Abortion

[Unveiled Artist]

Actually I would say what the mother said. That is the logical thing to say. There is no plant yet. Just a seed that has not germinated. i think we have different views on this. More importantly I will think nothing about uprooting plants in the gardens I own if I feel like it. I am also confused about your plant examples. What's wrong with killing and eating plants? They are devoid of consciousness or even rudimentary minds. We are animals. We feed on other lifeforms, even if they are plants.

It's not about killing plants. It's an analogy. Once the plant starts germinating, I see no going back. I don't see a point of time when the plant all of the sudden becomes special to me. It starts when I plant the seed, grow it, it blooms, and how I give the remains back to the earth. Unfortunately, in America, we aren't too nature oriented in the city parts. In the rural and country, probably the same. The country parts are more people oriented. Just the same, I can't imagine that a child is beginning to germinate until a full body and someone just cuts his life short because he wasn't fertilized into a full grown "plant." My mind can't grasp that life can be defined. Everything is living whether by it moving by heat/energy or as many religions define energy as by our spirits. The same as plants, animals, and objects. Nothing is actually artificial. Everything comes from the earth. I believe everything is alive. When I eat, my prayers are to that the food nourish my body and like other spirits of my family, my environment live in me as I live in them. We don't eat plants until they are fully grown, though. Once you stop the process, how can you have a healthy crop to feed your family?

Preserving forests and ecosystems is important both for the environment and for our own survival. But individual plants do not have any moral claims over us.

That depends on ones belief, though. I believe that our environment has moral claim as I have claim over it. I see no hierarchy in nature and myself. I'm not the center of the universe. I actually see better morals in nature than I do myself because nature isn't filtering itself with bias and influenced by other people's rights and wrongs. The growth of plants work by laws of nature-the blessings of the sun and workings of the moon for example. If we took care of our environment, and be gratitude for and to the food eat, we'd probably see killing a bit differently especially murder.

If they thought abortion was okay, they would have aborted her? That seems kind of harsh. But if this is how they believed then they would not think like me.

Yes. A lot of people feel if the child isn't going to long, has multiple health defects, and that can affect the mother, they abort the child. She says she owes her parents their lives for not going with their consideration to do so. Also, her Catholic faith has given her morals about this.

You say this. I am not so sure I believe it. But if it is true their are plenty of child killers and rapists who need a friend, and would not pose an issue of safety to you.

I have been friends with killers, rapists (that told me they are and what they have done), and people who committed crimes but in this case have mental illness as well (mental illness doesnt exnay the immoral action of murder). The reason I unfriended a couple is because they are in my immediate area and they tell me things they do in the present. There are long stories behind it; but, I don't believe in not being friends with someone based on their moral character. If that's the case, I understand why some christians (which there are some) who don't want to befriend or even support their homosexual friend because they equate sexual orientation (or to them behavior) with murder. So, it depends on the person.

You have a flawed scenario here. The destruction of her seed is something we recognize as immoral. But this is not because of the value of the seed as life. If we were instead to have the little girl build a sand castle, we would have just as much of an immoral ring. If the girl had a stuffed animal and the person ripped it to shreds and the mother said now now, it wasn't actually living. We would see the same problem. All you have done is show that the destruction of something special (regardless of life) is something we tend to see as immoral.

That "destruction of something special" is the point. Life is special. Given it is immoral, that's a huge reason I dislike abortion. Why destroy something that always has started growing to be a full human being?

A man or a squirrel eating an acorn is not the same as falling a mighty oak. We do not hold funerals for spontaneous abortions. There is a difference between the emotional impact of miscarrying at 2weeks versus 8 months. And there is certainly a difference in the feeling of loss between losing a pregnancy at 4 weeks and losing a four year old. You can repeat that it is the same but I think that you are being dishonest with not only me but also yourself.

My disagreeing with you doesn't mean I am dishonest with myself or others. I notice I hold a lot of beliefs that arent the "common norm" of things. I think probably once a couple months I find I see life differently than what people consider the majority. I just find it strange.

My point is once you start to create life, it starts from conception, stopping that process is stopping the growth of an unborn child. I disagree with stopping this process.

Would you scoop a spontaneous abortion from the toilet and purchase a coffin and burial plot, or would you flush? How would you handle the remains of a five year old?

