Abortion in the U.S.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

This could have gone in the abortion thread.  I'm merging it.

Didn't wanna double post, but significant enough to get own post, if you're fine with, it's ok

 

They need to get this to president Trump fast, instead of wasting time in the senate

[Resident Fascist]

Okay, I'll phrase it another way. Why in the unholy funk is a woman not entitled to the right to what's happening inside her body? I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If a woman is desperate to get an abortion, she will get one, safe or otherwise. Making it more socially unacceptable only puts a stigma on women that makes them feel like they must carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. All you're doing by making it harder for women is bringing unwanted children into the world, with parents who don't care for them, because "life is precious". A child born isn't a child clothed and raised. Remember alcohol prohibition? Yeah, same logic here. 

 

 Making Abortions more accessible to women who need them will not drastically increase the number of Abortions, only the number of safe Abortions.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

Okay, I'll phrase it another way. Why in the unholy funk is a woman not entitled to the right to what's happening inside her body? I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If a woman is desperate to get an abortion, she will get one, safe or otherwise. Making it more socially unacceptable only puts a stigma on women that makes them feel like they must carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. All you're doing by making it harder for women is bringing unwanted children into the world, with parents who don't care for them, because "life is precious". A child born isn't a child clothed and raised. Remember alcohol prohibition? Yeah, same logic here. 

 

 Making Abortions more accessible to women who need them will not drastically increase the number of Abortions, only the number of safe Abortions.

Except it's not? Life isn't a commodity to be bought and sold I'd hope? Women desperate to get an abortion should have a good reason. Like that she was raped or such. If the problem is "she's not ready" or that she cant "afford it"

 

That's where having a government helps. The bold is correct, but you know what else is? Showing woman an ultrasound of their kid, has about an 78% rate of reduction in abortions. Restricting the access to abortions also makes the aggregate number of abortions go down. 

 

If one considers a fetus alive and human, isn't abortion 1st degree murder given that premise? Are you suggesting I feel badly for someone I consider a serial killer? Every choice has it's consequences love. Now naturally, you can reject the original premise, and that's when this discussion get's interesting

 

But gtfo with this guns have more rights crap. It's not true in any way

[Resident Fascist]

Except it's not? Life isn't a commodity to be bought and sold I'd hope? Women desperate to get an abortion should have a good reason. Like that she was raped or such. If the problem is "she's not ready" or that she cant "afford it"

 

That's where having a government helps. The bold is correct, but you know what else is? Showing woman an ultrasound of their kid, has about an 78% rate of reduction in abortions. Restricting the access to abortions also makes the aggregate number of abortions go down. 

 

If one considers a fetus alive and human, isn't abortion 1st degree murder given that premise? Are you suggesting I feel badly for someone I consider a serial killer? Every choice has it's consequences love. Now naturally, you can reject the original premise, and that's when this discussion get's interesting

 

But gtfo with this guns have more rights crap. It's not true in any way

 

But a Fetus isn't alive nor human, it's a developing human totally dependent on it's mother to survive. Comparing Abortion to 1st Degree murder is just hyperbole. I'm not saying I'm for or against Abortion, I'm saying that women who want to have an abortion should be able to get one, and not be made to feel bad for it. Comparing a woman who has an abortion to a serial killer is part of the funking problem. By all means, a woman should be given counselling, explained through the process, and alternate options given, but ultimately, it comes down to the choice of the parents of the child. Restricting access to abortions only makes the aggregate number go down because illegal undocumented abortions still happen. I have no particular opinion on the subject. I think you'll find many expecting mothers want to give birth to their child. Just because I'm vehemently pro-choice doesn't mean I'm saying to give every woman an abortion, I'm for the right of a woman to choose whether or not to bring her unborn child into the world. The child cannot make it's own decision if it wishes to live or not, and has no real opinions or thoughts on the matter. However, an adult woman is sexually mature, capable of making a rational and informed decision and is the one responsible for the upbringing of the child should she choose to give birth.

 

 To deny women the right to a safe abortion should they desire one is unhealthy. I'm going to shut up now, because all you're actually doing is making me angry, so I'll leave before I flip my lid and rant at you.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

 Showing woman an ultrasound of their kid, has about an 78% rate of reduction in abortions. Restricting the access to abortions also makes the aggregate number of abortions go down. 

Again glorifying it doesn't help. Letting women know what they're doing makes a lot of them reconsider, you don't even have to pass laws to say no. But dems won't tolerate that.

 

Abortion is not OK, it should be rare as bill clinton said. It should be a last resort, not a safety net for reckless use of contraception 

 

The child's nervous system and brain functions start working at the 16th week, should that fetus be aborted? Well for the dems, even a 20 week ban, that a super majority of both parties support, isn't acceptable.

 

It's a political issue. The dems don't give a flying funk about "woman's rights" or else they would listen to the vast majority of women and have restricted it to 12 weeks by now

 

I don't appreciate politics with life or potential lives. Stands true for healthcare, stands true for death penalty, stands true for abortion. If you wanna discuss when a kid becomes "human," that's something that will actually move this discussion forward and I'd be willing to talk to you on that. Until then, can you stop with the pathos arguments?

 

Edit:

 

Wasn't using a pathos argument w/ regards to S-killer. I gave a premise, and based an argument off that. Obv if that premise is false (the ideal debate), then the argument fails. I'm saying if someone accepts the premise, then abortion is a serial killing

[Resident Fascist]

Again glorifying it doesn't help. Letting women know what they're doing makes a lot of them reconsider, you don't even have to pass laws to say no. But dems won't tolerate that.

 

Abortion is not OK, it should be rare as bill clinton said. It should be a last resort, not a safety net for reckless use of contraception 

 

The child's nervous system and brain functions start working at the 16th week, should that fetus be aborted? Well for the dems, even a 20 week ban, that a super majority of both parties support, isn't acceptable.

