RC and the anti-abortionist.

[RedCheetah]

It's like a sitcom, but not really.

After my wife and I went through a miscarriage last fall, I can't imagine how anyone could a) consider that unborn baby is not a real person b) want to kill an innocent life. I know that everyone is different and life puts us in tough places, but losing our 12 week old unborn child is hands down the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with. I honestly don't feel like we have the right to decide that another person doesn't have the right to live because of how messed up our lives are. Why is it OK to kill our children before birth but not after?

The things that bothers me even more than the typical abortion are the plan B/morning after pills as a means of birth control. Preemptively snuffing a life because you were too lazy to use a means of prevention.

RC: every child has the right to live.

And why is that?

After my wife and I went through a miscarriage last fall, I can't imagine how anyone could a) consider that unborn baby is not a real person b) want to kill an innocent life. I know that everyone is different and life puts us in tough places, but losing our 12 week old unborn child is hands down the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with. I honestly don't feel like we have the right to decide that another person doesn't have the right to live because of how messed up our lives are. Why is it OK to kill our children before birth but not after?

You personally can't imagine such scenarios. I can, and millions of other people can too. Saying they don't have the right to terminate a pregnancy is just as crazy as, for instance, them saying you don't have the right to begin one in the first place, ie population control.

Now to jam my monkey wrench even further into the cogs of dogma and irrationality, here's something I pilfered from The Forum:

http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html

"I've had several cases over the years in which the anti-abortion patient had rationalized in one way or another that her case was the only exception, but the one that really made an impression was the college senior who was the president of her campus Right-to-Life organization, meaning that she had worked very hard in that organization for several years. As I was completing her procedure, I asked what she planned to do about her high office in the RTL organization. Her response was a wide-eyed, 'You're not going to tell them, are you!?' When assured that I was not, she breathed a sigh of relief, explaining how important that position was to her and how she wouldn't want this to interfere with it." (Physician, Texas)

[God]

Why is it OK to kill our children before birth but not after?

because you CANT abort a child after a certain point of development anyway, thats why. can people please that using this argument.

[RedCheetah]

You personally can't imagine such scenarios. I can, and millions of other people can too. Saying they don't have the right to terminate a pregnancy is just as crazy as, for instance, them saying you don't have the right to begin one in the first place, ie population control.

Unless you believe that life begins at conception. If you could rationalize terminating a young life while in the womb for a "good" reason, would you advocate doing the same for children under the age of 1? I mean what if within the first year the father dies and the mother loses her job and becomes a crack whore. Wouldn't you say the child would be better off dead than live with one unreliable parent and possibly being prostituted for drugs? If you make this distinction while the child is in the womb, why not outside? What about making this distinction at 2, 3, or 4 years? Most would say that murder is wrong, so when it is OK to terminate a life and when is it murder? Is a life not a life before it exits the womb?

Unless you believe that life begins at conception.

Which of course it doesn't. A zygote is about as human as your cheek cells but I don't see you crying over their loss.

If you could rationalize terminating a young life while in the womb for a "good" reason, would you advocate doing the same for children under the age of 1?

No, because the kid was born and is an actual growing healthy human being at that point.

I mean what if within the first year the father dies and the mother loses her job and becomes a crack whore. Wouldn't you say the child would be better off dead than live with one unreliable parent and possibly being prostituted for drugs?

You're assuming I'd advocate your ridiculous idea.

If you make this distinction while the child is in the womb, why not outside?

If you distinguish murder as lack of vital signs, why not with vital signs?

If you distinguish an accident as vehicular damage, why not without vehicular damage?

Oh, wait, because they're entirely different things.

What about making this distinction at 2, 3, or 4 years? Most would say that murder is wrong, so when it is OK to terminate a life and when is it murder? Is a life not a life before it exits the womb?

Looks like you answered your own question, kiddo. A baby's not a baby until it's been slapped on the ass, given a name and a certificate of birth.

[RedCheetah]

Looks like you answered your own question, kiddo. A baby's not a baby until it's been slapped on the ass, given a name and a certificate of birth.

Because they obviously don't have a beating heart, their own DNA, or even a different sex than their mother. It's rather ludicrous to think that there is some sort of magical boundary at the mouth of the vagina that makes someone their own person. They were that same person 5 minutes before they were born. They were that same person from the minute they were conceived. I mean, miscarriages and still-births after so many weeks require an official death certificate despite the fact these babies weren't "alive" according to your definition.

What is your reasoning and evidence for life arbitrarily beginning shortly after birth and not before?