Abortions are fetus' that were already alive before they "Went into the toilet." As such, when you stop the process, and they are dead, why would I scoop up the remains of an horrible act? The five year old wouldn't be five years old if it were aborted after conception during its growth. I don't understand how the five-year old boy is related to abortion.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Now I know of no modern human societies that think it is permissible to dash an infant's head against a rock because it only has the 'potential' to become a human adult....what's the difference between a foetus and that newborn, except the stage of its development?

Do you know of any modern human society that forces organ donation?

Once that fetus is born and grows into an adult human being that is intelligent, feels pain, and clearly expresses the desire to live, we don't force that person's mother to provide him with the use of her organs or tissues then. What's so special about a fetus that you think that it's entitled to the use of her organs and tissues while in the womb?

You argue that we should treat fetuses like people? Well, people aren't entitled to the use of another person's body without that person's continuous consent.

Even if we grant fetuses all the rights of people, we're still left in a pro-choice position. Arguing for any restriction on abortion can only be justified if fetuses have rights way beyond those of a typical person or pregnant women have rights way less than a typical person.

... less than a corpse, in fact, since even corpses have the right to bodily security: even if a person's organs would save multiple lives, if the person refused to donate them before death, we honour that wish after death.

I've never seen any anti-choice (and I use that term deliberately) advocate argue that fetuses are "super-beings" who are entitled to more rights than normal people, so what you and others who share your position are really arguing for is the devaluation of pregnant women to the point where you would refuse them rights we even grant to corpses.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Not really. Abortifacients are ancient. The ones we have work better with fewer side effects, but trying to understand new and better ways to end pregnancy has always gone hand in hand with trying to understand pregnancy in general.


A pregnant woman alone on a desert island is in trouble regardless.

BTW: if she's alone, how did she get pregnant?

Haha... it is, obviously, a hypothetical. She is the lone survivor of a shipwreck. There, are you happy?

And yes, I understand that abortions have been attempted and have gone on throughout many ages. However, mainly what I was pointing to is how difficult it is for a woman to enact her own abortion. It makes it far less of a simple "choice". It's akin to my choosing to take out my own appendix. I can certainly choose to do so... but it is at my own peril, because I am most certainly messing around in an area I know very little about. We have allowed it to be simplified to a "choice", however, with the implements and advancements we have made. I am merely pointing out that if we were to take a few steps back toward our natural origins, making the "choice" is simply not easy from a physical point of view.

 

[McBell]

Are people dumb?

I mean really when I was a non Christian Science clearly showed me abortion was murder

That you play so loose and free with the definitions of the words you use, it is obvious an honest discussion will not be possible with you on the topic.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I think that one reason abortion rights took is that a woman without help DID have a choice. She might take poison, she might stick a clothes hanger up there, she might kill herself.........

Exactly - making it not much of a "choice" at all. At least not a safe or extremely intelligent one. As stated to someone else, I can "choose" to take my own appendix out - but I daresay there aren't too many who would (truly) sympathize were I to make that choice and things were to go poorly for me.

But yes, I understand that another reason to provide the service is to help women who would otherwise hurt themselves - because there are situations in which having the child (in the case of rape or some other situation in which the choice to become pregnant was a forced one) is almost equally as terrifying a prospect.

 

[Curious George]

Abortions are fetus' that were already alive before they "Went into the toilet." As such, when you stop the process, and they are dead, why would I scoop up the remains of an horrible act? The five year old wouldn't be five years old if it were aborted after conception during its growth. I don't understand how the five-year old boy is related to abortion.

A spontaneous abortion is a natural thing. It is the mothers body rejecting the pregnancy. So my question is: if life is just as precious at this stage would you treat the remains the same? Why or why not? That is what a deceased five year old has to do with abortion. Because there is a clear difference in how we treat the remains. Thus showing a distinction.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

A spontaneous abortion is a natural thing. It is the mothers body rejecting the pregnancy. So my question is: if life is just as precious at this stage would you treat the remains the same? Why or why not? That is what a deceased five year old has to do with abortion. Because there is a clear difference in how we treat the remains. Thus showing a distinction.

When I and other people against abortion are speaking of abortions, we are speaking of the act of aborting not the body's natural system of aborting a fetus. Also, spontaneous abortion is what the body does on its own. It hasn't started creating a heart beat and limbs or anything like that.

