Another abortion article...

[cgannon64]

Sounds to me like you are saying that you would do exactly what they did. Where is your moral high ground exactly?

I have pretty conservative views on sex, and wouldn't actually get pregnant? If I got pregnant, I would put it up for adoption? (I was putting myself in the scenario of having an abortion, not just getting pregnant.) And even if I did abort my baby, I wouldn't try to justify it?

But you also have to take into consideration that a young irresponsible male can have all the sex he wants and he never has to worry about this happening to him.

But also keep in mind I don't and don't plan on having as much irresponsible sex as I can, and if I got a girl pregnant and she had an abortion - even if I argued against it - I would feel just as guilty.

That's what all people do. When you do something wrong, you will rationalize it and pretend it was OK and all apart of what your morals dictate.

I try not to do that, and I hope you try not to do that.

 

[brennan]

So you might have an abortion despite the fact fact you believe it is wrong, you just wouldn't try to justify it. I repeat, where is your moral high ground? Either you are doing something wrong or not.

 

[cgannon64]

My moral high ground is that these women are trying to twist around logic and morals so that they can sleep at night with their actions; I wouldn't. I would give up sleep.

(Though, again, I must emphasize, I wouldn't have an abortion.)

 

[brennan]

You might, if you were ever in the situation they were in. Since that seems unlikely I would simply suggest that you stop judging them.

 

[cgannon64]

I have no right to judge situations I cannot or most likely will not be in?

Why, you've just shot down the entire basis of morality. I'll probably never kill someone; who am I to say you shouldn't?

 

[Elrohir]

"I feel pretty messed up," she said after seeing the image. "It's different, just knowing. My husband told me not to look. This changes my feelings, but I'm sticking by it. Damn it, $650, I'm sticking by it."

Yeah, don't let something as trivial as a childs life change your mind! Get your money's worth!

This is disgusting.

their choice- not yours, or anyone elses. If you wanna take that as a cop out rationaliztion, go ahead- but it dosent stop the fact that irregardless of what may or may not be the greater good, its really none of your buisnuiss to critiscize them let alone use them as a an example to dicatate to all what may or may not be done.

Hmm, I wonder Xen, if you would feel the same that it is "none of your buisnuiss" if it was a man molesting his daughter on a secluded ranch or a women who got pregnant and murders her newly born baby's because she enjoys the thrill of watching them die. There is no difference whatsoever.

 

[blackheart]

I try not to do that, and I hope you try not to do that.

You may not try a specific scenario, but there will be a time when you come upon something you don't understand and will try to rationalize it until you do.

Hmm, I wonder Xen, if you would feel the same that it is "none of your buisnuiss" if it was a man molesting his daughter on a secluded ranch or a women who got pregnant and murders her newly born baby's because she enjoys the thrill of watching them die. There is no difference whatsoever.

There is a difference Elrohir. But then again that's a conflict rooted in entirely different ideologies regarding this whole matter. However, your willingness to dehumanize women who have abortions and group them with "monsters" strikes me as... condescending.

 

[cgannon64]

You may not try a specific scenario, but there will be a time when you come upon something you don't understand and will try to rationalize it until you do.

Something I don't understand, I think, would not be included in a set of morals I follow. These women thought they had a clear understanding of abortion before they became pregnant; rather than re-think their stance on abortion after having one, they tried to support their morals with bull****.

By the way, elohir's comparison is accurate, though extreme. In both those cases we consider those crimes and damaging to the social good because we hold that suffering, even secret suffering, is damaging to the greater good.

The only way you can beleive that and not beleive that abortion is immoral is to dehumanize the unborn child.

 

[Elrohir]

There is a difference Elrohir. But then again that's a conflict rooted in entirely different ideologies regarding this whole matter. However, your willingness to dehumanize women who have abortions and group them with "monsters" strikes me as... condescending.

And your willingness to overlook genocide strikes me as disgusting.

 

[blackheart]

The only way you can beleive that and not beleive that abortion is immoral is to dehumanize the unborn child.

That's just the thing... some (such as me) view on when the human life actually starts. Conception, first/second/third trimester, etc?

And your willingness to overlook genocide strikes me as disgusting.

What genocide?

 

[cgannon64]

Yes, yes, I know we all disagree on that.

Anyway, what interests me most about this article is that the New York Times apparently had a hard time finding someone who went through an abortion without any misgivings or regrets. I mean, c'mon, this is the New York Times. They would have jumped on someone like that if they could've found them. What does this say about our society that the majority has voted to legalize something that the majority has qualms about doing themselves?

