POLL: Abortion - Yeah or Ney?

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I'm sorry, but I just want to get the general consensus about abortion. Period. (For arguments sake, those who vote against abortion still allow it if either the mother or the child would be irreparably harmed by going forward with the pregnancy)

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 58 user(s) have voted.
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Poll Results: Abortion - Yeah or Ney? (58 votes.)

Abortion - Yeah or Ney? (Choose 1)
* Yeah - 74% (43)
* Ney - 19% (11)
* I fit in neither category completely. See my intelligent and well thought out argument below. - 7% (4)

 

Voted nay.

Exception: when the mother is likely to die as a result of giving birth; when it's impossible for all of multiple foeti to survive and more of them will survive if some are removed.

 

What about when the mother is raped?

 

I believe that they have something called the morning after pill for just those occurances. However, if a victim does not seek out such a pill, it may be considered a decision to keep any potential children.

Of course there will be a number of perfectly good reasons that almost all people would accept to use abortion. Whether that is one or not...

 

I would assume that rape can be quite a traumatic expirience and I doubt that getting pregnant is the first thing a raped woman thinks about. In fact it might take quite a while for the victim to even accept that she was raped. So I would not think that not getting that pill would necessarily mean that she wants to keep the child.

I am perfectly willing to allow abortion in all circumstances as long as the pregnancy hasn't allready gone to far. Of course abortion is an unfortunate event but it's a lot better than a unwanted child which may destroy the lives of two young persons because of a one night mistake.

 

I voted Yay.

I once had someone explain to me that abortion is all about timing. Very few people feel that abortion is wrong if it happened seconds after copulation and very few people would feel that it is right if it happened seconds before birth. The trouble is finding the line in the middle.

My opinion also follows the 2nd basic tenet of Snookieism which can be interpreted as "I don't like it when someone tells me what to do, so what right do I have to tell someone else what to do".

 

I voted yay.

For me, it's a question of how to define what a human life is, and at what point does that humanity begin. Certainly, the whole process starts with conception, but you'd have a hard time convincing me that you have a human life at that point; it's more a potential human, but the same could be said of a sperm cell or an unfertilized egg.

So, like Snook, the difficulty for me is where to draw the line; 24 weeks seems a bit long to me, but 16 weeks might be OK. But these are just gut feelings, and not based on anything scientific.

 

I really try not to have a position on abortion. The biggest reason being that I don't have a uterus. No matter how hard I try, I will never get pregnant. I will never carry a child to term. I will never experience the pain of child birth. Hence, I will also never, ever know what a truly excruciating decision an abortion is for a woman to make. I personally feel that this issue should be left entirely up to women.

Apparantly I'm rather alone in thinking this way, as something like 70% of all anti-abortion activists are men.

If forced to give an answer, I'd say I tend to be middle of the road on this issue. I think abortion should be a last resort, but is necessary in many cases and should be legal. I am, however, totally against using abortion as a means of birth control. Any woman who engages in casual sex freely, keeping abortion handy as a "get out of jail free" card deserves what she gets. But in the case of rape, incest, of course. Even in the case of the 13 year old girl naive enough to be seduced by an older guy and had no idea what she was getting herself into, etc.

Basically, I think there are enough instances where abortion is logical, even necessary, to negate the need for a blanket denial of all abortive rights, as those on the far right would have it. A middle ground must be reached, because neither the pro-lifers or pro-choicers are being completely fair or intellectually honest about the issue. Furthermore...

This here represents the whole problem with the issue. No one wants to logically discuss the issue long enough to set limits or guidelines. Both the pro-lifers and the pro-choicers are demanding all or nothing. Pro-lifers want absolutely all abortions to be banned, pro-choicers want absolutely all abortions to be legal. To them it's purely black and white. But there's too much gray area here for either viewpoint to logically stand. Unfortunately, neither side is willing to compromise, which is why this issue will NEVER be something we will ever agree on. At least not in American society.

[ June 02, 2004, 16:37: Message edited by: Death Rabbit ]

 

Well, I voted against it. I second chev.

Also, the rape question is really quite uncommon. Since I'm at the university my mother works, in the Biology computer lab at the moment, I took the liberty of asking one of the professors about this. Only a fraction of one percent (<1%) of the women who are raped become pregnant. I only have this person's word on this, but I think they're telling the truth... what reason would they have to make this up?