 

It's a political issue. The dems don't give a flying funk about "woman's rights" or else they would listen to the vast majority of women and have restricted it to 12 weeks by now

 

I don't appreciate politics with life or potential lives. Stands true for healthcare, stands true for death penalty, stands true for abortion. If you wanna discuss when a kid becomes "human," that's something that will actually move this discussion forward and I'd be willing to talk to you on that. Until then, can you stop with the pathos arguments?

 

Edit:

 

Wasn't using a pathos argument w/ regards to S-killer. I gave a premise, and based an argument off that. Obv if that premise is false (the ideal debate), then the argument fails. I'm saying if someone accepts the premise, then abortion is a serial killing

 

I can't help but feel you're not actually listening to me. I've never once used a pathos argument. If anything, you have. Your entire argument against Abortion is that a developing fetus is alive and killing it is morally wrong. My entire argument for Pro-Choice is that it's up to the woman to make her decision, not some businessmen in offices. It's not my decision, and that's why I'm pro-choice. I respect the right of a woman to choose what she feels is the right course of action. Saying Abortion is not okay is a purely opinionated ideal. Your opinion is not right or wrong, it's just an opinion. We can sit here debating this all day, and while I heavily disagree with you and think at times you are a complete bigoted jabroni, I'll respect your opinion so long as you actually recognise what I'm trying to say. It is not my right, nor your right, to decide for anyone other than ourselves. I'm not glorifying it at all. Ideally, you want a woman to go through several counselling sessions, as I said. Give her an ultrasound, explain that support exists if she is finding pregnancy too difficult, and that adoption exists if she does not wish to raise the baby herself.

[Aerion Brightflame]

It's hard to divorcee Pathos from a topic of abortion because it's almost automatically a polarising issue. Everyone has made one at somepoint. I myself retold a personal tale of the events happening to me, and my justification around it. We've had insults, we've had appealing to better nature, we've even had you posting a photo of a dead feutus (Which is a pathos argument regardless of what you say; It as a piece of logic means nothing, it entirely tries to make people feel guilty and recant viewpoints that way). I don't mean to call shots by that remark, simpy to cover the whole spectrum of pathos covered. It's wrong to say 'Stop making the pathos argument' I feel because the argument will always have a grounding in that, because it's a subjective issue in an awful lot of ways. Even if you have an absolute viewpoint on the issue, there's no right or wrong emphircal answer in this case. It always roots itself within ones emotions.

 

Now, the issue of life is complex, because there is no combined scientific and philosphical consesus as to when life begins. Technically, one can argue that single cell organisms are alive, which means a feutus could be considered alive from conception. But in the same vein, this single cell organism lacks the qualities that seperate most life from human life; conciousness and sentience. It can't sustain itself outside the womb, it can't think, it can't do anything that that one would call 'living' as opposed to existing.

 

And the same is true of any point in the womb. We can't prove conciousness and sentience, things that are fundamental to humanity, to the things that would then classify and give the rights that all humans have been given legally speaking. There is only one possible absolute where this is not an issue, and that's childbirth. Anything before that, even if we can define biological function, is still iffy. Obviously it becomes less iffy as one aproaches closer and closer to birth, but there is not absolute to when we can assign this living creature the same rights as we assign any human being. 

 

It's a philosphical question as much as it is a scientific one. Is something capable of living in biological terms still alive in the human sense?

 

It's why this remains, and always will remain complex until arguably we proven conciousness, and have an emphircal and absolute definition of life. There's only one absolute right now in the issue, anything else is down to opinion. Mostly an opinion on the philosphical bit rather than the scientific bit.

 

And even if you prove that, you don't solve the issue, because as I like to state there's the issue of relative rights. How, when you have two parties that have conflicting rights do you resolve that without infringing too heavily on the rights of one or the other party? How would this definition of life then effect the rights of the child?

 

In essence, I as per normal think that this is a topic where absolutes have little place because there's a lot of overlapping and conflicting points and arguments.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

Sadly the dems won't even go as far as you would Shard

 

Claims like "Guns have more rights than women" have no basis in fact, and are just designed to rile up emotions

 

If you want me to explain when (and why) exactly I think a fetus becomes human (16 weeks and 8 weeks both have decent arguments in their favor), I can. For the record, it's not at conception. (gonna take a nap, so if I don't resp for a while, that's why)

[Draconus297]

Well for the dems, even a 20 week ban, that a super majority of both parties support, isn't acceptable.

 

 

Wait what

 

I was nearly on board with you, until this line right here. It's rare that someone can contradict themselves in one relatively short sentence.

 

Anyway, the fact of the matter is that we have extremists on both ends of every issue, which is what most people see of the "opposition". Any group that isn't you, you generally only see the nutjobs. Especially with how partisan politics are preached in America due to political changes in the 60s (pick an issue, any issue if you want to blame one), the left sees the right as uneducated backwards hicks, and the right sees the left as whiny, smug pseudo-intellectuals, and they hate one another beyond all manner of reason. It really doesn't help in this regard that both Trump and Hillary preached almost exclusively to the extreme members of their parties, leaving everyone in the middle disillusioned with this nonsense.

 

So, in the end, moderate and sane opinions will keep getting subdued and drowned out because "muh partisan politics", all because we live in a rotting hulk of a country. I hope that maybe, just maybe, we can all find a moderate candidate after Trump, and boot out the ass-backwards system that created the 2016 clown show.