 

[feline_dacat]

I am pro-choice, but it sounds to be from the OP that some of those women were using abortion as the easy way out. That is what i object to. I think its wrong to just say "Nuts, i got pregnant again... oh well. Off to the abortion clinic!" and those who do say that gives abortion a bad name.

I think abortion has to be taken on a case by case basis. Generalising is bad - for instance the lady who said that she'd rather abort than have a child she couldn't support is right in her choice. What if this lady had the baby, and didn't have enough money for the both of them to survive? She could give it up for adoption but both are heartbreaking situations. Either have the child and then potentially break a mother-child bond (not all mothers bond with their babies)... or have an abortion and snuff out a life? Bit of a better-to-have-loved-and-lost-than-to-never-have-loved-at-all kinda scenario. In this case I can draw parallels with a woman with twins in a third world country, but only had enough breast milk to feed one baby. Instead of condemning the both of them to death, she had to make the heart breaking decision to feed only one and let the other starve. Thankfully in this case aid workers saved the second baby.

Anyway, i've digressed. Abortion, yes. Abortion as an easy way out/just cos you can, no.

 

[Keirador]

It's their choice. Not mine, not anyone elses. Just like it's my choice, not your's or anyone else's, to drive drunk or steal or rape or murder.

The women aren't the only ones concerned, the living beings they're killing are involved too. And to anyone who claims otherwise, what exactly do you think a fetus is? Is it a rock? A flower? Is it the mother? The father? Or is it another being, but one that doesn't matter because it's "just a clump of cells"? That one's my favorite rationalization: "it's just a clump of cells". What the hell do you think you are, golden magic fairy essence?

Or maybe it's just that it's OK to kill something not fully formed yet. So maybe we should make a sliding scale of punishment depending on how old the victim is. Infants aren't full adults, killing them can get you a fine. Knocking off middle-schoolers will get you a few years of jail time. Retards, of course, are always in season. They can't think, why do they deserve rights?

Scientifically, the life of a separate organism begins at conception. This has nothing to do with religion or morality. At the point of conception, cells cease being components of their parents, and take on new and individual characteristics. So the question of abortion is not "whether or not it's killing someone", but rather "is the killing of this person justified?" If abortion advocates would simply admit this fact of science and move onwards from there, advancing reasons why murder in such cases should be legal, I probably wouldn't hate them as much.

 

[Elrohir]

That's just the thing... some (such as me) view on when the human life actually starts. Conception, first/second/third trimester, etc?

What genocide?

As Keirador said, there is no real reason, scientific or religious, moral or ethical to think that human life and all it's sacredness does not begin at conception. What your view is is irrelavent, because a 'fetus' is no less a human being because it is in it's first trimester instead of it's third. It doesn't magically become a human being with rights when it's born. (Or, as one pro-abortion guy said, "when you bring it home from the hospital")

You don't think killing off millions of innocent people because they are unwanted qualifies as genocide? What else would you call it? 'Happy time'?

 

[Keirador]

I don't think it's genocide. To be genocide, it has to be targeted at a specific genetic group. It is mass murder, though.

 

[Shadylookin]

the religious hypocrisy is annoying. They want to be religious and then spit in the face of their beliefs not once, not twice, but perhaps as many as 3 times.

 

[cgannon64]

I think abortion has to be taken on a case by case basis...

As to this whole paragraph: I think this is going on the terrible logic that it is better to be dead than to live and suffer. I've heard people argue that fetuses should be killed because if they weren't they would grow up poor. Is this, then, a solution to poverty? Are poor people better off dead?

Keirador: Excellent excellent excellent post. The abortion debate on thisforum has ceased to thrill me for lack of fresh takes on the argument; thanks.

What disgusts me most about the abortionist's argument is its complete inability to actual posit a real definition of "a human being". The closest he gets is blabbering on about sentience, and setting some arbitrary "trimester" at which sentience is assumed, though obviously not in every case proven, to exist. The clear fact is that this opens up thousands of "persons", by the abortionist's awfully arbitrary definition, to die every year just because they're sentient before the "trimester" in which he has decided that fetuses should not be sentient.

 

[Keirador]

Keirador: Excellent excellent excellent post. The abortion debate on thisforum has ceased to thrill me for lack of fresh takes on the argument; thanks.

Err. . . did you just compliment my post, and then say it was unoriginal?

 

[Evil Tyrant]

It is merely another sign of our declining civilization and should not surprise anyone. It doesn't surprise me in the least.

 

[cgannon64]

Err. . . did you just compliment my post, and then say it was unoriginal?

No, I meant to say it has up to this point ceased to thrill me, and yours was a fresh take. Sorry if I was unclear.