Abortion

[catch22]

But what about your claim of a miracle? Do you think it is a miracle that one of those several billions of sperms fertilizes an egg, and only during few particular days?

It appears, God does not want to take any chances and does not trust His aim too much

Ciao

- viole

You are a bit short sighted here. The fact a man has sperm in which to fertilize a woman's egg, to begin with, is a miracle. In other words, just the whole process of reproduction, creating new life, is miraculous.

Not to you, but to some (me included). Like the air you breath and your lungs, you take it for granted.

 

[Smart_Guy]

You guys are still either completely yes or completely no for abortion?

Come on now

 

[viole]

You are a bit short sighted here. The fact a man has sperm in which to fertilize a woman's egg, to begin with, is a miracle. In other words, just the whole process of reproduction, creating new life, is miraculous.

Not to you, but to some (me included). Like the air you breath and your lungs, you take it for granted.

Nope. It is called evolution by natural selection.

And I was not addressing the alleged miracle of a sperm fertilizing an egg, I was addressing the claim that it is a miracle that life arises when only one sperm out of many billions can make it.

There is a slight difference. Don't you think?

Ciao

- viole

 

[SomeRandom]

1. A fetus becomes a child at what time during gestation, please? That would end this whole debate, yes?

Depends on what terminology you're using. In Biology a child is only considered a child after birth. The layman vernacular sometimes defines a fetus as a child, but considering that vernacular is too loose to particularly care about accuracy, I often use the "clinical" definition.

2. It's not false equivocation for me to express my opinion as an analogy:

It actually is. I don't know which specific analogy you're referring to so I'll say it's the toddler one. A toddler is not a fetus, it does not rely on the body of the mother to survive. Killing it is not the same as aborting a fetus. Allowing a fetus to live imposes on the body of the mother by default. Allowing the toddler to live does not. It merely needs a responsible adult guardian (of either gender.) It cannot be used as a proper analogy if it doesn't share any similarities with the thing you're speaking about in the first place!

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/analogy

a) Slavery (as practiced in the Americas, not biblical or legal indentured servitude, the payment of a debt without the whips and beatings and rapes and with kindness) disgusts me as well as most of the people I consider upright and moral.

Well we agree good sir, or madam!

b) Between the colonies and the Civil War, the argument went like this, "I'd never have a slave but a lot of Southerners do, and why not let them live as they wish and have states' autonomy to an extent and so on"?

Yes but slavery by default involves taking away a person's personal autonomy. The slave owners aren't the only ones involved in this slavery deal, you know?
Your analogy only works if you ignore the actual slaves in the equation!!

c) Most pro-choice people would never/only extremely rarely have an elective abortion but wish to allow others to have freedom to do something which disgusts me and grieves me, as well as most of the people I consider upright and moral.

Well personal morality doesn't mean you restrict other people's choices based solely on that. I personally find Catholic Churches who excommunicate 10 year old victims of sexual abuse because they got an abortion utterly despicable. But you don't see me going around them and getting the law to agree with me. That's their choice, no matter how much it disgusts me. Do not be so arrogant to presume that your personal feelings trump personal freedoms of other people, mate.

Perhaps I should leave this debate as it seems no one here is open to change (including me)!

First of all, that meme is wholly overly simplistic. Not all "liberals" hold either or or even both positions. (A liberal is like the opposite to the conservatives, correct? Not very versed in American politics.)
Secondly, life on another planet is an entirely different field of inquiry, one based specifically on astrophysics. Scientists are merely seeing what can survive on other planets. Now let's talk hypocrisy. The pro life crowd often uses this angle and I don't understand why. They don't also advocate the saving of bacteria, which would also constitute "life" in this particular context. They don't speak up for the cancerous tumors people have removed, which would constitute "life" in this specific context. So it's very clear that they are only speaking specifically of "human life" and not other variants of the term, commonly used by Scientists.
Now Scientists who are saying there's life on Mars because of single cell organisms are using the term "life" in a way that is both broad and actually pretty damn specific both at the same time. Which is cool. A single cell organism qualifies as "life" in the context of Scientific disciplines. However whether or not a single cell organism is alive is actually hotly debated. Here, read this for more, hopefully it explains it better than I just did lol. http://www.earthlife.net/life.html http://www.majordifferences.com/2013/10/unicellular-organism-vs-multicellular.html
In other words your meme is deliberately twisting terminology to suit it's own agenda. Quite intellectually dishonest, actually.

