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DOTD - Debate of The Day #52
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Post by
yukonjack
Here is a question I have wondered about, the anti abortion folks are often christian and if god gave us all free will, where does the free will go when abortion is made illegal?
The same place it goes when you murder another human being outside the womb.
I guess since most pro-murder folks are often athiest, or worship trees, that would explain why they have no fear of what God thinks of them destroying one of His creations.
So in your opinion if a woman takes a pill daily to avoid pregnancy in the first place is that still murder? Or contraception of any type for that matter?
Post by
Ksero
There are alternatives to abortion in the case of rape. The crime of rape is a horrible one, but it should not justify the crime of murder. And aborting a viable, healthy baby is just that. No one likely argue that a mother should be forced to raise a child of rape,
but sacrificing 9 months to give the other innocent victim of the crime a chance at life is not asking too much. If anything, the rape victim could know that by delivering the baby, something good had came from something horrible.
I, very begrudgingly, agree with terminating a pregnancy if the mothers life, or the baby's life are at risk. So, in the case of incest, I would support a termination if there was enough cause or medical evidence that the incest had resulted in a deformed child, or if the mother of the child was so young that delivering the baby could be harmful to her. I also believe that in these cases, the father of the terminated child should be tried for murder, as well as the incest / rape.
To the bolded part, you are completely ignoring the psychological health of the mother, It's not a miracle, or a gift of life, it's a constant memory of a horrible event, even if it won't physically harm her to carry the baby full term the mental damage could be irreversible. What about the kid growing up, put into foster care, real father in jail for rape (or at large), mother not wanting anything to do with them, that's a great life.
When I said circumstance, I meant how the woman got pregnant, be it from rape, or just making a bad decision with a one night stand, the condom breaking, oral contraceptives fail etc.
In fairness, you also said that abortion should be allowed because it's a part of the mother, which was the point I was trying to address with that comment.
To address your point, I should have said live without medical assistance, Without a heat-lamp and IV feeding that 3rd trimester fetus dies pretty quick.
The point about the 20 hours into labour is fair, but the decision usually made far far before it gets to that point, ie. right after finding out you are pregnant / seeing if it's even feasible to carry the baby full term.
Post by
Adamsm
So, I have to ask here: When is the mother more important then the fetus, especially in a rape case? Or to be more accurate, why is the fetus given a higher consideration then the mother, since for the next 9 months she'd be reliving that horrible event over and over the closer she gets to the date of delivery. Even if she gives up the child for adoption after the birth, she'll still recall what he did and what he made.
A rape, be it on a woman or a man, is one of the most traumatizing and humiliating things someone can go through; look at the suicide rate that happens, how the victims lives are screwed up...and you really want to traumatize them further by forcing them to carry their rapist's baby to full term?
Post by
Azazel
Definitely should be legal. 100%
Post by
Magician22773
So in your opinion if a woman takes a pill daily to avoid pregnancy in the first place is that still murder? Or contraception of any type for that matter?
I believe life begins at conception. I am not Catholic, so no, I have no (man made) belief against contraception.
you are completely ignoring the psychological health of the mother, It's not a miracle, or a gift of life, it's a constant memory of a horrible event, even if it won't physically harm her to carry the baby full term the mental damage could be irreversible. What about the kid growing up, put into foster care, real father in jail for rape (or at large), mother not wanting anything to do with them, that's a great life
The mental damage of a rape is irreversable....period. So is an abortion. There is probably not a woman alive that has been raped that will ever forget it. Giving a child a chance at life should be seen, as I said, as the only good that could come from a horrible event.
And you seem to think that every child that is put up for adoption has a horrible life to look forward to? I have a couple family members that would probably say otherwise.
To address your point, I should have said live without medical assistance, Without a heat-lamp and IV feeding that 3rd trimester fetus dies pretty quick.
Show me ANY newborn that can survive without medical, or parental assistance, and unless his name is Clark Kent and he wears blue spandex, I will agree with your position.
Post by
FatalHeaven
So, I have to ask here: When is the mother more important then the fetus, especially in a rape case? Or to be more accurate, why is the fetus given a higher consideration then the mother, since for the next 9 months she'd be reliving that horrible event over and over the closer she gets to the date of delivery.
Mother and child are equally important. The mother is alive. The child is literally growing inside her. Neither should lose their life over it.
Even if she gives up the child for adoption after the birth, she'll still recall what he did and what he made.
Correction: He committed the rape. They made the baby. It was against her will YES but without her egg, there'd be no child. No matter how you look at it, that child is made up of 50% of the mother.
A rape, be it on a woman or a man, is one of the most traumatizing and humiliating things someone can go through;
I agree.
and you really want to traumatize them further by forcing them to carry their rapist's baby to full term?
Again, it's her baby too; regardless of how the child was conceived. Someone raped the mother; that someone wasn't the baby. It's an innocent life.
Post by
Squishalot
To address your point, I should have said live without medical assistance, Without a heat-lamp and IV feeding that 3rd trimester fetus dies pretty quick.
To that, if that's our definition of whether something (someone) should live or not, we'd save ourselves a lot of money by shutting people out of medical assistance. Why should the terminally ill 60-year old reliant on IV and medical drugs have more rights than a 7-month premature baby? If someone aborts his life, isn't that murder?
Even if she
gives up the child for adoption after the birth
aborts the child, she'll still recall what he did and what he made.
Fixed for you, Adams. If you're going to make comments like the one you made, you're going to have to concede that abortion isn't going to fix things either.
Post by
Skreeran
My stance on this has always been that it all depends on how far along they are. I don't believe in any sort of soul or unique metaphysical essence. I don't think that an embryo qualifies as an individual person until it develops the features that define an individual person.
