Questions for pro-lifers

[Kevin_Lowe]

It seems none of the anti-abortion speakers here have managed to answer the question: Why is it morally tolerable to kill a human being if it is the product of rape?

Talk around the point, yes, but not answer the question.

 

[Z]

1) Are you against abortion in cases of rapes ?

I used to be pro-abortion when it came to rapes. I'm largely anti-abortion now, but I do think that, at the earliest possible stage, if a rape-baby is unwanted, it should be aborted. My reasoning for this, is that such a child stands a chance of being abused and/or neglected, even by a decent and caring mother, on the basis of its paternal status. Adopting said child out could conceivably have long-term psychological implications for the child (being the unwanted baby). In this singular case, I think the mental health and well-being of the mother - which would influence the child's development - outweighs the value of the unborn child.

2) Are you against abortion when tests show severe developmental problems of the fetus ? (we assume mother's life is not in danger)

This is a hard question, without knowing what we are referring to as 'severe'. Does the fetus stand a chance of surviving more than a few days after birth? Is it going to be born with no brain, or no operating digestive track? Is the developmental problem one that other humans have managed to survive into adulthood with?

3) Do you consider the emergency contraception ("morning-after" pill) to be abortion ? If not, why ?

I think that, within the first week or two after conception, it's not a big deal to use something like this. Numerous women typically miscarry fertilized eggs every time they have their menses. It's a lot more common than people realize. So a 'morning after' pill is no big deal.

4) Do you think that women who abort should be tried for murder ? If you answered "yes" in (3), what about those who have taken the "morning-after" pill ?

I think at any point past a month, with exception of rape cases and cases where the infant would not survive for very long, or where the quality of life of said infant would be unacceptably low, women should be tried for murder. I know the month point is fairly arbitrary, but that is based largely on the idea that the female body potentially flushes a fertilized egg once a month.

 

[Atlas]

It seems none of the anti-abortion speakers here have managed to answer the question: Why is it morally tolerable to kill a human being if it is the product of rape?

Talk around the point, yes, but not answer the question.

You've biased the whole thread with loaded phraseology.

Why is it morally tolerable to kill a human being if it is the product of rape?

Would you think it's ok to kill a 12 year old if you found out it was the product of a rape?

There are many people who are anti-abortion. Abortion is not some great medical miracle. It is always, at it's best, the least painful horn of a dilemma.

If you think about it Kevin you'll be able to see why people are sensitive to the situation that women are in when they've been impregnated through rape.

If I remember correctly it was one of the ideas that softened mainsteam America's attitude on the need for available, clean, safe abortion procedures. No victim of rape should be forced to endure the punishment and shame of a pregnancy in the public eye. Times were alot different back when abortions were illegal. Women were shunned because they had been raped. To keep from being ostracized women hid in shame, guilt, and silence. Their silence protected rapists.

Most people are anti abortion to a certain degree. I've never met anyone who thought a million and a half abortions a year aren't enough. Most people believe it would be a good thing for society if the number were lower. The reason we don't necessarily want abortion outlawed is that we believe there are always situations in the course of human existence that demand alternative thinking.

It's like the pro-life position on euthanasia. All it would take is an extremely ghastly disease that threatened, not only a person's life but that of his children. Something ghastly enough, painful enough, and communicable enough and people would be demanding a Kevorkian solution. There are diseases and conditions like that out there but they are too small and managed and don't percolate easily up through the conscience of the middle class.

Your question can be shortened... Why is it morally tolerable to kill? At first blush we want to say it isn't and then as we take in the largeness of the question we realize there are many situations that present themselves that cause us to tolerate things we ordinarily oppose.

 

[peptoabysmal]

Why is every life sacred until the person is born? Unless you're wrapped in a womb, you're apparently just not life.

I don't know. I've mentioned in the thread that my view on this point is irrational.

I guess it has to do with potential. A new life has potential for greatness or great harm. I guess when someone has developed themselves into the BTK killer (for example) the potential has shown what it is going to be and in my view isn't worth saving.

 

[peptoabysmal]

Neither do I, but that's not quite the judgement parents have to make; they have to decide whether they will be able to adequately care for the child they bring into the world. That's why the decision is so heart-wrenching.