Now my science is pretty **** weak, so I shall stand aside and let actual knowledgeable people tackle this more in depth than I can.

 

[columbus]

Depends on what terminology you're using. In Biology a child is only considered a child after birth. The layman vernacular sometimes defines a fetus as a child, but considering that vernacular is too loose to particularly care about accuracy, I often use the "clinical" definition.

You know, I find the semantics of this issue extremely counter productive. Baby, child, fetus, etc., it gets tough to get people to agree upon the meaning of words. Even simple everyday words, in a clear context get redefined it seems.
So let me ask for your opinion. What word would you use to mean "human beings younger than puberty"?
Every adult has gone through the stage to get to be a grown up. It is not just common, it is universal. So, if you don't think that child is the best word what would you suggest?
Tom

 

[SomeRandom]

You know, I find the semantics of this issue extremely counter productive. Baby, child, fetus, etc., it gets tough to get people to agree upon the meaning of words. Even simple everyday words, in a clear context get redefined it seems.
So let me ask for your opinion. What word would you use to mean "human beings younger than puberty"?
Every adult has gone through the stage to get to be a grown up. It is not just common, it is universal. So, if you don't think that child is the best word what would you suggest?
Tom

Fetus. Pre birth. Infant, baby or child. Post birth. Teenager. Adolescence/puberty. Adult. Post Puberty. You know? The terminology and definitions you would find in a High School Biology class?
You do realize that the only reason we have "semantics" in a debate like this in the first place is specifically from vernacular itself? People conflating and using inaccurate terminology (more often than not in an attempt to bring pure emotional reactions into a debate largely involving Science!!) If you hate semantics so much, kindly ask the rest of the Pro Life crowd to use scientific definitions or be upfront that everyone uses vernacular. Your choice.

 

[columbus]

Fetus. Pre birth. Infant, baby or child. Post birth. Teenager. Adolescence/puberty. Adult. Post Puberty. You know? The terminology and definitions you would find in a High School Biology class?

The only word in that list that matches the meaning I described is child. We could make up a new word, I suppose, but why? A prepubescent human is referred to as a child in most contexts without any confusion. "Our child is due around New Years" is not the least bit confusing.
But you made a semantic issue out of BB's use of the word. You corrected him, saying a fetus is not a child, as though it made what he said wrong.
Tom

 

[SomeRandom]

The only word in that list that matches the meaning I described is child. We could make up a new word, I suppose, but why? A prepubescent human is referred to as a child in most contexts without any confusion. "Our child is due around New Years" is not the least bit confusing.
But you made a semantic issue out of BB's use of the word. You corrected him, saying a fetus is not a child, as though it made what he said wrong.
Tom

I never corrected anyone. He asked me a question on when a fetus becomes a child during gestation. I answered that according to my understanding of Biology specifically it's usually only referred to as a child after birth and not before.

Again, you're using vernacular specifically. I studied networking for a while. But we were taught the distinction between "tech lingo" and customer interaction, using vernacular. So although we instantly knew what a "GUI" (pronounced gooey) is when asked, we were supposed to refrain from such terminology when dealing with laymen, because they wouldn't use such language so casually. So it is with science. I don't go around saying to people, wow what a fantastic bottle of dihydrogen monoxide this is. I say, this water is pretty damned good. The former is a scientific term, most people in University level (or even late High School) science would recognize immediately. But not a term to throw around casually around laymen. The latter is vernacular, used in casual speech.
Take the term "pedophile" for example. In casual conversation with other laymen it is defined as practically any adult who hits on or has sex with a person under the age of 16 (or 18 depending on your age of consent laws in your area.) Used in an academic environment the term "pedophile" is defined as a person 16 years and over with an attraction to any prepubescent children, usually under the age of 12 and possibly 13 (depending on the onset of puberty in the individual child.)
The vernacular usage is casual, used merely for communication purposes and conflates several distinct sexual attractions. The academic usage is far more strict and used in academic debates specifically because it's considered far more accurate.
So it is with fetus and zygote, vs child.
Of course most people are going to say "my child is due at this date" instead of "my fetus/zygote is in this specific current stage of gestation and my body will potentially initiate the birthing process at approximately this date."
Casual speech, by it's very nature is bloody casual, mate!