 

Back on topic, abortion is necessary to have, so banning it outright will only increase criminal activity, but it should be discussed and fully planned through before being undertaken because it is often followed by brief periods of depression.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

Wait what

I was nearly on board with you, until this line right here. It's rare that someone can contradict themselves in one relatively short sentence.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is that we have extremists on both ends of every issue, which is what most people see of the "opposition". Any group that isn't you, you generally only see the nutjobs. Especially with how partisan politics are preached in America due to political changes in the 60s (pick an issue, any issue if you want to blame one), the left sees the right as uneducated backwards hicks, and the right sees the left as whiny, smug pseudo-intellectuals, and they hate one another beyond all manner of reason. It really doesn't help in this regard that both Trump and Hillary preached almost exclusively to the extreme members of their parties, leaving everyone in the middle disillusioned with this nonsense.

So, in the end, moderate and sane opinions will keep getting subdued and drowned out because "muh partisan politics", all because we live in a rotting hulk of a country. I hope that maybe, just maybe, we can all find a moderate candidate after Trump, and boot out the ass-backwards system that created the 2016 clown show.

Back on topic, abortion is necessary to have, so banning it outright will only increase criminal activity, but it should be discussed and fully planned through before being undertaken because it is often followed by brief periods of depression.

Brightfire I'll get to your when I wake up

 

same with you Dragon. Just clearing up grammar here.

 

Super majority of dem GOP and indi bases support bans after 1st Trimester; dem politician won't pass ban. Insist on going left more to stuff like state funding abortions

[BANZAI!!!!]

Thou hath brought the duck upon thee.

 

It's hard to divorcee Pathos from a topic of abortion because it's almost automatically a polarising issue. Everyone has made one at somepoint. I myself retold a personal tale of the events happening to me, and my justification around it. We've had insults, we've had appealing to better nature, we've even had you posting a photo of a dead feutus (Which is a pathos argument regardless of what you say; It as a piece of logic means nothing, it entirely tries to make people feel guilty and recant viewpoints that way). I don't mean to call shots by that remark, simpy to cover the whole spectrum of pathos covered. It's wrong to say 'Stop making the pathos argument' I feel because the argument will always have a grounding in that, because it's a subjective issue in an awful lot of ways. Even if you have an absolute viewpoint on the issue, there's no right or wrong emphircal answer in this case. It always roots itself within ones emotions.

 

Now, the issue of life is complex, because there is no combined scientific and philosphical consesus as to when life begins. Technically, one can argue that single cell organisms are alive, which means a feutus could be considered alive from conception. But in the same vein, this single cell organism lacks the qualities that seperate most life from human life; conciousness and sentience. It can't sustain itself outside the womb, it can't think, it can't do anything that that one would call 'living' as opposed to existing.

 

And the same is true of any point in the womb. We can't prove conciousness and sentience, things that are fundamental to humanity, to the things that would then classify and give the rights that all humans have been given legally speaking. There is only one possible absolute where this is not an issue, and that's childbirth. Anything before that, even if we can define biological function, is still iffy. Obviously it becomes less iffy as one aproaches closer and closer to birth, but there is not absolute to when we can assign this living creature the same rights as we assign any human being. 

 

It's a philosphical question as much as it is a scientific one. Is something capable of living in biological terms still alive in the human sense?

 

It's why this remains, and always will remain complex until arguably we proven conciousness, and have an emphircal and absolute definition of life. There's only one absolute right now in the issue, anything else is down to opinion. Mostly an opinion on the philosphical bit rather than the scientific bit.

 

And even if you prove that, you don't solve the issue, because as I like to state there's the issue of relative rights. How, when you have two parties that have conflicting rights do you resolve that without infringing too heavily on the rights of one or the other party? How would this definition of life then effect the rights of the child?

 

In essence, I as per normal think that this is a topic where absolutes have little place because there's a lot of overlapping and conflicting points and arguments.

Was going to post something like this, but its more or less summed up nicely right here. Stealing it. Yoink.

 

Now lets put the ideals aside for just one moment, and look at the impact of the bill purely from a political and economic standpoint.

 

Pros Zai can see:

 

Cutting federal spending to something that's a relative niche. We're broke f***ers 'round these parts and I want my tax dollars going to infrastructure and repairing the damage done to so many, many physical and legislative institutions by decades of mismanagement.

 

Cons Zai can see:

 

This is cutting funding to institutions like planned parenthood which, in addition to providing abortions, also provide access to counseling and medical care (or advice on getting said medical care) necessary to both reduce the likelihood of an abortion and to help ensure the fetus and the mother are healthy.

 

I don't really want this permanently amended to the constitution of my country. Wherever you fall on the issue, being able to cut funding to any facility or institution that provides safe medical care of any kind sets a bad precedent. You can do pretty sketchy s*** in the future when you have something like that to cite in a supreme court case.

 

Now, politically speaking, and call me a crazy duck if you want, the whole thing is way less of an economic or social issue than it is our two party system being spiteful for the sake of being spiteful. Democrats like their social justice causes, republicans love to s*** on them as wastes of time and money. We're less than a week into the new term, this is clearly going through for the sake of undoing what the Dems have done, not because this is something the country is clamoring for. We citizens don't really have a say in this particular matter. If we did then its likely that our government would have done something in addition to Roe v. Wade by now. Wherever you think the majority opinion lies, there is likely a majority opinion, or at the very least a compromise that would put abortion to bed for another few decades or so.

 

tl;dr this is not something anyone should be championing because its much more a part of the new administration's agenda than it is a rights issue (to the policy makers), and has less to do with the American citizen than we think it does.

 

Now i'm taking my objectivity shades off and putting on my opinion shades.

 

preface: I strongly dislike the idea of abortion. I think barring extreme circumstances every human being should have a chance at life, and where exactly life begins is irrelevant because that fetus is already genetically human, and is not yet dead.

 

Now, the caveat here, and its a very important caveat, is that its also a fundamental human right to have control over your own body, and like it or not, a fetus just so happens to be located inside the body of another individual.