Good point. I'll think on it.
My knee-jerk reaction is to say that this is another unknown factor that the parents are trying to predict another unknown and the outcome of a child's life depends on these predictions. People amaze themselves with what they can actually do and cope with all the time.

 

[peptoabysmal]

Even though there are worse neighborhoods, and worse people, this is hardly tame. I can't call child abuse tame just because other kids might be in harder situations. These kids have the deck stacked against them from the start, and it's not fair to them, or the taxpayers who have to support them, since the mother obviously can't.

Actually, she has already taken care of that department. There are plenty of cretins hanging out with her already, and influencing the kids. In the summer, I usually have to climb over people who don't live there, but hang out anyway.


She is incapable of handling these children in a productive way, therefore she shouldn't have had them. Look, I'm pro-choice, not pro-abortion. I believe people who don't want kids, myself included, should practice responsible birth control at all times. Abortion should be the absolute last resort, and should not be used lightly.

However, given that this person did not have the sense to use proper birth control, she should not have had the kids if they were just going to be born into an abusive household. Would she be a more decent person if she had had an abortion(s)? Of course not, but at least she wouldn't be putting these kids through torment, and basically destroying their chances at a productive adult life.

ugh. You are reminding me why I don't choose to live in the city any more.

You say it yourself in so many words. This woman has a history of bad choices. I'm guessing that this woman had several options; birth control, abortion, adoption; and didn't choose any of those. Who should have made the decision and enforced it? (since you claim that she shouldn't have had them)

*sigh* It sounds like these kids may be headed for foster care which is another nightmare for another thread.

What evidence is there that abortion has done anything to solve social problems like this?

 

[American]

What evidence is there that abortion has done anything to solve social problems like this?

You are obviously not an oppressed minority womyn of lesser means.

That lady might be a doctor by now (or President?), if only you would give her another chance, additional opportunities at the expense of more deserving candidates, and - most of all - another dollar.

 

[Czarzy]

A human oocyte or sperm has a potential to grow into a conscious being who might contribute to human understanding. Or not.

A human embryo has a potential to grow into a conscious being who might contribute to human understanding. Or not.

A fetus has the neural potential to grow into a conscious being who might contribute to human understanding. Or not.

Potential just matters to those of us who both had that potential and then had the stimuli that occurs after birth.

To those in the uterus, there are little stimuli and therefore little dendrite growth.

sense: photoreceptors: stimuli: no change in uterine environment
sense: chemoreceptors: stimuli: depends on mother's dietary intake
sense: mechanoreceptors (pacinian, aural hair cells): stimuli: little change in uterine environment (heartbeat always; put loud music or hollering into mother's environment, then some stimulus may get through)

So those people who insist on human embryos and fetuses as having the same rights as born people are basing those rights on potential, not on the fetus' current state of being.

Romanticizing.

Some women who have abortions may feel guilt because of these romanticizations.

My sister did not, and the fetus which did not experience its potential had less pain than any born being has ever experienced.

We need to stop romanticizing.

 

[Luke T.]

REASONS GIVEN FOR ABORTIONS: AGI SURVEY, 2004

rape <0.5

incest <0.5

mother has health problems 4

possible fetal health problems 3

unready 25

is too immature or young to have child 7

woman's parents want her to have abortion <0.5

has problems with relationship or wants to avoid single parenthood 8

husband or partner wants her to have abortion <0.5

has all the children she wanted or all children are grown 19

can't afford baby now 23
--unmarried (42)
--student or planning to study (34)
--can't afford baby and child care (28)
--can't afford basic life needs (23)
--unemployed (22)
--can't leave job to care for baby (21)
--would have to find new place to live (19)
--not enough support from husband/partner (14)
--husband/partner unemployed (12)
--currently on welfare or public assistance (8)

concerned about how having baby would change her life 74
--would interfere with education plans (38)
--would interfere with career plans (38)
--would interfere with care of children or dependents (32)

doesn't want others to know she had relations or is pregnant <0.5 (25)

other 6

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html

Number of abortions due to rape and incest combined are less than one percent. Deformities are 3 percent. Mother's health, 4 percent.

Smokescreen trying to cover that 74 percent of pregnancies which are just darned inconvenient.

 

[Luke T.]

I don't mean this thread as another discussion on the (a)morality of abortion.

Wishful thinking.

 

[Luke T.]

