Well, I'm not sure about this whole thing, since I had never experienced pregnancy nor never had an abortion.

But, I think the woman/girl should at least get to choose. I heard that 'protection' is not fool-proof and accidents happen. Some people just keeping having babies no matter what they try to do to prevent it. *shrugs*

Anyway, I support abortion at the very beginning, before the baby is not even formed much yet.

Oh! I've heard that some girls will do abortion in dangerous ways, such as using knitting needles (and I think coat hangers, not sure?), endangering themselves in the process.

Also, I worry if the mother keeps the baby, what happens if the mother/father/family is abusive? Or the family just hates the kid?

What if the family is too poor to even feed the developing child? Or if the family lives in a very poor, cruel and violent neighborhood? That would be much more sad...

(After all, believe or not, America does have homeless/poor people. And child abuse does happen.)

Anyway, I vote abortion legal to some extent, since this world is way too over-populated, and I hate it when people care more about the unborn baby than the mental/emotional/physical being of living, breathing adults, pregnant mothers in particular.

This is my opinion, of course.

This post has been edited by MerGirl: Aug 5 2005, 12:42 AM

So let's just go sacrifice ourselves to uncrowd the world, instead of putting others in front of us on the butcher line.

If it endangers a life, your going to lose one anyway. Which would you rather lose, the baby who has years of life and productivity ahead of him or someone who has already gone through half of their life.

I ask myself "Would I want to meet the same fate as the baby that is being aborted."

Just my opinion.

Well, I'd rather lose the thing that hasn't developed anything than an already productive member of society.

Then again, I do not I should be talking since I'm not pregnant nor ever had an abortion. I think those women who are pregnant and/or have had abortion should speak up! Seriously, what do a bunch of male presidents know about pregnancy? Let alone me, a young not-pregnant girl?

Again, I just wanted to chime in my two-cents.

You forget there are fathers too.

They don't have the experience of pregnancy, but the child is also theirs.

There should be a nation wide vote of married people to determine the decision in the U.S.

*shrugs* That's enough of this topic for me.

Shoot! I forgot about the fathers too! (At least, the loyal ones, anyway). *slaps forehead* Well, I'm not sure if they should have more of a say or not. Well, like all marriage fights, they will have to discuss this kind of decision seriously, and see all of the pros and cons of either descision and the long-term effects.

Also, not just married people, but what about single mothers, too?

*shrugs* Yeah, this is enough of this subject for me, too. I just wanted to get some things off of my chest right now. Especially after my bad day at school today.

Honestly, if somebody told me before I was born, that I had two choices :

1. I could be aborted and never live a life.

2. I could be born, but have a bad life.

I would choose number two. Because nobody's life is all bad, and you would never know if the good times were worth it or not.

I think that saying that the baby would have a bad life is a horrible justification for killing it. If that's your only reason, adoption is obviously the better choice. That way if the mother (or father) isn't ready, then they can give the baby to another, giving the baby life and the parents don't have the tough responsibility of rasing a child.

And for those that say the embryo isn't human, think of it this way. Did you not look like that before you were born? Did every human being not look like that before it was born? Is the DNA not human? So if it isn't another kind of creature, and every human was an embryo at one point in time, is it human?

Answer key : yes. yes. yes. yes.

Like i've said before. Its easy to argue both for and against because most if not all of you have the luxury of waxing lyrical.

Trust me, when you are put in a position when a decision like this has to be taken, you don't toss a coin. You go with what you believe to be the best thing to do. Its not cowardly. Its not irresponsible. Its just a decision that had to be made.

However, because we all have different ethical views on this, i'm just going to agree to disagree. But if you cannot respect the ethical views held by those which differ from your own, then you only portray yourself as apathetic to those actually involved.

I'm signing off of this topic. But i will be keeping an eye on it so that it doesn't get out of hand.

[quote=Alexander,Aug 4 2005, 06:49 PM]
I was conceived through an accident myself, and if I then had the knowledge of what I would be put through, what I would be made to endure and what life I would have at least up untill now, and had at the same time the choice to abort, I think i would.
I think I would prefer nonexistance, to this.