 

Now, lets for a second imagine a fantasy world in which plasmodium vivax (the little bugger that causes malaria) and mosquitoes are both sapient, intelligent species, and that human rights are also plasmodium rights and mosquito rights (the great jungle geneva convention lets call it, for funzies). Aside from some strange matrix-esque scenario where we've been enslaved as blood banks and breeding grounds for our now-intelligent yeast and insect brethren, lets look at the issue through this lens.

 

[spoiler= a really long extended metaphor]P. Vivax has it pretty bad. They need both humans and mosquitoes to both live and breed. P Vivax society would f***ing collapse without the both of us, and so the great jungle geneva convention says that its a fundamental P. vivax right to have members of both species for breeding. cool cool. the yeasty fellas need it, we get to have great p. vivax art, culture, tv, and p. vivax youtube and they don't get to go extinct.

 

The problem, of course, is that malaria sucks. like a lot. and the human race must now endure getting malaria so that p. vivax can not die out. And since its a human/vivax/mosquito right to life, we can't do s*** about it.

 

The mosquitoes don't really like this s*** either. You see, they don;t get sick and possibly die, but vivax can't do its thang unless they have mosquitoes to have roughly half their life cycle inside, and so the mosquitoes are also forced to keep biting us humans for the sole purpose of helping the yeast, not necessarily because they have to feed. and playing host to a foreign species for extended periods of time isn't too much fun either.

 

Sure sounds like our rights (and the rights of our blood sucking friends) are being infringed upon, doesn't it?

 

Now, don't get me wrong, Vivax in this world are cool bros. we all get along and they aren't actively trying to kill us or anything. we had a geneva convention with these dudes remember? But the fact remains that we have to suffer and endure mosquito bites (an annoying inconvenience) and extended bouts of serious illness that may possibly kill you if you do not recieve medical attention, in order for our equals to survive.

 

Some s*** has to give, dude.

 

Lucky for us, its also a fundamental right to have control over one's body. the mosquitoes and yeast and humans are all allowed to get plastic surgery and sicknasty gang tattoos and whatever medical treatment they choose to receive or not to receive.

 

Guess what, that includes not playing host to another organism (intelligent and friendly as that organism may be) and not enduring bouts of extended illness and medical complications that an individual may/may not be mentally, physically, developmentally, or financially prepared for.

 

 

Now, that's not to say that the physical and mental strains of having malaria are the same as the physical and mental strains of being pregnant, nor am I making the statement that a human fetus is a parasite. Its a human being, same as you or me. from day one I should add, as a DNA test will prove (along with some Maury Povich "he is not the father" baggage).

 

But we human beings have a long, long history of putting the rights of certain individuals before the rights of others when its necessary (or as some of the more morally ambiguous members of our species put it, "necessary"). Felons are denied the right to personal freedom for the benefit of society at large, enemy soldiers are denied the right to life (and a whole shitload of other rights, actually) because they're trying to accomplish the objectives of a hostile foreign power, etc.

 

So, here's what it comes down to. What is more important? The right to liberty and happiness of an individual (or individuals, us guys put in a lot of time as dads too), which will most certainly be infringed upon should a child appear, unplanned or otherwise (parenting takes a metric ton of time, money, and effort, you see, and any parent will tell you its not always fun and almost never easy. Also by the by we're hormonally conditioned to be overly attached to kids precisely because its such a big god damn hassle and can hamper the parent's ability to survive. Biology is really smart like that), or the right to life of an individual who has made no mark on society and who for at the very least the next nine months will be a drain on the resources of the providers and on society in general, in numerous foreseeable and unforeseeable ways.

 

For me, the simple answer to that question is pretty clear: The right to life, obviously. You dun created the life, care for the life and deal with it.

 

But that's just the thing. Its a simple answer. and to so, so many people, some of whom I'm sure we all care about very deeply, its an answer that has drastic consequences (some positive, and some negative. again, parenting). Its not really a satisfactory solution, and in many cases choosing that answer does much more harm than good. So then, the correct solution, more or less by default, is to decide on a case-by-case basis what the right choice is. Clearly then, the best authority on the subject possible should be the one making the decision. Taking into account the parent(s) financial situation, physical ability to care for the child, and so, so many other factors that I neither have the time nor experience to discuss with anyone reading this.

 

What I can tell you though, is the obvious choice for who that authority should be. And spoiler alert, its nobody on capitol hill. Its the people whom the pregnancy is happening to. Like any other major life decision, it should be theirs to make, whether you agree with their decision or not. To prevent them from doing so, no matter how funked up any other individual thinks their actions are, would be violating a fundamental human right. Life is only one third of Life, liberty, and happiness, and in this day and age I think its just as important to protect the latter two as it is to protect the former.

 

Tl;dr: when you actually weigh the scales and don't simply subscribe to one side's dogma or the other, you'll find that the right to choose, whatever that choice may be, is the most humane of the two. People don't want to have abortions, but they also don't want to not have the option. You never know what's going to happen.

[Delibirb]

Well sure, you'd generally know around that time unless you understand nothing about your own biology, which isn't really grounds to get an abortion but doesn't mean you should be responsible for a baby.

 

But I digress, the problem is that sometimes it isn't a matter of not wanting to keep the child. In fact, I'd argue it rarely is. Mothers, and fathers, are chemically inclined to love and protect their child. When you hear stories of mothers drowning their infants in the toilet, it's because there's a chemical imbalance and they weren't made to love their child but to hate it, enough to kill it anyway. It's the abortions that are brought on by not wanting to keep the baby we hear about because it's the hardest for voters - often people with children - to understand. But in any case, a mother considering abortion is never truly 100% certain that that's the correct choice, because she is chemically incentivized to keep it, and keep it safe.

