The "Bubs" of politics

[Galleleo]

Why cant you just respect peoples choices? I think abortion is a very personal thing and it should be up to those involved to make that decision, not someone from the outside telling them what to do. You are against it? Good for you, don't do it then, as Jerome pointed out, but leave other people free to make their own choices.

[Singularity]

Because my dear Galleleo, if you would see abortion as murder you CAN'T let people decide for themselves about it, just as much as we won't say "ah, I don't give a fuck if you kill random people, I just decided I won't do it myself". We have establish laws to prevent that from happening, anti abortionists want to same done for abortion (and euthenasia). That's the whole point of the ongoing discussion about it. I don't agree with them most of the times, but I see why there is a discussion about it at all.

[Galleleo]

Well, in my opinion, its a personal thing, everyone that has an abortion (or at least 99%) takes plenty of time to think about it, weigh their options, think again and then have it if absolutely necessary.

So that is where I will end this discussion from my part.

I just want to add 1 thing, you cannot say that someone has no morals just for thinking abortion is something personal.

[Nickname]

rofl of course they are, they use techniques like cutting, burning, and vacuming.

tire iron. it works like a charm.

[HateTheFake]

gal most advocates for pro-life have been people who made the horrid decision to abort. Often times woman have total breakdowns from this and wish they had someone step in to help. Then you have the other forced abortions where the boyfriend, friends or family, force the girl to have one. Everyone talks about people dying in the iraq war, weve only lost 4k in soldiers compared to the hundreds of thousand abortions. Both can easily be compared to as needless deaths.

[Adman]

kick her in the stomach and ride her down the stairs?


now in all seriousness.


IF a woman was raped and conceived a child, what then?
Should she keep it and be forever reminded of how she was raped and manhandled?
Or have an abortion and not have to look into the eyes if a child of the person that raped her?

Abortion is the mother's choice, no one else's. I think bringing a child into this world that will be be: improperly cared for; brought into an abusive home; or abandoned (foster care) is not right. Aborting an unwanted fetus is for the good of everyone involved, however it is the mother's choice. It's her body.

[Epinephrine]

Honestly the real issue isn't even incest or life in danger or whatever. The fact is, if anyone other than the woman makes the decision about whether she will have the baby or not, then you are FORCING the woman to carry the consequences of an action performed by two people.

No matter how the woman got pregnant, if she is forced to have the baby, then I believe that is wrong. She could have gotten pregnant for any number of reasons including her boyfriend forcing unprotected sex on her, a condom breaking (and the man splitting immediately), being raped, or being forced to carry children by an abusive husband (it happens).

The fact is, if you force the woman to have a baby, you are also forcing them to accept all the risks of pregnancy, including death by childbirth, dangerous childbirth situations, and situations where she may lose her livelyhood because she has a child.

As well, there will be many instances where even perfectly normally couples will find out that their child will be born with any number of genetic diseases or chromosomal disorders which we can identify before birth. Should we force parents to have children who no one will want to adopt because of their deformities, and force the parents to take care of these children until they die of their diseases?

Should we force teenage girls who get pregnant to drop out of school to have a baby, and then ruin their lives, because their boyfriend (likely split the second they found out she was preggers) manipulated them into having unprotected sex? Won't these women have problems too and be scarred for life and have their own psychiatric problems as well if they are forced to have a baby that they never intended or wanted to have by laws that they wholeheartedly don't even agree with morally?



In the end NLS, every single one of your arguments is absolutely moot. The real issue is that you believe abortion is morally wrong, and that a lot of other people believe it is justifiable under certain (or even all) circumstances.

Some of this is religious, and some of this is cultural. In many places, abortions simply aren't taken as such a serious moral matter as in the Western world, because well... people around the world see things different. For instance, in the East, the Confucian tradition states that a person's intrinsic value is based on how they lived their life. Just as we recognize that criminals have little value to society (and as such many places permit the death penalty), we also recognize that people who contribute are more important than those who don't. By definition, fetuses contribute nothing, because they don't even physically exist outside the mother, nor can they survive without being inside the mother. As such, the moral issue is moot, unlike in the Christian tradition.

Personally I believe that most people understand murder of a normal (non-fetus) person to be wrong because they understand that such an act can happen to them. For instance, if someone kills your friend over some money, you could have easily been killed just as well. Since no one wants to die, they can't allow murder to happen. As well, society recognizes that you cannot have a stable society if anyone could kill anyone at anytime. Having a functioning civilization requires trust in eachother, and at the very least a belief in your personal safety. In fact, all of our laws that we have created are based on this, whether they are laws in various religious holy books, or laws created by statue. The fact is, laws protect society and protect civilization by making a set of widely used rules that make sure that people abide by the rules, and as such we can build up enough trust in eachother to do all of the transactions that are necessary for civilization to survive.

The problem is, no one alive who can actually think and make any difference is actually a fetus, and thus the death of a fetus is not something that we can innately relate to. Fetuses don't have jobs, nor do they even make sounds. You have never laid eyes on them, and they contribute nothing to society. As such I believe that a lot of people deep down don't actually believe that a fetus being aborted is the same as murder because it is impossible to relate and impossible to say that the stability of society will be affected if this is allowed to happen. Simply put, no matter how many abortions you have, your own personal safety will never be at risk, and you can carry out any number of activities you want to in society without fear of harm.

