Abortion

Just to clarify, when does it become "someone"? At the moment that the egg is fertilized, or sometime else?

I can address this as soon as I know what your cutoff is.

That number is unreliable, a better estimate is ~100K:

How Often Do People Use Guns In Self-Defense?

Although, since guns aren't readily available by most in the U.K., while they are in the U.S., that distorts the numbers (since it's easier to kill in self-defense with a gun).

Perhaps. I don't know enough about forensic science to comment either way. Though, I think that at this point whether self-defense is an acceptable excuse for killing is leading the conversation in a different direction. It's definitely worth discussing further, though, but maybe not in this thread. I'd be happy to talk about it further in another thread.

So this definitely hinges on when exactly murder begins (conception, viability, etc.), so we can come back to this maybe. I do want to say, though, that pregnancy can be significantly more traumatic than somebody throwing up next to you, by several orders of magnitude.

I can't find any numbers on how many babies are put up for adoption vs. how many are actually adopted, but the number of children in foster care is on the rise:

Number of children in foster care continues to increase

Banning abortion would only increase this, although I know that you would not support abortion just for that purpose.

Pulling the plug is generally to give closure to the family, and to stop racking up the medical costs. It's only done in situations where the person has no hope of recovery, where they're effectively dead already, from a consciousness point of view.

Fair enough. I don't think it is an easy process, but I'm not overly familiar with it.

That's a nice, easy, simple rule to assert, but why should that be the rule? Why not "be careful when having sex, but if you get pregnant, get an abortion"?

 

Why would you want to encourage murder?
"If you get pregnant let someone adopt the baby" makes more sense, adopted children usually get better qualifications and are less likely to commit crime so would help society a lot more to increase their numbers.

Also if the rule is "be careful" theres more focus on the being careful.
If the rule is "be careful, but its also not that important" may as well sleep around, as long as there's a coat hanger within arm's reach.

 

Would charge any abortion clinic of murder regardless of age (excluding cases where abortion is required to save the mother's life). Because of this you could consider fertilisation as the point of it becoming protected by law (in my dreams ).

Usually when I discuss this, pro-abortion people say "the first breathe" is the point when it should be protected by law.

No, it was 2.5 million.

Also you made the point that its easier to kill in self defence if you have a gun, but this is kind of missing the point I was making; I would want to make it harder to kill in self-defence, so I would take away people's guns. - Thus hopefully reduce the murder rate.
This is definitely not the discussion I was expecting to be having on this thread just saying.

Hypothetically, if we agreed that abortion is murder; then you wouldn't argue that because being pregnant is worst than other unpleasant experiences that would justify the murder.

If this was the main basis for why abortions should be legal people would just say "I'm pro-abortion because being pregnant is unpleasant".

 

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while - I travel a bit for work.

I don't agree that it's murder, and I'll go more into that in a bit.

Okay, but then the mother has to go through 9 months of pregnancy, which she may not want to do. Since we disagree on whether abortion is murder, we'd have to resolve that before determining whether we can essentially hold somebody prisoner for 9 months.

If we teach kids to be careful, it doesn't work:

Abstinence-Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates: Why We Need Comprehensive Sex Education in the U.S

Also, I think you underestimate what a serious decision having an abortion is. Nobody will just think "Oh well, at least I have that coat hanger nearby if something goes wrong".

Why is that the cut-off? Why not birth, or viability?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194801/Usually when I discuss this, pro-abortion people say "the first breathe" is the point when it should be protected by law.[/quote]

I definitely disagree with this - whether your lungs function has no bearing upon your personhood.

The article itself says that "the gun lobby claims" that 2.5 million is the number. How many guns were used in self-defense is a hard number to pin down, as not every incidence is reported, but as the gun lobby has a vested interest in higher self-defense rates, you can't just accept their claim as fact. That's why you must look at independent sources.

Ah, I see what you're saying. You're right, let's keep that argument for another thread.

If we agreed that abortion was equivalent to murder, then you're correct - I'd be against it in most circumstances.

 

Bringing a child into this world is a big responsibility and shouldn't be done on a whim, and also cant be reversed. People should consider all aspects of parent hood over a long period of time before deciding if they want kids.

Pregnancy is short term pain and anyone who actually wants to commit to being a parent should be willing to go through it.

Accidental pregnancies are no exception to this, if your going to be careless and un-remorseful over another humans life you don't deserve to be able to kill your way out of it.

Your citing "Abstinence-only education"

I said "Be careful" which means "use a condom" which would definitely not imply abstinence.

I cba finding a statistic for this, but I'm nearly 100% sure if teens used condoms teen pregnancies would go down.

It shouldn't be an easy choice to make.
The choice is "should I murder to make the next 9 months more convenient for me"

People make it seemly guilt free, taking no responsibility for not using birth control.

Really this comes down to a matter of consistency; you need to be able to give a reason to why killing a fetus is morally acceptable, but killing someone else for the same reason isn't. If you believe in any cut-off point your belief on abortion is most likely inconsistent with your opinion on murder.

Whats the point where a human has a moral value where they should be protected from murder?

• Is it with a heartbeat? If the cut-off is heart-beating, that justifies murdering people on pacemakers.
• Is it with a breathe? "Its fine to kill the fetus as it isn't breathing" So therefor its fine to kill people on iron lungs, or who are holding their breathe?
• Is it with brain function? If its fine to kill humans with no/little brain function it must be fine to kill people during certain points of their sleep, or with various mental conditions.
• Is it with viability? If its acceptable to kill a fetus so long as its viable to do, this would justify murdering anyone under the circumstance that its possible to do so.