 

Thus, abortions have a lot of thought put into them, and that uncertainty continues until well after, too. But, I've gone on a tangent. The problem is that when abortions aren't about not wanting the baby, they're about the parent's recognizing they won't be able to with any confidence, generally as a result of financial struggles. They either don't have the space to keep it comfortable, the money to feed it, or the time to take care of it while they're at work paying for the first two.  No one wants their kid to grow up in an awful environment and struggle in a world that refuses to help them.

 

And putting the baby up for adoption isn't a solution because as I said, they're chemically inclined to want to love the child, and that will only grow stronger once it's born. That's why the biological parents are able to pull out of adoptions at any time. And they subconsciously understand that. But, they may not realize they won't be able to afford to keep the baby until, or situations may change after, the first 8 weeks or so. Thus, the opportunity for them to abort the baby if they feel their situation will detriment the happiness of their child and themselves later into the pregnancy must be available.

 

Having said that, I have three clarifications of my position. Firstly, third trimester, and even late second trimester, abortions are still ghastly, and should be avoided whenever possible, preferably always.

 

Second, I still disagree with the idea of abortion on a moral level. But I understand that my morality is not mine to force upon other people, and I understand that people who go through with abortions still have morals, and in fact go under much moral strain in doing so.

 

Third and finally, I am still of the opinion that the government really shouldn't care about whether abortions are occurring or when. It's irrelevant to them, their responsibility as a government, and their ability to govern, not to mention that more effort would go into handling illegal abortion cases than would go into allowing abortions to occur, and employing a hands-off approach to their practice; no tax dollars funding abortion specifically, but none preventing or punishing it either.

 

 

Brightfire I'll get to your when I wake up

 

same with you Dragon. Just clearing up grammar here.

 

Super majority of dem GOP and indi bases support bans after 1st Trimester; dem politician won't pass ban. Insist on going left more to stuff like state funding abortions

Would you care to respond to my points, Winter? I know you're too prideful to concede to logic, even silently, so I can only imagine you must have missed my post. I've taken the liberty of quoting it for you.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

It's hard to divorcee Pathos from a topic of abortion because it's almost automatically a polarising issue. Everyone has made one at somepoint. I myself retold a personal tale of the events happening to me, and my justification around it. We've had insults, we've had appealing to better nature, we've even had you posting a photo of a dead feutus (Which is a pathos argument regardless of what you say; It as a piece of logic means nothing, it entirely tries to make people feel guilty and recant viewpoints that way). I don't mean to call shots by that remark, simpy to cover the whole spectrum of pathos covered. It's wrong to say 'Stop making the pathos argument' I feel because the argument will always have a grounding in that, because it's a subjective issue in an awful lot of ways. Even if you have an absolute viewpoint on the issue, there's no right or wrong emphircal answer in this case. It always roots itself within ones emotions.

 

Now, the issue of life is complex, because there is no combined scientific and philosphical consesus as to when life begins. Technically, one can argue that single cell organisms are alive, which means a feutus could be considered alive from conception. But in the same vein, this single cell organism lacks the qualities that seperate most life from human life; conciousness and sentience. It can't sustain itself outside the womb, it can't think, it can't do anything that that one would call 'living' as opposed to existing.

 

And the same is true of any point in the womb. We can't prove conciousness and sentience, things that are fundamental to humanity, to the things that would then classify and give the rights that all humans have been given legally speaking. There is only one possible absolute where this is not an issue, and that's childbirth. Anything before that, even if we can define biological function, is still iffy. Obviously it becomes less iffy as one aproaches closer and closer to birth, but there is not absolute to when we can assign this living creature the same rights as we assign any human being. 

 

It's a philosphical question as much as it is a scientific one. Is something capable of living in biological terms still alive in the human sense?

 

It's why this remains, and always will remain complex until arguably we proven conciousness, and have an emphircal and absolute definition of life. There's only one absolute right now in the issue, anything else is down to opinion. Mostly an opinion on the philosphical bit rather than the scientific bit.

 

And even if you prove that, you don't solve the issue, because as I like to state there's the issue of relative rights. How, when you have two parties that have conflicting rights do you resolve that without infringing too heavily on the rights of one or the other party? How would this definition of life then effect the rights of the child?

 

In essence, I as per normal think that this is a topic where absolutes have little place because there's a lot of overlapping and conflicting points and arguments.

Would you agree that a statement like

 

Nice to see guns have more rights than Women do to their own bodies in a 1st world country. funking disgusting.

 

are designed to do little more then proke moral outrage? As for the fetus picture. That's on me. I think there was a perfectly good reason to post it at the time, but I did not elaborate the reason. In that particular case, the fetus had a clearly developed nervous system and would have brain activity. That was the point I should have made. You once said I made logic leaps that while maybe justified were hard to follow; I must concur with that view, and I regret it has created a confusion like this.

 

To the topic at hand, I think the discussion of  this topic would be most interesting on two fronts. The "right and the wrong of the matter" and the current actions of the US gov/current events. The latter is self-explanatory. As for the former. 

 

The bolded is where the discussion can get interesting and back into substance IMO. We can discuss the merits of what should and shouldn't be considered life, rather than throw out charged words like murder or guns have more rights

Back on topic, abortion is necessary to have, so banning it outright will only increase criminal activity, but it should be discussed and fully planned through before being undertaken because it is often followed by brief periods of depression.

It think I explained what the "contradiction" was. As for this, would you support an ultrasound viewing. 78% isn't ever life, but 78% of the several hundred thousands is a lot more fetuses not being aborted. It seems like this could be a good consensus middle ground for both sides to get on?

 

 

Thou hath brought the duck upon thee.

 

Was going to post something like this, but its more or less summed up nicely right here. Stealing it. Yoink.

 

Now lets put the ideals aside for just one moment, and look at the impact of the bill purely from a political and economic standpoint.

 

Pros Zai can see:

 

Cutting federal spending to something that's a relative niche. We're broke f***ers 'round these parts and I want my tax dollars going to infrastructure and repairing the damage done to so many, many physical and legislative institutions by decades of mismanagement.