I think it's ridiculous you assume it's a valuable human life the second a sperm cell enters an egg cell. The human species is nowhere near carrying capacity but many many families are, and if they can't afford another child (especially one with debilitating birth defects) the whole family suffers. How will you feel when the healthy kids in a family can't go to college because legislation you helped pass says the accidental brother with Down's Syndrome has to be cared for at the great expense of the parents?

[RedCheetah]

I wouldn't be so selfish to deny someone the right to live just so I could go to college. I find it rather disgusting to even think that someone would snuff out a life for their own personal gain. Following your logic, could you do the same if a baby had a expensive and debilitating illness during the first year after birth? I would buy your "for the good of the family" argument if you could show somehow that an unborn child is any less alive than a born child. Otherwise your same logic would lead to allowing the killing of children post-birth.

If we judge death by the lack of vital signs, why don't we constitute life by the presence of vital signs? Unborn babies have a beating heart and most of their organs function. They also have their own DNA and can react to stimuli. After 23 weeks, babies are capable of living outside the womb. I say there is a vast amount of evidence supporting life before birth. I'd like know why you consider unborn babies not alive.

I wouldn't be so selfish to deny someone the right to live just so I could go to college. I find it rather disgusting to even think that someone would snuff out a life for their own personal gain. Following your logic, could you do the same if a baby had a expensive and debilitating illness during the first year after birth? I would buy your "for the good of the family" argument if you could show somehow that an unborn child is any less alive than a born child. Otherwise your same logic would lead to allowing the killing of children post-birth.

I find it rather disgusting you'd force crack babies to suffer through their meaningless and very short existences by denying them an early death. Second, they do kill infants after birth, at least in France, if the baby has a serious disability. It's called post natal abortion.

If we judge death by the lack of vital signs, why don't we constitute life by the presence of vital signs? Unborn babies have a beating heart and most of their organs function. They also have their own DNA and can react to stimuli. After 23 weeks, babies are capable of living outside the womb. I say there is a vast amount of evidence supporting life before birth. I'd like know why you consider unborn babies not alive.

Unborn babies also have tails, gills, and are remarkably similar to reptile and fish and bird embryos. The DNA hasn't had time to differentiate the organism yet.

[RedCheetah]

I find it rather disgusting you'd force crack babies to suffer through their meaningless and very short existences by denying them an early death. Second, they do kill infants after birth, at least in France, if the baby has a serious disability. It's called post natal abortion.

Because no one born with a disability can live a meaningful life. Helen Keller lived a pretty meaningful and inspirational life despite her disabilities. But you wouldn't know that if she was killed before she had a chance to live her life. There are thousands of others that live fulfilling and meaningful with disabilities from birth. You can check out http://www.disabled-world.com/artman...cle_0060.shtml so see some more people who have had disabilities from birth that made lived meaningful lives. There is no way to say that someone's life is going to be meaningless before they live it. If someone decides they don't want to live their life they can end it themselves, but to make that decision for someone else even before they are born, really? Beyond that, who decides what disabilities are serious enough to make a life meaningless? It obviously isn't the person with the disability. I'm surprised that as an atheist you would support one person pushing a decision, especially one as serious of life or death, on another. You cannot say with 100% certainty that a person would either want to be killed at that age or that their life would not be worth living.

I think the point being argued here is the right to live and who has the right to revoke this right on behalf of another. I would say that everyone has this right from the moment they begin to exist. Murder is wrong because it takes this right away. The bible states that murder is wrong and almost every civilization has punished it as wrong. I would hope that we can both agree that murder among adults is wrong. Moving backwards in age, I don't see any point at which it would cease to be wrong. At what point, would you say humans cease/begin to have the right to live? If so, what evidence do you have to back up your claim?

I want to point out something ever so gracefully sidestepped:

"You personally can't imagine such scenarios. I can, and millions of other people can too. Saying they don't have the right to terminate a pregnancy is just as crazy as, for instance, them saying you don't have the right to begin one in the first place, ie population control."

Obviously not every person on earth can reproduce healthy offspring and raise them properly. Obviously again far too many people reproduce because nature is prolific in this way. Therefore if we can't abort pregnancies that won't be taken care of properly, how are we going to solve this problem of babies ending up in the hands of people who don't want them?

[RedCheetah]

If the problem is too many unwanted children, there are many alternatives to abortion that are cheaper, less risky and don't involve killing an innocent life. All it really takes is a little bit of responsibility.

With the exception of rape (which I will discuss below), pregnancy is 100% preventable. That is to say, if everyone was responsible and logical, then there would be no unwanted babies. Unwanted babies start with unwanted pregnancies. Contraception stops pregnancies before they start. Since life starts at conception there is no killing of an innocent life. This is really the most logical approach to take care of things before they become a problem. If you want to take care of an ant infestation, do you just crush every ant you see? No, you take out the ant colony as the source. A ounce of prevention is worth pound of cure.

