive! I might as well say riding a car sometimes kills, you might get in a reck, heck, going outside sometimes kills you as well. Breathing could kill you to! Oh, oh, people sometimes don't like it when you forcibly strip them naked, constrict them with binds and gags, and then sodomize them. People also sometimes don't like being hugged. I guess rape and hugs are the same thing, amiright? You don't know how f*****g ridiculous you sounds saying that both cancer and pregnancy sometimes kill. Yes, you are less likely to die from abortion, you are also significantly less likely to die when you sit on your ass instead of doing something heroic (like going into fires, standing up to armed attacks, pushing old lady out from in front of cars ect.), though I can't find any precise statistics on heroism. Not to mention that there is nearly a 10 times, in the very least more than 5 times, greater chance a fetus will die if you go with an abortion than follow through with the pregnancy.

Oh, and your claim about pregnancy only sometimes resulting in a genetically unique organism is more or less false: a genetically unique organism is created at conception, which could be said to be the start of pregnancy. It's a bit more complicated than that because of the start of pregnancy is harder to measure and with in vitro it's just more complicated, it's ultimately a more abstract process when you are getting that picky, but birth does not magically turn a fetus into a unique organism.

Never said it was healthy to not want to be breathing, but it's the belief, not the fact that you are breathing, that's considered a disease. By extension, I guess not wanting to get pregnant is a disease. (jk).

I guess I misunderstood the point you were trying to make. What was your point, exactly?


Applying my health care talents to helping someone is a far cry from forcing me to donate part of my body to them.

What, you don't think that the surgery to cut someone's kidney/liver out, and then to recover from that, counts as time and effort? You don't think that pregnancy counts as time and effort? Not to mention a pretty significant amount of pain and suffering.


Yeah, actually it is. The zef takes over a woman's body pretty damn effectively.


Even a born human does not have the right to use another person's body without their permission, much less an unformed zef. If someone were to try to take my liver without my permission, I would be well within my rights to kill them, no matter how much they needed it.


Abortion, unlike c-sections, do not require 'cutting a woman open.' That's part of why it's safer.

Baka. Do you really f*****g think that women do this casually? It's surgery. From what I hear, it really f*****g hurts. I've heard that in some cultures abortion is used as the primary means of birth control, but I have to think that it's pure ignorance and/or the lack of availability of other forms of birth control that make it so, because swallowing a pill every day must hurt a hell of a lot less.

That pic is a little bit advanced, actually, wikipedia notwithstanding.
http://php.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/i ... ent#Week_6


The level of 'organization' present at that stage is negligible, despite the appearance of 'toes' (no, they're not actually toes, even at 8 weeks).

It's impossible to determine with precision, but it's quite possible to have a fair degree of accuracy. We can look at neurological organization and compare it to the complexity of animal behavior as brains get more and more complex; like I said, a zef isn't even at the level of a fish until the 3rd trimester. EEGs corroborate this conclusion. Things just aren't connected up enough until then.

No, it's like killing an unconscious guy who's physically hooked up to your body and preventing you from living your life, and will be stuck on you for 9 months.

It's not a f*****g "baby." It's a non-sentient, non-sapient zef, using your body without your permission.

It stops being a punishment when and if the woman in question starts wanting it. Once it's born, she can hand it over to CPS or to an adoption agency, and do her best to forget about it, if she doesn't want it.
Pregnancy is one of the greatest gifts that one person can give to another, but without it being a gift given to that person by choice, it becomes a theft of the greatest magnitude instead. It's not a walk in the park.

It's a miserable grueling experience that saps your body so seriously that it literally takes years to recover, and may never be recovered from completely. It's not unusual for women to have permanent physiological damage from pregnancy and childbirth, and I'm not talking about stretch marks or other cosmetic issues.
Funny how pro-life people always end up minimizing the experience of pregnancy and childbirth, every single goddamn thread we go through.