A human oocyte or sperm has a potential to grow into a conscious being who might contribute to human understanding. Or not.

A human embryo has a potential to grow into a conscious being who might contribute to human understanding. Or not.

A fetus has the neural potential to grow into a conscious being who might contribute to human understanding. Or not.

A five year old has potential to grow into a conscious being who might contribute to human understanding. Or not.

 

[Luke T.]

I refuse to discuss abortion with any anti-abortion person who has not adopted a child.

And I refuse to talk to anyone who is anti-death penalty unless they run a halfway house.

And I refuse to talk to anyone who is anti animal cruelty unless they have adopted a pet.

 

[Fengirl]

Wishful thinking.

Wishful thinking characterizes both sides of the abortion debate. Here's mine:-

I wish every pregnancy was a wanted pregnancy.
I wish people wouldn't have sexual relationships until they had the maturity and resources to deal with a possible pregnancy.
I wish contraception was 100% effective.
I wish all congenital defects were curable.
I wish alcohol didn't lower inhibitions and cause people to make really dumb choices.
I wish nobody was ever coerced or forced into sex.

Sadly, we have a responsibility to legislate (in the most humane way possible)for the world we ACTUALLY live in, not the world we WISH we lived in. Until the real world more closer approximates the world I wish for, I will remain adamantly pro-choice.

Smokescreen trying to cover that 74 percent of pregnancies which are just darned inconvenient.

Trivialising the physical risks of pregnancy, and down-grading the immense long-term social, economic, physical and psychological implications of bearing a child you don't want (and didn't intend to conceive in the first place) to a mere "inconvenience" reveals a wilfully blinkered and judgemental view of the wide variety of women's experiences (and, IMO, more than a hint of misogyny.)

 

[Luke T.]

Trivialising the physical risks of pregnancy, and down-grading the immense long-term social, economic, physical and psychological implications of bearing a child you don't want (and didn't intend to conceive in the first place) to a mere "inconvenience" reveals a wilfully blinkered and judgemental view of the wide variety of women's experiences (and, IMO, more than a hint of misogyny.)

Trivializing a life as less important than "education plans" reveals a lot, too.

My view is hardly misogynistic as probably half the children killed in the womb are female.

 

[American]

Trivialising the physical risks of pregnancy, and down-grading the immense long-term social, economic, physical and psychological implications of bearing a child you don't want (and didn't intend to conceive in the first place) to a mere "inconvenience" reveals a wilfully blinkered and judgemental view of the wide variety of women's experiences (and, IMO, more than a hint of misogyny.)

Trivialize??? It's f-king pathetic!

She can't keep her mouth off it. That's why they keep getting pregnant, essentially, from all that getting c--med on ("in" technically).

You call that a "wide variety of women's experiences".... There are lots of different sexual positions, I'll give you that.

 

[Luke T.]

I wish contraception was 100% effective.

17 percent of abortions are because contraception that was used properly failed. "This would tend to undermine the claims regarding the efficacy of contraception methods, something highly promoted by groups such as Planned Parenthood. "

46 percent are because no contraception was used at all.

ETA: It is interesting to note that about 54 percent of pregnancies which are aborted were the result of some kind of use of a contraceptive. When you compare that to the 17 percent that was used properly, and the 46 percent that didn't use any at all, that gives a huge indication of what can and should be done to eliminate a vast majority of abortions that occur. And overturning Roe v. Wade isn't it.

 

[American]

17 percent of abortions are because contraception that was used properly failed. "This would tend to undermine the claims regarding the efficacy of contraception methods, something highly promoted by groups such as Planned Parenthood. "

46 percent are because no contraception was used at all.

100% couldn't say no.


Pregnancy is a chain of events. The weakest link isn't contraception or economics, it's what a slut she is.

 

[Mark]

100% couldn't say no.


Pregnancy is a chain of events. The weakest link isn't contraception or economics, it's what a slut she is.

Do you have air conditioning in your cave?

 

[American]

Do you have air conditioning in your cave?

Space heater. (It's october here.)

 

[Achán hiNidráne]

Why is it legal for a woman to have an abortion in more states than it is for a woman to sell her body in prostitution? Isn't it her body and she can do with it what she wants?

Yes, it is. This is why I'm both for keeping abortion legal AND legalizing prostitution.