So, What is the best contraceptive? Abstinence. Believe it or not, you don't have to have sex. Despite its prevalence in culture and "raging hormones", it is a choice you make and it should be made more responsibly than it usually is. As an analogy, I really want to go sky diving. However, I don't have life insurance and my wife depends on my income and presence. Therefore I make the responsible decision and don't risk the increased chance of death from sky diving. All of the other risky activities I participate in I have insurance to protect me and my family. Anyone making the choice to have sex if they aren't ready to deal with a pregnancy is making an irresponsible choice. Abstinence is free and 100% effective (except for rape, but I said I would address that later). Although I wouldn't morally agree with it, masturbation, mutual masturbation, oral and anal sex could be done carefully in order to satisfy the hormonal urges. Either way there is a responsible, logical, and 100% effective way to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

But hey, we can't expect everyone to make the right choice can we? In that case there are ways to engage in sex a much reduced risk of pregnancy. They are cheaper than an abortion and most are available at your average OB/GYN offices. Through using oral birth control pills (1 in 200 failure rate) condoms (1 in 5 failure rate) and spermicidal lube on the condom (1 in 4 failure rate), The risk of pregnancy is 1 in 4000. Combine that with fact that women are only fertile for about half the time (1 in 2), that gives us a failure rate of 1 in 8000. That is sex every other day for 43 years, well over the average fertile length of the female life! Not to mention, who has sex that much for that long? Needless to say, pregnancy is extremely preventable even if you are having sex. Sure, its not perfect, but neither is abortion which ranges from 1% to 8% based on method. Condoms and birth control pills can often be had for free or cheaper than the $350+ price of abortions. Using multiple method of contraception is a perfectly effective and responsible way to prevent pregnancy and still engage in sexual activity.

But no method is perfect, even being extremely careful multiple methods could fail simultaneously. Heck, even if someone was irresponsible enough no to use any protection method, there are still ways to prevent pregnancy after the fact. Despite my bashing earlier, I've done some research and Plan B pills aren't that bad. They are essentially a birth control pill booster and cannot terminate an existing pregnancy. When used within 24 hours of intercourse, it is 95% effective and has no more risk than daily birth control pills. This is a bit pricier than the other methods but is still cheaper than abortion and can be found in almost any pharmacy.

But even now, what can be done. I mean there is still a chance all of these could fail. In that case you have a pregnancy on your hands, but there are still options that do not kill an innocent life. The first is adoption. Even if you have a abortion, you still have to go to a clinic and deliver a baby. Why not have a live one? If you're poor, there is free insurance from most states and WIC is available for food and supplies. If you want to be irresponsible and live your life normally you can do that too. There are families that are looking to adopt healthy children and ones that take children with disabilities as well. If you can't be bothered to find a family to adopt, some states have laws that say you don't have to take a baby home with you. If you are pregnant, there is nothing stopping you from putting your child up for adoption and the risk of delivery is not higher than that of an abortion even in high risk pregnancies.

Or you could keep the baby. Many couples choose to do this. They realize they had been irresponsible in the past and make a choice to be responsible in the future.

And then there is rape. Many people bring up this argument and it is a valid one. However, in the case of rape, you are still able to take a plan B pill, put the baby up for adoption or keep it and raise it. My nephew was conceived from a rape and my sister-in-law chose to keep the baby because she wanted to be responsible and take care of the life inside of her. Even if she didn't want to she could have put it up for adoption. As a single mother in college, it was a tough choice, but she still graduated and now has a wonderful 5 year old.

Any way you look at it, there are responsible ways to prevent and deal with pregnancies that do not involve killing an innocent life. Even if you are irresponsible somewhere along the line, there are plenty of chances to make the responsible choice. All of the available choices are just as safe, cheap and effective, if not more, than abortion.

Therefore anyone making the choice to have an abortion is making an irresponsible choice and killing an innocent life to deal with it? Can you honestly justify this? What other situation can you justify killing an innocent life to make up for an irresponsible choice?

How can you say that killing an innocent life is the responsible choice? There are other choices that are more responsible and logical as well as being having equal or less risks and costs.

(2) Obviously contraception is the better choice but sometimes birth control doesn't work or there's a whoops, in which case it's nice to know a child wouldn't be crobarred into an unloving household. Also: Since life starts at conception... No evidence has been produced for this.

(3) Abstinence is not a valid form of contraception, it's akin to potty training your child by telling them to "hold it", then making them feel guilty when they actually use the john.

(4) But hey, we can't expect everyone to make the right choice can we? Well we can't all be presumptuous smug eunuchs but whatever. You're right though, contraceptives are cheap and reliable, but not always. Also most unwanted pregnancies are found after a journey to the bottom of a bottle so common sense goes out the window.

