Thread: ABORTION: Where do you stand?

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

And you're holding on to ill feelings because I ragged on you about that My little Pony thing. Get over it already :p

Sorry for the insult, I just can't take it when people make such massively smug posts.

hah, wow, the poll results surprised me. Good to see such a staggering ratio of rational people.

Originally Posted by Mario92

hah, wow, the poll results surprised me. Good to see such a staggering ratio of rational people.

Yeah. What is it about this site that draws in mostly cool people?

Originally Posted by Heavy Sleeper

Yeah. What is it about this site that draws in mostly cool people?

You'd think a site about dreaming would draw in more crazy folks.

Obviously the opinion of people with no children has no merit in an actual discussion.

Originally Posted by Marvo

Obviously the opinion of people with no children has no merit in an actual discussion.

I'll do you one better: I AM a child, or was once. And I can safely say that if I had been aborted before the age of two, I wouldn't have given a damn.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Am I the only one who thinks that looks more like some horrible type of seafood?

Yea you're the only one.

It looks like a mini-John Merrick.

Hahahaha sorry no-name i just had to click.

I used to be against abortion until I realized that it was just like the prohibition of most things--it's going to happen anyway, so you may as well regulate it and make it safe for those who want to do it. Just because it is legal does not mean more people will do it. People won't suddenly alter their beliefs (especially one such as this, with potential "life" on the line) and all decide to get abortions. As long as no one is being forced to do it, what is the problem? Having it be legal simply promotes freedom, something I am perfectly okay with.

I'm in the middle...extremism on both sides of the issue is pretty ignorant.

Also, Carl Sagan won the abortion debate:

http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml

Originally Posted by COLnop

I'm in the middle...extremism on both sides of the issue is pretty ignorant.

Yes, it's far more effective to simply not have an opinion.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

Yes, it's far more effective to simply not have an opinion.

I have an opinion...it's a middle of the road opinion that takes into consideration the circumstances and how far along in the pregnancy it is.

Originally Posted by COLnop

I have an opinion...it's a middle of the road opinion that takes into consideration the circumstances and how far along in the pregnancy it is.

It's fine if you believe that it should be illegal past a certain date in the pregnancy, etc., but basically, as I interpret it, you believe that it should be legal (albeit with a few stipulations/rules). That's not really in the middle. Either you are for abortion or against it... or have no opinion at all (the aforementioned "middle").

Originally Posted by sloth

I used to be pro-choice, until I watched a few abortions through ultrasound.
As the suction tube was sucking up the babies' bodies, they would squirm, and push themselves against the sides of the uteris, trying to get away.

Now I am undecided.

Even insects have the survival instinct. A fetus certainly does not want to die.

Originally Posted by khh

I am definitively pro abortion, and I do not view abortion as immoral. There are mainly two things that together cause me to have this opinion.

First and foremost I consider a human-being's right to make choices about their own life one of the most important, basic human rights that exist. In this context, that means that a woman has an immutable right to make choices about her own body, which would include aborting an unwanted fetus. And before someone makes the argument, this does not apply to the fetus. It does not have the ability to make a choice.

Secondly a fetus is not a person. As has been stated it does not properly experience the world. It does not have memories. Thus killing a fetus isn't murder. The potential to be a person simply doesn't count.
(An interesting quirk: If a pregnant woman were to damage the fetus due to neglect (for instance by knowingly ingesting alcohol while pregnant), that would be an almost unforgivable offense if intending to let the fetus live, because it would cause suffering when the fetus became a person.)

Thus the consideration for the woman simply outweighs the slight immorality of killing a living thing by so much that it's not immoral.

Also, @OP: Cool down a bit. You're currently seem to be insulting almost everyone who disagrees with you. It does not make for a good discussion.

I'm going to say the same things to you as I have to everyone else that shares you opinion in this thread. If you are going to make rules on what qualifies you as a person, such as not "properly experiencing" the world, or having memories, ALOT of living people are not going to qualify. It simply does not hold up.

Also...it is HIGHLY frowned upon to drink while pregnant. Everyone knows that.

Originally Posted by buriedmonsters

I'm going to say the same things to you as I have to everyone else that shares you opinion in this thread. If you are going to make rules on what qualifies you as a person, such as not "properly experiencing" the world, or having memories, ALOT of living people are not going to qualify. It simply does not hold up.