[/quote]

Awwwww...

[quote=Slayer of Cliffracers,Aug 4 2005, 03:39 PM]
Hence what goes on before conception is in the context of this debate irrelevant.

[/quote]

I disagree.

[quote=Slayer of Cliffracers,Aug 4 2005, 10:38 PM]
Those who attempt to shy away from the problem by advocating abortion are not only un-ethical but also frankly cowardly aswell. Only the symptoms can motivate people to face up to the disease.
This is the harsh and somewhat unpallatable truth.

[/quote]

Two things.

1:

[quote=Epy,Aug 3 2005, 05:49 PM]
Please, folks. Avoid all manners of unnecessary hostility. We've had quite enough of that already.
That includes putting words or entire sentences in caps (annoying, rude and unncecessary), "smirky sarcasm", challanging others to prove you wrong in a negative tone and putting words in other people's mouths.
These discussion and debate threads (any thread here, really) share a goal to allow people to share and argue their views without being afraid have them be met with insults or be patronized.

Respect other people's oppinions, faulty as they may be from your view. Argue your own views sensibly and politely. Thanks.

[/quote]

Feel free to debate, but don't: I) Insult people, II) Claim that you are right and no one should argue with you.

2.Given the following two choices: I) To have an unpleasant life with a child who would also have an unpleasant life and with a woman who I do not love (she would also, normally, have an unpleasant life) and II) To have a pleasant life with a child who would also have a pleasant life and with a woman who I love, I'll choose II.

Why do I choose II? Well:

a) I'll make three people happy instead of making three people unhappy.

b) I usually don't do things that I'm sure will not yield satisfactory results. I'm not an optimist - I don't think that everything will turn out OK.

I know what I can do and what I can't do. And if I can't do something properly, I'd rather just not do it. At all.

An ideology thing.

---

Would I regret it? Certainly. Would I ever want to change my decision? No.

Now comes the matter of adoption. I'd regret adoption more than anything.

[quote=Slayer of Cliffracers,Aug 4 2005, 11:48 AM]
It's kind of emotive to put it in these terms, but even the rhetoric of abortion is eerily similer to the rhetoric of the Nazi's in many ways, the main difference is that they've substituted "glorious racial destiny" for "women's right to choose", in other words those that oppose abortion oppose "women's glorious destiny" in effect.

[/quote]

In my humble opinion, comparing those two things is like comparing kids who keep accidentally throwing a ball in a neighbor's yard with: terrorists.

[quote=Slayer of Cliffracers,Aug 4 2005, 11:48 AM]
Does it somehow invalidate the fetus's right to life just beacause it's parents were stupid, no it doesn't.


I assume that the parents are stupid because:

[quote=Stargazey,Aug 3 2005, 02:56 AM]
Condoms are not foolproof, nor are birth control pills.

[/quote]

---

[quote=Slayer of Cliffracers,Aug 4 2005, 11:48 AM]
before bieng sent out into the world once more to make the same mistake once-more.


And how are you sure they'll make the same mistake again?

[quote=gamer10,Aug 5 2005, 02:46 AM]
someone who has already gone through half of their life.

[/quote]

Half? So 15 year old girls who get pregnant can only live up to 30 years?

[quote=Dantrag,Aug 5 2005, 07:15 AM]
Because nobody's life is all bad, and you would never know if the good times were worth it or not.

[/quote]


One day of happiness is not worth 364 of unhappiness.

So we should kill everyone who is poor and whose life is going to be less than 100% perfect. Fine logic for mass murder I guess. We have free will folks. We don't have to make other people's lives miserable nor do we have to kill them to do it, it all lies ultimately on the shoulders of all. Stop trying to decide which shade of black is blackest and my fellow pro-lifers please stop debating as though the purpose of this debate is to do just that. Sure the world sucks, but it doesn't have too, we made it that way and it solves nothing basing our belief systems on a depressive, determanistic fatalism directly inspired by the handiwork of our own evils. And the arguments of the pro-abortion crowd unfortunately appear to be based upon just this dark fatalism. We cannot make the world the better place by becoming murderers, evil feeds off evil.

