The practical morality of abortion

[Davros]

What you don't understand is that most people don't consider an early stage embryo to be a person/child/human being, especially when it literally has no brain yet.

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Without scientific definitions & testing, I'd bet that a pig or even a cat has more of a "brain" than an early stage "human" embryo!
.

Oh I think that's true without doubt. At the end of the first trimester there is a ton of brain development yet to occur. I don't understand brain development, but probably no one else on this forum does either. Apparently it's at the end of the first trimester that different kind of brain cells start migrating to the places they need to be in the brain to start functioning. There is no way this brain could function at the level of a higher mammal's brain.

 

[mamooth]

Because cows are food, not human beings in the womb.

PETA says you're making excuses for murder. They sound just like you. I find it difficult to distinguish between PETA and pro-life arguments. Both groups fabricate a whacked-out definition of "person" that has never been used before in human history, and then declare anyone who won't accept the definition is a murderer.

Or is it wrong to place value on human life?

Unless you can explain the high moral worth of a skin cell, "human life" is clearly not valuable on its own. Hence, placing value on it falls under the category of "stupid". Whether stupidity is morally wrong is a different topic.

You aren't even refuting the point. Going to stick with the "you're making an argumentative fallacy, therefore you are wrong" argument?

You invoked colloquialism to claim your definition is correct. My bun in the oven example showed the absurdity of that. End of story.

By the way, if your arguments didn't all fail, you wouldn't have had to try to toss them all at the wall in the hopes that one might stick. If you had even one good argument, you'd only need that one good argument.

Back in the real world, people think life is valuable no matter what stage of development it might be in. You don't have the guts to admit that.

Your proud bigotry against helpless haploid humans contradicts your own claim. You display the same subjectivism that you condemn in others. The difference is that we're far less subjective than you are here, being we've got the whole history of humanity backing us up on the point that specks haven't ever been considered to be people. You've just got a historically recent bit of religious political correctness.

What if we gave serial killers the same liberties we give women regarding abortion? Hmm? "My body my choice?"

What if PETA is right, and you're the serial killer?

Being consistent, I discard the crazy and invalid claims of both you and your PETA brethren. Being inconsistent, you declare PETA is wrong with their arbitrary declarations, but you're right with your arbitrary declarations, solely because you say so.

Life and Liberty, just not liberty. When you take a life, you take the liberty along with it. No, I have my priorities just fine, thank you. Your liberal mind cannot process that liberty works both ways. There are no one edged swords here.

And yet you support the butchery of so many helpless haploid humans, depriving them of life. Oh, the humanity! Remember, all human life is valuable, except when you say it isn't.

Gun Control - For the liberty of the child.

I care not at all about some strawman position that you just invented. You might wish to argue against what I actually say, instead what you wish I'd said.

 

[Clementine]

I wonder how liberals feel about the latest video regarding Planned Parenthood. A baby was aborted and it's heart was still beating. They still proceeded to cut the brain out. The employee of PP stated they cut through the face. They did this to a living being.

Doesn't being born alive mean that it is a person who has rights? Shouldn't the baby have received medical help instead of having it's organs harvested while it was still alive?

Of course, the left is more interested in investigating the people who exposed the practices of PP than the acts themselves.

 

[Davros]

I wonder how liberals feel about the latest video regarding Planned Parenthood. A baby was aborted and it's heart was still beating. They still proceeded to cut the brain out. The employee of PP stated they cut through the face. They did this to a living being.

Doesn't being born alive mean that it is a person who has rights? Shouldn't the baby have received medical help instead of having it's organs harvested while it was still alive?

Of course, the left is more interested in investigating the people who exposed the practices of PP than the acts themselves.

I don't support fetal tissue donation.
I do support abortion in the first trimester.

These are 2 separate (though related) issues.

 

[JoeB131]

No...fertilized the human life has begun, separate, the sperm and egg will never be a human life.

2/3rds of fertilized zygotes never attach to the uterine wall. But we don't hold funerals over tampons.

