Abortion - Your Opinion

[waybread]

I'm answering the order of your statement from last to first:

If by your own admission the fetus is alive, then you are indeed killing someone else when you practice an abortion. The rest of the discussion is then kind of moot, because you are accepting the action of murdering another person for the sake of the mother's preference.

Dirius, I know that you're a clever guy, and not nearly as obtuse as this paragraph suggests.

You can call it "killing" if you like to be melodramatic about it, but what an early- or even mid-term abortion seeker is not "killing" is an actual person. No "murder" is therefore involved.

And please get off the sociopathic notion that abortions are entirely about the woman's "preference." Many women with ectopic pregnancies longed for a healthy baby. They could die if the embryo is not removed, and ruptures their fallopian tube. Oftentimes it's the father who doesn't want the baby and pressures his wife/GF to have an abortion. Sometimes a woman with multiple implanted embryos is carrying so many fetuses that they cannot all survive to healthy births. Aborting one or two gives the remaining fetuses a significantly better chance of healthy live births.

Surely you understand that desperate girls can get suicidal over an unwanted pregnancy. I don't imagine you'd be OK with her suicide so long as doctors could somehow save her fetus.

If you wish, we can review once more all of the reasons why abortion is not merely about "preference."

BTW, I assume you are a strict vegetarian. Obviously livestock are capable of feeling fear, pain, and suffering, notably at the time of slaughter; and they want to live. They have heartbeats and functioning brains. Plus, they've been born.

This might be understandable if there is a complication, or if the pregnancy is putting the mother's life at risk, or the pregnancy isn't viable. But if it is a viable pregnancy - you have no moral right to justify someone's murder. The conditions of conception, or the mother's socio-economic standing are no justification to affect someone else's life.

It's good that you admit of some very real needs for exceptions to a strict anti-abortion stance.

But, yet again, Dirius, early-term abortion is not murder.

I get that this is your strongly-held belief, but most nations on the planet and the law of the US says it's not.

I haven't. What I say is that you can't kill an innocent person. As you said, the fetus is indeed alive.

A fetus is not a person. Terminating it is therefore not murder.

But it's the height of hypocrisy for anti-abortionists to ignore all of the other ways in which they justify or ignore homicides or state-sanctioned murder of actual living people.

I have considered your factors. There are indeed economic perks. But the way risk assesment equation works, is you consider first the viability of the deal you are making - the perks factors you are mentioning come as secondary. If the risk from the agreement you are entering is too high, and the return is too low (just a few economic discounts) - its not worth it.

So don't get married, Dirius.

I don't mind admitting I'm wrong if the empirical evidence is there to back the claim. This is why I keep asking when the fetus is alive. If someone can indeed verify it is not a living person at some stage, I don't mind the abortion; but if it is alive, then its the killing of a living human. Same thing with the morning after pill, if only prevents fertilization, I don't mind it.

There are two separate issues here that you keep conflating. (1) Is a viable fetus alive? and (2) Is it a person? Yes to #1, and no to #2.

The only dicey part here is with a requested abortion so late in the woman's pregnancy (generally after 24 weeks) that the fetus could survive on its own, albeit oftentimes with great medical interventions and health risks as a preemie. Generally I wouldn't support abortion at a late stage.

But I think there are a few exceptions. Sometimes a later-term fetus is known to have such severe birth defects that it cannot possibly survive more than a few hours after birth, and in great distress. Under such circumstances, it may be more humane and compassionate for both the mother and the fetus to terminate the pregnancy.

 

[waybread]

Blackbery, please get your facts straight. Feminists were onto this problem a long time ago and not as you portray it. (I think I discussed this problem in an earlier post on this thread.)

Western feminists had nothing to do with the "missing girls" problem in China. Rather, it was China's one-child policy as a means population control in a totalitarian state, together with the much higher traditional value their society placed on males over females.

If the state decreed that couples could have only one child, they wanted to ensure that it was a boy. Amniocentesis revealed the sex of the fetus, and they aborted a lot of girls.

This has also been a big problem in India. The reasons are similar, but there are some cultural differences.

Neither process was motivated by feminism: in, fact, it was just the opposite. The process was motivated by long-standing cultural traditions that were anti-feminist.

Unfortunately, they aborted so many baby girls in China that there is a severe shortage of women now. The men have no-one to marry & have children with. They are kidnapping & buying woman from other Asian countries to 'make up' for the lack of females in the country.

So more abuse of women to solve a problem that they created themselves with their hatred of giving birth to a girl.

Agree with you that the total lack of irony from the 'feminists' who find sex-selecting abortion 'empowering' truly staggering.

 

[waybread]

Blackbery, David has every right to participate in this discussion.