(6) Why would any couple want to subject a child to abandonment and rejection? If I was given the option of living as a kid in a foster home or being killed on the outset I'd take the latter.

Those two posts of yours were so conceited they in and of themselves are probably the best argument for abortion. For the record the only reason I'm arguing for it in the first place is because folks like you feel it's your place in this world to force other people under your morality. To be honest if you were arguing against outright murder (which no matter how much you think you are, you're not), I'd probably still take this stance if for no other reason just to avoid association with someone who makes such ridiculous appeals to emotion.

[Keke Le Cat]

The only time you post on this forum is when you are reposting some conversation you had with a complete idiot on another forum.

Arguing on the internet is like the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you are still retarded.

So congratulations, you are officially slightly less retarded than the retard you failed to educate. Woo.

[RedCheetah]

See, not even you can be bothered to come up with original material for PD.

[Rayne]

RedCheetah, you suck at dealing with pro-life advocates. Just give them my 'hand analogy':

Now my hand has 23 pairs of chromosomes. Therefore it is 'human', and keep in mind that I'm using the term as most pro-lifers do: very loosely. My hand is also 'alive'. Let me take you back to the seven signs of life:

1. Growth
2. Stimulus Response
3. Metabolism
4. Homeostasis
5. Reproduction
6. Mutation
7. Autonomous Motion

I'm not going to go on a tangent to try and prove my hand fits into every single criteria. Many of them are debatable; the list itself is a horrible indicator of life. But contrast my hand's results with this test to the foetus' during the first and second trimesters. You'll find that the results of the latter and former are easily interchangable. I could go on a further dissection of this if you like.

Now you wonder: where exactly do my hand and the foetus differ? In truth, they don't. My hand is to my body as the foetus is to the mother. The first cannot survive when remove from the second. I could very well cut off my hand right now, and neither you nor anyone else can tell me otherwise.

Now this begs the question: if the foetus and my hand are so strikingly similar then what's the fuss about; why is no-one protest about self-mutilation the way they do about abortion. For the answer I'm going to have to go to where your arguments and your entire stance stems from. You're giving the foetus personhood, sentience, humanity, a 'soul', blah blah whatever you want to call it. Why? Don't know, don't care. Maybe it's because of your misguided sentimentality of the clump of cells.

Fact of the matter is the foetus does not have any sense of individuality at its early stages of development simply because it does not have any organ to process its sentience. When pro-choicers revoke the foetus of any rights and call it 'not human' what they mean is this: my sixteen month old cousin cries when hungry, sleeps, gets up, laughs when I make a face; a foetus does not. It can't. It's basically a vegetable. It's in the third trimester that the foetus develops brain cells and starts developing its sentience about whose assumptions dictate your stance. And the third trimester is the period where even the most dedicated pro-choices stop condoning abortion.

Of course you could very well bring up the 'potential developed human' as nearly everyone does when I present them with the hand analogy, but as you or some other enlightened individual said during the course of this debate, 'we are not looking at what could be, we are looking at what is'.

[Nidogod]

You're giving the foetus personhood, sentience, humanity, a 'soul', blah blah whatever you want to call it. Why? Don't know, don't care. Maybe it's because of your misguided sentimentality of the clump of cells.

Ah, emotional attachment. That ever-present factor in how humans rationalize decisions and are more outraged by the idea of tax dollars funding the removal of a clump of cells from a woman's body than nuking cities half a world away because terrorists may or may not be hiding there even though they kill scores of civilians and trigger generations of horribly mutated birth defects.

[leo33wii]

But it's these emotions that makes us human. That's why this thread is up, this isn't the purpose of the thread, but because we want to connect to each other and communicate. It's the feelings of "really? think about" that makes this thread exist.

Sure, I'm against abortion, I think that if something has potential of being a human then it should live, even if the mother will be killed (or even both) at birth. It's the natural way humans live and die. BUT what right do I have to tell another person to do with their own body? No one has that right and it's up to the woman.

[Kirby]

But what is human? Just because a clob of cells contains the same DNA as you and me at that point is it really a person?

[Rayne]

In my past four years of travelling around the internet, no pro-lifer has ever been able to rebut my hand analogy.

[Kirby]

I personally think visuses are alive as well as cystals and fire and possibly cars.

[Solly]

BUT what right do I have to tell another person to do with their own body? No one has that right and it's up to the woman.

So technically speaking, you're pro-choice.

Perhaps the best pro-choice argument I have heard and consistently use, is that abortion isn't about destroying life. It's about destroying suffering. If the motehr is going to die at birth, or if the child will be homeless and live like trash for his or her life, why give them the opportunity to suffer?