The question is not when life begins, the question is, do you want to create a system of laws where the zygote/embryo/fetus has more rights than the woman it is in.

Could we arrest women for smoking or drinking while pregnant? By your logic, we could just as we can (and do) arrest women who fill the baby bottle with Jack Daniels to shut the little fucker up. (This does, however, explain most of our conservative posters.)

As a more practical matter, I have yet to hear one of you anti-choice wingnuts explain exactly how you are going to enforce an abortion ban. Communist dictatorships have tried to ban abortion and have failed miserably, why do you think you will succeed?

 

[JoeB131]

I wonder how liberals feel about the latest video regarding Planned Parenthood. A baby was aborted and it's heart was still beating. They still proceeded to cut the brain out. The employee of PP stated they cut through the face. They did this to a living being.

First, this is a second hand story from someone who is not a reliable narrator.

Secondly, heartbeat or not, the fetus was not viable at that stage.

Doesn't being born alive mean that it is a person who has rights? Shouldn't the baby have received medical help instead of having it's organs harvested while it was still alive?

Uh. no. even Roe stated that 'rights" only begin at the point of viability, which is 22 weeks.

Of course, the left is more interested in investigating the people who exposed the practices of PP than the acts themselves.

The problem who made these videos broke the law. the people in them did not.

 

[JoeB131]

Excellent point which brings up a question for pro abortionists.....

If the mother is allowed by society to kill the baby created through rape, thereby executing the death penalty on the new human life, then you must also support executing the rapist...since it was his act that ended the life of the baby...right?

No, not really.

The fetus isn't a person.

The rapist is.

 

[JoeB131]

Face it...any abortion that isn't solely for saving the life of the mother is an act of convenience.....every single one. In the hard cases, rape and incest....the child created in rape is innocent and has done no wrong to anyone. For the woman to give birth to that child is a hardship, both emotional and physical......but once the child is born it can be given up for adoption and live it's life......it is easier to kill the baby and harder to carry the baby to term......it is convenient to end the life rather than allow it to go forward....a hard truth, but it is still the truth...

So what you are saying is that we should force a woman to have a baby she doesn't want to inflict another person who is genetically predisposed to violence on the world. Is this what you are saying.

Okay, let's get real here. Abortions in the late trimesters are less than 1% of abortions performed. Abortions for rape and incest are less than 1% of abortions performed.

the majority of abortions are performed on women who had consensual sex and are performed in the 8-12 week range of the pregnancy, when the fetus is the size of a kidney bean.

 

[Davros]

Face it...any abortion that isn't solely for saving the life of the mother is an act of convenience.....every single one. In the hard cases, rape and incest....the child created in rape is innocent and has done no wrong to anyone. For the woman to give birth to that child is a hardship, both emotional and physical......but once the child is born it can be given up for adoption and live it's life......it is easier to kill the baby and harder to carry the baby to term......it is convenient to end the life rather than allow it to go forward....a hard truth, but it is still the truth...

So what you are saying is that we should force a woman to have a baby she doesn't want to inflict another person who is genetically predisposed to violence on the world. Is this what you are saying.

Okay, let's get real here. Abortions in the late trimesters are less than 1% of abortions performed. Abortions for rape and incest are less than 1% of abortions performed.

the majority of abortions are performed on women who had consensual sex and are performed in the 8-12 week range of the pregnancy, when the fetus is the size of a kidney bean.

2aguy will say you're just picking on that 8-12 week embryo/fetus because it's small, while he disregards the importance of the fact that it also has no consciousness, no thoughts, no feelings, a highly incomplete brain.

 

[TemplarKormac]

PETA says you're making excuses for murder.

Comparing me to PETA is your only argument. Also, you're defending the woman's right to have an abortion are you not? Would that also count as "making excuses for murder?"

Of course not. Abortion will never be murder in your eyes, just a woman exercising her "liberty." Exercising liberty at the cost of the life of another isn't liberty at all.

Unless you can explain the high moral worth of a skin cell, "human life" is clearly not valuable on its own. Hence, placing value on it falls under the category of "stupid". Whether stupidity is morally wrong is a different topic.

