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Post by lighthorseman on Sept 4, 2011 0:34:55 GMT -5
Answer me a question, at what point do you draw your arbitrary line that says "to kill this infant now is murder, to kill it prior to this is abortion"? When it's not longer violating somebody's body. How does whether or not it's "violating" anyone make its death murder or not? Surely murder, i.e. the unlawful killing of a person, is based on a beings personhood, rather than where it is at the time? Only in the unfortunate cases of rape or if someone gets pregnant without knowing how it occurs. I'm not moving the goal posts. Let me put it another way... other than medical reasons, which I've said all along, the rest strike me as, well, bullshit. You saw the list, that's why.[/quote]Its a list of stupid reasons. You get pregnant and want an abortion, do it before the 20th week. Its not hard. |
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Post by lighthorseman on Sept 4, 2011 0:35:44 GMT -5
That's the exact problem, though. A lot of people prefer that we don't teach kids about sex, thinking its the job of the parents to do so. Ideally, sure, why not? If its comprehensive, accurate, and unbiased, then go for it. However, that is not the case. Parents can't be trusted to actually teach their children about sex because they're either terrified of it, have some religious taboo regarding it, or find the inherent awkwardness and "squick" factor too great for them to handle. So, its left to the schools to teach them...except that public schools are limited to what they're allowed to teach, either by federal, state, local, or district guidelines. A good deal of "sex education" in the US is abstinence-only education. This has been proven time and again to be inaccurate, biased, and completely idiotic in its aims and expectations. Yet, the heads in charge still vote for such things fearing the backlash from their constituents, namely the particularly zealous Christian populace. Until we're able to get past such moronic preconceptions about adolescent sexuality, namely the fact that it actually exists and is totally and completely natural, this will always be the case with few exceptions. Not a word of disagreement from me on anything you've said. |
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Post by clockworkgirl21 on Sept 4, 2011 0:36:37 GMT -5
I personally believe it should legally be a person when it reaches the moment it can survive outside the mother. She wouldn't be able to abort it then for any reason besides health.
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Post by lighthorseman on Sept 4, 2011 0:36:52 GMT -5
Yeah... well... your country does some weird stuff that the rest of us really don't understand. It's not my country, they're just my neighbors. Unless you mean all the weird stuff we Canadians do. And we do a lot but most of it can be explained as a result of gratuitous beer consumption and/or prolonged exposure to snow. The 1812 bicentennial is coming up and depending on how the election goes, we might be going down to Washington to re-enact the great White House Marshmallow roast.  M sincere apologies, I thought you were one of them. Yes, I think its about time the Commonwealth accepted the US back into the fold and stopped this silliness. |
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Post by lighthorseman on Sept 4, 2011 0:37:40 GMT -5
I personally believe it should legally be a person when it reaches the moment it can survive outside the mother. She wouldn't be able to abort it then for any reason besides health. Thats a valid point of view. |
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Post by Dragon Zachski on Sept 4, 2011 1:49:35 GMT -5
I'm going to agree with clockwork and lighthorseman on this.
I am also completely for increasing sex education in schools, and making sure birth control is always available, even if it means every hotel room contains a package of condoms, condom dispensers in every business, birth control pills available over the counter, and so forth.
