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Pro-choice vs Abortion

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
Saying so doesn't make it so. You didn't.

Did so too.

In order to stop this particular and obvious conversational trend, you are going to have to tell me why 'I didn't.' And yes, it's your claim that I didn't, so you get to support it.


Abortion isn't murder though. By definition.

"Murder" is a classification given by culture, rather like 'person.' Unlike the scientific classification 'human,' or 'kill,' it is subject to change.

So no, abortion isn't murder, and I have never claimed that it was.

Consider: if a pregnant woman is murdered, sometimes the murderer is charged with two murders; that of the woman AND that of the unborn child. So...if it is murder at any time, why isn't it murder when an abortion is sought "because this kid is in the way?"

Isn't that what the motives of most murders boil down to?

So...your defense of abortion because it isn't 'murder, by definition,' is begging the question. The question is...should it be classified as 'murder" when sought because the mother decides that pregnancy/baby is inconvenient, and the pregnancy is the result of consensual sex between adults?

Seems to me that if one is old enough to be responsible for one's own decisions, and to have sex, one is old enough to be held responsible for the results. Including the human life that results from such activities.
 

whirlingmerc

Well-Known Member
Did she actually say this?

Perhaps she did, but I don't remember that. I strongly suspect that you're putting words in her mouth because what she really said doesn't fit your usual method of finding a reason to dismiss it.
It's something I have noticed about pro-feticide people. They aren't any more honest than Christian prolifers.

In this conversation, I avoid words with subjective meanings. Words like person and murder. I stick to more objective terms like human being and killing.
Tom

And if a child is born alive in an abortion, if the doctor strangles it or leaves it on a shelf to die? Sounds like murder

And why would planned parenthood fight so hard to not legally address those abuses? answer - because monetary big abortion $$$$ interesting dominate the thinking.

That God in some of the hoffiic abortion clinics where women die in terrible conditions, there were criminal drug busts that put a holt. Sadly even in sex trafficking and abuse of minor cases many high profile abortion clinics break the law by not reporting.

Else they would have mammograms and offer more adoption counseling like non profits
 

lostwanderingsoul

Well-Known Member
Why should humans pass laws deciding when a life begins or ends. Only God decides this. Of course we need laws that prevent killing living people, but who should decide if an unborn fetus is a living person?
 

whirlingmerc

Well-Known Member
Why should humans pass laws deciding when a life begins or ends. Only God decides this. Of course we need laws that prevent killing living people, but who should decide if an unborn fetus is a living person?

Would you trot out a toddler and ask if we should be allowed to kill it?????? We always have laws protecting persons

In England a baby is born and if it weights under some amount it is left to die. Sometimes if the weight is on the line a clever nurse will set a tiny scissors on the scale to tip the scales of justicee in the babies favor so it can live.... but aren't we all poorer when a person is not a person because it doesn't weigh enough?

I recall a time when liberal commentators on TV would be horrified at China's policies of aborting 2nd children even after 1st trimester because in their words 'it's like murder' and Jesse Jackson would say in that day that 'abortion is just not acceptable' .... we'll... until he tried to run for president on a Democratic ticket and stuck his finger in the air and threw what he felt unacceptable away sadly.

It's a human nature thing. Fallen people negotiate down down down what they feel God requires of them
 
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Epic Beard Man

Bearded Philosopher
I'm pro-choice. I'm a man and have never been in the position to give birth nor have I had the experience of having a life inside me. I'm a firm believer in a human's right to autonomy and freedom. With that being said I believe a woman's body is her own and nobody has a right to dictate what she ought to do with it.
 

suncowiam

Well-Known Member
Why should humans pass laws deciding when a life begins or ends. Only God decides this. Of course we need laws that prevent killing living people, but who should decide if an unborn fetus is a living person?

Here we go again. Another person speaking for God as if to know the mind of God. How presumptuous and arrogant.

Leave your religion at the door when speaking of matters that concern all people and not just your religion.
 

Epic Beard Man

Bearded Philosopher
I think what personally bothers me about pro-lifers is many go hard in the paint for a woman to NOT get an abortion but once the baby arrives and is healthy and lives these same pro-lifers don't care how a child develops grows or what society it lives in or what defects it may have or what future it may have. It's almost like they're pro-life until the baby comes out of the vagina then poof! Job is done and move on.
 
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Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
To treat life as a sacred gift of God to be cherished and nurtured to fruition means that the legislation that is based upon this consideration will compel the judge to obtain proof that the woman who got pregnant was obeying that law of the country and if she did not wish to have a pregnancy that creates life she would have used contraception.
If it's made the law of some state that that condition should occur, okay, but otherwise what is the principle behind the notion that a willingness to take contraception should factor into a ruling on the rightness of an abortion?
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
I've never had an abortion and, barring a miracle, don't expect to want or need one in the few years I have left in this world. Moreover, I haven't ever encouraged a woman to get one and can't imagine that I ever will. The way I see it, what any woman decides to do about what is happening inside her body is between her, her God (if she believes in one), and her Doctor.