That's a classic talking point. And you reveal your true nature by saying "human life" is clearly not valuable on its own. Just where do you get the idea that you can determine the value of life? And if you think I am, no, I'm not. I'm defending it. You're no better than those barbarians at Planned Parenthood, placing monetary value on the dismembered body parts of unborn children, and now, trying to determine the value of life all on your own. Does that help you justify what you're doing?

Your proud bigotry against helpless haploid humans contradicts your own claim.

Ahh, so I'm a bigot now? Well, that's an expectable response from you. Wow, I'll have to give you a gold star for this colossal strawman.

What if PETA is right, and you're the serial killer?

What if you could stop making the genetic argument instead? PETA are a bunch of crazed zealots who value animalkind over their own species. Clearly you're more in line with PETA than I am.

 

[TemplarKormac]

The difference is that we're far less subjective than you are here, being we've got the whole history of humanity backing us up on the point that specks haven't ever been considered to be people. You've just got a historically recent bit of religious political correctness.

No, you see unborn children as objects that can be discarded on a whim. And clearly you didn't read the 1948 Geneva Declaration. At that point and time, they considered life to begin from the moment of conception. Apparently you don't do research.

The Oath of Geneva - pro-life

The Rights of the Child and the Changing Image of Childhood

And then there's the Hippocratic Oath, which acknowledges the detriment of Abortion:

"I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art."

"For the first time in our tradition there was a complete separation between killing and curing. Throughout the primitive world, the doctor and the sorcerer tended to be the same person. He with the power to kill had power to cure, including specially the undoing of his own killing activities. He who had the power to cure would necessarily also be able to kill...With the Greeks the distinction was made clear. One profession, the followers of Asclepius, were to be dedicated completely to life under all circumstances, regardless of rank, age or intellect - the life of a slave, the life of the Emperor, the life of a foreign man, the life of a defective child..."

--Anthropologist Margaret Mead

You also may wish to read up on this, too.

Scribonius Largus

As you can see the Romans in 43 CE were not Christians, yet again, you can see they predated Christianity in the Roman Empire by oh...270 years, when Constantine became Emperor of Rome in 313 CE. Even then they had a revulsion to abortion, and clearly acknowledged that the life growing inside the womb.

And then this, Article 4 Paragraph 1 of the 1978 American Convention of Human Rights:

Article 4. Right to Life

1. Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life."

The Code of Hammurabi (circa 1760 BC) also fined people for causing a miscarriage through assault.

The Code of Assura (circa 1060 BC) imposed the death penalty for women who had an abortion without her husband's consent.


I could go on... but really. Why should I embarrass you any further? Throughout human history, societies placed immense value on the life of an unborn child.

"The history of humanity" does not in fact back you up.

 

[TemplarKormac]

And yet you support the butchery of so many helpless haploid humans, depriving them of life. Oh, the humanity! Remember, all human life is valuable, except when you say it isn't.

Actually, before this discussion ever came up, I am pretty sure you agreed with the practice yourself. Liberals like you advocated the use of stem cell research in the first place. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. Let's dispense with the double standard here. Stem cell research for the betterment of mankind, one haploid cell at a time.

Pathetic.

"Remember, all human life is valuable, except when you say it isn't."

A perfect summation of the pro-choice argument. I mean, you were lecturing me earlier about the importance of human life. But hey, let's use science to justify murder! Oh, and while we're at it, you and your kind are dictating what is and isn't life by saying "it is a clump of cells."

I care not at all about some strawman position that you just invented. You might wish to argue against what I actually say, instead what you wish I'd said.

No, you can argue my point or concede. Your choice. I noticed your pattern of instead citing a fallacy in place of an actual counterpoint.

 

[Zoom-boing]

Unborn human beings are human beings from the get go, they can't be anything else. They don't "become" a human being at some random point (heartbeat, viability outside of womb, etc), they are a human being the moment they come into existence. Human abortion may be legal but it is morally wrong. Is human abortion a choice? Yes, it is. It is a choice to end the life of an unborn human being.

