Abortion?

Now you’re just being cynical to the point of stupidity. You don’t get to make up my mind for me on what I do or do not care about. Would I care if you killed yourself? Absolutely. Would I have to eventually move on with my life despite that tragedy? Absolutely since that’s the nature of life! You will say me moving on is a sign of me not caring but you can’t provide me with another option that would show I did care, how convenient for you. How many of your loved ones have died and you’ve moved on? Should I conclude that because you’ve continued on with your life that this is evidence you never cared for them?

 

well, we certainly know that the sperm is alive and is a living entity in its own right. now this sperm fertilisez a female's egg ( which might or might not be a living entity ).
and 9 months after a baby ( which is a living, conscious being) is born.
so in my opinion, in the inbetween stage , the fertilized egg IS alive. The real question is wether it is a conscious life ?
if it is not conscious, then banning abortion at an early stage is perhaps like banning all non procreative ejaculation ( as sperm is a also living entity which is most probably not conscious )
if a fertilized egg is conscious from a very early stage, then ofcourse abortion should be completely banned.
but the fact that we have no means to know ( currently ) wether it is the case or not, I would say that we should go with the conservative approach and ban all abortions ( unless a pregnancy is a threat to mother's health ).
women should avoid engaging in sexual relations unless they are sure about their partner. and they should always keep in mind the possibility of a pregnancy. these days they just want to have fun and when they get knocked up, once again just want an easy way out. women are becoming extremely self centred and narcissistic. banning abortion would make sure that this trend is reversed.

and ofcourse if in the future there is a definitive proof that conscious life does not begin at conception, we can always make abortions legal again.

 

Sure I don't but how can you care when you don't even know me? How long would you think about me if I did die? Probably a second or two? There's a difference between the death of a loved one and the death of someone on an internet forum you don't actually know in real life.

Edit: Also actions speak louder than words. I think you're more likely to be affected if you PM me or wrote messages on my profile. It very easy to write stuff on a thread. You're not really investing your time with me, you're investing your time on this particular subject. It's of more value if someone takes the time to message you rather than just quote you in a thread because you have to think about the person rather the subject of the thread. People on here have done that and I'm thankful for them. I'm not saying this to get you to PM me if fact it might be weird if did. It just that actions speak louder than words.

 

I've never made any arguments for any physician-aided suicide. I didn't bring up the issue of suicide into this thread Harold did. I would have never brought up the issue if someone else hadn't.

I will do in my own time. Subjects like this take up a lot of stress and time.

 

Hm... That's a very flawed argument. People in comas aren't conscious either, but we aren't allowed to kill them.

 

You said you can think of "a few exceptions," but do you have any others? Because as I've said a million times in this thread, literally NOBODY is advocating allowing a woman to die if the pregnancy threatens her life. And by the way, that's true even if the woman doesn't have other children. A woman's life is valuable whether she has children or not. Doctors will ALWAYS save a woman over an unborn baby, if it comes down to that choice. That example has no bearing on this conversation at all. Nobody is asking for that practice to be illegal.

Why can't we do both?

That's the stance of most all pro-life individuals. Because again, nobody is saying that doctors should let women die from a pregnancy. That's never been on the table. Nobody is trying to make that illegal.

I think it's a big assumption to think all of the people who would have an abortion if they could would also put their kids up for adoption if abortion weren't an option. I think a lot of those women, if abortion were not so easily accessible, would just embrace their fate and be mothers. Partially because they can see the damage of the decision to put a kid up for adoption, and they would think twice about that (ironic that they can't see the damage in completely ending the child's life). And that doesnt necessarily mean they will be bad parents, either. There are plenty of stories of people becoming parents unexpectedly, and ultimately saying it was the greatest thing to ever happen to them and that they can't imagine never having that child in their life, because children are a blessing.

Abortions and divorces are not equivalent. One is ending a life, which is obviously infinitely more important. All of the life experiences never would have happened if your mother had decided to get an abortion, so your life would have been taken away from you without your consent. That's very different than two consenting adults deciding to get a divorce. Even if they have kids who don't consent to them getting a divorce, that's still not the same. Having divorced parents would be hard, but it's not going to take way the child's life. They will survive divorce, they will not survive abortion.

 

its true people in coma are unconscious of their surroundings (most of the time), but some of them after waking up have remembered having had weird dreams and hallucinations while 'unconscious'.
and the emphasis is on 'remembered' because alot of them might have had similar experiences but do not remember them. so, no i don't think that people in coma are completely unconscious.
while a recently fertilized egg most probably is not conscious of anything (nobody knows for sure).
i know consciousness is a grey area and there is no real definition for it but the definition i used to work up the argument above is that if you are aware of anything ( be it your surrounding, your dreams, your hallucinations or even just your bodily sensations) then you are conscious. and if a fertilized egg is truly unconscious according to the definition i used ( i.e. no awareness whatsoever ) then i don't think that it is ethically wrong to abort it.
but the real question is how do you prove it ? that's why i am in the favour of banning all abortions till there is conclusive proof that a fertilized egg is completely unconscious ( i already think it is a living entity ).
so, no , i don't think it's a flawed argument.

 

I think it's rather strange to assume that people in a coma are more conscious than babies in the womb, but you're entitled to your opinion. Obviously we can't completely know for sure, but I agree with your conclusion, that it's better to err on the side of caution unless we can definitively prove that abortion is fine. I still disagree with consciousness thing, though. I don't think consciousness is the determining factor, as you've already said it is a living entity. To me, that's the part that matters, not whether or not it's conscious. It might not be conscious yet, but I don't think that makes it okay to kill it.