What I'm saying is, there's a difference between academic language and vernacular language (which is not always very accurate) in practically every discipline. We don't use scientific or academic definitions in casual everyday speech. Because our lives are not by default academic, so we laymen tend to reserve such academic distinctions for debates specifically.

 

[columbus]

You guys are still either completely yes or completely no for abortion?

Come on now

There is almost nobody that is "completely no". Everyone with the brains God gave a goose can see that some pregnancies are doomed from the start.
Do you know what an "ectopic pregnancy" is? The zygote implants before it reaches the uterus, like in the fallopian tubes. Those don't have the capacity to nourish the fetal child nor to stretch to accommodate. So it will grow awhile, then rupture and the child dies leaving the mother with a decomposing fetus in her guts. That is an ugly way to die. An abortion is required.

Tom

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

There is almost nobody that is "completely no". Everyone with the brains God gave a goose can see that some pregnancies are doomed from the start.
Do you know what an "ectopic pregnancy" is? The zygote implants before it reaches the uterus, like in the fallopian tubes. Those don't have the capacity to nourish the fetal child nor to stretch to accommodate. So it will grow awhile, then rupture and the child dies leaving the mother with a decomposing fetus in her guts. That is an ugly way to die. An abortion is required.

Tom

... one would think, but the Catholic Church is opposed to abortion even in this case. Their preferred approach is to remove the whole fallopian tube and just leave the fetus to die. In the Catholic moral system, this is supposed to be better somehow.

 

[McBell]

Hey now, I posted that like 20 pages ago! They didn't appreciate it then...

Yeppers.
And it is just as asinine now as it was 20 pages ago.
Unless you can show where someone is claiming that the fetus is not alive..?

 

[columbus]

... one would think, but the Catholic Church is opposed to abortion even in this case. Their preferred approach is to remove the whole fallopian tube and just leave the fetus to die. In the Catholic moral system, this is supposed to be better somehow.

Last I knew that was the only way to do it. I would love to hear that the tech has improved. Mabey the "morning after" pill has helped with this, I don't know.

It can be tragic. My old girlfriend's sister wanted a baby desperately. They tried for years. Imagine only being allowed sex when your wife has taken her temperature to track ovulation. "OK! Now! Do it!". Poor Kenny
But, she had two ectopics and that was that. At least back in the 80's it was.
Tom

 

[McBell]

You know, I find the semantics of this issue extremely counter productive. Baby, child, fetus, etc., it gets tough to get people to agree upon the meaning of words. Even simple everyday words, in a clear context get redefined it seems.
So let me ask for your opinion. What word would you use to mean "human beings younger than puberty"?
Every adult has gone through the stage to get to be a grown up. It is not just common, it is universal. So, if you don't think that child is the best word what would you suggest?
Tom

Then you really need to throw your fit the way of the medical field.
If you take the time to look, you will find that medical records use the correct term for each stage of development.
It is the laymen's who want to whine about semantics when they are to lazy (or ignorant) to know the differences.

But then, medical records need to be not only accurate, but precise.
Being accurate and precise tends to seriously damper appeals to emotion.

 

[Smart_Guy]

There is almost nobody that is "completely no". Everyone with the brains God gave a goose can see that some pregnancies are doomed from the start.
Do you know what an "ectopic pregnancy" is? The zygote implants before it reaches the uterus, like in the fallopian tubes. Those don't have the capacity to nourish the fetal child nor to stretch to accommodate. So it will grow awhile, then rupture and the child dies leaving the mother with a decomposing fetus in her guts. That is an ugly way to die. An abortion is required.

Tom

My point exactly. Sane humans must be resilient/flexible and accepting to surroundings and circumstances. They also should not in some circumstances do whatever they want just because they want to, without giving a thought to possibly affected others around them.

We have a saying that roughly translates to: "circumstances have a hand in decision making".