Anything else is bunk.

You want to be pro-"choice", then be pro-"choice". Just stop with the bullshit that human abortion somehow, somehow doesn't end/terminate/destroy a human being.

It. Does.

All life is equally valuable, stop pretending otherwise.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

All life is equally valuable, stop pretending otherwise.

Where did you get that utterly dogmatic nonsense from?

And having human DNA doesn't make one a person. That takes time, and luck.

 

[Zoom-boing]

All life is equally valuable, stop pretending otherwise.

Where did you get that utterly dogmatic nonsense from?

And having human DNA doesn't make one a person. That takes time, and luck.

It takes a human sperm fertilizing a human egg.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Unborn human beings are human beings from the get go, they can't be anything else. They don't "become" a human being at some random point (heartbeat, viability outside of womb, etc), they are a human being the moment they come into existence. Human abortion may be legal but it is morally wrong. Is human abortion a choice? Yes, it is. It is a choice to end the life of an unborn human being.

Anything else is bunk.

You want to be pro-"choice", then be pro-"choice". Just stop with the bullshit that human abortion somehow, somehow doesn't end/terminate/destroy a human being.

It. Does.

All life is equally valuable, stop pretending otherwise.

In your personal, subjective opinion, not as a fact of Constitutional law.

And that Constitutional law works both ways: it prohibits the state from seeking to compel a woman to give birth against her will, and it prohibits the state from seeking to compel you to believe in something you don't approve of.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

All life is equally valuable, stop pretending otherwise.

Where did you get that utterly dogmatic nonsense from?

And having human DNA doesn't make one a person. That takes time, and luck.

It takes a human sperm fertilizing a human egg.

Great to know you understand that part. Did you know that most conceptions will never make it from conception to birth? Did you know that just because something carries human DNA that doesn't mean it's a person?

 

[Zoom-boing]

Unborn human beings are human beings from the get go, they can't be anything else. They don't "become" a human being at some random point (heartbeat, viability outside of womb, etc), they are a human being the moment they come into existence. Human abortion may be legal but it is morally wrong. Is human abortion a choice? Yes, it is. It is a choice to end the life of an unborn human being.

Anything else is bunk.

You want to be pro-"choice", then be pro-"choice". Just stop with the bullshit that human abortion somehow, somehow doesn't end/terminate/destroy a human being.

It. Does.

All life is equally valuable, stop pretending otherwise.

In your personal, subjective opinion, not as a fact of Constitutional law.

And that Constitutional law works both ways: it prohibits the state from seeking to compel a woman to give birth against her will, and it prohibits the state from seeking to compel you to believe in something you don't approve of.

Both sentences are facts:

Human abortion is legal.
Human abortion is morally wrong, as it ends/terminates/destroys/kills the life of an unborn human being.

 

[Zoom-boing]

All life is equally valuable, stop pretending otherwise.

Where did you get that utterly dogmatic nonsense from?

And having human DNA doesn't make one a person. That takes time, and luck.

It takes a human sperm fertilizing a human egg.

Great to know you understand that part. Did you know that most conceptions will never make it from conception to birth? Did you know that just because something carries human DNA that doesn't mean it's a person?

I know that human beings are conceive by other human beings, what grows in the womb is a human being, and that human abortion kills that unborn human being.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

All life is equally valuable, stop pretending otherwise.

Where did you get that utterly dogmatic nonsense from?

And having human DNA doesn't make one a person. That takes time, and luck.

It takes a human sperm fertilizing a human egg.

Great to know you understand that part. Did you know that most conceptions will never make it from conception to birth? Did you know that just because something carries human DNA that doesn't mean it's a person?

I know that human beings are conceive by other human beings, what grows in the womb is a human being, and that human abortion kills that unborn human being.

That's a "person"?

And nature, all by herself, will kill off 50% of them before the woman even knows she's pregnant, not to mention those she will kill off after the woman does know. So, tell us, should we hold a funeral for this?