Also...it is HIGHLY frowned upon to drink while pregnant. Everyone knows that.

First, it's a lot. Second, here is, clearly and concisely, exactly why a fetus is not equivalent to human life:

1) It has no emotions. A fetus does not feel. It cannot comprehend love or pain or death. It has no emotional attachment to the world.
2) a fetus is not an organism. Humans operate as organisms. We have cells that are differentiated into multiple complex organ systems that sustain us. A fetus does not have these structures and cannot be considered a complete organism until viability, when it has a 50% chance of living outside the womb under its own cellular support.
3) a fetus is not attached to other people (so to speak). It does not contribute to society, has no sunken cost, and if it is killed, deprives nobody (actually, its stem cells can go toward research that may save a fair number of cancer patients). I think it was you who said that an infertile woman views that fetus as priceless. Yet consider, the adoption agencies in place today are saturated. There are literally thousands upon thousands of already born children looking for a home. Further, it is an argument for the potential to become human life. Under your policy, women should give birth as often as humanly possible to sate the desires of infertile women. Anything else would deprive them horribly.

To clarify, I think a person in a persistent vegetative state, or else permanently brain dead, is a human no longer. The important part -- the ability to think, feel, and respond -- is gone. The body may yet be alive, but the person is AWOL.

Originally Posted by buriedmonsters

Even insects have the survival instinct. A fetus certainly does not want to die.

A fetus doesn't want anything, it doesn't have the capacity to "want". That requires sentience.

It may have the instinct to react when it receives external stimuli, but so does a flatworm or a plant.

Originally Posted by Tsukiomi

Much of this debate depends on what the person defines "life." Most people define people as animals whos concoiusness and traits are based off neurological and gentic processess (to which science has only begun to understand). Likewise science assumes that the universe was made completely randomly because of limited understanding (uncertainity principle, etc) and this there is no "meaning to life". II see people who think like this as incapable of make moral decisions in the first place. If you take out the point of life and its meaning, all that left are indeed selfish animals who do whatever they want simply because they can or its "their body, etc" This is actually due to education of Secular Humanist "values" in public education that has been going on for years.

This, right here. That is exactly right.

Play nice guys or this thread will be taken down to China town.

In the interest of preserving my thread, I'll totally be keepin' it classy boss.

Originally Posted by buriedmonsters

This, right here. That is exactly right.

No its really full of nonsense and I usually love nonsense except when it is of the nonsensical kind and then its just nonsense unless it makes sense.

Originally Posted by Tsukiomi

Much of this debate depends on what the person defines "life." Most people define people as animals whos concoiusness and traits are based off neurological and gentic processess (to which science has only begun to understand). Likewise science assumes that the universe was made completely randomly because of limited understanding (uncertainity principle, etc) and this there is no "meaning to life". II see people who think like this as incapable of make moral decisions in the first place. If you take out the point of life and its meaning, all that left are indeed selfish animals who do whatever they want simply because they can or its "their body, etc" This is actually due to education of Secular Humanist "values" in public education that has been going on for years.

First off the uncertainty principle states that we cannot measure the momentum of a subatomic particle and measure its position at the same time. It has nothing to do with the structure of the universe and whether it is random or not. You are using science as an umbrella term and assuming that all branches of science support the same hypothesis that the universe is “random” which is inaccurate. Science is concerned with what is empirically verifiable and the question of whether there is a “meaning” to life is not verifiable (because it is an absurd and sophomoric question teeming with ambiguity) and thus is not in the interest of science. Questions like this are for religion and new age cults.

Concerning abortion, I’m pro choice (I know you are surprised) and do not have kids. If people are stripped of all of their rights, the last right we should be clinging to is the right to our own bodies. Frankly I’m surprised this thread is even still around, there is already an abortion thread in which Mark completely dominated all naysayers.

Originally Posted by Xei

Every time you have a period, you are killing an unborn child through negligence (neglecting to have sperm enter your ovaries).

For the win.

Sorry for the off topic rant. I don’t always post on Dreamviews but when I do, I do it drunk as hell (not really I never post on DV drunk).

no children. I don't think it possible to say whether or not killing a fetus is murder so I am more on the anti abortion side just to be safe.