Ever heard of tissue typing? You can't just take a liver from any random person and stick it into a person. That's part of why waiting for an organ takes so long. Right now, there might be someone out there who you're the only perfect tissue match for, and who will die if you don't happen to liquefy your brain in a motorcycle accident in the next moth or so.
To be clear, I'm a registered organ donor, but it only happens once I'm brain-dead and have no interest in using the parts any more.

Democracy.

Zygote/Embryo/Fetus. Accounts for the entire span of development from fertilization through birth. If you're not one of those, "it's a person from fertilization!" people, then the relevant term would be 'ef.'
I wouldn't exactly say that I was a zef once, any more than I would say that I was an ovum and/or a spermatozoan once; rather, there once existed a zef which eventually became me.

Pregnancy isn't a medical condition either if you are going to go by that definition. It's also a normal state of a healthy mammal. As I said, equivocation.
[/quote]
No, actually, pregnancy is not the normal state of a healthy mammal. The fact that it happens on accident does not make it "normal," it makes it "common."

The medical community considers pregnancy a medical condition requiring close monitoring, periodic blood draws, frequent office visits, and often other (uncomfortable) tests as well, not to mention a suite of special behaviors that the woman is advised to perform in order to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. All of the extra care and monitoring is part of why women don't experience the common condition of death in childbirth as frequently as they used to.


If they want the zef, they'll agree that they should be getting adequate prenatal care. If they don't want it, the'll be likely to decline the prenatal care and possibly call it something worse than 'disease.'


It's required for humans, yes. Your language is very imprecise.

My mother was pro-choice. I'm glad to know that I was wanted, and not something that she eventually convinced herself to 'accept.'

I can call it a medical condition. Even a dangerous medical condition.


Breathing does not kill anyone, unless there is poison in the air.

heroism or inaction is a choice.

The zef doesn't get a choice, since it's using the woman's body without her permission.

You are correct that conception is when a genetically unique 2n organism is created, but it is not the start of pregnancy. Pregnancy starts when the zygote implants in the uterus, which less than half of them do.

Presumably you mean "genetically unique." No, it turns it into an organism capable of its own homeostasis.

Only if you consider pregnancy to be always healthy, normal, comfortable, mundane, routine, life-sustaining and good for the woman in question.
None of which it is.

All your making it sound like to me is people who get abortions are sexually inexperienced whiners. And WTF is a zef? Abortion is actually more dangerous to the mother than giving birth is, any abortion. Abortion is the most abnormal way to take care of it. Infection, infertility, and death are all raised as a chance drastically when getting an abortion. Half birth is one of the most sick ones I've seen yet. It is healthier for the Woman with what you call a 'zef', to give birth than to ever get an abortion. Fear of taking one of natures gift (god's gifts) and treating it like trash is your business, yes, but this thing you call a 'zef' is still living, made out of human cells, and is living. It doesn't matter if it is a parasite, it is still human. A woman's embryos are human, how could what you call a 'zef' not be?

No, actually, pregnancy is not the normal state of a healthy mammal. The fact that it happens on accident does not make it "normal," it makes it "common."

The medical community considers pregnancy a medical condition requiring close monitoring, periodic blood draws, frequent office visits, and often other (uncomfortable) tests as well, not to mention a suite of special behaviors that the woman is advised to perform in order to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. All of the extra care and monitoring is part of why women don't experience the common condition of death in childbirth as frequently as they used to.


If they want the zef, they'll agree that they should be getting adequate prenatal care. If they don't want it, the'll be likely to decline the prenatal care and possibly call it something worse than 'disease.'


It's required for humans, yes. Your language is very imprecise.

My mother was pro-choice. I'm glad to know that I was wanted, and not something that she eventually convinced herself to 'accept.'

I can call it a medical condition. Even a dangerous medical condition.


Breathing does not kill anyone, unless there is poison in the air.

heroism or inaction is a choice.

