Trigger warning: Prolife with exceptions? Abortion debate.

[YeshuaRedeemed]

The problem is that your being "pro-life" still doesn't justify denying a mother the right to decide for herself what will happen inside her own body. The problem is not that the "life" isn't life, or that it isn't a human life. The problem is that it is not autonomous. You want to assign the right of existential autonomy to something that is not autonomous.

Abortion is murder outside of medical need. See my other post about the inherent misogyny of the abortion industry and how birth control or women having their tubes removed for birth control is more logical. Consent to unprotected sex is consent to pregnancy, so please be responsible.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Yawn. If you don't want a baby, just used birth control or have your tubes removed. I did, and I feel great.

Anyway I often feel that women are not as rational as men, and I'm one of the least misogynistic men you will ever encounter. I genuinely don't think that you girls are all there. Maybe I should be in control of your choices, after all?

 

[YeshuaRedeemed]

That fits the situation I described: an adult's only match for a life-saving kidney is their mother. There are cases where death without the use of the body of another can be just as certain as that a fetus will be terminated in an abortion, nut we still say that bodily security overrides all other concerns.

You want to debate one on one? I play nice.

 

[YeshuaRedeemed]

Anyway I often feel that women are not as rational as men, and I'm one of the least misogynistic men you will ever encounter. I genuinely don't think that you girls are all there. Maybe I should be in control of your choices, after all?

Nice ad homenim.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes, if she caused the condition deliberately and was the only possible match.

You existing as an adult is just as deliberate as you existing as a fetus, if not moreso.

That is such an unlikely event that there is no reason to address it legally.

The need for organs and tissues is so common that people die on the recipient list every day. It's also very common for close relatives to be matches.

 

[sun rise]

Um... no? Why would someone who values biodiversity - human and non-human - want to target some particular manifestation of diversity for elimination?

Dealing with human overpopulation isn't simple. I'm for birth-rate solutions which happen by:

• Promoting Women's Rights. Where women are empowered, control over reproductive decisions follows. It means women are no longer viewed as baby making machines and can make decisions for themselves and their own lives.
• Promoting Family Planning. Being pregnant should never be accidental or unwanted. Following up from women's rights, the idea of raising a family should be viewed as voluntary and something to make preparations for before undergoing.
• Promoting Access to Birth Control. In order for women to successfully make their own reproductive decisions, they also need access to things like birth control. Any and all forms of contraception should be provided at no or low cost. This includes abortion.
• Remove Obstacles to Adoption. Currently, one has to wallow through a bunch of legal red tape on top of having a big wad of cash to adopt a child that already exists on this planet. Such obstacles need to be revisited and largely removed.

There are a few more elements than those, but those are common sense ones that are somewhat feasible in the current political climates of the globe.

The other aspects of working through overpopulation of a species are death-rate solutions, but there are very few of those I'd support. It's not particularly relevant to the abortion issue, though, so no need to go into that here.

That echos part of my frame-of-reference which is odd to many.

• First, I don't like abortion.
  
• Second, I believe in "ensoulment" which means that the soul enters the fetus at a certain stage of development. Thus, to me, abortion is murder only after that happens which to me is not at conception but much later on the order of 24 weeks at the point of viability outside the womb.
  
• Third, outlawing abortion won't stop abortion. I know for a fact since my mother had one when they were utterly illegal. And history shows that was and is true of many many women.
  
• Fourth, if abortion is murder, then the women is a criminal and must be put in jail because murder is murder.

We can add that the abortion rate in the USA is going down pretty dramatically all by itself and is coupled with other social factors including the pregnancy rate.

So to me we keep abortion legal and under the control of the woman until viability. And we also implement measures which reduces pressure on women to have an abortion such as these quite sensible ones.

 

[shmogie]

Because one of the most fundamental rights is the right to bodily security and bodily autonomy. Continuous consent is needed for one person to use the body of another; denying the right to end a pregnancy denies these fundamental rights just as much as, say, forced medical testing or forced organ donation.

You are a human being, conscious, and entirely capable of expressing your will to live. Despite this, if you needed your mother's organs, tissue or fluids to live and she refused, you would still have no right to them even if you would surely die without them... because your mother - like every person - has the right to bodily security.

... and your mother still had this right even when you were a fetus.

NO ! You do not have the legal right to arbitrarily deny food, water or sustenance to your child, or anyone else.