Post by
331902
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Ksero
@squish
A fetus is not a person, A 60 year old has more rights because he is his own person, capable of making his own decisions. If he was in a vegetative state, completely reliant on medicine and IV feeding, not able to make his own decision, it
IS
legal for their next of kin to remove the feeding tube and let them die.
Also, in what you said to adamsm, the abortion won't make her forget the rape, but it lets her move on with her life, she didn't choose to be pregnant, it wasn't even an accident, someone FORCED her to be pregnant, she had 0% say in the matter.
@magician
Don't try and say that 9 months of mental trauma isn't worse than 2 months.
No, not everyone who goes up for adoption has a horrible life, but 50%-80% of children foster care have a mental illness because of the environment they are in.
(
http://www.healthychild.ucla.edu/Publications/ChildrenFosterCare/Documents/Mental%20health%20brief%20final%20for%20distribution.pdf
)
Newborn's have been surviving without medical assistance for millions of years. Of course they need parental assistance, my point was you can't give birth 7 months into a pregnancy and treat it as if it was carried full term.
Post by
331902
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Ksero
My stance on this has always been that it all depends on how far along they are. I don't believe in any sort of soul or unique metaphysical essence. I don't think that an embryo qualifies as an individual person until it develops the features that define an individual person.
Isn't that the problem though. Those who do believe see it as murder, those who don't see it as nothing more than getting rid of a few cells.
To even attempt a conclusion to the argument one would have to A:- Prove the existence of a soul and B:- Prove it was present at conception.
Some people believe the soul doesn't enter the body until birth. We can't prove that no more than we can prove it enters at conception or even exists at all.
Medical decisions should be based on science, not religion.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Science says that it's the early stages of a human being, and that if not aborted, it will grow into a baby barring complications. It's completely viable for someone to believe that means that it has some inherent value in and of itself, as an undeveloped human. You may not agree, but don't say that it's some kind of myth that people are believing when they're pro-life, based on magic and superstition. I happen to be completely non-religious, but pro life. Not because I think God said anything about it, but because I don't think killing people is right unless they've done something to earn it, and because I think that an undeveloped person is still a person.
I don't think an abortion should be denied in the case of life of mother, and while I personally don't think I would have an abortion as a result of rape, I can understand that the woman is dealing with the result of a choice she didn't make.
But if you make the choice to have sex, then you understand that you might get pregnant. If you go through with it, and you do, then I see an abortion as you killing another life because you didn't want to take the time to get your birth control set. I don't think you have the right to kill someone because you are lazy or careless beforehand, and put yourself in a situation where this life now exists and needs you to continue to exist. It was your choice, and for some other life to pay the consequences is, in my opinion, callous and self-centered.
The general pro-choice argument is "It's my body, it's my choice." My belief is that you already made your choice, and you're destroying their body, without them getting a choice. Actions have consequences.
The pro-life argument isn't about telling you what to do with your body. It's about protecting a baby from you now that you've made the choice to use your body to create it. Once they exist, I believe they have the right to continue to exist. Passing laws against murder and assault, or child neglect, aren't about "telling someone what to do with their bodies." They're about protecting other people from being harmed by your actions. Pro-life arguments are as well. You may not agree that they're people, but let that be the arguing point. Don't make the argument into something it's not by bringing up misogyny, people wanting control over your organs, freedom of religion, etc.
Post by
557473
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
I linked in another forum statistics from surveys done before abortions about what percentage were attributed to faulty birth control, and the percentage of women having them who claim they were using birth control correctly (and there's nothing to say they were other than their own answers) was extremely small. The vast majority say they weren't using it at all, or were not using it consistently. And this is based on their own answers- I imagine in a similar situation if I was inclined to lie I'd do so in a manner as to make it look like I was less responsible for the situation, so I question if the percentages aren't even lower than that.
But for that very small percentage of people for whom it actually happened, I would say that they still knew it was a possibility. Sex is the way babies are made, and it's a lot of fun. You can take a lot of precautions to have the fun without risking babies, but they don't guarantee 100% effectiveness on any of them. It's right on the package- you still made the choice to take that risk.
And even if we're looking at it from a "good of the majority" situation, if someone believes that these are human beings being killed, wouldn't it be better (in their eyes) to accidentally leave a few extra alive and an inconvenience to their parent despite their precautions than to allow anyone who says they were using birth control to kill them, costing thousands more lives?
EDIT: In terms of the morning after pill, I was under the impression that it's a dose of hormones to keep an egg from being released if it was about to, but wouldn't have an effect on an already fertilized egg. If someone does have unprotected sex, and takes it, it should help prevent pregnancy, but not abort it. There's an abortion pill too, but that's not what's sold over the counter in drug stores here in the US.
And Pikey, I know it's an emotional thing for you, but you said yourself that she missed the pill. As a woman, I know that when that happens you use back up for 2 weeks- it's on the package. If she chose not to, she chose to be unprotected and have sex. I don't believe that she should have been able to kill a developing child because she didn't want to use condoms for two weeks until her levels were back up. No one forced her to have sex while unprotected- she chose it. I think it's more wrong to force someone to die than it is to force them to carry through with something they made the choice to risk starting.
@ Ksero- Also, regarding the vegetative state, a next of kin doesn't have the right to pull the plug unless the person is not going to recover. If the hospital expects than a certain amount of time on artificial life support will bring the person back to full health, the kids aren't allowed to tell them to yank it and kill him because they don't want the burden of the bills.
Post by
331902
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Article
I'm seeing a lot of people calling the Morning After Pill a form of abortion. It's not- it prevents ovulation, just like traditional birth control pills. Just a clarification.
Post by
331902
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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