Abortion

striker42

striker42

Well-known member
This is is heading to the forefront again with the fight over the SCOTUS brewing. So I'm interested in people's ideas on this subject. It's one that has the potential to elicit strong emotions so I urge everyone to try to keep this as intellectual as possible. This is a really interesting debate that too often devolves into pointless name calling and self righteous indignation.

So, are you for or against abortion and on what do you base that position?
 
I think the majority of people were fine and accepted where the line on abortions were but of course the liberals tried to cross those lines and expand them greatly over the past few years. They’re stupid for that. Third trimester abortions? That’s murder.



Rape, incest, first trimester abortions, emergency birth situations I can accept. After that it’s murder.
 
I despise abortion and as far as I am concerned when a fetus has a heartbeat it's a living being. That said I am also not for locking up women for getting them. It's just counterproductive and when there is/would be so much resistance that's it's not worth it. The fact of the matter is bans on abortions are really only a ban on poor people doing it. You will have your odd lazy rich person get caught up in it but most will just fly somewhere it's legal and get it done.



A federal ban on abortions will be unenforceable. Jury nullification will be rampant and defendants would need only appeal enough times if they lose to get a favorable juror. I imagine prosecutors will treat women like black people in jury selection for these cases which will give the optic of an all male jury convicting a woman for abortion.
 
Last edited:
Abortion is repugnant and the fact so many fight mercilessly to keep and expand it is disgusting.

It is literally intentionally ending human life
 
Life starts somewhere on the spectrum between conception and a crying baby on a delivery table...where you land on that spectrum is going to inform how you feel about this issue. Since there isn’t a universally agreed upon and accepted answer, and there never will be, this issue will never be “solved.” I find it easy to sympathize with most positions on the issue, except the extremes at each end, and tend to line up with Krgecw’s take.
 
acesfull86 said:
Life starts somewhere on the spectrum between conception and a crying baby on a delivery table...where you land on that spectrum is going to inform how you feel about this issue. Since there isn’t a universally agreed upon and accepted answer, and there never will be, this issue will never be “solved.” I find it easy to sympathize with most positions on the issue, except the extremes at each end, and tend to line up with Krgecw’s take.
Click to expand...

Yeah.

Morning after pill. OK.

Late term. Not OK.

In between is where things get tricky. I would err on the side of very carefully regulating the circumstances under which it is legal even for early term cases. And combine that with a robust set of safety net measures to support and encourage women who may be in difficult circumstances to carry the pregnancy to term. Support measures need to be there both during pregnancy and after birth of the child.
 
Last edited:
Ive proposed to my pro choice friends that we should at least "draw the line" at the age in which a human was born and survived... I believe that line is around 21 weeks today.

They of course rejected that notion
 
I'm against abortion as a personal belief, but I'm not naive enough to believe that it won't still happen even if it were illegal. There real issue isn't abortion, but the underlying issues that lead a woman to want an abortion in the first place. Calling women murderers for making a tough decision I'll never have to make is also wrong.

And of course this also leads to the issue that most conservatives only care about the fetus while it's still inside the mother's womb. Once it's born, it's not worthy of their tax dollars to help keep it alive. They'd rather it be uneducated, starve, live on the streets, and/or die of disease than risk helping it with their tax dollars.
 
I am pro choice for a variety of reasons. First of all I think itÂ’s a decision for women to make and only with the input of those they want to listen to. Honestly I donÂ’t think itÂ’s the concern of those of us over 40 and really itÂ’s mostly a problem for those under 30. Interestingly thatÂ’s a demographic that is strongly pro choice.

I think itÂ’s important to remember what a huge impact it has on women. The trauma and disruption of having to carry out a pregnancy is tremendous. Then there is the loss of productivity. People may discontinue their educations and interrupt their career development to have a baby they donÂ’t want. ItÂ’s a sacrifice no one should have to make unless they want to.

Also I think abortion is in societyÂ’s best interest. Many abortions prevent children from being born into bad situations. This may be because they would not have parents willing or able to take care of them. There might be medical reasons or there could be drugs or illegal substances involved. We donÂ’t have a need of a higher population and frankly there is no benefit to society forcing women to carry out pregnancies other than some peopleÂ’s moral concerns which I frankly donÂ’t care about. I honestly think it was a more sensible time when conservatives understood that some people shouldnÂ’t have children.

As to regulations I donÂ’t want late term abortions but I would keep them legal. TheyÂ’re less common and I think usually there is usually a good reason. Maybe they learned something about the babyÂ’s health or maybe they had trouble accessing an abortion because of the numerous hurdles put in place such as multiple appointments or policies where you couldnÂ’t get a appointment near their home.

In general I think the pro life movement is nuts. Years ago I was walking out of the testing center at GA state where I had taken a proctored test for a distance learning test. It was right next to a Planned Parenthood that didnÂ’t offer abortions. I was talking to a woman and a couple of dumb inbreeds came up and got in our face. They actually shoved her and seemed crazy. The scary thing is those sorts are allowed to intimidate women at real clinics and harass and traumatize women under the cover of the first amendment. IÂ’m disgusted by the behavior of the right on this issue.
 
striker42 said:
This is is heading to the forefront again with the fight over the SCOTUS brewing. So I'm interested in people's ideas on this subject. It's one that has the potential to elicit strong emotions so I urge everyone to try to keep this as intellectual as possible. This is a really interesting debate that too often devolves into pointless name calling and self righteous indignation.

So, are you for or against abortion and on what do you base that position?
Click to expand...

lol

i see the replies didn't do this and went as expected lol
 
goldfly said:
i hear ya

godspeed in this endeavor

you got some good replies though too

cheers
Click to expand...