The point is, its impossible to think abortion fine, and have consistent views of murder.

The only consistent view on abortion is conception or the "convenience" argument which is why I've made the point that people choose to murder as it makes their life easier, taking no responsibility for choosing not to use birth control.

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I know this is random, but if a woman becomes pregnant by accident, what are your thoughts on "male-abortions" where the father choose to opt out of fatherhood, choosing to legally denounce himself from the child, ridding all of his fatherly responsibilities?

As it currently stands, if A woman becomes accidentally pregnant she can decide if she wants to keep the child, and can force the father to pay child support etc.
Whereas the father doesn't have the same right.

 

Most of this comes down to the argument of "is abortion murder?", so I'll address it in a bit.

I agree that it comes down to a matter of consistency, however, I disagree with this particular point you made:

If it's okay to kill somebody with no brain function, it does NOT follow that it's okay to kill somebody who's sleeping. A sleeping person is a fully conscious person, albeit temporarily unconscious. The same goes for a person in a coma.

A fetus, however, is a POTENTIAL conscious human, the same as a sperm cell and an egg are.

That's a good question, actually.

A child doesn't have any say in whether or not it's conceived/born, so for a father to opt out of child support after birth puts the child at a disadvantage through no fault of its own. A born baby is capable of suffering, so causing suffering to it is, in my opinion, immoral, so a "financial abortion" shouldn't be allowed.

 

So its fine for a mother to force a man into fatherhood, but the man doesn't have the same right?

The mum can choose:

• Whether or not to kill the man's child (the man has no say)
• To force the other partner to pay for the child (the man has no say and cant do this to the woman)

Why do all "feminist" arguments have to also be discriminatory towards men :L
Who remembers when feminism was about "equal rights"?

If you cared about equality surely you would want both partners to be able to opt in or out of parenthood without allowing one person the ability to veto the other just because of their sex. Equal responsibility - equal rights.

 

I normally hate to break down posts into little segments, but I can't see another way around it in this case.

She's not forcing the man into fatherhood, the baby was a natural consequence of sex, and the father hopefully understood that. It's not like she's stealing sperm from him.

The laws (at least in the U.S.) that permit abortion don't do so on the basis of ownership/who's genetically responsible for the child, they do so on the basis of bodily autonomy. That's to say, it doesn't matter whose child it is, the law focuses on whether we can force women to carry a child for 9 months.

To the best of my knowledge, it's not done to punish the man, it's done to benefit the child. A financial abortion is, in my opinion, immoral because it hurts the child. Perhaps that could be fixed with state-sponsored child support?

It still is.

I'm in favor of both partners being able to control how involved they are with the child's life, just not in favor of one parent being able to influence the other to have/not have an abortion.

 

I think I must have been unclear because I didn't mean to suggest that the woman is stealing sperm.

The point I was making is that after the point of conception the woman has the choice to be a mother, or to abort the baby.
The man on the other hand has no choice, no say. They instead have to hope the woman has the same opinion, as theirs doesn't matter.

Well its awfully good saying that.
Making one sex have constitutional authority and power over the other, and their life choices isn't equality.
If we turned the tables the other way and suggested that the man should have 100% choice over the abortion or not you would not take so kindly.

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Also any argument regarding "bodily autonomy" is quite an ironic oxymoron, because it suggests that the woman should have power over her body; but in doing so means the child has no control over theirs.
Not to mention the actual abortion procedure is only one very small part of the abortion; having the procedure itself takes 5-10 minutes, while the impact of having or not having an abortion influences both parents for the next coming decades at the least.

I'm not suggesting men should be able to force abortions, resist the urge to quote me at any point and suggest that's the point I'm going for.

Back on the topic this thread was designed for, where do you think the cut-off point for abortions should be?
Viability, heartbeat, conception etc.

Obviously I think conception.

 

They both chose to have sex, they both knew the risks. If you know the risks of something, but do it anyway, you have only yourself to blame.

If we actually turned the tables around, and imagined a scenario where men became pregnant, not women, I would have the exact same opinion - nobody else but you has any right to say what you do with your body.

Also any argument regarding "bodily autonomy" is quite an ironic oxymoron, because it suggests that the woman should have power over her body; but in doing so means the child has no control over theirs.[/quote]

That doesn't make sense. A fetus cannot have any control over its own body, because it doesn't have a mind. It doesn't have any sort of mental capacity.

People are allowed to make decisions that may scar them mentally.

Okay, fair enough.

Conception isn't something that happens instantaneously - fertilization takes a (short) period of time. At what point during this period should the cut-off be?

 

Do whatever makes you happy simple as that lmao

 

depends how many weeks gone she is

 

depends how many weeks gone she is

 

If you abort early I agree with it

 

no one should be forced to give birth thats inhumane in itself

 

I think that after-birth abortion should be allowed:
After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?

We could go a long way to creating a better world by reducing future crime and poverty.

Los Angeles has had an increasing rate of homelessness and when I walk around the city and see them I realize that all of them were abandoned by their parents or society. With abortion we can prevent this from occurring in the future and greatly increase the quality of life for those who are already living instead.

 

thread is over 2 yrs old. stop commenting on it smh

 

Abortion should be entirely up to the mother. There is no argument whether or not it is murder, whether the mother is ready or unready should be her call internationally and this should not follow any backlash or punishment everywhere in the world. I am sure that most people would rather an undeveloped fetus be terminated than to have child neglection or a low quality of life due to being unready.

 

all choice and situation, world is overpopulated anyways