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.

[Burnt Sierra]

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.