 

Cons Zai can see:

 

This is cutting funding to institutions like planned parenthood which, in addition to providing abortions, also provide access to counseling and medical care (or advice on getting said medical care) necessary to both reduce the likelihood of an abortion and to help ensure the fetus and the mother are healthy.

 

I don't really want this permanently amended to the constitution of my country. Wherever you fall on the issue, being able to cut funding to any facility or institution that provides safe medical care of any kind sets a bad precedent. You can do pretty sketchy s*** in the future when you have something like that to cite in a supreme court case.

 

Now, politically speaking, and call me a crazy duck if you want, the whole thing is way less of an economic or social issue than it is our two party system being spiteful for the sake of being spiteful. Democrats like their social justice causes, republicans love to s*** on them as wastes of time and money. We're less than a week into the new term, this is clearly going through for the sake of undoing what the Dems have done, not because this is something the country is clamoring for. We citizens don't really have a say in this particular matter. If we did then its likely that our government would have done something in addition to Roe v. Wade by now. Wherever you think the majority opinion lies, there is likely a majority opinion, or at the very least a compromise that would put abortion to bed for another few decades or so.

 

tl;dr this is not something anyone should be championing because its much more a part of the new administration's agenda than it is a rights issue (to the policy makers), and has less to do with the American citizen than we think it does.

 

Now i'm taking my objectivity shades off and putting on my opinion shades.

 

preface: I strongly dislike the idea of abortion. I think barring extreme circumstances every human being should have a chance at life, and where exactly life begins is irrelevant because that fetus is already genetically human, and is not yet dead.

 

Now, the caveat here, and its a very important caveat, is that its also a fundamental human right to have control over your own body, and like it or not, a fetus just so happens to be located inside the body of another individual.

 

Now, lets for a second imagine a fantasy world in which plasmodium vivax (the little bugger that causes malaria) and mosquitoes are both sapient, intelligent species, and that human rights are also plasmodium rights and mosquito rights (the great jungle geneva convention lets call it, for funzies). Aside from some strange matrix-esque scenario where we've been enslaved as blood banks and breeding grounds for our now-intelligent yeast and insect brethren, lets look at the issue through this lens.

 

[spoiler= a really long extended metaphor]P. Vivax has it pretty bad. They need both humans and mosquitoes to both live and breed. P Vivax society would f***ing collapse without the both of us, and so the great jungle geneva convention says that its a fundamental P. vivax right to have members of both species for breeding. cool cool. the yeasty fellas need it, we get to have great p. vivax art, culture, tv, and p. vivax youtube and they don't get to go extinct.

 

The problem, of course, is that malaria sucks. like a lot. and the human race must now endure getting malaria so that p. vivax can not die out. And since its a human/vivax/mosquito right to life, we can't do s*** about it.

 

The mosquitoes don't really like this s*** either. You see, they don;t get sick and possibly die, but vivax can't do its thang unless they have mosquitoes to have roughly half their life cycle inside, and so the mosquitoes are also forced to keep biting us humans for the sole purpose of helping the yeast, not necessarily because they have to feed. and playing host to a foreign species for extended periods of time isn't too much fun either.

 

Sure sounds like our rights (and the rights of our blood sucking friends) are being infringed upon, doesn't it?

 

Now, don't get me wrong, Vivax in this world are cool bros. we all get along and they aren't actively trying to kill us or anything. we had a geneva convention with these dudes remember? But the fact remains that we have to suffer and endure mosquito bites (an annoying inconvenience) and extended bouts of serious illness that may possibly kill you if you do not recieve medical attention, in order for our equals to survive.

 

Some s*** has to give, dude.

 

Lucky for us, its also a fundamental right to have control over one's body. the mosquitoes and yeast and humans are all allowed to get plastic surgery and sicknasty gang tattoos and whatever medical treatment they choose to receive or not to receive.

 

Guess what, that includes not playing host to another organism (intelligent and friendly as that organism may be) and not enduring bouts of extended illness and medical complications that an individual may/may not be mentally, physically, developmentally, or financially prepared for.

 

 

Now, that's not to say that the physical and mental strains of having malaria are the same as the physical and mental strains of being pregnant, nor am I making the statement that a human fetus is a parasite. Its a human being, same as you or me. from day one I should add, as a DNA test will prove (along with some Maury Povich "he is not the father" baggage).

 

But we human beings have a long, long history of putting the rights of certain individuals before the rights of others when its necessary (or as some of the more morally ambiguous members of our species put it, "necessary"). Felons are denied the right to personal freedom for the benefit of society at large, enemy soldiers are denied the right to life (and a whole shitload of other rights, actually) because they're trying to accomplish the objectives of a hostile foreign power, etc.

 

So, here's what it comes down to. What is more important? The right to liberty and happiness of an individual (or individuals, us guys put in a lot of time as dads too), which will most certainly be infringed upon should a child appear, unplanned or otherwise (parenting takes a metric ton of time, money, and effort, you see, and any parent will tell you its not always fun and almost never easy. Also by the by we're hormonally conditioned to be overly attached to kids precisely because its such a big god damn hassle and can hamper the parent's ability to survive. Biology is really smart like that), or the right to life of an individual who has made no mark on society and who for at the very least the next nine months will be a drain on the resources of the providers and on society in general, in numerous foreseeable and unforeseeable ways.

 

For me, the simple answer to that question is pretty clear: The right to life, obviously. You dun created the life, care for the life and deal with it.

 

But that's just the thing. Its a simple answer. and to so, so many people, some of whom I'm sure we all care about very deeply, its an answer that has drastic consequences (some positive, and some negative. again, parenting). Its not really a satisfactory solution, and in many cases choosing that answer does much more harm than good. So then, the correct solution, more or less by default, is to decide on a case-by-case basis what the right choice is. Clearly then, the best authority on the subject possible should be the one making the decision. Taking into account the parent(s) financial situation, physical ability to care for the child, and so, so many other factors that I neither have the time nor experience to discuss with anyone reading this.