Also, come to think of it, it's actually pretty scientifically proven that we are somewhat conscious in the womb. The fact that babies like to be swaddled, like "shhhh" noises, and like to be rocked is evidence of that. They like that stuff, and it brings them comfort, because that's what being in the womb is like... the rocking, the sound of their mothers heart beat and the fluids around them, the tight feeling of being surrounded. So I would say that's pretty good evidence that they aren't completely unconscious of what's going on.

 

yes it is true that babies like to be swaddled and rocked while in the womb, but i am pretty sure it does not happen two minutes after conception ! as far as i know what you are saying is something which happens after a few weeks ( and yes it obviously proves that the baby is now conscious ). the early days is the real dark area as far as consciousness is concerned.
and as for your first point of disagreement - that even if it is an unconscious living entity, it should not be aborted. wouldn't this put us in an ethical conundrum regarding many other things ? sperm is certainly a living entity too. should all non procreative ejaculation be banned ?
so that is why i think the question of wether something is conscious or not is more important than wether it is living or not.

 

How on earth would you know that? That's just a blind guess that you're pulling out of nowhere.

Ugh, this again. I am not going to debate the difference between sperm and an embryo. That's literally the most basic level of science you could possibly know, and if you don't understand it, then you shouldn't be debating abortion.

And you're still pretty much ignoring the fact that there are plenty of situations in which someone is unconscious and still shouldn't be killed. You're just arbitrarily deciding that you think they're more conscious than a fetus is, when in reality you have absolutely no idea how conscious either a fetus or a someone in a coma is.

 

so you are saying that a baby can feel and wants to be cradled as soon as it is conveived ?
i wonder where you are pulling that blind guess out of...

you did not understand my argument.
i am sure there are alot of physiological differences between a sperm and an embryo.
my argument was that if those physiological differences do not translate into a rudimentary level of consciousness, then you cant really say that an embryo is a sentient entity any different from something like a sperm.

i have already answered that before. i would suggest you reread my previous post.
and no i have not arbitrarily decided that a person in a coma is not completely unconscious. i wrote about the definition of consciousness according to which i came to that conclusion.
i am not saying that a foetus is a completely unconscious living entity. all i am saying is we don't know yet. so my point is ( as you eloquently put it ) to err on the side of caution.

i don't know why you are getting so emotional. this is a logical argument.
do try to keep your emotions out of it.

 

Why is it your choice, or anyone else's but that child's choice, to decide that their quality of life is unacceptable? There's literally no other time in the world that we get to decide that without being sent to prison for murder, but for some reason when the kid is still inside the womb it's all fine and dandy. Plenty of people have disabilities and still have great lives. And sometimes those tests are wrong about how severe the disability will be.

All I will say in response to your statement is that any life is better "quality of life" than no life at all.

You were saying rather than banning abortion, we should educate more on birth control and such. I say, why not do both?

Well, at least we can agree on those things.

Abortions in the case of extreme physical danger to the mother are never going to be illegal. If that ever happens, I'll eat my words I guess, but I would be willing to bet that's never going to happen. So you don't need to be concerned about that.

I always find it funny when people say they don't want to ban abortion because of these outlying extreme examples, but I don't understand why we can't put parameters up then and just ban the rest. Why do we need to allow thousands of convenience abortions to be legal, just for the one person who might physically need an abortion or else they will die? Why not just make one of those legal and one not? Or even in the case of rape. I personally still think abortion is wrong in the case of rape, but I can certainly understand and empathize with those who want that to be legal. So sure, fine, let's keep that legal. If we kept those two extreme situations legal, and banned everything else, that would make me very very happy, 90% of abortions would likely be stopped, and thousands of babies lives would be saved. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

No, I'm not saying that. Tell me where I said that? Stop putting words in my mouth. I never claimed to know whether or not a baby has that instinct right when it's conceived, or whether or not its conscious. I am saying, we can't possibly know that. You're the one who keeps saying things like "we can't know for sure, but it's probably not conscious." I don't understand where you're getting the last half of that sentence, other than just blind guessing.

I absolutely understood your argument, I've heard it a million times, and I find it to be idiotic on a very basic level of common sense.

That I agree with. Maybe you should stick with that instead of adding in things like "but it's probably not conscious" with nothing to back that up. I don't really understand the whole point of much of what you've said, if this is your stance, but whatever. This is getting silly.

Seriously? Because I said "ugh, this again" I'm some emotional crazy person who can't use logic? And first of all, no, this is not solely a logical argument. The lives of children are on the line. That is going to evoke emotion, unless you're a sociopath. So I will not allow you to make me feel bad for having emotions. I'm not a robot. That's ridiculous and completely disrespectful. I've been, for the most part, very logical throughout this entire thread, and I say one little tiny thing, and you feel the need to remind me to keep my emotions in check? Bye.

 

that's what MY whole point is ! i think that even a mentally handicapped person can undrstand it ( it is in such simple words ) and yet you can't seem to be able to get your head around it.

and yet you are unable to prove that it is idiotic. it wont become idiotic just because you say so. you have to prove it. which you cant , so you just find it convenient to lash out using strong words.
i might not be sure wether a foetus is a conscious entity or not. but one thing i am sure of is that - you are not a very rational entity.
bye.

 

Mmk then

 

I am no closer to deciding my position, but that's my problem. Or maybe I am. I have a feeling I have a fairly pro-life position, which feels instinctively incorrect due to being very 'liberal' on most issues.

 

Therein lies the problem of labels... It feels instinctively wrong to go against them, even if you disagree with your party. I would consider myself a relatively conservative libertarian, but I definitely agree with a lot of liberal things and disagree with a lot of conservative things. Just be yourself and have your own thoughts.