Bodily security is a made up term, probably by you, that has no basis in law.

Security of a person is the protection from external threat, not the benign condition of pregnancy. Personal security would only be an issue if the pregnancy itself was a physical threat to the mother.

Abortion is not a passive act, like saying no to donating an organ, it is a violent intrusive act against a living human with different DNA and possibly a different blood type than the mother.

It is an egregious assault and murder of a human being. It is a fundamental violation of the right to life as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It is sexist and wrong to say women need abortion to avoid being mothers.

Who do you think said that?

I had my tubes removed to avoid motherhood, so as a strong A woman, I feel completely disrespected by the liberal abortion lobby. You say a lot about bodily security and I agree, but what about the baby's body and security.

The fetus, if we consider it to have the rights of a person, also has the right to bodily security: it should also be free from things like medical experimentation and organ harvesting.

Women may not have balls, but we sure as Hell act like it. We are strong and tough. With the right support, most pregnant mothers can safely give birth. You have the right to live, DON'T let anyone tell you otherwise. Love you.

You have the right to bodily security. Don't let anyone tell YOU otherwise.

 

[YeshuaRedeemed]

Who do you think said that?


The fetus, if we consider it to have the rights of a person, also has the right to bodily security: it should also be free from things like medical experimentation and organ harvesting.


You have the right to bodily security. Don't let anyone tell YOU otherwise.

You.

 

[columbus]

You existing as an adult is just as deliberate

I am talking about deliberately causing the need for the kidney, when you are the only possible match.

The need for organs and tissues is so common that people die on the recipient list every day. It's also very common for close relatives to be matches.

I agree, we could do a lot better at encouraging people to become organ donors.
But that's irrelevant to the point of freely making a Choice that results in pregnancy.
Tom

 

[shmogie]

The problem is that your being "pro-life" still doesn't justify denying a mother the right to decide for herself what will happen inside her own body. The problem is not that the "life" isn't life, or that it isn't a human life. The problem is that it is not autonomous. You want to assign the right of existential autonomy to something that is not autonomous.

Please identify for me the Amendment in the Constitution that says a person must be autonomous to actually be a person.

A person, who is formed as a person, who has a beating heart and functioning brain, has the guaranteed right to life regardless of where they are.

A mother who allows her pregnancy to advance to the point where she is carrying a fully formed living human being forfeits the right to destroy that baby, except for extreme exigent circumstances.

The right to life is sacrosanct and trumps all other rights

 

[YeshuaRedeemed]

What is so special about birth? Birth is a change in location.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Second, I believe in "ensoulment" which means that the soul enters the fetus at a certain stage of development. Thus, to me, abortion is murder only after that happens which to me is not at conception but much later on the order of 24 weeks at the point of viability outside the womb.

Why would the point at which "ensoulment" happens be a function of viability (which gets earlier as medical science improves)?

It doesn't make sense to me to say that a pregnant person should be able to end their pregnancy before viability but not after. Literally, you're effectively saying that as long as the fetus absolutely needs the womb, we can deny it, but as soon as it can get by without the womb, the pregnant person is obligated to provide it. It seems like the worst of both worlds.

IMO, a pregant person should never lose the right to end the pregnancy; viability - wherever that ends up for a particular individual - just marks the point where, based on medical criteria, they might try ending it with induced childbirth instead of an abortion procedure that doesn't allow for live birth.

 

[Revoltingest]

There was a TED talk by a fellow who argued that the human population would hold steady at 11 billion people based upon projected rates. We have seen sharp curves upward over the last century or two because of technological improvements in agriculture and medicine, but remember that improvements in education decrease the birth rate. Its projected that the actual population boom will eventually be matched by the death rate, and we will not eat the world. I think eleven billion is pretty high, and it is a challenge. At the same time I think having a lot of people gives us more chances to improve. For example we get the occasional genius. I hate to worship geniuses, but when we get them they come up with some amazing things. I think what we should do is seek to make sure everybody gets educated, and that will control the population as well as help improve our relationship with the environment. I don't think we should try to artificially control the population.

Quantitative projections about future human behavior....hmmmm....not reliable.
I predict an unquantified lower quality of life (overcrowding, you know).

 

[Brickjectivity]

Nice ad homenim.