... one would think, but the Catholic Church is opposed to abortion even in this case.

My God!
Is that a standard teaching in all Catholic views?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

This is abortion thread and a ReligiousForums forum, not a "Bible sucks!" thread so/but let me help you/God help us all (why are you on Religion):

Hey - if you don't want to be called on your shenanigans, then don't pull shenanigans. Asking someone to find text that describes a woman's right to end her pregnancy in a book that doesn't really support women's rights in general is what we call a snipe hunt; a wild goose chase. Not being able to find a verse like what you describe in the Bible doesn't say anything about the Bible being anti-abortion, since an alternative interpretation - i.e. that the Bible is just anti-woman - fits the facts at hand as well.

The simple fact that women were less counted in the ANE yet also recorded as apostles, judges (leaders of the entire nation of Israel), saw the empty tomb first, saw the resurrected Jesus first, etc. - you are talking from sheer biblical ignorance. And if there is ONE person who did more than everyone else to aid the cause of women in the ANE it was Jesus Christ.

The mere fact that someone does impressive things doesn't mean they aren't being deprived of their rights.

Numbers 3 babies less than what? Say what? Are you thinking of the Numbers "taxation"?

In Numbers 3, God asks the Israelites to count how many people are in each tribe and how to do it. In the instructions on how to do it, he says to count the males older than 1 month. Apparently, women and girls don't count, and boys only count after a month of age.

If you like, there's also the passage (in 1 or 2 Kings?) where God tortures David and Bathsheba's newborn baby to death. If it's okay to kill a wanted baby of indeterminate age, why not an unwanted fetus?

 

[columbus]

My God!
Is that a standard teaching in all Catholic vi

No.
This is what is known as a "strawman" argument.
Tom

 

[dust1n]

Really, a woman doesn't get pregnant every time there is ejaculate? Wow, how was I qualified to ever be the assistant director of a CPC?

...we seem to getting less and less coherent.

You said "only one or two of billions and billions of sperm, can actually live long enough to fertilize one of many of the woman's eggs, and thus, miraculously, make a very rare and precious life." This is factually incorrect. Many more than 1 or 2 of million sperm cells can live long enough to fertilize an egg. Even if it were correct, it would make not very rare and precious. If one only produced one sperm cell every 10 weeks, then conception would be rare and precious. But since I literally make millions of sperm, the chances of not some sperm making to egg are lower.

But seriously, folks, I didn't insult you. I pointed out sternly that your "argument" was in poor taste. Let's have a grownup discussion, please?

"And if we're lucky you are not putting your sperm or eggs somewhere when you can make children to teach them the dumb parodies you make when presented with debates concerning human life and death.Please grow up before you have kids!"

Your conception of "pointed out sternly that [my] argument was in poor taste" looks more like you were insinuating that since I was making an argument you didn't like, you found it fortunate I didn't have children, and then implied immaturity on my part, as if I haven't already grown up.

If you are going to insult people, please do it with less backtracking.

 

[BilliardsBall]

But what about your claim of a miracle? Do you think it is a miracle that one of those several billions of sperms fertilizes an egg, and only during few particular days?

It appears, God does not want to take any chances and does not trust His aim too much

Ciao

- viole

Providence - God does something nice for you. Happens often to believers and unbelievers alike.

Miracle - Rare occurrence in which God overcomes what we call natural law to intercede.

A lot of pro-life people mention "the miracle of birth". Well, your own birth only happened once in history. It was a rare occurrence and wonderful! But a miracle? It happened via natural law/natural occurrence. But blessed and providential!

 

[BilliardsBall]

...we seem to getting less and less coherent.

You said "only one or two of billions and billions of sperm, can actually live long enough to fertilize one of many of the woman's eggs, and thus, miraculously, make a very rare and precious life." This is factually incorrect. Many more than 1 or 2 of million sperm cells can live long enough to fertilize an egg. Even if it were correct, it would make not very rare and precious. If one only produced one sperm cell every 10 weeks, then conception would be rare and precious. But since I literally make millions of sperm, the chances of not some sperm making to egg are lower.



"And if we're lucky you are not putting your sperm or eggs somewhere when you can make children to teach them the dumb parodies you make when presented with debates concerning human life and death.Please grow up before you have kids!"