The zef doesn't get a choice, since it's using the woman's body without her permission.

You are correct that conception is when a genetically unique 2n organism is created, but it is not the start of pregnancy. Pregnancy starts when the zygote implants in the uterus, which less than half of them do.

Presumably you mean "genetically unique." No, it turns it into an organism capable of its own homeostasis.

Only if you consider pregnancy to be always healthy, normal, comfortable, mundane, routine, life-sustaining and good for the woman in question.
None of which it is.[/quote]
So risking yourself for another living thing is completely ludacris? My bed isn't comfortable, it must be a disease. Female apache attack heilo pilots must be a disease too, because it obviously isn't healthy, routine, normal, mundane or life sustaining to get blown up by an rpg.
If that were all true, why am I able to bear being asperger's ridden and lonely? I must have a disease, why don't I go get myself aborted too. Oh yeah the homeless must be a disease as well.

Yes I do reason being it is the womans choice and her body next off I think it is even worse to force a woman to give birth to a child of a father thats raped her. How is the mother going to explain who his or her daddy is? Not to mention the kid is going to be a living reminder of a result of a man taking advantage of the woman and violating her against her will for the rest of her life! I am no woman but think about it, its common f**kin sense! If I was a woman and raped hell yeah I would get an abortion! How would you like to be a child reminded that your father is a rapist?If I was a child reminded that my father was a rapist I would be depressed for the rest of my life hate my father then probably kill myself!

Can I have that Embryo Laminated in a Keychain?

Yeah, you finally brought up suicide didn't you? I expected this was the mindset of a lot of pro choicers. I have SAD, doesn't mean I am going to try to kill myself everytime I feel depressed. I play zombie killing games and watch movies.
Plus, if she is getting raped, she can kill the bastard, she has a right to defend herself!

Yeah but the bible states thou shalt not kill plus blaming the victim for being raped makes things worse! Not all women are capable of defending themselves against a 200+ lb man unless she has a gun!

Incorrect.

The health risks of abortion are significantly lower than the health risks of pregnancy.

*Illegal* (unsafe) abortions are risky, of course, but this risk can easily be reduced by making abortion legal and easily available. Maternal death rates in South Africa dropped by 90 percent after abortion was legalized in 1996.

Sources:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22270271
http://arhp.org/uploadDocs/journaleditorialmar2005.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15713153

Last edited by GGPViper on 11 Dec 2013, 7:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

I never blamed the victim, thanks for implicating that. I said if some one is raping her, she is allowed to kill them in self defence. emphasis on THE RIGHT TO DO SO. Rapists deserve to be shot by their victims. And the bible says "thou shall not kill", not "thou shall save a life or kill or any combination of the two".

Death rates of the older women who already had a life, plus if they hadn't been getting illegal abortions, those deaths would not have happened. Interesting two of your sources come from a government source, and none from a private lab or hospital. The only slightly valid but completely biased link is to a co op of doctors whom share opinions on everything.
Illeagl abortions are not the same as going through with a pregnancy, why is this even one of your examples?

I do not blame the problems of poverty on the poor existing. You continue to read into my words more than is there based on your personal faulty assumptions. I believe poverty is one of the most significant problems in this country and in most parts of the world. In my opinion, it is not the poor that are the problem, it is those who drive others into poverty. My point is that a complete ban on abortion would exacerbate the problem of poverty significantly. It is difficult to make progress on poverty when you continuously increase the ranks of the needy.



And I respect the fact that you are entitled to your opinion and your right to express it. As the current law is directly related to the way you would wish to see the law changed, I feel that it is quite relevant. You cannot talk about what the law should be if you do not acknowledge what laws exist now. Personally, I have issues with using any laws to regulate morality other than those absolutely vital to maintaining order and improving the economic stability of a nation. This goes for many laws (unrelated to the current topic) on the books, and I let my representatives to Congress know my positions on a regular basis.