I am not against the human body's natural abort. There is no killing involved. My grandmother tried to abort her child by a clothes wire. That isn't natural. I don't agree with abortion (the act of aborting).

You're playing with words.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

Ha, you are trying ain't you ?.

So you think these supposed "wolf-children" were actually wolves, then? They were not mentally deranged humans?

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

Also, spontaneous abortion is what the body does on its own. There is no sperm involved. It hasn't started creating a heart beat and limbs or anything like that.

If this is the case, what are the differences between a miscarriage and a 'spontaneous abortion'?

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

Also, spontaneous abortion is what the body does on its own. There is no sperm involved.

Not quite, "spontaneous abortion" is essentially a softer term for "miscarriage", typically of fetuses prior to 20 weeks. Sperm is certainly involved.

 

[McBell]

When I and other people against abortion are speaking of abortions, we are speaking of the act of aborting not the body's natural system of aborting a fetus. Also, spontaneous abortion is what the body does on its own. It hasn't started creating a heart beat and limbs or anything like that.

I am not against the human body's natural abort. There is no killing involved. My grandmother tried to abort her child by a clothes wire. That isn't natural. I don't agree with abortion (the act of aborting).

You're playing with words.

how do you differentiate between a "spontaneous abortion" and a "miscarriage"?

 

[McBell]

how do you differentiate between a "spontaneous abortion" and a "miscarriage"?

Not quite, "spontaneous abortion" is essentially a softer term for "miscarriage", typically of fetuses prior to 20 weeks. Sperm is certainly involved.

So the difference is fertilization?

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

So the difference is fertilization?

No, the difference is terminology. Like the difference between "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" and "Shellshock." A "spontaneous abortion" is a miscarriage, but miscarriage sounds too harsh.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

If this is the case, what are the differences between a miscarriage and a 'spontaneous abortion'?

According to The Rage Pagan whom Im speaking with, there is none really.

My issue is I don't care for the actual aborting of a child from the moment of conception. I feel life is precious. The body naturally aborts but the abortion-argument is about a doctor actually tearing a part a growing human child. Miscarriages aren't in the same category nor is spontaneous abortion.

I honestly don't see how that relates to killing an unborn child.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Not quite, "spontaneous abortion" is essentially a softer term for "miscarriage", typically of fetuses prior to 20 weeks. Sperm is certainly involved.

In a miscarriage, no doctor is aborting the child. That's the difference. In both cases, life is precious. The body is doing its own thing. The mother (hopefully) isn't creating her miscarriages. The act of abortion is what I agree with. Thats what we refer to when we talk about abortion.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

I don't think anyone "cares" for abortion. People aren't skipping to the clinic, throwing open the doors, and proclaiming joyfully "Alright Doc, get to hackin'!" Yet there are times when it is needed, or when - difficult though it may be - it is wanted. And for that, we should very much so have safe, sterile, and professional care. Otherwise it's back-alley abortions with coat hangers, because if people want abortions, they will get them.

Miscarriages relate in contrast to the typical argument of "life is sacred". Life may be sacred, but that doesn't mean it's above killing.

 

[Curious George]

When I and other people against abortion are speaking of abortions, we are speaking of the act of aborting not the body's natural system of aborting a fetus. Also, spontaneous abortion is what the body does on its own. It hasn't started creating a heart beat and limbs or anything like that.

I am not against the human body's natural abort. There is no killing involved. My grandmother tried to abort her child by a clothes wire. That isn't natural. I don't agree with abortion (the act of aborting).

You're playing with words.

No, I am not playing with words. You are trying to say they equal. Just as a five year old can die of natural causes so too can a fetus die (if we consider them alive) of natural causes. The question remains are they equal. If they are I would expect people to act as though they are. So again, do you scoop and purchase a coffin and land, or do you flush?

 

[McBell]

No, the difference is terminology. Like the difference between "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" and "Shellshock." A "spontaneous abortion" is a miscarriage, but miscarriage sounds too harsh.

OK,
thank you for the clarification.

I do have one question though....
How are sperm not involved if they are the same thing?

 

[McBell]

So again, do you scoop and purchase a coffin and land, or do you flush?

I sincerely hope this is merely bad wording on your part.

 

[Curious George]

I sincerely hope this is merely bad wording on your part.

Are you referring to the word choice of "scoop?"