 

The child is not the rapist. Even though I'm normally against contraception, rapists should be infertilised irreversibly after first attempt at rape, no matter if successful. I also understand it if the victim's family wants the rapist's family to cover all costs or take the child over entirely. However, I'm not in favour of killing people for other people's crimes.

 

@ Chev

True, but why should the mother be forced to have the child of the man who ruined her life?

I agree totally, but I think this should be taken a step further. I think sterilizing (sp?) a rapist will only encourage his sexual drive. Removing a consequence is a bit of an anti-deterrant IMO. I personally think they should be castrated, eliminating both the sexual drive and the ability to reproduce. Punishment should fit the crime, methinks. Thoughts?

edit - Or did you mean castration when you said "infertilized?"

 

Abortion doesn't equal killing. By definition, a bundle of cells clustered together incapable of surviving by itself is not alive.

 

There is more than the right of the baby involved in any of these issues. To deny the rights of the others, which would include the mother, is to ignore basic principles of equality. When the rights of the mother are disregarded (like in the instance of rape)than the issue becomes more about politics than about natural rights. The moral high ground is lost by those who think that a woman's purpose is simply to breed for whichever male feels like sticking it to any woman he choses, (pardon the poor pun)and that the woman should be forced to "breed" for such a pig.

[ June 02, 2004, 17:50: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

By this definition, nearly no one is alive

It's impossible to survive without other people's help for anyone except those who have the right skills and the right equipment or really superb skills.

I don't have those skills. I don't have the equipment. Still, I tend to think I'm alive. Ergo: that definition sucks.

How is abortion related to any equality. Equality of whom to whom?

Rapists deserve castration (which, unfortunately, isn't going to become the law anywhere because of tolerance people *****ing about cruelty), or at least sterilisation (which might even happen some beautiful day). However, the kid is not guilty.

If a kid uses your funds up and bugs you all the time, should you be allowed to kill it because it would be convenient for you?

Convenience doesn't make anything right.

Why should humans be forced to die when they get old?

You're mispresenting it. The right question is: why should the mother be allowed to kill the child?

It would be even better, but it won't happen. The same people who advocate the killing of children because the father was a rapist pig, those would probably have some nasty things to say about castrating the said rapist pig.

As for me, sterilise them, castrate them, unless they go to gaol for life.

 

The Declaration states:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

These natural or "unalienable rights" are not only "self-evident," but God given rights, and not those of Man. They cannot be usurped by man-made laws.

Of course these are American principles, and some in other places some may not feel that these rights are valid. Some may want to follow whatever the Pope says, as an example. But here we prefer separation of Chruch and State, despite what TV evangelists with big satellite dishes have to say on the matter of natural rights. Then again, it could be that some are taking the "all men" part of the Declaration too literally, meaning only the gender.

All three rights are related - Life without Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness has little meaning, in Jefferson's, as well as the other Founders' formulation of the natural rights, which the Declaration puts forth so eloquently.

This is similiar to what Snook is arguing for in his idea of "Snookism." That the State nor the Chruch have the right to usurp the mother's right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He must have read Jefferson's ideas on rights also.

[ June 02, 2004, 20:58: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Yes, and i won't make an argument why

 

Aye, an unwanted birth may destroy the lives of those two young persons who made a "one night mistake"...but an abortion certainly will destroy the life of the youngest person, the child itself.

Incidentally, what's the suicide rate of unwanted children? The suicide rate of parents of unwanted children? Or the infanticide or child-murder rate? I'd wager it's less than 100% - less than 1%, even. Which suggests that as much misery is involved in raising unwanted kids, most judge that it isn't a problem which should be dealt with by death. Which further suggests that concerns that careless affairs may destroy lives are way overblown compared to the certainty that careful abortions always destroy lives.

Kinda like euthanasia. It becomes increasingly acceptable the older and pricer the leech gets. I guess euthanasia's line is somewhere "in the middle", too - maybe 70 or 80?

That's why I don't have a position on American slavery. I'm a white postbellum non-Southerner, so I have no right to hold a moral view on slavery by white Southerners of black men. I'll never know the pain of slavery or the cost of forgoing cheap labor. So I personally feel that slavery should be left entirely up to slaveowners and their slaves.

The beauty of objective reality is...it's objective. So you can draw moral conclusions without being personally involved. Ironically, in our judicial system, we consider it a problem of BIAS when a judge has a direct, personal interest in a case. 'Course, abortion isn't entirely blind to this judicial principle...no one consults the party with the most personal and direct interest in the case, the baby.