He has been unswervingly considerate of others, no matter how heated the discussion.

Actually, Blackbery, if a fetus is not a person although it may become one, the word "murder" does not apply.

If an animal is killed for food on your dinner plate, is that murder? That animal could feel pain, fear, and suffering. It wanted to live.

Are you a strict vegetarian?

Are "do not resuscitate" directives followed by hospital staff murder? Is the family pulling the plug on Granny murder? Does a hospice patient have a "right to die" (i.e., doctor-assisted end-of-life)? What about police shootings of innocent and unarmed minors? It's a big list against which to test one's hypocrisy. Are you a pacifist? Opposed to capital punishment?

As I mentioned earlier today, once a pregnancy advances into a mid- or late-term, I think abortion has to be handled on a case-by-case basis. These would normally involve serious pregnancy complications, such as a fetus with such serious birth defects that it could only live a few hours after birth-- in agony. A

What is your intrusion here about? Waybread stated that a fetus is a non-person until it is born. Therefore, she agrees with the Dem platform of supporting murdering the 'non-person' right up until the moment of birth.

...because only after a baby is BORN is it a 'person' & have the right to live.

Your comments are completely irrelevant.

 

[Opal]

Blackbery, David has every right to participate in this discussion.

He has been unswervingly considerate of others, no matter how heated the discussion.

Actually, Blackbery, if a fetus is not a person although it may become one, the word "murder" does not apply.

If an animal is killed for food on your dinner plate, is that murder? That animal could feel pain, fear, and suffering. It wanted to live.

Are you a strict vegetarian?

Are "do not resuscitate" directives followed by hospital staff murder? Is the family pulling the plug on Granny murder? Does a hospice patient have a "right to die" (i.e., doctor-assisted end-of-life)? What about police shootings of innocent and unarmed minors? It's a big list against which to test one's hypocrisy. Are you a pacifist? Opposed to capital punishment?

As I mentioned earlier today, once a pregnancy advances into a mid- or late-term, I think abortion has to be handled on a case-by-case basis. These would normally involve serious pregnancy complications, such as a fetus with such serious birth defects that it could only live a few hours after birth-- in agony. A

Good points Waybread.

 

[waybread]

Blackbery, you seem to hate a lot of things.

You mentioned Planned Parenthood. Are you aware of the many non-abortion health care services they offer? These include general women's health care, contraception, STDs testing, referrals to medical specialists, pre-natal care for women who do want their pregnancies.

Shut them down, and poor women would lose the services they provide in which you actually believe.

If you want actual information (like solid data) on abortions, I recommend the Guttmacher Institute's website https://www.guttmacher.org/

I recognize that your beliefs are very strong, but that does not necessarily make them factual.

See if you can distinguish between something that is alive, and human personhood.

 

[waybread]

Good points Waybread.

Thanks, Opal-- it's a relief to agree on something!

 

[Opal]

Thanks, Opal-- it's a relief to agree on something!

Well you know my friend, sometimes it is me too. I have had that bleeping Pluto square my natal mercury for so bloody long. It is finally direct, and still very there, but it is gitting along. Communication in real life has been a challenge too. I wish there was a rock, but I would probably throw it through something than hide under it.

Transformation bites sometimes.

 

[david starling]

As for Natal-chart astrology and personhood, it's not that a viable fetus isn't a person--and I hope that they can all be saved by c-section if at all possible without causing the death of the mother.

It's that the pregnant mother's Natal-chart overrides that of the child as long as she's the child's life support system. Once the umbilical cord is cut, and the baby has its own blood-supply and can breathe, it becomes an Individual for astrological purposes, with its own Natal-chart.

 

[waybread]

David, you may recall that this thread started as a poll.

I was one of the now-four people who clicked on "It depends."

In an ideal world, every pregnancy is wanted, every wanted pregnancy produces a healthy baby, every baby is wanted. Sadly, we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a difficult world where competing rights collide, where there are two different moral imperatives facing off in every dilemma.

When that happy sort of world isn't the world that we have, then we face difficult choices.

I've focused on the obvious ones, because there is a lot more agreement on saving women's life and health. But at some level, women's bodies have equal protection under the law or we don't. If a fetus is not able to survive outside the uterus, I don't see it as a person.

For later-term abortion decisions, I see them as a tragedy, but as a sometimes justifiable decision. For example:

"The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) refuted that idea in a statement released this week, stating that pregnant women may experience conditions such as “premature rupture of membranes and infection, preeclampsia, placental abruption, and placenta accreta” late in pregnancy that may endanger their lives.

