Abortion, Legal or Illiegal, poll and debate? Options

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

This is my position........

Abortion, unless done purely for the purposes of offsetting an imediate threat to the mother's life (choice 2) is murder by definition. Murder is the deliberate and pre-meditated killing of another human that is not done in self-defense. Upon what definition does a human fetus not constitute a human. It is the form taken by a human life at a certain stage of it's growth and development, it is not any other species therefore it is a human life. To draw an arbitery line in the sand at a certain point of the growth and development of a human life is ridiculous.

Sure the embryo at very early stages of it's development isn't conscious, but so what? Are we to excuse everyone who kills his victims say when in deep sleep, or while knocked out, on the basic that since they aren't presently conscious, they aren't officially human. The position of the embryo is exactly the same as the sleeping person, though they aren't conscious at present they will become so at a later point as their development reaches whatever mysterious point that they need to get too to become conscious. The fetus is thus 100% alive and 100% human and the process of abortion makes it 100% dead and 100% human, hence abortion is murder.

What about the other pro-abortion argument that the embryo/fetus constitutes a part of the woman's body. This doesn't make sense either. The embryo/fetus has a seperate genetic code (unless it's a clone) from it's mother and though it is totally dependant on it's mother for everything still constitutes a seperate entity inside the mothers body. If the fetus is considered part of the mother, that would mean that she can logically claim to be a bacterium, a virus, an intestinal worm or an ameoba, as all of these could also be inside her, along with millions of other parisites.

So abortion is murder.

[gamer10]

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.

Oke Doke

I'm still wondering how a 12 year old girl could make that mistake . . .man this caught me off guard, it's not really a mistake if you had the choice of whether or not to do it and you consciously acted wrongly. If the parents aren't watching their children close enough . . .well then, I guess it's their fault. Make them take care of the child.

In the case of rape, my view is starting to become irrational so I won't post it.

In the case that you are an adult and you aren't raped:

In my opinion don't do it if you don't want the child, that's why the whole act of reproduction exsists, to have the child.

What else are you doing?

This post has been edited by gamer10: Aug 3 2005, 04:15 PM

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

I was not putting words into anyone's mouth, no I was merely working out the moral logic of the argument. That's all.

In a way the argument of abortions in case of rape, no abortions except on the immediate threat to mother's life clause and legalised abortions, is actually a litmus test of moral criteria. If you base your moral system on a concrete (and most likely inflexable) set of laws then you will oppose abortion even in cases of rape. If you base your morality on emotion and concrete laws then you will probably allow abortion in cases of rape.

Noone has the right to arbiterily decide on the basis of any criteria to kill another human it is simply not morally acceptable behavior. Choice is irrelevant in this matter, given that all you are basicly meaning by "choice" is the entitlement to do the above. The entire apparatus of state and law has as it's first and foremost duty to protect innocent human life from bieng arbiterily slain by other humans. This is the first duty of the state, and stands above all it's other duties. To protect innocent human life is substantially more important that protecting private liberties, if they conflict with the above then the above takes precedence. Hence abortion should be illiegal according to the first principle. The only basis for arguing for legalised abortion would be the following.

1. The fetus does not constitute a human.
2. The fetus poses an immediate and direct threat to the life of another person, ie the mother.
3. The right of individuals to make their own choices is more important than the right of individuals not to arbiterily slain by others.

The human fetus is human, it has human DNA, descends from humans and develops as a human, therefore it is not any other kind of creature. Thereby the first argument cannot stand. Usually when the fetus poses a direct threat to the mothers life (such as in an ectopic pregnancy) it also poses a direct threat to own life, therefore by aborting the fetus you are minimising loss of life, by killing only one human rather than allowing two to die.
The third argument is not a code of law that any sane society can either believe in or operate under, by this logic murder at large should be legal also and for people to try to try to defend themselves against getting murdered is a crime, beacause you are defying the right of individuals to kill, unless you intend to kill the murderer rather than intend merely to avoid getting killed.

The circumstances of the fetus's conception makes no difference whatsoever to the situation as someone cannot reasonably be punished for something their father did unless your society believes in hereditery guilt and the penalty for rape is death.

Thus concludes my case for making abortion illiegal.