And by what definition is the deliberate and pre-meditated killing of a human fetus 'developed' or not not murder. Is the human fetus not a human or am I missing something?

please don't refer to yourself as the advocate for society, it is not WE that choose to have an abortion, it is the choice of the two individuals involved. And for free will, you would be willing to compromise the free will of that couple who wishes to have an abortion.

and...

WTF O.o please don't fancy up you sentence with elaborate words, it can be just as efficiently administered through a shorter, and simpler straightforwards approach.

Stop avoiding answering my question. Upon what basis is a human fetus not a human. And if it is human, on what basis is killing it not murder.

-.- that is slightly uncalled for.

I don't know my stance on the abortion issue , since I have never had to deal with it first hand, so I have just expressed my views on the arguments presented. and I can agree that during the first stages of development, the human fetus looks like that of all mammals, and coelemates which includes earthworms,fish, and any organism with a complete digestive tract. and though the DNa is distinctly human, it is only .001% different than a closely related species. and at such an early stage the cells are just that...cells, no differentiantion, no neurons, no brain, no tissue no organs, nothing apart from a few different nucleic acids sequences that as yet can qualify it as distinctly human.

However, once the specializtions occurs, the fetus is human, but i don't know if it can be considered murder since it is not sentient at the time, but perhaps it is. i don't know, nor do i think humanity will ever know.

This post has been edited by Megil Tel-Zeke: Aug 5 2005, 07:02 PM

Darkwing, Sinder, Alex and many others have replied to your question countless times. Would you please stop just repeating the same argument over and over again. We understand your point of view, you've expressed it often enough, we realy don't need to see it expressed yet again, ok? Now a couple of posts up, Sinder was kind enough to print the rules for discussions in this forum. Before you make another comment, can I suggest you read them again.

I really didn't see his statement as rude or inconsiderate, even if it was a bit repetitive.

----

Someone said something about having 364 days of unhappiness?(sinder, I think?) that is highly unlikely, to say the least.

A poor life (financially) isn't always a bad one.
A life with one parent isn't always a bad one.

What other scenarios are there when connected to a teenage parent? Yes, there is the occasional abusive father, but quite honestly, that doesn't happen all that much. In my family we have quite a bit of teen pregnancy, and often the babies go to the parent's mother until the parent can take care of it.

If you were given the choice to live or be aborted, you wouldn't even try to live and make the best of it? Crap happens to me all the time, I don't get depressed and wallow in self-pity. I just keep going and make the best of it. Maybe that's just me and I'm the only one that finds it easy to do.

I don't understand why parents can't be more supportive, in all honesty. Would it really be so hard to take care of your pregnant daughter and your new grandchild? I would be a little disaappointed in my daughter, I have to admit, but I wouldn't shun her and kick her out of the house. We would move on and welcome our new family member.

Even if abortion isn't made illegal (like I hope) I at least hope that it will be avoided at all costs. I don't understand why the mother's life is always put in front of the baby's. Is it because it can't defend itself? I still don't understand why not being ready is any kind of excuse, because adoption exists. I don't see why the baby having a bad life is an exuse, because who can really know if it will really have a bad life? Who can say whether or not it would rather live a bad life, than not live at all? The disagreement between Sinder and I on that subject says that you can't.

Alright you've answered my question Megil Te Zeke, I now know you're stance.

At a very early stage of development the human fetus does indeed look like a wierd alien sea creature (I've used this analagy before) same as all other vertabrates do at that stage of development. But if the human fetus does look like that at that stage of development so what? It makes no sense to value a human life entirely on the stage of development that it has presently reached, this would mean that an adult is legally more valuable than a child and a child than a toddler and a toddler than a baby. It simply makes no sense to judge the value of a human life on the basis of the stage of development it has presently reached.

From my understanding of fetal development, the sperm fertalises the egg forming a human cell, which divides and carries on dividing until it reaches a certain size, then it forms itself into the "wierd alien sea-creature" and from that it develops a brain, heart, limbs, other internal organs and a general human baby shape, which owing too our protective parenting instincts we feel protective towards. The point is that it is illogical to put greater value on the cute baby shaped blob of human cells, than a wierd alien sea-monster shaped blob of human cells, or a spherical blob of human cells, or the 17 year old blob of cells that's writing this post, beacause if this were the case then the above would also apply, there is only difference of time and stage of development and complexity of cell specialisation between the spherical blob of cells and the 17 year old blob of cells afterall.