“Women in these circumstances may risk extensive blood loss, stroke, and septic shock that could lead to maternal death. Politicians must never require a doctor to wait for a medical condition to worsen and become life-threatening before being able to provide evidence-based care to their patients, including an abortion,” the ACOG said."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-p...s-late-term-abortions-law-women-who-get-them/

This article raises a good point. Doctors can predict many life-threatening medical conditions before they become serious. If the law requires them to wait until the woman's life is truly endangered, her health risks are actually much, much worse.

I can understand the religious view that all life is sacred, life begins at conception. If this is a religious person's point of view, life produced through gang rape is no less sacred because of the shocking circumstances in which it is conceived.

The trouble is, most right-to-lifers on this thread are not religious people. Their argument is a lot more troubled because they approve or disregard other situations in which human life is terminated. Then the question becomes where do they draw the line, and on what basis?

Regardless of their religious views, the basis cannot be innocence because innocent life is snuffed out during war, and even during executions when the wrong man is condemned. Innocent life is killed during police shootings, drunk driving accidents, and so on.

Criminalizing abortion isn't going to stop it. It is just going to return it to bad old days of backroom butchers and girls' botched self-induced abortions.

I cannot imagine that this is what they want.

 

[david starling]

The medical community is well aware of the "viability" situation, where a fetus COULD survive when separated from the mother's biological system, and be placed in an incubator. An abortion after viability would have to have extenuating medical circumstances.

 

[leomoon]

The trouble is, most right-to-lifers on this thread are not religious people. Their argument is a lot more troubled because they approve or disregard other situations in which human life is terminated.

Most (not all) who I have met personally, church going,etc. are religious, just not at all spiritual minded, generous nor practice the 7 Virtues of true Christian spirit. from Wikipedia:

The "spirit" of something is what matters most imo.

original Latin is in parentheses " "



Chastity "Castitas" Purity, abstinence
as opposed to Lust


Temperance "Temperantia"

Humanity, equanimity Gluttony is the opposite


Charity "Caritas" Will, benevolence, generosity, sacrifice opposite is Greed "Avaritia" or stinginess

Diligence "Industria" Persistence, effortfulness, ethics
opposite of Sloth "Acedia"

Patience "Patientia" Satisfaction, compassion vs opposite of Envy Invidia Kindness "Humanitas" Forgiveness, mercy opposite of Wrath Ira Humility "Humilitas" Bravery, modesty, reverence the opposite of Pride Superbia

I rarely go to church. Only on Christmas and then not every year. The reason? Because the people I have met usually

practice the "letter of the law" vs the "spirit of the law" so its as though you speak a completely different language when you discuss anything meaningful. But that is just how I have experienced the church-abiding ones.

 

[blackbery]

Yep, I hate this world with its cruelty & suffering of ALL living beings. I can barely live knowing what goes on but I do what I can to try to alleviate
any suffering even if it's just a prayer I can do.

I HATE Planned Parenthood; women can go to their own doctors or STD clinics for feminine issues & contraception that have NOTHING to do with abortion.

But that's not what Planned Parenthood is. It's a death cult. Pretty soon, they will be having abortion parties, complete with cakes & ballons to celebrate.

Maybe you really don't understand that the org was founded by fans of Thomas Malthus who engineered the entire de-population agenda. The Margarent Sangers, Gates Sr. Rockefeller who believed they must kill the 'useless eaters' are the exact same group of elite psycopaths who are pushing the vaxx genoice de-population agenda, the same evil cabal who want the NWO, the Great Reset where you will 'own nothing & be happy'.

But THEY, the 1% will own EVERYTHING. They will control the entire world. The rest of us will be slaves with no soverignity, no nationality. We will all be zombies.

The Dem Party is aligned with these globalist elites & that's why abortion is their #1 agenda. Look at what happened in TX. They made their own state law (the 10-week fetal heartbeat law) that would not allow abortions after this period. Seems very fair, allowing women to abort before that time (which is when I believe life begins). After that time period, women can go to any other 49 states & get the abortion. In NY, you can get a 9-month baby aborted with no problem. But that's not good enough for the Demonic Dems; they have to fight that TX law to ensure every baby can be killed no matter how old it is.

I hate the Dem Party for what it's become. Not only Marxist but demonic with pushing, pushing, pushing for more death of the most innocent & precious.

I won't even respond to your juvenile comments about whether I'm a vegan or not. That has nothing to do with murdering babies unless you believe a snake is more important than a human. But I can tell you that I don't believe in any torture or cruelty to any of God's Beings & that includes the animal kingdom.

The Malthusian Planned Parenthood sociopaths would be better served to help the poor around the world & to educate people about the real pain & suffering that happens to a baby in a mother's womb where it's meant to feel safe & warm & loved. Instead, they have their skulls cracked open, their limbs torn apart & then they sell the baby parts to make a profit.