Additionally, fetuses, depending on how old they are are no where near developed. Although in the USA, abortions are allowed indefinately, in Canada we only allow for the first two trimesters. During this period, the fetus is still so poorly developed that it 100% relies on the mother to live (if you took it out assuming this has no negative effect on the mother of which it would actually have seriously affects on the mother, no matter what... it will die). As well, it does not have much of a brain or a central nervous system. Simply put, it is not nearly the same as a baby or a pre-term baby who could potentially survive outside the womb. Because of this physically it is not a person. The only way one could see this as a person, is if one believes in the idea of a soul, and that somehow the fetus has already been infused with a living, breathing and thinking soul just as advanced as at least a baby's that is destroyed when the fetus is aborted. Of course since not everyone is religious like that, most people wouldn't believe that.

To put it in simple terms, I believe a majority of people in the West no matter the rhetoric, absolutely do not believe that abortion in all instances is the same as murder in all instances (which is always bad). A majority of people can see that there are situations where the killing of a fetus may even be a good thing. A majority of people also recognize that a fetus is not the same as a baby either physically or developmentally and cannot be seen as equal to normal human being. A majority of people also rightly understand that in order to have a modern democracy, we have to respect the varying views of people, and that people can make their own choices. Because it is not murder, people are allowed to make decisions for themselves.

Finally there's the issue of women's rights, whereby society has been telling women what to do because men dominate society for as long as history. We have finally recognized that in the last few decades that women are just as equal to men and deserve to be allowed to make their own choices. Having a baby is a burden which a mother overwhelmingly carries, and as such women should be allowed to make their own choices about such a thing. It is absolutely irresponsible for men to be able to make this choice for them if we are to recognize that women have intrinsic value and ability.





By the way, most abortions happen by two methods. The first, if the woman is early enough in pregnancy, they can just take a pill which kills off any fetus, and the medicine kills it. Most abortions happen in this method, and this happens before week 9 or so, when the fetus is only an inch in size and certainly without any real brain or associated structures necessary to make a sentient being. Certainly not so brutal. In the second, if the fetus is over a certain age, they then may be sucked out by a tube after given medications to the mother to ensure that the cervix is open and that no matter what the fetus will die (the sucking out is a formality so nothing gets stuck inside the mother and she doesn't die of bleeding). Yet again it sounds bad, but then again, for the most part the fetus at this point is extremely small, and while it has the shape of a 1-2 inch big human, it really doesn't have any nearly full grown structures where one could really say it were the same thing as killing a full born human.


In VERY RARE instances you have late-term abortions which may be seen as more horrific because viable fetuses are killed then sucked out. This is illegal in my country and I have no problem with that if people so wish, but not illegal in the USA.

[Galleleo]

I don't think it should be only a women to make the choice, maybe she has a bigger say in it, but its something that got formed between 2 people and you cant just cut out the guys voice in this just because the woman carries it.

[Zerzera]

Next thing you know we have to do our best to keep our sperm cells alive. It's life, God made that life, it has to be preserved!

[HateTheFake]

Epinephrine-

At my school we had 5 pregnant girls in my class alone they all graduated.

A 5 week fetus has a heartbeat, does that not constitute life?

Most of what you stated doesnt really have a merit. And most of it has already been said in this forum. That being said look back for the rest of the awnsers

[Zerzera]

Most of what you stated doesnt really have a merit. And most of it has already been said in this forum. That being said look back for the rest of the awnsers

You Sir, are beyond arrogant.

[Adman]

it's not worth my time to argue for the not so well worded people. Epi owned you, and conc did to.

So i'll put it in the best way i can.

You are gay.

[Epinephrine]

A 5 week fetus has a heartbeat, does that not constitute life?

Animals have heartbeats too, and bugs are alive. You kill both of those or condone the killing of those regularily. What's your point?

A 5-week old fetus isn't equivalent to a full grown human no matter how you look at it.

[Zerzera]

Animals have heartbeats too, and bugs are alive. You kill both of those or condone the killing of those regularily. What's your point?

A 5-week old fetus isn't equivalent to a full grown human no matter how you look at it.

A mouse has a higher heart rate, therefore it's more alive than you!

[Epinephrine]

I don't think it should be only a women to make the choice, maybe she has a bigger say in it, but its something that got formed between 2 people and you cant just cut out the guys voice in this just because the woman carries it.

Gall, in a perfect world where all babies are created by loving couples this may be true. But in the real world the reality is that there is a vast power imbalance between men and women. Men can have as much sex as they want, and in many cases can in practice impregnant as many women as they can and not have visible consequences. If they don't want to be a father, they can just leave. In most cases the woman will not be able to stop the guy, because child support only kicks in if they are married.

Meanwhile, it is the woman who has to deal with being pregnant for 9 months (this is huge, have you ever carried around a growing baby for 9 months, be restricted in your activities in terms of not being able to do many things, been forced to take time off school/work to recover from having a baby, and being forced to take care of a lifeform you never wanted in the first place, especially if no one else wants it and it's illegal to just kill the baby?). It is the mother who faces risks from dying from having a child, or having complications from the delivery. Yes people actually die from giving birth, it happens all the time. It is also overwhelmingly the mother who faces the consequences of having a baby because SOMEONE has to take care of the child, so in a vast majority of cases, the mother will have to either take on reduced responsibilities at school or work, or quit altogether and this would have seriously consequences on her future life.

So yes, this is absolutely a woman's rights issue, and while it may be nice to say that the man should have a say, legally it should be in the hands of the woman.