I think on this issue it is easy to think the worst of the people you disagree with. It is a hard one to talk about. But most people are not at the extremes on it.
 
nsacpi said:
I think on this issue it is easy to think the worst of the people you disagree with. It is a hard one to talk about. But most people are not at the extremes on it.
Click to expand...


maybe

the first reply is calling people a murderer for a medical procedure that is virtually non existent

thus why i laughed at the initial request. i've enjoyed reading the takes outside of the obvious radicals
 
My take on abortion is that so much of what you hear is are incredibly flawed arguments. "Abortion is murder" "Banning abortion is oppression of women" etc. They all suffer from the flaw that they're based on unproven (and unprovable) premises.

The core question is what legal and moral duties do we owe to a fetus?

If a fetus is a human life of the same value as any other then we as a society owe it the same duties we owe any other human being. If this is the case then voluntarily ending the life would qualify as murder.

Conversely, if we owe no legal or moral duties to a fetus then restricting what medical procedures a woman can or can't have done would be oppressive.

There's no way to have an empirically correct answer to this question. However, acknowledging that the basis of ones belief on the subject of abortion is an impossible to answer philosophical question robs that person of their self-righteous anger and so they tend to overlook that. Instead, people assume their answer to the initial question is correct and the logic flows easily to either murder or oppression from there.

So I always shake my head when I hear people talk about abortion with absolute certainty that they are correct and unfortunately that's most of what we hear in the news.

Personally, there are two points that make me lean pro-life. First, at the moment of conception a new and absolutely unique human genetic sequence is created. I feel like this is strong evidence that a new human life separate from the mother's has been created.

The second point is just a weighing of lesser evils. If I'm against abortion and I'm wrong, I'm complicit in the oppression of a segment of the female population. If I support abortion and I'm wrong, I'm complicit in the killing of millions of innocent lives.

Those are the arguments that resonate with me at least. I also freely admit that I may be wrong.
 
striker42 said:
Personally, there are two points that make me lean pro-life. First, at the moment of conception a new and absolutely unique human genetic sequence is created.
Click to expand...

I'll play devils advocate.

Do you really want your argument to hinge on the uniqueness of a genetic sequence.

If so how does your rule apply to an identical twin?

To cloned beings?

To a cell that undergoes a mutation, making it unique compared to other cells within the body?

Another hard question: Is it inconsistent with your pro-life stance to allow fertility centers to discard a fertilized egg?

And another one: Is taking a morning after pill permissible under the standard you have set out?
 
Last edited:
nsacpi said:
I'll play devils advocate.

Do you really want your argument to hinge on the uniqueness of a genetic sequence.

If so how does your rule apply to an identical twin?

To cloned beings?

To a cell that undergoes a mutation, making it unique compared to other cells within the body?

Another hard question: Is it inconsistent with your pro-life stance to allow fertility centers to discard a fertilized egg?

And another one: Is taking a morning after pill permissible under the standard you have set out?
Click to expand...

The genetic sequence is more that it is a unique life apart from the mother. There can be two individual human beings that have the same genetic code. It's just that I feel the new genetic code makes it something separate and distinct from the mother.

I think the thing that makes a unique genetic code of a fetus different than the result of some mutation is a fetus can lead to something that is unquestionably a human being, a mutated cell will never be anything other than a mutated cell. So there's definitely something different about the genetic code of a fertilized egg.

I don't feel it is wrong for a fertility center to discard a fertilized egg for the same reason I don't consider ending an ectopic pregnancy to be wrong. Once it is clear that the fertilized egg will never result in a human baby, it no longer has that special status. Once the, for lack of a better term, parents of the fertilized egg are no longer seeking its use, it no longer will become anything more than it is at that moment. So I don't feel like it can claim the status of a human life.

The morning after pill is something I don't have strong feelings about one way or the other to be honest. It's effects are far closer to birth control than to abortions so I really don't care much about it.
 
striker42 said:
My take on abortion is that so much of what you hear is are incredibly flawed arguments. "Abortion is murder" "Banning abortion is oppression of women" etc. They all suffer from the flaw that they're based on unproven (and unprovable) premises.

The core question is what legal and moral duties do we owe to a fetus?

If a fetus is a human life of the same value as any other then we as a society owe it the same duties we owe any other human being. If this is the case then voluntarily ending the life would qualify as murder.

Conversely, if we owe no legal or moral duties to a fetus then restricting what medical procedures a woman can or can't have done would be oppressive.

There's no way to have an empirically correct answer to this question. However, acknowledging that the basis of ones belief on the subject of abortion is an impossible to answer philosophical question robs that person of their self-righteous anger and so they tend to overlook that. Instead, people assume their answer to the initial question is correct and the logic flows easily to either murder or oppression from there.

So I always shake my head when I hear people talk about abortion with absolute certainty that they are correct and unfortunately that's most of what we hear in the news.

Personally, there are two points that make me lean pro-life. First, at the moment of conception a new and absolutely unique human genetic sequence is created. I feel like this is strong evidence that a new human life separate from the mother's has been created.

The second point is just a weighing of lesser evils. If I'm against abortion and I'm wrong, I'm complicit in the oppression of a segment of the female population. If I support abortion and I'm wrong, I'm complicit in the killing of millions of innocent lives.

Those are the arguments that resonate with me at least. I also freely admit that I may be wrong.
Click to expand...

My answer to when a fetus becomes human is based on one of two things. They either need self awareness and to have a cognitive sense of their own identity or have entered into the social fabric. To me at birth once acknowledged they enter into the social contract. Before birth they do not have a sense of self and frankly have far less awareness than livestock. Up until a certain point they couldn't survie without the mother or possibly medical intervention on a scale that wasn't possible for most of human history. Basically until they're born whether they're alive or not they are not a person.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top