They are not about offering counselling or help of any kind such as adoption. They are about killing & particularly the minority class who they want to de-populate most of all.

I'm not interested in debating this anymore. I've said what I've had to say & you can promote & push abortion & make excuses & divert to veganism or whatever but the bottom line is that abortion is murder of an innocent life. And murder in the most cruelest of ways.

Blackbery, you seem to hate a lot of things.

You mentioned Planned Parenthood. Are you aware of the many non-abortion health care services they offer? These include general women's health care, contraception, STDs testing, referrals to medical specialists, pre-natal care for women who do want their pregnancies.

Shut them down, and poor women would lose the services they provide in which you actually believe.

.

 

[david starling]

Republican Governor DeSantis of Florida has made Florida the "abortion capital" of the South, with elective abortion State-sanctioned up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

 

[waybread]

Blackbery, I hope that you can take advantage of help that is available for someone as desperately unhappy as your posts suggest you are.

Actual facts can come later.

Divorcing yourself from extreme rightwing social media may be some help. It's the algorithms.

I would just point out that many woman are unable to find family doctors, because their practices are full. These doctors are not taking new patients, notably those on Medicaid. Clinics of varying sorts, including Planned Parenthood, fill a valuable role in today's health care.

 

[Dirius]

Dirius, I know that you're a clever guy, and not nearly as obtuse as this paragraph suggests.

You can call it "killing" if you like to be melodramatic about it, but what an early- or even mid-term abortion seeker is not "killing" is an actual person. No "murder" is therefore involved.

It is killing a person. It is a live human being. Your statement presents a detachment from reality, because you agree it is alive, but also believe you have a right to kill it.

And please get off the sociopathic notion that abortions are entirely about the woman's "preference." Many women with ectopic pregnancies longed for a healthy baby. They could die if the embryo is not removed, and ruptures their fallopian tube. Oftentimes it's the father who doesn't want the baby and pressures his wife/GF to have an abortion. Sometimes a woman with multiple implanted embryos is carrying so many fetuses that they cannot all survive to healthy births. Aborting one or two gives the remaining fetuses a significantly better chance of healthy live births.

Surely you understand that desperate girls can get suicidal over an unwanted pregnancy. I don't imagine you'd be OK with her suicide so long as doctors could somehow save her fetus.

If you wish, we can review once more all of the reasons why abortion is not merely about "preference."

Again, you are using the example of unviable pregnancies to try to justify abortion. These are no the same as aborting a viable pregnancy.

Also are again trying to justify an action because of the person's condition.

Its like saying that stealing is justified because the robber had a bad childhood.

BTW, I assume you are a strict vegetarian. Obviously livestock are capable of feeling fear, pain, and suffering, notably at the time of slaughter; and they want to live. They have heartbeats and functioning brains. Plus, they've been born.

But, yet again, Dirius, early-term abortion is not murder.

I get that this is your strongly-held belief, but most nations on the planet and the law of the US says it's not.

I put human beings above animals. And in their natural environment, 95% of these animals die before they reach 1 month of life.

At some point in history all nations of the world had legal slavery. Legality of a law doesn't make it morally correct.

A fetus is not a person. Terminating it is therefore not murder.

But it's the height of hypocrisy for anti-abortionists to ignore all of the other ways in which they justify or ignore homicides or state-sanctioned murder of actual living people.

These are your deeply held beliefs, and I don't expect you to change them. But you are indeed sanctioning murder, and justifying it by implying the fetus isn't a person, and thus you are free to kill it.

I feel such perspective has a psycopathic danger to it, in which killing another person is justified, which has been used through history multiple times.

There are two separate issues here that you keep conflating. (1) Is a viable fetus alive? and (2) Is it a person? Yes to #1, and no to #2.

The only dicey part here is with a requested abortion so late in the woman's pregnancy (generally after 24 weeks) that the fetus could survive on its own, albeit oftentimes with great medical interventions and health risks as a preemie. Generally I wouldn't support abortion at a late stage.

But I think there are a few exceptions. Sometimes a later-term fetus is known to have such severe birth defects that it cannot possibly survive more than a few hours after birth, and in great distress. Under such circumstances, it may be more humane and compassionate for both the mother and the fetus to terminate the pregnancy.

Yes so you approve of killing someone with birth defects. Same as eugenicists.

 

[tsmall]

Ok folks that's the bell. I am closing this thread pending moderation which likely will take the better part of a week to do. As it has devolved into an argument that is better taken to PM or at least away from this forum the attacks and counter attacks are against forum rules, even for chat.

Closing it down,

Tamara