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Post by The_L on Sept 4, 2011 8:35:32 GMT -5
Then the kid can find another uterus. I don't think that's a valid argument once we're talking about a being capable of registering pain. Frankly, while I am sympathetic to young, naiive women being taken advantage of and used as in your story, one can't help but feel if one feels one knows a potential co-parent well enough to voluntarily get pregnant with another person, you should probably do your homeowrk about that person BEFORE 20 weeks gestation pass. I mean, avoiding pregnancy isn't that difficult, and as I said in my initial, in cases where it's rape or accidental pregnancy, why the heck leave it so long anyway? I already agreed that in cases where the health of the mother is potentially compromised, that's fair enough. But other than unforseen medical issues, I can't in all honesty think of a reason why anyone would need an abortion later than 20 weeks. You know, personal accountability and all that. Let me spell things out for you. The EARLIEST that you can find out what's going on with the developing embryo inside your uterus is at 8-10 weeks (amniocentesis or chorionic villi sampling). Both of these test for genetic defects ONLY, and they don't always catch all of them. It is very possible for a child to have a severe birth defect that the amniocentesis, for whatever reason, didn't find. Ultrasounds can detect more serious issues, and tell you whether you're carrying multiple births. However, because we're talking about a tiny little fetus here, you can't even tell the baby's sex until about 16 weeks on an ultrasound. Not that that matters, because most ultrasounds aren't administered until... 20 weeks in. Which means that, if you couldn't afford an amniocentesis, or your child has a severe birth defect that isn't purely genetic and easy to see (like Down Syndrome, which results from an entire extra chromosome), you don't know you have a severely deformed child until 20 weeks gestation--the same as your arbitrary limit. What if a woman finds out that the 20-week fetus inside her has harlequin ichthyosis, anencephaly, or something equally horrible? Should she bring that baby to term, forcing it to suffer throughout its short life and die before it is even able to understand the pain it constantly experiences? Is this really more humane than putting a doomed child out of its misery before this has to happen? "It's not the baby's fault daddy left." No, it isn't. But to raise that child as an impoverished single mother forces the child to suffer the consequences of the father's actions ANYWAY, and for a longer period of time. Is this really just? Late-term abortions are LESS likely to be for frivolous reasons than early-term abortions, and by that point, the decision to abort is far more traumatic and difficult to make, especially if the mother was eagerly anticipating the birth of a healthy, happy child. A blanket ban on late-term abortions belittles the emotional turmoil of a mother who has just discovered that her child will never walk, never play with other children, never say "Mama" or "Daddy"--whether she brings that child to term or not. |
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Post by Vene on Sept 4, 2011 10:15:49 GMT -5
When it's not longer violating somebody's body. How does whether or not it's "violating" anyone make its death murder or not? Surely murder, i.e. the unlawful killing of a person, is based on a beings personhood, rather than where it is at the time? Not murder here. Besides, what gives another being the right to your body? At which point was consent given for the fetus to use her uterus? She has to give others the right to her vagina and can withdraw it at any point she pleases. You just added another reason, you stupid fuck. You even contradicted yourself. In this paragraph it's medical only, in the last it was also those who didn't know until after the 20th week. You also ignored another big case, where the woman turns 18 after week 20 and can't fucking terminate the pregnancy beforehand without parental permission. More contradictions, as you added one of them to your accepted reasons and another was on your list of accepted reasons. Unless you don't know you're preggers, or you're a 17 year old girl with parents who won't give permission, or you don't have the money, or it took you this long to get one scheduled due to the speed of bureaucracy, or how about losing your sole means of income so you can't afford to keep yourself fed (let alone another). |
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Post by Amaranth on Sept 4, 2011 10:48:34 GMT -5
At which point was consent given for the fetus to use her uterus? Don't you know? If you let a penis inside you, you automatically consent to anything else. It's kind of like if you invite a guy back to your place, you're automatically consenting to whatever happens in the rest of the night. I mean hey, she was asking for it. |
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Post by clockworkgirl21 on Sept 4, 2011 20:58:50 GMT -5
I think if you have to resort to insults, you automatically lose the argument, whichever side you were on.
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Post by Vene on Sept 4, 2011 21:26:52 GMT -5
I think if you have to resort to insults, you automatically lose the argument, whichever side you were on. And that is actually an ad hom fallacy, so, no, it doesn't mean that at all. |
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Post by kristine on Sept 5, 2011 3:29:53 GMT -5
Okay then - when talking about saving a life VS ownership of your own body... My first thought always comes back to the fact that donation of needed organs is not mandatory upon death. If life is soo important that it trumps ownership of one's own body, Then why don't the people who are already born, have been alive for years and asking for help, take precedence over the wishes of a dead person to be buried with their organs? So dead people should have more rights then pregnant women? I understand the point that 20 weeks should be enough for a pregnant woman to decide but I could not imagine EVERY situation and don't think the law should decide for any person about what is happening to their own body. and then there are other issues like this... www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011308230114Jury rules in favor of doctor who cut off part of Kentucky man's penisSo the Doctor saves this guys life but has to cut off a major part of the patients penis to do it without getting the patient's okay . Now the patients is saying he should have had the right to decide if he wanted this kind of disability or to let the cancer kill him. How important is saving a life? and how important is the person's choices who's body is at risk VS a doctor's (or the state's) obligation to save a life? |
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Post by Amaranth on Sept 5, 2011 7:44:08 GMT -5
OBVIOUSLY, more important than a penis, less important than a fetus.
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Post by kristine on Sept 6, 2011 0:32:40 GMT -5
OBVIOUSLY, more important than a penis, less important than a fetus. The jury found for the doctor and threw out the the guys case...so less important all around. |
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Post by Amaranth on Sept 6, 2011 7:26:03 GMT -5
I HATE those activist juries!
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