If I ever feel moved to discourage a pregnant woman from undergoing an abortion, I'd only do so if I could pay for all of her needs during pregnancy and adopt the baby when born or see that it is lawfully adopted by fit adults.
Persuading is the only real option. If you cannot persuade someone, then you must concede to the decision they make regarding their own bodies.

I will never have an abortion myself either, but I would hope that the option to be involved in decisions about a conception that I was a part of, is made available.
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
In a pro choice view the unborn have no rights,

President Obama even 'anonymously' authored a paper in Harvard and it was his only paper which was on why a fetus should not be allowed to sue for protection of His interest.
But I have rights, and any legislation about what can or should happen to my body or person threatens them.
 

Kangaroo Feathers

Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
Did so too.

In order to stop this particular and obvious conversational trend, you are going to have to tell me why 'I didn't.' And yes, it's your claim that I didn't, so you get to support it.
I don't know why you didn't. And I'm not going to try to prove a negative. Your posts are there for everyone to see. You didn't do what you're claiming you did.
"Murder" is a classification given by culture, rather like 'person.' Unlike the scientific classification 'human,' or 'kill,' it is subject to change.

So no, abortion isn't murder, and I have never claimed that it was.

Consider: if a pregnant woman is murdered, sometimes the murderer is charged with two murders; that of the woman AND that of the unborn child. So...if it is murder at any time, why isn't it murder when an abortion is sought "because this kid is in the way?"

Isn't that what the motives of most murders boil down to?

So...your defense of abortion because it isn't 'murder, by definition,' is begging the question. The question is...should it be classified as 'murder" when sought because the mother decides that pregnancy/baby is inconvenient, and the pregnancy is the result of consensual sex between adults?

Seems to me that if one is old enough to be responsible for one's own decisions, and to have sex, one is old enough to be held responsible for the results. Including the human life that results from such activities.
I didn't defend anything. I'm just pointing out facts. As for "I didn't claim it was" defences, if you're not claiming abortion is murder, how come you keep talking about murder?
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
it's human, and it's a being. There is no argument from anybody about either thing.

Do not confuse the cultural assignation of 'personhood' with "human being."
Then it comes down to what a 'human being' is. If we keep advancing in artificial intelligence, this question is going to continue to come up and outside of the issue of abortion.

Are a cluster of cells a human being? Is an incompletely formed fetus, incapable of independent existence and without many of the faculties normally attributed to people, a human being? Where is the line?
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
But I have rights, and any legislation about what can or should happen to my body or person threatens them.
I read once that 80% of auto purchases in this country involve the decisions of women. So you can be trusted to pick out the right car for you, but not to make decisions about your own body. That seems such perfectly reasonable logic.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
I don't know why you didn't.

If you don't know why, then you can't claim that I didn't.

And I'm not going to try to prove a negative. Your posts are there for everyone to see. You didn't do what you're claiming you did.

Why didn't I? It's a simple thing.


I didn't defend anything. I'm just pointing out facts. As for "I didn't claim it was" defences, if you're not claiming abortion is murder, how come you keep talking about murder?

I don't, actually. However, feel free to find the posts from me in which I called abortion 'murder,' You won't find any. Then feel free to find posts from me in which I talk about murder in a conversation about abortion. There might be two. Or perhaps three, among all the posts I have submitted, and none of those are referring to abortion as 'murder.'

I can't. "Murder" is a legal term, referring to a specific legal definition/form of killing.

Like "person," murder is in the eye of the justice system and set of laws in a culture. The question is generally whether the culture/laws should be changed.
 

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
Would you trot out a toddler and ask if we should be allowed to kill it??????
Christians commonly advocate the killing of toddlers.

They were the main supporters of Bush's "Shock and Awe campaign", where Bush dropped heavy weapons on the people in Baghdad. Many were toddlers.
Now those toddlers are teens, with a firm opinion about the USA.

Have a nice day.
Tom
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
Then it comes down to what a 'human being' is. If we keep advancing in artificial intelligence, this question is going to continue to come up and outside of the issue of abortion.

Are a cluster of cells a human being? Is an incompletely formed fetus, incapable of independent existence and without many of the faculties normally attributed to people, a human being? Where is the line?

My personal opinion?

If this entity/cluster of cells/incompletely formed fetus has all the DNA that would identify its eventual adult self a 'human being,' then it is a human being.

If the ONLY thing that prevents it from becoming a full adult human being is death, then it is already a human being in an earlier developmental stage, just as an infant is a human being, albeit not an adult.

After all, we call a brain dead coma patient on life support a human being, right? Why? What is it about that patient that makes it a human being, a person, that a fetus does not have?
 

Shantanu

Well-Known Member
If it's made the law of some state that that condition should occur, okay, but otherwise what is the principle behind the notion that a willingness to take contraception should factor into a ruling on the rightness of an abortion?
Abortion should be denied to someone who is not using contraception on grounds that it violates a fundamental law of Nature, namely procreation for the survival of the species: I would have thought that is consistent with evolutionary biology.
 
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