 

What I can tell you though, is the obvious choice for who that authority should be. And spoiler alert, its nobody on capitol hill. Its the people whom the pregnancy is happening to. Like any other major life decision, it should be theirs to make, whether you agree with their decision or not. To prevent them from doing so, no matter how funked up any other individual thinks their actions are, would be violating a fundamental human right. Life is only one third of Life, liberty, and happiness, and in this day and age I think its just as important to protect the latter two as it is to protect the former.

 

Tl;dr: when you actually weigh the scales and don't simply subscribe to one side's dogma or the other, you'll find that the right to choose, whatever that choice may be, is the most humane of the two. People don't want to have abortions, but they also don't want to not have the option. You never know what's going to happen.

Largely agree, but I have a couple questions:

 

1) The new Admin wants to make it a right issue, and serve as Negative Punishment (operant conditioning to PP). 

 

a) Tackling latter first, PP claims abortion is only 3% of the services they provide. But, there's a indirect funding relation here. Let me use an extreme example to demonstrate. Assume the a private entity used taxes to build death camps. Assume that I'm a citizen strongly opposed to what was going on there and thus wished not to participate with my tax payer money. At this point, if the organization says we don't use the tax payer money to buy the bullets. Should I feel better knowing it goes to a building and tools that facilitate the behavior I feel revolted by? If PP was as concerned about the other 97% as they make out to be, couldn't they simply stop offering abortion services. Nobody would have a problem giving them funding then, and they'd have 97% of what they do intact.

 

b) somewhere between 46-52 of the country dislikes abortion; this was certainly more than LGBT when that first started. Is it really not a civil rights issue if such a large plurality of the country sees it a such?

 

c) In that light, I'm not sure a compromise is the right thing to hope for. As brightflame said earlier on, a viability standard or the such is a delayed victory and thus not really a compromise, but it's also the least the right will be willing to see. 

 

2) Mosquito analogy is interesting, but would the ideal solution there not be to research ways to keep the vixen live outside of the human body? So both organisms can interact without being dependent on each other? Modern day analogy move lobbying money -> ectogenesis research 

 

3) If we accept the premise that life liberty and happiness are all equal, something which we can debate, what about the liberty of the child to due process before being deprived of a life? What about his or her right to a pursuit of happiness? I've addressed that a mother's life should be a exception for abortion. But all three of those rights exist for the fetus two. People only focus on the life aspect w/ respect to the fetus.

 

4) Again 78% reduction of abortions if women see their baby's heart beating on an ultrasound. Call it guilt shaming if you must, but it seems like educating the person of what they're gonna do to me. So why is that not allowed?

 

5) Thank you for the great post. 

 

 

Would you care to respond to my points, Winter? I know you're too prideful to concede to logic, even silently, so I can only imagine you must have missed my post. I've taken the liberty of quoting it for you.

My sincere apologies. You know me too well :P

 

1) I concur, that's grounds for better sex-ed and free contraception. If you miss a pregnancy after getting laid, get a pregnancy test. All of these are independent probabilities, so the chance of contraception failing, you being raised in a shithole that doesn't teach you about sex, and a false negative on a PT is HIGHLY unlikely 

 

2) I concur again, which is why making a mother listen to her child's fetal heartbeat and see it on the ultrasound is so effective. Very few people actually want to get an abortion. Something that will reduce it more is gov being more generous to support mothers in less than ideal states, financially.

 

3) If it's a civil rights issue, shouldn't your moral takings on it matter? Like would it be ok to tell LGBT people or black people back in the day to live as sub humans and be the whim of the better people because of not wanting to force opinions? If you go back to the 50's, there were plenty of people that personally disliked racism, but didn't want to push their views on others. 

 

4) Finance argument again, create a fetal tax to raise revenue if needed. I'm in full support of that. If we can waste 200 Billion fraud at the pentagon, we can support this instead to remove a great divide in our country

 

5) The gov has a duty to look after the Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness of all it's citizens, both the fetus and the mother. Exceptions for rape and mother's life are covered under a mother's right to life and PoH. Exceptions to child's health are covered under a fetal PoH. Should a fetal right to life and Liberty not also be weighed? The Roe decision made a claim on that based on the technology then. As tech increases we've been able to save kids earlier. Roe invalidated itself the minute it made a war against science 

 

 

edit:

 

Personal beef. Why is Incest an exception to the perma hyde amendment but not a child's life. I think aborting a child that would grow up with failing organs is humane, but what right does the gov have to regulate a consensual relationship between two adults. Incest being litigated isn't ok IMO

[Delibirb]

My sincere apologies. You know me too well :P

 

1) I concur, that's grounds for better sex-ed and free contraception. If you miss a pregnancy after getting laid, get a pregnancy test. All of these are independent probabilities, so the chance of contraception failing, you being raised in a shithole that doesn't teach you about sex, and a false negative on a PT is HIGHLY unlikely

 

2) I concur again, which is why making a mother listen to her child's fetal heartbeat and see it on the ultrasound is so effective. Very few people actually want to get an abortion. Something that will reduce it more is gov being more generous to support mothers in less than ideal states, financially.

 

3) If it's a civil rights issue, shouldn't your moral takings on it matter? Like would it be ok to tell LGBT people or black people back in the day to live as sub humans and be the whim of the better people because of not wanting to force opinions? If you go back to the 50's, there were plenty of people that personally disliked racism, but didn't want to push their views on others.