Aye, but...liberty limited by what, and happiness judged by what? To use the slavery example, those antebellum slaveholders were quite happy to freely own slaves. It was the North and those darn evangelists (wow! they were around then, too!) that objected that these slaveholders' happiness and liberty did not trump the life of their human slaves.

Oh, but there's the rub..."human" slaves. Is the fetus human? Or just a clump of cells which magically, mystically becomes "human" the moment it breathes fresh air? Sounds like a locational bias to me - in the womb, no rights; out of the womb, all rights. Why should a six-month-old prematurely born waif be more "human" than a seven-month-old kid still locked in the womb?

Read the Declaration however you want, but no one has the "God-given" right to murder for their pursuit of happiness. That's exactly why so much human action is "usurped by man-made laws".

 

I notice that you left out the Liberty part, and of course, we had no problems shooting "redcoats" over the issue, or a tory now and then who remained loyal to King George. But the description of "baby killers" is a little harder to match up here - no?

I can't think of a single one of the major Founders who "had no problem with slavery." In fact they were tortured by the issue. Washington freed his slaves on the death of Martha (which was after his). But now that we have freed the black race from slavery perhaps it is time we did the same for women, Grey.

 

Ooh, that slavery-abortion parallel cuts two ways, non? So let's take this a li'l further and see if either of our parallels hold up under examination.

Our Declaration says that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Six principles:

1) human equality
2) human right to life
3) human right to liberty
4) human right to pursue happiness
5) rights are self-evident
6) rights are derived from God, not Man

Human equality clearly doesn't mean that all humans are exactly alike, like cloned cicadas. Nor does it mean that all humans merit equal treatment - we treat citizens and non-citizens differently, for example. Maybe it means that there is no inherent hierarchy, with some granted divine right to exploit fellow humans - by Jefferson's lights, that no one was born with spurs and saddle to ride his fellow man?

Oh, but wait...mothers have the RIGHT to kill their kids because they inherently have sole and complete power over the children within their bodies, by dint not of their merit or achievement, but purely as a matter of accidental birth.

The human right to life doesn't mean that we aren't allowed to kill, since Jefferson bayed for the blood of tyrants (among others). The more probable explanation is that life is a God-given right and, as such, can only be revoked by the Creator's just decision - not the whim of other men.

Oh, but wait...mothers have the RIGHT to kill their kids because they are entitled to make the final decision, regardless of what the Bible or Quran or whatever says about child sacrifice.

The human right to liberty doesn't mean that we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want. If I want to go postal at work and knife my neighbors, police will block me from exercising my "liberty" to kill at will. Per Justice Holmes, my liberty to punch you ends at your face. I do not have a right to liberty if that liberty is destructive to others.

Oh, but wait...mothers have the RIGHT to kill their kids because it's part of their essential freedom. Abortionist punches don't stop at the kid's face, as it were.

The human right to pursue happiness is similarly contingent upon fellow humans. A sadist does not have the "right to pursue happiness" by kidnapping and torturing fellow humans, whose own pursuit of happiness is endangered by such.

Oh, but wait...mothers have the RIGHT to kill their kids because their lives may be "destroyed" (re: rendered desperately unhappy) if they have to carry the twenty-year burden of childraising.

That rights are self-evident is something of a leap, but it implies that humans (deep down) acknowledge the life, liberty, and right to happiness of their fellow human beings.

Oh, but wait...mothers have the RIGHT to kill their kids because, as mere clumps of cells, they self-evidently lack these Declaration rights.

That rights are derived from God, not Man means, as you say -

But it was Man's decision that the fetus:

1) is not equal
2) has no right to life
3) has no right to liberty
4) has no right to pursue happiness
5) is not self-evidently human
6) may be overridden by the decision of men (or women), regardless of God's prior claim

So the question arises. Which is the closer parallel: the exploited slave and the executed fetus, denied their Declaration-guaranteed human rights; or the abortion supporter and the slaveholder, defending their rights to enhance their own life, liberty, and happiness at the expense of their fellow humans?

 

Grey Magistrate, you are my hero.

Also, it does not have to be a choice between the life of the child and the happiness of the parents... there is the option of adoption. There are hundreds of thousands of happy couples who cannot have children on their own and would do almost anything to have a healthy baby, and there are hundreds of organizations out there to provide all kinds of assistance to mothers considering adoption.