I think there is a very large difference between stages of the foetus, or even the foetus itself,

or a child or adult. no one here ever said that a child was less then an adult.

That's his point though.

everyone implies that an adult is better than the unborn child when they say that the adult has a right to live and the child doesn't.

Right, I am not at all happy with the way this going. I'm going to deal with these one by one.

“I really didn't see his statement as rude or inconsiderate, even if it was a bit repetitive.”

Right. I did, hence the comment. I didn't warn him, I didn't argue with him, I simply said he didn't need to keep repeating the same argument over and over again, and that before he posted anything else I wanted him to read the rules. Simple no? I did not say he was rude or inconsiderate, though I feel that quite strongly, and you too for that matter. Here's why. You already expressed your opinions on the matter, yet you seem to be unwilling to let anyone else do the same without arguing. You've posted your opinions, we know them, we can read. You do not need to keep posting them over and over and over again. Secondly, and I'm really annoyed by this, Darkwing and Alex have both made very personal, private observations. Having had the guts to share those with us, you both have consistently failed to show any degree of respect for their opinions. Neither of you have the life experience to talk about this with the conviction that you are. You have every right to your opinion, but not to say that someone who has gone through this was wrong. You might believe they're wrong, but until you have been in that situation, you have no right to tell someone else that they were. Quite honestly I am astonished, not only by the arrogance you're showing, but by the judgemental attitudes. As Darkwing said, its very easy to take the moral high ground when you haven't been in that position. He has, so who are you to judge him?

Next. The topic was should it be made illegal. Now a few examples have been put in the poll. Several have been missed out. Poverty first of all. A woman, unemployed as an example, with lets say 3 children already finds out she's pregnant. There's no way she can afford to feed another mouth. What does she do? If she cant have an abortion, she has 2 options. One, raise the child herself, so all the other children suffer. Not ideal, you'd agree? Two, give the child up for adoption. The bond that a woman builds with her child is shattered, and she has to live with the notion that she abandoned it. Plus, there's no guarantee that the home the child goes to will love, care and protect it. What if the woman had been abused, and assaulted by the father? What if she has TB or HIV? If she has an abnormal fetus, which everyone concerned knows will lead to Downs Syndrome, or some other illness which means birth leads inexorably to tragedy. Oh, and guess what? In a lot of countries, there's no financial help for those women. What if she's an alcoholic or drug user? If the mother is herself a child, doesn't she have the right to a life herself, and at such an age, will she be capable of looking after the child. Its an huge responsibility.

The problem here is you're subjecting your own circumstances, lifestyle, financial etc, onto people who it may not fit. If this situation ever happens to you, then you have to make that decision, along with the mother. That decision is based on your circumstances in that case, not someone else's. I hope it doesn't happen, but if it does, I hope you aren't judged by people, whatever your decision, the way you're judging others.

I must admit, I hadn't noticed this passage before.

I sincerely hope you didn't mean this toward me, or darkwing specifically but more in general.

because if you did mean it towards me personally then please say so and we'll be starting an entirely different discussion in private where I might just explain a few things about myself, and then I'll ask you again if you still feel this way about me.

and in no means do I admit to doing this myself, I don't.



edit:
and Burntsierra:

Great post. I couldn't agree more.

I didn't mean it towards anyone personally, and forgive me if it sounded that way. it was for the sake of arguing that life is worth living for the baby, because the point of "what if it has a bad life?" was made.

To burntsierra -

I was not trying to be judgemental at all, and if it came across that way, I didn't mean it to. Yes, my opinion has been stated many times, but that is what happens in a debate, which is in fact, an argument. I never disrespected anyone's opinion, I merely told my view on the subject. And seeing as I'm causing so many problems, I will remove myself from all future debates in this forum on this subject.

This post has been edited by Dantrag: Aug 5 2005, 11:28 PM