 

4) Finance argument again, create a fetal tax to raise revenue if needed. I'm in full support of that. If we can waste 200 Billion fraud at the pentagon, we can support this instead to remove a great divide in our country

 

5) The gov has a duty to look after the Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness of all it's citizens, both the fetus and the mother. Exceptions for rape and mother's life are covered under a mother's right to life and PoH. Exceptions to child's health are covered under a fetal PoH. Should a fetal right to life and Liberty not also be weighed? The Roe decision made a claim on that based on the technology then. As tech increases we've been able to save kids earlier. Roe invalidated itself the minute it made a war against science

 

 

edit:

 

Personal beef. Why is Incest an exception to the perma hyde amendment but not a child's life. I think aborting a child that would grow up with failing organs is humane, but what right does the gov have to regulate a consensual relationship between two adults. Incest being litigated isn't ok IMO

3. Racism back then was becoming a problem by removing people's rights. Homophobia was (and to a degree continues to be) a problem because it was/is removing people's rights. The difference between those two and this situation is that the solutions then were to outlaw racism in the job market, laws that knowingly targeted minorities, and "separate but equal" mentalities; or to outlaw the prohibiting of gay marriage, and include orientation as a factor not to be considered in the job market and such. Whereas here, the solution is essentially inaction.

 

The government can't and shouldn't try to change anyone's mind on the subject, or prevent them from peacefully protesting planned parenthood or ostracizing people for their decisions. This isn't pushing views on anyone - note that racism and homophobia still exist and, while not encouraged, are legal in social contexts - it's simply allowing people who feel abortions are necessary as an option to have said option.

 

5. The government has no such explicit duty. Those words are present in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, which while being a historic document, is not a legally binding one. That isn't to say that the government doesn't or shouldn't strive for these concepts, as they're generally good ideas, but they have no constitutional obligation to protect those "unalienable rights," particularly when they are unclear and open to interpretation.

 

That said, in the interest of maintaining order and power given to them by the people, the government is inclined to try to meet these ideals; to afford their citizens the ability to live, to be free, and to pursue happiness. But they are only inclined to afford that to their citizens. Fetuses, though humans, are not citizens. But their parents are. And it is their "right" to freedom and to the pursuit of happiness that should allow them to have an abortion without a cop interrogating them on how far along they are to determine whether they're breaking an arbitrary and insignificant law.

[vla1ne]

well, for 2 more cents:

 

i don't think abortions should be taxpayer funded, and i assume we all agree to that, on a colder side, i also believe abortion, or at least low birthrates, (japan as an example) are the most humane form of population control, keeping people from growing too far past what the earth can bear.

 

following that, i don't believe the government should be placing limits on when you can get an abortion. and on the other hand of that opinion, while i don't think the government should be placing limits, i do believe that at any point, should the fetus be proven conscious, or capable of surviving outside the woman's body, even if requiring assistance, (like early-late 3rd term of the pregnancy) abortions should not occur, and instead a developing life support program to fully grow said fetuses should instead be implemented as a substitute.

 

lastly i believe that while it indeed should be a choice, it should be an informed choice. ensure that those having an abortion know what the abortion entails before getting it, and should they desire to follow through past that, then allow them to. regardless of whether they believe it to be correct or not, the woman in question should never make the choice without knowing everything possible, and i believe that's what must be done. not a law banning it, but a law demanding you understand 100% what you are doing. 

 them's my 2 cents. time to go to  work

[VCR_CAT]

well, for 2 more cents:

 

i don't think abortions should be taxpayer funded, and i assume we all agree to that, on a colder side, i also believe abortion, or at least low birthrates, (japan as an example) are the most humane form of population control, keeping people from growing too far past what the earth can bear.

 

following that, i don't believe the government should be placing limits on when you can get an abortion. and on the other hand of that opinion, while i don't think the government should be placing limits, i do believe that at any point, should the fetus be proven conscious, or capable of surviving outside the woman's body, even if requiring assistance, (like early-late 3rd term of the pregnancy) abortions should not occur, and instead a developing life support program to fully grow said fetuses should instead be implemented as a substitute.

 

lastly i believe that while it indeed should be a choice, it should be an informed choice. ensure that those having an abortion know what the abortion entails before getting it, and should they desire to follow through past that, then allow them to. regardless of whether they believe it to be correct or not, the woman in question should never make the choice without knowing everything possible, and i believe that's what must be done. not a law banning it, but a law demanding you understand 100% what you are doing. 

 them's my 2 cents. time to go to  work

 

I agree with a lot of this. My stance on abortion is that it should be available for those that need it; if it's necessary. Nobody here is advocating it as a form of contraception, and not having it be tax-dollar supported would help keep it as a sort of last-resort decision. Of course, so long as insurance can still be involved, because depending on how expensive it is a family that finds themselves making this decision due to financial reasons would find themselves possibly ruined either way, but I believe one of Trump's planned policies was better financial support for mothers as well as better support for adoption networks, which is good and should help with that problem.

 

The choice should be available, honestly. There's going to be a lot of scenarios where abortion may be the only real solution, because as I've explained before in past threads, this isn't an issue that's as cut and dry as "Oh, it's murder right? So outlaw it there we go best solution." No, it's not that simple. There's a lot of reasons and contexts that will lead a person to considering abortion as an option, and a simple blanket "Oh, it's murder so it's all wrong" is a gross generalization that doesn't get into the nuance of every scenario. It's a complicated, messy thing.

 

as Vla1ne said, it should be an informed decision, and there should be other options that are expressed just as well. But either way, it needs to be the woman's decision on what to do with her baby. Have abortion be legal, but have it be an informed decision with alternative solutions readily available. The idea here is to work towards minimizing the amount of abortions, not through outlawing it, but by helping women make the best decision for themselves and their babies. This includes having counseling readily available as well.

 

I'd also say that abortions for medical reasons (saving the mother's life) should be tax dollar supported, but I legit almost forgot that your healthcare isn't public :x