? There is no such thing as a 'Nice ad homenim'.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Abortion is murder outside of medical need. See my other post about the inherent misogyny of the abortion industry and how birth control or women having their tubes removed for birth control is more logical.

The misogyny is in the anti-choice movement, not in the movement that empowers women to exercise their rights according to their own consciences.

Misogyny pervades the anti-choice movement, whether we're talking about dengrating pregnant women by giving a status below that of a corpse or the near-constant shaming that goes into anti-choice rhetoric.

Did you ever notice that, by and large, the anti-choice movement isn't interested in measures that would make women happier or better off, no matter how many abortions would be prevented? I've noticed: if a tactic doesn't have the side effect of punishing women for having sex they disapprove of, they don't care.

Consent to unprotected sex is consent to pregnancy, so please be responsible.

No, it isn't. Consent is a continuous thing:

- consent to flirting isn't consent to kissing
- consent to kissing isn't consent to sex
- consent to sex isn't consent to conception
- consent to conception isn't consent to pregnancy
- consent to pregnancy isn't consent to remaining pregnant

This idea that consent to one thing is consent to what "follows" is a perpetuation of rape culture. It's the same sort of mindset that let countless rapists off the hook with a "but she invited him up! What did she think was going to happen?"

 

[Skwim]

At the end of the FIRST trimester the baby is formed as a human and has a beating heart. To kill it is the murder of a human. Abortion should be allowed after the first trimester only in the case of potential serious PHYSICAL harm or death to the mother.

"As many as 75 percent of fertilized eggs do not go on to result in a full-term pregnancy."

In the same study that found 22 percent of conceptions fail to implant, it was also found that 31 percent of pregnancies confirmed after implantation end in miscarriage. That would mean that about one in three pregnancies miscarries."
source
​

In as much as god is in charge of nature---he can let stuff happen or prevent it---he's responsible for the 75% spontaneous abortions that occur with un-implanted eggs. Of course if you don't believe a simple fertilized human egg qualifies as life, you could also consider that he's responsible for the 31% of spontaneous abortions that occur with implanted eggs. Either way, these rates are far higher than the 19% of pregnancies that end in elected abortions.

.

. ​

 

[BSM1]

I am not trying to be mean or anything, but I want to know if I can be prolife with exceptions? I think abortion is usually murder, but should be kept legal in some cases. I believe and can prove that life begins at conception, and that unborn people USUALLY have the right to live, that prevention is more ethically correct than abortion, BUT, i certainly respect my mother enough to say if she had certain medical needs, she would have had the right to abort me. It is presumptuous to assume all abortion is ethical or unethical, and I want to ask both sides of the debate: What is wrong with being moderate on abortion?

First, murder is a legal term; abortion is legal so it can't be murder. Secondly, you've already labelled yourself by stating some abortions should be legit. This makes you more "anti-choice" rather than "pro-life". Thirdly, it's not for you or anyone else to decide if a woman should have an abortion. This decision should be up to the woman, her doctor, and her conscience.

 

[BSM1]

Nothing.

As a gay male, the abortion debate has no real impact on me. I favor access to abortion to the end of the 2nd trimester - for any reason. Beyond the end of the 2nd trimester would require both a court approval and a doctors approval.

If anyone thinks my position is unreasonable bring it on, baby. (Pun intended).

You say that now, but I bet you'll sing a different tune if you wind up with a bun in your oven...just sayin'.

 

[BSM1]

The misogyny is in the anti-choice movement, not in the movement that empowers women to exercise their rights according to their own consciences.

Misogyny pervades the anti-choice movement, whether we're talking about dengrating pregnant women by giving a status below that of a corpse or the near-constant shaming that goes into anti-choice rhetoric.

Did you ever notice that, by and large, the anti-choice movement isn't interested in measures that would make women happier or better off, no matter how many abortions would be prevented? I've noticed: if a tactic doesn't have the side effect of punishing women for having sex they disapprove of, they don't care.


No, it isn't. Consent is a continuous thing:

- consent to flirting isn't consent to sex
- consent to kissing isn't consent to sex
- consent to sex isn't consent to conception
- consent to conception isn't consent to pregnancy
- consent to pregnancy isn't consent to remaining pregnant

This idea that consent to one thing is consent to what "follows" is a perpetuation of rape culture. It's the same sort of mindset that let countless rapists off the hook with a "but she invited him up! What did she think was going to happen?"

Finally, we have common ground, lol.