Your conception of "pointed out sternly that [my] argument was in poor taste" looks more like you were insinuating that since I was making an argument you didn't like, you found it fortunate I didn't have children, and then implied immaturity on my part, as if I haven't already grown up.

If you are going to insult people, please do it with less backtracking.

Very well, as you wish--I will say this more directly without insulting you or your intelligence.

Your argument was gross and obnoxious, it trivialized human conception and a life and death abortion debate.

And if you change my unfortunate "live long enough" to "be fortunate enough" you have the idea about the "miraculous providence" of human conception. Thank you for the correction.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Depends on what terminology you're using. In Biology a child is only considered a child after birth. The layman vernacular sometimes defines a fetus as a child, but considering that vernacular is too loose to particularly care about accuracy, I often use the "clinical" definition.



It actually is. I don't know which specific analogy you're referring to so I'll say it's the toddler one. A toddler is not a fetus, it does not rely on the body of the mother to survive. Killing it is not the same as aborting a fetus. Allowing a fetus to live imposes on the body of the mother by default. Allowing the toddler to live does not. It merely needs a responsible adult guardian (of either gender.) It cannot be used as a proper analogy if it doesn't share any similarities with the thing you're speaking about in the first place!

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/analogy



Well we agree good sir, or madam!



Yes but slavery by default involves taking away a person's personal autonomy. The slave owners aren't the only ones involved in this slavery deal, you know?
Your analogy only works if you ignore the actual slaves in the equation!!



Well personal morality doesn't mean you restrict other people's choices based solely on that. I personally find Catholic Churches who excommunicate 10 year old victims of sexual abuse because they got an abortion utterly despicable. But you don't see me going around them and getting the law to agree with me. That's their choice, no matter how much it disgusts me. Do not be so arrogant to presume that your personal feelings trump personal freedoms of other people, mate.



First of all, that meme is wholly overly simplistic. Not all "liberals" hold either or or even both positions. (A liberal is like the opposite to the conservatives, correct? Not very versed in American politics.)
Secondly, life on another planet is an entirely different field of inquiry, one based specifically on astrophysics. Scientists are merely seeing what can survive on other planets. Now let's talk hypocrisy. The pro life crowd often uses this angle and I don't understand why. They don't also advocate the saving of bacteria, which would also constitute "life" in this particular context. They don't speak up for the cancerous tumors people have removed, which would constitute "life" in this specific context. So it's very clear that they are only speaking specifically of "human life" and not other variants of the term, commonly used by Scientists.
Now Scientists who are saying there's life on Mars because of single cell organisms are using the term "life" in a way that is both broad and actually pretty damn specific both at the same time. Which is cool. A single cell organism qualifies as "life" in the context of Scientific disciplines. However whether or not a single cell organism is alive is actually hotly debated. Here, read this for more, hopefully it explains it better than I just did lol. http://www.earthlife.net/life.html http://www.majordifferences.com/2013/10/unicellular-organism-vs-multicellular.html
In other words your meme is deliberately twisting terminology to suit it's own agenda. Quite intellectually dishonest, actually.

Now my science is pretty **** weak, so I shall stand aside and let actual knowledgeable people tackle this more in depth than I can.

If a one-pound baby can be birthed prematurely than saved to life in a NICU, would you personally "allow" elective abortions upon one-and-one-half pound fetuses? Your equivocation demonstrates the unwise choice of terminating a fetus if you're unsure it's "really a life"...

...Which sentiment underscores my slavery analogy. 1) It has to do with "looking the other way". No reasonable person would EVER kill a child, pro-life people say a fetus is a child, and pro-choice people don't "see" the child. 2) The "problem" you found in my analogy is no problem at all, rather an affirmation that we hold the same absolute values. Because you are concerned with the autonomy of the slave, you would have been willing to say, have the North use force so that the slave owners and the states would lose their autonomy (secession, state's rights, slave owner's rights to dispose of their "property"). The baby's autonomy, apparently, is only in force when the baby is no longer dependent on the mother...

...but toddlers also die when left exposed in the cold. How about them? Use your absolute values consistently.